Dr. Anna & Dancing Queen

OK--so Anna now has bangs.
And we have this great doctor kit with silly blue glasses.

The combination of the two makes me want to write something like:

By day, she is all of the buttoned-up, precise and professional healer that everyone knows her to be.
But when the glasses come off [cue background Abba]--

Friday night and the lights are low
Looking out for the place to go
Where they play the right music, getting in the swing...

Blue Jeans, No Shirt, Protruding Tummy

"I will read Brown Bear and the Backyardigans and escape the trailer park"

Ah, the American Dream.

Now all we need is the broken-down auto in the driveway. Er, I mean parking garage...

A Moveable Feast

While it is now true that we all sit at the table, our food has a tendency to travel.
All over the floor, and onto the wall behind us.

Drama

This is Jack. In a movie. Just as he catches sight of the approaching alien invaders using the Children's Museum's super-powered binoculars.
Cue. ominous. music.

And this is the devastatingly handsome mad scientist/used car salesman that signalled them to come to Earth...

I Need a Hero!

Thomas is a bit unsure about how to get himself out of this sticky situation in the tower at the Children's Museum.







Fortunately, Clark Kent happens to be taking a personal call in the 'giant Lite Brite' area nearby.

Superman underroos, anyone...?

Pa-Rum-Pa-Pum-Pum

Thomas and Jack keep it traditional when it comes to solos.
Anna prefers the new sumo-style.

Princess Of Chaos

This, I have decided, is my new title.

It is also the literal German translation of the title of a book written by an American woman dedicated to bringing attention to the 'hidden epidemic' of adult women with ADHD.

(The book title in English is "Women With Attention Deficit Disorder".
Yes, according to the Economist that literally translates to "Princess of Chaos" in German.
And "Women Who Can't Put Things In Order" in Japanese.
As always, the German speakers are totally in tune with issues of the psyche.)

Just so you know: I don't know this because I bought the book, I know this because I had a chance to read The Economist over Christmas break (begin intellectual props comments, please), and they had an article about this book/movement under the catchy title "Really Desperate Housewives".

I just love the 'Princess of Chaos' thing.
But I cling depserately to the hope that once my children are grown, I will be able to complete a 4- or 5- sentence conversation about a single topic. No Ritalin required.

Men At Work

Clearly, it's been a long day for Jack cleaning up under the high chair. Thomas definitely looks as though he is handling the new system of "family chores" a bit better.

Whenever we sweep or vacuum, Jack runs for his cleaning tools and works right alongside us, providing a homemade vacuum cleaner noise (vrrrrrrmmmmmnnnnnn) to supplement the lovely sound that already comes from his dustbuster (2 AA's required). On the plus side, it does have a tiny bit of suction and so is able to pick up the ubiquitous orange fuzz that emanates from our all-time most impractical area rug.

Every little bit helps, I say.

Jack's So Cool, He Walks With One Hand Behind His Back

That's right.
Jack now strolls. Vaguely Charlie Chaplin-style, one hold folded behind him at the small of his back. He strolls. Around the apartment, around the playroom, around music class.

As one father in the playroom said: "That takes a bit of charisma..."

Jack's other new thing is salami. He loves it. I think he'd eat it at every meal. He sucks on it and chews it and overall throughly enjoys himself.

But the best development: Jack has really, really calmed down and just become this incredibly loveable, cuddly boy. Every morning when Anna wakes up he runs up to her and gives her a big hug. If Anna cries, Jack tries to hug and kiss her and rub his hair into her face. When Daddy or I or Jenny come in the door, Jack stands behind the gate with his arms outstretched waiting for a hug. Jack will jump into your arms and put his head on your shoulder and just cuddle.

And last night, just before I laid him down for bed, I patted his back to get any last burps out, and Jack looked at me and smiled and then started to pat my back, too.

Good night, Jack. Sweet dreams...

What Scrubs Will Do To You

Anna's Gwampy likes to watch Scrubs. According to Gwammy, is a bit obsessed, actually.
I would not normally mention this in this forum except for the difficulty this has been causing lately during pretend play.

