Airplane tickets to Wilkes-Barre & Gingerbread

Airplane tickets. Yep. Okay. I want airplane tickets. Brown gingerbread and the ticking clock and the black bowl. Gingerbreads. Maisy eat some too. Maisy's here. Eat cookies. Maisy eat cookies too. And Cyril, And Charlie. Aind Tallulah. And Maisy. And Aidan. And Mommy. And Nainnie. And Grammy. And Nainnie too. And Grammy. Eat gingerbreads now. Go there now? Eat gingerbread! And Daddy. Nainnie make it? And Daddy eat it? And Aidan and Grammy and Mommy. Aidan want the big one. Big, big, have a face one! And the eyes, and the heads, and the foots, and the legs! And the arms too, and the tummy! Eat it now! I want airplane tickets, please? Airplane tickets please! Aidan want airplane tickets!

A Perfect Child

On Saturday we went to visit Daddy's colleague Ernesto and his family. He's got a daughter named Bianca who is almost two. She's got a lot of interesting toys. Anyway, the event was an Argentine style barbecue. While the food selection started off well (artisan bread with brie, mmmmm), the Argentines tend to favor the "cavalcade of meats" style of barbecue. Ernesto cooked chicken, sausages, and Chateaubriand---none of which I found interesting. However, I did find the toys and the yard quite interesting and amused myself as Mommy and Daddy talked and ate for about 3 hours. The other people at this party were amazed at how independent I was and said I was "a perfect child." That was very nice of them to say, and I did have fun.

I'm starting to get the hang of this politeness thing Mommy and Daddy keep talking about. For instance, I've now figured out that I'm much more likely to get what I want when I say please rather than merely barking orders. For instance, yesterday when I asked Daddy to please where his train shirt (a shirt that Auntie Max gave him for Christmas a year or two ago), he happily put it on. This shirt and his aloha shirt with parrots are my two favorites. If I had my way, Daddy would wear these two shirts every day.

By the way, some of you may have noticed the little envelope icon that has now appeared at the bottom of each of my blogs. This lets you send a blog entry that you think is particularly interesting as a e-mail link to someone who does not regularly read the blog (hard as that is to believe).

July 2004 Yosemite Photos, Part 1

Click here to see some of the photos we took near waterfalls during our trip Yosemite National Park in July. (Some uncategorized July shots of yours truly are also included in this link. More Yosemite shots will be posted at a later date.)

I loved the "big, BIG, mountains" and waterfalls. I really wanted to sit up on top of the mountains, or at least try to pick one up, but my parents and Nainnie discouraged me from my mission.

I loved the swimming pool at Yosemite Lodge too. A favorite thing to do in the pool was to ride on my elephant floaty toy and have Mommy steer me so that I could push together all of the "beads" (small buoys on a rope denoting the start of the "deep end") and make them travel back and forth across the pool like a choo-choo. I also enjoyed sitting on the step in the shallow end.

Election Season

I'm really getting into the spirit of the presidential campaign.
Tonight, for instance, I requested stories about my favorite politician, Lyndon Johnson. As Mommy was putting me in jammies and encouraging me to brush my teeth when I proudly announced,

Lyndon Johnson time! Lyndon Johnson!

Of course, Daddy has been reading me books abot Lyndon Johnson since I was about three months old. Here is Daddy's favorite Lyndon Johnson book. I like reading about Lyndon Johnson an his friend Richard Brevard Russell.

I then made up a song (sung to the tune of "Are You Sleeping"):

Lyndon Johnson, Lyndon Johnson.
Here I am. Here I am.
Lyndon Johnson, Lyndon Johnson
Here I am. Here I am.

And then repeat as needed. This is a great song. I sang it all the way through bedtime.

Hanging Around

I learned a new trick when we were at the playground yesterday: hanging around. As you can see in the picture, there's a chinning bar at the top of the sliding board. By hanging off of this, swinging gently back and forth, and then releasing from the bar at the right time, I can zoom down the slide in an even more exciting way.

On the way home, Daddy showed me how to gallop. Initially, I tried to do this and ended up going in circles, but I sort of got the hang of it at the end. Hard to get the timing of the little jumps right though.

Aidan Morgan: Photographer

 I noticed as we were going through the pictures taken this afternoon that there were none of them that contained pictures of Daddy. I thought this wasn't so good, so I suggested that I take some pictures of Daddy and my surroundings. The picture above is one of the results. Daddy taught me the basics of holding the camera and pressing the silver shutter button, but that was about it. The pictures are presented more or less exactly as I shot them. You can find them here.

Sunday in the Park

Today was a happy day with Daddy. We watched a number of Olympic events. Some of my favorite are the wrestling and the judo, which I refer to as the "daddy fall down" games. I like watching the people fall down. Daddy built a really nice Lego airplane that I had my friend Maisy ride on. When I get really excited about an activity with Daddy, I like to say:

Yee haw, Daddy!

Later, we went to the park and played on the swings and the slide. Here is a picture of me on the swings.

Here is a picture of me peeking out through the slats in the slide. I love peeking out.
 

And another one.


