Paul and the Family

Sarah, in spite of occasional outbursts, is a real sweetheart. Tonight Kelli didn’t feel well so she laid down on the sofa. She started feeling cold so she asked Sarah to go get her (Kelli’s) blanket. (She was laying with her head on my lap or I would have gone to fetch it for her, but instead I decided to wait and see what happened win Sarah.)

Sarah headed off on her errand, and Kelli noted that all the lights were out in the bedrooms and hall, so she didn’t think Sarah would be able to complete her task (Sarah is a little afraid of the dark, like most children, and she’s not tall enough to reach the light switches in our house.

After a short delay Sarah came back down the hall towards the family room. When Kelli saw her, she asked, “was it too dark to get my blanket?” Just then I noticed that Sarah was dragging a large blanket behind her—one that’s usually on her (Sarah’s) bed. “It was too dark, so I got this blankie. It’s very soft,” she said. It was too dark to get mom’s blanket, so instead Sarah had gotten her own (making sure to get the onethat would be long enough to cover mommy). She brought it over and laid it over Kelli. She’s so sweet!

Today is Adam’s birthday. (Well, technically his birthday is tomorrow but we were celebrating it today because today’s the day that Kelli’s parents could come down.) Sarah had picked out a stuffed animal (a leopard) to give to Adam. It’s a fairly large stuffed animal—about two feet from nose to tail (well, large by normal stuffed animal standards—naturally it would be dwarfed by the giant ones you can win at a fair). She kept calling it a tiger—probably because 1) she’s more familiar with tigers than leopards and especially 2) because Adam already has a stuffed animal tiger that’s pretty much exactly the same size as the new leopard.

The real problem with her calling it a tiger was that she was doing so before Adam had opened his presents. You’d think this would spoil the surprise, but fortunately, even when she told him it was a tiger right before he opened it his response was “maybe…”

Then he started opening it. Interestingly, he happened to be opening it from the tail end. He had it about half open so you could see the tail, hind legs, and part of the torso. It was pretty obvious that it was a leopard—the spots were plainly visible. Sarah was watching the process excitedly (after all, the present was from her) and this interchange happened:

• Sarah: “see, it is a tiger”
• Adam: “No, it’s a hippopotamus!”

We really can’t imagine where that one came from, or whether he somehow actually thought it was a hippopotamus. Once he got it all the way open, he said “it is a leopard,” so we couldn’t be completely sure whether he was joking about it being a hippopotamus, or not.

Later on, while he was eating his cake, out of the blue Adam announced:

• My name is “Sweet Potato”

I really can’t imagine where he comes up with this stuff.