Now when Anna opens the doctor kit and pulls out the stethosope, the other kids think she is a bit strange. Unless she is immediately invovled in finding a heartbeat, she doesn't put the "bunny ears" of the stethoscope (what do you call those things?) around her neck like all the other kids. She lays the stethoscope on its side behind her neck. Ears on one side, microphone (again, what do you call that? the part you put over the heart?) on the the other.

Just like they do on Scrubs.
Just like Gwampy showed her :)

"Where is My Nose Heater?!"

(I know, I know: sounds more like something you would find mentioned in a White House memo than in an Anna quote.)

But we've all been healthy lately. (Can you hear me knocking?)

And so it is that Anna noticed that the Vicks Waterless Vaporizer was no longer in her room. I put it back in the closet. The last time we used it, I had explained to Anna that the vaporizer blows warm air with a special smell to help un-stuff her stuffy nose.

Nose heater.

Fantastic preschool-speak.

You Know Naptime is Not Proceeding Smoothly...

when you go in to check on the guys and
Thomas' pants (aka the pants he began naptime with)
are now in Jack's crib. Hmmmnn.

London Calling...

Fishie Organization Lives On (FOLO).
Brit-style.

Remember how back in the 60s people used to have contests to see how many people they could squish into one of those VW Beetles? Well, I don't--but I think I've heard about them and this is kind of like that.

This is "how many miniature Nemo fishie figurines can you fit into a scale model London taxi cab that Daddy just brought back from his trip while still balancing the larger 'Nemo Mommy' figurine on the top all while getting your photographic proof in front of a fish tank at exactly the moment that Nemo (shockingly, the name of the real fish in the tank) happens to be swimming by, totally amazed because in all the times he has tried he has never even been able to flag down one of those roomy cabs, much less stuff 3 or 4 of his closest friends in with him?"

Well, if you look closely, you'll see the face of Nemo peering out of the open back door, and the tail of the yellow fish (Bubbles) behind him looking out the back window. On the other side was definitely pufferfish (he's just short). So we have at least 3, but I'll have to talk to Anna for the final tally.

He looks angelic

... and that golden glow is no Photoshop trickery, either. And I think he knows it.

He loves to look at his reflection in the windows. Especially while he is eating. Thomas has been big on reflections since the day he happened to notice that he could actually watch television two different ways--by looking in front of him (at the TV) or behind him (at the windows). Cool.

He also tries to hide anything that is not nailed down.
Thomas spends the better part of his day shoving toys underneath the couch, or the rug, or the chair, or anywhere else he thinks he can fit them. And he gets incredibly upset when he can not, for example, jam his car underneath the couch (that sits directly on top of the rug).
His blue drumsticks, on the other hand, have been under there for weeks.

He likes to point. At certain times, under certain moods, Thomas will walk around a room, pause at a random spot, point at something in front of him and deliver a babble-filled tirade complete with jabbing index finger and raised voice. The things he chooses to point and hollar at are hilarious; he'll lean into a poor innocent bin of toys to let it know what he thinkgs of it, or bend over to really, really let the bottom bookshelf have it. He's like a little general that we wound up and then let loose in the living room. And it is not really anger coming through, just... taking charge. Thomas may have lost the battle, but my money is definitely on him to win the war.

Despite his general-ish demeanor, Thomas is such a teddy bear. He is my squeezeable bottle of ketchup (Jack, I have decided, is the Worcestershire sauce :). He gives great kisses. But lately he has a new thing: when you ask for a kiss, he comes toward you, lips puckered, like he is going to give you what you want--but at the last second he puts whatever he currently has in his hand up to your lips. The things I have kissed in the past few weeks would make a junior high school bathroom stall blush. (Um, get it? The graffiti? All the crazy things that get written about? Anyway...)

