Thursday, February 24, 2011

More Thursday Randomness and Pete stories

In case you missed the last Thursday random happenings, here’s another snippet of random happenings from inside The Burton house:

Jim: (shivering and walking into the kitchen dressed in multi-layers):  Gosh!
me:  What’s wrong?  you cold?
Jim:  It’s freezing in here!   I don’t know how you do that? (looking at my bare feet)
Me: Do what?  Walk around with no shoes?
Jim:  (teeth close to chattering) Yes!! 
Me:  (with a southern accent and extending my belly as far as it will go to appear pregnant while waddling around the kitchen) “That’s right baby.  I’m a GRIT.…born to be barefoot and pregnant.  Hur, hur.”
Jordyn:  (watching unamused) Grit?
Me: (still in southern voice mode) Yup.  Girl raised in the south.
Jordyn:  You said GRIT.
Me:   I know! (in my arrogant “let me teach you a thing or two” tone)
Jordyn:  Grit would be a girl raise in the...  You didn’t put an “s” on it so it is just raise in the THE.  No "s" for "south" mom!
Me:  Oh.  Well.  Um… then I guess I’m a “GRITS”.

Dinner table a few minutes later

Jordyn:  I live in an icebox (that’s southern for refrigerator)
Me:  You’re cold too??
Jim: (as if I wasn't in the room) It’s because your mom keeps the heat set on 64.  
Me:  For the love of Pepita. (*this is my writing segue to the next section in case you care*) I’m trying to save money so when summer gets here I can keep it really cold in here.  I don’t like hot and by the way, I want an air condition unit for our bedroom this summer so it will be cold in there while I sleep. (batting my eyelashes)
Jim:  Ah-ha!!! You ARE trying to kill me!  (looks to Jordyn and says) Some women poison their husbands.  She just tries to freeze hers to death.

Random Pete comments The Burtons have adapted:

“We’re off to Peter’s Donuts!”

This is one of many sayings my husband had coined for our family.  Every time we leave the house, he says it.  He has been doing this so long it is a family tradition and we don’t give it a second thought—and we've recently added our best British accent to our family’s departure phrase.

Last summer, our daughter Amanda stayed with us while her husband was deployed.  She, too, had a Pete saying that spread around the family like wild-fire. (well, okay..I’m the only who copied her). Everything last summer  was “for the love of Pete” this and “ for the love of Pete” that.  Whether good or bad, she added the phrase “for the love of Peter” (minus the British accent, of course.) 

This brought many random questions to our family as we pondered who was this Pete we often referred too and what did he have to do with it?  (We even changed the words to the Tina Turner song, "What's Love Got To Do With It" and instead we would sing, "What's Pete got to do, got to do with it?"). 


At one point in the summer, Amanda jokingly started calling me “Pete”.    One afternoon I leaned over to my infant granddaughter and said, “Imagine if you were a boy we could name you Pete.”  How odd !! (all due respect to any and all Petes out there).  She certainly didn’t look like a Pete.  So, in the nature of randomoness (which we Burtons do best),  I decided to call her other forms of Pete. Peter. Petricka. Petra.  Finally I uttered ,"Pepita".  “...for the Love of Pepita!”.   And my nickname for her was born.  My daughter's in-laws are Puerto Rican so to be sure the nickname was appropriate Amanda asked them about the meaning.  Lo and behold  it means little seed.   (I'm such a grandma--here's my little Pepita):



To bring this Thursday evening randomness to a close I’ll leave you with a joke a missionary friend told me years ago:

Pete and Repeat fell out of the boat, who was left?

Repeat.

Pete and Repeat fell out of the boat, who was left?

Repeat.

Pete and Repeat fell out of the boat, who was left?

Repeat.

(That's all I got for ya!  If you want an inspirational tie-in, maybe read first or second Peter?  I dunno...for the love of Pete, I have no clue why I started typing this post!)


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1 comment:

Anonymous said...

I love it! I'm glad another family is as silly as mine. Thanks for making me smile on this ugly Friday! Love you and see you Sunday!

~Chanda

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