Burnt Cookies

This post is not about cookies. But I just took a bite of a slightly burnt cookie, and it's a darned good thing I did. Sometimes in life you need a burnt cookie to make you stop eating the cookies. This is one such time.

Anyway, I wanted to just share some funny Lily-isms from the last few days. I've gone over and over them trying in some way to tie them together, but I just can't do it. So, they'll just be snippets of hilarity the likes of which only Lily can deliver.

I have been, for as long as I can remember, a movie-quoter. I throw lines from my favorite films into everyday conversations in ways most folks just don't appreciate. But that's OK, because I don't do it for their satisfaction, I do it for my own. What I've created, however, is a little Mini-Me monster in Lily. She, too, is a quoter, albeit with her it's Curious George and Dora The Explorer that are most often repeated. One of the first sayings she ever repeated was Swiper the Fox's catch phrase, "Awwww, man!" It was always funny to hear her say it, mostly because it was always in the right context. Recently though, she paired it with a quote from her Daddy. She asked Mandi a question, was given an answer she didn't like, and responded "Awwww, man!" Without pausing, she cruised right into "Awwww damn!", which of course drew hysterical laughter from Mandi and I. She must have thought it was really funny too, because she proceeded to burst into a really great belly-laugh.

Later, at dinner, Lily proved to me that she does in fact listen when I scold her. Well, sort of. We'd been eating for a few minutes, at which point about half of Lily's food had moved from her plate to her placemat. This is nothing new, but as I want to discourage table-time antics I told her to stop playing with her food. Without blinking, she shot back at me, "Daddy, don't talk with your mouth full!" At that point the etiquette lesson ground to a screeching halt.

The next day at the pool, I was blindsided with one I'm surprised hadn't come up before. Lily's very observant, and not very reserved (if at all). She thinks it, and then she says it. No pause, no decorum, no nonsense. We were swimming in the kids' pool as an African American dad walked by playing with his son. Completely unprovoked, except by her unrelenting motor, Lily pointed at the man and said to me "Daddy, look! His skin is black!" Thankfully, the man did not hear her over the noise of the waterfalls. I played it off and sent her on her merry way. Later, a group of black teenagers gathered near the corner of the same pool. Lily, still apparently in "Outwardly Observant" mode, pointed toward one who was wearing a skull-cap and this time shouted "Daddy, look, he's a pirate!" They too did not hear her outburst, as it came from a good distance away. I had to talk her out of going over there to "Ask them where their treasure is."

The icing on the cake came this morning, as we drove down to Charlotte for our OB appointment. While negotiating a notoriously difficult portion of the Interstate, Mandi and I got into a small tussle regarding her inability to suppress the urge to give driving advice from the passenger seat. Without over-killing the details, she essentially over-reacted, I told her "I've got it!", and she retorted with "You could have gotten screwed!" My response was "But I didn't get screwed, did I?" Her answer was cut short by none other than Ms. Peanut Gallery herself from the back seat, who interjected (at the top of her lungs), "I didn't get screwed!" I don't think Mandi or I stopped laughing for 5 blocks. I think there's a chance we might have a little potty-mouthed child on our hands here.