P!nk

When you won't dance to the DJ with your mom so she finds new friends, and they dance, like no one is watching 🤣

Natives

As if Muir Woods wasn't already one of my favorite places to visit when I go back home, momma has made a den here two years in a row now. Apparently cherry soda is their favorite, and when they score a can they pour it out on leaves and lap it up.

(All grown up and long gone when I came back to check in on them in July.)

31 Months

My new favorite thing is Violet faking Pig Latin to fit in with the big kids.

Callum on LA

C: "That's where the Hollywood sign is, right?"
H: "Yup!"
C: "Are you going to make us hike to it? Because I don't want to."

(Nary a mention of Disney, or that famous mouse...)
(Why didn't I think of that? We should TOTALLY hike to the Hollywood sign!)

How to Make the Strangers Around You Laugh Out Loud

Me, to two year old: "Are those your best manners?"
Her: "NOPE!"

Violet Sees Through the Slats

"GUYS, WATCH OUT! BE CAREFUL! IT'S VERY BRIDGE!"

Toddler Property Law

Violet, as she steals everybody's stuff: "IT'S MINE! I GOT IT FOR KWISSMISS!"
(Yeah, it's not hers, and it wasn't a Christmas gift, either.)

Violet v2.5

What's for lunch? Tuna.
"I DON'T WANT TUNA! I WANT SAMWICHES!"
"Please remember your manners. Alright, here's your (tuna) sandwich."
Eats tuna, discards bread, demands more tuna, by name.
Consumes 6 total helpings, freaks out when the can is gone. Demands cheese, puts it on top of bread, freaks out because it's now "dirty!" with bread crumbs.
Quickly works to redeem herself by calling her fingers "pingers."

Oh, two, you are an awesome beast.

Good Night, Sweet Violet

Every night once she's done nursing she stands up in my lap, grabs my face with her little hands, and brings us in, nose to nose. And then she slowly whispers whatever happens to be on her mind.

Tonight it was "I want...to...go...to the beach...and eat cookies."

Violet hasn't been to the beach since December despite asking every day, and that's a problem.

Callum on How to Warm Up the Parent-Teacher Conference Crowd

"I look extra handsome today because I am wearing a tie."

My Better Half

Me: "I kinda wanted to kill the kids."
Him: "That's cool. I bet I'd get a day work off if you did."
Then we laaaaaaaughed.
(No kids were harmed.)

Native

I'm trying to nail down a snack G can take with him to Costa Rica and will actually eat, since everything he took to DC last year came back uneaten.

"I just want bags of tortillas."

#NewMexicoTrue

We're Gonna Need More Pizza

Callum to roofers: Hi guys! We brought pizza!

(Not for roofers, for us, for dinner.)

Tiny Teeth, Big Dreams

"I got the BIGGEST bag so the tooth fairy can fill it with lots of money!"

Soft Kitty, Warm Kitty, Little Cup of Tea

Barista: Oh, and we also have a Lavender Earl Grey.
Violet: YOU HAVE OUR CAT?!


Earl Grey, our cat

Growing Old, Together

Me: Can you pluck that weird hair for me? I can't reach it.
Him: Where?
Me: There!
Him: I don't see anything.
Me: Right there!
Him: Honey, you know I can't see things up close anymore.

Olive Writes II

We really need to start reading her weekly writing assignments.

An excerpt from What My House Says About Me:
"Earl Grey, my cat, loves my bed. His tail is super short, and sometimes when he goes to the litterbox he doesn't get 100% clean. Some of it ends in the box and some sticks to his tail. Then he goes to sit on my face while I'm napping. Yes, my morning face is probably worse than yours."

One of Us

Me: "Guys, come here! I want to show you something on the computer."
Violet: "Is it a cat wideo? I love cats!"

Violet on Giraffes and Dinosaurs

A giraffe IS SO BIG! with a LONG NECK! like a dinosaur, so it is a dinosaur.

Duh.

Callum and the Schedule

Me: You start I Love Literacy again today.

Callum: You mean I have Cooking after school today.

Me: No, Cooking is on Thursdays. Today is Tuesday, and on Tuesdays you go to I Love Literacy.

Callum: I will go to Cooking instead.

Me: No.

Callum: Then I will go to Spanish.

Me: No.

(What he will actually do is go to the office and pretend he doesn't know where he's supposed to be in hopes of a better answer.)

Stocking Scrabble

Dear Target,

If you could you please try to have a wider variety of letters next time that would be great.

Thanks,
H & G

PS His mom made him do it.

Turkey Travels with Violet

Late night road tripping from the perspective of someone who is usually in bed by 6:30 year-round:
"Is gark! I can't see me!"

Grateful

Many years ago my mom bought me a KitchenAid stand mixer because she wanted me to have one, and I was really excited because it felt like adulting. Then she died. Every time I thought about using it my grief was too heavy to get it out of the box, read the instructions, and figure out which beater to use.

Last year I bought a pricey attachment and vowed to start using it. It didn't work.

Today I tackled the mixer.

Thank you, Mom.

Olive Writes

Olive's general ed teacher will not accept her papers if they include murder, dead bodies, zombies, or things rotting in the sewer. There have been many, many tears over the unfairness of it all.

(It's all funny until a note gets sent home.)
(Or that time we got called out at curriculum night in front of all the other parents.)

Left open on my desktop:

"I would like to study the ocean because I think it is amazing that the ocean takes up about seventy percent of the earth. I always go to the beach for summer vacation, and I can see a long way into the ocean. I always wonder what is happening out there. Plus, all those tittle jellyfish that wash up on the beach dead breaks my heart. Okay, not really."

"I love to dissect things because when their insides spill out, you can really see the disgusting, smelly, dead, part of every animal. I have cut open a cow eyeball, and a small squid. Believe me, their ink pouches are squishy, stinky, and pleasing to, well, pretty much nobody but me."

Counting Callum

Callum, still our number-lover, decided to write out all the numbers from 1 to 1000.