Pie-it Update
For those keeping score on various lost and found toys, the Little People Guy Pilot was located at 5:12 pm, December 31st under the pie safe in the kitchen. He spent at least 12 hours in the dust bunny jungles. Daddy rescued him. He then dusted him off and showed him to Logan - who, apparently being quite the hard-nosed boss, sent the guy immediately to work flying the orange two seater plastic plane.
Also for you scorekeepers -- Logan and Mommy did spend oodles of time on and off throughout the day searching for the hijacked Little People Guy Pilot.
AND, for the record - make sure you get this into your scorebooks - it was finally Mommy's idea to look under the pie safe.
A thorough investigation to the cause of his disapparence will be underway shortly. If we hit any deadends we're just going to blame the dog - she's not able to defend herself anyway. :)
5 ways to confuse and annoy a toddler
1. After your toddler is tucked away in bed for the night, rearrange a few rooms in the house - namely the ones that contain his toys.
2. Place his toys in a new, more spacious container of some sort - leave the old one where he can see it, but empty. If you're lucky you'll witness an eager little person yanking on the drawers to the former toy box, looking up at you in confusion and shrugging his shoulders as he says "Oh my! Where go?"
3. Show toddler new toy box. Watch his face register confusion, relief and amusement as he says "There car! Hi plane!"
4. Ask toddler where the pilot for his airplane is. Toddler will likely hold up the helicopter pilot and look at you like your nuts "Pie-it!" he'll say. Say back to him "No, I'm looking for the guy." He'll reach over and grab the male tourist Little People figure and hand it to you -again looking at you like you're nuts. "Guy!" he'll say to you and you'll know he's really trying to figure out how to say "Duh, Ma, get with it!" Tell him gently "No, honey. I'm looking for the boy pilot that flies your airplane." He'll look at you for a moment and then say "Oh, pie-it. Where go? Pie-it? Pie-it?" He'll grab your hand and drag you around the house looking for the little thing. Note of caution - only do this if you actually know where Guy pilot is. Trust me - endless hunt for Pie-it otherwise.
5. Teach your toddler that the letter "M" stands for Mommy. Give him foam bath letters. When he brings you the "M" and cheerily declares "M - Mommy!" Smile at him, pat his head, take the letter from him and flip it upside down. Then say "Very good. M is for Mommy. Now what letter to do I have?" Wait as he ponders, takes the letter from you and turns it over again. "M - Mommy" he'll say. And you'll say "Right, but the other way, when it looks like a W. . ." He'll walk away mumbling "M!"
Return of Godzilla
First off, a very Merry Christmas to you! Hope your holiday was as full of love, cheer and good food as ours.
I'm sure you're wondering what a giant Japanese lizard has to do with Christmas. Was he the visitor in Bethlehem no one ever remembers to include in the Christmas story? No! Does he pull Santa's sleigh when the Reindeer go on strike? Don't be silly. No, Godzilla lives in our house. He's nearly 18-months old and he enjoys sitting on airports and train tracks -- at least the toy variety. Godzilla, er Logan, started exhibiting this penchant for destruction over Thanksgiving when he decided trains were easier to play with when you sat in their way. He resumed this assault on toy transportation today.
Perhaps I should backtrack a little. Logan is a big fan of Santa this evening. Everything he ever uttered to the big guy showed up under our tree. In fact, just yesterday when asked what he'd like Santa to bring Logan rattled off a list that included - two cars, trains, planes and a bike. Sure enough, through Santa and his helpers (aka Mom, Dad, Gram, PaPa, uncles and aunts) Logan got several cars - including one big enough to
sit in - an
airport complete with a plane, a
train set, and a
bike. To top it off, Gram and Papa weren't kidding when they said they'd give little Logan
the world - they just made it more manageable by providing it in globe format. He loved every last little newly unwrapped gem.
So now the Godzilla thing - well he seems to think he needs to play with things by being literally in the middle of them. Yes, yes, yes, pictures are coming as I'm sure this is better understood with a little visual aid. For quick reference though (if you're as impatient as I am!) you can imagine what we've witnessed. Check out the above links for said airport and train, then picture Logan's little butt placed directly in the center of the open spaces of each item. Its makes for a great Kodak moment certainly, but its awfully hard for the bigger boys (ummm, think Papa, Daddy, and Uncle Scott) to drive their, er Logan's, trains and planes around their respective toy tracks when little Godzilla has set up camp. Of course that's if lizard boy isn't pulling apart tracks or uprooting trains. ;)
Hey its Mary!
