How do you make a tree?

Daddy: Alex, if you had three hundred dollars, and you gave me two hundred dollars, how many dollars would you have?
Alex: Um, three.
Daddy: And what would you buy with it?
Alex: A computer and a violin.

Alex: I was smelling the tomatoes that we got from Mommy’s garden.
Daddy: Oh, what do they smell like?
Alex: They smell like -- they smell like my suit. My swimming suit.


(dinner)

Claire: I like Elmo fork. I like Elmo fork.
Claire (singing): I, like, Elmo fork!
Claire: I like Elmo fork, Daddy.
Daddy: I know you do.

Claire: I want more, Daddy. I want more, Daddy.
Claire (smiling): May I, please.

Claire (holding a forkful of spaghetti): Uh big one. Big one. Big ‘ghetti.
Daddy: Yeah?
Claire: Big ‘ghetti, Daddy!
Claire: Yeah.

Alex: When you build things, why do you need dirt?
(Daddy explains why, when you build things, you need dirt.)
Alex: How do you make a tree?
(Daddy explains how you make a tree, mostly by paraphrasing The Carrot Seed.)
Daddy: And then one day…
Mommy: A carrot came up!
(Alex and Claire laugh.)
Claire (pretending to turn a page): Uh – other page – (mumble) – the end!
Daddy: Yeah!
Claire: End of story. End of story.

Claire (her hand circling her plate): Read this. Round the circle. Round the bend.
Mommy: Yeah?
Claire: Drive on my plate.
Daddy: Who drives on your plate?
Claire: Uh, my hand.

Claire: Uh more spaghetti! Pleeeease. May uh – may I, please, Mommy.
Mommy: Good job, Claire!


Alex: Well, you’re Charlie Brown!
Daddy: Am I?
Alex: I’m Linus.
Alex: And Claire’s Lucy.
Claire (laughing): I’m not Lucy. I’m Claire.
Alex: You’re Lucy. And Mommy’s Pepper Patty.

Claire: No I not Lucy -- Lucy.
Alex: I’m Linus, Lucy. Lucy.
Claire (laughing): No!

(Alex is playing “running”. Daddy tells Alex that he doesn’t want to run.)
Alex: Can Grommie run, ‘cause Grommie can be the daddy, and I can be the Alex, and Claire can be the Claire, and Mommy can be the mommy?

Claire (talking to herself): I fall, on floor, and get kiss, and then, have band-aid on? Daddy?


Alex: Let’s be a baby, Claire. Can we pretend we’re a baby?