Latvia

I'm starting to learn and recognize the names of several of the countries in the Amazing Race game. My favorite so far--Latvia. When we went to the farm, we got a ride from a couple of people in Daddy's work, one of whom was from Latvia. It was pretty neat to visit Latvia in the Amazing Race and see where she's from. My other favorite country is Italy. I've learned that Italy is the home of Luigi and Guido, two of the characters from the Cars movie. Whenever my racer visits Italy, they kit out my racer with a Ferrari (their favorite type of car) so he'll be able to race faster. Another favorite country to visit is Ireland. Among other things, I learned that Ireland is very green with lots of trees and grass. More importantly, Ireland is the home of David Feherty, an announcer in the golf game who I like to imitate.

Birdie, birdie, Birthday

Daddy got a great present for his birthday, the Tiger Woods PGA golf game. When he first got the game, I created a player named Happy Birthday in honor of the fact that the game was a birthday present for him. (I've since created some other characters named Golf Ball, Golf Club, and Sprinkles are Colorful. The two Golf players are cousins and Sprinkles is the cousin of Happy Birthday.)

Anyway, we were playing a match at the Aviara Golf Club (in LA) last night and I played the best computer golf of my life. The first hole was split as we both made par. Then I went on a tear making birdies on the 2nd, 3rd, and 4th holes. I jumped around flapping my arms in the happy birdie dance. Daddy has never managed a birdie streak like this. It was also lucrative, my player made about $500 in Tiger Woods money as a result of his stellar play.

A Very Good Hiding Spot

Yesterday, we went to a holiday party thrown by one of the people at Daddy's current work, the IMF. The gentleman who threw the party lives on a big farm in the middle of Virginia. At first, I wasn't too happy since he has two big dogs--Tibetan Mastiffs--that were really scary to me. As you know, I don't like dogs at all. After the dogs went away, we had a chance to explore the farm. We played a couple of racing games and then decided to play hide and seek. The best round of the game was when Daddy and I hid from Mommy. I came up with a great hiding place, just behind a small hill on the farm. We both laid down on our tummies and waited to see if Mommy would find us. After a long search, she spotted Daddy. But she didn't see me until she almost stepped on me. It was a great spot.

I liked lots of other things at the party as well. The gentleman throwing the party had a huge TV set---bigger than I'd ever seen. Happily, he turned on the Jets game and I got others in the room to root for the Jets. I taught them the cheer: J-E-T-S, Jets, Jets, Jets!

It was a really fun party. I want to go back to the farm and visit again.

Gamesmanship

This weekend, Daddy and I worked on designing several games. It all started Saturday morning. I wanted to play the Tiger Woods golf computer game, but Mommy was using the computer. This led Daddy and I to try to come up with our own games. First, I thought up a game like Candyland. It had a windy trail and you had to get to a castle at the end. Daddy sketched the trail and then I colored in the squares. It was a pretty good game, but too much like, well, Candyland.

Next, I decided that I wanted a game with arrows that you could travel on. Daddy came up with a game that was sort of a cross between Candyland and Chutes and Ladders. In this game, there is a grid of colored squares. You throw the color dice (which we also made) to see which square to go to next. If you land at the end of an arrow, you slide along it to wherever it takes you. I liked this game a lot although there was one arrow that was a little too "happy" and makes the game too easy to win if you land on it.

Because of the happy arrow and some problems with the color die, Daddy thought up a variant of this game. Daddy thinks this variant is a great game although I like it less than the arrows version. In this game, there is once again a grid that you have to travel to get to the end. On each square of the grid is the name of a card A, 2, 3, etc. However, the names of the face cards and the joker are missing. Players take turns drawing cards and proceed to the next spot on the grid with their card value. However, if you draw a face card or joker, then instead of moving along the gird (up and down) you move sideways. Jack and King are bad. You move 1 square to the right on a Jack and three to the right on a King. Queen and Joker are good. You move one square to the right with queen and two to the right with Joker. First one to the end wins. The reason Daddy likes this game is that it plays relatively quickly and there are dramatic swings of fortune. There are two or more lead changes every time we played.

Now, on to the best game of all---the Amazing Race game. Daddy and I came up with this together. I suggested that I wanted a game where you had to travel around to various places on Earth and get treasure. Daddy had the idea of drawing a map of Europe (freehand) where we colored in all the countries. The only variation from real Europe is that I insisted that we should have Hawaii on the map too. We placed Hawaii in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean.

We then labeled many of the countries with a card value like red Jack or black 10, etc. At the start of the game, each person draws a card to see which country they start in. They then draw the first "clue" card to figure out where they have to go on the first leg of the race. Players then take turns moving one country or one sea area to get to their destination. Once they arrive their, they draw another clue card to get to the next destination. First one to complete four destinations wins the Amazing Race.

This game is spectacularly fun. I'm learning about all sorts of countries. For instance, did you know there is a country called Turkey. I thought that was kind of funny. I met someone from Turkey at a party last night and put my new knowledge to use. I told here that Turkey was a country near the Black Sea. She was really impressed that I knew that. There is also some trickiness in the game in figuring out the quickest route to get to the next destination. Should I go by land? Or by boat? It's really a fun game. We should play it over Christmas.

Aidan Morgan: General Contractor

On Monday, Mommy and I built a house together. It was quite a considerable undertaking, we had to raise the walls, carefully put on the roof, and seal the whole thing together so it didn't fall apart. We then had to add windows, a door, shingles, and various decorations. Then of course, we had to landscape the yard. It was quite an undertaking. At the end of building process, we had maybe the most beautiful house I'd ever seen.

It now sits on our dining room table.

It's a gingerbread house.

Happy Trails - Frank Thomas

It was a very sad day for me yesterday. I learned that my favorite player on the Oakland A's--Frank Thomas--has left the team to join the Blue Jays. I cried when I found out about this since I love Frank Thomas more than any other player. It will be sad not to see stick guy playing for the A's.

Pictures from the Potomac

Last weekend for Daddy's birthday, we went on a trip to Georgetown. The idea was to visit a really nice park there and then go on a sunset cruise on the Potomac. We managed the park part all right, but we found out that the last cruise only goes one way--from Georgetown to Alexandria, VA (or, as I tended to call it, Alexabama--Alexandria and Alabama confuse me). Anyway, to see some pictures from our trip click here

Robot X - The Movie

Yesterday, Daddy and I revived one of our old games--Robot X attacks the city. Usually, we do this by building the city and Robot X out of Legos and then having Robot X terrorize the city until he either wins or is destroyed by some sort of defense figured out by the citizens. Since we don't have Legos with us in Washington, we made the city and the robot out of paper. We use a lot more paper here than we did in California.

So that you would not miss any of the Robot X excitement, we made this little video of the battle.

Signals and Noise

I love to do experiments. As you know, I started experiments at a very young age--2--when I got to do some sinks versus floats experiments. Since that time, I've done lots of other experiments. Here is the most complex experiment I've done yet. It's called signal versus noise.

To do this experiment, you need poker chips in three different colors. I have red, white, and blue chips. You make two stacks of chips. One stack contains 2 blues, 1 red, and a variable number of white chips. The other contains 2 reds, 1 blue, and the same number of whites. The experimenter then decides which stack to put in the "urn" (my pumpkin basket) and which to hide in a nearby drawer. The other person, then draws chips from the urn, records their color on the data sheet, and then puts them back. After 5 draws, the goal is to guess whether the urn contains 2 reds or 2 blues.

When there are no white chips, it's not that hard to guess correctly. If more reds come up, you should guess red. If more blues come up, you should guess blue. Adding white chips makes things more interesting. The white chips are "noise"--you don't learn anything about the reds and the blues from the whites. After a bunch of trials, Daddy and I learned the following.

The more white chips there are in the urn, the more data you need to make a correct guess. We tried drawing 5, 7, 9, even up to 20 times and making guesses. It gets pretty hard when there are a lot of white chips. The more noise, the harder it is to guess correctly.

Now, for an even more surprising experimental finding. We tried the following comparison. 2 red, 1 blues and 6 whites versus 1 red, 2 blues, and 4 whites. Interestingly, when the number of whites is not the same in the two stacks, you can use the "noise" (the whites) to guess whether there are mostly reds or mostly blues. Amazingly, even without seeing any reds or blues, you can make a good guess. For instance, suppose you draw 7 whites and nothing else. We learned that this is a good indication that the urn contains mostly reds since there are more whites when there are more reds. Daddy says that this is because the whites are "correlated" with the reds.

This is maybe the coolest experiment ever!

A postcript: I've started thinking up and designing more of my own experiments. Yesterday's experiment asked the following question: Do you get more soap bubbles when you add the soap before adding the water or after. To conduct this experiment, I got two identical Dixie cups. In the first cup, I put in one squeeze of liquid soap, filled to the top with water, and observed the number of bubbles. I then filled the second cup to the same level and added one squirt of liquid soap after it was filled. I observed that the second cup had a lot fewer bubbles than the first.

Conclusion: Soap first produces more bubbles than soap added after.

Daddy was very impressed at the quality of this experimental design.

Metro Train Tour

Yesterday, the three family went out on a photo tour of the Metro. I had the idea that it would be neat to take pictures of the various stops for the Metro train as well as taking pictures of the trains, the stations, the turnstiles, the ticket selling machines, and so on. Armed with Daddy's camera, we went off on the tour. Click here to see the tour.

