Interviewing Cairo

Me: Cairo, I am going to interview you.

Cairo: What? What Mommy?  Why do you have to inter-do me?

Me: Cause I want to remember what you think when you are three?

Cairo: Are you going to make it into a movie?  [starts singing] Helter Skelter, helter skelter dance...

                 Where did that come from? Has she been listening to the Beatles?

Me: Cairo, what is your favorite color?

Cairo: PINK! My favorite color is pink.  Cotton candy pink and real pink. Both colors of pink.

Me: What is your least favorite color, the one that you think is the most yucky?

Cairo: Green. Because blue and green is the color I don't like and that's why I don't draw with blue and green.

Me: What is your favorite food?

Cairo: STRAWBERRIES.

Me: What is your favorite thing to wear?

Cairo: Pink and Purple.

Me: What is your favorite book?

Cairo: Tip Toe Ballerina and the one with skates on it [Pinkalicious].

                    Notice a theme?

Me: What do you want to be when you get bigger?

Cairo: Um, ballerina and even a soccer player.  I want to be up in Monrovia and up at our house.... because it is so beautiful around here. [starts singing] It's beautiful around here, it's beautiful around here...

Me: What are you most scared of?

Cairo: Monsters.

Me: Anything else?

Cairo: Ah, ghosts. I'm scared of ghosts.  Are ghosts real?

Me: No.

Cairo: Well, then I'm not scared of ghosts... and I'm not scared of lady bugs because they are so beautiful.

Me: What do you call your brother?

Cairo: Jonah Bear

Me: What do you like best about Jonah Bear?

Cairo: When he hugs me and kisses me.  That's nice.

Me: What bugs you the most about Jonah?

Cairo: When he wakes me up when I am sleeping in the night?

M: What is your favorite thing to do with Jonah?

C: Play with him and make sure he doesn't get hurt... and, um, play ball with him... and make sure he gets to sleep.

M: What do you think Jonah should be when he grows up?

C: A doctor. Jonah should be a doctor.

M: Why?

C: Because he is a boy.  Boys and girls can be doctors.

M: What is heaven like?

C: Heaven is where people go when they are old... really, really old, when they were sick.

M: What is one thing that makes your family special?

C: When they all love each other and when they all stand together for a picture.  That's what a family does.

M: Where is your favorite place to go?

C: To Mei's house and to Ba Chan's house!  I'm a little sad I'm not going to Ba Chan's house today.

M: Are you a good friend?  Why do you think so?

C: [Nods her head] Because Mei plays with me and we play together.

M: What is the hardest thing about being a kid?

C: I can't reach the things that are up high that I want.  We can't drive.

M: Tell me the five best things about you.

C: I'm big, I go to school, and I love everybody that plays with me.  I'm a good dancer and a good singer.

M: Are you smart?

C: Yes I am smart!

M: What is the best thing about being a girl?

C: Um, they have girl colors.  Because I'm a princess. And I have girly everything.  Pink- that's the color of my crocks and my boots.

M: What colors are boy colors?

C: White and, um, blue.  Red is a little boy color.

Bapa: Are you going to cook me dinner when you're bigger?

C: Of course not! I'm going to grow babies!

M: What is Daddy's job?

C: Cooking. Cooking is his job. 

M: What's mommy's job?

C: To watch us a little when Daddy's doing something.  You play with me.

M: What do you think of worms and bugs?

C: Yucky!

... and at that, I've completely lost her attention.

Here comes Peter Cottontail.....

Yes, folks!  The Easter Bunny has made a visit to 512 Sombrero Rd!  The children eagerly decorated colorful Easter Eggs in anticipation of his arrival.  No job is too big, no job it too messy, no job is too colorful for Cairo and J Bear.  They also took this moment to celebrate Earth Day by creating nature themed messages and pictures on the eggs.

Jonah's egg-  He loved this egg.  He dipped it, double dipped it, triple dipped it, and did it all on his own.  In between dunks, he kept a tight grip on it. It was the only egg he decorated.  You see, if he wanted to decorate any others, he would have had to set it down.

That Easter Bunny gave the kids some nice loot!  I remember the Easter Bunny only giving candy... lots and lots of candy at that!

That silly Easter Bunny, he wasn't supposed to hide the hardboiled eggs, he was supposed to hide the plastic ones. Well, we made sure to collect all those eggs so that we could make our traditional Eggs a la Golden Rod.

After breakfast we finally set out to discover where the Easter Bunny had hidden all the money filled plastic Easter Eggs.  

Smiles

Smiles should be rewarded to those who do dishes (which is often me).  Meet my rocks.  They live on my window sill above the kitchen sink (which is currently M.I.A... but it will soon be replaced).

Erik saved them from the yard.  They always seem to make me smile, too.  You know how it is, if someone smiles at you, it makes you want to smile back.

There are other things that have made me smile lately.

• Erik conquering one project after another.  First, taming our wild backyard.  Then, humoring a wife who always as an idea... The best part of it all, and the one part of it that puts that grin right on my face- Erik's work gear.  His Grandpa Dedini's old plaid shirts, rubber garden boots, some safety device protecting his ears, eyes, face, hands, feet... or all of the above at the same time.  When we are old and gray, this is how I will remember him.

• Jonah's big goofy smile is contagious.

• Seeing Erik and Jonah bond while watching a surfing video.  Jonah was VERY involved with the video and was not happy when the storyline in the video ventured away from surfing itself.

• Cairo running around and playing with the little girls, little girls who are very special to me.

• Seeing J Bear try to stuff ALL his toys down his shirt, further accentuating the curve of his large belly.  Play food. Check. Baby bottles. Check.  Hand mitt. Check. Tea Kettle. Check...

• Cairo and Mei having wheelbarrow races on the front lawn with Uncle Nick and Grandpa Lee.

• My family, together at my house, for no reason other than to spend time together.

• My best friend, a cohesive member of my family.

• Cairo, unknowingly, getting black marker all over her face... and not understanding why her mom and dad are laughing at her.

• Rolly polly babies... and not just that, but rolly polly babies that smile so big at you with their big gummy smiles that it appears as if they are silently laughing at you. Miss Koko- you should have seen her smiles!

Overview of Spring Break

It's break time and what does that mean for the Dedini Family?  Yup, another trip north.  Well, the trip started like this-

Thankfully, we left early.  The kids slept through it and we enjoyed it.

When we got up there we did a little of this- (Ha! Like we, actually, did this, Ah-choo.... and I guess three times isn't a little of this).  As I was saying- Erik did a whole lot of this-

While the kids were doing a whole lot of this-

And this.  Twice.

I snuck out one morning to watch this-

While, they stayed in and did this-

I, then, initiated this-

 Which then led to this-

And then, thankfully, to this-

...for now.  This will become a whole lot more soon!

Best of all, I got to enjoy this-

Huge smiles and all!

... and this...

It was a good spring break.