20 Questions with Maggie, Age 8

1. What is your favorite color? purple
2. What is your favorite toy? Joyce and Maxine
3. What is your favorite fruit? strawberries
4. What is your favorite TV show? I don't watch TV much. [Note: She watches tons of Minecraft videos on YouTube, so... generational differences!]
5. What is your favorite outfit? I have so many favorites.
6. What is your favorite game? Minecraft. I answered that quick!
7. What is your favorite snack? strawberries
8. What is your favorite animal? cats
9. What is your favorite song? Twinkle Twinkle Little Star
10. What is your favorite book? The Benedict Society books
11. Who is your best friend? Annie, Josie, and Mary
12. What is your favorite thing to do outside? play in the snow
13. What is your favorite meal? sushi
14. What is your favorite drink? milk
15. What is your favorite holiday? Easter, because you can get Peeps.
16. What do you want to be when you grow up? a veterinarian
17. Where is your favorite place to go? everywhere
18. What is the best thing about school? recess
19. If you could do anything you wanted, what would you do? pet Earl and Turtle for a thousand years
20. If you could have anything you wanted, what would it be? twenty hundred thousand cats!

Maggie Sez...

*singing* [Each girl gets to sing one song before lights out at bedtime.]

... up above the world so high like a diamond in the sky twinkle twinkle little star how I wonder what you are MIDDLE FINGER!

Mike: Um, what?!

Maggie: Middle finger! *pointing at Kate (with her pointer finger)* MIDDLE FINGER!

Me: Why are you saying that? Where did you hear that?

Maggie: Middle finger, Kate! You know, "Where is middle finger?"

Kate: Oh yeah! Middle finger!

*Kate sings "Where is middle finger? Where is middle finger? Here I am! Here I am!" complete with hand gestures*

[Kate has been singing Where is Thumbkin? every night, one finger/verse per night. Tonight was Middle Finger Night.]

Maggie: See! MIDDLE FINGER.

[Mike and I manage some nonchalant Good Nights and run out of the room before laughing.]

20 Questions with Maggie, age 7

1. What is your favorite color? purple & blue
2. What is your favorite toy? Joyce & Maxine
3. What is your favorite fruit? strawberries
4. What is your favorite TV show? I don't really watch TV.
5. What is your favorite outfit? sparkly kitty princess shirt with purple pants
6. What is your favorite game? Hay Day
7. What is your favorite snack? strawberries
8. What is your favorite animal? kitty cat
9. What is your favorite song? Twinkle Twinkle Little Star
10. What is your favorite book? I like all books. There's no choosing a favorite book!
11. Who is your best friend? Annie & Charlie
12. What is your favorite thing to do outside? swing on the swings
13. What is your favorite meal? sushi
14. What is your favorite drink? milk
15. What is your favorite holiday? My birthday! Good thing it's today.
16. What do you want to be when you grow up? a vet
17. Where is your favorite place to go? the park
18. What is the best thing about school? recess
19. If you could do anything you wanted, what would you do? hug Mommy
20. If you could have anything you wanted, what would it be? a kitten

Sisters

Maggie: Mom, do I have gym today?

Kate: I have gym today!

Maggie: (skeptical) You do? You have gym at preschool?

Kate: Yes! And computers! I have gym and computers today, just like you!

[Maggie looks at me questioningly. We've talked about this several times already. She knows Kate just wants to seem grown up like her big sister, and it really hurts her feelings to have it pointed out that she doesn't have gym or music or computers or library at her "school." I do a little silent head shake behind Kate's back.]

Maggie: OK. Computers and gym. I only have gym today.

Kate: And spy class! I also have spy class on Fridays!

Maggie: MOM. Make it stop!

Maggie Sez...

... Do you think this is the funny one or the adventurous one?

She said this to Mike when she was showing him a caterpillar that she found in the yard the other day. She and Kate actually found two caterpillars and put them in a little tub with leaves and sticks, as you do. Kate accidentally knocked the tub over and one of the caterpillars went rolling across the deck and disappeared down a crack between two boards. We decided that he must have been the funny one.

Maggie named the adventurous one Buddy. I like to think that the funny one who got away was named Lucky.

Maggie Sez...

... (very seriously, to me, without looking up from the book she's reading) House plants are not plants shaped like houses. They're just plants that are inside of houses.

Thanks for clearing that up for me, Mags. Everything makes so much more sense now.

