What Magnus and Maya Said...

Magnus' first musical:
Gina: Magnus, did you like watching TV with Daddy?  What was it about?
Magnus: It was about poor people, and they had no shoes, and no money
Gina: Anything else?
Magnus: No
Gina: Did they sing?
Magnus: Yes
Gina: Did you like the songs?
Magnus: Yes

Magnus tries to delegate
Gina: OK Magnus, take off your shoes and put them away please
<Magnus takes off shoes and stands up, and sees Grandma bending over to pick up shoes>
Magnus: Put my shoes away Grandma
Gina: No Magnus, you take off your own shoes and you put away your own shoes!

After singing 'On Top of Spaghetti

Magnus: Mom what happened to the meatball? <repeat ad nauseum>

Magnus the fruit snob
Magnus: I don't want to eat those bananas!  They have holes!
Magnus: No I don't want to eat Auntie Goldie's plums, they're too bumpy

Risk taker:

Magnus: You see Mommy, I don't have to hold my weewee to pee!

It's about the rules:

Magnus: <whispering> Shhh.. Maya is Sleeping
Gina: <quietly, but not whispering> She's sleeping is she?
Magnus: <loudly> Mom!  You have to be quiet!
Gina: <whispering> Oh… you mean like this?
Magnus: <whispering> Yeah!

Geography vs pop culture
Gina: Popo is going to Hong Kong.
Magnus: Is it going to climb a lot buildings?
Gina: No... that's King Kong.  King Kong is a giant gorilla.  Hong Kong is a city, just like Dubai, or Toronto!

It's a deal

Magnus: Deal Mommy?  Deal Mommy?  Deal mommy?
Gina: Do I what Magnus?  
Magnus: Deal Mommy?  Deal Mommy?
Gina: Ohhhh, you mean deal?  What deal, sweetie?
Magnus: Deal Mommy?  It means that you understand!
Gina: Um.. OK, deal!

Anytime I speak firmly to Magnus:

Magnus: Moooommmyyyy… I don't like it when you say bad things

Control freak:
Magnus: What Mommy what?
Gina: Mommy is talking to grandma right now Magnus, It's not for little boys and girls to understand.  You can't know everything, Magnus
Magnus: But I want to know everything!!

Friendly correction
Kendrick: OK get off that thing
Magnus: It's a chair, ok?

Control freak 2:
Magnus: Mommy, I don't want to have dinner, I want to have lunch!
Gina: It's not lunch time, it's dinner time Magnus
Magnus: No!  I want to have lunch!

Maya has two cents: 
Gina: Magnus, 10 minutes is up, it's time for bed.
Magnus: Nnnno!
Maya: Nnnno!
Gina: C'mon, time to go up!
Maya: Up!

I get the strangest stories from school:
Gina: Magnus, what happened to your knees?
Magnus: I fell down.  All my friends did this to me.  Except S, he was my daddy.
Gina: He was your daddy?
Magnus: He was just pretending

Big brother: 
Magnus: Ope!!  Eeep!!!
Maya: <giggle>
Magnus: Oooooh, so you liiike my funny faces!

Magnus likes to find new snappy comebacks:

Gina: Magnus, why do you never sit properly?
Magnus: That's the problem…

Snappy comeback rut:

Thor: Want to play with McQueen Magnus?
Magnus: No…
Thor: Why?
Magnus: That's the problem…
Thor: Why not?
Magnus: That's the problem…
Thor: Why not?!
Magnus: That's the problem…

After catching Magnus climbing all over his chair
Magnus: Mommy why do you always say no thank you no thank you NO THANK YOU?
Gina: Magnus why do you always do things you're not supposed to?

A simple card game degenerates into messy messy play
Thor: Made a pancakes! <throws card>
Magnus: <giggle> Made a pancakes! <throws card>
Thor: <laugh> Made a pancakes! <throws card>
Magnus: <uncontrollable laughter>  Made a pancakes!  <cough> <cough> <vomit> <vomit> <vomit> <vomit>

But with positive reviews

Gina: Did you have fun with Thor yesterday?

