Empire Strikes Back, part II

This edition of Movies with Meg is brought to you by the word "fossil." We don't really like it when good guys get frozen in carbonite, aka fossilized.

Sadly: "Why did they turn Han Solo into a fossil? Why did they turn Han Solo into a fossil?"

"Maybe they should turn Darth Vader into a fossil and leave him a fossil forever." Then, to Luke: "Kill him! Or turn him into a fossil!"

Jonathan: "I just think I'd have much more fun with Darth Vader's toys than he does."
Meg, with sudden interest: "I didn't know Darth Vader had toys."

Yes, we have no paper towels

I have a bad cold this week which has turned me into the Great Slime Monster. Slime Monsters apparently like hot tea, recliners, endless rounds of Winne the Pooh and Octonauts, and have a terrible temper when confronted with unnecessary messes.

Meg was helping me by washing sweet potatoes while I fed Kate. I looked up from a bite of yogurt to see Meg calmly squirting water through the hole in the sink -- not the drain hole, but the one on the top that sometimes has a soap dispenser in it. You know, the hole with no plumbing attached. I store paper towels under there.

I shrieked, "MEG!!!!!!!" and leapt to turn the water off. Meg looked confused and explained that she just wanted to find out where the hole went. "SO YOU SQUIRTED WATER THROUGH IT?????" Well... yes. Actually. Sorry, Mom.

I called Jonathan and let him explain to her why we don't randomly run water under the sink while I surveyed the damage. There actually wasn't much. There was a lot of water on the counters and floor, which I wiped up with towels, and a lot of water in the four backup rolls of paper towels under the sink. I set the soggy paper towels out on the back deck to dry. Jonathan set up a fan underneath to help air things out. Everything was fine.

Except, of course, the paper towels. Because it rained last night and all day. Poor paper towels.

The Empire Strikes Back, part 1

Last night we watched about the first half of ESB. Meg:

"What is Han Solo for?"

"This is the best movie in the whole world!"

And we didn't even get to the part where Han Solo gets turned into a fossil. :-)

She's up to something

I've taken to putting up a baby gate at the doorway to Meg's room. We had been keeping the door closed to keep Kate out of Meg's decidedly non-baby-approved toys, but then that room didn't get any air circulation. But gate or no gate, those Barbie shoes are so attractive and Kate knows they're in there. So when I need to chase Kate away from the baby gate, I usually say something like, "No, no, sweetie. Not for you."

Meg has a more direct approach. "NO! You'll never get away with your evil plan, Kate!" or, possibly, "Be off, creature!"

Plant update

Also, the zucchini that looks like a watermelon might have been a pumpkin. At least one of those vines has produced an actually orange pumpkin; I'm not sure about the other vine or vines. The things on them are still green and one might still be a zucchini. But, you can consider this a public service announcement: if that mystery vegetable was a pumpkin, you can totally use grated green pumpkin to make Death By Chocolate cake with ganache and it won't kill you. It was fabulous cake and stayed moist for days.

She's entered a larger universe

Meg has watched Star Wars! We started with A New Hope (OBVIOUSLY). She said, as the Death Star exploded:

"That's why we don't use torpedoes."



Next up: Empire Strikes Back!

What we did in August

We just got back from spending most of August with my family. We had lots of fun! Kate turned eleven months old while we were out there and didn't so much achieve milestones as speed-crawl past them. She sprouted two upper teeth, went from slow-crawling to the aforementioned speed-crawl, and started pulling up. And cruising on objects. And walking with assistance. She also smiled at everyone and blinked her huge blue eyes at them. She made lots of friends.

Meg, meanwhile, reveled in all those outdoorsy New Mexican things to do. We hunted shell fossils in the mountains, played in mountain streams, dug up dinosaur bones out of my sister's yard, camped and roasted marshmallows in my parents' backyard, observed the recent flood damage at Bandelier, picked and identified wildflowers for our flower prints, and went to the museum and archaeological site where they dig up Clovis points. In between times she played with grandparents and cousins, amused herself in the wading pool, and arranged dinosaurs on otherwise normal tablescapes. A good time was had by all, I think.