Happy Halloween from the Green Dragon!

Dragon Tales, Dragon Tales. Now it's time for Dragon Tales! I am being a friendly, flying dragon for Halloween like my friends from Dragon Tales. I am a green dragon like Zackie. I wish I were purple like Weezie. (Zackie and Weezie are brother and sister and they are two heads on the same body.) Since I am green I think that I will be Weezie dressed as Zackie! Here are some photos from trick-or-treating at Lafayette Square last Tuesday and from our family visit to Joan's Pumpkin Farm yesterday. Tonight I wear my costume again and do lots of trick-or-treating! Yea!

The Autumn Leaves

We are learning about the autumn in my school these days. At "circle time" last week, we talked about all the signs of fall---the leaves turning colors on the trees, the days getting a bit colder, and so on. One of my teachers asked why the leaves fall off the trees. After getting a few answers, I raised my hand to offer my take. She finally called on me.

"Why do the leaves fall off the trees Aidan?" she asked.

Gravity!

I announced proudly.

The other kids looked quite puzzled, but the teacher agreed this was a good answer. Daddy was especially proud to hear of my terrific scientific answer.

In other news, since Daddy has had a cold lately, we've been sorting out the germ theory of disease. Viruses and bacteria are quite interesting. Sometimes I like to pretend to be a germ myself.

Aidan the Polar Bear

When I woke up this morning, I was wearing my polar bear jammies. (I was wearing them when I went to be too.) I decided to start the morning by being a polar bear. First, I lay on the floor sleepily, as polar bears often do. Then I marched on all fours to my bedroom where I hugged the Mommy polar bear (played, as fate would have it, by my real Mommy). She stroked my soft fur and told me I was a cute polar bear. Next, I was hungry, so I crawled on the floor to the pretend stream that runs through my room and snatched up a fish that I caught in my mouth.

"I eated him!" I cried out with delight.

"Is he dead? Is he in heaven now?" I asked.

I find the circle of life an endlessly fascinating topic. Next, I went seal hunting. Well, you can probably guess how that turned out. I like being a polar bear.

When I grow up, I want to be...

When I grow up, I want to be a garbageman.

I like reading a book called "Learn the Names of 100 Trucks." It's filled with lots of different kinds of trucks, logging trucks, construction trucks, semis, street sweepers, and so on. My favorite is the pink garbage truck. Whenever I come to that page, I tell Daddy, "When I grow up, I want to be a garbageman." I go on to tell him that I like the idea of getting to load all the interesting colored garbage cans and riding in a big pink truck. Daddy offers some alternatives: Pointing at a semi, he asks, "Wouldn't you rather be a long-haul trucker. After all, it's a great life. You get to live in your truck and eat all your meals at special restaurants called truck stops."

"No. I want to be a garbageman!" I say. (FYI- The garbage trucks where I live are especially cool since they have special mechanical arms that lift the garbage cans up and dump the trash into the truck. These are even nicer than the one in the book except that they are not pink.) When I am a garbageman, I want a rainbow-colored truck!

I also want to be a balloon salesman, operate a huge pile driver (also in my 100 Trucks book), and be a "rocket man" (astronaut) so I can go to the moon where I can jump really high owing to the lack of gravity. Preferably, I'll do all of these jobs everyday-- garbageman in the morning, balloonman in the afternoon, pile driver in the evening, and spaceman at night. Mommy says that I'm going to be very busy and asks me when I'm going to sleep. I always say that I'm never tired anyway-- who needs sleep?

The Trouble with Balloons

A new game, which I like a lot is, "Don't Let the Balloon Touch the Ground". In this game, you have to hit a balloon to keep it up in the air. It's lots of fun and I'm very good at it. I can keep a balloon up in the air more or less indefinitely although sometimes I like to intentionally let the balloon touch the ground.

The trouble with balloons comes from playing with Daddy. He seems to have bad luck when it comes to balloons. We played this game outside during the weekend and the balloon hit a sharp blade of grass and popped. We played inside yesterday and the balloon hit our textured ceiling inside the house and popped. It makes me very sad when balloons pop and I demand an immediate replacement for the fallen balloon. Last night, we were going to eat dinner when the balloon popped, so no replacement was forthcoming. This made me VERY ANGRY. I cried and complained bitterly about this unfortunate turn of events. The trouble with balloons is that they pop.

Animal Farm

Last night, Daddy and I had a fun adventure with the Little People. We gout out the farm, the house, and all the animals. Daddy said one of the pigs was named Napoleon and the other was named Snowball. They had the idea that the humans were taking away all the produce---the crops, the eggs, the milk---of the animals. It was time for the animals to not be exploited. So the animals rose up and booted the humans out. The humans, in this case, consisted of Uncle Noah, Missus Noah, and Dude Eddie. After that, the animals moved into the house and kept all the crops for themselves. Daddy said that our version of animal farm was a bit sunnier than the Orwell story of the same name. I love Animal Farm.

