Wow.

Kai Roahen. February 1, 2007.

Breakfast

Disregard snotty noses. Nina's favorite place is always as close as possible to Kai. Luckily he likes her affection.

I explained to Kai yesterday why we don't have a cat - furballs and litter boxes. He said, "I know! When we're done with our toys we'll give them all to Tibo, then we'll get a bunch of litter boxes and lots of cats!"
Along with age and experience at school, Kai whines and says things like, "Moooooooom, Nina ruined my work!" and then he'll come out with things like, "When somebody chokes me or pushes me I'm supposed to tell Stephanie (his teacher)." I'm like, Did somebody CHOKE you? Kai replies, "I'm not telling you." I get a lot of that. "What did you have for lunch today, Kai?" "I'm not telling you." Ughhhhhhhhh. I miss that little long-haired guy.
Our fave of Nina...
Nina is really getting to be a challenge. She wants everything Kai has, crayons or pencils or workbooks. She breaks and eats and throws crayons, rips Kai's papers, pulls Kai's hair and scratches his face (which Kai tolerates really well). The other morning Kai was screaming "Don't say no! Don't say no!" I went into their room and Nina was trying to keep Kai from coming into her crib to cuddle with her. She's sometimes a bit of a grump in the morning. She's started turning on the TV and hopping onto the couch. She loves to open DVD cases. The other day we were putting their new table together and she became obsessed with our tools. Really wanted to put the screws in. Threw a fit when we wouldn't let her walk around with them.

Wow. Watching Kai write is one of my sweetest experiences lately.
And Nina enjoying our new table, courtesy of Ikea. After a bloody mouth and a bruised chin Kai needed a smaller table that wouldn't slip and slide when he did his acrobatic learning dance.
More rain today. Moms met out in the street this morning with coffee mugs while kids ran circles around us. Kai and Nina went over to Georgie and Rachel's for a bit. Nate's still recovering, and it's going to be an even harder recovery if the Saints lose tonight.

Rain rain go away

Kids and parents are going nuts with these dreary, rainy days. Nate's surgery was followed by Wall-E with popcorn from Kai's classroom's popcorn sale.

A weekend on our own

(The pictures: yesterdays' rainy day fingerpainting project soon turned into a body painting project for Kai. He cannot help himself.)
Well, we survived three days and nights without Nate. Kai really missed having his dad around to play games with. Nina kept pointing out pictures of Nate on books or on the wall and saying "Dad!" I'm mom, Nate's dad for Nina. No mommy or daddy. I enjoyed managing the two on my own, it was about time I figured out the bedtime process by myself, and it went smoothly. We went to the zoo two days in a row, once with Mili and Arjun, once with Zane and his mom, Shaun. Kai and Zane are still in love. They just ran, ran, ran for the two hours we were there; Nina did her best to keep up. Kai is still completely uninterested in the animals. Nina loves them.
Kai keeps saying, "I want to marry a boy." He's obsessed with it. I tell him he can, but he has 25 years to make his decision. I wonder what they read or discussed in school to bring that up.
Nina cannot stop herself from biting (broke the skin on my shoulder the other day), pulling Kai's hair, and pinching Kai. Not sure what that's all about, but Kai is so gentle with her, doesn't retaliate at all. Yesterday I swiped Nina up for a timeout in her crib after I saw her get a handful of Kai's hair. He said, "That didn't hurt mommy. It's OK, Nina. I'm not hurt. Look, mom, she just did this!" He felt really bad for Nina.
Shaun was concerned that Zane's love for Kai wasn't reciprical. Apparently Zane is as obsessed with Kai as Kai is with Zane, and one day recently at bedtime he said, "I love Kai. I'm going to dream about him tonight."
Kai continues to love Shel Silverstein. (Teacher says he's reading at the 5th-6th grade level). He continues to love school, Zane, riding his bike, playing on the computer (ugh), Cars, card games with Nate, whenever music is on he still begs me to "Pick me up. Spin around!" This is getting harder and harder but I'll gladly throw out my back for a chance to do this. Pooping on the potty is going GREAT, he wears underwear to bed, has never been wet in the past week, no more pullups (although when I congratulated him on this yesterday he thought for a minute then said, "I'm going to wear pullups in February.") The other day we listened to a funny song and after he said, "Tibo's going to like this one!"
Nina...has 14 teeth, a mouthful of big ones. She hilariously mimics any picture of a kid in a book, the expression on their face, the way they hold their hands. Is starting to demand music in the car ("Nooooooooo!" when it's a song or news she doesn't like.) Is at the precious age where she'll repeat anything and everything. Likes TV. Looooooooves to go out on the lanai. Loves to play in the car. Loves to run away from me.

Kai's fourth, Nina's first trip to Naples

Nina couldn't stop lovin' up on Cole and Spencer; Nina loved the beach; Kai said he's never going to the beach in Florida ever again (brrrrrrr); the older cousins were so sweet and patient with the younger ones; Kai wants to emulate Cole and Cole taught Kai how to draw stick figures. Tonight Kai said, "I wonder if Cole is working on those chords...like the D7?" (Nate taught Cole some new chords for the guitar in Florida...who knew Kai noticed.)
Happy New Year!