Cookie Day

Well, Fans, as it is the last day of August, much to Joe's delight, today was deemed a Cupcake Day! A Miniature Cupcakes From the Little Target Cupcake Day, not a Yum! Cupcake Day. But when we arrived at the Little Target though, Julie saw that the mini cupcake selection was key lime cupcakes, a flavor she finds is not often done well, let alone on your mass market retailer scale. So she was tickled pink, if you will, when Our Hero instead selected pink cookies with sprinkles instead of cupcakes. So it was that Cupcake Day became Cookie Day. Our Hero carried the cookies to the check out, home in the car, and up to the door upon our arrival home. Precious cargo you know.

That's Not My. . . Joe Style

Last night, Joe wanted to kick it Clara-style for books-before-bed-time, meaning he wanted to sit in the chair, and read nearly all of the That's Not My. . .oeuvre. We began with That's Not My Bear. To make it more interesting, Julie asked Joe to find the letter B on the cover, "our helper friend to find the word 'bear'," as "That's not my bear. . ." appears on every page. He did, and then spotted "bear" on every page! The next book he selected was That's Not My Snowman. Spotting the word snowman proved to be trickier right off the bat as "our helper friend to find the word 'snowman'," also appears at the end of "that's." Tricky, especially since Joe readily recognizes all of the other letters in snowman, save N, with which he is a little slower. Then, Joe selected That's Not My Penguin. The letter P is a solid one. By the middle, Joe was turning to Julie and telling her "That wasn't too tricky," each time he found the letter P, our helper friend to find the word penguin.

Birdie's Books

In this picture, you see Birdie moments after she has blown kisses to Ted, and Joe, and planted another on Julie's cheek. She will--will not--blow kisses or make kissy faces or do anything in that vein on command, or for the camera. Yes, Our Birdie has a mind all her own.

You may also, Bird Brigade, be noting the state of the bookshelves to the side of the chair and that they are in disarray. Birdie is now very, very good at following simple directions, and very, very good at making known what she wants. So she has been able to tell Julie that she would like "down" to get her own books, and so she does, one by one. She is fond of all the touch 'n' feel That's Not My. . .series (we have: dog, tractor, snowman, bear, pony, penguin, and monkey--this last lives upstairs) as well as the Carl books, especially the original Good Dog Carl. She likes anything with a dog in it really. She also likes anything with a beat: Hand, Hand, Fingers, Thumb; Jazz Baby; Chicka Chicka ABC. She is not fond of the Gossie series. Tonight, she pulled Gossie down as she was trying to get to Carl, looked at it, started to cry, and dropped it on the ground. Boo Boo was similarly disappointing. Soon enough though, they will probably be friends. They may even get kisses!

Roses Shmoses

Fans, we write to you having just tucked Joe in for the night. Joe still calls the Dada Bus, but now, upon embarking on it, Joe immediately disembarks to use the potty one last time. It is at this point that the Dada Bus is swapped for a choo-choo train. We are instructed to stand on "choo-choo squares" in the kitchen, and admonished not to move a muscle, while Our Hero scampers to the potty before returning to assume the caboose position. (Last night, Julie was informed that she was a hopper car.)

So imagine our surprise when, after nap, Our Hero balked at taking a ride on the choo-choo train! We had thought we'd finally take a ride on the Como-Harriet Streetcar Line, operated by the Minnesota Streetcar Museum, but Our Hero was having none of it. Absolutely. None. Of. It.

Which is how we ended up at the rose garden by Lake Harriet.* There are TWO fountains there so, you know, roses shmoses. The second fountain featured turtles--and an older, young girl (maybe six?) actually in the fountain picking up coins. Guess who wanted to take off his Crocs and get in the fountain, too? Guess who said no? (But only because Little Miss Braveheart would have drove in headfirst after him.)

*Very, very longtime readers may recall that we first took Joe to this rose garden back when he was less than a month old! http://joeekkers.blogspot.com/2008/07/rose-garden.html

Julie has always liked this spot.

Chalk Fun

While Joe and Graham were off Saturday morning tearing up Fern Hill on their tricycles, Ted took Clara to do the marketing. But once they were back, and we'd said goodbye to Graham and Sara, Joe and Clara (and Julie) made some suns and moons, and clouds, and rainbows out on the front walk. Joe tried his hand at a "crescent moon," but turned to a sun when he had some trouble stopping his chalk at just an arc, and then adding another, more shallow arc to the first. Julie actually wouldn't have thought Clara would do much besides try to eat the chalk, but she drew a few faint lines, and had a high time gathering it all up and putting it back in the bucket where it lives.

