Eli--naturalist and wit

On Saturday we visited the Cecilienhof castle, famous in history as the site of the Potsdam conference of 1945, where the Allied powers divided conquered Germany.  The grounds are beautiful.  At one point Julia and Eli were climbing a tree while Katharine, hungry and tired, threw a tantrum.  We decided it was a good time to break for lunch.  When I called Julia and Eli down from the tree Eli threw a tantrum of her.  She did not want to descend from her sylvan eminence, and she voiced her displeasure in a torrent of Elizabethan (in both senses) abuse.  "Daddy!!!" she screamed.  "Thou hast wrath, that thou my devil!!!"  I had, of course, no notion of what this might mean.  But I was also not about to back down, and with my own blood temperature rising, I responded in kind.  "Eli," I cried, "thou hast bark, that thou my poodle!"  This prompted fits of laughter, and Julia and Eli gleefully dismounted from their beloved branch, swapping variations on this infinitely variable construction.

After sacrament meeting on Sunday, the primary children presented every adult woman in the ward with a rose for Mothers' Day.  When we got home, we neglected to put Lia's rose in water, and this morning we awoke to find the rose's head drooping dismally.  Eli was heartbroken, but not without hope.  She implored Lia to put the rose in water with all possible celerity.  Lia complied, but cautioned Eli not to be disappointed if--read when--it didn't work.  But it did work.  By the end of the day, the rose stood ramrod straight, beaming brilliantly in the sunlight slanting through the window.  "Look Eli," Lia said, "you were right.  The rose did straighten out."  But Eli resisted the urge to crow.  "Well," she said coolly, "don't forget that I am the champion of nature.  If you ever have a question about a flower, just come to me."  And so we shall.