Flat Stanley Visits!

This is a special post for Skylar Kil, her teacher Andrew and her First Grade Class at the Bertschi School in Seattle!

Flat Stanley has been on the scene with us for nearly two weeks. He's had quite an adventure here in Sunnyvale, CA. For those readers not familiar with Stanley Lambchop's story, he was flattened by a bulletin board as he slept in his bed. * Being flat and all, he fits perfectly in an envelope to travel to different places. Thus he arrived at our home on Monday, April 5th in a white envelope from our friend Skylar Kil in Seattle.

* A side note for those of you who do not live in earthquake zones, it is not a good idea to hang anything over your bed just in case it falls down and causes flattening. Here in California where earthquakes are common, we don't hang anything over beds.

Our family has been sharing our special and everyday adventures with Flat Stanley. Mia, David, Kona (our small dog), Papa and I are having loads of fun with him. He has been the most polite and considerate guest. Flat Stanley doesn't forget to say, "Thank you", "Please" and "Excuse Me". He has also done his share of the chores around the house like picking up and cleaning up after he plays. I am especially glad that he takes dishes to the sink. We are quite impressed by his manners. Skylar and friends, you have taught Flat Stanley well!

Flat Stanley has gone to the Children's Discovery Museum, school with Mia, Ken's new office/lab, the eye doctor, Gilroy Gardens, dance camp, lemon picking, and he's spent time playing at home too. He misses you Skylar, but wants you to know that he's looking forward to seeing you again.

Flat Stanley and Mia in front of her cubby at school.


Flat Stanley and Mia playing. Flat Stanley was a good sport and let Mia dress him up in Hawaiian clothing.


Flat Stanley is thanking his lucky stars that he isn't made out of paper! Little David, just does not know his strength sometimes.

Race and Kids

Mia now thinks Sikh men are taxi drivers because the last couple of times we've been in cabs to and from San Jose Airport, we've been driven by Sikhs. In our townhome community, there is a nanny who gets picked up in the late afternoon/early evening by her husband or male relative who happens to be Sikh. When Mia sees him drive up while we are out she is convinced that the taxi is here to drive someone to the airport. When I tell her that I don't see a taxi, she says, "But he's wearing the taxi driver, hat". So wrong this racial/cultural profiling. I am trying to set her straight.

Papa was telling Mia that her hair was getting so nice and long. He told her how beautiful her hair is getting. Remember at one time, she had very little. Anyway, to this Mia responded, "But it's not like Princess Aurora's". Depressing isn't it? I have not gone out of my way to avoid Disney, if she gets something Disney, it is what it is, but I don't go out and buy her the stuff. She's actually never seen Sleeping Beauty. This story illustrates how insidious the messages are that little girls of color are getting. No one taught her that blond was more beautiful. Just like no one taught her anything about taxi drivers. And Mia has always been fascinated by Caucasian friends and especially friends with blond and/or curly hair. Where did that come from?

Superhero Mia to the Rescue

Since this did start out as a craft blog. . . here's a roundabout craft update.

We borrowed Ella Bella Ballerina and The Sleeping Beauty from the library and must have read it nearly every night before it was due. All in all, it was a decent book, retelling the Sleeping Beauty story in a non-Disney fashion, but still there's a prince who saves a helpless princess. I was getting tired of reading the book and sometimes when books are due, I actually return them instead of renewing them because I get tired of reading them. I was guilty of that this time. The other reason, Mia got in her head that she wanted a cape because Ella Bella puts on her cape at the end of the story. Ella Bella's cape is not a superhero cape, but a delicate and fancy cape fit for a ballerina. I opted to make a Superhero type cape because, we're trying to get away from the princess girly girl fantasy world. And there are lots of free patterns online for children's capes:

http://floatingworld.typepad.com/superhero.pdf
http://thelongthread.com/?p=98
http://sewingmamas.com/b/downloads.php?do=file&id=120

I figured without the book around, the child would let up about the cape because honestly I'm not really good at sewing and need to take a class. But Mia is pretty unrelenting. I made a lot of excuses: oh we don't have the right kind of fabric, Mama wants to finish her socks first (knitting socks at the moment), Mama does not have time, etc. But my Joanns coupons were expiring soon (must use coupons for everything especially things that I don't expect will get much use after the initial excitement) and I was inspired by Project Runway, so we made a trip to Joanna yesterday afternoon to pick out fabric. Guess I was looking for a challenge and deep down, I really do want to make her day.

Of course Mia wanted hearts. Luckily it was already on sale post Valentine's Day. She did take her time deciding on the right heart fabric and the coordinating fabric. The process was rather laborious as she changed her mind a few times. But I was happy because, the cost of 1 yard of dizzying hearts, 1 yard of coordinating costume satin (not something for novice sewers to work with, way too slippery), and red thread was $4.81. Gotta love coupons.

