Who's on first?

Phoebe opens a drawer in the kitchen containing foil, clingfilm, freezer bags and so on.

"Eleni put it in there."
"What, darling?"
"Eleni put it in there."
"Yes, what did she put in there?"
"Eleni."
"Yes, Eleni. What did she put in the drawer?"
"She put it in the drawer."
"Yes. In the drawer. What did Eleni put in the drawer?"
"Eleni."
[Patiently] "Yes. What is the *it* that Eleni put in the drawer?"
[Pause to consider her response] "In the drawer." [Longer pause] "Daddy, why you crying, Daddy?"

Daddy took a photo of me while I was asleep...

...the BLOODY IDIOT!

Groovy, baby

Phoebe's non-stop repetition of "Ooo, baby, yeah!" while playing with her toys leads me to the conclusion that rather too much of her young life has been spent in front of Austin Powers movies...

Emily was persuaded into a skirt

for a baptism we went to today. This is not, it goes without saying, her usual look. Which explains why people kept coming up to us and asking why we hadn't brought Emily (and who the pretty little girl playing with Phoebe was...)

Phoebe-isms

1. "Emily has her Arse Class today" (Dances round in circles repeatedly singing "Arse Class, Arse Class, Arse Class...)
2. (Dressed all in orange and dead excited) "Wheeeee! I'm a mandarin!"

Chocolate attack

Phoebe claimed not to have liked her chocolate pudding very much. God knows what the results would have been like if she had.

[Note to self: learn to use red-eye-reduction/photoshop so daughter looks slightly less like spawn of Satan]

Now I've got a digital camera there's no stopping me!

OK, I know this isn't the greatest quality in the world, but it'll do for now. This is a page from Emily's secret diary that she foolishly left lyinbg on her desk. It's a self-potrait, and depicts her thinking of her would-be boyfriend, Prodromos. He is, according to the thought-balloons, "sweet" and "handsome".

Ain't love grand!

"Daddy, what's a pro-sti-tute?"

pipes up Emily, who is reading out loud, syllable by syllable, the Greek text I'm translating into English (which is not, as it happens, about prostitution at all).

I exlain that a prostitute is someone who has sex in return for money.

[Pause] "That's not very nice."
[Pause] "I don't want to do that when I grow up."
[Longer pause] "Does mummy have sex in return for money?"

"No, darling."

[Further pause] "Why does she have sex with you, then?"

Thank you and goodnight...