Lois: No! This is Mommy's purse! You can't have it! Please, it's the only thing in the house that's Mommy's!
Hal: Lois.
Lois: Well, he has a million toys. Why does he only want to take my things?
Hal: Honey, honey, you're taking this too personally. He doesn't understand what he's doing. He's just a baby. Look, if you just give it to him for just a couple of minutes, he'll get tired of it.
Lois: You're right. I guess I was just feeling that if I gave in to him, he'd see it as a sign of weakness. I'm going to stop this right now.
Hal: Yeah.
Lois: Here, sweetie. Mommy's purse. You can have that for five minutes, okay?
[cut to a disgusted Hal retrieving the open purse from Jamie's crib:]
Hal: I thought you said he wasn't eating anything.

[montage of Lois dragging a lollipop across the floor of the house:]
Lois: Jamie doesn't have to eat his peas anymore. He can eat whatever he wants because Mommy surrenders.
Lois: Mommy has a tiny pony for Jamie who wants to hug him and give him yummy candy corn...
Lois: Mmm, I'm delicious! Is there a big boy who could eat me?

Dewey: Jamie tries to kill Mom, and we're the ones who have to clean it up. You want to tell me how that's fair?
Malcolm: You gotta give that kid some credit. It's the closest any of us actually ever came.
Dewey: Yeah. Jamie wasn't really spawned by Satan, was he?
Malcolm: No. If he was, we'd have a way better house.

[Reese approaches the diving board and holds Jamie up to the moonlight:]
Reese: You're the one, Jamie. Show me the way!

Lois: Francis, your father and I are trying to remember something, and we really need your help. We'd like you to think back to your earliest memories.
Francis: What's this all about?
Hal: Mind your own business. Just do it, will ya?
Francis: You've got to be kidding me. My childhood was a nightmare! I've spent the rest of my life trying to board up that haunted house.
Lois: Francis, this is important. I really need to remember something, and I don't know what it is.
Francis: But-
Lois: Please. You're the only one who can help me.

[flashback:]
Lois: Come on, Francis, honey. Please, won't you eat anything? We've tried the carrots, and the peaches, and the oatmeal, the apples, huh? Don't you like anything?
Hal: Lois! Would you like to know what your son did to my director's cut of The Eyes of Laura Mars? He also shaved a hole in the carpet with my new Norelco!
Lois: I'm sorry, Hal. I asked him very nicely not to play with it, but he just wouldn't listen. I can't get him to do anything. I've read Dr. Spock and Piaget and Eisenberg, and The Language of Hugs, all these books, nothing's helping.
Hal: What he needs is a little discipline.
Lois: I think he'd behave better if he just ate something. Look at him. He's just wasting away. I'm going to give him another Hershey bar.
Hal: Lois, no! You can't keep coddling him like this! I am sick and tired of always having to be the bad cop because you're constantly giving in to him.
Lois: Okay, Hal, I'll try.
Hal: You keep saying that, and then you do it again!
Lois: I'm going to be tougher with him. I promise. [Lois gives Francis a candy bar after Hal leaves]
[present:]
Francis: Huh. It's weird. I just have this vague feeling of you actually being a good mother.

Francis: And then, right around the time I was starting to walk, there was some kind of... Ah, I don't know. Let's stop. I want to stop. [eats candy bar]
Lois: Honey, please, keep going. You can't stop now.
Francis: No, I don't want to. We've been sitting here for five hours. [Francis is surrounded by Hershey bar wrappers] Why are we doing this, anyway?
Lois: Francis, please. I think we're really close. Just one more time.
Francis: Well, I kind of remember that Frisbee game we used to play...
[flashback to Lois ducking as Francis throws a plate at her:]
Lois: Okay, honey. Maybe we'll eat later.
Hal: Lois, did you see what he did in there? He used my tennis racket to smash my camera and all my lenses to bits! I still had film in it from the Us Festival! Where is he?
Lois: Hal, it's not his fault! I'm pretty sure he's working through a limitation-anxiety phase. All the literature says this is the age where he's trying-
Hal: You cannot undermine me every time I try to discipline him!
Lois: I can't help it. He's so small, and helpless...
Hal: I can't take any more of this! It is tearing our marriage apart! For his own good, you have got to buckle down! Do you understand me, Lois? You have to find some way to be this boy's mother!