My kids know just enough about how babies are made to get their little minds churning, but not enough to stop them from coming up with crazy wild theories. Laylee knows that a baby needs an egg from the mom and a sperm from the dad to get cooking, but has no idea how the two are exchanged. She puts humans and birds in the same category because both are hatched from eggs.

Magoo knows the baby is inside my “tummy” which he thinks of as a huge cavernous region below my mouth somewhere. He thinks it’s hilarious that the baby is swimming around in a sea of all the food I’ve eaten in the last 8 months. He can’t wait to see pictures of her when she comes out with cheese stuck to her face and carrots coming out of her ears. Unparalleled comedy that will be.

Maria reached into the hamper and grabbed a pair of stockings.

"You wore them yesterday. They're dirty. Pick something else,'' I said.

She grabbed a clean pair without argument. Surprise. Surprise.

But, no more than 30 minutes later, we're in the car on the drive to school: "Mama, why did you tell me I couldn't wear the stockings from yesterday, but you have the same clothes on you wore yesterday?''

Snagged again by the Little Litigator.

Magoo is at a stage where he just NEEDS to know. He needs to know why. He needs to know who. He thinks he knows how but he’s not sure. Yeah. He wants someone to tell him how. And don’t even get him started on where: Where are we going? Where’s Grammy right now? Where do they get the milk? Where is the more sugar?

At the same time, he’s got a lot of answers and he’s pretty sure he’s right. Pretty much all the time. He has this very wise, knowing look he gives with one eyebrow raised and his head tilted forward when he’s telling you an especially choice nugget of information that he feels will blow the jelly right out of your tarts.

I often feel badly that my car's satellite radio is tuned only to the 24-hour politics station. My poor kid, I think. She could be listening to Dan Zanes or that butt song she likes. Instead, wonks drone on, spin masters dizzy us, and angry audio spews from the speakers. Try as I might to switch to a more happy place, this presidential election has captured my attention more than any other in years past.

It is no surprise then, that Maria has asked a lot of questions about the candidates. Kid questions like "What does he look like?'' and "Is he nice?'' But because she also has gotten stuck on the theme of war, and stopping it, I haven't felt nearly as badly about forcing her to listen.

Magoo’s still going through that manic depressive TMS (Toddler Mental Syndrome) stage where one minute life is a dream and the next a crushing nightmare. Sometimes it’s all we can do not to laugh out loud (or LOL as you fancy-pants internet people so succinctly put it on your myspace pages) when he crumbles into yet another ball of hysteria. We know that in a minute or two he’ll be back to a state of frenetic nirvana, a bouncing ball of joy and likely blunt head trauma. But then the blunt head trauma will trigger the aforementioned despair. It’s a pretty predictable pattern.

A lot of his joy or pain comes from how big or how many things are. We’ve recently discovered that his numerical boggle threshold is SIX.