Pumpkin Carving

Last night we went to a pumpkin carving party. Sadly, the knife wielding involved in carving pumpkins excluded me from this aspect of the festivities. Still, I did get to see lots of my friends from Kinder-Gym and other classes. Mommy carved a cat face in her pumpkin while Daddy made something he called "evil skull dude". Daddy was impressed at how well-behaved I was. I still have some problems with sharing stuff with others (since they don't seem to realize that everything is mine!), but I was mostly a sweet and charming little guy. I had no "meltdowns" as they say during the time of the party.

Hats

Having on a nice hat is hard to beat. I like to wear hats anytime and anywhere. Lately, I've decided that an excellent time to enjoy a hat is at bedtime. I make sure to get my Dorothy the Dinosaur/Wiggles hat out and see to it that Mommy puts it on my head at bedtime. When I wake up, it's also the first thing that I put on--even before I put on bedroom slippers. I have strong preferences over hats too. Sometimes Mommy tries to give me a beret that looks like a pumpkin. While it's fun to pretend to eat this hat, it's not as fun to wear as my stylish Dorothy the Dinosaur hat.

Waffles and Applesauce

One of my favorite food pairings these days are waffles and applesauce. While full-size waffles are too big for me, Mommy has found some delicious mini waffles that are perfect for holding in my hand. Part of what makes them great is that they're convenient scoops for picking up applesauce, which is made extra delicious by the liberal addition of cinnamon by Mommy. Waffles are also very stackable, so they're fun to play with too.

While these foods are great, they don't always come exactly as I like them. For instance, last week Daddy made me waffles and applesauce. He got the applesauce right but, in his attempts not to make the waffles too hot, he toasted them insufficiently and they were gooey doughballs. I don't like them that way. Yesterday, when we were at a party, Mommy brought me applesauce, which she had packed in her bag but she forgot to pack the waffles and the toaster. I kept telling her, "waffles, waffles, waffles" but somehow, she didn't get the message.

Katie

Just about every weekend, a woman named Katie comes over to visit, typically just before I go to bed. I like to play lots of different games with her--ball tossing, bead maze, and so on. Last night, we played an unusual game. I handed Katie my sand pail and a pair of shovels. She scooped from pretend sand into the pail and pressed the pail into the carpet to make a pretend sand castle. As there was obviously no real sand castle there, I was puzzled by her behavior. Then I realized what was really going on. In pressing the pail into the carpet, Katie had made one of my favorite letters, "O". The "O" seemed to come from the shape of the perimeter of the pail. I asked her to make lots and lots of O's. At one point, I was surrounded by O's. This was great---much better than the crazy pretend sand castle idea.

Mommy and Daddy tried to teach me Katie's name. They would patiently say Kay-Tee for me. I would listen carefully and then reply with a colorful nickname, "Hosel!". Again, they would try and again I would say, "Hosel!" Eventually, Daddy got me to say "Tee" in response to her name. This also fits with her nickname since a tee is another fun piece of golf equipment.

Daddy and Mommy apparently went out on a date after I was asleep, so I was being watched solely by my friend Katie/Hosel. Before I went to bed, Daddy told me to dream about golf. He didn't have to remind my since I do that anyway. Seems like whenever I wake up from naps or in the morning the first word out of my mouth is "ball" followed by "golf" shortly thereafter.

Fore!

Golf is becoming an evening ritual for me. Shortly after Daddy gets home from work, I start saying ball, ball, ball. Then I tug at his arm to get him to go to the guest bedroom where the golf stuff is kept. I open the door to the room, but I don't know how to open the closet so I point. Daddy opens up the closet and gets out some clubs and the backpack of golf balls. I get to carry the backpack. Next, it's off to the living room where I unpack the balls and well as the practice putting hole. I like to put the balls in the putting hole. Sometimes, I wait by the hold while Daddy putts some balls towards it. Daddy is a very successful putter this way in that when the ball gets close to the hole, I pick it up and put it in for him. He gets a hole in one every time!

My Trip East in September

I think that it's about time to tell you about my trip East in September. Last month, Mommy and I criss-crossed the U.S.-- first flying to Pennsylvania by way of Chicago, then flying to Orlando, Florida, and finally flying home to California. I am a seasoned traveler and I know that when the plane speeds up and takes off it is time to exclaim, "Whee!" along with Mommy. Unfortunately, I also know that plane travel also means long periods stuck in a confined space, so I am no longer a consistently good traveler. Let's just say that the flight attendents had to serve Mommy's snack and beverage on a tray across the aisle since my constant attempts at escape were pretty violent. Oh well.

