this week is teacher appreciation week, so we’ve been talking a lot about “appreciation” and what that means.  mommy and daddy helped us make special gifts and write personal notes to give to our teachers to show them that they are appreciated.

well, this coming weekend is mother’s day.  so today at school, we had a celebration to show our mommies how much we appreciate them. let’s call it a mommy appreciation day.

luckily for mommy, the  peacocks (sienna’s class) and the eagles (my class) had our celebrations at different times.  first, was sienna’s.  sienna’s class sang two songs for their mommies.

the first time they sang “i really love my mommy”, half the class didn’t sing.  so in take two, the teacher asked everyone to sing really loudly.  they did.  well, sienna and her friend sylvia did, anyway. 😛  sienna knew the song really well because she has been practicing by singing it to mommy every morning when she wakes up.

there are 4-5 other kids that aren’t shown in that video because they are sitting with their mommies and/or not singing.  (you can see them in the first take if you’re interested.) here’s the second song: “you are special”.

after the performance, sienna and her friends gave their mommies the presents that they made for them.  they also served them brunch. do you see the plate of food that sienna made for mommy?  i think she’s trying to tell mommy something. 😛  or maybe she just didn’t want mommy to get too full because she knew that she’d be having a second brunch with my classroom later that morning.

in my eagles class, we had also prepared a couple of songs for our mommies.  it was supposed to be a surprise, but the day that we learned the “M-O-M-M-Y” song, i started singing it at home every day.  here it is.

and here’s the “sweetheart” song. mommy was surprised by this one because i never sang this one at home.

after we sang, we gave our mommies the poems and flowers that we made for them. i also gave mommy a wrapped gift, but i told her that she had to wait until sunday to open it. don’t tell her, but it’s a jewelry tray made out of play-doh.

we all had brunch together, and mommy ate with me even though she had already had brunch with siennna.  i guess she was still hungry.  and then i showed mommy the big mural that our class made, telling our moms why we love them.  do you see what i said?  “i love my mom because she takes care of me.” 🙂

we appreciate you, mommy!

i’m too young to play in our city t-ball league, but i really really wanted to play.  so i’m taking a t-ball class.  we are learning all the basics — hitting, fielding, catching, etc. — and i love it.

my friend matthew is playing in a real t-ball league, so we went to go see him play today.  logan came too.  in the morning, i made a sign for him that said “GO MATTHEW GO”.  the sign took a little longer than expected, even with mommy’s help, so we arrived 30 minutes into what was supposed to be a one hour game.  unfortunately, they called the game early due to players’ loss of interest. 😛  i’m still not 100% sure what that means.  all i know is that i didn’t get to see matthew hit at all!  that’s okay though.  we held up the sign for him while he was fielding.  after the game, we ran the bases a few times and then went to lunch.

real t-ball is so cool.  they use real aluminum bats and they even have real uniforms.  i can’t wait until next year when i can play real t-ball too!  i wonder if sienna will make a sign for me that says GO KYDEN GO!

at sienna’s last appointment at UCSF, her doctor came up with a diagnosis for her skin condition: pityriasis rubra pilaris (PRP), type IV.  sienna goes back every 4 months so that she can be monitored.

she went in today, and she was pretty good while sitting patiently in the waiting room for her name to be called.  and then in the exam room, she waited patiently for her doctors to come see her.  but then as soon as her doctors arrived, sienna became very uncooperative.  she didn’t want to show her doctor her hands or her feet and wasn’t really in the mood to be photographed.  i guess i don’t blame her.  the doctors are so nice, but still, sienna must feel like a lab specimen.

after today’s visit, the doctor feels even more confident about the PRP diagnosis.  that’s cool.  but i guess that means sienna won’t get a new disease named after her.  some day, mommy might let the lab do a biopsy to confirm the diagnosis, but probably not any time soon.

the bad news is that sienna’s condition is progressing.  while her hands and feet aren’t peeling as much as they used to, the skin on her ankles appears thicker, and her knees appear to be more red than they were in previous visits.  and the good news?  well, there’s not really any good news.  her condition could continue to worsen until it’s as bad as those scary photos on the internet that you really should never look at.  but i guess it could spontaneously resolve, too.  and most importantly sienna is otherwise healthy.  i guess that the good news right there.

as usual, the sharks were strong during the regular season.  and as usual, the sharks had home ice advantage in round 1 of the playoffs.  but when they went up 3-0 in the series against the kings, it was a good sign that this post-season was going to be different than usual — this might actually be the year that we make it to the stanley cup finals!

but then, game 4 came around and the series went to 3-1.  and then game 5 came around and it was 3-2.  and while we were watching game 6, i made up a cheer.

it didn’t work.  i don’t know what the heck sienna was doing — making faces at the kings players, i guess — but that didn’t work either.

