USA vs. Azerbaijan, pre-World Cup friendly

It's FIFA World Cup season!  The opening match (Brazil vs. Croatia) is schedule for June 12, and I'm so excited.  For the next 6-7 weeks we'll be glued to the TV -- we've even scheduled our road trips and long vacations to make sure we'll have access to a TV (or a pub) to watch each and every match!

How to get chosen for Disneyland's Jedi Training Academy

(*Note:  One of the things I love blogging about the most is travel. Whenever I come home from a vacation, I'm always full of grand plans to blog about our awesome experiences... and then procrastination gets in the way.  This year I want to do a better job at writing about the places and things we've enjoyed during our travels. Whether they occurred halfway around the globe or right in our neighborhood, whether we experienced them a month ago or a decade ago, they are precious memories to me and deserve to be recorded. Hopefully, posting under a catchy-sounding meme like Travel Tuesday will motivate me to be more consistent about it).

The Jedi Training Academy is an interactive show that takes place at Walt Disney World's Magic Kingdom (at the ABC Sound Studio in Hollywood Studios) and at Disneyland Resort's Disneyland Park (at the Tomorrowland Terrace Stage in Tomorrowland). If your child is a Star Wars fan, this is a Must-Do, because if your child is selected to participate, he or she gets to learn some Jedi moves, and gets to battle a Star Wars villain!

How teammates become friends

This past weekend the boys went on their first-ever overnight soccer tournament, the NorCal State Cup for U9 boys in Davis, CA.  Davis is less than 2 hours' drive from home, but their team had four games spread out over 2 days, and 2 of those games started at 8AM (7:15AM if you count their warm-up time) so everyone agreed it would be best to stay at a motel on Friday and Saturday night.

I love watching their games, but with the holidays approaching and The Pea's Nutcracker rehearsals going and with our trip to the Manila looming on the horizon, taking a whole weekend off for soccer seemed excessive.  Then we all came down with colds and flu the week before, so everyone was stressed out trying to recover.  3Po and Jammy shook off the virus by Thursday and I scraped through on Friday, but Alfie had to miss the whole thing, which was a huge blow since he's their biggest fan.  The team hasn't been playing too well either, so I was not optimistic as I drove off, leaving a miserable Alfie and an ecstatic Pea (ecstatic because didn't have to go) at home.

How to make a Lego minifigure case

When we moved 3Po and Jammy into their own room, we told them they could set it up and decorate it however they wanted.  Unlike The Pea, who has grand plans of wall organizers and posters and beaded light fixtures in her room, the boys asked for only 2 things:  they wanted their room to be green and blue (their favorite colors), and they wanted shelves to display some of their Lego Star Wars sets.  I found the coolest Lego minifigure display cases on Pinterest, so I decided to use them as inspiration to make some of my own. Here's how I did it:

Men's Underwear: Questions from a Catholic Schoolgirl

What is it with men's briefs? Here's a photo of a pair of Calvin Klein boxer briefs for little boys (I bought a pack for 3Po and Jammy the other day). They're quite adorable, and when my boys wear them they look like little buff Mark Wahlbergs. But when I take away the cute kid, all I'm left with is a pair of underpants with a slit down the side. I have never understood that slit. I know what it's supposed to be for, but I just can't see any male actually using it in this day and age. I have so many questions:

If a little boy is dancing in his pants, dying to pee (and since little boys always wait until the last minute, this always applies), does he honestly have time to maneuver his Wee Willy Winkie through that slit and pee out of it? Wouldn't he just yank his trousers and underpants down in one desperate motion before his bladder bursts? And wouldn't the same apply to grownup men?

Even if a man did have enough time, wouldn't it still be really awkward? Now, I'm a former Catholic schoolgirl so I don't know much about the male anatomy (cue eye roll by Alfie), but it seems to me that if you're wearing tighty-whities, there's going to be a lot of organ-bending involved, which doesn't sound like something a man would want to do.

Why is the slit cut down to one side? Is it always cut down the same side? Why not down the center? Does it have anything to do with being right-handed (and if so, is this a possible case for discrimination against left-handed people)? Or do most men's winkies lean to one side?

How do Calvin Klein and the other underwear makers decide how big the slit ought to be? Did they take measurements? Is there such a thing as a male organ fit model? Does that slit get proportionally larger with larger sizes of underwear?

Unfortunately I can't do any field research in the matter, since, well, Catholic schoolgirls don't enter male restrooms, and they don't ask men such questions, and Alfie is a sample size of one, and he refuses to break the male code and peer over his shoulder to see how other men pee. So I have to apply the process of elimination (no pun intended) to come up with the only remaining reason why the slit is still there.

