Sea Monkeys

Alanna loves science and asking questions. So we've been trying to encourage her interest and teaching her when we have the opportunity. For example, we made sure she got to see the lunar eclipse recently and understood what it was. We also bought some books with lots of little science experiments you can do at home to start working through on family nights.

When we were in Target a few weeks ago she spotted the Sea Monkeys. For those of you who aren't familiar with sea monkeys they are a type of brine shrimp that you can raise and used to be advertised in the backs of comic books. http://www.sea-monkeys.com/

So we got the sea monkeys, brought them home, poured in the little egg pouch and waited. They hatched, she thought they were neat swimming around, we explained the science behind it, and they grew.

Now I have a little container of Sea Monkeys that I'm not sure what to do with. Alanna has pretty much lost interest. There are about 15 of the little guys who are swimming around and I still am feeding them. I'd feel guilty not feeding them or flushing them or otherwise 'disposing' of them.

What does one do with unwanted Sea Monkeys anyway? I have a hunch I can't take them to the Humane Society ;)

I Don't Wanna Grow Up!!!

Last night out of nowhere Alanna started crying after bedtime. We asked what was wrong and in between sobs she declared, "I don't want to be a grown up ever!"

We explained that she had a very long time to still be a child and that eventually she would have to be a grown up but that she could still have fun.

That didn't fly. The tears poured down, the shrill little tantrum voice started and she declared "I DON'T WANNA GROW UP!!! I NEED TO KNOW WHAT TO DO SO I STAY A KID FOREVER!!!"

Thinking I was really smart, I asked her, "Honey, does Daddy act like a grown up or like a kid?" I was banking on the fact that Daddy acts goofier than Mommy and does more rough house play like snowball fights than I do. It didn't work. She replied, "A grown up."

Daddy saved the day. Jeb looked at her and smoothed her hair and said, "Honey, how about if Daddy promises to do everything possible so that you're always younger than he is?" Tricky. Alanna was happy with it though and the tantrum stopped and she went back to bed.

Oh sweetie, if only you knew how many times we grown ups wish we were still kids. This is a tantrum I still have.

Medicine with Marshmallows

Alanna shares my childhood dislike of syrup medicines. In the past when she's been sick the medicine battle has been a painful one that to a third party observer may be considered comical. Getting syrup medicine down here often includes at least one change of clothes for all parties involved as well as a bath sometimes and half a bottle of wasted medicine on the floor. Sometimes it's involved one parent holding the child semi upside down while the other tries desperately to get the medicine in her mouth.

In an effort to avoid these battles we switched over to chewable medicine and those little strips that dissolve on the tongue. To be honest though, they really don't seem to work as well as the syrups do for the symptoms.

The latest cold has been a doozy and I prepared myself for the syrup battle. This time I thought I'd try the bribery up front and told her she could have a marshmallow (the cute little bunny Easter ones that are out right now) if she took the syrup. I also offered to put it in a syringe and let her push the plunger. I even offered a bonus sticker for her sticker chart if she was a big girl about taking her medicine. Visuals of grape syrup all over can be very motivating to a mommy.

Now I was thinking she'd take the medicine and I'd give her the marshmallows and sticker. She actually devised her own new way of taking medicine that has worked beautifully now for a total of 4 doses over the past couple days.

Insert 1 bunny marshmallow into mouth and chew slightly
Open mouth enough for 1/2 of the syrup in the syringe to be squirted in
Chew
Take a sip of water to wash down remaining syrup and marshmallow
Repeat

She claims the marshmallow makes the syrup taste good. Win Win.
Yay!

Alanna and the Easter Bunny

This past weekend was the annual Easter Egg hunt. Here's a pic of Alanna with the Easter Bunny and one of her dancing with the Caribou from Caribou coffee which was one of the sponsors for the event.

Playing Doctor

Our evening babysitter has begun bringing a notepad with her when she comes to watch Alanna. We think she may be writing a book of all the things Miss Alanna comes up with.

Most recently on a date night, Alanna insisted on playing doctor with our babysitter. She had our babysitter lie down on the futon and got out her pretend stethoscope. She announced that she found a kitty and a snake in the babysitter's leg.

Babysitter: Oh my. Are you going to perform surgery to get them out?
A: Yes.
B: Are you going to put me to sleep?
A: Yes.
B: (waits, fully anticipating Alanna to pretend to give her a shot)
A: (sings)Lullabye, and goodnight....
A: (pretends to do the surgery)
A: Ok, I'm done.
B: Oh good. Did you get the cat and the snake out?
A: Um...(panicked look)(sings)Lullabye and goodnight....

Apparently she looked like a doctor who had just realized she had forgotten her tools inside during the surgery.

Rewriting the Bible

Periodically we read to Alanna from her Bible stories book. Recently we had read the story of the burning bush Exodus 3:1-15 where God speaks to Moses.

