Trick or Treating

Sasha went trick-or-treating tonight with his friend Annabelle the Scary Tiger.  I think neither one of them could believe the awesomeness of it.  Walk up to someone's door, say "Trick or treat," and then people give you candy!  But they needed each other to brave the front door, not one without the other.  Adorable!  They inspected each treat as they went along, building their candy vocabulary.  Sasha saw a Hershey's Kiss for the first time and after admiring its shininess, popped it in his mouth, foil and all.

The Green Lantern

The Green Lantern may have a cold, but that won't stop him from saving the universe from destruction!

He also may have temporarily forgotten his oath to protect us all from evil, but I'm sure he'll remember it once again, probably after he gets some Halloween candy in his system.

Business Opportunity

Superhero Prosthetics Corp.

The Particular Toddler.Or, The Little Dictator.

I know it's a toddler thing to be bossy and easily obsessed, but when does it enter the Twilight Zone?  I may have to rename Sasha's baby book Tales of the Bizarre.

Every morning when the Bub wakes up, he calls for us to come and pick him up and carry him back to our bed.  Why he can't just get out of his own bed and walk to ours?  He tried and tried again, but couldn't make it work with his little arms.  Because he doesn't travel alone.  Each morning when I'm beckoned, I find him meticulously stacking his three prized pillows into a neat column, all upright and facing the same way.  (Remember Piggy and Sister Piggy?  They've been joined by a purple Hippo.)  Then I pick up him with the stack in his arms and carry him to the next room.  Recently, he's been telling me to carry him "like an elevator," whatever that means-- I believe it means to put him down with a crashing sound, but I'm just guessing and so far that appears to satisfy him.

Upon getting in our bed, he demands that Nerdy and I ditch our own pillows and lay our heads on the new arrivals.  Nerdy must remove her pillows from the bed completely.  But we can't just casually lay our heads down.  Oh no!  First, he carefully determines in the dark which one is which, then hands them out: Sister Piggy to Mamu, Piggy to Mama, and Hippo to the dictator.  They are set down, heads facing out, tags on the right, fluffy side up.  Hippo must be placed in the exact center of the bed. Only then we are allowed rest peacefully while he drinks his cup of milk.

Sometimes the orderliness is totally unfathomable.  One day we built Batman and Superman out of Legos.  Here they are:

As usual when Sasha is involved with Lego-building, things fall apart frequently and must be repaired.  Predictably, Superman had a Humpty Dumpty moment and had to be put back together again.  But, as you can plainly see from the following before and after photos, I did it WRONG.  The creature on the right is clearly a ROBOT, and NOT Superman.  The obvious difference, worthy of hysterics, is that the robot has a small-to-non-existent forehead.  Duh.  How could I have confused the Superman (36 Legos) with the robot (35 Legos)?

Fortunately for everyone, Sasha's need for perfection can at times be fooled by his own cleverness.  When we had an early birthday party for Sasha during the visit from the Wisconsin contingent, he received both a Spiderman mask and a Captain America shield.  After the party was over, he was wearing both when he sat on the floor and complained, "There's a ploblem."

"The ploblem is, I can be Spiderman and Captain America, but Spiderman isn't one of the Avengers."

We agreed that Spiderman was not a member of the Captain's posse.  He was perplexed, but it was time for bed, so that ploblem would have to be dealt with later.  By dawn the next morning, he had it all figured out.  He crawled into our bed with the shield and the mask, announcing that he was now Tony Stark.  (I forgot to mention this part of the morning bed routine: he is Tony Stark a/k/a Iron Man, I am Tony's friend James, and Mama is Tony's other friend, Pepper.  We have to have at least one conversation in character.)  "I'm Tony.  I'm wearing Spiderman's mask and I'm borrowing Captain America's shield.  [Pause.]  For a lot of, lot of days."  Ploblem solved.

