Dreams may come true....

With kids at this age (5 and 7) you start asking questions like "What do you want to be when you grow up?" and expect somewhat real answers.

So I asked....

Logan asked me today "who wins more, the Sox or the Cubs?" The totally baseball-illiterate mom in me told him "Well, the Sox win more, but the Cubs are the underdogs" and explained underdog to him.

Soon after I was googling "how many players are in the Cubs?" 38 says Answers.com. "39 with me when I start playing on the Cubs" says Logan. What a sweetie!

Sylvie went to Nordstroms twice this year and picked some item and fell in love. With us, she picked a dress, the newest dress that cost more than we would normally spend on a dress, and of course, since she had daddy around her little finger, it came home with us!!! And later she brought Abuelita, and captured herself a hat, a little adorable hat that had to come home with us!

Snow Day!

....for Snowmageddon!!!! Just putting it down for Logan and Sylvie that today, this day in Chicago history, is a storm that is classified as a blizzard! It started today (Tuesday) at around 2 pm. It was a difficult walk even between the 2 schools. I was so happy my boss let me head home to get my babies. Even Jorge came home at a decent time. Tomorrow almost every school is out for the day, even the Chicago Public Schools called a Snow Day for the first time since 1999. The last time we had a blizzard of this magnitude was 1967? Though my parents remember shoveling snow off their roof in 1979!

Hope we get some pictures to put up tomorrow, it's supposed to last all day and dump between 1 and 2 feet of snow!

We did we did! We got up to snow all around the windows, snow outside in huge drifts. The front yard wasn't too bad thank goodness because the back yard was so bad we couldn't open the door and I had to wade through 3 foot drifts to get the extra shovels! I had thought to bring one set inside overnight! We all got outside in snowpants at 7 am and spent an hour and a half shoveling. Sylvie went back inside but was fine with us continuing. It kept snowing all morning so Jorge went back out for an extra hour later.

And then there was the alley. Oh goodness! The plow came by around 5 pm and we then had a huge wall of snow at our garage and nowhere to put it! Jorge did a huge chunk and then I headed out to help him and we made 5 foot piles at either side of the garage. What a project!

Today is Snow Day #2. I guess the buses aren't able to get through the streets yet.....Crazy and fun and exciting. The windchill is supposed to hit 25 below today- ick! It's cold here in the house.

Front

Alley

Side Yard- biggest drifts!

The school project....

Logan's school project is to celebrate 100 days. He has to put 99 of one object on a board and 1 of something opposite. Of course the example was "cats and dogs" and he said he was going to do "cats and dogs." Hilarious. I was able to persuade him into doing something he likes and we decided on 99 Lego Guys and 1 Lego. He actually came up with the idea of taking photos of his guys and gluing the photos to the board. So it's a few days after we began the assignment and here's how it's gone......

Thursday morning- Grand discussion on what the plan was to get all this acccomplished.

Thursday afternoon- trying to wrangle Logan into focusing on what he wanted to photograph, and the three of us rounding up 100 guys. Me hovering over a table taking lots o' photos. Sylvie wanted in on the action and she has a pile of her own lego people to photograph as well.

Thursday night- upload photos. Try to upload photos. Safari won't allow me on Walgreens photo website so I never make it. Ugh. Okay, CVS also does photos. Upload photos.

Friday morning after school dropoff- bring Sylvie into CVS where she falls in love with some cute kissing stuffed animals that need to come home with us. And if you buy the animals, you need to buy a Valentine's Day card to go with them, so I set out to pick one for my sweetheart.

Oh and there are 3 other things I needed to get of course. Plus posterboards and glue sticks and sticky letters....

Friday afternoon- open the photos and I'm super disappointed. For $24 worth of photos, they are pretty bad quality and there are 30 extra photos that are enlargements of faces. Lego faces. What the frick? Late Friday, I call CVS to see what's up and check what I had uploaded. My 50 photos turned into 65 and then I ordered duplicates! Headquarters had no idea. And when I opened my original photos I realized my photo quality was much better than the results, so on principal, since they said they always accept returns if you're not satisfied, I returned them. WITH Sylvie in tow, who was livid that we were going yet again out to the same darn store (and to pick up Logan).

