Goulash Post - everything mixed into one

It has been a crazy end of summer and start to the school year. I have a list of blog topics, but know that I am either not going to get to them, or that they are old now and out of date.

 

I will try to hit the high points and not be too spastic:

 

Skadi and Babies:

 

Skadi has an ongoing fascination with babies. If we are at a store and she sees a baby bucket carrier she is over peering into it. I have been trying to catch her as I recall what those early days were like with a new infant and having a potentially germy, sticky kid you don’t know walk up and start peering into the carrier. Ick. Not that my daughter is germy or routinely sticky, but I don’t want her to weird parents out.

 

She came with a theory this summer about how babies get into their mommy’s tummys: “God picks you and says, ‘you there, you are going in a tummy’ and the baby gets to pick if they want to go to that mommy or not. And as soon as she says yes than God puts her in a bag with a parachute and tosses her off the cloud where she falls and falls and falls into the mommy’s tummy! And that’s how babies get into tummies! That’s how I got in your’s mommy, God pointed to you and I said “yes” and he flung me out of the cloud. It is good you were standing still at the time so I could get into your tummy instead of land on the ground.”

 

Skadi also has an innate belief in reincarnation – she believes that her grandma, who died when she was three years old, went to heaven and is in the waiting line to be tossed off a cloud and into someone else’s tummy. And who knows, maybe she is already a little girl somewhere!

 

Sometimes it is hard not to believe every word she says when she recites these stories and beliefs. I am positive she has “lawyer” in her future.

 

Twohead:

 

This remains my favorite Skadi-ism and one that I honestly hope she never loses. Though I am sure it is just a matter of time. Yes, Skadi still calls foreheads, “twoheads”. Unless you are big like daddy, then you have a “forehead”.

 

Camping:

 

We have had a busy summer of camping. We aimed to get our trailer out every other weekend. We only missed a few of those.

 

 

We had one interesting camping trip this summer with a few oddities. Actually it was a pretty miserable camping trip because of all the mosquitos, and I couldn’t wait to get home. But during the trip we encountered a few new things. First off while we were traveling about 10 miles from White Pass – this is major mountain area, not a field, not flatlands, but windy, hairpin road with steep mountain valleys and hills on each side – about 20 miles to Mt. Rainier entrance – we came around a hairpin turn in our Sequoia towing the trailer and nearly hit a calf. As in a baby cow. No idea where in the world it came from or belonged.

 

Anyways, we got to where we were going after a bit of a scare slamming on our breaks for this lone calf in the road. We happened to be camping on a small, shallow river that had an island and a few little spits of land into the river that were super for the kids (except for the bugs). They immediately started playing in the river as AB and I fished.

 

AB and I caught nothing. Leif on the other hand managed to catch, with HIS BARE HANDS, two sucker type fish in the shallow areas. He was terribly proud of himself and hugely popular among the children at the shore. And not very happy with us when I told him that he could, in no way, keep the fish and we would not be eating them. “Sucker fish aren’t good to eat,” we told him. Well he suggested, he could just keep them in a fish tank? We made him throw them back. Mean parents we are.

 

Kindergarten:

 

I can’t believe it, I have a 2^nd grader and a kindergartener!

 

This year we decided to change things up. We pulled Skadi from her private Montessori preschool/kindergarten/1^st-2^nd grade school and stuck her into public school! We took her from the mouth of privilege and snobbery and put her with the rest of the world in public kindergarten and the onsite before school care (since she is in PM kindergarten) with germy, sticky toys.

 

And you know what? The child loves it.

 

It is a different world for her. It is a different world for me – one where instead of talking to her teacher daily, I have heard from her 3 times by e-mail throughout the year. She has a whole new cadre of friends. She brings home library books – waving them in the air from the moment she gets off the bus. She recites her addition tables and identifies words. She is completely pleased with her new school and chatters incessantly about her day.

 

Orlando:

 

Way back when, we told the kids “if mommy’s team wins this big award, we will go to DisneyWorld!”

 

And then it happened. I got the news we won and Leif and I jumped up and down in the kitchen squealing about DISNEYWORLD!

 

We went to Disneyworld almost 2 years ago and had a pretty good time. It could have been better, but we weren’t prepared like we will be now!!

 

So after months of wrangling for permission to even go to the awards and then further wrangling about using 3 days of vacation time while on travel (and taking a hit on what work will pay for because of this - aka manager discretion) we have tickets (airline and park), hotel rooms, dinner reservations, I have a formal dress, AB needs a tux and I need to confirm the babysitter for the night of the awards.

 

On our list:

Day 1: Epcot (girl’s breakfast with the princesses while the boys ride rides), dinner at Chefs de France

Day 2: Hollywood Studios (family breakfast with Disney Jr characters), Fantasmic in the evening.

