Life, Kids, Technology & that move to another continent
At dinner Tonight T announced her favorite holidays were Christmas, Hanukkah, Easter, and Halloween in that order. She declares that she loved them all since for all of them they got treats or presence. This just proves that the Jews are doing a terrible job of promoting Purim.
After T’s declaration Am confirmed she agreed with that top 4 list.
If you have kids you might be like us and explain stuff to them. I have done it since T was a baby and wasn’t possible for her to understand. On one hand I think it’s a good idea. It is is also something to pass the time when dealing with little kids.
As the girls get older both MC and I continue to do it and try to make it into a conversation with the girls. Sometimes it sparks their interest and others they could care less.
On a weekend in November we traveled to MC’s parents house for a visit. We were driving over the new Tappanzee bridge and MC was explaining that it was a suspension bridge. MC was trying to go into details about how it works so the girls would understand how it works. T instead blurred out “Mommy why are you so excited about this bridge?”
MC broke out hysterically laughing. It was pretty funny. T just wanted to know why MC was going on about this bridge. Hopefully comments like that aside T grows to appreciate engineering even if she doesn’t choose to study it.
A on the other hand was quiet during the encounter. I can’t remember if she was just sleeping but that is likely since we were driving.
The girls love to pretend play. A lot of times I love pretending they’re taking our orders at a restaurant and then bringing us food. Other times they like to play school. They also just like to clean around the house which I highly encourage.
One day recently T came over to me and asked me what I wanted to order. I told her a Jack and Coke. Her reply was “Jack and coke tastes yucky pick something else.”
Next I asked her for a scotch on the rocks. Her reply was “Scotch on the rocks taste like rocks”. That’s when I just asked for a Diet Coke and she brought me one.
After I received my pretend Diet Coke I wanted to try again on the scotch so I asked for a scotch need. I was then told that I already had a drink. That conversation ended quickly.
For a few months now I have been trying one night every week to introduce some traditional American summer food to the girls routine. They have had hot dogs a bunch of times prior to this but have generally been meh with them. It has been very hit or miss. I did try real hot dog buns vs just wrapping them in bread. I enjoyed it but they didn’t take to it as I would have liked. It is also work to de-skin sometimes and slice the long way the hot dog a bunch of times so they don’t choke on it.
Recently I have also tried hamburgers. Surprisingly The girls have not really eaten them. Both of the girls have eaten hamburgers at least partly. The problem is I can’t get both of them to eat a full meal of it at the same time. T has fared better recently. The last time I made them cheeseburgers A picked the cheese off the burger and that’s all she ate. At the same sitting T at least ate 1/2 a hamburger.
With our upcoming move getting them to eat classic American fare has become a mission of mine. I guess I like to take on unnecessary and probably un-winable missions. They do eat the other traditional American children’s food the chicken nugget. I have heard people say it is definitely harder to get a good hamburger in England then in the states. I’m not so sure if that’s true however I’m not taking my chances. I’m pretty sure a good American hotdog is going to be a challenge to get. I don’t keep kosher however I like and all beef hot dog. Sometimes that’s hard to get even in New York so confidence is low that I will be able to do that in London all that often. For me not a huge deal since I don’t eat hotdogs very much and although I love hamburgers I eat them for less than I used to. I do want the kids to appreciate good American comfort food.
While we are on the topic of good American comfort food I have to point out how baffled I am that T doesn’t eat grilled cheese. Well I’ll clarify that. The grilled cheese they used to give at school every week she did not eat. We would go out and she would sometimes eat it. I had to scratch my head at that one. She loves toast. She loves toast with butter. She loves cheese. All those things put together makes you a grilled cheese. I did get her to articulate once that her issue is she did not like the kind of cheese however I’m not really sure if that’s true. That would solve the mystery however like the doctor my kids lie. Not a bad way, in a standard little kid way that you can’t really trust everything they say.
Before we go I need to figure out what other American steeples should I introduce the girls to so they have an appreciation of it before we go.
