Is It Hal Jordan?

Fly like a butterfly, sting like a bee...

     he's the greatest of all time....

          The Green Lantern!

                 ...who can button and unbutton his own shirts!

                        How ya like me now???

You're Going to Turn Into a Cranberry

Day 7 of cranberry overload.
What do you mean I have cranberry sauce between my eyes?

Turkey Day and the Zoo

Nana and Zayde hosted Thanksgiving dinner this year as usual.  The hosts, the three of us, and Aunt Margot were there, along with her special guest and Sasha's new best friend, Eileen.  He tried throughout dinner to impress her with his bowl-in-my-mouth trick, then later invited her to his bath, and also thought for a minute that he was going to invite her to sleep with him at bedtime, though Nerdy disabused him of that idea.

Dinner was excellent (no surprise) and the next day we visited the zoo.  Sasha had turkey for the first time and declared during dinner, "This turkey is really good!"  He also enjoyed buckets of cranberry sauce.

Sasha has been asking for some time now to go to "Nana and Zayde's zoo," also known as the Bronx Zoo, a short drive from their place.  Sasha had a blast.  I'm not sure if it was due to the animals or just being able to run around outside with an entourage. 

Or maybe because he was finally able to prove his driving skills.

He was also thoroughly excited to see the tigers.  Of course, as is toddler wont, once we arrived at the tiger exhibit, he was like, "Oh yeah there's a tiger.  So anyway, did you see this cool ball over here? And this big picture of a tiger?  When do we get to see the movie?"

Excellent photo capturing a tiger's curiosity toward its audience.

Sasha's new membership t-shirt which he was proud to wear.

All photos are courtesy of Aunt Margot.

Birthday Cupcakes

The Bub is now 3!  Amazing.  I can't believe only 3 years ago he was a little smushed-up, wrinkly, little creature depriving us of sleep and now he's a walking, talking boy with very strong opinions depriving us of sleep.

But he's still my little baby that makes me smile.  Or laugh.  Like when we walk past the laundromat and he calls it the washamo-mat.  Or when he tells the walnut, "I'm gonna eat you, nut wall."

We're having a birthday party for him tomorrow.  To my surprise, we've invited 4 families to join us in our hovel-- now that's love-- to have a celebration.  Balloons, streamers, cake, the whole nine yards.  I'm keeping my fingers crossed for lots of "sharing nicely" and "keeping our hands to ourselves."  Sasha's pretty good at the former, but not so much with the latter.  (We're having our very first parent-teacher conference after Thanksgiving, so we'll get to hear more about that.)  Let the festivities continue!

And to all the people who had disappointing or non-existent Skype conversations with the birthday boy yesterday: let's try again another day.  I think being the center of attention for an entire day was overwhelming.

Also, I did make birthday cupcakes and as promised, here's a photo.  (Note to Carrie: Yes, that's Wilton tip #233.  Certainly not as cool as a rainbow cupcake, but still kinda cute.)

Third Year Stats

The Bub had his third year check-up and here's how he measures up:  39 inches tall and 36 pounds.  No wonder I can't carry him very far anymore.

While at the doctor, he also picked up a 24-hour flu bug.  So yesterday around 4 a.m. he started throwing up and then spent most of the day not keeping anything down.  But by evening, thankfully, he was feeling better and today he ate a huge breakfast and went off to school, literally ribbiting and quacking.  Though it's almost 60 degrees, he insisted on wearing his wool duck hat with his froggy rain jacket.

He's very excited about bringing cupcakes to school tomorrow for his birthday, though it's giving me anxiety.  He's insisting on Green Lantern cupcakes.  I refuse to attempt anything difficult.  So I googled "green cupcakes" and he wasn't excited by the results.  Until he saw a giant cupcake about a foot tall, then he saw what exactly he wanted.  Right.  I'm betting that whatever I make, he'll be happy just because it's sugary.

Fall Foliage Fun

Some photos of Sasha with his best school friend Annabelle, playing yesterday in the park.  After trying unsuccessfully to fool the geese into eating gingko leaves, they built a big pile of leaves and got down to business getting dirty.

(Pictures courtesy of Annabelle's mom.)

S is for Sasha

The Silver Surfer has become fascinated with letters and words and always wants to know, What does this say? What does that say?  (Pardon me?  You thought he was the Green Lantern?  Please, that was SO Monday.  For a kid who wouldn't remember to eat if he wasn't reminded, he has a surprising capacity to remember a pantheon of superheroes.)  He's been identifying letters everywhere he sees them. I love that he's excited about it and wants to learn about words.

Of course, he's most familiar with the letters in his own name.  But whenever he comes across a lowercase typewritten "a" instead of the preschool-familiar handwritten "a," he calls it six.  I never thought about it, but they are almost mirror images of each other.  The same with a capital J and the lowercase t.  Intrigued, and wanting to help him learn, I downloaded an app for my phone that lets kids practice writing a letter over the one displayed on the screen.  He loved it for 5 seconds until he thought it was way better just to make a huge messy scribble on the screen and squeal with laughter at his mischief.  Just as funny the 30th time as the first time.

This morning he was reading the back of my t-shirt and asked Mama, "What does that say?"
"It says American College of Nurse Midwives."
"What's a mitwice?"
"A midwife is someone who helps a baby be born.  Like when I was pregnant with you inside me, Mamu and I had a midwife to help us when you were born."
"Oh.  Yeah, and when you were a baby inside me, Mamu and I had a mitwice, too."

I was reminded me of another recent conversation that tipped off his lack of comprehension to comic effect.  Occasionally Nerdy and I will tell him a story about "when I was a little girl..."  One day Sasha and I were in a fancy kitchen store and he pointed to a funky utensil and told me, "When I was a little girl, I had one of these."  "Oh, really?" I asked.  "Yes," he answered as his attention was drawn to another interesting dish, "and when I was two little girls, I played with one of these."  "Oh, really? When you were two little girls, huh?"  "Yes," he responded again, and again shifted his attention to something shiny, "and when I was three little girls, I had one of these things." "Wow.  And now that you're a big boy, do you want to quit shopping and go outside?"  "Yeah."

And what's the deal about being a big boy?  I always thought people who used that term for their kid were making a big deal about something that really wasn't.  Are you a big boy if you can use the potty, or are you just toilet-trained?  Are you a big boy if you can sleep in a bed, or are you just sleeping in a different bed than before?  Well, you can file that in the What You Thought You Knew Until You Became A Parent file.  Sasha is so invested in the big boy appellation that he will actually get mad and correct me if I dare to call him "my little boy" or "one of the little kids."  He absolutely loves being Big.  It's like he graduated to a higher plane of consciousness at 2 and a half years old.  So don't mess!  He is now big.  B-I-G.