Pillow Talk

It's been almost a week since Tony and I got back from my OK vacation with my sister and her kids. While we were there the sleeping arrangements were that Kristen (my 11 year old niece), Tony and I slept together in my room in one King size bed, and Rachael and her other 3 kids shared the other room with 2 double beds. It worked out well, everyone had a place to sleep. I had tried to get 2 beds in my room, but they didn't have any available and Kristen didn't seem to mind sleeping with me. The plan was for Tony to sleep in the crib the hotel provided, but he would not have it, he would cry, cry, cry in the crib, as soon as I put him in bed with me he would stop crying and go to sleep. So the three of us slept together every night, along with Kristen's menagerie which included a giant teddy bear named Junky, a sock monkey, a beanie pig and her favorite blanket. We had some very interesting conversations at night before falling asleep. Here a few that I can remember.

Kirsten: Lori how many kids are you going to have?
me: I don't know, how many do you think I should have?
Kristen: I think 4 is the perfect amount. (I wonder where she got that idea from?)
me: I don't know, 4 seems like a lot to me, I don't know if I can handle that many, your mom has her hands full with you kids.
Kristen: Well if you do have another boy, could you please name him Tommy? So then you'll have Tony Boloney and Tommy Salami?
Me: I don't know Kristen, we'll have to wait and see. But I will definitely keep it in mind, those are great nicknames you've come up with.

By the way, Tony was called Tony Baloney the entire trip by all the kids, even Rach and I started calling him that too, it's kind of catchy. Kristen and I even made up with a little song that goes like this:

I think I like baloney, because it rhymes with Tony,

but if my name were Tommy, I think I'd like salami,

or even pastrami.

Me: Anyway Kristen, I thought you said you wanted to have 18 kids when you grow up.
Kristen: I do.
Me: you are crazy, do know how hard that is going to be? For example how will you go anywhere, you can't even all fit in one car!
Kristen: I'm going to buy a school bus.
Me: Well how will you afford all those kids, never mind clothes, and food, think about how much it would cost you to go to just one gift shop and have to buy something for all 18 kids. You'll go broke. (Rach's kids have an extreme fascination with gift shops, they LOVE them, more than the zoo, amusement park or any fun place associated with the gift shop. We could not go anywhere without them asking if it had a gift shop and if they could please, please, please have something from it.)
Kristen: oh, I'm not going to do all that mumbo jumbo.
me: Please, you not take your kids to a gift shop, you couldn't stand it, you are always begging to go.
Kristen: No I don't, that's always Katya and Jack, I don't even have to ask anymore, they do all the asking and I just get to get the gifts. (smart girl)


Also on this trip Kristen showed that she is not far from being a teenager, sleeping in until 10 every morning while the rest of us would be down the hall having breakfast in the concierge room. She is also not very tolerant to being disturbed while sleeping, so I was always worried when Tony would wake up during the night that she would get mad, but she never complained, thankfully it takes a lot to wake her up. Here is another conversation we had about sleep.

Me: Kristen, I think I like sleep more than you do, and if I didn't have Tony I could outsleep you any day. I think could sleep till 11 or 12 everyday.
Kristen: No, I could outsleep you if I didn't have all these monsters waking me up everyday.
Me: what monsters?
Kristen: Katya, Jack, Ben, (and after a few seconds adds) and especially mom.


And here is another funny thing she said that Rach told me about.
Kristen has also decided that she likes the taste of coffee after Auntie NayNay let her try it once. So on the trip Rachael allowed her to have decaf coffee once in a while or if we went to Starbucks she got a decaf latte. The other kids would drink hot cocoa in the mornings. One morning after I had gone back to the room and the kids were having breakfast Ben picked up my togo coffee cup which I had left there and started to drink it, and Jack quickly stopped him and said "don't drink it Ben, that's Kristen's coffee."
Kristen: No it's not mine, it has lipstick on it, I don't wear lipstick!
Jack: But your a girl, why don't you?
Kristen: Because Lori is a grown woman and I am a girl! there is a big difference! duh!

The weird thing is, that it wasn't my coffee cup, we don't know who's it was, but when Rachael told me the story I had to stop her and tell her it wasn't mine, I wasn't wearing lipstick either (at 7:30am!) and didn't leave my coffee cup there, so we don't really know who's drink it was, but it still was a funny conversation between Jack on Kristen.

Kristen and Tony with their new matching cowboy boots.