It might take an outsider one morning of listening to my kids talk to figure out what interests my husband and I, and which of those interests have rubbed off onto our children. This morning when we sat down to breakfast Sam exclaimed, “Mommy, three of the irises are blooming!” I beamed with pride at his correct identification of the irises in my valentine’s day bouquet of flowers, three of which had, in fact, opened up overnight. I went on to identify for the boys the other flowers in the bunch and listened to Robby carefully repeat, “HY DWAYN JAH.”

Minutes later he was at the kitchen sink washing his hands and noticing one of our kitchen scrubbers, the one we used over the summer to wash the dirt off of our carrots from the garden, when he declared he wanted to “pick cawots from outside!” Seriously, I don’t think a gardening mom could be happier when there are morning quotes like this.

Once breakfast was over and it was time to get dressed though, the conversation took a bit of a turn. Sam was thrilled to get to wear his Flash shirt, and he then stated that he would really like an Iron Man shirt for his birthday. Robby said he would like a Batman shirt, and the two of them went on to debate the various strengths and weaknesses of the two. Iron Man can shoot lasers, after all, but we can’t overlook the fact that Batman is a detective, earning him points in the minds of both boys. Indeed, I think if Hubby had been home he would have also beamed with pride this morning over the deep conversation, perhaps reveling in the switch from flower talk to super heroes.

But just yesterday my husband “forbid” me to get anymore gardening books from the library unless I was first ready to return some. According to him these books and seed catalogs were “all over the house,” forcing him to go through and stack them up for me, which might have looked a bit like this (except that he left them haphazardly stacked at the bottom of the stairs!):

(And there’s my lovely valentine’s day bouquet.) Ok, now to be fair, that might be a lot of books. And I may, or may not, have another three on hold waiting for me at the library - I have no comment on that topic.

But can I just take us down the stairs and into the Man Cave of our house for a peek and ask: Does that mean that no more comic books can be brought into the house until you are done with some of these?

Hmmmm? Well all righty then. I may, or may not, be off to the library.