Day 3: TBD, dinner at a Cuban restaurant

Day 4: Magic Kingdom, breakfast with Winnie the Pooh and friends, Mickey’s Not So Scary Halloween Party

Day 5: TBD (beach maybe), switch to SeaWorld hotel for awards.

Day 6: SeaWorld, Mommy’s award ceremony.

Day 7: Universal Studios

Day 8: Fly Home

 

Cannot wait.

 

 

The Nugget

 

Have you made it this far? Stuck with me? Well then you are awarded with a nugget.

 

Head on over here and check it out.

 

Carman Baby #3 to arrive in April 2013! Officially will be announced at some point in the coming few weeks on Facebook.

Putting One Foot In Front Of The Other

I haven’t done a decent update in awhile. I have a huge list of blog topics, but a lack of time to actually write them. And for me it is kind of like a snowball effect. It starts out little, and then as time goes on the snowball gets bigger and bigger as it threatens to run me over. Maybe I have been run over. In some effort to start new after being run over, I will try and get caught up, let's see how I do.

Major Purchase:

We bought a travel trailer in early May. AB and I love camping, we both grew up camping, we want our kids to enjoy camping. But I have reached a point where a dome tent with two kids and two dogs on an air mattress just takes all pleasure out of it. Over the last few years we have identified what exactly we want in a trailer and this spring we surprised ourselves and pulled the trigger. We had been looking for used 4-season bunkhouses and knew what was reasonable to pay for them. Last fall we negotiated on a used unit, but gave up when they failed to negotiate more than $500 lower off the sticker price. This spring we bought a new one for that same price.

We have taken the trailer out twice, and the kids love it. We are still learning it, but after our first longer trip (3 nights this past Memorial Day weekend) we have it pretty well figured out. And I am even getting good with my handsigns. AB is even better at interpreting my handsigns.

We weren’t actually quite where we wanted to be financially before buying it. But in the last year I have given a lot of thought to what living means. I look at my mom’s life and while she had a good life, I look at the things left undone. The things she hoped to accomplish. No one knows our fate. But I have embraced living more in the last year. Taking off and doing the things we want to do instead of just talk about them. I want my kids to love the outdoors and to tramp around the forests like my sister and I did as kids as well as AB and his family did, and have those experiences that we both remember so fondly. I have to make that happen. Purchasing the trailer is making that happen for us.

And my 16 year old self is so laughing at me for “RV’ing”.

Leif:

Leif is wrapping up his last year at the Montessori school he has been at since he was one year old. 6 years here, the end of a legacy of sorts. Wah. My baby Is growing up.

Leif is so very excited to move on to bigger and better things, though he is so very tentative. He really isn't sure about this whole riding the bus without me thing. He will be in public first grade this coming fall. This summer he is looking forward to some science camps at the local branch university and Adventure camp through our health club.

Leif is such a sweet, loving, tender hearted little boy. Poor kid doesn’t understand girls at all and is constantly confounded by them. He surprises me daily with the things he knows and remembers.

The other day Leif and one of his friends was playing at the park as Skadi practiced TBall. I looked over and saw him crawling up the outside of the slide tube. When I went over to him I asked him if that was very safe. He thought for a bit and then replied, “No, but it was impressive.”

We opened a 529 account for the kids awhile back and because I am a geek I maintain a spreadsheet that forecasts the funds growth on a quarterly basis. I set it up and forecasted out and then calculated the year that Leif will go to college. When I realized that I didn’t have to scroll down 3 pages to get to that year it made me a bit ill. My baby is growing up. College is only one Excel page view of quarters away! GAH!

Skadi:

Oh Skadi Skadi Skadi. My sweet little girl… sometimes. The other time she is something else.

We are struggling with Skadi in preschool, out of preschool, through the night… What can I say? It’s darn good that she is as cute as she is! I contemplated last week pulling her out of the Montessori preschool she has been at for three years now. I was *this* close to pulling the trigger. Then AB went in and talked with the teachers a bit and we decided to sit in the holding pattern for a bit. See how things go through the summer.

I talk and talk to that child.

“You had fun on your McDonalds field trip, right?” (She agrees.) “If you don’t behave you will continue to lose field trips and won’t be able to go do these fun things.” (She agrees to be good.)

She is a smart girl. She is pretty mouthy – the other day threats looming that she was bordering upon losing the “Beach Party Day” at school she dared to tell her teachers they could go ahead and take away the privilege from her, she didn’t care, because she planned to tell her mommy to keep her home and we would have our own party and not invite them, so there.

Sigh.

And no, that is so not happening.

She is quick on her feet with her words, but reminds me a lot of my grandmother when she talks, “betend” is “pretend”. “Yesternight” is last night. “Two-head” is still forehead.