Logan attempted Christmas Eve services last night. He made it through roughly half a service - although not in one continuous block of time. One trip out of the sanctuary into the nartex came just as the ushers were wheeling two stuffed sheep and a wooden camel affixed to a beverage cart towards the doors at the center aisle. Logan thought it was awfully nice of the church to provide him with a petting zoo. He even forgot about asking to go to "play" in the nursery with Mom. When we tried to re-enter the Christmas program (we had taken him to the 4pm family service which included a pageant) Logan was VERY excited to see two people he knew perched silently under a mini-wooden stable. He leaned into me (as we stood in the back of the church to one side) and said "Hey! It Mary! There Joseph!"
He, however, was very distressed that the kids were singing the "Ready" song wrong. "Are you ready?" they sang and Logan called back "Ready. Set. Go!"
Worth mentioning
The perks of hide and seek -- Logan can count to 10. Un, Two, Tee, Or, Figh, Cee-x, Evan, Eight, Nigh, Go!
What goes around...
Today Logan tried to give Sydney (Gram's dog) a time-out. Apparently he felt her attempt to steal his beloved chocolate chip cookie deserved punishment.
Wistful driver
We've already covered ad nauseum Logan's passion for anything remotely vehicular. The child loves things that have wheels. He loves to make "Vroom, screech" sounds while pushing his little cars around the house. He gleefully announces that he in fact will drive the car each time he sees the front car door open (I drive! I drive!) Well today thanks to Daddy he added a new twist to this passion.
As Logan vroomed and zoomed his cars around our living room this morning Daddy said "Logan, some day you will drive, some day."
Logan liked this idea and took up saying "Sum-Ay" (or something to that effect). Being obsessive compulsive we thought it fun to ask him to repeat this over and over. "Hey, Logan when will you drive?" Logan says "Some day."
This afternoon Logan was playing outside with Gram and Papa. It got a bit cold out for the grandparents and so they decided to play driver in Papa's car. Logan, placed directly in front of the steering wheel so he could dream about driving said automobile, sighed and said...
"Some day."
You know you want to. . .
So I stole (borrowed?) a fun thing from Sandra, a friend with her
own blog. See that little "comment" link, or 2cts or whtaever it says at the bottom of this post - click it. GO ahead I dare you. Its your chance to give your 2cts on what you see here. . .and its our way of knowing we're not talking to ourselves in a vaccum. So please, comment. Pretty please!
Oh, by the way, it should now appear at the bottom of ALL our posts. . .even the old ones. ;)
Dough Boy
Today was Christmas cookie making day. As our oven is the size of a shoe box and my gadget collection even worse, we make our cookies at Gram's house. . .which works out good since we make them with her regardless of where.
Logan assumed his assistant chef position in his high chair. It should be said once again that Logan loves to help in the kitchen. Cookies, apparently are no different. We gave him some sugar cookie dough and a jar of jam to use as a roller. He'd roll out the dough - then we'd roll it a little more to get it thin enough. Hand him a cookie cutter and he'd place it down on the dough pressing as hard as he could - we'd press a little harder to cut all the way through. When we had enough cookies cut between him and Gram, we'd place them on a sheet and Logan would scatter the sprinkles and colored sugar. Of course he ate nearly as many sprinkles as he put on the cookies. Of course, right?
Storytime!
I LOVE our library. Let's just get that out of the way. We have an amazing library. Logan LOVES the library as well. (Lie-be-bee he calls it.) Spurred on by the events calendar I found on a local Mom's Group web site, I went out on the Ocean Count Library site and checked their schedule of activities. MOST of their offerings are for 2 and up. Then there's CuddleTime for all those tots 9-24 months. The only downside of it -- it only meets once a month and now they're off until February. Bummer.
