Thanks to Martin Luther King, Jr. Scott and I were able to get married. At least, according to Emma.

She has been learning about Martin Luther King, Jr in honor of his recent birthday. Everyday she comes home from school with more stories about him. Earlier in the week she named all the kids in her class that wouldn’t be there if it wasn’t for Martin Luther King, Jr.

Then, this weekend we were having lunch at my parents house. She started talking about him again. She talked about how people of different races were not allowed to be married before. She looked at Scott and I and said “It is a good thing for you that Martin Luther King, Jr. did what he did. Because if he didn’t you wouldn’t be able to be married.” We both looked at her confused and asked “Why?” She looked at Scott and whispered “Because you are black.”

We tried not to laugh, because she is really sensitive about that lately, but I have no idea where she got the idea that Scott is African American! Maybe because he is tan???

So, in honor of Emma, I want to say Thank you to Dr. King for allowing Scott and I to get married

We have been coming to Maui for Christmas for about 15 years now. The only Christmas my kids know is one spent on the beach in Maui. All of our Christmas traditions are built around things we started doing here on vacation. One of the things we always do is go to mass on Christmas eve. This year was no exception. Then we come home and have a nice dinner and let the kids open one present.

Another thing I always do is get the kids matching Christmas pajamas. This year I decided to wrap them and give them to the kids. They were all so excited to open a present, but Ian was pissed when he opened his. He took one look at them and said “Pajamas?!? I didn’t want these!!” and then proceeded to throw them across the room. I wish I had a photo to capture the absolute look of disgust on his face. It was really priceless.

Scott and I both burst out laughing. I know we should have scolded him for not being gracious when he got a gift, but we just couldn’t help it. He was just so incredulous that his gift was pajamas! Once we stopped laughing we did explain to him that he needs to be kind to the gift giver and appreciate that they gave him a gift, even if it wasn’t one he wanted. But it was still funny!

He is the funniest kid and he always has us laughing!

For the past few weeks Nora has been having some sleep issues. It has been harder to get her to go to bed. Now that she can freely get up from her bed whenever she wants to, she seems to be taking full advantage of it. She routinely gets up 2 or 3 times when I put her down to sleep and she wakes up in the middle of the night and comes into our bed to sleep. I always plan on getting her and taking her right back to her bed but I am so sleepy and out of it that I often just wake up in the morning and find her in our bed.

One night last week I put her to bed. She seemed to go down easy, and she stayed in her bed. Scott and I were both upstairs working on our computers. About 2 hours after I put her to bed Emma let out a blood curdling scream and yelled “Mom, HELP! NORA!” I jumped up from my computer and ran downstairs. My heart was pounding and I was so worried that something bad had happened to Nora.

I got down stairs and was greeted by this:

When we thought she was sleeping, she was actually playing in the bathroom. She climbed up onto the counter and got the Eucerin down off the highest shelf. Somehow she figured out how to open it and she proceeded to put the ENTIRE JAR into her hair. She looked like she was wearing a white wig.

ARGH!!! I had no idea how to get all that grease out of her hair. Scott and I took her into our bath tub and first wiped out as much as we could with towels. Then I decided to get the Dawn dish soap, since it is supposed to be good at cutting grease I washed her hair with that about 10 times!

Now after about a week her hair is finally starting to look normal. Everyone thought her hair was constantly wet for the past week! Since then I have taken every last bottle of cream and lotion out of her bathroom. I can’t wait for her to outgrow this phase!

At two years and nine months Nora is still sleeping in a crib. She has been in a crib far longer than any of my kids. I moved Emma out of her crib at 22 months, because Ian was about to be born and he needed the crib. Ian climbed out of his crib shortly before his second birthday, so I had to move him to a big bed earlier than I wanted to.

So far, Nora has been happy in her crib. I have been expecting her to climb out for months now. This past week she finally did it.

Last week she woke up from her nap and decided she wanted out. She came walking up the stairs and startled me! I quickly turned around and asked Emma if she had gotten Nora out, all the while knowing that she hadn’t. Nora was so proud of herself that she had figured out how to get up herself.

That night as I was putting her to bed, she tried to climb into the crib. She almost fell, and I knew that it was time to move her to a bed. For the time being, I decided to just take the side off her crib so she could sleep in it like a toddler bed. She and I went down to her room with the tools and took off the side. She was so proud of her “new” big girl bed.

The first night she went to sleep as peacefully as always. I tucked her in and she went right to sleep. The problem was, she work up at 2:00am and decided to exercise her new found freedom. She came in my bedroom and announced that she was awake and ready for breakfast! I explained that it was still the middle of the night, and that she needed to stay in bed until it got light out. I tucked her back in, and didn’t hear from her until the morning.

Luckily for all of us, she has slept all night every night since. So far the transition to a big girl bed has been nearly painless. It has been a welcome relief. After the nightmare we went through to get Ian to sleep in a real bed, this has been a walk in the park.

Emma and Ian have been telling knock knock jokes for a while now.

Nora picked up on it and wanted to get in on the action. She has been telling the same joke over and over for a few weeks now.

“Knock-knock”

“Who’s there?”

“Banana Face.”

“Banana Face who?”

Nothing but laughter!

She cracks herself up and she loves to tell it over and over. Out of the blue, especially when we are in the car she will just yell out “Mom, I want to tell you my joke.”

She is so silly!

Last Friday Ian had a half day of school. Normally he goes to school from 9:00am until 3:00pm. Those kids are called “lunch bunch”. Some of the kids in his class go home at noon everyday, they call those kids “home team”. His assistant teacher, Sara, only teaches in the morning and then she goes home around noon too.

Last week Ian was talking to his teacher Sara and his gears started turning. He realized that he would be going home at noon, and that Sara usually goes home at noon too.

He looked up at her and said “Sara, I’m on Home Team today! I know that you go home early too. I got a new Star Wars Wii game. Since you are going home early and I am going home early, why don’t you come over and play it with me?”

How cute is that? He invited his teacher over for a play date

Two little stories about Nora.

Yesterday morning as we were getting ready for school Nora came walking up to me and said “Mommy does Daddy have a penis?”

I answered “Yes.”

Then she looked at me and said “Mommy, do you have a vagina?”

“Yes” again.

She looked up at me and in a very serious voice said “I don’t like penises” and then she walked away.

I was dying! I was trying not to laugh. On one hand, she is smart and is starting to figure out the differences between men and women. On the other hand it is just funny to hear her talk like that at 2 1/2 years old.

Then today she went into my bathroom and got out the tampons and panty liners. I didn’t notice at the time. When I went to put her down for her nap I put her on the changing table to I could take off her underwear and put on her diaper. As I was taking off her pants she said to me “I have something in my panties.” As I took off her panties I saw that she had put one of my panty liners in her underwear! She had taken off the paper and used it just as it was supposed to be used.

I guess Freud would say she is definitely in the “Phallic Stage” right now!

Soaring Wings Montessori has been putting on a Childrens Fair for a few years now. We went to it one of the first years they put it on. It was cute and had some fun little games run by the parents. There were little tiny prizes, like a penny candy or a sticker. We didn’t go for the next few years. Since our kids are students there now, we decided to go this year. I was blown away by how much it has changed!

This year there were pony rides, bounce houses, and professional face painters!

We all had a great time. It was surprisingly fun and stress free. In years past events like this were always stressful. Ian would be darting off in one direction while Nora went in another. Keeping track of everybody was always such a challenge that it was hard to have a good time. This year everyone was great. Emma was old enough to wait in some lines by herself, and Ian stayed surprisingly close. It was also nice that the kids teachers were all over the park. I didn’t want to lug my big camera around, so I just snapped a few photos with my cell phone.

Ian had a little singing performance. They sang

by David Mallett. It was also sung by John Denver on the Muppet Show. He was so cute! He knew all the words and wasn’t shy about singing them into the microphone. It was so funny to watch. Some of his classmates were having a shoving match while they were on stage and one or two of them left. Ian and his friend Denali stayed right up by the microphone. They started out sharing it, but by the end Ian was being a microphone hog. He was adorable and I was proud of him for being so uninhibited in his singing.

All three of the kids got their faces painted. They turned out really nice! The pros did a much better job than the moms would have

When we walked up we saw the pony ride. Nora was interested in them, but I wasn’t sure if she would want to ride them. Near the end of the fair she decided she wanted to do it. I took her to wait in line and wondered if she would really do it. When it was her turn she started saying “NO, NO!” as I put her up there. But she calmed down and let me put her up there if I agreed to hold her hand. I walked along with her and she chatted the whole time. She started out saying “I’m going up and down on the carousel!” It was so funny. I’m not sure where she came up with that one. She was a little bit nervous, but overall I think she liked it!

The fair has come a long way since the last one we attended. I’m really glad that we went and that we all had a nice time!

I posted a while ago about Ian’s bedtime stall tactics.

He has been doing better at going to sleep without a fuss lately. We do the same thing every night. I turn out the lights and tuck him in. Then turn on his music. As I go to leave, he asks me for a drink. I get him a small sip of water and then kiss him and tell him it is time to go to sleep.

He always says “WAIT……I just have to tell you one more thing.!”

Then he waits for a minute while he tries to think up something to say. It is the same every night, he doesn’t really have anything else to say. He is just stalling.

The last few nights as I go to close the door he yells out “You are the best mommy in the whole world……and you are a knock out!”

I’m not really sure where he learned the word knock out, but I think it is sooo cute!

The other morning Ian came in early and climbed into bed with me. I had been having a bad dream that we had lost him in a crowded place. I was so happy to see his sweet little face when I woke up. I scooped him up and cuddled him in bed. I told him that I had a bad dream about him. He looked at me and said “So, you had a nightmare? Remember that nightmare that I had?” Then he proceeded to tell me the story of when he got eaten by a giant spider.

“First, it took a bite of my legs all the way up to my knees.”

“Then it took a bite of me all the way up to my stomach.”

“If the giant spider at me up to my stomach, I would have to be in a wheelchair, sitting on my stomach. Wouldn’t that be funny mom?”

It was such a cute little moment. I just had to write it down so someday when he is all grown up I can remember all his cute little stories.