"Hey, there's pepper all over my notebook!" (Or, Schoolish and Unschoolish Things)

Anne-with-an-e was studying for a zoology test.

Ramona had been on my laptop, watching a science video. I can't remember what Betsy was doing (I'm sorry, Middle Child! I feel your Middle Child pain!)

Ramona had been performing her scientific inquiry, that of sorting salt and pepper with a static-charged balloon, at the kitchen table, which was also Anne's workspace of choice. So, naturally, a bit of overlap occurred between animal and mineral.

Then, Ramona decided that her experiment might one day be the basis of a homeschool pick-up line. She did her best imitation of a suave homeschool guy purring, "Hey, there ... I can separate salt and pepper."

This led me to ask her what, exactly, she knew about pick-up lines. Then I remembered that I had, at some point, shared this little gem with the girls, and I wondered if Ramona had remembered or read over someone's shoulder. She said, "No. I've just heard the girls talk about pick-up lines."

I made a note to myself to ask the girls more about this.

It's possible that while the separation of salt and pepper was occurring, Betsy was reading Brain Rules, which is a pretty fun and fascinating little book. Or she could have been playing Dragon Box, which my kids surprisingly love. I say "surprisingly" because it's an app based on algebra and my daughters swear on a stack of slide rules that they hate math. Or she may have been furthering her love of all things Jane Austen by rereading Pride and Prejudice for the -- how many times is it now? Do I need a slide rule to figure this out?

And now I'm back to the homeschool pick-up line. Any guy with half a brain, trying to impress a homeschooled girl, need only say something like this: "If I can ever be even a tenth of the romantic that Fitzwilliam Darcy turned out to be, I'll die a happy man."

Don't fall for it, girls.

And that's a recent day in the life.