Anyway, Today was the first day we went and it was wonderful. Mrs. Pppppp (she is called Mrs Priscilla but today they had sheep name tags so she went by many P's) started out by saying - "If they want to run, let them run. If they want to dance, let them dance. If they want to sit, let them sit. I only ask that you take them out if they aren't happy and getting hysterical." So Logan ran.
The first half of the session was for songs. We sang a lot. Logan did some of that, but he was much more interested in exploring the meeting room - which is actually the emptied out sanctuary of an old church (the one we go to know to be exact. It was our church's former building which the county bought for the library when our new building many, many moons ago.) Of course then they took out these noise thingy-ma-jiggers which he loved. we connected all these tubes to make a circle that we were all supposed to sit around. And most of us did - except Logan. Logan decided it was more fun to stand in the circle - as in *IN* the center of the circle everyone else made. From there he sang, danced and told stories of his own. ;)
Finally the books came out - Logan was disturbed when we first got there because we weren't reading right away. He kept going over to the display of books Mrs. Pppppp had brought in and picking out one he wanted to read. ha! Anyway, the book is finally out and Logan is standing himself RIGHT in front of Mrs. Ppppp.
She smiles at him and says very sweetly "Hey, Logan honey, do you want to go have a seat so everyone else can see the book to? Can you sit?"
Logan says "Sit? Read?"
She says "Yes, let's sit down and read."
So Logan sat on her lap. I'm guessing we're moving past stranger anxiety. Yes, here I am, children on laps of parents all around me, sitting by myself listening to a book about animals and the sounds they make while my child is snuggled up on the Liberian's lap helping her tell the story. Yes, helping her. He told her the name every animal on every page and the sounds they made.
Then each child got to pick out a book of their own and sit with their 'big person' to read a little. Logan got himself a book about a wagon, but he really wanted to play with the stuffed white cat on the stage. He didn't want to leave when the hour was up. We finally did leave because the bubbles came out and Logan didn't think anyone but him or Mrs. Pppp should have possession of the bubble wand.
On our way out to the car we took a side trip (short short walk) across the courtyard to the holiday display in front of the County Clerks office. Logan had to see the wooden train they had out and wave to the Santa who was driving it. I thought we'd never get home for lunch and a nap. ;) That said, I just wish this program was more than once a month!
Aunt Millie would be proud
My late Great-Aunt Millie passed away before Logan was even a pin-sized group of multiplying cells. They never got to meet, and yet I know that he'd adore her and she him. She'd be happy of his latest verbal accomplishment I'm sure -- Logan has learned how to say "Oy Vey" even if it does come out with a wee bit of a twist. "Aye Vey" he says. Guess that's the Scottish in him. ;)
Oh Christmas Tree. . .
Saturday we finally got out to get our Christmas Tree. This was very late for us. Typically that first weekend of Advent happens to coincide with the Potts family tree slaughter. In 2003, however, travel and snow storms kept us from killing another evergreen until this past weekend.
Saturday after Logan's nap we bundled up and headed out to the tree farm around the corner. Our first year in the house (aka 5 years ago) we tried this place and at the time, they had nothing. Well, somethings don't change. Perhaps they did have something weeks ago. They at least had a few decent trees already tagged by earlier holiday shoppers. We, however, left treeless, but not before Logan got to run through the entire farm screeching "Daddy, Daddy, Daddy!" while chasing after Daddy. He apparently had a good time tree hunting. . .or at least Daddy chasing.
Our next stop was the local fire department which sells trees each year as a fundraiser. We located our tree - a short squat thing - and paid all without seeing a single fire truck. (Logan is ok with this however, because he is utterly fascinated by their flag pole and three flags snapping in the wind.)
Well we decided to let Logan help decorate. He figured out what to do almost immediately. I handed him a safe (read - paper mache) ornament and he placed it gently between a few branches. When he wasn't looking we looped the ribbon around a free branch. He added several ornaments to the tree and then decided it was more fun trying to drive the Edinburgh double decker bus ornament around the sunroom than placing said ornament on the tree. He also seemed to find the beads - normally reserved for the tree - a real treat to play with. Yes, we have photos. ;)
Now he's in love with the Santa tree. (That's what he calls it.) He'll stand at the glass door in the kitchen pointing to it in the sunroom and ask to go see it. He waves good night to it. He tells you about the beads and the Santas and Snowmen. Our jolly little elf.
