crooked house

Dreams of Riches

Grampa: Steph, how does it feel to be rich?

Steph (puzzled): What do you mean?

Grampa (laughing): Last night I dreamed you won the lottery.

Steph: Oh wow, I hope your dream comes true. Wouldn't that be nice, Sylvie, if we were all rich?

Sylvie: Grampa have bad dream? Like my dream treasure cat?

Steph: No, honey, Grampa had a good dream. Not a nightmare, like your bad dream about the Cheshire cat [from Alice in Wonderland]. He dreamed we were rich!

Sylvie: That bad dream.

Steph: No, it's a good dream! I was rich and Daddy was rich and Lukie was rich and Vivi was rich!

Sylvie (looks appalled and insulted, screeches at the top of her lungs): I NOT A WITCH! (bursts into tears.)

Plans for Vivi

Vivi, wearing Mrs. Potato Head's lips upside-down and talking on her set of plastic car keys.

Vivi is reading aloud to her friend Eden, who is also two years old. "Point to the black cat!" she instructs Eden.

"Sylvie, are you going to be a teacher, like your mom?" asks Eden's mom, Kat.

"No," Sylvie replies.

"Well, what are you going to be when you grow up, then?" asks Kat.

"Doctor," says Vivi.

"Oh that's great!" says Kat. "Doctors make lots of money! You will have a fabulous house and a really big collection of shoes!"

I laugh.

"What?" says Kat. "She LOVES shoes."

It's true, she does.

 

Things Grampa's Grandparents Told Him

Gorgeous image of snowflakes by Yuji Obata, found here.

"The old woman is shaking her feather bed." Grampa mentioned this one just now because enormous soft snow flakes are falling from the sky. "What old woman?" I asked him. "I have no idea," he said. "Just the one who lives in the sky," said Luke.

"The devil is beating his wife." Grampa explained that this one was said when it rains while the sun is shining. "Is the rain supposed to be the devil's wife's tears?" I asked, wondering about the poor devil's wife -- why have I never heard of her before? -- and her wretched life. "I have no idea," said Grampa.

"Freckles are caused by raindrops falling on your face." How did they get this one so very wrong? It's too much sun on your face, not rain. Unless, like me, you were simply born with them.

"If you go to someone's house and when you walk in the door, there is a broom lying on the floor in front of it, whatever you do, do not bend down and pick it up." "Why not?" I asked.  "Because it will prove you are a witch. Just step over it," instructed Grampa. As a boy, Grampa himself visited the houses of people who performed this test on unsuspecting guests. "They were known to be fanatical about witches," he explained.

See also: the devil's darning needles.

(I get these in dribs and drabs. "Is that all you can remember right now?" I just asked him. "Yes, that's all," he said. But while I was searching for a good image of snowflakes, he came back into the room. "Did I ever tell you I wasn't allowed to watch during pig-killing time?" he asked me. "No," I said. "Why weren't you allowed to watch?" "Because if you pitied him, he wouldn't die," said Grampa. "I was allowed to watch after he was dead.")

 

 

The Crooked House Paper Village

Here's a shot of the paper village we always put up around this time of year. Some of the houses -- the three-dimensional ones with pastel roofs -- I made a year or two ago using a Martha Stewart winter village kit. At some point, I used Country Home's plans to make the plain white buildings, which are flat. And this year's addition is the one in the middle  -- it's made from a photograph of our own crooked house, printed on vellum and taped to a square glass vase. I got the idea from Hutch Studio. They made similar ones of their shop. (Via the lovely new blog A History of Home.)

I've taken photographs of other houses in our neighbourhood, and ones of the houses of some relatives and friends -- you know, the people who don't actually live in our neighbourhood but we wish did. (Gramma, when you read this, please email us a photo of your house and Den's.) And, time permitting, I'm going to add those houses to our paper village, too. So that even if the real world isn't perfect, our paper one will be.

Or maybe not. If you look closely, you can see where the roof of our porch is starting to fall down, right above the steps. And unfortunately, there's another slight problem. I suggested to Luke that we might like to put little cut-out photographs/paper dolls of him and Vivi on the felt, next to that snowman say, and he thought that was a great idea. "We should look sad, though," he said.