First stop, Dupont Circle. As you know, there's a really huge escalator in Dupont Circle. Amazingly, Nainnie went up and down this escalator a bunch of times when she came to visit us. Pictures 4-6 how the escalator. Picture 6 is a daredevil shot that Daddy took while sitting down on the escalator as we went down it.

Next, we came to the ticket vending machines. There are two types. The red ones only take cash while the blue ones take credit cards. Pictures 7 and 8 show these. I took picture 8 in a Daddy extreme photography pose. I more or less lay on my back in the Metro station (which Mommy thought was yucky) and shot up at the ticket machine.

Metro stations have lots of nifty turnstiles. Picture 9 shows me checking them out.

Next, we rode on the red line and transferred to the blue line at Metro center. Picture 10 shows the transfer point. Then we rode t L'Enfant plaza and switched again to the green line. This took us to Chinatown (picture 11). We roamed around Chinatown, but it was not as exciting as the Metro train. We went back into the Chinatown metro station. Picture 12 shows it. The rainbow thing in the back is a big lit-up Chinese fan piece of artwork.

We rode the red line back to Dupont Circle where we went up a different big escalator (pictures 13 and 14) before arriving at the top (picture 15). We stopped at the Dupont Circle fountain for a lollipop break (pictures 16 and 17) before heading home.

Sad postscript: We got home just in time to watch the Steelers lose a heartbreaker to the Falcons. Daddy and I were waving our "terrible socks" (really just my yellow socks) to try to help the Steelers.

Dali and the Ghost

I don't really like to follow the rules when it comes to making things. When coloring, I like to do it my own way--purple hair, pink clouds, and so on. Same thing when it comes to activity books. Sometimes I try to get the answers right, other times I try to get the answers wrong. A "perfect" score is when I can get them all wrong. Well, in this vein, Mommy and I were making Halloween decorations yesterday. One of the decorations we were making were ghosts. We have foam ghost bodies and sticky eyes, etc for other parts of the ghost. Mommy made ghosts with faces that looked like this:

* *
g

_____

where * = eye, g = nose, and _______ = mouth

My ghost face looked like this:

*
_______
*
g

I like my ghosts to be different.

Texas Hold 'Em

Daddy brought home some poker chips the other day after I spent the previous evening in rapt attention at this year's World Series of Poker. I give a lot of the gys on that show nicknames like handsome guy (the ultimate winner, Jamie Gold), sunglasses guy, fat guy, ugly shirt guy, yellow dog guy (Allen Cunningham, who always wears a yellow shirt with a white dog on it), and so on. One guy, Leif Force, who has very bad hair, was eliminated while I was watching. I was sort of happy about this since I decided I didn't like him.

In addition to the guys, I like to make predictions about which guy has the better hand. I now know that two aces is the best hand to start and that you should fold if you have a deuce-seven off suit.

Anyway, Daddy and I have now been playing full-blown Texas Hold 'Em at home. It's hard for me to remember all the combinations of the cards. And keeping track of the shared card in the center and how they relate to my "hole" cards is tough. But I love playing, and I especially love pushing my chips into the pot. One of my favorite things is going "all-in" and seeing if I win a big pot.

Planes, Trains, and Boats

We had a great day of transportation last Sunday. First, we went on the Metro train to the Mall area between the Washington Monument (which I learned is an obelisk) and the Capitol. While there, Daddy brought a bunch of sheets of paper, and we made some paper airplanes. We tried to figure out whether airplanes fly better when launched into the wind or away from it (into the wind is better) and to figure out which model of plane flies the best. It seemed to me that the origami box plane was the best design---followed by a plane called "The Master". After that, we walked to the tidal basin where we went on the paddle boats. I was a bit nervous about the paddle boats but soon came to appreciate their many advantages. It was a fun day to spend as a family.

Champagne Celebrations

This weekend, I saw the deciding fourth playoff game of the Yankees-Tigers series. Daddy has had several conversations with me instructing me never to root for the Yankees, so naturally, I was cheering hard for the Tigers that afternoon. When the Tigers finally managed to win, I got to witness a truly odd celebration. They taped cellophane all through the locker room and got out a bunch of champagne. While I recognized the champagne (it's the wine with the coolest type of cork), I didn't understand the need for cellophane. When Mommy and Daddy have wine, they don't cover the house in cellophane. Daddy explained that the wine was mostly not for drinking but rather for spraying on one another. Sure enough, the players ran and jumped into the locker room and proceeded with the sprayfest. Some of the players even wne back out to the stands and sprayed the people in the first couple of rows with champagne.

While I liked the idea of the players celebrating like this, I wasn't sure I would want to get squirted were I in the stands. First, I tried to gauge how far he spray might go. It seemed like it went in about four rows and not beyond. So if I were in the fifth row I'd be safe. But what if I had a REALLY good seat in the first couple of rows. Daddy explained that we could always move back in that circumstance before the players started squirting. I then thought that maybe if I wore a hat my hair wouldn't get wet from the champagne. I didn't mind the idea of my clothes getting wet, but definitely not my hair.

At the end, I decided that I'd really like to be in the stands for a champagne celebration. Especially one where the Oakland A's were celebrating.

Japanese Engineering

Yesterday, Felix came over to visit us. I kept confusing his name with Phillip, another of Daddy's work friends who I've met. I told Felix that I was very excited to see him since he taught me the hard boiled egg tapping game. (This is the game where you tap two eggs together and the one that doesn't break wins.) I explained to him my strategy---I try to figure out which is the stronger egg. Then I insist that the other person keep her egg still while I do the tapping. Ususually this strategy wins. Felix was impressed.

Next, we had a paper airplane flying contest with three guys. We picked our airplane teams when Daddy was out of the room, so he got the dregs of the airplanes. In both contests, Felix managed to win thanks to a Japanese plane. The reason is that he picked a plane called a shiburu in Japanese. A shiburu is a Japanese origami version of the standard paper airplane, but, as you might imagine, it's got a lot more folds than the usual plane. It flies very far and straight, which is an advantage in this contest since distance determines victory. Felix kept saying it was the triumph of superior Japanese engineering---sort of like the Toyota.

Sirens

Yesterday, we had an incident where a paper airplane set off our house alarm. Today, it was bears that did it. As you know, I love my stuffed bears. I like to surprise Daddy in the morning by having the bears "fly" down the stairs to greet him. Today, the bears flew down and banged into our front door with a thud. Apparently, this was enough for the alarm to think that the bears were intruders trying to get in, and the sirens went off. This led Mommy to propose a new rule in the morning---no bears, planes, and so on until the alarm is switched off. Since I don't like the sirens, this seems like a sensible rule.

Greetings from the land of the Metro train

This weekend, Mommy and I flew to DC on my favorite airline, JetBlue. Daddy greeted us and showed us around. My room is great. It has a gold coffee table and a couch with sparkly pillows on it. I also have an enormous bed. I like our vacation house a lot.

Over the weekend, Daddy and I got on the Metro train---the best train ever---and visited the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum. I wanted to make sure to see all the best parts, so we quickly took off to the exhibit with the aircraft carrier. I told the planes when to take off and land from my spot in the tower of the aircraft carrier. I also got to see a cool plane with a spinning propeller that has the engine on the outside. The engine spins along with the propeller. We saw some planes from World War II and figured out where the machine guns and cannons were on these planes. I also like the wheelwells---little circles underneath the planes where the landing gear can tuck in.

Best of all was the "How Things Fly" exhibit, which has lots of cool stuff for kids. We went to two shows at this exhibit. One was on paper airplane building. I built my plane and tried to fly it through the hoop to win a prize. It was not easy to get it to fly through. Still, it was fun. I volunteered to be the "line leader" which meant that I got to go first in flying my plane. We also went to the "how things fly" demonstration, where we saw lots of cool experiments. Again, I was the first volunteer and got to use a Magdeburg sphere. This is a sphere which is easy to open when there is air inside it, but almost impossible when there's not. I pulled and pulled, but couldn't open it when the air was taken out. Several people said I was the star of the show since I did a lot of smiling and chatting with the person doing the experiments. After the show was over, I told him that I knew about a particularly good kind of jet airplane---Jet Blue.

We learned all about the four forces affecting flight: lift, thrust, drag, and gravity. We decided to test these out at home by buying a paper airplane book and making paper airplanes. Daddy is mostly in charge of the making part, but I'm in charge of the decorating and flying. Since we have a big staircase, it's fun to fly them from way up high on the stairs to the living room down below. We've been doing some experiments by varying the flaps of the planes to see how this affects the way they fly. We've learned that by making flaps that tilt up, the plane gets more lift and stays in the air longer. We've also tried varying the thrust. When you give a plane more thrust (a bigger push), sometimes it can make a loop de loop. It tends not to do this when it has less thrust.

We also had a couple of accidents with our planes. The most serious one involved the plane banging into the security system and setting off the alarm. It made a loud siren noise. Daddy disarmed it and told the security guys that it was just a paper airplane that triggered it. Paper airplanes are very cool.

Some Pictures from DC

Right now, Mommy and I are in California while Daddy's in DC. I talked to him yesterday and told him how much I was looking forward to going to the Air and Space Museum. That's the best musem. Anyway, Daddy asked to borrow my weblog t post some pictures he took n DC. The first are a series of shots of the Capitol from a variety of angles. The statue in a couple of the shots is James Garfield. Next comes a couple of cactus shots from the National Botanic Garden and finally some shots of artworks from the National Gallery. You can find them all here.

