Zoe en Voice

After a discussion about the idea of the seemingly infinite populations of people and the ancestors who came before us Zoe sighed dreamily, “Yes . . . definitely wonderful . . .”

While grocery shopping Zoe discovered an echo in one of the isles. She called out several times and then observed, “My voice sounds like itself.”

"Mom? I love you super-duper much!"

Zoe presented me with a pink bundled blanket and said, “Mommy, I’ve got something. I hope it’s a baby sister don’t you?”

“Did you know this? President Obama is a husband – he has a life!” Des offered that Obama’s wife was on Elmo. Zoe nodded, “Yeah, She teaches kids to move.”

While looking through a friends Baseball card collection, Zoe began to chant, “Bad Inkies, bad Inkies – the Inkies are evil!”

"Mommy, I like helping you."

A mother’s role in running interference never ends between her children. I know, I know. One thing I repeat often, to allow them to express and sort out these heavy issues themselves, is: “Did you tell him/her how that made you feel?” On a recent occasion, DPJ had been jovially marching around the house swinging his shirt in the air and ‘innocently’ miscalculating Zoe’s proximity (repeatedly). Z brought up her complaint before me and I repeated the phrase above, and feeling a little ridiculous added, “Tell him: Don’t get your kicks from me Desmond. If you want a laugh, go swipe the furniture with your apparel!” She marched off and I heard her bellow out, “Desi! I’m not your KICKS!”

On our way to Boston, we were going over the names of the friends we would be seeing and staying with. Zoe registered that there were more daughters than sons and she cheered, “Yay! Finally, GIRLS!”

During Family Home Evening, Nathan asked Zoe: What does it mean to fast? She answered: "To go fast and not slow."

“Mom, I want to tell you something: I was over there drawing all those X’s, and when I was done I drew all those O’s, and when I was done . . . I burped. Isn’t that crazy?”

“You scared me out of myself!” (sleeping while sick and hearing a loud shout which made her jump.)

Zoe: Are pioneers real?

Me: OH YES!

Zoe: Are they still walking?

“I heard Desi come in for a loving sound and I wanted to come in for a loving sound too.” I had tucked myself into my room for a bit to regroup after some less than patient prose spewed from my weary parental mouth. (I had fallen on the ice hard that a.m. and if that doesn’t make me SO MAD!)

"Do I have a step-mother?"

“Do you want a nice daughter or a mean daughter?” She cleverly rephrased another of my sayings, “Do you want a nice mommy or an upset mommy?” This usually follows when the subsequent passive-aggressive admonition goes unheeded, “I’m using my nice voice, please obey”.

Des: I can’t wait to beat Zoe down in our boxing basketball contest!

Zoe: And then we can play ballerinas?

Des: Yay!

After Zoe had lost her footing and teetered while putting her pants on she laughed and said, “I stepped out of balance, right?”

Des and Zoe where playing legos. Des reserved all the warrior guys for himself while offering all the astronauts to Zoe, explaining she didn’t have the right (talking deeply) warrior guy voice. She protested, “I can talk bigly too!”

“If I have a son, I’ll name him Davy Crockett.”

“Mommy, I had a scary dream and I was wondering if I could get it back to good.”

“Ugh! I’m not going near those!” After Des showed her a bag of Trader Joes tortellini that I was preparing for dinner.

I asked Zoe one day what she liked about her mommy (we had been talking about some of her friends in this way). She said, “I don’t know.” I repeated what she said with a question and she replied, “Not apparently . . . yes.”

Des: What about our boxing?

Zoe: Wait after my nails dry.

. . .