Quotes to Remember

A blog post of various memorable quotes from the kids...


#1
 
After picking Julia up from school a few days ago:

JULIA: Mom, so, at recess today, me and Sadie were playing "Global Warming!"
ME:  Oh.  Cool.  So how do you play "Global Warming?"
JULIA: Um, so, we were pretending to be in the Arctic, and we're trying to save all the polar animals, and, um, there's this, like, WHALE that people are climbing on, and we needed to keep helping Stephanie, because she kept getting trapped in booby traps on the whale.  And, um, so...we would, um...we would...the WHALE was slippery.



#2

This morning, we were all in the car to drop Ethan off at his church choir rehearsal so that the girls and I could use the car to go to our church.  Ethan attempted to do some vocal warm-ups but was thwarted by the cold that has spread through our household:

ETHAN: (singing) Deeeee-deeeee-deeeee (voice cracking.)  Ugh.  That's horrible!
JULIA: (piping up from the backseat) What is?
ETHAN: My voice.
MADELEINE: (wisely) Daddy?  It's because we're on a BUMPY road.  

That was totally why.  It had NOTHING to do with the phlegm in Ethan's throat.  Madeleine continued to talk about bumpy roads for the next several minutes, then was suddenly struck by the injustice of the fact that nobody has done anything to FIX the bumps.

MADELEINE: Mommy?  Why don't they just CARVE all the bumpy roads?

Yeah.  Why *haven't* they carved the bumpy roads?  That would totally solve ALL the problems.



#3
 
We have all been enjoying our new Wii lately, which was a Christmas gift from Ethan to the girls.  Most nights, after dinner and before bed, we play a family game of Wii bowling.  Since we all need a cartoon figure to represent us, we had the option of choosing one of the multiple characters offered by the Wii itself, or designing our own "Mii" - pronounced "me" - a cartoon character made to look somewhat like its human equivalent.  Naturally, we were all excited to make our own Mii rather than choosing one of the standard characters.  Below is a picture of the arrangement of Mii characters representing everyone in our house:

From left to right: Me, Ethan, Julia, Auntie Shannon, and Madeleine

Every time one of us takes our turn to bowl, our Mii shows up on the screen, holding a bowling ball and looking determined and serious.  This has led us to make all sorts of comments about our Mii figures. 

"Wow, my Mii really looks like me!"
"I really like my Mii."
"Why does my Mii have such a big head?"
"I think my Mii needs to be taller."
"I love the hairstyle on my Mii."

And so forth.  The other day, as Julia was taking her turn in our bowling game, Madeleine turned to me and exclaimed, "Mommy!  Do you like Julia's HER??"

I do.  I like her her indeed.  I might like her her better than I like my mii.



#4

Yesterday afternoon, Ethan decided to play some music using our Roku, which allows us to access the internet through our television.  He was able to search for songs and play the music while the tv screen portrayed either an album cover or a picture of the artist.  Which led to this conversation with Madeleine:

MADELEINE: Look!  There's a picture of JESUS on the tv!
ETHAN: That's not Jesus, honey.  That's Frank Zappa.

It's a pretty easy mistake to make, don't you think??

Christmas Tree Work

Madeleine and I had a discussion about our old friend Santa Claus today while we were driving home from the store.

MADELEINE: (pointing excitedly at a house she could see through the car window) Mama!  Look!  That chimney is SMOKING!
ME: Yeah, they must have a fire going in their fireplace.
MADELEINE: But WE don't have a fireplace.
ME: We don't, you're right.
MADELEINE: We have a CHIMNEY, but no fireplace.
ME: Yup.  The chimneys don't lead anywhere anymore.
MADELEINE: (sadly) And so poor SANTA can't come to our house for CHRISTMAS!  He can't leave us ANY presents.
ME: Well, did we have presents under our tree this past Christmas?
MADELEINE: Uh, yes.
ME: So, what do you think?  Do you think Santa found a way to get into our house and deliver presents?
MADELEINE: Well, Mama, he can ONLY get in if we leave the DOOR unlocked.  But Mommy.  You DID lock the door, so Santa couldn't get IN!
ME: Well, then how on earth did we have so many presents under our tree on Christmas morning?
MADELEINE: (thoughtful) Well, Mom, I'm pretty sure that Santa has a KEY.


Man, my kids and their impeccable logic concerning Santa Claus.  They really have thought this whole situation out.  Julia with her volunteer ambassadors for every country, and Madeleine figuring out that Santa must have a key in order to get inside.  They both have most definitely jumped to the most rational conclusion about how the whole Santa thing works, no?


