Decisions are hard

Laura: "You know, I panic when there are decisions and stuff."

Drugs R Us

[After I observed that Jason looked pretty happy after getting his pain medication in the hospital:]
Laura: "I know. I was asking for the 'Family Plan' when he was getting morphine."

On and on...

[After repeatedly swatting her hand away for tickling me:]
Laura: "Its the hand that keeps on tickling."

Get up on the count of...

[On a sleepy morning]
Laura: On the count of 403, everyone get out of bed.

Yummy rubber bands

Brianna (waving a rubber band in front of Jason): "Jason, no eat this."
Laura: "Well, don't give it to him then. That's the first step in Jason not eating it."

Two wrongs make a right?

Laura: I think you're incorrectly wrong.
Jack: Does that mean I'm right?
Laura: It means I'm going to punch you.

A musical phone company

[While listening to Pachelbel's Canon in D]

Jack: Do you know this composer?
Laura: No.
Jack: It's Pachelbel.
Laura: Pac Bell?

Name that composer

[While listening to Bach's "Sheep may safely graze"]

Jack: Can you name that composer?
Laura: Uh, Gershwin.....Bach.....von Something?
Jack: "von Something?"
Laura: Am I right?
Jack: [laughing]
Laura: Don't just laugh. Am I right?
Jack: It's Bach.
Laura: So I was right.
Jack: But his first name is not Gershwin.
Laura: I know. It's Johannesburg.

Surgeon Envy

Laura, after observing how people responded immediately to a surgeon's
orders: "Those surgeons! That has got to be cool! I mean ... except
for the surgical part of it."

As I hurried to write that quote down, she added: "I'm going to have to send you to the ICU!"

Laura's favorite threats

Laura is a sweet woman, but she doesn't take flack from anyone and she compensates for her small size with bold threats, which are all the more humorous given her lack of ability to enforce them. One of her favorite threats is:

Laura: "Don't make me come over there!"

The above threat is often used even when she is standing (or lying) right next to me.

She said this so often that I used it once myself to find out what her response would be:

Jack: "Don't make me come over there."
Laura: "Bring it on!"

So naturally, the next time she repeated her favorite threat I used her response:

Laura: "Don't make me come over there!"
Jack: "Bring it on."
Laura: "You don't want none of this!"

To fully appreciate the exchange you have to imagine 5-foot little Laura with a hand on her hip, and fire in her eyes, and me looking down bemusedly from my 6-foot-2, 200-pound frame wondering if she really thought she was fooling anyone. It took me a while to get the next response in the sequence, but here it is:

Jack: "Don't make me come over there."
Laura: "Bring it on!"
Jack: "You don't want none of this."
Laura: "You can't handle any of this!"

Alas, she has caught on to my secret plan of baiting her and so I'm afraid that I won't be able to extend this particular exchange.

Just to be clear, these exchanges are all in jest. If she's really mad at me, she just says "Bite me" or if I'm really bad, "You're a butt." But I've learned that it's usually best to let her win the argument. She'll usually conclude each argument anyway with the final sounding:

Laura: "Yeah, just as I thought."

No matter what I say.

Sleep, baby, sleep!

[In the middle of the night, while holding our 1-week old adopted boy Jason, I overheard Laura tell Jason this:]
Laura: "Don't go looking all wide-eyed. 'Cause 'round here everyone sleeps at night. No exceptions. No matter how cute you are."

[ When I got out of bed to write that down so I could post it later, Laura whispered to Jason:]
Laura: "You're allowed to spit up on him later."

[When I wrote *that* down, Laura responded to me with:]
Laura: "Don't make me shake him up and point him your way!"

A coffee habit

[Sometimes my wife jokingly suggests that I get a second or third job. If we eat at McDonalds and she sees a "Help Wanted" sign she'll point at the sign, click her tongue and say "Jaaaaaack". One time I questioned her on this...]
Jack: "Why do I need a second job? So you can support your coffee habit?"
Laura: "It's not as habitual as I'd like it to be."

It always comes back to one thing...

[While I was rushing off to write down yet another funny saying:]
Laura: "From now on I'm not going to say funny things. I'm just going to thump you."

In case I might forget...

Laura: "Remind me to whack you later."

Because one threat wasn't enough

[Laura hates being tickled, but that doesn't stop her from tickling me. One time, after returning her tickles with some of my own:]
Laura: "Don't make me break your arm right off. And then beat you with it!"

I need to stay up for how long?!

[After cajoling me out of bed in the morning:]
Laura: "Once you get out of bed, you can't go back. For 24 hours."

Like Mother, Like Daughter

[After Jack observed that 3-year old Brianna is a lot like her mother: cute, stubborn, and likes to make up all the rules.]
Jack: "It will be fun to watch you two deal with each other."
Laura: "Brianna, go follow Dad. And give him a hard time."

A quick comeback

Jack (pleased that he could use one of Laura's favorite sayings against her): "I take back all those bad things I was saying about you."
Laura (without missing a beat): "I wouldn't just yet."

"Cute" goes a long way

Jack: "It's a good thing you're cute. Cause you get away with a lot!"
Laura: "It's a good thing you're a pushover."

Pillow talk

[Lying in bed one night, just before going to sleep...]
Laura: "Did you close the gate at the top of the stairs?"
Jack: "No, but Brianna never gets up in the middle of the night."
[Pause]
Jack: "Did you want me to close it?"
Laura: "No, that's okay...If I can't fall asleep and it's 2am then I'll wake you up and you can close it then."

Fans!

