Catching Up

I have a list of blog topics from the past few weeks. I just have had no time to sit down and blog. Let's see how many I can knock out here before the kids need something...

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Starbuck's April Fools

Way back on April Fools Day we went to Starbucks. I am not a fan of April Fool's Day at all. What with being named April, I heard one too many times growing up, "It's April's Day, April is a fool!" Honestly I have never been a fan of the month in general starting way back in kindergarten when I would bring home stacks upon stacks of papers from school that weren't mine. We were required to put the date on papers and the kids always just gave me all the ones that said April. My mom would sort them out and send the majority back to school with me.

Anyways, we don't do April Fool's Day in this house. I suck at jokes and just can never get pranks right.

We got up like any normal day and I needed coffee that morning. At the window the girl offered us some samples of breads. I saw that they had chocolate chips in them and grabbed two, one for each kid. I handed them back and not surprisingly, Skadi took a bite and declared it icky. She declares most everything icky. Not surprising.

Then Leif pipes up:

"Hey, Starbucks played an April Fool's Joke on us. This bread is icky!" he declared.

"What? What is wrong with it?" I knew if Leif was declaring anything with chocolate chips icky, then there was a problem.

"It's banana with chocolate chips," he started.

"You like that?" I asked perplexed.

"But these chocolate chips are MINT!" he cried.

I tasted it. He was right. Nasty. Banana chocolate chips would have flown, but yeah, there was a reason they were giving away hunks of that bread. Ick.

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Every once in awhile when I am running behind on a Wednesday night getting things picked up for the housecleaner, I admit it, I will pay Leif to do some extra things. Believe me, $1 to pick up Skadi's bedroom, is seriously a bargain for me. He does a decent job, Skadi doesn't end up in tears and time out for not helping, and Leif earns a dollar to put in his bank.

The other day though I went up and found Skadi's piggy bank open on the floor. Raided.

Skadi kind of doesn't care about money, so I was confused. Not like her brother who is ALL about the money.

"Skadi, what is your piggy bank doing on the floor?" I asked.

"Leif wanted some money," she told me.

"What did he want money for?" I asked her getting a bit confused.

"I wanted him to play with me and he didn't want to, so I offered him money," she said.

"LEIF!"

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One day Skadi was in the bath singing "Head, Shoulders, Knees and Toes". I could tell that was the song only from the tune. She was getting all the words wrong.

"No Skadi," I corrected her, "HEAD, SHOULDERS, KNEES, TOES."

She looks at me like I am an idiot and goes on singing her mumbo jumbo.

Then I found out the next day at school she was singing it in Japanese.

Stupid American move #2? We went out for Japanese food and the kids decided they wanted to sing to the waitress.

They sang the song in Japanese to the waitress.

"Oh neat," she said carefully in her thick accent, "the only thing I know in Japanese is how to say hi since I am Chinese."

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And there it is, the whining for mom! Three topics off my list.