Christmas Joy

Christmas 2008

If you were to ask Linus about Christmas he would tell you about getting trains.  He would likely tell you about Henry, Thomas, Gordon, and Salty.  He received trains from the Thomas line from Stephanie and us.  As soon as he had a few of them unwrapped, it took coaxing from us to get him to open up the rest of his presents. I found it delightful to watch and listen to him express his excitement and love for the trains.  I got a bit of video of it and I'll try to post it soon so you can hear him talk about loving the trains.  You can hear the joy oozing out of him in the tone of voice he uses. 

We are all enjoying his new books, toys, and games.  Diggitty Dog is his very first board game.  We played it with him this morning. Instead of rolling a die, one pushes on the dog house in the center of the board.  You count how many times the dog barks and that is how many spaces you get to move.  Something that was fun to discover was that the dog playing pieces have magnets in their mouths.  If there is a bone where your dog lands, you get to pick up the bone using the magnet and check to see if the color on the other side matches your dog.  I think it is fun to pick up bones using the dogs.

When Linus was opening up the gift bag from Matthew's aunt and uncle he said, "Martha and Bill are good at wrapping things!"  He found a painted picture included with a gift from Johanna in Green Bay and said, "How thoughtful of her."  He received a bowling toy from his cousins out east and he said, "I will play it with Chase."  It was gratifying to hear him express appreciation for his gifts.

For the most part he has played with his trains non-stop.  We had to tear him away to go for Christmas dinner at a friend's house and drag him off to bed last night.  Tonight he cried as Matthew pulled him away to get ready for bed.  He recovered when I read him one of his new books for his bedtime story:  The Little Engine That Could.  He was engrossed with the story, but troubled that some of the engines refused to help out.  Matthew put him to bed and he was out in no time at all.

Munchkin

We were out running errands today and I said to Linus, "Come here little munchkin. Are you my munchkin?" He said, "No, I'm your sweetheart."  I think he is both things.

I had the car radio tuned to a station playing only holiday music and they played Rosemary Clooney singing "Suzy Snowflake."  Linus loved it and got the giggles.  He was singing one line over and over as we walked across a store parking lot. As we entered the door he continued to sing out, "If you want a sleigh ride, wheeeeeeeee!" and the customers in the check out lines and the cashiers all busted out laughing and looked in our direction. It didn't phase him one bit. He kept singing it as we went in search of paper doilies. 

Tonight I found the song on iTunes. The first version I bought didn't have the "wheeeee" part. I listened to the 78 RPM version and that was the right one. I can't wait to surprise him with it tomorrow.  

Here Linus is helping mix the pancake batter for our Sunday morning ritual.

Cookies and Gift Wrapping

Linus has helped me wrap many of the presents we've mailed out.  Some of you might find your gift wrap cut crookedly and will wonder whether it is my handiwork or Linus'. You may also see tape put on a bit messy or you might even see his handwriting on the gift tag.  They all turned out great one way or another.

Tomorrow the three of us are visiting our first preschool that we are considering for Linus.  At the moment I'm feeling sad about it and don't want to go for the tour.  I'm not ready to send him out into the world without me. My friend, Paige, reminded me that it will only be about five hours a week and I'll be able to handle it.  I suppose I will, but it doesn't mean my heart won't break a bit when we reach this milestone next fall. 

Cookie Party

We hosted a Christmas cookie party on Saturday and invited our neighbors.  One of the best parts was that Erin brought six-week-old baby Grace over.  She has the sweetest little bow shaped mouth.  Two of our kid guests played most of the time while Linus stayed at the table rolling out, icing, and decorating cookies. I was amazed at his staying power.  He also ate a bunch of cookies.

  

It was so cute watching Linus try to share his toys with Grace.  He put his baby doll right on top of her.  Good thing the doll is so small.  He giggled each time he reached out and touched her.  

