Out and About

The past two Fridays Anna and Sebastian have been out on the town. Last week they went to Sebastian's beach club for a fun morning of swimming, sand, and watching DVDs in the car. This Friday it was the Metropolitan Museum of Art, where they took in the new Greek and Roman sculpture gallery, Oceanic and African Art, some really big metal and wood sculptures (where was that?), a bit of modern art (building on their knowledge of Mootisse and Pigasso), and, of course, the Temple of Dendur.

Highlights included multiple coin tosses into the Temple's pool.
Wishes requested generally involved Baby Jaguar making a home visit and the granting of superhero powers.

Yikes

A few days ago in camp, Jack bit the top off of his marker.
That's right, he used his teeth to sever the tip of a standard issue Crayola.

It is fortunate that marker bits are evidently not Jack's idea of an enjoyable snack. If he hadn't handed the little purple saliva-ed lump to me, I might never have known.

(OK, maybe I would have figured it out this way...)

In Utero

"Mommy, I love you. You're the best Mommy I ever saw when I peeked out of your belly button."

About A Boy

There's a boy in Anna's preschool class named N. N moved here earlier this year.
He's from France.

• When he first arrived, at times N would answer Anna in French. She would giggle.
• After a bit of coaching from Claude the doorman, Anna now sends at least one "Bonjour!" N's way whenever she sees him. And then she giggles.
• One day Anna asked me where her [pretend] Princess phone was. She said she wanted to call N so that he could speak French to her.
  I'm sure you can imagine the giggling.
• One morning last week I was pushing Anna on the swing at the park. N was at the park as well. Anna told me "Push me higher, Mommy, I can't see N!"

N clearly has it working with the ladies, and trust me I am not just blindly perpetuating cultural stereotypes. Need proof? Bien sûr...
N's Mom told me that on "V" day at preschool, when each child brings in something that starts with the letter "V", she and N were walking by Victoria's Secret on the way to school and N asked if he could pick something from there to share with the class.

The boy is not even 4. That kind of mojo just can not be taught.

Thinking Outside The Box

"Mommy, why do the days of the week keep starting over again?"

Well, Anna, that's just how we divide up our time. And that we way can have a regular schedule: on Mondays we do this, on Tuesdays we do that, etc...

[pause] [resolutely] "I'm going to make up a new week."

"The first day would be my birthday, the second day would be your birthday, the next would be Sloane's birthday, the next would be Alexandra's, then Conrad's, then Aidan's..."

When T-Rex-es Attack

Musical Malaprops

• The song is: "She'll be coming around the mountain when she comes..."
  The second verse is: "And we'll all go down to meet her when she comes..."
  Anna's 'urban' verse: "And we'll all go feed the meter when she comes..."
  
  
• The song is: "This old man, he played one, he played knick-knack..."
  becomes "Whi-stle man, he played one, he played knick-knack..."
  
  
• Elvis Presley --> Elvis Preston
  Princess Jasmine --> Princess Jazz Man
  

The State of Nature

Highlights from our "nasty, short & brutish", uh, phase:

(1) Jack takes a long nap.
Jack gets up.
Jack lays flat on his back to have his diaper changed.
Thomas is playing with a ball.
Jack yawns a particularly wide yawn.
Thomas seizes the opportunity to run over and try to stuff the ball into Jack's open mouth.
Just to see if it would fit, I suppose.

(2) Jack is eating a rice cake.
A little girl runs over and grabs it from him.
Jack gives her the evil eye.
The little girl's Mommy takes the rice cake away from her and gives it back to Jack.
Jack gives the girl the (patented) "smug and vindicated" eye.
He pauses for effect. He checks to be sure she is still looking
and stuffs the entire rice cake down his mouth.
Take that.

(3) Jack runs over to hug Tommy. Tommy gives him a stiff arm to the stomach.
But it's OK; for a couple of weeks Thomas went to bed with teeth marks every night.

This was a while ago; fortunately I can report that the retaliatory biting has pretty much ceased. But "happiness" biting--that is another story. When Jack gets happy and excited, he seems to need to exercise his jaws. We're working on it.

(4) Jack had a crisis as a result of being aware of his first bandaid. It was on his knee. He kept staring at the bandaid, pointing to it, and whimpering.
After a few minutes of this, Thomas walked over to Jack and without further ado managed to just rip the thing off.
All I can say is: I don't think Jack is going to be a big fan of the "get-it-over-quick" removal method.