Friday evening- haul Logan and Sylvie into Walgreens where we use the machine to upload photos. Twice. And hope for the best. And what do you know, there is a whole aisle of stuffed animals that only cost $1.99 and 2 kids pleading for one. So we buy those as well. Plus some wine for me, because I am reminded that this is a darn school project, the first of millions, and whatever the photos look like, however Logan chooses to lay them out, it'll be okay. A-Okay. :)

Saturday morning- the photos will need to be picked up but I'm going to wait til Jorge is home because I am NOT dragging 2 kids into a stuffed-animal infested Walgreens one more time to collect photos! I can just hear it.... "Mom, they're webkinz and my unicorn needs a friend!"

Temper Tantrums

We have had a big streak of tantrums most days! Here are some of the situations:

-Sylvie comes in from Abuelita's babysitting hours and freaks out about missing Abuelita, cannot handle her emotions and sits crying for a good long time and then begging "don't be mad at me!" Oh gosh this is hard to deal with and by the time it's over, I'm spent!

-One morning I was dropping Sylvie off and she showed me that she had a little digital camera in her pocket. I told her she couldn't bring that into school and she went ballistic! She had a total meltdown and even bringing her out of the room into the bathroom, I wasn't sure I'd be able to drop her off. She was sad about the camera and it turned into "I'll miss you mommy, don't go."

-The other day the windchill was 19 degrees below zero. Obviously it was frigid outside, and too cold to hang out for any length of time. We knew it was going to be cold, so we talked about how we were going to wait in the car between picking her up and getting Logan instead of waiting outside. Sure enough, she went crazy when I tried to get her in the car and was totally out of control. I got her in the passenger side and she was standing on the seat acting like a fool! Her friends were in the car next to us and even that didn't pursuade her that this was okay. She wouldn't calm down until I happened to find her library book and suddenly she was a different person and settled down. Once I tried to get her to wait in the car and brought a snack and drink and she still went nuts. She waits in the car for grandparents. I don't know what the deal is, but it sure isn't fun being the mom with the screaming child dragging her into the car instead of getting a hug or a kiss.

-We have lots of tantrums over clothing- she wants to wear a fancy dress every day and if she gets a fancy dress she flips out if it can't be worn to school, even if she knows it's not for school. Getting dressed can be a very long, drawn-out ordeal somedays. And other days, not a problem.

It's been a really hard few months of tantrums on and off and I'm not really sure what spurs them, but it's getting old fast. I'm trying to not let her walk all over me, hold firm but gentle and kind, and it doesn't seem to matter, she can't control her own emotions.Someday maybe I'll understand it all. Where is my own personal child psychologist/ psychic? There are nights where instead of sleeping she's standing upstairs next to me screaming at the top of her lungs instead. And then other nights it's not a problem. She can be so LOUD and drag things out fora a LOOOOONNNNNNGGGGG time !!!!! It can be hard to handle.

Sylvie turns 5

My sweet princess is turning 5. I love the saying "The days are long, the years are short." It is so true. If I think of all the days I had a 4 year old, it seems like ages, but if I reminisce back to my 2 year old or even my newborn, it feels like just yesterday.

Sylvie is a spunky little girl and she brings light to our lives every day. She commands attention and demands her way. She wants what she wants when she wants it. Which is usually immediately.

And yet she can pick up my mom's little dog Jackson in the crook of her arm and carry him around longer than he wants, and he's a snuggler. She misses us ferociously, the minute someone leaves, school ends, we leave an adventure, she already misses it. She must have some sweet sappy nature inside her already:)

She still gives us trouble with night-time sleep and still hates waking up in the mornings. She was inducted into the American Girl club this weekend with a trip to pick out her very first doll and it was such a joy to see her coming into a big girl. While the rest of us reverted to our childhood memories of wanting and loving dolls we had seen.

There is a special bond between mother and daughter, she's my little girl and I understand what she goes through and all that is to come. It's raising a future mother, a future best friend, a future sister to her brother Logan when he needs advice or someone to pull together Thanksgiving dinner. A future career. Future talents. And yet, we still get to enjoy all that is today, all that she is, and all that we are to her.

Happy Birthday my darling Sylvie. You are the fire in my life and you make me smile and you make me laugh and you make me hug you. Thanks for being YOU!!!!!

2011

In no particular order, the things on my mind to accomplish this year are:

*Mommy- we talked about a list of places to go this year- Museum of Science and Industry, Navy Pier during some live music in the summer, plus some big trips including Disney, maybe even for a wedding!!!!

*Baby- yep, it might actually happen this year! Time will tell. But #3 would be an amazing person to add to our life. I might never stop smiling.

*Wife- with a year of heavy travel keeping us apart, we need some patch and repair work during this 14th year of marriage. Date night is on the agenda to light the spark.

