tawbubby

Yesterday at the work fun event, there was a guy telling a story (not to me or about me):

Guy: “And he said, ‘Dammit, Johnson, what are you doing here?’”

At the swear word, I looked down to Amelia to see if she had heard it. She had, and was covering her mouth, suppressing a giggle:

AMELIA: “Daddy! He said Johnson!”

Tawbubby might have a new staff photographer. My friend Ben was a photographer at a work fun event yesterday. He took some great pictures of the family.

Click here to see all 8 photos.

Amelia and I had fun working on headstands this evening.

She played tic-tac-toe with herself last night. She won!

While we were driving to Rockville, Amelia was talking and singing to herself. And we hear her break out with:

“Brown chicken, brown cow.”

You have to say it aloud to get the effect.

It’s a verbal version of a stereotypical instrumental soundtrack associated with, well, 70’s-era pr0n films. It made its circles in the 90’s standup circuit. The gist of the joke is that you knew things were “about to happen” when that music kicked in.

Amelia of course had no idea. We (laughing) tried to figure out who taught her that “funny song”. At first she said the weekly ice cream man at the day care but she folded under cross-examination and was ready to give up anyone from her teachers to probably the Easter Bunny.

Pretty funny, though.

Not together, they just happened to be on the same plate.She couldn’t get enough dinner on Sunday night.

I couldn’t stop laughing at her eating the very long noodles.  Her great grandpa Joe would have loved Amelia’s noodle slurping too.

She’s also become a big fan of peccorino cheese.  She had a pile of it before bed on Saturday.  She had peccorino cheese toast for breakfast on Sunday.  Several servings of it on this plate of pasta.  She told us tonight that she wants some more tomorrow.  Sometimes she calls it cheddar.

My water baby…

Maybe tossing her around is why my back didn’t want to lift her in and out of her high chair this morning?

Amelia taking a rest.

I think I messed up Amelia’s enjoyment of the lake when I mentioned fish poo.  She wouldn’t put her feet down on the bottom to walk around because of fish poo.  Even though I told her it isn’t there.  She did enjoy swimming with a life jacket, and bonus! it kept her feet off of the fish poo lake bottom.

Ethan played Uncle Sam at the girls’ school today. It was very funny and very fun. He hammed it up.

He changed and I went to get the girls “to meet Uncle Sam!”. Both girls held back a little bit to figure things out. After a few seconds, Amelia asked “Are you Daddy?”.
He helped all the kids say the Pledge of Allegiance, walked around shaking hands while they danced to Rockin’ in the USA, read two books (including getting the kids to yell “Happy Birthday America 3 times), and did a couple more songs.

During the party, Amelia looked at him and laughed every once in a while, and Daphne kept coming up from her seat exclaiming “Daddy!”. (Or calling out “Hi Yaya!” across the room.) It was really neat, and he was very glad to be asked to do it.  Amelia apparently talked about him being Uncle Sam for the rest of the day.

Amelia learned the Pledge this week as part of the party preparations. She burst into the house yesterday “Mama! I have something to tell you!”, and this is what she told me- Click here: Amelia reciting the Pledge of Allegiance
Here is a bonus awesome picture of our 3 going on 16 year old talking to her daddy on the way home.  I had the camera in the car, and yes this is at a stoplight.

The other very cool thing today is that we all got to watch our Bluebird chicks leave their nesting box for the first time.  We were leaving for work, and decided to peek at them because Ethan thought they were getting big and about to leave.  Well, us peeking led to one flying out to a tree branch.  He closed the box, and the other three in sequence peeked out the hole, and took off.   The mom and dad Bluebirds checked on each one as they landed in a tree (four different directions!).  It was really neat to watch.

We were all talking about it as it was happening, and Daphne said “Boo bud fie!” as the third and fourth left the box.

We’re trying to teach Amelia how to keep a secret. (We know we will regret this eventually). Today was the Father’s Day picnic/Celebration at Amelia’s day care. And all week, they’ve been working on a surprise. But Amelia’s not very good at surprises. For instance, she still announces pretty loudly when she’s going to give someone a Sneaky Hug, which consists of her nonchalantly walking to the person and surprising them with an out-of-the-blue hug.

So this week Amelia has been bursting at the seams about the gift they were making. I tried to teach her how to give hints, without giving it away.

AMELIA: Daddy. On Friday, you will get a surprise.
ME: Don’t tell me.
AMELIA: I won’t. But you will put it in a player. But the surprise is not the player. You will be so excited.
ME: I can’t wait.
AMELIA: And it’s a circle.

PS. She got better through the week, though.  Yesterday on the way home she said “If you look in Art [a station in her classroom] you can see what I made for daddy.  And when we get home, we can have daddy go in the other room and then I can show you where his present goes.  I can point to it so he won’t see.”  (posted by Allison)

Tis that time of year, and Amelia can stay up late enough now.

Amelia and I were reading a book of classic children’s stories tonight that Uncle Michael gave her for her first Christmas. Admittedly, we’ve read it a lot, but not for a couple months. We started reading Sleeping Beauty and there is a picture of SB with her cat on the first page. Amelia told me there are three cats in the book, one is black and white, one is black, and the other is brown and white, and here they are. And she flipped to all of the pages with the cats. In a 222 page book containing pictures on every page, without any searching.
She then told me she found all of the cats when she was taking a nap a long time ago.

She also read the word “foot” in Jack and the Beanstalk, and then said “boot”, from her memory of the word, realizing they look like they should rhyme, but they don’t. So we read Puss in Boots, but Puss in “but”.

And then she asked me if lifeguards are nocturnal?