Nails!

Elizabeth is two days away from getting her shopping spree.  She is so excited and has done an excellent job not biting her nails.  It's extremely impressive.

Like Grandfather Like Grandson

Most days I ask the kids how their day was, what they learned, did they do anything special, etc.  On Tuesdays, when Parker has his special math session with a math resource teacher, I asked him how it went.  Or if I know they did anything else different, like going to the library, having music, or art, I try to remember to ask about it. I generally get the same answers.  From Miranda, "Great! I loved it! I can't to do it again!"  Elizabeth says, "It was kinda boring. Kinda good and bad."  From Parker, "Fine."

But then on some days, one of them goes on and on about something. Parker did it the other day.  He was describing how he did a math problem.  He stood by the kitchen table and walked me through the problem.  He provides so much detail, it takes me a long time to get through just a short description.  As he was describing it, he looked very familiar and I got a strange sense of deja vu. I tried to remember if he had told me about this before, but then it dawned on me.   He looked and sounded just like my dad describing a complex math problem to Amy or Eran or David.  He had the same pauses, um's, eye expressions and strange looks right before he is about to say something super clever.

It was very interesting.

Letters from Eli

Elizabeth is really into writing letters these days. She wrote me about five this weekend. She leaves them on my computer in an envelope.  Here are some samples...

I like the fill in the blank on this one.

Miranda and I went to the dog park and costco. This awaited me on my return.

I saw her writing this one. She wasn't copying it, so either she made it up or had it memorized.

Sadness

Today I went to the memorial of an almost 5 year old girl, a daughter of a friend, who died on New Years Eve from cancer.  I pretty much cried from the moment I arrived to when I left.  The parents, preschool teacher, aunts and uncles, and grandparents spoke.   I can't even imagine how they were able to do that.  The parents asked us to all wear something that Lelia would have said she liked...something sparkly or crazy.  So my friends and I all wore pink hair extensions and I borrowed one of Elizabeth's sparkly tiara headbands.  The grandfather wore a purple boa.  It was all so awful, I don't know how people get through something like that.  My kids knew her. She came over many times and we went to a water park with her. I haven't told them and I don't think I'm going to.  So hard.  So sad.

Short term memory or down right lie?

Last night I was watching a tv show in bed and Miranda came in. It was about 8:40 which means she was up pretty late. She said that she felt something sticky behind her ear that was bugging her and she wanted me to look at it.  I took a look and sure enough there was this very sticky feeling behind her ear.  Then I looked at her hair and there was pink stuff in it.  It looked like gum so I said, Miranda, did you have gum today?  Miranda responded, "well...I'm not sure."  I said, "Miranda you have gum in your hair. Didn't you say you had gum on your playdate?"  Miranda then said, "Oh yes."  So I asked her how she got the gum in her hair and head. I asked her if there was gum in her bed...as if she fell asleep with it in her mouth.  She said no.  So as I was cutting the gum out of her hair, I again I asked her how this gum got in her hair. She said she didn't know.  I told her that wasn't an ok answer and she had to think about how this happened.  That is when she said, "Will I get in trouble if I tell you?"  I told her no and she answered:

"Well...I'm not really sure, but I guess it could be from when I stuck that piece of gum behind my ear at Lily's house.  I really wanted a snack, but I was chewing gum, so I put it there."

Notes

Elizabeth has started writing notes to Michael when he comes home.

Nails

Around January 1st, the subject of nail biting came up. I think it did because elizabeth's nails were bleeding from being bit so much.  She was actually in pain.  I told her she had to stop. She agreed but didn't know how.  Which I understand so very, very well.

I tried to think of the thing she would want more than anything and said, "Elizabeth I will take you on a shopping spree if you stop biting your nails for the entire month of January."  Without even knowing what a shopping spree was, she had an idea this was a very, very good thing.  We discussed what it meant and she was all over it.

And you know what, she is actually doing it.  She had one day where she bit one nail on one hand but otherwise she is doing fantastic.  Her nails look great and she is super proud.

