Emily: "Maybe me and Alexa and Louise can be triplets!"
Louise: "Except we have different families."
               pregnant pause
Louise: "You cannot trade families unless someone dies. And the only one about to die is Mommy, because she is the oldest."

again

Mommy kept poking at me on Monday. Said something about my face. Everybody seems so interested in my face these days. Daddy said to stop worrying, which of course I wasn't anyway. I think he may have been talking to Mommy.

Then Tuesday me and Eliza went on a fun ride with Mommy. Things were great until Doctor showed up again. Typically he just laughs a lot and gives me stickers, but this time he stuck a needle in my jaw and withdrew a lot of white smelly stuff. Didn't even ask first. He's not getting my co-pay.

Out comes the Happy Juice again. It's a love-hate thing. The stuff is 'real', you know. I feel alive. But then I end up in a bed with tubes and wires and a Vacancy sign on the left side of my mouth. I love the Juice, but I've got to kick this habit or I'm going to go missing.

There's always the upside. Cute nurses bringing me stuff and talking about me like I'm not in the room. Room service, plenty of Thomas the Train and Pudding.

The next time Mommy starts poking at my face again, I'm going to hide in the closet.... unless she promises the Juice.

Letter of the Day

Louise: Mom, you know, there aren't very many words that start with D that people say... except for 'diarrhea'.

Greek and Goddeses.

It is almost Halloween !!!
Mom is making me a costume,( a Greek goddesses.)

I'm so happy.

dad"s birthday was today.

Recent Louise Humdingers

Louise is currently at her Grandma's house in Florida. I get daily (sometimes twice or thrice daily) emails from Grandma detailing the funny things Louise has been saying. It's safe to say that she, um, lets down her guard around grandparents, who are famous for being, well, lax on the punishment front

Here's a list:

"I can't see your driveway because of all the stinkin' trees."

(After being told she was lucky she's not Grandma's age)
"If I was your age, I would be dead."

(After being told she's never been afraid of monsters before)
"I have been afraid of monsters. I've just never told you."

(After Grandma commenting that there must be a "baby" in the backseat)
"There must be a grumpy Grandma in the front seat."

I wonder what Louise would say if she had her own yes-man.

Homeschool Know-It-All

Yesterday we sat at the top of Chimney Rock, NC, for an Educational Program. It was the park's wildlife expert, I take it, with her toolbox full of snakes and turtles.

Emily really showed her Homeschool colors. She had an answer to every single question the girl asked, whether it was correct or not. With our 4 kids under 7 years old, and 1 being Chinese, we might as well have worn matching "Homeschool Family" Tshirts.

Eventually I poked her and told her to let the other kids have a turn.

All in all, she was right most of the time, and I was glad. I am a weak science teacher, but she absorbs so much it's all sitting in there somewhere, along with the words to about a thousand Veggie Tales songs, every fact about every American Girl in production, and an exhaustive list of characters and places from the Narnia books.

And hey, now we know how to tell whether or not a snake is venomous, so it was a win-win day, I would say.

I didn't need that.

Yesterday we were at the top of Chimney Rock, NC, sitting at an Educational Event- i.e., one of the park employees talking about snakes. Obviously, people under 4 are bound to get twitchy, and Eliza was constantly wiggling away from Alan, trying to run around. He finally put her on his lap and held his hands in front of her. Things were well and snuggly until I heard a "Ptoow". When I looked at Alan, his face was frozen, and his palm was full of spit, and Eliza was satisfied.

Didn't YOU know??

This past week the family went up to Ridgecrest Conference and Retreat Center outside of Asheville, NC. This place is mainly Volunteer-run, and by "volunteer" I mean retirees. So now you have the setting. Here's the story.

We were sitting in the dining hall enjoying our lunch one day when Louise says conversationally, "Mommy, did YOU know, that when people get to be about 60, they start to shrink?"- she demonstrated by holding out her hand horizontally, and lowering it incrementally down to the ground- "seriously, their bones get smaller and smaller when they get old."

I looked around and saw that every single table adjacent to ours was filled with, well, people who were at-risk for such a phenomenon.

After laughing into my napkin, I asked her how she knew this, and she just tapped her head and smiled.