No, seriously...

While Kate and I were waiting for her carpool ride to school, I picked a snap dragon and was making it talk to her.  (It's so fun to annoy a ten year old.)

When I came in, I was having the snapdragon talk to the twins, and they were loving it.

Anna saw us and asked, "When did you guys make that?"

I answered, "We just picked it off the plant out front."

"Good one," she answered, not amused.

"No, honey," I insisted, "we really did.  It's a snapdragon.  Remember we planted them?"

"No, seriously," she implored.

"Honey," I said, "go look out front."

She stared at me, determined not to fall into a trap of us laughing as she went on a fruitless search.
I wondered if I might tease her too often.

I took her hand and led her outside to show her this time I wasn't teasing.

Anna with our new adopted pet, Violet.

Honey

Last week our neighbor boy accidentally disrupted a wasps' nest during recess while I was on duty.  He ran up to me with wasps clinging to his fleece and one sting already on his head.  I carefully helped him out of his fleece, trying not to anger the wasps, though he got another sting in the process and I also got stung myself.

This weekend, he brought me this adorable thank you gift.

This morning, Ally had some of the honey on her cheerios.  Usually when we get honey, we refill a squeezable honey bear which makes it easier to squeeze onto cereal, and Ally likes to add a little extra honey half way through the cheerios.  But the bear had accidentally gotten thrown away last week.

Today,  although I carefully drizzled honey out of the jar, I gave her more than I'd intended.  The jar got a little messy too, so I cleaned it up with my finger, commenting, "Yum!  That's some good honey."

Halfway through her cheerios Ally asked for more honey.  I said, "No, sweetie, you already had a lot."

She said, "I scraped the bottom, and there's no more honey in the bowl."

I said, "It's okay.  Just eat your cheerios."

After she finished, she commented, "It's okay.  I understand.  If I'd gotten some honey like that for a gift, I wouldn't want to share more either."

I looked at her, utterly surprised at her take on the situation.

She misunderstood the reason for my look and added, "If I was a grown up, I mean."

"Do you think I wouldn't give you more because I didn't want to share because I like the honey too much."

"Yeah," she answered, confused why I'd asked.

"No!  I'm happy to share.  You just had a lot of honey already."

"Oh," she replied, skeptical.

Anakin Skywalker

Sunday the kids were playing next to the old rock wall behind the house next to the cottage.  A rock fell from the wall and crushed Anna's finger.

It was pretty bad.  It's crushed it so badly that her finger split open in two places and her nail still turned blue.  I comforted Anna while Dave cleaned it up and bandaged it, but I was pretty woozy when I looked at it, so I couldn't even watch.

The next day, Dave changed the bandage.  I hadn't thought it was possible, but her finger looked even worse after the skin around the wound had turned white from being wrapped.  Afterwards, Anna commented, "My finger looks like Darth Vader."  I was confused.  The bandage Dave put on was white.  Darth Vader is black...  Then she clarified, "My finger looks Darth Vader without his armor."  Ewww.  But, yeah, I guess it was true.

Non-pesco vegetarians

After going through the animal barns at the Sheboygan County Fair last weekend, Kate declared herself a vegetarian.  As someone who ate a vegetarian diet for over a decade, I wasn't going to dispute her inclination, but I did find it somewhat ridiculous when she resisted certain food this week by saying, "Remember... I'm a vegetarian..." as if she herself has been a decade-long vegetarian.

Last night at dinner, I was preparing salmon.  Kate turned up her nose at it, but she wasn't sure if it was for gastronomic or moral reasons.

"Do vegetarians eat fish?" she asked.

I said, "Some vegetarians do eat fish, but many don't."

Anna jumped in and said, "Oh!  What a rad excuse! I'm not eating fish either."

I'm not sure where to start.... perhaps by wondering if "rad" is back in vogue.


Here's something the kids did at the fair that didn't lead to dietary changes.

Hearing vs. reading

Growing up, I didn't read nearly as much as Kate or Anna, but I there were still words I saw in writing that I hadn't heard out loud or words that I didn't realize when I read them were the same as words I'd heard.  Heck, I think I was in my 30's before I realized the word "indictment" I read in all the John Grissom novels was the same thing I heard on TV shows pronounced "in-dite-ment."

So, I totally understood where Anna was coming from the other day.  She was talking about how Dave's writing is even messier than hers and asked, "Want to see my handwriting 'v s' his?" and said the "v" and the "s" instead of the word "versus."

Brushing Finley

Anna asked if she could take Finley outside and brush her.  The kids have never done this without my supervision, so after a few minutes, I looked out the window to make sure everything was okay.

I can't be sure, but I think Finley might have been enjoying it.

Oh my goodness, these two are such a perfect match.