The Nutcracker

Malia has ballet/tap class at a little studio called the Freckled Frog. It's a very cute place, not a big operation at all. Tonight was her much anticipated Nutcracker recital. The girls had been working for months to nail their performance. Sure, it's a 2.5 minute performance but keep in mind that the average age is about 3 years old and they only meet once a week.

I wasn't sure how Malia would do as her first recital in May was spent picking at her scab on her arm. I was pleasantly surprised that she performed this time.



I have to clarify a few things about the video:

1) My favorite part of the video occurs at the very beginning where she hollers out "KAEL!!!" and waves frantically at him.

2) She's looking around... for Audrey. They got separated somehow and she was experiencing separation anxiety from her BFF.

3) Her class consists of 4 girls (herself included) and at the recital they combined with other classes. She was a little confused as to who the heck all the other girls were.

4) My second favorite part of the video occurs at the very end, where all the girls walk off the stage. Except for Malia.


BFF's Audrey and Malia
(sorry the picture was so dark - I was fooling around with the camera)


The class: Malia, Audrey, Savannah and Emma


With Clara (Ms. Kaela)


Practicing her moves before the show.


Pre-show pictures


Great job, girls!

Malia's Sing-Along

Malia and her classmates have been practicing for their Sing-Along since October. Being the Room Parent, I asked to sneak in to take some pictures of the practice. I was told absolutely not! It was a big hush hush, secret thing the kids were doing. All I knew was that they (Malia's class) were singing 2 songs: Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer and Jingle Bells. What does that mean in the grand scheme of things you ask? It means I've been listening to Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer and Jingle Bells... since October.

We had a fully packed auditorium -- parents, grandparents, siblings. It was wall to wall people. I sent Truong and Taede in early to save a seat and good thing I did. Even sitting in the second row, it was hard to see. Luckily Malia was on the same side where we were sitting so I was able to get a video.



For the last song the lady in front of me decided to stand. I don't know why she did that. She was in the front row.

As in the FIRST row.
As in row #1.
As in if she were any closer to the kids, she might as well be sitting on them.

I was so irritated at how inconsiderate she was. Next year, we're treating this like a Twilight movie and camping out the night before for a middle, front row seat.


The little miss in her Holiday Finery. I had a hard time trying to find something that was "Malia" since we typically don't wear this sort of thing.


The girls. Malia was doing her rendition of a ballerina.


Her buddy Krista. Malia was singing the songs as they were lining up to head over to the auditorium.


Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer


I captured the moment when she first saw us in the audience.


All the P3 preschool classes (meaning the young preschoolers).


The entire preschool class: P4 and P3.


This picture is hilarious. It's of Troy picking at her tights. I noticed Malia showing the boys (Vincent and Troy) her tights earlier -- playing with it.

That's right, honey, get all that out now because there's going to be NO tights picking with guy friends come high school!

Like a squirrel

He's saving for the winter. Not sure how a piece of apple got stuck to
the back of his head... But you should see the rest of his head.
Definitely a soap and shampoo night.

I also saw him tucking food behind him in the booster. Too bad it's
too cold to hose him off outside.

- Sent from iPhone

Saving it for later

I don't know how he balanced the Kix on his head but it stayed on for
quite a while.

At least it's dry cereal and not oatmeal. Which has been smeared in
his hair like gel.

FYI - only shampoo will remove that stuff from hair. Trust me. I know.

Mr. Patience

Taede loves taking a shower. He gets very upset when the bigger kids are in and he's out. Today I solo parented while Truong does the fine dining gig in SF with clients. That meant two kids, two showers and one very unhappy baby. He ran back and forth between the two bathrooms, hollering at the top of his lungs. Then he'd pull the Lassie thing where he'd call "MAMMA! MAMMA!" and then run to the shower when I looked at him. It was so sad and yet oddly funny at the same time.

As I helped big kids with their jammies, I suddenly noticed that it got really quiet. Right after I processed that thought, I heard the bath tub water turn on.

Oh man. Taede is messing with the tub again. I moved a chair there to block him but evidently he found a way through.

And then, I heard a noise that sounded like water running into a cup.

What the...?! I ran over and saw Taede happily playing in the tub. I guess he couldn't wait 10 minutes for his turn.



At least he brings his own container.

