Syl-vi-a

When Kip says 'Sylvia' it comes out something more like eea, with a slightly guttural sound before the e's and some other irreproducible vowel-ish sound before the a. It's a bit like when Sylvia says, 'no' these days, which is very much in the Adelaide style and sounds more like noe and almost has two syllables. 

The problem isn't the 's' or the 'l' sound; he's perfectly capable of pronouncing those sounds correctly in other words. When I try to reproduce the way he says it he tells me I'm saying her name wrong and shows me the correct pronunciation, and will only accept when I say her name correctly. I think it's pretty cute, but then I'm the mom.

That ended today. He looked at me while we were in the car driving to pick up Sylvia from school, and after pronouncing her name his normal way he said, "No, Syl-vi-a." Like a little language lightbulb went on in his brain, and now it'll stay lit forever.

Teeth and turning

Couple of big milestones this weekend: Sylvia lost her first tooth on Saturday and Kip flipped himself over on Sunday. He can only go one way--from his back to his belly--and he had to push himself with his feet to do it, but I can see his days of immobility are coming to an end.

I think Paul might have actually pulled Sylvia's tooth. She's had a tooth coming in behind it, and she's been complaining about it being loose since her last dental appointment about a week ago. She's only sporadically played with it, and hasn't been as interested in eating the apples and carrots the dentist suggested for making the tooth looser, which I think may be because it's a little painful. I got the impression that Paul is the one who took matters into his hands and twisted the tooth free.

Both of them were fascinated by the tooth, so much so they wouldn't stop playing with it and lost it a couple of times. It's such a tiny thing, I'm not surprised they had a hard time keeping track of it. The tooth fairy who came was pretty rich--Sylvia got $5. She used it to buy herself a watermelon.

Adelaide zoo

I miss the San Diego Zoo.

There. That's out of the way.

Adelaide does have a zoo, and it isn't bad. It's not the San Diego Zoo by any stretch of the imagination, but it's nice. I admit, when we walked in past the first three cramped, empty exhibits that were obviously built with much concrete in the 1970's I was a little worried I'd just wasted a bunch of money on zoo passes for the year. Not much further into the park I found most of the displays were much more modern, really almost garden-like. For as small as it is, this is a pretty zoo.

Even our pigeons are cool

Paul thought the American Alligators were "tops" (triceratops) and wanted to pet them very badly.

The best part: they have wallabies in their petting zoo.

The downside: my kids now want a pet wallaby (or  wawbie according to Paul).

Disney parenting fail

Sylvia almost always picks out several movies when we go to the library, and usually I check out one for her to watch. For the most part the movie selection at the library is pretty good and appropriate for a 4 1/2 year old. There are some movies in the kid's collection that are more appropriate for older kids, but since Sylvia almost always picks up four or five movies it's not hard for me to steer her away from the ones I don't want her to watch.

Yesterday she picked up "The Lion King." She's picked it up several times before and every time I've remembered it's not really an appropriate movie for younger kids. Not this time, unfortunately. Blithely, I checked it out, took it home, and popped it in the computer for her to watch.

Then, I went about my own business. Sylvia's TV watching time (especially if coupled with Paul's nap time) is my work time. So, I let her watch. About 90 minutes later she came out of the bedroom sobbing, telling me the movie was too scary for little kids.

D'oh.

I knew the scene where Simba's dad dies is way too intense for a kid Sylvia's age. At the very least I should have watched it with her and skipped that part. Sigh.

Kicking myself for my inattention, I let her watch a second movie (How to Train your Dragon), assuming it would be less intense and would calm her down. I also watched it with her, at least most of the time. She was calm during that movie, but as soon as it was over she was every bit as worked up as she'd been immediately after the Lion King. She remained worked up during dinner, during the bedtime ritual, and when I sent her to bed. At about 6:00.

Finally, after maybe 10 or so minutes lying down in the dark she calmed down. She and Paul played happily for another hour or so and then we put them down, more successfully this time.

So, thanks Disney, for a kid's movie that really isn't appropriate for kids under the age of probably 10.

To end this on a brighter note, here is a link to the youtube video channel of another Sylvia: one who loves science as much as I hope my Sylvia does some day.

Stung

Sylvia was stung by a bee today. The experience was certainly not one she'll want to experience again any time soon, but the thing that struck me most was that she was at least as distressed by the news that the bee would die after stinging her as she was distressed by the pain. She's my little softie.