*Architect- please tell me a new job is on the horizon for this year, before I go insane. Resumes are time consuming but essential. And I have some additional projects related that need working and attention. Also, exams for licensure and learning Revit are on the radar. Revit learning has been happening, and I'm really proud of what I have accomplished. Plus, going to Greenbuild Chicago was amazing.

*Biking- love that darn bike, and it's all set up in the basement as a stationary version for the winter. Hopefully biking brings with it weight loss.

Seems like the recession may be ending and these goals are already in progress. I'm hopeful to not feel so much anxiety about everyone else's problems, and when things don't go my way, and enjoy every moment.

And as always I love to be inspired, creative, loved, and in love, and really just enjoy life as it goes by. I hope to jump in with 2 feet and live this life to its fullest.

Christmas Highlights!

Sylvie has been having trouble sleeping in her own room so this week we worked very very hard to "practice" for Christmas sleeping. The night of Christmas Eve we stayed up til 11:30 partying and then I got the jammies on the kids and showed them the google Santa Tracker. It showed Santa flying around the skyscrapers downtown and that's where we had just come from, so the kids knew it was mighty close to our house, and they went running upstairs with fervor and hit the pillows in their own rooms without complaint.

We had so much fun on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day. This year was the most "last minute" of any year, even running into Walgreens on our way to the party at our house on Christmas Eve. A lot had been done ahead of time, but Jorge had been on 2 trips- Tokyo and then Mexico- and then working all week, so it left final preparations to last-minute. It wasn't stressful, and it all worked out in the long run.

I think Logan's on the verge of losing sight of believing in Santa, but he very much wants to play along because of the joy in it. My guess is he'll hang on to pretending for another year or two. Sylvie was nervous about Santa's Elves watching but it did good to keep her in line this spunky child of mine. On the plus side, she was the sweetest darling little girl during the 3 days of celebrating! Yeah!

We were spoiled with presents, hosted a fun party and now have so many fun things to play with!

My Brilliant Offspring

Logan is starting to spout off 'Mom, I can spell 'love backwards'. I know how to rhyme everything.' I can read that word 'playbill' 'cast'....etc. He's also learning subtraction and has decided he already knows how to multiply (not sure on that one, but I would love to see it!)

Sylvie came home from a dead sleep, woke up, got out a pen, found a pad of post-it notes, and started some "messages." It's past bedtime and her brain is on fire writing words. All of a sudden she knows letters she didn't seem to remember before, she's stringing them into words, with appropriate vowel and consonant placement, and asking how to pronounce the words she wrote.

Brilliant children I tell you, just brilliant. Yeah, I'm bragging. And yeah, I know your kid probably did all this 3 years ahead of my kids, but it doesn't matter. The first time your kid does it, it's durn exciting!

Strawberries with "Stuff"

Logan: "Mommy, do you want to know a gift everybody will like? Strawberries with stuff on it. You mix up the stuff, and you make sure it's all around it and you wait til it dries and then you can eat it." Me:"What about the stem?" Logan "You eat all the way to the stem but don't eat the stem. I made those at the restaurant before." "Got it Mommy?"

Someday he won't say "Got it?" all the time like he does now, so I have to write it down.

Also, he's very very big on repeating everything from the tv back to me, as the commercial is happening, like I don't hear it myself. Ah, my boy.

We are headed out to some store tonight because "Mom I NEED a pencil sharpener at school. And it has to come from that store where Daddy took me." Me: "Logan, do you need new crayons as well? Are yours wearing down?" Logan: "Only the gray." I find that hard to believe as I saw his crayons at the Halloween party and they were on their last legs but I forgot to get new ones til now. He's so into recycle/reuse that he probably thinks you need to use a crayon til it literally is gone. Silly sweet boy.

Sylvie is in an eating phase, she eats all the time. Logan is in a talking phase, he never stops!

Middle of the Night

What's keeping me awake tonight?

Reliving a work situation. I hate when I do that. No one else is thinking about it at 3 am!

Wondering about Sylvie's school and if it really was a good idea. And wishing I had the means to decide on a different preschool. This one covers my work hours. At least she has made good friends.

Kinda pissy that Jorge is on his 2nd vacation trip in 2 weeks and I'm here dealing with frigid cold, a finicky furnace and ice and snow and Christmas prep all by my lonesome. Missing him as I had a cranky day and really could use a hug and smile.

Got sucked into a movie. It takes place in England and is flashing to Paris and I am reliving the memory of Paris.