Speaking of our Christmas tree, it's scheduled to be picked up for the dump tomorrow morning, so Ethan and I need to get it out by our curb this evening.  I decided to take down the ornaments and lights today to make tonight's transfer quick and easy.  And lucky me, I had my little helper Madeleine right by my side, un-decorating the tree with me.

The point during which she actually was pretty helpful was in unwinding the lights.  She stood at one side of the tree so that could pass her my bundle of lights once I got around to the back.  When we got up to the top-most lights, however, she could no longer be of service.  These were the lights Ethan had hung, and his wily light-stringing ways REALLY caused me some difficulties, as I stood on tiptoe trying to unwind the strand from deep inside the tree branch maze.  At one point, I thought perhaps if I could get Madeleine to hold the lights, I could go around the tree and push the other side of the strand over the top.

ME: Madeleine?  Can you reach these?
MADELEINE: (trying) Uh...NO.
ME: Okay.  Never mind.
MADELEINE: But Mama?  Why are those so HIGH that they go up to the TOP of the tree?
ME: Well, these are the ones Daddy strung.  He could reach up here.
MADELEINE: (face melting) But Maaamaaaa!  Why did Daddy hang them so high so that I could never REACH them?

Yes Madeleine.  It's all about you.  The only reason Daddy strung the lights up to top of the tree was to prevent YOU from reaching them.  Never mind the fact that it would look totally idiotic to have the tree lit only 3/4 of the way up.

Anyway, while Madeleine came in handy during all but the top of the lights removal, there were other ways in which she made the task just a teensy bit more arduous.

Now, let me point out that our tree has been pretty dead since Christmas.  The water in the tree stand remains undrunk.  The pine needles are brittle and are shedding everywhere.  So the task of removing ornaments and lights rained down a torrent of needles all over the place.

And of course, despite my strict instruction NOT to do any of the following, Madeleine, faced with a very cool cause-and-effect experience, simply could not control herself from:

-deliberately shaking the branches to force a barrage of needles to pour down around her
-kneeling on the floor and making mounds of pine needles to play with ("but they're my PILES!")
-drawing lines in the needles with her feet to make "paths."  One for Julia, one for her, etc.

Therefore, it is unsurprising that after we had finished removing the decorations from the tree, we had an absolute rug of needles on our floor:

When I got out my vacuum, Madeleine was FULL of joy.  Before I knew it, she had decided to join me:

Let me tell you.  There is nothing more helpful in vacuuming up PILES of scattered pine needles than having a 4-year-old pushing a plastic "vacuum" that DOESN'T ACTUALLY WORK around in said piles, further scattering the pine needles.  Regardless, she truly enjoyed "helping" me, and was especially fascinated watching the process of me changing the vacuum bag.  Twice.  Yes, that's right: we had SO MANY pine needles on our floor that I had to change the bag TWO TIMES because it overloaded.  As Madeleine watched this whole ordeal, she exclaimed delightedly, "Wow, Mommy, I sure am learning a LOT about VACUUMS!"

Anyway, at long last, the floor is now clear of at least the most egregious mounds of pine needles.  Just in time for us to rain a whole flood of them down as we remove the tree from the room this evening.  Boy, I hope I have my little vacuuming helper there to assist me when it's time to do clean-up #2!

Inside Madeleine's Head

Another post in which I wonder what on earth goes through Madeleine's head. 

This is the conversation we had this morning:

MADELEINE: Mommy?  What kind of LAND do Halloween people live in?
ME: Uh...maybe they live in a haunted house.
MADELEINE: No.  Mommy.  What kind of LAAAAND do Halloween people live in?
ME: Uhhhh...maybe they live in Halloween Town.
MADELEINE: Uh, no, I don't think so.  Mommy?  Did you know I was thinking about SOUTH AMERICA?

I *should* have known she was thinking about South America.  After all, what says Halloween more than South America??  Of COURSE that's the kind of land Halloween people live in.  

Then, a bit later in the day, while Madeleine was coloring in her Dora coloring book, she suddenly decided we needed to do this:

MADELEINE: So, Mama, let's have a little THING going on right now.  So.  Pretend that you're Dora. 

ME: Okay.

MADELEINE: Dora!  Dora!

ME: Yes?

MADELEINE: Merry CHRISSAMASSA!

ME: Merry Chrissamassa.  Feliz Navidad.