So funny story, this story was written back in the middle of September 2016. I thought i published it however I published a draft. I only recently noticed it was in my drafts folder on WordPress. Now I am finally getting around to publish it.
I don’t deny that I’m a geek and into most things science fiction. Some of the most fun about having kids is introducing them to things I loved to do as a kid. One area that I felt I have been lacking at is introducing the kids to superheroes and other science fiction universes. When A was born and T was going to a play group every Friday I remember seeing kids at the time (about a year and a half old) having lots of different superhero action figures. Not the small ones like G.I. Joe’s that I had but bigger ones for toddlers. I felt I was not doing my job as a parent because I wasn’t exposing T yet to some cool stuff. I didn’t really think I need to act that quickly but apparently everyone else was. That was around the time that I asked for some of my old toys for my parents. I was then able to introduce her to Ironman, Superman, the A-Team for some reason. I also got Doctor Who action figures.
In the two years or so since then I’ve done an okay job of keeping them interested in superheroes and science-fiction. I bought the little golden books of Star Wars. Because of that the girls have read the abridged versions of all the Star Wars movies. They’ve also read several superhero books and have some superhero toys. I felt for a while that I had greater luck with exposing the girls to rockets and the space station and superheroes until recently.
A has had an Avengers book bag for over a year. Last year we went to pick out book bags that’s what she picked. T wanted something with frozen on it. Since I prefer Marvel over DC and Iron Man is probably one of my favorite superheroes I was pleased that she picked the avengers. I had absolutely no say in that decision. It’s after she had it for a while though she would constantly ask for it by saying she wants the Superman backpack. Apparently since Capt. America and Superman both are in blue costumes she associated the two and for some reason keeps thinking Capt. America is Superman. My super geeky side of me is torn since I’m not a Superman fan however I love that she loves Superman.
Last year A asked for a Superman watch. She always sees me changing my watch when I get home from work so she must know that I like them. biscuit roll factual and her have both had these little plastic watches they got at the dentist office toy been for almost a year. They love to wear them. I have wanted to get regular children’s watches for both of them however I couldn’t find something I really wanted to get them and was happy not to spend the money if they were okay with what they had. When A asked me for Superman watch I thought to myself challenge accepted. As I was shopping for watch and MC was putting the girls to bed A proceeds to announce that she also wants a Superman Dee Dee. What she meant was she wanted a Superman stuffed animal. She proceeds to turn to T and asks “ you want Elsa Dee Dee?”. Implying that T would want and also stuffed animal since she likes frozen. T already had to or more else the stuffed animals so she did not need any more however I added to my list of things to research a Superman stuffed animal.
I was able to find a kids Superman watch that helped tell time with the hour and minute hands labeled for kids to know what they are. Of course A would have to read in order for that to be helpful for however she love the watch regardless. The stuffed animal I found wasn’t the greatest. It had a hard plastic head and was kinda thin body. A did not seem to care. When I gave it to her she grabbed it and hugged it tightly. She was in her room getting ready for bed and took her Paddington bear which is her favorite stuffed toy and threw it down out of her crib as if she didn’t need it anymore. Don’t be worried that anything happened to Paddington bear she was all over him 20 minutes later. It was however pretty funny to see her throw him away so quickly when she got Superman.
T was up early Sunday morning with a stomach bug. That meant the family went into quarantine. We were going to visit my dad in the morning and then have some of M‘s cousins over for brunch in the afternoon. Everything got canceled. We just hoped T would feel better and that she didn’t pass it on to her sister.
Before T got sick M had prepared a French toast casserole for brunch. With no company coming over food that would go bad we decided to make it anyway. T wasn’t eating obviously however M myself and A had the delicious French toast casserole.
For her size A eats pretty well however in the grand scheme of things didn’t put a dent in this casserole. M did not have that much so that left me to accept the challenge to try to finish this thing as best as I could.
When I told M that she said no, no you don’t need to finish it. I cannot stress how specific she was on the fact that I did not have to try to eat as much of this casserole as I could. I ignored her and tried anyway. I had about three helpings before I had to stop. There’s more than enough for another meal that we will have one day this week possibly for dinner when T is better.