More Maggie Sez...

... Oh, I do love seasonal place mats!

(I bought the girls some plastic place mats - that happen to be Easter themed - yesterday because they keep getting stains all over my cloth ones. I wasn't expecting them to be quite so well received.)

Maggie Sez...

... We were playing bathing suit beach picnic upstairs in our room!

Me: Great! You guys were playing so nicely while I made dinner. Thanks! But, did you make a big mess up there?

... Uh, yeah. That's what playing is.

Touché

20 Questions with Maggie, age 6

1. What is your favorite color? purple
2. What is your favorite toy? stuffed animal cats
3. What is your favorite fruit? strawberries
4. What is your favorite TV show? Twisted Whiskers
5. What is your favorite outfit? It used to be both of these outfits: the flower outfit and the polka dot outfit, but now Kate has the flower one. **
6. What is your favorite game? a cat game when I get to be the cat
7. What is your favorite snack? cupcakes
8. What is your favorite animal? cat
9. What is your favorite song? Twinkle Twinkle Little Star
10. What is your favorite book? any kind of cat books
11. Who is your best friend? Catherine
12. What is your favorite thing to do outside? play in the snow
13. What is your favorite meal? snacktime
14. What is your favorite drink? milk
15. What is your favorite holiday? Christmas
16. What do you want to be when you grow up? a vet
17. Where is your favorite place to go? the toy shop
18. What is the best thing about school? recess
19. If you could do anything you wanted, what would you do? eat cookies
20. If you could have anything you wanted, what would it be? 100 cats

** Both outfits in one picture!

Here are the other 20 Questions posts.

Dinner Conversation

At dinner tonight:

Maggie: Mazhician is hard to say.

Kate: Mazhician

Maggie: Mazhician, magician, magician... There! I said it! Mazhician. Ugh!

Kate: Mazhician

Maggie: Meow-gician! A cat magician!

Kate: *giggle* Moo-gician! A cow mazhician!

Maggie: Those are my favorite kinds of mazhicians. Mazhicians. Mazhicians! Man!

***

Also, Katie Sez...

... Dad, am I right or is Maggie wrong?


And

Mike: Guess what! There are only two more football games this season, one more tonight and then the Super Bowl!

Kate: *Throws both fists in the air* YES!


And

Kate: There's Tom Brady!

Mike: No, that's number 32 not number 12.

Me: And, that guy is black.

Kate: Arrrggh! *smacks her forehead with her hand*

Katie Sez...

... This pizza is mouth-watering!

... Our car is magic! (after I pulled a cup holder we rarely use out of the armrest)

... (while galloping around the house) My horse and my legs are both named Trusty!

Maggie sez... Her tricycle is named Trusty, too! She needs to get more creative.

The Good, The Bad, and the Ugly

The Good:

Maggie now has three awards from her teacher for "doing a great job at clean up time." She's taking her OCD public and reaping the rewards. Huzzah!

The Bad:

Yesterday, she asked me all conversationally-like, "Bathrooms are the appropriate place for fawting, isn't that right?"

Me: Fawting? What do you mean by that? Farting?

Maggie: No, fawting. It's a word that means tooting. That's for bathrooms, right?

Me: FAWTING? I think you mean farting. It's pronounced faRRRRRting. And yes, I guess a polite person does that in the bathroom, if they can.

Maggie: No, it's pronounced fawting. All the kids in my class say fawting.

I just want to make it clear that I'm MUCH more upset that my kid is cultivating a Boston accent from her kindergarten classmates than that she starts conversations with me about flatulence.

The Ugly:

Kate decided to throw a huge tantrum this morning about the clothes I picked out for her after she was already dressed and we were practically walking out the door to take Maggie to school. With no time left for shenanigans like this, I told her she could change into anything she wanted after we got home. We both totally forgot about it until approximately 15 minutes before we needed to leave to go pick Maggie up from school, when Kate remembered and started having a total nervous breakdown. She ran upstairs, stripped down to her underpants and one sock, and then like a chihuahua having a panic attack, peed all over the floor and rug in front of her dresser. WTF. After a frantic bath and clean up job, she picked out a new outfit that calmed the frankenstorm in her 3-year old brain, and we rushed out the door to school.

The real kicker of this story is that the outfit I dressed her in consisted of a solid purple shirt and a pair of polka dot pants; the outfit Kate preferred consisted of a purple polka dot shirt and a pair of solid purple pants.

