#Hippostrikesagain: Conversations with J3

We've been having a spate of food poisoning cases at home. I was down on two consecutive Mondays, and over the weekend the hubs and Junior J were hit. We suspect it was a certain dish that we ate for lunch on Sunday during our grocery runs, since I had the same dish as the affected two on separate occasions before the symptoms started. It has been really hard, since the hubs could barely walk, and Junior J couldn't eat at all and was in bed for more than two days. I am hoping things will take a turn for the better soon!

Meanwhile, life still has to go on with the other three littles (thankfully they ate other dishes and were not affected), and J3 has been constantly amusing us with the funny things he says. He's a really chatty fellow, and has decided that he is a hippo, and I thought his speeches were worth a blog post on its own! 

So ladies and gentlemen, presenting to you our family's very own self-declared hippo:

Diet: Constant forager of larders. Biscuit-ivore, subsists mainly on Meiji crackers and chocolate, and always demanding for snacks. He sometimes sneaks into the kitchen and helps himself to bread and other food.

Habitat: Semi-aquatic, usually found in the shower stall playing with water and soap. Extremely difficult to extract from his bath tub habitat.

Care instructions: Must handle with caution. May poop on floor (because "ippos poopoo on the ground"). Dangerous as "it can bite a coco-dile into two" (as demo-ed in the photo above). May be hard to dress as "ippos don't wear clothes".

Environmental status: Endangered, there is only one left. And we love him so!

While playing with his little sister:

J3: Baby J, this is a yalt-water cocodile (he still drops his "s"s, which I find really cute!). You are a yalt-water crocodile, and I am a hippo, so I am going to bite you into two! (Proceeds to demonstrate by pretending to eat her.)

~~~~~~~

Just the other day, after the nth number of fights with J2 which involved him biting his brother: 

Me: I know hippos can bite, but you cannot bite your brother. Good hippos don't do that. 

J3: Ok Mama. 

Me: So next time, what do you do if you get angry? (We keep telling them to walk away, or punch a pillow.) 

J3 (solemnly): I won't bite him, but I will punch him instead. 

This hippo tends to cry at every tiny reason and shouts a lot. So some days he loses his voice a little. The brothers sometimes call him a cry baby, which brings on more crying and protests that he is not.

J1: You sound hoarse today.

J3: I am not a horse!

J1: I mean your voice sounds hoarse.

J3 (starts crying, again): NO I AM NOT A HORSE I AM A HIPPO!!!

~~~~~~~

The hippo sometimes has an identity crisis and decides to be a different animal:

[J3 asks hubby to carry him. Then he starts flapping his arms.]

J3: I am a bumblebee! I am going to sting you! [Pokes hubby hard in the ribs.]

J3: DING! I stung you. Now I have to die. [Flops over and plays dead.]

On Saturday, when I was just too exhausted to cook dinner after a week of cooking, and we decided to call Papa to tabao Macs on his way home from work:

Me (on speaker with the kids clustered around): Hello dear, can you tabao macs please?

Hubs: Yup what does everyone want?

J1: I want a burger with pickles please.

J2: I also want a burger with pickles (he tends to follow koko).

J3: I wan... Fish an chips an chicken nuggets an wench (French) fries an burger an milo an...

Me: There's no fish and chips in Macs, do you want a fish burger? Or a cheese burger?

J3: I wan a burger with NO meat.

Me: So we will buy you a fish burger ok? This hippo can eat fish right?

J3: Yes I am a ippo not a fish, so you cannot put me in the burger and eat me.

~~~~~~~

Oh hippo, you've brought us so much joy and laughter you know?