Morning Routine

I've settled into a morning routine with Daddy. I tend to wake up when my room starts to get light from the sun. Often, I'll talk to my stuffed animals or look at my books before asking to get out of my crib. Soon, Daddy cmes and hoists me out. The first thing to check on, once out of the crib, is whether the moon is still out. You see, I'm a bit nervous about the moon and would prefer that it not be around. I ask Daddy, "Moon outside?" He says no, but I run to the window to see for myself.

Next, I scamper off the the kitchen to help Daddy make coffee. "Daddy want coffee?" I inquire. He says yes and goes through the preparations. I like to do a little coffee griding dance as the beans get ground up in the coffee maker. Soon, it's time to go outside to get the newspaper. I always accompany Daddy on this mission regardless of footwear. If I'm wearing socks, I announce "sock shoes" as I make my way toward the driveway. If I'm just in bare feet I announce "feet shoes" and so on. I get to carry the newspaper inside by its convenient rubber band. Once inside, I announce "band off." Daddy removes the rubber band and together we read bits of the paper. Daddy's favorite part of the paper is the crossword puzzle. "Read the crossword puzzle," I offer helpfully.

I also like to have a cup of juice in the morning. Daddy now knows this, so he offers it in advance of my asking. He asks what kind of juice I want. I usually ask for whatever juice we happen to have on hand, which changes from time to time. A couple of weeks ago it was berry juice, then apple juice. Right now, it's one of my absolute favorites, white grape juice. Often, I'll take my cup of juice and set down next to the train set for some train play with Daddy. He always likes to play trains with me.

Sometime later, Mommy gets up to greet us. Sometime after that, Daddy will have to go to work. I give him a hug and a kiss on his way out and look forward to his coming home in the evening.

Christmas in July

Want to see what I (and my family members) looked like 7 months ago?  Well, it's officially Christmas in July!  Look here!

(P.s. Please note that there are not many at Grammy's house on Christmas Day since Mommy lost the digital camera for a while at her house.)

Watch the Closing Doors

As you know, I really love trains. Lately, one of my favorite games is "watch the closing doors."
In this game, one of the trains carries passengers from Jersey City to NYC acting as one of the path trains. I will point to the spot where each of the stops is on the track. As the train arrives in this spot, Daddy will say (in a bad NY/NJ accent):

This is the World Trade Center train, World Trade Center. Journal Square station stop. Next stop Grove Street. Stand clear. Watch the closing doors. Ding ding.

Once we arrive at the World Trade Center stop, the train goes out service. Fortunately, it's quickly brought back into service as a Newark train. Apart from designating the stops and telling Daddy who is riding and getting off the train, I really like the patter of the conductor at each stop. Often, I'll speak in chorus with Daddy,

Watch the closing do-ahs!

Even better is that the New Jersey accent really plays to my strength, which is omitting the "r" sound. Daddy says "do-ahs" for doors, and I say "do-ahs" too. I'm also getting to know the stops. I now know that the last three stops for a Newark train are Journal Square, Harrison, and Newark.

A bit of background for Path afficionados: Daddy says the World Trade Center stop is still there even though the World Trade Center isn't. Here's a link with an amusing history of the Path trains. Here are two photo galleries of Path trains, a super-nice one and a more ordinary one.

Weekend Update

 

It was a busy weekend for me lately. Daddy and I went out this morning and played with my new soccer ball. I picked it out from Play it Again Sports (or, as Daddy calls it, "The Ball Store"). I really like the yellow color.

Later, Daddy and I had a cup of pretend juice together. Here I am pouring pretend juice into Daddy's cup (the green one). I've already poured some into my yellow cup.


 

A little later, Mommy came out with a new bubble making wand. We made lots of big, big bubbles. I made a photo album with some picture highlights of my weekend. You can see it here.


 

Aidan's Art Gallery

Lately, I've been getting more in touch with my artistic side. The next several posts are a kind of art gallery of some of my best stuff. For the permanent collection, check out the new link on my homepage for the permanent collection.

Basket of Flowers

This is a mixed media composition featuring construction paper and artificial flowers.

 

The Duck

This mixed media composition features feathers glued onto construction paper.

 

The Birdie

This is one of my earliest works. It features my handprints for wings along with a construction paper collage effect.

 

The Kite

One of my most sophisticated compositions. This features a variety of paint circles on construction paper. The effect is completed with the tail of the kite consisting of wrapping paper ribbon.

 

Butterfly #1

This composition features highly textured tempera on construction paper. The picture does not capture the nuances of the textural variation in the composition.

 

Butterfly #2

Another tempera on construction paper composition. The texture captures the dynamic intensity of a butterfly in flight.
 

Butterfly #3

A very recent composition. Features stylized versions of the letter "A", representing the first name of the artist. Composition is magic marker and crayon on construction paper.
 

