I don’t know about other people’s kids, but mine are always chatty on the car ride to school every morning. By chatty I mean they don’t shut up from the moment I start the car to the moment I push them out the door as we slowly drive by their schools. There are mornings when I’m pretty sure they don’t even come up for air, and they become endless run on sentences. No punctuation. No structure. Just the longest word in the world. Needless to say, I often end up tuning them out. They could be talking about the affects global warming has on penguin habitats, and I would have no idea. Just me being blissfully numb to the run on sentences in the backseat.

As most mothers will tell you, we tend to be “ok” with all the noise kids make, even if it involves screaming. We shrug off the thumps and bumps, and we only listen a tiny bit after a scream to make sure no serious injury has occurred. The part that actually gets us to listen is silence. The minute it’s silent we start to worry. As much as I would enjoy a silent car ride in the morning, I’d rather all the jibber jabber than a brief spurt of silence. That spurt of silence means only one thing in my car, someone has done something inappropriate. Due to my keen listening skills ability to tune my children out, I have no idea what was said prior to this silence the other day. All I know is nothing audible was said followed by, “Pheobe, that’s not what I said. I said BEAN stock.”

Honestly, what on earth could a five year old get the word “bean” confused with? Why the whisper? Wait…another whisper followed by another “Pheobe! That’s NOT what I said! I said BEAN stock!” Spleen. Spleen was the only word I could think of that would drive my son through the roof. Duh! After stopping the world from ending the argument in the back seat, it was time to get to the root of the problem. The silence.

Me: What word did you think your brother said?

Pheobe: …..

Me: He said BEAN stock.

Pheobe: …..

Me: …..

Pheobe: *looks at Theo*

Me: …..

Pheobe: *giggle*

Me: PHEOBE!

Pheobe: *whispers* penis

So there you have it. She thought he said “PENIS stock” not “BEAN stock”. Suddenly images of Jack burying seeds in the ground in his back yard, only to wake up to a giant dildo that reaches the sky jutting up from where the seeds once were, go flying through my head. Jack climbs the giant dildo into the clouds, and comes upon a giant vagina with an appetite for destruction and doom! He searches for the golden egg as most men do only to find it hidden in the most obvious spot. Trust me men, it’s very simple to find. He grabs the egg, and slides back down the dildo, takes out his ax and goes all Lorena Bobbitt on it. It falls to the ground with a mighty thud as Jack rejoices in FINALLY finding the golden egg. <<<Obviously NOT the same image my five year old daughter had in her head, thankfully.