Rebecca coaches Mommy at soccer practice

"Stand on that line. OK, I'll kick the ball to you."
I kick it back.
She backs up. "Now take two steps forward."
I do, and she kicks it again.
"Now go one step that way."
I do, positioning myself once again in front of her.
"Now we roll the ball."
She rolls it to me and I roll it back.
"OK, now we're going to pass the ball."
"You mean kick it to each other? like this?"
"No, with our hands."
"But you don't use your hands in soccer."
"This is hands soccer. Chest pass!"
We toss the ball back and forth a few times.
"OK. Now do a cartwheel."
I have to clear out my pockets for this one, but I tuck in my shirt and make the attempt.
"OK, now do this" (a handstand).
Once again I try. She congratulates me on my effort.
"OK, now do this!" She does a handstand, falling forward into a clumsy backbend, and almost certainly filling her hair with black rubber bits from the astroturf.
I've been outperformed. So much for Mommy soccer practice!

On Spitting

"She spitted on me!"
"She spat on you?"
"No, she SPITTED."

The Broken Bow

Two kids, two sticks, one "bow and arrow" game
took a bad turn when brother broke sister's "bow"
and she was so upset. "He broke my bow! He broke it!"
practically inconsolable
(and here's me thinking, "It was a stick! How hard is it to find a new stick?")
and then I remembered
the story of Nephi
and told her. "Nephi had a bow. He needed a bow to feed his family. But one day
his bow broke. What do you think he did?"
and I told her he made a new bow
and she could too
and I started looking for sticks
and she calmed down so I could leave
to lecture her brother
and she was so much recovered
she found a really big stick
so she could hit him.

They've decoded double negatives

Me: "Alex, if you don't stop begging for ice cream, you're not getting ice cream, you're not getting dinner, you're not getting nuthin'!"

Alex, with a big grin: "Then that means I get some of everything!"

Driving fun

--analyzing chords of popular songs
--playing by ear on the Smartphone piano
--discovering Rumpole
--practicing reading music notes (good thing we drove to Denver to meet a piano teacher who suggested the aps!)
--touchpad Scrabble with Grandma
--listening to lectures about Beethoven
--Grandma improving the ending of the Three Little Bears for Rebecca because the last page had ripped out. "Maybe she stays and helps them clean up. Maybe one of the bears shows her the way home. Maybe they become friends."
--Alex reading D-Day by Stephen Ambrose
--singing to my clogging music
--singing the Star Spangled Banner (Katherine can harmonize!!!)
--Katherine using accordion tubes to invent a speaking tube. Suddenly Alex's whisper from the back seat is loud enough to hurt our ears!
--taking turns taking pictures out the window
--scoring 47 on the license plate game, INCLUDING Hawaii and Rhode Island! I was so tempted to swing through Yellowstone on the way home to complete the set with New Hampshire, Delaware, and West Virginia
--quizzing each other on states and capitols, since the license game board has them listed

Yet another gift from my mother

the way the hair behind my ears always sticks out.

(It's an even longer-lasting gift than my birthday vacuum which still thrills me every time I have to vacuum the car.)

Why on earth

is Rebecca licking the soles of her shoes?

Hooray for...

--the burst of energy that inspired me to weedwack the front and pull weeds for hours in back
--Alex coming out to pull weeds with me
--Rebecca figuring out how to put weeds in the bin and pull weeds up by the roots
--discovering a buried weeding fork abandoned during last year's battle against the weeds
--coming inside to scrub up and hearing that Alex had started his piano
--and SUNSHINE!