(5) Thomas is a pretty peaceful guy. One of his favorite non-compliance techniques is the "lay-in". As in: if you ask him to do something and he doesn't want to do it, he just lays down on his stomach right where he is and refuses to move.

T-H-O-M-A-S

(Oh, you mean, your kid can't levitate small objects?
Really? Huh.)

Let's see: magic tricks in tight, wet skin suits.
And then there was the whole head-in-the-mouth-of-a-hippo thing.

Clearly, Thomas is going to have his name in lights. Vegas, here he comes...

Yep, It's True

Anna actually did tell someone just the other day
that this (completely lovely) person's hair
looked like pulled pork.

That's right. Pulled Pork.
And I know she didn't mean it in a mean sort of way. Quite the contrary.
Anna loves pulled pork! After being generally ho-hum about it for the past year or so, there have been days during the last two weeks when she has asked for it for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. Pulled pork is everything good about the world, and it is astonishing how many different ways she finds to work it into everyday conversation.

So, really--Jill--as you can see, Anna did not in an way mean to imply that your hair was messed up or... stringy, or anything. ha ha ha ha ha.

(And of course feel free to come back and babysit anytime :)

Cliche, Touche...

Mommy:
"Anna, the bottom line is that you are taking a bath tonite. Get in the bathroom and let Jenny help you."

Anna [thinking. not moving]:
"And what is the top line?"

The Wicked Witch of the East

...and her little brother, too.

(Rest assured if that witch had lived in NYC in the summer, she would have traded in those ruby red slippers for pair of stylish, comfy and sprinkler-friendly purple and blue jelly flip-flops.)


Looking for the other brother? Check behind the curtains, of course.

Floor Hockey In a Pink Skirt...

also known as
the last day of the semester at the Children's Athletic Training School (CATS).

Untitled. And Uncut.

Kids Who Know Too Much

When we are out and about, if things come up, I try to explain as much as I can to Anna.

For example, if we are in a cab, we look at the map of Manhattan. We talk about the boroughs and bridges. We talk about the rights and responsibilities of the passenger and the driver. We talk about the medallion number. One day she asked me "what the other numbers are". By this she meant the line posted in every cab that lets you know that 3-1-1 is the number to call for any taxi-related issues.

So I told her about 311. Of course she asks me what "taxi-related issues" are. In my attempt to not emphasize the somewhat scary "angry cab driver from hell" scenarios while at the same time at a bit of a loss for any other taxi-related reason that I would call 311, I tried to play up the fact that if you leave something in a taxi, you can call 311 and tell them the medallion number (which is why you should always ask for the receipt) and they will help you get it back.

So at this point Anna knows:

(1) I am in the cab with Mommy.
(2) (From a previous conversation) Mommy has a history of leaving her wallet in a cab.
(3) You call 3-1-1 if you leave something in a cab.

Do you see where this is headed?
Now every time we take a taxi, as I am putting away my wallet after we pay, she grabs my hand and squeezes hard and basically jumps in my lap and says "Mommy! Don't leave me! Don't call 3-1-1 !".

If Jack and Thomas ever bring this up, I will talk about potholes.

Blister Blame

Anna had her first blister the other day. It was on her big toe.
But it must not have hurt her, because she didn't even notice it until Jenny pointed it out and asked her what was on her toe.
Anna looked at the blister for a moment and then told us:

"Alex put white marker on my toe!"

Ha ha ha. Alex is in her preschool class, and whatever else he may have done I am quite sure that blister-causing is not on his resume :)
I ended up trying to explaining to her about her blister. How people have a top layer of skin, and when it rubs against something it can get puffy, and that is OK since there is new skin underneath.
And that is when the "But Mommy, I can see my bone..." wailing began, accompanied, of course, by her very best 'I am a woman in pain' pouty face.

A few days later she looked at her toe and noticed the "white circle" (aka blister) was gone. This was almost as upsetting to her as the original discovery. She kept asking me where her skin had gone.

To which I found myself saying things like, "Well, some might have come off in the bath water, or there might be some bits in your sock, or..." Good lord! I quickly asked her if she wanted to watch some TV...

The Latest French Open Phenom

... and his fairy godmother.

