Another round of liberating kid posts from Facebook. For reference, in 2021 Lily turned 7, Anna turned 5, and Nora was born.
(Some of these were from me; some were from Julia. Ones saying "me" could mean either of us.)
2021-01-02
Anna: Hello, I'm Mr. Hamburger.
Me: It's time to brush teeth, Mr. Hamburger.
Anna: I can't brush my teeth, I'm a hamburger.
Me: It's still time to brush teeth.
Anna: Hamburgers don't have teeth.
2021-01-04"Anna, try bonking your head into the faucet! I tried it, and the new squishy cover works!"
2021-01-10Last week Lily said she wanted bangs. I told her there is a three-week waiting period for any major haircut, and set a calendar reminder for us to talk about it again in three weeks. She agreed.
Two days later, she asked, "If I have bangs, will all my hair be short?"
I asked, "...Do you know what bangs are?"
"No."
2021-01-25We've been reading "The Boxcar Children", and the kids are excited about playing at roughing it in the woods. Lily came downstairs with a pillowcase full of stuff.
"Mom, we're pretending we are some poor people and we found just enough money to buy two couches, two pillows, a cooking pot, some stuffies, and this necklace. And I had just enough money to buy this pirate ship and two dolls."
2021-01-27"Dad, why are sponges squishy? Like mice?"
2021-01-27Jeff: Goodnight, Anna.
Anna: Oy-yoy-yoy-yoy-yoy! That's baby for "You're the best dad in the world."
2021-02-01Woke up to Lily reading to Anna
2021-02-03Hypothetical from Lily: "Mom, if you lived in a peanut shell and the only food you had was cheez-its this big" [holds up fingers to pea size] "and you slept in a shoe made of stone, and ten hundred children lived there, would you find somewhere else to live?"
2021-02-06From Lily at dinner:
"There is something that makes me sad.
[begins singing] Fairies aren't real
Magic isn't real
Unicorns aren't real
Santa Claus isn't real
The aTooth Fairy isn't real."
Lily, explaining the difference between even and odd numbers: "If they could all line up for a contra dance and they'd all have a partner, that's even."
2021-02-15Lily: "Anna, why did you hit me with the whistle?"
Anna, not wearing glasses or anything: "I'm sorry, my sight had gotten fogged up"
2021-02-15One of Lily's favorite conversations with Anna is the "gotcha."
Lily: I was talking to Dad about if we could get a pony. Do you really really want a pony too?
Anna: Yeah.
Lily: Well we barely know anything about ponies, and we don't have enough room! ...Anna, do you think it would be cool to be a cowgirl?
Anna: Yeah.
Lily: Well you would have to accept very little pay, you would have to work long hours, and you would barely even get a hut to sleep in!
2021-02-15Lily: "I'm super mad that the Fifth Amendment is still there! Somebody definitely needs to remove that thing"
...
Yesterday I explained plea bargaining, and she also thinks that's no good.
2021-02-18Anna, immediately after we sat down to dinner: "Here are some facts about teeth. Teeth are hard white blades that grow out of these things [indicates gums]. They can cut and grind."
2021-03-07Lily, settling down for the night with her teddy bear: "Mom, do you know what I like about Little Bear? First, he's soft to cuddle with. Second, he's an apex predator, so if monsters are real I feel like he'll protect me."
2021-03-16Anna: "Mom, can you sing the song where there's a big fight during the night and when the sun rises he's happy because he sees the flag?"
2021-03-17Anna: "why aren't you making my breakfast?"
Me: "you haven't told me what you wanted to eat yet?"
Anna: "I did tell you!"
Me: "I don't remember that?"
Anna: "Well, I already told you!"
Me: "Could you tell me again?
Anna: "I don't repeat myself"
Me: "Sorry, what?"
Anna: "I DON'T REPEAT MYSELF!"
2021-04-05Anna's statements of "fact" get less factual when she's mad. I helped her order a toy this morning with her allowance, and she asked when it would come. "In a week or two."
Anna, outraged: "A week?! A week is a year! Technically, it's TWO years."
2021-04-12Lily: my two greatest wishes are being able to fly and that coronavirus had never come
2021-05-02Julia: "If we flip the coin and it lands on heads, then what happens?"
Anna: "Then we flip it again, and if it lands on tails..."
