Hard Knock Life

When you get in trouble for defacing your classmates drawings while they SLEEP, you have to write an I'm sorry letter and give your teacher a dollar of your tooth fairy money to replace the paper you ruined.






"'Stead'a kisses, we get kicks! It's a hard knock life."

Shark Tooth

Last night, Marco's wiggly loose tooth was interrupting our devoted eater's dinner.  And nothing gets between my boy and pasta carbonara.  Jeff said he could dry the tooth with a napkin to look at it.  Poof, he pulled it right out.  Gross. 

Marco was STOKED.  He jumped around like a lunatic for an hour chanting, "I LOST MY TOOTH!  I LOST MY TOOTH!"

The tooth loosened and fell out so quickly, that I think it's fair to say this parenting moment really snuck up on us.  Luckily, we have a third parent, PBS, to cover these things.  SHARK from Marco's favorite show, Word World, just lost his tooth too.  Marco explained, "I'm kind of a tooth fairy expert."

Shark wishes on his lost tooth for a purple lollipop.  It seemed counter intuitive to me to get candy when a tooth falls out, but Marco was convinced that the tooth fairy would bring him a purple lollipop.  The last thing he said before he fell asleep was, "I know you get what you get, but I sure hope the tooth fairy brings me a purple lollipop like SHARK."

....down to Walgreen's after bedtime.  When I saw it, the heavens opened and a spotlight hit it.  Phewf.  With rumors of kids getting $20 bills and no experience of our own, we threw in five, one dollar bills too.  I'd hate to have some other tooth fairy outdo us, after all.  :)

In combination with turning five, Marco's confidence about growing up is through the roof.  Watch out world.

Rage on 5

Whoa. Five.

We rang in year five surrounded by friends and family. Final party count: 13 bottles of wine, 36 beers, 35 pizzas, 60 cupcakes and one very, very happy boy.








- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

Happy, happy New Year.

We celebrated an excellent New Years at home with a boatload of friends and children. The crab dinner was just a filler before the morning-after mimosas, gin fizzes and fried chicken and waffles.























Taki seemed pretty happy leaving us after midnight with seven kids, five in Marco's room. (Shh, they slept the whole time.)


Happy New Year!



Diet = on.

Happy Birthday Marco!

Happy Birthday to our clever, handsome and growing boy. He's mischievous, brave and independent with an impeccable sense of comedic timing. (Sometimes it's funnier than others.)

This morning we awoke to a 5-year old, waiting in bed playing a game on his "mini iPad," with... his first loose tooth.

Tomorrow he's leaving for college... Or so it seems.



- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

"For real life" Thanksgiving

Stumbled across these photos from Thanksgiving and Grandma Alice's birthday - think food, pie and a sleepover. As Marco would say, I'm thankful, "for real life."














(She needed a little extra lung support.)


And the unanimous winner for 4-year and 92-year old movie choice? The Wizard of Oz.


- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

Otis

The Chia Pet is well underway, but it doesn't prevent Marco from walking this dog down to the corner and back every time he passes by the window. Luckily, we have very nice neighbors.

And a very strong boy.



- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Picasso

Those pesky winter germs have kept Marco home for five days over the past few weeks.  We've spent days watching movies, playing games and running errands. 

As part of re-decorating Marco's room (and as a way to entertain Marco for an hour or so), we decided he needed some new art.  Our new hobby was born.

This has legs.

Sun Chasers

We escaped Northern California for four nights before Christmas and found the sun in Ventura. 

Our Christmas treat was eating oysters and clams on the beach in the sun.

 Marco's Christmas treats were spending time being Papa's right hand man...

 A Christmas caroling cruise to see the lights...

 Playing with new toys...

 And getting something from his list... "I said I wanted a pet!"

When the rain eventually caught up with us, we headed home on Christmas Eve.  We didn't want to confuse Santa, after all.

Sunny & Bright greetings to all!