From the Mouths of Pegs and Sofia

At the Susan G. Komen Race for the Cure 5k, after the MC introduced a local TV anchor:

Pegs: Yeah, that's why I came: for the celebrities.

While driving around in the car this afternoon:

Sofia (to the tune of the happy birthday song): Happy mother's day to you, Mama! Happy mother's day to you, Daddy!

Pegs: Sofia, it's not mother's day for Daddy. It's only mother's day for girls.

Sofia (after a bit of thought): Happy mother's day to you, vagina!

Mouth of Pegs (Sleeptalking Edition)

While in bed last night:

Pegs: [Indistinct mumbling]

Me (waking up with a sudden start): What? What is it? What's going on?

Pegs: Pancakes.

Me: What?

Pegs: Sofia has pancakes on her sleep sack.

Me: Pancakes? What are you talking about?

Pegs (exasperated): Sofia has a picture of pancakes on her sleep sack.

Me: You woke me up in the middle of the night to tell me that Sofia has a picture of pancakes on her sleep sack?

Pegs: Oh, did I wake you?

Me: It's ... 2:25 in the morning for crying out loud.

Pegs (rolling over): Pancakes.

Mouths of People

The Mouths of People have been on fire lately.

Mouth of Sofia

Yesterday, while hugging my legs, Sofia got over excited and bit my thigh. For such a little mouth it really hurt and I was cursing and rubbing my leg while scolding Sofia. Sofia got upset that she hurt me, looked up at me, said "Hurts? Hurts? Sorry, Mama" and leaned over to kiss the area she bit.

Mouth of Felix

Felix is Sofia's best friend. He is 8 months older than Sofia and the son of our good friends Brooke and Dave. I got the following email from Brooke about a month ago.

A quick conversation with Felix while we're sitting down to dinner last night. We're having a nice 3-way conversation about exoplanets and work and airplanes and buses (to keep all parties interested) and Felix says:

Felix: Fuk.

Brooke: What? Oh, Fork. Can you say Forrrrk?

Felix: Fuk.

Hmmm. Ah, but clever me, I live in a bilingual environment so I can always use the French instead!

Brooke: Felix, can you say Forchette?

Felix: Bulshett.

Clever me, indeed.

Mouth of Dave

I get an email from Brooke this morning entitled "Conversation with Dave".

Brooke: Honey?.... Why do you have "Alvin and the Chipmunks" on your iPod Artists list?

Dave: What?! Where?

Brooke: Here.

Dave: Oh.........I swear it's porn.

Brooke: ...........I wish I could believe that.

Mouth of a Secretary

Every now and then we get forwarded emails from Young, sent by a secretary at his work. We got this one yesterday.

Subject: NEXT Tuesday, September 29th, I will leave at 5:45 p.m. to get my flu shot after work. Flu shots are between 4:00 p.m. to 6:00 p.m.

I will stop on my way home from work next Tuesday, and stop over at One Centennial to get my flu shot. I will make sure I get there a few minutes before 6:00 p.m. to get my flu shot. I will just go home after the flu shot. I just wanted to let you know that I will be leaving 15 minutes early to get the flu shot.

Have a great night.

Mouth of Pegs (Double Entendre Edition)

Pegs, Yia Yia and I were in the kitchen this evening when Pegs pulled an overripe apple off the shelf.  

Pegs (to Yia Yia): Eine sapio.*

*Editor's Translation: "This is rotten."

Me (having grossly misheard what she said): Kanasakia? What does "kanasakia" mean?

Pegs (without missing a beat): It's the lesser-known Japanese scooter.

Walking home from my office together the other day:

Me: On my way down the stairs, I passed by a partner talking to someone I was convinced was Angela Merkel.

Pegs: Was it her?

Me: No; I thought it was, but then I realized that there was no security detail.

Pegs: Yeah, that's a dead giveaway.

Me: Yep. You know, that's a pretty good litmus test for knowing when someone is important. I mean, anyone could have somebody who wants them dead, for any number of reasons. But only someone important has people willing to die for them.

Pegs: You know, Jaime is in the Secret Service. I'm sure he gets paid pretty well for putting his life on the line all the time.

Me: I thought you said that he spends most of his time investigating bad checks?

Pegs: While he's stationed here in France, yes. But in the US he's protecting the president and stuff. It's a dangerous job.

Me: Yeah, although being a cop or a firefighter is dangerous, and they don't get paid a lot of money.

Pegs: Being in the Secret Service is much more dangerous. People are intentionally trying to kill the person you're protecting, and you're expected to take a bullet for them.

Me: That's true, but it's not like it happens every day. Police and firefighters face death every time they go on duty.

Pegs: Yeah, but that's what makes being in the Secret Service so dangerous; there's no telling when somone is going to try to attack. It's kinda like a needle in a haystack: some of the hay is gonna get hurt before you find the needle.

Mouth of Pegs (Video Edition)

When Sofia first got her guitar, she would repeatedly drop her pick inside it and ask me to get it out. I was so flattered that she would turn to me for help, that is until Pegs dropped the line in the video below. At last, a Mouth of Pegs caught on tape!

