sayings

Evey's been saying words that start with a /st/ sound by moving the initial /s/ sound to the end of the word. For example, the word stuck: "It tucks, mommy!" she says. There is certainly no rule in the english language to move initial phonemes to the end of words, so I'm wondering where this generalization comes from.

Also, when we ask her what she did today, she always says she has watched TV or watched a Movie. Even if she hasn't. She can even tell you what the movie was about, or what TV show she thinks she watched. Guess she's a tv lover!

iTunes app

I want someone to write an iTunes app for me. Probably it would be useful for iPhones too, but I don't have one, so not sure. This app would make iTunes open to the library at a random point in the collection. I hate that every day when I start iTunes I see the same album cover (Adem - Homesongs). Now never listen to that album, even though I love it, purely because it's the first thing I see everyday. Come on programmers, fix it!

more snow

Also, you apparently have to shovel your walk and mostly your driveway at night. Before the snow freezes and becomes 10 times heavier and you can't get out of your driveway for the snow. I was walking outside around 7 last night, and all of my neighbors were outside shoveling snow. Everyone outside like it was a summer's day or Halloween! So we succumbed to peer pressure and decided to do the same. I'm so glad that we did. Another 3 inches of snow fell - you could barely tell where we had shoveled! Snow is amazing.

Snow

Being from the south, snow was a rarity. It was longed for every day by every child. My typical experience with snow, even as a grown up, is this:
Step 1) There is a forecast of snow flurries.
Step 2) There is a run on the grocery stores. They sell out of bottled water and rock salt.
Step 3) They close the schools.
Step 4) it may or may not snow (yes, those are in the right order).
Step 5) If it actually DID snow, the world shuts down for the day. By the next day the snow has melted and all is back to normal. But we all get one magical winter wonderland of a day full of playing, sledding, reading, relaxing, hot chocolate, and general unexpected time off.

Now living in Ohio, we've just had our first snow. It has snowed basically nonstop for 5 days. It's not wickedly deep out there, about 4 inches because some of the snow melts while the rest of it is falling. However, given my typical schema of how snow works, my mind was a little bit blown. Here is how Snow in Columbus works.
1) there is a forecast of snow accumulation of a few inches with lows in the single digits.
2) No one notices.
3) it snows.
4) The city salts and plows the road, the campus salts the sidewalks. People actually own snow shovels and de-icer for their own sidewalks and steps - and they use them.
5) Everyone goes to work and is on time to work.

So snow is different here. Also, though I have seen snow before, it's been over 5 years since I've seen any on the ground. Among the plethora of things I didn't know (or perhaps just didn't remember) about snow:

1) It is really cold. Ok, I mean in principle I knew it was cold. But it's really really cold. Like your face is numb and your hands and toes hurt cold.

2) it is wet. again, I knew in principle that it was wet. But it's really wet. and yucky when it gets in your gloves, shoes, socks, shirt, car ... anything. It's like cold wet sand after a day at the beach. The snow beach.

3) if you have to walk outside while it's snowing, the stuff gets in your eyes and it stings.

4) Sometimes you have to scrape off your car more than once a day! I went to work at 8, parked the car, and when I came back to it at 5 I had to scrape it off again. Boo. Scraping the car off when you're walking like 5 steps from the house is no big deal. You're still warm and can duck back inside if you have to. But after a 5-10 minute walk it sucks. it's just cold. and wet. and the snow gets in your eyes and it stings.

5) One thing is the same. It is still beautiful, quiet, calming, sparkly, and fun to look at. Through a closed window - next to my heater - provided there are blankets stuffed around the windows so the draft doesn't get in.

That's what she said

Evey's talking up quite a storm. Earlier this week she ran to me and said -

Ev: "Mommy, I can't go in there because of the dragon."
Me: "Dragon? what dragon?"
Ev: "the scary dragon. He's playing with my toys!"
Me: "Oh! well, that's nice of you to let him play with your toys."
Ev: "no. SCARY dragon."

We can't figure out where the dragon came from. But he's popping up everywhere lately. Once earlier this week she brought up the dragon again. This time I got her to tell me a whole story, with a bit of prompting. I inserted my prompts in parentheses.

(once upon a time there was a....) ... a scary Lola! She said 'BOO!' 'Boo, Charlie BOOOOOOO!" then JUMP! Lola Jumped. Then a scary dragon jumped, then down skipped the dragon - like Lotta.

(*Then what happened?) Then mommy water skipped - jump, jump! The dragon jumped INTO MOMMY'S WATER!" (what kind of dragon was it?) "It was a tiny baby dragon!"

(what does he like to do?) "He likes to crash into houses! It's not nice. I said 'that's not nice, dragon'" (what does the dragon eat?) "He likes to eat breakfast and he likes to eat... PIZZA! and he Splashed into mommy's water and then had a drink. And mommy's water jumped!
(what color was the dragon?) It's was a white dragon with green eyes. No, with WHITE eyes. It was a BIG dragon.

Then she took my pen and wanted to write 'dragon' herself. Dragons. Go figure.