We are inundated with Christmas cookies right now.  I attended a cookie exchange Friday night and came home with six dozen cookies.  I only succeeded in getting one person to take cookies home from our party, so we have probably eight dozen or so. I sent a bunch of them to work with Matthew.

Lyz sent Linus a scarf and he was so excited about receiving a package in the mail that he could open right away.  (We've been stowing Christmas packages away.)  One would have thought he'd received gold in the mail; he was that excited.  He said, "It was thoughtful of her to send it to me."  Then he ran around the house wearing it rather proudly.

Kiddo's First Parade

We took the bus downtown last Saturday night for the holiday parade.  There were many great high school marching bands, gorgeously lit up floats, and gigantic balloons.  Linus' favorite part? The tractors that pulled the floats.  Oh, and he kept talking about the flute players the next day. Flutes and trumpets.  The weather was perfect for standing around outside and when the parade finished up where we were, we hurried over a few blocks to see it some more.  Then we stopped for hot chocolate and bused back home.  We all went to bed late and on Sunday Linus told me he was still tired from the parade.

The pace around here is wearing me down.  Linus feels a need to go, go, go and then go some more. I told Matthew the reason moms send their kids to preschool when they turn three is because they can't keep up with them any more.  Plus, I need to find a boy or two for Linus to have playdates with. He needs kids who like to wrestle and play more physically.  Poor Chase really didn't want to wrestle with Linus this week.  Barrett handled it okay because she is used to it with her older brother. 

Shoveling and Shopping

I was so very happy that it snowed all day yesterday. It wasn't big, fluffy snow, but it covered the ground nonetheless.  We stayed inside and sipped mulled cider and decorated a bit. The high today was around 40, but that didn't stop us from shoveling the sidewalk when we had the chance.  Actually, I shoveled the sidewalk and Linus shoveled the lawn.  The snow here is so dry and light that it takes little time or effort to clear the sidewalk.  We hadn't had our fill yet, so I shoveled for our next door neighbor and Linus tackled her lawn.  He liked pretending that he was Thomas clearing snow from the train track and I was both of his coaches, Annie and Clarabel.  Then we went inside and I got him started on an art project while I worked on Christmas cards.  I cut out wreath shapes from construction paper (he chose orange) and he decorated them with stickers and coloring. 

After lunch we went to the mall.  He hasn't been there since last winter.  He was a delightful shopping companion for much of the trip.  He was mesmerized by the glass elevator and all of the pretty decorations.  His favorite shop window had motorized decorations.  Two were the kind that work using magnets:  an ice skating rink with skaters and one was a sledding hill with sledders zooming down it.  The shop also had a window with a train going around a Christmas tree, but it wasn't working until the shop keeper took pity on Linus and got it going again.  We were there a very long time watching the displays, but I couldn't afford to buy anything in the store. They had argyle socks in Linus' size (wouldn't that be cute?!), but I couldn't justify paying the asking price.  Maybe they'll be super cheap in January.  

On the way home from shopping he fell asleep in the car holding his stuffed Santa.  He received the Santa for his first Christmas from my friend Pat.  When we got it out with the holiday decorations yesterday I was instantly reminded of sitting across from Pat at Kavarna having lunch.  Linus was eight months old and sitting on our laps while we visited.  He was delighted when I pulled it out of the box.  

Here are some recent quotes from him:

Talking about one of his cars, "This is where gas goes so it can drive and breathe."

He was playing swimming pool and said, "The water is cold. I'm going to get polar bear."  He came back from his room with snowy owl and polar bear and said, "I got them because they both like to be cold."

He was coloring on some paper and all of a sudden announces that it is for grandma and grandpa.  A few minutes later I find him trying to open the front door.  He told me, "Hang it up so letter carrier can take it and put it in his van and go to grandma and grandpa."

He put on his snail necklace and said, "I'm wearing it!  It's so pretty!"

"I'm excited about Thanksgiving. We get to have rolls!"

Today he said, "I like turmeric because it's yummy and good for me."