The Open Road (and Sidewalk)!

So Joe is getting really, really good at tooling about the neighborhood on his tricycle (BIKE!). This weekend, he hung out with both Graham and Marco, both of whom came over with their tricycles as well. Whereas Julie used to have to remind Joe to "pedal, pedal, pedal" as Joe made his way up the gentle slopes in the neighborhood (it's not called Fern Hill for nothing!), he now pretty much pedals, pedals, pedals on his own. He just takes to the open road (and sidewalk) and GOES! Some of you may recall that Joe's bike has turn signals (a misnomer in that they signal only to the rider that a turn is in the offing) and a radio of sorts. For a long while, punching these buttons was his fun. But now, it's the riding that is.

Lick-Or-Lish

Joe has been into puzzles for a while, but he has now embraced in earnest the board game . Our working let's-make-life-a-little-easier "rule," is that puzzles and board games are to be played only when Clara is in the bath or asleep. Joe's go-to game is High-Ho Cheerio which, for those who have never played, features lots of tiny plastic cherries (read: choking hazards). Joe is pretty good at a puzzle, and a game, due in no small measure to his ability to be pretty focused considering his age. Still, he is three and so things do sometimes run off the rails. With Joe, this means he starts acting too clever by a half and quite deliberately begins miscounting how many places to move, or moving in the wrong direction, or the like. Friday night, the boys were playing an inaugural round of Candyland on the porch while Julie read Clara stories and put her down for the night. Julie walked on to the porch right as things began to dissolve. Joe was having rather a lot of fun saying licorice ("lick-or-lish") over and over, and endeavoring to try and land on the lick-or-lish square--which sets a player back a turn, so it's more fun to say than actually land on. Our Hero is clearly too clever by half, but not wholly up on the subtleties of wily game masters at Milton Bradley.

Hangin'

What you see here in this picture, Fans, is evidence of the hanging up of things craze here at Raleigh House. Hanging are: the toy cell phone, Joe's toy camera, the Thomas umbrella, the travel magnadoodle board, Clara's fleece, and (not visible), both Little Gym medals garnered by our resident Super Beast. Usually, Joe's coat is hanging up, too, but it's new again having been recently broken out of the closet for the chilly mornings, and he's newly enamored with it and wearing it about the house.

Two Bowls, Times Two

As our long time readers know, Joe is a two-bowls-of-cereal boy Monday through Friday when cereal is typically the breakfast fare of choice. Given that Birdie is now in the Big Birds room, and that she wants to be just like Joe, Ted decided this week to give Clara two bowls of cereal, too. (Fans, that's four bowls of cereal on the table. . .Yeah.) For now, Birdie is having plain Cheerios with bananas and milk, rather than selecting what goes in them, and whether they have milk poured on them or not as Our Hero does. Occasionally Birdie will have plain Kix as she does seem to get bored. We don't imagine it will be too long before she is sampling the whole of the Cheerios line, but for now, she seemed to like this whole making-like-a-big-kid-with-the-two-bowls bit.

Word of the Day

Two exchanges from tonight to report:

Joe [to Ted]: "You have poop on your head!" (Ted reports that it may have been "I'll poop on your head!")

. . .

Julie [to Joe]: "You smell like strawberries."

Joe [screaming with glee]: "I smell like poop!"

Joe is three. Did you know?

Goodnight, Dear Poopyhead Readers.

Gimme Five!

Clara knows what to do when one says, "Gimme five!" We know this because this morning, as Joe was headed into his drop off room, Julie said, "Gimme five!" to him, and Clara toddled right over, and gave Julie five.

A Little More Bliss

After nap on Sunday found us at the DQ for snack, where Clara got vanilla soft serve in a cup with sprinkles (rainbow!), just like Her Hero, Joe, but of her very own. There may have been sprinkles on her ear a la an earring. Yes, it's true. She was quite charming and our photography staff regrets that we do not have a picture to accompany this report.

In the car on the way over to the DQ, we popped in the kids country music CD which had just arrived, and is identical to the one Julie often heard spinning in Clara's room. Perhaps more adorable than the sprinkles on her ear, was the manner in which our Baby Bird heard the first beats of the first song, paused, and threw her arms up, and started rockin' out, all, "I know this one! Turn it UP!"

This CD is pretty hilarious. It's adults, singing some of your modern day country hits, with a chorus of maybe six-year-olds providing back-up. So if you are familiar with say, Sugarland's Something More, picture if you will six-year-olds singing the following, as a fifteen-month-old rocks out:

Monday, hard to wake up

Fill my coffee cup, I'm out the door. . .

There's gotta be something more

Gotta be more than this

I need a little less hard time

I need a little more bliss. . .

We don't know fans. Is there more than this? Most of the time, it's pretty much bliss.

Biker Birdie

Birdie napped hard Friday afternoon, and by the time she woke up, she seemed to have turned a corner. So when her helmet arrived during the bambini's nap on Saturday, we thought she'd be up for her first spin in the bike trailer.

Here, we must pause to report that Our Hero now thinks of a bike ride as riding his red tricycle ("It's a bike," Our Hero informs us.) around the neighborhood. Thus, he was utterly dismayed to learn that "bike ride" could also refer to his riding in the trailer hitched to Ted's bike. Our Hero really can scoot about the neighborhood now on his (three) wheels, especially since Julie hit them with a little WD-40. Joe can make our usual neighborhood circuit in about 10 minutes, has gotten the knack of cornering, and has almost gotten the knack of building up some momentum to take the small hill from street to sidewalk without taking his feet from the pedals.

We were only able to leave on the family bike ride by promising that Joe could go on a bike ride on his bike when we got home. Julie hadn't been on her bike in about four years, save a ride or two the summer Joe turned one before she was pregnant with Clara (i.e. two years ago). She remarked that she would have to remember how to ride a bike. Joe said, "You put your feet on the pedals." Indeed. And so we were off!

All was going well until the bouncing along of the trailer bounced Birdie's helmet down into her eyes. Boo. She wailed (loudly) about the last quarter mile home. But she is not bike-averse from it all as this morning, she was trying valiantly to get herself on to Joe's tricycle, er, bike.

Birdie Still Down, But Not Super Out

Birdie woke up this morning with a temperature of 103.9. Whoa. So we decided to keep her home another day. After they dropped Joe off, the Birds headed for Lake Calhoun and walked around it, just like old times when Julie was on leave with Clara. Then, they walked to Rustica for snack time. Julie had a lemon danish and a Pellegrino; Clara had animal crackers and tap water. Clara was wide-eyed looking at everything including a bunch of other kids from either the always-at-home set, or the at-home-because-sick set. After the Birds did the obligatory circuit about the bookstore next door, they came home. They moused around upstairs. Clara pulled a Lion, Witch, and the Wardrobe stunt and crawled into Julie's closet underneath all of the clothes that were hanging down. She didn't say she saw a faun in a magical wood, but she did seem quite taken with the whole experience.

Bear, Monster, Lion, Tiger

One of our new games here at Raleigh House, is Bear, Monster, Lion, Tiger.* BMLT can be played by two to four players. Joe assigns the players their roles; roles do not change. Joe is always Bear. Julie is always Monster. Ted is always Lion. Clara is always Tiger. To play BMLT, the players lie down. They pretend to sleep (exaggerated snoring is encouraged). Then, one player, always the Bear, WAKES UP and "gets" the Monster or the Lion (who never wake up first--and never get to rest long enough). The Bear, and the Tiger, if she is playing, are gently tussled about and tickled until the Bear flops down again and announces we are sleeping again. Then, the whole thing is repeated. There are no winners or losers in BMLT, and is super fun.

*BMLT may be a variant of Joe's lake house antics with Uncle Scott.

Home

As Clara acts more and more like a toddler (and thus less and less like an infant) every day, she very much looks to Joe and takes her cues from him. When Joe was her age, there was, of course, no older sibling to look to so he was always hot on our heels. But Clara, lucky Bird, has always lived in a world with Our Hero in it, and she is pretty gaga for him. (Really? Who wouldn't be? We think he's pretty fabulous, too.)

They seem to be very much turning into a little tribe of two. It's fabulous, Fans. But, it must be noted, this is why we've taken to putting Clara down for naps and to bed at least a full half hour before Joe. Otherwise, it's like As the Joe Turns and the Late Late Show With Joe with a completely captivated audience and neither of them gets the rest they each need.

Still, sometimes, you want to hear them "talking" and shrieking and laughing. Julie remembers when, as a child, and she was with her grandparents in the summers, the joy of falling asleep listening to them chatter and laugh across the hall, at All in the Family, and Carol Burnett, and Johnny Carson, all on low. She didn't know then it would feel the same, when she was older, listening to her children, which means it has nothing to do with how old or young you are, making or listening to the happy sounds of happy people, swirl or tuck in around you, and everything to do with knowing that feeling that joy is one way to know you're safe as houses, home.

Turn It Around!

Readers, some of you may recall that the latest rule with respect to car seats is that children have to be rear-facing in their car seats until they are like 23 years old and at least 102 pounds (or something like that). Turns out that if they have not yet reached 23 years of age, and weigh less than 102 pounds, if their heads are less than an inch from the top of the car seat (at least in the model we have which, conveniently, Dr. Harrington does, too), one can flip them around. And so we did. Here are the cool cats putting on their shades. (Oh, you didn't know that if you roll forward facing you also need to rock the shades? You must not ride forward facing yet.)

Hungry?

As is perhaps evidenced from the huge plate of food seen before Birdie in the previous post, Birdie is a rather serious diner. She can sign "hungry" (or "eat") as well as "more" very well, but the way one can often tell that Clara is hungry, is by finding her perched atop her high chair. Yes, when hungry, Clara simply marches over to her chair, pulls it out, and clambers on up. She has yet to fall, we might add. Birdie is a rather self-possessed 15-month old, and rather sure-footed. Julie used to ask "Are you hungry?" but has since stopped since Clara would only gaze at her (with the two fingers in her mouth), as if to say, "Duh."

Nectarines and Peaches

A brighter Birdie Bulletin is that Birdie is a tremendous fan of nectarines and peaches. We discovered this preference because we, too, are tremendous fans of nectarines and peaches and went on a streak where we were buying 20-count boxes of nectarines, and then peaches, at the Trader Joe's which were somewhat surprisingly really fabulous. Given the rather annoying tendency of stone fruits to turn from unripe to overripe on a dime, we all at nectarines and peaches like they were going out of style. Initially, we were splitting a nectarine between Birds and Joe, but then Birdie would grunt and bang her empty bowl on the table and try and drink from it like, "Come ON people! Where. Are. The. PEACHES?!?! Flowin' like mud around here." So we started giving her a whole fruit at a go.

(In this picture, you can see that she is also rather fond of a burrito. She has put the kibosh on the splitting of that, too. She will take a whole burrito please and thank you very much. To date, she is an Amy's Cheddar Cheese burrito Bird.)

Birdie Has a "Pretty Gross" Ear

Oh Birdie Brigade, our Birdie has had a rough go of it the past few days. We neglected to tell you that she came down with pink eye the day before yesterday. It was going about the infant rooms, and though she was only spending a small bit of her day in hers until yesterday, she was felled by it anyway. Today, Julie had no more arrived at work than Assistant Director Nadine called to report that Birdie had been having a rough morning so Ms. Katie had taken her temperature and. . .101. Julie remembered that Dr. Harrington had seen fluid behind Clara's right ear drum at Birdie's 15-month well-child exam, and as Clara has had no other symptoms besides sort of generalized discomfort (she's looked like maybe five miles of bad road when she wakes up, and she won't settle for stories), Julie suspected an ear infection. Clara has also been poking at her ear. Sure enough, when Dr. Harrington put the ear-look-in-y scope in Clara's right ear, Birdie's face screwed up in wail position, the wail gathered, and then burst out (this is Birdie's signature way when she is super upset or hurt). It is, apparently, "pretty gross." She feel asleep on the way to Target to pick up the Amoxicillin she will be on for 10 days, and then again on the way home. Since Julie had already doped Birdie up in the Target parking lot, Julie decided to put Birdie straight to bed when they arrived home where she has since been sleeping soundly.

Can You Find Me. . .?

We have also again festooned the walls with the picture side of our baby sign language flash cards. Longtime Fans may recall we first did this around the time Joe was Clara's age. As we did then with Joe, we now ask Clara to find various things. Joe wants a piece of this action, but we rig it up a little harder for him, asking him to find us pictures of words that begin with a particular letter. He knows his letters pretty much cold, with two exceptions: he will sometimes mix up C (for Clara!) and S (for Sophie!), as well as D (for Daddy! and Darby!) and T (for Teddy!--the one in his classroom; he doesn't know that Ted is still Teddy sometimes to some). Finding letters and connecting them to words keeps Joe busy so Clara can just find the picture of the word, and right now, their respective versions of the Can You Find Me. . .? game is a bit of a challenge for both of them.

(The way Clara is pointing in this picture is how she points at something about fifty percent of the time--i.e. with her fingers gathered together and perched atop her thumb. It's like one half of one of the two ways of signing "more.")

These United States

We have been meaning to report that we have finally hung the map of the United States that Grandpa Charles and Grandma Connie gave Joe for his birthday. We tackled the big four first: Minnesota (where Joe lives; also: Mommy, Daddy, Clara, Berenice, Graham, and Marco), Pennsylvania (where Aunt Kate, Uncle Scott, and Cousin Nick live), Illinois (where Grandpa Charles and Grandma Connie live), and Arizona (where Grandpa Tom and Lynn live). We are now expanding into states built on more complex and thus, rockier, shoals of knowledge. For example, Julie just heard Ted showing Joe Texas again, where Mommy was born, and where she spent many summers with her grandparents. Joe said, "Grandparents?" Julie felt like this whole set of circumstances may have rocked his little mind! Mommy? Grandparents? Wha. . .? His finger has also wandered to Washington, which we explained was where Sanne and Todd, Elsa and Anja, and Carrie and Paul, and Wyatt and Gavin live. He asked if we could go there. We said one day! Julie has been thinking that when holiday cards arrive, if they are of the picture variety, we can tack them on to the states where their senders live.

(We should also add that this map is bordered by the mottos of each of the 50 states. So it is also a handy reference tool for the crossword puzzle set.)

In the Big Girl Room | For Good

Today, Clara spent the entire day in the Big Girl Toddler Room. Yesterday, she was there nearly the whole day and reportedly cried torrents when made to return to the Little Girl Infant Room. She'd just calmed down when one of her new teachers, Ms. Katie, came into her old room. Clara tried to follow her out and when she was stopped, cried torrents again. We aren't sure why she wasn't just allowed to stay, or to have followed Ms. Katie back, but at any rate, today, we said it was fine with us if Birdie wanted to stay all day, and she did, and so--she did. We are told that when she comes in, all her new friends come over and pat her on the back. The toddlers go outside every day, which Clara loves. Today, she saw Joe outside, and it must be said, she is quite taken with him.

When It Rains

Saturday afternoon found us at the park near the KinderCare. There is a river near this park, which a bridge spans. Ducks congregate under the bridge. Near the park, there is also a very large hill. After we'd looked at the ducks a bit, Ted asked Joe if he wanted to go up spook hill (just like the Berenstain Bears!) and he did, so we all traipsed over there and Julie spun both kids around at its foot. We'd just begun to play on the playground when a summer storm broke out. We dashed for the overhang of a pavilion to wait it out. While we were standing there, Joe asked, "Is this a toadstool?" Lovers of I Am A Bunny may recall that Nicholas the Bunny keeps dry under a toadstool in the summer when it rains. Very, very long time readers may recall that "toadstool" was the first two syllable word Julie recalls hearing Joe say. So this moment brought some raindrops to Julie's eyes.

Late Summer, Early Evening

Our tomatoes are in, and as Julie was putting Clara down, Ted gave Joe a bowl and headed out with him to harvest the ripened fruit. When Julie caught up with them, the syrupy gold of the air, and the color of the tomatoes in the bowl, and the sight of Our Hero happily at his task, put her in mind of the final lines of a Billy Collins poem she's long loved--referencing the dawn as it happens, but no matter:

"She will look at me with her thin arms extended,

offering a handful of birdsong and a small cup of light."

But Not the Dinosaurs

One of the books Joe has been keen on lately is Ox-Cart Man, which came to us from Joe's Great Aunt Susie for his birthday, and concerns the seasonal activities of a farmer (the Ox-Cart Man) who packs up his ox cart with various wares his family has spent the year making or harvesting, sells them, and comes home toting a new kettle, and the like, as well as wintergreen peppermint candies. Tonight's rendition of Ox-Cart Man led to a Joe-prompted discussion about what animals we could pet. Animals we could pet: sheep (sheeps, making a rare re-appearance in Joe's speech), cows, goats, roosters, ducks (after agreeing that ducks would not eat us), elephants (maybe--very big feet, could stomp us). Animals we could not pet: lions, tigers, owls (way up high; usually out at night, "nocturnal," also eat bunnies and mice*), snakes, rhinoceroses, and--dinosaurs. Julie asked why and Joe said they were endangered. We clarified the distinction between endangered and extinct and seized the moment to relay that dinosaurs and birds are closely related. He sort of just took that in.

Then, Julie remembered that we are gearing up to hit the Great Minnesota Get Together** where there will be lots of animals on the Animals We Can Pet List. Julie relayed this to Joe, who immediately began rattling off all the animals we would pet at the fair. Then, he looked at her solemnly and said, "But not the dinosaurs."

*There may some among you, Dear Readers, who are thinking, "A bit much?" Perhaps. But we would tell you, in our defense, that when Joe first identified the Ox-Cart Man's ox as a cow, Julie told him ox have the curved horns, rather than that an ox is a castrated bull (or male cow for those of you not well-versed in your farm animals and in particular, those of the bovine persuasion). Technically Joe was correct--the Ox-Cart Man's ox was a cow, and even though Joe's didn't know that, perhaps we should have left well enough alone? But the book's not called Cow-Cart Man.

**That's the State Fair for the uninitiated.

There's No Crying in Baseball

Tonight, we played a little T-ball in the backyard with Joe before bath time. Julie walked out right as Joe really got a piece of one. (Julie thinks you can say this--i.e. "got a piece of one." In the same way that Julie would like to fling nautical terms off with an ease bespeaking a lifetime spent on and near boats and water, she would also like to be able to yak about sports like she knows what she's yakking about.) Neaky and Pink Elephant were in the stands (on the walkway in front of the grill) so Julie joined them and yelled things like "Line drive down the center field line!" and "Pop fly!" about a beat after Ted. She also sang "We want a pitcher not a belly itcher!" only because she'd not been yet introduced to "We want a batter not a broken ladder!" which would have been more appropriate since as you will recall, this was T-ball we were playing. Joe had a number of solid line drives. Ted hit a home run (home runs were defined as hitting the ball into the "milch," as Joe still says, under the apple tree). Naturally, Our Hero did not want to go take his bath. He started to cry, but this gave us the perfect moment to impart one of baseballs most important lessons. say it with us, Fans: "There's no crying in baseball."

Potty Book

It's Friday, Fans, and if you are in the "Twos" or Pre-School Rooms at KinderCare, that means it's Show 'N' Share Day. Today, Joe took his "potty book." This is the electronic book that some of you may recall we gave him to look at when we began potty training in earnest, to encourage him to remain on the potty for more than three seconds. Joe likes to punch all the buttons no matter what the book is squawking. Thus, one hears things like:

"Who will win the race? The rab. . ."
"Can you touch the let. . ."
"Can you touch the letter P?"
"Can you t. . ."

"Can. . ."

"Can. . ."
"Can. . ."
"Who will win the race?"

Though there is an on/off button, it seems like it only turns on, and it is rather loud.

So it was that once Joe had clued into the fact that you have to sit on or stand at the potty long enough for something to happen, and let it happen, this book was hidden by Julie.

And so it was that this morning, when Joe asked Ted for his "potty book," Ted was momentarily stumped as to where the potty book might be (by not by what Joe meant by "potty book;" that he knew straight away). Luckily, Joe came to Ted's rescue and informed him it was way up high on top of the TV [cabinet], "next to the stamps." You know, Readers, of Stamp 'N' Beep fame.*

Apparently, we need a new hiding place. Like one in which things are actually hidden.

*http://joeandclara.blogspot.com/2011/01/sick-day-part-3-or-stamp-n-beep.html.

In the Big Girl Room | After Week 1

Week one Birdie's transition to the Big Girl Toddler Room is in the bag. Yesterday, the report of her daily doings said, " Clara had a good day. She played well in the toddler room and is making new friends. She was very content with teachers as they read many books." She reportedly walks to the toddler room with her friend John, from her Infant Room, who is also transitioning, holding hands. They walk right in and if the toddlers are at snack, Clara walks right over the the table and pulls out a chair. If the toddlers are at group time, she walks right over and puts herself in the circle. She's quite comfortable in what will be here new school nest by the end of next week. Julie has noticed two other things: Clara now helps when we wash her hands by rubbing her hands together; and, now, when we walk in for drop-off, or out at pick-up, Clara will move to hug the wall and trail her hand along it which is what they teach the older kids to do to keep the hallway more clear. Such a Big Bird. . .

Mini Me

Joe: "Why do you where those?"

Ted: "So I can see better."

Joe: "So you can see better?"

Ted: "Yes."

Joe (with big grin): "Can I wear them?!"

Ted: "You can try them. It will look fuzzy."

Joe (as pictured): "Whoa....it made it big!"

When Clara Works a Puzzle

We have been meaning to report that as with shape sorting, Clara is pretty good at puzzle. By pretty good, we mean she treats it like a de facto matching game: after Ted or Julie has removed all of the pieces, she'll grab one and slap it down over where it goes and then look at whomever is "playing" with her all, "My work here is done." There is no fitting of the pieces into their homes as of yet.* "Details," Birdie would say.

*Clara may have had an assist from Julie for the pieces that have been slid home in this picture.

Cupcake Day!

As we head out of KinderCare each night, Joe will often ask if it's a cupcake day. The inaugural Cupcake Day was the first day he peed on the potty at KinderCare; the second was when he pooped on the potty there. Naturally Joe feels that if he has peed or pooped on the potty, it is a cupcake day, and you really must admit, there is a fine logic at work there. Nevertheless, we have tried to explain (in vain it would seem) that cupcakes do not immediately flow from peeing and pooping on the potty, and nevertheless, Our Hero persists.

Certain of our Fans will know that Julie is herself a fan--an absolute staunch supporter of, firm believer in, and avid advocate of--the pick-me-up treat. And so today, since she was all in a snarl after the commute back across the river, she decided that yes, yes it was in fact a cupcake day. So she took Joe and Birdie to Yum! where Joe selected a cupcake for himself and for Clara. Though Clara is given only about a fourth of these monsters, she gets her own so Joe does not even have to contemplate sharing, as that is anathema to the whole spirit of a Cupcake Day and a pick-me-up treat. (Having said this, Julie will acknowledge that if Ted would like to share the slice of coconut cake she got, she will acquiesce. But she will not offer it up.)

In the Big Girl Room | The Transition Begins

Bird Brigade, just look at Our Birdie motor along. Look at her motor!* Though she is not the Big bird, she is a big Bird. Not surprisingly, she took the big girl room by storm today. We are told that she went over to the toddler room with nary a tear. She sat right down for group time, and when the group broke to line up to go outside, she just followed the crowd and lined on up. She apparently LOVED being outside with the big kids. After outside time, she went right back to her familiar infant room for the rest of the day all smiles. We have such a clear picture of this. Our Birdie. . .she just enjoys the ride.

*Keen-eyed observers will note Joe in the background getting busy with the scissors.

In the Driver's Seat

Fans, as you know, Our Hero likes to sit in the driver's seat, both metaphorically (he is, after all, three, and literally. Most night, when we arrive home, Joe will pipe up for the backseat: "Can I drive?" Tonight, while Julie was making sure Clara didn't take a header down the steps midway up the front walkway, Joe got into the glove compartment. There, he found the scissors Julie stashes for emergencies, and trips to the post office (handier when the roll of packaging tape she usually also keeps there hasn't been confiscated by the other adult in the house who probably wondered why his wackadoodle wife was keeping packing tape in the car--and just why does she send so many packages anyways?????), as well as some KinderCare forms verifying that he and Birdie had been vaccinated in accordance with state laws that had yet to be delivered. He also got into the CDs. In this clip, you can see that we have been trying to teach him where he lives. It's tricky because of our practice of naming our dogs after the streets on which we live. So he's just now getting that we live on Raleigh Avenue, and that Raleigh-is-in-dog-heaven is a separate and only tangentially related concept. But, he's headed to Minnesota Fans, and ain't nobody gonna stop him.

Birdie O

Here is a word that our Birdie definitely, definitely knows: sunglasses. When she is in her car seat (still rear facing), but hears the click of the arms of Julie's sunglasses hitting the rims of the lenses, she cranes her head around, tosses her hand up, and grunts for all she's worth until the sunglasses are relinquished to her. She will wail if necessary. If she turns to look at Julie and sees the sunglasses perched on top of Julie's head, same thing. If she is picked up and Julie is wearing sunglasses, they will be plucked from her head immediately. Tonight, while Julie was outside with Joe and Clara while Ted made the bambini's dinner, and Julie asked Clara if she would like to wear sunglasses, Clara immediately looked up from the sidewalk she'd been tromping up and down, and pointed to Julie's head. Da (read: duh). The sunglasses you see here were long Julie's favorite as they had a sort of Jackie O big bug flair. But they have become Clara's after she was toting them up and down the walk one night and, while climbing the stairs, had to catch herself and ground the lens into the pavement. So a Little Birdie O is born! (Big Birdie O is currently actively searching for replacement Big Birdie O shades.)

Biker Boy

Fans, you may recall that we mentioned in passing, that we arrived at the KinderCare one day to find Joe tooling about the playground on the bike like it was no thang, and he owned the place. Then, at the Neighborhood Night Out*, many of the kids arrived on their bikes, which prompted Joe to ask us if we could break out his "red bike." This would be the tricycle, with pedals, he was given by Julie's Great Aunt Marylyn when he was but six months old. (Too big for him then.) So Julie dragged it down from where we'd blithely tucked it away in the rafters of the garage, thinking it would be a while before he could or would want to deal with pedals, when here we are. Now, he's pretty keen on riding his bike. He does look pretty cool on it. We took it with us this weekend to Graham's house so the boys could, apparently, go on "a hunt." Julie was not there to see it as she and Sara were inside with Clara Jane and Connor James, but she assumes he did in fact get his feet on the pedals and pedal off to hunt whatever needed a' hunting in the wilds of Edina. (The bike on Joe's seat doesn't have a back so he has no leverage making taking off a little more difficult, but we figure the minute we got a bike with a seat back would be the minute it was no big deal. Sort of like how we got the super cool pedal-less glide bike right as Joe figured out how to pedal.)

*Fort he unfamiliar, this is a police department initiative where they provide orange cones with which you can block off an intersection, and then, if you have "block captains" who have their acts together, you head out at the time they've told you, with "a dish to share," and you all stand around and yap while the kids run around and everyone gets to know their neighbors a bit, and some if Mr. Stranger Danger is skulking about, one is more apt to identify him as Does Not Belong. It's good fun.

Clara Kicks It Karate Kid Style

Birdie did not actually execute a crane kick while balancing on the bow* of a row boat. But, she made like she was going to when she climbed up on top of Joe's kitchen stool (which had migrated to the porch) and bounced a bit, testing this stool out. We have known for a little while now that she can climb up on to Joe's bed with the step stool that is next to it, and Ted reports that the other day, when all had gone quiet, and he went off in search of Birdie, he found her on standing on the bathroom stool, holding on to the front of the sink in that room, quite pleased with herself. Julie has seen Little Miss Hot Stuff pull this trick as well. Little Miss Hot Stuff is unstoppable, clearly. Lie's rich pageant is obviously better seen from the bird's eye view, peached from atop a stool.

*Long time readers will recall that Julie longs to toss off nautical terms with an ease that suggests a lifetime of wayfaring ways. Alas, she had to google "front of boat?" to confirm that it is the bow, not the stern.

Gatherer

Clara is all about gathering these days. She loves her a bucket and some stuff to go put in it! This past weekend, she toddled right on over to the sandbox* where she got with the yellow bucket and the sand toys. In the mornings, she will sometimes make her way into the bathroom where the low shelf holds her shape sorter bucket (as well as an old wipes container which is also rather loved just for toting about). The shelf just above these delights holds the towels and Clara is also a huge fan of pulling down and carting about the wash cloths especially. Yesterday morning, the shelves met when she put the washcloths in the shape sorter bucket! (We should add that Birdie can sort her a shape. She's getting pretty good at identifying which shape goes in which hole, and usually slides it right in on the first or second try.)

*The theme this month in Clara's room at KinderCare is the beach. Today, we are told they played in their sensory bucket with pretend sand (crushed graham crackers). Birdie "liked the shovel. She would put the sand in it and then smile."

Heart of Gold*

As we have written here before, Our Hero is three. The dawning of this age has ushered in all kinds of delightful behavior, but also all kinds of maddening behavior. We began our morning with Joe's usual devolution into tears and wails over the fact that he wasn't having something for breakfast other than what was being offered. (This moning, we were having cereal and he wanted waffles.) He refused to tell Ted what cereals he wanted poured into his bowl. So Ted went off to take his shower, at which point Joe came up againt the reality of Julie pouring his cereal which was even more tragic than having to make do with cereal. At one point, Joe decided he needed to use the potty, but his crying continued unabated, and he may have stood for at least five minute on his little stool, underwear and pajama bottoms pooled aorund his ankles, screaming (we do not make this up), "I don't want to cry!" It makes you want to go back to bed and start over, laugh, and give him a hug if he'd let you all at the same time. We are pleased to report that even before Ted's shower had ended, Joe had clambered up into his chair and told Julie he was ready. (Chocolate Cheerios and Berry Berry Kixs--"from the lake house!"--were the ultimate selections.)

Oh but Fans. Then there we were, on the sidewalk in front of KinderCare, headed in. Since Birdie is in her big girl shoes now and will be going to the room where no one crawls so very soon, we've been having her walk as often as we can. So she was toddling forth, holding on to Julie's hand, when Joe raced up and caught up her other hand. This kid. This kid! What a heart. . .You can't make that up either.

*Ted snapped this picture with his cell phone and Julie arrived at work to find it in her e-mail in box. It made her day.

Rockin' It Big Girl Style

Today, Birdie napped from 12:40pm to 3:05pm! The report of her daily doings said that she was a little sleepy, but that she did great. (Also, that she helped turn the pages of the book that was read during group time and "was super excited." Julie has a clear picture of this as it must be said that Birdie gets right after the page turning when they read together at home.) Birdie also wore her new purple kicks and at dinner, drank the milk from her cup without spilling it!