Big Beezy and Lil Peezy

We’ve only held big parties for Brandon’s “big” birthday years, e.g. his first, and his fifth.  The other years have just been get togethers with my family, and relatively low key.  This year was no different, and in the past, he’s never really asked for a friends’ party.  I told him all who was coming over, and he told me, “Maybe we can have a party with my friends.”  I told him that we should do that next year.  I think he is getting at the age where he wants to go out with his friends, so maybe next year we’ll do something with a small group of his friends.  Now that I know some of them, it would be okay to just hang out and maybe take them to a movie or depending on the weather mini golf or something like that.  But this year, we had pizza and cake for his birthday/Super bowl party.  We went out to the farmer’s market this morning, and the kids ate us out of house and home.  We thought we’d get them a quiche to share, but after they split that, both asked what else there was to eat.  We ended up eating again at the restaurant that we’d parked next to.  The kids split a kids’ meal, then we shared some of our food with them, too!  Poor Dave.  He had given Peyton some turkey sausage, but she was taking her time to eat, and while she wasn’t looking, he took it back and ate it.  She turned back around and said, “Hey, who took my chicken? (she thinks everything is chicken)”  Dave gave her some back, since he’d had some more patties.  We came back, and it was only 1045am.  Peyton looked at me, and said, “Mommy, will you sleep with me?” She was ready to sleep at 1045am?  Fine with me!  We had wanted the kids to sleep early since my family was coming over at 3pm for the game.  She fell asleep within about 10 minutes, and slept for about 2 hours.  We got up, and Dave and Brandon were gone. They had gone to pick up the wings.  When they got back, Brandon, Peyton, and I played one of Brandon’s board games.  The game is for 4-7 year olds, so I helped Peyton a bit, but she did okay.  The premise of the game was selecting cards with letters on them, and trying to find the picture that represented the card.  When you find that picture, you put your marker on it.  Four markers in a row wins.  Peyton was getting better at the game, and even blurted out the answer when it was Brandon’s turn.  I quickly turned to her to tell her that it wasn’t her turn yet.  She put her hand over her face, and let out a squeal that sounded liked the air being let out of a balloon.  She was very upset, and cried, until it was her turn again.  She really doesn’t like being corrected.  Ever.  Both had to be reminded of the same, waiting their turn, being gracious winners/losers.  Peyton ended up winning both games played, and after the final win, Brandon just slapped her a high five, not a hand shake.  Peyton whined, “Bruddah did not shake my hand.”  I told her he’d given her a high five, which was very similar.  So sensitive, I tell you!  We all put the game away, then it was time for Brandon and Dave to go play catch.  Peyton and I had a snack inside, and after about 15 minutes, Brandon came in, too.  Everyone arrived shortly thereafter.  The kids had wings, and really enjoyed them.  I don’t think they’ve really ever eaten them before, but they didn’t have any problems with them.  Later, they had pizza (yes, it was a totally junk food day, and I was resigned to that fact).  I did work some Caesar salad into them, however.  We finished up, and while Peyton was on the potty (as her normal routine in the middle of dinner), she looked up at me and said, “I ate too much.”  She looked totally defeated.  She did finish her salad and milk.  We had the kids take their baths early so we could wait until the end of the game before cutting cake.  After bathing, Brandon got to open up his presents.  He got lots of legos, Beyblades (spinning tops), and some clothes.  He waited patiently for the end of the game, then we sang the birthday song and cut up the cake.  Here are the pictures:

Our little boy is growing up.  After their teeth were brushed, we ushered them around to say good night.  Peyton went up to everyone and gave them a hug.  My uncle was so surprised that she did!  We told her it was because he was on her turf, just like with Bonnie yesterday.  Both went upstairs, and neither came back down after going to their rooms.  It was 730pm.  Brandon told me, “It’s a three day weekend, right?”  Haha, nice try, boy.  He hadn’t slept, so I didn’t expect a fight.  Peyton likes to sleep, and had slept very early on, so it’d had been awhile since she’d been up.  Now, Dave and I are catching up on commercials and the Voice.