This weekend while camping I went over and started poking (or in AB’s words, “fiddling”) with the campfire. My husband is a bit particular about his campfires and with the wet weather this weekend, he had his work cut out for him. Skadi sees me and said, “"Mom, hurry up fiddling with the fire before daddy gets back and sees you!"

The other day Skadi came out of the bathroom and announced, “Mom, I think I am finally old enough to learn how to pee like a boy.”

And then there are days unlike the start of this section where I so agree with her and know she is my daughter, “Leif: "I want to listen to Les Miserables, the Battle Scene in Act 2."
Skadi: "I want to listen to Dancing Queen."

AB:

AB recently had the joy of jury duty. I have always wanted to serve on a jury panel. Yes, seriously. My friends and coworkers look at me like I am nuts when I say this. But for some reason I would like to see first hand our legal system in action. After AB was on a jury panel for a week he can unequivocally say that there is little "action" and that he hopes to never have to rely on our judicial system.

Anyways, I was still jealous. He actually got picked after offering up every reason why he shouldn’t… “I know the prosecutor”, “I work at the same place as the defendant and he looks familiar to me”, “I don’t want to serve, but I know it is my civil duty” (among a group of people who said they did want to serve nonetheless)… but alas he was picked and got to hear abuse stories that still make him cringe. Yeah, maybe I don't want to serve on a jury... I have a friend that served on one about a farmer stealing another one's goats - and a friend's wife who served on a jury about poaching of eagles... nope, AB got a real nasty one.


Work:

My work. Blah.

It’s hard to get very enthused about it when people around me are struggling to find enough work to prevent themselves from being laid off. I am normally in a position to help people out a bit, but this FY, not so. I don’t have much buffer myself. I have even set up an Excel sheet to plan out my upcoming work to make sure I can cover myself. I may be embracing 3-day weekends this summer more than I have in the past.

One of my topics on my list to blog about is the whole “best friend” at work thing. We do these polls that estimate our happiness as a group with our place of employment. Historically my group scores high, which is pretty cool. One of the questions on the poll asks if you have a best friend at work. For years I have been in a position to answer yes to that simply because one of my best friends works here, though I have never had the occasion to work with her. The fact still remains that I have a best friend at work.

In the last few months I have actually had occasion to fully embrace the notion of having a best friend at work in the context of the question. What they want to know is do you have someone you work with that you can go and talk to about what is going on. Sure my good friend down in the other building, who I can’t actually talk to about what I do on a daily basis qualifies to a certain degree. As do the couple of women in my hallway who I can go and talk about daycare or restaurants or hotels, but once again have never really actually worked with them. In the last year I have found my best friends at work… two unassuming guys I work with regularly that I don’t think anyone would really peg them as my “best friends”. But the last 6 months or so they have heard me whine, bitch, cry and complain – and I have heard it from them too. Ok, so they don’t cry. And I only almost cried once.

It’s a big step for me actually. I work on a lot of varied projects with lots of different people and rarely a single core group as so many people do. I get good reviews from people and word of mouth (I believe) is why I am not short on work right now when so many people I know are. I have gotten to know a lot of different people and get called up to do lots of varied projects. I have talked with the two about teaming more regularly and we have a few concepts in the pipeline. I enjoy working with them, appreciate their strong work ethics and we work well as a team. What more could you ask for?

There is a lot of tension here as work is becoming more scarce. Project work has become competitive when jobs are suddenly at stake. While I am funded right now, it is the end of the fiscal year that scares the daylights out of me. Most of my “little” projects wrap up between now and then due to either lack of funding or meeting our completion date. I have a big proposal that was sent out to my least favorite client this morning. One of the guys I wrote the proposal with told me last week that the program manager was already telling him congratulations on it. So I am crossing my fingers that project comes through, though I fully expect another CR and thus actual money won’t arrive until well into FY12 I am sure.

Work… eh, it’s ok. But AB and I have started talking… wonder what else is out there? Where in the world could we wander to? Do we want to live here forever and ever?

Goals:

Ha ha ha ha ha ha!

Yes typically speaking about this time of year my goals start going by the wayside. Summer is just hard to maintain that “do the work around the house” attitude when we have so much we are doing outside and the days are long.

As of today though the quilt is very nearly ready to haul down to the long arm to be quilted. That will be my big checkmark.

AB cleaned the garage pretty well… I intended to help. And I intended to get down and dirty by digging out every last little remnant and adorning the garage with plastic bins and random storage notions.

Well the garage is clean and that is that. My motivation to go out there and work at it more is nill. Not when I have my MIL coming for a visit, a trailer that needs to be cleaned and mopped for the next Father’s Day trip and laundry stacked up to the ceiling upstairs.

