If there's a top ten list

for reasons you love the zoo, this one ought to make it:

Monica: Why do you love the zoo, Hannah?
Hannah (without missing a beat): Because you can see lions without getting eaten.

Broccoli

has never been one of Naomi's favorite treats. In fact, for some time now, she's treated most green vegetables with deep and abiding suspicion. This just goes to show that it's not always just the parents' fault if a child won't eat vegetables, since her older sister is regularly heard to yell, "More brussels sprouts, please!" when said vegetable is being served. Hannah has loved green vegetables ever since her pincher grip developed at around 8-9 months. When other kids were pinchering up Cheerios, Hannah was working on miniscule slices of asparagus.

Even though Naomi doesn't usually eat anything green that I put on her plate -- except guacamole (but not plain avocado) -- I still offer it to her. And sometimes I offer an incentive, like salad dressing or ketchup to dip it in. So when I offered broccoli last night, I wasn't at all surprised that, although she dipped one piece of it in the ketchup, she then set it back on the tray and began demanding more meat and sweet potatoes. And pears.

I was absolutely shocked, though, when I was able to convince her to try a bite and she proceeded to eat about 1/2 of an adult sized serving of broccoli. I'm not sure what happened, but I like it. Maybe we'll try brussels sprouts next.

We don't all have the same taste

in music. While we were listening to a Louis Armstrong song the other day, I noticed that Hannah had a very concerned look on her face. After a couple moments, she asked me, "Mom, why didn't he clear his voice before he started singing?"

Reading is fun!

Both Hannah and Naomi really like to be read to. Although Hannah likes to listen to most things that I'm reading, even if they're slightly younger than her level, Naomi does not appreciate listening to Hannah's chapter books. She has hit upon a strategy that she thinks will be helpful to deal with times when I'm reading a chapter to Hannah and Naomi gets bored: she stands in front of us, grabs the spine of the book to try to push it closed, and says, "THE END!" over and over.

When she began using this method today, at first I couldn't tell what she was doing, because I thought she was trying to take the book and I wasn't paying as much attention to what she was saying. But once I figured it out, I realized that she thought that, by hastening the closing of the book and saying of "The End," she was actually getting us to finish reading sooner. Of course, we didn't comply. I did read Naomi some of "her" books afterwards, though!

Naomi recognizes classical music

The other day an instrumental version of Ave Maria came on while we were listening to one of our CDs. Naomi turned to me and said something that at first I couldn't figure out. She's used to that, so she repeated it, and I eventually figured out what she was saying: "Ave Maria, Mommy, Ave Maria! Ave Maria, Mommy, Ave Maria!"

If you're trying to get a bunch of baking done

and you have two small children in the house, my advice is to hire people to come do crown cleaning on the trees outside your kitchen windows. It provides at least a couple of hours of entertainment. Guys swinging around on climbing gear from treetops seem to have a special fascination for children, especially if accompanied by the occasional tree branch falling or ladder being used.

Play imitates life

sometimes a bit too closely. The day we got the new-to-us Little People, as Michael and I were on our way to bed, here's what we saw in the bathroom:

The potty that came with the house is by far Naomi's favorite part of the set. There *must* be a way of taking advantage of this in toilet training.