Growing Like a Weed

Napping


Checking out a rocket from NASA's Orion project


Loading his pockets up with buckeyes off a tree in the park


Playing with the hand boiler I brought home from the science store

Linus has grown about two inches since his birthday. I measured him after I shared with him an article in the newspaper about the newest person to be the smallest adult in the world. We pulled out his growth chart to compare his size to the man's size. At his first birthday Linus was taller than him. We've had so many days in the last couple of months where I felt like I spent all day feeding him. Some days he was hungry every hour or so. It got taxing and sometimes I felt like handing him the box of granola bars and saying, "Here. Have at it!" One day in the late afternoon he told me he was hungry and I was completely out of snack ideas. Even I was tired of the snack options. So I fed him dinner instead. He protested that dinner couldn't be a snack, but I argued that we wouldn't call it snack; it was dinner. Then when Matthew and I ate dinner at six, Linus had dinner number two. Needless to say, he outgrew some clothes. I pulled out the size four winter clothes and some of the shirts fit just right. I wonder how long they'll fit.

He caught his first virus of the season and has a cold. On Sunday I was downstairs sewing and it was quiet upstairs for a long time. I went up and found my guys napping on the couch. Linus ended up taking a three-hour nap. All that growing and germ-fighting wears a kid out! In Matthew's case, all that working and parenting wears a guy out.

Let's Pretend

Author, writing about space


Police officer


Super Hero

Transformations

While working in the front yard, Linus found a stick with what appeared to be insect eggs attached to it. He looked through his Colorado bug book and didn't find a picture of them to help us identify them. Matthew also didn't know. I took photos of them and emailed them to two biology professors we know as friends. They didn't know either. I ended up finding out what they were by looking at scores of bug egg photos online that were taken by a Colorado professor. Turns out they are katydid eggs. We will keep them in a container on the porch and wait until next spring to see if they hatch.

I've been trying to make more progress on my Jane Austen bust business. Now that Linus is older, he is better able to occupy himself while I do trials of rubber products for creating a mold. He also assists me by taking photographs of the process. Even though the plastic gloves were huge on them, he was still able to do a bit of pouring of the liquid rubber, with my help. The materials are messy and not very safe for the skin. He has been trying to wrap his brain around the fact that I'm making busts to sell. "Why do you want money?" I told him we could use the money to pay for extra things like his music class and an iPad for me. So now and then he encourages me by saying, "You'll sell lots and lots of busts and get lots and lots of money. You'll be able to buy lots and lots of iPads and iPhones." He really knows how to motivate me!

September

First day of school



Helping out at our CSA distribution point

Linus settled back into preschool smoothly and enjoys playing with kids after school. He is still getting to know his new classmates and prefers to play with his friends from last year, like Audrey. When they saw each other on Thursday they exchanged a big hug. His favorite game is Monster, which involves someone playing the monster and chasing the other kids around. He doesn't have much patience for the kids who are bossy and controlling, or the ones who irrationally change the rules in the middle of playing. He is more confident this year and I hear him try to get everyone playing nicely. When this doesn't work, he goes and plays with someone else.

We got to spend last weekend at a cabin in the mountains. It belongs to our friend's parents. We enjoyed feeding the ground squirrels, watching Stellar's jays, climbing rocks, hula hooping, reading, cooking and dining together as a group, consisting of two children and seven adults.

Linus and I are digging up our front yard to replace the grass and weeds with plants from other parts of our yard. When he isn't helping me, he rides his trike up and down the block, or pretends he is a superhero, train, or paleontologist. Sometimes he pretends he is a mushroom researcher. He got the idea for this after I read him a news story about a mushroom convention.

Super Heros

Linus is now wildly interested in super heros. He says Spider Man is his favorite. He desperately wants to check out super hero books from the library, but we've only managed to find two so far that aren't too scary. It appears that there are entry-level super hero books that are for beginning readers. What is different about these is that the villains don't cause too much trouble. In one that we have the Penguin causes birds to go crazy. Pigeons create traffic jams, sea gulls steal ice cream cones and hot dogs, and the ostriches escape from the zoo. The Super Friends make short work of the problems and catch the Penguin without a fight.

Linus likes to make up super heroes by combining characteristics of different creatures. For example, the size of a T-Rex, with horns like a big horn sheep, and the speed of a gazelle. He is starting to want me to play "bad guys" with him, but I turn down the invitation. "Why not, mom?" I tell him, "Honey, I'm just not interested in bad guys. I'm more interested in nice people."

As always, he says the most sweet things. After spending time in the new children's garden, Linus told me, "I like spending time with you." (The photo is of him playing in the stream there. All of the kids were having a blast.)

