Well Papa and Tutu have only been gone 36 hours and they’re already sorely missed. Kulia keeps looking around for her “distraction action” from Papa and Leina keeps going, “who will play with me?” And I keep going, “who will do the dishes!”
Luckily though, I checked Tutu’s suitcase just before she left and look what I found her trying to sneak back to LA:
Better luck next time Tutu!
Leina is always coming up with new games for us play. They are usually quite involved and require a very explicit set of instructions from Leina. Here
I know the Christmas has passed but I wanted to get this memory down before it fades…
It was 2 weeks before Christmas and Chrissie was out shopping so I decided to take the girls to see Santa Claus as he arrived, by helicopter, at the local mall parking lot.
I met up with the family of Chrissie’s good friend Liza and after spending sometime cruising the local toy store we all headed over to Santa’s landing pad. We’d gotten their in case there was a large crowd and Leina, who had been very excited to see Santa this morning was become more and more frustrated as wait continued. She was now beginning to think this whole trip was just an excuse to let Dad play with in the toy store.
So I picked her up and now had the small kid in the backpack and the large one in my arms. Santa soon arrived, just as foretold, and he immediately jumped out of his helicopter (he wasn’t driving) and proceeded to greet kids at the other end of the line. Both Liza and I were very disappointed at this. After watching Santa meet ‘n greet all the excited boys and girls across the parking lot I calculated it’d take an hour for him to get over to us. Leina was not going to make it that long – she wanted Santa now!
So Liza and I – cunning parents that we are – bustled the kids out of the line and stealthy cut in at a much close part of the line only a few minutes from Santa. I’m sure there were some cross parents at our presumptuousness but I’m sure once they heard Leina pining for Santa Claus they cut us some slack.
By this time though Leina was getting very agitated. She wanted Santa but she was tired and hungry. We’d been practicing what she was going to ask Santa for all morning but as he got closer and closer to her she started to freak out. As he finally made it to us she burst out in tears and cried, “I’m scared of Santa Daddy!!”
So there I was holding this wailing child who had waited so long to see Santa but just couldn’t handle it anymore. The Santa was a great guy, he laughed and joked but just couldn’t get Leina to stop crying. Finally I said, “ok Leina let’s go, say bye bye to Santa.”
In one instant, just as I turned to leave, she stopped crying, looked at Santa and yelled, “JACK-IN-THE-BOX” as loud as she could then burst back into tears.
The Santa must have jumped back a foot and just laughed and said, “I know what you want for Christmas little one! Ho Ho Ho.”
So, mission accomplished. Leina got to let Santa know what she wanted for Christmas – tears and all.
From the pictures below you can see that Santa delivered
By popular demand here are the Christmas pics of the “world’s cutest kids*”
*According to their parents, grandparents and close friends who were sufficiently bribed.
Kevin made a very astute observation the other night. He noted that living with Leina was like living with the seven dwarfs only you never know which dwarf will greet you from the crib each morning.
Of course, we’re overjoyed when we get Happy but more often than not we are faced with Grumpy or, now that cold season is upon us, Sneezy. Lately, I’ve seen quite a bit of Doc as Leina’s new favorite past time is to ask “why” over and over and over again. Sleepy and Grumpy sometime appear at the same time and Bashful takes over when she’s approached by stranges. Personally, I like Dopey and the silly songs and antics. Each day, Leina morphs through these characters at an alarming rate. I’m begining to think that the original tale was Snow White and Her Two Year Old but old Walt decided seven dwarfs would be more fun.
I guess if Leina is the Dwarves that that leaves me with either Snow White or the Evil Queen. And, I suppose, in Leina’s eyes I’m both. I can play and snuggle with her or demand that she go to bed or turn off the TV.
Yes, we’re just a magical kingdom here in McLaughlin land. Now, if only there really was a magic apple that would send her soundless into sleep during nap time!
My girls continue to astound me.
For weeks, Kulia has been pushing up on all fours and rocking. Well, yesterday she fit all the pieces together before our unbelieving eyes. She popped up, pushed with her feet and reached with her hands and achieved crawl. I don’t know whether to be amazed or scared. Probably both. She’s still wobbly and can’t go more then a foot or two but all the requirements are there. She’s just waiting to kick in the afterburners and take off.
And Leina? Well, she is the ultimate talker still. I had the girls up at the park yesterday and I was chatting up another mom who’s son was a month older than Leina. He was way beyond her physically – jumping off the play structure, running over the bridge and climbing up the slide. Leina was carefully picking her way up the jungle gym gabbing the whole time and the other mom commented on her incredible speech. Her son would say, “mommy, up slide!” Leina’s version was “mommy I want to go up the slide and then you can hold my hand on the other side and catch me at the bottom so I can try the swings and you can push me fast but not too fast ’cause I might fall and have a booboo…..” We pretty much tuned her out and chatted until Leina ran up to me and tugged my hand.
“Mommy,” she began, “I want to go on the suspension bridge.”
There was a moment of stunned silence and then the other mom turned to me and exclaimed, “what did she just say!”
I wasn’t sure I had heard correctly myself so I bent down and said, “what did you say, honey?”
“I want to go on the suspension bridge,” Leina replied pointing to the bridge.
“Wow, that’s amazing. Where did she learn that?” asked the mom.
“Well, she watches lots of Bob the Builder,” I began, “and her dad’s an engineer.”
“oh, well, that explains it!” said the mom.
Then that evening, Leina upted the ante even further. I was trying to settle her with her evening video and held up her two options.
“I want to watch ba-woo mommy,” Leina said.
“You want to watch the blue one?” I asked, holding the blue video toward her.
“No, mommy, I want ba-woo!” Leina demanded.
“Oh, you want to watch Blue’s Clues!” I said and began rummaging through our DVD collection.
“No, no mommy. Not ba-woo, BA-WOO!” Leina demanded. She was beginning to get frustrated by my lack of understanding.
“I’m sorry honey, I don’t understand what you want.”
Leina sat and looked at me a moment and then said…
“Mommy, what is Mogli’s friend’s name?”
“Mogli’s friend? His name is Baloo.” I answered.
“Yes mommy,” Leina nodded sagely, “I want to watch Ba-woo.”
Completely flabergasted, I quietly slipped the Jungle Book sing-a-long into the player and stared at my daughter in awe. These kids. They are so frightening sometimes. One never knows what they will do next.