Our kiddo is in a phase of development where she has a decent vocabulary but context is still missing. For example, "tomorrow" is basically any time in the future and "yesterday" is any time in the past. When she says she "slept" during nap time, it means she laid down and stopped playing - it doesn't mean she actually slept. 

The most complicated issue, at least in terms of parenting is pronoun usage. She gets "I" and "You." She's sorta got the idea of "we." But, when it comes to the third person, everyone is "he." I know that this is mostly because she finds the "sh" sound a bit hard. But, I also want to be cognizant of teaching her basic usage while also retaining inclusiveness.

Our kiddo is not yet 5. She's not at the stage where she can fully comprehend ze/zir, xe/xem, ve/ver, or the other pronouns. I've taken to saying, "He for boys, she for girls, they for everyone." I know this falls woefully short of the complexities of pronoun usage, but it's the best I've come up with.

​If you have tips for teaching pronouns to a youngster, let me know! 

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I’m a few pages from the end of Midnight Ruin. This is the first book in the series where I really didn’t care about the romance. I only wanted to know what was happening with the overarching narrative. I can’t believe I have to read at least three more books in this series to find out what happens to the city of Olympus. Katee Robert nailed the world building.

*Books shared here are affiliate links for Bookshop.org

• Decorating with white paint. [Young House Love]

• The weird commercial market for lab diamonds. [The Atlantic - gift link]

• A primer on habit tracking. [Career Contessa]

• The yellow first down line is a good use of augmented reality. [The Atlantic - gift link]

• Wine + Chocolate = Excellent Evening. [Wine Folly]

• Animals are amazing. [WaPo - gift link]

• The amazing Tiny Desk Concert. [Up First]

• People don’t do things for your reasons. They do it for their reasons. [Hidden Brain]

• The cuisine of the artic. [Gastropod]

• Saving the food culture of Gaza [The Kitchen Sisters Present]

• Ha! I love me some font humor. [@ellecordova]

• I didn't watch the Grammys but I did watch this. [@recordingacademy]

• While the husband was out of town, I watched the entire first season of The Gentle Art of Swedish Death Cleaning. It was your basic minimizing and organizing program but with a kick of, "Okay? But what happens when you die?" There was also a fair amount of shenanigans and language that added some humor. I did appreciate how one episode (#4) showcased the importance of personal archiving. One woman's downsizing was one professional archive's gain. [Peacock]

• I made sheet pan BBQ meatloaf with roasted sweet potato and broccoli. I've made this before but it has been quite some time since it graced our table. I always add extra BBQ sauce to keep the meatloaf moist. I doubled the recipe and ate the leftovers for lunch early in the week. They held up surprisingly well in the microwave. [Budget Bytes]

• We try to keep muffins in our freezer as  a quick breakfast option for the kiddo. About a week ago, I baked a batch of blueberry banana muffins. Except, the bag of blueberries I thought was in our freezer had already been used. So, I pivoted and dropped in some chocolate chips. They were just as good... maybe better. I actually ate a muffin myself and, only after I finished, did I realized it would have been really good with peanut butter. [What Megan's Making]

14 years ago this week, DC was slammed by a series of snow storms. My daily photo archives reminded me of just how much snow we got.

Antidepressants or Tolkien? That’s it. That’s the whole bit.

Waiting around to see if everything works out for us to go on our annual friends ski trip without any last minute chaos.