Lyla's morning dropoff

The winged Rowan reads a book about ants.  That photo within the photo is Auntie Lori and Lyla at the Indiana Dunes in 2009.

This morning Lyla decided to copy some months.

There's plenty of unpredictability and randomness with two kids.  Imagine eight.  Yesterday after Julie and Lyla dropped off Rowan at his daycare room, Julie took Lyla to hers and decided to hang out for a little bit.

"Do you want to do white boards?" said Lyla, and Julie said sure.

Julie grabbed a board and a marker and a little girl with curly hair said, "That marker doesn't work," so Julie grabbed another one.

"That one doesn't work either."

What kind of sham operation is this? Julie kidded to herself, but really that's our house too, boxes of dried-out markers from Lyla's tendency to flit from color to color and Rowan's proud and determined inability to close them properly.

Then Lucy ran up to Lyla.  "My grandma and grandpa are coming over tonight.  My grandma and grandpa are coming over tonight."

A boy ran up to Julie.  "I am Spider-Man!  My shirt glows in the dark!"

"Cool," Julie assured him.

"Lucy, let's shake our booties at each other," Lyla said, and they pushed their butts against each other and shook them like penguins and said "Shake my booty!  Shake my booty!"  Spider-Man looked on,  experiencing all sorts of new and confusing feelings.

Then Lyla spun around and around, and Lucy did some incompetent cartwheels.

A teacher brought in the breakfast cart, and Lyla said, "You sit right here, Mommy," and Julie sat in a wooden chair nine inches off the ground, and on the cart were green eggs and ham because it was Green Eggs and Ham Day, and you have to eat it because if you refuse then you're no better than the guy who will not eat them in a boat, with a goat, in the rain, or on a train.

"My grandma and grandpa are coming over tonight," Lucy reminded everyone.

The now snot-nosed Spider-Man regaled everyone with his recent adventure in an elevator.  "And there's a tube and a blue thing and it goes up and we're going to go here."

"Here?  Where's here?" nobody asked him.

The teacher to Lucy and Lyla: "Who wants green eggs and ham?"

"I do!"

Julie felt a wisp of breath on her neck and turned to see a little girl standing there like an apparition and staring at her, and then she said quietly to Julie, "I do.  I want green eggs and ham."

"Mom, can you take this green part off my strawberry?" and Lyla thrust it into Julie's hand.

"Mine too!" said Spider-Man, then two others said, "Mine too!" and Julie found herself the official de-greener of strawberries.

The little quiet apparition girl began to rub Julie's arm, so Julie turned to her and said, "Well hello!" and the girl said nothing but kept rubbing.

"Whoever wants orange juice, put your hands on your head," the teacher said, a technique that has likely prevented thousands of gallons of orange juice from spilling, cup by cup, over the years.

Julie did not put her hands on her head but was served orange juice anyhow, and it was nasty, weaker than Tang, and as she choked it down Lyla said, "Can I have some more orange juice?" and placed her dry cup on the table, wiped her chin, and placed her hands back on her head.

"Well, Lyla, I'd better go," said Julie.

"Can I be excused?" Lyla said to her teacher, a sentence she never ever utters at our house, and the teacher nodded.  Lyla stood up, she and Julie hugged, and Julie exited, returning to the world of busy roads and jobs and conventionally colored eggs.