Sneaking. Stealing. Lying.

Yesterday, my husband got an email from Richelle's teacher.  It said that Richelle had bought some items (four pencils and a journal) from the school store, and when asked where she got the money, she finally told the teacher that she took it from home without us knowing it... that it had been her father's money.  Her teacher had a discussion with Richelle about stealing.

I thought something was up that morning when she took her back pack upstairs and was holding a small purse of hers (that had been filled with coins - we knew she'd taken it from Roy's can of coins he has, but weren't worried about it at that time).  I didn't pay it any real attention, just kind of made a mental note of it.  I went about my business while urging them to get ready to go out to the bus.

Then the email.  When she got home, she started taking things out of her backpack, and then got a furtive look on her face, and held her backpack tight to her while she said she was going upstairs.  I asked that she give me her backpack, which she was reluctant to do.

I pulled out the purse full of coins.  I asked her if she bought anything today, and she said yes. When pressed for what, she showed me two pencils.  I told her that her teacher had emailed us and told us it was more than that.  She admitted that she bought two more pencils and a journal.  I asked to see it... and she said she gave it to one of her friends at school.


There were tears welling up in her eyes at this point.  I asked why she would give it to her friend, and Richelle explained that she only had one page left in her journal and she wanted to give her another one.  And she wanted to give her a couple of pencils.  This is her friend, after all.

My heart went out to her, but I had to go on.  I told her to come upstairs with me.  She began crying in earnest at this point.  

We went to the living room couch and I put her on my lap.  She was nothing but a puddle of tears - so Kenzie and I removed her shoes and I held her.  I told her it wasn't her job to buy things that the kids need for school, and she shouldn't have sneaked out money to do so.  If she needed something or wanted something, she should ask us, not take money that wasn't hers.  

She said she didn't want us to know about it.  I told her that's exactly how sneaking and lying are - doing something you don't want someone to know about.  From now on she was to talk to us about it.

She really is trying to be a good kid - but she gets some things wrong once in a while...  and her intentions (if her explanation was really what happened) were good, if not misguided a bit.  She always has had a good heart.

Roy is still punishing her... three days without any TV.  I told Roy that perhaps what we should be doing after this is having the kids do chores and paying them an allowance.  That way, they would feel they have some control over things they want.  And we could use it to teach them to save a little, put some aside for charity, and then they would have some for spending any way they want to.  It will be good to try and instill good money habits now while they are young, rather than them trying to figure it out when they get older.

To be continued.  

Adult teeth coming in

Kenzie has one adult tooth (on the bottom, front, left side) that has broken through the skin and is growing out quickly. The problem is, it isn't under the primary tooth it is meant to replace. And the next tooth in the very front on the right is just under the skin (you can see the white of the tooth) and is almost broken through.

We went to the dentist and she says this happens once in a while to kids. The adult tooth is supposed to come up under the primary tooth and dissolve the root, thus making it easier for the primary tooth to come out. Kenzie's is only dissolving half the root from where it is. So the dentist recommended that she work that tooth loose for all she's got. If we can't get it out, they want to pull it (yikes!).

Last night she was working it and then stopped and said that it hurt. So I looked at it, and it was bleeding ever so slightly around the tooth itself. She must have loosened it quite a bit with a couple of really hard pushes... but after I got all excited about her tooth being so loose, and how she was getting her permanent teeth, and how I couldn't wait to see her new smile - she began to get downright silly and excited that she was going to lose a tooth and get "lots and lots of money!" Yeah, we do the tooth fairy thing.

And I thought she was just excited to be growing up.

Changing names

Our dear daughter told her parents (that's us...) that she wanted to be called by her Chinese name.

Now, I know a lot of this stems from the fact that we are going to be giving her sister a choice as to which name she would like to be called - her Chinese name or her American name - and I've explained to Kenzie why we are doing it (after all, her sister has used the same name for the last 4.5 years). But I think Kenzie is wanting to have that choice, too.

But this isn't something I didn't expect. In fact, I've always told Kenzie if she ever decided to use her Chinese name instead of her American one, then we would do so. Now she's making a choice to do so.

I asked her last night if this was a permanent change or a temporary one. After answering her questions about what permanent and temporary meant, she gave it some serious thought and said, "I want it to be permanent. At least for one week."

Then last night, as we are getting ready for bed, she said, "You can call me YM, you can call me M-M, You can call me M..."

I've been trying to call her by her Chinese name - and when I goof and call her Kenzie, I correct myself. I'm trying to make the switch so she can see if she likes it.

Chicago!!!!