Magnus: Yeah!  We were pancake chefs!

Career talk:

Kendrick: What do you want to be when you grow up, Magnus?
Magnus: <undecipherable>
Kendrick: What? A mechanic?
Gina: Instruction?
Magnus: Yeah! A <undecipherable>
Gina: A construction worker?  Really?  Why is that, sweetie?
Magnus: Because I want to build a house!

Magnus tries to apply a phrase he often hears from me: "are you kidding me?" 
Magnus: I have to use this spoon to eat my yogurt.  Am I kidding, mommy?

When Magnus wants to "come with":

Gina: I have to go upstairs and get Maya.
Magnus: I want to be the assistant!

or...

Gina: I just have to move the car a little

Magnus: Can I be the co-pilot?

His little friends have recently moved, so...

Magnus: This apartment sure is getting smaller
Gina: Haha it might seem that way
Magnus: We better move to a bigger house

Maya's first words:
Uh oh
No
Up

Appo (Apple)
Na-na (Banana)
Dar (Star)
Ball
A-mah
Daddy
An-mah
An-pa

Happy Birthday Maya!

One year ago, our little girl was born.  She still amazes us to this day. :)

Here is Maya munching on some appetizers as she waits for her party guests:

A hastily wrapped present from mom and dad:

A balloon for each child:

The guests arrive in time for lunch:

After a few (rigged) games… birthday hats and cupcakes!

Some nice collaborative play to round out the afternoon:

Video Roundup

I catch so many great moments on video by simply storing our camera in the living room on top of the bookshelf with the lens cap off.  This makes it easily to whip it out when the kids are being extra cute.

Enjoy!


One day I asked Magnus if he wanted to feed Maya.  He was more than happy to do so!

Daniel stayed at our place for a few nights.  In return we asked only for a performance.  At first, Magnus declared Daniel's playing to be "bad."  In the end, Daniel won him over:

Magnus loves substitution jokes.  This joke ran for a couple of weeks.

It's amazing to watch kids develop.

Maya likes to stow things under the TV stand so that she can skootch down and look at it.  I didn't quite capture this on video but it's pretty close:

Ditto for putting stuff into bags.  I lost my keys once this way.

Magnus' game amused Maya.  He was making a pig spin.

I let Magnus drive Maya around on the strict order that he was to be gentle and to report to me the second Maya would try to climb out.  This happened quite often.  Magnus was very diligent about reporting, too.

She does this all the time, but it's cuter with the dots. :)

At Alexander's

Magnus and Maya had a wonderful playdate at Alexander and Izabella's place a couple of weeks ago.  Magnus had been looking forward to it the whole week, probably because of the promise of toy cars and trains.  Alexander, our gracious young host, was happy to have Magnus play with any and all of his toys.  The only catch was, he loved to prank Magnus by occasionally snatching and hiding whatever toy Magnus happened to be interested in.  This was funny for everybody except for Magnus, who eventually got over it when we went to play outside.  Maya was a little clingy, but got along well with Izabella.  She particularly liked the executive chair, and is planning to get one for her future office:

My next trick is going to mess up my hair, but it'll be good for employee morale:

Here is Magnus enjoying lunch:

And Izabella looking quizzical.  

The boys did really well when we were outside playing with the soccer ball.  Usually boys will be boys stuff:

Magnus was really testing his boundaries by the end.

I let him squish all the way home.  A fine end to a wonderful afternoon.  Tak for sidst!! :)

Weekend Without Daddy

Kendrick took a long weekend away to a remote island in Yemen with his friends.  He is on his way back now, but it was quite a tiring period for us here in Dubai.  However, I consider this his belated Christmas present, since the only thing we got him for Christmas was a cantaloupe!

Ultimately the kids and I managed just fine, and I dragged along my playbook to record as much of the weekend as possible.  I covered three out of the four days.

