Funnies

From the 3-year-old:

"Bye bye tinkle!! Bye bye twirl-it paper!! Mommy can I stick my hand in there?"

"I like chwocwate and smarshmallow gramilla bars. Yeah."

"Mom, why do we have to vacuum?"

"Hey, oh, mom! Can you pwease cwose the door? I need some priva-seat."

"I need some lovin'. Wet's hold hands."

"Ooops. 'Scuze me. My fanny burped."

"What's for breabast, Mommy? Eggs? or Pop Tarts?"

"Daddy, I like your belly."

From the First Grader:

FG: "Mom, my neck really stings. Can you please put some of that gasoline on it to help it feel better?"

Me: "Um, do you mean Vasoline?"

FG: "Riiiiiight. VAsoline."

Me: "Hey sweetie. What did you buy for lunch today at school?"

FG: "I got the yogurt flake."

Me: "Um, do you mean the yogurt plate?"

FG: "Oh, I thought it was a yogurt FLAke."

For the 3 year old, all trains lead to the zoo, all poops in the potty warrant some candy and pigtails are "big girl hair". Nancy also closes drawers with her hips or knees like mom, and also grunts when she's frustrated....like mom. The first grader found out that there is more of a difference in boys and girls than boys being taller and girls being smarter than boys (not too much info, but it is really hard to keep her curiosity at bay) and that if she could be any flower, it would be a ranculous and wants to be an artist or a mommy when she grows up. She answers most questions with "I know", just like mom.

When we have eggs and toast for breakfast, Kate eats her toast, Nancy all her eggs. If we have chicken nuggets and french fries, Nancy eats the nuggets, Kate the fries. Kate likes ketchup, Nancy does not; Kate likes pancakes, Nan prefers grits; Kate does not like yogurt, and Nancy would celebrate if we put her on an all-dairy diet. When we sword fight, Kate just swirls her sword around in circles, Nancy aims for the legs or the stomach for a direct hit. Nancy keeps Kate up at night with all of her talking.

They both want a baby sister, and the 3 year old calls her Sally. If given the choice, they both would prefer to live on a farm and have their friends come visit than live in a neighborhood full of kids. Kate wishes leprechauns were real, and Nancy, at this moment, cannot find her baby unicorn anywhere.

I love these sisters.

Which Pink Do You Think?

UPDATE:

I think this is harder than I thought it would be. Right off the bat I liked the dark pink better, just because it is fun and unexpected. The light pink is a Pottery Barn Kids color by Benjamin Moore. But I don't want the room to look Pottery Barn-y (Barney?) I do like the pros of the light: easier to paint over, flows with the other colors in the house, and once all 4 walls are pink, that will be a LOT of pink. It's hard for me to escape the $45 we could use towards other things in the room - there are lots of other things we want to paint (including 2 bookshelves, I'll be asking your opinion later for that one, I can go overboard with color or being too coordinated) and things we want to do to "finish" the room, and $45 could buy some fun stuff on my list.

The actual inhabitants of the room are split: Kate likes the light one, Nancy the dark. The problem with the above/below chair rail thing is that the chair rails is white, the bunks are cream. That drives me crazy, and I feel like with 2 pinks and then white rails and a cream bed....well, that's more than I can handle. Any suggestions for that railing? Oh, and those pink pillows on the beds? Horrible photo; the small pillow in front is actually almost exactly the same as the dark pink on the wall. The large pillow is just a sheet, we'll buy shams after we decide on the wall color. So don't let that sway you, either.

Lemme just say, I have LOVED the opinions. I hate making decisions like this, wish I could be breezy about stuff but I often treat simple things like this as a do-or-die situation, and have really enjoyed hearing which you like and why you like it. Wish we could have all done it over coffee and dessert!!

Without crazy bright spotlight, and I decided to make the beds.

Crazy bright spotlight.

