KIDDIE QUOTES (... AND A WINNER)

I'm not sure where my kids are getting their cultural information, but Bean very confidently asserts some "facts" that are questionable, at best. Take, for instance, Bean's baby doll. Today, she called me by my first name, told me she was my new neighbor, and introduced me to her doll: "This is baby Molly. We call her 'Taco.' That's French for Molly."

Meanwhile, Cakes has found a new favorite book. It's a lift-a-flap book of nursery rhymes and nursery songs. She has all the poems and songs memorized ... kind of. All morning, she's been singing "Row, Row, Row Your Boat":

Row, row, row your boat
Gently, if you can
Maily, maily, maily, maily
Like a butt of dream.

She also takes great delight in reciting "Hey, Diddle, Diddle":

Hey, diddle, diddle
The cat and the fiddle
The cow jumped over the moon
The little dog laughed
To have such fun
And the dish and the spoon ran away.

And, finally, I'm not sure how accurate Tanya was in answering my question about the ice balls; however, she was the only one who even hazarded a guess. So, the coffee-holic over at In the Dailies gets the $5 Starbucks gift card!!!

FOR ALL YOU SCIENCE GEEKS - A GIVEAWAY

The South is strange to me for a lot of reasons. Why are people so friendly? Why can't I find a Jewish deli anywhere? Why is there only one Dunkin' Donuts within 500 miles of my house?

But, there's a strange phenomenon that my mother and I have noticed as we drive to town on cold mornings. At first, we thought there was garbage wrapped around the base of dead plants. But, it seemed improbable that the garbage would go on for miles. A couple of hours later, we drove home and saw that it was all gone.

Closer inspection several days later showed that these clusters were balls of very delicate ice that formed around the base of the dead plants. Here's my question: What the heck? I've Googled like crazy and can't find an explanation. So, I'm giving a $5 Starbucks gift card to the first person who can explain the science to me behind these ice balls.