For every 1 cute and/or strangely brilliant Greyson or Violet quote that I manage to record for posterity, there are 4 adorable profundities that give us a smile or a belly laugh but fall through the cracks, the specifics fading from memory. It’s a tall task to document the prolific output of our kids’ hyperverbal imagination while still living in the moment.
Nonetheless, I have combed through my Notes app to find some gems I managed to transcribe in the past 6 months. A delightfully disconnected pile of wonderful witticisms and weird wisdom.
Lately, Greyson’s quotable quotes tend to be oddly striking turns of phrase in the midst of stream-of-conscious poeticizing (other parts of which admittedly make very little sense). Whereas the Violeticisms are classic cute kid quotes. The kind that warm your heart with their sweet, goofy innocence.
Each of these little nuggets are witty or profound specifically because the kids had zero intention of aspiring to either quality.
Un-self-consciousness is a beautiful thing.
Violet, who hasn’t figured out pronouns yet: “Softy [a made-up cat] loves everything! Her loves herself and everyone everything in the world! And her loves the store named Kohl’s!”
Greyson, poeticizing:
When they migrate, they follow trails of dust.
And a little later:
Final world is walking behind us.
Violet: “I think Moksha [our cat] is the hungriest li’l girl ever in the whole wide world.”
Violet [about both of our cats]: “Her doesn’t really talk much! Like Caspian – Caspian talks a LOT!”
Me: “Why is Caspian such a rascal?”
Violet: “I don’t know…”
Me: “Should I ask him?”
Violet: “No, he can only meow and stuff!”
Greyson, poeticizing again:
Turtle in his favorite home
He has a shell that he can’t roam in
But he loves his favorite spot
Which is the pool he likes to go in
Me: “I will always hold your hand when we go across this busy road.”
Violet: “When we are grown-ups, can we go across the road on our own?”
Me: “Yes, definitely.”
Violet: “And we would have kids that couldn’t go across on their own!”
Me: *chokes on my own heart*
Greyson, who gets fairly minimal screen time, poeticizing again:
The screen is the water
that shows the reflection
of the trees and the sky
And also on the same subject:
The water
is like a refrain
that carries the words
Violet [looking at library DVDs]: “What’s the pig one?”
Me: “That’s a movie called Babe. It’s one of my favorite movies, but you guys aren’t quite old enough for it yet.”
Violet: “Are you big enough for it?”
Here is an album tracklist that Greyson made up, featuring 9 evocative (and oddly philosophical) song titles. The album, and the climactic final track, are called The Time Foretold. I can’t remember the band name, although I’d bet good money that it was ornithologically derived.
1. We Pierce Out the Window
2. Spaceness
3. We Were All Very True
4. Now I Am Right There (instrumental)
5. When Is It Going To Happen?
6. Some Are Making the Forests Gleam
7. We Are Coming to the Next World
8. All of Us
9. The Time Foretold
Violet: “My water is cold in my yummy yummy tummy!”
And once again, our ever-enthusiastic Violet, while we explored nature: “Look at all of these things out in the world that I’ve never seen before!”
life of papa 
My daughter is almost 25 years older than yours, and I still have her quotes enriching me. To this day I cannot mess something up and not have an image of her about age 5 shaking her finger at me and saying, “BAD DADDY!” and having a chuckle and feeling a little better about whatever I goofed up.
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