* Annabelle has gotten a very energetic second wind when it comes helping with dishes and laundry. She helps with both as some of her chores, but she recently said she was going to do all the laundry in the house and clean every dish. “I can get it aaaalllll done because there are 24 hours in this whoooooole *waves her arms around* day.” The optimism of youth!

* On Friday we drove my friend’s son Sammy home from school. He and AB were having a conversation about the behavior chart at school. The goal is to keep your clip on green the entire day. Sammy frequently gets moved to light green or red. Annabelle is terrified of doing the wrong thing in school and has never had her clip moved down. Sammy didn’t believe her so she showed him the calendar in her book where each day of school without her clip being moved is colored green. Sammy said, “Bruh! You never get off green? You’re so lucky!” Annabelle stared at him in disbelief. “It is NOT luck.” Don’t be crediting luck when she’s worked hard for those greens!

*From the back seat: “How many gallons of water can a baobab tree store in its trunk?”

* “I wish there was a way to cuddle with you when I’m not home so we could cuddle forever.”

*On Friday night we went to Mellow Mushroom for supper. We had a reservation but thanks to the general lack of competence in every area in this town, there was an issue with getting our table. After nearly 45 minutes of waiting and back and forth with the hostess, Christopher went in to get some info and/or say adios to you and your poorly run pizza joint. Annabelle knelt on the ground and prayed we’d get in soon, right there in front of the potted plant. Imagine her surprise when, at the very moment she was done praying, Christopher came out and said our table was ready. She could not believe God answered her prayer so fast. Unfortunately, she didn’t pray we’d actually get our pizza soon because when we sat down, the server said it would be at least a 40-minute wait until we saw our food. We knew it would be more like 60-600 minutes so we got up from the table we waited nearly an hour for and left. But the point of the story is that she knelt down and prayed in public and it was very touching.

*When we were playing a game with pretend names and Christopher said he’d be Christopher David.  “Take your reality somewhere else.”

*”I’ll help you paint my room” translates to: putting handmade posters on the walls when everything needs to be off the walls, sticking her head out of the open window and yelling to the neighborhood, asking me to watch her jump off the ladder several times in a row, banging on the drum, asking for a snack, discussing her stuffed animals new names, throwing pillows (“But they’re called THROW pillows”), asking me to put Mr. Potato Head’s eyes back on and rolling herself up in the plastic I put down to protect the floor.

*Yesterday was silly hat day at school but hair envy day in my heart.