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Katie
Pan Pizza I love you When
you wake up in the day
Milky-white
skin with a dimple, too
Katie
Pan Pizza I love you
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(one morning when Kate was still too little to talk, she and I were driving in our Toyota 4x4, heading east on the 10. As we drove through Yucaipa, and then Cherry Valley, I looked over at her and my heart just about burst with love and happiness as she smiled back at me. The words just came tumbling out of my mouth to the tune of "Animal Crackers in My Soup", like they were already sitting there, waiting to be sung to her. As with everything, she loved it...)
February
1 yr 10 mos
Every time I come home from the market and she hasn’t gone with me,
Katie helps unload the bags, gleefully exclaiming over each item and thanking me
exuberantly for purchasing it just for her, like – “Oh,
crackers! You got crackers for me?
Oh, thank you!”
or,
“Oh, milk! Oh, thank you,
Mom!” If she doesn’t know what it is, she’ll ask, “What’s
this, Mom?” and I’ll tell her. For
example, “Those are tampons, Kate,” to which her reply is, “Oh, tampons!
You buy’d tampons for me?” And
then hugging the box, gushes, “Oh, thank you, Mom!”
March
1 yr 11 mos
Katie announces very seriously to everyone she sees that, “My Mandy’s
a cousin!”
April
2 yr s
1 mos
Pointing to something, Katie asks me – “What’s that, Mom?”
If I think or know she already knows, I’ll say “What do you think it
is, Katie?” and she’ll tell me, “It’s a (whatever it is)”.
If I’m sure she doesn’t know, I’ll tell her.
And she always responds with “Yeah,” or “Uh-huh,” in a tone that
sounds like she was just quizzing me and I managed to answer correctly.
“What’s that, Mom?”
“It’s a new filter for the heater.”
“Yeah.” (sounding like,
“You were lucky on that one, Mom…”)
May
2 yrs 2 mos
I explained to Katie that it gets dark because the sun goes to sleep, and
in the morning the sun wakes up and makes it light.
Every evening after that as soon as it got dark she announced, “The sun
went night-night.” And the following morning, “Mom, I awake.
The sun waked up! It not go night-night!”
Or she would ask me, “The sun waked up, Mom?”
September 2 yrs 6 mos
Early in the month, Katie put about 20 red twist ties all over her head.
They just stayed there, sticking up over and through the curls like
little candles on a birthday with swirled icing as she cruised around the living
room singing, “Happy Birfday me! Happy
Birfday me!”
Even though both our birthdays are in March, whenever Kate wants me to go
with her she says “Tum on, Mom, I have prize you!
Birfday present! Tum on!”
Following a Labor Day barbeque at a friend’s, her favorite thing became
a slide, which she had played on at his house.
After that, every conversation (with someone other than me) began, “I
go the slide!”
October
2 yrs 7 mos
Says “can’t” instead of “don’t” – “I can’t like peas,
Mom.”
At night, Katie tells me, “It’s not light-time, it’s dark-time.”
When Kelley awakens from her nap, or in the morning, Kate urges me,
“Kelley’s awake! Go get her,
Mom! We have to go save her!”
Likes Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, and likes for me to tie a ribbon with
eye-holes cut out around her head (“and Kelley too, Mom”) so they can be
“Inna Turtles” (which soon evolved into “Inja Turtles”).
November
2 yrs 8 mos
After telling Katie she’s my best friend, she told me I’m her
“best.” However, everything she
likes is her “best.” “I like
Dad. He’s my best.” “Is that your Murphy?
Is he your best? He’s my
best, too.” “I like milk. It’s my best.”
December
2 yrs 9 mos
Is extremely excited over Christmas decorations, especially lights at
night. Whenever we are out after
dark and she sees lights, she exclaims, “Look, Christmas!”
I asked Katie what she wanted for Christmas and without hesitation she
declared, “A birthday party!”
Sometimes when she sleeps with me in my bed, after the lights are out and
we are cuddled down she’ll say, “Let me read you a story.”
