June's favorite things, August 2010

Rainbows, hearts and all things purple (could you write this about any 4-year-old girl?)

Kid gum (aka Starburst)

Sharing kid gum - "just a teensy bit, Mama, don't worry" - with her brother

Drawing pictures of our house. This one shows me in my office in the attic. She's in the window on the left. Kean is the other face (she forgot to draw a window around him) and Daddy is outside. The square at the bottom is Pepper's "dog door." She saw a pet door at our friend's house and obviously thinks we need one too.

Watching cooking shows (Giada is her favorite)

Asking me to make the food she sees on the cooking shows

Pretending to make the food she sees on the cooking shows ("...then you sprinkle a little salt on the tomato and top it with fresh cheese. Awesome!!!")

Wearing mismatched flip-flops

Braiding her hair (unless I'm doing it)

Successfully tricking her brother into giving up a toy by pretending that there's something even better for him someplace else ("Kean, don't you want that cool choo-choo train over there?")

And doing funny, silly things all day long!

Update: June just heard this list and told me I forgot some:

Making funny faces at her brother

Going to swim lessons (this from a girl who wouldn't go near the water when a boy lifeguard was her teacher for three weeks. All is well in the world now that she has a girl lifeguard.)

Making beautiful pictures for her mom

Listening to Itsy, Teeny, Weeny, Yellow Polka-dot Bikini

Helping mama do her chores

Happiness is...

Happiness is...

an icy popsicle on a hot, hot day.

Happiness is....

having a sister who shares her popsicle when yours is gone.

Happiness is...

finger painting outside.

Happiness is...

swim goggles that make you crabby.

Happiness is...

letting someone else drive.

Mama, mama, I have something to tell you.

I have to write these down before they escape my brain. A few comments from June this week (and it's only Tuesday).

I dead-ed it. I grin every time she says this, which is pretty often because there are plenty of ants to smoosh on our patio.

Jessica V. has fallen in love with me. Platonic love, mind you, but she gushes and blushes when she says it. Today she told me that she's fallen in love with Anna and Laura, but shhh, don't tell Jessica. Apparently, she's the jealous type.

Mama, this dress isn't big. Translation: This dress doesn't twirl as wide as the dress her auntie gave her for her birthday, the dress she'd wear daily if it didn't mysteriously disappear into the wash for days.

Froggy

A special shout-out to Linda for giving us this game. It's a big hit! (Click on the "four arrow" button under the video. It's on the bottom right. It makes the video full-screen.)

Let's learn time another day.

Location: My bed.

My wish: Five minutes of rest.

June's wish: Zero minutes of rest.

Time on digital clock: 1:19 p.m.

June: Mama, how long are you going to rest?

Mama: Five minutes, honey.

June: Okay.

(She peers at the digital clock)

June: Okay, until the clock says five-two-eight.

(Big smile on Mama's face)

Mama: That's right, honey. Sounds great.

So, what's new?

Actually, quite a lot.

New American. Kean was finally welcomed to the USA with a ceremony that had as much pomp and circumstance as a trip to the DMV to get your license renewed. Seriously, Regis and Kelly was on the freakin' TV next to the flag! We were the only ones celebrating in red, white and blue, but maybe we brightened everyone else's day a bit. The balloons that arrived at our house later that day put us all in a festive mood.

New pet. We found caterpillars on our playset in the yard about four weeks ago. We started with four, then three, then these two little critters who ate through endless oak leaves (I was about to steal some from the neighbor's tree) before finally (finally!) cocooning last week. We're praying for monarchs, but are setting expectations low, low, low because moths are more likely. (For a peek of our daily life, look at all the junk on the counter. Sheesh.)

New bed. I'm embarrassed to admit how long she's been sleeping on a mattress on the floor. She picked out her bed set, which fits her to a tee.

New season. Yay for warm weather and cute shorts and ice cream sandwiches and doing grass angels on our front lawn.

Still the most cute, mischievous, giggly, lovable kids on Earth.

Daddy, can we go play in the mines now?

We'll be careful, promise.

I lost count of how many times June changed her shoes today.

7:10 am: purple butterfly shirt, flowery skort, pink socks
7:15 am: purple butterfly shirt, flowery skort, turquoise striped legwarmers because she's cold, pink socks
9:45 am: purple butterfly shirt, flowery skort, brown butterfly fleece pants underneath skort, pink socks, red converses
9:50: removes flowery skort because it's bunched up under fleece pants
later that morning: takes off underwear and puts on the bottoms of her swimsuit instead
11 am: whips off socks and sneakers to try on new purple sandals bought at the store
11:10 am: puts socks back on for that unique european look of socks and sandals
11:15 am: takes off socks again. Clomp around in her rain boots just because.
12:50 pm: puts on red converses to ride her bike
12:55 pm: too hot to ride. puts on sandals again
1:30 pm: replaces brown butterfly fleece pants with pink fleece pants instead.
1:35 pm: takes off sandals and puts on white sparkly shoes
1:35 pm: -- 2:30 pm: 55 minutes of the same clothes!
2:35 pm: gives the euro look another try with white socks and purple sandals
2:36 pm: still hates it. flings the sandals and practices somersaults on the grass in her white socks
3 pm: takes off pink fleece pants, bathing suit bottom and walks around half naked for the next 15 minutes.
3:20 pm: puts on her nike sweatpants. comfy!

at last look, she was still wearing the sweatpants, her white sparkly shoes (now happily dirty for a hard day of play) and amazingly, the purple butterfly shirt that stayed on ALL DAY.

