Crumpled Home

(at the dinner table)

Dad: So what happened at your school today, RJ?

RJ: I took my whip scorpion into school and showed it to everybody.

Dad: Great! Did you teach the class all about them?

RJ: Yep! But it was terrible. No one asked any questions! … except for Harry.

Dad: What did he ask?

RJ: He asked if whip scorpions lived in England and I told him, “NO! They only live in Perth. There are lots of them and live in the roof of your house.”

We’re expecting the phone calls from the other parents to start any day now…

Your child is having nightmares about giant insects living in your roof?

What a surprise!”

(over breakfast)

LR: Hey! Why is there peanut butter in my dice cup?

Dad: Did you squeeze the dice too hard? The peanut butter might have squished out the edges.

LR: (sighing) No, Dad. I don’t think so.

RJ: Those dice are from peanut town! Everything is made from peanuts there. Houses. Clothes. Trees. The cars.

Dad: Anything else?

RJ: Yes, everything… (horrified) Even the breakfast cereal.

Something that comes up from time to time is RJ’s previous life. It almost always starts out with, “When I was a little kid…” and describes a time “before he came to live with our family.” Apparently he lived only with his grandma, because everyone else in the family died. Today, I discovered a little more…

(over breakfast)

RJ: When I was a little kid… I got stabbed.

Dad: Stabbed? You mean before you came to live with us?

RJ: Yeah. When I was living with my grandma… in Malaysia.

Dad: Malaysia? Okay… How did it happen?

RJ: I was playing with a pen and I stabbed my knee. I still have a little sore on my knee from it. See?

Dad: And that’s also why there’s ink all over your knee right now?

RJ: Yeah.

Dad: Strange that I’ve never noticed that before.

RJ: Yeah.

(in the car on the way to school)

Dad: (starting an imagination game) So you two head down to the park one day and there’s something strange there that you’ve never seen before.

RJ and LR discuss exploring it, identifying that it’s an alien rocket ship, and finding the door.

Dad: You can’t find a door handle on the outside.

LR: So we run home and get some saws and come back.

RJ: And we grab an axe too!

LR and RJ: And we SMASH and CHOP the door open and run inside and steal the spaceship and fly it home!!!

(An unfortunately chirpy RJ appears at the counter ready for breakfast, with a dinosaur entourage.)

Dad: (blearily rubbing eyes) What is this? RJ and the breakfast full of dinosaurs?… Okay, what do you want to eat?

RJ: This dinosaur wants flies. You’d better get to work; they’re hard to catch and he needs a lot of them.

Dad: Okay. I’ll see what I can do. How about the others?

RJ: Meat. Lots of meat.

Dad: And you?

RJ: Just rice bubbles…

(half an hour later, RJ wanders past, arms still full of dinosaurs)

Dad: RJ, wouldn’t it be easier to carry them in something? A bag or a basket or something?

RJ: (yelling back) No! I don’t need to. They all get around on rocket boosters.

Dad: Wow! That’s so cool. Dinosaurs with rocket boosters.

RJ: No. It’s not really great, because they don’t have legs. That’s why they had the rocket boosters put on.

(while eating breakfast)

LR & RJ: (singing) Five little ducks went out one day,
Over the hills and far away…
Mother duck said, ‘Quack, quack, quack, quack,’
But only four little ducks came back…

LR & RJ: Four little ducks went…

LR & RJ: Three little ducks…

LR & RJ: Two little…

LR & RJ: One…

LR & RJ: No little ducks went out one day,
Over the hills and far away…
Mother duck said, ‘Quack, quack, quack, quack,’
But only a fat little snake came back…

LR: It was listening for the quacking noises.

RJ: And it ate ALL of them, even the mother.

On the weekend, some friends came over to play and brought a whole lot of lego with them. RJ spent a fair bit of time working on his building — carefully selecting pieces, refining the structure, musing over the benefits of different door designs…

After twenty minutes of hard work, he ended up with this: “The Head Chopping Off Building.”

Off with their heads!!!!

RJ: The visitor is wearing a helmet, but he’s still scared. It might not protect him….

Apparently he’s been paying a lot of attention to those documentaries on human migration, especially regarding the headhunter tribes in Indonesia.

RJ: I want some medicine too!

Dad: What’s that RJ? Medicine?

RJ: Yeah. I want some deer medicine too.

Dad: Do you mean… venison?

RJ: YEAH!

(Looking at LR’s new learning-to-draw book)

LR: That werewolf is really scary, daddy. I don’t like it.

Dad: Yeah, they made him pretty freaky looking.

RJ: I love werewolves. I like it when they hide.

Dad: Have you seen them hiding around here?

RJ: Yes. In the… in the kitchen.

Dad: In the kitchen?

RJ: Well they use their magic and turn into a tortoise, or vegetables, or magnets, or a picture… and… and…

Dad: Yeah?

RJ: (whispering) One time I saw him turn into a fridge.

(Over the weekend, I introduced the kids to some Monty Python sketches, which RJ really seemed to enjoy. This may not have been a good idea…)

Dad: What do you want in your sandwiches, guys?

RJ: Toasty cheese!

LR: Ham, Cheese and tomato, please!

Dad: Okay. Toasty cheese for RJ. And for LR, ham, cheese, tomato and spam… without the spam in it.

LR: No spam! Stop talking about spam!

RJ: Spam! I love spam! I’m having spam, spam, spam, spam, spam, spam…

LR: (yelling, upset) BUT I DON’T LIKE SPAM!

RJ: (yelling, ecstatic)… spam, spam, spam, spam. Spammity spam! Wonderful Spam!

Dad & RJ: (yelling together) SHUT UP YOU VIKINGS!

LR & Mum: Please stop now? Please?