Wondering if I'll ever get out of this job.

Wondering if all the other things I'm sad about will change.

Wondering if I'll wake up in a better mood if I go to bed for another 2 hours.

Greenbuild!

When I hit September and didn't get my new path laid out in gold for me, I chose to go at it alone. And maybe piece by piece. So piece #1 was Greenbuild Chicago. Just the idea of skipping responsibility for the day after so many days of playing double-parental duty made me a bit guilty. I did however at least leave a list for Jorge. And pack lunches for the finickies.

Drove in. Blech. What an ugly state. I'm sorry, but after learning that the actual scenery can actually soothe you while you drive long distances in Washington state, I always shock myself driving through factory areas where speeders fly by in the shoulder. Ignore the scenery and focus on the white knuckles and getting over to the lane where you need to be, which may or not be the one GPS tells you with all this construction in this town. If I had not looked up where I was supposed to be, I would have been overwhelmed by McCormick Place so score one for me for knowing what I was doing instead of trying to read a massive sign while driving.

Happy day, loved it. Loved the seminars, big and small. Yes they are tree-huggers. But I know that type, they live in Seattle often. Even more of them live in Portland. :) And man, those guys/gals at MIT are pretty crazy, but it looked so cool and out there, I'll take it.

Went to 4 seminars. Only thing that was weird was not having someone to share it with, but I did strike up a conversation or two along the way. And made myself go to the social event at the end, despite the potential of helping Jorge out by picking the kids up. Love the kids up, but I've had 80% of the parental duties this year, so kids, here's your dad. Jorge, here's your watch. It's 5:30, normal people leave at this time of the day and live in the same state as their wives. And he did it like a champ. At the social event I had great conversation, which I started, so it was awesome.

Happy day. Love this world of green, but even more than that, it made me miss my intellectual school days. Seven years of college and then one day the learning ends. Well, in some firms you continue. My new goal is to figure out ways to keep up the learning. Despite the company that employs me. Ideally it would be some great company though right? :)

4 Year Old Preschool

Sylvie likes to call her year of preschool "4-year old preschool." It has been a whirlwind year so far and while nothing is earth-shatteringly funny she does make me laugh, worry and cry.

Here are some highlights:

-Storytelling. Ellen had a wolf visit her house. Alex got bit by a REAL vampire. Emily saw the real monster that lives at Great America.

-Best Friends. She has been having issues keeping in the clique of girls. She spent the first few months concerned about who sat next to her, who liked, her, who talked to her, etc. My goodness she came home and threw temper tantrums left and right from the stress of it all. I've volunteered and it's insane at times. However, it does seem to be calming down. She gets out of school and obsessively wants to go over to the flagpole for her one on one time with Allison. I was really upset at her behavior until I understood that she spent the day fighting for attention and this was special friend time. Preschool can be rough! But on the plus side she's making some really long-term good friendships.

-She's good with the boys. Having a brother has taught her how to talk about Star Wars, and how to not freak if a boy talks to her.

-They call her Chivis (the kids, not the teacher) which I think is hilarious and she likes

-Every day is a fashion parade for Sylvie. She spent the first months wearing dresses and skirts, mourning days she had to wear gym shoes and having massive numbers of outfit changes. Then this week she wore jeans. Twice. With heeled shoes and a sparkle shirt. She keeps the teachers laughing. She wore two pigtails but wanted one clipped to the side to look like a side ponytail.

-Introducing the "I want for lunch exactly what my friends have for lunch." Which can be great because I know I can get her to eat a sandwich for the first time ever. And horribly disastrous when you pre-order hot lunches in September and she has a meltdown about it. And packs a lunch anyway.

-She's more patient with the process of getting to school, waiting for Logan's turn, and the walking it takes to get it all accomplished. As long as mom is right by her side. Woe to the family member who has to take her to school, her world is not okay on those days. I had to beg my office to let me change my hours just to keep the peace. Ah, kids:)

She's keeping me laughing, keeping me guessing, and throwing tantrums like a true 4-year old can pull off.

Life today....

Today I have been weepy. Probably hormonal, but it's kind of nice. I like being able to really "feel" strong emotions some days. Not being on cruise control. Or just being satisfied with something like a clean kitchen. Seeing life's big picture and really assessing it. I worry sometimes that some big crisis will come crashing into our lives, we have this beautiful life and I want it to stay good, great really. Happy, loving, and sweet. Joyful. Who would want to rock that boat? I always feel like I am asking for better and I'm always worried about how can one not feel guilty for complaining about anything in their perfect life while thereare miners stuck 2000 feet below the earth's surface for over 60 days, and friends who left the earth leaving their children behind, and babies who left the earth leaving their moms behind. All that seems so life-shattering and crazy and I hope nothing like that enters our daily bubble.