the kings tied up the series 3-3. we were disappointed that the sharks lost, but then i heard mommy say “i guess we’re going to game 7 on wednesday”, and  i got so excited! yay, we get to go to a sharks game! mommy quickly corrected me and explained that when she said “we”, she was talking about her and daddy. i protested and whined about it. sienna joined in too. but to no avail.

mommy and daddy went to game 7 and left us at home to watch it on TV. at least we didn’t have to sit next to a bunch of kings fans like daddy did. sienna and i cheered for the sharks, and we even wore our team gear. sienna wore my jersey (which actually fits her perfectly) and i wore mommy’s (which she forgot to bring). we did the “lose LA” cheer that i made up, too. but none of it helped. the sharks blew their 3-0 series lead and let the sharks take the series.

i keep asking when the next sharks game is going to be. mommy and daddy tell me that the sharks are taking a break to rest, so we won’t get to see them play again until september. what do they need to rest for? they couldn’t have been playing all that hard when they gave away their 3-0 lead! it’s tough being a sharks fan.

you always hear about the mean girls in high school and about the grade school bullies who steal lunch money from smaller kids.  but nobody ever talks about the mean boys in preschool.  they’re there.  yes, it starts that early.

today, mommy picked us up from school and we went to t-ball, just like any other tuesday.  and when we got home, sienna and i played while mommy cooked dinner.  i was trying to do tangram puzzles, but whenever  i placed a piece, i would slightly bump another piece already on the board.  i got so frustrated and upset — to the point of tears.  mommy suspected that i was upset about something more than just the tangrams, and she was right.

she asked me probing questions about my day, and i finally told her (through sobs and tears) about the boys at school who were mean to me.  there are two boys who always play together and  they ganged up on me today.  they didn’t hurt me physically, but they said mean things like “i’m gonna flush you down the toilet!” and “i’m going to take all your money!”  i told them that i didn’t like it and i asked them to stop, but they didn’t listen.  they really hurt my feelings and made me cry.

mommy and i talked for a long time about mean people and how to deal with them.  she said that i will run across mean people my whole life and that there are even some mean grown ups.  can you believe it?

mommy’s #1 piece of advice to me was this:

you do NOT have to be friends with mean people.  if someone says something you don’t like, ask him to stop.  if he doesn’t stop, walk away.  play with other friends who are nice to you, because you have lots of friends who treat you nicely.

it’s true.  i have lots of nice friends.  if you’re wondering  (like mommy was) why i’m even friends with those boys, it’s because they are usually nice to me.  mommy helped me realize that they didn’t really mean the things that they said.  they can’t flush me down the toilet — i won’t fit!  and they can’t steal my money because i never bring any money to school!

and that leads me to another important lesson that i learned today.  unkind words can hurt people’s feelings, even if you’re just kidding.  once in awhile, i say mean things to sienna and gung-gung just as a joke, like “i’m going to flush you down the toilet.” (now mommy knows where i got that from.)  i’m going to try not to say stuff like that anymore because i know how it feels.

i’m a pretty great kid as it is, but i’m going to try to be even nicer.  so please be nice to me too, otherwise, i might not be your friend any more.  mommy says that i don’t have to.

before when i would pass a level at swim class, it was cool, but it wasn’t that big of a deal.  but i was stuck in the green dophin class for a long time.  5 months.  FIVE.  and actually, it’s just been that one final passing skill that i was stuck on for a long time.  i think it took me over 2 months just to get that one last circle checked off.

i finally did it today!  i passed the dolphin level and i am SO PROUD of myself.  (i think my new swim clothes helped.  i told mommy that they make me float.)  i was beaming and telling everyone that i’m a jellyfish now.  and i got to ring the bell!

being a jellyfish is a big deal because it’s the start of the intermediate levels at my swim school.  until now, i was just learning water safety and breath control and stuff like that.  but now that i’m at the blue jellyfish level, i’m actually going to be learning how to swim.  that means arm strokes and side-breathing and everything.

i could tell that sienna was a little envious of all the congratulations that i was getting.  she still has 1.5 skills to complete in her dolphin class, but at the rate she is progressing, she’ll catch up to me in no time. 🙂

mommy used to go to children’s fairyland in oakland when she was little.  that was a really long time ago, so she doesn’t remember much about it — just that she liked it.  sienna and i don’t read fairy tales at home (mommy thinks they’re all really violent and creepy), but we recently had a theme month at school when we learned about some fairy tales.  so mommy thought it was time that we checked out children’s fairy land.  we met logan, mason, caylie, and nathan there today.

fairyland is pretty much exactly what it sounds like.  there are a bunch of storybook sets that depict various fairy tales come to life.  some are structures that you can play in/on, some have real animals, and there are even some very low-thrill rides.  there is a carousel that sienna tried to get on, but she was not tall enough.  not even on her tippy toes.  when the gate opened, sienna ran onto the carousel, but the ride operator told mommy that sienna was too small.  sienna was so sad.

