Olivia insisted on wearing snow boots to school today. Claus bought them for her when he took them skiing last December. They look like Uggs - fleece lined, and way too hot for May in Hawaii.

She loves them. As soon as they got back from Utah last December, she wore them a handful of times to school, each time coming home telling me they were too hot by day's end. I had warned of such, but she always ignored.

I do not know why she can't remember this experience, or care when I remind her of it, but she's been trying all week to wear them again. Finally, I gave in.

"Have it your way. When I see you after school, don't complain how hot they were," I warned. "You should really just listen to me. I'm smart."

To test me, she actually quizzed me! Her exact response to me was, "What's 100 + 100?"

"Two hundred," I said.

"What's one million + one million?"

"Two million," I answered.

"What's one million + 200?" she continued.

"One million two hundred," I responded.

"Wrong! Twenty hundred one million!" she exclaimed gleefully.

I suppose I can't argue with that.

My high school classmates organized a fishing excursion at an old Hawaiian fishpond in Haleiwa, Loko Ea. It's owned by our high school, so we received permission to throw nets there one Sunday.

It's currently undergoing some restoration and volunteers are needed to help clean it up. I don't know much about this, but as it impacted my weekend, I understand that we were catching only the invasive tilapia fish, and throwing back the other fish that live in the pond.

Therefore, it counts as community service because the owners want to remove invasive species, and we wanted to eat fish from clean waters.

I brought my family out one morning to help do this. The plan was to catch 100 tilapia, clean them right there, and then freeze it for later use for our high school reunion in June. (We had 365 in our graduating class.)

My best girlfriend Jen - who graduated with me - came out as well. I had been looking forward to jumping in the water, but I changed my mind on that cold, rainy morning. Lame, I know. Olivia and I watched from shore as people waded in the mud in the knee-high water throwing nets.

After a couple hours, we had enough to start cleaning the fish. I did not really remember how to clean a fish. It has been years.

I learned from a fireman I once dated (you know the firemen are so nature-y) but cleaning the occasional fish that he'd catch for dinner did not imprint the skills on my brain. I am now an urban softie who buys pre-gutted fish from the store.

However, I saw this as a chance to learn, so I willingly joined the lineup where Jen taught me.

My surprising revelations of the day: You need a very sharp knife to gut it, and gloves are handy because the fins are sharp and the fish is slippery.

The scaling part, I remember how. Pulling out the guts did not bother me, but here is a fascinating discovery. Tilapia are mouth brooders!

Babies inside the fish

I looked in one fish's cavity and saw little babies left in there! It was really interesting for everyone that day!

I must have cleaned 30 fish. I certainly hope I'll remember how, after this.

The children in Olivia's class are graded on behavior every day. They get a green, yellow, or red light based on how well they behaved. You can guess that green = good and red = bad.

She came home from school and revealed that she got a yellow light. She gets way too many yellow and red lights.

"Why did you get a yellow light today?" we asked.

She knows she did wrong, and she is always contrite - though my adult brain can never understand why it's so hard to just sit there and be good. "I don't want to tell you or you'll be mad," she replied.

"I think you should or we will get mad," we said.

"I was crawling like a dog," came the answer. "I was trying to be funny." She likes to get laughs.

Here is that part where we try not to laugh so that we look really serious. "You have to stop crawling like a dog in class," I lectured. The things that come out of my mommy mouth.

"You have to listen to the teacher when she tells you to do something, or stop doing something," Claus reminded.

The babysitter happened to be over already. We hire a 21-year-old to come two nights a week. She has a wealth of experience because for a few years she's worked as the after-school program staffer.

While I'm still marveling at the silly things kids dream up, the sitter was totally nonplussed. "You'd be amazed at how many kids crawl like dogs. And how many other kids bark to them in dog language. And how they'll carry on a conversation in barking until we tell them to stop," she offered.

This is a bigger zoo than the real zoo. I guess I was the only one surprised because Claus said, "Sure. Just last week, Olivia and Kira spent two hours pretending they were cats."

Kids.

I guess I will only have to worry when she starts eating the pet food.

No, wait. That's happened already, too.

Last weekend, I was at Moanalua Gardens for a playdate. I was standing under a monkeypod tree when a nut fell on my head. If you know the Gardens, you know the trees are big and majestic - and over 100 feet tall.

It whacked me with enough force to temporarily startle me and to also cause a little scratch. At first, I thought the kids threw something at me - kolohe! - but then I realized it was a big seed because I saw it still rolling to a halt on the ground. It slightly hurt.

If you spend half a day corraling and entertaining small children (which consists of keeping them from boredom, making up games, and mitigating small fights), you will understand that I was very tired by the time we got home. I said a few words of summary to Claus and didn't really say much more about the afternoon.

The next day at breakfast, Olivia pointed to my scratch and said, "It's still red and the blood is dried out." It's on my temple and my hair was hiding it, so Claus hadn't seen it, and I forgot to mention it.

His ears perked up. "What blood? What happened?" he said.

"Oh," I said nonchalantly, "some nut hit me at the park yesterday."

"What?" he said with growing concern.

"Yeah, I was just standing there and I got hit by a nut," I elaborated blandly over my eggs and toast.

"What?! Some nut just hit you?" he exclaimed with half fury and half confusion that I would totally bury the lead. "Who? What? Why didn't you tell me earlier?"

Olivia and I looked at him and started laughing. "No, a real nut. A seed covered by a hard shell. Sorry for confusing you," I clarified.

It's funny, how language evolves. The phrase "some nut" seems to indicate for most people, today, a crazy person. I'm sure 50 or 70 years ago, it really just meant a nut.

We have a fence around the yard, but it's falling apart. There's a section that's gerryrigged together while we wait for time and availability to synchronize: a handyman to become available + the energy for ourselves to manage it.

Inca is a very good dog. She loves us. She knows where home is and doesn't run away. She does, however, like to explore when bored.

With this broken fence problem escalating over the past three months, there's been days where she keeps escaping and we puzzle over where the break is this time.

This weekend, there was another episode. The neighbor and I looked at the fence and couldn't easily see it. When Claus came home, we did a little experiment.

I walked up the street where we knew she'd want to follow. He waited by the side. Minutes passed. Finally, she tried to run after me.

Apparently, there's a little space that she squeezes herself between to get free. Claus said he hear a clink-clank-clink, then saw Inca coming out of the yard.

He said her paws were tick-tacking full speed on the concrete stairs that lead out of our yard, but stopped abruptly when she saw him standing there. Then she proceeded at normal walking speed.

She totally knew she was busted. Dogs! So smart!