It's Worse Than That, It's Art, Jim

I got a Play-Dough Extruder for A, which he really likes.

And the other day I sat down with A to do draw some pictures.

What I've learned from this is that I shouldn't do collaborative art projects with the child. It's not because doing art isn't a learning experience for him (it is). It's not because he doesn't have fun (he does). It's because A's process-oriented approach to learning, which is appropriate for a two-and-a-half-year-old, is exactly the sort of thing to drive a product-oriented forty-three-year-old person like me stark raving insane.

Using the extruder isn't about mass-producing Play-Dough stars for A. Or even mass-produced leaves, moons, or triangles (and then arranging them onto a tiara). No, for A, it's about mooshing different colored blobs of dough through the extruder and yanking them as they come out of the other end until the dough is a uniform grey. And being unimpressed when I pointed out that at one point the strips of dough coming out looked like the storm systems on Jupiter. And then walking away so that the dough dries out. And then announcing that he's not eating the Play-Dough while crumbs of the stuff are falling away from his mouth.

And using crayons to draw pictures? That's about discovering how many times one can snap a crayon into two pieces, and then slamming the fragments into the table. OK, I did have a little session where we took turns drawing trucks, but then he wanted me to draw the whole thing. While he ate the remaining crayons. And wadded up the paper. While denying it.

In fact, I'm beginning to think that A is developing his own version of The Negative Confession

• Oh M, who comes home from work; I am not eating crayons.
• Oh J, who is an award winning writer; I am not touching the oven.
• Oh M, who drives a big truck; I am not pulling the cat's tail.
• Oh J, who takes me to the library; I am not poopy anymore.

I guess it could have been worse. We could have been playing with the toy that allows one to play phrases from Eine kleine Nachtmusik out of sequence.

Wishing for Kleenex

The other day we were watching "Elmo's Christmas Countdown." Predictably, there's a disaster with the result that (gasp!) there won't ever be another Christmas!

When Elmo learns this, he knows just what to do. He walks to where he can see the sky. He finds a Christmas star, and makes a Christmas wish for a Christmas miracle that everything will turn out all right.

I'm such a schmuck; I almost started crying right there because a puppet was making a wish on a television show -- not, I might add, for world peace, or for the environment, or an end to hunger, or even for Christian Salvation; but for Santa Claus to show up and hand out toys.

What's worse is that just thinking about a small red furry puppet making a wish chokes me up.

Is this the kid's fault? Or am I getting dotardly?

Unfortunately, I get the same way when the Winter Warlock wishes for one last piece of magic during the wedding scene from "Santa Claus Is Coming To Town."

I guess it's the folks who make Christmas specials' fault. Except...

In "Fantasia," the Disney animators set Beethoven's Pastoral Symphony in a mythologic Mt. Olympus, complete with Pegasi and Unicorns. During the storm movement, I used to have to resist the urge to throw up when the mother pegasus rescues a baby pegasus from the storms and they win the safety of their nest. Fast forward to just a little while ago when I was watching "Fantasia" with A -- now I have to resist the urge to clutch A to my bosom and not drench him with tears.

Damn! Damn! Damn! What little pheromone spell has messed up my artistic sensibilities?!

Don't get me started on the good-bye scene from "The Wizard of Oz." Sigh; I guess I'll have to have a viewing of "Moulin Rouge." Oh. Wait...

On the Third Day . . .

We're still opening gifts. Mostly because A plays with whatever he opens for about 20 minutes, and partly because A took in the lion's share of holiday loot. It's kind of nice, and it makes singing "The Twelve Days of Christmas" less non-sensical.

One of the toys he got was a kid's camera. It takes video.

Holiday Schedule

A has been kind of -- well -- off kilter today. I'm pretty sure that the extra holiday activities we've been attending have got him a little over-stimulated and off schedule. Unfortunately, this translates into him hitting us. Time to get the healthy snacks lined up so we don't overly delay a meal.

Otherwise, he's been having a lot of fun. He likes the Christmas Tree that we have up in our living room, and he's been wishing folks "Happy Solstice." He's also got a talent for knowing what we should get people for gifts. We just ask him, "A, what should we get so-and-so as a gift." He thinks for a second and then tells us. It's very handy.

More Ow Tanenbaum!

