Ellie says

It's been a while since we've shared an "Ellie says" moment because lately she is a CHATTERBOX and hardly inhales between sentences, much less allows for simple quotes (hard to quote her accurately when one sentence is 5 minutes long). Today, she remedied this for me. We met Markus for lunch downtown for the first lunch date we've managed in a long time. Ellie is an extremely picky eater, but I thought we'd scored big when the take-away place had sparkling apple juice, the perfect combo of her two favorite liquids (apple juice and sparkling water; for some reason, she won't drink still water anymore). I happily handed her the bottle and waited for the enthusiasm that was sure to follow her first sip. Instead, she sipped it and slowly handed the bottle back to me with a pitying look in her eyes. In a tone that clearly addressed her concern that I had finally gone off the deep end, she said, "Um, Mama...I think this is beer."