Wait For It.

Tonight after dinner Cici and I went for a bike ride together. We rode across a wooden footbridge near our house, down some old bike ramps and then walked up and down a freight railway.

A little while ago, while I was tucking her in and saying good night, we shared the following magical conversation:

Dadam: Thanks for going on that bike ride with me today, Cici. It was the best part of my day.

Cici [sweetly]: It was the best part of mine, too, Dad. [pause] Because we didn't really do anything else.

The Great Minnesota Get Together

We took the girls to the state fair yesterday and spent a few hours eating junk and taking in the sights. The girls had pronto pups and a strawberry shake, saw all sorts of barnyard animals (including the biggest pig in Minnesota!), checked out the award-winning cakes and breads, rode the giant slide, and came home filthy and exhausted. It means the end of summer in Minnesota, and it's a good thing we got there before our lovely city is swarming with Republicans -- YIKES!

Skilled Manipulator.

I think Ruby may make a skilled political debater at some future point; consider this conversation.

[Ruby and Cici in the bathtub, and have been for approximately one hour.]

Dadam: Girls, it's time to get out.

Ruby: But Daddy, we're cooking ice cream.

Dadam: No, I mean it - it's time to get out of the bath now.

Ruby: No, we're cooking ice cream!

Dadam: Ruby, you can finish your ice cream out of the bath, okay?

Ruby [after considering this a moment]: Real ice cream?

The Hillbilly Grin.

Another Random Picture

I love this picture (hi, Kari!). I like how intently we're looking at the book while Cici is reading (and some of us even look a little confused). This one is from Memorial Day.

She Drives Us Crazy

It seems like we haven't posted many pictures lately, so I dug one up from last spring. It's Ruby at a Chuck E. Cheese and she's driving some sort of truck or bus. We took her there because Cici was at a birthday party nearby and we didn't want Rubes to feel left out. She had a terrific time and Dadam and I were reminded why A) we don't EVER want to live in the suburbs, and B) Chuck E. Cheese is pretty lame.

Fantasy And Reality.

Cici lost one of her baby teeth yesterday. It's the third one she's lost so far, but it was one of the top front ones, so it's the first time she's had the classic "All I Want for Christmas" hillbilly grin. So, last night as I was putting her to bed, we had the following conversation.

Dadam: Now don't forget to put your tooth under your pillow, or the Tooth Fairy won't come.

Cici: Oh, yeah, the Tooth Fairy! [pause; then] . . . Dad, is the Tooth Fairy real?

Dadam: Well what are you talking about of course the Tooth Fairy is real I mean honestly.

Cici [smiling slyly]: Well, Dad, it's just that I'm a little older now, and I think that the Tooth Fairy might not be real.

Dadam: Well then, where does the money come from?

[Cici points at me.]

Dadam: What?

Cici: From the parents!

Dadam: Well, why would you think that?

Cici: Because fairies aren't real. They're, like, you know . . . a fantasy.

Dadam: Well, sweetie, only you can decide for sure whether you believe in something or not. You just have to look inside yourself and think about whether you think it's true or not. So in the morning, why don't you look under your pillow and see how you feel then?

Cici: Okay, Dad.

Okay, so it's not exactly "Yes, Virginia, There is a Santa Claus," but I did my best.

Anyway, this morning Cici found that the Tooth Fairy had left a dollar under her pillow, and when she showed it to Ruby she said, "Look, Ruby! Look what the Tooth Fairy brought me!"

And then she turned to me and winked.

It Hit Ninety Degrees Today . . .

. . . and this is how Ruby just came down from her room.

Her explanation? "Look at me, I'm Halloween!"

Don't Tell Uncle Jim...

My uncle Jim won a bronze medal in the 1984 Olympics, something that I've been thinking a lot about lately while watching all the amazing athletes in Beijing. It's just an incredible accomplishment, to be sure.

Unless you're Cici.

Tonight at dinner they were arguing about who won gold, silver and bronze. Cici was handing out the awards (I don't even know what "event" we had competed in) and it went something like this:

"Cici gets the gold!!"

"Mommy gets the silver!"

"Ruby gets the bronze!"

Ruby looks very satisfied until Cici follows it up with, "Ruby, bronze is the WORST!"

The Fifth Wheel

Today the girls were at home with me because our childcare provider took a vacation day. We made the most of it and had a great day at the pool (the high today is 88, so it worked out well). We went to a local pool that was recently renovated and now has a diving pool, an aquatic climbing wall, a sprinkler area, a regular lap pool, and a wading pool with little slides and hoses. The girls were in heaven and the first half hour or so we simply bounced from area to area to take it all in.

