Butterfly #2

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

Butterfly #3

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

Bug #1

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

Daddy in the News

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

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

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

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

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

Bubbles in the Toilet

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

Spice is the variety of life

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

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

Wimoweh

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

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

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

Disney

Seeger

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

Faceplant dude

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

Rock on dudez

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

Old School

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



 

Hat On!

After dinner last night, Mommy and Daddy started reading the newspaper. Actually, Mommy read and Daddy did crossword puzzles. It's fun to bounce around on them when they're reading. I liked to climb into the "tunnel" formed by Mommy's arms and the newspaper. At the end of the tunnel, I would curl up on Mommy's lap. Mommy said that I was like a cat in putting myself where it was impossible for her to read. Daddy formed a tunnel with his legs, and I crawled through this tunnel a lot of times too. After Mommy had finished a section of the paper, she decided to make me anew hat---one made from a newspaper. I"ve never seen a newspaper hat before. I liked it a lot and put it on several different ways. Then I asked (insisted really) that Mommy and Daddy wear a hat too.

Big Ball!

Daddy was feeling a bit better today, so we did a bit of running around and playing with the big ball. I love to throw the big ball around the house; however, Mommy and Daddy typcially do not view this as a good idea precisely because the big ball is so big---one of its best qualities.


I also like to crawl up and down the few steps of our house. Today, during much of my crawling, Daddy would sing the inchworm song, and I would pretend to be an inchworm.

In sad news, Daddy's laptop had a serious problem and is being shipped back to IBM for repair. This means no more "I" song at breakfast, a truly sad state of affairs.

Trainspotting

Every weekend, Daddy reconfigures my train track in a new way. He also swaps out some of the engines and the rolling stock for new ones. This week, the new addition to the train layout is an engine shed. Two engines can fit in the engine shed (although Big Gordon does not fit entirely, he's always peeking out a little bit due to his size). Anyway, Daddy took some pictures of me pondering the mysteries of the train shed. He also took some arty shots of me hanging out in the curtains. You can see the full album here.



But here's a taste of the arty curtain shot, which Daddy likes a lot.

Quesadillas! Mmmmm

 
Yesterday, we all went out to Chevy's for a celebratory "hard food" dinner prior to Daddy's getting his wisdom teeth out. Daddy was enjoying lots of tortilla chips and the Taste of Napa Quesadilla. I myself strongly endorse the plain quesadillas, which I enjoyed immensely. Even apart from the quesadillas, my kiddie quesadilla meal comes with an ice cream cone. I was really enjoying my ice cream cone a lot. However, I still don't have the hang of gravity and food. I dropped the ice cream out of the cone onto my lap a couple of times, and eventually I dropped the cone as well. I was dismayed since the cone is the best part. "Cone dirty, Sad Aidan," I said.


 By the way, Mommy has been trying to work with me on some of my opposites. The main one I have trouble with is the opposite of "dirty," which I often call "dry." As you must know, in addition to meaning "not wet," "dry" is a synonym for "clean." Thus, once a dirty thing is cleaned, then it is "all dry." Mommy says that sometimes things can be both dirty and dry or clean and wet at the same time. How confusing! (Mommy also says that she has herself to blame for this confusion, since she has told me when it is time to put on a "clean, dry diaper" for as long as she (and I) can remember.)

For the record, "Nannie coming soon."

PlayDoh Time

Yesterday, Daddy and  I played with PlayDoh before dinner. We got out lots of different colors and made snowmen, spaghetti, bunnies, horses, and much more. Daddy was particularly good at making snowmen, so he specialized in that task while I made most of the other things. I specialized in picking the color of the PlayDoh, which makes sense since Daddy doesn't see colors too well. Here are some pictures of our playing together. In one picture, I'm wearing a "hat" consisting of a device for helping to make PlayDoh waffles. In the other, I'm contemplating the mysteries of how the big ball of PlayDoh can fit in such a small container

Tofu---The Other White Meat

One of my favorite foods is tofu. I first discovered how good tofu can be eating it in miso soup. In fact, whenever we get Japanese food, not only do I get my own bowl of soup, but I get all the tofu "rectangles" from Mommy and Daddy too. Somehow, they like the soup, but are indifferent about the rectangles. For me, the rectangles are the best part. On discovering this, Mommy has bought me my own big block of tofu. She serves it in a little chicken or beef broth, again cut into delightful rectangles. It's delicion this way. The rectangle is one of the most delicious shapes in my opinion. 

