“Finest lip-smackin’ breakfast ever, man.”

Mom, do you wish you were still a kid so you could fit in here and play?

Yeah.

Look what I made at school!

What is it?

A snack necklace! Can I show you how it works? I need some yogurt covered raisins…

Mom, why does that guy have his [car] window open?

Looks like he is delivering newspapers.

Newspaper? Hahaha mommy, it’s not newspaper!! It’s noosepaper!

Noose? Like, a noose? (Which I’m sure he doesn’t know what one is.) Doesn’t the newspaper have news in it?

Yeah! Noose. Noosepaper. News. (He continues to laugh and shake his head, saying neeews…)

Joseph came home from school with a 3 page note from his teacher:

Joseph: I’ve got bad news.
Miss Cyndy: You do? What is it?
Joseph: The land is going to fall off of the physical cliff. It is almost ready to happen!
Miss Cyndy: Where did you hear that?
Joseph: On the radio, a man said it and he said it was pouring rain, too.
Miss Cyndy: What will happen?
Joseph: The people that live on the cliff will all die! They need to move away, they need to leave!
Miss Cyndy: Joseph, I don’t want you to be worrying about people falling off of a cliff. The fiscal cliff you heard the man talking about is not a place where people live. He was talking about the USA budget, he was talking about the government working on making a plan to balance the budget–the money the government uses to make the government work. It spends money and collects money to run the country. He was not talking about people that were going to fall of of a cliff and die. OK?
Joseph: Oh, OK. The people are all ok?
Miss Cyndy: Yes.

J: On the first day if Christmas my true love gave to me…a partrichin pear treeeee…

Me: A what?

J: Partrichin pear tree.

Me: What is that? You mean a partridge in a pear tree?

J: Partridge?! Haaaha. Nooo. A partrichin pear tree, silly. It’s a kind of pear tree…

(I play it via YouTube.)

J: See!!

Mom, you should not drink in big gulps!

Why not? Who said that?

My teacher said. If you drink in a big gulp it will hurt the…the, tubes, inside your body.

The tubes?

Yes! Your testicles. It will hurt your testicles!

I talked to Joseph about what being homeless means then told him about the NYC cop who bought a homeless man shoes… “…so the policeman went to the shoe store and bought some boots, then gave them to the homeless man. Wasn’t that nice?”

“Why didn’t he buy him a house?”

Mom when you dial 911, will the police come?

Yes but you can’t play around, you would get in trouble for that. You only dial it in a real emergency. But kids are allowed to dial it so if you are at grandma’s, for example and… (trying to think of something not too morbid or scary..)

She falls?

Yes! Say she falls and breaks her leg or hits her head, you could call 911 then, that’s ok.

Mom, will you be home on grandma days?

Well, sometimes, but not all of them. But if I’m not, you can dial it, it’s allowed if it’s an emergency.

I know. It’s just that I will need you home so you can tell me what a 9 is.

Watching a Macy’s Day Parade broadway dance number…

“You need a lot of sugar to do that!”