Snowy Day

Saturday morning we woke up to find snow on the ground. He rushed to eat breakfast so we could go play in it before it melted.  It actually stayed around for a couple of days.  We bundled Linus up in his new snow pants.  Previous to this winter he has had snow suits.  He looked like a big kid in the snow pants.  The playground was a completely different experience with snow on the slide and jungle gym part.  We tried to get him to go down the snowy slide, but he refused. I could understand why when I climbed up there. It was so slippery up there.  The snow was wet enough to make snow balls, which never happens here.  Linus thought it was fun to play catch with them.  The best part was making snow angels.  He looked so cute backing up and then flopping down.

Snow Angel Lesson

I'm especially tickled by the way Linus backs up so much, says, "Plop," as he flops down, and how his legs go up in the air.  Too cute!  We got enough wet snow that the three of us went to the park and pretended we were in Wisconsin.

Thanksgiving 2008

We had a delightful celebration with Martha and Bill for the second year in a row.  Linus asked me several times why we were going to their house and I told him we were going to have a Thanksgiving feast with them.  Before we headed out to their place that morning Linus asked about the feast and I guess he thought we would eat the second we got there.  Shortly after we arrived he asked me about the feast again.  

I hung a guest towel in the bathroom that I cross stitched a number of years ago with a mouse in a pilgrim outfit.  Linus asked me what we were going to dress up as.  When I told him we don't wear costumes for Thanksgiving he wanted to know why the mouse was wearing one.  Then he wanted to know about Pilgrims.  I told him that a long time ago Pilgrims came to North America on a ship called the Mayflower.  I edited down all the details to this version of events: They got caught here in the winter time and didn't have enough food and many became sick. In the spring some American Indians taught them how to grow gardens and the next fall they celebrated together because they had enough food.  Apparently this was enough of an answer for him this year.

I told Linus he could try some turkey at dinner, but he declined.  He did, however, have both apple and pumpkin pie for dessert.  After dinner Bill put on some music and we danced around together with scarves.  He was asleep within five minutes of being in the car to head home.  He was really tuckered out.  I got him into jammies and then he played for a while.  After he ate a few leftover rolls, he came to me and asked to go to bed.  I can't recall that ever happening before!  When we went to bed we could hear him snoring very loudly in the next room.

Shrinky Dinks

Linus made his first shrinky dink yesterday.  He chose to do a snail pendant. I traced the picture and he colored it with colored pencils. We punched the hole in it together.  I asked if he wanted to turn it into a zipper pull or necklace and he chose necklace.  He selected the beads and slid many of them on without help.  We did a few of them together and he pointed out, "We're working together. We're a team."  He also told me I did a good job.  He wanted to spell a word with the letter beads. We didn't have an "S" so we couldn't spell Linus or snail.  He then told me he wanted to spell "me."  He is very proud of it and showed it off to his friend Chase.

We've had two play dates at home in the last week and he and his friends have played very well together.  The moms and I intervened hardly at all and Linus gives his friends hugs when they leave.  One of the best things about play dates at home is how excited Linus gets. He stands on the couch and watches out the window for his friend.  As soon as he sees them he starts squealing and runs to the door. Linus is playing with Chase and Barrett for the most part.  We don't have play dates with Lucero any more because I find her mom to be too taxing.

Project

One day last week Linus took his scissors and a ball of yarn downstairs. Then he came back up to get his little chair.  I asked him what he was doing and he said, "A project. I'm making Thomas." I continued doing dishes and then my mother's intuition kicked in and I thought I'd better go see what he was up to with those scissors.  He was cutting the yarn into many pieces.  I suggested he do it upstairs by me, but he said he had to do it downstairs.  While he was cutting he said, "I'm being careful. I won't cut my pants."  This was a risk as you can see from his technique.  Then he took some of the yarn pieces into my craft room and brought Winthrop and Bee in for a sewing lesson.  I watched him proceed to sit at my sewing machine, put down the presser foot, and pretend to sew a Thomas.  (He is all about Thomas and those trains these days.)  Then he made a Percy, James, and Skarloey.  He kept referring to it as "my Skarloey project."  Can you tell he hears about projects from me all of the time?