From the Mouth of Pegs

It was a gorgeous day this afternoon, so after Sofia's nap Pegs and I took her to the Luxembourg Gardens. Pegs had heard of a hidden little playground in the park, so we decided to check it out and give Sofia a chance to stretch her legs and interact with some other kids. When we got there, Sofia stood stock still for a good five to ten minutes, just staring at the other kids and taking it all in. When she eventually moved, she picked up a discarded water bottle cap and started filling it with sand. She was happy as a clam playing with her newfound toy, but Pegs was less than enthused:

Pegs: Just look at her playing with that bottle cap. It's like a sand pail for white trash.

From the Mouth of Pegs

While discussing some of Sofia's more ... interesting features:

Pegs: Man, just look at those funky little toes.

Me: Yeah, they're pretty freaky. Oh, well; there go her chances of ever having a modeling career.

Pegs: Uh, I'm pretty sure that her big ole butt would have taken care of that.

Me: Not necessarily. There are a number of magazines where she could make the cover with a heinie like that. Jet, for example. Or Vibe.

Pegs: Or Badonkadonk Aficionado.

From the Mouth of Pegs

I had a bad dream last night that I lost my job, we lost all our savings and then Pegs left me. It was haunting because, in this economy, losing my job and our savings isn't all that impossible, or even unlikely. This morning I started the conversation below:

Me: If I lost my job, would you leave me?

Pegs: What?

Me: Would you leave me if I lost my job?

Pegs: No, of course not.

Me: So what would you do?

Pegs: I'd get to know you.

Me: And THEN you'd leave me.

Pegs (turning back to the computer): Probably.

From the Mouth of Pegs

First, the setup: Sofia, Pegs and I were all hanging out on the bed, which inevitably meant that Sofia reached for my blackberry and started playing with it. Usually she likes to push the buttons and watch the screen light up, but today she was more intent on talking talking talking. At one point she handed me the blackberry, so I decided to play along and began pretending to converse with someone on the other line. Every once in a while I'd hand the phone back to Sofia, who would excitedly say something into the phone and then promptly hand it back to me. We did this a few times before Pegs started getting a look of concern on her face. "Don't tease her, hon," she said. "She thinks that she's really talking to someone." I pretend to talk with Sofia on her play phones all the time, so I wasn't really clear on how talking on my blackberry was any different, but just in case Pegs was right I "ended" the call. I wrapped up my faux-conversation, said "bye bye" into the phone and then handed it back to Sofia. The Hybrid was staring into its dark screen dejectedly, clearly unhappy that the conversation was over, and that's when Pegs said:

Pegs: Sofia, Daddy will always disappoint you.

From the Mouth of Pegs

While moving the iMac from our bedroom (where we used it to watch the latest episode of Lost in bed) back to the living room:

Me: Oomph! This thing is heavy. Next time it'll be your turn to move the computer.
Pegs: OK. Next time it'll be your turn to give birth.

Mouth of Pegs (Mach 2 Edition)

While cleaning the tub this morning, Pegs started whistling the theme song from "Rocky". This in itself was funny to me, but she was also whistling off-key and kept missing the same notes, so when she came out of the bathroom I began to whistle the same tune in the same way:

Pegs: Wait, that's so weird. Why are you singing that song?

Me: Oh, you know. I was thinking about Philadelphia, which led me to think about Rocky, which led me to think about the theme song....

Pegs: Yeah, right. You were just making fun of my whistling.

Me: It's not that it was bad, it's just that you kept whistling the wrong notes. And always in the same parts.

Pegs: Well, I got news for you, buddy. You're not that great of a singer. I mean, I know you think you are, but your voice changes a lot depending on the song. Kinda like Cher.

Later that morning, Sofia was making this sound she's been working on lately, which is basically just a long, drawn-out grunt:

Pegs: Whenever she makes that noise it makes me think that I should take her down to a radio station and rent her out to make that "static-y" noise.

Me: Um ... did ... uh ... you do realize that there's not a lot of money in dead air on the radio, right?

Pegs: Well, I didn't say that we would make a profit right away, did I?

From the Mouth of Pegs

While listening to iTunes:

("Two Princes" by The Spin Doctors comes on, and I start humming along)

Pegs (a bit horrified): Do you like this song?

Me: Well, yeah. It's catchy ... and goofy ... and fun.  I can't imagine how high they were when they wrote it; I mean, "If you like to call me baby, just go ahead now, and if you wanna tell me maybe, just go ahead now." What the hell?

Pegs (skeptically): Wow, I'm seeing you in a completely different light.

(A couple of minutes later, "Each Coming Night" by Iron & Wine comes on)

Me: What about this song?  Do you like this one?

Pegs: Yeah, this is a good one.

Me: So what makes this song a good one?

Pegs: Um, for starters, it doesn't make me wanna strangle myself every time I hear it.

From the Mouth of Pegs

After Vanessa backed Pegs up when I had denied doing something:

Pegs: Thank you, Vanessa. He always does that; he always denies doing stuff and then argues with me. You know, sometimes I wish polygamy were legal. I'd make him get married to someone, just so I could have a witness around.