Decorating the tree was kind of a bust. A lasted until we got the tree up. He did pretty well hanging some metal bells to the branches of the tree. The tree, on the other hand, has pretty thin branches so a lot of the ornaments are too heavy for the branch tips. But when we got the lights out, he started stepping on them. And M's Christmas Elephant collection were instantly assigned the role of Bromley Horns -- luckily M got them from A before the pachyderms could be clacked to death. One Christmas fairy didn't manage to escape without a clipped wing...

We switched to our regular night time routine and once A was asleep, I started to put on the lights. Then I woke up M, who had fallen asleep reading to A. Our tree is a little-top heavy with decorations because anything lower than three-and-a-half feet is going to be snatched off of the tree and either used as Bromley Horns, swung around like a sling-shot, or otherwise aggressed upon. We finished (more or less) decorating the tree at midnight.

This morning, M helped A put some origami dinosaurs onto some of the lower branches.

I'm thankful this isn't 1909, when they used to put real candles on trees (although, now that I think about it, A would be more likely to blow them out than anything else).

It's Time to Light the Lights

All week long A has been looking forward to moving the sun peg on our Portable Stonehenge. It's a wooden disk with thirteen holes in a line down the middle and two circles of fifty-six holes each along the disk's circumference. It's got a day peg, a sun peg, a moon peg, and a moon's north node peg. Every day we move the day peg one hole north along the thirteen holes in a row, and the moon peg two pegs counter-clockwise along the disk's circumference. When the day peg is in hole seven or thirteen, then the sun peg moves counter-clockwise one peg along the circumference. There are three arbitrary spots equidistant from each other along the circumference that when the sun peg lands in them, we move the moon's node peg clockwise.

Anyway, A has been wanting to move the sun peg for the last several days, and today was the day when he could. He knows that today is winter solstice, but I'm pretty sure he doesn't exactly know what that means.

In other news, we're going to try to set up the tree in the living room tonight; we tried to let A help us, but he got so excited that he started hitting things. I don't know how long some of the ornaments we have are going to last this year; our tree may be up for only a short while. I think M has managed to get A to fall asleep, so it's time to string the lights.

Ow Tanenbaum!

Today we went out for a Christmas Tree. M thought it would be fun to cut our own tree on Bureau of Land Management land. I thought so, too, and we all packed the BLM maps, the cocoa, the video camera, saws, animal crackers, and loppers into the Matrix and headed out.

After driving for about a half hour and then backtracking over a mountain pass, we discovered that access to the first place we saw on the BLM map was denied to us by an out-of-county logging company. It made scintillating video footage. So we drove by a local lake and up another mountain pass and stumbled into another area. By this time, A had fallen asleep. I video taped him snoring.

I think everything was going fine, even after we waved at some skeet shooters blasting bright orange disks in the middle of a mud pit. (I didn't video them on the grounds that it's generally a bad idea to take pictures of people with guns unless you've known them for longer than a half hour.) M found a place to park the car a little farther up the mountain. He got out and I stayed with the snoring infant. It did cross my mind as M's yellow-garbed figure disappeared around a bend in the road that if I was in the car with the doors closed and the windows rolled up I wouldn't be able to hear M calling for help if he needed it.

In my more paranoid moments I wondered if I would be able to use my cell phone to dial 911 and if I'd have to rewind the video to tell them what BLM lot I was on (let's see, it's around here somewhere -- no, I went back too far to Thanksgiving; hold on a moment. Uh, OK, we're at -- oh wait, that was the sign for the road that was closed...).

A woke up at this point and wondered where M was. So I told him he was looking for a tree to cut down.

M came back and suggested a road we could walk that might have a tree for us. So we unpacked and drank some cocoa, broke out the video camera, gave A a shovel, and started walking.

It was about this time that the target practice began. We never actually saw who was shooting as they were over a ridge, but we're pretty sure that they had semi-automatic weapons. And every now and again we'd hear the skeet shooters, too. We had to explain to A that he was hearing weapons like Elmer Fudd's rifle (or Sylvester's gun, he added). During a particularly startling barrage of automatic gunfire, I reflected that at least we probably didn't have to worry about mountain lions.

We walked for a little bit (A is a real trouper and dragged his shovel the entire time).

Then we found a clear-cut.

And it started to rain.

So we walked back to the car for more hot cocoa and animal crackers.

And M wasn't going to give up. By gum, he'd given the BLM $5 to cut a tree, and we were going to do it. We drove back down a little until we found a place to park the car (again). We eventually agreed on a nine foot tree and M helped A to cut it down. It turned out to be very light, and fit on top of the car easily.