Each story begins, “Wid-o-bit-time,” and ends with “And that’s
the end of the tor-r-r-ry.” One
night she announced, “Let me read you a story.”
She cuddled up next to me in the dark and started:
“A wid-o-bit-time there was Jack.
And he was a little boy.” Following
this was a long pause, then, “And that’s the end of the tor-r-r-r-ry.”
I guess she’d told her first fairytale.
Whenever I come home from anywhere, no matter how long I’ve been gone
(even two minutes at the next door neighbor’s) I’m greeted with, “Mama!
You was home? You missed
me?”
January
2 yrs 10 mos
Katie had expressed a desire to pick her own apple from a tree.
A little while later I call Katie to the back door.
“Look, Kate,” I urge her. She
peers cautiously out the back door at the three-foot drifts of snow. I pick her up and say, “No, silly, look in the tree!” and
step outside with her in my arms. She
clasps her hands together and squeals in delight, then reaches out to pluck the
apple that I tied by a string to a branch of the old, bare oak.
It takes so little to make her so happy!
Just as I am finishing making her bed, Kate discovers me in her room and
exclaims, “You make a bed for me? Oh, thank you!” then jumps on it.
February
2 yrs 10 mos
When the toy she was playing with malfunctioned, Katie turned it over in
her hands, examining it. Then, disgusted (and obviously unaware I was watching),
muttered, “God...am...it.”
Katie’s
Nursery Rhymes
ABC’s
– “a b
c d h i
jo coo
mo bee q
r s
wix I.D. I know my ABC’s you play wif meeeeeee.”
“Twinkle bells all away, oh
what fun is to ride the horse open sleigh.”
“Rock
around the hoses, ashes, ashes, ashes down!” (throwing herself to the floor)
“Rock-a-bye
baby, and the tree top,
March
2 yrs 11 mos
Made the mistake of telling Kate to decide what she wanted for her
birthday. From then on, with every
commercial that advertised a toy or just looked like it should I heard, “Mom,
I want that for the present!”
April
3
yr s 1 mos
All of a sudden 'too' has been replaced by 'either.'
“I want to go either.”
Kate is helping me 'agonize' her things in her room.
We come across one piece of a jugsaw puzzle in a box of Leggos, and Kate
cries out, “That’s Granny’s!”
May
3 yrs 2 mos
Katie and I go to Long Beach and she gets 'culture shock.'
She can’t grasp the fact that I don’t know everybody she sees.
At a stop light she’ll point to a man next to us on a motorcycle and
ask, “What’s his name?” I
answer that I don’t know. She’ll
get annoyed and repeat, “Mom, what’s his name?” as though I didn’t
understand. When the same answer is
given as the first, she’ll get mad and say, “I can’t like him!”
Finally, I figured out it would be best for both of us if I took a
different tact. When asked now,
“What’s that man’s name?” of some 80 year old wino on the corner of
Atlantic and Ocean Blvd, I reply, “That’s Harold (or John, or Albert, etc)
and she says, happily, “Oh. I
like Harold (or John, or Albert, etc). And
I say “Uh-huh,” and we drive on.
Still in Long Beach, whenever we are driving anywhere, every time (and I
mean every time) we turn a corner Katie asks, “What’s this place?”
and then we go through this entire routine:
“Still Long Beach” “Oh.
Still Long-uh Beeeech?” “Uh-huh.”
“This is Grandy’s Long-uh Beeeech?”
“Uh-huh.” “This is not
Jack’s Long-uh Beeeech?” “Huh-uh.”
I hadn’t realized how annoying this routine could be, or how many turns
there were from point A to point B in Long-uh Beeeech until I noticed I was
going miles out of my way to avoid turning any corner.
Finally, after executing a turn that I determined was unavoidable if we
were to stay in California, I heard the familiar question.
“What’s this place?” I
glanced at the street sign, then answered, “Los Coyotes Diagonal.”
“I saw coyotes! At behind
the lake!” Thank God, Long-uh
Beeeech was forgotten!
