Pillow talk.

F: Daddy, what's on the side of your head and cools you off?
B: What?
F: An ear conditioner!
B: Wow. I was afraid to guess that.
F: There are some real animals in the desert who cool down this way.
B: Really?
F: I like going to sleep earlier, but the other day I woke up at two in the morning.
B: Yeah, I think I heard you get up to pee.
F: Yeah, but I couldn't get back to sleep. I was awake until the next morning.
B: What did you do?
F: I stayed in bed and read Calvin and Hobbes.
B: Did you have a flashlight?
F: No, the sun was up.
B: At two in the morning?
F: Yeah!

R: Daddy, it's Calvin and Hobbes and Susie and the wagon!

Literacy night turns R into a superhero

In which 6 x 3 is "simplified" to 6 x 2 x 1.5. I think/hope he's starting to "see" how numbers relate to each other in his head.

F: I'm learning about fact families.
B: What are fact families?
F: They're where you take two numbers and you learn about the facts about them. Most kids are doing adding and subtracting, but I'm starting to multiply and divide. Pick two numbers.
B: 6 and 3
F: So 6 times 3 is (mumbles to self: "9 + 9"), um, 18
B: Why do you say 18? Do you just know, or do you have a way of figuring it out, or what?
F: Well I took took half of one of the sixes and I added it to each of the other two, and they both made 9, and then 9 + 9 is 18

B: Looks like I'm going to get to the car first.
R: Daddy, it's not a race. It's NEVER a race until I win!

Margy: Are you guys ready for linner?
R: What's linner?
M: Is a combination of lunch and dinner. I might have just made it up.
F: No! It's one of the five meals of the day. Breakfast, brunch, lunch, linner, and dinner!

Margy is playing the theme from unbreakable Kimmy Schmitt. We are trying to remember the words and whether there's anything worse than "dammit."

R dances (see picture).

F: But that's impossible. There's no such thing as unbreakable.

F: I look like a bug! Also, when we go swimming later, I'm partially ready because I already have my buggles on!

R: Hooray!
B: Hooray what?
B: I love our family!
B: Me too. And your family loves you. Did you know that I heard F telling you last night that he super loves you? It made me happy all night long.
R: Yeah. That's because we were playing a game, and in the game, I made him a love potion, so he HAD to say it.

Self esteem false alarm.

F: If you could have any three wishes, what would they be?
R: That's easy. Live forever, be able to change my age, be able to change what I look like.
B: What's wrong with the way you look?
R: Nothing. But sometimes it would be nice to be able to look like a CAT. Or have a head like a LOLLIPOP. And it'd be really handy on HALLOWEEN.

F: Daddy, are there flying bikes?
B: I don't think so
F: Maybe that'll be my first invention, then. It'll have to have really wide tubes so that it can hold all the electrical charges, and a place for a button to pop up so that you can press it and wings come out and you can fly over the snowy parts of the bike path.

We are groggy this morning.

F: Where are my gloves?
B: Um... oh, here they are. I thought they were socks for a second.
F: Why did you think my gloves were socks??
B: They're rolled up like socks.
F: Ha!

One minute later...

F: Daddy, I accidentally tried to put my gloves on my feet!

F: I'm getting more POWERful!

Ding ding ding!

At a square dance. Genuinely curious, rather than mocking.

F: Why do people think this is fun?

F: Can we have dessert tonight?
B: Sure.
F: What is it?
B: What's the worst dessert you can think of?
R: Meat!
F: Poop. Mixed with dirt. Mixed with wood chips.
B: Um, how about the worst one you can imagine that's made out of food.
F: A whole pot of vegetables. Mixed with fish that's not tuna. Mixed with raw chicken.

B: Hey, I just got an email about the talent show. Are you going to be in that?
F: Nah. I didn't end up trying out.
B: Ok. It's totally fine that you didn't try out, but why didn't you?
F: Well, if I tried out, there would have been a chance I'd be in the talent show.

R: I need to go wash my hands.

R high-fives B on the way.

R: Ha! You got a yucky five!

B: What do you have there?
R: I'm not sure.
B: Well, what DO you know about it?
R: I know it's a bird of prey.
B: How?
B: Because of its beak, and its talons, and because its eyes are in the very front of its head.

R: Daddy, do you know why the drink cups at Costco are so big?
B: No, why?
R: Because their straws are so long!

Watching Ponyo for the first time. Dubbed version with the preliterate one. What a great movie. What an insane song playing over the credits. R says it's way better than either Kiki or Totoro.

R: And it's so not-scary that F could probably watch it!

Much earlier today.

B: Is everybody happy?
R: Yeah!
F: Well, I'm kinda happy.
B: Kinda happy? Are there things you're unhappy about?
F: Yeah
B: Want to tell me?
F: I'm unhappy that the things I imagine don't come true.
B: (Starts to go into the standard "if you can dream it, you can do it" kind of pablum, thinks better of it) What kinds of things?
F: Well, it'd be great if we could teleport home instead of drive. And if we could turn into platypuses for a while. Things like that.

R (sweetly): Mommy, do you want to take over the world?