This morning Aubrey and Emma were playing under our Christmas tree. (I KNOW! We usually wait until the day after Thanksgiving but I’m going to be out of town.)

I heard Aubrey talking to Emma, “Let’s pretend this doll is Baby Jesus!”

Aubrey wrapped up her doll, laid it under the tree, clutched her chest with both hands, then in her very best 1930s Shirley Temple voice said, “Oh he is soooooo Christly!!!”

Several nights ago Aubrey was lying on her bed reading a Bearenstain Bears book, she sighed dreamily and said, “My family is just like the Bearenstain Bears…”

Is the blue polka dotted bonnet I wear? Zeb’s bright red suspenders? Living in a tree house?

I’m not sure. But I sort of think it’s the biggest and best compliment I’ve ever received as a mother. Hate on haters.

P.S. She doesn’t always dress like she’s on the Little House set, it was Thanksgiving Feast Day at school and she was a pilgrim.

Last night my mother stuck her head in the bathroom while Aubrey and Emma were taking a bath and said, “Girls don’t make a mess in here. No splashing. Do you understand? Hang your towels up when you’re done.” (She was referring to the robe hooks my husband hung low enough on the wall for the girls to reach.)

Aubrey: Grammie Plum doesn’t do it that way.

(Grammie Plum is my mother-in-law. She lives on a farm, has amazing hayrides and nature walks for my kids and almost always hangs her clothes on a line to dry.)

My mom: How does Grammie do it?

Aubrey: She hangs her clothes up outside… she’s kind of a pilgrim-like. But with no Indians.

After school yesterday Aubrey and I were having our standard “What did you do at school today?” conversation and Aubrey said, “We ate an owl at snack time.”

I assumed she was joking.

Me: Did it taste like chicken?
Aubrey: Yeah, sort of…
I was stunned. I realize hunting is big around here and at some really fancy restaurants you can order anything from duck and dove to alligator. But eating an owl seemed wrong…at the worst, illegal (aren’t they endangered or something??) At the very best, it seemed a little disturbing for kindergartners to be eating an owl.

Me: Seriously? Y’all ate an owl?
Aubrey began laughing hysterically. “HAHAHAHA!! MOMMA! I got you!! It was a cookie shaped like an owl!”

Ah, grasshoppah your skills impress me.

Tonight the girls tried on their Halloween costumes and were running around the house playing in them. Emma is going to be a princess, shocker, I know. Aubrey is going to be a vampire. Super random, and I have no idea how she’s even HEARD of them. But it’s what she wanted to be and I’m cool with it. I got them some fake vampire teeth at the store the other day and they were wearing the teeth when I called them to eat dinner.

Overheard.
Aubrey: I gotta take my teeth out so I can eat.
Me: *collapses in giggles*

A few nights ago Aubrey was in the bathroom with me after I got out of the shower. She watched as I brushed my hair, moisturized and applied deodorant. I saw her eyeballing my deodorant so I asked, “You want some?”

Her face lit up as she grabbed it and applied it liberally to both arm pits. “Momma, when you go on a date you need a lot of this huh?” (I have no idea what she’s thinking. I love the Zebster but after almost 14 years together, I don’t really break out in sweats on dinner dates.)

“Yeah, I guess you do,” I said.

Aubrey was grinning from ear to ear when she left my bathroom to go put on her pajamas and Zeb heard her yell at her sister as she ran into her bedroom, “Hey Emma! Smell my pits!”

Emma didn’t even hesitate. Bet that doesn’t happen when they’re teenagers.