the wind is really picking up

You can see the bottoms of the leaves as they begin to curl up, regardless of the rain and sunshine.

* * * * * *

Belinda is sitting here telling me about a girl she is drawing:
"her floor is messy. And she gets the hiccups every night.
She's fretending she has a purple mask on and she has to take it off.
It's purple like blueberries. I ripped it out for you."
She really does say "fretending" instead of "pretending,"
"wase" instead of "vase"
"Doesn't she look nice? She has a melance (?) of hairs.
She has diamonds on her dress."

I am busy enough with school. I get to translate, diagram, and grammatically analyze the books of Ruth and Ephesians this semester, among other things. It's very nice to be able to ... [interruption]

"This is Haybee Abee Abee [her affectionate term for Sammy] when he is bigger. He has girl hair."

What is she talking about?

"Here is his dress."

"Belinda, Sammy won't a dress when he's bigger. He'll wear a suit and pants!"

"I put a flower on his dress. [singing] Mounce of Tiggers, Mounce of Tiggers, Mowance of Tiggers"

I have no idea what's going on here.

* * * * * *

Leigh is driving back from Jersey, from a management meeting. Every now and then we send each other sounds and pictures on our phones. She'll be home soon, and we'll all have dinner together. Having family time in the evenings has been great.

"This is a picture of Plumpy the Chicken. Does Plumpy the Chicken have girl hair? I'm making him hair. That's Donna's bad dream. It's a fingernail. It was walking and talking and walking and talking and knocking on the door. Do you want another bad dream? I can draw any bad dream you want." Donna is our cockateel.

I'm not making this up -- I'm taking dictation in real-time.

"There's her eye-laces. That girl has girl pants. You like them wearing lipstick? Wait! Time for chubby time Haybee Abee Abee. That girl is meeeeeeeean. That girl is meeeeeeean. After she was sad, she became a mean lady with girl pants on! And then she didn't have shoes any more because she was mean. She has boots. Mean people need boots. She has overalls on. And she came with no berrettes in her hair. Mean people don't have barettes in their hair. She is wearing exercise clothes. I'm going to make Saybee [Sammy again] a beautiful playground. That's Miss Carrie's house."