Funny Kids

The Edited Flu

Lori chronicled the flu of what seemed to be her whole blogroll. (that’s how bad this flu has been, or maybe there is some way we have all been passing it from between keyboards?)

Cally (if you link, scroll down to #2, couldn’t get the piknik post to work) inspired me to give you this edited picnik version of the flu at our house.

What does a woman do when she is supposed to rest, her husband is studying for the bar, and they cancel two days of school?

No prob…”Children, you have free reign of the TV, toys, and the snack cabinet. Yes, those 4 boxes of fruit roll ups are not only yummy, they will keep you alive and semi-healthy.” (If you add in the gogurts and dry cereal, they almost get every food group.)

Yes, they wore those pj’s for two days straight. Sophia has been really into keeping up with her new “days of the week” panties that she got for Christmas. Last night I told her that she needed to change out of her pj’s before she went to bed. This is what I hear Abigail exclaim from the bedroom, “Sophia, you are still wearing Wednesday.” This statement was echoed by Sophia in between her fits of laughter.

My mother-in-law will be so stunned…she thinks that I am the clean underwear nazi. I don’t know where she gets the notion, except for the fact that I always pack the girls double underwear when they go to her house. I once said to Faye, “I am not an underwear nazi, I only make them change their undewear daily. How often did your kids change their underwear?” She never did answer me.

We are now in the beginning stages of clean up. I have found at least 50 piles of wrappers that look just like this. Maybe we should clean up after the bar, what do you think?

Oh yeah – Pres Day


Yes, Presiden’t Day would have went unnoticed at our house this year if it wasn’t for the following conversation that just took place on the way home from school.

Abigail: “Mom, Abraham Lincoln was a liar.”

Mom: (not totally paying attention) “Really, why?”

Abigail: no response

Mom: (realizing what Abigail just said and wondering what in the world they are teaching at public school) “Did you say that Abraham Lincoln was a liar? I’ve never heard that.”

Abigail: “No, mom, I said, he was a lawyer.”

Mom: Cracking up. “Do you know why that was so funny ?”

Abigail: SMILING HUGE because she got it…”Yeah mom, his name is Honest Abe.”

So, I guess that public schools aren’t failing us, even though Abigail reminds me now that my hearing continues to fail me.

I guess the lawyer/liar thing is a secondary part of the joke.

Dead People

Abigail went out with her group of church girls last night and sang to some people at a nursing home. (This picture is not from last night, but from a school thing last year – I included the pic. to give you the idea of how cute 8-11 year olds) Aren’t they darling? I am sure the nursing home loved their company last night.

Anyhow, on the way home, I was very impressed with Abigail’s observations of the night. She was telling me all about the people that she met.

“Mom, there was this really old guy who was 97. There was a lady who was deaf and they had to write everything on a paper for her. There was a black guy, and it was his birthday.” She even told me the people’s names.

Sophia and Bella were listening to the conversation and started asking Abigail questions about her adventure. Bella being inquisitive about the aforementioned deaf person asked me, “Mom why would they sing to a dead person?”

I was glad that the girls were paying attention to Abigail’s story, but who would have guessed the dead person association of my 4 year old? I guess I better start writing my mommy speech now for reassuring Bella when it is her turn to go to a nursing home to sing. Really, how am I going to handle this with honesty? It’s not like I can say, “No Bella, don’t worry, there aren’t any dead people at nursing homes.”

This reminds me of another story. Back in December, we had an unfortunate death in the congregation that shares our building. I was in charge of our ward party that was to happen the evening following the funeral. I had a bunch of things that I needed to drop of at the church early because I had to work the next morning. So I stopped by the church late after the funeral was over.

I wasn’t sure if they would have left the casket at the church overnight until the following day’s graveside service. (I believe they did this with Grandma Gold in VA – every state law is different to this effect and I wasn’t sure what TN law was) As my girls love to run the round hallways as soon as they get into the church, I warned them to stay close by because there may be a casket in the cultural hall. You can imagine where the conversation went from there…

“Mom, what’s a casket?” “Why do dead people sleep in a casket?” “Why do they leave dead people in the church?” “What’s a funeral?”

I had tried to play off all the questions so that they wouldn’t be too afraid of ever entering the church ever again. I had told the girls that a funeral would be over the next morning and there was no reason to be afraid because a funeral is “like a party for dead people”. O.k. hindsight is always 20/20! Yes, I could and should have given a better explanation than that.

