Flora: I had the best dream last night.
Jane: Oh, yeah? Want to tell us what it was?
F [ with a giant smile]: I beat a guy up.
J: Um… why?
F: He had it coming to him.
One of those moments when I completely and totally do not what to say.
Category Archives: Those Conversations
The gems. The reason you’re hear. The pearls that come out of the mouths of children. The moments that have us rolling on the floor with laughter… and forgiving the little dudes for everything.
Being Ender Redux
I originally wrote this essay in November 2011, for the 2011 Family Christmas Book. But given Ender’s performances over the last few days, it seems appropriate to revisit it today.
Meet Ender. Little brother of Flora and Cinder. Son of Jane and Sean. Big brother of Maggie. Charmer of the entire world. Proof that gorgeous, grinning children never get disciplined, even when they’re doing things that make you want to sell them to the gypsies. Or, in the modern parlance, to put them up on Kijiji. “Free, to a good home: a two-year-old with attitude…”
Actually, Ender doesn’t have attitude―at least not in the way most people define it when they use it with reference to a child. Really, what passes for a cranky Ender or a distraught Ender is still an incredibly happy, easy Ender. It’s quite amazing. We sometimes engage in the the not-very-productive nurture versus nature debate. Is Ender the way he is because, well, that’s just the way he is? Or is he the way he is because he’s the third child, the one who has had to accommodate to everyone else’s set patterns and quirks, the one who got the already trained, relaxed parents?
We’ll never know. We just have to enjoy him. Adore him. And make more of an effort to document him, so he doesn’t totally resent us when he grows up and asks for where all the Ender stories are.
So, some Ender stories from 2011, as remembered by Cinder and Flora and his parents.
The most disgusting thing Ender has done to date: sucked on the toilet brush. And not on the end you hold. Think of that next time you kiss him.
The most embarrassing thing Ender has ever said: Rock, rock, rock, rock, rock! Rock! At the top of his lungs in the Glenbow Museum. Except it didn’t sound like rock. The r sounded like an f and the o like the short u. Yeah.
“Look what I taught the baby to do, Mom,” Part I: Ender, running down the hall naked after Maggie, swinging a hot pink Lego foam sword, yelling, “Die, puppy, die!”
“Look what I taught the baby to do, Mom,” Part II: R: “Ender, show Mommy the moon. The moon, Ender. Remember?” (Yes, the next frame is Ender taking off his diaper.)
The most adorable thing Ender does after pummelling Flora in the head with something hard: “Awie, Flora? Awie, Flora? En-duh kiss.”
The most adorable thing Ender does for no reason at all: Go up and down the stairs, singing, “En-duh-en-en-en-duh. En-en-en-duh. En-duh!”
How to get Ender to eat pretty much anything: Indicate that you would like to eat it.
How to get Ender to play with this trains, cars, or pretty much anything else: Decide you need to put them away.
The price of getting supper on the table with an Ender underfoot if Flora and Cinder are away: A flooded kitchen. He loves to play in the sink.
The price of washing the kitchen floor with an Ender helping: A flooded kitchen.
The price of five minutes of peace on the telephone: A flooded kitchen.
The thing I never thought I’d say before Ender: “For God’s sake, stop biting the dog!”
The day Ender discovered dinosaurs: November 23, 2011.
Most memorable quote Ender elicited from Cinder: “Mom, are you putting that pink diaper on him again? He’s a baby―he’s not colour-blind or stupid!”
Most memorable quote Ender elicited from Flora: “Now’s my chance to turn Ender into my slave!”
Ender’s word for penguins: “Fish birdies!”
Ender’s word for turtles: “Rock puppies!”
Flora’s favourite thing to do with Ender: Colour his face with Sharpies.
Flora’s least favourite thing to do with Ender: Change his diaper.
Best conversation Ender caused between his parents: S: “Hurry! I need to pee and the baby is grabbing the camera, the box of nails and my beer!” J: “Where are you?” S: “In the bathroom! Hurry!” J: “Your camera, box of nails, and beer are in the bathroom?” S: “Now is not the time to discuss the inappropriateness of me putting all these things in the bathroom sink. Just save my beer… and the camera. He can have the box of nails.”
Most frequent Facebook comment Ender has elicited from his mother: “Sunrises are over-rated.”
Best Greek myth analogy: From August 16, 2011: “Today, Flora is Hermes, messenger of the gods. Cinder is Hades. And we are all agreed Ender is Chaos personified.”
But the bestest Chaos personified you could ever ask for.
Pants Optional
Austen/Cinder: Moooom! Ender’s following me outside!
Jane: Just watch him for a few minutes; I’ll be right there.
Cinder: But he’s not wearing any pants!
Jane: Ender! You need shoes and pants before you go outside!
