Jiji best quotes

Here are some best quotes from my son #2, Jiji (this is not his real name, but what he called himself when he was two). He is 7 now. The other day, he said to his Daddy,


Age 7: "Maybe we are not real after all, but just toys in some big giant's game."


That reminds me of this one. I don't remember the exact wording, but:

Age 6, when shopping with Mommy in a home center: "Is all our life just a dream? Maybe we are just sleeping somewhere in space, and we are dreaming everything." (and no, he has not seen The Matrix!)


Best quote from age 5: "What about Pluto?"

My husband had been reading a novel set in Ireland about 150 years ago, or something like that... in that novel, a way of remembering the planets was described: "Mary's violet eyes make John stay up nights." My husband liked this and told the children about it (big brother Dio was about 9 then, and I was in the room listening, too) -- "You can use it to remember the planets! Mary is for Mercury, Violet is Venus, Eyes is Earth, and so on. So the next time you need to know the order of the planets, just remember that sentence! Me: "Wow, that's really useful, kids!" Dio: "Oh!"
Jiji: "What about Pluto?" Um, oops, none of the rest of us had noticed that Pluto was missing.


Best quote from age 4: "Aktrakjers was a keeper of farm animals. He was born there."

This was on our trip to Barcelona, 3 summers ago. He was pointing to some modern sculpture thing up on a hill. He had mentioned his made-up hero Aktrakjers (pronounced "Actractus" as in some sort of Roman name) before that, but only for a couple of months I think, since just before he turned 4. Aktrakjers is a sort of mythical hero. A lot of the stories remind me of Hercules and the Greek myths, etc... When we moved to Japan (soon after our trip to Barcelona) and started hearing people speaking Japanese a lot around us, he suddenly came up with Bubblippo language and then Bubblippo planet. It's a planet where a lot of things happen differently from here on earth. Except that some of the things are actually found here on earth, too (or have been in the past), but Jiji doesn't know that. For example, "On Bubblippo planet, you can be married to 10 people at the same time!" or "On Bubblippo planet, if somebody does something bad, they will be killed." He made up a whole bunch of other characters and monsters that live there, too. For example, a Finafone is a giant creature that balances on the planet with the tip of one very sharp toenail. The toenail is so sharp, and the giant is so large, that people on the planet can't see him. The size of the planet to him is like the size of a piece of sand to us -- like balancing on a piece of sand with one toenail. Zyn (pronounced "Zene") is the king of the baddies on Bubblippo planet, and he is a heart killer. A heart killer is someone who can make a good person turn into a baddy.

The playcocos are the heroes of Bubblippo planet, and each one has a person power. For example, Aktrakjers's person power is metal. Aktrakjers can do all sorts of incredible things, like climb a mountain that is as tall as the moon, and then ski down it (all in one day), and so on. Aktrakjers is 14 years old, and got his powers when he was 4. He has a little brother Moltred who is about 10 now (I think), and another littler brother, and a couple of big brothers, one being Spike Horn. His daddy's name is Uniclown. All of them have the surname Horn, actually. Uniclown Horn, and so on. His mommy was killed by a Tombodesawatta (a monster like a giant dragonfly), a long time ago. Actually there were no women or girls in the story for a long time, but recently one appeared -- the daughter of Ko Nor, and she will maybe be marrying Aktrakjers in the future.

Aktrakjers used to live on Earth, and he made Bubblippo planet (somehow making it in his chest and then spitting it out), and then he got a rocket and took a lot of Australians to live on it. Sometimes Jiji just goes on and on about Aktrakjers and the other characters and happenings. Often they relate to something happening around us. For example, on a very windy night in a mall parking lot, he said, "There is bad news from Bubblippo Planet. There's a big storm, and a little boy was blown away to Fly Planet, and there are almost only baddies on Fly Planet, and only 8 goodies." etc... There is also Gorilla Planet. Fly Planet and Gorilla Planet are just outlying planets, and not so important in the story... just used whenever another planet is needed. But they do have baseball teams, which play in a league with the teams from Bubblippo Planet. Recently Aktrakjers was injured in a baseball game between his team, the Rhinos, and another team. He was batting, and he hit the ball so hard that the bat shredded into a million tiny pieces, and then he started to run and fell down and broke his leg, or something. Nothing to do with the pieces of shredded bat...

One time last summer we were walking along and he was talking and talking, and I stopped listening for awhile, but then when I tuned back in, he was saying something like, "And then Aktrakjers made a sign in ant language, that said Please do not eat this cheese, and then .... " Later at the park, Jiji did write something scribbly (in ant language) on a bit of paper, made it into a sign, and put it up in the sand box for the ants. A couple of hours later he went to the sand box and couldn't see his sign. He was upset and came to tell me. I said, "Well, don't worry -- ants can't read, anyway!" and he seemed surprised and angry - "What?!".


Best quote from age 3: When his daddy stood him up on top of a barstool in our kitchen -- "This is not a safe place to put me."