C'mon, Calvin Klein and all you men's underwear makers. Admit it. The only reason you put the slit is to make sure that male underwear doesn't look like female panties.

How Low Can You Go?

This photo was taken by Alfie while I was away at BlogHer and he took the kids to Infineon Raceway to watch some drag racing. Those drivers are certainly low to the ground!

Sorry, I couldn't resist. Here's another kind of low that was also in abundance at the Infineon Raceway track. This was in the set of photos taken while I was away at BlogHer and Alfie took the kids to the Infineon Raceway to watch some drag racing. And obviously something else. Do you think maybe one of the kids got hold of the camera and accidentally took this photo? Hmmm.....

Now, see, I'm smarter than that. I've got some photos from my trip to Chicago, but I would never record on camera what really went on at BlogHer ;)

For more kinds of low, click here.

It ain't home until the wifi's working.

Today the boys dug out their pop-up play tents and connecting tunnel from the black hole that is our garage. They set the things up and decided to play House. The first thing they decided to make? Not chairs. Not beds. Not toychests or cooking stoves.

Laptops.

In which my sons convert to a new religion

A couple of weeks ago, 3Po and Jammy went for a playdate at a friend's house; when I picked them up, they had found a new obsession: Bakugan, a robot/card game. I'm still learning what exactly Bakugan is and how to play it, but all I'm sure of is that they've found a new religion. And yes, religion is the right word, as evidenced by a conversation we had when they were examining their new Bakugan toys:

3Po: Where's the Jesus?
Me: What?
3Po: I can't find the Jesus!
Me: What do you mean, Jesus?
Jammy: You know, Jesus. Jesus is Power!
Me (shaking my head in an attempt to clear my head and understand what they're saying): Say that again?
3Po (very patiently): Jeeeeeezus. Look here, mama, on the other Bakugan it says 480 Jesus.

I grabbbed the Bakugan from him and read what 3Po was pointing to. There, in tiny gold letters, was "480G".

Me: Oh.... 480 Gee's.
Jammy: Yes, Jesus. You know, how much power your Bakugan has. Jesus is Power.

The Tooth that Fell Out Too Soon

Jammy has lost his first tooth. He's loving his new look, and the extra cash that came with it. I still can't quite believe it. He's barely five years old, it's much Too Soon.

It first started wiggling on Christmas Day; when I saw it moving and saw blood, I thought he had knocked another tooth loose, and scared poor Jammy with my panic attack. Even when the blood stopped and everything seemed fine, I thought, Too Soon!

For the next several months we coddled that tooth, taught him to bite food off to one side, cut all his apples up. That tooth hung on tenaciously. January turned into February and into March. We couldn't believe the tooth still hadn't fallen, but it certainly strengthened my opinion that the tooth had gotten loose much Too Soon.

In the end, Jammy woke us up last Sunday, on Alfie's birthday, with the news that his tooth had fallen out because he had yanked it off himself. Whaaat! You're not supposed to do that! You've made it fall out Too Soon!

Obviously, the problem is not the tooth nor the timing, it's me. He's just a little boy, my baby, he can't be having loose teeth because that would mean he's not my baby anymore. Sweet Jammy with the gap in your smile, I love you. I love the baby you used to be, the boy you are, and the man you'll become. I just wish I could keep the baby just a wee bit longer. You're growing up, and that's what's really happening Too Soon.


I know, it's not your typical Love Thursday photo or post, but in my mind, this is as much a love story as any out there. For more love stories, go and visit Love Thursday.

Monday Mornings: morning hair

It's time to start acting on my 2009 blogging resolutions. So this I'm committing to put up a photo every Monday morning -- today I'm showcasing 3Po's glorious morning hair. For 2009 anyway. Or maybe the first half of 2009. Or until I forget. Because Monday mornings are always the craziest times at our house. Or maybe because I'm just a lazy ass.

How is your morning going? If you leave a link to your Monday Morning post in the comments section, I'll go visit and leave a comment.

Was Hugh Hefner like this at 5?

We were reading stories from greek mythology the other day, and the boys were mystified by the behavior of Hera, wife of Zeus and goddess of marriage:

3Po: I don't get it, mama, why was Hera so angry with all those women? Why did she want to punish them?

Me: She was angry at them because she caught them kissing her husband, Zeus. She didn't like him cheating on her, and she took out her anger on the women.

3Po: What's cheating?

Me: [3-second pause] It's when married men kiss other women who aren't their wives. Hera was married to Zeus, and Zeus liked to kiss other women.

3Po: So what? Why can't he kiss other women?