If you couple Bella’s amazing imagination with her slight anxiety, you can imagine what she thought was going on in the church at the party for dead people. I was surprised that she still wanted to go inside when I had given her the chance to just stay in the car while I ran a few things in. Do you think that she was showing bravery or did the sure terror of being alone in the van when the party all came out of the building egged her forward into the building with mom? I think it must have been the latter, the way she was clinging to my leg.

Either way, whenever I die, I hope all my girls will remember that they are invited to my party for dead people.

I never knew she noticed.

Here is an image for our church’s website.

This is what happened at the school today while I was there working with the kids.

Taylor: “Mrs. Gold, what church do you and Abigail go to?”

Me: “We attend The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.”

Abigail: “It’s a mouthful, isn’t it?”

My question, would it really be a horrible sin to go back to telling people that we are Mormon? It is just so hard for those of us that have to answer this question every day.

"I laugh in the face of death" – Who said that?

So, here is a conversation between President Gordon B. Hinckley and Larry King (Live) from 2004:

KING: What happens when you die?
HINCKLEY: When you die? Well, I’m not
fully conversant with that. I haven’t passed through that yet.
KING: Well,
call me. Knowing you, I’ll be there and I’ll call you.
(LAUGHTER)
KING:
But you do believe that something happens.
HINCKLEY: Oh, of course we do. But
we believe that death is a part of an eternal journey, that we lived as spirit
children of our father before we came into this life.That we’re here in
mortality as a part of an eternal living, and that we will go on living after
this life, purposefully. And that through the redemption of the Lord Jesus
Christ, men will be resurrected. There will come a time of resurrection.And
those who walk in obedience may go on to exaltation.

So, because President Hinckley can have a sense of humor when it comes to a serious subject like physical death, I thought it would be fun to post what happened in primary just today. Maybe the kids have a better understanding of this then we thought.

A teacher was trying to teach the Plan of Salvation. She had explained that we lived with God as spirits before we came to earth. Then, she explained we came to earth to get a body and be tested. Then she talked about how we would die and then be judged. She then started asking the kids leading questions which led to this:

T: What are we here on earth for? K: No answer.
T: What are we supposed to be doing while we are here? K:No answer.
T: What do we need to do on earth?

The answer came loud and clear from a little one sitting behind me: DIE!

Laughter was had by all the adults…I guess the little guy was right in a round about way. We do need to die if we want to go back to Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ. And, yes, now President Hinckley will be there too. Man, I hope we all make it.

Bella The Beautiful


Isn’t she just gorgeous? I always feel so badly for people who have children that just aren’t that cute. I know that sounds so superficial, but really, there are some kids out there that I hope and pray will grow into themselves.

I often wonder if people know whether or not their kids are “attractiveness challenged”. I think that all parents must feel that their kids are as beautiful mine, but I am here to be the one bold enough to speak the truth: they’re not. Wow, that makes me sound like a horrible and shallow person. I truly do love all children, but mine are all just beautiful. I can’t help but brag.

So, here is a little story from tonight. Nothing too exciting, but kind of funny. Bella somehow managed to take a good chunk out of Sophia’s leg with a #2 pencil. Phia was wailing in pain and Bella just kind of disappeared. Sometimes our girls have issues working through their emotions. (they get it from their dad – the working through part – they get their emotions from their mom) So, although we have blessed them with very good looks, we have simultaneously blessed them with other challenges. They have to stay humble somehow

I went back and tried talking to Bella. She doesn’t want to talk and starts crying into her pillow. I pull her up and hold her so that she has to look at me. I say, “Bella, let’s talk about this, I don’t want you to be sad. Why are you crying? Do you not want to apologize to Sophia? Sophia is crying because you hurt her. You need to go and apologize, even if it was an accident.”

Bella cries harder. I suddenly got the horrible thought. “Maybe she did this on purpose and now she is overreacting because she feels bad.” I say, “Bella, even if you did it on purpose, it’s o.k., you just need to go apologize.” Bella starts crying harder. I then feel like my assumption was correct. I ask, “Bella, did you do it on purpose? Bella, why are you crying?”

Bella then hollers, “I’m crying because I don’t appreciate it that you think I hurt Sophia on purpose.”

