Holidays

We had a lovely Christmas with Aunt Connie and Uncle Bill, who drove up from Chicago for the afternoon, and presented Logan with an actual guitar with which he is currently obsessed. So far the guitar has also been a substitute for a dobro, a mandolin and a bassoon - imagination reigns!

Insult

Logan loves playing with words. For about the last year or so, he's been getting a big kick out of replacing the first letter of various words with the letter G (why G has this honor, I have no idea). For example, he'll say, "How are you, Gommy?" and then start laughing hysterically. People's names are frequently converted – Uncle Guss, Aunt Geidi – or nouns that accompany his game of "Where Does the Diaper Go?" (no, he's not potty-trained yet. Not even close. He will be the only teenager in the world who still wears diapers).

"Where Does the Diaper Go?" is a game he invented that we play before he takes his bath. He takes off his diaper (which obviously goes in the trash) and asks me, "Does it go in the gash? Does it go in the gub? Does it go in the sink? Does it go in the laundry? Does it go in the gotty?" etc. etc, until he finally inquires, "Does it go in the trash?" – to which I respond with a resounding, "Yes!" whereupon he dumps the diaper and climbs into the tub.

He also has a knack for remembering things, most especially phrases out of his favorite books (of which there are many). Usually this is delightful, especially when he starts talking to himself saying things like, "Go, dog, go," or "Mr. Plimpton out of bed, cream in coffee, egg on bread." However the other day, he looked at me and rather gleefully said, "Hi, fatso!" – and I responded by dropping my jaw and getting red in the face and wondering just what it is he's learning at this new preschool, before I remembered his book My Sister Gracie, where a plump dog is teased by other dogs.

Clearly we have to start warning him about the nature of an insult.

Santa

Back

So the blogging took a small hiatus while I finished my book and sent it off to my agent—I love saying that—yes, to my agent for a second perusal. She’s promised to get back to me after the holidays (hopefully with only minor rewrites, if any at all) and then she plans to submit it to the Big Editors. I can’t believe this is the first time I don’t actually have to write query letters and submit the work myself. The wait promises to be just as nerve-wracking, however.

Shay is awesome—sparkly and giggly and occasionally crotchety, but then she does take after her old mom. When we first brought her home from the hospital, we thought she was ever so different from Logan because she seemed to actually sleep (and our memories of our early days with Logan are dimmed beneath a haze of exhaustion so profound we felt like we were mired in molasses). Turns out she’s not so different—she’ll sleep if we’re holding her, but she doesn’t like being put down and she nurses a lot and sleeps restlessly at night. A replica of her brother. Who still doesn’t sleep through the night. At almost three years of age.

But we’re handling it much better, if for no other reason than we’ve accrued some tactical coping mechanisms. And we foresee another few years of poor sleeping among our children (clearly the love of sleep is not a genetically inherited trait), so we’ll just have to muddle through.

Sleep issues aside, Logan also continues to surprise, delight, frustrate and occasionally mystify, but then he does take after his old dad. The guitar continues to be his instrument of choice, and for some reason he keeps saying, “My name is Casey and I have a purple guitar pick.” Casey being the name of one of his preschool teachers who plays a mean guitar and is, no doubt, in possession of a purple guitar pick.

Logan’s enjoyment of Legos has disappated a bit—he used to build (or rather demand that we build) little guitars and fiddles and stand-up basses out of Legos, but now he uses his xylophone as a guitar instead. His other favorite pasttime of late is requesting crayons (five is the maximum I will dispense at any one time), then peeling the paper off the cylinders, breaking the crayons into two or three pieces and then proclaiming them “M&Ms”. Does he ever actually COLOR with the crayons? Rarely. Do we know why not? We have no clue.

Logan’s never been much into coloring, although he does like pens and makes little “scrubbing” marks almost like letters. He knows how to spell his name, and can actually make a pretty decent L and O, but the G thus far continues to thwart him. He continues to be fascinated by numbers and especially the thrill of putting up his fingers to indicate one, two, three, etc. He also knows that his birthday is on January 25^th, that he’ll be three years old, and that cake is somehow involved—although he also expects candy canes.

Speaking of which, we had a very successful visit with Santa on Tuesday (picture to come). I’d thought Santa might freak Logan out, but he went with the flow really well. When Santa asked what he wanted for Christmas, Logan replied, “A present.” Nice of the kid to leave the field wide open for us like that.

Halloween at the Zoo

Every year the week before Halloween, our local Henry Vilas Zoo has a very fun and crowded trick-or-treating event where local businesses set up tents and distribute candy to the hungry masses of tigers, princesses, Spidermen, Winnie-the-Poohs, ladybugs, pumpkins, etc. We've gone once since Logan was born, but that was in 2005 when he was 10 months old and rather clueless about costumes, Halloween traditions and candy. Last year, the weather was bad and we slacked off on getting him a costume since he still didn't quite get it, but this year we went all out.

Logan went as a tiger (or Tigger, depending on your perspective), and Shay was the ubiquitous baby pumpkin. (Both costumes were purchased at garage sales for 50 cents each - go me!). We got there nice and early since we knew the crowd would get intense, and introduced Logan to the joy of saying "Trick or Treat" in exchange for sugary loot. He collected a small batch of candy in his pumpkin bag, but he had the most fun when we joined our friends Suzanne and her daughter Miranda at the pavilion to listen to a live band. To indicate just how highly he thinks of Miranda - he didn't flinch when he shared his candy with her and she selected his grape-flavored Tootsie pop.