Jack Sings!

Just thought you should know.
His current favorites are Ring Around the Rosie, Row Row Row Your Boat, and the ABC Song.

Hearing Jack sing "ashes, ashes..." was a bit like reading the part in Snow White where the wicked stepmother demands that her huntsman kill Snow White and bring her Snow White's heart in a box. Yikes! Who put that in there? Surely not Walt Disney?

I recall that some not-so-deft paraphrazing turned the whole thing into "and put Snow White in a box". But not without some very suspicious looks from Anna, who I am sure suspected that something more was going on in that box.

But really... was that there when I read this years ago?

Gross Anatomy

Thoughts on the human body, at a very practical level, courtesy of Anna:

• While her class was at the park, Anna told her preschool teacher that she had to make a pee. Her teacher asked her if she could hold it.
  Anna looked up at her and said thoughtfully "Yes, I can..."
  And then putting her hand out flat in front of her belly button, she followed up with "... the pee is only down to here."
• While we were playing at home, Anna told me she had an idea in her brain. I asked her what it was. She told me "I can't tell you Mommy, because it is only down to here!" and she pointed to her eyes.
  And she made me wait a solid 10 minutes for that thought to make the trip (through her sinus cavity?) down past her nose until it was finally able to come out of her mouth.

But there are also times when Anna wants to really know what is going on inside of you. If she is playing doctor, for instance, and you happen to be the stuffed animal/patient on the examining table, look out! She had horsie on the examining pillow the other day, and as she raised her toy scalpel above him she said solemnly "First we have to see what's going on in his bones..."

Do You Sea Band?

Well, Jack does.

And they kind of work. Almost. We were just turning onto 256th Street in Riverdale (my friend lives approx 10.6 miles up the West Side Highway from our apartment) when Jack coughed and threw up. But the spray was minimal. And since I hadn't given him any food for a couple of hours, not much came up. He didn't even seem that upset.

And, to be honest, in Jack's mind I think the discomfort of throwing up was totally outweighed by the uber-stylishness of the bracelets that only he got to wear. This photo was taken the next day, mind you, after Jack overheard me telling Jenny about the bracelets and our trip and insisted on putting them on again.
(And for those of you who are wondering, on the day of the BBQ his shirt color was not coordinated with his bracelets. Merely a lucky coincidence for the photo.)

And the really good news is that for the trip home I think I had both bracelets properly placed over the "pressure point", and Jack--featuring a dangerously loaded stomach full of hot dog and hamburger bun and tortilla chips--did not throw up. He even looked somewhat reasonably comfortable sitting in the car, and I didn't get the "You expect me to get into that thing?" look as we approached it to buckle him in.

So I am mildly optimistic about the Sea Band Motion Sickness Relief Bands, and at this point I am left to wonder what else the "ancient science of accupressure" can do for me.
Thanks for the tip, Gwammy and Great Gwammy. Stay tuned for our next report, when we'll attempt a 30 minute car trip with a stomach full of Saltines...

Every Little Thing Is Gonna Be All Right

Thomas is a boy who sees the world through yellow-tinted glasses. Whether that makes him an optimist or not, only time will tell. But for now, everything is surely "lellow".

He's also accumulated a very interesting set of words. Here are the highlights:

• wow!
• cool!
• more!
• cra-cker!
• me me me
• bu-bble
• ball
• beeeeeee (bird)
• geeeeeee (give)
• hello
• bye bye
• no!
  
• Anna, Mommy, Daddy, Ne-nny (Jenny), and some kind of aaaaahhhhh (Jack)
  
• of course, the ubiquitous ma-moon (balloon).

But by far his best word is the way he says 'yes'.
He says 'yeeeeeeeeeaaaaahhhhh' in a very slow and laid back sort of way that makes him sound Jamaican. Very Bob Marley. Quite hilarious. And completely at odds with his more normal Type-A approach.

Move Over, Bacon

Now there's something new!

That's right, after nearly two years in the soft glow of his sister's good graces, Jack's position as the favored son is suddenly... no more.
And it's quite officially official: I can tell you that the high chair has been moved. Anna now sits next to Thomas on the other side of the table.

Why did this all come about?
And why so suddenly?

Only Anna really knows. She has offered two explanations:

• Jack is mad at me.
• Mommy, I want to 'take turns with my loving'...