Three stories from the little J's

Story 1:

Brooke was taking care of the kids several days ago, and the time was approaching the lunch hour. She inquired from them what foods they would be interested in eating.

Joey replied: "I want peanut butter and Jelly!"

Brooke pleaded against that decision and they had recently dined from that meal selection, so she suggested a choice of Macaroni and Cheese and possibly hot dogs.

Jessamyn tossed in her opinion: "Well, I don't want Macaroni Cheese here, I want to go to 'Noodles' to get Macaroni Cheese."

"Noodles" is Pike kid slang for 'Noodles & Company', a local franchise the serves a limited yet delectable selection of pasta based entries of which the macaroni and cheese option has become the top choice of the under five crowd in our household.

Brooke had to explain to her they couldn't go to "noodles" because all three kid's car seats wouldn't fit in her car.

Jessamyn quickly applied her rapid fire three year old problem solving logic (we should rent her to the current Washington's administration, I'm sure she'd have fixed many of their infrastructure problems in seconds) to the situation: "Well, you need a bigger car."

Somehow, in her mind, it's literally as simple as heading up the street and picking one up like we would a gallon of milk or some bread.

Brooke tried to explain that she couldn't afford one (her car only has 55k miles on it, and she just got it several months ago - which didn't stop me from backing my massive boat of a truck into it last week in an act that ended up ruining her front grille, hood, and bumper, yet only mildly scuffing the paint job on the back of my truck).

Jessamyn just gave her that funny head-tilted stare that judges you to be some sort of lunatic that arrived on a space ship with weird antennas hanging where your ears should be.

Story 2:

In a previous post, I mused about my great and novel idea to divert our children’s early morning desires to wake everyone up in the house (well, it starts with their mom and dad first) towards a poor and unsuspecting Brooke.

Day two of my excellent priciple in execution, though I don't think my wife or Brooke are feeling it is as fantastic a concept as I am. I again suggest they leave us alone in pursuit of the sleeping body that is furthest away from my pillow at this moment.

Off they depart like Columbus to the new world.

Jessamyn, always needing to be first in confrontation in these types of situations, quietly approaches the sleeping Brooke.

She whispers "Brook, its time to get up."

"Jess, I’m really tired."

"No you're not!"

"Well, I can't see anything." Jess had nicely heeded her mother’s shouted suggestion as the three year old eagerly descended the stairs "Jess, don't turn Brooke's light on!"

Jessamyn suggests that maybe turning the lights on would be a good solution to the current lack of visibility.

"Well, let's keep my light off."

Jessamyn began looking around the room, as if realizing all of Brooke's belongings had just appeared there in that instant.

"Why do you have all this stuff in here?"

"You know how you have all that stuff in your bed room? Well, it's kinda like that."

Jess replies "Well, why don't you bring it all up to my room and you can sleep with me?"

With that, Jessamyn leaves the room, gathers her brother, and heads up stairs.

Brooke updates them as they head up the stairs "Guys, I'll be up in a couple minutes."

Upon arriving at the kitchen, the two find their mother readily preparing their breakfasts.

"So, what's was Brooke doing down there?"

Without missing a beat, Jessamyn replies "She wasn't ready for us yet."

Story 3:

After assuring me that the 8:40pm re-tuck-in, the fourth of the evening, that he was really going to sleep this time (I had already abated him with a granola bar and a 'Joey' branded cup of water), a fifteen minute reprieve was suddenly disturbed by a fire outfit clad nearly five year old who needed immediate assistance in donning his bunker pants.

When asked what was going on, he replied in a very authoritative manner that suggested we were keeping him from much more pressing matters "I have a fire call!"

"There is a BIG FIRE and I need to get to my fire truck RIGHT NOW!"

"And I can't get my pants on because I've got my pajamas on and the pants are all messed up."

Jessamyn comes out of her room to make sure Joey is 'ok' at this point "Is he going to be alright?"

"No, Jess, I've got a fire call and I need to really really go."

Brooke tries to return to the previous agenda "Joey, can we play fire trucks in the morning instead."

Silence.

Oh, he's mad now. I can see the redness swelling around his eyes and the lips tensing around his mouth. Glaring eyes pushing red penetrating laser beams at us emanate from an upset arms-folded figure that is obviously not getting his own way.

We try again to point out that firemen need their sleep, and that there is no fire call right now. I promise to alert him and wake him up if his firemen need him, and that there would most assuredly be some sort of massive event in the morning that would require his heroic attention, but he needed his sleep.

He turns, clambers up onto his bed, tosses his forty pound body onto his pillow like a bag of potatoes, gives out a defeated sigh, and with that, goes to bed.

jp