Recently, Jude has been ding any of the following:

• dressing in costume,
• playing with his stuffed animals,
• playing DS,
• playing action figures,
• playing lightsabers,
  
• drawing,
• writing his letters,
• usign fridge magnets to try to make words (which often requires our help--"How do you spell 'Spiderman'?"), or
• any combination of the above.

The other day I found one of Jude's notebooks on the living room floor with some letters on it: "B,A,N,D, and W" in very large print, and on the next line, "I,D,T, and H".  I thought nothing much of it until I set the table the next day with Chris and I turned off his podcast--I cannot handle background noise.  Here's what he said:

So Jude came in while I was cooking and Jude came up to me.  "Daddy," he said, "How do you spell 'Bandwidth'?"

"Where did you hear that word buddy?" I asked him.

He pointed to my iPod.

(It was a TWiT.TV podcast.)

Jude: Mom, Dad, home come you never take me to visit my old school?
Me (always teasing): Because it's filled with fishes.
Jude: No it isn't.
Me: Okay, I'm just kidding. It's filled with ice cream and hot fudge.
Jude (getting upset): No, Mom, it is not. It is filled with cereal and lunch and learning!

I was knee-deep in laundry.  Karenna had to eat a late dinner after ballet, so I kept her company.  Chris said he was going to put away some laundry.  There was a basket of his clothes and a basket of kids' laundry

At this point I must admit to being a recovering control-freak.  Or I'd like to think of myself as one, anyway.  There are still some things I can't let go.  And when I try to tell Chris he needs let go, he can zero in exactly which things of which I haven't been able to relinquish my control.  Like picking home decor.  Or putting away the kids' laundry (I have a system; I need to be able to find things.)

So as Chris started to walk away with a basket I said in terror, "Noooo! You're not going to put away the kids' laundry!"

He pretended to act innocent but had a devilish grin on his face and said, "But I'm helping you,"  then scampered off.  I could see a basked in his hand.  I tried calling to him, but it was futile.  I was torn between leaving my daughter to eat he dinner without someone to talk to and stopping him from this heresy.

Of course I chose quality time with my daughter, but sensing the disturbed look on my face, Karenna put her little hand on mine, looked me in the eye and said, "You know he's only kidding you, right?"

(He took his own basket back and left the kids' basket for me, just like I like it.)

• Fat Cat: borrowed from Karenna, a plump cat stuffed animal, of course
  
• Blue Bear: a blue teddy bear, obviously
  
• Harry Potter and the Half Blood of the Prince Yoshi Warrior Wario Bowser: his favorite, a stuffed pastel yellow and blue horse
• Horse-Horse: his most recent interest, a baby-blue duck
  

And then there are the ones we pause when he wakes up from nap, like Heroes...

Jude: What are you watching?
Me: A scary show. It's paused now.
Jude (authoritatively): Are you watching Scary Heroes again?
Me: Yes. But I paused it now that you are awake and it's off now so we can watch one of your shows...
Jude (noticing his favorite stuffed animal, a stuffed horse with a very long name): Is that my Harry Potter and the Half Blood of the Prince Yoshi Warrior Wario Bowser?

[According to Jude, Harry Potter and the Half Blood of the Prince Yoshi Warrior Wario Bowser, or Harry Potter for short is five years old and no longer takes naps, so he does not always end up in Jude's bed during nap time.   He does, however, go with him just about everywhere else, including the dinner table and to bed at night.]

Me: Oh... Yes it is.
Jude: He's only five! He's not allowed to watch Scary Heroes.  He will have nightmares now!  (Breathing heavy and sounding frustrated as he looks me in the eyes before walking away.) I am so disappointed in you, Mom.

This year Jude wanted X-Men for Halloween, so Karenna picked Rogue, while Jude and I worked on a two-sided pumpkin with Wolverine and Cyclops on it...

He began to ask questions about death and Heaven.  (The last time we was interested in Heaven before was when he was when he played with our Nativity set and decided that Jesus was the most powerful superhero.)  I began to explain about Heaven and how everyone would be up there with God.

At that point, his eyes got big and round, and his voice--which sounds less and less like a preschooler and more like a big kid--got outraged as he shouted, "Wait... God's dead?!?"

Later at bedtime, he asked more questions about Heaven.

"Where is Heaven?" he asked.

"I don't know."

"What does Heaven look like?"

"I don't know," I told him, "I've never been there."

"Can you show it to me on your computer?"

Naturally he was overwhelmed with the task, so I came in and helped by telling him how to break it down: first, picking up costumes; then, toy tools; then action figures; etc.  Karenna just watched and echoed her "half-a-mommy" routine.

It took a lot of prodding...

Sometimes, he'd forget he was cleaning and play with each toy.  (That's the kid curse: "May you get what you are." Chris was someone who had to play with every item every time I helped him move to a new place. Now Chris's punishment is to see things through my eyes watching Jude do it.) 

Sometimes, he'd argue. "How many more times do I have to clean my room anyway?" I gotta tell you kid, it doesn't stop. It doesn't get easier when you get older, either; you just get a bigger place to clean--and maybe a few small whiny minions to help you clean it. Mwahahaha!!!!

Sometimes, he'd fake an ailment. "I'm sick. My head is really hurting me bad."

"Oh," I'd say feigning concern even more deftly than he could feign sickness, "Well, maybe when you are done cleaning you can go to bed early."  Mwahahaha!!!!

"No," he'd fake a cry with crocodile tears, "I think I need purple medicine."

"The only thing that fixes a headache is rest," I insisted, "so let's hurry up and clean so you can get rested."

"I don't think it's a headache," he whines as he lowers his hand from his head and begins to clutch his stomach as if someone shot him there, "My stomach hurts!"

"Well, I think you really need to go to bed then!" Gotcha!  With that he was reduced to a few complaints about cleaning for a few minutes before the whining resurfaced...

"When are we going to be done cleaning already?" he whined.

Enter Karenna's melodrama, "Ugh! Jude, I am sick of your whining!"

"Karenna, if you're sick you have to go to bed early." Jude told her in his best "half-a-daddy".

"No, I mean you're giving me a headache..."

"Karenna, if you have a headache, you..." (Well, you get the picture from there.)

I tried to round her up from outside play to get her costume and make up and she complained, or rather overacted, "Oh, the torture!"

As I tried to make up her face, she kept up the accusations of torture, alternately looking into the mirror and expressing her dissatisfaction by proclaiming, "I look like a duck."  (I'm not quite sure why she thinks ducks where make-up and to be honest, I forgot to ask.)

Further into my torture techniques, I decided to add a bit of my black eyeliner, so that her eyes could be seen from farther away, and used some steel blue eye color with the eyeliner brush over top of it to lighten it. Apparently, this is what finally broke my subject:

She looked int to the mirror, and in her best imitation of an outraged teenager, told me, "You made me look like I'm from the 70s!"

Where does a five-year-old learn about 70s blue eye shadow anyway?

Later this week...

Me: You know I could still trade you in on a monkey if you don't listen.
Karenna: And I could trade you in a gorilla!

I figured that it had to be Jude.

Typically if someone gets out of bed and comes to the living rooms, it's Jude coming to ask why he still has to sleep, how many more times in his life he has to sleep, or if I will come back to his room with him.

Nope. Karenna came out, walked right past me and down the first set up steps on our split entry.  Then I realized she opened our front door.

"What are you doing?" I asked her.

"I have to go to the bathroom," she told me.

"That's not the bathroom." I realized she was sleepwalking right out my front door.

After I got her safely back to her room, I settled into my room and found a battery on the floor.

I picked it up and found teeth-marks, "Jude!"