But life is life and we churn through dishes and losing weight and meal planning and parenting. And smiling in disbelief that our kids are so smart and get 100% on all their papers. And spend a long time coloring the perfect picture. And make mini-laptops out of paper and leave them all over the house. And tuck their dolls into a hand-me-down American Girl bed. I want a new job and had given myself a September deadline to accomplish this task but for all the hours spent trying, this recession is either double-dipping or just not coming up for air just yet. So knowing how firms are in this career, I'm trying to grieve the loss of this happiness I wanted for myself and make do with the new reality of our real fall schedule.

Not that I'm in this terrible place. I'm just so stubborn that I want what I want when I want it thank you very much. And I thought things were going to be one way and they are another. So I'm trying to make the best of things.This week I stood up to a head person to ask for something I knew they would not like. And when his mouth formed the word 'no' and every ounce of his body language said the same, I had to step it up, fight for what I wanted, and sell it. I got it. Phew! I also played the work game, you know the one where you run into an issue and instead of banging your head against your desk you find just the right person to get an answer from with the added bonus of sympathy for your plight? Plight. I learned that word ages ago in grade school and did a whole report on the Plight of some group or another.....always loved good words....

Seeing my kids in school is bringing back memories aplenty of life back when. When the cool song everyone wanted to listen to on Walkmen was "Toy Soldiers" by Martika. When the cool thing was to make fun of the music teacher. My son is making fun of the music teacher and I asked him why and kind of leaned over and said "well, she's not really that bad" which leads me to believe he doesn't quite know why the kids say she's mean, but he'll happily jump on that bandwagon anyway. Poor music teachers!

I'm trying to just enjoy what life is bringing my way this fall instead of making my own path, because it doesn't seem to be going that way. I do have to say some big decisions seem to be coming clearer and I'm pretty happy with that. Sometimes I think it takes being a peace with what you have before you can take on something new. And not knowing if you want something is overwhelming. But feeling at peace with a future plan is so liberating. For now, I'll share some of the little things that made me smile today....

Do we really have to get rid of all of these leaves? I am LOVING them. They make everything so pretty. My favorite is the bright pink/red trees that show up when you round a corner and take your breath away.

Logan, my sweet soul, was getting into a habit of bringing every friend he owns downstairs and now he's narrowed it down to a few "best friends."

Sylvie has rejuvinated her mothering role. She has a few American Girl knockoff type dolls she's loving on. Abuelita collected this doll bed back from a neice and Sylvie really loves it. I can't wait to introduce her to Jamie's twins this weekend and see what she thinks.

We have a house built in 1946. A brick Georgian. It has its perks, its quirks and its frustrations. But when we went looking for a house I really really wanted a staircase. And while a ranch house would be good for laundry I won't regret the stairs. The window and the paintings from Mexico make me smile each time. The wood stairs are warm, and warmer with white paint. I always think about the fact that we are creating a baseline for our kids on what they see as "home." I can see us dragging our kids to an ultra-modern urban condo someday only to see them buy their first home with their spouses that looks just like this one.

My sweet dog. Jorge and I both had cocker spaniels growing up and wanted one as our first "together" dog. She's full of spunk and can push my buttons worst than Sylvie but I do love her as a walking companion, and a sweet friend who is at my feet.

William and Pink

Logan: "William at my school is funny."

Sylvie: "I have a William at my school too. He teaches Gym. Mr. Williams."

Logan: "I have another teacher named Mrs. M."

(I was surprised because I haven't heard of this teacher before.)

Me: "Logan, what does Mrs. M teach? Spanish, speech, music, library......."

Logan: "I don't know what she teaches, but she's really fast at sharpening pencils!"

I seriously laughed out loud, then he got upset, then he got curious. So I had to explain that it was surprise that made me laugh, that I was laughing with him not at him. (don't know why the font went all funky on me).

++++++++++++++++++++

Sylvie: "Mommy, I can't wait til we learn about the letter 'pink' so I can bring this Barbie with me for Show and Tell."

Lapbooks

I have heard about this from the homeschooler-crowd and it was right up my alley as a fun and educational Sunday activity. I am eternally grateful to websites that help moms out with freebies all ready to print. It took awhile to get my printer to produce this, and I was right there with my big scissors cutting things for the kids (it would have been a LOT of cutting), but they had a blast!