We travel once a year to Chicago to visit with Grandma Geri. Now, we have been doing this for the last 3 years with Kenzie (we felt she was a bit young the first year she was home, so we didn't go then). We always marveled at what a great traveler Kenzie was, and how she entertained herself and didn't complain and oh my! Weren't we the luckiest parents!!!



Well, that all changed this year. We weren't even 15 minutes outside of Bloomington and we heard "Are we to Chicago yet?"

It was about every 10-25 minutes she would ask the same things.

"Are we to Chicago yet?"

"When are we going to be in Chicago?"

"Are we there yet?"

"How much longer before we're in Chicago?"

"Are we in Chicago yet?"

And on and on and on. By the time we got north of Lafayette, I started answering "YES! We're in Chicago, Honey!!!"

She would look around and say, "I don't see any tall buildings..."

And I would say, "Well, then... do you think we're in Chicago yet?"

"No. We're not in Chicago yet."

"OK - then you know we aren't in Chicago without having to ask. When you see big buildings, you'll know we are in Chicago."

"Sooooo... when are we going to be in Chicago?" (Want a little cheese with that whine, sweetie? And the trip lasted about 6 1/2 hours. Uuuugggghhhh...... )




When we finally made it to Chicago, we went to our favorite evening restaurant to see Grandma Geri, Uncle Dan and his girlfriend Jane, and Cousin Elaine. Elaine brought her daughter Deborah this year, too. We always meet at the Omega (on Golf Road in Des Plaines), which has great food, even better service and it's so reasonably priced - we don't go anywhere else to eat for supper while up here. We love the Omega. If you're curious and want to try it out, the Omega is at 9100 Golf Road in Des Plaines. It isn't real fancy food - they keep it simple. But I'll say this much - for the money - if you're hungry - this is the place to eat.

I have some pics to share from the evening. If you want to see full size photos, just click on the picture.









The next day, we went (predictably) to the Lincoln Park Zoo. I believe this is the only free zoo in the country... and it is quite a nice little zoo. It isn't fancy, but there's a lot there and they are trying to improve their exhibits whenever they can. I have a few pics from that day...

Here's the main entrance. Click the pic for the full size photo and more detail.

Our daughter, the showoff...

Can you find the rhino in the pic? Click on the pic to see the full size and the rhino.

A couple of pics of the beautiful city scape from the park.

Ever hear of a Patogonian Cavy? This is it...

Now, before you jump to conclusions - this is not what it seems. NO, this isn't two turtles copulating. All the turtles in the exhibit were male. And this happens to be their way of establishing dominance amongst themselves. Looks like humans aren't the only ones who try to compensate for their "shortcomings". Napolean complex, anyone?

This was probably the most exciting thing we saw at the zoo. A baby rabbit that was outside the zoo as we were walking back to the van. It stayed very still and wasn't too afraid of us. We were probably about 4 feet from this little bunny, and I got some nice pics. (Click the pic to see a closeup.)

The next day, again predictably, we went to Navy Pier. Actually, it is a fun time. And the Children's Museum is actually quite good. I heard from my mother-in-law that Mayor Daley wants to move the museum to a park (was it Grant Park? - something like that) and there's a huge number of people who are opposed to this. I'm one of them. There's no parking at the park for families, and the residents around this area of Chicago are against it because of the traffic and other unpleasant activities that would follow the move. Navy Pier is easier to get to and has parking and - well, it just fits. I have some pics of Kenzie doing her best to show what it's like to be working in a pizzeria. She loves that exhibit.







And then, the very best of all... Navy Pier has a HUGE ferris wheel. Kenzie has been begging us to go on a ferris wheel all year. I have no idea why she wants to do this - but it seems to be a big deal to her. So this year, as she begged (and I mean BEGGED) to go on the ferris wheel - guess who was the lucky parent who went with her. Yup. Me.

Now, I am not afraid of heights unless I'm in the act of falling, so going up the ferris wheel wasn't going to bother me height-wise. The only thing I worried about was how fast it would go. But I found that it takes about 7 minutes for it to make one revolution (which is all you get to ride it for anyway - and by the way - that cost $6.00 per person). I had nothing to worry about though. The trip is so slow that if you didn't notice the horizon changing and being able to look out and see for miles around - you would never have known you were on a ride at all. Here are the pics.












No - she's not getting ready to throw up. This was close to the end of the ride and she was just so excited... she was giggling like a girl would. My daughter simply loves life and wants to experience everything she can.... and to her, this was like a dream come true.

I can't wait to let our second daughter experience these things as well! Next year, we'll have a different family portrait to share.