Glittery Show

I love glittery shows. Last night we had a really cool one. Daddy got out his tripod and set his shutter speed to something really slow so we could take some pictures of the show. Here they are.

Tiger Tiger Burning Bright

This weekend was a great weekend for golf. The PGA Championship occurred this weekend, and I was very interested in the fate of my favorite golfer, Tiger Woods. I was also interested in the giant trophy awarded to the winner of this tournament (pictured above). As you know, I love big trophies.

To celebrate the joys of golf, we got out the clubs and practiced hitting and putting and generally playing with golf balls. Daddy also invented a Thomas golf game, which I then modified. In this game, each player has a Thomas engine (Daddy had Mavis and I had Percy) and they have to "drive" up the putting green and into the hole. The person whose train makes it into the hole in the fewest "strokes" (pushes) wins the hole. This is a pretty fun game.

Santa Cruz and a Day Out with Thomas

Here are some pictures form when Nainnie visited us. We went to Santa Cruz to hang out on the beach and then we went to "Day Out with Thomas" in nearby Felton. It was a great trip.

See the pictures here.

Let's Go Oakland

Lately, I've been obsessed with the Oakland A's. I like to see them in the newspaper. I like to watch them on TV. I like to look at my baseball cards. But, most of all, I like to go to the stadium to see them play. On Saturday, Daddy and I were watching an A's game, and I asked when we could go again. Daddy came up with a good idea---tomorrow. So off we went to see the A's play the Devil Rays. It was Eric Chavez backpack day, so I got a cool backpack in yellow and green with Eric Chavez's picture on it. I really like it.

The game was great. I had cotton candy and lemonade. I also led a lot of the cheers. I would start yelling "Let's go Oakland" and then clapping and soon our whole row was joining in the chant. The game was exciting too. After falling behind 1-0, Frank Thomas (aka "stick guy" since he uses a steel rebar to warm up in the on-beck circle) got a single. Then Eric Chavez hit a soaring home run to right. The A's added a run in the 8th and Huston Street closed out the 9th for a 3-1 win.

When we got home, we replayed the game with "balloon baseball". In this sport, the balloon is the ball and a piece of cardboard from a wrapping paper tube is the bat. It's a really fun game. I like to pretend to be sitck guy when batting and Danny Haren when pitching. My fascination with Danny Haren comes from a bobble-head I have of him. Apparently, the Oakland A's general manager, Billy Beane, was kind enough to send it to me.

Here are some photos of me in my A's gear as well as some wine country photos from Grammy's current visit. Click here to see.

Cards and the Art of Trash Talking

Well, not exactly trash talking, but there is a certain set of fun expressions that go with card playing. Sure, there are the usual expressions like deuce for 2 and lady for queen, but then there are some other expressions I like to use. Here are some:

"I've got a hand like a foot" when my hand is not especially good.

"I've got a dilemma" when I'm faced with a tough choice about which card to discard.

"It's time for the dreaded...x" when throwing down a card that's not especially high in rank.

Surprise Going Away Present

This morning I made a going away present for Nainnie. I like all my presents to be surprises, so I went through some measures to keep everything secret. First, I made her a colorful envelope out of construction paper, which I then decorated with stickers. Next, I made a card to go in the envelope. Rather than drawing pictures on the card, I wanted to express myself in words. I asked Daddy to come and help me by being my secretary while I dicated what I wanted to say. I wrote that I wanted Nainnie to have a very nice time and to get off her plane safely. Then I told her I loved her "really much". Finally, in a bt of deception, I wrote that the message was written by Thomas the Tank Engine. But, just in case she was really fooled, I signed it, "Love, Aidan."

Some Photos

Here are some photos of me in wine country.

Napa July 2006

Here are some photos Daddy took when he was in Berlin recently.

Berlin

A Game I Invented

As you know, I love card games. Recently, Mommy got me a Thomas the Tank Engine Sodor Celebration card game, which I've now played about a gazillion times. In this game, there are five different colors of cards. Each player is dealt four cards face up and is tasked with acquiring one engine card, one letter card, one ticker card, and one present card all of the same color. The first to do this wins the game. Acquiring cards uses the same rules as rummy.

Anyway, after many plays of the traditional game, I invented a rather interesting version of the game myself. In my version, each player receives three cards, face down. Then one card is turned up as the trump suit. The eldest hand leads a card and others have to match the color of the card led or play trump. The hand is won by the highest card of the correct color played where the ranks of cards are determined by the size of the objects depicted on them. So an engine beats a present, which beats an envelope, which beats a ticket. After a hand is played, each player takes a new card from the deck so as to hold three cards at all times. The winner is the player taking the most tricks. There are some wild cards too.

Daddy was very impressed with the complexity of this game construction and enjoyed playing a couple of times.

Oakland A's Game

Yesterday was guys day. I went to work with Daddy in the morning. While Daddy took a bunch of phone calls, my work consisted of playing on the computer with the Wonder Pets and Go Diego Go. After this, we got to visit the Dean's office to get some chocolate and then went off to the baseball game. I was all dressed up in my Oakland A's outfit, which is really great since it has my two favorite colors--yellow and green. We had special seats which required us to walk through the clubhouse where the players are to get to the seats. There was a red line on the floor. We were supposed to stay to the left side of the red line so the players would have room to walk in the opposite direction.

I loved the game. We had popcorn and ice cream and lots of other goodies. I also managed to get on the big TV screen in the ballpark by holding up a couple of BART tickets and jumping up and down. Daddy pointed me to the camera man and he shot some pictures. A bunch of people recognized me on the way out of the stadium from my TV appearance.

I also initiated a chant in the section I was in. I started saying, "Let's go Oakland" and then clapping rhythmically. Soon other people in the section picked up the chant.

The game was a good one. The A's won 5-1 on the strength of "stick guy"--Frank Thomas. We called him that becuase, unlike the other players, Thomas warms up by swinging a big, heavy lead stick in the on-deck circle before grabbing a bat. The stick swining apparently works since Thomas hit two home runs yeaterday--effectively beating the Boston Red Sox all by himself.

Golden Unicorn Award

I managed a much faster completion of putting on my clothes--only 63 seconds. For this, Daddy gave me the golden unicorn award, which I wore proudly. Our housekeeper, Violeta, and her daughter, Melanie, were in the house today, so I thought I'd show them my award. They were impressed. I decided to make them some awards too. I made Violeta a golden lion award and Melanie a golden tiger. They were very surprised and happy with their awards.

Chicken to Ride

I like to sing and make up all sorts of songs. Indeed, my life somewhat resembles that of a Broadway musical in that I can break out in song at any instant. When it's not a Broadway musical, my speech is taking on more patterns of Cockney slang---I love to answer in nonsense rhymes to things. Anyway, I was singing a song the other day and remembered that Daddy had the song on his iPod. The song was "Chicken to Ride". Mommy didn't know this song until I sang her a little bit of it:

She's got a chicken to ride
She's got a chicken to ri-i-ide
She's got a chicken to ride, and she don't care.

Golden Snail Award

As you know, I'm not that fast when it comes to getting dressed. Yesterday, I competed in a getting dressed race. From the start time of removing my pajamas to the ending time of getting my last sock on, it took me 154 seconds. This was good enough for Daddy to give me the "Golden Snail Award". The award consists of a yellow piece of paper with a snail on it. It is also customized with the "winning" time of 154 seconds. I wore it proudly. Next up, the golden turtle award if I can get down below 120 seconds.

The Attack of Robot X

Daddy came home from New York yesterday. Today, we spent a lot of time together playing with Legos. In the course of this, we played "The Attack of Robot X -- The Scourge of Alpha Centauri." In these stories, Robot X (pictured above next to me) attacks a poor unsuspecting Lego city like Sunnyvale and destroys it. Sometimes Robot X faces severe opposition. For instance, when Robot X attacked Lego-Orlando, a robot Mickey Mouse and a robot Goofy fought him (unsuccessfully) in the defense of Orlando. In the course of the adventures, Daddy taught me about "plot twists", which are part of what make the stories exciting. For instance, Robot X has occasionally faced a really powerful robot who could defeat him. Instead, Robot X turns the rival robot to the side of the machines and away from the "humanoids" and thereby seals the fate of the city. We also did some the other way around where Robot X is reprogrammed by the people who live in the city to protect the city rather than destroy it.

This is the most fun with Legos ever!

In other news, Daddy put up a couple of photos from the 4th of July parade in Danville. This year's parade featured the Budweiser Clydesdales and the beer guys delivering beer. Unfortunately, they were not handing out free samples to the people watching the parade. See the pictures here.

Fireworks

It was an exciting fourth of July for us. In the morning, we went to the 4th of July parade in Danville. It had all the usual goodies--free ice cream, frisbees, and so on. It also featured Mr. Funnelhead, a person dressed up as a giant funnel promoting clean water. I am now the proud owner of Mr. Funnelhead stickers. There were, however, some things I didn't like. The loud sirens of an old-fashioned ambulance were not appreciated nor was the parade of shotgun carrying guys that always come at the end of the parade.

After that, we went home and watched a bit of the World Cup. Naturally, I was rooting for the Italians since they were wearing red as opposed to the Germans who were in the home whites. Italy prevailed 2-0. Even better was popping a whole bunch of what I call "streamers", but which go by the official name of party poppers. They don't make a really loud bang and the streamers that come out are really exciting. I collected a massive streamer pile from these.