Singer/Songwriter

Due to the low light level and the poor video performance of the digital camera, the quality of this isn't that great. On the other hand, Linus makes up for it with his cuteness and talent.

First Snow 2008

I find it laughable to look at this picture today because that first snowfall last week melted by day's end and yesterday we had a record-breaking high of 78 degrees.  Lest the Wisconsin folks think I'm lording over you with this, I'm not; I'm actually quite annoyed that I'm sweating outside one week before Thanksgiving.  I'm pestered by the yard work that still needs to be done and I have no excuse to put it off until spring because it is nice enough to work outside.  

We went for a pleasant walk in the neighborhood to look at everything with snow on it.  When we got cold we came home and had hot chocolate together.  Linus asked why and I told him that it is fun to have hot chocolate after playing outside in snow.  He accepted that answer.  

A woman at the grocery store was laughing at me while she listened to Linus' constant stream of questions.  We ended up at the check out together and she asked how old he is. When I told her he is 2 1/2 she said, "I can tell."  She got a kick out of it.  I'm so used to hearing him ask me why that when I say things to him I immediately start thinking of an answer, even when he doesn't actually ask why.

Leaf Prints

I've been working on improving my Colorado bread making skills.  I'm finally starting to see some improvement in that my last batch turned out more than two inches tall.  Linus is getting better and better at putting the ingredients into the mixer without spilling as much.  He likes to knead the dough a bit. He thinks it is fun to leave his hand prints in it.  

While the bread was rising we went for a walk around the neighborhood to gather leaves for a fun painting activity.  We painted the leaves and pressed them on paper. He had fun smearing paint all over and specifically made one of the pages for Matthew.  

One of Linus' pretend games lately is to act like he is going to work.  He'll announce to me, "I'm going to work at the farm!"  I'll tell him to have a nice day and then he goes through the motions of driving there on his trike.  He still doesn't know how to pedal so he sits on it and talks about driving to work and some people getting off the bus at their stop.  Today he pretended to feed the farm animals sugar, which was really sand from his sand table. Other times he talks about having to go to meetings.

At the Model Train Show

Road Construction

Linus received the most wonderful and complete set of wooden blocks from his grandparents.  They have brought him nothing but joy and delight since they arrived in the mail.  He loves to build roads more than anything else.  He plans out detailed routes and narrates the building process down to the tiniest minutiae.  He puts on a pretend hard hat and then sets up ramps, curves, and parking lots.  At times he uses his wooden lock box to be a destination to which the pig car drives home.  He sets up a road every day and then he and Matthew put it away before bed time.

For obvious reasons, this has been a big week.  I'm still giddy that Obama won the presidency and I'm feeling so much more proud to be an American.  I also made a point to tell Linus that hopefully by the time he is grown up, men can marry men and women can marry women.  The passage of Proposition 8 in California saddens me great deal.  It conflicts greatly with Obama's win.  The Personhood Amendment was soundly defeated here in Colorado.  I can't believe I am still fighting the battle over a woman's right to choose. I've been fighting this since I was 18 years old.  I hope by the time Linus is 18 it is no longer an issue.

Leading up to my birthday Linus told me, "We are hiding your presents because it is a secret. We wrapped the book so you can't see it."  All in all, he did a good job of keeping the presents a secret from me.  

2008 Presidential Election

I voted by mail last week and I was so emotional as I drew the line to vote for Obama.  I've never photographed my ballot before, but this one seems so significant.  I'll be working at a poll all day tomorrow and sending Obama vibes to each and every voter who shows up.  The messages of this campaign are messages I want to pass on to Linus.

We are the ones that we've been waiting for.  There is nothing false about hope.  We can repair this world.  Yes we can.

