Just an interlude...

The following are a few random quotations from my interactions with various wonderful small children in my life.

"Did you know that I'm grown up? I used to be a lot smaller." -Damien, age 4

"Dolls don't have names. They can't talk so they don't need names." -Cosie, age 3
(I disagree with the implications of the above statement.)

"Damian says his fingers are going to fall off so we need to go home." -Thea, age 6

What are we coming to?

Mark is still my little friend. He told me yesterday that I'm too crunchy to be eaten-thank God. So now, he just follows me places and sits next to me and tells me about how all boys grow up to be soldiers and all girls grow up to be medics.
Last Friday, he called me "Garbage Can" but he was "just playing around," as he told his father when I told Mr. Sneeze.
Later that evening, I told another Mark (who is almost thirteen years older than my little friend) about being called Garbage Can. He laughed and told me that I was nothing like a garbage can because I'm not "big or green or smelly." And apparently, garbage cans are not beautiful.
Another guy friend (who is 22) commented that he missed the days when you could express your interest in girls by calling them names and abusing them. However, he admitted that as he got older, he realized that the girls don't really like being hit or bitten or insulted.
I think the little guy is cute and funny-but I wouldn't appreciate it if a 22-year-old bit me or hit me or insulted me. At some point, it stops being cute.

Elizabeth, you're breaking my heart!

So this morning, I went to the Sneezes and was greeted with fresh pancakes for my birthday breakfast. After I ate my breakfast, CeCe came into the room with a fresh from the oven cupcake with a lit candle and they all sang "Happy Birthday" to me-in English, Flemish, and Polish. However, as young Mark sang, we realized that he had said "Happy Birthday dear Elizabeth" as he sang.
So after I blew out my candle, his mother and I asked him who Elizabeth was. He points at me and says "You-DUH!" And then he kept calling me Elizabeth or Lizzie the rest of the time I was there.
I've spent twenty-one years believing that my name was Cecilia. And then today, a seven-year-old challenges that.

All things are edible...apparently including my face

So I saw little Mr. Mark again this evening. And I got my face bitten. Well, it was my cheek and he didn't break skin and it was a playful bite. But still...seriously...it's my face, not his.
And apparently, I'm not the only person to whom he does this stuff. I was telling Ben the story and he says, "Oh yeah, he once ran up to me and punched me in the kidneys-like IN the kidneys."

I like the kid better when he's pretending to be a cowboy.

But that, dear children, is called cannibalism

This morning, I went over to la Casa de los Sneezes to tutor Colette, Cecilia, and Marita Sneeze as well as two other children.
And then Mark Sneeze (age 7) comes flying up to me in the kitchen. "Ribs!" he cries, pointing at me. "She's got ribs."
"Umm, I need my ribs," says I. "But you can have my leg." And I stuck my left leg out.
But he kept pointing to my ribs.
"But Mark," his mother told him. "It isn't nice to eat a lady's ribs."
"Flesh!" he cries, grabbing my arm.
"Mark," his mother repeated in a warning tone.
So the little boy runs away and grabs an orange toy gun. He points it at me and then at himself while telling me that I am "under arrest for the murder of not letting me eat your ribs."
And then I walked away.