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.