[After some people left comments on this web page:]
Jack: "See, you have fans!"
Laura: "I don't want fans. I want to live in ambiguity."

Laura

Here's Laura!

Quick, fall asleep!

[On the night before the first day of preschool when we realized we would have to get up early the next morning:]
Jack: "If we fall asleep right now, we'll get almost 8 hours of sleep."
Laura: "I'm almost happy."

Dictator-by-marriage

[After giving in, once again, to Laura's demands:]
Jack: "This is a marriage, right? Not a dictatorship."
Laura: "You're half right. This is a marriage...."

Warming up

[On a cold evening, upstairs]
Laura: "It's freezing up here. I thought heat rised....raised....went up!"

I knew that a house was a time-sink, but...

Laura: "Are we ever going to stop remodeling?"
Jack: "I think we will always be working on this house."
Laura: "But not like this, where we are working 24/8!"

Searching

Laura: "This is like searching for hay in a haystack."
[said while looking for a certain bill in an unorganized pile of old bills.]

My picture

Jack Veenstra, originally uploaded by Jack Veenstra.

I'm having trouble finding a place to store photos that I can link to. This one is stored on flickr.com but this works only in a blog post (and not, for example, in my profile).

Indifferent...or not?

Laura: "I'm a little bit indifferent."

Sleeping in...

Laura: "I slept pretty well last night...until I woke up."

How to lose weight...

[After I confessed difficulty resisting free sodas at work:]

Laura: Just think of me whacking you all day long.

Not her worst threat...

Laura: "You know, Jack, I'm just going to think stuff."

[I later uncovered the intended meaning: this was apparently supposed to be a kind offer. Instead of whacking me, she would just think about whacking me.]

This just in...

After a long pause on the phone:
"I was just trying to think...and it wasn't working...so I stopped."

More funny stuff

Laura, on a hot summer day, complaining about not having air conditioning:
"I'm sitting in the heat, even my sweat is sweating."

"I'm having to clean fluffy's room in stages: I go to clean it,
pass out from the heat, wake up, and go lie on the couch."

Laura, on a hot summer night while lying in bed:
"Is that ceiling fan on? Or do I have to spin it with my own hands!"

After getting lost and driving the wrong way for 10 minutes:
"I wasn't lost. I just got turned around."

On being a stay-at-home mom, watching our 2-year-old:
"It's tough sitting here ... doing nothing."

"Well, I have to get off the phone and do important stuff, like pick up toys ..."

"You know, my life is kinda slow. I sit on the couch...then I move to the brown comfy chair..."

On a sleepy Friday morning, Laura groaning about having to get up early:
"I guess I don't have to get up and go to Bible study. I could just maybe ... you know ... not."

When she wanted to know what I was writing about her:
"I've gotta see what you're writing ... otherwise, it's perjury!"

"If I have to come over there and pound it into you, it won't be subliminal!"

Laura, on wanting a technician to come out and put up the new satellite dish the same day that it arrived:
"I'm not in a hurry, per se, I just want it done today."
[She said this with a straight face and was completely sincere as far as I could tell.]

On not leaving Brianna's window open to cool off her room, even
just until we go to bed, for fear that someone might kidnap her:
"I have these fears ... they're irrational ... but they're mine."

On housework:
"Once a month or so I try to do the whole housewife thing ... but it kind of gets in the way of eating bon-bons."

a few more cute quotes

[After a mock argument about who Brianna gets her oral fixation from, in which I pointed out (1) the glacier-licking incident and, (2) her repeated threats to lick me -- sometimes even carried out -- whenever she disagrees with me:]
Jack: "I rest my case."
Laura: "You have no case. You have nothing but facts and allegations."

Jack: "Want to have lunch?"
Laura: "I do enjoy lunch. Lunch is one of my 3 favorite meals each day!"

Laura: "When it rains, it shines."
[huh?]

My adorable, funny wife

Here, then, are some funny things Laura said (with some commentary by me in square brackets):

1. "That rabbit is on its last 4 legs."

2. "I'm barely lucky to be awake."
[This made me stop and think. Although she said "barely lucky" for
emphasis, isn't "barely lucky" weaker than just "lucky"?]

3. "I wasn't born in a barn yesterday."
[An unintentional mixing of "I wasn't born yesterday" and
"I wasn't born in a barn". The combination, ironically, is
much weaker than either one separately.]

4. "You're supposed to be listening to my undivided words."
[Laura said this when she found out I was typing in this file while
talking on the phone with her.]

5. "I would be ever so sad if I died."

6. [Said to Brianna:] "How's that diaper treating ya?"

7. "You're working pretty hard there, Jack. Do you need any help? Cuz,
ya know, I could point..."
[Laura said this while watching Luke and me take down and pack all the
stage props for the Christmas program.]

8. "I might drown to death."
[Drown "to death"?]

9. "I'm standing as tall as I can."
[This actually makes some sense. It's just funny when Laura says it.]

10. Jack: "Your voice sounds funny. Do you have a cold?"
Laura: "No, I have exhaustion."

More funny sayings

[After writing a small tag on some scissors that are reserved for cutting hair:]
"That's not too unmistakable, is it?"

[After I sucked in my gut to make myself look skinnier:]
"I wish I could suck in my hips."

[When Brianna was acting up close to bedtime:]
"Brianna, your minutes are numbered."

[After sniffing Brianna's butt and determining that she had pooped:]
"Smells just like the others."

[After watching the movie "The Two Towers" which Laura thought was too long:]
Jack: "I wonder what it was rated."
Laura: "Uh, V for Violent, L for Long, and S for Slow."