Photos from Carrie

Grandma, Aunt Carrie, and Taylor Visit

Yay! Our Wisconsin peeps came this weekend for a fast and furious visit to the Big Apple. Because our apartment is too small to host overnight guests, they rented a nearby apartment so they had room to spread out and be comfortable. And the place was very cool! (If you love all things real estate you can check out the pics if you want: http://www.homeaway.com/vacation-rental/p909357.) it was a great spot for us to gather in the evenings while Sasha and Taylor mind-melded. Yes, it's true, they got along so well it was actually freaky. They played school, superheroes, and most often, tackle football/wrestling and we intervened maybe twice from Thursday to Sunday. Truly amazing.

On Friday, we went to the American Museum of Natural History to see the dinosaurs (http://www.amnh.org/exhibitions/wld/). Very cool science! Most of the exhibits and information were way over the heads of the little ones, but I enjoyed it. And apparently, Sasha loved it, too, since he asked over and over again all weekend to go see the Really! Big! Dinosaurs! We may have to purchase a membership since his age is no deterrent to loving the science museum. Taylor was enthralled by the large North American mammals exhibit, with bears, wolves, coyotes, bison and deer. Did I mention bears? I also wanted to see the blue whale that hangs from the ceiling, but it was closed when we went to see it. Not that it mattered: Sasha was more excited about telling everyone that it was closed and showing us the rope than seeing the whale itself.

 On Saturday, the plan was shopping, with a final stop at FAO Schwartz. Wow. Now I know why it has such an outsized reputation. Because everything about that place is outsized! Totally overwhelming, but in a good way. We found lots of fun things and Carrie bought a huge bag of goodies for all the kids, including lonely Beckett who spent the weekend at home with Daddy, carrying a picture of Taylor around the house, asking, "Tay tay? Tay tay?" And of course every one of us bought an overpriced bag of nostalgia candy from the sweet shop.

The high point for Sasha, however, cannot be overstated. He got to meet a real, live Spiderman and Iron Man. And have his picture taken with them! And give them high-fives! In all the time he has been alive, I have never seen him like that. Like in the cartoons where he has stars in his eyes and a dreamy, this-can't-be-real cloud around his brain. He could not even speak. Seriously. He was napping when we got to the store, so we all anxiously waited for him to wake up so we could see his reaction to meeting real superheroes. We took him to the photo-taking area to meet them and he just stood in awe until it was his turn. Finally, he got to walk up to them and shake hands and pose with them. He did whatever they told him to because I think his brain had shut down due to overstimulation. He even did the "big muscles" pose with the two of them which was SO CUTE. After the photos, he zombie-walked away until Iron Man asked for a high-five goodbye. Then he gave them both high fives and we walked away. Shortly after, he tried on a Captain America mask and shield, then looked over to the superhoeroes, and dreamily told me and Nerdy, "I'm Captain America. I want to show them." We didn't really know what to do about this request, but thankfully Iron Man saw Sasha from across the room and waved at him as if to say, I see you Captain America, fellow Avenger, and you are awesome, too." Fortunately, that was satisfying enough for the Bub. Then we ran into the REAL Captain America downstairs and Sasha waved and shouted, "Hi Captain America! Hi Captain America!" but to no avail because CA was distracted by another mission. The only reason we were able to leave the store without tears is because the superheroes were on lunch break as we left. Phew.  And the huge lollipop helped, I'm sure.

Taylor was a great "cuzi" watching out for Sasha and making sure he received a satisfactory amount of superhero supplies from Aunt Carrie. Of course, the good-naturedness may have been due in part because her lip gloss addiction was well-fed for the entire playing, shopping, train-riding extravaganza. I think she put on one bottle's worth of lip gloss per day. One has to keep up one's glamorous appearance for a trip to the Big Apple! Special kudos to Tay for being a easy travel companion, a good sport about all the New Nork busy-ness and for being a responsible older cuzi.

