Decision 2004

With elections coming up, I'll make my prediction: John Kerry. This prediction is based on scientific survey data based on the number of donkey versus elephant stickers on the bathroom wall in celebration of my bathroom accomplishments. About 2 weeks ago, I got a new set of election stickers consisting of little red elephants and blue donkeys. The stickers were part of a CNN advertising campaign for the election. Every time I successfully use the toilet, I get to choose either a donkey or an elephant. Based on my selections, I expect Kerry to win in a landslide. By the way, the Target dog, who perhaps represents the Nader campaign, also had a good showing according to the bathroom poll.

In the pumpkin patch

Here are several pictures that Daddy took of me today on a visit to the pumpkin patch. You can view them here.

Out and About in my Underwear

For about a week and a half now, I have been going out and about in my underwear. I have been doing a very good job of using potties of all sizes and shapes with mommy's help. Three days ago, I even went into the bathroom and decided to poop in the toilet-- a big step since I would only poop in my diaper before then. Now I have done this 3 or 4 days in a row. (I prefer to do this on my own and then go tell mommy so that she can cheer and help me clean myself.) Mommy and Daddy have been rewarding my pottying accomplishments with stickers (as well as other gifts for a certain number of stickers). I'm all in favor of bribery!

I still use my diapers for napping and sleeping overnight as well as for those ambivalent times when I just don't want to give up the wet diaper I've slept in, and I still need some help with my pants sometimes, but I am doing a great job with toilet training!

Please note that this does not make me a "big" boy. I do not want to be a big boy or a man, and I do not want anyone to call me "big." I am me. Aidan is a boy, but not a big one. Aidan is two and good at using the potty.

More Tackling Daddy!

Football is truly the best sport. No other sport features non-stop tackling and doinking action. Of course, whenever football is on, I like to play along too. While my tackling skills are developing, so are my verbal skills at describing various types of tackles. While previously I confined my tackling to "bone jarring" hits. I've now developed a more varied repertoire:

"De-cleater" - A de-cleater occurs when I charge into Daddy and level him so that his feet are in the air. He's been de-cleated.

"Bell-ringer" - This is a tackle up high on the body.

"Pancake" - This happens when Daddy somehow manages to tackle me and then suqashes me like a pancake.

Sometimes, these can be combined as well. For instance, pancakes are often bone-jarring.

Pleasantries

One of life's great discoveries is how useful pleasantries are in conversation. For instance, I've developed a sure fire way to get a happy conversation going with Mommy, even if she's really busy. First, I come up to her to get her attention. Then I say,

How are you doing today Mommy?

She's always delighted at this and usually tells me how she's doing. I sometimes then deliver the coup de grace:

Mommy is a wonderful person.

Sometimes I'll give her a hug while saying this. This always gets a very good reception. Pleasantries sure are a good thing.

Bone-Jarring

One of my favorite games to play with Daddy is tackling. We take turns being the linebacker and the ball carrier. Either way, it's fun to go charging into Daddy and all fall down in a pile with sound effects. My favorite kind of tackle is where Daddy kneels near our love seat and I go charging in. This typically results in a pile of arms and legs and Aidans on top of the love seat. Daddy describes this kind of tackle as "bone-jarring." Since this is my favorite kind of tackle, I sometimes request it:

More bone-jarring Daddy? More bone-jarring tackling?

Sometimes when Daddy is not available for tackling, I'll come charging into the love seat myself. This is also great fun though it's not tackling. Instead, I call it "doinking" since I go "doink" into the love seat when I charge into it. "Doink" is a big word in my vocabulary. "Doink," for those of you who don't know, is a colorful football expression popularized by John Madden. Here is a video featuring the word doink in the title:

The Hundred Acre Wood

I recently decided that I "want to visit Pooh and Tigger and Eeyore and Piglet and Bunny Rabbit outside." In other words, I want to take a trip to the Hundred Acre Wood and meet these friends for real.

This morning, I breakfasted with Piglet, Pooh and Eeyore. Each wore a green bib, and they shared some Life cereal as well as a chair at my snack table. I had oatmeal. I look forward to the day that I can visit them at their houses. Mommy will have to get directions to the Hundred Acre Wood for this to occur, however. As of today, she tells me that she doesn't know how to get there except by reading stories or watching videos.

BTW, my tummy felt much better today.

(Mommy asked me to share this scholarly article about Pooh and friends' various psychological issues. It causes her to question how much time I've been spending with these guys. She asks that you to plant your tongue firmly in your cheek as you read it.

Half Way to Santa Cruz

This morning, Mommy, Daddy and I set off for Santa Cruz. Daddy was scheduled to give talks at UCSC, and Mommy and I were to visit our friends Clara and Cheryl, who are moving to Connecticut in 2 weeks so Clara's daddy can start a new job. We were also supposed to stay overnight at a hotel due to the generosity of UCSC.

All went as planned until we reached the Mission Blvd/UC Extension Exit, where you switch from 680 to 880. Without warning, my breakfast of oatmeal "spit up from my tummy." This was upsetting since in addition to being an unwelcome surprise, it also made my clothing and carseat wet and awful. We pulled over so Mommy could clean me up, and then reversed course. Mommy and I stayed home while Daddy drove to Santa Cruz himself to fulfill his obligations.