D is for Donald
We've been working on associating words with letters with Logan. For a while 'D' was for "Daddy." As in "Logan, what is D for?" and Logan would respond "DADDY!" Our train obsessed child, however, has ditched Dad for one of his most favorite Thomas and Friends trains. Asked the other day what "D" stood for and Logan happily replied "DONALD!"
For the record, if you visit the Thomas the Tank Engine web site and check out the Depot section, Logan can name nearly every train just by looking at the picture. Hey, he loves his trains! (Just try to imagine him saying "Skarloey" it comes out "Carlowly.")
P is for Potty
Its a very long story that we won't recount here, but Logan has gotten himself a training potty. No, he's not quite ready to give up Pampers. In fact, I'm not at all sure he's ready to even START thinking about giving up Pampers. He is, however, pretty obsessed with the toilet. His new trick (thanks to some tub time antics that we're not sharing with you) is to help 'flush' the toilet each time someone else uses it. "Bye Bye Pee!" he'll yell out as he watches the bowl empty.
If you ask him what a toilet is for...he'll tell you. If he let him sit on the toilet - lid down - he'll announce what it is he should be doing on there. So, we figure we'll take advantage of this fascination. We got him a potty. His very own training potty. He loves it. Actually, for now, what he really loves is opening and closing the lid and/or removing the little bowl that empties into the real toilet when the thing is used properly. He has sat on it. . . again announcing what it is he should be doing on it. In fact this evening after his bath he asked to sit on it. So we plopped him down. He called out "PEE!!!!" but pee he did not. Oh well. Its a start.
More of this and that
Another Daddy game
Logan is fairly good at identifying body parts. Among them - Daddy's beard. He loves poking his finger into Dad's chin and laugh saying "beard!" Well this has expanded into a game between the two of them (that sometimes over flows to the rest of us.)
Daddy says "Who has a beard?"
Logan will say "Mahme?"
Daddy says "Mommy has a beard?!"
Logan says as he laughs "Noooo" in such a cute tone of voice that conveys a sort of - no that's silly message.
Then Logan will say "Ga-ma?"
Daddy says "No, that's silly, Gramma doesn't have a beard."
Logan says "Cacha?"
Daddy says "Well Tasha sort of has a beard all over right?"
Logan laughs. "Nin-nee?"
Daddy says "Yup, Sydney too."
Logan says "Mommy? noooo! Daddy Beard!"
The unsuspecting player is greeted with a giggling Logan yelling at them in a high pitched squeak "Mommy? Mommy? Beard? Noooo!"
Sports fan
Sunday afternoon Daddy put on misery, er Giants Football. Logan stops what he's doing. Turns to the TV. Sees nothing more than a group of huge men in padding and uniforms and says happily "Fooball!"
A dash of this and a dash of that
One of Logan's new favorite activities is 'cooking.' It started as a desperate way to get a meal prepared while it was just him and me home. He already had this thing about pulling out plastic bowls and pots from the cabinets, I merely added in the accessories. Now, whenever the mood strikes him or I'm cooking, Logan will go into the cabinets himself and select his vessel - plastic or steel.
"Spoon." he'll command, his hand held out for a wooden spoon.
"Spice" he'll say staring up the cabinet where all my herbs and spices live. I had him a jar of something I rarely use - lid on tight - and off he goes. He holds the spice jar upright until its time to season, then he tips it (lid side down) over his bowl/pot and shakes it up and down a few times. With his other hand he'll grab the wooden spoon, place it in the bowl/pot and stir. His newest addition to the game is giving out tastes of his creation. He'll sample it first and say "Mmmmmm." then he holds out the spoon to me (or Dad or the dog, etc.) If you don't respond fast enough he'll say "Mahme try. Mmmm. Try."
A Day in the Life
Those that don't have the pleasure of his company on a regular basis I thought I'd share a little snippet of today's lunchtime bonzana. Its a typical snapshot of what a day with 17-month old Logan is like.
We were playing Elmo's keyboard game (see link to left) when a quick press of the "G" key brought up "G - Grapes."
"Gapes?" said Logan. "Mahme?"
"Logan, do you want grapes? Do you want some lunch? Let's go to your chair and we'll have Macaroni and Cheese and some grapes."
"Macroni!!!! GAPES!!!" he said as he ran down the hall to his chair. "MAHME! MAC-RONI!"
Up he went in the chair. A bowl of lunch placed before with a few sliced grapes to boot. I handed him his toddler spoon so he could practice his new found skill of piercing soft pasta with it and placing the duo in his mouth. Then some pasta fell off his fork.
"Uh oh." he said. "Macroni? Where'd go?" He started reaching around under his tray on his lap and seat looking for the stray piece. "Macroni all gone." he said as he gave up the search and went on to his grapes.
After nearly a whole bowl and about four grapes he declared "DOWN! All done. Down." So down we went. He ran over to our counter where we keep Tasha's treats. "Cookie?" he said.
So I picked out the bag of Tasha's treats and let him pick out one to give her.
"Sit." he commanded Tasha and laughed as he let her pull the treat from his hand.
"One more? Cookie? Mahme, cookie?" he said. "Cacha two cookie." so Tasha had two cookies. This time she "High figh" to get one.
Now he's off playing. I told him we were getting ready to go to the store to buy snow boots so he had to find his shoes for me.
"Shoes?" he said
"Yes, Logan, your shoes. Go find me your shoes." I replied. He ran off giggling and returned with one of Daddy's slippers.
"Shoe!" He said and laughed.
"This isn't your shoe, silly! Its Daddy's slipper." I told him as I placed it on the floor and let him put his foot in to it.
"SHOE!" he said. "One more." and he ran off to find another shoe. He came back proudly waving the second Daddy slipper over his head yelling "One more shoe! Two shoes!" He placed it on the ground next to the first and asked to be helped up and into them.
"Are those your shoes, silly boy?" I asked him.
"No." he laughed. "Big shoes." And then he shuffled along down the hall in his two big Daddy shoes.
Hooked on Phonics
One of the games Logan discovered in Rochester is the "sounds" game. (See the link to the webpage in the sidebar.) It can be found on the Clifford section of the Scholastic website. I forget what its really called, but Logan calls it "Sounds." Basically you have a bunch of cows wearing blankets with letters on them as they stand in a field. Another cow - letterless I might add - will ask you to find a cow with the particular letter on it. When you click on the right one, the narrator cow says, for example, "That's right. The letter M, which makes the popular sound Mah." When you play this game with Aunt Joanie she also adds in a few words as examples - in other words, "M as in Mommy."
At first this concept stuck to the computer. Logan would see the letter V pop up on the game and he'd say back "VAH!" because as we all know, the letter 'v' makes the sound vah. Well yesterday it spread to my bathroom. Honestly its not as bad as it sounds. I was in the shower and Logan was sitting on the tile outside the tub playing with his bath letters. Normally it means he announces each letter he picked up, but yesterday he played sounds. I could hear him between the water drops falling over my head. "Mah! M. Mommy!" Right now he only calls upon one or two 'sounds' consistently, but fact is he's learning them. Geez, between this and the fact that he can indeed read the word "ZOOM" you must wonder when it is he'll actually be found sitting on a floor reading to himself.
Santa Lights
Last week Logan saw the first sets of Christmas lights going up around our block. He saw more in Rochester. We told him what they were and he renamed them "Santa Ligh" because to him Santa is Christmas. Why not? Tonight on our way home from our visit with Gram and Papa Logan saw lots of Santa ligh. He saw one. Then he saw another....and another...and another. And he said "One more?" Another house and he said "Wow!" Yet another and he said "Cool!" Then he combined a few ideas and said "Wow! That cool!" or even for some variety "Oh wow! How cool!" What can I say, he's impressed by Christmas lights.
In the almost forgotten file
Last Wednesday on our trip up to NY when we got back in the car after lunch at McDonalds I asked Logan how we pray. He clapped his hands together tightly and said without prompting at all "Gah, tank goo Fren Fry!"
