Leaving the Park with Baba

Kostas and his girls heading out of the park.

This photo just makes me happy.

Tomato, tomato

Adorable moment of twin affection, or sneaky attempt to steal your sister's blankie?

Only Eleni knows for sure.

Fashion Sense and Punctuated Equilibrium

There have been so many firsts lately. From what I can tell, kids seem to develop on a "punctuated equilibrium" timeline -- going through long periods of little change interspersed with sudden bursts of learning and growth.

We're in the mist of a punctuation right now, with new words popping up each day, together with new opinions. Lots of new opinions. Zoe suddenly has very strong opinions about her daily attire, and these opinions seem to center around whether a particular garment is decorated with "bubbles" -- aka polka dots. Trains are also popular.

The shirt at the right has "bubbles," and she would wear it every day if she could (preferably together with the train shirt). She picked out the "matching" pants herself.

Oh, and the new word of the day was "mine."

Lucky us.

Practicing for the paparazzi

Being a movie star takes practice, including the mastery of such skills as:

1. The movie star strut

2. Wearing sunglasses indoors.

3. Anti-paparazzi karate moves

Eleni's been practicing.

Uppy

The following video demonstrates the ever-so-slight popularity of the prospect of watching Animal Planet's "Breed All about It" with Baba.

Zoe concentrates intensely on whatever she's doing at athe moment (which here happens to be playing with the "Fridge DJ"), so it takes a couple seconds for it to sink in that there is about to be a doggie show screening in the other room.

But eventually she realizes what's going on.

Sushi vocabularly update: "Uppy" means "Up please" or "Kindly remove me from this high chair so I can go merrily on my way."

Happy Mother's Day 2008

May all mothers everywhere be as blessed as I am.

It's not a car...

...it's a restaurant on wheels. Or so Eleni and Zoe believe. Within 30 seconds of exiting our parking space -- before we are even out of the building -- we begin to hear my favorite sounds from the back seat, "nyyyhhh, nyhhh, nyyhhhh." This sound is accompanied by the sign for "cereal."

According to Z & E, service in the rolling restaurant has been going downhill of late, as demonstrated by Eleni in dramatic reanactment below.







In the midst of relaxing, innocent child realizes she's feeling a bit peckish.










In a friendly tone, innocent child calls out "Waiter, we'd like some cereal back here please."










After an unexpected (and unacceptable) delay, that friendly tone turns disgruntled:

"Hey waiter, where's my cereal?

Hey look, 'Honey I shrunk the tip.'

Did someone say 'Incredible shrinking tip?'

...

WAITER!!!"

Reading aloud

Zoe and Eleni have been reading a lot lately.

Out loud.

Zoe tends to stick with the children's classics, while Eleni has been making a foray into junk mail and my book club selections (and can be seen reading aloud from "What is the What" below).

I have no idea what they're talking about, but it sounds absolutely fascinating.