I fell in love with Az for many reasons, not least of which was the way he read the dictionary in the bathroom. I am not a fan of reading anything in the bathroom (I can’t get comfortable with the seat making a ring around my butt), but, for someone who does, there is a straightforward hunger for knowledge in choosing a dictionary. He never stops learning, and if nothing else currently intrigues him, he will happily spend a few minutes learning new words.

For years he teased me that our children would learn to write the same way humanity did: in Sumerian. I rolled my eyes at this, and he has since given it up. But JellyBean is a booklover, and the last few months has shown a special interest in my cookbooks and Daddy’s paleontology books. She looks at these with us, and I keep my explanations simple, remembering that she is only three. “That’s a blueberry pie,” I say, and she happily learns the names of all the different fruits and foods pictured.

Az is more ambitious. Jellybean sits in his lap every evening to be read to. Sometimes she brings a large anthropology textbook called Peoples of the Past, and turns through the pages as Az explains each photo to her. By now she has most of the pictures memorized. “The Venus of Brassen-Pouille!” she announces happily. “A Harlan’s ground sloth!” she says again, a few pages later. I have stopped looking at this book with her, because she knows more about it than I do.

She has already outpaced me, and she is only three.

When she identifies parts of the human skeleton, Az merely glows and looks smug. Of course, his daughter would do such things. To JellyBean, Daddy’s books simply present possibilities for great games.

She raced through the study before bedtime, jumping and making Sweetpea giggle. “I’m a skull from Shanidar!” she declared, and leaped out of the room.

It’s time for Pieces’ Show-and-Tell Tuesday again, and this week my big project has been painting JellyBean’s old crib for the new baby.

When I was pregnant with JellyBean, we had even less money than we do now, and I worried over how we would afford a crib. A kind friend had an extra crib she never used and gave it to us. It was old but sturdy and up to current safety standards, so it was a godsend.

It was also gray. Drab, dreary, gunmetal gray, with a slate-blue/gray piece for contrast. Az the Procrastinator promised me he would paint the crib a prettier color before JellyBean was born, but he kept putting it off. JellyBean came three weeks early and the crib had to be put to use in its original ugly state. He claims that JellyBean “owes” him three weeks.

I would like to tell you that I am such an understanding, supportive wife that I never mention his failure to paint the crib as promised. I would like to tell you that, but I would be lying.

We moved JellyBean into a Big Girl Bed a month ago, so the crib was free and could finally be painted. My mom-in-law and sister-in-law came up last week to see the kids (the Grammie Box was a big, big hit), and while they entertained the rugrats, I painted the crib.

I had no idea how tedious painting a crib could be. I had to paint each individual slat, and it took two coats of primer just to cover the gray. I decided to use the paint leftover from painting the hallway. The crib is now a creamy white, with a buttery yellow piece at the top of each headboard. I decided to try stenciling for the first time, and chose red tulips to add to the yellow headboard.

Here is the current headboard. Behind it is the one siderail I have not painted yet, in its original gray (excuse the dimness of the colors please; I took these photos at night).

And this is what my nearly completed crib looks like, awaiting that last side rail. My painting was a little sloppy, but is much, much better than gray. My new daughter will have a pretty place to sleep.

I took the girls to the art museum recently. It was a cold, windy day, much too cold to play outside, and we were feeling a little stir crazy, so we loaded into the car and headed out for some culture.

Some things in the art museum are easy to explain. JellyBean and Sweetpea love pictures of children, so things like this are a big hit. “That’s a boy and a girl playing in the water.” Simple.

Historical themes get a little tricky with a three-year-old and a twenty-month-old. There is no easy, non-scary way to explain the reason a white artist called this one Unwelcome Guest.

And how on earth do I explain the back story on this?

The legend is that John Chrysostom, while a hermit living in the forest, gave shelter to a princess one night. Overcome with fear that he would violate his chastity vow, he murdered her instead by tossing her over a cliff. Then he wandered the wilderness like a beast, in grief and penance over his crime. He was finally restored to sanity when a newborn baby in a nearby village miraculously spoke, saying that only John Chrysostom could baptize him.

Yeah. I just sorta skipped that one when explaining to the kids.

I am a Philistine at heart, so I just told them this one was “a big box” and that the artist was “silly.”

I tried: “If a migraine could be a painting, it would look like this.”

By this point I think I’d given up. I said: “I think I’ve seen something like this hanging in my OBGYN’s office.”

Such is art commentary from Veronica, harried mother of two (and a half). If you take your young’uns to a museum anytime soon, let me know how it goes.

For Pieces’ Show-and-Tell Tuesday, I thought I would tell you about the very simple project I did with my little ones today.

We have about 200 photos of the kids on our camera that I keep forgetting to have printed. My mom-in-law is coming for a visit this weekend, so I thought I would collect them all and present them in a fancy box for a present. Then I decided that she would probably like something the kids made even better, so we decided to make a Grammie Box.

The girls and I went to the craft store and the girls did surprisingly well: no meltdowns and very little grabbing. We picked out a bright green box (lime? neon? chartreuse? I’m not sure what you call this shade. My camera dulled it a little bit) and the girls chose some craft stickers to put on it. Despite my gentle urging, they did not choose the roses or kittens or babies. They wanted googly-eyed bugs and jellyfish and flowers.

We also found a purse-sized photo album that matches the box - perfect for a proud grandmother. I spelled out “Grammie” with some scrapbook stickers, and the girls did the rest.

This project was the perfect level for my two kids (a 3-yr-old and 20-month-old) and the only difficulty we had was persuading them that it was a gift for Grammie, and not a toy they could fight over for themselves. Here is the finished product, awaiting Grammie’s visit, filled with photos and a small matching album:

(JellyBean, wrapped tightly in a bath towel and snuggled into my bed.)

“I am baby Jesus and you are my mother, Mary, and Daddy is my father, Joseph. What’s that? (pointing above my head) That’s your halo!”

“Why are you laughing like that, Mommy?”