This was cute and fun, the first 3,837 times.

Now it gets a bit tedious.

So my response is to make absolutely absurd guesses.

This way he learns about both humor and passive-aggressive behavior, both of which are important coping skills that he’ll either need to utilize or recognize later in life.

We were driving home from school the other day and he tells me that they were drawing a musical instrument in art class.

(This greatly amused him because it was art day, not music day, but they were doing both! Ok, not really, but to him it made perfect sense.)

Ethan: “Guess what instrument we drew?”

Me: “A horse.”

Ethan (laughing hysterically): “Noooooooo! A horse isn’t an instrument.”

Me: “I give up.”

Ethan: “I’ll give you a hint. It starts with a ‘d’.”

OK, now I’ll admit here that the sane and rationale thing to do here is just say ‘drum’ and be done with it.

That’s not what I did.

Me: “A tuba!”

Ethan: “Nooooooo! A tuba doesn’t start with a ‘d’!”

Me: “I give up”

Ethan: “I’ll give you another hint, it has a curve part.”

Me: “A chair!”

Ethan: “Nooooooo!”

Me: “I give up”

You get the idea.

This goes on for several minutes, during which I’m looking around for anything nonsensically guess, and he keeps giving me guesses, most of which mean very little, such as “Sometimes they’re brown, but sometimes they aren’t brown.”

Finally the payoff comes:

Ethan: “I’ll give you another hint: it has strings.”

Wait, what?

Drums don’t have strings, do they? No, I’m pretty sure they don’t.

Me: “Wait, is it a drum? I thought it was a drum.”

Ethan: “No! It’s a GUITAR!!!”

Oh, and I’m the idiot.

Me: “‘Guitar’ doesn’t start with a ‘d’ it starts with a ‘g’ you nuthead!”

Ethan: “Well, ‘g’ and ‘d’ sound alike!”

I get the feeling he’s going to grow up to be a lawyer, because there’s no point in the argument where he feels that he can’t win by counter-argument.

Me: Nine oh four

Ethan: Why do people say “oh” when it’s zero?

Me: I don’t know, I guess because a zero and an “o” look alike

Ethan: But a zero is round and an O is an oval, right?

Me (thinking): Ah son, if Grampa Luoma was here, he’d be calling you a “Literal Luoma” right now.

Me (saying): “Yup, you’re right.”

I took the first picture, asking “Does this make any sense?”

As I took the first one, Sadie put her nose on the bed. “Well at least that’s something,” I thought.

Then, by the time I was done looking at the preview of the 2nd picture, I saw that she was climbing in.

She slept there the whole night.

Ethan suggested that we buy the bed for her a few weeks ago. I was sure that she’d never sleep in it, nor would Sophie (who can still jump up on the couch, which Sadie no longer can).

After 2 days we went back to the store to get a second dog bed, because they both wanted to sleep in it. Sophie spends most nights in hers. Sadie will sleep in it, then get out, then get back in, then go somewhere else, then get back in.

Teacher: “So Ethan, what are you doing to be extra good for Santa?”

Ethan: “I’m trying extra hard to be good to my brother Walter.”

That would be his imaginary brother Walter, based on the older brother from Zathura, Ethan’s favorite movie.

We all had one. Well, Wan might have had more, but it was her first time, so she gets a pass.

About 20 minutes later, Ethan walks up to his mother and says:

“Um, mom, I don’t think I remember what the chocolate tastes like.”

After Tracey stopped laughing, she gave him another one. Personally I wouldn’t reward this sort of behavior, but she did hold him by both sides of the face and said “How are you this clever? You’re only four!”

To which he said “Four and a half!”

“Who’s there?”

“Orange” (At this point I should say that I thought I knew where this was going)

“Orange who?”

“Orange Elijah!”

(At this point Ethan breaks into hysterical laughter. One may also substitute “Andrew” for “Elijah”.)

No, I have no idea why it’s funny either, but judging by Ethan’s laugh, this is the funniest joke ever.

For some time now the “Add your own caption” feature has been broken.

It is now working again.

You can always get to the latest DDOE by going to http://tntluoma.com/ddoe or http://tntluoma.com/ethan/daily/

Also, the pictures at the top of the page show: The first picture ever, 3 years ago, 2 years ago, 1 year ago, and today.

The weekly caption contest is currently on hiatus. You can continue to post your own comments on Friday captions as well as through the week.

Except there was nothing in the sandwich.

“OK, so she just took out the bread to make a sandwich” I thought.

Then she cut it down the center.

“Hrm… well, usually you make the sandwich first and then cut it, but …”

Then she cut it two more times in parallel, rotated the plate, and prepared to make more cuts.

“What?” she asked, noticing me there with a look on my face like a dog that just heard a whistle but can’t figure out where it came from.

I looked at the plate.

“I’m making some ‘church bread’ for Ethan… he likes it…”

“Ok,” I said, having learned that there are a large number of things that go on in and around the house about which I know almost nothing, and most of the time it’s really just a waste of everyone’s time for me to try and gather explanations for everything.

I can only presume that ‘church bread’ it was Ethan calls the cubes of bread we use for communion. I prefer “Holy Cubes” but whatever… he can learn the proper names when he’s older.

A few minutes later I was back downstairs. Tracey called to me from the top of the stairs. When I appeared, she flung a baggie full of ‘church bread’ at me: “Give this to Ethan.”

Her aim was a little off, so the baggie hit the wall and landed about 4 steps up the stairway.

“Hey, that’s the body of Christ there… a little respect,” I said in that snarky way that she has no doubt become accustomed to ignoring.

“Whatever… I’m going to empty the dishwasher,” she said, already disappearing from sight.

“You know, you’ve worked really hard, why don’t you let me do that and you come down and sit with Ethan,” a better husband would have said, instead of “OK”

Ethan ate all the church bread. No grape juice, however.

He did have some water that he kept handing to me after he had taken a drink.

I do hope he wasn’t expecting that he was going to hand me water and have me miraculously transform it into something else. Like I need that sort of pressure.

Just another day at Chez Luoma.

(Note: please understand that at no time was the actual body of Christ abused, maligned, mistreated, or blasphemed. This was merely a baggie full of white bread.)

Ethan starts Preschool on September 8th.

Didn’t we just get him home from the hospital?

Just how big of a Blue’s Clues fan is Ethan?

Tracey went to Home Depot the other day, and Ethan wouldn’t leave until she bought him a mailbox.

He just sat in his Thinking Chair and called for Mailbox.

He’s learned more of the song:

Fin’ yer first pawprint [which sounds a lot like ‘ballpit’] That’s yer first clue Put it in yer notebook cuz there whooseclooze? Blues Clues

A.dor.a.ble.

In other news: I was making Ethan some bacon and I asked him how many pieces he wanted. He said “Two.” Then he said, “Spiderman wants two.”

“So you want two and Spiderman wants two?”

“Yes”

I thought it was just a sneaky was of saying “four” but he just ate two. I guess Spiderman’s eyes were bigger than his stomach.