The Beastie Boys, toddler version

Long story very short:

I played The Beastie Boys song "Hey Ladies" for Mel on the way home from school. He's been walking around singing "hey! Hey! Hey! Old ladeeeeeez" to the same tune. 

#TotsForLife

Learning about South America, dinosaurs and lava

Mel's got the day off from school, here's what he taught me this morning:

"The dinosaurs got killed in Mexico, and it was sad. But they were okay because they didn't go in real lava, like in South America, they just went in water. Then they lose power in water. They were just sleeping. And they were trying to find food. Then they just do that, and they're all done."

Lost another tooth, but swallowed it

Carolina just lost a top tooth, one of her bicuspids. She was running down the hallway and I was walking out of the bathroom, and her mouth ran into one of my hands. She felt a small pain and then realized she swallowed her loose tooth! 

Black History Month with Carolina

"What was something new you learned today?"

"Mommy, I learned about an important lady. She was a slave and then she had an Underground Railroad. I forget her name."

"Harriet Tubman?"

"Yes! That's her."

"Do you know what a slave is?"

"A slave is someone who is owned."

"Do you know what that means?"

"No."

"It means you are someone's property. You work for that person. That person paid for you. You can not leave. You work all the time, every day. You don't get paid."

"Mommy, that's bad. That is a terrible idea."

"And you can't live with your family. If the person who bought you wants to sell your mom or brother or grandmom, they do. And then you never see that family member again."

"It's good we don't have slavery ANYWHERE anymore."

"Well, it does still exist."

"Well, not here! Mr. Lincoln took care of that."

"Yes."

This mother-daughter moment, overly simplified for a six year old, brought to you courtesy of Black History Month.

A couple of new words that are funny

Recently, Mel has started to refer to eyeballs specifically, but instead of calling them eyeBALLS he calls them "Eyebulbs". I've tried correcting him, but he clearly likes saying eyebulbs better. 

As an accidental joke he mispronounced Diana's name as "Dilana", he got a laugh and referred to her for a whole day as "Aunt Dilana" just to be funny. 

Now, napkin can be a little tricky to get your tongue around if you're not used to it. The other day, Mel was sitting so nicely in the morning circle at preschool that they teachers pointed him out to the other kids and said he could pass out the napkins. When he recounted the story to me during the car ride home, he kept telling me about "nak-pins". It was cute, and more importantly, he was proud of himself. 

Musings by Mel

A few things I learned from Mel today:

"Lady Star Wars" is his name for Princess Leia. 

Mel used to live with his Papa in New York City when he was a baby. Carolina and I lived in New Jersey. 

Ketchup is delicious. 

McDonald's is "the french fry place".

Five dollars is the price of everything that's really expensive. 

Star Wars cereal comments

So, for fun, I bought them this box of cereal. They know almost nothing about Star Wars. Trust me when I tell you dying to show them the movies but they are not ready. 

So these just happened:

"Mommy, Toyota is a good guy and Dark Vader is bad, right?"

"Does the blue LightSaver kill bad guys?"

"Do we like R2D2?"

"How does a TiedFighter fly?"

My favorite part of all this is that they remember R2D2's name. I love that little guy.

I also had this from my six year old:

"Mommy, it's Dark Vader, right? Because he is dark."