Miss Pigtails

Addie has started to take an interest in her hair lately. Here is our favorite latest style:

I sent this to my Mom and she said that it reminds her of another little girl 30 years ago. I am afraid she may be right! Sorry Addie. :)

A rite of passage

A few nights ago Charles was gone and the kids and I were having a casual dinner. By casual, I mean really casual. In fact, Jack mastered this skill sought after by most eight-year-old boys. We were all so excited that we took this video and texted it to Charles. He was genuinely sad he missed out. :) 

Wife

Yesterday I was helping Addie with her speech therapy homework which consists of saying a lot of words with the letter F in them. Basically, you point to a picture and ask her to say the word. Well one of the words this week is WIFE.  Every time I point to the picture she says 'that is you Mommy.'  Yes, and what is the word Addie? And she says Erin. Every time. I blame my nickname from Charles as the culprit!  Too funny.

Addie, Fans, and Mom & Dad's Clothes

We've been taking Addie to speech therapy recently. Sometimes I think it is expensive pre-school, but nonetheless, she loves it and I love seeing her interact with her therapist. It is so much fun to see your kids when they are interacting with another adult.

Specifically, we are working on the F sound. One of the words she was concentrating on was fan. Well last session, she started to tell Rachel, her speech therapist, about how she had a fan in her room, and that Jack and Theo have a fan in their room. She then said that Eliot didn't have a fan in his room because Mom and Dad keep their clothes in there. Rachel looked a little confused. Why on earth would keeping clothes in someone's room prevent you from having a fan???? Well, I had to explain to Rachel that actually Eliot sleeps in our closet still so space was somewhat limited. It was so funny that in Addie's little head we keep clothes in Eliot's room, rather than him sleeping in our closet!

Lunch Date with Jack

So as part of Christmas this year, Charles and I gave the kids homemade gift certificates. They were for various things but the most anticipated ones were a day out for lunch with Mom or Dad by themselves.

Well, so far Addie has tried to redeem both of these coupons - in fact, she tried to redeem them both the first week in January. We told her that she wouldn't get new ones until next Christmas, so she should try to make them last. Deferred gratification is a hard concept for a four-year-old!  We have, however, let her redeem her Daddy lunch coupon. One of the stipulations is that kid gets to pick where they go for lunch. So based on Addie's  pick, Charles enjoyed a fabulous lunch at Burger King's play place. He blames me for not redirecting her decision to a more acceptable place!

Jack redeemed his Mommy lunch date coupon last week. He chose Las Margaritas, one of our favorite Mexican restaurants. We had a great time. It was one of those moments that comes every so often in parenting where you realize that your kid is maturing and is actually fun to be with!

One of my favorite conversations we had while at lunch revolved around saving money and getting a car some day. This was prompted by our nephew Justin just recently getting his drivers' permit. Jack told me that he wanted to start to save his money so that he could buy a car when he went to college. After some more discussion, he decided that a used car made sense, given that they were less expensive. His reasoning is what cracked me up. He said that he thought that by the time he got to college he thought that Dad and I would probably not want to take him everywhere!  And immediately, I thought I must record that!  He didn't say that HE wouldn't want US to take him places, but that WE wouldn't want to take HIM places. Somehow I believe that his little eight year old self might think differently well before eighteen, but I won't complain if not!