Here is a conversation we had about before our May trip to Virginia. He wanted to know why our rental car wouldn't be fancy. I explained that fancy cars cost too much. He said, "Well, people with too much money can rent them and then they won't have too much money. That would take care of that."

Berry Picking

We went out to Berry Patch Farms to pick black raspberries last month. Linus and I have gone out at least twice each summer that we have lived here. We have such a blast together. He giggled at a fancy chicken with a mop of feathers on top of its head and he thought it was great fun to ride in a tractor-pulled wagon. He has grown into an amazing berry picker. He is so focused and pick, pick, picks. We left with a harvest of seven pints. After a snack on the porch, while watching the chickens and potbellied pig wander around, we went home and cranked out two batches of jam and a pie. We were exhausted by the end of that day! We'll head out again soon to pick strawberries.

Lepidoptery

Now that our CSA has started delivering broccoli, cauliflower, and cabbage, we have a steady supply of caterpillars to observe as they transform into butterflies. We've already released three butterflies and a moth. Linus is most excited about the inch worm that came home with us on cauliflower. He calls it Inchy and likes talking to it. We've cared for more than enough caterpillars if this were only a science lesson. I enjoy raising them as much as Linus and continue to pluck them from our produce and put them in our big glass bowl. I'm doubtful that I'll use that bowl for anything else this summer. The cute little things are nice to have around.

July 4, 2010

For the second year in a row, Linus participated in the Fourth of July kiddie parade at a nearby park. Sadly, I was sick in bed with a nasty stomach virus. I am disappointed I missed the event, especially getting to help him decorate his scooter. He returned home with tales of riding the route and hearing a band play. He also ran into Declan, a boy from his preschool class. That evening Matthew and Linus went to picnic in the park for the jazz concert and I stayed on the couch and tried to keep Saltines down.

We signed Linus up for the same little summer camp that he attended last summer. For the month of July he attends for two hours on Wednesdays and Fridays. The kids eat lunch together, play outside, and then do organized activities. On Wednesdays he has music and on Fridays they play active games. When I pick him up he is always happy, tired, and sweaty. Excellent!

He continues to be interested in dragons and dinosaurs. He has also been checking out books about prehistoric sea creatures and early humans. When books say that dragons aren't real, he says, "But I'll find dragon fossils!" Now wouldn't that be an amazing accomplishment?!

Tonight while I was cooking dinner he came into the kitchen exclaiming, "Wow! Dinner smells really good! Thank you for making dinner!" Awwwww. I'm so glad he appreciates it.

Travel

Linus and Brandon having a sleepover


Linus asked to join baby Evan in the tub



He was so proud that he was able to walk on tiptoes in the shallow end of the hotel pool in Green Bay.


Matthew and I had a nice time in Wisconsin visiting friends and family, but Linus doesn't like traveling very much. He likes a lot of what travel entails, such as flying, eating out, and seeing cousins; but, he always gets sick and misses the routine of home. Unfortunately for him, we travel twice each year to see relatives. Plus, Matthew and I enjoy travel. Hopefully it will become less stressful on him over the years.

Here are some things he has said that I wrote down immediately because they struck me as interesting in some way.

- "Come learn about dinosaurs. You can be my pet." He said this to the caterpillar that came in from the CSA farm on our head of lettuce. We put it in a jar with a lettuce leaf and he immediately carried it to the couch to teach it about dinosaurs. Then he called out to me, "Can caterpillars be pets?" I said, "Sure, except that they don't stay as caterpillars for very long. They turn into butterflies." He said, "Can butterflies be pets?" We talked about how hard it would be to provide a good home for a butterfly in the house. He still thought it was a good idea.

- "Why can we hear when we're talking? We already know what we are saying." That was a good point. We discussed why we evolved this way so we could still listen for danger when we are talking.

- He was rough housing with Matthew and yelled out, "Let's be a rough housing solar system!" Sometimes he likes to pretend he is an asteroid striking Earth and causing everything to go extinct.

- "When I'm grown up and work at a museum I'll put my name, L-I-N-U-S, on the bones so you know I was the one who found them." What a cute image that was in my mind. I responded, "And I'll be so proud of you." He also pointed out that we would all still live in our house together so it would be easy to go to the museum and see the bones.

- With wonder in his voice he told me, "I never thought nature would sound so beautiful." We were on the patio trying to catch the breeze and sparrows were in our tree chattering away. He then said, "The birds are interrupting each other."

Life is Good

Here Linus is with some of his preschool classmates at their class picnic. Heidi and Laura made each child a photo memory book and gave out hugs as they handed out the books. Now we are in summer mode.


