The snowforts you build in your mid-thirties are not as fun as the ones you build as a kid:

• Parts of your body ache that used to only ache when you had growth spurts.
• No one makes you hot chocolate. You have to make it yourself. So it's it's one more thing to add to the list.
• It's about letting people pass through, not keeping people out.
• It's all about obligation, not fun.

So why are the adults still outside long after the kids who have young bodies are supposed to be enjoying this crap?

Jude was sent to his room for not listening and for talking back.  After his dad left he waited a few minutes and came out to talk to me:

Jude (thinking of what to say):  Um... I forget how to clean up.
Me (amused at this, getting ready to take notes for this blog): What's there to forget? You take the crap that's on your floor and you shove it in a toybox.
Jude (whining): Well, there's too many stuff and it takes a long long time and I hate that
[I laugh.]
Jude (frustrated): I'm serious.

He stomps off.  Later, I hear that he has turned on his radio.  It's Nirvana's "All Apologies".  I'm thinking four is a bit young for teen rebellion.

Jude's occupational therapist has a heck of a time getting him to slow down when he writes his name so that he does it legibly.  When he does, it's hard to get him to do it more than once.

So when I picked him up at daycare, I was surprised to learn that if he has free time, some crayons, and the right source material, he will write these names very nicely.  In fact, I had to confirm several times that these were, in fact, Jude's handy work:

(As you may recall, he's been transcribing podcasts as well.)

Karenna: I am handsome.
Jude: No, I am handsome.
Karenna: You can be pretty.
Jude: No, daddy and I are handsome. You are pretty.
Me: I'll solve this:  I can be all the pretty and Karenna and Jude will have to share handsome. (to Karenna): You get half a handsome.  (to Jude): You get half a handsome.
Karenna (having fun with it): I-m not just half a handsome.  I'm hansome and pretty and beautiful.
Jude (getting irritated): No! Daddy and I are handsome.  Karenna and mommy are girls.  You girls are pretty.
Karenna (correcting Jude): Girls and boys can be handsome, Jude.
Me: Jude, you have to share handsome with Daddy so you are half a handsome.  Karenna, you can't have all three.  I just gave handsome to Jude and Daddy, so you can either be pretty or beautiful, but you can't be both.  I can be beautiful and you can be pretty if you want.
Karenna: I'll be beautiful.
Me: Okay.
Karenna: Because it has more letters.
Me: Of course.
Jude (getting more angry): I am NOT half-a-handsome!
Karenna: Yes you are.
Me: Do you want to be "hand" or "some"?  How about "some".
Karenna: Either way it's only four letters.
Jude (really angry): I AM NOT SOME. I AM NOT HALF-A-HANDSOME.  I AM SO ANGRY RIGHT NOW.  LOOK AT MY FACE. IS THIS A HAPPY FACE? NO, IT IS A HANDSOME FACE.

..after an awkward pause...
Me (to Karenna): I guess if you want to be pretty and beautiful I suppose we could split them both.  Do you want pret-tiful or beau-ty?
Karenna: Um, I'll be prettiful.  It has more letters.

At the end of Christmas vacation, Jude had been itching to get back to school.  At bedtime one night over the holiday, he talked about going back.

"Mom," Jude said, "Do you remember when you picked me up at school before Christmas that one day and [name of girl Jude likes] said 'Goodbye, Jude'?"

"Yes," I answered back.

"When I get back to school I will get to see her."

"I know."

"I want to have a playdate with her at my house."

"Jude," I said, "we don't have her number."

"Well," he said sounding frustrated, "we can call and ask her for it."

"But I won't know what number to call if we don't have it."

"Then I will give her my number," he announced.

"Do you know your number?"

He then recited his number and added, "but I will need Karenna to help me write it down for her because I need help writing the fives.  And the nines."

Karenna has taken an interest in poetry.  She likes Robert Frost.  She knows "Fire and Ice" nearly by heart and read it in class.  When Aunt Steffie came by apparently she told her the bent pages were the Alexander Pope pages.

After staying up New Year's Eve and being forced to take a nap the following day, she opted instead to play scribe and recopy selected poems into her notebook.  (I found Elizabeth Barrett Browning's "Sonnet #43" rewritten in her neat little print later as I was cleaning.)

On Monday morning Chris noticed that Karenna's backpack was weighted down, so he opened it up and searched it.  Out came the following anthologies from my undergrad English Ed major days:

• e.e. cummings,
  
• Margaret Atwood, and
  
• 500 poems

This would be bad not only because she would have to carry it, but I not want Karenna trying to recite "she being Brand" to her first-grader friends!

At bedtime the other night Jude and I had this conversation...

Jude: Hey Mom, what kind of school do doctors go to.
Me: Well, they have to go kindergarten and elementary school, like Karenna, then junior high school and high school and college at Penn State and medical school.  And there are all kind of doctors, so they can pick specialties.
Jude: I want to be like Doctor Who.
Me: Well, you can't be like him.  But there are other things you can do: eye doctor; family doctor; ear, nose, & throat doctor; pharmacist like Rebecca; physical therapist like Cheri; occupational therapist like Miss Julie; and [I continued to like healthcare occupations.]...
Jude: I guess if I can't be Doctor Who, I want to be an eye doctor then.
Me: Um, okay...
Jude (after some though a few seconds later): When do you have to sign me up?  After you sign me up for kindergarten?