I think the idea is to focus on one subject and create 3D games, activities, etc. all based on that subject. Sylvie had a book telling her Three Little Kittens Story. Logan got to act as a reporter and interview Sylvie for his Cloudy with a chance of Meatballs theme. I flashed some pictures of a summer activity we did on the computer to jog their memory, and then had him ask the questions "who, what, when, where...." that were listed on his reporter notebook to write down the answers.

Sylvie loved this. She was all about the games we made, the almighty glue stick and the sing-songy story. She loved completing the project and went back later to continue decorating it more.

Logan was a bit worried about the idea of being a "reporter" but really enjoyed writing down words all over his lapbook. I did give him the option of drawing pictures and he chose words- that was pretty exciting!

This is where I got our free lapbook printouts, by subject, by age group, etc. A lot of them are based on a book you would read, and then do a lapbook to summarize it. They also had a great list of additional activities. It was great being able to print and make the whole thing this morning, but some of the ideas would take a day or two of prep, supplies, etc. Next time i'll find the lapbook, get the book and read it, and then do the lapbook activity after. A lot of Logan's lapbook involved reiterating vocabulary words from the actual book, which is a great idea.

http://www.homeschoolshare.com/Lapbooks_at_HSS.php

Don't worry mom....

Logan: "Don't worry mom, I won't ever leave this house. I'll live here forever and take care of Abby (the dog). Sylvie can still feed her, but I'll take care of her. "

Me: "Well, if Sylvie feeds her, what will you do to take care of her?"

Logan: "I'll play with her."

Me:"What about walking her? Like around the block on a leash all by yourself?"

Logan: "Maybe I can do that when I'm 10. And an adult."

-------------@@@@@@@-------------

Sylvie on Monday :"I know what I'm going to be when I'm an adult. I'm going to be Merliah. With a Tail." (that would be a mermaid tail)

Sylvie on Tuesday: "I know what I'm going to be when I'm an adult. I'm going to be Barbie Fashion Fairytale. With a Tail."

Sylvie on Wednesday: "I know what I'm going to be when I'm an adult. I'm going to be Rapunzel. With a Tail."

Sylvie on Thursday: "I know what I'm going to be when I'm an adult. I'm going to be a Cowgirl. With a Tail."

Sylvie: "Mom, when I'm an adult I'm going to have my own house. So I can buy all the things I want to buy and you can't say there isn't room for them."

Yep, that about sums up their personalities right there.

Bonus: Sylvie gave Logan 2 princes to play with while we all played Polly Pockets.

Sylvie: "Logan. This is the Prince from Snow White and this is the Prince from Sleeping Beauty."

Logan argues.

Sylvie: "No Logan. I'm really serious here. I know what I'm talking about. That is the prince from Snow White. I'm sure (pronounced "sir"). I know all about the princes and princesses."

I show them the pictures on the computer to confirm that they are indeed both actually right.

Logan: "I knew it. I just looked next to my eyes and I thought about it and I could see the picture and it was right there from when I watched the Snow White movie."

Voices

Sylvie talking .....

Sylvie "Hey, I talk like someone at school."

Me: "Oh yeah, like who?"

Sylvie: "I don't know. Dylan."

Me: "Do you like talking like your friends?"

Sylvie: "Yeah. I do. I'm an Ac-tor."

What a ham!

Clubs

Logan:"Blah blah blah clubs. Sylvie, are you gonna.....blah blah clubs? Mommy are you gonna blah blah clubs? Sylvie, come blah blah blah blah blah blah........"

Sylvie gets annoyed, irritated and I see a temper tantrum coming on like the other 5 she's had since 2:30 (it's only 6 pm, my poor mom!!!! )

Me "Logan, we're not playing that game. Sylvie has had enough already tonight. You are asking questions that 6 year olds love and 4 year olds hate. Please wait til tomorrow to ask those questions to the other 6 year olds in your class."

Laughter from Logan, peace from Sylvie, whew!!!!!

Early Learners

Sylvie: "Mom, Jamie's babies are gonna read!"

Me: "How do you know?"

Sylvie: "I heard it on tv."

Those "Your Baby can read" commercials are getting a bit ridiculous!!!!

Trilingual

Logan: "Mommy, I'm learning 3 languages."

"China, Mexico and Sign Language."

Me: "What about English."

(he ignores me)

Sylvie: "What about spanish?"

Logan: "Yeah, I'm learning that one too!"