June optional goals… if I have time I plan to:

June goal #1 – Think about the outdoor patio kitchen and get some drawings with ideas down on paper.

June goal #2 – detangle my jewelry and figure out something for actual storage of bling that I use on a regular basis.

Two Heads

Kids say the funniest stuff. Then they hit a certain age and things change. It isn't so much that they say the funny stuff, it's that their reasoning becomes funny.


Skadi since she learned what her forehead was called has called it her "twohead".


WHACK!


She is walking along and whacks her head on the granite edge of the countertop.


"OUCH!" She wails, "MY TWOHEAD, I hit my twohead."


And while I want to just hug her and give her loves I have to chocke back the giggles... twohead...

Cool iPhone uses

For a long time there Skadi would only go to sleep if I put her to bed. AB would walk into her room and much to the horror of us all, she would start screaming. It broke AB’s heart, it wasn’t fair to Leif who then never got me for bedtime, and it was hard on me too being the only one who could put her to bed.


This shifted when a few years back I had to start traveling again for work. Suddenly her choices were daddy or nobody. She picked daddy and he wormed his way into the preferred bedtime person by singing her songs at bedtime. Somehow my husband’s soft soothing voice singing “The Rainbow Connection” or “Castle on a Cloud” became her Ambien. And more recently he has become her preferred “putter to bedder”.


This doesn’t bother me. I am making up for lost time with Leif and since Skadi goes to bed before Leif, AB gets to bed earlier. Works out for everyone.


Out of fear of simply swapping roles and getting into a situation where I *can’t* put her to bed, we do switch this up. Skadi is fine with this, but this was the usual result.


Finished reading books.


Skadi: “Mommy, I need a song.”


Me: “Ok, ‘twinkle twinkle…”


Skadi: “No mommy, I need a song from daddy.”


My dad used to always ask my sister and I, “what did you do with the money? The money I gave you for singing lessons?”


Yes, my singing isn’t a pretty thing.


Usually I get up and go drag AB out of Leif’s room to sing her a song and thus finalize the deal.


I figured out something new though the other night that may just give AB a run for his money in the singing department.


YouTube on my iPhone.


Not only does she get to hear “The Rainbow Connection” but she gets to see Kermit sitting on a log singing it!


NM scores one!


I fear though that we are on a slippery slope.


Skadi: “Mommy, play the crocodile song!”




Skadi: “Now mommy, play the pink dancing girls song!”




Skadi: “Wouldn’t it be funny if the crocodile came and ate the girls like he did the frogs?”


Me: “You should be sleeping.” (Stifling laughter.)


Skadi: “I am going to have daddy sing ‘Mahna Mahna’ to me tomorrow night.”


And she drifts off the sleep.


(Another cool use for my iPhone – videocamera! I plan to have my phone there to record this.)

Things I will never understand...

Why my son will eat his boogers, but refuses to taste an olive, or a bean, or allow his food to touch, or drink a carbonated beverage.

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Why my daughter shrieks in pain when anyone looks at her and falls on the floor faint with utter pain when someone brushes by her or the cat looks at her. But she will clip a clothespin on her own earlobe and then say simply, "oh mommy, that hurt!" (Giggle, giggle, giggle!)

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How everything in the world that Skadi ever does is an "ansident", but cannot accept that anything done to her might also be. "Mommy, I ansidentally hit my brother on the head with my doll while he was watching TV!"

It's good my kids make me laugh...

Me putting Skadi to bed:

Skadi: "Mom, I need a song."

Me: "Never smile at a croco-"

Skadi: "No mom, I need a song-"

Me: "Twinkle twinkle little-"

Skadi: "No MOM! I need a song from daddy, go get him please."

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Me: "Skadi, why does the wind blow?"

Skadi: "Because it is rude that way."

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Me: "Where does snow come from?"

Skadi: "From the clouds."

Leif: "No Skadi it comes from little drops of water in the sky that dry out and turn to snow."

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Skadi: "Mommy, can we give me to Niranjana since she doesn't have a sister?"

Me: "Well if you were Niranjana's sister that means you wouldn't be my little girl anymore, you would be Auntie Melissa's little girl."

Skadi: "That's ok, I like Auntie Melissa."

Me: (Sob.)

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Me: "Skadi why is the sky blue?"

Skadi: "Because it is supposed to be."

Me: "Leif, why is the grass green?"

Leif: "Because that means it is healthy."

Me: "Well why is it brown now?"

Leif: "Because it hasn't rained in a long time."

Me: "Does that mean it isn't healthy."

Leif: (Sighing) "Mom, it means it is dormant."

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Leif: "Mom, I want to read 'The Lion, The Witch and the Warthog'."

Me: "I think you mean 'The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe'."

Leif: "No, I mean warthog, why would it be wardrobe?"