There is one street that runs through Long Beach that is necessary (make
that practical) to drive every time we go anywhere.
It is the street that has at its south end Granny’s house, and about 10
miles away at its north end, the “Stink Plant” which is “Grandy’s
Office” and also “Jack’s Camper.” The third time we traveled this route Kate informed me, “We
already went this way.” I sensed
trouble. After explaining that we
had to go this way again to get to the “Stink Plant”, my fears were
validated. “But we went
this way. I can’t
want to!” For once I was
quick. I reminded her that the
“castle” she loved (which at the moment was dubbed ‘Kate’s Castle’)
was just ahead – watch for it, just a couple more blocks, only two more, okay,
one more, only four more – there, see it?
Kate’s Castle! Ocean Blvd
became a preferred route.
A couple of days after explaining draw bridges to her, Kate asked if the
bridge she and I were at that moment crossing was going to open. I told her no,
this bridge doesn’t open. She thought a moment then asked, “It got locks?”
I told Kate "I'm busy," and she replied, "What you say, Mama? 'Want pizza?'"
(I don't know why, but that I just thought that was really funny...)
June
3 yrs 3 mos
After announcing her intentions which involved utilizing the waste
removal receptical in Mina’s bathroom, Kate disappeared for a while.
I wandered back to where she had headed and, from the other side of the
door heard a various series of grunts and groans, followed by a flush.
As the door opened and Katie emerged, so did the odor of her efforts.
“Pee-yu!” I exclaimed. She
looked up at me, wrinkled her nose in imitation of mine and nodded,
“Pee-me!”
Kate wants to know where Jack is. "Yucaipa," I tell her.
"Me-caipa?" she asks.
"Yucaipa,"
I repeat, this time accenting the "Yu".
"Oh," she answers, and nods her understanding. "Kate's
Caipa!"
About to be reunited with someone she hasn’t seen for a while, Kate
states, “I’m going to miss her (or him).”
When leaving, she says, “I hope I will miss her (or him).”
Kate has begun using “steal” when she really means “left” or
“forgot”. “I stole my book at
Mandy’s.”
August
3 yrs 5 mos
Communication barrier? I don’t think so. When
asked a question she does not want to answer, Kate’s new reply is “I can’t
understand.” Like, “Kate, did
you make this mess?” “I can’t
understand.”
September
3 yrs 6 mos
Kate makes her own suggestions for the marketing list:
“Two ice cream cones – with ice cream,” and explains, “that’s
how we don’t waste.”
January
3 yrs 10 mos
Bought a 99 cent store video for the girls – Hans Christian Andersen,
“The Ugly Duckling.” After
they’d seen it about 10 or 20 times, I was explaining to Katie one night how
ugly she was as a baby and how beautiful she was now, using the video as an
analogy. “You were an ugly
duckling who turned into a beautiful swan,” I told her.
She exclaimed, “But Mom, I don’t want to be a duck!”
After entering a phase of creativity during which I used as my main
medium, nail polish, I have amassed quite a colorful collection of the stuff.
One day, at Kate’s urging, I dabbed each one of the nails on her little
hands with a different color. She calls
it “finger painting.”
June
4 yrs 3
mos
June 14,
Garden Grove
From the other side of the closed door, I hear the girls in the hallway.
Big sister Kate explains to Kelley, “That’s a Daddy Long Legs.” Kelley says, “Oh.” Then
asks a very logical question: “Where’s
the Mommy Long Legs?” Miss
know-it-all is caught off guard, however, and irritably answers, “I don’t
know. And I don’t know where the
Baby Long Legs is either!”
July
4 yrs 4 mos
July
12
Kate has acquired quite a bit of
money, and, naturally, I am curious.
"I found it!" she tells me, excitedly. "Where did you find
it?" I ask. As though she still can't believe her good fortune, she
answers, "In your wallet!"
August
4 yrs 5 mos
Kate’s new word is ‘perhaps’.
“Perhaps I will have some tacos.”
“Perhaps I love you.”
August
14
Kate and Kelley come running up to the computer room where Rich and I are
from the backyard, where they’ve been playing.