When the band started playing, Logan not only danced like he was in a veritable mosh pit, but he took his silver trick-or-treating bag and turned it into a guitar. The boy can make a guitar out of most anything - Legos, shoelaces, Play-Doh, buttered toast. Even Shay. He is nothing if not creative when it comes to guitar-playing. In the video, Miranda is the little girl in the dog costume.

We had a minor crisis on the way home since he kept wanting more "treats" - we thought we were being magnanimous about letting him have a few pieces of chocolate before lunch, but he had a different idea and didn't get the concept of being allowed more AFTER lunch. So after pitching a minor fit about eating his turkey sandwich (we eat a lot of those around here), he did get some lunch and was finally allowed a "widdle bit more treats, mommy." And so peace reigned in the land once again.

An Autumn Day

Today Logan and I went out to our 'backyard' park to enjoy the beautiful fall weather and colors. We grabbed a ball, deposited Shay in her kangaroo pouch, where she promptly fell asleep, and headed outside - after pausing to admire the M&M cookies temptingly displayed in the apartment vending machine.

The leaves are falling like - uh, falling leaves, and we spent some time shuffling our feet through them before heading to the soccer field. After successfully diverting Logan from two big mud puddles formed by the recent rain ("Hey, look, I've got the ball! I've got it! Look, Logan! Mommy's got the ball! Come and GET THE BALL AND GET AWAY FROM THE PUDDLE!")

So after some soccer playing, Logan promptly moved to the other end of the field to explore the dirt. As much as he loves to run, he often likes to sit with meditative quiet and play in the dirt or grass or what have you. I don't think he finds much, although every so often he'll hold up a clod of dirt with great pride and say, "Look! Dirt!" He's also very magnanimous with his findings, usually sprinkling dirt on his ball or presenting some to me as if it were...well, an M&M cookie.

After determining that the dirt was plentiful and that it stuck with unerring precision underneath our fingernails, we went back inside for turkey sandwiches and grapes. A good day. As always.

Just Because

Parachute!

Parachute!

The photos from this set are somewhat blurry - I'm still experimenting with my birthday camera (thanks, Kedar and Ellen!). I tried to shoot this on the high-speed 'sports' setting with mixed results. Some of the images have a rather artistic flair, if I do say so myself, but overall they're not the best.

So I'll try again next week, but in the meantime this is Logan's weekly sports class that he takes at the Keva Sports Center in Middleton (the best place in the nation to live, according to Money Magazine). It's a class for 2-3 year olds, and each week they participate in three different sports. At the beginning and end of each class, Coach Tracy brings out a brightly colored parachute for various games - and this is without question Logan's favorite part of the class. He'll run to the middle of the field yelling, "Time for parachute!" well before it actually is time.

This week, the sports were golf, hockey and football, none of which has yet seemed to gel with Logan. He much prefers the serious running sports (namely soccer and basketball). He's not so much into the "stick" sports - golf seems to just outright bore him, and hitting a ball with the hockey stick without being able to do some major sweat-inducing running - well, that holds his attention for all of two minutes.

Logan is a runner in all senses of the word. If there are running sports involved, he screeches with glee as he runs around the field and works up a major sweat. What he lacks in finesse he makes up for in sheer enthusiasm.

So last Tuesday he wasn't all gung-ho about the sports, but he was very thrilled with the stamp on his hand that Coach Tracy gives out at the end of each class, and he got the usual picture of a hockey goalie that he could take home and color.

Except that he spent the rest of the morning peeling the paper from the crayons and pretending they were M&Ms rather than using them for their intended purpose.

Oh, well - if he's learning what he likes to do and having a great time in the process, we all come out winners.

Crafty Ellen

Ellen's Quilt

I have an enormously crafty sister-in-law - and I mean that as a high compliment. Ellen can sew, knit and crochet (which I think are two different talents - I have little idea myself), and make all kinds of lovely paper gifts like a set of entirely unique cards.

The quilt is one she made for Shay, and we love the purple and dark pink colors with delicate fairy accents. There is so much pastel pink surrounding girlhood (not that there's anything wrong with that - I like pastel pink too), but it's wonderful to have something different and unique that Shay can keep throughout her childhood.

Thanks, Ellen! I'm already planning how to decorate Shay's own room in the same color scheme. I don't think she'll object, do you?!

Fire Truck

Sunday afternoon was HOT for October - weird to have beautiful fall colors when it's in the mid-80s - but it was a great day to head downtown for Madison's annual Fire Truck Parade, where almost 30 fire trucks from around Dane County paraded down State Street to Capitol Square, where they were then on display for a couple of hours.

We didn't see the actual parade (two people in our household were busy napping, and suffice it to say that they were both male), but we did make it in plenty of time to see the trucks. Logan sat in about four different trucks (one was green, but he preferred the red ones). There were trucks from several different WI towns - Cottage Grove, Brooklyn, Deerfield, Sun Prairie, etc.

On the other end of State Street, a rather large pot activist rally was taking place, which - as Will pointed out - was a study in contrasts with firefighters on one end of the street and pot activists virtually opposite them on the other end of the street.

All in all, we had a very nice afternoon, especially considering that it was finished off with a liberal amount of Ben and Jerry's ice cream.