This morning, we lounged around, cleaned up a bit, and got ready for Penny’s party. Dave had gone for a lengthy bike ride, and didn’t get back until about 10am, having left at about 730am.  Luckily, Penny’s party was just down the street!  Bonnie called and needed help getting here since it wasn’t on the GPS, so I navigated her to our house so we could all go together.  Parking was going to be tight, so it was easy enough to just walk the block down the street.  Connor was asleep when they first arrived.  We invited Bonnie in, so the kids could give her a tour.  I stayed outside with Connor to make sure he was okay outside.  I was hoping he wouldn’t get up, since I didn’t know what he’d do if he saw me there.  But I wouldn’t know what he’d do if he woke up at some strange house either with no one watching him.  They all came out about 5 minutes later, and Bonnie was telling me how Peyton was being very chatty, telling her what her favorite colors are, that she likes books.  This is the first time Peyton’s really talked to Bonnie.  Bonnie’s heard her talk at school, but this was a conversation with her.  Bonnie asked if she finally got through to her or was it just because she was in our house.  We definitely told her it was because Bonnie was in her territory.  She’s always comfortable and talkative here.  Even at Nela’s, she was talkative, but that’s because Dave thinks we were in the same general area, being within our housing development.  The Chang’s were already there, and Ashlyn was good about recognizing the kids.  Brandon said a very close hello to her, but then was quickly taken to the clone wars tv show with Nela’s niece and nephew.  Peyton just wanted to sit next to Bruddah, so I sat with them for a few minutes in the front.  She looked at the tv, saw Yoda, and said, “OH, Yoda!”  Funny that she is so influenced by Brandon and knows the Star Wars characters.  The kids won’t bother each other if one of us is sitting there, but I didn’t want to leave them too long alone otherwise Peyton would bother Brandon.  She was already following him around, and he didn’t want her to sit too closely to him.  I watched her closely to make sure she gave him some space.
Food was ready shortly after that, and Dave and I got the kids’ and our plates packed with food.  We called them outside to eat, and they both came.  Brandon quickly ate his food, then returned to watch TV.  Peyton took her time, and ate quite a bit.  Everything was very yummy, with Nela’s mom making some of the Burmese food.  Peyton loved the Burmese meat, but didn’t like the naan-like bread that much.  We ate next to Connor and Bonnie, then cleaned up and went back inside.  The other Kaiserites were in there.  When one of the twins came in with Thuy, I asked Brandon, “Who is this?”  Brandon thought about it and said, “Tyler”.  I had to ask Thuy who confirmed it was.  Ashlyn pointed to Thuy and said, “Twins’ mommy!  Twins’ mommy!”  Poor Thuy, no identity of her own.  I guess I’m “Brandon’s mom” and “Peyton’s mom” to the kids at school, so it’s all the same.  Peyton was being very giggly, playing with Connor and the balloons.  They “bonded” over a musical snowman that they found.  Peyton showed Connor how to turn it on, then Connor took it from there.  We hung around for cake, and each kid got their own slice.  They were passing out the slices to the kids first, and Brandon got his, but since Peyton was on my lap, she seemed to get overlooked.  She looked a bit concerned, so I went to get her one, and she joined her brother to eat it.  We walked back out with Bonnie and Connor after saying our goodbyes.  We stopped at the Chang’s car, and Ashlyn gave Brandon his birthday gift.  We saw Bonnie and Connor off.  Since it was 230pm, we whisked the kids off to nap. Peyton said, “No, I don’t want to go to nap!”  I “volunteered” to take a nap with her, and she ran after me.  Dave was upset that HE didn’t get to nap, but had to go down and prove our residence to our Little League for Brandon.  Peyton said, “Oh, POOR DADDY,” giving him her most sincere sad face.  Then, we went to her room to lie down, and she said, “Yay for sleeping!!”
After we woke up, we went down to watch some videos and do some puzzles.  One that she wanted to do was 100 pieces.  She said, “Wow, tha’ts more than a lot!”  She wanted to watch Ariel videos.  We saw one that was of Ariel on Broadway.  It was her solo in the cave, and Peyton asked, “Are the parents watching down below?”  It was like she likened it to her performance at school :)   Then, she started singing it on her own.  Here is her version. Dave didn’t know what the hand motions were.  I told him that’s what Ariel does on Broadway, more or less.  Then, she asked, “Brudda, you wanna sing with me?  I’m cute.  In my skirt, see?”  She’s a ham or diva, one of the two.  Earlier today, I heard this from the kids:
P: Bruddah, will you be my friend?
B: No.
P: But why?
B (no response)
P: Bruddah, can you be my friend? But why?