They are very anxious. “Richard!
You have to come! There’s
a big bug!” “What kind of
bug?” he asks. “A big bug with
two legs!” exclaims Katie. Kelley peers around Kate’s shoulder as she nods her head and adds excitedly,
“You have to step in it!” As
the three of them head off down the stairs, I hear Kate warning him, “It has
big eyes!”
August 25
Kate is in the bathroom with me as I do my nails.
“What’s this?” she asks, going through my makeup bag.
I tell her it is lip gloss. A
minute later Kelley wanders in and Kate, trying to sound very grown up and
worldly, tells her, “Kelley, this is lip glops.”
August
27
Kate and Kelley have been in the tub playing (and bathing…?) for about
15 minutes when I hear Katie’s voice, very alarmed, “Fleas are in the bath
tub! Fleas are in the bath tub!”
I look in and see Kate’s naked little body standing up in the tub while
Kelley is looking very unconcerned, trying to float…
I peer at the water and finally see her ‘fleas’, which is nothing but
dirt which has finally come off after a hard day’s play…
Air freshener for the car is “air confreshener”
Kate has always said “covered” for “cupboard”
September
4 yrs 6 mos
September 13, 1993
Evening in Garden Grove, Rich is sleeping before work, Katie and Kelley
have just finished dinner and Kate and I are at the refrigerator practicing the
alphabet with the new magnetic letters. Kate
is doing extremely well, I think, and then comes to ‘M’.
I am trying to give her hints by saying “Muh, muh, mother.
Moo, moo, movie…” Finally,
I instruct her to “Say the alphabet until you come to the letter that follows
‘L’. She does perfectly –
until “…H I
J K ALEMENTO P…”
No wonder she was having trouble with ‘M’!
Rich bought Kate a doll at the market and the headband was too tight, so
I said I would stretch it out a bit.
“But then it will fall down and cover her eyes and it will make me very
mad and I will pull her head off and then I will cry and be sad!”
Then she got mad because I laughed and looked for this book so I could
write this down and she said, “Stop it! You’re
making me laugh”
October
2 yrs 7 mos
October 16
Rich had to get his car tuned and smogged to renew the registration, so
he left it overnight at the garage. The
girls went with him to bring it home the next day.
When I asked Kate if it passed smog she informed me, “Yeah, and it
passed a cop, too!”
October 17
Watching her first episode of “The Beverly Hillbillies,” Kate is
amused at the way Granny pronounces “California.”
“Californ-ee” Kate snorts with a chuckle.
“It’s ‘Californ-ay’!”
October 26
It is fire season and a large one is burning out of control in Thousand
Oaks. It is being covered by every
news channel. Katie keeps coming in
to the bathroom to relay the newscaster’s most up-to-date reports.
At one point she comes running in breathless (even though the TV is just
in the next room); “Oh my God!”
she exclaims. “The golf course is
broken! It broke the golf
course, Mom!” She is undoubtedly thinking of Donald.
A few minutes later she comes back in a bit calmer.
Apparently she thinks the excitement’s about to wind down because she
tells me, “It broke down in the valley, Mom.
The fire broke down. In the
valley.” Like all they have to do now is call a tow truck and just
haul that dumb old fire to the dump…
January
4 yrs 10 mos
January 21
Kate pulled two great ones today. Last
night we had made hand-castings similar to the ones Mama still has of Curt and
me from when we were Kate’s age. This
morning Jack came by to drop some stuff off, and Kate took it out to the camper
to show him. She was sitting on his lap a few minutes later and I asked
her to go get Kelley. As she
climbed down from his lap she said, “Here, Jack.
Hold my hand.” Jack is the
one who originally taught her about holding hands.
Then later, the second one came when I had been upstairs copying some
midi files for Jack, and Kate had come up a couple of times to check on me, indicating I was
slow. Then Kelley came up and said
Jack was leaving, so I hurried and finished and went out to the camper to find
Jack and Kate relaxing like a couple of grownups at the table, chatting and
eating nuts. Kate glances over at
me as I enter the camper and very dryly remarks, “Aren’t we quick?”
