Genevieve's artistic skills

"What is this?" I asked.
"Oh Genevieve drew that," Jeremy said. "It's Zeus."
"Zeus..." I said, staring incredulously at the drawing.
"Well you know... he's furry..." Jeremy said.
"And being electrocuted," I said.

Tortillas

I went shopping on Saturday. Grocery shopping. I hate grocery shopping. I have a budget and you know, that's no fun. Either way, I brought home to food, and made Jeremy carry it in and made him help me put it away. He pulled out a package of tortillas. He kind of shook his head, half confused but half resigned. Then he put the tortillas in the fridge under the other two packages of tortillas.

"Ah well... you know how it is.." I said vaguely.

"Right," he said. He doesn't understand how I am capable of going shopping with neither a list nor a clear idea of what we already own. I say that I don't need a list because I forget to put things on it, or I forget to bring the list, or I lose the list on my way there, or I lose it somewhere in the store. And no one can keep track of exactly everything that they own. You're bound to forget something and buy something you already have.

Sometimes I worry that I have some kind of subconscious fear of running out of tortillas and sour cream, but honestly, it's not like we're throwing these things away constantly. It's more like we simply have plenty on hand. Just in case.

On Sunday I made tacos. Jeremy pulled out the top package of tortillas, which were stacked by age, oldest on top because he (strangely) doesn't have faith that I will carefully examine all the packages in the fridge before I decide which one is worthy of my taco meat. I made a face at the package.

"They're fine!" he insisted.

"Oh?" I said suspiciously. "What's the date on them?" Now, dates on packages of food are a sore subject with us. Jeremy insists that if something is dated for, say 9/17/07, then that is the date by which the makers of the product were hoping to sell it. To me, the food is spoiled at 12:01 AM on September 17 of 2007. So perhaps Jeremy can be forgiven for sighing at this question as he looked for the date on the tortilla bag.

"August of 2007," he said. "They're fine!"

"AH HA!! I knew it! You're always trying to make me eat old food!" I said. I made a show of meticulously examining the tortillas under the light, sniffing at them and flopping them while squinting at them. We mustn't let him think he can shove any old food at me and I'll just eat it.

Ants

In the car today, Genevieve says out of the blue, "Ants can see all around them."

As she was carrying her Happy Meal to the table after we got home, she stopped suddenly and turned around and recited, "An ant is an insect because it has six legs and three body parts." She turned and walked to the table to eat her lunch.

The Saga of the Shoes

The girls get a lot of hand me downs from Jeremy's little cousins who are not so little as my kids. Nowhere is this more helpful than in shoes. I barely buy them shoes, and in fact, we have too many of certain types of shoes. Imogen was told to choose three pairs of sneakers and the rest are put in the closet to await Genevieve's feet.

One pair of shoes that Imogen received was a very nice pair of black shoes that was perfect for school. They looked like they hadn't even been worn. They fit her well. Perfect. Except that she hated them. She concocted various reasons for this, and finally, in irritation, I took her to Target to buy her another pair. I'll spare you the details of that shopping excursion. Suffice it to say, that there were no shoes there that lacked the features about the shoes she had at home that she claimed she hated, but nevertheless, Imogen was very passionate about the need for new shoes. So after much heated debate, I bought her a new pair.

She liked the new ones, and that was what was important. I figured she had the right to have a simply irrational dislike every so often and I wasn't going to insist that she support all her likes and dislike with documented reasons. She wore the new shoes for the first few weeks of school.

Until yesterday. She misplaced the new ones so she put on the old ones and wore them. In the van on the way home she said "I ran on the play ground and these didn't slip off at all!" This was one of her reasons she hated the shoes. (I mentioned to someone that she "disliked" the shoes and she corrected me, "No, I hate them.")

"That's nice," I said.
"I think these are my favorite shoes now," she said.
"You have got to be kidding me!" I said.
"What?" she said.
"After all I went through for your shoes? You like those now? You are the most impossible child I have ever met," I said.
"Well, maybe not my favorite," she backpedaled.
"They can be your favorite," I said. "But you are the most impossible child I've ever met."
"God made everyone different," she said.

Yeah... "different" is one way to put it. I had to laugh.