The ice cream truck has been coming around since early May, but I didn't give in to Matthew's or Linus' pleas until it came by on a very hot day Memorial Day weekend. I relented and we gleefully ran to catch up with it. Linus runs to the living room window to watch it nearly every time it drives down our street.


Last Sunday was the first of the summer jazz concerts in City Park. We picnicked with friends, enjoyed delicious food, and listened to Linus giggle.

Celebrating Matthew's Birthday

Linus and I worked together to make Matthew's birthday cake. When we discussed how we should decorate it, Linus said it had to have a rainbow. It turned out kind of cute, although the white frosting looks kind gray in the photo. Linus made two space-themed stick puppets for him and hauled out his DK space encyclopedia to explain to Matthew what they were: the pegasus constellation and a Russian astronaut. We had a fun family celebration and Linus was so excited all day. He gleefully hid all of Matthew's presents for him to find.

Falls Church/Washington, DC

We went to Falls Church, VA the first weekend of May to join the rest of the clan from Matthew's maternal side of the family. We came together to reminisce about Margaret White's life and everyone's experiences visiting there. We flew out there a day early so that we could visit the Natural History Museum. We chose this museum to feed Linus' craving for more knowledge of dinosaurs. Much of the time he looked like he does in the first photo. He was always pointing and asking what each dinosaur was. He had a blast there and he also loved riding the subway into DC for our second visit to the Natural History Museum. We managed to meet up with some of the family at the Air and Space Museum for lunch. A tourist took our picture with the cutout of Amelia Earhart.

The day spent at Margaret's was relaxing and enjoyable. It was delightful to sit outside for hours listening to birds singing, watching the kids play together, and catching up with everyone. The image of the buttercups blooming en masse in the field will stick with me forever.

I'm Four!

At preschool


Looking for birds and insects at the Botanic Gardens


A sample of what he produces at the writing table at school

Linus tells everyone that he is four. The cutest instance of this took place at the Botanic Gardens. He insisted on opening the door for us, but he was really struggling with it. He refused help from me or any of the adults lining up behind us. He finally got it open, let me through, and then insisted on holding it open for all of the people behind us. As they walked through he told them, "I'm four!" The last woman through said, "You most certainly are!"

I took him in for his four-year appointment with the pediatrician. They surprised us right off the bat by asking for a urine sample. That went fine; he thought it was interesting. When the nurse asked if I had any questions for the doctor, Linus told her he wanted to ask the doctor if dogs get pinkeye. She made a note of it on his chart and I was chuckling on the inside. The situation became more and more humorous. For the first time the doctor basically interacted solely with Linus. The doctor drew two lines on a piece of paper and held it out horizontally for Linus to identify which line was longer. After Linus pointed to the longer line, the doctor took the paper back and turned it around a bunch of times and then presented it vertically to Linus. He asked him which line was longer now. Linus looked at the lines, then at the doctor, and then back to the lines. Then he looked the doctor straight in the face and said, "As I told you before, this line is longer. These are the same lines." It was really hard not to laugh. The doctor told me at the end that Linus' awareness of his thought process and ability to verbalize it is at the level of a 3rd grader. I didn't know what to say, so I just smiled.

Never mind what grade level he is at. I just know that he is constantly slurping up information and by nightfall my brain is completely drained. Four-year-olds sure do ask a lot of questions!

Linus' Fourth Birthday

Linus told his grandfather on the phone today that "it is fun and easy turning four." During a previous conversation he told me, "I'm proud to be four." I've been hearing a lot of:

I'm not scared of that because I'm four.
I can lift that because I'm four.
I'm learning to read because I'm four.
I can cut things with a knife because I'm four.

Oh, the joys of being four! He likes to be very silly and works at it. He asked, "Are you macaroni-ing your head up, mama?" After saying something like that he'll ask us if it was funny. He has also become interested in jokes and riddles, but doesn't quite "get" them. Here is one of his riddles: Why did the frog hop away? Because he was scared of a bear. Another time he took it a step further and said, "Let's do jokes about riddles."

He was looking out the front window waiting for Matthew to come home from work. He told me, "I'm waiting for the rough-house parent to come home." He likes roughhousing with Matthew in the evening.

He deeply wishes for dinosaurs to still be alive and for Sesame Street and Thomas the Tank Engine characters to be real.

I was getting ready in the morning and Linus said a word I didn't understand. I had him repeat it a few times and he got impatient with me. He exclaimed, "Brachiation! It means monkeys swinging from tree to tree!" Oh, my; I'm going to have a hard time keeping up with him. I can see the writing on the wall.