Day 1:

After school I took Magnus to the skate park (see previous entry.)  Here is Magnus making a "sad" face.

Day 2:

After school, I took Magnus and Maya to the park next door to watch the sprinklers go off at three o clock.  We got early so that they could enjoy the playground for a little while.  

Magnus, who loves riding his scooter on the grass, was arguing with me about staying on the grass when the sprinklers suddenly turned on.  As Magnus ran away from the water, a little Spanish kid ran right toward the water and danced around in the spray for awhile.  

Since the afternoon was still young, Magnus, Maya and I headed over to the mall.  Maya fell asleep on the way over and missed the start of the Dubai Shopping Festival storytime.  Here is Magnus killing some time before the story:

Soon after this picture was taken, the security guard asked Magnus to stop riding his scooter.  So he lounged on the bean bag instead:




Day 3:

We spent the morning in Al Ittihad park.  Maya had a gooood nap and woke up happy.

You should be able to see her top left tooth in this shot:

After the park, we headed over to Virginie's place for lunch. Magnus wanted to watch the cars go over the speed bump first.  We decided to count twenty cars, and discovered that there are not a lot of early birds living in Virginie's apartment.

The apartments next door are very beautiful too:

Here we are having lunch at the restaurant downstairs....

And visiting her apartment for minute.  Magnus is helping Maya zip up her sweater:

That Christmas tree looks like a three hour job ;)

Then we all went to the Mall for another storytime session.   Except after a yogurt, a train ride, and a visit to the potty, we never made it for storytime.

Magnus and Maya enjoying next-gen astroturf:

I tried to stop her, but she licked it.

Merry Christmas Kendrick!!!!  We missed you!!!

Maya Watching

I've taken a lot of videos of Maya recently.  She's at a stage where I have more an more confidence in her ability to balance, reach, crawl, stand, and put everything in her mouth.  On the other hand, she's getting good at pushing her boundaries.  On three separate occasions I have taken my attention off her for less than 30 seconds and then found her standing up serenely at the top of the stairs (approx 7 steps up.)  Obviously I don't have any videos of that, but I have lots of her interacting with Magnus, getting mad, and figuring out a way to climb out of her bumbo chair.  We love watching her, even if it means a little bit of destruction (say bye-bye to my copy of pride and prejudice as I type this.)

Hope you enjoy watching her as much as we do!

(BTW, she just started getting her teeth this past week - bottom-front-left tooth and top-front-left tooth.  Now she can gnash her two little teeth in fury!)

Happy 2013!

Today is Magnus' first back at school.  I believe all four grandparents are watching him over the internet from the school's CCTV feed.

Maya and I took a relaxing walk along the Marina and then did a little shopping at the mall.  When Magnus is with us on his scooter, it's not so relaxing because I'm usually running to keep up with him.  It's good for my cardio and bad for the stroller!

I'm typing as fast as I can before Maya touches one of the buttons on the TV, the stereo system, the keyboard, the mouse, or either of the two remote controls.  It's a losing battle, so I'm going to have to cut this short while she amuses herself under the coffee table: she's practicing her new M.O. "lick first, ask questions later."

Two new wardrobe picks for the new year:

A stripey shirt from Vanessa:

Skinny jeans for Maya:

Magnus builds the "Burj Khalifa" in his PJs:

"Mommy, don't stand on the sofa"

Magnus on his exercise book:

Maya hits some milestones:

Tough Maya

Maya had a fever about a week and a half ago.  This was her first fever.  She had a few nights where she was fussy in the middle of the night but it passed with no problems.  Compared to Magnus, she's had so many more colds, coughs, and runny noses in the first 9.5 months of her life.  However, they are never really that bad.  I remember Magnus never got sick until he hit 1 - and when he did get sick my Mom and I were up several nights in a row taking turns nursing, soothing, and cuddling him.

Here's Maya getting ready for a boat trip before the fever struck:

And here she is after recovery:

She's climbing all over the place!!