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Leif: "I have to have my snow gear today!"

Me: "Well it didn't really snow much, there's barely any out there."

Leif: "Well Ms. M said that if we brought our snow gear we could have a snowball fight!"

Me: "But there isn't enough snow for a snowball fight?"

Leif: "Well then why would she say we could have a snowball fight?"

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Me: "Skadi where were you before you were in my tummy?"

Skadi: "North America."

Me: "What were you doing?"

Skadi: "Just playing dolls and stuff."

Leif: "Mom, babies come from EITHER places or tummies."

Me: "No, all babies come from tummies."

Leif: "No mom, you are wrong, some come from places."

Me: "What do you mean?"

Leif: "Well we came from your tummy, but Niranjana came from India and that is a place."

Me: (Still haven't continued this conversation.)

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Me: "Skadi how are clouds made?"

Skadi: "By God."

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Me: "Skadi how do bushes grow?"

Skadi: "Up."

Leif: "From the ground Skadi, say from the ground, they grow from the ground, it is a trick question."

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Me: "Skadi why is the grass green?"

Skadi: "Because it is supposed to be."

Me: "Leif, why do the trees have leaves?"

Leif: "Because the tree sucks up water and water makes the leaves and the leaves catch more water and make more leaves and more leaves."

Me: "Sounds like you have a pretty firm grasp of science."

Leif: "Yeah, but I want to be a computer engineer spy who works for the CIA mom, I don't want to work with you anymore."

Signs my daughter has been in trouble at preschool...

This morning.

Me: Skadi get your shoes on.

Me: Skadi get your shoes on.

Me: Skadi, I said get your shoes on, we have to get to school.

Skadi: Well Ms. A told me that I lost the privilege of wearing shoes to school.

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At dinner.

AB: Skadi eat your dinner.

AB: Skadi eat your dinner.

AB: Skadi, I said you need to eat your dinner.

Skadi: Well Ms. A told me that I lost the privilege of eating dinner.

Kid-isms

Skadi-ism #1

“Ok parents,” she says.

We are “parents”.

We aren’t “mom and dad” or “mommy and daddy”.

Nope.

“Parents.”

“Parents, I want to know if you would like your children to sing you a song?”

“Parents, you should go in the other room and not look over here.”

“Parents, can I have a snack?”

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At a restaurant waiting for food. The kids have their complimentary crayons and placemat. Skadi is coloring away. Leif is writing words. He prints “fo” on his placemat.

AB: “That’s not a word.”

(I know where this is going. Leif is always writing fo as opposed to “of”.)

Leif: “Yes it is daddy.”

AB: “No it isn’t, it says fo. Fo isn’t a word.”

Leif (becoming insistent): “Yes daddy, it is a word!”

AB: “Ok, use it in a sentence.”

Leif: “Someone who isn’t a SuperHero friend is a foe!”

AB: (Silence.)

Me: “Take that daddy!”

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Skadi has a knack for spinning yarns. She gets on a roll and it just doesn't stop.

Leif asked me what my name was before I got married and I told him my maiden name.

Skadi: "My name before I was in mommy's tummy was Vanya and I was a person who helped other people and made sure they were ok and I did good at my job. Then something happened and I don't know what it was and I was in my mommy's tummy."

Me: "Okaaaaaayyyyy..."

Leif: "Before I was in mommy's tummy, she was in her mommy's tummy and I was still in her tummy and all people are in tummys now."

Me: "Wow, this is deep." (Change subject fast.)

The Huns

Skadi calls her dolls her "Huns".

Example:

Skadi: "Mommy here is your Hun to sit on your lab while we watch this movie." (Hands me a doll.)

Skadi: "Mommy I need to put my Huns down for naps now."

Skadi: "I am going to pick up my Huns so that Freya doesn't eat them."

Somehow I think she has picked up my calling her (and everyone else in my family and even supposidly a coworker today - see below) - "honey" and occasionally, "hon".

Somehow when she talks about her hons, they sound more like "THE Huns".

And all I can see in my head is marching Far Eastern soldiers.

Beaner Banter

Skadi and I were changing her sheets on her bed this morning.

Skadi: "I like beautiful things. My bed being made is beautiful mommy!"

Me: " I agree."

Skadi: "Daddy does not like beautiful things. His bed is all tumbly."

(Ok, that is my bed too... and I get it made most days...)

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Watching morning cartoons and (gasp!) a commercial came on. The kids have become more tolerant of commercials lately.

Skadi: "Look, that mommy on TV is cleaning the bathtub!"

Me: "Yep, she is."

Skadi: "My mommy doesn't clean bathtubs."

(Ok, must change to a different topic... this blog is starting to reflect poorly on me.)