Cinder: He’s got his boots on. He’s just no diaper and no pants. [Pause.] It must be great to be a baby.
From the sitcom that is my life…
Strong start to the morning
Ender: Mama! I pee in potty!
Jane: Awesome! Way to go… um… if you peed in the potty, why is there a big puddle of pee on the floor?
E: I dump pee. Dump pee on floor. Hee hee hee.
J: Um… why?
E: Make footprints! (takes appropriate action)
Gets even better in the afternoon…
Flora: Moooooom! Ender’s biting the dog again! Should I make him stop?
Jane: Well–yeah! Get him off her! Why are you even asking me?
F: Well–cause if he’s biting Maggie, then he’s not biting me. [Pause.} Or you.
J: That does make sense. … No, for Chris’ sake, get him off her. Poor dog.
[five minutes later]
F: Mooom!
J: Is he biting the dog again?
F: No, he’s dragging me around the floor by my feet. I knew we should have just left him biting the dog.
Interlude for a telephone call…
On the telephone–the Vice President (Legal) of a Calgary investment banking outfit. Of course. At least it wasn’t the CEO.
Ender: Hello… Mommy? Talk with Mommy? … No talk with Mama. … I go have nursies. [Receiver slam!]
And wrapping up in the evening…
Jane (reading): “Holi is a joyous Indian holiday that comes at the end of winter. Holi is also known as the festival of colors. On this holiday, people run through the streets smearing strangers and friends with colored powder and douring each other with colored water. At the end of the day, everyone is decked out in all the colors of the rainbow.”
Flora: Oh, oh, oh, we could totally do that tomorrow to celebrate the Equinox. Can we, Mom? Can we?
J: Well, it would be very fun, I totally agree. But all our neighbours would pretty much hate us.
Austen: They already think we’re the crazy people, don’t they?
Raising 21st Century Kids
Austen: Flora! Get away from that window unless you want your naked behind all over Google maps or Facebook.
Flora: What? Did you see the Google spy car?
A: No–but I bet there’s a satellite somewhere pointing straight at your butt.
F: Jesus, can’t a girl have some privacy in her own house?
A: There is no such thing as privacy anymore.
(Note to self: Remember they hear everything you say. There is no privacy in the house.)
Agent of Karma
Flora: Ender! Go bite Cinder right now!
Jane: Flora! What are you doing?
F: I’m making Ender an agent of Karma.
J: We’ve talked about that. You can’t be an agent of karma, and you can’t make someone an agent of karma. Karma just is.
F: Fine. I’ll just make Ender an agent of Flora. Ender! Are you going to bite Cinder or not?
J: Flora…
F: What? I have a mere year or maybe two while he’s in that do-what-sister tells you phase. Remember, you told me about that?
J: So?
F: So? I have to take advantage of it!
“Ender pee on the floor!”
Jane: Well, thanks for not peeing in my lap. I guess that’s something.
Ender: En-duh pee on floor.
J: Yeah. Where should Ender pee? Ender should pee in the toilet.
E: No, En-deh like pee on floor. Is fun.
J (pause): Fun? Why is it fun?
E: Make pee prints on floor. See?
… and before I make it to a rag, there is a trail of little pee foot prints racing down the hallway.
If you’ve ever wondered why our house smells funny… now you know.
“Floor Peas?”
The consequence of a two-year-old helping prepare dinner–a bowl full of frozen peas all over the floor. Siblings to the rescue… sort of.
Jane: Cinder, get Maggie out of here. Flora, help Ender get those peas back in the bowl.
Flora: Why are we putting them back in the bowl?
J: To eat them.
F: You’re going to make us eat floor peas?
J: They’re organic, sustainably grown floor peas, and I just washed the floor the other day. There’s nothing wrong with them.
F: Are you going to tell Daddy they’re floor peas?
Cinder: Daddy won’t mind–he ate those floor noodles, remember?
F: I don’t think he realized they were floor noodles at the time.
J: Guys, stop eating the floor peas, and put them in the bowl.
C: What’s the big deal? We’re just going to eat them out of the bowl after we put them in it.
J: Cause I want to sweep the floor after.
F: To remove the evidence?
J: No, to… you’d better not eat the ones that rolled too close to the garbage.
F: Do you think other mothers would make their children eat floor peas?
J: For God’s sake, I’m not making you eat floor peas, I’m asking you to pick them up!
C: I think the floor peas are delicious.
F: I still think you shouldn’t tell Daddy they’re floor peas.
J: Just put them in the freakin’ bowl…
Agents of Karma
Austen (whacking Ender after Ender kicked him in the shins and threw a car at his head): See? That’s karma.
Jane: No it’s not. One can’t be an agent of karma.
Austen: One can get beat up just for referring to one as one.
