I know how to get a kid to sleep.

Reed came creeping downstairs after I put him to bed tonight. 
“What are you watching?”
“The vice-presidential candidate debate.”
“Can I watch?”
“Sure.”

I think he was asleep in under a minute. =)

p.s. earlier tonight as we started to brush his teeth, Reed started what he called a “language pattern”. One, Dos, Trois, Four… . That’s right: counting while rotating English, Spanish, French. 

This afternoon, Rebekah toddled up to me and said:

“Puppy.”

She said this somewhat earnestly, so I of course ask:

“What?”

“Puppy,” she says, with a look of consternation. 

“You want to go potty, sweetie?”

“Yea…noooooo.” with a little shake of the head.

“What do you want, ‘Bekah?”

“Puppy pants.”

“Puppy pants?”

“Puppy… pants.”

“…”

“Puppy. Pants.”

“You… want to go potty? Do you need to go poopy?”

She looks up at me, appraising my dimness.

“Diaper.” she says, walking over to the changing table and pointing. 

I check her bottom. Sure enough.

“Ah. POOPY pants!”

one really cool thing about working ESL is the high entertainment value of your students' mistakes. tonight erin and i grabbed a pile of uncorrected papers and headed down to the noodle joint for a working dinner session. the intent was to talk some shop and do some grading over oolong tea and chinese-style ramen; and to be fair, some of that did get done. but we kept getting diverted, interrupting each other every so often to read out some of the funnier sentences and have a mutual crack-up. guilty pleasure, to be sure, but good times nonetheless.

my current favorite, from one of erin's kids, trying to give a reason why he prefers one type of cookie over another–

"Is not a hand stained when I disintegrate?"

'literally' is now recognized by miriam-webster as its own antonym.

i am literally beside myself at this news. my day is ruined.

really, i understand the language changes. but this is just stupid. stupid stupid stupid.