They were all pretty good guesses

Overhead this morning:

Zeke: Talia, this is my secret hideout. You can't come in unless you tell me the secret password.
Talia: Eyeballs.
Z.: No.
T.: Lava.
Z.: No.
T.: Poop.
Z.: No.
T.: Please.
Z.: No.
T.: Umm... lava?
Z.: Actually I didn't decide the secret password yet. So you can't come in.
T.: Well, our whole room is my secret hideout, and you can't come in.

Talia's nightmare

Talia: "There was a lot of dragons, and they were breathing fire."
Me: "Sounds scary."
Talia: "Yeah. But I had my stuffed animals. They were a shield around
my body. And a mask. And my stuffed animals were made out of metal.
And they had missiles in them. With fire in them. And I had a sword.
And a shield."

Talia tries writing

As far as I know, this is the first time Talia's actually written out
her name (sort of, anyway). It's cool that she's making lower-case
A's.

"Snowmen," Zeke's newest illustrated short story

This story took shape this afternoon while Zeke was building castles on the bank of a local creek out of mud and pebbles. He populated the castles with little rock people, which he called "snowmen." After I took a photo of one of them, he decided he wanted to make up a story about them and use my photos as illustrations. Here is the result. The photos aren't great, but if you look closely, you can see the little people and the houses they live in, including a moat. (If you're curious about the praying, I think he recently heard a story where a king prays for something and gets it. If you're curious about the diction, well, what can I say. It's all him. He dictated everything to me without any coaching or suggestions, right down to the number of exclamation points he wanted.) "Snowmen," a story by Zeke (July 28, 2011)

Zeke with his new friend, a Chilean rose tarantula

Zeke and the Blue Room teachers on the last day of Kindergarten

Secret codes and symbols

The other day, Zeke announced that his friend at school had "sculpted his feelings." I asked him to explain what that meant, and he said he had made a sculpture of what his feelings were. It looked, apparently, like a big ball of mud. Zeke thought about this for a few minutes and announced he wanted to draw his feelings. Then he spent probably three-quarters of an hour making these designs on a small Post-It note, and then explaining what each of them meant. I didn't get around to writing them down until a few days afterwards, so I don't remember everything perfectly.

Game face: Talia getting ready for the bumblebee ride at the Dogwood Festival

Happy Mother's Day from Zeke, and thanks for all the snacks

Zeke made this at school. One of the teachers wrote, "My mom is
special because...," and he completed it with, "she buys me snacks."
That's my boy.

Some photos of Talia goofing around

If you're a member of my family, you can also see these photos at Snapfish.

Talia modeling her loot from Scout's party, with Grammy looking on

The cousins at Scout's first birthday

Talia said it was "a great baby Scouty party day."

Zeke reads Dick and Jane

Zeke and Talia on the merry-go-round

Daddy, why do you always smell horrible?

Earlier this morning, immediately after I had drunk a cup of coffee...

Talia: Daddy, why do you always smell horrible? 
Heather: Look, you've hurt Daddy's feelings.
Talia: Well, I don't think Daddy always smells horrible. Zeke thinks Daddy always smells horrible. 

 

The latest cool thing from the kids' preschool

Here's a photo of Zeke at school, practicing writing his name in
Chinese with a quill pen.

Some recent photos of Talia

It's been a while since I posted any pictures of Talia, and she has been growing like a weed. Here are a few I took the other day.

Zeke on where love comes from

Tonight Zeke was asking me about the function of different organs, and then he suddenly asked, "Which part of your body is in charge of love?" I told him it was the brain. This puzzled him because he thought it was the heart, but he came up with an explanation: 

"There's a little spark inside your brain that gets thrown into your heart. It does something to your brain that's weird but real, and makes you think that your heart stores love. 'Cause that little energy ball has love in it, so actually, your heart has love in it, and it turns it a little redder, gives it more blood. So actually that's the way the brain helps the heart. When you're five it does it. It helps you learn about love, and it helps you live longer. Everybody has it."

Yeah, that's REALLY hot

Taking something out of the oven, I warned the kids not to touch it. 

Me: Careful, this is really hot. 

Zeke: How many degrees is it? 

Me: Four hundred.

Z.: Four hundred? Four hundred? Jeeeesus CHRIST!

I had to leave the room so he wouldn't see me cracking up.

Another rite de passage... Zeke's first EpiPen (he tested positive for a peanut allergy)

Another rite de passage... Zeke's first EpiPen (he tested positive for a peanut allergy), uploaded 3rd January, 2011.

Apparently it's pretty mild, so it's not something to be worried about ... not TOO worried about, anyway ...