Thank you, Big Bang Theory.
A Bear By Any Other Name
The two-year-old howled, the truck went flying, the coffee went spilling, the mom did some swearing as she went for yet another towel. The Cinder turned his attention from Terraria (the video game obsession of the moment) and fixed a solemn gaze on me.
“You were asking for it, you know,” he said. “I mean, you did nickname him Bear. Bear? That’s what he is. A very, very good bear.”
The Bear bared his fangs, growled, and rushed at Cinder, headbutting him in the belly.
“You’re right,” I said. “We should have nicknamed him Fluffy.”
“Well, it could have been worse,” Cinder groaned, removing Ender’s head from his gut. “You could have called him Cthulhu.”
Ender Says Rock
Language warning for the sensitive of eye and ear.
Ender learned a new word today. His fourth or fifth I suppose. I’m so proud. I only wish his pronunciation was a mite better…
We’re at the Glenbow Museum. A perfect day. Cinder and Flora do their crafts in the Discovery Room, and then decide that they want to show Ender the rocks and minerals collection. We go up. They all pet the geode. And Cinder says, “See, Ender? You know what that is? A rock. That’s a rock.”
And Ender, adulation in his eyes, looks at his big brother and says… “Fuck?”
Flora’s eyes get big as saucers. Cinder howls and howls. “Yes, Ender, that’s a fuck. A great big fuck.” Sideways glance at me. “What? He said it first.”
J: “Doesn’t mean you have to say it.”
C: “You say it’s ok for us to swear when it’s appropriate.”
J: “I’d say right now is not appropriate.”
C: “Fine. Ender? Come with Bubba. Look here. What’s this?”
E: “Fuck!”
C: “And this?”
E: “Fuck!”
C: “How about these over here?”
E: “Fuck! Fuck! Fuck!”
I may never be able to return to the Glenbow again.
Of Daddies and Grandpas
Flora: Did you know that when my daddy was a little boy, my grandpa was *his* daddy?
And so it begins…
Flora: Want to go upstairs and play pets?
Friend: No, I want to watch your brother play video games.
I knew it would come. Just not when they are 7 and 9!
Emergency Pig’s Ear
Jane: What did you just give Maggie?
Flora: My emergency pig’s ear.
J: Your wha…?
F: My emergency pig’s ear. I keep it here on my bunk, and when I’ve got friends over or need to to something and I need to keep Maggie from annoying me or chewing my toys, I give it to her.
That girl’s prepared for everything.
Skin Falls Off
Sean: Dear god, Flora, what have you done to your brother’s face?
Flora: Whaaat–look, he likes it.
S: Is that permanent marker?
F: Don’t worry, Dad–you know skin falls off, don’t you?
Good to know: Cheap sunscreen will take off permanent marker. True.
Whose Blood?
Cinder: Dad will come to the phone in a minute, Mom. He’s just washing his hands–he was cleaning up the blood in the bathroom.
A Place For Everything
S: Hurry! I need to pee and the baby is grabbing the camera, the box of nails and my beer!
J: Where are you?
S: In the bathroom! Hurry!
J: Your camera, box of nails, and beer are in the bathroom?
S: Now is not the time to discuss the inappropriateness of me putting all these things in the bathroom sink. Just save my beer… and the camera. He can have the box of nails.
Bartering with the Dad
S: Cinder, if you let me borrow your computer for my client presentation tomorrow, I’ll let you play with my electric nail gun.
Who’s The Craziest Person
Austen: Mom, S, J, L, T, M, Flora and I are all making this reality tv show, called Who’s the Craziest Person. So we’re taking the crash mats.
File the above under: “Things 20th Century Parents Never Heard.”
File under “Daddy’s son”: Austen: I get to be the cameraman, isn’t that great? But I was really the only one qualified to do that.
File under “Babi’s granddaughter”: Flora: The Craziest Person? It’s probably going to be me.
Greek Gods
Today, Flora is Hermes, messenger of the gods. Austen is Hades. And we are all agreed Ender is Chaos personified.
Yesterday, Flora to Austen: “I bet if we were demi-gods, our father would be Ares.”
In other God news, Flora has now completed “The Twelve Labours of Flora,” and has been promoted from demi-god to minor god. All this time I thought I was raising good atheists, I was apparently just sowing the field for Greco-Roman pagans…
Swear of the day: “By Hades’ gym shorts.” Replacing “By Zeus’s third testicle.” Which, in case anyone’s interested, replaced “By Zeus’s left testicle” as the expletive of choice sometime last week. And for the really curious, it was on June 29 that our family formally voted 3-2 to replace random ejaculations of “OMG!” with “By Zeus’s left testicle.”
Sometimes, I do think we’re a little weird.
Nothing By The Book 