At home, Mommy indulged most of my whims since I was sick, so I got to watch videos, draw with chalk, paint at my easel, use markers, etc. I also had some nifty soup featuring noodles shaped like fishies. By evening, I even had some lasagne and asked for oatmeal again. Happily, no other meals came up out of my tummy today.

BTW, I did drop some hints that something was not quite right with me in advance. I told Mommy several times yesterday evening that I was "feeling a little nervous." When asked what I was nervous about, I replied, "um, the flowers?" I also whined in my sleep around 5AM, and mentioned that I was "feeling a little nervous" this morning as well as in the car. When asked what was making me nervous in the car, I replied, "the bushes?" (intentional question mark). Now Mommy and Daddy know what I was really nervous about-- my upset tummy. I wasn't sure how to tell them. (Mommy had accepted my plantlife answers at face value since most previous conversations about being "nervous" dealt with my dislike of the moon in its "not round and round one" phases and "not like" of large indoor plants in surprising locations.

Smithsonian

One of my favorite places to visit while I was in DC was the Smithsonian Museum of American History. I went there twice. On my second trip, Daddy led me around the place. First, we went down the elevator (yay) to see a big map of the different voting machines used in the US. Daddy showed me where Washington, DC was. We stood on that spot and then walked all the way across the map to Walnut Creek, California, where I live. I quickly spotted my favorite state, Alaska, from our spot in California. What makes Alaska such a great state is that, on the Smithsonian map at least, it's big and it's yellow. Yellow is one of my favorite colors, along with green and orange.

Next, it was off to see the machine exhibit. I quickly found a big wood burning steam locomotive at the start of the exhibit. We went inside and looked at lots of different kinds of plows and tractors. I liked the gears on the tractor wheels. Daddy explained how the engine pushes a piston to turn the gears. After that, it was off to see the trains. There is an enormous green Pacific Class locomotive from Santa Cruz California in that exhibit. I wanted to climb up onto the trains and make them go, but unfortunately, the trains seems stuck in place at the Smithsonian.

We then went to look at the cars. There was a green Studebaker with a "statue" Mommy inside. Since my real Mommy has a green car too, I suggested that we kick the statue Mommy out and that real Mommy and real Aidan go for a ride. Finally, we came to my favorite exhibit in the whole place---a train car from the Chicago El. This is a great exhibit since you can climb inside the train and watch on a TV screen which projects the conductor and the other passengers riding the train. When the train is going, it kind of rumbles a little and lights flash outside the windows. I'd have been quite happy to stay there for the whole day, but Daddy said that the fifth stop was our station.

There were lots of other neat things to see here. We saw lots of engines in one exhibit. Daddy explained how steam engines, kerosene engines, and turbine engines work. I liked the up down motion of the piston and the round and round motion of the flywheel in Daddy's descriptions. We also saw a bunch of clocks. The gears inside the clocks are really neat as well. Finally, it was time to go.

I want to go back there as soon as I can. When we were back in California, I asked if we could go to this museum over the weekend. I was saddened to learn that it is more than 3000 miles away. That's far. I suggested that we drive there given the distance.

Getting around DC

I just got back from a long road trip this past weekend. After visiting all the relatives in "old country", Mommy and I met up with Daddy in the "vacation house" in Washington DC. This is the first time I've ever been to "the District" and I really enjoyed seeing it. In the next few blog entries I'll recount some of the highlights.

One of the best things about DC are the many interesting modes of transportation. The excitement starts right from the vacation house. To get downstairs to the "vacation house restaurant", where breakfast is served, we have to take an elevator. There are two elevators in the vacation house. One of my favorite things to do was to guess which elevator was going to show up to pick us up. I would run to the bank of elevators and point at one of the closed sets of doors. "That one!" I'd say, usually pointing to the rightmost door. More often than by chance (Daddy was keeping track), I'd be right in my prediction. I was very happy with the floor they gave us for our vacation house. We were on the fifth floor and "5" is my favorite number.

When we'd go out to see the sights, Mommy would take us down to Washington Harbor, which is a little "harbor" on the banks of the Potomac. There, we'd wait for the blue bus. I liked riding the bus too. From the blue bus, we'd get onto the "Metro". This is DC's fabulous subway system. I liked to call it the "Newark Train". We would wait for the train to come. The lights on the edge of the platform would blink when the train was about to arrive. Then we'd take the train to all sorts of interesting places.

I also got to ride on an orange "trolley". Mommy told me it was not quite a real trolley since it didn't run on rails, but I liked how it looked. What I didn't like was all the traffic riding on the trolley. Trolley rides are slow. After a little while, I tired of the trolley. I'd suggest (with increasing urgency):

Trolley stop now. All done trolley. Want to get off. Want to get off. All done. No more trolley.

Mommy and Nainnie seemed to want to be done with the trolley too.

Finally, and best of all, I got to ride a canal boat pulled by mules. I even got to pet the mules too. I liked to visit the canal. Daddy told me that this canal was built to rapidly transport stuff from Washington DC to points to the west. Unfortunately, it was built around the same time as the B&O Railroad, so it never really worked out too well. Having ridden one of these boats, the transport on a canal is anything but rapid.