Can2K, ah yes, the "change the goal of the game without breaking the rules" stage! My DD is doing that with Crazy-8s right now. She's decided she prefers drawing as many cards as possible so she can slam me with with "pick up 2 cards" or change the suit on me, rather than actually try to win!

LOL - sounds like my DS7 all right. He often changes how he plays a game so as to deliberately lose. I wish I knew why - perfectionism? because he's bored? He won't say of course!

Last weekend we were bowling with my in-laws and he decided he was going to lose at bowling, so he rolled the ball as slowly as possible down the lane. Made for a slooow game. ;-)

Elizabeth - thanks for the suggestions. The Tetris game is this one: http://www.amazon.ca/Unknown-01600-Tetris-Link/dp/B005RBVE8E

I did convince him to give the Moose game a try, but of course he decided he wanted as many moose as possible in his house. LOL!

On a long car ride with lots of hills, the preschooler says: "Whee!" on the declines, and "Eew!" on the inclines.

On the way home from daycare today, dd asked why I stopped, at every red stoplight, and asked why I didn't stop every time the light was green.

Every stop light? This reminds me of a car ride we took a few weeks ago, picking up an older sib, during which I heard: "Look, it's 4:08...4:09...4:10..." etc., for the whole trip. Aagh!

At age 2.5, my middle child used to complain every time we were on the freeway that the freeway made his back hurt. So, we'd hear, "The freeway makes my back hurt. When are we getting off the freeway?" over and over again, until we exited. Sometimes, we would try to convince him that we were really on side streets even though it looked like we were on the highway in the hope that he would quiet down. It never really worked.

DS2 called out every. Single. Triangle. Between our house and preschool. When he was 3 he was fascinated by the difference between the posted speed limit and the car's actual rate. We learned to let it go, but we heard from his carpool drivers that he sounded like their mother was in the back seat.

NotherBen, I'm laughing about this. It made me remember all the times dd would say "you're going 36 mph and the speed limit is 35 mph" etc ad nauseam. Just a few months ago, now at 11, she recalled this herself and admitted that she must have been a "pretty annoying child."

DS7 and I had a rough night last night. He was crabby, I was cranky. We ended up with detente and DH tucked him in for the night. I went in to wake him this morning. His first words: "I love you Mom. I just think you need to know that."

He's more grown up than me ...

Every time DD (now 12) visits me at my office I hear the following monologue:

"Office parks make me depressed. Every time I drive past an office park, I just get down. And carpet stores... carpet stores are very depressing. And stores that sell paintings, not galleries, but stores that sell those prints of paintings -- those make me depressed too..."

Seriously, I've been listening to this litany since she was tiny. Recently, I started using it as a jumping off point for discussing possible future careers.