I just really don't see how their teenage years could possibly be any worse than this preschool age. Parents of teenagers must just forget about the days when you had to listen to their crap AND clean it up after them as well.

Maggie Sez...

... Why is that lady sitting with that girl on her lap at the bus stop? Isn't that girl too old?

Me: I don't think that's a lady. That's a boy and a girl. They're both teenagers.

M: Why is that girl sitting on his lap?

Me: I guess they're boyfriend and girlfriend. They're being all kissy-face! EW!! [*Brainwash, brainwash*]

M: Kissy-face! Yuck! Ew! Make them stop!

Me: Yes, kissy-face is gross. Make it stop.

(a few blocks later, after some deep thought...)

Maggie: Let's go back and ask that lady if she's really a boy.


Note: Perhaps you are thinking I should be raising my children all crunchy-granola to be more open-minded and in touch with human feelings and sexuality and love. But I don't want them to grow up to be Stevie Nicks, I want them to grow up to be Liz Lemon. That's why I've decided to start answering all their uncomfortable questions honestly... but in German.

20 Questions with Maggie, age 5

I saw this idea on my friend Val's pinterest board, linked from another mom's blog. The original idea involved making a scrapbook out of each child's answers to 20 questions recorded each year on their birthdays. Well, I've just missed the girls' birthdays for this year, and I'm sure you can guess how likely I would be to "scrapbook." But I really liked the idea, so stole it for the blog instead. I also switched up the questions a bit to a few that I liked better. All answers are direct quotes.

1. What is your favorite color? a half of pink, a half of purple, and a half of violet
2. What is your favorite toy? Joyce
3. What is your favorite fruit? tiny, cut up peaches
4. What is your favorite TV show? Doc McStuffins
5. What is your favorite outfit? my Hello Kitty shirt
6. What is your favorite game? playing pirates and pirate cats
7. What is your favorite snack? oatmeal creme pies
8. What is your favorite animal? cats
9. What is your favorite song? Daisy, Daisy
10. What is your favorite book? a baby ABC's board book (really?!?)
11. Who is your best friend? Kate
12. What is your favorite thing to do outside? play on the slide with Kate
13. What is your favorite meal? snacktime
14. What is your favorite drink? milk
15. What is your favorite holiday? Christmas
16. What do you want to be when you grow up? a house painter
17. Where is your favorite place to go? the park
18. What is the best thing about school? arts and crafts
19. If you could do anything you wanted, what would you do? I'd climb up on the counter and get my own snacks and stuff
20. If you could have anything you wanted, what would it be? a friend for Joyce and Maxine, like a stuffed animal cat friend

Come back tomorrow for Katie's list!

Maggie Sez...

... I like to eat my cinnamon roll upside down so I can taste it better because the icing is on the top of the cinnamon roll and my tongue is on the bottom of my mouth.

Genius!

Maggie Sez...

... Dad, all the hair is gone off the sides of your head.

(as he came in the door from getting a bad haircut.)

... It looks weird. Do you agree with me?


And Katie sez...

... Mom, can I have Doris the Exploris on my TV?

I'm afraid she really thinks the character is called Doris. WASPy Doris and her lemur sidekick Poots.

Katie Sez...

... Thank you, Sir!

after Mike asked her if he could take her empty dinner plate from the table.

I asked her if she'd been watching a lot of Marcie and Peppermint Pattie, to which Maggie replied...

... Who is Pepperoni Pattie?

Maggie Sez...

... Slushies are great because they are a fun treat that turns into a delicious drink!

*Note the sweet ensemble on Mags - she picked it out herself. The knee socks have neon colored peace signs on them. Gotta love it!

Maggie Sez...

... Mrs. Pruney dropped all the tea cups in the soup, Mom!

Me: Who is Mrs. Pruney?

My imaginary mom. Mrs. Pruney is a VERY good mom!

What about me?! Aren't I a good mom?!

Yes, you're my real mom, and you're also a very good mom, but Mrs. Pruney is a VERY good mom.

How is she such a good mom?

She's not like you, she let's me stick my fingers in my nose.

I don't think I can compete with that.

Maggie Sez...

after I explained to her that I wasn't putting "sauce" on my salad but "dressing"

... Amelia Bedelia would put clothes on your salad instead!

Wow. So true, but... wow. I was kind of figuring those books were going over her head a bit.