oldbloke's mutterings

I always forget the actual examples, but a typical exchange in our house goes something like:

Us: Would you like [x]?
J: Yes!
Us: Do you know how to [stuff required for x]?
J: Yes!
Us: What do you have to do?
J: Don't know!

Jack has occasionally complained that his feet hurt, recently. And he's had other symptoms of a growth spurt. And, indeed, seems to be taller.
So today we went to JL in Cheadle to get his feet measured and to try to buy him some sandals.
While we waited for the measurer, he chose some. He's a 6.5, maybe a 7 in some shoes, depending who makes them. They didn't have the ones he'd picked in that size. He didn't like anything else. He was quite categorical about that. We got some anyway - he has to have some shoes that fit! We weren't looking forward to the tantrums when we made him wear them though.
There's another JL in the Trafford Centre. It opens an hour later than the Cheadle one and doesn't have a knitting section, which is why we hadn't gone to it - it's closer to us. But as we had to pass it on the way home...
THEY HAD THE RIGHT SHOES IN THE RIGHT SIZE.
AND they were 8 quid cheaper!
And we got to look at the fountain that shoots water 4 storeys high. Again.
He claimed he didn't like the shoes when we first got them, even though, less than an hour earlier, they'd been the only ones he'd wanted. But 10 minutes later he said he liked them. Phew.

Apropos the recent "kids don't know where food comes from" brouhaha, on the way from the swimming pool to the car park we had the following conversation:

L: Where does milk come from?
J: Cows. And sheep.
[impressed]
L: And where do eggs come from?
J: Hens
L: Where do we get sausages from?
J: A pan

Oh well, 2 out of 3 ain't bad.

The boy can open the fridge.

Yesterday we introduced Jack to the concept of the ice pop.
He never really got the push-it-up-from-the-bottom thing so it was slightly more messy than intended by the designers, but hey, he's only 3.

So we went for petrol on the way home last night.
There was an Elsie¹ in at the same time - racing green, tidy.
And Jack says "When can we have a racing car like that?"

He'd better start saving up. Maybe get a paper round. And a Saturday job.


¹ Lotus Elise

Jack's heavily into porridge right now.
Not actual porridge, coz he can't have that, being coeliac.
Just the word.

It started last time he watched A Close Shave, where Gromit fires porridge from a gun mounted on his plane.

At bathtime Jack likes to shoot me with his waterpistol (tiniest ever, about 4cm long) while calling out "gun porridge!".

And then his bedtime stories became all about porridge.
You thought "I don't want to go to bed" was about Little Tiger? No, it's about Little Porridge. Bambi isn't Bambi, he's Porridge. There's that well-known pop-up book, The Bedtime Porridge. And of course, Eric Carle's "The Very Hungry Porridge".

I wonder how long this phase will last?

T'other day, I heard Jack counting:

One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten, leven, twelve, thirteen, fourteen, sixteen, geraldine


So, I suggest that henceforth, a no-points cribbage hand be called a Geraldine.

How long had people been playing crib, do you think, dear readers, before somebody worked out it was impossible to score 17?

EDIT (for latecomers) OK OK, it's 19 that's impossible

A lot of kids take a cuddly toy to bed.

Jack's choice, last night, was the cardboard cone from inside a large wotsit of wool and a 6"x0.5" wooden bolt. And, obviously, a railway engine.

Last few days, Jack's response to any question has been "what?" - usually the 3rd time we ask, we just get ignored the first 2 times.