"Kids!"

The weekend after Christmas, Aaron and Madeline went out to play in the snow. We only got a very little accumulation in our yard, but they used every snowflake to roll up a sweet mini-snowman. Maddie came running in asking for a carrot, then a little later she needed buttons for eyes (we ended up using bottle caps), then she needed a hat. I watched out of the kitchen window as they put together a very cute little snowman, who was finally dubbed "Junior." You can watch the video to see poor Junior's fate. He was violently knocked over and his carrot nose was planted victoriously like a flag into his....."bottom." Madeline thought this was hilarious and asked to watch the video many times.

The other day she declared that she had made a "carrot snowman butt ball." Her favorite word is butt, or any variation of bottom, booty, pooty, stinkerbutt...etc. She is quite silly. But the funniest part is that, at the end of the video Aaron says "Kids." Like, "oh brother...kids, nothin' like 'em." Or an exasperated..."kids, good grief." And now Maddie is saying "Kids" in that same tone.

Most of the time she uses it where we would say "Dang" or "Oh shit!" Sometimes she gets the meaning and usage just right, like this morning at breakfast when Lucy was playing the part of Godzilla on the breakfast table, rampaging through breakfast town, knocking over cups and bowls of cereal. She looked at Lucy, rolled her eyes, and said "Kids."