So, maybe I was wrong. Maybe my children aren’t so bad at working out their emotions. Maybe my children are not challenged in any way after all. Maybe they are just beautiful, and somewhat emotionally stable, and eloquent communicators too. I guess they will have only one weakness to work on. My brother used to have this poster hanging in his room. Maybe my kids can adopt it for their new mottto: “It wouldn’t be so hard to humble, if I wasn’t so darn perfect.”

"You’re supposed to"

Last week we took the kids to window toy shop at Target. While I was chatting with a lady from our church, LG stopped at the books with the girls. Bella kept requesting LG to read from different books. At one point LeGrand told Bella to hold on. He was attending to Abigail or Sophia. Bella chimed out in a way that was bound to be noticed, “Dad, it says on the TV you are supposed to read to your children.” Classic.

The Your Nighted States

Today, between the 1pm kindergarten pick up and the 2:45 end of the day, two of the girls and I stopped by the post office to mail a Christmas package to my parents. The postal worker kindly gave the girls the post office’s coloring book. It is entitled “Greetings from America” and teaches U.S. historical and geographical facts. It’s pretty cool and of course the girls are always delighted to get a special surprise that breaks up the monotony of running errands with mom.

On the way home, this was the comical conversation.

Bella talking to herself incoherently, “So people sleep at night and they live in the states.”

I was figuring that she was making 4 year old reference self-talk to the fact that we live in The United States and we have our night while my sister-in-law’s family has day in Korea. We have had that conversation with her a few times.

I keep on eavesdropping. Bella: “So it’s you and states.”

Sophia, “Yes Bella, it’s The United States.”

Bella, “Yeah, The Your Nighted States….we sleep at night.”

When I commented that it was great that we live in The Your Nighted States we all had a good chuckle. The girls also loved being surprised by mom listening in during the mundane and long car rides home from school.

Then Abigail gets in the car and starts looking through her book and says, “Mom I can tell you the United States Presidents.”

“Oh really, all of them?” “No, not all of them, just George Washington, John Adams and Abraham Lincoln; I am not sure of that guy in the middle with the glasses.”

Sophia, “That’s Teddy Bear Roosevelt.” Abigail, “Oh yeah, and Teddy Roosevelt.”

My response: “Abigail now we live in The Your Nighted States, didn’t you know?”

P.S. It’s not John Adams, that’s Thomas Jefferson.

Golfer Envy

Abigail was watching the Samsung LPGA World Championship with LG earlier today.

“Dad,” said Abigail, “she really likes LG,” refering to Angela Park and her shirt that was plastered with LG Electronics logos.

“I don’t think she likes LG, Abigail, they pay her to wear that shirt.”

“Golfers get paid to wear clothes!?!?”

“Yeah.”

“Dad, I want to be a professional golfer.”

That’s my girl.

Stray Snowball


This is a picture of our cat Kitty Bear and her archnemisis Snowball. Snowball is a neighborhood stray who can hunt a bird down like no other. Snowball also hunts down Kitty Bear.

How did the neighborhood stray get a name, you ask? Well, from a little girl, of course. If it was named by some boy its name would be dumb cat or something like that. Our former neighbor, Hailey, adopted this stray and named it Snowball. The cat looks nothing like a snowball, but it does have a destroying affect and so I guess that name is appropriate. Snowball will never let a human anywhere near it and so I guess technically he was never adopted…especially since Hailey moved away over a year ago and has never come back for the cat.

One thing snowball does have in common with snow is only the yellow stuff. The cat pees everywhere. It is so annoying. For a long time, she would pee on our porch. She used to sleep under our window until we got Kitty Bear. One day I went outside with the kids and the next thing we know there is a catfight going down right before our eyes…..can you say the word trauma?

Now, whenever the cat gets within 50 feet of our home, the kids will spot him out our big bay window and run out and holler at him. It is always the same words, “Get outta here Snowball!” So funny…they have learned to copy me. On their way back in the house, all three of the girls will mumble under their breath, “Stupid Cat”.

Why do we keep Snowball around. Sure, we could catch him and take him to the pound. But we feel like Snowball is giving Kitty Bear character. The real reason though is I am terrified of mice, and I have never ever seen one since we have moved in four years ago. Snowball is good to keep around!