siena dictates for cat named pig

On the way home from visiting my parents this past weekend, a two hour trip:

Matt: Raise your hand if you’re going to sleep on the way home.

All in the car raise their hands, including me, so I could get Siena’s reaction. Glad I did.
Siena: Daddy, you’re driving. You can’t sleep.
Matt: But I’m tired. Maybe you can drive, and I’ll sleep.
Siena: Daddy, I can’t drive. I’m too short. And I would go to jail. I’m a kid.
Matt: Hmmm…good point. But Victoria is a kid and she was driving (Victoria is my 15-year-old niece with her permit).
Siena: But she is a big kid. I’m only little.
Matt: You could sit on the big bag we packed, then you’d be big.
Siena: Daddy, do you want the cops to pull me over and take me to jail?
Matt: I’ll drive. You sleep.

I thought it best to stop pushing there, considering her recent fears of separation.

I’m not sure why, but I thought I’d have a little Bourbon after work Wednesday night (probably because we’ve been watching Mad Men online the last couple weeks). Anyway, 45 minutes later I was still working on it as we sat down for dinner. And…scene:

Siena: Daddy, why are you drinking our apple juice?
Matt: It’s not apple juice, sweety, it’s Bourbon. I guess it kind of looks like apple juice, doesn’t it?
Siena: Yeah.
Matt: You can maybe have some when you’re older.

We had dinner, and we were singing or dancing in the living room or something else fun. Siena and my drink glasses were still on the table, each with a little left. I’m sitting on the couch as Siena walks toward the table…continue scene:

Siena: (reaching for my glass and dumping it in her own) I’ll just finish your apple juice.
Matt: (jumping off couch and stumbling to the table) NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO! I really had Bourbon, sweety. You can’t drink it.
Siena: I really thought it was apple juice. I guess you can finish my drink, daddy.

As bad as it could have been, the apple juice admittedly helped me finish the last couple swallows.

I picked up the movie Open Season 2 Friday night to watch after dinner. Siena and Elliot enjoyed it, and I went through the special features, including an awesome animated video for “Who Let the Dogs Out” by the Baha Men. There were also previews for other kid shows. One was for Holly Hobby , leading to this exchange:

Siena: HOLLY HOBBYYYY!
Daddy: Holly Hobby…who is that?
Siena: She’s a girl…(pause)…I know all about her.
Daddy: Oh, really? What does she do?
Siena: Daddy, she’s for girls. You don’t need to know what she does.

And to be honest, she mostly nailed my feelings about Holly Hobby. I didn’t feel it was appropriate to use the exchange to teach my 4-year-old daughter what it means when you ask a question “just to be polite.”.

Once again, Siena stated the following while wearing a leotard, tights and a crown:

Daddy, it’s serious business being a princess ballerina dancer.
(pause to let it sink in while doing a couple twirls) Serious business.

Siena was, of course, in her leotard. Actually, she hasn’t been out of the leotard the last three days, except when wearing pajamas to sleep. She wore it to the zoo on Sunday and out to watch the Super Bowl. Here’s the exchange when I walked down the stairs:

Siena: Daddy, I found a lady on tv that showed me ballet.
Matt: Will you show me what you did?
Siena: You’ve already seen what I do.
Matt: Yeah, but after following the lady and learning, you probably do it better.
Siena: Well…uhhh…I already did it better without her.

Whew. I think that statement just saved us a fortune on private dance lessons.

Laura had a writing deadline on Sunday, so I took the kids to the zoo for a few hours in the morning, braving the wind and rain. It went really well, as we spent three hours inside and rode the monorail. Along the ride, the driver tells us what animals we should look for.

Driver: On side A, you’ll see the caribou…caribou are also called reindeer.
Siena: Daddy, they have reindeer. They must really like this rain.
Matt: (humming “Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer”)

I had come home from work earlier in the week, after Laura had called me 2-3 times to give updates on how sick the kids seemed to be. I walked in the door and had this exchange with Siena:

Matt: I heard you guys are tired and sick.
Siena: Yeah…at school today, I was breathing hot air.
Matt: Really? Sounds like a tough day.
Siena: Yeah, it was really hard to talk with all the air.

Siena had a sleepover 10 days ago, in which she and her cousin slept on the floor in their sleeping bags. Her room hasn’t changed since then, and when I tried to convince her to move back up to her bed, she responded:

But it reminds me of all my sleepovers and how much fun it was in our sleep right there.

She gets another night.

We put a small cup of “cold water from the fridge” next to Siena’s bed each night, in the hopes that she won’t come to us in the middle of it. Well, she was at my bedside Monday night – at 3:27am – cup in hand, tears forming in her eyes:

Daddy, I spilled this a long, long time ago…right after you put me to bed.

Driving to the farmer’s market on Saturday morning, Siena’s looking out the window and notes:

Siena: That building has eyebrows.
Laura: You mean the green awning over each window?
Siena: No, up at the top of it.

We look up and, sure enough, the top of the brick building has different colored bricks rising above two windows, which look like eyebrows. Observant, this one.