The Imagination of Children

 

My kids both have very active imaginations and therefore it's free entertainment for me to sip my tea and just watch whatever their getting into next. Any piece of paper can be a map, menu, or whatever is needed for the given scenario. Any toy can become the long lost treasure of an intrepid group of adventurers. It's just amazing to see these kids growing up into the next level of childhood. 

Text:
Title: The Imagination of Children
O: I NEED TO GO!!!
R: Where?
L: ?
O: To South America! To find blue unicorns.

DOTA2 Necrophos in Winter

 

In the game DOTA2, this character has many rather visceral phrases but when he says "raging contagion" I always think of toddlers toddling along with all their germs. 

Text:
Title: DOTA2: A Day in the Life - Necrophos
N: Raging contagion!
A: *sneeze*
O: *sniffle*

Toddlers, Part 1

 

This week, I'm gonna share some things my toddler has been saying because wow, it's wild how a two-year-old processes the world. Today focuses on a conversation/argument my kids had that was basically this but everything repeated a bunch of times. And it was in the car. It was equal parts amusing and frustrating, and nothing substantial was ever said.

Text:
O: Why? WHY??
R: Why what?
O: Yes and no, yes AND no. 

Toddler Sickness Teamup

 

Thankfully, at the time of scheduling (unlike at the time of writing), my house is free of colds. Let's hope that's still true when this comic is live. I would say free of sickness but that's not really true ever if you have young kids. 

Text:
A: Has Robin fought off her cold?
L: No, the little traitor joined forces with it, *sniffle* conscripted her brother, *cough* and is waging war on our household. *SNEEZE*

Gift From Children

Happy Father's Day! I hope your kids got you a good gift, not something viral. 

Text:
A: You should do something to get rid of your lingering cold.
M: But *sniffle* it was a gift *sneeze* from my children *COUGH cough COUGH*

Monster Trucks and Toddlers

 

That's fair. 

Text:
L: We could take the kids to a monster truck rally.
M: Aren't those extremely loud?
L: So are the kids.
R: ROAR!
O: rawr!

Carson and Family

 

My brother came up with this one when I was telling him about these kid-sized chairs I got for free but they had names embroidered on them (one of which was Carson) so I put some iron-on patches over the names and presto no more not-my-kid's-names! They looks really nice, the butterfly chair and the dino chair. 

Explanation: Carson is a normal name but also a compound word of vehicle (car) plus child (son). Another name that could follow this pattern would be Traindaughter (and Planechild in the mouseover).

Text:
A: These are my kids, Carson and Traindaughter.
B: *silent confusion*
C+T: *silent resignation* 

Toddler Communication

 

Many times I (and others) can't understand what my darling toddler is saying. Sometimes, like in this comic, she is helpful and gives context clues and additional noises to help make the connection. But most times she just says the same sounds and I'm like, I haven't a clue what "eesh" means so can you point or give a few more clues? It's like playing Mad Gab with someone who just says the words the same exact way over and over and gets frustrated when you don't get it. 

I just remembered that Robin started off calling dogs "woof woofs" because that's easier than the real word, and later progressed to calling them "goggies," so when her friend couldn't understand her newer word she just fell back on her previous one. Hmmmm. Or maybe she just did the sound. It's hard to really know. But the interaction was quite funny because her friend has excellent diction in three languages but apparently doesn't understand toddler English, which is all Robin has. 

Text:
R: Goggy!
N: What is a goggy?
R: ... woof woof. 

Green Sleeves Repost

 

A repost from Dec 18, 2016.There were a few years (2015-2017) when I used a whiteboard instead of drawing my comics. Before this, I would draw (on paper! with pencil then pen!) and scan in and crop each image and it was tedious but I do like physically drawing things. After the whiteboard era, I went digital. It's much simpler and I like how it looks, even if it doesn't have all the feeling of a hand-drawn comic. But I still hand-draw cards when the need arises. 

Explanation: The Christmas song "What Child Is This?" uses the tune "Greensleeves." 

Text:
A: The kid with the green sleeves lost his nametag.
B: What child is this?

Swallow

 

Both of my kiddos are droolers but for the baby that's normal - the toddler needs reminders to close her mouth and swallow. 

Explanation: "Swallow" is a type of bird and also an action where you keep the spit from falling out of your mouth and dripping on people, places, and things.

Text:
A: Do you still call your daughter Robin?
L: Well, nowadays we usually call her Swallow.

Queenly Children

 

"Go get your brothers Peter and Eustice." 

Explanation: In the Chronicles of Narnia, Lucy is one of the protagonists while Jadis is a main antagonist. Please read "The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe" - it is an excellent book.

Text:
A: How dare you insinuate that I have a favorite child??? They are both queens!!! Lucy and Jadis, we are leaving! ... why are you always fighting?

