The Barrios Blog

Taking aim at the dinosaurs

With Valentine's Day looming, I remembered that last year Viv bought me a pair of Nerf dart guns.  Yes, you read correctly.  To explain, when we go grocery shopping at Target, Viv and Ellie usually do the shopping and Harper and I typically roam the store going on "missions" for household items around the store.  For several months, I had been drooling over the kickass Nerf guns in the toy section.  I would say they are one of the few toys that kids have today that are cooler than what we had growing up (I think most toys today are cheaply made, crap).  I'd joked that we needed to get a pair so that we could have dart fights after the girls go to bed.  For Valentine's Day, Viv delivered, and these things rock.

A sniper and her spotter

Spotter's turn

The girls were intrigued by the Nerf guns, but at first, I was hesitant to let them play with them.  Yes, as kids, we played with toy pistols, etc., but today everyone has become hyper-sensitive to this sort of thing.  I can see valid points on both sides of this issue, but, in the end, we decided to do some target practice with the kids' plastic dinosaurs.  I also used the opportunity to teach the kids that you always keep your rifle pointed downrange (I'm guessing that's good advice).  Harper then proceeded to walk right through Ellie's line of fire while she was taking aim.  While I was trying to explain to Ellie how to aim, she squeezed off her first shot and nailed her Diplodocus.  Harper had a few unsuccessful attempts, but was thrilled nevertheless.  Then, we put them away for the adults.

Korean New Year was yesterday, February 3rd (according to wikipedia).  Here are the girls in their traditional Korean hanboks bowing to their elders and wishing them a happy new year.  To all my elders, I say, "새해 복 많이 받으세요"  For you non-Koreans, that's saehae bok manhi badeuseyo (look it up).

I often find us discussing with other parents how fast our children's childhoods will whip by.  In some cases it's with parents of similarly-aged children who are making this same observation, and in other cases it's with parents whose children have long since grown up and are simply confirming said observation.  However, as much as we try to ignore it, there are those milestones in our children's lives that sneak up and prove that they are growing up.  First smile.  First word.  First step.  First day of school. 

Ellie started Kindergarten earlier this month (AKA last month).  She's been excited about it all summer, and it really showed on that first morning.  In a lot of cases, Marielle is a little apprehensive when trying something new (it took here three weeks to warm up to soccer), but, apparently, school is the exception.  She smiled all the way to the bus stop, and while climbing on board, she kept looking at us with this "hey guys! look at me! do you see this? look at me getting on this bus! I'm going to school" grin on her face.  It was great, and it was a much better school bus experience than I first had when I was a kid... wait for it... yes, I cried all the way there and all the way back.


She's been digging the bus, and loving school.  We're not quite sure what they work on all day because when you ask Marielle, she just says that they did recess.  I know that's not true because each evening we catch her singing newly-learned nursery rhymes or talking about new friends.  On the other hand, we seriously don't have any idea what they are working on.  There are red folders, green folders, flashcards, newsletters, and announcements on goldenrod paper.  It's a bit overwhelming at first.  But we've got to get with the program because I really believe that parental involvement is just as important to success in school as great curricula and awesome teachers.

Also, for anyone wondering what that cone shaped thing is that Marielle's holding, it's called a "Schultüte."  It's German.  Look it up.

After a lengthy hiatus, we return to the blog by announcing that Harper turned three at the beginning of the month.  In addition to the facts that Harper has two intact feet and one ruined pair of Crocs, here are some other facts about our not-so-little-one.

Sleeps with an army of stuffed animals/toys.  Currently, the following toys go to bed with Harper: George (a giraffe blankie), Chum Chum (a tiny baby doll), Anna (a bigger baby doll), Samantha Penelope Sebasta (an American Girl baby doll and 3rd birthday present), and pink bunny.  In case you are wondering, Harper came up with all the names herself, except George.

Loves to play Rock Band.  Harper, just like her sister, can put on a pretty awesome performance of Shania Twain’s Any Man of Mine.

Loves to rock out in the car.  Harper either makes up her own songs to sing or will sing some of the songs Mom and Dad have her listen to.  Her favorite car song of late is Green Day’s Twenty One Guns.  Harper not only likes to sing, but she likes to sing loudly.  If you try to talk over Harper’s singing, she’ll just sing louder to drown you out.  Marc and I have had several yelling conversations in the car because Harper was in the back seat trying to drown out our conversation with her vocal performance.

Loves to do karate.  Harper has all kinds of awesome karate moves that she shows mom and dad on a constant basis.  Her best karate move is wax on wax off from the Karate Kid.  The move is quite intimidating and comes with an awesome serious face.

