Tuck and Emi's greatest hits this week:

Monday, en route for Tuck to see speech therapist (Trudy) --
Me: After we go to visit Trudy, we will eat a treat.
Emi: Eat a tree?
Me: No, a treaT.
Emi: Emi going to eat a tree!
Tuck: Eat tree, eat tree!
Me: You can't eat a tree! Your mouth would be full of leaves.
Emi: Emi can't eat a tree, her mouth would be full of leaves.
Me: Exactly.
[A bus drives past us]
Tuck: Blue bus, blue bus!
Emi [slowly]: Emi can't eat a bus, her mouth would be full of ... wheels!
Tuck: Eat wheels!
[A firetruck drives by]
Tuck: Tucker eat firetruck!
Emi: Tucker can't eat a firetruck, his mouth would be full of ...
Tuck: Fire!
Me [laughing]: You guys, that's great! Can you eat a whale?
Tuck: Eating whale!
Emi: Emi can't eat a whale, her mouth would be full of ... water!
Me: How about that house over there?
Emi: Emi can't eat a house, her mouth would be full of ... house.

Later in the day, as we are on our way into Coop preschool, Emi spontaneously says, "Emi can't eat the Coop house. Her mouth would be full of kids doing Circle Time!"
[Tuck: Eating house!]

Wednesday, getting ready to leave house again for Coop. I am wearing a fuzzy red fleece jacket.
Tuck: Mama wearing fuzzy red jacket.
Emi: Mama's jacket is fuzzy like a kitty.
Tuck: Like kitty!
Emi [stroking my arm]: Petting mama!
Me: Meow.
Emi: Mama a kitty.
Me [tying her shoes, slightly distracted]: That's right. Meow.
Emi [looking into my face with narrowed eyes, speaking very deliberately]: Mama eats CATFOOD. [She grins.]
Me: Ha ha! Do I really? What else do I do?
Emi: Mama drinks WATER FROM THE SINK. Mama sleeps on top of Mama and Daddy's bed. [She waits, then administers the coup de grace:] Mama goes potty OUTSIDE.

To fully appreciate this, you have to know that these are all things that our cat Choochoo does. Though he's not yet allowed out at the new house, so for now he goes potty in his litterbox. (Except for last weekend, when he was accidentally locked into the basement overnight and peed on a pile of blankets in the kids' beloved frog-shaped play tent.)

Later in the day, I am recounting the whole "mama eats catfood" story to one of the kids' grandmothers over the phone and I put Emi on the speakerphone.
Me: Emi, is Mama a kitty?
Emi: Mama made a peepee in the frog tent!
[All adults present crack up.]