Moana with E

watching movies with a highly inquisitive, loquacious 4 year old is not for the easily frustrated.
I'm afraid my child is going to be that person in a movie theater who talks to the screen and asks loud questions. Despite her tendency to narrate/ask questions through the entire movie, I love family movie night.  Tonight we watched Moana and recorded everything E said to the best of my ability. So, here is my transcript of Movie Night: Moana with E:

It's Maui!

Te-fiti cant hear him.

Run Maui run!

I wish I had a fishhook

Lava

Where is Maui? Why is he not in the water?

Why is that a mother?

Where's Maui?

Why did he say 'I'm gonna throw up?'

Why does Moana have a diaper?

Why does she have a necklace too?

She says 'I wanna get the shell'

I see sea turtle spots

Why did the baby sea turtle say that?

Why does his flippers go round and round?

She's gonna drop a she'll

She's dropping shells

WHY is she dropping shells?

Squirt and crush!

Why did the ocean start a big head?

Why did she say that?

Why?

What's that thing?

Why?

Why?

What are those guys doing?

Why?

What do they use?

Why did Pua do that?

Why did heihei get in the fire?

Why did people see Moana?

Haha! Village crazy lady!

She's grown up!

Why did he get a tattoo? Why did he get lots of tattoos?

Woah, that's a lot of chiefs!

That was loud. Her people were loud! Loud.

What was that?

Why did he say that?

Mom, why did some of the darkness get into the coconuts?

What is husking?

Why are they sad?

I like Maui.

Why is he mad?

Why did she throw sticks into the sand?

Why are they sad?

5 toes, 6toes, 7toes, 8 toes, 9toes 10 toes

Why did a kid wave to Moana?

Why did she pick up a stone?

But now she put it back. Why?

Why is she gonna slide?

Why is there a broken place?

What were those puff puff things?

Yes, so bad!

Swim, Moana, swim!

Why did she get hurt on her foot?

Why did he run away from the paddle?

Why did wind knock the boat over?

Gramma tala!

Woah!

She's just a little person and the boats are really big!

Why is she under a boat?

Maui!

Why are some boats ripped?

It's nighttime right?

Wow that's a really bug boat!

How many times?

3 times., right daddy?

Sings in "Hawaiian"

Why did he do it daddy?

That's means their island is...

That's their island!

Some of the darkness!

Mom, I bet a rock's face is like teka 

Ready mom?

Nope!

Who?

Why is she dying?

How old?

Why are they all sad?

Why did Maui steal the heart?

Why?

She's taking that one, why?

It's darkness..no it's gramma

I thought it was darkness but they thrower her out into the ocean right?

Where's the fishhook?

Why is it in front of her?

Heihei!

Oh no!

It's unstoppable!

Why are there lots of waves?

Mom, who is gonna help her?

Fog!

She won't be able to see!

No!

In the sand!

Why?

Maybe that's Anna.

Fishhook!

Why was he scared?

1000 years

Thank you!

*sings and dances to You're welcome"*

Why do maui's tattoos move?

*resumes dancing and singing*

Boat snack!

Maui broke!

I could watch that all day

Wonder what they're here for...

How can their boat turn into more boats?

Why aren't they gonna get the chicken?

Escaping!

Run Moana! Run!

Mom, lets have a movie snack while we are watching the movie.

Maui!

Why did Maui say that?

When is gonna stand up?

Why did he pee in the ocean?

That's just a dream.

Where's Maui?

Where's her house?

Run chief tui! Run!

 What's the moms name?

Why lalotai?

I can say lalota

Where is their boat?

That's a really high mountain? Why?

Why are there bad guys?

Why?

What's that?

What did he do?

What are haka?

It ate them! It eated them!

Why did it glow when she hit it?

Thanks tree!

What are those?

What's that?

Where is tomatoa's head?

Why?

He's so strong?

Where's the leg that Maui broke off?

Why are there fish?

Why did she say that?

Did you like the song?

Who is gonna help him flip over?

What did his fishhook do?

Is that the way to teka?

Te-ka and Te-fiti are different?

Hey Mom do the thing that Moana just did!

Why is mauis little buddy afraid?

Why is he mad and sad?

 My pillow!

When did she say Maui you're so amazing!?

Why are they both sad?

Why is his buddy happy?

When things are too big he knocks them down!

What are those mountains for?

Silly ocean!

He teached her how to sail?

Why is Maui bigger than Moana?

What's a Demi god?

Human god!

Maybe that's Te-ka's smoke.

Is it Te-ka's smoke?

Te-ka!

Te-ka!

His hook tried to stop it from hitting them?

What do the lava balls do, from hitting them?

Why is he sad?

Why is he mad?

What are gods?

Why do hawks have big wings?