Anyway, the times that I was not on a plane, I had a pretty good time. My Grammy took Mommy and Me to see "Bob the Builder Live!" at the Wachovia Arena. While I don't know much about Bob himself, I do love trucks, and there were many big, nifty, animatronic trucks in the show (their headlight-eyes and grill- mouths even moved!) as well as lots of lights around the arena. I found these to be very entertaining! I even got a big lightstick with Scoop the truck and Bob the Builder stuck on top. Cool!

While in Wilkes-Barre, I also had fun playing in Auntie Max's yard, Kirby Park, as well as in Nainnie's and Grammy's houses. I also visited my friend Julia (age 3) and her parents in Mountaintop, grooved to live music at my Uncle Jack's place, and visited with Marguerite as well as my godmother, Jo Ann. (I surprised both my Nainnie and my Grammy by calling them by name on this trip! I'm still working on the others, although I still remember that Auntie Max is "Ant.") My social calendar is always full in Wilkes-Barre!

After Wilkes-Barre, Mommy and I went to Orlando to attend my cousin Emma's baptism. (Daddy and Nainnie also came too, but each flew in separately.) I had really been missing Daddy, and he arrived just in time to cheer me up.

Emma and I played at her house and at a really nifty playground a bunch of times. I also went to the Orlando Science Center with Mommy and Daddy one day. This was a lot of fun since part of the place is dedicated to toddler activities like water play with boats, building with huge lego-type blocks, and participating in an orange juice production assembly line (much more fun than it sounds!). I also went to Sea World one day with Mommy, Daddy and Nainnie. It was a sort of wet day, but we saw lots of sea animals. I especially liked the big windows looking into sealife exhibits where fish and manatees were right there on the other side of the glass and I could almost touch them. I also really liked watching the rays swim around and around. Mommy and Daddy learned that the rays really like belly rubs, so lots of rays came over to us although I could not reach them.

I also had a nice time playing with my Uncle Dave and Aunt Julie. One night we went to Downtown Disney along with Nainnie and I really had fun on the big slide at the Lego Imagination Center. I rode the carousel too, but while I like horses I was kind of nervous when they moved.

We also all went to Emma's baptism, where I lasted in the church service just long enough to see Emma hug the minister after he baptized her. Then Daddy took me to the church nursery for the rest of the service. Oddly, when Mommy and Daddy went to pick me up from the nursery, the caregivers asked what language I spoke since they didn't think it was English. Mommy and Daddy were perplexed at this. Then they said that I'd been calling out "Abba!" for some time. Unfortunately, they were not aware that "Abba" is my favorite nickname for Mommy!

After all of the excitement of my trip, I was really happy to get home and get back into my routine and greet my toys again. Home is a nice place to be.

Bye Bye Bottle and Hello Words!

I have switched to a sippy instead of a bottle before bed with no fuss, so, "Bye Bye, Bottles!"

I am also picking up more and more words. New today were "orange juice" and "love you." "All done" is another very useful phrase I like to use. "Yes" and "No" are in heavy usage now. I can also say, "I-did-it" and "I-want-those," but haven't put these phrases into heavy rotation yet. I like to say them really fast as one word. I also can say, "please" when prompted, and tell Mommy that I want a "waffle." In addition, I can also say "golf" and name an obscure part of a golf club, called a hosel, thanks to Daddy.

Two of my favorite names are "Elmo" and "Ernie." I often wake up in my crib exclaiming, "Elmo!" or "Ernie!" to tell my lazy parents to wake up so I can watch Sesame Street. (Elmo used to be called "Melmo" (see earlier post) but has informed me that he has dropped the "M" from the beginning of his name.) I also enjoy calling Grammy and Nainnie. I started saying both of their names last month when I visited them, and they seem delighted when I call them by name on the phone. (I can also say my cousin Emma's name and the names of several friends, but we aren't old enough to have many solo phone privileges.)

I am especially fond of my Tickle Me Elmo these days. (Grammy helped him find his way here several months ago.) I feel that I must always be vigilant as to Elmo's whereabouts since it is a hard, cold world and I must protect him. Mommy and Daddy always help me to locate him. Yesterday, Elmo accompanied me to the park and swung on a swing alongside me and went down two sliding boards. I also took him on a walk in my Elmo-sized (and doll-sized) stroller. My Elmo-sized stroller and at least one friend come along in the car almost every time we go out.

