The Last Kaiser

Last Thursday A and I went to the Library. It was kind of cold and rainy, so we couldn't spend too much time outside in the courtyard. He's been kind of tired, and he wanted some Eric Carle books. Afterwards, I decided that I wanted some DVDs on Egypt, so we went to the 900's.

Once we were there, A decided that he absolutely (absolutely is one of his favorite words) had to get a library stool (the kind that look like inverted garbage bins on wheels), carry (not roll) it over to a bookshelf, and start pulling books off of the shelf. The shelving librarian was mostly amused. One book fell off of the shelf -- Giles MacDonogh's "The Last Kaiser: The Life of Wilhelm II" -- and A insisted that he carry down to the circulation desk for check-out.

Saturday, M and A were reading "The Last Kaiser." On the cover is a picture of Wilhelm II. A looked at it, looked at M, and said, "His mustache is signing 'Y.'"

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In different news, A has a new theory of reincarnation.

Scene: The kitchen table. A has eschewed forks, spoons and hands for eating.

J: "A, eat your food like a civilized person; I am not raising a barbarian."

A: "I died and now I'm a barbarian."

I suppose it's a twist from using reincarnation to imagine that one was once a princess. So far A has come back as a cat, and a wolf; M has come back as a drum (so that A can hit him); and M (the cat) has come back as a cow (so that A can milk her).

Big Bear Cosmology

We (re)discovered a new DVD series, "The Big Bear in the Blue House." M isn't enamoured with BBITBH; he doesn't like The Big Bear's voice, or the songs. I like it; it's less, um, hyper-saccharine than Barney and everyone's nice to everyone else.

I think, to borrow from Judith Viorst, that Watching Tweety and Sylvester "is a wonderful thing, but not yet." Also, I'm about ready to scream if I have to answer one more character motivation question about Sylvester the cat (he wants to eat Tweety). Or Donald Duck (he gets mad and makes bad choices; repeat ad nauseam). Or why musketeers clack swords (they're practicing to kill people). Don't get me wrong; I'm really looking forward to the day I can sit down with A and watch Wiley Coyote seriously injure himself chasing after the Road Runner. I just don't want to have to explain it ten time a day for the next three years.

There's just one problem. The episode of BBITBH we first watched has a Big Storm blowing a tree into the Library. Luckily, the storm happens "off stage" before the episode begins. Unfortunately, the small bear (puppet), Ojo, is sufficiently good at conveying her distress at having a large oak tree lying sideways in the middle of the town library that A picked it up. He seemed upset by the concept of storms as well as by trees juxtaposed with libraries. (It turns out our friends with girls around A's age also had a problem with this particular episode.)

I'd just gotten A more or less settled down when Luna, the Moon, appeared to sing the Goodbye Song with the Big Bear (the way they end the show). Oh. My. God. High drama when Luna zoomed up and away out of the screen. A turned to me, his face in the flushed "I'm trying to be tough and 'OK'" face. "Where did the moon go? Why did the moon leave?" Then he burst into tears.

Granted, he's been fighting a cold the last few days, so he's more volatile than usual; but I think it's taken about a day to establish that the Moon in the Sky is something different from Luna the Moon Puppet (which is her name in this house). It helped that the next day was a clear day, and I used Portable Stonehenge to help A find the moon in the sky.

Speaking of the night sky, I need to get to bed; A and I have developed some kind of psychic link -- for every hour I stay up past 11 PM, he gets up before 6 AM.

Story Hour, Wrong Time Zone

I think A woke up this morning at 4:30. M was already awake and doing something in the kitchen, but A didn't know it. So at some horrific time, the bedroom light turned on and I woke up to find a toddler at the side of my bed, which was covered with books like Ora Eitan's "Inch by Inch", "Going Up With Grover," Matthew Van Fleet's "Fuzzy Yellow Ducklings" and "Sign Language with Linda Bove".

"Read to me," said A.

In slightly related news, all the kids at A's play group were wide awake and all their parents were complaining bitterly about the Daylight Savings Time change.

Dressed By Wolves

I hate the time change from Standard to Daylight time. That was the one good thing about living in Arizona; we didn't have to fool around with moving the clocks. Well, OK; it did make timing long-distance calls funny sometimes.

A has a cold. So he's alternately very silly or very grumpy. This morning, I put on the Pants That Are Too Big (my mistake). So when we were at the Library, A kept wanting to reach around and pull his pants down. My second mistake was saying, "Don't do that; you'll look like a Homey." A went around giggling and mispronouncing, "I look like a Homey!"

In other Utterances Grievances, I'm in trouble for using the phrase "Raised by Wolves."

Scene: The dinner table. A has just been put into his high chair because he's too tired/sleepy to eat properly.

A: "I have to be good, or a wolf will come and eat me up!"

J and M exchange startled glances. M's turns accusatory.)

M: "Who taught him that?"

J: "Don't look at me." (J tries to figure out which cartoon to pass blame to.)

A: "Jim was raised by wolves!"

J: "No he wasn't, Jim was raised by Elly."

M: "Who taught him that?"

A: "Grampa was raised by wolves!"

J: "I did. It started with some kids in an add who shouted 'I want! I want!' instead of 'Dearest Mother, it would be ever so delightful if we might purchase...' and I think we used it a lot last week when the garbage collector ground out his cigarette in the middle of the street in front of our house."


At least I'm still allowed to use the phrase, "Act like a civilized person instead of a barbarian."

Ooops. He's just woken up and is saying something about being a Homey again. Sigh. Maybe he can be dressed by wolves.

Music and Games

We took A to a kid's concert of Broadway tunes -- the planners got it right; the show was a little under an hour, and it started at 11 AM. He was a great audience member and sat quietly. We had to prop him up on our coats so he could see the orchestra (the concert hall seats are built for adults). At first I thought the opening number might have upset him a little -- either the singers were too loud or else the dimmed lights bothered him -- but he got right into it. There were a lot of Disney songs, and at the end all the kids were invited to pretend to be animals for an "animal parade" to "The Circle of Life." A watched, but we think he'll be more participatory next year.

In other news: A disappeared for a few moments into his room. Normally, I don't mind that he plays quietly by himself, except that he had a pencil in one hand when he closed his door. So I followed him. "What are you doing?" I asked.

He gestured to the walls. "I'm writing The Truth."

He wanted to know why I started laughing.


Lately when we see someone behaving poorly, or engaging in bad habits, the comment "they were raised by wolves" is uttered. This has turned into a new game, the "Lupine Roll Call," in which A will name someone and then declare that they were raised by wolves. It usually starts with his play-date friends and ends with various cartoon characters.

Baby Mozart

Took A to visit K, a classical music buff. While we were visiting, K played some baroque trumpet music. A few bars into the piece, A piped up, "That's the rondeau [from Masterpiece Theatre]!" It wasn't; it was a movement preceding a rondeau from a different piece. Never-the-less, K was startled in a way that was gratifying and said, "Well, yes; it does sound like the rondeau."

I think we're entering the Terrible Twos; A wants to do things his way and gets temperamental when we don't. I can never quite tell if he's really upset, or if he's trying out whining and crying. About five or ten seconds into his tantrums, he'll pause, and it's almost like he's breaking character. Half the time he'll start laughing and he'll say, "What's that about?" I'll usually ask him if he's a Master Thespian at that point and he'll say, "yeah."

Thank goodness the weather is getting nicer and it's easier to go outside; I think boredom and restlessness (and tiredness) have a great deal to with his moods.