Poor Peyton.  I felt badly for her.  I was telling Brandon she just wants to be friends with him.  Hopefully he’ll come around.

Though today is a day off for me, it started out with me dropping Peyton off at 730am, to make it back for Brandon’s flag salute at 810am, which was a special one since the kinders were parading around in honor of the Lunar New Year.  The kids had made lanterns and dragons, and walked in front of the assembly showing them off.  After flag salute, I rushed up to my dental appointment.  It was over within a half an hour, but I’d already missed yard duty, so I went home to grab some lunch and a snack for Brandon.  I made it back to his school to pick him up by 1245pm.  We went over to my work for my eye exam.  I was planning to order a new pair of glasses this year, but they wanted me to update my prescription to make sure all was well.  I haven’t changed my prescription in some time, but still, they wanted to be assured that it was most current.  I brought Brandon with me, and was a little worried how the exam would go. He was pretty subdued, probably a bit tired from the day, so he had his computer, and sat down with it, while I checked myself in.  It wasn’t long before they called me back.  He heard my name, too, so he got up and followed me in.  The optometrist was happy to have him in the room.  I set him up with his two oranges, and he did the rest.  He got all his peels in the garbage, and even cleaned up his hands with the sink in the room.  The appointment seemed to go quickly; I’m not sure if she did an abbreviated exam because he was in the room, or if I just didn’t remember from two years ago.  What took longer was me waiting for the optician to order my frames and lenses.  Again, Brandon was very patient, and just sat and drew on a piece of paper at the desk.  After that, we headed down to visit Julie.  She was asking him about his day at school, and his upcoming birthday, and Brandon just chatted away with her.  Julie is easily conversant with both of the kids. Yes, she even gets words out of Peyton!!  Like a snake charmer!  She also did share her Cheerios with Brandon, who ate the whole bag, while he sat on Julie’s desk and chatted away.  They talked about his teeth, or lack thereof, and swimming, and the usual goings on of an almost 6 year old.  After awhile, we took off and headed to the ice cream store to get a cake. I figured a two day head start was way better than I had allowed myself with Peyton’s cake, and that I’d take Brandon with me to pick out his cake and ice cream flavors.  WRONG!  Apparently, this particular store had a freezer out and told me that they couldn’t make me a cake on short notice due to the busy weekend.  They referred me to another store, but I told them I wanted this store because of my work discount.  That left me to choose from the cakes that were in the store.  I had had Brandon already sifting through the awesome cake decoration book, but to no avail.  He had to pick between a mint chocolate cake that was similar to his last year’s cake or one that had a cute little cone on top with a small scoop of mint chip ice cream.  He chose the latter, wanting the cone for himself.  So, we ordered that one, and I lumped two other clown cones for each of the kids, in case the cake wasn’t big enough for the family.  It feeds 6-8, and I think with my parents, grandma, aunt, uncle and my mom’s cousin and his girlfriend, we’ll hit right in the middle of that.  Well, the cones would be cute for the kids, anyways, and then we’ll have more cake :)  .  I didn’t want to take it, since we still had to get Peyton, so we left it there so they could decorate.  We picked up Peyton, stopping in to say “Hi” to Brandon’s teachers last year.  He showed them the hole in his mouth, since they’d seen him just two weeks ago right before they came out.  We all went home, and Brandon signed into his reading program, while Peyton and I did puzzles.  Brandon was upset with Peyton because he wanted to concentrate and she was too busy talking.  I told her to talk quietly, but I also told Brandon that I needed to help him, so that meant Peyton had to be around.  She didn’t want to sit in her room alone to do her puzzles.  He managed okay, and got over it.  By 530pm, Dave hadn’t come home yet.  Peyton asked me, “Mommy, can you get me something to eat?”  Brandon was also hungry, having read a book about a cat asking his mom for something besides fish, and then later eating a pizza.  As soon as Dave walked in the door, around 545pm, Peyton asked him, “Daddy, can you get me something to eat?”  Not letting her down, he did walk in with some food, leftover from work.  We were finished up by 630pm, and bathed by 645pm.  Brandon asked, “Since it’s not even 7 yet, can you read me a book?”  So we read 3 of them, and by 715pm, it was lights out for both!  Both seemed super tired today, not fighting sleep at all.