On a lighter note, I was complaining about Republicans recently to Matthew and rather than using an expletive I said, "Grrrr."  The next time Linus heard the word Republican he said, "Grrrrr."  That's my boy!

Autumnal Chores

We raked leaves together Friday morning.  The weather has been very pleasant and our neighborhood gets a golden glow from the sunlight shining through the yellow leaves.  The little boy from across the street came over with his mom. She and I visited while the boys raked leaves together and jumped into them.  Linus got very upset when I started bagging the leaves up.  I had to explain a couple of times that we need to bag them up for the city to compost them.  The bags are huge!  The first time I asked Linus if I could put him in one he declined.  Then he let me do it about a half hour later.  When we went into the house a bunch of leaf bits came out of the cuffs in his pants and I was pulling leaves out of my shirt.

Candy Stupor

Pumpkin Moonshine

We helped Linus carve his pumpkin Thursday night.  He spent a very long time diligently pulling out and separating each seed to put in a bowl for me to roast.  He asked for it to have a silly face.  During the carving process he asked dozens of questions.  I'm not exaggerating at all when I say he asked that many questions.  When exposed to something new, Linus asks lots of questions and repeats some of them until he feels satisfied that he understands it.  I wrote down some of what he asked.

Why is it Halloween?

Why are pumpkins orange?

Why do we eat the seeds?

Why do we put them in the bowl?

What is that hard thing?  (It was the base of the pumpkin.)

Why is the pumpkin on the table?

Why don't we eat this part?

We'll make a pumpkin moonshine and it will be cute?

Why we put a candle inside there?

Why will we turn the light off?

Linus learned about calling a jack o'lantern a pumpkin moonshine from a very cute library book by Tasha Tudor called Pumpkin Moonshine.

Trick-or-treating went well.  The weather was warm enough that we didn't need to wear coats.  I pulled out my wood nymph costume once again, but I added an Obama button to it.  Matthew shoved his head into the owl hat I made for Linus' costume last year.  Linus was an adorable lion and did a pretty good job of saying, "Trick or treat!" and "Thank you."  Early on in the evening he pulled out a dum dum sucker to eat and then he wanted to eat a bag of M&Ms. I told him he'd have to wait until we got home because the candy would spill out of the bag.  I think he didn't get off to bed until well after nine because we let him eat his fill of candy. 

He was interested in learning the names of the different candies and really wanted to know why Skittles have the letter S on them.  He also offered me some of his Skittles and M&Ms.  He didn't like the cinnamony Hot Tamales.  He's asked for his candy twice today, but we told him both times it was too early in the day for candy.

Bat Friend

Last week Linus made this bat at the library.  With its wings askew and eyes a bit wonky, it sure does look cute, doesn't it?  Linus liked running around the house with it to help it fly.  In other bat news, everyone should check out Bats at the Library.  The illustrations are charming and there is so much to discover on each page.  The story is about what happens one night when a librarian leaves a library window open. The bats excitedly go in to enjoy all that the library has to offer.  Adult guests in our house have loved it and it is great for reading aloud.

Linus is now in bed feeling very worn out from a day of playing and raking leaves, followed by trick-or-treating; and all without a nap. I, too, am worn out by all of the excitement. 

This week our newest neighbor was born.  I got to meet Grace this afternoon as her parents and grandmothers were taking her out for her first walk.  I got to hold her for a good amount of time as other neighbors joined us in their front yard.  What a tiny and sweet bit of perfection in this world.  I could barely part with her.  It was wonderful to experience this beautiful moment of neighbors gathering to excitedly surround the baby and her parents.  We all shared in the gloriousness of welcoming a new baby.

