Why We Have Brothers

Overheard while the girls were getting their bath tonight:

Jiejie to Meimei: I can't wait till T.J. comes. Then when we play house we can have a boy to be the father.

Poor kid. He doesn't know what he is in for.

Ready for the New Year

Meimei starts preschool, Jiejie is taking ice skating and chess. Our babies are growing up!

Meimei's Knock-Knock Joke

Meimei: Knock knock.

Mom: Who's there?

Meimei: Why the chicken chase the road?

Mom: I don't know. Why?

Meimei, collapsing in laughter: Because he eat WORMS!

I think she's getting the idea.

It Beats Resting

Meimei was up to her usual tricks tonight. As soon as we were comfortably settled in bed, she said, "Pee, pee."
I took her to the toilet. Nothing.
Back in bed, she said, "Mama, want dress." Lately she has been into wearing dresses to bed. With leggings. Sometimes she has more than one costume change, signaled with the command, "New dress"; later it's "new pants," and so on into the night. Since Daddy was working late and I was feeling less than perky, I said no. Meimei"s face crumpled as the wail rose. As she eyed me to gauge my reaction, she poked out her tongue to catch the cascading tears.
"Want dress NOW."
"Not tonight," I told her. Your sister needs to sleep. She has school in the morning, and you have gym class."
"Want DRESS!"
I tried to ignore the tears and tell the story. Meimei turned up her personal volume. She drowned me out. I knew she was manipulating me, but it still broke my heart to see her in tears.

"O.K., sweetie," I told her." What if I got you a dress."
The noise stopped. She thought.
"I be happy?"
"And then would you want something else?"
"Yes."
"What?"
"Blue pants."
"And after that?"
"I be happy?" She was smiling now.
"And then you would want what?"
"Snack!"
"And after the snack?"
She thought again.
"Brush teeth!" Now she was really enjoying the game.
"And what would you want after that?"
"Get Bipedal!" (Bipedal is a beanbag dog, companion to her favored stuffed dog, Blackear.
"And where would we go to get Bipedal?"
"Downstairs!"
"And then what would we do?"
"Watch 'Oobi'."
"We can do all those things, but we'll do them all at the same time, later, when I say so. Can you be patient and wait a little while?"
Her antics continued, but she waited. Soon Jiejie was asleep and Meimei and I headed to her room for the perfect dress, new undies and a little jacket with ballet shoes embroidered on it. Then down we went to find Bipedal, have a snack and watch the Radio City Music Hall "Christmas Spectacular."

Talking in Her Sleep

Jiejie said:

"boo! Boo! Excellent!" with a smile.

And later, "I paused it in my head."

In the Footsteps of the Dinosaurs

We started watching "Dinosaur Train" after I read about it on an adoption list-serv. It is indeed an adoption story. Mrs. Pteranodon breezily welcomes a strange egg to the family nest. Three pteranodons hatch -- Tiny, Shiny and Don -- then all eyes turn to the adopted egg, and out pops Buddy, who looks nothing like the other nestlings. What species is he? No one knows yet, but no matter, Mrs. Pteranodon carries him in her beak while the winged siblings fly with her to the train depot.

Jiejie and Meimei love this. Meimei likes to be Buddy. Jiejie alternates between pretending she is Tiny and Don. Jiejie is enraptured with the conductor, a Troodon, and now he is the subject of our nighttime story and a list of nagging questions starting the minute she opens her eyes, asking about every possible detail of the story while trying to control its direction.

Between stories and the show, the girls have learned a surprising number of dinosaur species and their characteristics, and Buddy has learned he is a T rex. He doesn't look like his family or eat like his family of fly or dive to catch fish, and although he meets a roaring, snorting, carrion-chomping Tyrannosaurus family and is delighted to learn more about what he will grow into, he also knows he belongs with his forever family and intends to stay there (although he is a wee bit concerned about carrion-breath)

Tiny Dancer

Meimei has a creative movement class starting today, about 12 minutes ago, to be exact, although she just got out the door. She was excited for weeks, twirling and spinning and posing before the mirror with arms curved in an arch over her head. "I'm a princess," she says. "Really a princess."
But when the moment came today, this little veteran of swim class and art class and scribble and stretch class would not go out the door. Then she only wanted to go wearing the mismatched clothes (two competing patterns of stripes) she had insisted on for bed and her silver princess shoes without socks.. These days she goes through several bedtime costume changes and instead of pajamas, she wants to wear dresses and pants.So, she got sweat pants over her striped bottoms, hello kitty socks under the princess shoes and a two-babysitter escort (at her insistence). I guess she is a princess.

The Next Exciting Episode

A few weeks ago Jiejie wrote a book. That's no surprise. She has been "writing" books since before she could actually write. But this is her first serial. This is Part II, entitled "Sugar the Mystery Cat: Book 2: "Hurry, Find the Shaver!" Here is her synopsis: "There is a cat, and it has no ears, and it is bald, and she spells it like B-A-L-D-I."
Q. How did she lose her ears?
A. She shaved with her owner's shaver. In Book 1 she broke the shaver.
Q. How?
A. In Book 1 she did not know what to do with it and she played with it and broke it.
Q. And what about the ears?
A. She used cat ear disposal.
Q. How is her hearing since she shaved her ears off?
A. She saved a bit of her ears so she can hear when people are calling her for food.
Q. Who is her owner?
A. David Weinaberg.
Q. That's an interesting name. Where did you get your inspiration for it?
A. I just had it in my head.
Q. In Book 1, Dave was upset because the shaver was missing. He said, "I spent $300 on that. Can't Someone have a shave." What is the mystery in the new book?
A. UMMM. He bought another one, but he lost it.
Q. Will you share any more details with your readers?
A.Don't type. Let me think. ... His wife dropped his shaver in the toilet.

I'm holding my breath as the author gets to work with her pencil.

P.S. Sugar becomes Baldi once she shaves off her hair - and ears.