Counting on dinosaurs

This afternoon, on the phone, Meg's aunt asked how many dinosaurs she had. Meg immediately dropped the conversation to go and count them. This is not to be undertaken lightly, and her aunt had to go before the process was complete, but she assured Meg I could and would text her with the answer as soon as there was one. Eventually Meg looked up at me.

"Thirty-five."
I observed two dragons, Daniel the tiger, and a really large housefly lined up with the dinosaurs. I could see dragons and a gigantic bug being considered dinos, okay, but...
"Is that including the tiger?"
"Yeah."
"Don't include the tiger when you're counting dinosaurs."
"Why not?"
"Because he's not a dinosaur."
"Oh. Well, I'm just using him as a dinosaur."
Maybe Daniel is an honorary saber-tooth tiger. I suggested she count again.
"Thirty-eight!"

Glad we have that settled

"Yeah, I was about to call you Loppy Sloppy but then I decided to call you Muvver Dear. Loppy Sloppy would be kind of disrespectful. Kind of rude. So I called you Muvver Dear." Meg

How we decide what to watch when the short people are napping

"Let's put on Henry the Fifth."
"Do we have Henry the Fifth?"
"I brought it into our marriage, so unless we've gotten rid of it, we have Henry the Fifth. And we wouldn't have gotten rid of it. It's a classic. I can't find Henry the Fifth. Here's Hamlet."
"I don't want to watch Hamlet."
"It ought to be here. Here's Romeo and Juliet, Pirates of the Caribbean..."
"Maybe this is a bad time to mention it, but I've never seen Henry the Fifth in our house."
"You wanna watch Hamlet?"
"I'll be spending a lot of time in the other room."
"Aw, don't do that."
"Oh, it's a cold wintry day. We'll watch Shakespeare."
 "Unless you prefer Romeo and Juliet?"
"Fine, bring on the mass murder and suicide - it's a step up from teenage suicide."
"Ha!"
"I didn't make that up - Data said that, and Picard just went ::facepalm::."

"Are you quoting me quoting Data?"

Also, in other news, this is the Mel Gibson Hamlet, which is quite old. I could tell because Mel Gibson looks really young. That would be because it was filmed in 1990. (Yikes.) So I amused myself with the who-else-is-in-this game. Ian Holm (Old Bilbo) was Polonius (didn't recognize him being annoying) and Glenn Close was the queen (She was on the front cover, so I got that). The uncle king was Alan Bates, whom I've never otherwise heard of. Then I asked IMDB who the girl was. Ophelia. That girl. Helena Bonham Carter. !!! She does go insane as Ophelia, but not batty Bellatrix Lestrange crazy, so... yeah. Kind of fun.

Jonathan: "See, if this were a fantasy universe, Fortinbras is really an enchanter who creates the apparition. And then he walks away with the kingdom."

Meg got out and tried to understand why Hamlet was being mean and crazy. Maybe she'll tell us when she figures it out.

How nice of them

Meg was putting together our US states puzzle. It's always full of charming surprises for her. "Virginia! That's where we live! I think they decided to put our state here because they knew I would like it. So that's very nice."

The Kate update

Kate is a little more than two months old now; call it two and a half. She's getting strong and will hold her head up, and can do push-ups to hold her torso up, and has a truly impressive grip with that little bitty hand. I can put her in the Bumbo seat for a few minutes; not for a long time, but long enough to get a quick task done.

Last night I balanced Kate on her stomach over a boppy pillow. She decided she didn't like it and started squirming. She actually propelled herself forward far enough to unbalance herself and landed face-first on the couch. I was curious whether it was just a fluke or if she'd do it again - and also it was hilarious to watch - so I re-balanced her, and yes, she managed to scootch forward again and go plop. It was pretty funny the second time too.

When full and clean and nobody's putting her in undignified positions, and Mommy hasn't eaten any veggies on the Not Cool list, Kate's such a happy baby. She smiles and chatters with you. This afternoon I was holding her and thought she was asleep, and she giggled for me out of the blue. So charming.

Since she was born we've been giving her a wubba-nub pacifier, which is a pacifier with a stuffed animal attached. She has two frogs, Rana and Rajah, and a lamb, currently known as Lambie. (Original.) We like them because they give the pacifiers ballast and heft so they stay in the baby's mouth better, and also they give her something to grab onto. Kate, in the course of discovering her hands, has started to figure out how to hold the frog and adjust her pacifier in or out.

This evening, though, the wubba-nubs all went into hiding and we had to give her a plain pacifier. Ordinary. Frog-free. NOT AS GOOD. When it fell out, she grabbed her bib and tugged and tugged, and the pacifier DIDN'T GO BACK IN. Also, something was pulling on her neck. It was extremely frustrating.

Meg helped me set up our Christmas tree this evening and decorate it. While I've been writing this post, Kate's been beside me, sucking on one of the frogs and looking at the Christmas lights. She's just drifting off. Sparkly lights and gentle dishwasher noises make for pretty good lullabies.

I think that's a false dilemma

Meg, inspecting one of my old scrapbooks: "Stickers! There's stickers on there, Mommy! Did I see you putting stickers on there, or was I not born yet?"

Good use of an if-then statement

I tried to read Meg some psalms this morning. I made it through a couple, and then got as far as...

Me: "A Psalm of David. You know David!"
Meg: "Yeah, I know him! I have a picture of him in my Bible. I'll go get it for you." She disappears. "Oh, Bible! Where are you, Bible? If I didn't have my Bible, I didn't have my picture of David. Hmmm."