I blow you up ... BOOM

This past Saturday was Princess's First Communion. Pictures to follow provided that Hubby gets back from his business trip and remembers to offload his camera. I don't have a card reader for the behemoth memory cards on his SLR. Anyway, Princess was dressed in a sleeveless Cinderella pick up skirt tea length white satin gown. Her hair was up in a big pouffy bun (ala Carrie Bradshaw in Sex In the City) and she wore my handmade veil under it and a rhinestone/pearl tiara in the front. Around her neck she wore my mother's gold cross which Lola gave to her that morning. She wore brand new white shoes with 1.5 inch heels. By the end of mass, I was holding those heels while Princess ran around shoeless. To complete her ensemble, Princess wore white gloves that went up to her elbows. She looked like a real princess. She just needed a scepter and cape.

The kids were asked to be there at 3pm so that they could have their formal portraits taken. I took advantage of my early arrival to reserve seating for the 18 people who were going to be coming to witness Princess's First Communion. We had Lola, Uncle Dwight, who came from Hawaii, Uncle Norm, Aunty Bridget, Cousin Katie, who came over on the ferry, Uncle Davey, Aunty Jan, their kids Alex & Ashley 4 y.o. and Aidan 18 mos., Grams, Gramps, and Aunty Di who came from California. I went to my car and got out every piece of clothing I could find. Came out with a raincoat, hat, bandana, umbrella, paperback, and a bunch of Monopoly money that the now defunct dollar store used to give out as coupons. So I laid out said items and sprinkled a bunch of reserved signs made with the play money all over the pews. Then I waited.

Aside from a couple of snarky comments from people who came later and I told that I had reserved the 2.5 pews, people were pretty receptive to me having reserved the spots. To the one lady who exclaimed in disbelief, "3 pews!" I say, 'Chick, I was here for over 2 hours before you moseyed your way to get a seat so shut it. And peace be with you.' In my head of course.

Grandparents and our family took the front pew and the uncles, aunts and cousins took the 2nd. We had a couple of friends in the 3rd. It all worked out pretty well. Except for when the homily started.

The way the church is situated, the main lectern is on the left side of the altar (stage right). We happened to be seated in the first 3 rows of pews directly to the left of the lectern. We were pretty much spitting distance from our priest. So when the homily started, Fr. Emmett (who is a very sweet man) started talking about Pentecost -- a pretty big day in our faith -- celebrating the Holy Spirit's coming to the apostles and giving them the gift of tongues. One might argue that the Spirit was moving my 2 nephews and my niece. After all, are we not instructed to make a joyful NOISE unto the Lord?

So all during the homily, there were some gender clarifications: "Mommy, Alexander called me a boy. I'm not a boy. I'm a girl." There were also some threats of violence: "I blow you up. BOOM!" And general discontent voiced by the youngest of the 3: your basic baby cry. All this peppered by my brother and sister-in-law's desperate whispers of shush, put that down, don't touch that, quiet, etc. It gave me a major case of the church giggles. You know the kind where you can't laugh out loud but your body can't help but laugh so your shoulders start shaking up and down.

Hubby's sister Diane waited to see the famous church pinch that my mother used to deliver to us on a weekly basis. You know the kind right at the back of the arm on a nerve apparently connected to your voice box. One well placed pinch and you are effectively silenced for the remainder of the service. My mother wasn't sitting in the same row as the kids so only could give a stern look which was miserably ineffective. When asked why the pinches weren't delivered, she said simply, "I couldn't reach." She also hoped that nobody would notice the family resemblance and that she could pretend that those grand babies were not hers.

For his part, Fr. Emmett made every effort not to look in our direction. He truly is a soft touch. One can only hope that he didn't hear the ruckus, that he may have left his hearing aid out... but I suspect that everybody heard them. My friend Steve had arrived late to the service and was sitting clear across the church away from us. When we talked about what the kids were saying, Steve said, "That was you? I heard that."

For the rest of the visit with my brother and his family, our catch phrase was, "I blow you up ... BOOM!"

I can't wait to see them again. Even if I get blown up several times a day.

Playdate movie

Lil'T and her friends Ben & Dora were playing together today. Yeah, Dora is the life sized stuffed doll. That Dora is a chair hog and almost knocked Lil'T off the rocker. Sheesh!

Play with your food

This morning for breakfast, I made some toast for Princess. While I made her and That's lunch, Princess ate her toast.

Princess: Mommy, look!

She held up her toast. She had nibbled off all of the crust.

Me: What am I looking at?

Princess: It's a guitar.

She took another bite.

Princess: Mommy, now look. It's a fishie. Here's its head and here's its tail.

Another bite.

Princess: Now it's a worm.

And one more bite.