 

I've posted a photo album with some of my best shots for you to enjoy. You can find it here. It's on Ofoto rather than Shutterfly since Daddy tells me there is a good coupon available that lets you get prints quite cheaply (19c/photo) right now.

Yee haw!

Aidan Says Yes

I've noticed that saying something, like no or yes, is strongly correlated with whether I get to do what I want to do or not. For instance, if I say, "Aidan have a cookie?" and Mommy says "Yes" then I get a cookie. If she says no, I don't. Since yes is the magic word, I recently came across a solution that ensures I get what I want when I request something. Here's how it goes: First, I make a request for something. "Aidan have x?" and listen for Mommy's response. If it's yes then all is well and I can proceed. If it's no, then I offer the following, "Aidan says yes." This invokes the magic word, "yes", and should ensure that I get what I want. While this seems like it has to work, so far it hasn't proven as good a strategy in practice as in theory. Mommy somehow does not like "Aidan says yes." Somehow my yeses don't mean the same as hers. Well, just have to keep trying.

Daddy helped me make this nice flowchart.
 

Current Song Lineup

After story time, it's songs time before I go to sleep. Songs time is one of the nicest times. Mommy turns the lights down low. I jump up on Mommy's lap and nestle my head underneath hers and then we sing songs. Usually, I make requests; however the requests come in more or less a standard order which is as follows:

Hushabye
Brahms' Lullabye
Raindrops on Roses
Baa baa black sheep

---Intermission----
At the intermission, I'll go out an fetch Daddy for Act II.

Twinkle twinkle
She sells seashells

And the finale, Wimoweh

Mommy and Daddy have evolved the words to the finale. The last verse now goes:

In the bedroom, the quiet bedroom, the Aidan sleeps tonight
In the bedroom, the quiet bedroom, the Aidan sleeps tonight

Then Mommy and Daddy vamp the Wimoweh part as they carry me to my crib. Mommy grabs the top part of me ("Mommy body") while Daddy takes the lower half ("Daddy legs") They put me into my crib and then do a slow fadeout of the Wimowehs as they wish me a good night.

Lift the Flaps

Lately, some of my favorite bedtime stories are something called "lift the flap" books. These books typically contain many flaps hiding lots of wonderful secrets underneath. I especially like "Go, Maisy, Go!" which features "over forty flaps." Daddy always seems to groan when he reads that line in the book. One of the nicest things about flap books is that I can really use my imagination to work out all sorts of scenarios with the characters and the flaps. Of course, these scenarios take time both to formulate and to tell Mommy and Daddy about. As a result, bedtime reading the flap books can sometimes last a long time (which is fine with me). Yesterday, for example, story time lasted for more than an hour. Flap books are the best!

Summer Visitors

This summer, I had visits from both of my grandmothers. My Grammy visited in late May/early June and the two of us were partners in crime while my parents went to England. Few pictures exist of our adventures since my Mommy & Daddy had the digital camera in England-- and because we want to keep our activities a secret! Grammy has leaked a few photos from her camera though, so we'll have to scan some of them soon.

My Nainnie visited in late June/early July, and this visit is well-documented with digital photos. Among other things, we went to the Oakland Zoo, attended the Danville 4th of July parade, visited Yosemite National Park, and played with my friends. Here is a link to some of the photos from Nainnie's visit. More will come later.

Croutons

Yesterday, Mommy made a very nice meal consisting of salmon, broccoli trees, and salad. She put out the salad first, and I immediately spotted the best part of the mean---the croutons. I asked Daddy for one, and he gave it to me. Then, when Mommy and Daddy put their salads on their plates, I noticed they had extra croutons, so I asked for some of these too so they wouldn't be burdened with too many croutons.

For dessert, we had a sunshine cake that I helped Mommy pick out at the store. It was a vanilla cake with a smiling sun on top. I really liked the cake, but cautioned Mommy not to cut or eat any part of the smiling sun. This was difficult because the rays of the sun extend almost to the edges of the cake.

Underwear

I've been asking for a long while about the mysterious pairs of underwear that appeared in my shirt drawer a month or two ago. Today, I finally succeeded in persuading Mommy that it was time for "big" Aidan to wear underwear. She made me promise to tell her whenever I had to go to the bathroom. I kept my promise (mostly), though I did run through two pairs of underwear today (onewith Thomas and one with the finding Nemo fishies). I'm really a big boy wearing underwear just like Mommy and Daddy (actually, my underwear resembles Daddy's much more than Mommy's).

Aidan Morgan: Architect, Daddy: General Contractor

Today, we made a really nice building. In addition to having room underneath, it has special chairs for some of my favorite stuffed animals. I especially like that Henry the Octopus' feet hang down below. Percy the engine would go back and forth to tickle Henry's feet. 

Self Portraits

I like to get in touch with my creative side. Today's medium: Photography. Below are three self-portraits I took by pressing the silver button on the digital camera and pointing it at myself. This was a lot of fun until I got sort of dazed from repeeatedly staring into the flash at close range. Still, it's suffering like that that makes true artistry (or so Daddy tells me).