Smile, You're on Someone Else's Camera!

          I think my kids are adorable and worth taking an infinite number of pictures of. I just can't quite get enough, as every other mother feels I am sure. The strange thing is when other people want to take pictures of your kids. This happens to us all of the time. Occasionally people ask if it is okay, but mostly they just start snapping shots of them. I understand that they are cute and conspicuous with the contrast of their looks. I also know that it is pretty adorable how they seem to play and love each other so much (nobody has taken a picture when they were fighting over something I will note!)  But still, isn't it kind of weird to take pictures of other people's kids? Shouldn't you ask? 

     For example J and I are playing with the kids at the park and these women pull out cameras and start taking pictures from a distance until J shoos them away. He thinks they thought we were celebrities - if that is the case then Brad and Angelina have really gone downhill, and Zahara looks like a little boy :) 

    The ultimate was at Universal Citywalk, my kids were running around with two of their friends, who are also adorable, and two tourist women started taking their pictures. The outrageous part came when one of the women actually pulled out a little camcorder! Seriously?! Did she not realize how creepy that was?  We sure did!

Mommies say the darndest things...

So, everyone always laughs about the funny things that kids say.  I couldn't agree more that the things they come up with are absolutely adorable and often times great for a laugh. Then, I realized that raising two 2-year-olds has caused me to say some pretty funny things myself in response to them. I have recorded just a few of these from the last week (and keep in mind they were all said very matter-of-factly, like they are quite common things to converse on):

"No T, we can't put water in a paper bag."

"Your cupcake has wallpaper on it?"

"Don't get in the oven please. That's not safe..."

"No really, tell mommy the truth of whether you ate a safety pin..."

"We only wrestle on the carpet."

"That was yucky when you just drank vegetable oil, wasn't it?"

Just watch - if you have little ones around, I bet you'll catch yourself saying some pretty humorous things yourself :)

Here they are with two of their dearest friends in their custom superhero capes that my amazing friend Anna sewed for them!

Little Ethiopia

Yesterday the kids and I went with a friend to check out Little Ethiopia in downtown Los Angeles. And it is exactly that: a small block of Ethiopian restaurants and shops. It was a very cool experience for us, and such a fun reminder of my experiences in actual Ethiopia, which were now 3.5 years ago (geez!) There were a couple of shops and quite a few restaurants to choose from. We browsed through the stores, and the kids liked looking at the books. T really wanted to keep this DVD about the "Hyenas of Harar" which is actually his city of birth. But, I wasn't sure it was appropriate for kids as some of the hyena shots looked a bit on the rough side. So, no DVD, which equaled a pretty sweet tantrum on the sidewalk.

Then we exposed the kids to their very first Ethiopian food! We ordered the vegetarian plate (made up of things like delicious cabbage, collard greens, chick peas, and a salsa type thing) and doro wat (a chicken and egg dish with spicy and sweet sauce). Both of these dishes are served with and to be eaten by hand with injera, a sourdough-like pancake. This is an absolute staple of Ethiopia. With one touch of the finger T knew it would not be a staple in his diet in the near future. He was not about to put any of this in his mouth. B at least put a piece of cabbage and injera in her mouth...they just didn't go down. She kept asking when they were going to bring out the pasta. :) They did enjoy looking at the pictures of animals and "riding" on the chairs that were more like saddles.

All in all, a very fun experience. And the most hilarious part was hearing B tell her dad about it, like it was just a normal day. "We went to an Eth-opian restaurant and baby (her baby doll who she lives vicariously through) just ate some doro wat. T is from Eth-opia. Then we went to a special market and...." :)     

Our Central Coast Vacation?!

We're back from our....uhhhh...."vacation"? We went to Monterey for a few days just the four of us. This was our first purely recreational trip as a family (without extended family or work obligations). And it was...something else. We had a sick little boy, the conundrum of getting two kids to sleep in a hotel room, an unbelievable amount of whining, and serious mommy-clinginess. T was still pretty sick with fevers on and off and he has a really hard time with transitions and being in new places. B is just sassy and if her brother wants me then they both want me. There were quite a few moments of exasperation and a few exclamations of, "Maybe we should just go home!" But, I am glad we didn't. 

We have some great family memories of the aquarium (we went 3 times), looking in tide pools, and enjoying the amazing weather and views of the bay. Cannery Row was a lot of fun, as was our stop at Pismo Beach on the way up. We had a wonderful day at Carmel Beach, too, which quickly rose to status as one of my favorite beaches ever. We had some good ice cream and some great laughs. We spent the first night at a Best Western (BW) in Santa Maria, CA about halfway there. We had already giggled quite a bit through the magical towns of Buellton (famous for its split pea soup) and Solvang (apparently the Dutch capital of the U.S.) so when we pulled into the BW and discovered an atmosphere strikingly familiar to many COPS episodes, we were all laughs (some of them nervous). After a magical continental breakfast we were off quite early the next morning. 

     So all in all, it was one of those vacations where we had laughs, frustrations, less sleep, new adventures, and a lot of things that I am sure we will look back on and laugh about someday. Right?! Won't we? :) 

Playing frisbee at Carmel Beach

Checking out the tide pools

T's grumpiness 

B giving T seaweed hair

Daddy and daughter at Pismo

Poor Baby

Normal T Sick T

So I started feeling a little sick a few days ago. Nothing too terrible, just a bit off. I have since developed a cough and congestion. However, what I did not expect was that little man would get it with such intensity. We went to library story time yesterday and he would not take his hand off of me. Literally. Then we came home to play with a friend, and he just sat next to me on the couch until he got super warm (101 degree fever) and fell asleep sitting up next to me at 12:00 noon. What!? This little boy does not fall asleep easily these days (we're talking 20 minute nap drives at 2 p.m.), so this was rather strange. After a nap, some tylenol, and Cars, he somewhat resembled himself. I was getting lots of extra snuggles though which I promptly soaked up. He whined for me to hold him around 7 last night and again fell asleep in my arms.   

This lethargy caught J and I by surprise. it was like a flashback to a year ago during his "parasite-ridden-hacking-cough-staph-infection days." This morning he didn't get out of bed until 8 a.m. (don't worry, B made sure to keep our 5 a.m. wake-up intact.)  J picked him up at out of bed and he literally collapsed in his arms. He stayed on the couch all morning except for when he tried to come to me in the kitchen and stood up, only to lay down on the ground face down next to the couch until I came over to get him up. This was the saddest! At this point I called the Dr. who said to come on in. He slept on the couch until we got there where she told us it is probably just a virus and to keep him drinking fluids. He kept saying, "I wanna go bye-bye, Mama!" while we were there. But after a popsicle on the stroller ride home he managed to tell me, "Thank you for Dr., Mama." Sweet little boy. He hasn't been himself, but he has been feistier this afternoon so hopefully he is on the mend. It is so sad to see him feeling so terrible. I sure love that precious little boy.... And I love his sister who is now a little feverish as well, but seems to be acting normally. This was much to her brother's chagrin, as she kept singing, "If you're happy and you know it shout hooray!" in his face today and regaled him with countless tales about taking her baby to the doctor - hey, a captive audience is a captive audience! :)