Marble soda...and all things Japanese

Yesterday night was a lot of fun. The whole three family went downtown for dinner and visiting shops. My first stop was the Apple Store, which is really fun. Initially all the little back balls that you sit on were occupied with other children, so I had to listen to music on iPods instead. A little later, a spot opened up and I got to play on the computers. I played a Nemo game and a preschool game that I really like.

After that, Daddy gave me several choices for where to go to dinner. I picked---what else---the sushi place. The sushi place features a really fun drink, marble soda (shown in the picture), as well as lots of other good stuff. You can read about marble soda here. I had miso soup, ikura (sushi rolls made with salmon roe), gyoza (pot stickers), tobago (an egg sushi), and lots of other good stuff.

We finished off the evening with a trip to Barnes and Noble where we played with Thomas. Along the way, we sang the Petula Clark song "Downtown" as well walked along the sidewalks under the lights.

Downtown!
Things'll be great when you're
Downtown!
Don't wait a minute more
Downtown!
Everything's waiting for you.

Golf, what else

Yesterday, Daddy and I went to the "green golf ball golf course" to play some golf. We did some chipping and some putting (I sank several three-footers). Then we went to the driving range. I love all the parts of the driving range---the machine that picks up the balls, the little baskets that carry the balls, and, of course, the balls themselves. The green golf ball golf course derives its name from the fact that all of its driving range golf balls have green lettering on them.

While usually I hit about a dozen golf balls and then let Daddy hit the rest, today I was really in the mood to hit. I whacked the whole basket full of them. What a lot of people don't know is that golf balls have their own distinct personalities. Here's how you do it. First, you find a golf ball that wants to be hit (or "putted" as I like to say). To figure this out, you listen for the golf ball saying "me, me, me" in response to the question "Do you want to be putted?". Then the golf ball boings over to the tee. Often the golf ball will say things on its way like "Grrr. I'm a grumpy golf ball." or "Yay, I'm a happy golf ball." or "I'm a little bit scared to be 'hitted.'" Then you put the ball on the tee. Then you put your hands on the club while Daddy puts his on too. Then, you have to make the all-important triangle wth your arms. Then you wind up and let the golf ball fly. I managed to hit a couple of golf balls the longest distance ever---around 40 yards---with this method.

One thing about golf balls, some are cleaner than others. There was one that was particularly dirty. I announced loudly, "This golf ball is ridiculously dirty!" This caused the woman in the driving range stall next to mine to double over in laughter. Generally, the other golfers seemed to enjoy my antics.

Golf is great!

I Knew You Were Coming So I Baked a Cake

Daddy and I celebrated Mommy's almost 37th birthday (she'll be 37 tomorrow) by making her a cake and dinner. She asked for something called a black forest cake, so, on Saturday morning, Daddy and I went off on a mission to get the ingredients. Daddy seemed to think he would find "black forest cake" cake mix, but no such thing exists. Daddy was stuck, so he quickly found a cookbook display and tried to figure out what the heck is in black forest cake. He discovered a long list of ingredients, few of which we had. We came home with baking chocolate, cocoa, whipping cream, cherries, and several other items.

Amazingly, Daddy's "solution" was to bake a cake "from scratch". This was fine with me since it entailed many more "boy jobs" than the usual cake-making with mixes. We spent all day Saturday afternoon and evening making the cake. The longest part was making the whipped cream icing, which took an eternity. Daddy and I alternated in using the mixer as our arms got tired. We frosted the cake today and had it this evening. I love cake. It was a great birthday celebration for Mommy.

By the way, Daddy and I also threw together a dinner of grilled salmon marinaded in oregano and dill, baked potatoes with sour cream and chives (from the garden) as well as salad with fresh tomoatoes from our garden. Mommy was pretty impressed with how much her two boys care about her.

After dinner and cake, I helped Mommy to open up her birthday gifts. It was the best almost birthday ever!

Thomas and the Fragile Flower School

One of my favorite Thomas adventures to play-act is "Thomas and the School Trip." For this adventure, Sir Topham Hatt tells Thomas to deliver the school children to some destination and Thomas goes there. Lately though, I've liked a variant of this adventure that Daddy came up with even better---Thomas and the Fragile Flower School. In this version, Sir Topham Hatt once again directs Thomas to take the schoolchildren to some destination; however, he cautions Thomas that the children are all "fragile flowers" and he must be very careful. Thomas then sets off on his journey and inevitably crashes in some horrible fashion. I then announce, "The fragile flower children are all broken. What are we going to do about that?"

Remarkably, the solution to this dilemma is to go back to the station, collect a new batch of coaches with a new class of fragile flower children and go off to crash again.

In addition to being fragile flowers, the Fragile Flower school kids all have funny names. Daddy says their names are all palindromes---names that are the same spelled backwards as frontwards. They include: Bob, Anna, Eve, Aviva, Nan, Ava, Elle, and Emme.