And They Never Learned Each Other's Names

 

So I confess that there was a guy in my previous neighborhood who had a dog names Jasper (like one of the foundations of the New Jerusalem, per the owner) and every time I saw them walking I always remembered the dog's name but totally forgot the owner's name. For whatever reason, it can be easier to remember cute kid's and pet's names but adult's names just go in one ear and out the other. 

Text:
Title: And They Never Learned Each Other's Names
M: This is Zoey. (walking a dog)
L: Aw, this is Lucy! (holding hand of toddler)

Lucy vs Susan

 

In the Chronicles of Narnia, the character Susan is known as Susan the Gentle whereas her sister Lucy is named Lucy the Valiant. My toddler is constantly being reminded that she needs to be gentle whether that's when she's throwing things or swinging her arms about or (sadly still) biting because she's either irritated or overjoyed or like bored, I don't even know what's going through her head sometimes. I am reminded of a meme I saw which had a huge book with the text "Chronicles of Narnia as Lewis wrote them" then next to it a thin book with the text "Chronicles of Narnia if they gave Lucy a sword." In the books, Lucy is given a dagger whereas her siblings get swords and archery equipment. 

Text:
L1: Lucy, you need to be gentle.
L2: Well, you didn't name me Susan!

ATTENTION

 

Sometimes all you need is some attention. Many times when my toddler is whining, my husband will ask her what she needs and I will reply that she needs love and attention. Seriously though, many times my child just wants me to focus on her, which is fine if I'm not in the middle of like cooking dinner or counting stitches with crochet (which is why I don't usually crochet when she's around - also she likes to grab the yarn and that's frustrating). 

Text:
A2: ATTENTION! ATTENTION!!
A: Yes?
A2: I just want attention.

Wise Choices

This question is asked many times every day in my household. My darling has started shaking her head 'no' when appropriate and it's kinda cute. So many situations apply - it's too long of a list to even start so I won't.  

Text:
L: Are you making wise choices?
L2: *shakes head no*

Let Me Tell You a Tale

 I thought this one up when family was visiting and I kept hearing the children closing doors and I was having flashbacks to an incident involving a door, my little toddler finger, and my first Emergency Room visit. There thankfully were no incidents while my relatives were visiting, but there was stress. 

Text:
L: Gather 'round, children, let me tell you a tale titled "this is why you are stressing me out."
Four Children: *silence*

Happy Little Dinosaur

 

My husband got me a cute game for Christmas called Happy Little Dinosaurs and it's fun to play, with great artwork. It can be rather cut-throat, so maybe don't play with highly competitive people. I have the main dino on a shirt and I got a coordinating one for my husband as well. 

Text:
M: Are you my Happy Little Dinosaur?
L: I am not happy, little, or a dinosaur!

Overheard at Food Trucks

 Our local firehouse does Food Truck Fridays during the not winter (April to November), and it's excellent - usually around six to ten trucks line up in the firehouse's parking lot and the firehouse opens their main hall for seating. You get use to the regular trucks and it's always exciting when a new one shows up! But the regulars are good, too. And many have dessert so that's super tasty! I look forward to the trucks returning next year. 

Text:
Title: Overheard at Food Trucks
Child: Are there chicken nuggets in there?!
Parent: It's falafel, dear.

Parental Stressors

 

This might be a direct quote from a sibling conversation about an upcoming vacation. I don't remember what the topic was, might have been movie selection or day trips. I mean, if you can't avoid something, why not cause it? I'm reminded of a scene from a time-travel show (spoiler - it's this one) where a character postulates that if an extinction level event (i.e. a fixed point that cannot change) is about to happen, it doesn't matter what you do right before it since everything is still going to be wiped out (outcome remains the same). Also, there are a lot of time travel shows currently. It seems Marvel has realized their best storylines are all complete so they're going back and revisiting them via time travel. At least they aren't like X-Men and just redoing their movies via Origin Stories? There was a non-superhero time travel tv show called Timeless that I liked - very nice wardrobe and decent acting but the storyline was a little confusing since they got cancelled at least twice and then surprise renewed. I don't know if we actually watched the whole thing - we might have dropped off after one of the cancelations. 

Text:
N: Mom's gonna flip if we do that.
S: Mom's gonna flip anyways.
L: Can't prevent it - might as well cause it.

Degeneration

 

Oh those youths. This is in honor of those doing their senior project, I feel like they could be the next generation but I honestly don't know where those breaks are. According to Wikipedia, yeah the generation following mine would include current college seniors (and high school ones too). Good luck anyways on your senior projects! I'm a Millennial (not to be confused with amillennial), which apparently has two 'n's in it. Who knew, not me. I should remake this comic. Ok, it's good now. I feel every generation thinks the following one is the Degeneration. Talking about the next generation has me thinking about Star Trek. Post-Millennials is referencing a belief about the end times timeline - there are many strong opinions on when the Millennium will happen and I'm still surprised that there's two 'n's in there. 

Text:
M: What do you call the generation after us? Are they Post-Millennials?
L: Degeneration.