My son, you’re five, And I’m so glad you’re alive.

It’s worth a lot of mirth, The day you came to Earth.

So Mom baked a shark-tastic cake And planned a party for your sake With piñata, food and skating today and friends who gather round to say:

We love you very much, my boy. MAY ALL YOUR DAYS BE FULL OF JOY!

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

“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

While reading the Cheerios box, Sullivan stops and says, “Mom, what’s cancer?” Carla replies that it’s a sickness that kills a lot of people and that Cheerios is trying to raise money to help fund research to find a cure. In turn, Sullivan says, “Yeah, because pink doesn’t really work, right?” Confused, Carla asks, “What?” Sullivan replies slyly as if telling her something that only a few select people know, “Liiiike, people wear those pink shoes and gloves…but it doesn’t really cure their cancer.”

“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!”

“Daddy, do you have any seedlings left?”

— Sullivan, on if we can have more kids

“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

“I think fireworks say ‘knock-knock’ to the world.

— Sullivan on the 4th of July

“DUCKS!! Hey you, take a picture of the ducks!”

— Sullivan, to one of the photographers during a photoshoot at a public park for Abe & Nina’s wedding

“The mama butterflies will come and bring their babies to stick them into my ear to eat pollen so they can turn into a flower with wings so they can fly!”

— Sullivan’s interpretation of earwax

“No, Sullivan, we’re not going to feed Éa a mouse.”

— Scott, context forgotten

I can’t take a nap, Dad. I’m allergic to naps.

— Sullivan

Meet “Muffler,” a robot Sullivan painted on our living room wall (with Mommy’s permission).

“I need to bring the flashlight outside… because there are some dark spots.”

— Sullivan, getting ready to go to Spring Creek Park during daylight hours

Sullivan (sheet music in hand): Mama, can you read this?
Carla: No, honey, it’s music. It’s not words.
Sullivan: Oh, well, can you sing it?
Carla: No, it’s piano music.
Sullivan: Well, WE have pirnano!
Carla: But I don’t know how to play the piano.
Sullivan: I know how to play the pirnano: You just press the keys! That’s how you do it!

“I feel the sound of the solar panels inject’ning light into our house.”

— Sullivan, out of the blue

“And if her fingernails freeze, they will explode and float all over in the wind of the cold morning.”

— Sullivan, after Carla told him we were pulling over while driving so that she could cover Éa’s fingers because they were cold

“Yo! Ho ho! And a bottle of yo!”

— Sullivan, missing ITLAPD by four months and some liquor—also baffling his parents as to when he found time to read Robert Louis Stevenson.

Sullivan: I’m a postman.
Scott: Well, hello, Mr. Postman!
Sullivan: Daddy, I’m just pretending.
Scott: Well, hello, Mr. Pretend Postman. What are you doing?
Sullivan: I’m delivering mail.
Scott: Well, what are you delivering, Mr. Pretend Postman?
Sullivan: I’m just pretending to deliver.
Scott: Well, what are you pretending to deliver, Mr. Pretend Postman?
Sullivan: I’m delivering a television.
Scott: Oh! To whom are you pretending to deliver a pretend television, Mr. Pretend Postman?
Sullivan: Dadda, I have to tell you something: It’s not a pretend television. It’s real television.

Daddy, I want to decorate the whole, whole, whole EARTH. 🎉

— Sullivan, after walking through downtown State College on New Year’s Eve with me