Conversing with the girls

Conversation at the table during snack time:

MADELEINE: Atz Dat?
ME: That's an animal cracker.
MADELEINE: Cockoo.
ME: Yes, that's right, cracker!
MADELEINE: (holding out a particular animal cracker) Atz Dat?
ME: That's a kitty.
MADELEINE: Mao!
ME: Yes, meow!
MADELEINE: (holding out another one) Atz Dat?
ME: That's a buffalo.
MADELEINE: Buffo!
ME: Good job, honey!
MADELEINE: Atz Dat?
ME: I think that's a cow.
MADELEINE: (smiling radiantly) Mooooo!

Conversation in the car:

ME: (as we drove by our town's new Greek restaurant) Julia, look, that new restaurant is open!
JULIA: Oh, Mom, maybe when it opens again we can GO there!
ME: You know what I think we should do? I think we should invite Loula and Will and Mark and Amy to have dinner with us there, because Amy is Greek just like me.
JULIA: She is?
ME: Yes, that's why her mommy and her aunt go to our church, because her family is Greek.
JULIA: But I'm not Greek.
ME: Well, you are. Yia-Yia Megali came to America from Greece, so all her children, and her grandchildren and her relatives are Greek. Where a person's family is from is called their ethnicity. Your ethnicity is Greek, because your older relatives came from Greece.
JULIA: Yeah, and Daddy's family came from Vermont.
ME: Yes, Daddy's family has been in Vermont for a long time, and I think one of Daddy's older relatives was Native American. So your ethnicity is Greek, but also American.
JULIA: And, I'm also English.
ME: Well, yeah, that's true.
JULIA: And Mommy, I think that soon I'm going to be Spanish too, because I'm learning so much Spanish from Dora.

Good logic, honey!