Jose had blood drawn at a doctor’s appointment and ended up with a nasty-looking bruise.

Emma: “Ohhh look at that boo boo. Who did that to you?”Jose: “The phlebotomist.”Emma: “What?”Jose: “The person who drew my blood. She’s called the phlebotomist.”Emma: “The hippopotamus?”

—

Emma: “Charlotte is my best baby. I love her. She loves me. She loves herself…”

—

As I’m loading Charlotte into the car, Emma is standing in the middle of the backseat. She spots some spare change in the car’s cupholder and grabs a nickel.

Emma: “Look a coin! When Captain Hook comes I will give it to him.”

—

Me: “Hey Emma, look at these flowers!”Emma: “Oooh they are pretty.”Me: “They’re called snapdragons.”Emma: “What did you say?”Me: “That’s the name of the flower — snapdragon.”Emma: “Do they have dragons in them?”

—

Me: “Six and four makes ten.”Emma: “No Mommy, six and four makes sixty-four.”

—

We’re at the zoo sitting next to a small fountain that has a few coins in it.

Emma: “Look Mom, coins!”Me: “Yeah. People like to throw coins into fountains and make a wish.”Emma: “Can I have a coin?”Me: “I don’t have any change. You want to pretend to throw a coin?”Emma: “Yeah!”

I hold out my empty hand. She takes the imaginary coin and throws it in.

Me: “What did you wish for?”Emma: “I wished for Santa Claus to come!”Me: “Well, Christmas isn’t for a while but that’s still a good wish.”Emma: “Yeah. Hey Mommy, now it’s your turn! Here’s a coin.”

She holds out her hand. I take the imaginary coin, and throw it in.

Emma: “What did you wish for?”Me: “I wished for you and Charlotte to grow up into big awesome girls.”Emma: “Oh Mommy, that’s not a good wish!”Me: “Really? I thought it was a pretty good one.”Emma: “Let’s do it again and you can wish for a Christmas stocking!”

Me: “We need to get your hair cut. It’s getting so long!”Emma: “No! I want it to be very very long.”Me: “Why?”Emma: “Because when it is long, then I will be a mommy.”

—

Me: “Tomorrow is a holiday! It’s Presidents’ Day.”Emma: “And I can open presents!”

—

Emma: “Is Ms. Brenda coming today?”Me: “Yes, she’ll be here in a couple hours. What are you going to do with her while we’re gone?”Emma: “I think she’ll bring me a popsicle because I like her popsicles.”

—

My mom sent Emma a Valentine card with a lollipop in it. (I think it was a Tootsie pop.) One afternoon she wants to eat it, so I tell her she can eat it while we’re at Target, since we’re on our way out the door. The WHOLE way there, she talks about how she’s going to eat her lollipop when we get there. We park, walk in, I put her in the cart, unwrap the lollipop, and…

Emma: “I don’t like that lollipop.”

—

We are walking into the gym for her Saturday morning class. She just started in January and this is the first time I’ve taken her:

Emma: “Look, they forgot to take their Christmas lights down! You can’t see it because we already went right past it.”

—

Emma: “Dad, do we have our flashlights on?”

(We were in the car, and she meant headlights.)

—

Me: “Today is Gima’s birthday!”Emma (excited): “Are we going to go there for her party?”Me: Well…no. Gima lives far away and she’s not having a party.”Emma (confused): “Why?”Me: “Well, I guess just because grandmas don’t usually have parties.”Emma (hopeful): “But Dad could stay here and we could go there!”

—

Emma: “That’s a cloud. And when I have wings I can go fly in the sky and touch them. And if we don’t have wings I will fall in the water.”

—

Me: “Look at Charlotte in her crib. She’s facing the other way from how I laid her down! She wiggled all around.”Emma: “Just like caterpillars wiggle to take their skin off!”

And another one from an early morning — while poor Jose tries to sleep for those elusive 5 more minutes, Emma points at his head and:

Emma: “Dad, you need to grow some hair right here.”

—

Upon noticing the new exhibit of a shuttle mockup on the shuttle carrier aircraft at Space Center Houston, which you can see peeking over the trees as we leave work/daycare every day:

Emma: “Look Mom, that building is holding airplanes!”

—

Me: “That’s a submarine. Do you know what that is?”Emma: “Yeah.”Me: “What is it?”Emma: “It lives in the water and sinks.”

—

A monologue to Jose based on reading “Beauty and the Beast” before naptime:

Emma: “Dad I like wolves. I like them because they have sharp teeth. And when they open their mouths we can see their sharp teeth. But when their mouths are closed, we can’t see their sharp teeth.” (pause) “Daddy, let’s go to the woods to see the wolves.”

—

We are in the car on the way home from work/daycare one day:

Emma (holding up a finger with a hangnail): “Mommy we need to cut this.”Me: “Ok, we’ll trim it when we get home.”
…Emma: “Ok Mommy it’s fixed.”Me: “Huh? What did you cut it with?”Emma: “With these white things in my mouth.”

Hello!

I'm Sarah, a NASA engineer by day and quilter by night. I live in Houston with my husband and our two young daughters. I've had this ol' blog for more than 15 years, and these days it's home to my quilting work, snippets of family life, and occasional musings on my engineering career.