On working out

On the way things work

"Hey, Mateo, why does Jimmy Giggle take a nap if it's night time and he's already in his pajamas? Why doesn't he just go to bed?"

"Mommy, come sit by me."

"Dude, are you ignoring my question?"

"Well, I don't know why a lot of things ... like why does water float, why to trees move like that in the wind, why metal is hard ... I just don't know. I'm just a kid. "

On conscientious eating

"What do you think, should we have fish or chicken for dinner."

"Fish. ... Hey, mommy, do you know why I don't eat so much the chicken?"

"No. Why?"

"Because we have chicks at daycare and I don't want to accidentally eat one of their mommies or daddies."

"That sounds reasonable. Do you still eat butter chicken?"

"Oh yeah, of course I still eat that."

On choosing a life partner

"I'm going to get married."

"Yes, you probably will."

"Do you want me to tell you who I'm going to marry?"

"You already know? But you're just four. I didn't know I was going to marry Benjamin until I was almost 40."

"Yeah, well, Josie and Stephen are already married and they're just four."

"Uh, who says they're married?"

"Oh, everyone just knows it. I'm going to marry Millie."

"Does Millie know this."

"Yeah, I told her."

"You told her? You mean you asked her?"

"Nah, I told her in a whisper."

"How do you think she feels about that?"

"Oh, she'll be fine with it."

On ergonomics

"Mommy, I need an office, we can put it in the living room. And I know what can be my desk ... the little table I usually use for painting. We'll put it in the living room and I'll get my texters, but I'll only need one. And I'll need paper that's all connected at the top and when I finish my work on each page, I'll go 'flip, flip, flip' and it will all stay there, just turned over. Okay, mommy? Can you get that for me?"

On boy wizards

"How do you feel when someone says you look like Harry Potter?"

"It makes me feel shy of myself. 
... Mommy, wizards aren't real. I'll tell you all the Halloween things that are real ... pumpkins, spiders, bats, witches hats, skeletons. Skeletons are the bones walking around inside people."

"So, wizards aren't real, but witches are?"

"Yeah, wizards just have pretend spells and stuff."

"What do witches do?"

"Witches LOOOOOve to eat stinky stuff. And that's all."

On sand, sea and salt air

During dinner ...

Me: "While the boys were playing, Louisa told me about their trip. They just got back from Phuket. They've been to Bali several times, but this was their first trip to Thailand. She said it was nice ... nice people, great food, good snorkeling ... , but mostly she loved having three weeks of just the three of them spending time together with no plans or commitments or obligations. They would get up and walk out on the beach and just be."

M: "Waitaminutewaitaminutewaitaminute. You mean there are hotels on the beach? We've gotta do that. Seriously. I need to stay in a hotel on the beach."

On space travel

"Mommy, I love you so much, I could rocket blast to the moon on it."

On marriage

While studying the invitation to a princess birthday party ...

"There are a lot of pretty things on this card."

"Princesses tend to like pretty things. They're a bit famous for it. You know what else princesses like? Princes."

(ha ha) "Yeah, they totally like princes best of all. I haven't told you this mommy, but princesses like to marry princes."

"That's interesting. Where did you learn that."

"Oh, you know ... they do all that fighting to save princesses, then the princesses want to marry the princes. The dragon steals the princess, the prince fights fights fights with his sword and saves the princess, and they get married. That's how it happens."