M’s French toast casserole is usually fantastic and this one did not disappoint. It wasn’t however the Paula Dean recipe with some ridiculous amount of butter and pralines in it. That is likely the only reason I am still breathing right now!
Hungry kids and no change while at gymnastics class turns into a win when the vending machine takes Apple Pay. I did not care about the 50% markup on the card use. Hungry kids = cranky!
My oldest is in Kindergarten. I will write about that later. The school calendar has a one off “dad’s take your child to school day”. Or for me it’s called every Wednesday & Friday.
I feel like I have been careful not to impose our opinions on the girls. I was generally pleased then when on their own they started liking Star Wars. I believe I wrote about how I introduced it to them previously.
Like many things we want to expose the girls to we got a book or two about it. They enjoy it so much that I got the entire series as Little Golden books. That segued into watching the movies with them. The girls have now seen all of the movies in the original trilogy at least once. They have also seen the force awakens several times.
Watching the movies was a good segway into the girls requesting for Star Wars stuff. A more than T however T has an Ewok pillow and a few other things. A has numerous Star Wars themed accessories and things. I find it extremely cute. I also love that I can share something that I enjoyed as a child with them. Of course who am I kidding I enjoy it now as well.
Star Wars is of course very mainstream and it was surprisingly easy to introduce them to it. There’s lots of children themed ways to have them engaged in Star Wars such as the books I bought. Other things I have wanted to introduce the girls to have been more elusive to me on how to introduce them.
Doctor Who has been something I’ve enjoyed since I was around 10 or 11 years old. I may have been exposed Star Wars much earlier science fiction franchises have played an important part in my history. Lets not forget partly how we named both girls. T story is here.
Even before I started buying any Star Wars books T had a plush TARDIS. Both girls have lunch boxes however not sure if he’ll ever use them. I still maintain they had to have them. . I’ve also gotten the girls action figures. I can’t remember exactly when I bought them however they’ve had them since probably before A could walk. Both girls know of the action figures and they can even identify who is who. I have one doctor, and Amy, and Rory. I am not a purist so it’s a 10th Doctor. since I like him better than the 11th. I wanted the Amy for A. I haven’t found a T one even though I know it exists. Beyond being able to identify them and never really played with them.
Something changed in the past few weeks however. I’m not really sure what however they started taking significantly more of an interest. We were playing with the dollhouse and the girls had several action figures. It was an assortment of wonder woman, Superman, Batman, Belle from beauty and the beast, Ame Pond, Rory and the doctor. I thought it was pretty hysterical the dialogue they had interacting. After that both girls started talking about thr doctor and the companions and asking questions.
Previously I bought a sonic screwdriver that I keep near my desk. Every once in a while and the girls complain that they’re scared about some imaginary thing in their room I take it out and make it light up telling them getting rid of all the bad guys. Both girls love to play with it and make it light up and make noise. After their interest in the action figures the girls started wanting to play with the sonic screwdriver more. I decided to buy another one so I had two of them and give them to the girls. T got my 11th doctor screwdriver and I bought A the 12th Doctor one.
I’ve had to confiscate them so they don’t take them to bed at night and make noise. I also had to prevent them from going to school however A claims she took it to school one day anyway. For right now that’s unconfirmed.
I’m still not sure if the girls are old enough to watch any episode. They do ask questions and I am showing them pictures. I also have shown them some small clips on YouTube.
We are planning a trip to Disney World. M showed the girls a video about it. One of the things that we’re doing with them when where there is a treat to go to Cinderella’s Castle one of the breakfasts. I forget which one. The video showed that one part of the meal everyone has or can bring magic wands, swords or other stuff. We saw kids with an assortment of things. At first the girls asked if they could bring their light sabers. Now they’re asking to bring their sonic screwdrivers.
Overall I’m just enjoying being in the share things I like my two adorable little people. They continue to live up to the statement I always say that they are my entertainment budget. They always seem to entertain me.
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