2021-05-03Lily: I'm scared of mosquitoes in my bedroom; I think they're going to bite me
Anna: mosquitoes don't bite, they suck your blood
2021-05-05Lily: I want to eat some of the bacon, but I'm vegetarian
Me: it's up to you
Lily: I'm going to stop being vegetarian.
[Eats a piece]
Lily: ok, I'm back to being a vegetarian now
...
Anna: "The best thing about the forest is that there are plenty of animals, which you can catch and kill. And eat them. Which makes you very healthy."
2021-05-08We just played a game where the players have no choices, and Lily beat Anna. Lily is very sad about this and is trying to make Anna feel better.
"Anna, you won the game, in my heart"
2021-05-13Lily: "Just yesterday I went back to school in person! Yay yay yay yay yay"
2021-05-16Two episodes from the kids decorating cookies today:
Anna: You're a primple.
Lily: What's a primple?
Anna: It's a pimple that doesn't talk. It makes food for babies that grows in your toes.
Later, the kids reach for the same part of the table and Anna gets icing on Lily's sleeve.
Lily: Hey!
Anna: Sorry, but it's your fault.
Me: You don't have to say that part. If you bump into somebody you can just say, "oops, sorry."
Anna: Oops, sorry Lily. ...But it's your fault.
2021-05-21The kids made badges to wear in different moods.
Anna: "This is my happy badge. This is my mad badge. This is my sad badge. This is my liking rice badge."
2021-05-28Anna: "Mama, you left my light battery on!"
Julia: "The light in your room isn't actually on a battery, and the light uses a small enough amount of electricity that it's very cheap"
Anna: "But it makes greenhouse gases!"
2021-06-03Me: Anna, there is red crayon on this door.
Anna: I don't know how it got there.
Me: I need to you to clean it off.
Anna: (one minute later, wiping it off) There's also blue on the wall downstairs.
Anna: (three minutes later, wiping it off) I just wanted it to look like wallpaper.
2021-06-12Anna: If the Little House in the Big Woods was in Wisconsin, did Laura and Mary wear cheese hats? Or Ma or Pa?
2021-06-17Lily, to Nora, extremely earnestly: you are my little sister and I am your big sister and I am always going to be there for you, no matter what.
2021-06-20Lily yesterday: [sings a dramatic song about how she feels Nora is taking over her life]
Lily today: "I want the specialist littlest tiniest person in the house to come say goodnight to me"
2021-06-22Lily: Anna threw a hard plastic ball at me!
Anna: I just threw a ball at her to make her know how I felt
2021-06-26Lily is sick, and we're keeping the older kids away from the baby today. Both of them are hanging around in the doorway finding it hard.
Anna: "I told Nora about germs last night, and she decided it's ok if I cuddle her."
2021-06-28Anna: "I don't like the round part that sticks out under the raspberries and whipped cream"
Me: "do you mean the pancake?"
Anna: "no, I like the pancake, I just don't like the bottom. Can you make me a pancake that is just chocolate chips, raspberries, and whipped cream?"
2021-07-04Reading Understood Betsy. Anna comments: "Aunt Francis thought she was being a good parent, but she wasn't being a good parent. She was teaching Betsy to be afraid of dogs, and teaching her that she never had to do anything herself, and that someone else would always do everything for her."
"Do you have to do things yourself?"
"Yes, some things, but other things are too high for me to reach or I don't know where we keep something, and then someone who can helps"
2021-07-07Anna: "my stomach feels funny, like I'm sick"
Me: "Is it because you just spent the last half hour playing on the roundy-round at the park?"
Anna: "No"
2021-07-08Anna: I'm having an adventure cuddle. That's when the person you're cuddling is extra move-y and action-y
2021-07-18Not really what you want to hear over the monitor after putting down the baby for naps:
Anna: [extremely high-pitched] it's time to wake up Nora, I want to play with you! We are going to play so much! Nora Nora Nora!
[later]
Anna: "I wasn't waking up Nora. I was just hoping she would wake up and want to play with me."
2021-07-22Anna: How did seeds come to be? Where could the first seed come from? Because that one had to come from another of the very same plant.
Lily: Anna, this might come as a surprise to you, but: the Big Bang.
Anna: I just want Mom to look it up.
2021-08-01From Anna during a snuggle session:
"Nora is made of baby from her head to her toes."
"Nora is like a duck diving for fish and minnows and bread crumbs and eating them off the bottom of the pond and gobbling them up."