Yesterday, Dave made a steak, some green beans, and was working on some au gratin potatoes.  He cut up some meat and had some green beans in a bowl for Peyton.  She looked at it and said, “Chicken and green beans?  That’s it? Aww…”  We weren’t sure what else she was expecting.  She doesn’t like anything that rhymes with “atoe” - like potato or tomato, so we didn’t really offer her any potatoes.  She later asked for some “frozen beggies.”  Love that she thinks beef is chicken, too.

Today, Peyton’s worksheet from school said, “Peyton was an EXCELLENT classroom helper!  Without being told, she noticed the classroom was messy and she started to clean and tell her friends, too.”  I can just imagine her “telling” her friends.  More like bossing them around.

Dave had scheduled a DMV appointment to get a new license after losing it yesterday while biking.  Dave was hoping to sift through the mail and find it in there, hoping someone returned it.  Unfortunately, that was not the case.  We were all at home after the boys returned from swimming when we heard the doorbell.  Dave ran to the door, and there was a lady in her 40-50’s standing there at the door.  I ran over to see what the commotion was, and she asked if Dave had lost this, presenting him with two cards.  She said she was walking and crossed the street only to find something that looked like a license, face down.  She picked it up, thinking it was probably from a biker, since there was no wallet nearby.  Then she found the credit card as well.  She said she was also a biker, and knew it probably belonged to a fellow cyclist.  We were so shocked and thankful!  Dave wanted to offer her a beer, but seeing that she drove up to us, it was probably not appropriate.  Thank goodness for the kindness of strangers!  Saves Dave a trip to the DMV and peace of mind knowing his license wasn’t floating out there.  Maybe this will teach him to make sure his bag is zippered all the way.

Today, Peyton had half of a marshmellow banana cupcake that we got free over the weekend.  I don’t know how this happened, given there wasn’t much marshmellow to start with, but here is the final result:
(Note: I’d already given her a bath.  Thanks, Daddy!)

Okay, hopefully this will be the last post about the race…here’s the link for the pics that came out today. Peyton and Brandon didn’t find “Waldo” in the video, but Dave did.

Here are some of the pics (since my mom couldn’t figure out the link):

