Presidential Speak

One of Venice's school assignments included asking questions about the elections and the president. Here are her answers:

If I were president I would....

"...make sure everyone was safe and protected from other people or countries that want to hurt us."


If I met President Obama, I would want him to know....

"...that I had a great family and loved them very much."


My wish for the future of our country is.....

[This is the one I don't remember. It might have been more of the same of the "keep everyone safe" but there was something else. I suggest we ask her again. ]
When asked again, her answer was:

"My wish for the future of our country is that everybody doesn't smoke cigarettes."

I asked, "Is there anything else?"

"Uh, no. That's my wish."

Sibling Love

While playing Wii games, and after many arguments, Xander said to Venice, "I love you Venice." She replied, "I love you too." Sweet.

Willy Wonka: Ugh and Tears

Venice is reading Charlie and the Chocolate Factory for the second time. She's enjoying the story a lot, so we decided to rent the original movie with Gene Wilder and watch it as a family. When Grandpa Joe started to sing a song (it was about the third or fourth song into the movie), Xander, with such perfect intonation of being bored, upset and not looking forward to yet another song, said, "Ugh." We could barely contain our laughter. He is his father's son... not into musicals, I guess.

Then, near the end of the story, when Mike TV uses the WonkaVision to make himself on TV (thus very small), Xander freaked out. He started to cry and we had to pause the movie. He barely made it through all the other kids getting into trouble (falling into the chocolate lake, blowing up like a blueberry, falling down a chute as the bad egg, ...) but shrinking... that was the last straw for him. It was too real. Poor guy.

Xander's Tired

Xander looked over at me today and sighed, "I'm exhausting."

Hmm. Yes, he sure can be!

Real versus Imagionary

Yesterday, Teiya and Xander were playing GO....Teiya was making patterns, Xander was reading the instructions and trying to figure out the game. I don't know how to play so I showed him the patterns in the instruction book and he began copying them. Then Teiya got bored and went over to the shelf and got the stone unicorn off and began playing with it. Somehow we got to talking about what is real and what is imagination.. I told her that unicorns were from the imagination but that they weren't real. She looked up and with an adult voice said...I am quite sure I have seen one...but I can't remember where. So I said maybe in a story somewhere..then she got a bright look on her face and said...I saw it on Dora. So I said Dora is imaginary as well and she looked at me with pity and said no....she saw a real unicorn on Dora....I quit.

Later we were talking about pets and I told them we had a cat once. Teiya piped up and said we had a cat named 'Toast.' But he is dead...a few moments of silence. Then she said I am not sad he is dead because I have a gold fish!....then a silence. Then in slight frustration, I wanted to name the goldfish Toast, but we couldn't do that....I said his name is goldie isn't it and she said yes... Xander heard these conversations, but didn't say anything...just listened....

After Venice came, we were outside playing and I showed them the daffodils in my neighbor's yard and Venice suggested we go on a flower walk and see all the flowers. So we did and we saw crocus (lots of different colors- purple, white, white with purple stripes, lavender, etc), daffodils (both big and small)...several small plants that I don't know the name of... mostly purple blooms, some white ones...the kids were so happy running from house to house inspecting the plants. Venice would have loved to pick them but she knew she couldn't. I also told her that the crocus probably wouldn't last at all if we picked them.

All three - Venice, Xander, Teiya made cards with stickers...they love to use the circus stickers and stack people on top of each other....Venice and Teiya played together quite a bit. Xander played on the computer and enjoyed himself with that. He also went to the bathroom twice and seemed to feel quite proud and happy when he did.

I am sure there is more, but these are the highlights.
Granny

Brain Twister

So, Venice and I have been having circular conversations a lot lately. I can't even remember what they are, but they always go something like this:
Venice: Mom, what kind of car is that?
Diana: It's a convertible. It has a roof that comes off.
Venice: I knew that.
Diana: You rode in one once.
Venice: In what?
Diana: One of those kinds of cars.
Venice: What kind of car?
Diana: A convertible.
Venice: The kind where the roof comes off?
And so on and so on and so on.

This example shows, of course, my responses being even keeled and polite. I often lose it and get frustrated and try to explain that she just asked the same thing again and how I just answered that and how we're talking about the same thing over again, yadda yadda yadda. At one of these times, when I was trying to explain how we just had this conversation, she got frustrated back and grumbled, "Can we just forget about it." and before I could get on her case about giving me attitude she added, "Because you're just twisting up my brain and it's confusing me." It was all Chris and I could do to keep from laughing.

