Carla: It’s 7:57.
Scott: What!? Already?
Carla: I know. Like, what the fUuuuuuUuuck? [moment of silence] Sometimes I say that just to assert my adulthood.

Daddy, no you don’t go to work! Éa and I go to work! [pause] Oh. Well, I guess if Éa and I were the one who went to work, we’d be poor.

— Sullivan, in a gradually self-aware attempt to keep Scott from going to work that day

The front cover of a birthday card Sullivan drew for Cassie’s birthday. Featuring a black-capped chickadee drawn from a photo.

Yeah, but I got two in a row.

— Sullivan, after losing at tic-tac-toe to Grandpa

Carla: Wow, it looks like it was cold last night.
Sullivan: Well, I was as warm as a bear slumbering in the basement.

If I were married to myself, I’d be divorced.

— Carla

Carla: I’ve gotta get in shape for the wedding. Scott: Whoa. Weird. Normal woman-talk just came out of my wife’s mouth.

Once it got to more abstract levels, I got interested.

— Scott, causing laughter in Carla for reasons that shall remain unmentioned

Éa: Daddy, Daddy, I forgot something.
Scott: Oh, what?
Éa: I forget.

My daughter was over the other day when Scott pulled into your driveway with the kids. As Sullivan was getting out, she said, “Ma! That boy has no coat on!” I said, “You’re lucky he has shoes on.” Then Éa came out of the car…

— Neighbor Janet

Don’t forget to felt your scroll saw.

— Carla, pretending to be Scott prompting her to keep up with making a Christmas present

I tried Foursquare again last week. I’ve got to stop. I’m like a dog returning to its vomit.

— Scott

“I need a carrot.”

— Sullivan, reaching into the fridge to grab the bag of baby carrots after eating a sour gumball for the first time

Carla [from the other room]: OK, it’s decided.
Scott: What’s that?
Carla: I don’t know.

“When you come back to life after death, it’s sort of like God pushed you out of His tummy.”

— Sullivan, unprompted

as reported by Carla:

Just after sunset yesterday, I yelled for Scott to come see this neat swarm of tiny ants that I found in the driveway. We noticed one example of the stark difference in our kids’ personalities when Sullivan stood looking from a safe distance while Éa lay right on the blacktop inches from the mess of ants and poked at them with her fingers.

When I followed Éa in her boldness and looked up close myself, I noticed that these little ants weren’t after some food item as we had first assumed, but were actually fighting each other. I described what I had seen to the others, saying, “They’re fighting! It’s an all-out war! They’re in piles on top of each other and some are carrying away the dead.” Scott explained to the kids that this must be two distinct any colonies fighting for territory or something.

Then our kids displayed another fine example of their polar opposite personalities. Sullivan folded his hands and looked up to the sky with his happy bright blue eyes reflecting the clouds and prayed, “Dear God, please help these ants stop fighting each other.” Meanwhile, Ea moved even closer to the ants, with her brown eyes wide open and a big smile on her face, put her forehead right into the swarm and said with joy, ”Bonk heads!”

Scott: Carla, this is called invalidating my feelings. You’re not giving me any space to have this opinion.
Carla: Scott, you want to build a spice rack out of Legos.

editor’s note, 11/2/24: I still call this being resourceful.

“Daddy, do you have any seedlings left?”

— Sullivan, on if we can have more kids

“Man, it was dry in there.”

— Carla, on the The National Aquarium

“Well, I think he can get a pretty intense look on his face when he’s playing something like this, but I don’t think he ever looks like a pirate getting an enema.”

— Scott describing Carla’s imitation of Itzhak Perlman playing the finale of Erich Korngold’s Violin Concerto in D. (Go ahead. Picture it.)

“How you say Thanksgiving in French is … ‘Franksgiving.’”

— Sullivan, giving his parents language lessons in the car on our way downtown

“But Dad, what is God? What is he? Is he just a big huge blump of air?”

— Sullivan, overhearing Carla and me talk about God’s kingdom

“Mommy and Dada, the other night, when I was asleep, my eyes went ploop! (with hand motions indicating quickly opening eyes) and I looked into my pillow and I saw gray telephone wires. And then I saw a big gray pipe with a gray whistle on the top. When the whistle blew, it was telling us that water was going to come shooting out of the pipe. All that was in my pillow! My PILLOW!”

“Excuse me, Daddy. God didn’t make this dinner. Mommy did! So, thank you, Mommy, for making this good dinner.”

— Sullivan, after Scott says grace

“Sorry, Éa, for peeing in your pants.”

— Sullivan, after peeing in his sister’s pants