An R-rated post

The girls were sitting at the table tonight doing their self-appointed math homework (and I just noticed that they gave themselves A's, but one of them gave the other a B+  --  I have no idea how they ever found out about grades -- but I digress) when the talk turned, I'm sorry to say, to Tooie's bottom. Granted, Tooie spends a lot of time naked, working on his important potty-training work and just not liking clothes all that much (especially ones with tags). But that does not mean that his sisters should critique his bottom as they did. Read on:

M: "I'm glad I don't have a bottom like Tooie's."

E: "Me, too. You'd have to tuck it in all the time and it would be AWful." (pause) "Well, back to math."

I'm glad they've got that cleared up. I'd say we're a family comfortable in our gender roles.

p.s. I won't mention what Tooie said about his potty-training experience tonight, in deference to my not-quite-as-good-as-I-thought sister (a post about that coming).

A Good Sister

My sister is a good sister. She reset my blog settings so now I know when people post comments. So instead of taking a month or two to reply to you (all of my five readers) it will only take a week or two. What a good sister. I'll just say right now to Moo, Hey, we're totally there at the farm, and when the toddler Tooie is terrorizing chickens, all I'll say is "I believe this was your idea." And to CSIowa, you don't think the funky chicken was overkill for a (probably accidental) soccer goal??

But I digress.

My sister is a good sister. She is soooo good that she will not mind that I still haven't washed her jacket that she left here and that the baby wee-wee-d into the pocket of and that I told her I would give back to her promptly but that I'm still wearing and that I in fact took with me on our latest family trip and that worked so famously for the weather down where we were and that I love love love and can't I please have it because don't you remember I changed your diapers. She is a gooooood sister.

But she does get a little cranky at the library. But she is a good sister. I saw her actually be almost kind and friendly to a patron just this week.

Now about that jacket . . .

E THE AUTHOR

E got back the first book she wrote in kindergarten. I'll put in subtitles for the boneheads in the audience who can't read perfectly elegant English.

I fell off the couch. I was sad.

I went to the doctor. They took an x-ray.

They put on a splint. I went to sleep. Then I went home.

IS IT JUST ME, OR DOES THIS SCREAM "NOBEL PRIZE" TO ANYONE ELSE??

Farmer E

E wants to be a farmer when she grows up. Consequently, she helps her dad out in the yard quite a bit. Marmot Dad has been using a level outside while he builds our garden raised beds and cold frames (I love to see a man using a circular saw). E was fascinated with the level today. Word is, she took the level and checked everything in sight to see if it was plumb and tidy. The picnic bench? "Nope." The play house? "Nope." The bags of peat moss sitting on the porch? "These are just fine," she reports. 

Whew. I couldn't sleep at night if I knew our peat moss was out of alignment.

She shoots! She scores!

M played her first soccer game on Thursday, and her second today. Let us say that we are not particularly sporty people. We can take sports or leave them. We don't get excited about sporting games of chance. We don't want it to be the end-all and be-all for our children. We don't want to try to live out some adolescent fantasies through our children's sporting events. 

How, then, do you explain our exuberance when M scored a goal in her very first soccer game, EVER? How do you explain the little victory dance her mother (aged all of 40 years) did in the end zone (I don't think soccer has an end zone. But I was down in that area.)? And how do you explain the happy feeling in our hearts when she did the very same thing today?

Well. We'll try to rope it in.

Do-lefo You-lefu?

Marmot Dad taught the girls Dog Latin. They love it. M in particular has taken to it and spent much of yesterday and today saying everything in Dog Latin. What is Dog Latin, you may well ask. Dolefog Lalefa-tilifin ilifiz thilifis. I find it very difficult to do. What is ironic is that Marmot Dad can't do Pig Latin very well. Anyway, the point is that we said our family prayer on Friday night, and all was well. And then a moment later we heard from M, "Aylefay-melefen!"

Did It Honk?

Last night at oh around 2 a.m. little Marmot Babe started throwing a fit. As I was lying down and holding him and trying to keep him from flinging himself off the bed he arched his back real hard and came down directly on the bridge of my nose. It made the most horrifying snapping and splintering sound--Marmot Dad leapt out of bed and started hyperventilating. I saw stars. As I pushed on my nose it made a quiet and not at all comfortable clicking noise.

I don't think it's broken, but it is very bruised. It throbbed all night long, and today it still feels like something very heavy is pressing on the bridge of my nose. (Marmot Dad says he thinks maybe I reset it myself.) (Fortunately I have hoarded my narcotic pain reliever from the birth of said Marmot Babe and had one left so I could sleep through the throbbing last night.)

Before church started this morning, Marmot Dad and I were rehearsing my narrow brush with death. "It sounded so awful," he said. "I know," I answered. "My body has never made such a noise before."

M, sitting between us, looked up with absolutely earnest eyes, and asked these immortal words: "Did it honk??"