Ana to me, “Well, a biography is a non-fiction book about someone’s life.  Like a book on Barack Obama.  Or a book on cats.”  Emma to Ana, “I like cats.”  Well, there you go.

Me to Em, trying to get her to understand the number sequences, “Ana is seven.  You are six.  Who is older, based on which number is bigger?”  Emma to me, “Well, Ana is older because she been born-ded first.”  Ana, sighing mightily, “No, Emma, I am older because seven is bigger than six.  That was the WHOLE point of Mommy’s question!”  Ana, saying all the things I’m thinking but can’t say as the patient Mommy… 

Em took the last piece of pepperoni pizza, leaving me with just cheese. Then, she took off the pepperoni. Me to Em, “I thought you wanted pepperoni!” Em to me, “I do, but I like pepperoni pizza without the pepperoni.” Well, that makes perfect sense.

Helped the girls clean out their closets and clean up their rooms. And when I say I helped, I mean that I did all the work while they sang princess songs and danced around me. “Oh, Mommy, wouldn’t it be great if we were princesses and had servants to do the work so we could sit around and drink tea all day?” Said with absolutely no irony or self-awareness at all. Excuse me while I go and find some tea and sugar…

After Ana yelled something that I couldn’t understand, me to Wes, “What did she say?”  Wes to me, “She lost her belt.”  Em to me, “She smells like Belle.”  Me, going straight to Ana myself, “What did you say?”  Ana to me, “I didn’t say anything.”  Am I losing my mind?

Emma to me, regarding the outfit I picked out for her, “Mommy, brown glashes with white.”  If you’re going to insult my fashion sense, at least use the right word.  Clashes, Emma.  Clashes!

Ana to me, looking at old pictures, “You look so young! You look as young as Aunt Kerry!” Me to Ana, “Like I’ve told you before, Aunt Kerry is OLDER than me!” Emma to me, “But she doesn’t look older than you.” You wound me, girls.

Emma to me, when I told her what was for dinner, “Hoison chicken!  Is that the kind of chicken that comes from cows?”  Is it beef, in other words?  No, it’s chicken.

Emma to me, while looking over her reading (in English) homework, “What?!  Is this Spanish?!”  This is a sure sign that it’s going to be a hard little homework session, y’all.

Reading through an American Girl series with the girls at bedtime. “And then, everyone died of cholera.” Not a direct quote… but that’s the gist of it! Emma thought this was sad. Ana wanted to see a picture of what cholera would do to someone. Thank you, American Girl.

Ana, after nearly being force-fed a healthy dinner, “Thank you for that food, Mommy.  Because I need food to live.  And I don’t want to die because tomorrow is computer lab day.”  Well, she can always say something nice, can’t she?  Kind of.