funnies...

- Now that samantha is older, she finds herself with many opportunities to get in trouble. I recently decided to give her the choice of receiving her punishment on her hand or on her bottom. Her answer: "I don't want a punishment on my hand! And also, I don't want a punishment on my bottom!"

- I think we did a good job of picking out samantha's name. We love how easily it rolls off the tongue and has such happy sound. We often call her by her full name - samantha kate - and not just when she is in trouble. But recently, she has been correcting us: "I'm not samantha kate!" she'll exclaim. "I'm Samantha Ca*****!"

- Several weeks ago, we were at a friends house for dinner. Locals are notorious for offering children food, without a thought in the world if the child's parents would agree. Because of samantha's allergy to egg, we are trying to instill in her a habit of asking us before she eats anything people give her. At my friend's house, she was given a wide array of things to eat, but I specifically told her "don't eat the mangoes". (Note: not because of allergy reasons, simply because of cleanliness issues. I wasn't sitting near the mangoes, and I didn't want her sticking her fingers in them and getting mango juice everywhere.) A few moments later, another lady at the house asked her, "Do you want some mangoes?" Of course, mantha happily agreed.

I casually took her to the bathroom to have a talk with her, and remind her of what I had told her. During our heat to heart, I said to her:
"Samantha, if someone says to you - here, mantha, eat this mango! here, mantha, eat these grapes! here, mantha, eat this chocolate! you need to come ask mommy first. You may not eat things without asking mommy first."

So samantha, the bright girl that she is, asks me, "Mommy, can I eat the mangoes?"

No, I tell her, you may not.

"May I eat the grapes?"

"No, samantha, you may not."

" I can just eat the chocolate then, ok?"

- On the evening of mother's day, we were preparing for bedtime prayers and we were talking about how blessed we were by mothers. I talked about my mother, josh talked about his mothers, then we talked about all the mothers of our parents. The girls are getting more and more familiar with my parents and josh's parents, and are trying hard to work on our grandparents.

Anyway, as we started to pray, we listed out the mothers by name who we would thank God for. At one point, emma realized we were leaving someone out of the mix. "Who's so-and-so's mom?" she asked us. We told her, and we all commented on how this persons' name sounds exactly like the word "cat" in asianese. Her name, directly translated in asianese, would be "cat-cat". It sounded funny to us. We all laughed. We clarified whose name it was to the girls, and then we prayed.

Samantha's first words out of her mouth: "God, thank you for cat-cat, mimi, gigi..." I guess some things will just always stick! :)

- Looking out the window at the pouring rain several evenings ago, emma asked me why it rained. I told her that God sends the rain to help things grow. "God sends the rain," she summarized to samantha, "to help the rice grow, to help the chickens grow, and to help the ketchup grow."

"And," samantha added, "to help the barbecue sauce grow."