Out of the mouths ...

1) "Selena Gomez just wants to be a famous singer so that everyone will like her better than Hannah Montana and the Jonas Brothers. That's why she has that spiky-haired boyfriend. She is just trying to take over," said Graham last night, after seeing an ad for New Moon in a magazine and recognizing that Taylor Lautner/Jacob Werewolf is dating "Alex Russo" from Wizards of Waverly Place. (No, I haven't read the Twilight books but I did serve with the Young Women for several years.)

"Where did you get that theory?" I asked, assuming that he saw something on the Disney channel about it at his dad's house. And yes, I balked a bit at my own child knowing about the dating habits of celebrities, but I've been a celebrity-fact-freak all my life so I can't be too shocked if the apple has fallen directly below the tree.

"From my own mind. I'm really smart, Mom. Didn't you know that?"

Oh good, that and a little demon math should be just the foundation you need for a promising career, son!

2) Annie likes to engage me in a game of Guess My Mind just about every day and gets frustrated when I can't quickly and accurately decipher what's she's trying to communicate. Like yesterday after school ...

"Mom, give me some PCP!" she giggled from the backseat of the van.

I shook my head in a friendly fashion and lifted my shoulders in the universal gesture for I don't know what you're talking about.

"PCP, Mom. You always used to say that to me when I was a baby! It's your favorite thing! PCP, baby," she gurgles out. She's sorta shouting now.

"TCP, Mom! TCP, you know, what you always say to me," she whispers in a creepy-calm voice that's three registers lower than the voice she was previously using.

If I always say it, how come I can't think of it now, I wonder.

Also, is the school providing straight confectioner's sugar as an afternoon snack? I need to look into that.

"TLP, Mom. TLP! What is it, Mom? What do you say?" she begs in a frantic tone of voice, back in the high part of her vocal register.

"TLC?" asks Graham, unusually calm. "Do you mean TLC?"

"That's what I'm saying," she hoots out. "TLC, what Mom loves to give me!"

"Oh, of course," I respond calmly, hiding my rattled nerves. "Tender Loving Care. Do you want some? I could use some right about now," I add under my breath.

3) "I had a terrible dream last night," said Graham this morning. At my nodding, he continued describing what happened during his sleep. "Mom, it was chapter two in the Chronicles of My Pants Are Missing in Front of My Friends," he said, coming up with that little ditty off the top of his head. "I was so embarrased!"

To him, I gave a generic understanding smile, and then I turned away and took a moment of perverse pride in my son's budding sarcasm. Was that wit on display? Oh, sarcasm is Medusa-like beast, yes, but a little can add the right spice to life, and perhaps he'll be able to work for the Onion someday!

Of course, this is the same child who loves to spout back everything he's ever hear from me (often out of context) at the most inopportune times. It isn't all wit and charm. It isn't even mostly wit and charm. At times, I'm reading to pull out my proverbial hair. The other day, in fact, after allowing my feelings to boil over, I committed a cardinal parenting sin. I compared my kidlets to someone else's kidlets, and not just in front of them, but directly to them. No one else was listening since it was just us in the car. The comparison was for them; I'd had it with the quibbling and quarreling!

"Guys, I don't think "Bradford" and "Anastasia" fight the way you do," I said in a dramatic, melacholy, beleaguered-mother voice. "I wish you could get along like "Bradford" and "Anastasia." They love each other and have fun together! Why can't you be like them?"

"Mom, we're not them," responded Graham in a clipped voice. "Every family is different. You're always telling us that. Every family is special, every family is different. Families aren't all the same. Welll, Mom, we're not the same. We're us."

And at that point, I really felt melancholy.  Can't we be special in a loving, hands-around-the-Christamas-tree way?