Vocab

It was quite the night for the girls and ... language. The hits:

1) Cici had pho tonight (a Vietnamese soup) that she really enjoyed. After her first bite she proclaimed, "So flippin' good!"

2) Ruby likes using and playing with chopsticks. Except she calls them fish sticks. (And we don't even FEED them fish sticks.) After a few tries at correcting her we simply gave up and let her have fun with her fish sticks.

3) When got home after dinner Momlissa, Dadam and Cici sat down to play Uno. When Cici was forced to Draw 2 we heard her mutter something that sounded like "damn." When we asked her, "What did you say?" she very convincingly told us, "I said dim."

Is This Some Kind of Trick Question?

DADAM: Ruby, why don't you put some pants on? There's a draft coming under that door.

RUBY: A giraffe? Where? What giraffe?

DADAM: Not giraffe, draft. Do you know what a draft is?

RUBY: Yeah, a animal.

DADAM: No, not giraffe, draft. Do you know what a draft is?

RUBY: Um, a horse.

A Breakthrough.

I don't want to jinx it, but we seem to have had a breakthrough with Ruby doing you-know-what in the you-know-where. I'll follow up later this week, when it should be clearer how things are, um, "going."

Cici's First Letter to the Editor.

Yesterday morning Cici had asked to use finger paints at a not-too-practical moment, and I said no. She sat down at the table with her paper and markers, and a few minutes later delivered to me her very first protest letter. It read:

Dad,

Dad Dad
No No
Dad Dad
No No

Ha! She got sent to her room for insolence, of course, but Momlissa and I were both secretly proud of her for expressing herself in writing, and so fast. And while in Time-Out she did produce a follow-up letter equally quickly:

Dad,

I am sorry
So so sorry

Cute kid.

Hi, Nicole & Todd!

Here's a picture, just of me, just for you. DING!

Run Run Run

Those of you who know Cici well know she is extremely interested in drawing and painting and has more than a little aptitude in this area. Well, this past weekend she completed her first major work – a book she wrote, illustrated, and bound (!) all on her own. The only help we gave her were with the spellings of three words; in fact, we didn’t even know what she was working on when she would shout, “Dad! How do you spell flower?” from the other room.

I hope to scan the book itself and post it here soon, but until I can, here’s the text.

Run Run Run

By Cici

Run sed the flower run
Run sed the cat run
Run sed the lion run
Run sed the pig run
Run sed the dog run
Run sed the log run

Run sed everyone

A little masterpiece, isn’t it? Each line appears on its own page and is accompanied by a picture of the animal or object being described. When I say that Cici bound it herself, I’m not kidding; she actually folded the pages to make a perfectly functional little booklet and then fixed them together with Scotch tape.

And that’s not all – after the end of the story, the author must have found that she still had six pages left to fill up. So she simply wrote THE END in large letters on every single one of those pages.

A masterpiece.

MLK Day

Last Friday Cici was telling me that she didn't have school on Monday (which I already knew because I'm a super good mom!). So I asked her why that was, and she responded with, "Because it's someone's birthday." And when I asked her who was having a birthday, she said, "Someone who wanted to make peace."

I know it seems like a fairly small exchange, but something about it filled me with joy. I love the idea that she's at school learning about Martin Luther King, Jr. and some of the things he did, and she's only five, and she retained enough of it to tell me he wanted to make peace. Warms my heart.

The Eyes Have It

Cici got in a fight with some playground equipment this week. She lost.

Chillin' with Gramps

Grandma and Gramps K were here for a visit last weekend and we had a great time. I thought these pictures were pretty sweet of Gramps with his girls (even though he's smiling because the Packers were winning), so I thought I'd share them here.

Back to the Old Drawing Board.

Oh, and for those of you waiting with bated breath for an update on potty training - well, let's just say if there's anybody out there who can turn poopy underwear into gold, I'd be very interested in hearing from you. No rush, though.

The Tooth Fairy That Almost Wasn't.

Momlissa has already mentioned that the Tooth Fairy brought Cici a dollar, which is about four times the going rate when I was a kid, if I recall. (Not to sound like Andy Rooney or anything.)

But she didn't mention that we had some anxiety when the supreme moment finally arrived; after being whipped into a frenzy by me ("Look under the pillow! Look under the pillow!"), Cici drew back said pillow to reveal - nothing.

The anxiety wasn't on the part of Cici, who is a very selfless little girl. (This, after all, is the kid who slept past 8:30 on Christmas morning, and who, when she got up, was almost more interested in cereal than Santa.) No, it was on my part, and I began frantically tearing apart the bedding, saying, "Don't worry, Cici, the Tooth Fairy didn't forget, I think it's pretty safe to say the Tooth Fairy didn't forget."

And, of course, she didn't. As those who know my children well can attest, they both thrash wildly throughout the night, and the dollar was ultimately found to be not under the pillow, but under the bed.

Cici was pleased enough (the dollar went in the piggy bank), and I suppose I needn't have worried. But something tells me next time the Tooth Fairy might take extra steps to ensure that cash prize is exactly where it should be the next morning.

Ones involving duct tape, perhaps. . . .

It's out!

Cici lost her first tooth last night! Dadam and Cici wiggled it around all night to no avail, and then it was time for bed. The girls were upstairs in bed when we heard, "I LOST MY TOOTH!" We went running upstairs and, sure enough, there was her tiny little tooth in her hand.

Despite the late notice the tooth fairy still managed to show up and leave Cici one, whole dollar.

Kind of hard to believe our baby is old enough for this kind of thing already...

Cousin Banessa

Cici and her Cousin Vanessa on Christmas Day. They both look so sweet, which is very very wrong.

Hi, Vanessa! (Nice sweater, you grandma.)

It's a Zoo!

On New Year's Day we took the girls to the zoo so we could get out of the house and squeeze in one last hurrah before getting back to our regular routine. We even let Grandma come along to make it interesting (like when she walked into a concrete pole, for example)! We saw a dolphin show, a bird show -- they fly right over your head! -- and saw all sorts of interesting, beautiful animals.

On the left and below is Dadam and the girls waiting for the dolphin show to start... (On a side note, Ruby's insane, curly hair is now long enough to put into a pony-tail, much to relief of her mother).


Here's Ruby looking into the shark tank. It looks like she's standing close to the tank, but every time one of the big sharks started swimming toward the glass she would take several steps backward. Fraidy-cat!









Lastly, here is Cici standing next to a sign about the otter pups that share her birthday!

Murderers!

Dadam and the girls were VERY excited to cook and eat lobsters on New Year's Eve with Landi and Bill. Here are the before, after, and after-after shots from a terrific evening with good food, lots of fun, and people we love. Happy New Year!