Wonder Pets!

One of the videos that A received for Christmas was The Wonder Pets Save The Bengal Tiger.

The first time we watched it, when the tiger was singing about still not having the thorn out of her paw, A turned bright red and started crying. At first I wasn't sure what was happening because I was hearing a funny noise (which turned out to be A) and I was sitting behind him, so I didn't notice the color. Fortunately, the thorn came out (and was followed by a Baliwood number).

On the same DVD is the Wonder Pets saving the What? In this episode, the Wonder Pets decide they need some help and so they "break the fourth wall," make the viewers honorary Wonder Pets and hand out a cape. Oh. My. God. A was ecstatic. As soon as the episode was finished, he wanted to build a "fly-boat" (the vehicle the Wonder Pets travel the world in).

However, as soon as I reminded A that the Wonder Pets save animals and that this was incompatible with being mean to the cat by dropping things on her, he declared that he was a pirate.

Costume King

In quick news: A likes to make everything a pirate song -- usually Christmas Carols have all their words changed to "Arrrgh." Saturday we went to a Pirate Event, and I'm pretty sure that A was the best dressed pirate there (thanks Grandma M!). ... And, A seems to be in costume mode lately.



I walked into the living room, where I was informed by M that A wished to be wrapped up like a present. With a bow.

I didn't argue.

Although the end result was less "Santa Baby" and more "Madame Butterfly."











On a previous night, some Spirit of Dance visited our house. It's kind of hard to see, but A is holding a plastic milk jug in his left hand. Inside the jug is a small plastic turtle which he shook with wild abandon. Adding to the cacophony are jingle bells on his leg (it's an old dog collar).

A would run from the front door to the hall, stop, and then stomp as though he was trying to single handedly kill an entire hive of ants one by one, all the while shaking the plastic turtle in the jug like the Spirit of Brownian Motion.

It was animistic. And slightly spooky. (Note to self: stop playing the Y'ma Sumak...)







And just a few hours ago, A somehow convinced M to dress him up with faerie wings and one of my childhood vests (it's complicated). A self-applied the faux woad.

We're not sure if he's ready for

• The Local Hippy Faire
• A Good Faeries / Bad Faeries Party
• The Nutcracker, or
• Peter Pan

I don't think I'd want to be one of Hook's pirates just now...

Pirate Carols

A's favorite holiday activity is to turn any Christmas Carol into a Pirate Carol by changing all the words to "ARRRGH!" Usually this is done to "Jingle Bells," but it also works for Tanenbaum."

He's also moved on from wanting to place explosive pop-guns on the tree (which blow up when you press a button) to blowing up the whole tree. And our house.

M has stretched out the holiday season by playing "The Christmas Game" with A. This involves A hiding in his room until M shouts, "Merry Christmas" at which point A runs out and looks into the small re-usable holiday boxes we have. Usually in the evening he finds his old toys, but sometimes in the morning a brand new one appears.

Santa's Coming!

Look Busy!

Winter 2008 Tree Hunt

Tuesday After T-Day

Here's the latest picture safari.

A has had a cough the last day or two. A says that he wants to tell
people "Come here tomorrow. Goodbye!"

Quote of the Day

Scene: The ceiling-to-floor bookshelf in our bedroom. A has just
asked me about a painting on the spine of a book on the Templars.

A: "Why are those guys on fire?" [The Templars are being burned at the stake.]
J: (giving the standard response when A asks this question) "It's complicated."
A: "Do they think their feet are wood?"
J: "Well... that picture is from a long time ago when people thought
it was OK to set other people on fire when they didn't agree with
them."

So busted.

SOMEBODY put sunflower seeds into the DeskJet 930 C printer.

I am not amused.

Bowling for Moose

A was being a pill today. He didn't take his nap, so M said they weren't going to go anywhere (A is basically insane -- and not compatible with stores -- on days when he doesn't nap).  So later, A said that he wanted to go to ToysRus, and M reminded him that the day had been napless.  A announced that he was going to go anyway -- I wasn't there for the complete dialog because I was painting... but A's plan was to walk there (it's about five miles away and across a river).   

A (with M following) left the house on foot.

They wound up at a bowling alley about six blocks away.  Apparently this was fine with A because not only were people knocking over pins with heavy balls, but there was some sort of game where you could shoot a moose with a rifle.  

The Happy Pirate Song

A came up with this song a few moments ago.   And somehow we came up with the "argh" part simultaneously.