each storybook set has a talking storybook box that you can activate with a magic key (available for purchase at the entrance).  if you insert and turn your key, the box plays a song and/or tells you the story that goes with that fairy tale.  i liked hearing the stories in english and spanish.  i didn’t understand any of the spanish, but i insisted on hearing them anyway.

for me, the best parts of the day were sliding down jack and jill’s hill and getting lost in alice in wonderland’s card maze.  i liked seeing humpty dumpty since i know that fairy tale, but there wasn’t really anything we could do with that set except for look at it.

the best part of sienna’s day was seeing caylie.  she loves caylie.  she and caylie walked around the whole park holding hands.  that is, until they reached the water tower slide at the end of the old west junction.  sienna loves slides, but caylie doesn’t like them.  so sienna ditched her and slid down that slide again and again and again.

mommy doesn’t really remember what fairyland looked like when she was little, but from its retro look,  i’m guessing that it looks exactly the same today as it did back then.  mommy and daddy didn’t think that there would be enough there to entertain us all day, but we all had a great time.  and we didn’t even get to see the entire park!  sienna and i can’t wait to go back again. 🙂

every year, daddy’s work has a kids@work day where kids get to go to work with their mommies and daddies.  last year and the year before, it was just daddy and me.  and it was super fun.  this year, against my better judgment, sienna came along.

we both got badges with our pictures on it and for every door we passed, sienna and i insisted that we would each swipe our badge to get through the door.  sienna wasn’t tall enough to reach the badge scanners so daddy had to pick her up every time we reached a door.

daddy’s office has so many fun things to play with:  elevators, soda machines, spinning stools, bean bags, and lots of notebooks and pens to draw with.  we met daddy’s co-workers and they watched us play foosball.  foosball is my favorite thing inside daddy’s office.

we ate lunch in the cafeteria and after we were done eating we got to ride a bus to all of the games. sienna didn’t want to go on the bus and she started to cry when the bus pulled up the curb. i told her that the bus was going to be fun and she should try it because she might like it. when we got on the bus and it started driving, sienna loved it!  she said that it drove so fast like a roller coaster.

once we got to the field of games we waited in line to play some games. we played a mini golf game and a bowling game, but the lines were long and sienna started to get really tired. we decided to walk around the field a little bit and then we headed back to the office to lounge around in the bocce ball courtyard.

daddy’s work is so much fun, it is no wonder that he comes home so late every day.

happy easter!  we joined in on our neighborhood egg hunt and brunch last year, but this is our first official easter living in our new house.  and actually, the easter festivities take place in cousin zoey’s cul de sac, so this morning, we walked across the park to her house.  we all lined up at the end of the cul de sac, did a countdown, and then everyone was off and running.  everyone except sienna, that is.  she casually strolled along, wearing the new easter dress that grandma sent, and daintily carrying her new hello kitty easter basket from uncle henry.  daddy says that he’s raising her to be a princess.  she shouldn’t have to work for things — things should come to her.  i think she’s learning well.  see for yourself.

most of the eggs were not very hidden — they were laying out in plain sight. some were a little harder to get though, like the ones up in the trees. i quickly filled up my bucket, dumped it out in cousin zoey’s house, and went back out for round 2. i filled up my second bucket, and sienna eventually filled up her hello kitty basket. by that time, all of the easy-to-find eggs were gone. so we were done. sienna and i headed inside to play at cousin zoey’s house.

all of the other kids (and adults) were out mingling in the cul de sac or trampling gardens in their quest for the golden eggs. the golden eggs had numbers in them, and prizes were awarded according to the number inside. sienna thought she had found a golden egg, but it turned out to be a fake.  (it’s metallic, but more green than golden.)  mommy eventually found an authentic golden egg and gave it to me. i turned it in for a matchbox car, a punching balloon, and pack of fun dip. i refused the fun dip even though it was offered to me repeatedly. everyone thought that sienna and i were just being anti-social hanging out inside, but i later told mommy that i didn’t want to be outdoors because it was too hot.

we eventually went back out to join the festivities. there was a potluck lunch, a slip ‘n slide pool combo, and even a shave ice machine! i really wanted to play in the slip ‘n slide, so daddy went home to get my swim clothes. i jumped in, and immediately jumped back out. the water was icy cold! i only swim in 92 degree water. i don’t think i’ll ever be able to swim in a normal pool. i was perfectly happy with my icy cold shave ice though. sienna too.

when we got home, sienna took a nap while i opened our eggs and sorted our stash. we got a lot of chocolates and starbursts for daddy. we don’t get to eat any of the candy, but that’s okay because we got a giant bouquet of fruit (sent by uncle randy, of course) while we were out :). we also got a few stickers and a handful of quarters. quarters! those went right into my money jar. we don’t have to tell sienna about those. next year, we’re going to pay more attention to which house has the quarter-filled eggs and start collecting eggs there from now on.

happy easter!