Today was a bit of a difficult day for me. I went to Music Together (Fun!), but at the end of class I got my finger pinched VERY HARD in an accordian-style baby gate at the entrance to the music room. It hurt LOTS! Mommy says that it also looked very, very sore. Luckily, Mommy had an ice pack in her bag, and she held it on my finger until I started to feel a little better. My finger was a little swollen tonight, but I am making a good recovery.

Then, tonight, Mommy and I were on our front lawn on the way into the house in the half-darkness when a light-colored dog appeared with her owner (off her leash). I was very excited to see her, but she was a bit too excited to see me and knocked me over. Then she picked up my Elmo by the tummy and shook him. Then she knocked me down again and got stuck in the straps of Mommy's backpack (on the ground) before her owner finally got control of her. I was SCARED! I love to see doggies, but I'm not used to full body contact. (The dog was a partially-grown puppy of what looked like a retriever breed.) Mommy explained that the doggie was too excited about wanting to play with me and the dog's owner apologized profusely. I said "Woof" and waved goodbye to the doggie through my tears as we went into the house. I am resilient though and I cheered up quickly once inside and had a nice evening.

By the way, Mommy found me next to Licorice's cage today with a big Tupperware container of guinea pig food that I had taken out of the cabinet where it is kept and hauled over to Licorice. I thought that Licorice looked hungry and wanted to feed her! I am the kind of guy who likes to take initiative!

Visits

Yesterday was a great day for socializing. As usual, Daddy had me out on many walks and we met all sorts of people on them. First, we met a 5 year old girl named Michelle near "ball heaven". Ball heaven is the front of a neighbor's yard that has a basketball net and tons of basketballs all around. I picked up a basketball and was bouncing it (sometimes I try to dribble it like the big kids do, but I never remember to let go of the ball). Michelle showed me how to pitch the basketball underhand to try to make baskets. While she did this twice, I couldn't manage to heave the basketball up high enough.

Then we ran across a couple of kids riding bikes. I like watching bike riding in that the bikes have some terrific wheels attached to them. Plus they go pretty fast, and I like the motion too. Anyway, the Mommy and Daddy of these kids were also around in their garage. They got out a basketball for me to play with and I happily played catch with their Mommy. She would roll the basketball to me. I'd catch it (I'm quite good at this now), and then I'd bounce-pass it back to her. She said I took her back to the time her little boy was about my age.

Finally, we went back to the park and ran across our next-door neighbors (the Partridge's) playing soccer and football in the park. I loved the soccer ball and ran toward it to get it. The two older Partridge sisters, Georgina and Madeline, then played with me in the park. We went on the swings, down the slide, and on some other stuff but, best of all, the soccer ball got to participate too. It went down the slide. I swung on the swing. It was great.

Then it came time to go home. We followed the Partridges back to their house and, seeing an open door, I went zooming inside. Everyone was happy to see me and I got to play a bit more.

It was a great day!

A message from Addy

Normally this space is given over to my life, but tonight, I'm letting Daddy write about his life for a change.

It's a sad night. The Red Sox managed to lose in spectacularly heartbreaking fashion. After holding a 3 run lead going into the 8th inning, the Yankees managed to rally in the 8th to tie it up, and then went on to win it in the 11th on a walk-off home run by Aaron Boone. These are the kinds of games where you cannot help but second-guess the manager's moves. Why did Grady Little stick with Pedro so long in the 8th. The Boston bullpen, which had proved so dependable in the post-season, was not called upon until it was too late for them to rescue the situation. Why couldn't the Red Sox have managed to squeeze out one more run off of Clemens or the many Yankee relievers to come after him. This is one of the saddest times I can ever remember in being a Red Sox fan. I really wish that they could have won. I also can't help but think what a wonderful opportunity was presented to them had they won this game. The Florida Marlins would seem to be a team the Red Sox could reasonably hope to beat in the World Series. Was this their best shot to win it all in my lifetime? It might well have been. Will they ever win a World Series? Will they ever even get there?

Sigh.