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Skadi and I went to go get a pedicure. Skadi was very excited to go get her toenails done and couldn't wait to finish up lunch. On the way there she raved that this was a mommy and Skadi outting and "no boys allowed!"






She did great getting her pedicure! She sat very still and got bright pink paint that SHE picked out all by herself. The technician had her pegged right off the bat and painted flowers and put rhinestones on her big toenails. All the while I got to enjoy the warm water and massaging chair while someone else primped my daughter.



She came and sat by me when finished and was for the most part quite good. She watched Dora on my iPhone and played Fling.



Skadi: "Mommy, when is she going to do my fingers?"



Me: "Well honey, we just came for toenails."



(Lower lip quiver.)



Technician: "I can paint her nails too!"



Ok... I can either be the real bad guy here or I can indulge my little girl.



Me: "Fine, she can get her fingernails painted too."



When we were all finished...



Skadi: "Can we come back and do this again next weekend?"



Me: "Probably not."



Skadi: "When can we do it again?"



Me: "I am sure we can have another girl's afternoon soon."



Skadi: "Ok then. I think we should go shopping at Target now!"



Oh my.



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Leif has lately been into trying new foods. Part of it probably has to do with our marble rewards system. Each of the kids have a jar and I have a big fish bowl thing full of multicolored glass rocks. When they do something good, they get a marble. When they do something bad, they lose one.



AB added in the rule that if you lose a marble then you have to take it out yourself and if you refuse and we have to take one out, we take two instead. This has been working pretty well in our house. It works better than sticker charts for me and the kids because I don't have to remember to make a new sticker chart, and so far the rewards are pretty vague. Leif has stated he is saving all his marbles to get a Wii Spiderman game. We have been doing this for about 6-8 weeks and his jar is about 1/8th full... but he is still targeting that Wii Spiderman game. I figure he will earn it at about Christmastime.



Skadi hasn't done as great with the marbles. It does kill her to lose a marble, and she keeps getting them for things like a good report from her teachers, sharing with her brother and sleeping through the night. But she doesn't succumb to the marble bribery like Leif does.



Me: "Skadi if you eat some salad you can get a marble."



Skadi: "I don't want a marble."



Compare to...



Me: "Leif if you eat some salad you can get a marble."



Leif: (Gobble gobble gobble.) "Mmm, I like salad. Can I try some of that asparagus and get a marble too?"



Leif has even been trying new foods without us asking, counting on the fact that we do notice this and will immediately tell him he can get a marble. This is amazingly broadening his culinary horizons substantially.



I look forward to the day when Skadi views this as a competition...

Conversations with Skadi

Skadi: "You know what I want mom?"

(She has taken to calling me "mom" instead of mommy and I am not terribly thrilled.)

Me: "What?"

Skadi: "A baby."

Me: "A baby? Like a real baby?"

Skadi: "Yeah, a girl type one."

Me: "You want a little sister?"

Skadi: "Yep, like Cate has."

Me: "Hmm. I don't know about that. You should probably talk to daddy about that."

(Totally pawning this off...)

Skadi: "I did."

Me: "Oh you did?"

Skadi: "Yes."

Me: "What did he say?"

Skadi: "He said yes."

Me: "He did??"

Skadi: "Yes. And he said that the baby can sleep in my room too and I will take such good care of her! And I will hold her like this and say 'oh little baby I love you so!' Like that."

Me: "Wow. Ok. I will take all this into consideration."

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Skadi at the eye doctor reading icons:

"Plane to Colorado, give me five, unicorn without a horn, cupcake, parrot"

Doctor: (Giggling) "Wow, she is something isn't she?"

(Plane, Hand, Horse, Birthday Cake, Chick)

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Skadi's new game: "Ok, pretend like you are driving through Starbucks and I will take your order now."

"When I grow up I wanna be an old woman..."

"an old old old old woman. Then I think I'm gonna marry myself an old man... we're gonna have 120 babies? 105 and 15 babies. We'll raise them on tiger's milk and green bananas, mangoes and coconuts and watermelon..."

That Michelle Shocked song always crosses my mind when I say to myself "when I grow up".

The following sums up the difference between my son and daughter.

Me: "Leif what do you want to be when you grow up?"

Leif: "A computer engineer."

Me: "Skadi what do you want to be when you grow up?"

Skadi: "A merdade." (Translation - mermaid.)

A conversation from this evening...

Skadi: "Ms. A is sick and that is so sad. I don't want anyone to ever get sick mommy."

Me: "I don't either. Maybe you should be a doctor when you grow up so you can help people not get sick."

Skadi: (Sits up in bed.) "NO MOMMY! I am not going to be a doctor, I have told you and told you that I am going to be a merdade when I grow up." (Plops back into her bed.)

Ten years from now I am going to be in big trouble... I know.

