Nathanisms, pt. I Incidental

In honor of Nathan's birthday month, I bring to you Nathanisms--a collection of incidents, quotations, & common phrases from the kid himself. And brought to you by me, the recorder of all things Nathan.

• Nathan loves Nephi. He loves singing "Nephi's Courage," reading about Nephi in his picture Book of Mormon, and, best of all, pretending to be Nephi. The best way to be Nephi, for Nathan, is to tell Mommy, "I Nephi. You brothers. Help me build my ship." Then it is Mommy's job to look mad, tell him "no," and then threaten to hurt Nathan-Nephi. Nathan-Nephi then reaches out his hand and says, "shocked!" (This is his favorite part and he sometimes jumps the gun and shocks Mommy-brothers just for saying "no.") Mommy-brothers is then shocked and must look shocked and fall back on the floor. Nathan-Nephi then swings both of his arms as if marching (like they taught him to do in nursery for the chorus of "Nephi's Courage") and says, "Lord provides way; wants me to obey" (more or less with a little slurring of the words). Mommy-brothers then tells Nathan-Nephi, "I see you have the power of the Lord with you. I will help you build your ship." He looks very satisfied and we begin using our fists as hammers on his imaginary ship.

• Once during the winter months, Nathan, Katie & I were inside the giraffe building at the zoo, watching the giraffes lick the walls, when Nathan noticed a group of peacocks outside the glass doors. Having learned from his friends Kolby & Eli how to open the doors using the button (provided for the handicapped and, I think, mothers with strollers), he pushed the button and stood in the doorway calling out to the peacocks, "Cuckoos! Come on, cuckoos!" He was walking closer sideways and holding out his hand (as I do when I'm trying to get him to take my hand and come with me) and I believe he was trying to convince those birds to come inside where it was warm. I managed to convince him to come back in with me without the peacocks, but I just had to laugh at his calling them "cuckoos" and trying to play the mother hen and look out for those cold birds.

• I sometimes have General Conference playing on the computer while I eat breakfast with the kids. This time, I was watching it on byu.tv (instead of just listening to it from the church's website) and Nathan looked at it and said, "That's a church. It's not our church." Since, you know, it definitely looked different than the pulpit in our chapel. He paused for a moment and said, "outside in the church." I loved this description of the large floral arrangements placed around the pulpit in the conference center. Isn't it wonderful the way kids will bring together the things they know & are familiar with (like that the outside is green & sometimes flowery) to describe things that are new or strange (like humongous floral arrangements)?

• We were driving home from a friend's apartment one night when we passed a police car on the side of the road with its lights on. Nathan said, "Look! Police car! It...he..." He paused briefly searching for the right words. "...has fire on his head."

• I gave Nathan a kiss one day and he wiped it off, saying, "No, Mommy. I don't want it with water." He was apparently objecting to a "wet kiss"--although the kiss, I have to defend myself, I don't believe was very wet.
  

• Nathan saw the person who has been mowing our lawn this summer drive up and pull out the lawn mower. The first thing he said (and then repeated over and over) was, "Mom, he doesn't have a shirt on." "Mommy, he's not wearing a shirt. He doesn't have a shirt." The guy who used to mow our lawn wore a shirt. Then Nathan said, "His truck is black. It's not...whi...blu...red anymore." And he was right. The guy who mowed our lawn the last 2 summers drove a red truck and the new guy drove a black truck. Finally, he kept getting upset because he thought the guy was mowing into the bushes. He said, "He's mowing into our bushes. I gotta go stop him." And then Nathan tried to go downstairs to stop him.

• So, Nathan clearly takes offense when guys don't wear their shirts and thinks it's very much his business: one afternoon, Nathan and Katie were on the back deck while I made lunch. Nathan came inside and said, "He's not wearing a shirt." I assumed he was talking about someone he saw outside and was going to say "shh" or something so as not to embarrass me and/or whoever was shirtless when he distracted me by saying, "He said, 'I know.'" So, my kid saw one of our neighbors without a shirt and decided to call out to whoever it was to tell the poor guy about his apparent wardrobe deficiency.
  

• One morning, Tyce was suggesting--not unusually for him--to Nathan that they do something that I had just said they shouldn't. When I said "What?" in my mostly-joking-you're-in-trouble-tone, Nathan responded, "Smile and wave, boys. Just smile and wave" in a very good imitation of the head penguin from the movie Madagascar. I love movie quotes myself so I thought it absolutely wonderful that not only could he imitate the penguin so well but that he could also apply the quote to the right sort of situation.

• Nathan and I were talking and I asked him if he knew that I loved him. He responded, "Jesus made me." I answered, "yes, He did." Then I asked Nathan if he knew that Jesus made it so that we could all live together forever. He didn't answer so I said, "That's why we have to be nice to each other so that we want to be together forever." Nathan said, "Yes...Jesus made me." Feeling like I wasn't quite getting through with my little teaching moment, I simply said, "Thank you, Jesus." Nathan quickly answered, "He's not here." I said, "You're right. He's not in this room right now, but did you know that he can always hear us?" Thinking about this only for a second, Nathan leaned down and peered into the ventilation grate and said, "Jesus? You in there?"