Under the Big Top

Yesterday, we went to the circus for Father's Day (or Happy Daddy Day as I like to call it). Circus Chimera was in Moraga, a town not far from where we live, so we drove to see them. According to a press clipping from ANG NEWSPAPERS by Leslie Katz, these guys are

Cirque du Soleil without an attitude.

Daddy seemed to think that the word attitude was a euphemism for "talent". When we got there, they had two big bouncy castles---one shaped like a giraffe and another shaped like a tiger. I said hi to each of the bouncy castles, but did not want to go in. They also had a pony ride there. While I liked to be close to the ponies, I did not want to ride these either. They did have some rides that I actually liked though, a choo choo and some cars that went around in a circle.

Finally, it was time to go in the big tent where the circus was. While I liked the idea of a big tent, I was not at all sure that I wanted to go in the big tent. Mommy ended up carrying me in and for a long while I clung to Mommy since I was a bit scared to be there. After the intermission, I warmed up to the whole thing and had fun clapping along to the many acts. Overall though, this was a disappointing circus. They had no animals at all (except for a couple of woofs), and a lot of the music was rather boring and monotonous. Compared to Ringling, I give this circus a thumbs down.

Some Statistics

I've written an amazing amount of stuff about my life. According to the blogger statistics since January 2002:

Avg Posts Per Week 3
Posts Written 427
Words Written 75,424

By the way, while 75k words seems like a lot. Daddy tells me it's only about a tenth the number of words in the King James Bible. According to this site, there are 788,280 words contained there. Of course, I'm only 2 years old, so, at the current pace, by the time I'm of legal drinking age, I'll have as many words about my life as words in the Bible.

Building a Better Blog

I'm sure you noticed that my Blog has changed format a bit. Daddy says that the nice folks at Blogger improved their templates a lot, so we should use them. The new format makes my blog easier for machines to read, so that web search engines, like Google, can find me more easily. That sounded good to me. What really sold me though was when Daddy told me I can now have my picture on the blog. Hope you like the new design.

Play Blocks

I like to play with all sorts of blocks, but some of my favorites are my big blocks. To get out these blocks, it is necessary to lift up the big plastic container holding them, invert the container, and then let the blocks cascade over my head and down to the floor. Next comes building time. When I'm playing myself, I tend to favor towers, but when Mommy or Daddy are playing too, I encourage them to build either tunnels or bridges. Today, Daddy built a really good bridge out of the blocks. He then got a bunch of tracks from the Thomas the Tank Engine set and laid the tracks over the bridge so that the trains could ride it. Here is a picture of one of the trains, Gordon, peeking out of the covered section of the bridge. He's hauling milk. Whoo, whoo. All aboard!

Vroom

Daddy and I went to the park today and, for the first time, I was able to get onto the bouncy motorcycle all by myself. The trick is to put your foot in a stirrup type of thing and then swing the other leg around--horsy style. While I have no trouble with th leg swing since I've got myriad play horsies at home, the purpose of the stirrup has eluded me up until now. Daddy took a picture of my on my motorcycle. Vroom, vroom!


On my Motorcycle 

England

Mommy and Daddy have still not managed to finish editing the photos of their trip to England. They did ask me to post this picture to provide a little taste. This is a picture of a mill in a town called Burford.


A Picture of Burford 

Me

Me 

Daddy liked this picture, so it gets a quick post.

Hello Pictures

Daddy's first attempts at pictures were kind of lame. Many people saw an "x" instead of a picture. Daddy has now figured out hw to post pictures in a better way. He uses a program called hello. Daddy says this is a great little program that makes it very easy to post pictures to the Blog. He posted some pictures for the latest entry as well as fixing the zoo picture so it no longer displays an "x". Sometimes Daddy is, as Sir Topham Hatt would say, a "very useful engine".

Daddy Here!

Playing Football with Daddy I look forward to the time that Daddy comes home from work. I like to wait in the living room (or the movie room as I call it) and then run to the door and give him a big hug as he comes in. I've posted some pictures of some of my favorite things to do after he comes home. You can view them here. In the first couple of shots, you can see that I really like playing football with Daddy.

