R: Do you want to hold her?
B: Who? Catty?
R: I changed her name. It's Little Mittens now.

R hands LM to B. B takes advantage, grabs R, hugs R. R laughs.

R: This time I have to throw Little Mittens to you so you can't get me.

R's accurate throwing range is not yet longer than B's arm's reach. More grabbing, hugging, and laughing.

R (laughing): You'll never get away with this!

Instead of B reading to F at bedtime, F reads out loud, with B helping on the occasional hard word. He's reading some school book on energy.

B: That was fun, wasn't it?
F: Yeah!
B: You really like reading, don't you?
F: No, I really like LEARNING!

R and I are watching baseball highlights

R: There's a team called the Pirates??
B: Yeah.
R: I like the Los Angeles Doctors

R thought I was asleep on the couch, so I got to hear her playing with her dolls on living room floor. Fascinating mix of dialog from Frozen and "It's MY body, you don't get to tell me what to do with it!"

You go, kid. Except when it's bedtime. Or bath time. Or we have to go somewhere. Then I kinda do. Though I empathize with your sacred quest to make it as difficult as possible.

R got a beach ball globe and is fascinated with it.

R: The only country I know on this is Russia. Because it's soooo big!
R: I LOVE Russia. But I love Kalamazoo even more.
R: Mommy, come on! Today's the day we go to Russia. We're going to Russia today. And we're going to HIDE CLOCKS!

I think the latter is due to the clocks in the Southern Ocean on the beach ball globe that illustrate time zones.

F: Something Under the Bed is Drooling! Ha!
B: Do you like it?
F: Yeah, it has red eyes.
B: Some kids think they have monsters under their beds. Do you?
R: No, because monsters aren't real... except bears.

Objection to me taking his sister's side when he's mean to her.

Same series, part two.

B: Oh, look! You made a person!
R: No, Daddy, it's a zombie. See? It's got a green face, and it's got mud in its hair so its hair is purple.

B: Did you go look at a school this morning? Did you like it?
R: Yeah! I had fun!
B: Do you like it better than the other school you looked at?
R: Well. I think I liked them exactly the same. But I made a friend today.
B: That sounds nice. Did you find out his or her name?
R: She told me her name. But I forgot it.
B: That's ok.
R: I know it's ok, because I don't need to remember people's names, because I don't call people by their names. I just talk to them. Saying people's names to them when they know you're talking to them anyway just doesn't make sense!

F: Daddy, can you put ketchup and mustard on my hot dogs? Can you do the ketchup in a wavy line, and can you do the mustard in another wavy line in the opposite direction, so it looks like DNA without the lines in the middle?

Ah, the playground. Where F tells R all the things she's "not allowed" to do, and R says "Ok" and does what she wants anyway.

R: See the guys I made? It's me in my pink swimsuit and Mommy in her blue one. Do you see where I attached Mommy's legs? I put them there because SHE NEEDS LEGS!

F: So the trick to riding a bike is going fast enough... and not running into stuff.

R: Daddy, can we move to the woods someday? I LOVE the woods! And they haven't killed me ever.

And I thought M had my back...

R has been convinced to go upstairs and clean up the beads and Legos and other potential foot -destroying things she had strewn about the bathroom.

B: It looks a lot better in here.
R: I know. I was playing a game before.
B: What game?
R: Make It Hurt For Grownups To Walk.
B: What's the coin jar doing in here?
R shakes jar, which proves to be full of change.

B glances into his room.

B: What happened to all the money I had on my end table?
R: Mommy said I could have it.

R: Can we go see a REAL unicorn someday?
B: Um...
Margy: Um...
F (smart-ass tone): R, they're not actually...

F gets a good look at his sister's face.

F: ...white with purple hair in real life. They're more of a boring brown.

B: You slept until 10 this morning, you know.
M: Yeah, but I had R, right? She was asleep, too, right?
B: You were sleeping with Mommy, right?
R: Yeah!
B: Yep, you were parenting.
M (with first pump): Yes!!

Walking in the woods. Trying to find the Secret Playground. R insists she knows where it is. R does not know where it is.

R: I hope you love the Secret Playground. It's ok if you don't like it. But you won't be able to live with me anymore.

Personalities viewed through the prism of dandelions:

R: Awww, F got the ones you can blow!
B: R, you can have the next blow - able ones we find.
F: But I use them to make wishes! She just likes to blow them.
B: Do you make wishes too?
R: No, I just like to have fun.
B: Does it work when you make wishes?
F: No. But I wish for cool things. Like being able to do anything, or have everything, or never die.

F: What's a nervous wreck? B: Why?

F shows B the riddle on his popsicle stick ("what shakes at the bottom of the ocean?") B explains.

F: That's stupid! Anybody down there would be dead from either water pressure or drowning!

M: If you watch any more screens today, your brains will fall out and you'll become a zombie.
F: Zombies' brains don't fall out. They're still in their heads, they're just not very well attached and they can't really use them. They can't even remember their own birthdays!

M: This kid cracks me up.