We had a cookout that evening (featuring tofu dogs for me) and then went off to see fireworks. I loved seeing these. There were ones shaped like smiley faces, some that looked like the quills of an upside-down porcupine, shimmery ones, and lots of others. I brought earplugs to muffle the loud booms, but fortunately we were far enough away that the booms weren't that loud.

Throughout the day, I kept asking why there were all these American flags waving. Mommy and Daddy explained to me that we were celebrating our becoming a nation. Daddy helpfully added that we were previously part of England. Still not sure why we split up with the land of Kipper and Thomas, but we do have a very nice flag.

Aidanninho!

This weekend was a great weekend for soccer. For one thing, we saw two world cup matched in TV. In the first, Portugal defeated England on penalty kicks while in the second Brazil lost to France 1-0. Back to the first match---my loyalties were very torn in this match. England, being the home of Thomas the Tank Engine and Kipper the Dog, holds a special place in my heart, but their boring white uniforms held no aesthetic appeal. Portugal, smartly dressed in crimson, offered sartorial splendor, but nothing else in terms of literary achievements. I rooted for both teams, but by then end sartorial splendor won out. I was rooting for Portugal on the penalties as Daddy writhed on the floor with the never-ending futility of rooting for England. Meanwhile, in the second match, Daddy and I both rooted for Brazil. He because of some dislike of France, me because Brazil wears yellow uniforms with green letters and numbers---what could be better. Sadly, Brazil was not up to the challenge and lost.

After that, we played a bunch of soccer games outside over the weekend. I invented a game called soccer tag. The "it" person has to kick the ball to strike the non-"it" person. Of course, no hands are allowed in soccer tag. We also replayed the Brazil-France match a zillion times. I was Brazil's yougest star striker---Aidanninho---while Daddy played for France. Usually, he was Zidane, but at times he was Henry and Ribery. Unlike in the real World Cup, Brazil won decisively in our pretend games. Aindanninho set many world records in terms of goals scored.

Gooooooaalllllll!!!!!

Swimming

I'm in a swimming class this summer. As you know, I've been pretty reluctant when it comes to swimming (or even getting my head and hair wet in the bathtub). Previously, my view was that I'd learn to swim "when I was a teenager," but I've been trying the Starfish class since Mommy signed me up. I just finished the first of two weeks. I started off slowly. The first day, I didn't get into the pool at all except for dangling my feet in while sitting on the side. I'm a big believer in learning by watching rather than doing. The second day I stayed out until the bell to end class rang-- then I let a teacher carry me into the pool to fetch a toy. The third class, I got into the pool and held onto the wall for a couple minutes and kicked a little while the teacher carried me. The fourth day, various promises of rewards (a treat after swim, a visit to the wading pool) convinced me to get in a bit more and I finally got in and held onto the wall for much of the class. I also kicked a bit, though still wanted by head way out of the water. At home, however, Mommy and I played "blowing out the candle" in the tub (something my instructors did in the pool-- a finger is a candle and I blow it out a bunch of times, the final time with my mouth under water). Mommy hopes this transfers to blowing bubbles at Monday's swim class! I'm still a bit nervous about the whole thing, but I'm making progress.

Carey's Patch Moves

Yesterday, I played Chess with Daddy. After a slow start, we decided to (sort of) play by the acutal rules. The main exception is that no knights are allowed on the board since I don't like to see any of the horsies get hurt. Anyway, Daddy taught me what he called a "Carey's Patch Move"---the X-ray. Daddy said that my great-grandfather taught him lots of these moves and that they're all very tricky (I like it when I can do tricky things), so naturally I was eager to learn about the X-ray.

While we were playing, Daddy put my queen in the dreaded X-ray. She was stationed in front of my King to protect him when a nasty Rook came down to the same rank as my Queen and King. Daddy happily announced that the Queen was the victim of the dreaded X-ray. The rook "X-rays" the queen and sees through to threaten the King. The poor, helpless quenn can do little else than capture the rook. Unfortunately, Daddy has another rook guarding the first one, so he then took the queen.

After this, Daddy cleared the board of pieces and gave me two rooks while he had a king and queen, so I could do some x-raying as well. I did pretty well in finding the X-ray move. Sometimes I would lose my rook to the queen, but often I would figure out a way to trade my rook for Daddy's queen. After my elation at the X-ray, Daddy promised a new trick for next time---the dreaded "fork." While I know what a regular fork is, it will be interesting to see what the Chess version of a fork turns out to be.

[Daddy Addendum: In looking up X-ray in wikipedia , it turns out that what I was taught as the "X-ray" is actually known as the skewer. The actual X-ray is a bit more complex than the skewer.

Aidan the Card Shark

As you know, poker is one of my favorite games (and favorite sports to watch on TV). During our painting job, we moved a bunch of stuff around the house and I discovered a book containing 25 kids card games as well as a nice big deck of cards. I persuaded Mommy to pull this out from the other stuff and helpfully dropped it off on Daddy's desk in hopes that he would learn some of the new games. Fortunately, he did. Over the weekend weplayed two new games---both of which I managed to win more often than not. Here they are:

Go Boom

Each player starts with 7 cards. The object is to get rid of all your cards. The eldest hand leads a card and then the other player must match either the rank or the suit. If the other player can't he must draw from the stock until a match is made. High card of the led suit takes the trick and gets to lead the next card. Winner is the player to get rid of all his card with last trick winning in the event of a tie. When a player gets rid of all his cards, he call out "Boom!" as loud as he can.


What's interesting about this game is that it's the first trick-taking card game I've played. I had no trouble figuring out the rules for matching rank and suit, but I don't like it when I have to take a lot of cards from the stock. For one thing, it's pretty hard for me to hold all the cards.

Take Them All

In this game, each player gets 10 cards. The idea is to be the last player holding cards. In addition to the cards in each player's hand, a card from the stock is turned up. The suit of that card is trump---a super-powerful card suit. The eldest hand leads a card. The other player must follow suit if he can, otherwise play trump, otherwise play anything else. High card of the led suit takes the trick unless it is trumped. The winner of a trick gets to lead the next trick AND take a card from the stock. The game ends when one player has no more cards. In the event of a tie, last trick wins.

I crave variety, so I've already thought of a variation on these games. I like to add jokers to the deck. Jokers are super-duper powerful cards---they take any trick in which they are played.

Card playing is great for counting skills although I have, on occasion, referred to a number "2" that I've seen outside the card-playing context as a deuce, which I suppose is a little confusing. I also like to save my queens until the end of the game since queens are really nice---like Mommy.

Diesels

While I love Thomas and all the steam engines, I have a more uneasy relationship when it comes to the diesel trains. For one thing, in many of the Thomas stories, the diesels cause no end of trouble. Indeed, in the Thomas movie, the main plot centers on Diesel 10's attempts to destroy the steam engine Lady and thereby wreck the magic of the island of Sodor.

Because of this, I'm always a bit cautious in assembling my jigsaw puzzle with the three steam engines (Thomas, James and Lady) and the three diesels. What was nice today was that, after we built Diesel 10, Daddy gave him a voice, and he decided that he would be very nice to all the engines. He wanted to be a really useful engine too. I like this new side to Diesel 10.

My First Real Movie

This past weekend, I went to see my first movie. (Actually, this isn't quite right. I went to see the movie "The Good Girl" starring Jennifer Aniston when I was an infant. I don't remember this however.)

My first real movie was Cars. I had fallen in love with many of the characters in Cars from having seen them in Target and McDonald's. In fact, I own die cast versions of Lightning McQueen, the main character in the movie, and Fillmore, a green tie-dyed Volkswagen Microbus (who is also my favorite character). I've got plastic versions of the tow truck, Mater, and the Porsche, Sally.

Anyway, we went to the theater, got popcorn and lemonade, and proceeded to watch the movie. I was a bit scared by some of the previews but once the movier got started, I really liked it. One rule of movies that is really hard for me to follow is that you're not supposed to talk while the film is going on. This is really tough since I like to comment about everything that I'm seeing---not just what's going on on screen, but also the lighting, the seats, and so on. After about five minutes into the movie, I asked, "Is the movie almost over?" The answer, happily, was that it was not. Anyway, I enjoyed watching the movie a lot.

When it was over, I asked, "When can we go see that movie again?" Hearing that we wouldn't be seeing it again soon, I offered a compromise, "Are there any other movies that are not scary playing in the theater?" Sadly, there aren't too many movies that are not at all scary.

Game Inventor

I like to invent my own games. Here are a couple of recent inventions, both involving dominos.

Your Tail is On Fire

In this game, the "firestarter" stacks dominos in small piles, some of the dominos in the pile are face up while others are face down. Next, the "firecatcher" has to choose a pile of dominos and lift them off the pile one at a time. If the firecatcher draws a domino that is face up, the firestarter yells, "Your tail is on fire. Your tail is on fire."

Crash Dominos

Each side arranges 14 dominos in a line. The sides then take turns choosing a domino to crash into the other side. The crashed domino is then kept by the "crashee" side while the "crasher" gets to keep all the dominos that were pushed out of the line by the crash. The winner (not that we've ever managed to play to the end) is the person with no dominos left.

