Quick one

Maddie was playing with her "laptop computer" - a learning toy that used to be Aunt Jen's. She was playing a spelling game - the computer gives you the word and she had to spell it. John and I were somewhere else in the house. After a few minutes, she calls for us and comes in.

Maddie: "Mom, my computer keeps saying the same thing over and over! It says 'spell ECHO'. 'Spell ECHO'. 'Spell ECHO'. over and over!" She smiles, obviously getting the irony.


Liam got a suction cup gun for Easter. He was so thrilled, and even told the family member who gave it to him that it was great - he 'finally got something that looked like a gun.' We have had all kinds of rules about where and how he can use it and finally decided he could try to shoot the suction cup at the sliding glass door or windows on the clubhouse. The problem came today when the boy next door came over and wanted to play cops and have Liam bring his gun. Our rule last year was this child (who has a complete toy arsenal) wasn't allowed to bring his guns into our yard. Hmmm... conundrum. Do we keep with the rule of no guns in our yard, including Liam's? I was not sure how to get out of this one.

I explained to Liam that I didn't want the other boy to think it was okay for him to bring all his guns over to our house and open up the door for violent play at our house. Liam was full of suggestions: he could take his gun into the neighbor's yard and only play with it there. Or, he had several ideas about how to make it okay for him to have his gun because it didn't look like a real gun. Finally, I played the daddy card, told him I'd call his dad and we'd make a decision and he should go play in the meantime without the gun. And he never came back in to ask for it. Ahhh... parenting by distraction, not just for toddlers anymore!


Isabella got out of the car this morning from school carrying her jacket instead of wearing it. She put her arms around herself and said "Brrrr.... es frio!" (it's cold!) in her best Spanish dialect. It's amazing how Spanish words have effortlessly snuck into her vocabulary!

As we drove home from school, I asked her what the animal was out the window. She said, "it's a horsie." I asked her how to say it in Spanish... in Spanish. "Como se dice en Espanol?" I said. She understood perfectly and responded "caballo." She then asked, "where is la vaca?" (the cow - the animal we usually see out the window!) Her comprehension is really astounding. It also forces me to brush the rust off my Spanish vocabulary!