On the drive to dinner tonight, Siena popped that gem of a question to us. We both looked at each other in the front seats and tried to stifle laughs. I don’t remember exactly what we said to hem and haw and try to deflect the question, but Siena followed up with these choice nuggets:

• Does it just happen or do you have to do anything special? (this brought us much laughter)
• Do you know? (Yes Siena, we know, seeing as how we made two!)

To our great relief, at about this time we came by a house that has free-range chickens. Like, really free-range. Like, walking in the road blocking traffic was a really beautiful rooster and some white chickens, so naturally, I shouted, “Chickens!” That got the girls’ attention and interest.

This and some other artful conversation navigation got us out of the dangerous shoals, and the topic didn’t come up again. Amusingly, a little while later after a few quiet moments, Siena randomly asked, “So what would you like to have a conversation about?” And we both thought, “Anything but that prior conversation.”

I guess we need to get our story figured out sooner rather than later. We also didn’t want to tell Siena anything just yet while Thalia was in the car. Siena might be ready for some more details, but her little sister certainly isn’t.

Finally, in other busy-day news, Thalia cut her finger with a pair of small gardening shears, which was kind of scary, and Siena spilled a fair amount of finger-nail polish on a carpet, which was sad. There were some good things, too, like Mama doing a ton of amazing gardening work (the place is really starting to look tidy now) and the girls spending a lot of time helping out and finding worms and bugs in the garden. What a beautiful day outside.