Back...and not continuing this as a sappy journal about my son, but for what I intended: in keeping a child development blog based off of what I learn from my boy and those I teach.

I just couldn't close this window without linking to it, lest I forget. At first glance, Where the Wild Things Are, isn't much of a story. I mean half of it is a palindrome of lines...so it's only 1/2 original material, right? I always thought it had great animation....though kind of old school with the cross hatching, which I thought was weird when I was little. Why didn't everyone strive to have the boldest drawings with the latest technology? Well, baby Lisa, that is because you'd only been alive 4 years and this book was written well before you. I remember a car trip with my mom, there was a cool song I had never heard before. So after rocking out to it, I asked my mom who wrote that new music.
"Roy Orbison. He's dead."
"But that's a new song."
"No it's not."
"But I've never heard it before..." I realized there was a time before me. Whoa.

I've been going on and on to my husband how Maurice Sendak came to our school when I was a kid. I realized Max, the character in the book looked a bit like how I imagine Sendak looked as a kid. We had an assembly where he told stories and drew the illustrations for them as he went along. It was one of the best assemblies ever- I mean I remember it now 20-25 years later.

I am so happy to have found him through the eyes of myself as a parent and those of my boy. We have the book and the movie, My boy loves them both, but often tires of the movie at 2.5 years old. The book however, has him enthralled every time. The best part, especially after a terrible twos type of day, is that I can read it and totally vent my frustrations with the boy on Max. My guy agrees with me, Max Shouldn't chase the dog around the house with a fork...he hasn't made that transition to include himself and our cat and not doing the same in our house, yet. My favorite part is the picture book inside the words (although the words are just so poetic)...where we all get to read with monster roars and gnash our monster teeth. Everyone needs a good monster roar from time to time to clear the air. It returns all our sanity at the end of the day...magical. I think I finally got what was intended in this story, it only took 30 years.

I wish I had remembered that Sendak was in CT and I thought to write him. It's important to let those who have touched know they have done so. I'm impressed he could do it in a children's book for me as an adult.

RIP Maurice Sendak.

That thing I couldn't remember...

Oh yeah! I was scratching at one last thing to put in the last post...

He's in love with cars. How the hell Dad has rubbed off so quickly with this, IDK. Anyway, he's always pointing at cars, loves our cars and going for rides in them. He likes to walk along side our cars and touch all the screws, crevices and bumps. He points at everyone's car and makes a sound like: "Are we taking that one?" and "How about that one?" I wonder if he's wondering why we don't just take the coolest looking car each time we park in a place where there seems to be so many cars to choose from.

Just Messin' With Ya

Che-che Kul: Various

Smarty pants is back at it...being too smart for his own good. There have been a few things he's done, let me see if I can remember them all.

The one that stands out foremost is fake choking. Apparently I react to that one, because he uses it a lot. It's also not out of the ordinary that he chokes (well gags, not actual Heimlich gasping) so I have reason to drop everything and watch him (besides being an over protective parent). In addition, it's a symptom of allergies, so it's important that I make sure he's doing important things like breathing when he starts making those noises. It's his "pay attention to me" sound, ya know because I'm not doing that enough already. He usually does it while I'm making him food...for him...what a goober!

Because Mommy is sooooo adament about socks not going in Stefan's mouth, they continue to go there, now along with bibs , booties and shirts. Then they are carried around, like a dog with a toy, until he tires of the game. (Sorry if that is a repeat, he looks so absurd doing this).

He's developed this hilarious fake laugh complete with gafaws and squinted up eyes. He unleashed it on the mildly annoying lady at the S&S yesterday. It sounded like he was mimicking her and he gave it to her as she was begging for a smile from him. His switched off after a couple of seconds and his face went completely dead pan. Nice.

He knows his food cabinet, "chooses" his own food (well he grabs the jar he is sure he wants, though they all look pretty much the same despite the contents), immediately directs it toward the microwave by handing it to me and pointing where I need to go next. Then points for me to get him to the spoon pail. There he selects his favorite spoon of the minute, and by then, 30 seconds has elapsed and the food is ready.

The "Happy to Be Home Dance" (imagine jazz hands and vigorous head shaking) continues (I think I've mentioned that one). I know there is one more cheeky thing he's started doing, but I can't remember it now. Aight, ff to find a song to accompany this post...though OK GO Shoot the moon, I'm lovin' hearing that one when ever I preview my posts!