I used a combo of the patterns I found online and modified a bit. Most of the patterns I came across required Velcro or ribbon for closures, but I opted to use snaps because I wanted to minimize sewing. Velcro was tempting, but my Hello Kitty sewing machine probably could not handle sewing Velcro. During the project, we had one major mishap and one minor one. I thought Hello Kitty was done for when a pin got sucked into the machine. We had to take it apart to remove it with pliers. Not sure how that happened. The original crown I cut out of pink felt got mangled in the applique process, so I had to use a smaller iron-on crown that I had leftover from Project: Halloween costume embellishment. Overall, this was a pretty easy project to make. I am sure a seasoned seamstress could make the whole thing in 30 minutes or less. Probably took me a total of 4 hours from researching and pattern making (on wax paper) to completion with all the roadblocks. I consider this making good time because I am pretty slow when it comes to craft completion. I owe it all my ever persistent daughter. I hope she gets a lot of entertainment out of it.

Latest on Mia and David

David's who turns 17 months this week gets into all sorts of trouble but is as cute as can be. That boy loves going through the trash. We have found him sipping on Mia's juice boxes lifted from the trash. Today Mia threw away a lollipop that she took a few licks of while Didi was napping. Somehow he found it while I was making dinner. "Look, look, look at what Didi has!" shouted Mia. I turned around and found him looking at me with a lollipop stick coming out of his mouth. We just call him OSCAR. Which was a name that was on my short list but vetoed by Papa early on.

Every night the kids bathe together. We take David out of the tub first while Mia gets some alone time to "relax" as the tub drains. Once Mia is out, David knows that she needs her undies and started going to her drawer to pick them out. At first we thought it was a random fluke, but then he kept it up night after night. One night Mia was probably a bit too tired of all the attention David was getting, so she ran past Didi to get her own underwear. David was reduced to the silent cry. Was he completely and totally devastated that she beat him to the drawer or was he crushed about not being able to help her get her undies? All I know is, I love my boy!

David's favorites: Jie Jie (always looks for her when she's not around, calls for her in the morning and at night), copying Jie Jie, emptying drawers, Wheels on the Bus, all vehicles, chickens, birds, bubbles, mama's boobies (you read that right), Kona, and gummy vitamins.

Now our darling Mia, 3 and 10 months loves to joke around, spin tales, sing, and narrate her every move and thought. She can be incredibly thoughtful and caring, but also incredibly selfish and demanding. Being three is no cup of tea, but Mia has been looking forward to turning four for many months now. She brings it up almost daily. We use major events to give her a timeline. . . After Christmas is New Years, then Valentine's and Chinese New Year, then Mama's birthday, then Easter, then Mia's birthday. Paradoxically, Mia does not want to grow up. We tell her that one day she will leave us for college. Her response is usually, "No, I don't want to grow up! Mia stay at home with Mama and Papa all the time!" Oh, this I know, will not last.

Lately, Mia is also talking about death. Maybe it is because she has been to two funerals and all her great grandparents are dead, but she is aware that people die when they get old, when sick and when in terrible accidents. We assure her that we'll see people who die in heaven. Mia's response is usually, "But what if we don't die in the same place, then I won't see them again!" I think she is referring to being buried or interred in different places. She's been to grave sites of both my grandparents, Ken's grandma and my father's interred ashes. Must all be so confusing for a little girl.

Underwear isn't the only thing David likes to bring Mia, one night he also brought her several pairs of socks. He brought them one at a time and to this Mia replied, "Hey Didi, I'm not a spider!" I thought it was the funniest comment.

Mia's favorites: CCNS, (she wishes she could go daily and wants both teachers to go on vacation with us), Fancy Nancy, Eloise, Rosemary Wells books, sparkly things, cutting, twirling, baking, making lemonade (an example of Mia speaking of herself in the 3rd person: "Mia likes making lemonade because she is really good at it"), smoothies, sleeping in Mama and Papa's bed, and hearts.

Here's a video of the two sillies. Mia was twirling and doing some pirouettes and David started copying her. His little arms don't quite go over his little head. Maybe we'll enter them in ballroom dance competitions. . . NOT!!!

A Story by Mia

Been a long time between posts. I figure if I'm updating my status on FB most people know what's going on, but really need to take the time to write more for our family's annals because the FB status updates fail to tell the whole picture of what's going on over here in the Song Household.

Took the time to write down one of Mia's stories this morning. She dictated it to me and I tried to keep up. Here goes her stream of consciousness masterpiece which I found hilarious. I'm going to have to write down more of her stories.

One day there was a princess named Aria. Then a beautiful prince named Ava came. A little tiny O came and he grabbed a cloud and put it in a bus so the bus can move. The letter A came and sat down and waited for the bus to move. A taxi car came and drove by and Aria sat down again to read her book.

The prince named Shawn came and another and another and another and another prince came. And another and another and another and another princess came. Then they danced at the fancy ball, a fancy word for a dance party. The water to drink came and all the princes and princesses drinked all the water so they didn't waste it. And they found a beautiful treasure that looked like a diamond. They hid the treasure in their castle in the closet. Then a different Mia came. The different Mia knocked on the door and somebody said, "Come in". And that's the end of my story.