Malia has decided that her 6:00am wake up isn't doing it for her -- there's just too much to see and do, and there's not enough time in the day to do it all. To make up for lost time, she's now waking up at 4:00am. Yes, that's four o'clock in the morning. I try to ignore her but she just talks louder. I'm starting to get the feeling that she's hungry because when Truong brings her into bed with us, she comes to me with a huge smile, points at her breastaurant and says "want that, want that." So much for self-weaning. If she'd actually EAT her food instead of THROW her food, she'd probably not wake up hungry every morning.
Kael is doing very well in school. He continues to be the slowest eater in his group and sometimes I see a group of boys hanging around Kael trying to get him to eat faster so they can all play. Lately whenever I ask Kael if he ate his lunch, he tells me yes, he ate half his sandwich. I think half isn't bad. Until I get home and clean out his lunch bag, only to find that he's actually not really eaten half. He's eaten half of a half. So really he ate a quarter. But really it's even less than that because I cut off the crust. So really he's eaten maybe a fifth of a sandwich.
Really!
But it's hard to make him eat because they only have 30 minutes for lunch and playtime so I let it slide so he can play with his friends and have him finish up at home.
Our plans for the big family vacation to Maui this Christmas has fallen to the wayside. We have a large group: 18 people (10 of which are kids ranging from 18 years old Jackie to 16 months old Malia). So we're looking at at least 3 timeshares, with the same dates, for the same island, at the same resort. Near impossible! Add to that airfare alone is about $800 per person... We've decided to instead move the vacation to Spring Break 2008 so we can at least get the timeshare in order and just worry about airfare.
Truong suggested that we all go to Costa Rica in the spring so that's a possibility too. I'm excited about going as I've heard so many great things about it from Truong. I just need to get our passports in order. Even if we don't go there this spring, it'll be nice to have all our passports ready in case we decide to go to Mexico.
My passport still has my maiden name on it and the kids don't have any at all so we needed to get 3 sets of pictures and 3 applications turned in. I decided that I'd get our pictures taken today so we can get this process started. Who knows how long it will take to get the passports so the sooner the better.
I should have gotten an idea of how the day was going to be when Malia once again woke up at 4:00am (she's been doing this over a week). What's that saying about kids? Something about if they do something 3 times in a row, it becomes a habit? All I have to say is... well, OK, I won't type it down. But you all know what I said. So she's up at 4:00am and you know I'm not looking my best because I'm dog tired. Get Kael to school and come home, positive that she'd nap. How can she not - she's been up since 4:00am! Well, she didn't and she can. I get myself ready so I can look somewhat decent in the passport photo. My passport will be with me for 10 years and I'll be darned if I look like crapola for 10 years. I still don't see why I can't use my old passport photo from 1998 when I got plenty of sleep, when my hair was actually styled, when I wore make-up, when I didn't have that "hurry up take the picture before my kids run off!" anxious smile.
We pick up Kael and head over to Costco to take the pictures. I'm told that it will be hard to take a picture of Malia as she's going to have to stand against the white background. And that "they" (I'm guessing "they" to mean the "passport people") don't like when there are hands in the photos. Well, since they now require that everyone including infants get a passport, how in the world do they expect us to get a picture of babies without hands supporting said infants up?! OK whatever, fine. Let's do Kael first.
But Kael doesn't want to take a picture. What do you mean you don't want to take a picture? All you have to do is stand there and smile! It'll take less than 30 seconds!! You just took school pictures!! He starts to cry. Oh geez. Then Malia starts to cry because I'm over here and she's over there, and she thinks she's missing out on the action. I take a huge breath to settle myself. OK fine. I'll do it first. So I take my picture and he shows it to me and I kind of look at it but not really because I've got 2 crying kids in the middle of Costco. He walks away to help another customer.
I talk to Kael and tell him that the pictures are so we can go on a trip as a family. If you don't take the picture, then we can't go. He asks if we're going some place scary. As I sigh, I'm mentally counting to 10.
Me: No, of course not. (Would I take you someplace scary?!)
Kael: Where are we going?
Me: Someplace fun! With monkeys!
Kael: I don't like monkeys. They bite.
Me (gritting my teeth): These monkeys don't bite. How about the beach! You love to beach!
Kael: I don't want to go to the beach. It's too cold.
Me (counting to 10 again): OK. Listen, we can go wherever you want but we need to have a picture of you. Otherwise we can't go.
Kael thinks about it, then agrees. I think he can sense the tension practically emanating from me. He reluctantly shuffles over to the white background and asks that I hold his hand. The problem is I can't hold his hand AND hold Malia's hand too. So I let her go, she starts to freak out and I'm telling the guy to take the picture, take the picture. First Kael looks at the guy with his chin down on his chest. Then I get him to smile, except he smiles with his mouth wide open, as if he's in the dentist's office. Then I tell him to smile just like you did for school pictures. And this is what we got:
Great.
Is this really what he looked like for the school picture?!
So we're done with Kael and it's Malia's turn. The guy tells me to try sitting on the chair and hold Malia at an angle with my hands really low. I try that but she's trying to hold me so I have to pry her hands off my shoulders. So she's bobbling on my lap, off balance as I'm trying to stay out of the picture. Plus she's not napped so she's really tired.
Poor baby. She looks really pooped.
We are finally done and I'm sure the guy is thinking I'm not going where they are going! We head home and I'm trying to decide if I should take the pictures again.
Oh wait, you didn't get to see my picture:
So what do you think? Should I retake the pictures??
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