Well, I've been quite bad about posting in the past many months. I have a lot of video to put up, though, so I'm going to make up for it. I realize that Halloween was too long ago for most people to care, but I still think the girls' costumes were cute enough to share, even now in May.
The girls and I often play a game called "I won't let you go", where I hold on to them and they try to get free. Lillian's struggle is often accompanied with a cry of "Freedom!" that would make Mel Gibson proud.
This weekend, Lillian asked me why I had a boss. I told her that he told me what to do, and she was incensed. She immediately exclaimed: "But that will break your Freedom!" I tried to explain to her that my freedom was to choose my boss, but she would hear nothing of it. Anyone who told me what to do was treading on my freedom. I then reminded her that I'm a boss for some people, but she didn't seem too concerned for their freedom.
Later, when we went to Red Robin for lunch, she saw a stylized Statue of Liberty and said with much awe: "There's the Statue of Freedom!"
A few months back, I was talking to Erica about how it would be nice to go back to Disney World when the girls were a little older. Lillian overheard and wanted us to immediately pack up and head over there. I told her that this wasn't a trip that families made often, and that it would probably be a while before we went again. When she asked why, I told her that it took a lot of money to go to Disney World, and that we would have to save up for another trip. She immediately got very excited. Her eyes widened so that I thought they might pop out, and she said with great revelation and a little relief: "I have money!"She ran to her piggy bank and brought it to me, expecting that this would take care of all my concerns and we could start packing now. It almost broke my heart to have to explain to her that, while it was generous for her to be willing to share her money so that the family could go on a fun vacation, it would not be enough, and we would still have to save a lot more.
She's been able to fill her piggy bank because we used quarters as incentives. Until recently, she seemed to think that they were just fun collectables. She even has her own coin book where she can display them (like mine). Now, however, she's started to learn that these little metal disks can be exchanged for things she wants. Four of them get her a new iPhone game, and she just turned in twenty of them for a new Dora show. Once she realized their value, she gutted that coin collection in no time flat!
Recently, Lillian was reading over my shoulder as I read one of my blogs. She got very excited when she saw this image of a fallen angel.
She was so inspired that she immediately begged for me to get our her easel and paints so that she could try to paint it herself. This is what she created:
In my opinion, not a bad rendition by a four year old.
Recently, I've been reading "The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe" to the girls before bed. Evelyn is a bit bored, but Lillian is really enjoying it. Night before last, we read the part where Edmund sees the stone lion, and thinks that the witch caught Aslan. She was worried and wanted to know if it was really him. I told her to wait and see as we read the story. Last night, we read that the children met Father Christmas (I have to read "Santa Claus" for them to know who it was), which heralded the waning power of the White Witch and Aslan's return. Lillian got so excited and almost yelled "That's what I guessed! It was my best guess!" and hugged me tightly. It's so much fun watching her learn this story for the first time.
A woman doing a puppet show at the mall this weekend, kept asking Evelyn on stage because she was so cute with the puppets. Here's just a small segment before she pulled Daddy (me) up in front as well.
This weekend, we learned that Dora the Explorer is growing up and getting a new show "Dora's Explorer Girls". Targeted at older girls, Nickelodeon is trying to keep its talons into our daughters as long as possible. When Lillian saw the preview for this new show, she immediately made the master executives at Nickelodeon salivate with her response. When I told her that she could have the show only if she paid for it, she did her best to convince me that it was in my own best interest to allow her access to the mind-numbing marketing machine of a cartoon. She thought about it for a moment and told me: "Daddy, I know this show is for older girls; but, if I watch it, it will help me to learn all about getting older."
Recently, a friend of mine, Carey Wallace, released a 5-song EP entitled Songs About Books in celebration of the paperback release of her novel The Blind Contessaâs New Machine. While Erica was out one evening, I put it on for the girls as we ate our dinner. It was an instant hit with both of them. They started dancing and trying to sing along. I wish I could have gotten video, but you can't play music and record video with your iPhone at the same time. (One of the detriments to having an integrated device.) I think their favorite was the song "Heavenly."
In between songs, Lillian looked at me with huge sad eyes and hung her head with a sad frown that could break the candy heart of a rag doll and said: "She sings much more beautifuller than I do." I assured her that with time and practice she could reach the same heights as Carey. She didn't seem completely convinced, but she went back to her dancing as the next song picked up.
I think this is the first time I've seen her compare her abilities to someone else and express an aspiration to reach something so far beyond her. I'm very proud.
Today, we got a Roomba vacuum robot. Lillian and Evelyn were intrigued. With the admonition that they were not to touch the robot, they watched it with great interest as it bumped into the furniture wheeled all around. They started to feel for it and every time it hit an object would say "Ouch!" for it, which made our house sound a bit like a prolonged game of "hot-potato". Later, Lillian started cheering for it: "Go, Robot, Go! Go, Robot, Go!" at the top of her lungs.
Yesterday, as Lillian and Evelyn helped me pull weeds and prune the roses, Lillian hoped she would find a worm. In explanation, she told me: "When God created people back in 1976, they ate worms for dinner." Does this mean I'm a proto-human in my daughter's eyes?
This morning, Lillian came downstairs with bunny ears, a sword and a shield and told us: "I'm not a battle bunny, but I need to go to the battle." She said that she didn't really want to, but that she needed to protect our world from the soldiers. Just so you don't worry, they won and you can all rest safe today because of her sacrifice.
Now I want to write a video game entitled: Lillian, the Battle Bunny.
Erica made this video for me for Father's day. I love some of the responses that the girls give. Evelyn is really turning out to be quite a joker. It's hard to understand her, so I'll write here that she says my name is "bugs" and that my favorite food is "vegetables". She does later say that I like to eat mangos. When Erica asks her what I do, she says "He drives around and he needs gas." While technically correct, it's not quite what Erica was looking for.
There's also an inside joke that Lillian alludes to. The week before Father's Day, Erica took them out to buy my present. Later, Lillian asked me to guess what candy they bought me (I guessed Pop Rocks, and they got me Smarties), what color the shirt was (I guessed blue, it was green), and what color the aliens were on the shirt (I guessed red and they were green). I find it cute and scary how she plays coy about it in the video.
I recently bought an ant farm for the girls. I also recently bought an app on my iPhone that lets me take time-lapse video. The confluence of these events resulted in the following video. Please enjoy the first two days of our ant farm, as the ants build their home, presented in 1.5 minutes:
Here's a brief montage from our recent trip out for my 15th reunion. Most of it focuses on the P-rade where everyone dresses up in costumes and marches in year order. Lillian was quite the ham. When she ran out of bubbles to blow at the crowd, she started blowing kisses to them. Later, we had brunch with my parents and my sister's family. Evelyn and her cousin got along famously. There's also a picture of Lillian and me with Joy, one of the cooks from the Center for Jewish Life where I worked as a student. It was great to be able to introduce her to the girls.
A couple months ago, I took my family back to my University for my 15th reunion. On the second day, Evelyn and Erica were very tired, so they took a nap in the lobby of my old dorm while Lillian ran through every single hallway and showed me around for about 45 minutes. Here are some of the cute moments from that tour.
Be warned, though: this footage was taken with my phone as I speed walked after my daughter. It's choppy and may make you seasick. Additionally, I may be the only one who really enjoys this video, as it's really just Lillian running through a labyrinth of dorm halls.
My favorite is where she tells me to "keep up". She just needed to add "old man" at the end.