Thinks she’s 16 years old.  Harper has no problem playing or talking to bigger kids and when I say bigger kids I mean anyone who is older than three.  There really is no limit to the age of a person that Harper will feel comfortable talking to.  A few weeks ago my brother had a birthday party with some high schoolers.  We were at the party and mostly tried to stay out of the teenagers way.  Harper on the other hand, went right downstairs to hangout with everyone.  At some point I saw her standing by a group of girls and talking like she was just another 16 year old.  I’m sure she was thrilling them with talk of her stuffed animals, knowledge of music, and playing pretend, but we love it.  At one point she had a group of kids watching her play PlayStation.  I don’t know how she convinced them that that would be a fun activity, but when we tried to convince the kids that they didn’t have to oblige her, they were insistent that they were having fun.

Is quite the little dancer.  Harper HAS MOVES.  The girl dances better than her mom, which isn’t necessarily saying much.  Granted some of Harper’s dancing makes her look like she’s had one to many cocktails, but it’s quite entertaining to watch.  My favorite dance moves are performed to Beyonce’s All the Single Ladies.  If you catch Harper in the right mood she’ll do some of the moves from the music video.  I assume that Beyonce’s dance moves were learned courtesy of Auntie Sarah who always has dance parties with the ladies.  Either way, the hip shaking, finger waving, head bobbing, squatting dance combo is quite the sight to see.

Has no quiet voice.  Much like her singing, Harper does not know how to talk quietly.  When we are in a movie theater with Harper and she has to go to the bathroom, everyone will hear not only that she has to go, but will know what she plans on doing when she gets there.  When we remind Harper to talk quietly, she’ll do so for only a sentence or two and then go right back to loud talking.  I think she get’s this from her dad.


Wants to be a clown.  Harper is still insistent that she wants to be a clown when she grows up.  I don’t know what clowns Harper has seen that have inspired her to be a carnie or what carnivals she’s been to that make her think, yes, this is the life for me, but we think she may not yet be aware of the numerous other career choices available to her.

Loves playing pretend.  Harper will play pretend till the cows come home.  She makes up names for all her toys and even gives them their own voices.  The other day she was playing with two dinosaurs.  One dinosaur says to the other, “I’m so upset with you, I’m going to jump out this window and leave.”  The other dinosaur says “I don’t care, jump.”  The dinosaur then proceeds to jump out of the pretend window.  The second dinosaur then responded with a nonchalant, “I’m unimpressed.”  I don’t know what she’s doing or where her make believe scenarios come from, I just know she has quite the imagination.

Thinks “sister” is the coolest person ever.  Harper adores her sister.  She wants to do everything Marielle does and say everything Marielle says.


Is hilarious.  Harper says the funniest things (see "loves playing pretend" above).

Eats almost anything Mom puts on the table, but is not all that into sweets, with the exception of frosting.  The girl loves to lick frosting off of cupcakes, cakes, brownies, really anything that has frosting on it.

Is a bit of a dare devil.  Harper can be very fearless.  I think she’d ride roller coasters if the girl was tall enough.   She loves to jump, dive, run, “swim” etc.  Really any activity that has a little bit of a thrill component she’s into.  Although ice skating is not her thing.  Harper informed me that if we never went back to an ice skating rink that would make her happy.

Is feisty.  Our little lady has spunk.  Harper is such a sweetheart, but when the girl gets mad she gets mad.  Her angry face actually makes me want to giggle because it’s really cute.  When Harper gets upset her lower lip sticks out a little, she pushes her eyebrows together, crosses her arms, and makes a “hum” sound.  However, I try not to laugh when Harper is upset because I expect that would make the situation worse.  Harper does see reason, but needs a little bit more rationalizing and firm talking than her sister.

Still loves to cuddle.  Harper is always up for a hug or kiss or to be held.

So yeah, all those stories about escalators eating Crocs... they're true.  This is what's left of one of Harper's Crocs after our harrowing little run in with such a people mover this weekend.  I've always reserved the right to have very little sympathy for escalator incidents as I always assumed that they happened to people that were messing around on them.  Apparently, I owe at least some of the folks an apology because, apparently, escalators eat the shoes off of rule-abiding children as well.  We were on our way down one of the escalators at the Denver Pavilions after seeing Toy Story 3 (BTW, best Toy Story yet) with the Pierz clan when this happened.  Harper was just standing on the step, next to Viv, when she made a sound about her shoe.  Colette looked down and realized that the toe seemed caught on the stair.  This was still several feet from the bottom where the stairs flatten out before the platform.  Viv picked her up right away and pulled her foot out of the shoe, and then the escalator went on to try and eat said shoe.

At the time, it scared the hell out of us, but everything is fine.  Harper's got all of her little piggies and she'll finally get a pair of new Crocs instead of hand-me-downs.  Yes, I said Crocs.  The Crocs are kind of essential as far as comfy, easy shoes go.  Escalators, on the other hand, are not, so we'll probably avoid them for awhile.

Anyway, we thought we should kick out the warning for the rest of you.

Colorado's having a pretty wet and dreary weekend, but we haven't let that stop the fun.  In between the rain showers, I took the girls outside to go puddle jumping.  They had a blast, and, to my surprise, there was no drama when the girls, inevitably, got soaked.