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"Mommy, do you know why you will always survive a shark attack?"

"Ooh, why?"

"Because you never get in the water. You always stay on the towel with the babies."

I guess I can't argue with that.

Beanie said to me tonight, "Did you know I saw a moose at the park today?"

Me: "A moose? Really."

Bean: "I think so. It was big like a moose, and it had a moose's tail."

(Because, you know, a moose's tail is its distinguishing characteristic.)

Bean, continuing: "But it was a long way away."

Me: "Like, say, in Maine?"

Beanie (laughs): "No, Mommy, at the park. Here."

Me: "Ah, yes. You said that. Here. In San Diego. A moose. How did I miss it?"

Bean: "You were at the swings. I saw it from the climby thing. It might have been a dog. But I'm pretty sure it was a moose."

Me: "Well."

Bean: "Or...it could have been a person."

Hmm. Could it be that we are not quite the astute observers of nature I had supposed we were? I mean, there I was all proud of myself for identifying a viceroy butterfly on a eucalyptus tree, and I completely missed seeing the large dog-man with the tail of a moose.

A tiger? In Africa?

Beanie, on the subject of Oscar Mayer weiners: "Are they named after Oscar Wilde?"

Ramona just added another eight years to my life.

If I were to make one of her mom's Thanksgiving centerpieces, I'd have to put Ramona's picture there for sure, right next to my Beanie's. Between the two of them, I could live another three hundred years.

"What if God really made a Great Pumpkin? What do you think he would look like?"

"Mom, can you buy me a bow and arrow? I need one."

Beanie, after listening to a discussion of the Assumption of Mary, shakes her head in bewilderment and says: "I've just never understood it. It has always been a mystery to me."

Beanie brings me a handful of tiny bits of Sculpey, delicately pinched at each end. "It's taffy, Mommy! Here are the flavors: blueberry, strawberry, lemon, lime, orange, cherry, and corn."

Any mother worth her salt knows to never, never ask a young artist, "Is it a (fill in the blank)?" You're supposed to say, "Ooh, I like your sculpture; can you tell me about it?" and let the child's conversation enlighten you as to the identity of the object she has so enthusiastically and inscrutably rendered.

I, however, have never claimed to be worth my salt. Which is why I am prone to exchanges like this one:

Me: "Ooh, what a great Sculpey lemur!"

Beanie: "Mom. It's not a lemur. It's a panther."

Whoops.

"You just take some raw meat, and plop some jam on it and smush it up. Then it's perfect."