Other favorite Thomas mealtime pastimes:
- Pushing the pasta tubes on his fingers and waving his hands around. Pretty standard, I suppose.
- Getting something onto his fork (he is getting good), and then flinging his wrist and sending it airborne.
- Not mealtime related, but funny nonetheless: Thomas is a champion scolder. He walks around doing the "ni ni no no no" thing while wagging his index finger like a stern great aunt. All he needs are a pair of coke bottle rimmed glasses to peer at me over the top of and I am sure to start feeling guilty.

But despite all these buckets of pure "adorability", Jack still seems to be Anna's favorite.
Anna's take on Thomas, as delivered to a babysitter just the other day:
"That's Thomas--the one with the light hair--he doesn't look like us"

Sigh. Always the bridesmaid, never the bride is my poor T...

Anna in the Kitchen

She uses "re-tensils".
I believe they are kind of like u-tensils, except she has given them away many times and they keep coming back.

And guess what she calls potholders now? Sponge rollers.

Jack: Separated at Birth...

... and after a hair cut.

Men Watching Sports

(ok maybe it was Baby Einstein, but can't you just see this fifteen years from now?)
Thomas and Jack express their dismay over the recent Giants-Jets playoff shutout.
And also the Knicks, of course.

Shorn!

Well, it had to happen eventually.

And when Jack grabbed the scissors from the doctor kit and held them up to his head, Mommy got the message.

Jack was really good; he seems to enjoy grooming. And he looks spectactularly handsome, and about 5 years older.

And don't worry: he hasn't lost any of his super powers...

Singin' In The Rain

Oh, yes: for Christmas, Anna was completely dolphin-accessoried. Or, as she insists, blue whale-accessoried. At any rate, it takes her forever to walk anywhere with that umbrella. (Only partly because everyone stops her to tell her how cute she looks :)

And now some Christmas quotes:

-- Right before bed on the 24th, we decide to leave a snack for Santa. Not surprisingly, Daddy suggests cookies and milk.
Cookies and milk. Hmmnnnn. Basically Anna's two favorite food groups. I knew Santa was not going to get these without a fight. As in:
"I don't want to give him cookies! Give him fruit! And pineapple juice! and pears!"

-- Anna noticed a framed black & white photo of a child sitting on Santa's lap. I guessed that it was Uncle Wesley. Gwammy said, no, that was actually her when she was little. Anna looked at the photo for a moment, and then:
"Were you a boy or a girl?"

-- We finished dinner on Christmas Eve and Anna gave Gwampy a big hug. Gwampy was touched and told her "aw, what a sweet girl you are!". Even as Anna is realeasing the hug, she is turning towards me and saying "I want to go home now"...
That's what you call a whole lotta love and very little timing.

-- On the geography front, Anna and I started talking about New Hampshire (I think because that is where Ellen was for Christmas). Anna let me know that "New Hampshire is a young state--it is very little so it must be a baby".

But by far the best: Gwampy was playing cars with Anna. Anna decided to make patterns with the colors of the cars and began laying them all out. Gwampy looked at the cars in front of him and said "red and green! The colors of Christmas!"
(As an aside: Anna's favorite colors are blue and purple.)
Anna looked at her cars and then thought for a moment. Then she said:
- "And I have purple and blue, the colors of Hanukkah! And Mommy has purple and green, the colors of Kwanza!"

Who knew she knew the colors of Kwanza?

"If This Is Summer, Then Where... "

is the ice cream truck?"

Not sure if you were aware of this but it was 70 degrees this weekend in NYC.
I was walking with Anna and she evidently noticed how warm it was and wanted to know why the other joys of summer were not around as well.
So I explained to her that no, it is not summer--actually it is January and just especially warm.

From the look on her face I could tell she thought mine was a fairly minor point; on a day like today, the guy should still be working, shouldn't he?

[Editorial note: when I read Anna's quote, I can not stop saying it in my head in the voice of Darth Vadar. As in:

"If this is a consular ship, then where is the ambassador?!"

You remember, right? From the first Star Wars (uh, I mean technically the 4th)? Right after Vadar boards Leia's ship and is asking her where the stolen plans are and she claims the ship is on a diplomatic mission to Alderran?

Insufferable geek, I know.]