Me: [3-second pause, while chewing on lower lip and trying not to smile] Well, honey, wives don't like it when their husbands kiss other women. When you marry someone, you're making a promise not to kiss anyone else.

Jammy: Well, then, when I get married, I'm going to marry the beautifullest girl in the world.

What's for dinner, Alfie?

One of the few household chores that Alfie does not offer to help me with is cooking dinner. I don't mind; I like cooking and he doesn't. Besides, he usually gets home too late to cook. But there are times when I do ask for help with dinner, and he steps up to the plate magnificently. There are only 3 things that Alfie cooks.......

Grilled food: Hamburgers, hotdogs, sausages or grilled chicken. For some reason, any time we decide to get the grill out and have a barbie, Alfie takes charge. He says it's a Man Thing. I don't mind. I let him do it because he does such a great job of cleaning the grill afterwards.

Heinz baked beans with fried eggs and toast. He never lets me fry eggs for him because I can't get the hang of flipping the egg with a runny yolk. (I refuse to cook eggs sunny-side up because all can see when I look at it are the millions of salmonella partying in that runny yolk).

Pasta with tomatoes, onions, garlic and canned tunas sauteed in olive oil. He insists on the fresh garlic and tomatoes, so the final result is simple but deeeeevine.

..... and I must admit, he does all 3 so well that I don't even offer to help.

I want to get off the Straight Talk Express when it stops at the Sex Ed station

The other night, Jammy turned to me, pointed to his testicles (I was giving him a shower) and said, "Mama, I don't understand what this part of my winky is for. What does it do and what's inside it?"

Oooooookaaaaay....... let's run through all the possible things I could have said:

1) Well, that's called a scrotum. It holds your testicles.
If I say this, I'll need to answer all the inevitable follow-up questions ("What are testicles? What is sperm? etc.. etc...). I wasn't quite ready to follow the Straight Talk Express to its (pardon the pun) sticky conclusion, especially to a 4-year-old boy.


2) Ask your daddy, he's a boy like you so he knows.
If I say this, I'll look stupid and he'll think mama doesn't know anything. No thank you.


3) You don't worry about that, you'll find out when you're old enough.
It's a bit like Sarah Palin hiding from the press, isn't it? How easy it would be to just refuse to take questions -- but I'm not Sarah Palin and I couldn't do it. We've always been pretty open about our bodies and I'm happy that my kids are comfortable enough to ask me any kind of question. No, it's too much of a copout -- I have to give some kind of answer.


4) I don't really know, let's get on the internet and find out.
It's also tempting to say this, because I figure but it makes it less easier for me if I read someone else's words to the kids. Of course, it's still a cop-out (or a delaying tactic, at best).


In the end, I blurted out a combination of #1 and #4: "Those are your testicles, honey, and you know how your veins hold blood? Well, your testicles hold some kind of liquid that makes boys boys. Hmmm, I'm not really doing a good job of explaining it, am I? So let's go borrow a book about the body from the library and we'll look this up."

Boy, am I a loooooser. An incomprehensible answer and a delaying tactic (because of course, after the shower, Jammy forgot all about it). I need to get better at answering these kinds of questions because they're coming at me faster and faster. I don't have any experience in parent-child sex talk (as a parent and as a child) but I do know that I want to answer their questions honestly, in an age-appropriate manner. I'm bookmarking this post because I love the way Sarah E. answered her sons' questions -- direct, brief, humorous, in a way they could understand. Sarah, I might have to quote you directly the next time my kids ask me about this stuff.

Photo Hunt: Together

I like it when we bike to the park together. I like it when the kids splash through puddles. I even like it when Alfie finds a gigantic puddle and decides to lead the kids in a round of "bike through the puddle and see who makes the biggest splash". But at that point, the togetherness ends. I'm quite happy to watch -- and quite happy that I didn't have to bike home with my clothes absolutely soaked.



By the way, I think the honor of "biggest splash" might have to go to Jammy. Or maybe 3Po. Both fell off their bikes straight into the water.

For more togetherness, click here.

For the love of football

The English are mad about football, simply mad about it. Rugby and cricket are blips on the radar screen compared to their football obsession. If 3Po and Jammy were living in England now, they'd probably be playing football every day because that's what all the little boys do when they go out to play.

We don't push football on them, but with all the matches they see on tv, they must think football is literally the only sport around. That will change once they enter kindergarten and grade school, but for now, all they know is football. I'm happy that they genuinely seem to like the Beautiful Game, and I hope they continue to play it.

For more images of love, click here.