MADELEINE: (satisfied) Okay, Mama?  Now it's the end of our AD.

 

 

That was a really great ad we did.  I'm sure anyone overhearing our ad would want to buy our product.  Whatever that may be.  Christmas greetings, perhaps??  What do you readers say?  Are you sold?  Will you hire Madeleine and I to write the text for your next Christmas card?

 

 

After coloring, Madeleine pulled out the board game "Guess Who" and asked me to play with her.  Guess Who is a great game for Madeleine to play, because she understands the rules and how the game works and is able to play her own turn without any help.  For those of you unfamiliar with the game, each player gets a full board of character faces, and each player also picks a card which has upon it one of the characters.  Through a series of yes and no questions, the players attempt to be the first to correctly guess which character is on the other player's card.  Madeleine gets the basic logic of what to do after her question is answered; for instance, if she asks if the character is a boy, and the answer is yes, she knows to flip down all of the girl character cards on her board.  I have noticed, however, that her process-of-elimination skills need some work.  She usually starts out with a bang, asking me a question about my character that eliminates more than half of the people on the board.  Once we get down to slimmer pickings, however, her questions get more and more random and less informative.  

 

For example, here's how one round went:

 

MADELEINE: Uh, does your person have WHITE HAIR?

ME: Yes.  

MADELEINE: (putting down the pictures of every character without white hair, leaving only a handful of people remaining.)

ME: Does yours have a hat?

MADELEINE: Yes.

ME: (putting down all the people without hats on my board.)

MADELEINE: Uh, does yours have glasses?

ME: No.

MADELEINE: (putting down the pictures of the one or two white-haired people with glasses.)

ME: Is yours a boy?

MADELEINE: No.

ME: (putting down all the boys.)

MADELEINE: (down to the last three cards or so) Uhhhh...does yours have...BROWN HAIR?

ME: No.

MADELEINE: (closely examining her three white-haired people, then keeping them all standing)

ME: Honey, you already know I don't have brown hair, because remember you asked if I have white hair and I said yes?  Why don't you ask if I have brown eyes instead?

MADELEINE: No, Mama, I said brown HAIR.

 

Yeah.  She really gets it.  What a fierce competitor!  Willing to stick to her guns and eliminate NOBODY rather than change her question!  Playing it fast and loose and making risky moves.  I like it.

 

 

At other points, after narrowing down most of the characters, Madeleine starts asking questions that are either totally subjective or don't really help her to make further strides in the game.  

 

A few of the questions she asked:

 

"Does yours have...(blowing up her cheeks) uh... PUFFY CHEEKS?"

 

"Does yours have eyelashes?"

 

"Does yours look pretty?"

 

 

After she and I played a few rounds, Madeleine and Daddy did a quick game before he had to get back to working (which he is doing from our house today.)  Watching the whole process was quite the experience.

 

For example, when Madeleine's board looked like this,:

 

 

her question to Ethan was: "Does yours have a green hat?"

I might have gone for "does yours have facial hair?"  or "does yours have a bald head?", but hey, that's just me.  Madeleine was at least able to deduce that NONE of the remaining characters on her board needed to be flipped down after Ethan confirmed that his person did NOT have a green hat.

When it was down to the last two people, Bill and Herman, Madeleine was ready to ask the game-changing question.

MADELEINE: Okay.  Daddy.  Does yours have a BIG NOSE, because of him?  (pointing at Herman.)

Big-nosed Herman


So, you know, we have a little work to do on deductive reasoning, but all in all, Madeleine seems to enjoy playing this game whether she stalls towards the end of each round or not.

Now Madeleine is back to coloring in her Dora book.  She just completed a picture of Dora and Boots by a Christmas tree.  Madeleine colored Dora's mouth in all black, then told me, "Mama?  Dora is saying 'Merry Christmas' with chocolate GUM in her mouth, so it comes out like 'Mmmmmrrrr Chrrrrr.'  And Boots is saying, 'Merry Christmas' and is that BETTER?  Because...Boots DOESN'T have any chocolate gum in his mouth."

Ahh, if  could only get inside her brain for a day, I'm sure it would be a pretty amazing, wild and crazy trip.

Grace, Chloe and Saige

Julia began work on a brand new book yesterday, this one about a group of teenage friends:

Grace, Chloe and Saige
by J.C. Rowe

Woah.  J.C. Rowe??  How very J.K. Rowling of her!
And also.  Is the blonde balancing an apple on top of her head?  Is this the story of William Tell?