Why is the boat still?

When is it gonna move?

No...NO!

Why is it making that glow mom?

Gramma.

Where is her feet?

Where is her feet

Why?

Is the darkness in the voyager island?

Are they dead?

What happens to them in the darkness?

Are they starving?

I can see her feet now!

What does te-ka ruin the boat?

Why did she turn back into a human?

This is a long movie!

Her dad!

They are going backwards?

Why is their boat going backwards?

It's going forward.

Why are all the boats going faster?

They are starving right now, that's why they are pretend dead.

They are pretend deaf.

She got some sand too.

Gramma?

She's not talking.

Now she's going fast.

Is Te-ka going to see her at day, or night?

There's her darkness!

Moana is not starving.

Why?

It got in the place where Moana was going to get to.,

She can shape shift!

Yeah she can.

Go Moana!

She's trying to defeat Te-ka.

She's trying to play with Te-ka. Play!

They made it! Where's Te-is!

Where's heihei?

Why is heihei floating away?

One more hit then her boat is gone.

 It she's all rock!

Shark-head!

Why is it not over yet?

The ocean stopped it from hitting her!

Which spiral?

Kapow! Right Mom?

Where's Te-Kas barrier?

*Imitates mauis haka.*

Mauis a little sad right now.

Why?

Where's her feet?

They're going slow. Why?

What does unstoppable mean?

This is not who you are...you know who you are.

Her eyes are still lava, right Mom.

Te-ka.

Trees are growing!

I thought she took a long time.

Why did he say that?

Chee-ho!

Why did he say that?

Where's her flower?

The flower in her hair.

What about the flower her mom gave her?

That's a real island. Tefiti is a real island.

Why is Maui sad?

Why can't we see his hawk foot prints?

Pink flower!

Now there's a new rule. They get to be out in the ocean again.

Her shell. The rock is gonna crack her shell

She's the new chief. Her dad is the old chief. Her mom is the other old chief.

When I die I'll become a hawk.

Let's listen to the credits, and I want to see tanatoa

Mauis fishhook!

Moana necklace!

Mauis necklace!

Moana sail

Flowerband!

Boat sail!

Maui lizard!

Gramma atlas hook

Kakamoras thing.

What's that?

Turtle!

Coral

Kakamora!

Flower!

Maui!

Blow dart in my butt cheek!

Maui  fish!

Tamatoa 

Moanas boat sail

Moanas shell

Maui fish!

Monster!

Tamatoa!

The drum!

Heart of tefiti!

A flower.

Let's dance!

Come on!

Turtle. Turtle. Squirt and crush, crush and squirt

Fish

Crush

Fish fish fishfishfish 

Fishy?

Hammerhead shark!

Pink flower!

More flowers

Flower

Flower, flower, art!

When is this Mom? (Referring to the song)

Flower, flower.

When is this?

I'm the village crazy lady!

We didn't hear it. I'm the village crazy lady.

Flowe, leaf, leaf leaf leaf 

What's this One?now what's this one?

Mom, tefiti restores!

Diamond, art, leaf, art, leafleafleafleaf!

Mom, who's that man right there?

There is his leg that broke off.

 I would help Tamatoa!

Sweet siblings

 

E is now four and five months and tank is 18 months old. And he LOVES his big sister.

I ride too!

Everything  she does, he wants to do. Every toy she plays with, he wants it.  Because of his big sister, he's  obsessed with Paw Patroll and knows all the words to "let it go."

 He loves her. And she loves him too, though she gets frustrated with him. But he is relentless in his pursuit of her attention. When he wants her to be with him he will go up to her and take her hand.  He loves to walk hand-in-hand with her. Which makes for some pretty sweet moments. 

 I hope that as they grow up they continue to be best friends. 

9 months strong

Oh, poor neglected second child. I have blog posts in the works for his other months, well maybe one or two of them,  I mostly comprised of list of things that I want to talk about but just never got around to sitting down and writing. And now Mr. Man is nine months old.

 And he is amazing at nine months. We still call him tank but he's actually pretty little. He looks massive until you put him by another baby, then he's tiny; so maybe he's tiny tank.  He's in nine month old clothes and size 3 diapers. He's only 27 inches tall and only 17 lbs. 13 oz. but he is so awesome.

He's an eater, all day all night. About every three hours or he gets hangry, he likes his solids too.  Haven't found anything that he doesn't like yet and he always wants to eat when someone else is eating. If you have a snack he better be willing to share or face the wrath of tiny tank.  And he's a food critic. He talks the most when he has something in his mouth he loves to shriek and squeal and babbling talk he loves to do it most when he's eating. Both solids and milk which is kind of funny.  We did have our first biting incident now that he has two teeth. He did not like the response of being told no and being put down on the ground. Thankfully he hasn't bitten again since.

