7 Quick Takes- If you didn't think I was quirky before...

1. My almost-3-year-old is a little behind in the speaking department. This can be difficult when he's frustratedly stomping his little foot, yelling, "Goosh-na-bumma!", and I don't have a clue what he's asking for. In the past month, though, he's made some great progress and has been talking up a storm! Unfortunately, he requires enthusiastic verbal recognition when he uses words. Example: If he's watching a cartoon and accurately points out a letter being displayed, he'll yell it at the top of his lungs, over and over and over, until my husband or I says, "Yes, Gabriel, that's an 'M'! Good job, buddy!" And since we sometimes commit the grave parently crime -especially in the car- of tuning out his little-boy-chatter, we often realize he's spent the last mile and a half screaming, "Mama, AIRPLANE!" like a broken record. My bad, son.

2. Yesterday morning, Gabriel and I were sitting on the couch together.

Gabriel: Mama?
Me: Yeah, baby?
G: Eli's cute, huh?
M: Well, yes. Eli is cute.
G (sighing and hugging my arm): Eli's cuuuuuuuuuute.

I almost swooned over how precious it was that my son was pointing out his brother's adorableness. I think I'm going to mentally file this away to whip out at fantastic moments when they're older. Like when they're 14 and 16 years old and they're fighting about something, and then I'll grandly interrupt and say, "But Gabriel, isn't Eli cute?"

3. My husband's ongoing war with the front yard continues, and I'm afraid he's losing. Despite the indecent amounts of money we've spent on ant killer, new ant hills pop up every day. I find him standing around them, murmuring angry promises of revenge. The weed killer isn't killing anything around here either, especially the colony of dandelions that have landed on the lawn and claimed the territory for whatever planet they come from.

Did you know that dandelions can be used for lots of different things? I had no idea. If you Google it, you'll find instructions on how to make them into wine, coffee, eczema treatments, dye, and salad. Crazy.

4. Anyone watched "SuperWhy" with their kids? It's a half-hour, 3-D animated show that focuses on reading skills. Each episode, SuperWhy and his cadre of fairytale characters find answers in classic stories to their problems (i.e., Little Red Riding Hood can't figure out what to give her Grandma for a birthday present.) Several stories are more contemporary and are new to me, but most are based off the reliables you can find in any treasury of fairytales- The Princess and the Pea, Jack and the Beanstalk, The Three Little Pigs, etc.

I understand that trying to tell a story in 30 minutes while including reading/spelling exercises and catchy song sequences can be tricky, but man, these stories are way more sanitized than they were when I was a kid. I still have a book of stories given to me and my brother when I was five, and I don't remember reading "Hansel and Gretel" and being disturbed in the slightest over the fine details: Poor Hansel and Gretel end up at a gingerbread house after being abandoned by their parents, then have to fight off a witch who designed the place with the intention of luring children, fattening them up, and eating them. Yipes. I had no nightmares of candy cane stairway railings, but "SuperWhy"'s version has basically gutted the story and made it into a tale teaching the proper courtesy of asking before you take something from someone else. I could go on for many more paragraphs over what all this means to me, but I thought I'd just throw that thread of a tangent out there for anyone else to munch on.

5. The teenagers in our Sunday School class didn't know what movie I was talking about when I referenced "Dick Tracy." For the first time in 24 years, I felt... old.

6. My pregnancy-induced, strange behavior this time around has been waking in the middle of the night and yelling at my husband for completely bizarre reasons that I do not remember in the morning. I am told that last week I sat up and started shaking him violently, asking him where the baby was. He finally had to sit up too and tell me firmly that he had no idea what I was talking about, the baby was fine, please stop shaking him, and go back to sleep!

7. While we're on vacation, the hubby and I are going on an overnight date!!! This has not happened since we became parents almost three years ago. I CAN'T WAIT.

[7 Quick Takes Friday is hosted at Conversion Diary; be sure to check it out! Her set had me laughing aloud this morning :) ]