I will show you grandma in a grain of rice

Simone is really fascinating right now. Her language is in a very literal phase right now. Instead of saying, "I'm hungry!", she'll say, "I want cookie in mouth." Another time, I was talking to my mother on the phone and Sim wanted to talk too, so she said, "I want grandma in my ear." It's very amusing.

That's all understandable of course but what's really interesting to me is how surreal she's suddenly gotten. She was eating dinner and staring into her food and then she picks up a single grain of rice on her fork and says, "Look, it's Grandma! Hiyo Grandma!" She then continued addressing the grain of rice as if it's grandma. She repeated a similar scenario the next day with a toothbrush she claimed was Lisa. I was in stitches.

We lost a balloon awhile ago and it's had quite an effect on this kids imaginations, especially Simone. Weeks later, if Simone sees photos or drawings of balloons, she immediately starts babbling about the lost balloon in the sky. Now, she's claiming other things are floating off into the sky too. I so wish I could perceive the world through her eyes sometimes. I know she must be worried that me or Roen or her teddy bear may fly off into the sky. Never to return. The associations children make between events are so fresh and strange. I'm always amazed when people ask me if I'm bored staying at home basically implying kids are dull creatures that should be left with a babysitter. Every day they do something fascinating. Every day, I can see why Piaget was so fascinated with their thought processes.

happy feet

I went upstairs briefly this morning and ended up staying up there a little longer than I intended. I could hear my children playing happily downstairs, so I wasn't too concerned until I stepped out of the stair well and saw their beaming faces and the multicolored floor. Red, blue, purple, green and yellow footprints were all over the dining room and hallway. Ro and Sim had pulled open one of the drawers of our craft cabinet and taken out the ink pads. Luckily for me and our hardwood floors, it was ones with food safe dyes.

Anyhow, I gasped in horror and I said," Ro you KNOW these ink pads are only for stamping on paper!" He seemed affronted and said, "But we ARE making footprints on paper!!!" And sure enough, they were but the paper was about five feet from the (multi-color)ink pad. ergh!!! It ended up being a breeze to clean up but for about 30 seconds I thought I was going to freak out. I've moved the ink pads to a less accessible location.

Happy Easter

We had a pleasant Easter. First, church and then lunch followed by an egg hunt. Next, we watched The Curse of the Were-Rabbit, which was a bit much for Ro. I felt a little uncomfortable watching it with him. It's a lot more action packed than other Wallace & Gromit adventures and there are guns, aggravated people and people saying rude things to one another. All of these situations make Ro quite nervous. He seemed relieved when it was over and said, "Oh, it WAS just a silly rabbit movie." I thought Ro was going to lose it when the Were Rabbit appears to die and the little rabbits start crying. Unfortunately, I think we scarred him for life by showing him Chitty Chitty Bang Bang. At least once a week he asks me if I'm going to die. During bad weeks, it's a couple times a day. In the movie version of Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, the mother is dead and the father is pursuing Truly Scrumptious as a new love interest. Ro did not like this idea at all. On days he doesn't ask if I'm going to die, he'll casually inform me that he doesn't want a new mommy and then wander off and play with robots or something. ergh!

I labelled all the eggs for the egg hunt, which took quite awhile but worked out really well. Not only did Ro have to read everyone's names but it allowed for even egg distribution despite uneven egg finding abilities. Simone can only find eggs in very obvious places like right in front of her in the open grass. Ro found the most eggs and he enjoyed running around and giving them to their appropriate recipient. I highly recommend egg labelling when doing egg hunts for multiple children and adults. I also thought it would be a clever photo trick of getting the two children close together so that I could snap their picture. I got a lot of "together pictures" but they're all really ambiguous. It looks more like Sim is stealing eggs from Ro's basket or vice versa rather than that they're giving them to each other.

Egg-stravaganza

egbert, originally uploaded by skweerell.

Since Easter is looming, we've been doing a lot of egg crafts and reading Easter books. Ro's favorite book is The Adventures of Egbert the Easter Egg.
A synopsis of which is a boy paints a face on an egg and names it Egbert. The boy gets sick and can't go to the egg hunt. No one finds Egbert who spends the night alone in the dark. The next morning (Easter), Egbert rolls and rolls and eventually winds up at the sick boy's house to their mutual delight. Ro even made his own Egbert as you can see in the picture.

My favorite Easter book is The Country Bunny and the Little Gold Shoes. I loved that book when I was a kid. Ro likes it too. I loved the idea of the palace full of Easter eggs.

As far as crafts go, we did an outside plastic egg tree last week. We're working on our inside egg tree with blown eggs this week.We've also made chicks hatching out of eggs, an egg bunny and egg carton caterpillars. busy. busy.

Trading Siblings

family portrait, originally uploaded by skweerell.

Ro was drawing a picture of our family today and he drew himself and then Daddy and then Mommy and then Sammy, Zedebia's son. I was a little baffled because he left out his sister. Then, he asked me to have a Sammy for him. I said Zedebia already had a Sammy so we couldn't make another one. Everyone is unique. Then, he suggested that we trade Simone in for Sammy because Zedebia wouldn't mind. I assured him that Zedebia would mind and I finally convinced him that I would miss Sim too much if she were gone. So, he eventually included her in the family picture. Strangely, Sammy is very tiny and possibly headless. Sim is a big, giant head like the rest of us. Even though he wants Sammy in the family, I guess he can see there's no real family resemblance.

I don't blame him for wanting to trade her in. We've had a really tough week with the little girl. She had a fever for three days and was super grumpy and grousey. The fever has subsided but it seems to have been the official kick off for the "terrible twos". I think she spent half of today screaming and throwing tantrums before collapsing into a three hour nap. ugh.

Roen really wants us to have more babies. I told him that I'm too tired and that two is a very good number. He said no. Three is the right number.