If you're happy and you know it

sink a boat  (Argh! Argh!)

If you're happy and you know it

sink a boat (Argh! Argh!)

If you're happy and you know it

then you really shouldn't stow it

If you're happy and you know it

sink a boat (Argh! Argh!)

Pumpkin Photos

Photos from before the pumpkins melted into a moldy goo.

New Photo Safari

We went on another photo safari.

This one ended up at the Italian Soda place.

I'm not sure how this keeps happening.

Photo Safari

We went on a photo safari this morning. We took our cameras. A took all of these pictures with his camera.  A had fun. Somehow we ended up at a place that sells hot chocolate.

Gloomy Composers

Scene: The kitchen. The local classical music station is having their fund raiser.

A (at the kitchen table): "What's the name of the composer who wrote 'The Firebird?'"

J (preparing eggplant parmesan for the microwave) : "I think you know that. Do you remember?"

A: "Stra -- Stravinsky?"

J (inordinately pleased): "That's right. Stravinsky wrote 'The Firebird.' And you know what, his first name is Igor. So his full name is Igor Stravinsky."

A: "Igor! Igor Stravinsky. It sounds like Eeyore."

J (imagining what compositions by Eeyore Stravinsky would sound like): "Yes. It does."

Spirit and Opportunity

A and M got back the other day from a trip across the nation. They had a lot of fun at a family wedding and they got to visit with many of M's relatives, whom we only see every year or so (as opposed to J's relatives, whom we see about every other week). A seems to be speaking more and whispering less; I'm guessing that competing with other pre-schoolers for adult attention and just being in a house full of people probably contributed to this increase in audibility.

In a different development, I managed to get A to watch parts of "Roving Mars," a Disney / NASA / Lockheed production. I started him watching the movie in the middle, where a CGI rocket launches off of Earth to Mars with musical accompaniment composed by Philip Glass. He liked it a lot, especially the part where the Mars atmospheric entry engineer is explaining that if they open Spirit Mars Rover's parachutes too early, the speed will shred the parachutes; but if they open the parachutes too late the rover will crash into the planet.

The CGI is really fun (if a little bit over-audible) and they show the air-bags the rovers used to bounce onto Mars, and the rovers unfolding their solar arrays and arms. I think A (and M) liked the RAT unit used to drill holes into rocks. But still, the question A asked most was, "J, how come if they open up the parachutes too late the rover will CRASH into Mars?"

I am hopeful that a real movie about real NASA probes will focus him on Mars, and off of "Space Chimps."

He's Back

A wants people to know that his shirt is like mustard.

Marble Machine Photos

Here's what the marble machine looked like a few weeks ago.

The top of the machine, where the marbles (and sticks and dirt and grass and eventually water) are put into the causeway.














A was quite clear that he wanted a suspension bridge as a part of the marble machine.


























View of a marble shooting through the "suspension bridge."

The grotesque where the marbles came to rest at the end.  I can't tell you how many times an old cereal box has come in handy the last few months.

However, A seemed to want to fill the terminal with junk -- which made it hard to locate the marbles.

The whole layout, from start to finish. (Parental note: see how far away the end of the machine is from the beginning?)

BTW, we still haven't located the lost thirty or so marbles...

Box the Toddler Books...

We've made the discovery that the "What to Expect" series (sub-titled, "101 Ways Your Baby Could Die This Month") ends at the 35th month. A's metamorphosis from a toddler to a pre-schooler means the last few months have been child-rearing literature free.   While this has been somewhat freeing, I'm finding that it was nice to know "what to expect."

So... It's off to the library to read:

• Barnes, Bridget A. Common sense parenting of toddlers and preschoolers. Boys Town, Neb. : Boys Town Press, c2001.
• Goldstein, Robin. Everyday parenting : the first five year. New York, N.Y. : Penguin Books, 1990, c1987.
• LaRowe, Michelle R. Nanny to the rescue! : straight talk & super tips for parenting in the early years. Nashville, TN : W Pub. Group, c2005.
• Nelsen, Jane. Positive discipline for preschoolers : for their early years, raising children who are responsible, respectful, and resourceful. New York,N.Y. : Three Rivers Press, 2007.
• Parenting young children : Systematic Training for Effective Parenting (STEP) of children under six. Circle Pines, Minn. : AGS, c1997.
• Roehlkepartain, Jolene L., 1962-. Parenting preschoolers with a purpose : caring for your kids & yourself. Minneapolis : Search Institute, c2006.
• Schulman, Nancy. Practical wisdom for parents : demystifying the preschool years. New York : Alfred A. Knopf, 2007.
• Severe, Sal. How to behave so your preschooler will, too!. New York : Penguin books, 2002.