Mouth of Pegs (Breakfast in America Edition)

Eating pancakes at a little diner called Breakfast in America, when my mug of hot chocolate arrived with a mountain of whipped cream and chocolate shavings on top:

Me: Ah, there's my manly drink.

Pegs: Yep. You remember what that lady at the bed and breakfast told us that one time? About how it's always the big, burly guys who order hot chocolate?

Me: Yeah, that's me.

Pegs: Well, you're not that big and burly. She just didn't know you as well as I do.

Me: Hmph, clearly she hadn't seen me naked.

Pegs: Plus you've got the personality of a midget.

Pouring syrup all over her pancakes and watching it slide down her plate towards me:

Pegs: You know, the syrup person should really be the one sitting downhill.

Mouth of Pegs

After I related something humorous that a former girlfriend of mine once said:

Me: You're not laughing.

Pegs: Well, I didn't think it was that funny.

Me: Oh, c'mon.  That was pretty funny.

Pegs: Whatever.  You know, [your former girlfriend] wasn't exactly the smartest cookie on the ball.

Mouth of Pegs (Lillois Edition)

We went up to Lille this weekend to see the French fam, and while we were there the Mouth of Pegs was on fire.

Empathy: Patricia was overwrought at having lost her car keys, so when she went to the store with Bon Papa's car the rest of us searched the house. While we were looking in the kitchen, Pegs quite seriously theorized: "The problem is that I don't know Pat well enough to get inside her mind." To emphasize the point, she put her middle and index finger to her temple and twisted them clockwise, which everyone knows is the international gesture for getting inside another person's head. On no less than three occasions, Pegs shouted loudly that she had found the missing keys, only to give us a big grin when we were naive enough to ask, "Really?" The second Patricia came back home, Pegs enthusiastically told her that she had found the missing keys, prompting an enormous smile from Patricia, and then followed it up two second later with, "No, not really."

Reflections: While Sofia was staring into a mirror, Pegs mused, "Do you think that she ever looks at her own reflection and thinks, 'It's so weird; every once in a while I see this cool baby, and she's really into me.'"

Bacon: Pegs and I woke up before anyone else on Sunday morning and went downstairs to have breakfast. Pegs asked if I wanted a cup of hot chocolate, and then brought me four pieces of toast, three jars of jam, a jar of Nutella, a plate of cheese, a glass of clementine juice and a mug of cocoa. Between mouthfuls I mumbled that the only thing she hadn't brought out was some bacon, which prompted Pegs to ponder out loud (with no other segue, mind you): "If Ariel were a dog, she'd be so happy." After I finished coughing up the toast I had been swallowing, I asked her what in the heck that was supposed to mean. "Well, you know, they put bacon in everything for dogs." This made some sense, I guess, but it was followed by, "I was going to say that I never realized how much dogs liked chicken, but then I remembered: bacon doesn't come from chicken."

Mouth of Pegs (Double Feature)

While in bed, when the magazine I was reading slipped out of my hand and fell directly onto my face:

Pegs (appraisingly): We really need to work on your upper body strength.

Walking home from a doctor's appointment for Sofia in the Marais (the gay and Jewish area of Paris), after I laughed at something she said:

Pegs: You know, with a laugh like that you really ought to be gay.

Mouth of Pegs (Espanol Edition)

Talking with Pegs about having to go to work today and possible career changes:

Me: Are we pulling a Lindsey and Tobias here in thinking that I can work at CC and still have a life? You know, like, "Lots of couples fool themselves into thinking that it can work for them, but it never does ... but it just might work for us."

Pegs: Me no speakee English.

Me: Man, you Greeks. Your English just cuts in and out all the time, doesn't it?

Pegs: Si.

(Almost) Mouth of Pegs: Freudian Edition

Pegs can't sleep in the same room as The Hybrid, so since we got back from the US we've been sleeping in the second bedroom.  Even though there are now two closed doors, a hallway and about thirty feet between her and the Drool Monster, Pegs will still wake up in the middle of the night whenever Sofia cries, coughs or whimpers.  

Pegs: We need a bigger house.

Lee: I've been saying that for years.  You know, if we moved to Charlotte...

Pegs: If we lived in a bigger house, we'd have a wing for her and a separate wing for me.  And a wing for the penis.

Lee: Did...did you just say that we'd have a wing for the penis?  Is that your not-so-subtle way to tell me that I'd be sleeping alone?

Pegs: What?  That's not what I said.  I said we'd have "a wing IN BETWEEN US."

Mouth of Pegs (Grading Edition)

On Friday night, Pegs and her friend Brooke went to a local bar to have a "girls night out". While they were there, a guy tried several times to buy them drinks:

Pegs: ... so that's when Brooke was like, "Hey, man, respect the boundaries, ok?"
Me: Seriously. So did he take the hint?
Pegs: Yeah, he left us alone after that. Still, he gets an "E" for trying.
(Pause)
Pegs: Wait, you get an "E" for effort, right? Yeah, that's right. I think for trying you get a star.