2021-08-04More comments from Anna on her favorite subject:
[showing Nora a picture of some dots] "Nora is like a scientist looking at a fossil and trying to figure out where the fossil came from."
"Nora is as big as a pineapple."
"Nora's nose is made out of organs and skin."
2021-08-04Lily: "Anna, remember that a girl is better living under the word of truth than telling a lie"
Anna: "okay, I did it"
(When I find crayon on the wall I've stopped trying to figure out who needs to clean it, because it's always Anna. But Lily asked her point blank "Did you do it?" So then Anna denied everything.)
2021-08-12Lily: "Anna, how about you solve three riddles and if you get them all, I'll stop being a dog. Ready? Woof woof woof, woof woof woof woof woof woof, woof woof woof woof woof woof."
2021-08-15Anna: Lily, you don't have to act so awesome
2021-08-16Anna: [part of an extended monologue about Nora's toes] ...and this is the best toe.
Me: What makes it the best toe?
Anna: Because when you get there, there's shining lights and a big table with fancy chairs. The table is fancy and there's a chandelier hanging over it. There's a tunnel from the top of her head down to her legs and her toes, that's how you get there.
2021-08-20Me: should we go sailing this weekend in the hurricane?
Anna: No. Because there would be white caps, which would get into the boat, which would sink the boat in a place where our feet could not touch the bottom while our heads were above the water
2021-10-03Lily: to me getting a Nora cuddle is as good as getting a present
Anna: to me getting a Nora cuddle is as good as [gets distracted by Nora] as, as, as Nori Nori cutie Nori!
2021-10-21Anna: "It's pretty convenient to have a palindrome name when you don't know how to read. Because then you don't have any problems with it."
2021-10-16Anna: I'm not made of chicken, I'm made of people meat
2021-10-23Me: [putting baking powder into pancakes]
Lily: are you putting that stuff in my food?
Jeff: yes...
Lily: do you always put that in?
Jeff: yes, it's baking powder, it makes them fluffy
Lily: Papa! You know I'm a pescetarian!
Jeff: "Baking powder", like to bake with. It's not made from bacon.
Lily: oh, ok. I thought it was pigs.
2021-10-23Anna: when a platypus doesn't know a baby's name, they call them Miss Baby, no matter what its gender is.
2021-10-24Anna: "You don't have to rush me, Jeffy! That will just make me more stressed, and I'm already 20% stressed!"
2021-11-03Anna: I don't ever want to be a teenager. I want to go right to being 20.
Me: why don't you want to be a teenager?
Anna: I don't want to be mean to people.
2021-11-10Lily: how much of a sweet is this?
Jeff: what do you think?
Lily: a whole sweet
Jeff: Ok. Does this mean you don't want any of the apple pie Mama's making?
Lily: actually 3/4 of a sweet
2021-11-13Anna: You're breaking a rule. I said no touching stuff in my room.
Lily: You're breaking the rule! You're touching stuff.
Anna: No, because I am the government.
2021-12-01Anna is having the kind of afternoon where everything feels wrong. I got her a snack and went downstairs, and I heard her start to cry at the table. Then the sound of feet coming downstairs.
Anna [appearing in the doorway] "The teen numbers...they don't start in the right place. Thirteen?! There isn't a one-teen!"
2021-12-01Anna: when I lose a tooth and put it under my pillow, why don't you just send an electric fairy doll to go get it?
2021-12-04Anna used to just put items to bed. Now there's usually more narrative. She's tucking items into my covers whispering "... They will be safe and dry... There won't be any predators."
2021-12-09I asked Anna why she had taken so many pictures of a ceiling fan. She said they're to show to Nora, because Nora likes to look at ceiling fans. This is true! She's not always that considerate, but this was a nice theory-of-mind moment.
2021-12-12Lily, to her cousin, at the end of the sleepover: "overall, how did the sleepover go? Are there any parts I could have done better, for next time?"
2021-12-24Anna: "The best thing about snow is you can do all kinds of things with it. You can shovel with it, you can make snowmans with it, you can sled with it."
2021-12-26Tonight during cousin shenanigans, Anna got hit in the eyebrow and narrowly avoided needing stitches. She's all patched up now and was pretty philosophic about it by bedtime:
"I think that was the worst thing that ever happened to me in my life. But there's something even worse that could happen to me: falling into a volcano."