Skip to main content
Baking with toddlers.

My niece Julianna is a spy. We’ll be sitting around, chatting or having lunch, and she’ll say, out of the blue, very very meaningfully: “the monkey at the playplace is very scary.” And it is clear that she expects a specific response, although none of us know exactly what that response is. “The blue camel is falling down.”

The creche on my coffee table was quite interesting to her. “Look, baby Jesus lives in a castle. With a butterfly!” (The angel, of course.)

Nieces are great. I can let her just eat frosting if that’s what she wants. It’s not my job to worry about nutrition.

Okay, back to digging cookie crumbs out of the upholstery!

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

This has been a very long week -- perhaps 16 or 17 days, at least. I have been offered -- and accepted -- my younger sister’s finished basement for the next year and a half. This will be a major cost-saver for me and a big help for her (she has two toddlers and is expecting a baby in August.) So that was a humongous start to the week. My other sister and her teenaged son have had to make some really hard decisions. She gave me permission to quote her: “spent yesterday at the hospital with my son. about eleven hours. sitting here writing and rewriting this entry trying to find just the right words. how to explain-- he is not healthy. he is mentally ill. he is not safe at home. none of this really covers it. so here's one image from the day. we walk into the east wing at maine med escorted by security. the very nice guard LOOKS like a skinhead but actually has incredible kindness and compassion for my snarly boy. he tells us gently that he has to check ian for weapons and sharp o...
3 comments
Read more
Life is a little tough these days. Taking a break. I will be back with more tales of grasshoppers and compost heaps and scrabble games soon.
17 comments
Read more
From the warnings in the back of the Life textbook: If one sleeps over at one’s old house to take care of one’s own kids while their dad is on a business trip, and if one is pleased with how calmly and smoothly everything is going and has gone and seems to be likely to go in the future, one should not be surprised when one’s silly dog decides to have -- oh, what should we call it? diarrhea? -- in the master bedroom on the white carpet. One should be careful not to say anything too terribly vile to the dog while scrubbing away at germy spattery spots with old white gym towels. Note: one should be especially alert to the smirking meanness of the universe. The universe has been known to send along vicious wasps to sting one on the ring finger of the left hand, causing one to nearly faint from anxiety.
1 comment
Read more