Ring around the rosie, Laura's version

[Early one morning when Laura was still groggy and the kids wanted to play "Ring around the rosie" in the kitchen, Laura obliged with her own version of the song.]

Laura: "Ring around the rosie,
Pocket full of posie,
Ashes, ashes,
Everybody but me fall down."

[Both kids fell down still holding onto Laura and pulling her down with them.]

Take me with you!

Laura: "Take me with you!"

[What Laura pleads from the doorway as I'm leaving for work in the morning while the kids behind her are yelling and fighting.]

The Right Opinion

[It was a warm night -- almost too warm for sleeping -- and I was thinking of getting up to turn on the air conditioning...]

Laura: "Before you go turning up anything you should consider removing a blanket. That's just my opinion ... but it's the right one."

Cricket playing

[We were talking about how we both hate ironing...]

Laura: "Ironing is hard."
Jack: "I know, it's not worth it."
Laura: "And it gets in the way of my...cricket playing."
Jack: "Cricket playing, eh? How's that going?"
Laura: "Well, it's fun, but I feel bad for the crickets!"

Brainwashing

[I was about to take Brianna to her swimming lesson and Laura was hoping I would stop at Starbucks on the way home...]

Laura: "I bet I know what you would like to do on the way home."
Jack: "I bet I know what you're going to ask."
Laura: "I bet I know what you WOULD LIKE to do on the way home."
Jack: "You could have a career in brainwashing."
Laura: "It's not so much 'washing' as it is 'beating into submission'."

I can feel my mind going...

[ We were listening to classical music on the car radio and I couldn't remember the name of the composer for "The Barber of Seville"...]

Jack: "What is the name of that composer? Why can't I think of it? I'm losing my mind!"
Laura: "Welcome to the club. The dues are steep...but it's fun."

A Groggy Morning

[ When the alarm goes off on an early school morning, we both lie in bed wishing we could sleep later... ]

Jack (groaning): "Why can't school start an hour later?"
Laura: "I know. I put in a suggestion in the suggestion box. But they said, 'No curse words.'"

Female numbers

[The newsletter for Brianna's pre-Kindergarten class said that next week they would be learning about nickels, the letter N, and one-to-one correspondences.]

Laura: "I wonder what 'one-to-one correspondence' means."
Jack: "That's where you match up one set of things with another; one item from this set pairs with one item from that set."
Laura: "That PhD was good for something..."
Jack (getting warmed up): "Did you know that you can make a one-to-one correspondence between the integers and all the fractions?"
Laura (looking for an escape): "I, uh, have to go over there..."
Jack: "What's more interesting is that you cannot make a one-to-one correspondence between the integers and the irrational numbers."
Laura (looking at me suspiciously): "Those would be the female numbers?"

Prioritize

[Laura was about to leave for a women's breakfast Saturday morning, leaving me to supervise the kids...]

Jack: "Do you suppose it's safe for me to leave them downstairs while I take a shower?"
Laura: "Well, you might want to prioritize..."
Jack: "Prioritize what?"
Laura: "You know, like what body parts really need cleaning."

Competitiveness

Jack: "You're pretty competitive."
Laura: "I'm not competitive. I just want to win at everything."

The Desserts I Did Not Eat

[Google has amazing desserts, all free of course, and resisting them is like shoveling against the tide. So sometimes I have to put a positive spin on things...]

Jack: "Ask me how many desserts I didn't eat today."
Laura: "Jack..."
Jack: "At lunch, I didn't have a second piece of the moistest chocolate cake ever."
Laura: "That's one."
Jack: "And I didn't take another cherry-white-chocolate-chip cookie from the cookie jar."
Laura: "That's two."
Jack: "And at dinner I didn't get a second helping of the best flan I ever tasted."
Laura: "That's three."
Jack: "And in the afternoon, I didn't eat a second free ice cream sandwich."
Laura: "That's four."
Jack: "And then at council tonight Pietie made a wonderful Dutch dessert that I can't pronounce and I didn't help myself to another piece."
Laura: "You had five desserts today? Are you even a little bit ashamed?"
Jack (deciding it best not to mention the bananas and caramel dessert): "I thought you were counting the desserts that I didn't eat."
Laura (patting my belly): "Pretty soon Belly Bob here is going to be so big you won't be able to turn around in a China store without knocking things over. You'll hear something and go 'huh?' and turn and then WHAM! belly knocks something on the floor and then you'll turn back and WHAM! belly knocks something else on the floor. Hee hee hee!"
Jack: "The expression is 'bull in a China closet' not 'belly in a China store'. And it refers to someone who is reckless or careless, not someone who is chubby and clueless."
Laura: "I thought you were trying to lose weight."
Jack: "They were small desserts. Google always serves small helpings."
Laura: "But you had FIVE of them!"
Jack (holding his thumb and finger about a millimeter apart): "Teeny tiny helpings."
Laura: "I'm gonna tell your momma."

Parent-teacher Sessions

[Brianna is only in "Junior Kindergarten" but we, as her parents, still have a parent-teacher meeting to discuss how she is doing.]

Laura: "I signed up for a parent-teacher conference today, but they only allow 20 minutes to talk!"
Jack: "Well, how much can there be to talk about? 'Plays nicely with others...needs to work on paying attention...'?"
Laura: "But I've got issues! I want a whole hour on the couch!"
Jack: "This is a parent-teacher conference, not a shrink session. There's no couch. And you're supposed to talk about Brianna, not your 'issues'."
Laura: "And speaking of Brianna, I think she's doing way too much socializing. We've been invited to 10 birthday parties in 9 weeks! And every time we get a birthday invitation from someone Brianna always says she is 'best friends' with them. I think she goes around asking each kid, 'So...when's your birthday?' and then making 'best friends' with everyone just before their birthday!"

Another hard day at the office

[Talking to Laura on the phone while eating a candy bar...]

Laura: "What are you eating?"
Jack: "A co-worker brought in a big bag of candy bars left over from Halloween."
Laura: "And you went over and took a handful?"
Jack: "No, she dropped it off on my desk."
Laura: "She dropped off a big bag of candy bars on your desk?! What was she thinking?! I'm going to have to start calling you Chubby."
Jack: "Let's see ... there are Kit Kats ... Snickers ... oh, and Baby Ruths, mmm ..."
Laura: "Chubby."
Jack: "Well, I emailed the group and told them to come get some..."
Laura: "And you added: 'But please don't hurry, I'm still sifting through the good ones.'?"
Jack: "Oh, c'mon. I'll bring you home one. What kind would you like? There are lots of Almond Joys that I can't eat."
Laura: "I want something with peanut butter."
Jack: "You're in luck. There's one Reese's Peanut Butter Cup left."
Laura: "Good."
Jack: "It's sitting right next to my Kit Kat and my Nestle's Crunch."
Laura: "Okay."
Jack: "I'll try not to eat it before I get home."
Laura: "You punk! I'm going to meet you at the door and unless you can show me the Reese's through the window I'm not going to let you in!"

[The Reese's made it safely home.]

Comparing job benefits

[After telling Laura on the phone about the free snacks I was eating at Google...]

Jack: "It's just one of my benefits..."
Laura: "Your job has lots of benefits. Let me count my benefits...well, I'm done with that! Oh wait, I got the sniffles from one of the kids."

Motherhood time-cards

[After a long day with the kids...]

Laura: I wish I had one of those time-card thingies. Then I could punch out -- ka-chunk! -- and say, "Kids, stop talking to me."