If Four-Year-Olds Wrote the Dictionary...

...it would be a lot slimmer as a volume to heft around. But the words and definitions would also be way more interesting.

Armpets: the best place to tickle a kid

A-robotics: exercise that makes you huff and puff and sweat

Baker: the big thing outside on the porch that we use to cook hot dogs

Damage: a bad word that we don't say [go ahead, say it in a swear-word voice; it makes a great substitute swear]

Driver: what you steer with in the car

Handcups: the metal bracelets policemen use to defeat bad guys

Hooker: the curved thing sticking out of the wall, where we hang up the kitchen towels

Iceberg: slim points of ice hanging down from the roof

Meadow: when you get stuck, frozen, on a merry-go-round, and you can't get off

Padawen: a series of things in a regular, alternating order

Plugger: the small rubber nub Daddy pokes in his ears at bedtime

Robert: a person who steals money

Sculpture: a purse that you put around your neck too

Speeches: the guys with stars upon thars (or not)

Slam-dump: the coolest baskeball move ever, and one that is really really hard to do

Tippy nubbles: the things contained by a bra

Verse: a verb, deriving from the word versus, meaning "to fight or engage in a contest" -- example: "Mama, want me to verse you in tennis?"

* * * * *
On the other hand, if I wrote the dictionary...

well, the words would be normal, but the darn thing would be nowhere near finished yet.

Somehow, this semester is getting away from me. It might be the double class I'm teaching, or it might be the three conference papers I'm writing, or it might be the fact that for the first time I am carting children to regularly-scheduled activities (one each per week), or it might be all the other projects that I have not learned to say "no" to, or it might be just the bad timing of having lots of deadlines coming up at once. But whatever it is, one thing is clear: there's not a whole lot of free time in my life these days.

So, please take this as my apology for not visiting your little corners of the internet universe. And as my reassurance that there is nothing seriously wrong here at Chez Time that a whole lot more time wouldn't fix.

Since there are 25 posts I've started and never finished sitting in my drafts folder, you'd think I might post something more often than once every two weeks, but there it is. If I have to choose between fixing up an old post and eating a chocolate chip cookie, the cookie wins.

Here's hoping spring breathes new life into my insane schedule.

So: tell me your latest good news. What's making you smile these days?