Weekend Sports Update

As you know, my Daddy likes all sorts of sports. Often, various sports are on TV and sometimes I'll watch. It seems like this weekend was a sports extravaganza. Here are the highlights:

World Cup: We watched the US play Italy. I mostly choose my rooting interest based on the color of the team's uniforms and Italy had nice red outfits compared to the rather boring blue and white donned by the US. Result: I rooted for Italy during the match. Thanks to my help, they managed a 1-1 tie.

US Open: We watched a lot of golf this weekend. As usual, Daddy was rooting for Phil Mickelson. I was rooting for Tiger, but he did so poorly on Thursday and Friday that he didn't make the cut, so he wasn't playing on Saturday or Sunday. Faced with this challenge, I reverted to my second-favorite rooting strategy---root for whoever is in the lead---unless it is Phil Mickelson. Naturally, the golfer who I was rooting for, Geoff Ogilvy, triumphed.

NBA Finals: This time it was the blue team, the Dallas Mavericks, facing the white team, the Miami Heat. I rooted for the blue team. In fact, I invented a cheer:

Let's go blue team.

Clap. Clap. Clap-clap-clap.

Let's go blue team.

And so on.

Unfortunately, the blue team came up short in overtime.

Poker: Finally, I asked to see my favorite "sport" poker during breaks in the other sports. When given the choice, I prefer watching poker to all other sports on TV. I asked Daddy when I would get to learn how to play the "real" game of poker. Thus far, I've only learned how to play one card and two card versions of poker. Daddy said we're making good progress toward poker mastery.

Misssion Accomplished

Our painting mission is finally complete. The painters left yesterday though Mommy, in her careful way, is busy doing little touch-ups to the areas she thought the painters insufficiently covered. The end of the mission marked the return to action of the couch and love seat in the movie room and, in particular, the pillows on these pieces of furniture. One of my favorite games is to gather up the various pillows and mold them into various shapes and then announce that I've created a machine that does whatever I happen to fancy at the moment. All of my machines require money in order to operate. Sometimes, I design pillow architecture--making caves, houses, and various other structures.

Anyway, one of the main things that I learned is that I like sleeping in the same bed as Mommy and Daddy. Because of the displacement of the furniture and the fumes, my bed and various other places I might sleep became impossible, so we all camped out in the master bedroom. At first, I wasn't sure whether I'd like this, but I've now decided that it's great. Now, the question is, do I have to go back to my own bed?

Do You Prefer Abba or Moby?

I've been back in Cali for awhile now, but I've not had any "glittery shows" until tonight. If you'll recall, glittery shows are when we turn the lights in the gueast bedroom down, crank the music up loud, and go dancing with our glittery lights. Tonight's songs featured the usual close, Yellow Submarine, along with an extended selection of Abba songs and a Moby tune repeated twice. From the Abba realm, I love "Take a Chance on Me", but "Waterloo" and "Dancing Queen" are also quality tunes. We heard Moby's electronica take on the James Bond Theme a couple of times. It's the most frenetic song ever. I like to do upside down stretches and other gymnastics as well as dancing to the various songs.

I love glittery shows!

Vehicles

This weekend and early this week we went vehicle shopping. We ended up buying a new Toyota Camry XLE in a nice bright red color. One thing I worry about is that my friends won't recognize me since I won't be in the green car. In fact, I was a little sad and teary when we were leaving the green car to drive away in our new red car.

Now you might think that going to car dealerships wouldn't be that fun, but it actually is. The Toyota dealership has a big popcorn machine, which is great (all the popcorn you can eat--yippee!) They also have a TV with Winnie the Pooh videos and a number of toys. In addition, I like to get into lots of different kinds of vehicles to see what they're like. Sometimes while Mommy was shopping, Daddy and I would get into vehicles and I'd sit at the wheel and take us both for a drive. I like to pretend that the GPS system is giving us directions. I'll say in a high-pitched voice:

In three miles, turn right.

Then I'd pull hard to the right on the steering wheel. The next direction was to go left in one mile, so I'd pull to the left, and so on. I also liked to comment on how hard or soft the seats of the vehicles are. In the first vehicle we went in, a Nissan Altima, I climbed into the back while Mommy and the salesman sat in front and commented loudly,

These seats aren't comfortable at all. And look, I see a hole in the seat!

It was true, there really was a hole in the seat. The salesman did not seem pleased at my commentary. Needless to say, we didn't buy that car. Other cars were much better.





By the way, here's my favorite vehicle---a bright yellow Toyota FJ Cruiser. It's big and yellow and has lots of yellow panels inside as well. Daddy thought it was awful, but I told him I was going to get one when I was old enough to drive.

When it finally came to say goodbye to the car guys, I gave a high five to the salesman and quipped,

Bye. See you next time we need a new car.

Music to the salesman's ears.

Presents from Daddy

I was delighted to see Daddy once again. He was away for the last couple of weeks in England, and we picked him up at the train station on Friday. Naturally, I was interested in whether he got me any presents from there. I also asked him if he has seen Kipper (a cartoon dog from England). Sadly, Daddy hadn't seen Kipper but did have some stuff for me. First, he pulled out a stuffed Paddington Bear. I liked that he wore boots, which are also my favorite form of footwear. He also had a nice hat as well, but somehow I didn't get really excited about him.

What else did you get?

I asked.

When we finally got home from the train station, Daddy wheeled out his second present---a miniature London Underground train in red white and blue. I sort of liked the train but was dismayed that the doors did not open. Apparently, they're not supposed to open on this model although, as I pointed out to Daddy, in a real Metro train the doors do, in fact, open.

What else did you get?

I asked.

For the last gift, Daddy brought out a big handful of English money. I really like money. There was a fat gold one pound coin, some hexagon shaped 20p coins, a large 10p coin, some teeny-tiny 5ps, some pennies, and my favorite coin---a big copper 2p (tuppence) coin. Now this I really enjoyed. I liked the pictures of the queen on the front of each coin as well as the many shapes and sizes. We've been playing lots of coin games these last several days. I invented a game where you have to toss the coins into some paperboard containers that held wine. If you do this successfully you win...what else...but money! I would have hot wheels car races where the winner would get money. We played Deal or No Deal with a prize of money. We played poker for, what else, money. Money is a great present.

Name Trends

The Social Security Administration released their 2005 name popularity data. It looks like the popularity of my name has officially peaked (in 2003) and is now trending downward. "Aidan" ranked 43rd this year. Down three places over last year and four places over its peak. I think of myself as one of a kind, so it's nice to see that the rest of the US is slowly recognizing this fact. Daddy helped me to make this nice graph illustrating the trend.

Secret Mother's Day Gift

I made a Mother's Day gift for Mommy at school earlier in the week. Boy, it's hard keeping it a secret! She knows that some other kids made gifts that are sitting on the drying tables in school. She also knows that my gift is really pretty, involves glue, silk, and some words. But the words are secret, I won't tell her what it says. It's really hard keeping secrets. I begged my teacher to let me take it home today, but she said I need to wait until tomorrow.

Up a Tree

Around Easter, I got to have some pictures taken of me when I was sitting in our apple tree. I liked this idea a lot, so I asked Daddy to take some more pictures in this setting. Here are several in the tree as well as some pictures of me making pictures with chalk. Enjoy them here.

Sticker Poetry

Lately, I've been making scenes with some of my animal stickers. These include stickers of bugs, butterflies, fish, and all sorts of things. I like to tell Mommy about my pictures, and she writes down what I say. Daddy thought my descriptions were sort of like poetry.

Here are a couple of highlights:

Land and water and all different worlds and stuff. There's butterflies in the world and whales and big whales and little dolphins. And there are some bugs, like ladybugs and butterflies and stuff. And there's grass and fish and caterpillars. These stickers are pictures of real things.

and this one:

Fish. There's so many fish I can't even count! These fish are going to swim around the whales and then under and then come back. I can't even count how many fish there are in the whole world!

Finally, a different quote, unrelated to stickers but interesting nonetheless:

Are you as happy as a rockstar singing a happy, happy song?

G. Ometer, Math Detective

This past weekend, we started playing a new game that Daddy and I made up called G. Ometer, Math Detective. In this game, a "victim" makes a shape out of some blocks. Sometimes the shape is a square, sometimes a hexagon and so on. The "victim" then goes on a walk and the "thief" steals some of the blocks, leaving only a partial shape. The job of the math detective is to use the "clues" to figure out how many blocks the thief stole. It's very important that the detective interviews the victim to determine what the shape was initially, so as to know how many blocks there were at the start. Then, the detective examines the remaining evidence and, using the power of math, has to deduce how many items were stolen. Once the detective has figured this out, the victim can call the police lost and found to see if they turned up the right number of blocks. This is a really neat game. It's very cool that you can use the evidence to figure out what the thief took.

The Tale of the Aidan and the Hare

As you know, I love stuffed animal fun stories. Today, I put a big wicker basket that normally holds stuffed animals on my back and became Aidan the Tortoise. With Mommy, I played big turtle (me) and little turtle (a stuffed one)and the "terrible, horrible" crocodile and other predatory animals. Little turtle joined me inside my shell since it was hard for him to pull his whole body inside his own (a mobility problem common in stuffed turtles). Later, Daddy and I played the story of the Aidan and the Hare. Here's how the story went:

Once upon a time in the Hundred Acre Wood, all the animals decided to have a race to sdee who was the fastest. It came down to the Tortoise (Aidan) versus the Hare (green bunny). Green bunny got off to a great start, but got distracted by a lap desk with pictures of dinosaurs on it. Soon the tortoise came into the lead. Quickly, the hare raced ahead, but became distracted by a particularly interesting light switch. Again, the tortoise roared ahead. The hare raced back and was in the lead heading to the finish line, which was located in the office. Unfortunately for the hare, he became distracted by the very interesting door knob. The tortoise plowed on without getting distracted and won the race. Hooray for the tortoise.