Chookie Monster

Somewhere along the line, maybe five or six months ago, June started calling Kean "Chookabunder." The adults in the house have no idea why, but so it is. Lately, because she's in such a hurry to getherwordsoutfast, she abbreviates it to Chookie or Chooks. Which should come as no surprise coming from a girl who says hung for hungry and gram for graham cracker. When she says Chooks, she sorta sounds like Peppermint Patty calling for Chuck. Yep, she's Peppermint Patty, Kean is Charlie Brown, Pepper is Snoopy and Masala Papa and I sound like wah, wah, wah, wah, wah, wah.

Kean doesn't speak English.

He speaks Keanlish. Some recent entries:

Tar = star
Do-dive = screwdriver
Dune = June
NOOOOOO = snow
Baboon = balloon
Muh-MAID = mermaid. An explanation: June got a mermaid Barbie for Christmas and Kean has a crush on her. Every time he sees a picture of a Barbie or Disney princess, he calls her mermaid. He's also very into fish. June says he's going to marry a mermaid. Look carefully at the picture: That's a fishing rod and a plastic fish in his hands.

Who needs toys?

Anyone who has been to our house knows there's no shortage of toys. You can't walk far without tripping over a plastic fish, a pom-pom, or some other little people junk. For the record, we do clean, but it's hard to keep up with our two little destroyers.

Which makes June's inventions that much more interesting. Several months ago, she glued buttons on a flat piece of wood to make a bed for her little bear. She used a napkin for the pillow. Forgot to take a picture of it, so you'll have to believe me when I say it was pretty cool. And it kept her busy for nearly an hour, which is a record in our house.

More recently, she hounded me to buy pie tins, not because she wanted pie (although if asked, she probably would have said yes), but because she wanted to make a tambourine. Mind you, we have a bin full of musical instruments. Finally, I got around to it and bought her a couple tins. It was like she hit the lottery. She grabbed the tins, found some mini M&M's, and much to my surprise, used them for her tambourine instead of stuffing them in her mouth. She taped the tins together, and presto!, a tambourine. Here she is with it, before it got dismantled during naptime one afternoon when she remembered what was inside it.

I'm not sure if she got her own joke.

Mama: June, stop chewing Daddy's phone.

June: Why? It's a blackberry.

Tonight's Dinner Conversation

June: Mama, who is Barack Obamana?

Mama: He's our president. He's the leader of America.

June: So he gets to do everything first?

Mama: Yeah, I guess so. He lives in a big house called the White House with his family.

June: Does it have a bathroom?

Mama: Um, yes, lots of them.

June: This many? (two fingers go up).

Mama: No, more than that. (game continues until she has 10 fingers up.) There are even more than 10 bathrooms.

June: I'd like to live there because it has so many bathrooms.

Three years ago today, we got the call about our little Junebug. Three years later, conversations like this one. Life is good.

I hear this in my sleep.

Kean's faves

Balloons
Climbing on the stool like his sister
Climbing on the table and then crying because he can't climb down
Croco
Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star
Birds
Strawberries
Dancing
Humming Skip to My Lou (who is Lou, anyway? Or do they mean loo?)
Hanging upside down
Running through piles of leaves
Sunglasses
Pepper's ears
A good game of chase

A Tall Tale

When people ask June's age, the usual comment is "Boy, she's tall!" or some variation thereof. Which is what the mom at toddler time said to me this morning, followed by "Her father must be tall." Hmmm. No one had ever said this to me. So, I said the first thing that came to mind: I don't know. The woman looked at me totally dumbfounded. If she had a caption bubble over her head like in a cartoon, it would have read How can this woman not know if the father of her child is tall? Then she seemed embarrassed, as if she had treaded on a taboo subject with me: This woman has had so many partners that she doesn't know who her child's father is? It took me a couple seconds to notice her confusion and clear it up. You could almost see the wave of relief come over her face.

Keep in touch.

Sometimes I feel like a virtual Paul Revere when I blog a new post, blasting emails to everyone. "The blog is coming! The blog is coming!" No more. Now I'm letting someone else tell you. Just type your email address in the box to the right and presto! whenever there's something new on this blog, you'll know. Or, if you like to aggregate your blogs on one page like I do with Yahoo news reader or another service, you can do that, too, by clicking on Subscribe via Reader. Easy-peasy!

Can't talk. We're too busy eating chocwit.

Halloween, as you know, is all about candy.
Little Miss June thought that was just dandy.
First she was a princess and then a cake.
Don't try to eat her! The frosting is fake.

Little brother Kean said "Moo" instead of "Boo."
When he saw a bowl full of candy, his hands just flew!
Do you recognize his costume?
That's because it used to be June's.






Kean, October 2009


June, October 2007

Which one is your favorite?

Wondering what happens on a typical day at the Masala Family homestead? Take a gander and tell me your fave.

I am a dictionary, plus gratuitous cute shot of Masala Kids.

If June doesn't know a word you say, she'll stop you mid-sentence and ask what it means. I can't even remember why I used the word grindstone, but boy, was that a doozy to explain. Here are a few others I've had to decipher for her.
- tonsils
- detour
- absurd
- frustration
- presentation
- prowl
- donation
- volunteer

More to come, I'm sure.