If anyone has a personal favorite, let us know!

Mushy Geeky Dad Moment

Last Thursday our neighbors made a kind of marble machine in their back yard. A liked it so much he wanted to visit their house. A lot.

So I poked around in our mounds of junk and found some old PVC piping. I cut up a Pepsi bottle for a funnel and bent some screen to make a "suspension bridge" (A was quite clear that he wanted a suspension bridge). A slightly-doctored cereal box became a grotesque where the marbles came to rest.

A loved it. I think it kept him busy for about an hour running back and forth dropping marbles into the top and running to the bottom to see them come out.

Then we listened to John C Adams's "Short Ride on a Fast Machine," (Well, OK, A was running back and forth between the two ends of the machine) and I guess I had a kind of a "When you want to build your star cruiser, son, I'll be here to help you, (and then I'll turn away so I won't be able to say anything when you're having fun flying too close to a gravity well)" Geeky Dreamer Dad Moment.

It's probably a good thing that we didn't listen to John William's "Superman Theme."

Now, if we can get the sticks out that A shoved into the PVC piping and figure out what happened to the twenty or so marbles last seen in A's possession. . . .

Art and Space

Well... the fallout from Space Chimps is still falling. A seems a little anxious about NASA probes, since a space probe with multiple arms played a major roll in the freeze-dipping sequences. I've tried showing him a picture of Sojourner on Mars; it doesn't have little claws, so that helps.

In the art department, A has wanted to paint (it might have something to do with our painting the house...)

This painting was done a the other day. I managed to get the painting process on video (posting soon). A was singing as he was painting, and between A changing some of the words and me being a little focused on videography, I didn't quite realize until the third chorus that he was singing "Joy to the World."

Then I looked at his picture. It's a representation of the "Joy to the World" sequence from Will Vinton's Claymation Christmas, which A watches on a semi-regular basis.

I don't know what put him in the Christmas spirit.

This one was done today. I'll see if I can get A to say anything about it.

M saw the video of the "Joy to the World" painting and says I sound like either Judy Garland with Liza Minnelli or Ethel Merman as Momma Rose.

I was extolling the child to paint on the paper and not on his hand. Sheesh.

This one reminds me of a preying mantis. By this time, A was in a silly mood, telling me to clean up the paints, and then insisting that he wanted to paint some more. I was a little cross with him, as he had started painting on his art smock (one of my old T-shirts) which I had told him not to do.

At least that exchange wasn't on video.

Space Chimps!

We tried an experiment.  We went to a G-rated movie.  All three of us.  It was A's first visit to a theatre to watch a movie.

It failed about the time the villain alien started dipping other aliens into a pool of some fictitious liquid-oxygen-like fluid to freeze them.  (In other words, about five minutes into the movie.)

A said he wanted to leave, so M took him out.  A said he'd try again; but then the movie got a little intense again.  (They were behind me, but I'd guess it was seven minutes into the movie.)

Oh well.  M let me stay and watch.  It was a silly movie, which was why I wanted to see it (I mean, really, what can one expect from a movie titled "Space Chimps?")  Luckily, we saw it at the dollar theatre, so it was a cheap(ish) experiment.

PS:  Skip the movie trailers for "Journey to the Center of the Earth."  At least A didn't have to see the previews for "Death Race."

Photos from Mark H

Here are some photos from last week's visit to Mt. Rainier.  

Eric and our other friend, Mark (who hurt his foot so he couldn't go with the adults on a five mile 2000 ft gain hike), went with us.

A ran most of the time.  Luckily, Eric was there to help make sure A didn't plunge over the railings in an attempt to visit the glaciers.

A tired out more easily, as he had done this exact hike the day before.  I kept him going with promises of a hot dog at the visitor's center (also, just like the day before).

Predictably, he passed out on the shuttle bus back to the camp site.  This meant his nap was a little short, with predictable results.

Quick Report

We went camping and A enjoyed it -- although I think he enjoyed visiting with his friend Eric more than actually being in the woods.  (Okay, they both really liked finding snow and ice in August.)   A probably was in a three-year-old's heaven when he found a stick he could use as a pirate sword to have a sword fight with Eric (A cheats).

M bought A some really big bolts and nuts.  A loves them, and promptly got a hammer so he could "build a rocket."