I even figured out the lesson here---sometimes if you want to succeed, you have to focus on the task at hand rather than becoming distracted. Interesting how the Daddy stuffed animal stories are often related to things that happen in my life as well as those of the stuffed animals.

Sparkly Show

We've added a new bit to the nighttime routine---dancing. Thanks to Daddy's iPod, we have an amazing collection of dance favorites. Since going to the Wiggles concert, I've discovered that dance concerts are even more exciting when the lights are dimmed and the performers have sparkly lights on them. Every night, we now have a concert in the guest bedroom. To do this, we turn off all the lights, shut the door, and then use my two light wands---one is fiber optic and spins around, the other has colorful strobing lights in a globe. Daddy and I like to dance around. We also have to have an audience for the show. Most of the time the audience consists of the stuffed animals who sit on the bed. Mommy sometimes joins them. For really exicting shows, we pick up a stuffed animal and let him dance on the "stage" with us. The stuffed animals really seem to like this.

We like to dance to mambo music by Tito Puente, fast songs by Paul McCartney, early Beatles stuff, lots of Beach Boys songs---especially the ones about California---and, the final song of every dance party, Yellow Submarine. I also like Lyle Lovett's song "That's Right You're Not from Texas" which is really fast and fun. Mommy is very impressed at all our energy.

More Stuffed Animal Fun

As you know, sutffed animal fun is the name I give to little plays and performances by my stuffed animals. While Daddy's initial version of this game involved creating plays like "The Three Tigers" and "Nordy and the Beanstalk", it has changed over time. One big change is that I'm taking charge of the adventures rather than letting Daddy or Mommy come up with them. The stuffed animals do all sorts of things but usually these involve some traveling. In one story, the stuffed animals (and Aidan) went to a Wiggles concert. Amazingly, Aidan drove the car to the show. When they arrived there, the Wiggles invited them onto the stage to sing and dance with them. The stuffed animals thought this was fantastic.

Other times, the stuffed animal stories are about more prosaic situations. For instance, in one story, Mommy Duck was trying to get Baby Duck ready to go on a trip. Baby duck, however, didn't want to do anything. He refused to take off his jammies, put on his shoes, or anything. Mommy duck kept encouraging baby duck to try. Somehow, this story reminds me of some things that happen in my own life.

Speech Stylin'

I like to add a little bit of panache to my speech when asking for stuff I especially like. I find that one way to do this is to ask for things using my "street stylin'" argot. This mainly consists of omitting the last sounds from the words I'm using (sort of like the French) and running all the words together. For example, I wanted some angel food cake for dessert today. So I asked,

May I please have some ange'foo'cae'?

Notice how I added the please and the nice phrasing to the request while still "stylin'" with the money phrase. Unfortunately, Daddy had no clue what I was saying. Mommy understands my lingo but insisted that I ask in a way that all could understand. I offered them the correct phrase but was definitely perturbed that they didn't like my stylish approach.

I've also added a couple of other "cool" phrases that I picked up from Daddy to my argot including:

That's gotta hurt.

when my Hot Wheels cars or Little People crash or fall off things. Actually, Daddy tells me that he stole this phrase from Bob Costas who used it to describe violent sports collisions. I also like the one-word phrase "useless" to describe things that are of no interest to me. I also like to use the word "goofy" whenever possible. Mommy is less than enamored of these phrases.

Miami 2006

Here are some highlights from my recent trip to Miami. Check them out here.

Orlando 2006

Here are some highlights from our recent trip to Orlando. Check them out here.

Happy Easter

Easter is one of the best holidays. For one thing, it involves lots of...chocolate. But it also involves lots of other good stuff including decorating and eating eggs, searching for eggs in Easter Egg Hunts, and meeting the Easter Bunny. I was very excited, so I got up extra early for Easter--620 in the morning. Daddy persuaded me that Mommy would not enjoy getting up so early so I went back to sleep for a bit.

I quickly went on a "patrol" around the house in search of Easter baskets and found one in the sunken room. It had lots of great stuff in it. Stuffed animals, chocolate, Hot Wheels cars, and some really neat "pills." If you put these pills in water, they dissolve and turn into sponges in interesting shapes like boats and cars.

I got dressed for church and, as a special treat for Mommy, I wore a button shirt and a cute sweater as opposed to my usual preference for "soft" clothes. Everyone thought I was very cute in church, especially the minister. As we were leaving the church, I held out my hand to her to shake and said a merry Happy Easter.

We then did a big photo shoot. You can find the highlights here.

Happy Easter everyone!

Traveling with the Little People

Much like real travel, the Little People face many hassles when they want to go on a trip. This morning, Daddy and I played Little People go to Pennsylvania. The first key difficulty for the Little People is that their family, which consists of Mommy, Daddy, Maggie, Sarah Lynn, the twins---Eddie and Eddie, and a baby, have no car that is big enough to fit them all. As a result, they had to walk to the airport. This made them tired. Then they had to go through the security line. Unlike (or maybe not) real security lines, this security line made the Little People take off nearly all of their clothes. Then there was a big mixup as to whose clothes belonged to whom.

Finally, they made it to the gate. Things were going well until the Little People discovered that the plane only had two seats. The family would have to go on their trip with the plane shuttling back and forth to pick people up. I helped to figure out the flight arrangements. On the first trip, the baby flew on the plane alone with a stranger (Farmer Jed) and then wait in the terminal in Pennsylvania for the others to arrive. Next Maggie and Sarah Lynn (two unescorted minors) got to fly. Next, Mommy and Daddy got to fly together. They commented on how peaceful the flight was without all those kids. Finally, the twins, Eddie and Eddie, got to make the flight. When all arrived at Pennsylvania, there were still no cars big enough to fit, so the family had to walk. Traveling is tough in Little People land.

Gardening

We finally had a break in the endless rains on Saturday. Since it's already April, it was time to get our garden kicked into gear. We went to one of my favorite stores, Yardbirds, and quickly picked up a whole bunch of bags of planting mix and soil amendments. Actually, Daddy picked u these bags. I tried to pick one up and soon decided that trying to haul a bag is about equal to my wieght (40 pounds) was a bit too much to ask even for strong Aidan. After that, we got down to the really fun part--picking out what to plant. This year's selection includes, of course, several different kinds of tomatoes, a whole bunch of lettuce, some celery, and some watermelon.

After we got home, we added all the amendments to the garden and put the potting mix in our big tomato pots. Daddy used a shovel to turn the soil and the amendments together. I used my hands to scoop the stuff out and mix with the garden. It really seemed to improve the consistency of the soil from the clay that it usually is. Next, we planted all the plants. Daddy made small holes where the plants go and I put each plant in very carefully. I love gardening.

The next day, we picked up some seeds to plant as well. These included carrots, pumpkins, broccoli, and, my favorite, sunflowers. I put in the seeds all by myself. I can't wait for them to come up. I think our garden looks really nice. Last night we had some rain so all the plants got a nice drink. I hope they grow big.

Big

I went to the doctor yesterday for my 4-year-old checkup (slightly delayed). While I was initially promised no shots by the nurse, there were shots---3 of them! The doctor said that I had to have these 3 sometime before kindergarten, so he and Mommy decided to get them out of the way now so I don't have to be so anxious about doctor visits in the future. I don't like shots at all. Happily, the doctor tells me that (barring tetanus shots) I won't need another shot until I'm around ten years old. Yippee!

I also had my first hearing and vision tests. I was very good at hearing the beeps and raising my hand. The eye exam was kind of neat because it reminded me of Thomas the Train. My eye chart had various shapes on it of different sizes, including a bunch of "level-crossing shape"(s). Most people would call this a "plus," but I guess they are not as familiar with railroads as I am! The nurse got a huge kick out of my name for that shape.

They also weighed and measured me to see how I'm growing relative to other 4 year old boys. If you'll recall, shortly after I was born, I was in about the 5th percentile for height and weight. Eventually I made it into the 15th and then the 25th percentile. Well, I had a big growth spurt this past year. I'm now in the 75th percentile for height and weight. In other words, I'm big!

On the Road- Deal or No Deal, etc.

Deal or No Deal may be the best game ever. We played it a lot during my trip to Florida. Everyone seems to like this game. When we were in Orlando, Emma played this game where we used the Little People as the "models." She has lots of Little People that are different from the ones I have. I was especially intrigued by some of the Little People from the manger set. One Sonya Lee character, who was dressed as a wise man, had a funny hat. It reminded me of Nainnie "potlid" character, so I referred to her as "Potlid Sonya Lee".

Newborn cousin Evan did not play the game, but I'm sure he will when he gets older. Right now, he sleeps, eats, and sucks his "plug" (pacifier) a lot. People seem to really like to carry him around since he can't move around much by himself yet-- although I did see him roll onto his side by himself. He seems nice. When he gets bigger, maybe he can build couch forts and play with Emma and me.

Daddy and I also played with lots of different kinds of cards and lots of players in Miami. In one game, my cousin Libby (also known as "The Mighty Libby") was the host, I was the banker (borrowing Daddy's cell phone to call the host), while cousin Matthew was the contestant. I love Deal or No Deal.