On the way back down the mountain we had to stop at the mud pit because the local high school guys had blocked the road with their -- um -- vehicles so they could watch a jacked-up-truck jump mud humps and bits of blasted orange skeet bits. They were cool and unblocked the road when they saw us and we got home with the tree still tied to the car roof.

Toys

Today M and I were A-less for a few hours.

So we went to a toy store. M was showing me all the things that A played with when he and A visited a few weeks ago. I guess it really didn't sink in that A spent about 20 minutes playing with a Disney Princess Kitchen set. I imagine that that will be good childhood story material for when A is dating.

Man, the folks in the store were grumpy grumpy grumpy. I can see why folks don't like to do holiday shopping in big box stores.

Anyway, M showed me some other things that A played with, and they included things like, a realistic looking baby doll, pirate ships and some tool benches. M explained that A would really like some real tools, as pretending to fix things like our car and house with plastic toys isn't cutting it (so to speak).

Waffles from Planet Clare

Well. . . I'm not sure why, but A woke up this morning around 2 AM. He came into our bedroom and for about forty-five minutes I lay in bed thinking, "Must Get Up. Take child back to his room." Finally, M got up and they went into A's room.

About an hour later, I heard A toddle out of his bedroom and then the click of a light. M followed soon after.

"A turned on the light," said A.

"I see that," said M, who is a better man than I.

"Get the waffle iron. Make waffles," said A.

I guess he was hungry. By this time I had girded my loins with a bathrobe and fished some frozen waffles out of the freezer. I did try to reason with A that it wasn't yet 3 AM and that we should all be asleep, but M says I was using my angry voice. I thought I was using my sleepy voice.

Hear That, Elmo? You're Next!

Scene: The hallway just outside the grown-ups' bedroom.

J (talking on the phone with his mother): Just a minute, Mom; A's harrasing the cat.

M, the Cat (running toward the closed bedroom door): Mmmmrow!

A (chasing her with a gas mask given to him by his anesthesiologist ): Tympanostomy! Tympanostomy!

J (holding the phone away from his face): A, the cat does not need a tympanostomy. Take that mask away from her face. (Opens door for cat.)

(A runs into living room to find Elmo...)

Crisis of Faith

Lately I just don't know what to do about A's spiritual upbringing.

I've been sort of grumpy lately about the local pagan scene because it's been pinging my personal "superstition meter" lately. I mean, on one hand it's cute to hear A sing "Hoof and Horn," but on the other hand, I could have just as easily been singing any number of curious little pagan songs; and I find myself wondering, "Do I really want to saddle A with ideas like 'Earth Mother is calling Her children home?' A) Doesn't a phrase like that confound our parents and our deity (or dieties); and B) if we're already home, how can we be called home?" And the major approaches of paganism seem to be

• "Everything's the Goddess" (which seems about as unbalanced as saying "Everything's God"); or,
• "Girl-Goddess meets Boy-God, and Their love makes the universe go 'round" (which strikes me as terribly heteronormative); or,
• "You can do spells to get parking spaces" (which seems to view the universe as a psychic mail-order catalogue); or,
• "I had a counselling session with my deity yesterday, and S/He told me that I needed to be less codependant," (which seems more like therapy and less like religion)

I wish I could find some local folks who seem to be more aware about the theological roots of paganism and more interested in its aspects of communion. At least I don't have to deal with Original Sin. Sigh.

I really can't say "We believe such-and-such," because M and I don't share faiths, and A's too young to have formulated a religious belief system, unless one counts Thomas the Tank Engine (and Friends) or Donald Duck (and Friends). Oh well; at least he thanks the strawberry plants for strawberries; and it makes me glad that he might see plants as other and not as object -- I guess when he's a little older I'll let him be the person who moves the pegs on the Portable Stonehenge.

And I'm going to get into trouble one of these days when he sings "Inane-a" as a Goddess name after hearing me in one of my particularly sarcastic moods.

Ply it Again, Sam

The last few days, A had heard me spell my last name so many times that he's trying to spell it, too. I guess I hadn't realized that he had generalized spelling to other words until M brought it up. A tried to spell "stop" S E O H P, so I don't expect that he'll be solving crossword puzzles anytime soon.

In other language news. Earlier today he was playing with one of M's belts and started singing, "You can ring my belt" then started laughing. And then there was the new toy plyers incident:

M: What are you doing, A?
A (playing with toy plyers): Playing with my pullers.
M: No. Those aren't "pullers", they are plyers.
A (within two seconds): Huh. What do they ply?