A will let me read "The House at Pooh Corner" to him.  I had never realized until now how sarcastic A. A. Millne was, and I think he might be my new hero.  Eeyore isn't gloomy, he's downright snarky.  

A has entered the, "Well, you see..." stage of toddler-hood.  "Well, you see, J; I have to vacuum the cat because her fur is dirty and I want to take the dirt off the cat and put it into the vacuum cleaner so I can take it out of the vacuum cleaner and put it into the fireplace and stuff it up the chimney..."   "Well, you see..." is less irritating than the whispered "Maybe I will [do something I've just told him not to do]."

A announces on a fairly regular basis that he wants to put on his pirate costume, "so I can be a bad guy and [insert felony crime here]."  Usually he wants to take coveted library books away from other children, but upon occasion he's expressed a desire to steal cars or burn the library down.  I guess we'll have to hide the matches when A wears his pirate costume.

When A's larcenous intentions are particularly heinous, I gently remind him that his victims would feel like A did when he got upset by the book entitled, "Squash the Spider."  (No bugs were harmed in this book, "Squash" is the spider's name.)  A was reduced to tears during Scary Reading Hour simply by hearing the title of the book read dramatically.  

Applications in Sympathetic Magic

A is very excited about a trip planned to the East Coast. There will be a wedding, and he's excited to visit various relatives.

He's so excited he'd like to go today.

I tried to explain to him the the trip wasn't until the end of September. I pulled out the portable Stonehenge and pointed to the spot just past the Atumnal Equinox. "See," I said, "When the sun peg is here, then it will be time to go to the Grandma M's."

So. This morning, Portalable Stonehenge was left out on a table after we had moved the day peg forward one hole (to help keep track of which day to move the sun peg) and the moon peg forward two (about 12 degrees in the sky). I left for a moment to get a snack, and when I came back A was moving the pegs all over the circle. "What are you doing?" I asked (note: the question has be edited for the sake of tender readers).

"When the sun peg is here," said A, "we can go to the East Coast."

"Uh, no." I said, moving the moon's descending node peg and the sun peg back to their correct positions. "That's not quite the way it works." I started to remind A that we only move the node pegs three times a year and the sun peg every six or seven days, but he ran off to harass the cat.

Art and Mediums

A wanted to print this out, but I convinced him to put it on the blog instead.

In non-art news, A and I were eating the other day, and I admonished him to finish his food.  "That's Pinky's," he said.

"Who's Pinky?" I asked.  

"Pinky Gilbertson," said A.  

"Oh," I said, wondering if this was the first appearance of an imaginary playmate, and if Pinky Gilbertson would be blamed for a variety of misdemeanors.  "And who is Pinky Gilbertson?"

"Pinky Gilbertson lives over there," said A, pointing to the southeast end of the block.  "He's an old guy in his house for the longest time.   And then I died."

The meal was taking a Nostradamusian turn, and like parents everywhere who are suddenly taken to the Twilight Zone by their children, I simply nodded and said, "Oh."  

Yes; I Googled "Pinky Gilbertson."  No; I didn't find any such person listed -- or "Pinkie Gilbertson" for that matter.  I think that pinky might come from discussions about the anatomy of Dr. Seuss  characters' hands.  I'm guessing that "Gilbertson" might be a garbling of "Gilbert and Sullivan."   And A is figuring out what being dead means -- the other day he told my dad that he was going to die so he could bring Sierra (the no longer living family German shepherd) back.  I swear someday that kid is going to make my dad break down in tears.

By this time M had joined us, and A announced that he was going to get a big jack hammer so he could dig a really deep hole and then he was going to get into the hole and die.  When M explained to him that dead people don't get chocolate or to watch cartoons,  A changed his plans;  once the meal was over, we walked to the store for milk, bananas and chocolate.

Now there's a prescription for you.

Hair Cutting

A (after cutting a curl -- with supervision -- out of his face):  "I need to cut my hair because I want to wear a crown and if I have too much hair my crown might slip off."

I think we may be able to blame The King's Stilts for the sliding crown.  But I don't know where the excess hair came from.

Latest Words

The latest vocabulary:

similar: it means something is like something else.

amphibian: a frog. Is a zebra an amphibian? :-)

octagon: a stop sign.

police: they dissipate our laws.

humph: what J says when he's lost something.

Pirate Art Happening.

