Calvin finger paints at school

Go, Tater Toter, go!

Overheard: the long legs of the truth

Here's Audrey with her friend Liam, in the garden, backgrounded by an azalea that is sure to miss the more skillful gardeners who once lived here, but is certainly lovely in bloom right now along with all sorts of other perennials I so much don't want to do harm to.

Liam and Audrey go way back. It was a more innocent time, before sass such as this:

Last night, I encounter a plate of graham crackers on the living room floor in front of the television after I had said no eating in the living room (this is not a boarding house, not a barn, etc. etc.). But here's this plate.

Me: Audrey what is this plate of graham crackers doing in here?

Audrey: I don't know. It must have crawled on legs in here.

Me: You mean, it grew legs and came in here by itself?

Audrey: That must be the case.

Me: All by itself, it walked in here.

Audrey: It crawled on legs. That's the whole truth.

Don't you like the finality of it? The closing-argument certainty? Yeah, me too. But I do worry that those are some long, rather unsteady legs the truth has sprouted.

To whom may we speak about valet parking?

Alice and Audrey rock the dress-ups.

Better Living Through Over-Engineering

Kitchen doesn't have a "warm, draft-free spot" where your biscuit dough can rest cozily while doubling in size? Not a problem: just turn the intense stare of this work lamp on them and those yeast spores will not fail to do their jobs. Because there will be nowhere for them to hide.

Why is he hopping from foot to foot like that?

Let the hunt begin!

So it turns out that the Easter Bunny stopped by and left us a note last night (we explained when the kids woke up this morning) saying that he was really, really busy and could we please hide the eggs for him, according to the clues he wrote down for us, so he wouldn't have to do it in the middle of the night or at dawn? We agreed. He ate the carrots and left.

Special Ops: Resistance Team

Apparently crusts are poison. Calvin is taking no risks.

From the studios of "Big Muscle Room" preschool, this somewhat club-footed dancing figure.

Audrey told me last weekend that she wanted to be my Special Resistant. And she is.

Today Scott and I went in to her classroom to read stories to the class and she basked in the glow of this mini-fame, sitting up there at the front with us in Scott's lap and turning pages. The day will come soon enough when the idea of being seen, touched, merely associated with us in front of her classmates will be an anathema to her, but today, she was in heaven.

Of her favorite author, Daniel Pinkwater, author of "The Big Orange Splot," she recently said, "I like him the best. And Johnny Cash."

Calvin is still a serious fan of the Man in Black. The other day I told the kids I needed to stop at the ATM to get some cash and Calvin said, "JOHNNY CASH???!!!!!" Sorry, son. Just the plain old boring green stuff.