Since I took almost none of my own, I will post photos whenever I get some from Carrie.

My Future's So Bright, I Gotta Wear Shades

Twinklin' Stahs? Fuggedaboutit

School, Week 2

Since my last post, we've had some more rough mornings at school.  Thursday and Friday mornings were clinging, tear-filled, forcible goodbyes.  So we feared what would happen this morning after a weekend filled with lots of family time.  We started out on a good note. Sasha got dressed without a fight and said a happy goodbye to me on his way out the door.  After donning his cape, of course.

And then, on to school.  One block from school, he asked Mama to carry him.  This was not a good sign.  In fact, while doing some internet research on how to help preschoolers adjust, I found one person who suggested not carrying them to school because it makes the parting even harder and undermines the "big  boy" aspect of going to school.  I don't find that convincing. Nonetheless, when Sasha asks to be carried, it's usually because he's tired or needs some love; neither of those reasons are going to help ease the transition.

Mama agreed to carry him and when they arrived, Sasha said good morning to his teachers (an improvement) and walked in by himself.  Nerdy said he hesitated in the entryway for a minute, as though deciding whether or not this was going to be okay with him. Ultimately he chose to agree: he gave Mama a kiss and hug goodbye, and she was out the door within 5 minutes, leaving a happy Bub in her wake.

Happy to Report

Yesterday's trip to school was slightly better than Monday.  He started putting up a real fight once it came time for the shoes to go on and the screaming didn't last long.  By the time we were in the elevator on the way out of our building, he had settled into a steady cry.  Once again, agonizing for everyone, although I'll admit to being slightly amused by the huge yawns interspersed with the tears.  He slept a terrible night, refusing to go to sleep until late in the evening, waking up crying in the middle of the night, then again before the crack of dawn-- up for the day at 5:30.

When we arrived at school, Teacher Tiffany met him at the door and tried to take his hand down the stairs into the schoolroom.  He refused, and wouldn't say hi, though a smile cracked.  Once inside the door, he ran off to go play with his friend Margot on the floor while Nerdy and I were reassured by the teachers that he was fine the previous day once he calmed down.  Apparently, he didn't calm down very easily, which as most of you know, is highly unusual for him and further broke my heart.  Then he was all smiles and gave me and Nerdy big hugs and kisses and a cheery "Goodbye!"

Here I have to commend the teacher who dealt with him: she held him, took him into the bathroom and washed his face with a warm cloth, then when he remained unhappy, she asked him if it would help if she drew a picture of his family. He said yes and she drew a little stick-figure drawing of a little Sasha with a mama close on either side.  He helped draw the sun and other background flourishes. (Maybe.  That's what the teacher told me, but when I asked Sasha if he drew that, he said, "No. Some other kid did.")  Then (apparently*) he asked that it be put on the wall.  It had pride of place as the only thing tacked to the corkboard when I arrived in the afternoon.

*I say "apparently" because I am just now realizing that I will never have a real idea about what goes on at school.  I only get to speak with the teachers for a few minutes every day and Sasha is a brick wall of silence about anything related to school.  When asked-- about snacks, naptime, activities, teachers, friends, etc.-- he only says, "Let's talk about that later."  Like a mantra, "Let's talk about that later."  Finally, Nerdy tried cornering him into an answer, "When's later? At dinner? or tomorrow?" And what does the stinker answer? "Umm... Saturday."  He doesn't even know what that means, but apparently he knows that it's a long enough time into the future that by then we'll forget what it was that we wanted to know.

So when I picked him up in the afternoon, I got one of those heart-melting hugs when he saw me, jumped up, and ran across the room into my arms, yelling "Mamu!"  And the teachers said he was perfectly happy all day.

And this morning, no crying! Yay!!!!!!!!!!!  Well, a few tears over the choice of t-shirt, but he walked all the way to school with Mama and a smile, and when he walked in, his new friend Mia ran up to give him a hug and he gave her one right back.