It is Saturday morning, early, and I am sitting on the coach because the kids always get up early. I hear the piddle paddle of little feat as Elisa is running from the back bedroom into the living room. She emerges, wide awake, with a huge smile on her face. In her hand is Aidan's old toy again which she is relentlessly firing apparently practicing for the Al Zawahiri kill. She is giddy as she points the gun and hears the toy gun's fire and then sees me pretend to be shot. She runs out of the room looking for more victims and after dispatching the rest of the household returns to the living room to make sure I'm dead dead. Apparently watching CNN doesn't count as dead enough so she fires some more shots and I splay across the coach.

Elisa, in between the bipolar bouts of anger and happiness of a 2.5 year old (me guilty of great oversimplification to the point of negligence of both bipolar disorder and her behavior) has become quite a confident little girl, not afraid to speak up and sometimes looking for the opportunity. The other night as the kids were winding down before bedtime by watching TV (a horrible way to wind down, but that's another story) Lydia started her screaming wail. The screaming wail that some crime against humanity had been committed against her, in this case Aidan unilaterally changing the channel. The whining has the desired effect in that I can't stand it. Not for one second. So I bring Lydia into the living room and ask her what the the war crime level offense is this time. Elisa accompanies Lydia, showing her support while Lydia shares her sob ridden side of the story. I say "ok, let me talk to Aidan" with my effort in the past few months to get them both to realize I will listen to both sides of the story. Elisa is sensing an opportunity to be a xiao laoban (little boss) and asks me to take her into the room with Aidan. She wants me to hold her, so I pick her up. We get to the back bedroom where Aidan is watching TV and getting ready to defend himself. In the doorway, Elisa yell's "Hey!" since she figures this is a good chance to yell at Aidan. "Hey! Hey!" she yells in defense of Lydia. Which I think is about the funniest thing possible.