The Magic Chalkboard

One morning, 3Po wanted some oatmeal for breakfast, but to his dismay found none in our cereal cupboard. Alfie wanted oatmeal as well, so he wrote "Oatmeal" on the chalkboard that serves as our shopping list.

Alfie: See here, 3Po, I'm going to write "oatmeal" on this chalboard, and in a couple of days, a box of oatmeal is going to appear in our cereal cupboard! Isn't that great?

Several days later, I still hadn't gotten around to shopping at Safeway, so the boys still hadn't gotten their oatmeal fix. A Lego catalog came in the mail, and 3Po and Jammy spent a long time poring over the contents. Every so often they would come up to me and ask me to buy them some Lego. I would respond with, "It's not Christmas and it's not your birthday, so I'm not buying you any Lego.

Finally, 3Po stared hard at the shopping list chalkboard and announced:

3Po: Mama, I want to write "Lego" on that chalkboard. Then someday I will open up the cereal cupboard and there will be some Lego in it!

Guest blogger of the day: 3Po

Many months ago I featured my first guest blogger: my son Jammy, with an action-packed Power Ranger story. Not to be outdone, his brother 3Po responded with an equally thrilling piece. As you might guess that they're big on Power Rangers and shooting... (sigh)


Funny Power Ranger Suit, by 3Po
-----------------------------------
Once upon a time there were 2 Power Rangers who shot a bad guy. They were sailing on a boat and they accidentally shot underwater. They went home and they shot the sun! -- It got bloody -- and it backfired onto a witch! Then they punched someone who was holding a shooter. And after that someone banged outer space,and someone skated over again and shot a big number. It was 16.

The End.

Getting a Kick out of this Party

What a great way to close out the schoolyear -- being treated to a Kung Fu Panda Party courtesy of the Silicon Valley Moms Blog, Dreamworks and HP. Thanks to all the fun activities, we all found something to enjoy.

The Pea loved all the Kung Fu Panda craft stations, as well as a table where she learned (in just a few minutes!) how to pick up gummy bears, froot loops and goldfish crackers with chopsticks. She was too shy to join the Kung Fu Panda dancers, but she was happy to sit and watch as they danced to the tune of Kung Fu Fighting, again and again and again and again and again (thank God this happened in a side room and the music was not blaring over the main speaker). She also enjoyed posing for a photo with her little stuffed panda and Po the Kung Fu Panda.

/

Did 3Po and Jammy like it? Two words: video game. The first thing that caught their eye (or anyone else's, for that matter) were two giant tv screens with a Kung Fu Panda videogame playing on each. Once their turn came, 3Po and Jammy were enthralled. Since they've never seen, much less played a proper video game before, they couldn't really make the onscreen panda do more than jump up in the air and flail its arms and legs about. It took a couple of exasperated eight-year-olds to teach them the basics of video game controls. Once they figured it out, I had to forcibly drag them from the video area to check out the other crafts, eat, or pose for photos with Po.

As for me, despite stressing out over the number of videogames my sons played and the number of times Kung Fu Fighting played (I can't get the darn song out of my head now), I enjoyed the yummy food, the generous and friendly party people (who really panda-ed to our every need... get the pun, I mean pun-da?) and the company of my fellow mom bloggers.

Best of all (for a freebie-lover like me) were the treats they saved till the end. We were given a bag generously stuffed with goodies such as fortune cookies, tags, pens, Snapfish giftcards, Kung Fu Panda craft cd's, the movie soundtrack, and the videogame (I've hidden it from the boys).

Food, games, freebies... what's not to love? Thanks, SV Moms, HP and Dreamworks -- we really got a kick out of the whole thing.

Just call them twinkletoes

3Po and CleanBoy finished off their spring tap/ballet class with a special tap performance set to "Take a Little One Step" from the musical No, No Nanette. The class actually danced it without any coaching from the teacher. Also, the mirror was behind them, so they couldn't copy any of their classmates. At least, not without turning their heads and looking around, which is what most of them did. Which made it even cuter.

My kids can shoot

Now that we have our new digital SLR camera, we've become less concerned about the well-being of our old point-and-shoot camera. So this afternoon I gave in to the boys' pleas and allowed to them to play with the camera for a little while. I looped the camera strap around 3Po's wrist and told him to take a photo of whatever he thought looked nice, as many photos as he wanted, then did the same for CleanBoy.

The resulting pictures were quite interesting. It may have been luck, but I thought some of their shots were very well framed. At the very least, it's an interesting glimpse into a 4-year-old's aesthetic sense. So in keeping with this week's Photo Hunter's theme of Thirteen, here are 13 of 3Po and CleanBoy's best photos: