Darndest things

The other day the kids and I were having a deep discussion about popcorn.

What? Y'all don't have deep discussions about popcorn at your houses? Y'all, popcorn is important and therefore should always be deeply discussed at length. And often.

Anyway, I was reminiscing about Jiffy Pop and the kids were astounded that popcorn could actually be popped (read: burned to a black and smoking crisp) right on the stovetop. It was then that Abby's eyes lit up and she excitedly asked, "Hey! Didn't our fireplace come with a popcorn popper?" Indeed, we have a popcorn popper in the wood box. We've never popped popcorn in it and I have actually considered whopping my husband over the head with it a few times, but that's the closest it's ever come to being used. I confirmed to Abby that, yes, we have a popcorn popper.

Kady was looking back and forth between Abby and me with a confused look on her face. She said, "What's a popcorn popper?" I explained, "It's a thingy you can put popcorn in and pop it....." but before I could finish with, "in the fireplace" she interrupted with, "I thought that was called a microwave."

---

Thursday Sam came in the door from school with a look on his face I couldn't actually pinpoint. It was a mixture of what looked like excitement and trepidition with just a smattering of all-out fear. He rushed over to where I was sitting with Nonner and said, "Mom, you are SO gonna kill me. I mean like, you are SOOOOOO gonna kill me. You may even ground me."

Because we all know that grounding is far wore than being murdered.

I don't like it when my kids come in from school with looks on their faces that read anything other than extreme hunger and possibly exhaustion from using their wee little brains all day long. He was rifling through his backpack, his brow knit together in a way I have never seen it before and his movement were kinda jerky and manic. He finally found what he was looking for and presented me with two sheets of paper, stapled together. I thought he'd lost a textbook or maybe his coat. Then, because Howie's self-quiz says I have Adult ADHD, my mind quickly flitted to the thought that the kid was teasing me and that actually he was going to hand me a piece of paper declaring him to be maybe the Smartest Kid in School or maybe even that he had nominated me for Mother of the Year and I had actually won.

Turns out he had just gotten in a fist fight at school that morning.

With a girl. Wait. Correction - FOUR girls were involved. Yeah.

I quickly scanned over the "affidavit" and then I could tell he was faunching to tell me the story in his own words so I looked up at him over my glasses, something my dad used to do to me and I hated it, and said, "Alright, son.....what happened?" He then launched into the story of the fight and then he paused and said, "But Mom....I got REALLY mad when she called me....a.....a FEMALE DOG!" My eyes widened and I asked, "She called you a bitch???"

He looked at me blankly and said, "No, Mom. I said she called me a female dog."