Six months after Brandon was born, I started working as a diabetes care manager.  Every Monday and Wednesday, I would tell people to exercise “most days out of the week, at least 30 minutes per day,” while “donating” my annual fee as my gym membership year after year.  I’d gotten the membership the year I got married, 2001, and had gone with my dad before the wedding, and while in residency with Tracy, but since being back in the bay area, I’d only gone a few times, sporadically, and then not at all around the time of being pregnant with Brandon.  I’d made more of an attempt after he was born, but still, not a regular at all.  Then after being pregnant with Peyton and with the two kids, I was back to donation status.  If I continued to pay, it was only $99 per year, which sounds great if you go regularly.  If I didn’t pay, I’d have to start all over again, with a hefty initial enrollment or much higher annual or monthly fee.  So I continued to pay, not wanting the initial investment to go to waste.  I’d relish the time of being on the couch, watching TV, eating “whatever” was around with Dave, who is constantly snacking after dinner.  It was like a reward for successfully completing a day’s work.  This became even more evident after one, and then two kids rolled around.  Nighttime was our time; we watched TV, whatever we wanted, and we ate whatever we wanted.  We didn’t have kids asking for food, asking for toys, asking for anything!  But we were totally lazy.
Our work constantly has promotions to be healthy, offering small incentives such as work-branded work out gear just for walking and going some sort of physical activity and recording it.  Right after Peyton was one, in 2010, I decided it was time to get back out to the gym.  I wanted to get the most bang out of my time in the gym, and since I’m not coordinated, that ruled out Zumba, kickboxing, and other aerobic-routine type things.  I always thought of runners being physically fit and wanted leaner legs.  Walking was great, but it seemed to take too long to get calories burnt.  So I started to run.  Slowly.  I’d never been a runner. In high school, we had to run twice per week, 10 laps each day, in 45 minutes. I’d struggled and hated each minute of it.  It used to take me almost the entire period to run those 10 laps.  I’d hate our gym teacher who’d call out our names and tell us to hustle.  I’d resent her because she was rather overweight, and just sat there with a clipboard telling us what to do.  I probably even told her in my mind or under my breath, “Come out here and do this then!”  So, that was my running background.  When I first started, I couldn’t run even a mile.  I purposely went on Mondays and Wednesdays at night, as those were my diabetes days.  I felt like less of a hypocrite if I ran at least on those days, telling my patients to get out there and exercise.  I started at a light jog, and when I got tired, I’d go back to walking.  I’d go for at least 30 minutes, then go back home.  The first day I’d done this, I remember being so sore, I couldn’t walk down the stairs without being in pain.  I wondered why I did this to myself, especially having to wrangle the kids for school the next morning.  Eventually, the soreness went away, and it motivated me to not want to ever want to be that sore after 30 minutes of exercise again.  Later, I would be able to jog for a longer interval between having to stop and walk.  I also went on Fridays, when the kids were in school and I had my days off.  I felt like I should make the most use of the Friday, without kids.  I always found that the days were harder to run because I’d mentally have a list of things I could be doing while the kids were in school.  On the weeknights, I’d already taken care of everything, and Dave was at home with the kids, so I worried less and could just concentrate on being there in the moment.  Also, it seems the TV is better at night, as I’ve found that watching sporting events was more motivational than watching Judge Judy.  Slowly but surely, the distance increased, and I was able to run more in the same amount of time.  In 2010, around April, I saw an email from work for a lottery to win an entry to the Nike Women’s half marathon. I submitted my name, and had butterflies around the time of the drawing, knowing what it would mean to actually get selected.  Sadly, I was not.  I was actually somewhat relieved.  But that started the quest for me to enter a race.  Later in the summer, I’d found out a co-worker, who is a seasoned runner, was signed up for the turkey trot locally.  She was recruiting others of us to join her, and Theresa and I were suckered into doing it.  