Bug #1

This composition, which features a reverse subject ground effect in the use of constuction paper, highlights the artist's skill with glitter glue. More than 5 colors of glitter are employed to harmonize the orange with the black of the construction paper background. This is a breakthrough work both in terms of composition as well as in the use of color.
 

Daddy in the News

Daddy, published in Contra Costa Times 7/17/04 

Daddy has been in the news a lot lately for helping to create a place to run experiments. (I hope he doesn't decide to run any experiments on me.) Here are some links:

http://www.berkeley.edu/news/berkeleyan/2004/07/22_haas.shtml

http://sanfrancisco.bizjournals.com/sanfrancisco/stories/2004/07/12/daily31.html

http://www.contracostatimes.com/mld/cctimes/9178184.htm?1c

Bubbles in the Toilet

In breaking news, I peed for the first time while standing up today.  I have done it two times today so far!  It is fun, and I say "like Daddy" when I do it.  The best part is the bubbles in the water from the force of the stream.  I've always clapped when witnessing Daddy making bubbles like this, and now I can too!  Hooray!

Spice is the variety of life

Yesterday was pizza day. I greeted Daddy at the door in my usual fashion, by running up to him while saying "ahhhhhhhh!" in an excited fashion. I was about to give him my usual big hug when I noticed he was carrying pizza.
 
"Pizza!" I said excitedly.
 
Of course, once I found out we were having pizza, I knew that we would be having some of my favorite spices to go with it.
 
"Pepper out," I said. Followed by, "Red one, blue one, green one!"
 
These are the colors of the caps of the various spices we all put on pizza. Mommy helped me to put on the spices and then I got to hold the caps while eating the pizza. At times, I thought the caps were the most exciting part of the meal. Hooray for spices.

In other news, we harvested our first tomato today. It was a cherry tomato from a plant I picked out at Target with Daddy. Mommy was quite pleased and told the two of us to keep up the good work on the farming front.
 

Wimoweh

I have a new favorite song, The Lion Sleeps Tonight. I first heard this song when Daddy started singing it on the way to Yosemite. It was a long car ride there, and I was grateful for the entertainment. Soon Mommy and Nainnie joined in to help Daddy with the singing. After they completed the song, I waited for a bit and then demanded an encore. "More weema-wokka, more weema-wokka," I cried. They heard my appeals and sang the song again (and several more times after that in the coming days.) Now last night Nainnie had to fly home to the east. Fortunately, she stayed long enough to read me stories and sing songs to me for bedtime. As she is an important harmonic element to the weema-wokka song, I requested it one last time with her. She started singing it herself and then Mommy and Daddy came into the room and joined her in an "extended dance" version of the song. This was absolutely the best.

By the way, the reason I refer to it as the "weema-wokka" song is because Daddy screwed up the lyrics in remembering the song in the car. The real lyric is Wimoweh. Of course, Daddy's in good company. The wimoweh lyric is actually Pete Seeger's mishearing of the real original lyric "Mbube" from the Zulu. You can read the whole story here.

Daddy tells me the song continues to make waves. Disney used it in the Lion King and made zillions of dollars on that film. Apparently, they felt that paying royalties of $15,000 for the use of the song seemed an appropriate amount and now they're getting sued by the heirs to the songwriter in South Africa. You can read more about the legal battle here. Interestingly, the Disney version gets the lyrics right---they use mbube instead of wimoweh. Here's a side by side lyrics comparison:

Disney

Seeger

Note: The Seeger lyrics are incorrectly attributed to Robert John who covered the song.

Faceplant dude

Two of my favorite toyz currently are my "Boom Boom Huck Jam" Tony Hawk skateboarder dudez that I received from recent visitz to McDonaldz. You can check out the offical spread on these toyz here and an unofficial but perhaps more amusing one here. Anyway, in addition to running Tony up and down the ramps provided, I like to have Tony perform in a variety of other venuez. For instance, yesterday we built a garage for my trains out of blockz. I liked to have Tony climb onto the roof of the garage and then plummet to the ground. As he did so, I'd cry, "Faceplant, dude!" Earlier in the week, Nainnie constructed a Tony Hawk temple out of blocks. The two Tony Hawkz seemed to like that very much. "Righteous," I said on their behalf.

Rock on dudez

(Notice the cool use of the "z" ending!)

Old School

When Nainnie comes to town, it's time for me to go "old school". Lately I've taken to wearing a big bead necklace (which I strung myself) while playing baseball. Nainnie really seems to appreciate this retro look. She says it reminds her of baseball cards from the 1970s where players wore a variety of necklace adornments. Daddy says that my beads are especially reminiscent of those worn by George Scott in the 1970s. Here is a side by side comparison.