4-year-old Ramblings

My favorite part of Mathew being in preschool is that he is incredibly talkative after I pick him up. I think I've mentioned before that Mathew isn't much of a talker. He's mostly communicates through grunts, hand gestures, and fake, high-pitched giggles. So it's so fun to listen to him ramble on and on the entire walk home from preschool. I get about 10 minutes of insight into his brain. Here are some of my favorite observations on the way home today:

He was busy telling me about why his show-and-tell bag couldn't get wet (it was just starting to rain a little) when a boy - probably about 10 years old - sped past us on his bike. He stopped mid-sentence saying "WHOA!" (in a really loud and somewhat embarrassing squeal) "He's SO fast on his bike without training wheels!!"
I'm sure he gave that kid's ego a nice little stroke.


Mathew: "Mommy, that house is tricky!"
I looked over at the completely normal looking house and asked, "Why is that house tricky?"
Mathew: "It's a much biggest, BIGGEST house. And our house is a small house, but they have a big house."
I guess a house is considered tricky if it has the audacity to be any bigger than ours.


The wind started blowing a bit and Mathew was holding onto a little paper from school.
Mathew: "Whoa! I have to hold on tight to my paper, because my paper says the name Mathew Staten, and I like that name, and I don't want it to blow away."
So we're very glad his paper didn't blow away. I'd hate to have to come up with another name for him.


We always walk to and from school whenever we can, since #1 - I'm still making weak attempts to lose some weight and most days, walking the kids to and from school is the only exercise I get. And #2 - It seems a bit silly to me to pull out the car for a little quarter-mile walk. Mathew's preschool is in a house up a slightly big hill from mine. I must confess, my son is a bit lazy and really hates walking. So I usually hear complaints in one form or another about how tired he is from walking. Today's made me giggle.
Mathew: "I wish we could buy a wagon to pull me and Mufanyull (his pronunciation of Nathaniel's name), because I'm tired of walking up. And I'm tired of walking down. And I'm weally tired of walking UP! Maybe we could buy one at Christmas and take it when I go to preschool. But wagon's has wheels, so we can't go up the stairs, and we can't go down the stairs. We just have to stay upstairs, or we have to stay downstairs."
A brilliant observation, I think.

He's also slightly obsessed with police coming to get us for any little thing. During the time I've been typing this out, Mathew became bored and started kicking my office door over and over. I asked him to please stop (in my friendliest and sweetest tone, since I am an ever patient mother...). He asked the favorite of toddler questions, "Why?"
So I explained that he was hurting my ears and that we needed to be soft to the door. I guess that wasn't a good enough reason because he came up with his own.
"If we're not soft to the door, then the police will come."
To which I said, "Yep! The police will come."
Whatever it takes to make him stop!

And...now he's sound asleep. I guess all that talking takes a lot of energy out of a little kid.