The funny and the not so funny

Leif gets a kick out of making up lines of words to go along songs or nursery rhymes he hears. The other night for example, “Mary had a little lamb, little lamb, little lamb, Mary had a little lamb and she fell down on her nose!”

Hilarious, right?

Skadi has picked up this tendency. I kind of feel for Leif because I remember way back when my sister would say something funny and EVERYONE would laugh and think it was so funny. And I sat there with my jokes that drew rolled eyes.

(My favorite joke when I was 5 years old: “Why did the little girl monster eat bullets?” Answer: “Because she wanted to grow bangs!”)

Leif has modified his joke that we forbade him from saying anymore the other day. Now instead of asking “what’s your name?”, he asks, “what’s your first name?” When you look at him like ‘I told you we aren’t doing this’, he insists it is different. Now he asks for your first name, second name and last name, then goes on to “what color is the sky” and “what direction am I pointing?” Then he again insists it is different. And we scowl or roll our eyes.

(Brian, I told Leif your joke and he looked at me blankly… sorry!)

Then it just comes so naturally with Skadi.

Skadi: “Humpty dumpty sat on the wall, Humpty Dumpty had an atomic wedgie!”

Yes… sad to say, we all laughed. I know I probably shouldn't have encouraged it, it was just... just... so Skadi. Not sure where she picked up “atomic wedgie”…

And poor Leif is left wondering how to be funny like her.

Sorry Leif. Really sorry to have saddled you with a lack of joke telling ability.

Skadi's word of the week

“Trash”

Definition: Messed up.

Common Usage: Trashy, Trashed

Examples:

The Tivo recorded a glitchy Dora the Explorer that kept fading in and out.

Skadi: “Change this mommy, this one is all trashed.”


The Tinkerbell DVD has seen better days…

Skadi: “No, we can’t watch Tinkerbell, that DVD is trashed.”


At bed last night.

Me: “Look at that cute little tushy!”

Skadi: “No mommy, I am not a little trashy.”

Bean Speak

Skadi's new preschool teacher has a tendency to call the kids, "darlin". I am not positive if it is just girls, or boys too. I haven't heard it out of Leif, so I am thinking just the girls are darlin'.

Skadi: (to me) "Come on darlin', come in my secret fairy house."

Me: "Why doesn't Leif crawl in there with you."

Skadi: "Because brothers are not allowed in secret fairy houses."

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Skadi: (at bedtime) "Darlin' I want you to read the poop book to me."

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You get the idea, we have all been Skadi's "darlin's" this weekend.

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We have switched from doing Friday lattes to Friday mini doughnut day. Ok, the kids have switched from ordering Friday hot chocolates to doughnuts... I am still a latte person. That's not to say I don't WANT a mini doughnut and if I have been good during the week I might partake. You know you get the third one at such a discount if you order three...

Leif: "YAY chocolate doughnut for me!"

Skadi: "YAY pink doughnut for me with sprinkles!"

Leif: "YAY chocolate doughnut for me!"

Skadi: (sounding very seriously) "Leif that sign right there says I am sorry there are no more chocolate doughnuts, you have to have a pink doughnut."

Leif: "NO MOM! WHY DON'T THEY HAVE CHOCOLATE DOUGHNUTS! NOOOO!!"

Me: "Leif, can Skadi read?"

Leif: "No."

Me: "So when she tells you what a sign says, why do you believe her?"

(Pause.)

Leif: "MOM! THEY DON'T HAVE CHOCOLATE DOUGHNUTS!"

Me: "Yes, Leif, they do. She was just teasing you."

Skadi: (Giggles)

Leif: "That is SO mean Skadi!"

She so has his number.

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Skadi is a very apologetic child. Anything done on accident she is quick to apologize for. The things done on purpose, you may NEVER get an apology out of her short of threatening time out. She is so apologetic sometimes, that I have been telling her she doesn't have to apologize ALL the time, only when she hurts someone. Because she will apologize for touching you.

Me: (After stepping on the side of her foot.) "Oh, I am so sorry Skadi, are you okay?"

Skadi: "Well it hurt an awful lot, but you don't have to say you are sorry."

So far, explaining to her when to use sorry? Not so successful.

Skadi Speak

Skadi: "I have a mini to go put in my mini bank!"


Alternative: "I have moneys to go put in my mini bank!"


Translation: "I have a penny (or any single coin) to go put in my piggy bank!"

Mini = single coin.
Mini Bank = where you put your coins one at a time.
Money = Plural of mini
Piggy = Just the shape of the mini bank

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One of my favorites recently:

Leif: "Hey Skadi, do you like Green Eggs and Ham?"

Skadi: (Stuffing cereal in her mouth.) "No, Go fish."

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Every once in awhile I get bored of Dora. We read Dora books every.single.night.

Every night.