We are in the process of finishing up the girls room this winter. Our task this week: Choose a paint color. The dark one on top is "Margaret Ellen" pink, or a mis-tinted, returned color that was $5 for a gallon. The lighter on is Pink Begonia. Try not to let the $45 we would save by using the dark pink sway your opinion, I want you to tell me which you prefer and why.

I never in my wildest dreams thought I would paint my daughters' room pink.

Strawberry Fields Forever

After 3 days of hot weather, I could not resist going back for some more strawberries. I sent out an email to lots of friends, because, as I learned while I was picking strawberries at 11am in 90 degree heat, misery loves company. The Boodrams, Pattersons, (both pregnant, and Ashley Boo days overdue!) and McGowans joined us as we quickly filled our baskets full of hot, juicy ripe fruit. 

I always romanticize being in nature with my kids, but once we are actually having the experience, the romance fades. Quickly. Like last time, Nancy was good for about 15 minutes and then started breaking down. She was only happy if I let her eat fruit, so she ate about 20 strawberries (not exaggerating). And Kate at times got so hot she would just stand in a stupor zoning out at the berries on the vine, wiping her sweaty brow. 

A friendly fellow picker came from the middle of the field telling us there were berries more abundant further out into the weeds near the irrigation pipe. I picked up my berries and my babies and hauled us over a dozen rows to discover that he was right. Emily picked Cohen up in his stroller and climbed over too. We were all encouraged by the abundance of berries, and Kate was a more willing picker once it was easier to find and pick them. We quickly finished and had 2 gallons full of berries. That was Tuesday, today is Friday, and after 4 jars of jam, a strawberry pie and strawberry shortcake, we still have about a quart left. And even though it was hot and we all wanted to cry at some point, I know I'll make us do it again next year.

Pre-meltdown, and pre-bulging berry belly. I think that's the juice of only berry number 2 or 3 on her chin.

Cort's messy face. 

The friendly berry stranger was right! The berries in the middle of the field were amazing!

One of two gallons. That grin is joy that we are finished and she can get in an air conditioned car, not that we had a wonderful, quality time experience as a family. 

Are we having fun yet?

Gross

This is why we don't play in the backyard. If left to their own vices, the girls get absolutely filthy. It's really cute and funny when I have put them in their grubby clothes and we are all outside doing yardwork on a Saturday. It is not cute and funny when it is 4:45 in the afternoon on a weekday and I have to wash their clothes immediately so the dirt won't set and bathe them both and redress them (can kids eat in their pjs? mine get theirs so crusty with food at suppertime) and then corral them so I can start dinner 30 minutes late because of said dirt and baths. Instead of the swingset they usually end up playing in the dirt, raking it and making bigger holes in our already eroding yard. We can't grow grass b/c of the trees and the huge hickory nuts that fall from them - Belle has often been knocked in the head while napping on the porch by falling hickory nuts, and it's gotten to the point where she doesn't even bother moving after a pummeling.

At any rate, we were ready for them to get dirty today. Stuck them in the sandbox and even gave them each a bucketful of water. Once they ran out of that, Kate kept coming back to the hose for more - she one day got tired of waiting for me and can turn it on by herself. Nancy literally stuck her head in the sand. They decided they were done with the sandbox and eventually just played with the hose. Actually, Kate sprayed Nancy with the hose and they both loved every minute of it.

Oh, and one more thing. This morning I left for the farmers market around 7:45, and in addition to the rotting squirrel carcass in the street is a possum, who, I kid you not, lifts his head up at me as I drive by as if asking for rescue. I am starting to think one of our neighbors has waged war with local varmints and sits in their car at daybreak for a chance to play chicken with them. Later, as I am stripping down the girls in the backyard to hose the sand out of their hair, watching the water pool into mud around them in our family-friendly backyard full of mushrooms, dog poop and hickory nuts, I hear the clang of Ryan's shovel as he tries to decapitate the large rodent suffering in the street from a hit and run. Could we be more white trash?

"Why, that's grass!" you may say. I put them in the small green spot we do have to avoid eroding the yard more.