Today's version of football featured Daddy spinning the football "round and round" on the floor in the hall. I also like to go outside with Daddy and check on the tomato plants. If it's been a really hot day, we like to give the tomato plants a drink with the watering can. My job is to carry the watering can to the tomato plants.


I also take a tally if any plants are sick. Right now we have no sick ones.

New Media

Yesterday, I got to expand my media horizons. Mommy took me shopping at a local strip mall containing one of my favorite place, Taco Bell, which I refer to simply as "quesadilla house". Anyway, also contained in this shopping center is a store where I found a coloring book with a set of watercolor paints. The paints looked very pretty and I couldn't wait to try them out. In fact, once I discovered them, I immediately took them to the checkout counter---cutting in front of other people already there---in order to ensure that I got the paints soon.

When we got home, Mommy made me put on my Maisy paint smock and we got to work on painting. I painted on a page with a picture of a piggy and a cow. I painted the face of the pig black.

"Piggy dirty," I said after seeing the effect of the black paint on the piggy. I also painted Mommy's arm black by accident too. "Paint Mommy's arm" I said after that incident. Painting is lots of fun.

Phone Dancing

I mentioned before how Daddy had gotten a new cell phone that's a lot more fun than his old one. In addition to being able to take pictures, it also plays lots of great songs. One of my favorite things to do is "phone dancing"---Daddy plays various ringtones on his phone and we both dance around the room. My favorite is Polka, which Daddy says reflects my northeastern PA heritage.

Singing in the Blog

Here is an audio blog I made of my singing.

Elephant Time

With Mommy still hobbling with her hurt foot, Daddy and I went off to the zoo on Saturday. Now, when Mommy takes me to the zoo, we always bring a stroller in case I get tired and myriad goodies in case I get hungry. Daddy has a more minimalist approach to traveling with me. No stroller and only 3 cheese sticks, some veggie crackers, and some water to keep me happy. While I could do with traveling in more luxury, Daddy's approach does have its benefits--notably I get to go where I want to go in the zoo. Daddy ticked off the names of some of the animals in the zoo and then I decided which I wanted to visit and in what order. My ordering of the animals did not exactly coincide with the way the zoo people had placed them, so there was a lot of back and forth walking and climbing up and down hills. Still, I liked the freedom to choose what I wanted to see and in what order.

We finally came to the elephants, who are at the top of a big hill, and so I decided it was time to take a picnic break. We sat right next to the elephants and Daddy opened a cheese stick for me and got out my water. I only wanted a little help in opening the cheese stick since I like to do it myself. I quickly ate all three cheese sticks and a bunch of crackers. The elephants were eating leaves from a tree. I offered the elephants a nearby wood chip to nibble on, but they didn't seem interested.

Next, we visited the rides section of the zoo. I got to ride the cars (one of my favorites) and chose the orange car and the fire engine for my two rides there. Next, we got on the merry-go-round. Initially, I wanted to sit on the bench to go round and round, but after that first ride, I decided that I really preferred the up and down action of the tiger. We rode the tiger three times! Here's a photo album with a picture of me on the tiger wearing my hat and sunglasses (most guys my age eschew sunglasses). Daddy took this picture with his new cell phone, which we both like quite a bit better than his old one.


Riding the Tiger 

Here's a link to Daddy's cellphone photo album.

By the end of our time in the zoo, I was quite tired. I went to sleep almost as soon as I got in the car. What a fun day.

Apple Store

Yesterday, Mommy wanted to go to Nordstroms to look at some photos of me. Daddy, who was still recovering from a dental procedure, decided to come along too for the ride. Now, normally, I go shopping with Mommy and end up in the stores that she wants to go to. Shopping with Daddy is different---he has no particular preference where we go, so we get to go to stores that I find interesting. Fortunately, my tastes and Daddy's seem to run along similar lines.

First, we went to Sharper Image. This is a really fun store since it features lots of things to play with. I especially like the section with the sound soothers. I like to make them make the train noise or the wind chime noise. For a while, I had all six of them in the store making the train noise at maximum volume. Next, we went to the Apple Computing store. Daddy told me that they had lots of "i" stuff there including Apple iPods capable of playing Sheryl Crow's "I" song. We went inside and I saw the iPods. They come in lots of different colors. I pointed and named each of the colors to the delight of the salespeople: red one, blue one, gold one, silver one... Next we went to the kids section of the Apple store. Here, they had seats shaped like big black balls. I sat on one of the balls, and Daddy and I played the "Finding Nemo" game on an iMac. We also looked at some swell notebook computers called iBooks. Too soon, we had to leave to meet back up with Mommy. I really like the Apple store.

