I am with John Stewart on the whole Passover vs Easter as a father of mixed faith (sorta neither faith however following stories of both). This is a video from a few years ago however its still as funny today as it was then. So true. Passover is such a harder sell than Easter. Just look at the photo of our Easter spread that is the setup for our egg hunt with the girls tomorrow. On the Passover front they may get some soup and chocolate covered matzoh.
Kids
An Old Favorite
The girls had me read this again today. I haven’t read it in at least a year. Such a fun book. One of my favorites if not my fav from when they were little.
Compulsory tickling when the hippos went berserk was also successful!
Laundry Time
I am living the life of leasure. The girls insisted on helping fold laundry and now wont let me carry it upstairs or put it away. I could get used to this.
W Sisters Short on M being Away
Pondering what sort of mischief I will get in with the girls while M is in the US? According to them it will involve paper, beads, and glue tonight.
I Am Writing Out Scones are Not Crumpets 100 Times
I may have broken British law several times this morning calling a crumpet Scones to my kids. I knew I messed up right away when my older one got excited and looked at me funny as if to say we don’t have scones.
The W Sisters and The Story Of Lets Go To See Some Castles or Not
One day at dinner before we moved to London I was discussing with the girls one of the things we can do when were in England. The girls love princess stories so MC and I talked up the fact that we can go see all sorts of different castles. This was something we’ve discussed several times and both girls had been excited about it.
This night T was still excited and wanted some more details. A on the other hand wasn’t so excited. I asked her why. She said she was going to be bored. She wanted to see just one castle and that was enough.
After a statement like that I didn’t really know what else to say except to confirm that’s what she meant. She did. Then I went about eating dinner…
The W Sisters and the Story of Did I Eat Well?
I am hoping it is universal for little kids to constantly ask if they “ate well”? For those without kids that is their code for did I eat enough to get desert or a treat. Little tip kids if you are asking it is likely a “no, no you did not eat well”.
My wife and I realized the effect of sugar on T early on. We try to avoid treats or desert every day. That doesn’t mean the girls do not get treats or try to get them often enough.
Recently we have experienced a new phenomenon. T will eat a lot f her meal or even all of what us in her plate without anyone asking. At or near the end of the meal she will ask if she ate well. At that point I am like, actually you did. At time of writing this T has done that at least 3 times with successful desert for her. Now all she needs to do is not be a crazy person after getting desert so I won’t regret giving her anything.
Her sister is not as evolved. She is still at the phase of being outraged when told. She cannot have desert after not eating a single piece of her dinner. MC and I are just bastards. I am hoping she learns or just toned down the yelling. I am good with that. I know neither are realistic for a while.
The W Sisters And The Story of The CIA
I feel I am experiencing a normal phenomenon, yet I still find it very odd. It feels like my kids have been recruited into the CIA or other secret agency. It might be fight club. I am not sure. What I do know is when I ask either of my daughters how there day went they say some variation of I don’t want to talk about it.
I feel that is a typical kid thing to do. One of the teachers said its normal and they will eventually start talking about stuff that happened weeks before. OK great I am still waiting to hear about stuff from April then.
If that wasn’t semi-frustrating enough both of them will tell me stuff that happened that actually didn’t happen. Ussually it is just fantastical enough that you know it is BS. Last year for example in T’s class there was a boy we will call F. Every day F would do some wild and crazy thing. Some stuff I don’t even know if it is possible for a 4 year old to do so it was pretty apparent that it was all made up. Then of course I meet the kid. Funny enough there is a good chance he was the kid in the class that required a decent amount of discipline. I am not saying he was the worst kid in class or that anything T said was true. it was just funny that in her own way she was saying he was difficult.
Of course with a track record like that it is hard to tell if she is telling the truth. The other day T was telling me a story about the bus driving very slow almost not at all during a field trip. Then the teacher said something and they waited for another bus and then went back to school. The elaborate description about the bus driving very slowly sounded far fetched so I filed it away as another imaginary event. It wasn’t until the next day when i saw a post from one of the Mom’s who went on the trip passing on that there was bus trouble during the field trip. After she explained the situation it was apparent that T was spot on with her description. Now the girl has me so turned around i can’t tell when she is telling the truth about stuff at school. Well played my little one. Well played. Now please stop teaching your younger sister do to the same thing.
The W Sisters and the Short Story Of The Piggy Bank Competition
This week in our house loose change has been worth it’s weight in gold. For some reason the girls have been super excited to find lose change and put them in their piggy banks.
This week I had to find coins to give both of them since they were fighting over the three or four that they had gotten sometime recently.
I find it amusing that they enjoy taking dimes and quarters and putting them in a container. I know that they won’t be that easily entertained in the future.
The W Sisters and the Story of The Promised Pony
When we talk to people about our move many of them ask how we told the girls? Or what do the girls think about the move? The answer is they are super excited. Why you might ask? Because to sweeten the deal on our international move we promised the girls we would get them a pony. We figured we could live on a nice British farm near a village and we could have a pony they could use on the weekends. Not really sure how we can figure that out logistically but we both agreed that the best way to convince them this move was good would be to promise them a pony.
So maybe some of that first paragraph isn’t true. I hope people realize that. That is either my version of click bait or I just thought it was pretty funny. Yeah, I just thought it was pretty funny. What is true about that paragraph is that people ask us those questions. They’re valid very good questions to ask.
I was probably pretty bad parent during this planning of the move in the early stages. I would talk openly to MC about things in front of the girls. They are old enough and they did understand a lot of it. We realize we needed to tell them what was going on when T got upset and thought we were giving away our apartment. We had to explain that we were selling it and that we would be getting a house when we got to London with a backyard. That was something that MC had wanted for years no matter where we lived. The girls were definitely excited to hear that. An added benefit of the house was that we would not need to continue to yell at them all the time when they ran around. Nowadays we do that since our neighbor downstairs does complain now and again if the girls do that.
We did promise the girls other stuff however. Just nothing as crazy as a pony. For almost what feels like two years the girls have been asking for bunkbeds. For most of that time however they’ve been crazy lunatics at bedtime. That means we did not want to get them any sort of vehicle to be able to jump off of when they’re in the room by themselves at night. Since the beginning of the summer I think they’ve been going to bed most nights without any problems so they’ve grown up enough that bunkbeds are a viable option for them. The added benefit of that is we can get a bunk bed and not bring the two top their beds that were once their cribs with us when we move. Both girls are extremely excited over that. The challenge they have is they both want to be on the top bunk. We agreed that they would rotate innate to be determined rotation schedule.
Other things the girls are excited about are the castles that we told them are all over England and Ireland. They are very curious about the princesses that may live in those castles and tried to explain to them that there probably aren’t any. That not change the fact that T will likely look for or ask for them when we go on trips.
For the girls this move is just an idea. When we first told them we said it was a long way away. We didn’t want them to get scared or apprehensive about it. We told him they have Christmas and Hanukkah and A’s birthday to go through before we move. I don’t think the reality is going to start setting in for them until either we start packing the apartment or we actually get to our new house in London.