Teiya and Xander and Food

We were in the car going to McDonald's, when she started talking about water on her tongue and that it was wet. She was eating her pretzel. So I said do you know the name of what causes the tongue to be wet. She said very quickly tongue water. I thot that was so great....I told her that other people called it saliva....but her naming was so clear. Also when we passed Wendy's...she said, "there is the potato place!" And right after that was Ye Olde Pancakes, which Xander recognized and then ensued a conversation of various meals that they have had. Teiya said, "Remember Xander, we went to the Potato place and Mama, Auntie Diana, and me had a potato...but you didn't what did you eat?"....then she remembered and said..."hamburger." Xander chuckled and said joyfully, "yeah, a hamburger." He then continued with a discussion of the pancakes at the Pancake place.....and how many he could eat.
Granny

How proud are we that they have such detailed information and memories about the crappiest food places in Eugene! ;)

Tori

Can You Make a 4 Leaf Clover?

Hi Guys,

Well, today's conversation in the car on the way home was very interesting...

Venice asked if it was easy to find 4 leaf clovers - simple enuff question, right...? - Casey didn't know - I said that clover leaf patterns came usually in 3 petals, and that occasionally one comes with 4 petals - 3 was the "normal" pattern, and 4 petals was more rare....Oh...

Casey asked if you could alter the DNA of the 3 petal clover to make a 4 leaf clover so it was more available - I said I thot so - then, would it be the normal clover...? - I said I didn't know...

Casey = could you change the DNA to give a turtle the legs of a heron...?!! - Hmmm, WOW...! - Where did that one come from...? I said I don't know, but I don't think so....why not...? - Hmmm - well, for one thing the legs of a heron would probably not support the weight of a turtle, so it's survival wouldn't be assured....why not...? - I said the way evolution works is that a creature adapts to its environment, and the ones that survive are the ones that make changes that suit it best to survive, and a turtle with the thin legs of a heron would have trouble supporting the weight of its shell - if it had difficulty walking, it would be susceptible to predators....also, I said I think that some changes or adaptations aren't likely to allow the creature to survive, because the changes don't give it enuff of an advantage against its environment and predators....

Casey = well could you give a turtle the legs of an elephant...? - Hmmm - well, those legs would certainly be strong enuff to support the weight of a turtle - but, again, I'm not sure that a turtle with the legs of an elephant would survive, again for the same reasons I said before - the legs would be more than enuff to support the weight of the shell, but because they would be so huge in relation to the rest of the turtle, that adaptation would work against the turtle's surviva....

Venice = could you change the DNA so butterfly wings would grow on an elephant...? - I don't think so....Why not...? - well, I don't think that DNA can be used across different species - and, even if it could, wings on an elephant wouldn't be an adaptation that would serve an elephant....Venice = well, what about butterfly wings on a human...? - I don't think it would work scientifically - and, even if it did, the wings of a butterfly would be so flimsy that it wouldn't work to help a human fly....Casey = yeah, the weight would be too much...

Jiichan = Venice you sound like you're interested in science - do you think you would ever become a scientist...? - No, I'm not interested in becoming a scientist....I want to become a dancer, then a dance teacher, then a - and she listed a half dozen professions....Casey said he might consider becoming a scientist...

Casey = science is getting so that people will soon live to be 120 years old....Venice = You and I will probably live to be 110 years old - and Jiichan will live to be 120 years old - It's more likely that you'll live longer than I will...

Jiichan = How did we get on this subject...? - Venice = it's my fault, I asked about making a 4 leaf clover out of a 3 leaf clover...! - Jiichan = no, it's not your fault - there's nothing wrong about your question, it was a very good question....Do you know what the stupidest question is...? - Venice and Casey = No, what...? - Jiichan = It's a question that you don't ask....Venice = but what's the question...? - I don't understand....I couldn't explain it - it was too esoteric...

Jiichan...

Kicked in the Tooth

Today, when I picked Venice up from school, I was surrounded by 4 screaming first grader girls. They were all telling me the same story, how Grace, one of Venice's BFFs, kicked Venice in the mouth during lunch recess, and as a result, Venice's tooth popped out! Another friend from class, walked her to the school nurse for a tooth pocket (the school has fancy folded paper envelopes for just such occasions.)

Here's a copy of Venice's letter to the Tooth Fairy:
"Dear tooth fiary
coud you Plese give my a
treasure Hunt? My tooth came out
of my mouth by Grace kikd it.
But it was an aadint. Kindist
Wishis Venice."