School pictures

I can't make peace with the fact that I am compelled to purchase overpriced school portraits each year. I try to select the cheapest package possible, but it works out to about $30-40 each time. I do enjoy the portraits that my mom bought when I was in elementary school but that might be because so few of my childhood pictures exist. Or there's something about the expression/feeling that's somehow not captured anywhere else like a school portrait that really brings you back to the time it was taken. Even though I admit I like looking at the portraits of my children, I don't feel like I should be buying them.
That's because I can put myself in J's shoes...$35 compounded for 20 years....
(begin anguished wail) OH THE MONEY WAAAAAAASTED! (end of anguished wail)

S: Daddy, can you teach me how to make Challah, so I'll still be able to make it after you die?
D: Yes.
S: Will you die when my kids are grown?
D: Yes.
S: Daddy, please stop talking about dying ... it's scaring me.
D: OK.

 

Started kind of shallow ... but seemed to grow into recognition of something a little deeper.

New toy

I gave little D a new toy today. As I understand it, it's supposed to be some kind of a robot with different parts that fold into itself so that when all appendages are folded, it forms a ball. Then if you press a button or something, all the appendages come out and the form is quite different from a ball.

Little D was trying to get it to "come out" but couldn't figure it out. "Let big D try it," I told him. "She's good at...
"mysteries!" as she finished my sentence.

How does a starfish eat?

How does a starfish eat? A question I posed to D.
"They take out the stomach and then chew. When they're done chewing they put the stomach back in!" (In her signature booming voice).

The Amazing Human Body

We were looking at a medically inspired drawn picture of the human body and its various parts.
"What are those red grapes?!" D says in her loud booming voice. "Red blood cells," I answered.

"Look! That's my stomach," as she points to the small and large intestine. Then, she correctly identifies the heart. She is puzzled by the eye. I ask her to look carefully at the ear and she correctly identifies it as such.

Here are more amusing labels she made and what they are in actuality.

Pizza (plasma)
A piece of pie (cross section of the skin)
Big worm (spine)
Necklace (I'm not sure)
Blueberries (Gall stones?!)
Avocados (I don't know)

First day of school for the big D

She seemed happy when she got off the bus. But when I asked her how her day went, she frowned. I tried all sorts of questioning. Finally, a dismal proclamation, "There were none toys to play with" and then another equally depressing declaration, "I sat in my chair all day". Poor D. Kindergarten is an adjustment from preschool.