Ivory Towers

I'm getting a very steady hand when it comes to building things. Last night, I got out my Bento Box of shapes. This consists of 3 dimensional squares, cylinders, and triangles, each coming in three different sizes. What I like to do is to invert the Bento Box so that the shapes all fall out and then set it on the floor on its reverse side. This is the platform for the tower. Then I stack each of the shapes one on top of the other. The triangles in particular are very tricky to stack correctly. When I was done, I had created a tower that was as tall as I was (in a sitting position).

Speaking of which, how tall am I going to be? Mommy found a number of terrific growth estimation tools to figure out how tall I'll be when I grow up. Right now I"m 2' 9", but I hope to grow some more. According to this site, I'll be about 5'10", which is okay I guess. The problem is not with Mommy, it's with Daddy. If Daddy would suddenly have a growth spurt and grow to be 6' tall, then I'd sky up to 6' 1". If Daddy would really have a growth spurt and shoot up to 7' tall, then I'd be in a fine position for a career in the NBA at 6'7". Unfortunately, Daddy tells me that it's not likely that he will grow.

The variability inherent in height predictions should be noted, however, since the site says that Mommy's genetic potential for height should have been 5' 6 1/2", however, she exceeded her "potential" and grew to be 5'9". Variability can go the other way too, unfortunately, but I'm hoping that exceeding such predictions is also in my genes heightwise.

In other news, I'm learning lots of new words. A current favorite word is "Melmo". Melmo is the name of my favorite Sesame Street character as well as a convenient shorthand for indicating my desire to watch Sesame Street.

Hop, skip, and jump

I've been testing out a whole bunch of new skills recently. Yesterday, my Daddy finally felt better (he had been sick) and we spent most of the day in the yard and in the park. Daddy was, as usual, hitting golf balls. One thing that I really liked to do was to get the golf balls and set them on the tee for Daddy. Then he would zing them across the park. Sometimes, I would take a turn hitting too. I have a little golf set that I use. Daddy helps me by stading behind me and positioning my hands appropriately. Then we take a big swing together and I get to zing a ball across the park. This is absolutely great.

When we were walking home from the park, I decided to try some new running skills. While I now like to run straight ahead, lowering my head slightly, and going "eeeeee", I've also taken to sort of galloping. It's not exactly galloping, but it's kind of like that motion. Daddy would gallop a few paces in front of me. It's hilarious to see him run like that. I would try to imitate. Daddy can also do something called skipping, which seems unfathomably hard.

One I was home, I decided to practice my jumping. I'm not very good at it so far (mostly I just try to lift my legs into the air and then "sit" to attain a jump), but I'm getting better. One thing I've learned already---never jump when there are blocks underfoot. The corners of the blocks are not pleasant to land on.

Little Tiger

This weekend was quite a busy one for me. On Saturday, I went to the Dorothy the Dinosaur show. She's my favorite character on the Wiggles. While it would have been enough to just have Dorothy there, in fact, Captain Feathersword, Henry the Octopus, and Wags the Dog were also there. Looked like the Captain gained some weight since the TV show. I enjoyed the singing and dancing. I also enjoyed the lights and colors of the Paramount Theater, which is the really nice place that the show was put on. Daddy says to check out the online tour.

Also over the weekend, Daddy introduced me to two new sports. He got out a tee-ball set that had been living in the garage for the past several months. Hooray. I'm finally big enough to play tee-ball. I really enjoyed the big softballs and I especially liked placing them on the tee; however swinging the bat to hit them was elusive. I preferred to give Daddy the bat so he could hit the balls. Daddy tried to teach me to swing, which I sort of liked, but Mommy said he was trying to teach me to swing left-handed when, in her view, it seemed more natural for me to swing right-handed.

The other sport we did a lot of this weekend was golf. Daddy recently got a set of clubs and Mommy got me a set of small plastic clubs as well. We went out together on Sunday morning to hit some golf wiffle balls in the park. I was carrying my driver slung over my shoulder and Daddy had his 6 iron. Again, I found the balls themselves to be the most fascinating part of the process. Daddy said I was excellent at "shagging" golf balls. He would hit them and they would go soaring through the air. Then I would chase them across the park, bring them back and set them on the golf tee for Daddy. This was lots of fun.

Happy Birthday Abba

Today is my Abba's birthday. I'm not sure how old she is but compared to me she's old. I'm celebrating by doing some original artwork on a card that Addy bought for me. I've also been on my best behavior---sweet as can be---on her special day. Best of all, maybe there will be cake some time this weekend. I like cake (even if it is sort of messy).