Cookie Blobs

I bought a pumpkin cookie cutter recently and thought we could decorate Halloween cookies with icing.  Several things didn't go as planned, but we accomplished my goal to have some fun with Linus.  For some reason the cookies spread out a lot and lost their pumpkin, leaf, or apple shape.  They all looked like blobs.  I'm not sure what the problem was since we used a recipe for cut outs.  Unless the extra sugar Linus put in while I was occupied with the plumber messed it up. I have some icing decorator tips, but no piping bags, so I cut a hole in the corner of a Ziploc bag and let Linus have at it.  The bag tore and the tip came out.  I tried to fix it with packing tape, but that didn't last long.  The decorating went fine without the tip in since Linus was having fun squeezing the frosting out everywhere.  Don't tell Matthew, but when Linus sucked some of the icing out of the bag I pretended I didn't see it.

Covered Up

This is what Linus is doing right this very minute:  sleeping under the ironing board.  My current quilt project is hanging over it. He wasn't tired at nap time so we kept playing.  All of our activities today finally caught up with him.  He crawled under the quilt top and kept asking me what I could hear.  Next thing I knew he was zonked out.

What did we do today that wore him out?  We brought laundry in off the line from yesterday afternoon, we washed another load and hung it out together (he says he is clothes pin boy and I am clothes woman), made two loaves of bread, played the Thomas matching game, Langley showed up with some replacement puzzles for the ones we left her and that her dog chewed up, we played with all of the new puzzles and played a rather large memory game, ate lunch, read stories, swept the house together, and listened to a cd.  Phew.  I'm tired too.

Spider Art

I helped Linus create a spider web this week.  He had discovered my little hole-punch in my desk and had fun punching holes in the paper in the recycle bag.  I gave him a paper plate and instructed him to punch holes around the rim.  I had to help him slide the plate in far enough, but he did pretty well at punching through the plate.  Then I gave him yarn that I knotted on one end and wrapped in a bit of tape on the other so that it would be easier for him to sew with it.  He criss crossed the plate and created a fine looking web.  I created a spider by spiraling up pipe cleaner (he chose white), and bending smaller pieces onto the body to create the legs. Linus applied the googly eyes.  After we took pictures of it, he decided the spider needed flies to eat. He then proceeded to glue every single one of his puff balls on it for the flies.  I don't have pictures of that because the lens cover on my camera refuses to open and I need to mail it in to be repaired. Grrrr.

Matthew took some comp time and came home early from work today.  He and Linus are off for a walk, which gave me a chance to blog a bit.

Pants

Linus put his pants on all by himself for the first time.  He told me he wanted to go get pants by himself and that he wouldn't be lonely because his animals would keep him company.  Then he came back with this pair of jeans and he sat down and put them on by himself. I didn't have the heart to tell him he needed a pair of undies because he was proud of being independent and he can't reach them in the top drawer of his dresser.  (I guess it is time to move them down lower.) He was so excited that he took them off and put them on again a few times.  

Potty training is going okay.  Not too long ago he went a few days with a lot of accidents, but he is back on track and today had no accidents.

Linus is doing a great job of using his manners at home.  He says thank you without being prompted and even asks to be excused from the table.  His little voice sounds so cute when he asks, "May I be excused?"

Yesterday I bought gas ($3.15 a gallon) and while I pumped the gas I played peekaboo through two of the car windows. As we pulled away from the gas station he was still laughing and said, "Thank you for peeking at me."  Sure thing, kid; anytime.

Pumpkin Patch

Saturday we went out to the Gardens' site at Chatfield for Pumpkin Fest.  It was drizzly and cold so we didn't spend all that much time there.  Even so, it was fun to see Linus in his lion costume stumbling his way through the pumpkin patch.  Before we even arrived there he knew he wanted a little pumpkin.  He brought home a very cute one that I neglected to photograph because it started to rain.  When I saw the barrel trains I was pretty sure Linus would think a ride on one would be fun.  As the tractor pulled away with him, I couldn't believe he was doing this on his own.  How could he be big enough for this?!  As we watched the barrel train curve off out of view I told Matthew, "This is the first time we've let a complete stranger go off with our kid."  I think this is just one example of the baby steps I'll be taking until he goes off to preschool.