A's had a lot of energy lately; he's been waking up earlier and earlier and has wanted to whack things with sticks (usually me). Very large wheels for him to run around in are looking better and better each day.

Here's more tree-decorating video.

Wreck the Halls

Treadmill

Oh My God.

Get a treadmill and an electrical generator and put this child on it.

I'm not sure if there was something in the air, or it's four days after Thanksgiving or what, but it seemed that every fifth child at the library today was having a bad energy management day. A was one of them, and he was one of the better ones. He ran around. He banged things. He unshelved books. He dragged chairs all over the place. He kicked walls. He ran away. He went limp when I held his hand and tried to walk to the car. And of course it was raining when we wanted to play outside and the sun was shining in his eyes when I wanted him to take a nap.



Oh, and I got some pictures from my brother-in-law.

Happy Thanksmas

A had a pretty good time at Thanksgiving. We went to my folks' house and met with other relatives. For some reason I kept my camera in the car, so I don't have any good pictures. My relatives, on the other hand, took some video, and I hope I might get some e-mailed to me so I can post it here.


Saturday we decorated my folks' tree (my sister and husband were in town and the artificial tree is about twice as hard to put up as a real live dead tree). This time I remembered to take a few pictures of my own.

Great Leaps of Logic, Captain!

Quick update. A is 36 inches high and weighs 32 pounds.

---

Scene: In a local supermarket. M has driven his truck to the market (from work), and J & A have walked there. We've shopped, and now it's time to go home.

M (holding A): OK, A; it's time to go. Which daddy do you want to carry you home, and which daddy drives the truck home?

A: I wanna ride in the truck.

J: (putting groceries away): You can't ride in the truck because the car seat's in the other car. So which daddy do you want to carry you home, and which daddy drives the truck home?

A (silent for a moment): I want you to go home and get the car seat.

M (laughing): I could see that one coming.

Update

Man, I didn't realize how far behind we've gotten in postings.

For Halloween A dressed up as Captain Monkey Paws. We went trick-or-treating in our old neighborhood, but not too many people were home.

A likes making popcorn with my mom. I'm not sure if he likes watching the kernals pop up or adding the butter.

We went on a hike. I don't recall if this picture is just before or just after he stuck a piece of gravel up his nose. Yes: we were out of town. Yes; it was a weekend. Yes; we went to a doctor's office. No; he's not going to stick rocks up his nose any more.

We went to a small town. I thought maybe the courthouse would have cool architecture; but the local play structure turned out to be more structurally interesting.

Cheesey Choo-choo

Today A picked up a part of his wooden train set that makes a hill and said, "Looks like gouda."  After we hid our smiles, M and I had to agree, the wedged shaped wood did look like cheese.

Sayings

Well... A's new favorite thing to say is "A bite J" when I announce that we're going to do something he doesn't want to do.

He's also into negation by fiat, as in, "A's hands not dirty any more."

Oh, and Saturday afternoon, after serveral days of waking up at 5:30, M decided that A was cranky and persuaded A to take a nap at 4 PM. He didn't get up until fourteen hours later. I think it's because of the time zone change and a growth spurt.

Happy Halloween

So that's where M got that hickey!

PumpkinOops

We got the pumpkin home and began the carving process. This started in the back yard, where M and A washed the pumpkin with the garden hose (A's favorite backyard toy). Then it lived on our hearth while J cut various eyes, nose, and mouth shapes out of black paper for A to choose. It was sort of like visiting an optician -- "Do you like the triangle eyes, or the spiral eyes?" A wasn't sure about the eyes, but the mouth needed to be a frowning one.

We divided the actual carving into two days to make it more managable. On the first day the pumpkin got a lid and the insides were taken out. We made A wait on the sofa (mostly) while the knives were being brandished, but he really wanted to help with the goop.

On the second night -- we watched "It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown." Once we got post-dinner videos out of the way, M asked A, "What should we carve on the pumpkin?" A thought about it for a moment, then said, "AlphaOops!" (AlphaOoops is one of his favorite books and he has a signed edition from Alethea Kontis.) We asked him again, but it was clear that he wanted us to carve a mixed up jumble of letters on the pumpkin.


So we took turns. No, A didn't get to use a knife.

Corn and Pumpkins

Today we went with our friends to the Corn Maze. JW, KW, and MW were able to make it, but Bubba wasn't. It was too bad because we actually got really lost this time (and somebody said the maze looked simple this year).

