A Book and a Note

Madeleine is hard at work on a new book, entitled "We Love You":

Apparently, she was not happy with her first few attempts at writing "we."  Nor was she happy with her initial "y" of "you."  Either that or she just *really* wanted some black scribbles on her book cover.

I really have no idea what to say about this picture.  There appears to be a fairy hanging from a thread as if she's a spider.  The flying platypus with a hot dog coming out of the side of his face has perhaps expelled diarrhea onto that nice black stool.  No wonder the curly-locked gray-haired woman is saying "No."

Let's ask the illustrator to explain this picture to see how close I was.

MADELEINE: So, that's the other sister.  (pointing at the fairy) The younger sister.  (pointing to the person saying "No") And that's the older sister.  (pointing at the platypus) That's the mole.  He's jumping on the trampoline.  To smell the air.  Because he's excited that the next day would be spring.

Oh.  It's a trampoline.  Not a platypus-besmirched stool.  Madeleine's explanations are always more innocent than my interpretations.

 

Let's take a crack at this one: "Oh no" says Chiquita Banana as she watches her blonde-haired friend crab-claw the ceiling.

MADELEINE: Um, it's just that Sabrina's party hat is up there, on that bar, and she's swinging on the bars, and her mom is holding Sabrina's little brother's party hat.  And...and why Sabrina's mom's hair is green is because her shoes are covered with green paint.

Once again, an innocent explanation.  EXCEPT Madeleine added this comment after a moment's pause:

MADELEINE: And this Sabrina's EVIL.
ME: The girl in this picture?
MADELEINE: The little girl is named Sabrina, and she's evil.

Oh.  Well, okay.  That's pretty dark.

Hmm.  My guess: Some sort of medieval wooden torture device appears to be popping party hats out of its arms.  "You to Julia."

MADELEINE: The mom did a trick so the party hats would go on the sisters. 
ME: (pointing at the wooden torture device) But what's this thing?
MADELEINE: That's the trick!

Yeah.  A medieval torture device trick.  Nailed this one.

Meanwhile, Madeleine wanted to leave a note for her sister after she proudly "counted" past infinity.  (By saying "Infinity and one, infinity and two..." and so forth.)  I insisted Madeleine attempt to sound out the words herself, which caused an initial melt-down by my little perfectionist.  Ultimately, however, she gave it a go.  Can you read her message to Julia??:

Spoiler alert: the final word, "infinity," was initially spelled "infinad."  Madeleine explained that this was because the last two sounds in the word are "A dee."  In-fin-a-dee.  Hence, D was the final letter.  I cheated on my insistence that she sound the words out by explaining that there's actually a "y" at the end of the word.  I was afraid Julia wouldn't be able to read the final word and that would catapult Madeleine back into her melt-down over not knowing how to spell words with precision.  My fingers are crossed that Julia will be able to figure out what the rest of the note says, and they're doubly crossed that Julia doesn't feel the need to go into condescending big sister mode and point out to Madeleine every misspelled word.  (Let's not even get into the issue of there being no number higher than infinity.  Nor of it being possible to even count to infinity.)


Okay, I'm about to go jump on a trampoline now with my mole friend and sniff spring in the air.