Autumn Walk

I brought the camera with me when we went for a walk recently.  Linus brought Floppy Dog with us.  We smelled flowers, watched squirrels, and ended up at the playground at the park.  When we started to head home Linus wanted me to put Floppy Dog down his shirt.  Something led me to believe that he wanted to carry him the way people carry babies in slings.  I used his long sleeve shirt to make a sling and that is how he carried Floppy Dog all the way home.  

Two new words in his vocabulary include "evaporated" and "xenophobic."  He was jabbering away and I was only partly listening and I heard him say "evaporated." At dinner I told Matthew about it and he asked Linus, "What evaporates?"  Linus answered, "Water."  Matthew asked, "When?"  Linus said, "At the garden."  When it comes to "xenophobic" I should clarify that although he said the word a few times today he doesn't really know what it means.  He has a book called C is for Curious: An ABC of Feelings.  For the letter x it has the word xenophobic and an illustration of some unidentifiable animals that kind of look like skinny dogs looking up at a UFO flying overhead. I just tell Linus that they are saying, "Who is that up there?" and I use a bit of a gruff voice.  I don't think a two-year-old needs to know what it really means.

Assistant Sander

One of my goals this summer was to refinish our porch swing.  I finally started it last week.  Linus liked sanding and was even good about going with the grain.  After a few minutes of focused work he started running around the yard, coming back to sand a bit, and then running around again.  I haven't gotten any farther than I got last week because it aggravated my carpal tunnel syndrome and it is still bothering me nearly a week later.  I guess I should send out an email to our friends and see if someone has a power sander I could borrow and learn how to use.  Or else we won't sand it anymore and just put some polyurethane on it and call it done.

Cute things Linus has said recently:

Matthew said, "It is already 11:15."  Linus said, "No, it's 14:19.  14:16." 

He sang these words:  

We ma way

Lion in the jungle

Lion in the jungle

Lion in the jungle

Lion in the zoo.

He was on my lap and we were cuddling and he looked at me and said, "Everyone in the world likes us."  World peace does exist in this tiny way.  What a beautiful idea.

What Do Ants Eat?

Linus left his peanut butter bread outside and he discovered it several hours later with tons of ants on it.  So now he has a better understanding of what ants will eat.

I hosted another Obama event Monday night.  It was a postcard-writing party.  Two of my neighbors attended and the other six folks signed up via the Obama website.  We wrote out 148 postcards encouraging undecided voters to choose Obama.  Some people brought store bought postcards to write out and others decorated their own.  

Linus did okay with all of the strangers in the house, but he did get quite keyed up.  He colored with markers, ate brownies, and prattled to me.

Two and a Half

In the last week or so I've noticed that Linus has jumped ahead again in his development, which corresponds with his turning two-and-a-half in less than a week.  It is hard to put into words the ways in which he is different, but I do perceive a difference.  The best way I can describe it is to say that he is all about narratives.  He creates them, describes them, and participates in them.  Witnessing them is amazing and magical.

I've been trying to write quotes down whenever I can, but there have been a number of days where I really just needed to video tape him from morning until night.  Here are some cute things he has said:

Linus - Kitties like restaurants.

Me - They do?  Why?

Linus - Because food is good there.

On a recent morning I awoke to find Linus standing next to me at the side of the bed. He put a pretend kitty next to me.  He said it was a white one.  Then he went into the kitchen to give Matthew a black one.  He said his own kitty was blue.  He looked after all three kitties through our breakfast, he had me put a seatbelt on them in the car, they held onto him and he held onto me while we crossed a street, they joined us in the hardware store, and they went grocery shopping with us.  For the trip home he had me buckle them in again and he unbuckled them when we arrived.  After that I heard no more about them.

After a successful trip to the potty he exclaimed, "I'm so proud of me!" and gave me a big hug.

I walked in the door from going solo on an errand. He ran to the door and said, "Welcome to you!"

He said a number of funny things about the bats in the house.  He told Matthew, "They mostly don't eat babies."  At one point he told me he was clapping because he wanted more bats to come up.  He was so into the bats and would say, "Let's see more bats!"