A short while later Cici made friends with two other girls who looked to be about her age, and Cici and her new pals were not interested in what me or Ruby were doing -- they wanted to run around together and swim in the big pool. Personally, I love to see that Cici easily makes friends and isn't shy about asserting herself with new kids, and my independent children make me proud. Ruby on the other hand...

Poor Ruby just didn't know what to make of all this. Why was her sister not paying attention to her? Why did the girls have to swim in the big pool where she can't touch? Rubester just couldn't keep up and it broke my heart a little bit to watch her try. She'd run behind the big girls but they weren't paying any attention to her, and they'd be ready to move on to the next thing by the time she finally found them or caught up to them. And I started thinking about how Cici has been the center of Ruby's world for so long and it will again be very hard when Cici goes back to school. I guess we'll just have to make the most of the next two weeks.

Condiments.

[Ruby is drinking Carnation Instant Breakfast and notices she has a milk mustache.]

Ruby [apologetically]: I have a mustard.

Different Strokes.

[Dadam is telling the girls a bedtime story.]

Dadam: . . . And when he saw that the slipper fit, the Prince realized that Cinderella was the same woman that he had liked so much from the ball, and he said he wanted to take her away and marry her. And he did, and Cinderella's stepmother and stepsisters never bothered her again. The end. So, the message of the story is that it doesn't matter what you look like on the outside, or what kind of clothes you wear - you can still be a great person inside.

Cici: Thanks for the wonderful story, Dad.

Ruby [holding up a chess piece]: Exterminate! Exterminate!

You Said A Mouthful, Kid.

[The family is eating dinner, and Momlissa burps delicately.]

Momlissa: Oh, excuse me.

Cici [not looking up from her food]: Mom, you just made a noise like a bear.

Body Builders

Last night we were flipping through the channels during a commercial break from the Olympics and happened to catch part of a show on women body-builders. These are women who aren't just "physically fit" but are muscular in the extreme and participate in body-building competitions. For some reason, the competitions require them to be extremely tanned and shiny which, I can only assume, is to accentuate the definition in their muscles. I have to say that I've never seen anyone achieve a natural tan quite like this, and really these women end up a horrific shade of orange.

The three of us sat there with our jaws dropped while we processed the visuals, and then Cici turned to me and said, "Mom ... she's ... not the color of people!"

And you know what? She's right.

Duluth

We recently spent the weekend in Duluth so that I (Momlissa) could participate in a triathlon on Pike Lake. It was a very nice weekend with great weather, lots of family fun, and I completed the tri without incident. On Saturday night we took the girls bowling -- it was Ruby's first time and, I must admit, she's not good. Her score for the first game was 13 (total), so we opted for the bumpers on our second game. It improved everyone's scores and that made bowling much more fun! Here are some shots from the trip...

Olympic Talk.

Dadam: Hey, tonight is the opening ceremonies of the Olympics.

Cici: What's that?

Dadam: Well, it's like a big parade they have on TV when the Olympics starts. Do you know what country the Olympics are in this year?

Cici: No.

Dadam: Well, it's a big country that's far away. What would you guess?

Cici: Antarctica?

Dadam: No, but that's a good guess.

Cici: No, they'd never have it there - it's too cold! Where is it?

Dadam: In China. That's about halfway around the world.

Cici: Oh, so if it's the middle of the day here, it's the middle of the night there.

Dadam: That's right.

Cici: And when we're going to bed here, they're just getting up there.

Dadam: Yep, pretty close.

Cici [thoughtfully]: But we're all brushing our teeth at the same time, of course.

Toilet Paper Wood?

Cici: I'd like to make a kind of sled for sledding on in the wintertime. You could use it to slide on the ice, only I wouldn't make it out of regular wood, because that's too hard. I wish you could make it out of toilet paper wood.

Momlissa: Toilet paper wood?

Cici: Yeah. You know, the kind of wood that you hang the toilet paper on.

Momlissa: Oh, cardboard.

Cici: Yeah, cardboard. That way if you crash while you're sledding, you won't get hurt by the wood.

[pause]

Dadam: Toilet paper wood?

Random Cici Quotes.

[Trying to get her swim goggles to fit:] I need a repairment.

***

[Watching contestants racing on American Gladiators:] Ooh, they're neck to neck.