I beg and beg for one of the many, many other books in her bookshelf and she says no. Only Dora.

So sometimes I make things up.

Like: "Hello Skadi, I am Swiper would you like a cookie?" Instead of "Swiper, no swiping!"

So I was a bit surprised when she responded quickly without missing a beat and a completely straight face - I go for the giggles, I want giggles. But I got a straight face and a simple response:

"Hi Swiper, yes, I would like a cookie, a caramel cookie!"

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I had a stomach ache and was laying on the couch.

Skadi took my temperature (with her doctor's kit), listened to my heart and stomach with her stethoscope.

"Here," she said, "I get you a blanket."

She covers me up.

"Ok now," she continues, "Push the baby out."

AB's head whipped around quite fast! My jaw dropped open.

When I inquired at school no one had any ideas. I loved though that Ms. S admitted it was her, that she was the one expecting (a widow in her mid-50's with boys my age). They did tell me that one of Skadi's "friends" (term used loosely - she has a lot of conflicts with this one little girl) has been telling everyone her mommy is going to have a baby, though no one thinks it true.

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And wrap up with a Leif one.

Leif has been a bit emotional lately.

Ok, so he has been a lot emotional lately.

Everything bugs him, you can't look at him sideways. His feelings get hurt very easily. Most of all, he seems terrified of not having me around. I think this is common at this age, but it is also a bit more prominent with my mom's health. This absolutely breaks my heart.

The other night he was hugging me, "Mommy, even when you are a grandma, I don't want you to move out of this house and leave me, ever ever. I want you to stay with me always."

This is of course, contrary to him telling me the other day he was getting married and moving to "her" house. When I said I would miss him terribly he agreed to split the nights between "her" house and ours. One night at "her" house, one night at our house.

Well at least he is honest... I know what I am watching for in another 22 years!

Weird things my daughter says...

To her teacher today at daycare:

"Actually I want my pee to stay inside my bladder."

(Both my kids start sentences with "actually" and "probably" to a ridiculous extent.)

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To me this evening:

NM: "Skadi what did you draw?"

Skadi: "It says humback whales are not allowed to draw on the door."

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In the car this morning:

Skadi: "I am going to punch you in the face!"

NM: "SKADI! We do NOT say that we are going to punch people in the face. We NEVER punch people in the face."

Skadi: "I know. We can only punch elephants in the face."

Say what you mean or mean what you say?

I think Skadi got a bit of my grandmother in how she speaks. Skadi very easily makes up words and mispronounces words. It's always been a bit of a joke with my grandmother. About 10 years ago she got out of back surgery and they weren't going to release her from the hospital because she was mixing up her words - someone finally convinced the therapists that was just how she spoke. And it's been that way since I was a kid.

Word: "Tamrow"
Usage: "Is it going to be tamrow?"
First thoughts: Tamara? A name? We were starting to think it was an imaginary friend.
Reality: "Tomorrow". Only took us a few months to figure that one out and I beat daycare to figuring it out.

Word: "Holy-popper"
Usage: "Look through the holy-popper."
Reality: Well this one is obvious since she is holding her set of kids binoculars when she says it.

Word: "Holy-scoper"
Usage: "Look through the holy-scoper."
Reality: Yeah, not much difference than the above. In this case it is in reference to the telescope on the Little Tykes playset. She got the "scope" part.

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Leif: "Can I have more tuna fish casserole?"

AB and I were perplexed.

NM: "We haven't had any tuna fish casserole, plus I thought you didn't like it?"

Leif: "No, the good tuna fish casserole!"

AB: "We don't know what you mean Leif."

Leif: (walks over to the cooling lefse) "THIS tuna fish casserole, can I have more of this tuna fish casserole?"(pointing to the lefse)

This happened twice. And yes, I am still perplexed.

Words never spoken more true

Skadi: "Dear God. Make my mama not sad anymore because hers is my mama."

"The SUN man!"

First I am just going to say - and I posted this on Facebook a month or so ago. Seeing some guy jumping and dancing wildly on a street corner dressed as the Statue of Liberty? Not a big selling point to me in picking someone to do my taxes.

However, I will say that for 3.5 months of the year this does provide a huge amount of entertainment to the apparent target audience.

Skadi calls him "the sun man".

The other day, "Hims the sun man, why hims dressed like a sun mommy?"

Yesterday Skadi: "Sun man is dancing mommy! I am going to wave at him!"

Yesterday Me: "Please don't. Please."

Yesterday Skadi: "HI SUN MAN! ROLL THE WINDOW DOWN MOMMY!"

Yesterday Me: "No." (Pressing the gas pedal harder.)

Today: "HEY SUN MAN! HI SUN MAN!" (Followed by loads of laughter. Loads and loads.)

Can April 15th get here sooner?