He was playing with his cars and asked, "What street is the grocery store on?"  I said, "Leetsdale."  He said, "Okay, Leetsdale," and went back to playing.

Matthew opened the window over the stove for me. Linus said, "That was very polite of you to help mama, Matthew."

After our drilling into him to listen to when his body needs to go to the bathroom, he applies that to a number of things.  For instance, "My body says feed me more applesauce."

He grabbed the box of tissues from the living room and as he headed off to his room he told me, "I'm taking the tissues to my animals to sneeze in."

He was driving his cars around outside and he said they had a membership and were going to the museum.  They were going to see  a dog statue and a cricket.

His latest thing is that any time he gets hurt in the slightest way, he wants a bandage.  He tells me, "The blood is moving through my body and coming right here," and he points to the sore spot.  I put a bandage on it and about two minutes later he takes the bandage off and says it is all better.

He said the coffee table was a tea table because I had a mug of tea on it.  He also said the bean bag I made for him was a rice bag.  (I stuffed it with rice.)

At breakfast one morning he grabbed the newspaper, opened it up and said, "I looked to see what's in the world."

He loves to pretend cook and has been trying some new pretend recipes.  He pretended to hand me basil and said, "Here's some basil.  It's good on muffins."  He has also made dill muffins.

Just a few days ago I witnessed him play fighting for the first time.  Two of his cars were fighting. I asked if perhaps they could talk it over instead of crashing into each other.  The only response I got was him making the cars crash into each other more.  I think this comes from his seeing two gorillas at the zoo not getting along.

Pictures:  eating a strawberry at the berry farm, squishing cubes of tofu through the garlic press (I let him do that because it looked like fun), and him passed out in the camping chair in the backyard.

Bats, Bats, Bats

This is the bat peeking over the top of the corner cabinet in the dining room.
Linus was laughing so hard at the shenanigans, his face turned pink.
Matthew used some of my quilt fabric to catch a couple of the bats.

Here is the bat that crawled out of the vent right in front of us.

The big news in our household is that we've been entertaining bat refugees.  We had work done on our chimney last Friday and the chimney guy ended up closing the exit for a colony of bats.  Starting that evening, we had bats flying around the dining and living rooms.  We gently and respectfully herded them out the front door.  By Sunday night, I was tired from canning all weekend and the bats weren't such a novelty any more. I just wanted to relax; but, we were on bat duty again.  Before it got dark Matthew and Linus put aluminum foil over the edges of the fireplace insert, the heating vents, and heat air intakes.  As dusk settled over us we sat in different parts of the room and waited silently.  Almost immediately we could hear a bat walking on metal.  Next think we knew, Linus and I saw a bat crawl out of the air intake we were watching.  That gave us some useful information to tell the bat expert.

To make a long, dramatic story much shorter and to the point, here is the summary:

*I called the Urban Wildlife Rescue who gave me advice over the phone.

*The chimney guy came back and took off everything on the top of the chimney so bats could get in and out freely.  Bat guy told me that they will all be gone to hibernate by the middle of October and then we can cover up the chimney again.

*We learned that bats here are larger than the ones in Wisconsin.  

*I think the bats were fortunate to have us to deal with because we advocated on their behalf and treated them as respectfully as we could.

*Linus knows a lot more about bats now and he even told the chimney guy, "Bats are nocturnal. Owls are nocturnal."  The chimney guy understood him completely and was very impressed.

*Linus told me he wants to be a chimney guy because he would drive a truck, have ladders, wear boots, and get to use tools.  This is the first time he told me he wanted to be someone.

Linus misses the bats.  He played a game earlier this week of pretending to catch bats. He'd run around the house with a quilt, pretend to drop the bat into a paper grocery bag, then had me open the front door and he'd let it go. Oh, he also had me pet these imaginary bats, which I only agreed to do if he understood they were pretend.  We've talked to him a number of times about not touching bats.