Pizza place

Kate and Jack both had basketball games tonight, and afterward I was gong to pick up pizza and calzones at a nearby Italian place. The plan was for both kids to go home with Emily, but Kate wanted to come with me to get the food. Ok, I said.

We parked and went in to this little, just-opened place that didn't even have menus on the wall yet. I said I wanted two slices of pizza and two calzones. I thought the order was done, but Kate used her elbows to lift herself up on the counter and piped up, "Do you have garlic balls?" The guy said, Yes, we do. So we got an order of those, too.

We stood waiting for a few minutes, Kate pointing out different things. "Those garlic balls look REALLY GOOD," she said. And: "Is that a stack of dough? Daddy, look, it's a stack of dough!"

I noticed a penny on the floor and pointe it out to her. She said, "Ooh" and picked it up. Amused, the guy behind the counter said, was it Heads or Tails? She paused. "Uh. I think it was heads?" That's good luck, he said. She sand the lucky penny song, then made up another one.

"Penny, penny, went to the store, to buy a jacket to keep her warm." She was pleased with this one and sang it a few times.

Sitting at a table waiting for food, she said, "Do you want to play rock, paper, scissors?" I said, no...lets do Math Facts. So I quizzed her on multiplication tables, and she did pretty well. Then she invented a game with the salt and pepper shaker and ketchup bottle on the table. Salt and pepper were kids and the ketchup was the Daddy. She talked for them with little voices, the kids playing outside and talking about what to do, the Dad supervising. We did this for a few minutes, and then our food was ready.

We drove home, and a Taylor Swift song was on the radio and Kate knew all the words. And when it ended, she sang her made-up song about the penny, going to the store.