Funny things the kids (and I) say

* Mary learned the word “forehead” the other day. It’s been hilarious for her to experiment with this new word, especially since she keeps getting it wrong. She’ll say something like, “look Mom, I have a fourbrain” and then she’ll confuse herself even more and say, “Mom, my twobrain is clean” Kids are so funny.

* For his reading and writing class recently, Matthew was asked to describe a setting where his story would take place. He’s lived in American Samoa too long! This is what he wrote.

” My setting is a beach. It’s a beautiful beach with shells and sand and as all beaches…litter.”

*Hannah was recently asked to write about her brothers and sisters. She was pretty spot on. This is some of what she wrote:

“Matthew likes electronics. Matthew can’t get his eyes off the TV. Ben likes to make things out of sticks. Hannah is awesome. Hannah can’t jump rope. Daniel is wild. Daniel dips his chips in his cup. Mary pulls Hannah’s hair. Emma is cute.

* We were driving home from school this morning and Daniel was asking Mary some Samoan vocabulary questions. Mary was able to answer all of them. I said, “Mary, you are so smart”, and she replied. “Yes I am. You are right about that.” I wonder what the Samoan word for humble is?

* Hannah was learning about the Chinese New Year in school. She learned that she was born in the year of the rooster. She asked when I was born. I told her that I was born in the year of the snake, in 1977. She said “Wow, that’s a really long time ago.” I said, “yeah, but Nanna was born in 1952”. “Whoa!” said Hannah, “I can’t believe it”

“But guess what?” I continued… “Great Grandma Shumway was born in 1913, THAT was a long time ago”

Benjamin almost jumped out of his chair, “Oh, oh, is that when the revolutionary war was?”

Cute boy, quite a way off, but good try!

(Sorry Nanna, not only did I reveal your age to everyone, but I also discovered that you were born in the year of the dragon! Ha! ha!)

* This one might be the winner…we were at the beach last Saturday and there were a lot of locals swimming around us. I was sitting at the edge of the water playing with Emma when one of the Samoan ladies yelled “pa’a” and pointed at me. Several of them joined in, all shouting “pa’a” and then I figured out that there was a very large black crab about to climb up my shorts! I jumped up in fright, and the women laughed.

I smiled, and then tried to be friendly. Samoans like it when you try to speak their language, so I called the kids over and said, “look kids, pua’a” . The women roared with laughter. I thought they were still laughing at me jumping up from the crab. “Pua’a kids, come see” I repeated. More cackles from the ladies. After a few minutes, one of them through her giggles explained to me that instead of calling my kids over to see a crab (pa’a) in the water, I had actually been telling them to come and look at the pig (pua’a) in the water. Awesome!!! So much for trying!