Jack, of course, thought that was priceless.
May 5 yrs 2 mos
May 21
This evening Kelley asked Papa (again) where his Mama and Papa are, and
Katie answered for him: “Remember,
they died. They’re angels up in
Hell.” (pointing toward the ceiling)
May 26
Kate is sick. We think she might have German Measles. After hearing us discuss this, she asks, "What are Germans for? Why do they get on you?"
June
5 yrs
3 mos
June 19, 1994 Father’s Day
Kate and I are doing magic. First I make a scarf disappear. Kate wants to know how to do it, and when I show her she is very upset because it’s not really magic. She even tries to do it without the ‘prop’, to make it magic. Then I teach her how to do a rope trick, and show her how to do it so the audience is fooled. She goes out to do her first performance – on Kelley and Rich – and starts her trick off by showing them, “You have to tuck it under here…”
August
6 yrs 5 mos
August 12
Kate tells us all about the “Nitrogen Hotside” she learned in school
today.
Both girls are immediate fans of “Calvin and Hobbs”, the comic strip
about a little boy and his stuffed tiger after Granny has clipped one to show us
from the Sunday paper. It is about
Calvin’s wild imagination at bedtime, and monsters and evil things like that
that come to get a kid at bedtime. The girls make me read it over and over to them.
The following day I decide maybe comics can teach, because Kate shows me
she has learned a new word, which came from the comic strip.
As we are driving by the gas station at the corner, Kate sees a pair of
rubber gloves all by themselves in the window.
“Look, Mom!” she points. “Disembodied
hands!”
August
24
Kate is talking about a snake, a “Bone Extractor”
(boa constrictor)
I overhear Kate instructing Kelley on the best way to clean the room they
share: “Whatever I don’t want,
we’ll throw away. Whatever is
mine, we’ll put away.”
February
6 yrs 10 mos
February 13
Another exchange I overhear:
Kelley: “What’s a woman and what’s a girl?”
Kate: “A woman is what Mama is, and a girl is what you are.”
Brief pause
Kelley: “So are you!”
Kate: (very matter-of-factly)
“No, I’m not. I’m in
between. I’m a kid!”
March
6 yrs 11 mos
March 13
Kate asks if Rich and I are going to “Parent-Teacher Performance.”
July
7 yrs 4 mos
July
8
Kate’s Exposure to Photography
Kate’s been taking pictures with the camera I gave her.
She tells me excitedly about different ‘great’ shots she has gotten.
They do sound great, but unfortunately I happen to see her take one then,
horrified, watch as she opens the back of the camera to make sure the film is
‘still okay.’
July
24
The girls are in Kelley’s room playing with the new Barbie type dolls
Kelley got from Jack for her birthday. The
dolls are ‘Jasmine’ and ‘Alladin’ from the movie of the summer.
Apparently a wedding is taking place.
Both girls are very seriously and quietly doing a very good wedding scene
and I am amazed at what I hear. Katie’s
voice asks, “Do you take this man to be your wedded husband, in richer and in
poorer, and even if he’s sick?”
There is a little pause and then a very sweet, sincere “I do,” from Kelley/Jasmine. The minister Kate turns and begins, “And do you, uh…. Do you…. The same thing with you?” she asks Alladin. “Yeah,” Kelley/Alladin answers, “I guess so.”
March
8 yrs 11 mos
March 27
For Katie’s birthday she wanted us to go to work in the motor home with
Richard Thursday night then go make breakfast at the end of the peninsula in the
morning, which we did. Then that
evening we chatted about the poor condition of the tires on the motorhome.
I was making dinner at the stove, Rich was washing his hands at the
kitchen sink, and Kate was at the counter making salad.
“I was a little apprehensive last night,” I admitted to Rich, about
the tires. “You were what?” he
asked, above the running water. Kate,
always eager to help, repeated my statement for me.
I started laughing and Rich repeated “What?”
