Wisdom from Nicholas

It's been a couple of days full of wisdom from Nicholas, so I thought I'd share them here so I can remind him of how wise he was when he was 4.

"When I grow up and become a dad and my kids don't do their chores and are playing, I'm going to tell them to do their chores or they will be in big, Big, BIG trouble! If they are playing and not working, I will tell them they are in trouble!" Um, yeah, let me know how that works out for you cause so far it's been pretty ineffective here.

"I want a dollar mommy so I can buy stuff!" And then we went to the store and he found out just how little a dollar buys and told me "Mommy, I really need two dollars to buy anything good." Ah, how simple life would be if it actually worked that way.

To the lady at the CVS register "I'm buying this with the dollar mommy gave me but not with the golden dollar that daddy gave me. I still have that one so I can buy more candy later." And afterward, "Hey mommy, I gave her my dollar to buy my golden coins and now I have chocolate AND I still have a penny! And she gave me a receipt! You got a receipt too. Every time we buy something, we should get a receipt so we know how much we gave them."

At dinner, we were having a penguin bistro cake to celebrate Mark's birthday. Nicholas had chosen this one because "it has chocolate ALL over" (it was covered with mini-chocolate chips and shaved white chocolate, kid has good taste). Mark cut the slices huge without realizing how rich this cake was. Everyone else was groaning around the table, unable to finish. Nicholas ate his entire piece and then informed us that "I'll eat whatever the rest of you can't".

He was talking to me about one of the times that he had a tantrum about something in the parking lot and we couldn't leave because of it. Then he told me "I don't do that any more cause I was only 3 then and now I'm 4 and I'm a big boy and I don't do that now". I asked him what he called the thing last week when he refused to get in his carseat and then refused to come out of the back seat of the truck because Matthew ripped his paper airplane. I'm still waiting for him to get back to me on that one.

But really, I just love seeing the insights into his head. He was truly amazing me with his math skills today, quickly figuring out how many more birthdays until he could do certain things, answering simple addition and subtraction problems, and trying to figure out harder ones. I've been trying hard to slow down a bit and give him more attention and it's been a very good thing in so many ways but mostly just getting to have some wonderful conversations with my little guy.