Heard around here this morning

(While playing with dressups)

Sarah: "I want to get married too!"

Beth: "Okay, but then you can't run away."

Guess what today is?

It's FARM BOX DAY!

Pea tendrils, baby spinach, radishes and salad turnips, spring kale, bok choy, the ubiquitous lettuce, and (wait for it)...cilantro!

We're splitting the share with some neighbors this year because, frankly, it's more greenery than the four of us can safely consume in a week. And you know it's a good day when a 13-year-old boy exclaims, "Oh good, cilantro! Now I can make salsa!"

Say-ing #5

At dinner tonight: "Spinach makes me do something very bad, but I don't know what it is."

Beth's fifth birthday party, by the numbers

Balloons purchased for Beth's birthday party this morning: 12

Balloons that survived the ride home: 11 

Very excited pint-sized little girls in their fanciest tea party attire: 10

Number of adults present at said party, including Beth's dad and grandpa: 9

Number of cupcakes left over at the end of the party: 7

Percentage of those cupcakes likely to be consumed by Beth's mom before bedtime: 86

Strawberry cartons purchased last night for dipping in Hershey's syrup "fondue": 4

Teacups I borrowed late last night from a very brave friend so that each girl could drink pink lemonade from a real teacup and saucer: 4

Children who refused pink lemonade: 2 (Who are these people who can turn down chocolate cupcakes and pink lemonade? Certainly no one in my family.)

Number of fancy dresses Grandpa Wes brought in his suitcase for Beth and Sarah: 2

Number of said dresses worn by the girls to the party, although Beth did wear the dress intended for Sarah and vice versa: 2

Number of children who appeared to have jumped into the fondue along with her strawberries: 1 (Sorry, Julie -- I did try to sponge her off.)

Number of little girls in tears by the end of the party: 0 (Raging success.)

Two vignettes from today

1. It took two refrigerator magnets, a piece of string, two mangled coat hangers and three pint-sized helpers...but I did get my car key out from under the back steps.

2. The house cleaners came this morning (Scott's awesome, oh-honey-you-shouldn't-have-but-boy-I'm-glad-you-did Christmas present to me this year was bi-weekly house cleaning) and changed the sheets. Everything looked fantastic — except for a flat, empty pillowcase in the middle of Sarah's bed. I've searched in every quasi-logical place and cannot find her pillow. Sarah doesn't know where it is either.

Bethism #15

Beth, to Scott: "Do you want to hear the joke about the three penguins and the bowl of guacamole?"

Scott: "Yes!"

Me: "Yes!"

Plumber fixing our radiators: "That sounds like a really good joke."

Beth: "Okay. The penguins thought the bowl of guacamole was a swimming pool and so they jumped right in!"

She has some work to do on her punch line, but the setup is priceless.

Say-ing #4

Scene: Monday night, the ice cream shop at the end of our street. Two small girls are working away at scoops of strawberry ice cream. Their parents have opted for something with a higher chocolate content.

Sarah: Mmm. This is kind of like cheese. But it's not."

Me: "How is it like cheese, Sarah?"

Sarah, after pondering: "Because cheese is kind of pink, but it's not."

Ha!

Seen this?

Riot Grrrl, with sparkles

Beth, talking to Scott tonight: "Today we made Pony Town at preschool. Only ponies can live in Pony Town."

Scott: "What would happen if a cat came to Pony Town?"

Beth: "They would kill it."

Scott: "Oh. Would they eat it, too?"

Beth: "Uh-huh."

Scott: "Those are tough ponies."

Beth: "Yeah."

Say-ing #3

Sarah, on how to write some of the letters in her name:

A: "You have to make a line down and then they have to touch so no one can tell it's an H."
R: "There's a line down and then a bump at the top and a kick."


The S still looks like a C...but she's getting there.

Bethism #14

Beth was wondering today what kind of animal is purple. She wasn't coming up with any on her own, and Sarah was no help ("Um...a sheep can be purple!"), so I reminded her that we had seen a purple bird at the National Aviary in Pittsburgh.

Her response: "Get out of town! Birds come in purple?!?"

If you have a preschool-aged kid...

...and you live in my neck of the woods, you know how much we love our co-op preschool. Between the fresh batches of kid-concocted play dough every week, and the nature walks, and the Seuss-style phonics, and the cooking, and the free access to paint and glitter and other messy things that mommy doesn't allow on her living room rug, both kids are having a fabulous time. Scott and I (but Scott especially) get a kick out of our periodic parent-helper duties. And we like the vibe: lots of free play with interesting stuff, a multi-disciplinary, creative-inquiry-based curriculum, teachers and parents sitting down and listening to what the kids have to say.

If you're scouting out the best preschool for your kid next year, there's an open house next Saturday morning (Jan. 23rd) from 10 to noon. Kids welcome, of course. See the school's website for more info.

