Words of Wisdom from Phyllis Diller

"Cleaning your house while your kids are still growing is like shoveling the sidewalk before it stops snowing.”

The Elmo Cake

I must admit I was pretty pleased with how the cake turned out. I was really not ready for Elmo to be sliced and eaten a mere hour and a half after I finished him. Oh well, I suppose that was the point.

Emmarsyn's Birthday Questions (with a bit of help from Mom)

How old are you? 2 (but I insist I am 3)

Who are your best friend(s)? Mom, Dad & the "guys" as I call them (Spencer & Matthew)

What is your favorite thing to do? Read books

What is your favorite color? Pink

What are your favorite foods? Butter - which I call peanut butter - and fruit snacks. (I eat a lot of healthy things too, but these are definitely my favorites.)

What do you like to do with your family? Wrestle

What are your favorite toys? Stroller and puzzles

What do you want to be when you grow up? 3

What makes you happy? My binki.

What makes you sad? I only get my binki when I am in bed now.

What is your favorite show to watch? Firefighter Elmo

What is your favorite book? The Very Hungry Caterpillar

What do you love to learn about? Pretty much everything right now.

What was the best part of your birthday? Getting a rolling backpack and then putting on several pair of my new underpants (over my jeans) and walking around the house. And my Elmo cake too.

Where do you like to go? Jan Riley’s house.

The Difference Between Boys and Girls

Since Emmarsyn was born almost two years ago, people have periodically asked me if girls are different from boys. I really didn't see too many differences that I could easily attribute to gender. Well today Emmarsyn taught me the difference between boys and girls.

At around two all of my kids have decided that they know everything and I know nothing - at least when what I know is different from what they have decided is correct. When this happened with my boys, they would look at me like I was a moron and in a tone of disgust tell me what actually was true. I always imagined that if they knew the phrase, they would append "you idiot" on to the end of the sentence in which they explained my error.

Today when Emmarsyn decided I was a little slow-witted and erroneous on a certain subject, instead of the "moron" look, she sweetly leaned into my face, spoke very slowly for me, and used a tone of pity while explaining my mistake.

So there you go - when boys decide they are smarter than their mom, they think she is a moron. When girls decide they are smarter than their mom, they feel sorry for her.