M made special shirts for this year's corn maze, so we matched. This year's theme was rats! I think I only sang the Metallica song once. At one point in the maze, when it looked like we might actually solve it, M managed to make up a song called "Down With People" that was pretty funny.

After the Corn Maze, we said goodbye to the W Women and went to the Pumpkin Patch! Don't let this photo fool you, the Pumpkin Patch was about two miles away from the corn maze and we had to walk. OK. We didn't have to walk; we could have taken a horse and cart ride, but we were too cheap to pay. And it was a nice day.

Once we got to the Pumpking Patch, there were pumpkins everywhere. I won't include the photos I took of some of the nastier pumpkins that had gotten chomped on by some wild animal and left to rot. There was one that looked like a beached whale next to an abandoned baby's sock.

We decided that we wanted to get a traditional looking pumpkin -- so that cut out the ones that were cylinders, or green, or white, or too Cinderella-coach like. A wanted one with a good stem. We wandered around finding different candidates and taking them back to our wheelbarrow.

I kept finding ones that I thought would be nice and they kept getting vetoed as too big. I suppose that it makes sense not to have something hanging around the house that outweighs your child. We also agreed to get just one pumpkin instead of a bunch of smaller ones, although it will be fun in a few years when we can get one for each of us to carve.

A enjoyed himself a lot. He did start to lose interest in the pumpkins in favor of the many fascinating rocks and dirtclods lying around. And he also figured out when I was too busy taking photos to intervene in some puddle stomping.

By the time we had been in the patch for about twenty minutes we had found five likely candidates. We kept asking A which one he liked, but by this time he was much more interested in other pumpkin hunters (and rocks) to make such a complicated choice. We cut it down to two, and that was still a little too much for him (and by this time it was about two hours past his usual nap).

Finally M asked him if he cared which one we took home and he said he didn't. So we chose one that looked more head-like (and had a more interesting shape). We tried to get A to walk with us, but by now the puddles and stray flowers and pretty much anything were much more distracting and interesting than heading two miles back to the cashiers' lines.

So we plunked him in the wheelbarrow behind the pumpkin. I think he would have fallen asleep except the horse-drawn cart passed us.

A Day at the MET

We visited Grandma and Grandpa Thursday.

The big ritual is making pizza with Grandpa. However, I think using the air popper to make popcorn with Grandma is a very close second. Of couse at the end of the day, we had to watch the tail end of The Magic Flute

Mr. Rodger's Food Channel

OK. This is about eighteen minutes long. I figure if you like something that is "Mister Rodgers meets Rachel Ray" then you'll like this. Or maybe it's "Mister Rodgers meets The Barefoot Contessa." I'm the disembodied voice reminding people to use their manners and unplugging mixers until their ready to use.

Marvel the Mustang Rides Again

Do you know how long my folks have been waiting for this moment?

When A asked what the little rods (where his feet are supposed to go) were, I said that Marvel had broken his ankles and the doctors hadn't taken the pins holding his feet together out yet.

Both my parents groaned in osteopathic sympathy.

Gross Stories

Well, I hadn't seen this before, but M had...

So, yesterday, A said he was hungry and I found some strawberry yogurt for him. He ate most of it in about five minutes. Then he took the tiny orange plastic baby spoon and shoved it into the back of his throat. He's discovered his gag reflex, you see. The result was textbook and reminded me of the best way to get a drink out of a Vogon. Then he did it again. And again. Yes. Partially digested strawberry yogurt. All over him and all over his highchair.

M thinks A likes either the taste or the sensation.

I had to leave the room.

All I Want for Christmas...

This evening I went to a lecture on campus and A came with me.

There was some sort of scavenger hunt going on, and there were balloons next to the campus museum. Of course, A ran over to them and began malling one of the less-than-bouant balloons hanging on the display. After a little prompting, A explained to highly amused undergraduates that helium went into the balloon's belly-button and that would make it go up into the sky.

He went on to say (along with some other things) that he would fix the balloon by taking it home and sticking it on a helium tank. When I pointed out that he didn't own a helium tank, he responded with a request for one for Christmas.

Gee, and it's not even Halloween, yet.

Yes, Magic Helmet. . .

Yesterday, A and I were driving along listening to the radio when Beethoven's pastoral symphony came on. We listened and then during the storm movement, I said, "Hey A, do you hear the lightning in the music?" And he said, "It sounds like 'Spear and Magic Helmet.'"

