Quirky

My kids are quirky. Not in the way you'd think, though. I am raising decidedly suburban children who love all the things that good suburban children love. There are no amazing mind blowing theoretical conversations going on here, no extended huge Picasso-esque craft projects, no scarves and beads and artistic names like Willow. My kids, like me are in disguise. For all intent and purposes they look and sound like every other kid, but every once in awhile something comes out of their mouths that makes you do a double take.

Case in point, at the age of four Caroline was a Van Gogh expert. She would delight in telling people that "he cut off part of his ear because his brain wasn't thinking right." Flash forward to now. You know she's a drummer, but I wouldn't call her a prodigy. She drums on everything (and I'm developing a nervous tick), but it isn't her passion. Her passion is food. While, most teens leaf through gossip magazines, Caroline is ogling "food porn." She loves Paula Dean's magazine and made Paula's pumpkin bars for Thanksgiving (they over shadowed my famous rum pumpkin pie, dammit). This week, she talked Rob into buying her one of those glossy dessert magazines. I think that if I was able to take her to meet Duff from Ace of Cakes or Paula Dean or the queen of cooking, herself Ina Garten, it would be like meeting a rock star.

The only exception to this would be if she could meet that guy who is Owl City, you know the one who sings Fireflies? Yeah, you don't unless you spend all of your time with preteen girls. Anyway, this song is her other obsession. It is very dreamy and sweet and preteen girls the country over can sing every word with passion and joy (a side note, thank you to the kid who gave her the Fireflies ring tone, the one that goes off every time one of you texts her, which always seems to be during homework, which always prompts Rob to mutter we don't have unlimited texting).

Now to the other kid, there's no denying that this one is quirky. She's my logical scientist with the killer sense of humor. Awhile back I wrote about her being an alien http://http//mooserbeans.blogspot.com/2009/06/alien-child.html.
It's worse now than ever. She is just baffled by the ways of mere mortals. She also questions everything they do http://http//mooserbeans.blogspot.com/2009/11/out-of-mouths-of-adolescent-boys.html. Lily still loves her babies (and all of their accessories), but she is developing a new love of theater. Makes sense, her Grandude works at one and we see lots of shows. It stands to reason that I thought she'd love to see my first graders' Thanksgiving play. I missed the mark on that one. She politely watched the show, but on the way home, stated that that really wasn't a play. They had costumes, but they didn't act. She wanted to know why the kids just sat there or went up to the microphone and talked. That's not acting. I thought the show was a hit. It's a good thing she doesn't write reviews for the school paper. My stepfather thought this was hilarious. I heard him telling it with pride at Thanksgiving dinner.