Rock Star, Roll Star, Baby

This morning Camille and I enjoyed some time by ourselves. Caleb was at school and Rob took Chloe with him to run errands. When I put her hair in a ponytail, she told me she wanted a high ponytail so she could be a rock star. Since she thought she looked like a rock star, she needed to act like one too. She grabbed this toy guitar we have kicking around (the guitar, plus the battery-powered amp and a microphone, came from a yard sale a few weeks ago for $4) and started acting like one. She likes to make up her own songs. This one went something like this:

I'm a rock star, I'm a roll star, baby. Can't take me away. I'm a rock star, I'm a roll star, baby. Can't take me away. I gave her a brief lesson on components of a good song - you need both the chorus and several verses to really make the song work. We spent some additional time writing some lyrics to the song. It's really quite a lovely one.

Without further ado, here is our rock star, roll star, baby!






She was so cute that I had her call my sister and sing to her. Auntie Su told her that she was so good that she should go to NYC and sing with her band. Camille told her that she needed to practice first so she'd be ready!

Playdates

This weekend Caleb had a friend over to play. The kids had a blast. Now we're so ready for summer and the opportunities to spend time with friends during the week.

Picking Flowers

Camille is our resident floral arranger. She is always finding flowers and other foliage in the yard to make pretty bouquets for us to enjoy. Here she is picking flowers with our neighbor.





Tip toeing through the tulips. Or maybe just some clovers.

Who's So Cute?

India?

This week was very rainy so I got a bunch of movies from the library for the kids to watch. One of the videos was from the Kidz Bop series. I guess I thought my kids (who like to dance) would dance along with the music from the movie. Yeah. Not so much. They enjoyed watching it, but it wasn't the active experience I had anticipated. Anyway, the video had the song lyrics running across the bottom of the screen so Caleb - who can read - could learn the words. One of the songs was that one that goes "I'm coming up so you'd better get the party started." There's a line that says "I'll be your operator - you can call anytime - I'll be your connection to the party line."

Tonight while the kids were eating dinner I was singing that part of the song - which, unfortunately, was the only part of the song that I could remember. Caleb wanted to know what an operator was so I tried to explain about old fashioned telephone systems needing an operator to physically connect the wires to connect the call. I explained that we don't really have operators like that anymore.

Camille: There are operators.
Me: There are?
Camille: Yes. They live in India.
Me: India? How do you know?
Camille: I went there.
Me: You did?
Camille: Yes. With my Nana and Papa. When I went to stay with Nana and Papa we took a really fast train all the way to India and I didn't even have to sit in my car seat!
Me: Really? What was your favorite part? The food?
Camille: No. They didn't feed us any food.
Me: How come?
Camille: They were too busy chasing us.
Me: Who was chasing you?
Camille: The Indians. (*Miming being chased by someone with a bow and arrow*)
Me: Why were they chasing you?
Camille: Because they could tell we weren't Indian.
Me: How could they tell you weren't Indian.
Camille: (*looking at me like I'm absolutely stupid*) Because we weren't wearing Indian clothes.

I just love what Camille comes up with...she says the funniest things. She just about had me in stitches with that first part. "There are operators. They live in India." She just might be right, though it sounds like we need to have some discussion to explain the difference between Indians from India and Indians who are really Native Americans.

I've mentioned before how much my kids love informercials and always want to get products they see on infomercials...

This morning Caleb turns the channel off PBS and onto some random channel, stopping once he recognized an infomercial on the screen. He sat and watched for a few minutes about Cindy Crawford and why her skin looked so good, even at age 41. (Apparently the secret is some fancy skin doctor and a brand of skin care products called Miraculous Beauty.)

The next thing I know, Caleb's asking me, "Can boys use that stuff?"

So we are continuing to compile our list of tv products for our kids for Christmas - Camille will get her Snuggie, Caleb will get his Miraculous Beauty products (since he's getting older, he apparently wants to retain his youthful complexion) OR Hip Hop Abs. (He saw the infomercial and learned to do one of the exercises and now does it all the time.)...Chloe has not as yet chosen a favorite, but rest assured - we'll keep our television on until she does!

Information

This morning Rob was out and about and happened to stop by some yard sales and pick up some treasures for the kids. Among the treasures was an Easy Bake Oven. After Rob brought it out for them, he stood outside talking to the neighbors while the kids rushed up to Caleb's room to inspect the goods. I was working on a birthday cake in the kitchen and didn't realize what was going on until Camille came down asking for my phone.

C: I am just going to use your phone for a minute, okay Mommy?
M: Why do you need my phone Camille?
C: I have to call somebody.
M: Who do you need to call?
C: There's a number on the box that says if you have questions call.

Apparently my children couldn't figure out how to open the oven to put the cake inside (not that they had cake ready to bake...they were just scoping things out) so they were going to call the company to ask. Fortunately I ran interception and got them to bring the oven back downstairs (they had to make a second trip upstairs for the manuals). I explained that you don't open the Easy Bake oven, you just stick the baking pan in the hole in the side with the purple handle that they were using for sword fighting. (They didn't believe me, however, until their dad came in and told them the exact same thing. Apparently Daddy knows much more than Mommy does about toy cookery.)

We mixed up some cake batter, stuck it in the oven and twelve minutes later had the smallest cake known to man. We divided it up (almost) evenly between my three children and the two little neighbor kids (so everyone pretty much got one small bite). Delicious!