 He's not much of a sleeper, mostly because he wants to eat instead. He still gets up two to three times a night.  We started to sleep train him, Ferber style, and he goes to bed without a fuss now for the most part. When he wakes up in the middle of the night we give him a few minutes to try to sort himself out. But he usually just ends up screaming for the entire time. At some point I'll have to night wean,  The part of night winning is increasing food during the day and he already eats every 2 to 3 hours plus solids during the day. He sleeps in his crib all night which is a big change from previous where he would need to be in our bed or at least in our arms so that's a big improvement even if he's still getting up.

 He is strong. Walking is imminent, he can stand unassisted,  he can walk when you hold his hands. And he loves to climb on things. We never anchored our furniture to the wall for E,  but we're going to have to with tank. Because he will climb anything and everything. He's been going to Little gym class and he loves it there. One  of his favorite things to do is crawl. Everywhere as fast as he can.  He gets into a lot of mischief at home. Especially since there are lots of toys left out by a certain 3 1/2 year-old. One of his favorite things to do is eat paper or stickers. He has a special noise that he makes when he has paper or stickers in his mouth it's sort of a NumYummyYum noise that he doesn't make when he's eating food.

He like to play games. The standards like peekaboo and this little piggy of course,  but he also likes to play fetch with himself. Whatever toy he has he'll throw them and crawl across  the floor to get it. He also has a little game where he will tell his head to the side and smile and stare at you until you tilt your head back and then he'll pop up and then fall back down expecting you to do the same, it's very cute.

 He loves other people. He loves to smile at people laugh at people and be held by people even complete random strangers. And of course strangers love to hold him because he so happy and, of course, the hair.  The hair is almost grown back to link it wasn't like that at three months ago. The curls are still gone, which makes me a little sad, but he still has a really good hair for a nine-month-old.

 He loves bath time in the pool and would spend all his time in the water if we let him. He does not like being in his playpen when people are out of sight or being alone in general. It is not like getting his diaper changed or putting on clothes.  He does not like being strapped into his car seat.  He does not like it when mommy takes the paper or stickers out of his mouth. He did great on his first airplane flights only fussing a little bit and sleeping for most of the flights.

E's wisdom: sadness

hey mommy, when you are sad your heart splits apart.
But you can fix it with cuddles and hugs.

Baseball fever

We had another first for E. We got to take her to her first major-league  baseball game. Her uncle is a huge baseball fanatic and was in town visiting. The Astros just happen to be playing that afternoon. She spent the morning with her uncle watching baseball videos  mostly videos of the mascots. The Astros mascot is named orbit and he's based off of the Phillies mascot name the Philly flyer. E very proudly can do the Philly flyer dance where the Philly Flyer shakes his belly around vigorously. 

E was super excited to go to the game. When we got there we found out that the roof was open and our seats were right in the bright sun. It was hot and it was sweaty; the remedy for that is of course a giant putple snow cone.  E charmed the people around us by shouting encouragement to the team "you can do it!" "He did it". "Hit the ball!"  And just in general being a super well behaved kiddo. 

Tank also continue to charm people with his luscious locks. As we were trying to get a swaddle blanket over his head to keep him cool a couple behind us handed us a toddler size Astros baseball cap and told us they had bought it for their son and we could borrow it for the game. About 20 minutes later they told us they were leaving and that we could keep the hat.  So Tank is well on his way in following in his big sisters footsteps of getting lots of free stuff for being cute. 

. 

 All throughout the game E was looking for Orbit. Every time she went into the shade to get a drink or to go to the bathroom and cool off Orbit would appear somewhere in the stands. By the time she come back he disappeared again. Uncle Rune even went on an Orbit finding mission, and came back with a guaranteed sighting time; the seventh inning stretch.

Of course since Tank had a hat E wanted to get a hat. And she wanted to play in the big kids play area. By the bottom of the 5th the game was starting to drag and it was getting really hot so we went to the gift store and the big kids play area. E got a bit scared because the play area was filled wi crazy big kids, so we didn't stay long. But it was just long enough for us to miss the grand slam play that won the Astros the game.
At the 7th inning stretch, Orbit was finally spotted by Ms. E, and at that point we were all pretty hot and tired so we called it a game and headed out.

E has already started asking when we can go back to go see anothe baseball game. 

Just another day...

Today was just another day...

 Another day of waking up early after not enough sleep, making food, changing diapers, shuffling kids around, playing Dinotrux,  brushing three-year-old teeth, trips to the library, a little too much screen time.  There was nothing outstandingly awesome, but I want to remember.  It was outstandingly awesome and it's just another day-ness.