"Grace, Chloe and Saige are best friends.  'That was delishas ice cream,' said Grace.  'Well I'm still haveing mine.  WOCH OUT GRACE!"

Oh my gosh.  What's going to happen??  Is William Tell about to shoot his arrow at their heads??

"Ooooooohi,' siad Chloe.  'Stop laphing Saige.'  'Well,' she splluder'd. 'We have to clean you up Grace,'  'Be nice Saige.'  Saige glair'd at her.  'FINE,' she said."

Okay.  So it's the cherry from her ice cream on Grace's head??  How did she get the cherry on her head?  Balanced so perfectly?  Where did the rest of the ice cream go?  And, seriously, what on earth is Saige's problem??  That girl's got a 'TUDE.

"The next day was the last day of scool.  Gradowating Day.  'You know, I think I like it with my haire down, Saige.'  'Oh look it's Paige and Dillan on thair first day of hie school."

So, wait, do we not get any resolution to the ice cream/cherry on head story arc?  All of a sudden they're just gradowating?  And why are Paige and Dillan starting hie school on gradowation day?  Or has an entire summer lapsed without explanation between the two pages?

"Um  hello I'm Paige.  Wairs the hisschol room?'  'We'll show you."

And that's where Julia has left off in this grand adventure.  What will happen next?  My prediction: at lunch in the cafeteria, while Paige and Dillan eat hamburgers, Dillan will suddenly yell: "WOCH OUT PAIGE!" and Paige will unexpectedly have a pickle slice on her head.

To see if my prediction holds water, and to find out more about the hie school adventures of these crazy kids, stay tuned for more chapters by J.C. Rowe!

Madeleine's Beautiful Box

Madeleine has been working VERY hard (as in hours spent silently concentrating on her coloring) on decorating a box. We parents all know how valuable a good, empty cardboard box can be to a kid.  Not only can it be used in pretend play, but it offers multiple sides of blank canvas on which to color. 

Here is what Madeleine has done so far. 

Box top:

This is Harry Potter (left) and Ginny (center right.)  According to Madeleine, "Mommy?  So.  Ginny has such big hair because she has BANGS.  So, I think this picture is when she's a little OLDER, because I think when Ginny gets older, she grows BANGS."


The inside of the box is decorated all over, as well.  Here's the inside lid:

This is a plate.  As Madeleine told me, "Yeah, and it's DARK because there's DOG CAT FOOD on it!"


The lower inside of the box is thoroughly colored as well:

ME: Madeleine, what did you color here?
MADELEINE: Oh.  Just some decorations!


And the bottom of the box is adorned as well:

Aside from Madeleine and Julia each writing their name, Madeleine also drew a few little things.  Like the orange blob: "A butterfly."  And the black squares.  "Oh, those are little DOORS."  (ME: What do the doors lead to?  MADELEINE: Oh.  Nowhere.)


Madeleine is currently hard at work coloring the outer sides of the box.  She had the radical new idea of inviting text onto her box (beyond just the names on the bottom.) 

MADELEINE: Mommy, Mommy, I made some LINES so that you can write some QUESTIONS!  Come and see, come and see!

And sure enough, along the side of the box, she had extended horizontal lines, one on top of another.

MADELEINE:  Okay, Mommy, so you can write down your QUESTION!  And

Mommy.  You can be my SECOND special sistant.  Because...Julia is my FIRST special sistant, so you can be my SECOND sistant.


So, I took my job of second sistant very seriously, and therefore wrote down my question and read it to Madeleine.


ME: Okay, here's my question:  "What is this box for?"
MADELEINE: (breezily) I use it for magical MIRACLES.

A moment later, Madeleine urged me to write another question, because, "This box is for all girls to write TWO questions.  So, when Julia gets home, she will write TWO questions.  And Mom.  You need to write TWO questions."

So I wrote a second question down and read it to Madeleine.

ME: I wrote: "How long did it take you to decorate this box?"
MADELEINE: (with a very serious face) Um, a little bit long.

Now that's a precise calculation of time if I ever heard one.

At any rate, it's a good thing I took pictures of the box when I did, because Madeleine's next step was to announce that it got really dark in Harry Potter and Ginny's world, and next thing I knew, she had colored the entire top of the box with a dark marker, covering up all of her drawings (with the exception of Ginny's big flop of red hair.)

