Back in the Saddle...

... Or something like that.

I am writing to you from the oppressive heat of India, which threatens to melt me down into a pool of sad liquid. And, of course, it's only gonna get hotter. The monsoon hasn't even hit yet, and when it does I'll be looking back on these days with longing.

My two daughters and I made it here just over a month ago, and our plan is to remain here through the end of the summer. We'll return back home to Chicago in the middle of August, leaving us just enough time to adjust our internal clocks before the older girl starts kindergarten and the younger one begins preschool.

And I still cannot believe how quickly they are growing.

That is it for now.

Reverse Sexism, Through a Child's Eyes

My wife is generally not allowed to cook. The reason for this is simple: she is a walking kitchen fire just waiting to happen. Over the years that we have been together, she has managed to ruin instant oatmeal, has boiled spaghetti for so long that all the water evaporated and we had to scrape a cake of dried and burnt noodles out of the pot, and has tried to bake a package of Ramen noodles in the oven.

Case closed.

As a result, I do nearly all of the cooking in the family. This, it seems, has given me two young daughters a novel perspective of the world and the gender norms that most children experience.

Yesterday, while watching a movie with my wife, my younger daughter asked where the main character's Daddy was. My wife replied that she didn't seem to have a Daddy, and that her Mommy did everything for her.

My daughter thought about it for a moment, and then asked my wife the question that was burning up inside of her mind.

"But if she doesn't have a Daddy, then who cooks her dinner?"

See? My daughter is amazingly progressive for a three-year-old.

You Went There?

Yesterday, after I picked my daughter up from preschool, I was buckling her into her car seat when she pressed her eyebrows downward in concern and looked at me.

"Matty?" she said.

"Yes, love," I answered.

"Your ears have a lot of hair on them," she observed. "You should do something about that soon before you start looking like a monkey."

Whose Bed, Now?

I've always been bothered by the phrase "You made your bed, now sleep / lie in it." It is usually used as a response to somebody who complains about problems for which they themselves are responsible.

But it doesn't really make sense.

The proper response would be "You've slept / lied in your bed, now make it."

To make one's bed is to put something disorganized back into order. It is a process of making something messy into something nice. That is not what we mean when we use this colloquialism.

Turn the phrase around and it makes much more sense. After one has slept in one's bed, it is messy and disheveled. To make the bed is to restore order, to fix one's mistake, as it were.

I don't know. Makes sense to me.

How Did I Not Notice This Before?

Maybe I'm late to the party, but I just figured out today that "Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star" and "Baa-Baa, Black Sheep" are essentially the same, exact tune.

My entire childhood suddenly feels like a lie.

Is That Meta?

Last night, after being tucked in to bed, my older daughter came to the top of the stairs and called down to me.

"What?" I answered, assuming that there was some problem.

"My sister is going to tell on me," she replied.

"Wait. You're telling on your sister because she's going to tell on you?"

She paused. "Yes," she finally answered.

"Go to bed," I ordered, shaking my head.

One Thing That I Hate

I hate it when people get on a descending elevator on the second floor.

Really? Use the effing stairs.