O.M.G. What a nightmare for your mom! LOL.

I'm back with another. We're in a fun/exhausting phase.

We had a horrendous day for behaviour with DS3, I would say the worst behaviour he's ever had in his life. He was sent to time-out four times and lost toy or book privileges three times. In total, that's more discipline than he's faced in the last few months. He's making some substantial cognitive leaps, so I suspect the outbursts are a product of a brain in a heightened state of change.

Case in point with weird behaviour/cognitive growth: a half hour long oral exposition of an imaginary creature called a "Boo". Boos, I learned at DS' "symposium on Boos", are characterized by the following:

- they are much taller and fiercer than yetis, as proved by three imaginary side-by-side photo comparisons, with hair (as distinct fro yetis' fur)
- Boos' hair is akin to feathers, is stiff, descends from theropods' feathers, and is blue on the exterior. When viewed under magnification greater than 2,000x, you can see fissures of yellow behind the blue.
- Boos are cannibals, but do not eat their nuclear or immediate extended family (to a common grandparental ancestor), and they are solitary hunters.
- Tribes of Boos gather after a hunt in blue nests shaped like the creatures themselves.
- Boos hide spookily in human homes, but are no threat to humans, other than for the fact that they like to steal desserts.
- exactly 10 juvenile Boos are hatched out of eggs in each litter.
- Boos cannot die, except through suicide, which follows a common ritualistic pattern across the species. Boos never bathe until the moment of death, at which point they take a mud bath,then spin themselves until they are so dizzy that their brain self-destructs. The impetus for death is inordinate boredom.
- A 9 year old juvenile Boo named Harold, who is shorter than DS, visited us bearing gifts of chocolate and poison. His father had just committed ritual suicide and his mother had hatched 10 new babies.

I found this development on the Boo concept both frighteningly ghoulish and fascinating.
DS clearly found the Boo character hilarious. He even imitated the Haka face Boos make to intimidate yetis.

DD just turned 3 and I were out eating and I asked her to keep her feet below the table. Instantly with a demeanor indistinguishable from a too cool teenager, she responded "You know dad, I am not really all that big into following rules these days." She did then do what she was supposed to do.

She said it in such a funny and spontaneous way that I could not reprimand her.

How do you not burst into uncontrollable laughter at that?

I did chuckle a bit before I controlled myself.

It's significantly more charming at that age than when they really are teenagers and they say such things right before they ask to go off and be out of any adult supervision for hours... with your car.

I recall those days pretty fondly-- your anecdote sure made me laugh!

DD said many similar things that make me smile and remember her sweet little voice as she said them. Completely surreal, that.

A couple minutes age she told me that she is a girl from planet Earth. Yes, in a sweet little girl voice. That made me melt.

This morning I found DD6 on the floor with my wall calendar and a sharpie, elaborately working out the weeks and days between something and something else. (For some reason, the counting had to be done by 3's.)

A short while later I found her smashing a used printer cartridge in a mixing bowl with a hammer in order to extract the remaining ink.

I've been waiting for years for attention-hound DD to figure out how to entertain herself. Be careful what you wish for.

DD was taking her bath with the wife, and she told her that she needed Mrs. Potatoe Heads Ear. As my wife heads out of the bathroom she yells "Her left ear." Just happened, and I was sitting here, so I had to share.

DD taught herself how to rap.