"Why?" I asked.

"Because the house is on fire," he said. And unfortunately, it does look a little like that. Luke thinks the glossiness of the map behind the roof of the house even looks like smoke.

We could just go with that, I suppose. Add a toy fire truck and all.

 

All you need to make your own is a photograph of your house printed on a sheet of vellum, a battery-operated tea light or two (whatever you do, don't use real ones), and some tape. The glass vase or candle-holder is optional. If you don't want to use one, just fold the photo of your house in a kind of tube around a tea-light and fasten it with the tape.

Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal Nails Parenting

That Was Dumb, Wasn't It?

Vintage telephone ad from here.

Luke: Mommy, could you call [my friend] and ask her to come over and play?

Steph: Why don't you call her?

Luke: I'm too shy to speak to her father.

Steph: Well, you have to get over that. I used to be very shy, too, and my mother made all my telephone calls for me. Then, when I was teenager and went away to live by myself and go to university, I remember that I was afraid to call the hair salon to make an appointment to get my hair cut! That was dumb, wasn't it?

Luke: Yeah, you never should have lived alone.

 

 

Signs Vivi Has a Geriatric Mother

This morning:

Me: Vivi, can you pick up your toys off the bathroom floor, please?

Vivi (groaning, spanning her lower back with the palms of her hands): Oooh, I can't. My back hurts.

This afternoon:

Talking Elmo Doll: Elmo fell down. Can you help Elmo up please?

Vivi: I can't. I very tired.

Talking Elmo Doll: Elmo fell down. Can you help Elmo up please?

Vivi: Can't! I very tired!

Talking Elmo Doll: Can you help Elmo up please?

Vivi: I can't! I very tired, Elmo!

Talking Elmo Doll:  Can you help Elmo up please?

Vivi: I very tired!

Talking Elmo Doll: Elmo fell down. Can you help Elmo up please?

Vivi (sitting on Elmo): I very tired, Elmo!

Talking Elmo Doll: Can you help Elmo up please?

Vivi (jumping up and down on Elmo): Very tired! I very tired, Elmo!

 

 

Grey Eyes

Image from here.

 

Luke: Mommy, do your eyes make everything look grey?

Steph [puzzled]: No... [suddenly concerned] Why?! Do yours?

Luke: No.

Steph: Well, why you'd ask?

Luke: I just thought that maybe when people got old, their eyes made everything look grey.

It's Hot

Luke (coming into the house, banging the door behind him): Phew. It's hot out there!

Steph: Is it? I thought it'd be cooler today.

Luke: Nope, it's 145 out there.

Steph: It's 145 degrees out there? Wow, that is really hot. How'd you come up with that number?

Luke: That's how high I could count before I had to come back inside.

Wouldn't It Be Funny

Luke: Mommy, wouldn't it be funny if the world were made out of lego?

Steph: Yes, it would.

Luke: Like you and me and Sylvie would all be made out of lego...

Steph: Yes, and you could take off my head and put it on your body and then put yours on mine!

Luke (giggling): Yeah! And the ground would be made of lego, and the sky...

Steph: Yes, and when it rained it would rain little blue lego blocks...

Luke: Yeah! And when it snowed it would snow little white lego blocks!

Steph: Yeah...

Luke: Yeah, and the ocean would be made of lego!

Steph: Yeah...

Luke: And the cars would be made out of lego, and when they crashed, they would break into a thousand lego pieces!

Steph: Yeah...

Luke: And trees would be made of lego and in the fall the leaves would be made out of red, yellow, orange, and brown lego!

Steph:  Mmmhmm...

Luke: Blah blah blah, lego, lego, lego!!

Steph: Uhuh...

Luke: Lego, lego, lego, blah blah blah!!

Steph (trying to change things up a little): Hey, wouldn't it be funny if the world were made of jello?!

Luke: ...

Steph: Like you'd be made out of jello and I'd be made out of jello and Sylvie would be made out of jello?

Luke: That wouldn't work. Jello is too wobbly.

Steph: Sure it would! We'd all wobble around on a wobbly world!

Luke: ...

Steph: ...

Luke: I just want to talk about lego.

Steph: Okay.