The Moon

Shooting the Moon: OK GO

"When I first discovered the moon," he said," I gave it a different name. But everyone kept calling it 'the moon'. The real name never caught on." ~Brian Andreas

It makes me wonder, with all the fabulous conversations Stefan has, some of which I share with him, what is actually being said. When I fret that he only has a few words right now and I can't communicate with him, perhaps he feels the same, only that I am not learning his words so well. In the grand scheme of things, we have our own communication, regardless of what the doubters say (They are the people who roll their eyes when I offer up a translation on something that Stefan does), and it really doesn't matter what English or sign he chooses to use.

4-14, Discovered someone's following...

Me and my Shadow: Frank Sinatra and Sammy Davis Jr.

My Shadow

By Robert Louis Stevenson 1850–1894

I have a little shadow that goes in and out with me,

And what can be the use of him is more than I can see.

He is very, very like me from the heels up to the head;

And I see him jump before me, when I jump into my bed.

The funniest thing about him is the way he likes to grow—

Not at all like proper children, which is always very slow;

For he sometimes shoots up taller like an india-rubber ball,

And he sometimes gets so little that there's none of him at all.

He hasn't got a notion of how children ought to play,

And can only make a fool of me in every sort of way.

He stays so close beside me, he's a coward you can see;

I'd think shame to stick to nursie as that shadow sticks to me!

One morning, very early, before the sun was up,

I rose and found the shining dew on every buttercup;

But my lazy little shadow, like an errant sleepy-head,

Had stayed at home behind me and was fast asleep in bed.

These are a few of my favorite things...

...about today.
1. We returned 2 repairs, hit the pharmacy, and the bank without indecent. Also taxes are complete and I have few work worries until after spring break. But even better....
2. I finally got to take Stefan out to "garden". I planted seeds, he pulled up grass...thankfully much of it was dead.
3. A nice long walk around the whole yard with the push truck, chasing the cat. No one lost an eye, the cat makes a great escort.
4.No nap time! Which means no planning around nap time and lots of time outside and playing.
5. He's eating a ton, drinking a really healthy juice consistently, and ate a whole ton of pasta and his favorite sausage/egg plant meal, which is also adult food, so we have a lot and it's cheaper than the jars of baby food. So I'm in feeding heaven again today.
6.He's been awesome with self entertainment while I prepare things etc.(like taxes and food).
7.Lastly, he knows all sorts of cool stuff I've never made mention of...like where Q tips go, and that he uses soap when we wash hands. Lot s of little cool things he's picking up.

I said I really liked 8 months, but 16 is so much better! I can also see, with the toddler independence, why mom's get the baby itch for another small, not so opinionated little one. That's a thought for another day.

April Thus Far

Another picture story of some stuff Stef's been up to. We have no shots of the past absolutely amazing days because I never remember to have a camera handy, and it's more fun to actually play then it is to recreate photos that look like play. Anyway, these are some inside shots. Like how he's fallen in love with the piano.

Luckily we have more than one, he loves both. If I leave my office door open, he's guaranteed to be at one, usually playing along with the demonstration music. He's great about pushing one note at a time, though he has some nice cluster chords as well.

"Dickory, dickory, dare,

the pig flew up in the air.

The man in brown soon pulled him down,

Dickory, dickory, dare!"

This Kindermusik favorite has Stefan-created hand movements, which is throwing his hands up in the air. Then moving them to his sides, way down low. If he's really excited (or rather, not lazy), he'll do two hands in the air.

Some new changing table art he's really diggin'.

"One humming bird hummmmmmmmmmmms...

one, two pa-ra-keets....

3 penguins, 1-2-3, Daddy, Mommy, and Ba-by!"

I thought it was time. He rakes die well. The Roulette wheel takes didn't come out very clear. He was more interested in disassembling it and finding the uber-pointy screw thing under the wheel. That's when I lost interest in teaching him the dealings of the gaming underworld.

 "Who is Keyser Soze? He is supposed to be Turkish. Some say his father was German. Nobody believed he was real. Nobody ever saw him or knew anybody that ever worked directly for him, but to hear Kobayashi tell it, anybody could have worked for Soze. You never knew. That was his power. The greatest trick the Devil ever pulled was convincing the world he didn't exist. And like that, poof. He's gone."~Verbals