She asked if she could mark the calendar with the day of the shopping spree. So we did.  Then she asked if she could get a haircut that day too. I told her sure. And we would get our nails done together.  She is super excited.  And luckily for me, she wants to go to Thrift Town and Target for her shopping spree.

Since it took me 42 year to quit, I'm super impressed she is doing it.

Kids got ahold of my iPad

Catching Fairies

So Miranda has it in her mind that she is going to catch a fairy.  Some friend at school told her how to do it and so she got a little container, made a little fairy bed, put some fairy food in there and then puts it near her bed. Each morning she is surprised there is no fairy in there.

Today she asks me if I can call Sophie, who apparently caught three fairies, and ask her if Miranda can have one. I tell her that no, I'm not going to do that, but that she can ask her tomorrow at school.  Then this conversation happens.

Me: Miranda, why do you think that the fairy will just stay in your container? Why can't she just fly out the way she flew in.

Miranda: Well, she comes at midnight, sees the bed, thinks it's cozy and falls asleep. Then I wake up in the morning and close up the lid.

Me: Oh.

Elizabeth: That won't work because fairies are nocturnal.

SF Adventure

We've been doing a lot of staying home these days which is pure torture for me, as you know. So after being home Friday and yesterday, we did an outing today.  We packed a lovely picnic lunch and head off to Cal Academy in the morning.  We stayed just over an hour or so, moving from rain forest to aquarium to earth quake exhibit and then hung out a nearby playground having our early lunch.  After that, the kids put on their roller skates and blades and we rolled over to the better playground about a mile away in the park.  The streets are closed to cars on Sunday so there were tons of kids on bikes and skates and scooters.  They played at the playground for a while and then we rolled back.  After a few stops at Asian supermarkets for eel (we are making sushi tonight), we were home with still some time left in the day for daddy to help the girls make instruments in preparation for their fieldtrip to the symphony.

Chess Class

Delightful

After school and enrichment classes and swim team practice, we all came home and I had the kids sit down to do their homework. We do homework on Wednesdays which is the day they get it so we don't have to think about it again.  Parker's is spread out over the week, but usually he can do it all in about an hour.  Even his extra math stuff. He's currently working on Area and Perimeter.

I heated up some mini bagel pizza things as a snack and when they came out of the oven there was a big discussion about how many each kid got. Parker quickly established that there were 9 and so each kid got 3 (I don't like mini bagel pizza things.)

So they started snacking and kept doing their homework.  Elizabeth was struggling with adding by 10's when starting at 88 and started to melt down a bit.  I kept her on track but Parker would get distracted and stare at what we were doing rather then doing his own stuff.  I kept telling him "Worry about your own math..."

So then at one point, Miranda says, "Hey. Where is my third bagel bite?" noticing there were none left on the plate.  I look at Parker who looks immediately guilty.  I ask him how many he had and he starts a big long song and dance about how he started to ask Elizabeth if she was on two or three bagel bites, but that I interupted him and so it was all my fault that he ate the "extra" bagel bite. I totally dismissed his argument saying that it was Miranda's bagel bite and not Elizabeth's so if he had asked Elizabeth I would buy it, but since he didn't and Elizabeth quantity of bagel bites eaten had nothing to do with him eating four, he was just trying to make excuse and it was totally lame that he ate Miranda's bite. He wouldn't give up and was yelling at me through tears about how horrible I was for causing all this and how it wasn't fair and blah, blah, blah.  Miranda is meanwhile crying about not having a third bagel bite.  Then out of nowhere, Elizabeth burst into tears and says, "MOM! I ATE THE 4th BAGEL BITE! I DID! I DID! I'M SO SORRY!"  So I have three kids crying at the table.

I apologize to Parker for yelling at him and blaming him for eating the bagel bite (even though he still didn't know if he had or not), I tell Elizabeth that was cruel to let Parker take the fall for so long, and I tell Miranda to shut the hell up and go get something else to eat.

