cutting to the chase

Scene - the kitchen at her grandmother's house.

Caroline: [rooting through the snack drawer] Marmy, I'm really hungry.

Marmy: Oh? Well what would you like?

Caroline: Hmm. How about some sugar?

an imposing feat

We are visiting Marmy and Pappaw this weekend, and Marmy has an impressive collection of junk food in the house, as any grandmother should. Caroline begged for candy from the moment we walked in the door.

We were eating dinner when she asked for a Kit Kat. I told her she had to eat three more bites of lasagna before she got any treats.

She held up her spoon and tilted her head and said, "Well, here goes nothin'!"

mammals as japanese vending machines

Caroline was playing with her horse figures, and the foal was nursing from the mother.

"The baby horse is drinking its mother's milk."

How sweet, I thought, that she is emulating maternal behaviors with little horses.

She continued holding the little foal's face to the mama horse's belly.

"And now the baby horse is eating its mother's scrambled eggs."

whippersnappers

I was sitting on the couch with my feet propped on the coffee table. Caroline climbed onto my legs and sat on my knees. I groaned.

She wrinkled her nose in concern and asked, "Mom, is it hurting because you're so old?"

madame caroline's school of dance

She was wearing her little ballet flat mary janes, pretending they were tap shoes. Though she's been all about ballet for months and months, and though she's never had tap classes or seen it other than on tv, she's getting pretty into it. She stood in the mirror doing some self-created moves and asked her dad if he wanted some lessons.

There were cross toe taps, little hops and jumps, and many reminders about putting his hands on his hips. She studied him for a moment.

"You're actually pretty good, Daddy." She sounded surprised.

She showed him some of her more advanced techniques and watched him again.

She gave a slight grimace and head tilt of sympathy.

"Well, it was a good try, but that's a little... too tappish."

temporary self-loathing

Caroline: Mom, I don't really like babies.

Mom: Caroline! You were a baby once, too, you know.

Caroline: Yeah, I know. And I didn't like myself back then.

just some of the time

Caroline: Daddy, can you get me a glass of milk, please?

Daddy: I suppose I can do that.

Mom: Well isn't that nice of Daddy?

Caroline: Yeah. He's not always a dirtbag.

bring your coupon organizer

Caroline: Let's make a shopping list.

Mama: Oh, okay.

Caroline: What do we need to buy at the grocery store?

Mama: I could use some sanity.

Caroline: [fake writing] Allllllright. Cereal, sanity, lemons, cherries, cavatappi, and what else?

meet your meat

"Mom, can we look up mahi mahi on the computer? I want to see what that tasty, tasty fish looks like."

non-alarmist

Caroline: [grumpily] Daddy, I don't want you in here!

Dad: Hey, if you want to be alone, you need to ask nicely. Or else you need to go sit in your room for a while...

Caroline: Whoa whoa whoa! Let's not panic here.

because "most modest" was already taken

"Mama, you're the most brilliant. Daddy, you're the most sensitive. Sylvie, you're the smallest. And me? I'm the greatest."

just call me the asteroid

I was cooking dinner and got a free show.

"Look Mom. I'm a mama pteranodon... I'm hatching my baby pteranodons. Oooooh... oh it hurts." She sat on nesting plastic bowls, which she identified as cracking eggs. "They're here! Look at my baby pteranodons!"

She spied a Costco-sized jar of dried parsley on the counter.

"Hey, those are leaves. Pteranodons eat leaves! I will feed my babies."

I had visions of 1000000000 parsley bits flying through the air. Permission denied.

"Okay fine, Mom. We'll just be EXTINCT."

i suppose this is karma

Caroline: Mom, your head is really small.

Mom: Small? How is my gigantor head small?

Caroline: Well it's maybe not that your head is small. It's probably just because your body is so big.

pretzel fail

Chuck walked into the living room and saw her sitting on the couch, upright with her foot over her head.