I also love building sand furniture. Cousin Meryl intiated this on the beach at Key Biscayne, and we soon had a cluster of 6 sand chairs, all complete with sand cup holders and sand iPods! Matthew's remote control boat was also tons of fun to power around the pool.

I was sad to leave all my Florida cousins. I hope I see them again soon!

Is it real or is it glass?

When I was in Miami visiting my Uncle Ted and his family, I got to see one of the neatest gardens ever. They were having an exhibition of work by a glass sculptor named Chihuly at the Fairchild Tropical Garden. Mixed in among the ponds and the gardens were glass balls and plants by the artist. I loved the colors and the patterns. I was very good at figuring out which things were glass and which were real. Here are a couple of pictures.

I'm going to Disney World!

Actually, I went to Disney World last week. It was so much fun. I got to meet lots of great characters including Pooh and Minnie Mouse. While many people seem to prefer Mickey, I actually think Minnie is far more interesting. She always wears more pink things, which is always good since pink is a very nice color. My current two favorite colors are still green and yellow, but pink and purple have been moving up in the ranks lately.


I got to go on some great rides including the teacups and, best of all, the cars. I got to drive the cars while Mommy and Daddy operated the gas pedal. I've never driven before, but I think I did a very good job of keeping the car on the road and turning at the right time. Daddy was very impressed with my turns. I also got to see the new and improved "It's a Small World" ride. This was truly unbelievable. I've never seen so many mechanical guys. Finally, there was a light parade with lots of light up floats. Some of you will recall my early fascination with lights (or "ights" as I liked to call them when I was really little.)

Disney is great. I announced that I wanted to go back maybe next week. Mommy and Daddy seemed a little doubtful about this though.

Daddy Goes to School

Last night was really fun. My school had a "Daddy Goes to School" night. All the Daddies and their kids were in school and we had an abbreviated version of my usual school day. We started with circle time. I quickly picked my favorite spot---right next to the teacher, and settled in. Since there were so many Daddies and kids, i was pretty crowded in the circle, but happily we still had a good spot. I also found a magnet with my name on it and chose my responsibility. I picked the toilets, which seem like one of the most interesting responsibilities since they involve water and machinery (flushing), which is always a good combination.

After going through the calendar to figure out what day it was and the weather report (dark--a new type of weather rarely seen during my daytime classes) we were off to work with materials. First, we worked with graduated cylinders. We took them out and had to figure out which slots each cylender belonged. We also built a kind ofcity of cylinders.

Next, it was off to the scales for the weigh-in challenge. The idea is that they have various weights adding up to 100g and a balance scale. You have to figure out which set of weights leads to balance on the scale. My favorite weights were the whopping 500g ones. I referred to these as the "big dog" weights since they reminded me of my Daddy's driver---the biggest golf club in the bag. We did lots of other fun stuff before driving home. I had a great time. I think Daddy learned some new things too.

Tea Time

I was sad because I missed the Mother's Tea at my school. This took place while my leg was hurt, so I couldn't go. Mommy and I decided to have a tea at our house last night instead. Mommy helped make the tea (gingerbread tea, which smells great but doesn't taste nearly as good). I put out a tray with the desserts to go with the tea. I decided that each person would get to shamrock cookies. In addition, I decided that the green shamrocks needed some additional color for their "leaves" so I added a bunch of raw carrots. I gave Mommy and Daddy their cookies and carrots while Mommy brought out the tea after dinner. As a good host, I waited for Mommy and Daddy to finish before eating my own dessert. Everyone was very happy with my great manners and pretty arrangement for the tea.

Aidan's Top Five Games

I thought I would report to you my top 5 games played recently. They are:

1. Dragon Tales Puzzle Game
2. Don't Break the Ice
3. Crazyball (not a board game, more like catch with lots of craziness)
4. Tackling (despite my earlier injury, I still like doing this)
5. Competitive Mardi Gras dancing

Deal or No Deal

Last night, I got to see the show "Deal or No Deal" for the second time. I really like the lights, the music, and the shiny silver suitcases with the numbers on them. I even think Howie Mandel is okay too. Anyway, this morning I suggested to Daddy that we play Deal or No Deal---the home version (I pick up on things fast!)

We set up 13 "models" to hold the suitcases. Our models were various Little People. The suitcases consisted of playing cards turned face down. Each card represented a cent amount from 1 cent (Ace) through 13 cents (King). I was the contestant while Daddy played the Howie Mandel role. Since the models don't do much on the real show, the Little People worked perfectly for that part.

So far, I haven't been too lucky with the game. In the first game, I ended up choosing a suitcase worth 5 cents, but making a deal for 4 cents after opening nearly all of the suitcases. In the second game, I picked a really good suitcase (worth ten cents), but got nervous about the range of money and ended up taking the banker's deal for 6 cents after opening up 4 suitcases. Deal or No Deal is lots of fun, and it's interesting to figure out what decision to make.

Fun and Games

This was a great weekend for games. We played some of the standard ones, but we also played some that Daddy made up. Here are the latest of these:

The Mystery Letter Game

In this game, the contestant introduces himself and describes where he lives and his job. I like to invent lots of funny names and jobs for contestants. Here's one:

Name: Bayden
Location: Inside a cave
Job: Winemaker

In some cases, the contestants pass out samples to the judges and the studio audience. For instance, Bayden passed out the delectable combination of cotton candy and chardonnay to the folks in the studio.

Then it's time for the game to begin. Using my magnetic sketchpad, the contestant has to get five mystery letters before he gets three strikes. The host of the show (Bob) says the name of the mystery letter in a kind of stage whisper:

The mystery letter is "S"

Then it's the contestant's job to write the mystery letter on the magnetic sketch pad. The judges rule as to whether a letter looks sufficiently like the standard version of the letter to count as a correct answer or a strike instead.

At the end of the game, the contestant either wins lovely parting gifts (in the event of three strikes) or a "fabulous prize". The parting gifts are pretty funny. They consist of the home version of mystery letter, a case of Turtle Wax with clearcote shine, and a year's supply of Rice-a-Roni, the San Francisco treat. The fabulous prize (also described by "Johnny" who seems to help the host Bob) consists of various denominations of money. I like the quarter the best.

G-Force Stadium Ultimate Rally

While the Mystery Letter game has an educational component, the G-Force Stadium Ultimate Rally has absolutely none. This game consists of running Hot Wheels cars down a long ramp, through a loop, over a jump, and then down the hall. The difficulty for the cars is to stay on their wheels coming off of the jump. The winner is the car that goes the furthest down the hall (that's the rally aspect of the game.) Amazingly, the fire engine was one of the start performers at this game. Another star, and a car who has the best name, is the Little Red Roadster. At the end of each rally, I award trophies to the top 3 cars. There's also a penalty system, any car that cannot consistently complete the course gets kicked out of the next rally in favor of a new car.

Daddy and I had many rallies among the cars. Including lots of sports "commentary". So much so that Mommy headed to the other room so as not to have to listen to us.

A New Cousin

My cousin Emma is now a big sister! Her brother, Evan Hugh Morgan, was born on March 8. My Nainnie (grandmother) was visiting and got to see him already. They tell me he is a pretty big guy-- 22 inches long and 7 lbs, 15 oz. That's over 3 pounds more than I was when I was born and about a pound or so more than Emma, I think! Aunt Julie and Uncle Dave are very happy. Mommy, Daddy and I are going to fly to Orlando to visit them in a couple weeks. I am very excited about visiting Emma!

We will also visit my older cousins in Miami-- Matthew, Libby and Meryl. I remember when Uncle Ted and Aunt Holly visited us about 2 years ago. We went on the Tilden Park train together. Fun! It will be fun to see my cousins. I last saw them when I was a much smaller guy-- a couple months after I turned one I think!

Little People Mardi Gras

Two days ago, the Little People celebrated Mardi Gras. They formed a big snaky line and paraded through the streets to the song "Iko Iko". I also learned that beads are a big thing at Mardi Gras, so I got out all my beads and crazy hats and wore them as I danced around with them. Mardi Gras seems like a very fun party. To celebrate, the adult Little People had wine (Chardonnay of course) while the boy and girl Little People had juice. Daddy told me that Mardi Gras is a big celebration in New Orleans and, as you know, I like all things to do with that city. I asked Mommy and Daddy if we could go to Mardi Gras in New Orleans next year. They seemed to think that I would enjoy Mardi Gras more if I were a little older though.

The Super Bowl of Letters

I have a number of foam letters in my bathtub. Yesterday, I invented a really exciting new game to play with these---the Super Bowl of Letters. The way the game works, there are 6 letters playing. They randomly match up with one another to form "words". The letters that form real words get points while those that don't get no points. Once I put the words up on the board, I have to sound them out to figure out if the letters have formed a word or not.

In one of the most exciting matches, the letters AEOLR and N competed. They formed words like:

EL, NO, ON, OR, AL, LA, EN, and ARE

Some failures included:

LORAEN, AR, LNR

This was great fun.

I'm never tired (except maybe sometimes)

As you know, I'm never tired. On Saturday, it was pretty hard for me to prove this. It was my first day back to California after a great trip to Pennsylvania. I hadn't seen Daddy in a while, so it was a great day to hang out with him. We figured out all sorts of interesting things to do. First, we needed to go on a mission to the supermarket to get food. We got one of the fun shopping carts with a car on the front of it, but I decided I wanted to walk around rather than ride. We walked all over the store, and I got to demonstrate how strong I was by picking up things. Some heavy things I picked up included: 2 liter bottles of Fresca, a big thing of laundry detergent, 1 gallon of milk, two containers of orange juice, and the piece de resistance, a giant vat of Metamucil. Daddy said we didn't need nor want the giant vat of Metamucil, but I wanted to demonstrate my strength.

