5. Out of the Mouths of Babes

• With characteristic honesty--if not tact and diplomacy--Maggie informed me (Alan) that my "nose was growing very long." Thanks, Maggie.
• My parents' cat, Binx (you know Binx?) tends to be rather grumpy most of the time. Well, all of the time. Evy and I saw her one day, and I said something about "that grumpy Binx." Later that day, Evelyn said, "I want to go see that grumpy Binx named Binx. Binx will not bite my finger. She will do kisses to me."
• Evelyn was complaining about the snack I was giving her one day. She told me several times that "I want something else." I got fed up with that and told her that she wasn't allowed to tell me that she wanted something else. Without missing a beat, she said, "I want something different." Clever girl.
• Maggie asked Jenny why animals didn't read scriptures and stories and brush their teeth before bed. On another animal-related note, Maggie asked why we couldn't buy cat milk at the store along with the cow's milk that we are accustomed to here in America. I don't know whether she wanted to have cat milk or whether she thought it would be nice to buy cat milk to feed to baby cats. 
• When Santa came to our ward Christmas party, Jared leaned over to explain to Maggie that it wasn't the real Santa. His reason for saying this is that we had seen the real Santa while we were on our vacation to Mexico. We had seen a man at the resort with bright red swim shorts; a Hawaiian shirt; an awesome long, white beard; and the most spectacular rosy cheeks. I'm actually pretty sure it was the real Santa.
• The kids have learned that Jenny and I are quite literally a captive audience when we're driving in the van, and they pepper us with questions just as fast as they can get them out. One day Maggie, who sits in the back seat and is very hard to hear/understand, asked rather randomly, "Daddy, when all the people died, were all the pirates still alive?" Mind you, I didn't actually understand the question the first time. I just heard "muffle muffle muffle muffle muffle PIRATES." Jenny and I said something about Pirates of the Caribbean in a desperate attempt to respond. When we finally did hear the full question, we were too puzzled to even ask any clarifying questions, so we just said, "No, they weren't." I still don't know what she meant. Were there pirates on the earth before other humans? Will pirates still be alive when the rest of us have succumbed to the inevitable zombie/pirate apocalypse? Both are very good questions. I really don't know.
• When sweet Evy gets her feelings hurt by something, she'll often come to Jared in tears and request "the magic song." It's just "On Top of Spaghetti" (you know the one, I'm sure.) He puts his arm around her and brings his face close to hers and softly sings those touching, soothing lyrics we all know and love from our childhood. It immediately cheers her up. But don't make the mistake of singing it when she's not sad: we've learned that she gets offended.
• Maggie asked one morning, "Mommy, when bees drop off honey at our house, do they do a ding on the doorbell?" I guess it's sort of like the milk man but for honey. I can get behind it. This is the same girl who mistook a hamburger bun for a plain bagel and wanted Jenny to put cream cheese on it. Somehow it wasn't quite as yummy. I guess there's a reason the Einstein brothers went into the bagel business rather than the hamburger bun business. 
• This happened today, and it's the best: Jared got a gummy worm in primary today and somehow had the self control to not eat it. Evidently, he had grown attached to this particular gummy worm to the point that he actually named it: it was christened Little Timmy. However, ten minutes after we got home from church he confessed to Jenny that he had bitten Timmy's head off and then had eaten the rest of him. A few minutes later, he came back upstairs with genuine tears and told Jenny that he missed Little Timmy and was sorry that he ate him.  He continued to have legitimate remorse for this for the next ten minutes or so and sadly said, "Little Timmy might have been the only pet I'll ever have!"  Jenny told him she would buy him some more gummy worms for his birthday.