How to make spice

"Put sugar and some broccoli and powder, then mix it all up, then add milk, then mix it all up again." - Elly

Daddy's birthday

I wrote "Happy Birthday to my Daddy" on a card for Kes to decorate.

Me: "Elly, do you want me to write anything on your card or do you want to do it yourself?"
Elly: "All myself." (takes paper) "Happy Birthday. Ha - H, A. Happy, hap - P. Happy. Mommy, does happy have one E or 2 E's?"
Me: "What letter is a borrower that sometimes borrows from E?"
Elly: "A? No. Y? Yeah, Y. Happy, Y. Birthday. B. Bir - R. Bir, f. No, th. T, H, right Mommy?"
Me: "Right."
Elly: "T. H. No that's not an H. I'll make that into a square for the H. H." (writes H inside square) "Day. D. A. Mommy what's next?"
Me: "How do you spell Day?"
Elly: "D-A-Y. Y."

So Daddy has a beautiful card with HAPY BRTHDAY on it, except it says more like
HAP
THDA
BRYY
because she doesn't totally get the whole L-R in a line thing.

puzzle

Kes: "Eliana, we are doing a very great time!"
Elly: "Grandma, I don't want to keep this puzzle. It doesn't cooperate!"

Big brothers and little brothers

Yesterday morning as I buckled Elly into her carseat, I told her we'd be having pictures taken of the baby in my belly while she was at school.

Elly: "And it's going to be a girl."
Me: "You think it's a girl?"
Elly: "Yeah, cuz I'm afraid of big brothers."
Me: "Well, even if it's a boy it will never be the big brother, it will only be your little brother, because you're bigger. And besides, brothers aren't so bad. Your Uncle Brian is my big brother."
Elly: "Yeah, I know."

So we went to the ultrasound, and yes, it's a boy!

Picking up from school:
Me: "Eliana, the baby in my belly is a boy. You're going to have a baby brother!"
Elly: "Awww, a baby boy!" Hugs my belly. Pats my belly. "Hi baby brother."

Lions and Tigers and...

Yesterday as we were running errands, we walked past a Chinese/Thai/Vietnamese (seriously, I swear there were different sections on the menu) restaurant that had lion statues out in front. These guardian lions have gem balls inside their mouth that can roll around but not be removed; in this case they were a beautiful marble.

Eliana and Kes stopped and wanted to play with the lions; specifically, Eliana wanted to remove the ball from the lion's mouth. It was hot. We'd been walking a while. I am pregnant. Therefore, I didn't really feel like stopping (20 feet from the air conditioned store that we were about to walk into) to wait for her to finally give up on the impossible (which takes her quite a while). Eliana gave me the perfect opportunity:

"Mommy, why does the lion have a ball in its mouth?"
Me: "Oh, that's what makes it a statue. If the magic ball comes out it'll turn back into a real lion."
Elly: "No, Mommy. That's just pretend. Statues are just statues, they don't turn real."
(Inner monologue: Dangit! Who gave you permission to outgrow fantasy already? There are real advantages to your maturing into a 5 year old but this is not one of them... Maybe I can be persuasive enough to appeal to leftover 4 year old fantasy...)
Me: "Most statues, yes. But these ones are real lions that just have magic balls to make them statues. I don't want to take a chance that the lion will come to life and eat all of us."
Elly: (stops playing with the ball and walks quickly in the direction of the store) "I don't want the lion to eat me."
A minute passes, we reach the store.
Elly: "But if the lion ate all of us, and we were all in the lion's belly, it would be nice that we were still together. (Pause.) But that would hurt when the lion ate us, so I don't want that."


On that note, today Eliana was remembering that I told her a special surprise trip is in store for her tomorrow. (We are going to the Monterey Bay Aquarium.)
She said, "Mommy, let's go to Tilden Park tomorrow!"
Me: "We're going somewhere you've never been before, and it's a surprise."
Elly: "Is it the jungle?"
Me: "Nope, not the jungle."
Elly: "Oh good, cuz there are tigers there."
Kes: "And they would eat us all up."

Elly's mitzvah note to Kessa

"Daddy, tell Mommy to write a mitzvah note for Kes. It should say, 'Dear Kes, good job eating the dutch babies with the lemon syrup. High five.'"