So this time I repeated what Kate had said I said:
“Afreeheshunt.”
Katie, indignant that I heard her wrong and was laughing at her, corrected
me. “Half-reeheshant!” she
stated. Even funnier was the fact
that Rich could in no way think of the word I had originally used.
March 28
The following night found us all exhausted after a busy day. It was getting late and we hadn’t had dinner, so Rich was going to go out and get something to bring back for all of us, but none of us could think of anything that sounded good. Looking at my watch, I suggested that maybe we should just fast for the night. Katie immediately piped up with “Fast? Great! I love fast food!”
January
8
yrs 10 mos
January 16
I tell Kate where to look for her water color pencils, and she tells me
they are not there. So I come
upstairs, look in the spot I had told her to look, and of course, they were
there. Katie says, “Ohhh, I’m
so dumb!” I say, “You’re so
blind!” And she says, “I’m so blonde!”
March
8 yrs 11 mos
October
9 yrs 7 mos
October
22
Kate asks me, “What happens to the President after he’s not president
any more? I mean, where does he
live?” So I look at her and say,
“No where. He just becomes
homeless.” Surprised
by my answer, she looks a little shocked and very concerned,
exclaiming, “Oh, that’s not good!”
I am going to have to stop teasing her... But it's so much fun to bring out the blonde hi-lights in her!
January
11
yrs 10 mos
January 10
I am telling Papa that I “have maternal instincts.”
Papa says, “Well, I have maternal instincts, too.”
Katie, who has been listening, tells him very seriously, “You have manternal
instincts, Papa.”
August
12
yrs 5 mos
August 29
Yesterday we saw a bumper sticker that said “Horn Broken -Watch For
Finger” Today in traffic, a man
kept screaming from his car at the car two cars ahead of his (one lane over from
our lane) who was stopped at the red light. “Go! Go!!”
he kept screaming over and over. “His
horn’s probably broken,” I commented. Katie
asked, “Why doesn’t he use his finger?”
May
13 yrs 2 mos
May 2
Katie is telling us about a 1992 documentary she watched this afternoon, called "The Last Party".
"It's about Bill Cinton's Presidential Election," she informs us. "Although in his case, I should probably say Presidential
Erection."
July 13 yrs 4 mos
July13
Katie is telling me about a conversation she just had with Papa, where he used the word, "ultomata". I smile every time she says it, and she finally asks, "Well, how do you say it? What is it?" I hear my speech stumble as I decide whether to tell her the truth or.... "It's 'oldtomato'," I hear myself saying. She looks a little skeptical. "It's from -- it's a phrase from the old days," I wave my hand casually, trying to indicate the past, Papa's era. "It means 'make a decision', 'an old tomato or a new one'." I make a balancing motion with my hands. "You know...choices." Doubt and confusion lift from her face and Katie nods, understanding and accepting my answer. "Oh, okay."
It really is fun! And so easy too! Everyone ought to have at least one blonde in the family....
August
13
yrs 5 mos
August 1
Today Kate gleefully told us how she caught her friend Rachael making a 'grammaral' error...
August 16
Today Kate indignantly denied having said Rachael made a 'grammaral'
error by informing me,
"I said 'grammical'
!"
November
13
yrs 8 mos
November 2
On our way home from Barnes & Noble, somehow the talk turns to Pee Wee Herman, and Papa says how they guy once had everything; cars, beautiful houses, fame, money... but because he was whacking it in a public place, he lost it all. Katie says, "Not everything. He still has his hands."
February
13 yrs 11 mos
February 12
I am helping Katie with her government
homework. We are each on a computer in the office, and she is
looking for information on impeachment. After a few minutes of silence she
says, "I didn't know President Clinton quitted."
She has my attention, and I ask her, "What?"
She says, "It says here he a
quitted."
February 23
It is Sunday night, and Kate and I are
stopping by Target on our way home after visiting Granny. I'm in a minor
hurry because it is 8:40 and the store closes at 9:00. The particular Target we
have decided to go to has huge speed bumps all along the roadway that
encompasses the parking lot, so I avoid them by weaving my way - pretty
quickly - through parked cars and shopping baskets across the smooth parking lot instead
. "I hate
speed bumps," I mumble.