The family pets

Uncle Thien is in town for Thanksgiving so we took this opportunity to show him how well the leaf bugs were doing. He was quite impressed: apparently our bugs are bigger than his bugs.


Malia wanting to hold them.


She's got the smaller one of the two.


Kael's got the bigger one. If you look at her tail, you can see an egg. Yes, she's laying eggs.


Taede checking out the bug. He's not sure what to do with it.


Hmmm.... another bug lover? Great....
Oh, did I mention the little one is filled with eggs too? Soon I'll have 2 egg laying huge bugs in the house. Lucky me.


Malia thinking it's cool to let it crawl on her.


Until it crawls too high and panic starts to creep in. Just a little bit...


I love his "What the heck is it doing?!" look.

Something new everyday

Taede is my little sponge. He learns something new everyday. 99% of the time it's pretty cool and neat to see him picking up something he saw his brother and sister do. He's certainly learning and doing more at this age than the other two.

Which brings me to the 1% that's not so cool and neat:









I have a feeling he's going to be my first broken bone.

Growth Spurt

You think??

Innocence lost

Today we went to Trader Joe's to get a brine turkey for Thanksgiving. I had a lot on my mind (Room Parent activities, the kids' holiday parties, Malia's Sing-A-Long, ballet recital, Thanksgiving with the in-laws, making Christmas cards, naps, dinner -- you get the picture) and I use the car (it's the only place I have that allows me a modicum of personal space) as a place to ruminate over my to do list. Or in my case, my "holy cow, how am I ever going to get everything done?!" list. Malia asked me where we were going and why. I told her we were going to Trader Joe's to get a turkey for Thanksgiving.

You know how you get used to talking a certain way and forget that kids take what you say literally? You're especially vulnerable when you have other things banging around in your head.

(You can imagine what's going to happen next, right?)

Me: "We're going to Trader Joe's to get a turkey for Thanksgiving."

Malia: "Oh, really?!! I can't wait!"
She's very excited. In fact, a little too excited for the simple task of grocery shopping. That familiar danger danger danger warning starts buzzing in my head. And as usual, I ignore it.

Malia: "Mom, where are we going to keep the turkey?"

Oh crap. It dawns on me (finally, because I'm the village idiot) what she's all excited about. Crap crap crap. She thinks we're getting a real turkey. As in "gobble gobble gobble, this is my pet turkey" turkey.

All other thoughts flee from my head as I try to find a way to explain to her the facts of where her chicken nuggets and beloved bacon come from, without traumatizing her off meat. Forever. I can barely cook as it is and to try to accommodate a 3 year old vegetarian? My nightmare of all nightmares.

Me: "We're going to keep the turkey... in the... f-f-fridge."
As is my custom when trapped by my kids, I talk slowly, weighing every word, watching out for any self-made pitfalls.

Malia: "Huh? The fridge? Why, mom? How will it run around?"
Ugh. There's no way around it. I just have to tell her.

Me: "Honey, it's not that kind of turkey. It's a different kind of turkey. It's the kind of turkey that... that... we eat. "

Silence.

Mom: "You know, for Thanksgiving."

More silence. It's making me nervous so I start babbling a little.

Me: "So, we're going to buy it. And then I'm going to...uh... cook it. And then we're going to... uh... going to eat it. For Thanksgiving."

Silence. And then...

Malia: "WE'RE GOING TO EAT THE TURKEY ANIMAL?!!!"
In the most disgusted, offended voice I've ever heard from her.

Malia: "THE TURKEY ANIMAL??!!!"
She said it again, as if she couldn't believe her ears.

I don't say anything. I can't say anything. What the heck can I say?? I can't think that fast on the fly to mitigate the damage. So I use silence as my answer. Luckily we were parking so yes, like a coward, I used that as my excuse to remain silent.

I put Taede in the cart. Malia walks by my side. She's uncharacteristically quiet. I still don't say anything and quite honestly, I'm hoping this all blows away so I don't have to say anything. In my mind, a box of candies would well be worth the money to make it just disappear. We cross the parking lot and I notice her looking around, looking a little apprehensive. I wonder what the heck is she doing? She's looking around the front of the store, eyes darting everywhere. And that's when I realize she's looking for the turkeys. As if they were running around, free range in the Trader Joe's parking lot.

Egads! Say something. Say something, Sonya!

BUT WHAT??!!!

