Always Remember That

"What's a mansion?" Phoebe asked. "It's a big house," I said. "A very big house." I groped about for an example that would be relevant. "It's like...like the house in Home Alone . A very big, fancy, nice house with lots of rooms." "Is our house a mansion?" Phoebe asked. Mallory scoffed. "Our house is NOT a mansion. Our house is the OPPOSITE of a mansion. Our house is IN EVERY WAY the opposite of mansion." I think she needn't have been quite so emphatic about it.

A co-worker of mine has one of those names where his first name is a nickname of his last name. Vic Victor, for example, although that's not exactly it. Dave Davidson. Tom Thompson. Ben Benson. Every time I hear a name like this, I wonder about the thought process behind the choosing of the name. Did the parents think it was funny? Had the mother always dreamed of naming a son Edward, and couldn't give up that dream even though she married a man with the last name Edwards? Was it a family tradition, was it to honor a friend, was it a dare or a bet? Or were the parents just idiots who gave their son an idiotic name? A couple of weeks ago, I had one of those days where I wondered if I might be pregnant. If you're a woman of childbearing age, you know what I mean. I had no particular reason to think I was pregnant, I'm certainly not trying to become pregnant -- but sometimes, you know, you just wonder. (It may have been because I had just heard of two people -- two! --...

I ran for twenty solid minutes tonight without a break. My legs hurt, but I feel good.

I am charmed by Phoebe's kindergarten homework, which came home in the form of a calendar with one activity per day. Today homework was discussing the family fire escape plan; tomorrow will be practicing zipping up her jacket; Wednesday is telling me the plot of her favorite story. So much more fun than the math problems Mallory had to do tonight. (Alaska has 18 National Parks. If you add zero to that number, you'll get the number of National Parks in Virginia. How many National Parks does Virginia have? Mallory's answer: 180?) On the drive to a Brownie field trip yesterday, Mallory mentioned that she's getting an ipod for Christmas. (The truth is that she's asking for an ipod for Christmas.) All three other girls shouted in unison: "I already HAVE an ipod!" Mallory gave me one her her outraged See, Mommy? looks. Driving to the field trip entailed forty-five minutes of listening to some variation of this joke, over and over and over: What's your...

This weekend we watched the charming movie “Babies,” a film that follows four infants from the first breaths to their first steps, as the tagline explains. The babies are from all over the world – Nabmia, Mongolia, Tokyo, San Francisco – and the film confirms that no matter what, all babies are cute, and all babies like zerberts. My girls were startled by some of the details – “Why aren’t those ladies wearing shirts?” Phoebe asked, hiding her eyes every time the film cut to the African village. “That’s inappropriate,” Mallory commented when the little Mongolian boy was shown without his pants. “It’s a different culture,” Chris and I kept explaining; “this is how other people live. It’s different, not wrong.” I’m hoping that the girls learned something from the movie other than “Wow, I’m glad I was born in North Carolina instead of Nambia.” You have to start somewhere, I guess. The movie did make me feel vastly privileged, and even faintly ridiculous, when I recall my own daughters’...