Conversations with Collins

• One night while Jake was out of town I was putting Hadley to bed while Collins watched a show on the computer (that's what single parents have to do!) When I walked back into the room he had taken off his shirt and drawn all over himself with a pen. His rebuttal? "I'm sorry, Mommy...but I didn't draw on my booty!"

• He was playing with my name tag one morning before a career fair and smelled it. "It smells like your name!"
• He was playing with his plastic bat outside one evening while Hadley and I were on the swing. I told him he shouldn't get so close to her because he might hit her. He said, "If I bat her she might cry." Indeed. Then he said, "But I'm so sweet, I ever don't hurt her." :)
• Jake was trying to tell Collins where something was in the kitchen one day. It was pretty obvious to see, but Collins couldn't find it. Jake joked, "Open your eyes, Son!" Collins said, "They're open..." like he had already checked that 'to-do' off his list.
• Referring to football and baseball, "Those are my favorite scores." 
• Calls his sister "Habley" a good bit of the time. Even though he can say Hadley.
• Also calls his sister "Bee Bok" (?!) and the other day said, "Hey little daughter!"
• He has been introduced to the movie, Finding Nemo and loves it (obviously)! Of all the one-liners in that movie the one he picked up and said one night while putting on pjs: "Look at me, I'm a flippy little dolphin, let me flip for you." ha! It's when the sharks were making fun of the dolphins in front of Marlin and Dory...who Collins sometimes calls Glory.
• One night Collins told me sweetly, "Mommy, I'm not scared of you." I said, "Well, good!" He then explained, "I know you're not real."
• As soon as the first tree bloomed he knew it was spring and announced, "NOW we can go swimming!"
• He LOVES stories, and prefers for me to make them up versus telling him my real stories. It is a challenge to try to make up a new story 3-5 times a day. It also has to meet certain criteria: long, spooky, include a shark, lion, witch, ghost, and/or bear. I've started making him tell me stories because, I mean, that's only fair. One of them was, "Once upon a time, I was in the forest all by myself, and alluvasudden, something was creeping up behind me..." I probed, "Was it dark?" "Yes, it was dark, and it was...a grown man." ha! That really would be scary!
• Collins was repeatedly nagging at Jake one day to, "Let's play bad guys, Daddy. Daddy, let's play bad guys." Jake was trying to get finished doing something and said, "Boy, I'm about to show you how bad I can be!" Three year olds do not do sarcasm. Collins said, "Show me, Daddy. Show me how bad you can be. Daddy, show me." So Jake had to make mean faces, flex muscles, and pretend fight ;)
• Calls the Chick-fil-A cows "chicken cows."
• Insists that birds are his friends when he sees a flock of them fly off. Apparently, this is hereditary because my sister always insisted the 'mountains' (in Meridian!) were her sisters.
• Cannot understand that the word is penguins and not pink ones. We will have to wait until he can spell before he will grasp it.
• Jake wore a dark coral colored dress shirt the other day and Collins slammed him with, "Daddy, why are you wearing a pink shirt? That's a girl color." Jake said, "No it's not, it's coral. Men can wear this color." Collins said, "I like your shirt, Daddy. You look so cute!" 

 

Before church last Sunday!

•  Before bed one night, Collins stood up and gently held my face with both hands while he told me, "Mommy, you look like an egg." I said, "Why do I look like an egg?" He said, "Because your face is not round." I said, "Okay, well you look like a....ball." He said, "That's not a good idea."
• We discussed one day how some people have chickens and roosters at their house and that's how they get eggs, instead of from the grocery store. Collins said, "One day we can go to the rooster store and buy a rooster." He also wants to go by some stairs for our house one day.
• The other day we were standing in someone's dining room when he asked her, "Is this your chicken?" 
• While at Scott and Ann's house, Scott teased Collins one day by saying, "Collins, what happens at the deer camp, stays at the deer camp." Collins said, "I'm pretty smart, but I don't know the answer to that question."
• Also at Scott and Ann's, he wanted me to read him a story the very minute I woke up. We sat on the couch to read The Three Bears. After a minute Collins said, "Mommy, is that Goldiblock's smell or your smell?" I said, "Probably my smell, do you mean my breath?" "Yes ma'am." Ugh...
• He told PawPaw he wanted to cut down a bush at their house. PawPaw asked which one and Collins suggested an azalea bush. He told him they shouldn't do that and Collins said, "MawMaw might blister our butts." ha!
• Told us recently he needs a new camo jacket because, "I've had this one for 100 years."
•  While at MawMaw and PawPaw's house last week, Collins told MawMaw he wanted to watch a movie. She told him she had a Clifford dvd. He said, "No...I watch that all the time."
• It is not uncommon for me to open the door (he loves to ring the doorbell) and be handed rocks, bird nests, etc. that he deems worthy as a gift. I have a pretty extensive rock collection right now.

 

I love this sweet, smart, funny boy!

Helping Daddy