This and that

A frequent conversation-starter in our house is this: "Henry? What are you up to?"
The other day I followed up with "Are you getting into mischief?"
Henry bounded into the room. "Yes! I am!" he said, beaming. "I opened the refrigerator door and was looking inside and I whispered to myself, 'It's mischief time!'"

***

The dialogue I am listening to right now:
"Dammit, Jamie!"
"No! Dammit HENNy!"

***

Henry is drawing when a question suddenly occurs to him. He stops in mid-petal, chewing on the end of a turquoise crayon. "Mommy, who did Eleanor pop out of?"

***

This is an old--but good--one.
Peter was talking some months ago to Mr. Gleeson about the imponderables Henry presents us with. He gave these examples: How big is electricity? and What are people for?
Mr. Gleeson later reported recounting this conversation to his son-in-law, a first-grade teacher whose son at the time was rising two. Mr. Gleeson told me that Reuben thought the first one would stump him, but that he could handle the second.
"And Peter told me just the opposite," Mr. Gleeson said.

L'apres-midi d'un faune

I mean, right?

Meanwhile, the bourgeoisie isn't all that epate:

I will admit, however, that the laundress was a little shocked, when she realized that what appears to be the sodden pelt of a mountain goat in that last photo was in fact a pair of Hanna Andersson sweatpants, which will never be the same.

Addendum

This. And this.

Chip off the old block

I like reading around in the more accessible anthropological literature about primate and hunter/gatherer childhoods; I find it useful when I have drilled myself down into a dark child-development hole to have a few notions in my head about all the extraordinarily different ways the human animal has dealt with its young.

So, knowing about those one-year-old babies who wield machetes, I was at least slightly prepared.

Peter and the boys were doing outdoor chores on Saturday morning. When I stepped outside, here is what I saw:

"WHAT are you DOING?" I cried.

Peter shrugged. "Making artisanal wood mulch," he said.