#our kidlets

My younger housemates (5 and 3 years old) were playing with a bouquet of wilting dahlias and cooing to each other, in these pitying, mournful voices, “Poor little flower...poor little flower...”

When I came over, I found that this was because they were stripping every last petal off the dahlias and putting them in a bowl -- “to remember them!” I was informed. And I was laughing at the irony of being so sympathetic about the havoc they themselves were wreaking...

...when it occurred to me that their “Poor little flower” sounds exactly like my own mental voice when I’m cooing over the sad state of whatever poor character I’m torturing in my fic.

Am listening to my third-youngest housemate and her father having a conversation...apparently they were talking about the differences between states and nations, and he looked something up Wikipedia and attempted to give her a precis of what he was reading:

“...The geopolitical blah blah blah...”

*sharply* "Do the words say 'blah blah blah,' Daddy?"

"...No."

"Then you need to read them properly."

*Dad obediently reads to her about geopolitical definitions* "...”

“...”