I just about had to pull over. "Spear and Magic Helmet" is from "What's Opera, Doc?", and A had just compared Beethoven to Wagner.

Granted, he's compared a French coffee press to an elevator recently... but still.

Intrepid Back-Napper

A and I went to the woods so M could do some housework. A would like to help, except that most of the work we're doing involves toxic chemicals and really tall ladders. I probably planned our trip for a bad time, as A was more interested in being carried and having a nap than in wandering around through meadows and groves. Oh well, he cheered up when we stopped (after a grueling five minutes) for a snack.

Backhoes and Pizza

There are construction machines near our house, so almost every day we go to see "The Diggers." The construction is near a local market, so we almost always follow up our Adventures in Construction with a trip to a candle store. Or to the produce section for a banana to eat -- which we do in the grociery store's lounge (TV and fireplace). I suppose that I should be slightly worried that A can say "Barefoot Contessa", except that we don't have a TV at home.

A's brand new best friend is a small pumpkin. M was a little upset with me for not having video tape of A saying "A sleep with Pumpkin. Pumpin A's friend." (This was before the sharp pumpkin stem incident). A is also interested in assigning people gender by stating weather or not they have a penis -- he doesn't always get it right, and I'm not sure if he's misassigning gender on purpose, or if certian archaeologists have become the butt of a two-year-old's jokes.

Yesterday we went and visited J's folks. Probably the two big events were making pizza with Grandpa and playing at their church's playground. OK, and A asked to see their copy of The Magic Flute, which pleased dad. I'm still not sure which one of them enjoys playing with toy trains more (and neither is my mom).

You Are Getting Sleepy...

A has a minor cold. And he's been waking up at 6 AM for the last few days. Cranky. Then happy. Then cranky. Then happy.

And not sleepy.

Thank the goddess for Dr Hawass and National Geographic DVD's of Egyptian Archeology. After about five or ten minutes in the Land of the Pharaohs I'm entertained and he's asleep.

All Done Now

A's favorite phrase lately is "all done with now," as in "J's all done with Egypt now," when he wants me to stop reading about ancient Egypt or "J's all done typing now," when he wants me to stop typing things.

A also wants all the holidays to happen at once. He's been asking for a Christmas tree ever since I made the mistake of letting him check out a Disney Christmas DVD from the library -- I think presents have a lot to do with wanting a tree, so this evening I let him know that Christmas is just as much about giving gifts as getting them. He suggested we get Christmas tree orniments for the cat. And a jack-o-lantern. And a candle. And we can light the candle. And, and, and put it in the pumpkin.

In construction news -- the really big backhoe continues to be the main attraction at the nearby construction site. However, it got a run for the money when the construction guys were flushing gravel out of an irrigation system. There's nothing quite like a fountain in the middle of a parking lot to excite a two year old.

Evil Dad Tricks

A rushed out of his room this morning, exclaiming "Where's the horse!?" and rushing toward the front window. I told him there wasn't a horse out front and asked if he'd dreamed it.

In other news, the Bromley has turned into a good way to get to the store quickly. I picked up two twigs from off the ground and and asked, "Hey A, do you want to do the Bromley to the store?" It worked like magic, and all I had to do was sing the clacking part of the Bromley song as we walked.

You Did What?

Yes. We gave him a camera. No, they weren't all shots of the floor or ceiling.

V is for...

Scene (early morning before M goes to work).

A: (Pointing to apparel hanging on a hook on our door) "That's J's veil."

M: (to J): "Honey, our two year old knows words like 'veil.'"

J: "He also knows words like 'backhoe' and 'pungent.'"

M: (signing) "And 'toxic.'"

Forest Mumming

M took A hiking Sunday while I painted the house.

A tripped at a scenic lookout and bit his lip; I guess there was blood everywhere and everyone but M was freaking out.

But the big news is that during their hike, for about a mile and a half, A held a pretty large fir branch in front of himself and hummed the Bromley Tune.

M (wishing for a music change): "Hey A, what are you doing?"

A (waving a Very Large Stick): "Clacking Bromley Sticks, just like Daddy J."

M: "Oh."

A: "[I'll] Sing the Bromley one more time."

M (to himself): "You said that seventy-one times ago."

Well, That Was Clear

J: "Well, tonight we have a choice; you can watch Dr. Zahi Hawass --"
A: "Noo!!"
J: "-- Or Chitty, Tweety or Thomas."

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Someone gave us a potty training baby Elmo. I think that puts us somewhere in Dante's third circle of Hell.