A was painting outside. He likes the spray bottles filled with red and blue paint (I suspect for the spraying activity more than for the application of paint). He had painted two canvasses and was ready to start on a third. By this time he had several paint brushes and the spray bottles. It was a red day, mostly because A likes red (with a little bit of yellow thrown in).

He used a small brush and drew an orange-red triangluar shape with a few other triangular shapes on top. "I made a pirate boat," he said.

"Oh, yeah," I said. "I can see the sails, and I think I see a bit where the boat is reflecting in the water."

A drew a line along the top in red. "This is the mast," he said. Then he grabbed a larger brush and began to paint in a very thick line. "I'm making the mast," he said, adding more and more paint to make a very thick, red line. "Why did their mast break?" he asked (a reference to "How I Became a Pirate" -- a story where a modern boy joins some 1800s pirates and a lightning struck mast causes them to return to the boy's house).

"Did you want to use the spray bottles?" I asked, thinking that if he used the blue bottle he could have an ocean. Instead he grabbed the red. "I'm erasing the mast," he said, spraying a wash of red paint over the entire canvass (a referece to using a MacPaint spray can to paint over shapes with their filled-in color). "Why did they have to turn back?" I tried to hand him a blue spray bottle, and followed M's advice that I just step back and let A do what he wanted.

A finished painting. I turned on the garden hose and announced that it was time to spray off all the paint (especially the red paint caked onto A's armpit -- probably where he stuffed the paint brush under his arm). There was about ten minutes of spray play.

And then A got a hold of the garden hose.

He advanced on the canvas, where the thick masted pirate ship was drying. "Why did the lightning make the mast crack?" he asked, and then started to spray the painting.

"A-- oh, never mind." I retreated to the kitchen for some chocolate. There were some more comments about storms as the water washed away the red wash previously sprayed on. The water blasted away layer after layer of paint, revealing the thick mast, then the mast itself dissolved. "Why did the mast break?"

By this time I was inside watching through the windows as chocolate and mint helped assage my artistic sensiblities. "Hey honey," I said to M, "Our son is busily channeling his inner ocean storm and washing off the painting of the pirate ship."

"Those conceptual artists," he said.

I looked out of the window again. "Now he's tearing up the canvass and. . . he's burying it." A by this time had a shovel in his hands.

"It's an art happening. It's not about the end product, it's all about the process. Are you videoing this?"

"Mmmm. No." I said and went outside to photograph the buring processes (and clean up bits of mushy paper clinging to the to the fence).

---

"But I don't like to take a bath," A said.

"Oohh," I said one of those inscrutible father smiles. "Well, when you chose to paint yourself, you also chose for me to give you a bath to take off the paint."

Quickie

Lots of longish naps this week, so I think A is going through a growth spurt.

Yesterday he helped Grandpa with various chores -- like making pizza.

In other news, A pretty much on purpose lauched a stomp rocket onto a roof where we couldn't retrieve it. So we didn't.

Guns and Flamethrowers

Sigh.  A is into pretending that things are guns "to set people on fire."  I suppose this is natural, and I recall about eight months ago when A got mad at us he had a litany that involved crushing us up and throwing us into the garbage can. 

M was reading the latest copy of The Fearful Parent.  This issue is particularly ironic, because it has an article helping parents to not be "paranoid parents" -- so yes, the magazine that is telling us to not worry about our children falling at the playground is the same one which last year warning us that our child could be one of the 100 Americans bitten by sharks every year.

M thinks either we're getting more experienced at parenting, or The Fearful Parent is getting dumber.   

Zoo and Stomp Rockets

Our friends took us to the zoo.

Later they gave stomp rockets!

Already Reading?

Well, I'm not sure, but I think A can read.

Yesterday, we were looking at a Bob the Builder book, and A completed a line of text before I had read it to him.  I don't know if he actually read the book, or if he figured out that Wendy was going to say, "We fixed the road" based on narrative clues.  To be fair, the text was, "(Wendy icon) said, "We fixed the (road icon)."  (A said, "We fixed the road.")

M thinks A is using narrative context.  Still, it surprised me when it happened.

Photo Montage

A said that he wanted to post pictures to the blog.  So I hooked up his camera to the computer and fired up the blog.

"It's M!" says A about this picture.   

Then before we could finish, he ran off to play the kazoo.

This is the needy creature.  M is convinced that the only reason she is in our lives (for seven years before A, I might add) is to teach A to be kind to old animals.

It's mostly working.

A likes trucks.  And stickers.  I think he might have been using his truck as a paper cutter.