"Um, Daddy, I seem to be a little stuck."

malpractice suit in the making

Caroline has decided she is a veterinarian. She spends a lot of time lifting Reuben's ears and peering into the vast bassetty darkness, looking for earwax, which she calls "gross peanut butter." Or holding the cats' faces and evaluating the "glitteriness" of their eyes as an indicator of their health. We spend a lot of time telling her to leave the pets alone. Luckily, she is sorta gentle. Luckier still, our pets are extremely tolerant.

Today when I saw her holding the [too obliging] cat's tail and moving it slowly in a wave, I asked her to let go.

"What? I'm just making sure it works."

I told her to let. go.

"Mom. I think she swallowed a snake and now it's in her tail. We need to do an x-ray."

I removed the cat.

"Great! [patented arms-crossed preschooler stomp here] So if that snake bites her guts, it's all your fault."

honesty is refreshing

Early this morning, she was laying next to her dad, laughing and chatting and being normally silly. She stopped talking abruptly, stared at her dad, and announced: "You smell like stink, Daddy."

We broke out into laughter, but she needed to get her point across and seriously and emphatically repeated.

"Daddy. You really smell like stink."

budget cuts may be an obstacle

A rare nighttime drive with her yielded an interesting idea. Imagine, if you will, all this said super fast, without pause, and with the most excited 3 year old voice everrrr:

"Hey! Hey! I have a great idea. We should take the car lights and the street lights and some of the red, yellow, and green hangy lights; and we should wrap em all up in a big ball. And we'd shoot them through outer space to the moon. An' an' an' and then the moon would be REALLY SUPER BRIGHT and RAINBOWISH and REALLY BRIGHT LIKE THE SUN, and then we could see at night. That's kind of pretty great for ideas, right Mama? A bright rainbow moon?"

I agreed.

"Yeah. We should forward that one to NASA!"*


[*Not sure how she even knows what NASA is, but guessing since they are talking planets and Earth at preschool, it came up there. We aren't like Rick Moranis in Parenthood, promise.]

when drag is a drag

Caroline got a book set of Olivia for Christmas, and it included a CD of Dame Edna reading the book aloud. She was so psyched to listen and "read" along with the bejeweled lady on the cover. As soon as Chuck hit the play button, she was startled.

"Whoa, whoa, whoa. Why is this man reading?"

don your beret

"Mom. Ok, let's be French cats. I will be Sophia the French cat and you can be Josie the French cat."

I was uncertain how this would be different from my usual role as Josie the cat without any nationality.

"Ok. I'll start, Mom. Le mew. And le mew mew le mew."

I tried to stifle laughter.

"Josie the French cat, you need to talk to me in French. Le mew!!"

I le mewed back.

"Le mew?"

I le mewed again.

"Ooohhhh. LE MEW. Ok, I le get what you mew."

a look i've always hoped to achieve

I was given the gift of one of those blousy shruggish cardigans for Christmas. You can imagine how up-to-date I am with fashion trends based on that item description alone. You know, something like so:



I was trying it on, unsure if I could carry off this style, since I have a diverse wardrobe consisting of both black AND grey long sleeve Favorite Ts from gap and one pair of jeans. I hemmed and hawed in the mirror and asked Caroline what she thought.

She was thrilled and shared her opinion. "I think it's pretty great, Mom. You look just like a flying squirrel."

on the road again

Caroline walked into her grandparents' house and saw their tabletop Christmas tree.

"Well, that's a nice little tree you've got there, Pappaw."

Later, she told me it was "shrubbish and cute."

...

She is a perfectionist (to put it mildly) and was drawing pictures of puppies and kitties for my ailing grandmother. She said she knows "Granny really likes cats and dogs, and this maybe will make her feel better." Sweetness, right? The drama kind of undermined it...

"Ugh, I did terrible. His tongue is hanging out wrong. [pulling on her own face in agony] It's not perfect at all! It looks like he doesn't even know how to think!!"

...

"This is the goodest maple syrup ever, Marmy. It tastes like... [thinking] mashed up candy."