Fried Zucchini

“I was just imagining that I was falling off a mountain and what would be the most stupid things to think about at that moment.
I think number one would be thinking about what to make for Arts and Crafts and number two would be telling myself to stop talking to myself: “Stop talking to yourself, you’re falling off a mountain, stop talking to yourself!”
That would be really dumb.”

Molly (7) on What not to think about when you’re falling off a mountain.

The sexiest thing you can hear your husband say is: “Come here. I’m taking you to bed.”
…to a baby while lifting him out of his high-chair. Uh. So sexy.
The second sexiest: “You’re so dirty. Let me change your nappy.”
Also said to a baby, sure.

Molly and Benny have to tidy up their room, where Oskar also plays, every evening before going to sleep. Last night I had a great opportunity to hear them complain to each other:

-It’s not fair! Why do we have to clean up after Oskar? Mama’s with him, she should be doing it!
-But she does a lot of other things…
-Did she play with us all day? No! Did she do what we wanted? No. And what do we have to do? Do some drawings, tidy up…
-You’re right, it’s not fair, Molly.
-And you don’t know how hard it is to go to school, Benny! Why do the teachers get paid when we have to work hard? We work and when we complain, we get a time out!
-Yes! We should get the opposite of time out! We should get one million kuna!

I thought Benny was on the right track at the start of the discussion, but Molly’s arguments were impossible to refute. Life really isn’t fair.

Being quarantined with limited sources of entertainment is turning Molly into a proper foodie. She takes pleasure in eating and thinks about various flavours and how they combine. She already started giving me cooking advice. For example: the pasta sauce I made today, in her opinion, lacked mayonnaise.

This is a huge improvement from her wanting to put chocolate into everything.

Molly, when Jay said he was making Mexican food for dinner: “I wish I was a grown-up so that I could order food for myself!”

Seven-year-old Molly already gave up on grown-up Molly’s cooking skills.

Me at 1 am: “Crap! I forgot about Molly’s tooth!”
I grab 20kn from Jay’s wallet, run to Molly’s room, I try to find her tooth under the pillow but can’t do it without potentially waking her up so I just leave the money next to her pillow.

Molly at 3:30am: “Dada, my tooth is still under my pillow! Do you think the tooth fairy will come tonight?”
Jay doesn’t know I already left he money, so he waits until Molly’s asleep again, gets 20kn from my wallet, folds the note neatly, wraps it with a piece of string, retrieves Molly’s tooth from under her pillow and replaces it with a gift from the tooth fairy.

Molly at 6:30am: “Wow! I got 40 kuna! The tooth fairy wrapped this 20kn note really nicely and the other one… maybe fell out of her pocket?”

What a lucky girl! Two tooth fairies! One thoughtful and careful who pays attention to details and… the other one.

When your throat’s a bit sore:

December 2019: “I might be getting a cold.”
March 2020: “WE’RE ALL GONNA DIE!!!”

Molly, Benny and Jay watching a film in the evening:

M: “Why did she do that?”
J: “What? I don’t know. To be honest, I fell asleep for a bit.”
M: “Can you please not do that anymore?! This is a new film for us. We have lots of questions and we expect some answers!”

Jay, FOCUS, come on! No snoozing! Your children expect answers to all of their many, many questions!

A pandemic, powerful earthquakes AND snow after an usually warm week of sunshine, all at once?

Whoever wrote a script to this disaster film didn’t pay attention in class. You can’t throw it all in, the audience won’t believe it. Decide on one catastrophe and roll with that.

Greetings from Zagreb, our family’s safe. Hope you’re all well. 😘

-I like your perfume.
-You’re standing too close.