I was making a Pin the Tail on the Donkey game for his birthday party and he suggested I put hooves on the donkey's feet. After I did so he said, "I thought the hooves would be more attractive." His friend, Noah, gave him a birdhouse with paints for decorating it. He hasn't painted it yet, but has mentioned several times that it will be "very attractive to the birds."

He and Matthew were pretending to be woodland animals and I heard Linus call out this rhyme that he made up on the spot:
I'm an antler moose
And I cannot stay;
I'm going off
To hunt my prey.

(Cute, even though moose aren't predators.)

For his party I had the kids go on a dinosaur egg hunt in the backyard with spotted eggs filled with little plastic dinosaurs. Then they played Pin the Tail on the Donkey. None of them had played it before, so I had Matthew demonstrate how it goes. They thought it was really funny when I tied the blindfold on him and he really played it up as he bumbled around to pin on the tail. Then we served blueberry cake and blueberry ice cream. He received very thoughtful gifts from his friends, including a magnifying glass that has a snake for a handle, the bird house project with a bird book, and a large coloring book.

We had him open his presents from family in the morning, so by five he was feeling worn out. I pulled out my last present for him, which was a stuffed stegosaurus. I had saved it for when he'd be feeling played-out and might like a new friend to snuggle.

Third Annual Easter Egg Hunt

What a fun time we all had yesterday with the Easter egg hunt in our back yard. This year we even had two toddlers participate in their very first egg hunts. The three older kids really got into hiding the eggs for the preschoolers. A couple of dads oversaw then to make sure they don't hide them too well. I think the trickiest hiding spot this year was the pink egg Gabriel hid in snow. One could just barely see a hint of its color. He was a great big brother and told his sister where to find it after the hunt had gone on for a while. I picked up some 25-cent camera trinkets this year and the kids went nuts over them. They ran around pretending to take pictures of everything. Linus continued playing with his right up to bedtime, then woke up early this morning and was immediately at it again. Last night he took pictures of birds in one of his bird books. Now he is off at the zoo with Matthew. He wants to take pictures of the animals with it. I gave him my old camera a while back and he has a lot of fun with that, but the little plastic one is even more fun in some ways. He pretends to hook it up to a computer to upload the pictures and change the backgrounds.

March

Matthew and Linus planting peas and spinach.


Chase and Linus at the zoo, our second to last play date. Linus is holding a bird field guide.




The month has flown by. I don't know why I continue to be amazed at how quickly time flies, but I do. This year Linus started anticipating his birthday around the beginning of the month. Birthday parties for two of his friends, as well as our annual Easter egg hunt in our backyard, broke up the routine; so now his own birthday party is just under a week away.

Linus' friend Chase departed to Hong Kong. Her father has taken a job there. Linus has been attached to her since they met at the library when they were 17-months old. He was very sad when I broke the news to him. We discussed that we are still friends with people in Wisconsin, even though we moved away. Friday was the first day for him at preschool without her there. I asked him about it to gauge how he was feeling about it, and he was just fine. He said, "I thought of her, but then I played with Noah and that was fun."

Linus came down with a cold that had him walking around for a week with a runny nose, which then morphed into terrible congestion, then pinkeye, followed by an ear infection. I felt that the ear infection was a blessing, because that meant we could quit fighting with him to get the eye drops in for the pinkeye. Until now, I have not had to wrestle him down. It was not a pretty sight. I straddled him on the floor and pinned his arms at his sides with my legs. Then I tried to pry his eyes open and get the drops in them and not on his cheek, nose, or the floor. He put up a big fight. He takes the oral antibiotic like it is candy, and we don't end up in tears like with the eye drop fight.

Teddy Bear Tea Party

When Matthew and I attended the auction fundraiser for Linus' preschool we bid on and won for him a seat at a teddy bear tea party hosted by his teachers. The other three attendees at the soiree were girls from the morning class. The kids were to dress up and bring a teddy bear for the party at Laura's house. Linus was irresistibly handsome and the girls were lovely. Sadly, we forgot to bring his teddy bear with us, but he was able to borrow one from Laura. She ran upstairs and got one from her son's bedroom. Linus was perfectly at ease being in a new setting with kids he didn't know. Amazing what three-quarters of a school year will do for a kid's self-confidence.

When I picked him up later he regaled me with stories of all the things they did and he said he had three new friends. And there are pictures to document the event because I left my camera with the teachers and asked them to take pictures for the parents.

Painting a Rainbow

Linus told me he wanted to paint a big rainbow and needed a big piece of paper. The largest we have on hand is leftover packing paper. He used his construction roller to try to roll out the wrinkles. The best part of the video for me is when he paints a parrot, including a nut for it to eat.