About a week later we were driving home from daycare and this conversation followed:
A: It will be Spring soon won't it?
M: Yes, honey.
A: And then the snow will melt.
M: Yes.
A: And then God will put a talking bush in our front yard.
M: Um. Maybe. But talking bushes are very rare and I don't think he'll probably put one in our front yard.
A: How did the bush talk? Bushes don't have mouths.
M: No, bushes don't have mouths. God wanted to give a message to Moses so his voice came from the bush.
A: I think Jesus was just hiding behind it.

And thus ended the conversation. Have to give her props for the logic at least even if the timeline is a little off. She had deduced that because a bush doesn't have a mouth the voice had to come from somewhere and since Jesus is God's messenger on Earth, he must have been hiding behind the bush.

Barbie House

I've been remiss in posting and will try to catch up with a few items of note over the past few months.

Santa brought Alanna a Barbie Dreamhouse for Christmas this year. Alanna asked Santa for something 'Big' and she vigilantly went through her toys to find things she no longer played with to donate and to make room for something 'Big' that the elves were going to make for her. The elves came over the month of December and did a few inspections to make sure there would be enough room for what they were building and that she was keeping her toys picked up. After each visit, Alanna found a Barbie dress that had dropped out of one of their pockets. On Christmas morning, the Barbie house was completely set up where she had made room for it and all of her dolls were in new dresses inside. She stood there for awhile after coming out of her room with her mouth wide open only uttering a small, soft "wow".

Chapstick

Things I never want to hear my daughter say to a boy again:

"Can you guess what flavor my chapstick is?"

This was said to her little friend Dylan on our way to get lunch while he was visiting. It was completely innocent, but Daddy and I immediately turned around and said, "NO!!!"

SuperMom

I have superhero powers. Not that it should come as a shock to anyone; all mom's possess superhero powers. However, my child truly thinks I have powers now.

Last night I informed Alanna that she would have to practice her karate before bed. She asked me how I would make her practice if she fell asleep before then. I replied that I had superhero mommy powers and could wake her up.

A little while later Alanna was hiding under a blanket to avoid going up to practice. I pulled the blanket back and yelled, 'Ah ha!!'

She looked astonished, "Mommy, is one of your powers the ability to see under blankets??" I told her it was.

After practicing for karate and putting her to bed, we heard this little voice from her room, "Mommy, can you see through walls?"

Taking this as a perfect opportunity, I promptly replied, "Yes. But Mommy can only see through walls when you're doing something you're not supposed to!" That should get me a year or two of good behavior until she catches on.

Halloween

How do you know that your child is really sick? She wakes up on Halloween and announces, "I don't want any sugar today." Poor kiddo. She's had a fever for two days and is just not feeling great. Jeb is taking her to the doctor today to rule out strep throat.

Here is a stroll down Halloween memory lane:

By Request

I had a comment on an older post about Alanna's rocking horse. She did enjoy her rocking horse and still does play with it from time to time. This picture was from that Christmas after she had unwrapped it.

Jokes

Alanna has somewhat mastered the art of joke-telling. Well, at least for regular jokes. We're still working on how to tell knock knock jokes.

Her favorite jokes right now are:
Q: Who can jump higher than the highest mountain?
A: EVERYONE! Because mountains can't jump!!!


Q: What newspaper do cows read?
A: The evening mooooooooooooos.

Generations

I was going through old photos and found this interesting. Here's three generations on my side.

Karate Kiddo

Alanna started karate this Fall and so far is loving it. She's earned one ribbon so far and is just too much fun to watch during her lessons. She's the littlest one in the class, so Sensei keeps her right in the front in the middle. She is working on her next ribbon for this week and has to do three kicks then run away screaming...so far her favorite part is the running and the screaming, guess we have a little practicing to do on the rest yet.

House Rules

A couple weeks ago we had a coworker coming in for a week for work and the hotel that our workplace normally uses was booked. We worked things out so that she would stay with us and we'd all come in to work together in the mornings. We explained to Alanna that we'd be having company.
A: I get to tell her the house RULES
M: Oh really? And what are the rules?
A: No splashing water out of the bathtub.
A: No coloring on the walls.
A: When it's bedtime, stay in your bed.
A: Daddy can play with his computer when he wants.

It was super hard not to just laugh. I just kept wondering how our coworker (who has grown children of her own) was ever going to enjoy herself at our house if she couldn't splash water and color on the walls!

Food Preferences

On the way home from daycare while discussing what we would eat for dinner the following occurred.
M: I think we'll have fish fillets for dinner.
A: It doesn't have EYES does it?
M: No, it's like chicken nuggets just with fish
A: Oh good. Because I won't eat anything with EYES!

So this of course begged the question, when did I ever fixed anything with eyes on it? Turns out Daddy had told her about sardines....yep Daddy's fault again ;)

Once dinner was made, Alanna sat down and looked at her plate and declared:
A: Oh good! I'm glad my dinner is this because I only eat food that is the colors of the rainbow!
M: Oh? And what colors are on your plate?
A: Green Green Beans and Brown Fish

Not quite sure when 'brown' made it into the rainbow, but I was relieved. I was either going to argue for the fish fillets being more of a yellow or explain that the rainbow is really all colors we just only see certain shades.

