During an epic game of Munchkin Deluxe, Maggie was on a rampage and I was getting pummeled by nasty curses. After drawing yet-another card of doom, I exclaimed, “Ugh, I’m getting knocked down at every turn!”
Maggie, chuckling with evil glee, countered with, “And I’m getting knocked UP at every turn!”
Maggie and I were joking around this morning about whether it was night or day. She pulled open the bedroom curtain and pointed to the sky and said, “See, the sun is in the sky!”
I replied, “Wait, Griffin is in the sky???”
She rolled her eyes, “No! That’s not what I was meaning. The Earth has a sun in it. Not a kid son.”
I clarified, “The earth has a sun in it?”
“Yes,” nodding vigorously, “it’s what makes it day time.”
Update: During a recent bike ride, Maggie demonstrated more of her astronomical knowledge. The kids love biking around a circular paved area in front of one of the dorms at Macalester College. Maggie decided that she was “the sun” and biked in a tight loop in the center of the circle. Griffin and his friend, Zoe, orbited Maggie as planets. They whooped and hollered, arguing over who was which planet, while Maggie repeated, “I’m the sun! I’m in the middle!”
At some point Griffin got too close to her, and she shouted, “I’m super hot! I’ll burn you! It’s called a sunburn!”
While flipping through the Monster Manual recently,
Maggie came across this handsome fellow:
Upon which she giggled and exclaimed,
“Daddy, he’s almost as big as you!”
Me: Ooooh! What are you today?
Maggie: A MOM!
(That’s right. I model awesome sword wielding mom behavior for my children!)
Donald Trump came up tonight during an eclectic dinner conversation, mostly between Sarah and me, but including various spawn-sponsored tangents. I don’t remember what we were saying precisely, but it wasn’t flattering. This piqued Griffin’s interest, of course, so he started asking questions about this Trump character. Both Sarah and I backpedaled off our most colorful aspersions — “ok, maybe he’s not a total idiot,” “he just likes to say ridiculous things,” “we just don’t agree with him about anything” — which only made Griffin more interested. (We usually keep the trash talk out of earshot.)
Suddenly, a look of understanding crosses Griffin’s face, and he says, “Ohhhh! He’s that guy… um, that really bad guy.”
“Which guy?”
“That bad guy. The one we learned about.”
“Where did we learn about him?”
“At the u-boat exhibit in Chicago.”
“Oh … wait … Hitler?”
“Yeah! Hitler!”
<between gasps of appalled laughter> “No, honey, Trump is not as bad as Hitler.”
“Pinterest Fail” is not a phrase I utter often. I feel like I’m pretty good at picking out projects that are realistic, fun, and ones I’ll actually do, either for myself or with the kids. Today was my first fail.
It seemed innocent enough. Indoor snowmen! Two ingredients! It came from a blog entitled “Modern Messy Parent,” but that’s me! I’m modern! I’m a parent! I embrace mess!
The photos from the blog looked realistic: A cute little one mixing the cornstarch and shaving cream in her box, happily playing, probably singing songs from Frozen…
I mean, look how cute! The kids can do that!
Griffin has been bugging me for weeks to break out the cornstarch and shaving cream, so I finally did it. Here’s how ours turned out:
Thank goodness I set this up on the front porch instead of at the dining room table! What this picture does not show is the trail of cornstarch and shaving cream mixture leading from the kitchen to the porch to the ultimate removal of this project to the sidewalk. Now I don’t get too crazy about mess (I let my children use glitter and Sharpies, for goodness sake!), but this. was. everywhere. In minutes, I was on my hands and knees with the dustpan and broom muttering, “fail, fail, fail.”
In the end, to be fair, it wasn’t really that big of a deal. The kids had fun, and it was a fairly easy clean up once it dried a little. So perhaps not a big fail. Just an I-might-be-hyperventilating-during-this-fantastic-experience-I’m-providing-for-my-kids fail.
I will be removing that pin from my collection.
Sarah giving Griffin some cough syrup tonight:
“Come on honey. It’s not a fine scotch. Just drink it.”
A lovely, warm, Saturday evening, clouds looming with impending rain, the chimes of the ice cream truck arrived at the perfect moment.
(Griffin notes that this wasn’t really the first ice cream truck of 2014; it was the first one where we bought ice cream. )
When Sarah told Griffin that she was eating a “Turtle Bar,” he frowned and asked,
“Is there really a turtle in there??”
(He’s convinced that we are bent on the destruction of turtles; see our recent post about Spicy Turtle Blood.)
In the interest of science, I present the following two exhibits.
February 15, 2014 photo of Maggie’s place setting after her breakfast. Rather than looking at the cute heart plate, observe the clean black tablecloth around the edge. Maggie is 21 months old.
February 15, 2014 photo of Griffin’s place setting after his breakfast. Note the tablecloth. Griffin is 4 years, 10 months old.
Competing explanations:
Maggie is 17 months old and is starting to really pick up talking! In addition, more so than I remember with Griffin, she is mimicking just about everything people do, especially when she’s watching Griffin. Tonight, however, she mimicked me after I pretended to sneeze during some after-dinner hijinks with Griffin. Too darn cute not to share!
http://youtu.be/raaplbwvVZc