The ABCs
More often than not, I take the Girl Child to daycare in the morning, as it's on my way to work, I have a car, and I never have anyone in labor to whom I must attend. We've been doing this for several weeks, now, and we've got our routine down pretty well.

Most days, she colors some and we talk about what she's going to do that day, or what she did the day before, or the dreams she's had recently. She asks for the driving song (Indigo Girls' Driver Education) and we dance and sing--I sing the words, she sings whatever words are on her mind.

Once we're at school and out of the car, we sing the ABCs while we walk, often stopping to jump in puddles or balance on curbs. Yesterday morning, the waning but close to full moon was in the sky. We were singing and she hollered, "Stop!" So we did, no more walking and no more singing, and she proposed that we sing our song to the moon.

And that is what we did.

Why I've been a lousy blogger

Weekday morning with Unagi spawn

As big as the world
It's Tali's birthday today--she's TWO!

On the way to drop Grrl Child off at her school, she wanted to hold the gift I have to send to Tali, which is jungle animal magnets. We talked about Tali being younger than Grrl Child, and I told her that this weekend I'm going to put together a box of things for Tali.

"I will draw a picture for her. It will be Tali and Me and Max playing. Pink for Tali and red for me and blue for Max. Grandma sent a storybook for Tali."

"Oh, that's so nice of her! We'll put it in the box."

"She will have to come to get the box from me. There is no mail here!"

"She lives too far away, so we'll send it. What else should we put in the box?"

"Another storybook. A VERY BIG storybook. Ter, can YOU carry a very big storybook?"

"I think that I could, but it depends on how big it is."

"It's a storybook as big as the world. You maybe couldn't carry it by yourself, but we could carry it together."

Scenes from Labor Day weekend

How many licks DOES it take?
The other day, Unagi and I took the boychild out for lunch to our favorite sushi place--they bring dumdum lollipops with the check. He chose cherry and that was that.

Later that day, the two of them picked me up from work and we all went to pick up the grrlchild from her first day at daycare. We were pulling out of the parking lot when boychild whips out the lollipop. Grrlchild loses her shit, boychild gives in and shares it with her so she can "have a taste," and grrlchild refuses to return it.

Boychild is VERY unhappy with this. Grrlchild refuses to give in. Boychild tells her he'll do ANYTHING for that lollipop. She says NO. Since we are en route to the vet so I can buy catfood, I tell grrlchild that she should give the lollipop back when we arrive at the vet's office, because she cannot play with the cats with sticky hands. She agrees.

We pull into the parking lot at the vet's I tell her we have arrived and it's time to give the lollipop back to boychild. I hear an enthusiastic "Okay!" And then I hear an equally enthusiastic CRUNCH as she bites the whole pop off and hands her brother the naked stick.

Funny