Say what?

Sam makes us laugh all the time. TJ has a pretty good command of the English language, and doesn't make as many errors as Sam does, but every once in awhile, TJ says something that just cracks us up.

TJ was playing outside the other night without shoes on. Why? Because he was copying the neighbor boy. TJ came to me last night at bedtime and said his foot hurt. In the sole of his foot, he had two angry looking slivers and a mysterious white spot, filled with pus. I touched it gently and he got very upset because it was really, really sore. I knew he'd be furious, but I decided to open and drain it. I guess I should apologize to the neighbors. I'm sure they heard the screaming and figured I was amputating his fingers, one by one. I did manage to drain it, and I got at least part of the slivers out. I then put antibiotic ointment on his wounds, bandaged him up, and put him in bed.

This morning, I asked him how his foot was, so he let me examine his injuries. I thought they looked better, so I asked if they felt better too. He replied, "Well, they are still a little bit tonky." Bill was in the next room and just lost it. No one, not even TJ, seems to know what tonky means.

Shortly before dinnertime tonight, I informed Bill that I was not cooking. Dinnertime has been very hectic all week, and I just had no desire to cook. Bill decided we needed to go to Applebees. We dropped Nolan off at Grandma's and took the other two boys along with us. I think this is only the second time this year we've taken them out to eat. They were both fairly well behaved. TJ was amazed when we arrived at Applebees. "I know where we are! Look, there's Meijer!" I guess he never realized Applebees was a restaurant! Once we were seated, I read through the kids' menu and helped the boys decide what they wanted. Sam wanted a hot dog (primarily because he can drown it in ketchup) and TJ proudly ordered a 'meatburger with cheese'. The waitress was thoroughly amused by him. Every time she stopped by the table to see how we were doing, he would enthrall her with stories about construction at his school, going camping this summer, whatever was on his mind. She listened very patiently, and never cut him off. I was impressed, as was Bill. We left her a nice tip. I told the boys that we would take them out more often if they always behaved that nicely. The biggest incident was when Sam accidentally knocked his pop off of the table. Thankfully, it had a lid on it.

A couple things to remember:
**Nolan officially crawled today. He's been doing a bizarre combat crawl, using only his hands and his feet, often rolling to one side, but today he got up on all fours and briefly crawled. He'll be 14 months old in less than a week and a half. I suppose it's time to look for the baby gate.

**Bill is very patient, even when I'm dumb. I bought two chairs for our front porch tonight. I got them on a great sale at Target. Only when I got out to the car did I realize that the chairs were not going to fit in Bill's car, which is what I had driven. After trying for 10 minutes to try and make them fit, I called my mom (I didn't want to call Bill. It was after 9 p.m., and the kids were in bed). She went and watched the kids while Bill drove 15 miles to rescue me and my chairs. By the time he got there, it was 10 p.m. Target was closed, and the parking lot was empty, except for me, the car, and my two chairs. I was sitting in the car, listening to some talk radio. I completely cleaned his car for him while I waited. He didn't yell at me. He just said, "You really thought you were going to fit those chairs in that car?" Then he drove the chairs home in the van, put them out on the front porch, and tried one out. He says they are nice. Whew!