She's a BOTH/AND kind of girl

The other day, as we had cupcakes for dessert, I asked the girls, "Do you like cupcakes or candy better?"

Hannah: Cupcakes!
Naomi: Both!

Then I asked, "Do you like cupcakes with frosting better, or without frosting?"

Hannah: With frosting!
Naomi: Both!

Of course, when you're a small girl and your mom talks about DEfrosting cupcakes that have been in the freezer so that you can have them for dessert, it gets a bit confusing.

Me: I'll defrost the cupcakes.
Naomi: I like frosting. Can I come watch you?
Me (not understanding that she thinks I'm about to frost cupcakes): Yes, but they're almost defrosted, I just put them in the microwave. Okay, here you go, take it to the table!
Naomi: Okay. I'll unwrap it.
Me: Okay.

A minute or two passes.

Naomi: Mama, are you making the frosting?
Me: Oh, no, we're not having frosting tonight. OOOOHHHHH...Sorry, Naomi, when I said DEfrosting, I meant that I was warming them up in the microwave because they were frozen. We don't have frosting tonight. Maybe we'll have frosting the next time we make cupcakes.
Naomi: Oh, okay.

She ate the cupcake anyway -- she does like them both ways, you know!

Hannah's Karate Test

Hannah tested for her new karate belt yesterday. Naomi and I came along to watch. It was very cool: they showed off their jabs, punches and kicks; they practiced escaping from a choking attacker; they swept each others' ankles and knocked down their opponent.





In the end, Hannah was awarded a yellow belt. Here's Hannah bowing to her sensei:

You may have observed that Sensei is very pregnant. (She's expecting in a few weeks.) If you didn't think you could get a custom gi with expansion panels, you thought wrong. She could still put you on the ground in two seconds flat. As she demonstrated on me last week.

Feasts

Michael's feast day, the feast of St. Thomas Aquinas, was last Wednesday. To celebrate, the girls and I did some baking.

As you can see, we had to sample as we went along. (This is a gratuitous Sim picture; as you can see, he didn't get to sample the chocolate, but he's darn cute, so we wanted him in there!)







The result: Mint Chocolate Cupcakes from the book Vegan Cupcakes Take Over the World.



I know what you're thinking: "Vegan cupcakes?" Well, if your kids had egg and dairy issues, you'd do all you could to find ways to feed them (and yourself) cupcakes, too. And, really, these cupcakes were amazing.

Oh, and Dominican, I just realized as I looked at the picture -- black and white are the Dominican habit colors. How appropriate! :)

Dogs

scare Naomi. She's been known to utter eardrum-piercing shrieks when she notices dogs, or if they move in her direction. Today we went to the garden store to pick up a few things. They have a fish pond with a bridge over it that the girls love, and they were both headed towards it when Naomi stopped and refused to move. She said something I couldn't understand, and I pointed out the fish pond to her, thinking maybe she didn't remember from last time.

Then she said again, "Is that a real dog?"

It was a dog statue -- a dachshund, lifesize -- among the other available statues of St. Francis and gargoyles. And then I noticed that there were a bunch more dog statues, too. They must be the in thing for gardening this year.

"No, Naomi, none of those dogs are real."

She ran off happily to the pond.

The mirror

has become fascinating to Simeon -- he's old enough (4 months old today!) now that he pays attention to such things. I've put a mirror by the changing table, and he's very appreciative of the new baby who's come to chat with him -- good-looking kid, too. It's really cute to see him lying there smiling and gurgling to the mirror.

Little Dragon Courtesy

Hannah has learned the phrase "For Heaven's sake!" from the Laura Ingalls Wilder books. I wasn't quite sure she knew what it meant, so I was trying to explain it to her.

Dad: "For Heaven's sake" means for the sake of God and Heaven.
Hannah: Really?
Dad: Yes. For example, if someone was going to hit you, you might say, "For Heaven's sake, don't do it!"
Hannah: Or you could protect yourself by blocking their punch.
Dad: Yes, yes, you could.

Being a Little Dragon means never having to talk your way out of trouble ... because you have Fists of Fury!

The hazards of trying to teach children

Naomi has recently taken to eating her dessert quickly and then scavenging extra dessert from the rest of us. I was eating a chocolate cupcake last week and Naomi approached and asked for a bite. (I momentarily considered shoving the rest in my mouth, then remembered I'm older than 10 now -- also, I wasn't sure I could fit half a cupcake with icing in. ;)) I paused as I considered the wisdom of adding to her dessert load, and she came out with, "Mama, you need to share: we're a sharing family!" Hmmm...where had she heard that before?