 It was a little bit extra awesome because we had the day off from school. And thankfully we are far enough north that the flooding wasn't too bad in our area. The water came up about 2 feet onto our front lawn and flooded the floor mats of our car parked on the street. But today was beautiful.  I am so thankful for where we live, that were not dealing with the crazy flooding or scary things that happen in other parts of the town. And I am so grateful for the extra day I got to spend with my kids even though it wasn't anything spectacular.

 I want to remember the ordinary things today: playing with Tank's hair and stayling up into a kind of Mohawk. Snuggling with E and reading lots and lots of stories. How she came back repeatedly during storytime at the library to give Tank hugs and snuggles just because she loved him.  How she danced and try to tickle the librarian during the sing-along part of story time. How she was so careful of the other little kids at story time because she's one of the big kids there now.   How in the middle of one of the sing-along songs she gave the little girl next to her a big giant hug. The way she says hello to everyone because she's friendly, ans she always wants to know their names. The way she yells at motorcycle riders who don't wear their helmets that they're not making a good choice. The fact the Tank ate his entire bowl of baby oatmeal for the first time. the way Tank's hair smells after having washed out all that product since it needed to be shampooed three times.  E holding my hand as I sang her special verse in the Puff the Magic Dragon song where she goes to visit Puff.  E whispering to me I love you very very very very very very much and I love tank very much too and daddy. E asking about why the cars went under the water because she saw a video of it on a tablet; how she was concerned for the people in their cars in a naïve child-like way but didn't really understand the danger but understood that it was a scary thing.  The way Tank talked and talked and talked and talked today both when we went out to lunch, and then tonight when he was trying to not go to sleep. The boy has a lot to say.

 It was just an ordinary day. And I hope I never forget it.

Death and Pets

"Mommy, that's the kind of puppy I want, when daddy dies."

"Ms. Elaina got trapped in the slime and no one can rescue her so she died"

"Mommy, when you're dead, you don't eat ice cream anymore"

"I'm sending the bubbles up to V. like the balloons."

These kinds of comments are pretty much a daily occurrence.  My 3 year old has learned about death.  This is entirely my fault and for tragic reasons.  I've been wanting to write about this for a while, but haven't been able to.

Back in December a former student of mine, a wonderful, bright, funny, talented, 10th grader and her amazing sister were in a car accident and for V (the 10th grader) it was a fatal one.  I was the first of her teachers to find out and it happened during Winter Break.  So the responsibility of telling everyone, making contact with the family and such fell to me for the first while.

It was heartbreaking and terrifying and I'm still not able to verbalize what it means to me to lose a student in such a way.  But the event also had an effect on E.

I had to go to the funeral.  I wanted to go to support her family, since I was one of the first school people to respond to the accident and show up at the hospital.  Plus I really love both girls, like I love all my students and I wanted to be there for the surviving sister.  But, the funeral was the same day as a Texans playoff game that Ken had tickets to.  Maybe I should have gotten a baby sitter.  Maybe I should have just stayed home, but in the end I took both kids with me to the funeral.  Thinking I would be able to distract E with the tablet.  I told her the very basics.  V had died.  We were going to a church to remember her and be there to support her family.  E didn't ask many questions.

But E is incredibly empathetic and aware.  Once emotions started, the tablet lost all interest.  She wanted to know what was going on, why people were crying, how V died.  She was very very very well behaved and whispered all her questions and accepted simple answers and several "I'll explain later"s.  She was even very well behaved when we went to the burial site.  She participated in the balloon release (because 3 year olds can't be around balloons without getting one) and was fascinated by the heavy machinery that was there.

And once we left, the questions started to flow.  Now I'm agnostic and Ken is Christian so I tried to answer her questions with information from both sides.  Though most of her questions were not so much about what happens after you die.  (Mommy's answer: some people believe that the energy that makes you up goes to Heaven and lives there.  Other people believe that your energy is sent back out all around the world and becomes part of the world again.  But your body doesn't work anymore.  You don't move or talk.  And you never come back)

Now, death is just a part of her play.  I don't know how firm her grasp is on it, but she brings it up in play, which tells me she is processing it.  It seems like such a heavy subject for such a little girl.  Sometimes I feel like a bad mom for having exposed her to it so early.

But really most of the time she links death and pets.  I think she's processing both things which leads to darkly comical statements like those above.  But she really wants a pet and know's it most likely won't happen while Daddy is around.  So she's experimenting with ways to get pets

So far she's come up with Daddy dying and her going off to college.

"mommy, when I'm bigger and go to college, I want to get a real pet.  a kitty and a puppy. and I will live in my own house"

"daddy, when I'm 28 I will go to college and have my own house with a kitty and a puppy, and I will be able to drive"

Really though, my 3 year old is planning out her college life for when she's 28.  How did she get so old thinking so quickly?