Glad to know that even as Madeleine's artistic ability increases, she still holds on tight to her love of completely covering her existing designs with a layer of all-black.  Gothic artists rejoice!: you have a budding new talent in the making!

Sledding Fun

The weather was finally warm enough to take the girls out sledding today, so we Rowes headed over to the town High School to sled down its massively steep, double-bumped front hill.  We discovered late last winter that the kids prefer this hill to the milder one at the town golf course we had been going to.  Even so, for the first few runs down today, both girls wanted a parent with them.  Julia then decided to brave the hill by herself, but her survival instincts were still on overdrive, so every possible imagined danger in her path caused her to bail out of her sled.

Her first few runs went something like this:

ME: Okay, let me know when you're ready and I'll let go of the sled.
JULIA: Okay.  I'm ready.
ME: Okay!  (letting go)
JULIA: (shooting down the hill at rapid speed, then flailing around and flying out of her sled mid-way down the hill.)

Eventually, she was able to trust her ability to steer (somewhat) out of the way of impediments, and had a blast sailing down the hill all on her own.  Even Madeleine wound up going down on the sled alone, starting first at the second bump in the hill, then working her way all the way to the very top.  And both girls were real troopers about trudging the whole up the hill pulling their sleds (sometimes with a little help from Daddy):

At one point, after Julia had reached the top of the hill again, we had this exchange:

ME: Do you want to go down again by yourself?
JULIA: Yes.  Because I really LOVE sledding.  But Mom?  First I need to take a little break, because it's really tiring.  Pulling that sled all the way up the hill is hard, and Mom?  Sometimes it even feels like I'm LUGGING it.  Okay, I'm reeeeady!  (hopping into the sled)

I mean, when she said she needed a little break, she really meant a LITTLE one.  Basically a break long enough to utter a few sentences, then down she went again.

Madeleine took longer to get back up the hill, mostly because she continually got distracted by the snow itself and began playing with it.  At one point, after I rode down the sled with Julia, Madeleine and Ethan both attacked us with snowballs.  I literally was in the midst of trying to take a picture of Madeleine when a snowball struck me in the eye from very close range. 

Don't be fooled by her cute, giggling face.  She is not afraid to nail you in the eye with a cold one.


In fact, our sledding adventure ended in sobs all because of a snowball.  Madeleine decided she needed to take a snowball home with us, and got so utterly emotionally attached to her snowball that it was unthinkable for her to let it go.  I was absolutely not about to let her take it in the car, where it would undoubtedly melt and make a big mess, but she chose to employ her selective listening and hop into her car seat, snowball in hand, anyway.  When I attempted to take the snowball from her, she clamped her little hand so tightly around it that my only recourse was to yank her glove off and shake the snowball out onto the ground. 

And man.  Madeleine was NOT happy.  She sobbed her little heart out about the injustice of the situation.  I had no sympathy.  I had already told her she needed to dispose of the snowball before getting in the car, and she chose to impishly defy me.  Sorry, snowball.  You don't get to be part of the family.

And now that we all got to have a little fun in the snow, I'll have no complaints if Mother Nature decides to warm things up and melt all the snow away!

The Sugar Bowl

This is what just happened:

MADELEINE: (pulling the spoon out of the sugar bowl) Mom?  Can I stir this for just FIFTY-FIVE minutes?
ME: No, you can't.
MADELEINE: But Mama.  You always say I can JUST stir it.

(No, I don't.  But Madeleine decided to defy me and start stirring the sugar in the bowl anyway, then launched into a pretend-play discussion with the sugar.)

MADELEINE:  "Oh, what are you doing today?"  "I'm the one who sugars all the OTHER sugar."  Um...um...Mommy?  I was sugaring the sugar ALL over the other sugar inside the cup!
ME: Madeleine, why are you stirring the sugar?
MADELEINE: It's because...you need to do it when you're in CLASSICALS.  And I'm in classicals today.
ME: Classicals?  What are classicals?
MADELEINE: It's called: you have to sugar the sugar all over the sugar inside the little cup, and then stir it after you do it.  And then when you're DONE, you can stir it.
ME: Uh.  Okay. 
MADELEINE: (resuming her stirring) You can also sugar all the YAY sugar.
ME: What's the yay sugar?
MADELEINE: THIS sugar, that I was already stirring for a little bit.  (Talking to herself and/or talking as the sugar again) "Sugaring BACK and FORTH."


I mean, really, why even buy toys at all?  This kid can launch into pretend-play land with nothing but a sugar bowl and spoon...