Say-ing #2

(Good grief, it's been a long time since I said I'd start posting "Say-ings" — the funny things Sarah says — must start doing more of these!)

Sesame Street is doing a "habitat" theme this season, beginning with a real estate agent trying to sell Big Bird a condo in sunnier climes. Today the girls were watching as the Muppets were trying to figure out where a camel's habitat is. A mountain, because its back looks like a mountain? A swamp?

Scott couldn't stand it. "Sarah and Beth, where does a camel live?"

Sarah: "In the nativity scene."

Happy Cyber Monday!

Woke up this morning to two rather energetic preschoolers and two rather enthusiastic reviews of some of my Etsy items on Familylicious. Scroll down a bit...look for the Teesies icon...you'll find 'em.

Now...to get said kids, a stack of phone books, and every spare string of white Christmas lights I can find over to the church by 9:30...'cause I'm spending a good chunk of the day decorating for the annual wreathmaking party. (I'm tempted to crash the rival event tomorrow night: "Manrichment," featuing a bunch of dads, a McDonald's playspace, and a Big Mac eating contest. Suppose I'd look a little out of place, though.)

Bethism #13

Out of the blue this morning at the breakfast table:

"Christmas is my favorite year of the week."

Good grief!

So here's just a snippet of my crazy week:

I'm basting tulle to the circle skirt of a Lucy van Pelt costume (the first of three — why did everyone want to be Lucy this year?), the plumber has finally fixed my tub drain (flood happened a month ago), and I should probably do something about the three baskets of clean laundry sitting on my living room floor before both ServiceMaster (to take care of the first wave of flood cleanup) and my visiting teachers arrive at 3:30. Oh, and preschool pickup time is at 3:00, and I should really make a run to the post office (to send off three tee shirts) and the Ben Franklin store (to buy more royal blue thread, for said Lucy costume) on my way home.

I am definitely going to need more cookies.

One of the cruel things about getting older

Apparently, I no longer qualify for the unofficial late-night cute girl discount at Kinko's.

Sigh.

It's all downhill from here.

Rant of the week

Costco. Seriously. Once a year or so, as you're checking out your oversized shopping cart full o' bulk items, there's an extra person standing with the cashier. He'll show you how much you spent at Costco in the last 12 months, and then try to sell you an executive membership that gives you cash back on purchases.

Today it was my turn. And for the second year in a row, the amount of money Costco's marketing department says I spent at the Mommy of All Warehouses is about $1200 more than I've actually spent. And THAT'S the part that bugs me.

See, I know how much money I've spent at Costco. I know this because I'm, well, rather anal-retentive, and also because I'm married to an accountant who likes to keep track of where we've spent all our money. So I can pull up Pocket Quicken on my Palm Pilot, do a quick report, and know to the penny how much I've spent there. (Okay, maybe not to the penny. I don't track what we spend on hot dogs and soft drinks. But then, since I don't have to have my membership card scanned when I pay cash for my completely unhealthy dinner, neither does Costco.)

This year (September 1, 2008 through August 31, 2009), my total: $3423.55 Costco's total:  around $4600.

(Note: Before you pass out from looking at those numbers, keep in mind that I buy almost everything in bulk. Bread and milk? Check. Frozen chicken? Check. Socks for my husband? Chocolate chips? Cereal? Diapers? Excedrin? Check. And then there's Scott and the whole DVD/electronics thing.)

We don't lend anyone our Costco membership card. (Seriously. Who would we lend it to? Everyone we know shops at Costco.) We don't pay cash for anything we buy there. Absolutely everything shows up in Quicken. So there are only two reasons that Costco's numbers shouldn't match my numbers, allowing for a few errors. 1) Someone in the marketing department is consciously adding to everyone's yearly total in order to convince them they need to buy an executive membership, or 2) Someone in the marketing department is too dumb to run a simple database query. Either way, that someone should be fired.

Place of residence

Scott was practicing his southern accent tonight in anticipation of dessert. "We need some paaaah," he told the girls. "Tell yo' mommy we need some paaaaaah."

I said, "Sarah, tell your daddy that we live in Boston, not Atlanta, and that he's being inappropriate."

Sarah: "Daddy, we wiv in Boston, not inappwopwiate."

Scott: "Well, that's true. I don't live in Appropriate."

I believe this is a rite of childhood passage

So...apparently Beth swallowed a hair clip a few days ago. (Why "apparently"? She complained about her throat hurting; I asked her why; she said she thought there was a clip stuck in it; I asked if she'd put a clip in her mouth; she said no; later that night she was worried about the clip being inside her.)

If it's actually inside her, it's one of those little itty bitty roundish plastic things with little tiny plastic teeth that don't even work in Sarah's hair any more. So I'm not worried. But Beth was concerned that the clip was giving her a headache. So Scott just sat her down to watch the Schoolhouse Rock "I'm a Machine" video on YouTube. I think she's a bit less concerned than she was. At least she knows it hasn't been sucked up into her brain.