Had I taken this photo I’d be really proud. I’d also have spent an hour in photoshop getting it just right.
She takes more pictures of people now. This is Ethan
And of random people with cool shirts
Shoes are still fascinating
so are shadows. She took a dozen or so different shadow pictures…
Andy’s shoes are just as fascinating. And she now knows about Macro setting (although we still have to set it)
Ah, the dinosaurs. There is a long story behind that. We went to buy a birthday gift at Toy’s R Us and Leilani discovered Dinosaur eggs. She wanted one so badly. I wanted her to hurry up in the mornings (another long story) so we came up with a star chart. Good behavior earns a star. 9 stars earn a dinosaur egg. It takes 10 minutes to peel all the layers of plastic wrapping, then you put the “egg” in warm water (vinegar works better) and in another 10 minutes there are 25 cents worth of plastic parts in the bowl, and $4.50 worth of calcium-sodium-diphosphate-laurel-sulfate soup that is probably pretty bad for the environment. But Leilani sure loves her first dinosaur, and her behavior has been excellent since we came up with the system.
She drew Dumbo (personally I thought it was the little unnamed elephant boy – son of Colonel Hathi in the Jungle book), then asked me to write it and when I gave her the mixed up but correct letters and verbally spelled it she put the letters on.
Today while shopping at the Sees Candy store Leilani was really busy looking at all the truffles and trying to charm yet another sample out of the 3 salesladies who looked bored and under-employed. She managed 3 different truffles (and I only got one).
She did not pay attention what I was doing, only when it was time to pay she joined me again. “Thanks for the lollipops. Did you find something nice for our husband?” The salesladies did not quite roll on the floor laughing, but I think mainly out of politeness… I mean, we all heard of the 3 year olds that want to marry daddy… but Leilani is one of the few that actually pretends she has :-) She still calls him Andy. I am Mom most the time and Sonja less that 20%, Mommy sometimes when she is feeling tired or sad.
[photos posted by Mommy, captions and comments by Daddy]
Mommy had a scrapbooking Saturday in San Jose, and it was too cold and rainy to play at the park, so Andy and Leilani finally made it to the Children’s Discovery Museum.
Side note for the San Jose city planners: having nothing but paid parking lots all over the downtown does not make it a big and lively city. $5 to park next to the museum and such bad traffic circulation (even without traffic) that you just can’t drive around the block to find a free spot—you got me once again.
Anyways, when we got there, Leilani was very happy to see that the Alice in Wonderland exhibit was being held over, even if Daddy didn’t think the art was very well done:
That wasn’t Daddy’s only gripe: the flower above this climbing structure said “Do not climb” but I didn’t take a picture of it because I don’t want to be a grumpy old man. Too many of the exhibits were just mini science experiments: turn the crank to make electricity, see how air bubbles rise faster in water than in oil, etc. We tried the Tech Museum in San Jose last time, and that was far too scientific for Leilani, so we were hoping for something else here. I guess San Jose will always be too techy and geeky.
Case in point: this next exhibit was all about circles, it just happened to have a few silk scaves to dress up in because SE Asian people make circular basket boats–not pictured were a few play vegetable the children had to fight over to put them into circular baskets to play market.
But on the positive side, the museum is huge and there are plenty of just playing things. There was a real ambulance and a real firetruck (parked inside), and this stagecoach too, like the one we saw in the (San Jose) parade. Daddy had never been in a stagecoach before, so he tried this too.
But perhaps the most unique and best part of the museum was the water room. Several large fountains and air tubes that shoot the plastic balls around, even a whirlpool that sucks them under water. In the part reserved for little kids, Leilani could place the balls in the water stream and make them balance there.
In the evening, Leilani helped Mommy to make the dough for baking bread:
See the finished bread here
Leilani quote of the week: “I’m getting too old for this!” [tosses a ribbon into her box of dolls] “My babies can have it now.”