I remember messaging Theresa at the time, trying to commit to signing up for the race.  We both agreed, in a solidarity effort, and chose the 10K, bypassing the 5K, for our first race.  We knew we both could do the 5K, but wanted the challenge of a 10k, which was definitely going to be a challenge for us.  When I hit “submit” on the online race form, I recall being a bit queasy.  This also motivated me to want to run more to not look foolish at this race.  Granted, I’d had several months to get in gear, but that was the time I needed to get in gear for the race.  The race was on Thanksgiving day, early in the morning.  Four of us from work met up that morning.  Theresa’s cousin, Peter, was also there to run.  He’d registered last minute, but was in shape enough to be able to handle the 10K.  We’d all had a good time, and all finished within a few minutes of each other, with the exception of Tina, who’d outrun us by many minutes.
Now, it was 2011.  I was looking for another race. Now that we conquered the 10K, the next race that we signed up in January for was the 100th running of the Bay to Breakers later in May.   We lost one of our coworkers, but we gained Dave!  We did this on May 15th, 2011.  I think by this time, I was running one of the weekend days now, making it up to 4 times per week that I was getting out there to exercise.    I had tried again in 2011 to get into the Nike race, but again, lost out.  I had tried as a team member, with Tina, but to no avail.  Again, I was nervous to hear about the results, and also tried the work entry, but neither worked.  I had also wanted to try the Disneyland 1/2, but the timing wasn’t right.  That’s when Tina and I found the Tinkerbell race.  I signed up for that in April, so I’d had time to think about this for our Bay to Breakers race, which was 12K, or 7.46 miles.  I was rationalizing that we had to walk a bit at the start, and then after the race, so maybe we ran/walked over 8 miles that day.  What was another 5 miles for the half, right?  Wrong.  I was still so far off from making that goal.  After having completed the May race, I had a lot of time before the race in January.  I’d found another friend at work who was just starting to train for her first half in October.  Just talking to her motivated me to get myself in gear.  At about this time, in the fall, we had another challenge at work.  We’d started walking during our lunches on Mondays and Wednesdays, so that prompted me to change Tuesdays and Thursdays to my running days, in addition the Fridays and one additional day on the weekend.  That made it 6 days out of the week that I was putting effort into some sort of exercise.  This is in addition to just the general chasing around of the kids on a daily basis.  I’d also been running on our vacation in September, in addition to the daily excursions we took.  After seeing my friend complete her 1/2 in October, she offered her training schedule to me in November.  It was difficult to stay on top of the schedule, which allowed for one day a week of inactivity - on Fridays!  I actually would change this around somewhat depending on my schedule for that day, but I tried to observe it for the most part, usually at night.  The longer runs happened on the weekends, but this was interrupted by vacations.  Surprisingly, it’s easier to exercise during our normal school routine versus being off on vacation, especially being with the kids on vacation.  So having the race in January, after being away for two weeks in December, was a bit difficult, but so was the thought of running 13.1 miles without training, so I quickly got back in gear.  It was such a routine that the kids would say, “Are you going running?” each night I was dressed in my exercise clothes.  Adrenaline definitely helps keep things moving, as does slowly working in more miles over the course of many weeks.  I think I may be hooked, as I’m looking for another race to run, want to improve upon my time, and I’m still gunning for that silver pendant from Tiffany.  Tonight, as I was tucking her in for bed, Peyton asked me, “Are you going running?”  I was happy to tell her that I was not (I’m going to enjoy a cupcake), but I did tell her that I was going to go again on Wednesday.  Thanks to all of those who have been there to give words of encouragement, some of whom may not even know that their interest or words were inspirational.  Most of all, thanks to Dave without whom I could not have done this at all.  He’s been very supportive and often lends words of encouragement such as “Hurry up and go already!” or “If you’re not going to go running, then I’m going to go.” 

