Today in the car home from the Caffe Lena Poetry Festival, Nadia suddenly took exception to being in her car seat and began demanding to be out of it. After we reiterated all the reasons why she knows full well that won't happen in a moving car, she resorted to "eh eh eh" whining.

In an attempt at distraction, Robin said "Is there a monkey in the car?"

She replied, with full-tilt melodrama, "No, it's your Nani, struggling and struggling to get out of her seat."

It doesn't translate to print so well, but Robin and I laughed for a full five minutes.

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Also, the most hysterically cute thing I've seen for months was Nadia and Zack sharing one of the chairs outside of the Ultraviolet Cafe, looking deep into each other's eyes while Zack murmured at her, "Playground. Plaaayground."

Nadia: "Milk!"

Robin: "I think you just want milk because you're bored."

Nadia (wails): "Noooooooooo!"

Robin: "OK. It was a theory."

Nadia (cheerfully): "No, it was a yell."

For all of lunchtime, through nap, Nadia declared that she was pretend Zack, Becca was Zack's mama, and I was Zack's mommy.

Becca asked what that would make Daddy when he came home.

With no pause, Nadia said cheerily, "A cow!!!"

(Um, kombu, yip95  is there something we should know?)

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Nadia (as a non-sequitor to the ongoing conversation): Maybe it's because you didn't want to read the dinosaur book!

Becca: I didn't know the dinosaur book was on the table.

Nadia: It's not! It's on the couch.

Becca: (attempts to explain phrase "on the table," which probably goes over Nadia's head)

a minute or two later...

Nadia (muttering under her breath to herself). I'm hungry. Maybe a real table would help.

Nadia, waking up in bed: "I'm chilly!"

Me: "OK, come here under the comforter."

Nadia: "No, I want raisins!"

Me: "That's not going to help with being chilly."

Nadia: "It will if you put them in the microwave!"


(We tried it. It didn't help. We moved on to slippers and had more success.)

Nadia, stirring after we'd thought she'd fallen asleep: "I want you to carry me somewhere!"

Me: "Where?"

Nadia: "Somewhere out of this room!"

Me: "Well, it's sleeping time, so we're going to stay in the bed. But you can go somewhere in your dreams. How about you pick a place, and close your eyes and think about what it looks like and what you'll do there?"

Nadia: (brief pause in which I foolishly think she's taking my advice)

Nadia: (Howl of protest)

Me: What's wrong?

Nadia: I want to dream about CATERPILLARS!!

At least that's my guess given the other errors in the piece. But I found this one funny:

From the guy at the Citizen Action inauguration party who spoke to the room after they finished replaying the inauguration speech:

"When you follow Barack Obama, you don't make a speech. You make announcements."

(If only the woman following him had understood that too.)

Nadia (after a day of playing a lot with her doctor kit and making Becca and me come for appointments under the dining room table):

"I a doctor, you a doctor, Daddy a doctor. When Mama has a baby and I have a baby, you and Daddy will take care of my baby and I'll take care of Mama's baby."

"I'm going to put a jingle in your butt!"


(What she meant was "I'm going to put this jingle bell in your back pocket.")

Becca: "Your tofu is ready, my lady."

Nadia: "I'm not a lady, I'm a person!"

(To be fair, she used to be really into being called "lady," and even "missy.")

Nadia: Who are you?

Me: Who do you think I am?

Nadia: Mir-i-am

Me: Yes, that's exactly right!

Nadia: No, silly. Your name is Miriam. You are Mommy.

"Cookbook Americanizer"

Getting in bed for naptime:

Nadia (lying with her foot in my face): "My foot want milk."

Becca and I both start to make obligatory noncommittal comments like "Really? Does your foot have a mouth?"

Meanwhile, ignoring us, Nadia grabs her foot, pulls it up to within inches of her own face and says, "You say 'please,' foot?"

 

Nadia is in to naming things recently. So, in case any of you feel the desire to address our body parts directly, she offers you this handy guide:

Rebecca and I each have eyes named "Blue" and "Green."
Robin and Nadia have eyes named "Purple" and "Blue."
Her nose is also named "Purple."
Her butt is named "Hi."
The other Tells have butts named "Dude."
Rebecca has one elbow named "Hey" and one named "Dude."
Rebecca has feet named "Booda" and "Eeda"

And  yes, the whole exercise was entirely her idea. Oh my. And don't laugh too hard, because if she knows your name, she seems pretty sure that your butt is named "Dude" too.

Best misspelling in a long, long time:

At a Chinese buffet in Cobleskill, NY: "Fried Wages"

(After a good 30 seconds of staring, I realized it was referring to the fried potato wedges.)

Check out the "published on" line on this blog post. As of right now, the final 8 in 2008 and the closing parenthesis have been turned into a smiley face. Probably not what Ms. Widely Read Economist wanted on the top of her serious (and very good) proposal for national housing policy.

In an online ad for a "pajama party" at a club:

"Cash prizes for sexist lingerie!"

I know you all will have funnier comments than I about this. I just find 'em.

This morning Nadia and I went to a local playground with kombu and hyoter and their kids. It's a nice little playground with good slides and swings and one of those spinning metal contraptions that kids can't get enough of.

To our amusement, several of the structures were tagged, maybe five or six times total. Nothing fancy. Just a name in black spray paint:

Worriers.

(Photos to come.)

A few days ago, in the process of a conversation about differing relationship styles, Robin said to me, "It turns out that secretly you're the mostly impulsive of [the three of] us. It's just that usually you impulsively make a spreadsheet or something, so we don't notice."
I'm reserving judgment. But it's amusing.