Later that afternoon we got to do something we hadn't done since my leg injury---go scooter riding. We rode all the way up a big hill and then down the hill again. I had to rest several times on the way, but I pointed out to Daddy that I still was not tired since the rests were only zero minutes long each.

At dinnner that night, I was having a lot of trouble keeping my eyes open. But, as I told Mommy and Daddy, I was still not tired. I just looked a little tired. Shortly after dinner, I got to play some "stuffed animal fun", heard some stories and songs and then went to sleep. Even then, I still was not tired although I thought I'd humor Mommy and Daddy by immediately falling asleep.

I'm never tired.

Snow on Mount Diablo

Although I'm on the east coast searching for snow, the snow came instead to California. Daddy tells me it's the coldest time on record in the last ten years. Daddy posted some pictures of snow on Mount Diablo.

Find them here.

Hooray for the Steelers

Thanks to vigorous Terrible Towel waving and lots of high fives, Daddy and I managed to will the Steelers to victory in the Super Bowl. I was very interested to see the Super Bowl trophy. I wondered which guys got to keep the trophy and whether the guys used it to play football since the trophy was in the shape of a big football. Daddy informed me that the trophy mostly lives in the Steelers training facility, but that individual players will get to take the trophy home for a couple of days each. He also let me know that playing football with the trophy, which is a big hunk of metal, is not something that people do. Finally, I learned that all the players get big shiny rings for winning the Super Bowl. That seems pretty good, but I bet they'd rather each have a trophy. I'm very interested in trophies lately.

Back on the Links

For the first time in several months, Daddy and I got to go golfing together. We went to San Ramon Royal Vista (aka the Green Golf Ball Golf Course since the range balls have green lettering.) I had a great time. I hit off the driving range. Many of my shots were hit all by myself and went further than ever before. I explained that since I was now 4 years old, I could hit golf balls much further. We also did some chipping and some putting. My putting skills have vastly improved. I sank several 4 and 5 foot putts. The other golfers were impressed at my aggressive technique. Apparently, you don't have to worry about the break in the green when you putt the ball as fast as I do. I got to go to the pro shop too, and the nice gentlemen there let me pick out two golf balls from the golf ball bin. I picked out two Callaway balls (my new favorite---I've abandoned the Nike Swoosh) and we had a great time.

State of the Union: A Review

The State of the Union speech was on at 6pm Pacific time this past week. That time is interesting to me the TV is usually still tuned to PBS following Dragon Tales. When the president came on, I was initially annoyed because it pre-empted the show that follows Dragon Tales.

Why can't Jim Lehrer be on?

I asked. Mommy explained that the president was on tonight. To which I replied:

Is Jim Lehrer the president?

Mommy explained that he wasn't. Based on how boring the speech was to me---it lacked the nice theme music to the Jim Lehrer News Hour for example---I suggested:

I wish Jim Lehrer were president.

Mommy agreed with this assessment.

Cast Away

Today, I got my cast off. I'm finally back to having zero broken legs. Hooray.

I was really scared to go back becuase they have to cut off the cast with an electric saw that makes loud noises. Fortunately, the whole three family went to the doctor. Mommy and Daddy kept me amused by playing with some cars at the doctor's office. Daddy also brought a whole host of fun items including a compass, binoculars, the iPod, and my purple squishy squashy thing. Still, I didn't want to have to deal with the saw.

When the doctor came in, I got very scared and wanted to run away, but Mommy held me tight and they positioned my leg in such a way that I couldn't see the saw cutting through the cast. Daddy and I had practiced stayig as still as a statue while they were cutting so I wouldn't get any cuts. Before I knew it, the cast was completely off. They took a couple of X-rays and pronounced me fully healed. I gave the doctor and the nurses high fives on the way out. It's good to not have a cast any more.

Matt and Patti

Matt and Patti, some of my favorite vistors, came to see us on Sunday. They moved away to NYC for the last year or so, but they were in town for Chinese New Year. I gave them a big greeting and got hugs from them too. We played a number of game including one I made up where I used the pillows from our couch and love seat to make up a version of Candyland. I like seeing them a lot!

My favorite place

I got to share my favorite place with Daddy---Chuck E. Cheese! The whole three family went there yesterday in the late morning. Mommy and I have never been there on a weekend, and we were shocked at how many people were there. We were actually sort of lucky to arrive when we did since, by the time we were leaving in the early afternoon, the line was out the door. Mommy used a terrific coupon to get me lots and lots of tokens. Once we found a table, Daddy and I were off to play games. We played skee ball, a kind of kiddie slot machine, a game where you have to squirt water at a target to make a Barbie or a Ken go down a ramp on a jet ski. I won some of the races (I had Ken) while Daddy won some others (he had Barbie). It was the best time ever.

I won so many tickets that I was able to get two lizards and a bug with my winnings. My lizard collection is getting very big.

The Terrible Towel

On Friday, the two Terrible Towels that Daddy ordered arrived in the mail. I was very excited to receive my Terrible Towel and proceeded to create a football game consisting of Little People Steelers and Little People Colts. The Steelers consisted of Little People who either wore yellow or had yallow hair. The Colts were Little People not meeting these criteria. The huge advantage the Steelers had was that a giant Terrible Towel would sweep down and knock the Colts out of the way, so the Steelers could get into the end zone.

On Sunday, we tried out our Terrible Towels for real by helping the Steelers defeat the Denver Broncos. We twirled the towels over our heads at key points during the game and did lots of high-fiving when the Steelers made good plays. We also got out the Dragon Tales guys and had them play football too to try to help the Steelers. There was lots of joyful jumping up and down when the Steelers won. I can't wait for the Super Bowl---the Terrible Towel will be out once again.

I go for penguins

In school this week, each of us made a penguin. My penguin is rather unique in that I used all of the available eyes to make him. He has big eyes, small eyes, eyes looking up, looking down, looking left, and so on. He also has a large cluster of wings. Mine is definitely the most distinct looking penguin in the classroom. Mommy says my penguin looks Picasso-esque.

Birthday Celebration

Today in school we will celebrate my birthday. I know it's a little late, but Mommy asked for them to wait until my leg was sufficiently better that I could enjoy the festivities. At circle time, we'll all gather around and cross our legs (except me--there's an exception for boys with casts) and pass around pictures of Aidan for each year I've been alive. Mommy spent a long time yesterday finding just the right pictures. Best of all, we'll be enjoying chocolate chip cookies that I picked out myself from Safeway. I like school, especially when there's a celebration!

Friends of Aidan

Since there are a lot of people who visit my weblog from all over the world, I thought it would be neat to create a map with pushpins in the locations of all the people who visit. So far, I have two pushpins (one for me and one for Daddy). Please click the link below to add a pushpin to my map. You can also add photos and other goodies so that it becomes kind of a collective scrapbook.

I've also added a running "photo album" scroll thingy on my website as well. Check it out here.

As I get more pushpins, I'll publish updates from time to time.

I've added a clickable "sticker" below as well as a permanent link on the sidebar.

Go Steelers!

Yesterday, we saw a very exciting football game where the Steelers took on the Colts. When Daddy puts on football, the first order of business is to figure out who to root for. Sometimes I root by the color of the team. For example, the Green Bay Packers, with their green and yellow color scheme, are my favorite team. I always root for them. Failing that, I'll ask Daddy which team is winning and root for that team. (Daddy doesn't like this idea. He thinks I should root for a team regardless of the score.)

Anyway, when I discovered that the Pittsburgh Steelers had yellow as a prominent color and were from one of my favorite states, Pennsylvania, I decided to root for them. I also liked that the fans of the Steelers wave big yellow "terrible towels" to root them on. I'd like a terrible towel of my own. It was a great game with lots of high fives and cheering for the team to do well. What an exciting game.

Daddy says that when I get older, we'll have to "hoist an Iron for Myron" to celebrate Steelers successes.

Old School Hot Wheels

I like the term "old school" and use it in a lot of different contexts. A new context was when we got out the Hot Wheels "G Force" track that Uncle Dave, Aunt Julie, and Cousin Emma got me for Christmas. We got out all the pieces for the track and were getting ready to play when I asked Daddy where the motor was to make the cars go. He told me that this was an "old school" design---we were going to let gravity power the cars. As I soon discovered, gravity is pretty powerful stuff. We set up our ramp, loop, and jump arrangement down the little staircase separating our living room form our foyer. (These are the only steps in the whole house, so I find them fascinating.) Then, we sent the cars on their ride. I'm getting the hang of developing rules for the various games we played. Here are the rules for Hot Wheels. Each car gets at most two tries to complete the course, otherwise it loses. If a car succeeds, it gets to keep going as we change the length of the jumps and so on. The big winner from today's event: the fire engine. In fact, in one version of the course, it managed to complete the loop, make the jump, knock over the finish flag, and then drive all the way into the "movie room." Hooray for the fire engine!

Speaking of old school, many of the "Daddy cars" did well too. The Daddy cars consist of lates 60s and early 70s muscle cars like a 68 Pontiac GTO. I love the GTO.