Katie,
pretending to be me, replies, "(runs over pedestrian) 'I
hate speed bumps.'"
May 31 14 yrs 2 mos
After neglecting to water the lawn for a couple of years, Rich decides to spend the day treating it with ammonium sulfate to make it green. He is bragging about how his lawn used to be the greenest in the neighborhood, and how after he does this, all the neighbors will follow his lead. "Just watch," he tells Kate and me, "In a couple of days, all the neighbors will be out doing this to make their lawns green."
"I don't think so, Papa," Katie says.
"What do you mean?"
"Their lawns are already green."
June
Kate and I finally found a dress for her graduation from 8th grade, but she is very uncomfortable about this whole feminine attire subject and decides she's "a boy trapped in a girl's body with homosexual tendencies"...
March
14 yrs 11 mos
March 4
At dinner Kate is telling us about Pierson, who was crying to her today at school about not having a girlfriend. Somewhere into the conversation Papa decides to join us. He apparently thinks we are discussing Kate "going out", and immediately declares loudly, "Not without a chaperone!" The whole thing gets off the topic of Pierson and onto Rich saying that they shouldn't go out until after they are out of high school, etc. In the meantime, Kate and Kelley have left the table and gone upstairs. Kate comes back down a few minutes later, while this discussion is still going on, and this is the resulting conversation:
Kate: "I was wondering if I could go to the movies and get pregnant Saturday night?"
Jack: "I think I need a hearing aid."
Papa: "Mumble that again?"
Jack: "What movie?"
October
15 yrs 6 mos
October
05
This morning when I took the girls to school I drove up Katella. When I got to Bloomfield I was going to turn right. The signal was red for me, but it's okay to turn right on a red light if it is safe, and it would have been, except for the ancient old lady crossing guard who was standing in the gutter at the curb. There were two middle school boys on the other side of Katella; they were her mission. The green light was for the cars on Bloomfield to turn onto Katella, right through her cross walk, so she couldn't go, even if she wanted to... I motioned to her that she had a red light, and to let me go, but she shook her head and thrust her stop sign at me, then stuck her nose in the air and just stood there, until the light finally turned green for her. Why she is still a crossing guard is beyond me. The boys had made it across about 3/4 of the way before she got to them, to 'guard' them with her mighty shield. By the time she got back to the curb they were long gone. In fact, she didn't make it back until after my light had turned green. As I rounded the corner I was muttering a little angrily to myself about such an old person being a crossing guard, and Kate pipes up from the back seat in a reassuring voice, "She'll be dead soon."
July
16 yrs 3 mos
July 11
This morning Jack was going to take the DVD's from Netflix over to the post office to return them. Kelley still had the last one, and so I woke her up to find out where it was. She very groggily told me it was in her computer, and so I turned it on to get the DVD out, then went downstairs to give it to Jack. Kate came into my room while I was gone and sent an instant message to Kelley's aim from my computer, I guess so it would look like it was from me. This is what she sent Kelley (the avitar is Kelley's):
Kate is a riot.
August
17 yrs 4 mos
August 12
We have a friend named Hal who takes care of his 86 year-old mother. The other night, Mrs. Siemer had a TIA or something and had to be taken to the hospital. The following day
he told me that the doctors had given her a narcotic called Haldol, which is something you don't want to give to someone who has any type of
dementia, which she has. Later, I was talking to Kate about it. "...and the doctors gave her Haldol..."
"Really?" Kate is impressed. "How cool! Where did they get it?"
"What do you mean? From the
hospital pharmacy, I would imagine. It's a narcotic."
"Oh!" she exclaims, understanding. "I thought that was really nice of them to give her a little
doll named 'Hal' so she wouldn't be lonely and stuff..."
When I told Hal about Kate's response, he howled.