He loves making things with craft supplies. In the last few days he has made jungle snakes out of pipe cleaners and googly eyes. He also cut a piece of paper into quarters, glued them end to end, decorated it with big googly eyes and a pink feather. He said it was a snake for me. Yesterday he made Valentines. He made one for me and one for himself out of pink construction paper.

Valentine Exchange

The valentine exchange at school was a big hit with Linus. He needed to prepare 15 cards for classmates and two for his teachers. He used some that came in his Highlights High Five magazine and some that I printed off the net. He cut all of them out by himself and did a decent job of writing his name on the back of all of them. I doubt that anyone could read his name because he signed some of them with just a few letters of his name and on some he used some stamper markers to create letters by stamping in the shape. I was amazed he stuck with it to complete all of them. He also stamped them with hearts and lips and stuck plenty of stickers on them. He even made one for himself!

I enjoyed watching him pull all of the cards from his decorated bag. A fair number of them were handmade and some came with sweets. He ate all of the sweets in one sitting: two iced cookies, two Tootsie rolls, a mini pack of M&Ms, and a mini pack of Sweet Tart conversation hearts. He liked that there were words on the latter. He was most excited about the dinosaur card from Ethan and the heart from his teachers. They attached a little container of Play-do to it.

He has developed a preference for wearing button-down shirts. He looks very handsome in them. Matthew wears button-down shirts five days a week (he also looks handsome), so perhaps that is influencing him. He found a blue and yellow vertical striped button-down at the store today and was crushed when I told him it was a size 6.

I made him the felt heart to go over a button on his shirt. His teachers asked about it right away and he proudly told them, "Mama gave it to me when she came up from her shower!"

Preschool Update

We are all enamored with Linus' preschool, so we are signing him up to attend one more year there. He is always excited to go there and is full of joy telling me about what he did that day. They made crystals on Friday and even though he could tell me they used water, food coloring, and Borax, I have no idea how they made them. He told me to find out how because he wants to do them at home, too. Heidi has had the kids practice writing their first names each day. Last week when I picked him up he announced, "I wrote an 's'! All by myself! I thought about it while I wrote the other letters. And then I tried it and wrote it. I wanted to try it so you'd be proud of me." I cheered him on and told him, "I am proud of you. I'm proud of you for doing your best!"

He gets along with all of the kids, but he has noticed that three of the girls "really like each other a lot!" A couple of weeks ago those three were starting to act cliquey, but Heidi and Laura nipped that in the bud. They explained that everyone is friends at school. If someone says another kid can't play, then they've been instructed to say, "It's not okay to say you can't play." I'm amazed how effective this strategy is. They provide the kids with verbal tools to use in difficult situations and the kids put them to use and relationships run quite smoothly in class. My favorite continues to be, "Stop! I don't like that," which is declared while holding one's hand up and out like a stop sign. (Perhaps I should fly to Washington and provide a workshop to members of Congress.)

Some things Linus has said recently:

* I was on the couch recovering from a stomach flu and Matthew went to change the radio from news to classical music. As he did this Linus said," Yes, relaxing sick person music." Usually he refers to it as "pretty music."
*He was having a dessert of lego-shaped candies. He took a few pieces out of the bag and then told Matthew he could put the bag away. Matthew praised him and said, "Good job limiting yourself to a moderate amount of candy." Linus replied, "Thank you. But I don't know what moderate means."
*I was getting him out of the car and he asked, "Can we go to outer space?" I told him that we may be able to one day, but not at this time. "Why not?" he asked. I told him the fuel for rockets is really, really expensive. I love how he thinks that going to the rain forest, Hawaii, or space is like going to the library.
*Sometimes I'm surprised at how mature he has become. We had a friend joining us for dinner and Linus made such polite conversation with her. He told her his favorite foods are pancakes and blueberries. Rather than continuing on jabbering away, which how he is with us at the dinner table, he looked to Marie and asked, "What are your favorite foods?" A bit later he told her, "It is nice having you for dinner." Yay! I was cheering on the inside. She did get to witness a bit of a tantrum when Matthew hauled him off for a bath.
*He was playing with cars on the bathroom floor while I got ready in the morning and I overheard him say that one of the cars was being presidential. I queried, "Presidential?" He answered, "Yes. What does presidential mean?" "Well," I answered. "Being presidential means you are wise and make important decisions for a lot of people about big issues." He said, "Obama is presidential of everything."

(Pictures from the Denver Art Museum. Don't you love how cutting requires one to stick out their tongue in concentration?)