To make matters even worse, as we enter Joe's... they have laid turkey tracks on the floor. TURKEY TRACKS, for crying out loud!!! Leading up to the refrigerated section where the dead bird carcasses lay piled up, waiting to be bought.

Malia: "Mommy!! Look! Turkey tracks!!"

Me: "Oh yeah, honey! I see them..."

I get a sick feeling in my stomach. I really don't know where to go with this so I meekly follow her as she happily hops on each turkey track. Up to the shrink wrapped birds.

She looks at them.

She looks at them again, a little puzzled. I think she was trying to reconcile the image of the feathered turkey of her preschool stories to the plastic wrapped odd shaped thing at the store.

And luckily, thankfully, it didn't compute. She didn't say anything further and I didn't volunteer. Armed with an oddly shaped 16-pound shrink wrapped Thanksgiving Something for me, a carton of graham crackers for Taede, and a box of strawberry mochi ice cream for her, we finally exit the store.

The drama. Oh, the drama!

Malia is full of emotions these days. Anything can set her off into a crying jag. A serious crying jag, complete with hysterical screaming, the broken Hoover dam of tears, and the heaving gasps. These bouts of hurricane emotions leave me.... perplexed. While I'd like to say that I empathize with her, I honestly can't because I'm... I'm... just confused.

Case in point: our shower incident. What condition are you usually in when you step out of the shower? Wet, right? Mostly your hair. Malia comes out of the shower in the same condition as everyone else in the known universe: wet.

Evidently though, this is unbeknownst to her.

As I'm drying her hair (which is dripping wet) she tells me "Mommy, don't mess up my hair."

What the...?! How in the heck am I supposed to dry her rat's nest of sopping wet hair without "messing it up," I ask you??

Recognizing a trap when I hear one, I tell her "I'm not messing it up; it's wet so I'm just drying it." Do you see what I've done? I acknowledged her fear (messing up her hair), refuted it (I'm not messing it up) and given her a reason to why I'm doing what I'm doing (it's wet, therefore I'm drying it). The best part: I've confessed to nothing! Air tight, right? Yeah, well, I forgot that I'm dealing with a 3 year old.

"Mom! I said, please don't mess up my hair!"

I can tell her stress level is starting to elevate as I pick up the pace in drying her hair. I figure the sooner I get it done, the sooner we can move on past this hair issue.

"MOM!! Are you messing up my hair?!"

Geez. Now what? As far as I'm concerned, this is the precursor to the "Does this outfit make me look fat?" question. There's no right way to answer it and still come out ahead. So I answer her patiently, yet firmly. Because, after all, I am the parent and I know what I'm doing.

"Malia, I'm not messing it up. It's wet from the shower and I'm drying it. As soon as it's dry, I'll put it up in pony tails."

There's a loud horrified gasp: "WHAT?!! You took out my pony tails???"

Oh. Crap.

The reading area

Some houses have a library where people gather to read. Others have a reading area or a reading room.

Taede? He has a reading ledge.



This is his favorite spot to hang out now. He's managed to climb down a few times, while staying on his feet. Most times though, it's a slow awkward tumble off the edge. I can tell though, that he's experimenting with different methods and routes to try and find the best way to climb down.


The kids are in their room all the time, reading. Kael likes to read to Malia and she likes to listen. When Kael's not home, Malia will pick up a book and look at pictures. They can spend a nice quiet 90 minutes doing that. When Malia is at school and we're upstairs, I sometimes see Taede in their room doing exactly that: reading books. I love it.


He seems to really get the concept. The book is even the right way!


Yes, I know. He needs a haircut. Bad.

The Dancing Fool

This partially explains all the bonks on his head.

I have a longer video but for whatever annoying reason, it's not loading up on Flickr.

What now?

This is Taede's latest feat. He is so proud of himself. Unfortunately he only goes in one direction: up. And there he stands, for however long only he knows, calling me to get him down.




Looking a little worried that I haven't made a move to come get him.


The ledge is too narrow for him to turn around and go down feet first. What will probably happen is he'll bonk his head and then tumble off and land in a heap.

This is the bookcase that gave him the shiner. I wrapped up the corners but I'm sure he'll find something to potentially lose an eye on.

Halloween! Halloween! Trick or Treat!

I can't believe Halloween has come and gone. You know what that means... Pretty soon it will be Turkey Day and then Christmas... and another year will soon be over.

Yikes!

