Well, now I feel like I need to start taking back all that talk about the nonstop rainy winter weather here because on the whole it's been really nice lately (which means that starting tomorrow it will be pouring nonstop since I just said that). In fact, now people are starting to complain because the ski resorts haven't even opened yet due to lack of snow. Apparently this messed up how many people like to spend their Thanksgiving in these here parts of the country. Poor Mother Nature can't win for losin', I tell ya.Anyway, today has been a particularly beautiful and chilly early December day with bright, sparkling sunshine. This morning I went in to get Ian up about 7:15 a.m., and as he has taken to doing recently, he quickly buried his face and shut his eyes as soon as I walked in. He likes to pretend that he is still asleep - so we go through this thing where I say something like, "Oh, where's Ian? I guess he's not here this morning!" while he's trying to keep quiet with a big smile on his face. This goes on for about a minute until I say, "Well, I guess he won't be able to go school/sports class/whatever today!", at which point he springs up proclaiming that he's ready to get down now.
This morning he jumped up holding Grover and announced that Grover was his baby. (Personally, I think it's related to all the talk around the house recently of his soon-to-be-arriving new baby cousin.) But here was essentially the conversation:
Me: Oh, you have a baby! What is your baby's name?
Ian: Oh, baby's name is Cats.
Me: I see. That's an interesting name for a baby. Is your baby a boy or a girl?
Ian: My baby is a person! (Yesterday I was trying to explain the difference between people and animals and that Zach and Catalina are animals, for example.)
Me: That's right - babies are people. But people can either be boys or girls. Is your baby a boy or a girl?
Ian: It's a baby!
Okay, apparently he wasn't interested in assigning a sex to his baby, which is fine. However, he was very concerned with Baby/Grover being treated well (I had to hold him/her while Ian sat on the potty) until we got downstairs for breakfast and poor Baby was tossed on the floor and left to fend for him/herself for the rest of the day. Anyway, Thursday is the one day of the week when we do not have a pre-planned activity for the morning. And for some reason I was feeling quite exhausted and low energy on this particular Thursday morning. Plus, I had a few phone calls to make and things to do. So, needless to say we were a little slow in getting started. By 10ish the natives were getting very restless so I was forced to turn to the power of Sesame Street. Man, I can see why parents get addicted to TV. That stuff is like magic. At first Ian was running all around me like a mad man, not leaving me alone for two seconds and all I had to say was, "Ian, do you want to watch some Sesame Street?" and it was like he disappeared into thin air, leaving me free to finish up my things and get us ready to leave the house. Awesome. And any guilt I had about using the television as my babysitter instantly went away when I came downstairs to turn it off and witnessed him following along with the program in counting out loud to 18 for the first time (that I've heard, at least). I mean, now I'm thinking maybe the whole importance of parent involvement in early childhood education thing is highly overstated when all we really need is Sesame Street 24/7, right?
So, finally I decided that our morning activity would be to go out and pick out a few toys for donation. Jeff's holiday party is coming up next Saturday eve and there will be a Toys for Tots donation there and the local NBC affiliate also does a big toy donation drive that we wanted to participate in this year - s
o I thought it would be a good idea to take Ian out to a toy store and have him help me pick out a couple of things and then participate in dropping them off. So, out we went. Once we got to the store, he was very good about making toy suggestions, which were of course all things he wanted and thought were for him. I explained what we were doing about 50 times though and I think he somewhat got the concept because he very willingly helped me put the toy and books into the donation drop box at our local tire store on our way home. I thought about taking a picture of this as it was happening to include in this post, but I decided it was a little much to be whipping out my camera in the middle of the tire store to capture my kid putting a toy in the box. I didn't want people to think I was some overly obsessed parent or anything like that.
o I thought it would be a good idea to take Ian out to a toy store and have him help me pick out a couple of things and then participate in dropping them off. So, out we went. Once we got to the store, he was very good about making toy suggestions, which were of course all things he wanted and thought were for him. I explained what we were doing about 50 times though and I think he somewhat got the concept because he very willingly helped me put the toy and books into the donation drop box at our local tire store on our way home. I thought about taking a picture of this as it was happening to include in this post, but I decided it was a little much to be whipping out my camera in the middle of the tire store to capture my kid putting a toy in the box. I didn't want people to think I was some overly obsessed parent or anything like that. On the way back to the car I took note that it was such a great day outside that I decided to offer Ian the option of either going home or going to the park. Can you guess which one he chose? So, we went over to Raleigh Park (which somewhat to my surprise was completely deserted) and put in some time on the swings, then slides, then swings and then more swings before heading home for lunch and nap.
All in all, a nice day here in Beaverton!
Until I write again.
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