What I overheard

**It was 7:30 and my face was still firmly planted in my pillow while I half-dozed, half-listened to the chatter coming from downstairs.

Big sister L: "OK, C, we'll get your undies on. Just wait in the bathroom while I get mama. I wiped your bottom, but it's still a little poopy."

C, obliging, patient: "Oh, oh, ti-ter. Mama. Oh. Undies."

I don glasses and grab PJ pants. I stumble downstairs with one eye open and see a scene in the bathroom that, while delightfully displays sibling cooperation and childhood adorableness, also requires a plunger and some baby wipes.

I stand over the commode to de-clog, fixing my eyes firmly on our Ansel Adams print of the snake river and imagine
myself inside that scene with an oar in my palm, plunging my way through the grand Tetons.



**Around 8 a.m., while I pour cereal and sprinkle blueberries, C and L play outside on the patio in the lovely swath of new dirt and mulch that now sits in place of the stump and roots of our old 15-foot ficus (may she rest in peace).

L: "We'll need to get some tools to plant our garden."

C: "Oh. I go to commissary. Uh. Get tools."

I admire the vast and sophisticated vocabulary my little Navy brat has developed.



**9:30 a.m. Sister and brother are playing with babies upstairs in their rooms while I sip coffee and browse the bathing suit sales at jcrew.com, knowing full well I won't be fit to wear anything in that catalog for at least two summers.

From upstairs I hear L laying out gender roles for C:

"I'm not saying boys can't take care of babies. They can. (long, thoughtful pause) Here's a bottle. How about you feed your baby."



**10:30 a.m. while snacking and dancing to Beethoven's violin concerto in D Major, L says to C: "Will you dance with me at the great ball?"

C: "Yeah."

L: "And there's a lovely boy there that I don't know, and I'm going to meet him and marry him."

A little more dancing and L has clearly exhausted all playtime options with her brother. It's time for something new. She says to me:

"I think what God's telling us ... Um. I think what the baby's telling us from inside your belly is that it wants to go to the beach."



**On the way home from the grocery store, much later, we nibble chicken nuggets and fries in the car.

I ask L: "What do you think God eats for lunch? Keep in mind he's God and he can have anything he wants."

She thinks for a moment.

"Well, God lives in our hearts, so I think he eats what we eat."

It makes sense to me, so I begin to feel a little guilty about our current lunch choice.

"I guess we shouldn't be eating at the french-fry place then," I say.

L, thoughtfully: "I think God likes chicken and fries--sometimes."