In case you were thinking about coming over for a visit and stopping by Aliya’s room, there are some rules you should know about in advance.  I don’t know what happened to my rule about “no stickers on the walls, floors, doors, windows, pets, or furniture,” but here are Aliya’s rules:

Rules of my room
0) Wipe off your feat.
1) Never come in with shoes on.
2) No food aloud.
3) No boy’s Aloud inless I tell them they can.
4) most importante – if door is shut nock 3 or 4 times before you come in if nowon ansers do not come in.
5) be palite, do not yell, do not fight, and have fun!

More Rules of my Room
6) no crieng aloud
10) use hand sanitizer or wash your hans.
7) have listening eares.
8) No name coling or tizeng.
9) be strong
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Uncle Josh & Auntie Rachael came to spend the weekend with us on their way to SPAIN…I’m so jealous!

We showed them a good time…a big Mexican feast followed by a little karaoke at Samba to help celebrate Jenny’s birthday.

The local crazies were out in full force and I had the pleasure of singing Hopelessly Devoted to You with a woman who appeared to have taken a controlled substance (I just realized how long it’s been since I’ve used the word “stoned”).  She interjected her own lyrics including, “My head is sayin’…ooooh…just kill him, kill him….”

At Lana’s request, Pam, Jenny, and I sang You Don’t Bring Me Flowers…that was a first for me.  Well, the first time with an audience that was not related to me anyway.

The rest of the weekend, Uncle Josh & Auntie Rachael were just the diversion I needed.  They played multiple games of Candyland and Nintendo DS and just generally acted like they were interested in Elmo, Hannah Montana, and Scooby Doo so I didn’t have to.  Last night we made couscous and today they headed for Madrid.

Lucky patos!!
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Norah has finally reached a milestone that I never thought I’d see.  When Adlani was a baby I was constantly marking the progress we were making…the last can of formula, moving from the (extremely heavy) infant seat to a regular car seat, and all of the typical milestones…first words, first steps, etc.  When we found out that Norah would be arriving in about 8 months, I had been obsessively counting the months until we’d be done with “double-day care.”  We started focusing much less on the milestones, either because all hell had broken loose and we barely had the time to notice anything, or because we were superstitious that if we started counting the months of double-day care again we’d get another little surprise.  

Well, we finally made it to one kid in day care (actually preschool) a few months ago (don’t worry…we haven’t let our guard down) and Norah recently reached a milestone that I was SO EXCITED about…she can go to swimming lessons without one of us getting into the pool with her.  No more suiting up for 8 a.m. lessons on Saturday morning.  No more walking around with the swim cap imprint on my head.  No more looking at hairy daddies in the pool.  YIPPEE!!!  YAY Norah!
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Norah has been obsessed with “private areas” for a long time.  Now she is also obsessed with “Kiwi Herman” and carries around this 20-year-old Pee-Wee Herman doll that used to say annoying stuff like “I know you are but what am I?” when you pulled the string.

In preschool, Norah likes to play Spanish Bingo, which she calls “Yo Tengo!” (“I’ve got it!”) because that’s what they say when they have a picture on their Bingo card that matches the picture on the “grande card”.  If the teacher pulls out the grande card with the glasses on it, whoever has a picture of glasses on their Bingo card yells, “Yo tengo!”

So today out of the blue Norah says, “When we play Yo Tengo, and Maria takes out a grande card and says ‘Who has a p-nis?’, the boys can say, ‘Yo Tengo!’ ” 

Where is this obsession coming from?  And more importantly, is it going to end before she hits puberty??
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We finally found something that’s been able to drag Adlani away from the TV…other than padlocking the entertainment center doors closed.  LEGOS!!  Ben bought him a couple of kits last week but the age range was 7-14 so I didn’t think he was ready for them.  He needed a little help to keep him on track, but he’s really good at looking at the isometric drawing and applying it to the next piece that needs to go on.  After his trouble with writing last year we worried about his fine motor skills, but he is able to put the tiniest pieces together.  He worked really hard on the dirt-digging, alien-killing contraption below (60+ steps to complete it!) and he was so proud!  Somebody’s going to have to get a second job to support his habit but at least it gets him away from Sponge Bob.