It's been a pretty good week. Sylvia went to school quite happily on Monday and Tuesday. Wednesday (which is typically my most ornery day) was pleasant all the way around. After a delicious and nutritious dinner we even went to the park as a family, where Paul herded ducks and Sylvia wanted to swim with them.

Thursday was similarly low-key, and today (other than the bee sting) has been mellow. I let Sylvia watch pretty much as much My Little Pony as she wanted, which is closing in on four hours, I think. She's outside now playing in water with her brother, taking a break from TV since it was "making her dizzy."

Let this be a lesson, mom: don't let big sister walk around with big sticks

Yeah, any time TV makes you dizzy, it's probably time to take a break.

At dusk I saw

I finally downloaded pictures off my camera. Looking through them I realized it's been more than a month since I'd downloaded pictures, which means I haven't shared any of our pictures from our last days in the states or any of our pictures from our first month here in Australia. Somewhere in the back of my mind I was aware of this, of course, but it's really truly obvious when I go through the pictures exactly how much I've neglected to share with anyone else.

Oops.

So, I'll post some pictures here, probably some on Facebook as well. Let y'all see how much fun we had in our final days before leaving and what our life's like down under.

I know we've only been gone a month, and we're so busy here I don't really have the time or emotional space to get sad about leaving. Still, there were some definite twinges of nostalgia looking over the pictures we've taken. Anyway, here are a few for your enjoyment. I'll post more...eventually.

Checking out the dinosaurs at the LA Museum of natural history

That's the plane we rode to Australia

What's summer without watermelon?

Taking the bus to Sylvia's Kindy

They have fish!

My sweet girl! (pre-black eye)

Sylviaisms

Can giant squid get us? (after watching a Wild Kratt's that featured blue whales and giant squid)

Is this (random organism from a book of ancient life) extinct?

Why is it extinct?

Why did they all die?

I don't want them to die!

Mommy, I don't want to be a carnivore anymore.

Also:

What do frogs eat?

Do they eat worms?

I don't want them to eat worms.

My daddy says...

You know, the primary program has to have that one kid who keeps people awake. In my ward, you know who that kid was?

If you guessed Sylvia, you'd be right.

I should start before we even got to church. My kids hate sleeping, so they were up nice and early and we had lots of time for breakfast. Since this weekend was full of Halloween parties the breakfast discussion centered around Halloween.

Derrick, trickster that he is, told Sylvia, "I think the Holy Ghost is scary."

"Scary?" she leaned forward, eyes wide and attentive.

"Yeah, I mean, he whispers in peoples' ears and tells them what to do."

I rolled my eyes.

We bundled everyone into the car and I drove away, almost early enough to get to church on time. I sat in the back with a friend and shooed Sylvia up to the stage. She's a little clingy sometimes, and this morning didn't want to sit with her class, so she sat with me until after the sacrament. Then, she followed the procession of stragglers like us to her seat and the program began.

The first song was about listening to the Holy Ghost.

As soon as the song was over Sylvia's girlish voice filled the silent chapel, her little voice just loud enough to be heard all the way in the back where I sat, motionless. She said, "My daddy says..."

I covered my face. I knew what was coming.

"My daddy says the Holy Ghost is scary."

I buried my head in my lap, both to hide my red face and muffle my laughter. I needn't have, though--everyone was giggling around me.

That's my kid.

She did a great job. Other than that little incident, she followed the script just as she was supposed to. She was one of the more understandable kids who spoke, which is pretty good for a four-year-old.

Non-boring

Since my last post was rather dull, here are pictures of my kids:

A discussion of marriage

This evening I let Sylvia stay up a little late. We watched BYU's Vocal Point from last year's Sing Off. During the first song Sylvia informed me she was going to marry the tall blonde guy (Keith, I think). I pointed out that he was probably already married, or at least would be by the time she was 18. That bit of information didn't phase her at all as she continued to tell me she was going to marry him. I had to explain to her that once someone marries one person they don't marry someone else. After a couple of repetitions of that explanation she decided she didn't like Keith anymore.

After watching most of Vocal Point we moved on to Pentatonix. Since she couldn't have Keith, she moved on to the tall blonde guy in that group. He's at least only 16 years her senior.

Girl in pink and blue