Before I freak myself out, let's talk Halloween first.

I lucked out this year in the costume department. Both my kids wanted to wear what they wore last year. It worked out great because (1) Malia hadn't started school yet so it would be a new school costume and (2) we weren't here last year for Halloween (wedding in Santa Cruz) so it would be a new school costume for Kael as well. This is the one time that I'm glad Malia is so small that she still fit her fairy costume (sized 18m-24m).

Taede was very cute in his skeleton PJ's. Luckily his black eye healed pretty well so he didn't look so ghetto with the long hair and busted up face.

As a Room Parent, I didn't see any of Kael's party. Luckily Truong was able to take the morning off to be there for Kael. Malia had a great time at her party. Her favorite part was the costume parade. Good grief she was so excited to be a part of that. It is unbelievable how different Kael and Malia are. Kael in preschool could not finish the parade. He was maybe 10 feet in before he lost it and refused to go any further. I had to walk him back to his seat. Little Miss Malia? She danced and pranced out there, way ahead of her class. She had no idea where she was going -- and she didn't care! She strutted her stuff and enjoyed her moment in the limelight. At one point I had to call her back because she missed a turn (it was like a track loop but instead of going left, she danced straight ahead). It was hilarious. She twirled and whirled and waved and skipped her way along, just having a ball.

Halloween night the cousins came over for pizza and Trick or Treating. The house was a zoo with 7 kids running crazy. Our 7 was joined by our neighbor's 2 for Trick or Treating, so it was a nice huge group come nightfall. I was left behind to pass out treats and I have to say I was a little sad. I remember running the neighborhood with my friends when we went Trick or Treating and I miss those carefree times.

Or maybe I just miss being able to go out at night.... hmmm....

Anyway I have some pictures posted. Enjoy!

Bakugan

Last year Kael got bit with the Bakugan bug. Some of the older kids were playing them and Kael got caught up in the wave. He still plays with them and apparently, so does Taede:



It cracks me up that Taede figured it out so quick. He watched Kael for a bit then grabbed a couple of the brawlers and did it himself. Why am I wasting my money with all that Fisher-Price stuff?

Spooktacular

Last week we went to Disneyland's Spooktacular with some friends. It was our first time so there were some hiccups as we didn't know what to expect.

FYI - The Spooktacular is an event held at California Adventure open to just Spooktacular ticket holders. The park is closed to the general public and everyone is encouraged to dress up and go trick or treating. Depending on when you go, you can come home with obscene amounts of candy.

We decided to go on a Friday.
Pro: there's no school day the next day.
Con: it started at 7:30pm. (Remember my kids' bedtimes are 7:00pm for Taede and 7:30pm for Kael and Malia.)

The kids had a nice time... for about 45 minutes then they started feeling the late night. We went on some rides too which required line waiting so that took time away from actual Trick or Treating. Next time: we're on a mission. No rides until we get all the loot.

I've been told that if we had gone earlier in the month and on a Thursday, the crowds would have been less and we would have gotten more candy. The nice part about Thursday is it starts at 6:30pm. So if I can convince Truong to go again next year, we're definitely going on a Thursday at the beginning of October.

All in all we had a good time. We'll definitely change some things around next year so it's more manageable with the kids.

Here are some pictures:


Malia in her Fairy costume.


Taede is wearing a glow-in-the-dark Skeleton PJ set. Why PJ's, you ask? So it's easy to wrap him later to sleep.


Joey, Riley, Lauren, Kael, Malia and Taede.


Daisy Duck dancing with Malia while Malia kept saying "Trick or Treat!" expecting Daisy to fork over some candy.


The scarecrow was a real guy, hanging out, making funny/rude comments at everyone. He was pretty funny.


Malia and Audrey. Fairies galore!


Here's the whole group with Megan (Batgirl) and Audrey (Pink Fairy)


Malia totally enjoying her lollipop with Cari and Audrey.


See? His PJ's worked out great!


"Oh! I like your purple wings, Muh-Me-ah!"
"Thank you Audrey! I like your pink wings too!"
These girls...


This is what happens when your Daddy's a doctor: he makes you eat apples at a Trick or Treating event. Check out that look of dismay on poor Audrey's face.


And sitting right next to Audrey, rubbing salt on her wounds, her "BFF" licking that lollipop with relish...


The look on Audrey's face. Priceless!


My friend Brooke!