Morning laugh

Lydia was sitting at the table and eating her yogurt when she said "Daddy, do you want some yogurt?" When Paul said that he did, she announced, "Ok. Then you can go get your own."

Listen to the little ones

Paul and I often crack up at what our kids say. A few days ago Tyler woke up before Lydia and requested to watch "Nemo" first thing. He absolutely adores "Finding Nemo", but I rarely let him watch it. So this particular morning I agreed farely quickly. Tyler looked at me and with a smile on his face said "so happy". It was cute to see him express his feelings about something since he can barely put two words together.

Tonight as we were putting kids to bed, Lydia announced as she gave me a hug goodnight " I love Daddy and Tyler loves you and that's how we love each other".  She's got the division of love all figured out.

Bus ride

Here is our cutest little boy riding a bus. We rode a bus a week ago and once again yesterday. Boy, did Tyler love the ride! While we were waiting at the graduate community center to go to the Easter Egg Hunt, Lydia and Paul would wonder around the building. First, Tyler would run after them, then turn around and say "buff" with a worried expression. I could see that he was afraid to miss the bus. When we got on, he sat so still and just looked out the window the whole time. That in itself is a shocker, because Tyler, well, he just does not like to sit still.

On our way back, once again, at the bus stop, we had to wait in line to get in. Upon seeing the bus pull up, Tyler was pushing past everyone to make sure he got on. When I held him back, he was so eager to find his seat that he started turning to a horizontal position while I was holding him. I figured that it was his only way of getting closer to the door. As we waited, the longer it took for us to move up the line, the harder his hand was squeezing my skin into a pinch. Once he was on a "buff", he was the happiest kid ever. My point---Tyler loves busses... and cars... and trains... He is a boy through and through!

New things

I wanted to show off Lydia's creations. She loves making cakes in all shapes and forms: she makes them out of play dough, out of sand and all other materials she can find. She finds new delicious looking pictures in cookbooks and begs me to make it with her. Once in a while we let her.

Today our little girl really wanted to eat crapes for breakfast, but, I was not paying enough attention to what I was doing and mixed up a batter for blintzes. When Lydia spotted my mistake, she was not happy. Oh, no, she was not. She ate the blintzes, though was still begging and pleading that we would make crepes for lunch. I promised that when she was done with her quiet time, we will make crepes. I even tried to to tempt her to make brownies instead, but she refused. So we made crepes.

Lydia and Tyler started a gymnastics class last week. They are in different age groups, but basically are in the same room. They both love it. Lydia loves to do somersaults and swing on the rings. Tyler loves to climb and run like the wind on the tumbling track. He looks so funny and unbalanced as he dashes back and forth, but seems to maintain his vertical position just fine.

Rainbow school has also been added to our daily routine. When Lydia found out she would go there, we told her that she had to practice going potty on the toilet to make sure she did not have any accidents. I don't think I have ever seen such cooperation from Lydia before. The first day of school when I came to get her, she looked at me and said very sternly "What are you doing here?" Well, I guess I could say she already fully adjusted.

Video for Dad's Birthday

We played around with video editing and made something fun to send to Dad for his birthday. Then I went a step further and embedded it into a website. I'm very proud of it: Video slide show.

Cal Train trip

One fine Saturday afternoon we decided to go for a train ride. We have a Cal train station very close to our house, and as we drive around, we come across railroad tracks quite a lot. Kids love watching the train go by. So we decided to treat them to a ride on one of those trains.

Lydia loved exploring the train. Tyler would have loved it, too, only we did not let him. As good as he is on his feet, he's still rather tipsy on the level ground at times. So we did not really want to find out how many injuries he could accumulate running around the moving train. The railing on the second level was rather sparse and like a good friend of mine once said "we ought to have healthy respect for gravity." I am not fond of heights, can you tell?

So, back to Lydia. She walked around the train as far as we would let her. She would go upstairs and sit down by the window and watch everything race by. She sang as we rode. It was fun to watch her. She is so curious, wanting to explore and experience everything she can.

We made it to San Francisco in about an hour. There we took a bus and another train to Fisherman's Warf. We walked around Pier 39, indulging ourselves in a yummy crape and watching the seals sunbathe on empty docks before we headed back for home. It was such a memorable trip for all of us.

Funny kid stories

I have to record a couple of fun kids stories before I forget them.

I went to Illinois (UIUC) last week for a few days. When the family came to pick me up at the airport, Lydia gave me a hug and hushed me because she was listening to Jamaima Puddleduck in the car stereo. They've been listening to that several times this past week. When I asked her what the story is about, she said that the fox and the dog got together and ate the eggs. Larisa had to fill me in on the background. Apparently the story involves a duck laying eggs and a bad fox who wants to eat them, but in the end the dogs eat the eggs. Well, after several times of listening through the story, Lydia finally asked Larisa about the eggs. "The fox ate the eggs, right?" When Larisa told her that the dogs ate the eggs, Lydia was shocked and brought to tears, insisting that it was the fox. So then she decided that actually the dogs and the fox got together and ate the eggs (probably the fox talked them into it, I assume).

Today we cut Tyler's hair. He looks cute. Tonight we were getting ready to read a book, and Tyler went off on a talking spree. "Nemo," "Shaw" (shark), "Wayow" (whale), "boat," "tudo" (turtle), "ate," "Dowi" (Dori), and then back to Nemo and shark and so on. We laid down with our heads on the toy couch, and he was very particular that were on his left rather than his right (if we were on the wrong side he'd push our head off the couch). He was very excited to tell us the story, and we kept repeating back to him everything he said.