August 17
Kate and I are up late talking about 'important things.' The talk turns to how Auntie Lora has two suitors at the same time, one named Rob and the other Robert. I tell Kate that Auntie Lora has said she is monogamous. Kate wasn't sure what that meant, so I told her, "It means, basically, being true to one person only."
Kate raised her eyebrow and asked, "Monogamous or 'monog-a-trois'?"
August
18 yrs 4 mos
August 19
Today Kate told me about a conversation she had with Kelley yesterday. Apparently Kate was trying to tell Kelley something about the Dead Sea Scrolls, but Kelley was having a hard time understanding what she was talking about. "The what?" she asked. "The Dead Sea Scrolls," Kate repeated. "The what?" Kelley asked again. Kate repeated it again, and Kelley, finally understanding, laughed and said, "Oh, I thought you were saying 'Dead Sea
Squirrels'!"
Kate obviously spends way too much time on her computer. As she was telling me the story above, I asked her to tell me the last part, because I was writing it down. "And what did Kelley finally say?" I asked her. Kate said, "She said, 'Oh, LOL, I thought you said 'Dead Sea Squirrels!'"
I asked her, "She said that? 'LOL'?" Kate paused a moment, then laughing (and embarrassed), said, "Did I say that out loud? I meant she laughed."
November
18
yrs 8 mos
November 22 Thanksgiving Day
We are sitting around the dinner table, having finished eating our Thanksgiving Dinner (except for Papa, of course, who is still eating), and Kate is telling us something. Behind her, out on the patio, I see Tucker, who has been banished to the outdoors now that he is an old cat who no longer cares enough to attempt to utilize the sandbox when necessary (He also smells extremely horrible). I wave to him, and, interrupting Kate, tell them I feel guilty about him being outside in the cold while we are fat and happy and warm inside; I add that I expect him to morph into Tiny Tim or something. Then Kelley comments, and then Papa, and then we tell Kate to go on with her story. "What was I talking about?" she asks. "I don't know," I answer, and Kelley indicates the same. Papa, of course, she doesn't even bother asking. "Nobody ever pays attention to what I say!" Kate complains. We all agree, and then start offering suggestions as to what she could have been telling us. None of them rings a bell. Kate, upset with herself for not remembering finally laments, "I don't even pay attention to me!"
November
19
yrs 8 mos
November 27 Thanksgiving Day
Kate is telling me about the dream she had last night about Deep Creek, up in the mountains, where we used to catch "pollyfrogs."
January
19
yrs 10 mos
January 24
Last night Papa, Kate and I were out running errands and we found ourselves
wondering why
Kelley has been so "emo" (emotional) lately. I offered, "One
reason is because Jimmy doesn't call her
'Face' anymore."
Papa asked,
"Doesn't call her what??"
"Face," I answered. "He calls her 'Face'."
Not bothering to disguise the confusion (and disgust) in his voice, Papa
questions, "Why does
he call her 'Face'?"
"Because he likes to look at her
face?" I suggested.
Papa made a grunt of disapproval, so, in Kelley's and Jimmy's defense, Kate
offered:
"Why is that so weird? Zak calls me 'Breasts.'
I almost wrecked the truck, laughing so hard, but Papa's response was simply, "I am not amused."
want to get
them for her, but we looked at them anyway. One brand said on the box, "No
fishy
odor or aftertaste!" I pointed this out to Kelley. Brainless
Kate LOUDLY added, "Yeah,
so that when you kiss Jimmy, he won't stop and say:
"Face! Have you been going down on
yourself again?!"
Needless to say, people stopped and
turned and stared. I whirled around to Kate,
HORRIFIED. "Kate, I
can't believe you just said that! I am SO embarrassed!!!"
Kelley just said, "What? What did she say?"
October
21 yrs 7 mos
October
20
Kate and I were discussing the phrase "douchebag." Kate asked, "Where does the word "douche" come from, anyway?" "It's French," I replied. There was a double-pause before Kate answered, "I always kind of figured it was named after the sound."
A few minutes later, she was telling me about a quiz she took to see whether or not she was Democrat or Liberal.
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