Boy Detective: I don’t mind my room being messy. Me: Oh yeah? Boy Detective: Yeah, ’cause then I can find things. I wander around saying “Oh where is that thing?” and then I step on it and I found it!

Me: Your teacher said you never do any jiu-jitsu at school. Boy Detective: That’s not really true. There was this one time, on the playground, I tried to cross-choke a tree?

Me: I’m going to vacuum now. Boy Detective: I laugh in the face of danger!

Boy Detective: Does everything rhyme? Me: Are you asking whether every word has something that rhymes with it? Boy Detective: Yes. Me: I don’t know. I would imagine there could be a few words that don’t have a rhyme, but not many. C-Man: I bet it’s hard to rhyme Quetzalcoatl. Me: I was excluding names and scientific terms from that… Read more »

Boy Detective: If I had to go without pizza, or go without you, I would probably go without pizza so I could be with you. Me: “Probably.” But you haven’t quite decided yet. Boy Detective: Here’s the more reassuring thing! That situation will probably never happen.

I’m not sure he quite gets how this trick is supposed to work… Boy Detective: You love me, right? Me: Yes. Boy Detective: And you like me, right? Me: Right. Boy Detective: And you’re eating right now, right? Me: Right. Boy Detective: Give me a dollar. Me: No. Boy Detective (aggrieved): Awwwww, man! Me: Nice try, though. Thanks to C-Man… Read more »

Overheard from the front seat, where I was driving along minding my own business… and only Boy Detective was in the back. Or so I thought. Boy Detective: You can’t just say you want to invent something and have it happen. It takes lots and lots of stuff. Fortune Wookiee: HGNRL! Boy Detective, skeptical: How could you make a magic… Read more »

Me: “What’s wrong with your throat?” Boy Detective: “Nothing. I was testing a new choke on myself. It seemed pretty effective so I stopped.”

Me: Now he’s playing an accordion in his room [instead of going to sleep]! C-Man: A xylophone, but yes. Me: That’s what I meant. I think someone wears me out… but at least we have similar taste in accessories. And apparently he holds still for pictures better than I do!

Me: It’s so interesting to me that you always want breakfast right away when you get up, these days. Boy Detective: What do you mean? Me: Remember how you never used to be hungry first thing in the morning? It took you quite a while to be ready for breakfast. So you’d go off and build Legos or whatever? Boy… Read more »