Saying and singing silly things

I really need to get some video of the boys singing. It's the best. They know several songs, the most impressive of which is the "state" song - they can sing all 50 states in alphabetical order! Our favorite is Ooooohh-Hiiiii-Ooooohhhh because it's just fun to sing.

Last night on the way home from SLC, Meatball was repeating and repeating the same line from a Thomas book: "Don't give up, you'll shi-shay-tion" which, if you know the song, translates to "Don't give up, you'll be a big sensation." And, he wasn't giving up! He sang that one line for probably 20 miles, and our best efforts to change songs were to no avail. Peanut, of course, was singing something different the entire time - it was the 2-4-6-8 Thomas song.

May I digress for just a moment? I'm sure that the venerable Rev. W. V. Awdry meant well when he introduced Thomas into his Railway Series books back in 1946. Sweet little engine, helpful, really useful, indeed. But I would like to tar and feather the marketing genius who turned Thomas into an Elmo-like commodity. The songs are catchy - so catchy that they catch a little nook in your brain and stay there all day long at full volume. The toys are fun - so fun that mommies are constantly scrambling to build and re-build towers and find missing track pieces before the Peanut starts to howl since this is the ONLY thing that he will do for more than three minutes. The songs. The songs! OH, THE SONGS!!!

Anyway, back to the funny things.

Yesterday while playing with toys at grandma and grandpa's house, Peanut picked up a little red car along with its remote control which, unfortunately, needs batteries. When it didn't work, he tossed the remote aside and said "Ah, piece of crap."

AND, that reminds me: batteries. What the hell? Toy makers and battery manufacturers are in cahoots. I'm convinced. It's ridiculous the amount of money that we're spending on batteries. I'm investing in a couple of rechargable do-hickeys. Sick of it. Sick-to-friggin-death of it. When something doesn't work now, the boys will just look at one of us and say "Batteries?" We just nod with the look of poor parenting written all over our faces. What kind of parent runs out of batteries and disappoints those sweet little munchkins? (I know, all parents, but that doesn't make their faces any less sweet or make me feel any less guilty....)