Kids Say the Darndest Things - I Am Mona Lisa Now!

Mona Lisa

May be a bit, or may be I do look a lot like Mona Lisa. Statistics do not lie. I have only two but they are honest one. Over the years, my mother sometimes would say to me - 'My Mona Lisa'. I knew why, I had long hair and division in the middle. But now I became Mona Lisa again.

Matthew looks at the picture on the Nintendo DS, looks at dad and looks back at the picture again.
Dad asks - 'Matthew who is this?'
Matthew looks at the picture and then at dad, and a bit shocked, surprised and confused says - 'Mom?'
Dad laughs, and says - 'Yes'
I was washing dishes, and asked -  'What is he looking at?'
Dad answers - 'Just a Mona Lisa picture'

Day later. Matthew plays again with Nintendo DS. Next I hear him talking to the Nintendo - 'Oh mom, oh mommm' - almost hugging the game console. I go look over his shoulder, and there she is again - the Mona Lisa. And who knew that my own son will see Mona Lisa in me.

Kids Say the Darndest Things - Bye Bye Man!

Children are the best if comes to their expressions, their gestures and their innocent talk. Matthew is now 20 months and what a small loud character he is.

Yesterday we had an appointment with the banker to invest some money in Matthew's future education. Last year the same appointment wasn't so bad, as Matthew was still in the car seat, but this year he walks, runs and talks. The crayons and the coloring book only kept him busy for three minutes, other ten minutes he actually observed the banker do all the work on the computer. Suddenly, Matthew screams - 'oh preent preent woooow'. Yes, the man was suddenly printing our paper work. Well that was it for sitting in the office.

He runs out the office, and the exploration starts. On the side of the eye, I can see everyone looking at Matthew, and in their eyes I can see smiles. Yes, he not only walks, runs but asks - 'What is thees? and thees?'. That's man's computer, that is TV, you want to watch Bambi - 'Nope', he says. He walks into another empty office, stands there for a good minute and observes everything around. Finds calculator, 'Seet Seet', points at the chair. Sits on the chair and makes a butt motion to move him closer to the table. He is ready to calculate. He knows his numbers. Then he takes the calculator and brings to the office where his dad sits with the man.

Ready for another run. Matthew now gets my cell phone to play with. Oh Matthew this is a long distance to Maryland. I still don't know how his little fingers always find numbers to call the numbers we don't want him to call. So he calls some number, puts into his ear - 'Noonnaa, noonnaa! doing' That is his grandmother he is calling now and asking what she is doing.

Time to sign some paperwork for me, so we switch now - my husband gets him. Time is running out and so is Matthew's patience. He swirls him self away from daddy, grabs my handbag and starts walking out the door. Matthew where are you going sweetie? 'Bye bye man, taank you, bey bye man'. He walks out the office, and walking to the door keep repeating to everyone around 'bye bye man', happy having us going with him. On the side of my eye I could see everyone in the line turning, and again bright smiles in their eyes. We came out laughing too. I guess we will have to decide later on the education fund investment.

I also have Matthew's latest photo on MyOnlyPhoto blog, Motion Pictures - My Experimental Photography - little speedster he is.

It's The Most Wonderful Time Of the Year

To all my wonderful blogger friends, during the most wonderful time of the year, I want to wish you one thing - happiness, because happiness is everything else. It is hard to believe that this is my third Christmas on the Story Blob blog and going forward. See you all in January 2010, and thank you all again for keeping me on my toes.

This time I want to share with you some of my favorite happiness quotes.

'We tend to forget that happiness doesn't come as a result of getting something we don't have, but rather of recognizing and appreciating what we do have.'   ~ by Frederick Keonig

'The best vitamin to be a happy person is B1.'  ~ by Author Unknown

'Happiness always looks small while you hold it in your hands, but let it go, and you learn at once how big and precious it is.'  ~ by Maxim Gorky

'When you're really happy, the birds chirp and the sun shines even on cold dark winter nights - and flowers will bloom on a barren land.'  ~ by Grey Livingston

...and since I have engineering background, I had to include this one:

'Happiness makes up in height for what it lacks in length.'  ~ by Robert Frost

Employment Resume for the Professional Mother

I thought it would be cool [may be for real one day] to have resume section designated to parenting responsibilities, experience and accomplishments. They say that it is hard to find a job when you are away from work for few years raising children, but then who said that parenting is not a 'work'.  Since I had such a great thought I decided to write my first resume draft here.

May 07, 2008 - Nov 07, 2009
Title: Mother

RESPONSIBILITIES
° Breastfed on demand around the clock for one year. Continue to breastfeed on the occasion during the day, and sometimes at night. Planning to stop when our child reaches his second birthday. Following the African breastfeeding model.
° Cooking for our child since he was four months old. All the food is high quality home made. Due to limited access to prunes, the prunes jars are bought from the store. Excellent source of fiber, and it works if you should ask why I give it to our child.
° Bathing our child every day before sleep. Soaps and shampoos are used on the occasion, and some virgin olive oil to cure the cradle cap. It is a very nice and relaxing time to spend with our child just before bed.
° Ensured that our child got fresh air every day, thus daily 1-2 hours walks to the playgrounds or parks.
° Continue with toilet training that started about 6 months ago. At first it all started with our child playing with the potty, then sitting on it for fun, then actually going for number two with the diaper on, and now our child goes without diaper - all this in the period of 6 months. One more task to go, and we are done - yes I need to teach our child to tell us instead of us telling him.
° I have been reading to our child since he was 2-3 months old. The results are showing, at age of 18 months our son can clearly pronounce over 30 words, combine some words together, name each letter of the alphabet, spell every word around the house, and speak to us 'baby talk', which 80% of time we don't understand.
° I performed some sawing on the occasion to alter some of the children's clothing. I believe in comfort more than the look, therefore, I took all the baby body suits and got rid of the bottom section.
° Additional chores: laundry, cleaning, grocery shopping, baking, event planning, and very little television watching. However, I am making sure that I am keeping up with latest technology trend called blogging.

ACCOMPLISHMENTS
° Successfully planned and organized baptism, and first birthday.
° Successfully raised 18 months old son, of course, I am not done yet.
° Thought our baby words, letters, some spelling.
° Successfully completed 75% of the toilet training.
° Reduced diaper usage by 50%, a substantial cost reduction in our family.
° Learned how to cook efficiently for our baby. Can prepare meal with three courses in 10 minutes.

Cover Letter to follow ...

Kseniya Simonova - Sand Animation (Україна має талант / Ukraine's Got Talent)

I know I have not posted here for a while, but I am back again. For my come back I wanted to share with you this video I came across a while ago somewhere on other blog. I watched it first time and I fell in love with the concept. This girl on the video is a real talent. I never knew about the art of 'sand animation', and I will not go into a detail here. All you have to do is watch this video and you will see for yourself.