After five more minutes it was all over and they were busy on their homework again.

Book Learning

Parker has been re-reading all the Diary of a Wimpy kid books.  It's kinda sweet (since he just curls up with the book in the middle of the day) and kinda annoying (since they books are really for older kids and are teaching him all sorts of bad stuff....like sarcasm.)

He recently taught the girls this "joke" from one of the books:

"Doctor...I need a new butt. Mine has a crack in it!"

Which is actually pretty funny and made us all laugh a lot.

And...

"Dear Grandma...Thanks so much for the pair of pants that you sent me for Christmas.  I'm a lucky did to get a pair of pants.  All the other kids will be so jealous of my pants."



Speaking of books....here's a nice flash back to some reading videos....

Another Regular Sunday

Trying new things

We've been trying to get a bit more organized around here.   I've asked the kids to put in "orders" for lunch. Each lunch must contain and Main thing (sandwich, soup, yogurt), something crunchy (crackers, veggie chips), a fruit or veggie (apple, grapes, strawberries, avocado) and an "other" for a treat like cookie or granola bar.  This week it worked very well and they all ate all their lunches every day.

I'm also trying to get them to take some ownership of making sure they are ready in the morning.  So we have been using this checklist and it's been working pretty well too.

And lastly, I listed all our dinner menus on this big white board in the kitchen so the kids knew what we were eating every day.  They loved it.  Not only did they like the concept, they liked the dinners more it seemed.

Hopefully, I can keep it up for a while...

Icy.

Parker said yesterday:  Mom, Luka said that all the water will freeze tomorrow.  Is that true?

Me: What do you mean, All the water?

Parker: You know, the water like in the pool.

Me: Well, the pool is heated so even if other water freezes, that water would not.

Parker: Oh good. Because I was worried I would have to do swim practice in ice.

Basketball

Parker started basketball through the rec center yesterday. It's only 2nd grade boys in piedmont and they practice one evening a week and play a game the other.  Parker, as ever, was very enthusiastic, but not super great at it.  Most of the boys on his team are from his class, so it will be a fun group for him.  The coach is a dad on the team and seems really sweet and organized.

Helping mommy's back

Just hanging around.

Not much going on around here since the cousins left.

The kids have had a couple playdates and they each did a sleepover on Friday night. Elizabeth and Miranda to Beck and Bauer's house.  Parker to Owen S house.  All had fun, but Elizabeth came home tired and hungry and not surprisingly cranky.

Otherwise, we've done some cleaning, organizing, sitting around, playing with christmas presents, Michael and I each saw a movie and we've preparing to go back to school tomorrow.

We also hung out at Sue's house on Thursday with Susan and her gang for a bit.  Parker played with Annabelle for a few minutes which was sweet.

I also got some tragic news that my friend's daughter that had cancer but had been fine for the last year or so after a stem cell transplant, died on New Years Eve after the cancer came back. She was only 5 and it's been very hard to process. She's been to our house, gone to the water park with us and jumped in our trampoline.  I can't imagine how her parents are handling it.

So I guess just hanging around is pretty darn good.

The Cousins

After our snow trip, the "cousins" came over for a few days.  It's always great to see them play together. Parker and Oliver bonded more than ever this trip mostly over Wii but also during some other board games.  Last night,  Parker said, "I wish Oliver was my brother. He's so great."  We didn't do much while they were here.  The kids played at home, Amy went for a run, I went to a movie, a few people got sick, and then got better. The last day we all went to SF to the aquarium and then dim sum. All the kids ate something and Eran, Amy and I ate very well. It was delicious.  Despite the throwing up episodes which affected Amy and Eran much more than me, it was a good visit.

Staying warm by the heater.

Trying to figure out the maze.

Snuggling.

At the aquarium. It says, "Why the long faces?" which is funny on many levels.

Miranda ooohing and aaahing at disgusting opossum.

Dim sum!

Yum!

Waiting for the car.