But, I’ve been keeping score of all the incredibly adorable and hilarious things this boy has been saying and can’t WAIT to share. These are always my favorite memories:
One Sunday, we had the Missionaries from our church over to dinner. Right as we began to eat our dinner, Tanner tells everyone, “Sometimes my mom says bad words!”
And just as a disclaimer, by bad words, he means words he isn’t allowed to say – like “BORING” (I hate it when he uses that word – all.the.time! – so I’m encouraging him to expand his vocab & be more creative if he’s going to criticize) and “STUPID.” And yes, I hate that word too, but he still catches me in the act. I LOVE how kids never act like they’re listening, but the minute we have a friend over or I don’t follow the prescribed “rules,” Tanner is the first to let us all know.
Another time, we were having a group of friends over for some basketball. As Tanner greets them at the door, he confesses to them all, “Our house was a MESS before you got here!!”
Love how kids share all your dirty secrets!
When morning after returning home from vacation, I was rolling out of bed and was greeted by Tanner:
“Mom, I’m grumpy at you! You forgot to take the trash out. Now the garbage truck is going PAST our house. You didn’t make a GOOD decision!” {don’t-cha love it when ALL my words come back at me}
The kid was on a rant and was practically in tears– and all I could say was to wait for him to talk to his dad about it cause that’s his dad’s responsibility [and while we don’t have any other gender defined roles in this house, that is one I’m fine with keeping]. Can you tell OCD runs in the family? At least he does us the honor of vocalizing all of his concerns…
We never have any pop in our house. But when we invite friends over, we always seem to serve it. Anthony especially is always a fan of all the fancy root beers. Anyhow, one morning, Katelynn was getting a sip from some of the previous’ night’s leftovers. Tanner immediately started freaking out, “Oh no, you’re drinking our friends juice! Now they won’t have any!!”
Funny cause it brings back memories of living in Dallas and Tanner always referring to Uncle Kenneth’s Mountain Dew in the fridge as “Kenneth’s Juice!” He just knew that he wasn’t allowed to have any…and that’s never been a problem cause he hates carbonation and refuses to drink it. Fine with me!!
Lately, Tanner has been on a Transformer fix. One morning, he woke up and in all seriousness, asked, “Do we have a Transformer robot protecting our house?” How do you respond to that? Any answer would result is serious disappointment.
One morning, Tanner woke up just as Anthony was leaving for work. Usually he insists of being fed immediately, but this morning was different. He curled himself up next to me and began to cuddle. He started gently rubbing my back and said “Mom, I’ve giving you my energy!” Oh man, if only it worked!!
As we heard the garage door shutting, he reassured me, “Don’t worry Mom. I’ll protect you so you don’t have to be scared when you’re by yourself!” Now it that ain’t love, I don’t know what is! Seriously, I just want to keep him this CUTE forever!!
For church on Sunday, we let Tanner back a few toys he can play with quietly. During the week, he was looking for one of his toys, and after searching everyone, we remembered it was in his backpack…and he had left his backpack at church. He immediately wanted to go to church to get his backpack, but I explained that the doors were locked and we’d have to wait for it to open. He response, “I know. We’ll ask President Monson [the Prophet of our Church] – he has ALL the KEYs to the church!”
Yes, he has all the PRIESTHOOD KEYS to lead/guide the church and act as a seer/revelator/prophet, but not keys to every single church building! And yes, let’s just call him right now…
I always wonder what goes through kids head when we teach about the Gospel. I personally think kids comprehend and understand spiritual matters so much better than adults-- it’s just natural to them and the scriptures oftentimes refer to “becoming as a child” as we learn. But then there’s those times where not all the dots connect. One night before bed, Tanner said a prayer and “hoped people would keep the commandments and not lose them.” And on another occasion, was telling us the story of Nephi and his brothers returning to Jerusalem to get the Gold Plates from the Book of Mormon– and explained how they needed plates so they could eat dinner in the wilderness.
Anthony and I were getting ready to go to the Temple – and Tanner was very concerned about where we were going –without him. I explained to him that we were going to the temple, and of course he wanted to come with. I continued to explain that one day, when he got older, he could get married in the temple, and have his own family, his own house, and yes, even kids. And if he wanted, he could go to the temple to remember the sacred promises we made when we got married. As I was telling him them, he sat quietly, pondering and thinking. Then he responded, “No, I always want to live with you Mommy, but I want my own car!” Maybe Freud was onto something...
And yes, this is just one of the many reasons we just absolutely adore our Tanners around here!