Princess: Now it's a blob.

To me, it all looked like half eaten toast. Does that mean I'm getting old? It is nice to reconnect with 8 year old imagination. Who knew toast could be so versatile?

TheGirlsWedding

I didn't catch swine flu. At least I don't think I did. But I did get a major case of homesickness for Hawaii. When people ask me about the wedding, I tell them that it felt like I was at a garage party in the heart of Waipahu. The only things missing were the mosquito punks, the buckets of water under the outside lights to catch the moths, and the old guys in the corner playing Sakura cards and drinking beer. There was the beer drinking but not the card playing.

There was Hawaiian plate lunch food: steamed rice, teri chicken, fried noodles, kalbi ribs, mac salad, green salad. The cake was so good. It was a coconut type filling and so tasty that I had a piece as big as my head. Well, maybe not that big, but definitely bigger than I would have taken had it not been coconut in the center.

Dawn, Noelle's sister, sang "What are you doing for the rest of your life?" by Na Leo as Noelle and Edie danced. I folded up a dollar bill so small and put it so deep down Edie's shirt that I don't think Noelle had a chance to retrieve it. Oops. Seriously, I wasn't trying to cop a feel on your wife, Noelle. We sang "Dahil Sa Iyo" to Edie. It was a great moment; Noelle, her cousins and me belting it out to her wife. Edie said later that it was the only time she had cried all day long. It was so very sweet. Afterward, her cousins told her, "You're part of the family now, Edie."

During the reception, we had a jam session with guitar and uke playing, stumbled through Hawaiian lyrics that we had to plumb the depths of our memory to find those elusive melodies. We were cracking jokes and laughing. Noelle at one point told us the, "Watch out, watch out, watch out," story that had us all rolling. Music, laughter, free flowing wine and beer, and yummy cake. What's not to like?

I absolutely fell in love with Noelle's extended family. My head actually hurt from laughing so much. We reminisced about going to St. Joe's for grade school. We did the usual, "What school you grad?" stuff that is kind of a given when you gather a bunch of people from Hawaii in a room. And while I was just home to Hawaii only a couple of months ago with my own family, the visit was so colored with grief that I still miss home. The abject joy of hanging out with family, how Dawn's son Aston called me Aunty even though he had never met me before, all the inside jokes, how when I said, "chai wait," that I was understood perfectly (yeah, that slipped out of my mouth at one point and actually surprised me because I thought those Waipahu roots were well buried)-- I miss that.

Oh well, my brothers with respective families, my mom, Hubby's parents and my sister-in-law, will all be here at the end of the month. That means that I need to somehow get it so that there shouldn't be a red plastic wrap on my front door emblazoned with the word BIOHAZARD. I need to clean this house. That's the downside of family gatherings. But the upside is that I get to see everybody -- and we'll be laughing over shared inside jokes and singing loud bad karaoke in the media room.

I can't wait.

Yes, we have no bananas

I live with crazy people. Lil'T is perhaps the craziest of them all.

Me: What do you want for breakfast? There's cereal. There's toast. I can make eggs. There's fruit...

T: Hmmm... Bananas.

Me: We don't have bananas. We have watermelon, apples and oranges.

T: Hmmm... Grapes.

Me: We don't have grapes. We have watermelon, apples and oranges.

T: Okay. I want bananas.

Me: We don't have bananas. We have watermelon, apples and oranges.

This went on for a good ten minutes or so. I was reminded of that scene from Red Dwarf when Holly informs Dave that everybody is dead. Dave keeps questioning if individual people from the crew are dead. Holly resorts to using every permutation of the four words: everybody, is, dead, Dave.

We have apples, watermelon, and oranges. Oranges, apples, and watermelon, we have. Apples we have; oranges we have; watermelon we have. And so on.

Ultimately I let her have spaghetti left over from dinner, canned cranberry jelly and a glass of milk. This was her breakfast.

I have a few errands to run. I'll need to buy some bananas and grapes. Even though tomorrow I've no doubt that she'll want to eat peaches.

I'm sure you can relate

Lil'T still needs some help with the potty. She goes on her own, pretty much. And we have worked out that we get first wipe and then she has a turn (because the other way around is just too messy). She will flush the toilet unless it is too hard to push the lever. She also is in charge of pulling up her pants and underwear herself and then I help her wash her hands.

Today she was dallying in the bathroom -- it takes time to pull up underpants and pants. I was waiting and soon Lil'T became frustrated. She started crying while trying to pull up her jeans. She needed help. Sometimes we all do.

She said, "My pants are freaking me out!"

That just made my day. I don't often get freaked out about my pants but I'm sure that it happens to all of us.

Alphabet -- revisited again

She finally did it!!! Yay!