So Dave decided to stay home today, since he’d already taken the day off.  We went to run errands, including getting the oil changed on the car.  We went home, ate lunch, then while we napped, Dave headed out for a ride.  He ended up losing his license somewhere out there, and we went later to try to find it.  It was like trying to find a needle in a pine needle haystack.  The side of the road that he rode was very pine needley, and we couldn’t find it.  He’d already cancelled his credit card, but still, not having his license was a bit of a problem.  We went to dinner at our favorite Indian place that is all you can eat.  Since we’d been there so frequently, we’re “regulars” and they don’t charge us for the kids.  Peyton ate THREE tandoori drumsticks CLEAN.  She doesn’t like the overly red-dyed parts, but gets all the way down to the bone.  She had some salad, rice, and the chicken.  We couldn’t believe how much she’d eaten.  We were careful to move her gently to not disturb all that she’d eaten.

Today, while Brandon was doing his homework, Peyton was working on her puzzles.  The set was actually Brandon’s and there were three different sets - alphabet, numbers and opposites.  She was trying to get to her opposites on her own, but ended up dumping all three sets, mixing them all up.  Luckily, they are all color-coded, so they were easy to sort.  We did the opposites first, then the numbers, and I had her do the letters all on her own.  While she was putting the upper and lower cases together to reveal the object, she’d call out the object and the letter.  When she got to J, she said, “J like jeans!”  Brandon heard her from his room and said, “Hey, how did she get to be so smart?”  I told him, “Maybe she learned it from you.”  He said, “Yeah, well, I like math and reading.”  (Previously, he’s told me he didn’t like math).  I told him I that it was great that he liked math and reading, and to keep it up because she WAS learning from him.  The numbers set involved addition, so Peyton was counting up the objects, and each half was the sum of the middle number.  She enjoyed this, too.  In Brandon’s room, he was working on his 100th days project.  They are celebrating the 100th day of school on February 7th, his birthday!  So, he is supposed to work on a project that recognizes the number 100.  We’d gone to the lego store today, and he got a bucket of legos as a promise I made to him for coming and cheering me on at my race yesterday.  We didn’t get a chance to go in downtown Disney, so we went today.  He decided on his own to make a UCLA sign.  YES!  Our recruiting trips are working.  Here is his masterpiece:

He’d already used almost all of the 100 lego pieces, but had about less than 10 left after making his “B”.  So he made that snakey looking thing at the end.  He’ll have to put his name on it and decorate it a bit more with pens.  The background is purple making it a bit difficult to see the yellow and blue, but he only wanted those colors on there!

We put Peyton in a diaper, just to make sure there were no accidents.  While we were getting closer to our destination, Peyton said, “Am I in a diaper or underwear?”  We told her diaper.  She said she had to go poop.  Brandon said, “Well, you can go poop in your diaper.”  Peyton said, “Poop in my diaper?  That’s discussting!  I no go poop in my diaper, Bruddah!”

I’ve recently taught Peyton opposites.  At first, I thought it was a hard concept to discuss, but when I gave her examples she knew, like hot and cold, she quickly picked up on it.  We do this while driving from school to home.  When we got home, we took out Brandon’s old puzzles which are halves which are matched up with their opposite.  While in the car, she will ask, “Can we do my opposites?”  So I will call out a word and ask for its opposite.  When I run out of ideas, I have to think about the puzzle pieces.  Earlier this weekend, on the drive down, she asked me for an opposite.  I said, “Heavy.”  She said, “Not heavy.”  Um, sure, that’s the opposite.  Haha.

Another game we played on the way down was the alphabet game.  We started at A, and Peyton was to name a word that started with the letter, while Brandon and I were to name animals.  Peyton did pretty well, in fact, sometimes she’d name an animal, taking up one that Brandon or I could have used!  We realized she doesn’t know what comes after L, since she rushes the alphabet song right after K through P.  So, we have to slow her down, and enunciate, “L-M-N-O”.  She doesn’t like being corrected, and will insist on starting back at A to sing the song again.  It took us about an hour to get through the alphabet.  It was a great time kill, especially as it was late at night, and I didn’t let them play with their computers in the dark.  That also meant they told me to stay off my phone :)  .  We brought some snacks, like the rest of the asparagus that Dave had made the night before.  Peyton didn’t want the hamburger from Mcd’s, but later, asked for the asparagus.  She said, “Can I have another asparagus?  I think I’m hungry!”  OH, and she kept thinking we were going to “Miss Angeless.”
Lastly, while Brandon was eating an orange at Dave’s parents’ house, Peyton came up to him and took one of his toys from off the table.  His hands were all sticky, and he was still working on the orange, so he turned to her and said, “I’ll deal with you later.”  He sounded so adult when he said it!

Tooth #2 is OUT!  We convinced Brandon to take the tooth home instead of getting the money from the fairy yesterday night after it happened.  It actually came out during lunch, when I told him to be careful from his crunchy bread, so he didn’t chomp down on the tooth.  He ended up just pulling it out so he didn’t have to be so careful.  He’s getting too comfortable extracting teeth.  I think we will have a bit of a break from un-teething for awhile.