Bedroom Makeover

We had a project weekend and redid Miss Alanna's room. For the full details, please visit here: Bedroom Makeover

A Pox on your House

While our babysitter was watching Alanna out of the blue Alanna declared:
A: When you have children, they're going to get sick.
Babysitter: Do you mean that all kids get sick sometimes?
A: Nope, just yours will.

Later, Alanna picked up her bag of dinner mints that she had really wanted when we were at the store and handed them to Babysitter, with the following statement:
A: Here are some mints for your bad breath.

I'm fairly positive that Alanna was just explaining in the only way she knows how things work. That kids all get sick and that eventually when babysitter has children that they will likely get an ear infection just like she had recently gotten over and that mints are for making breath smell good. Or she's just found a new way of getting even when she doesn't get her way. The 4 year old's version of declaring a pox on your house!

Funny Things

Here are the most recent Alanna funnies:
I took Alanna to the large farmer's market downtown a few weeks ago. She'd been to our little suburb farmer's market once or twice before and really loves picking out vegetables and fruits. When we got there and she looked around, she exclaimed, "It's a mall for vegetables!!!"


On the way home from daycare on an evening where our date-night babysitter was scheduled to come over, the following conversation ensued:

Alanna: Can and I go to Como Zoo tonight?
Mommy: No, honey. Mommy's really not comfortable with you and Babysitter going anywhere this evening.
A: What's 'comfortable' mean?
M: Well, 'comfortable' means you feel good about something. So Mommy and Daddy's job is to keep you safe and it's easier to keep you safe when you're at home rather than riding in a car or going to a zoo at night.
A: But Sammy the Seal is more 'COMFORTABLE' when I'm there!!!


Another conversation on the way home from daycare.

A: Mommy, when I die will I go to heaven?
M: Yes, honey.
A: But what will I DO in heaven?
M: Well, you can play in the clouds or fly around and watch people on earth.
A: I don't have wings.
M: When you get to heaven God will make you an angel then you will have wings.
A: Do angels need to eat?
M: No, they don't need to eat.
A: But they POOP! They have butts!!!


Alanna has been a bit fascinated with babies for a while now. I've had the pleasure of answering the question about where do babies come from and how do they get out of a mommy's tummy multiple times. So far my standard answer has involved no real details outside of a mommy and daddy loving each other very much and the doctor helping the baby out. We've now reached the realm of that's not a good enough answer as apparent by the below interaction which occurred in a Red Lobster around lunch time:

A: Was I in your tummy still when you went with Uncle Scott to get Angel (kitty) or was I born? M: You were a baby so you were already born.
A: But what I don't GET is HOW DID I GET OUT???
M: Well honey, what do you think?
A: DID I CRAWL OUT YOUR BUTT???!!!!!!!!!
Needless to say I've since bought a book that she and I will discuss the next time this question arises. All I could think about in between laughing/crying was what must she think could possibly happen when she farts?


Alanna's baby questions are not isolated to Mommy, here's a conversation she had with her Aunt 'Woogie':

A: I want a baby cousin
W: Well, honey your Uncle and I are working on that
A: I want a BOY cousin
W: You'll have to talk to Uncle Scott about that, he makes that decision I just cook 'em.
A: Like CHICKEN???!!!!!


Alanna is very fond of swimming and doing extremely well in her swimming lessons. One of the things we're firm on though is that all of her swimsuits are one-piece suits. It amazes me actually how difficult it is to find cute one-piece suits even at her age. We were looking for swimsuits when this conversation happened:

A: Mommy, when I get older can I have a swimsuit with breasts?
M: Honey, all girls get breasts as they get older. Breasts don't come with a swimsuit.
A: Yes they do!! See!!
M: OH! You mean a bikini....


We bought a new vehicle a couple months ago and I purchased a cute pink big girl booster seat for the car to make it special for Alanna as well. Alanna wasn't quite sure what to call the new car or the old car...

A: Mommy, what do I call the blue car?
M: You can just call it the blue car or the Mazda.
A: And what do I call the new car?
M: You can call it the Versa.
A: I don't like the Macaroni, I like the Versa.
So our Mazda has now been named the 'Macaroni'. I think you could market that, I should contact the big auto makers; we've discovered their next auto.

Dance Recital

It's been a long while since I've posted here and thought I should continue my tales of the things Alanna says that make me laugh out loud.

Alanna has been in tap/ballet class one night a week now for almost 6 months. She's gotten a bit tired of it, but Mommy and Daddy have insisted that she see it through. Most nights she enjoys it once she gets there, but doesn't really want to go in the first place.

Last night on the way home the conversation went something like this:
M: Only a couple more classes until you're big dance recital!
A: What's a dance recital?
M: A dance recital is where you'll get up on stage with your classmates and do your dances for Mommy, Daddy, and Grandma Jackie.
A: I LOVE Dance Recitals!!
M: That's great honey.
A: Because after dance recital, dance is ALL DONE!!!

Guess we know her motivation for getting to the dance recital ;)