On our way back, we stopped at a store selling wind chimes and played with those for a while. We also stopped at a couple of stores selling cell phones. I really like phones and there are lots of them in the cell phone stores. My favorite thing to do was to pick up a phone and have a quick conversation. "Hiya" I'd say. Then I'd pause a few seconds. Then I'd say "bye bye" and move on to the next phone. It's fun shopping with Daddy.

Mommy here...Daddy here

Mommy and Daddy finally came back on an airplane. About two weeks ago, Daddy went away to work in a faraway place called England. About a week after that, Mommy announced that she had to go over to England to help Daddy "work" but that Grammy would take good care of me. She did---we had a great time together---but still I'm glad to have Mommy and Daddy back here. I've developed some new speech mannerisms in their absence. First, I like to say "Hiya" all the time. This is my way of saying that I'm happy to be with the person I'm saying "hiya" to. Mommy and Daddy got lots of "hiyas" when they came back. The other speech thing I've picked up is saying "hmmm" while I'm thinking of how to answer a question. For instance, if asked whether I want to wear a red shirt or a blue shirt, I'll now answer, "Hmm...Red one."

Big Gordon

I got one of the best new toys ever this weekend---my very own Thomas the Tank Engine train layout. Mommy apparently bought it on eBay for a fraction of its usual retail price. Right now, the train track is laid out on the coffee table and I've got many of my favorite engine friends going around the track. Of course, there's Thomas. I also have James, Gordon, and my favorite, Percy. Gordon is the biggest engine, so I usually refer to him as "big Gordon." One of the best parts of my train layout is the tunnel. I especially like to make the engines poke out of the edge of the tunnel. I exclaim, "Gordon peeking out!" whenever I get them in this position.

Sick One

One of my new jobs this summer is to be a gardener. Daddy has planted a whole bunch of tomato and pepper plants in big pots. Each day, we go outside to check on the plants, given them plant food occasionally, and water them if they need it. I like the plants very much and greet each one individually by touching its leaves. A couple of days ago, an unfortunate drainage incident led one of the tomato plants to get too much water. Now Daddy tells me that this tomato plant is not feeling well. I go over and touch its leaves to try to make it happy. Sometimes, while touching its leaves, I'll ask, "Happy tomato?" It never replies.

Since it's taking a while for this plant to get better, I like to take a survey of the health of the plants. I go over and point to each plant, announcing, "Happy, happy, happy, happy, and so on." Until I come to the sick one, then I point and say, "Sick one." I hope the sick tomato plant gets better.

Picture Time

Here are a bunch of pictures of me taken around Mother's Day for you to enjoy.

Professor Daddy

My Daddy was quite excited to come home from work today. It turns out that he was promoted to something called Full Professor or, more compactly, Professor. I guess he was only a partial professor before. Anyway, he told me that, as a result of this status change, I should refer to him as "Professor Daddy" instead of simply as Daddy. Naturally, I took him at his word and called him Professor Daddy throughout the evening. I'm very proud of Professor Daddy.

A Game of Catch

Daddy has been playing catch with me since I was about 6 months old. In its usual form, Daddy rolls the ball to me and then I throw it "back" (which technically means only that I throw it---without regard for direction). The accurate throwing part has gotten much better. When I want to, I can actually throw the ball to Daddy although sometimes it's more fun to throw it away from him to watch him go get it. This past weekend, though, there was a big breakthrough in my catching skills. I noticed that when I threw the ball to Daddy, he could pluck it right out of the air. I wanted to do that too, so I had Daddy throw the ball to me instead of rolling it. Initially, I discovered that catching a ball out of the air is difficult. I flung my arms outward but somehow the ball did not end up in my hands. With a few practice tosses, however, I got it. I caught the ball---straight out of the air. Daddy whooped for joy and we did a little "catch the ball" dance. Then we repeated it, and I caught the ball again. We even tried with different sized balls and, after a couple of tries, I could catch these too. Catching is great (but still not as fun as throwing.)

Picture Time

Daddy's been in the habit of taking random pictures of me on the days we hang out together. As usual with him, there is no posing. The shot of the two of us was a self portrait taken by me. See the pictures here.