Mom! You gotta come out here! It’s just so nice out. Today is a day of beauty! Take a deep whiff. This morning is as pretty as a crystal!

Me: So after 7:58, what time will it be?
J: 7:59
Me: The after that?
J: 7 fifty…ten?
Me: Remember that 59 is the highest, after that it goes to 00, and the 7 goes up to 8.
J: Man, clock counting is so hard!

Look at our big kindergartener. (Wearing his new backpack.)

I’m going to go get dressed like a big kindergartener!

By yourself?

Yeah! And with a belt!

My heart is beating really fast!

Why?

To carry more oxygen.

“Siri, play Bob Dylan.”

I took Joseph to a play… Just a local kids theater class production directed by my Zumba instructor. It was loosely based on Little Red Riding Hood. There were no tickets and I’m fairly certain we were the only ones there not related to a cast member. Joseph was nervous to go until I realized he thought I meant he would be in the play. He was all for it when I explained it better. He still had a few questions during the performance…

Is this TV or are those people real?

Are those kids from an orphanage?

Is there a wolf in this play? There’s not a wolf…is there? (He most certainly does not want to be caught off guard by the entrance of a wolf…I check the program…yes, Big Bad Wolf…there is one. Wait! That’s the wolf up there now.) What? That boy playing the wolf needs to get himself a better costume! (It was a girl, dressed like a late but skinny Elvis, with an Edward Scissorhands wig.)

Do adults do plays? I want to see one with adults some time.

Have you seen a play before? (Yes.) You have? Was it here?

Is there another play? (Yes, there are lots of plays, different groups put them on all over.) When? Where is the next one? Can we go?

So…that wasn’t a screen. Those were real people. …Right?

“Joseph, come in here and let me comb your hair before we go [strawberry picking].”

“What? Why?”

“So you look nice.”

“Mommm, the strawberries aren’t going to care, they can’t see me–they don’t have eyes!”

Joseph tossed his swim trunks aside and ran out to the little pool. “Joseph, you better be careful not to burn your buns.” “They won’t get burned, they’re in the rear!”

“I second-hand smoked once.”

“Her hair looks like you paused an explosion!”