Discovery
Logan loves chocolate. This is not totally a new discovery. He kept trying to charm free samples out of the new chocolate store in the mall several weeks ago. But today has been a huge chocolate day - first there was the Advent calendar. We forgot to open the first door yesterday so we did two today. . .and shhh, don't tell but I ate one piece of chocolate and Logan had the other. ;) Then I decided to make cookies. Well Logan sort of asked me to - sort of. He got himself a new book from Aunt Joanie and Uncle Larry. A Clifford Christmas book with flaps. Under one flap is Emily Elizabeth's mom making cookies. Logan shows me this particular picture often and says "Mahme cookie." This morning he showed me it a lot and so I said in return "Tell you what Logan, we have to go food shopping so today we'll buy stuff to make chocolate chip cookies." I showed him the bag of chips as I tossed them in the cart saying "See, these? These are for our cookies that we're making this afternoon."
Well nap time came and went. Then lunch got eaten. Before he could demand down from his high chair I started the cookies. I rolled Logan over to the counter and handed him an empty bowl and wooden spoon. He likes to stir the air in the bowl. ha! I turned on the video camera, killing two birds with one stone -- the recording of this event and providing further entertainment for the boy as he could watch himself on the sideviewer. I tried to get him to help me put the butter in but he just stared at it. I showed him the cup of sugar and he merely poked at it. I offered him the brown sugar and he knocked some off the 1/2 cup and decided it was sand. He did enjoy watching the beaters chanting "Round, round and round" as they did their thing.
I added in flour and he did sort of help me put the final measuring cup worth in. I stirred the dough and Logan stirred more air in his bowl - complete with flour on his face and overalls. I added in the chips and offered a couple to Logan. He loved the chips. He asked for me. In fact when I offered to let him stir them into the bowl he thought it a better idea to remove them from the bowl and eat them. I took a few unmixed in yet chips and put them on his high chair then stirred the rest in myself.
He didn't like spooning the dough onto the cookie sheet because that meant getting his fingers sticky and he does not like stinky fingers. He also, by the way, gets upset when food coloring marker gets smeared on his hands leaving a little blue stain. I offered him a baked cookie to sample. He ate a piece then asked me for chocolate. He's pulled a few chips out and then moved on to the next great adventure. Oh well, at least he's a kid who knows what he likes!
Daddy's game
I'm not even sure either of them know how it started, but Daddy and Logan have a new game. First of all, let me set the stage here. Logan skipped crawling and went right to cruising and then directly to walking/running. He had no use for crawling, perfectly content to log roll if he needed to get from Point A to Point B without the aid of someone's hands to help him up and cruise. Then he learned to walk and decided that sometimes crawling was ok. If he didn't feel like actually going through the effort to stand just to get a little bit away from where he was, crawling over to it was perfectly acceptable. Lately, he'll decide to crawl along just for fun.
Well Sunday night when we got home was one of those "For fun crawling" jags. I was downloading Logan's new favorite computer game "Shoes" when I heard a complete, loose your breathe belly rolling laugh come out of Logan. He was crawling down the hallway and Daddy was chasing him yelling "No crawling, no crawling, no crawling." Then Daddy picked him up and ran him down the remainder of the hall, depositing him on our bed with a thud and a squeal of giggles. Logan decided this was great fun and proceeded to drop to his knees and crawl the first chance he had to get back onto the floor. It went on for ages.
This morning Logan was up before Daddy and it was Daddy he wanted. When he finally cornered Dad fresh out of the shower, Logan yelled "No Crawling!" and hit the ground on all fours laughing his head off in the process. He loves the game. He loves the chase. He loves the thud on the bed. He and I played this afternoon as well but I, apparently, messed it all up by not putting him on the bed because I didn't want him too comfy up there when I had cookies in the oven to keep an eye on. That's ok. I think its better that Daddy and Logan have their own special game anyway.
What a nap!
First of all, Logan has NEVER liked napping in his crib. IN fact, he hated it so much that he often refused to do it and routine became Logan napped on people or in cars or in swings or bouncey seats, etc. Well on our trip, Logan napped in the Pack-n-Play. So today, Mom decided Logan would nap in the crib. We ran oodles of errands in the morning and Logan fell soundly asleep on our way home from Shop Rite. I moved him from the car after he'd been out for 10 minutes to the crib. He stayed there sound asleep for an hour and a half. He woke up calling for me and I found him sitting at the foot of his crib looking most confused. He cried. I picked him up and he put his head down on my shoulder and sent back to sleep finally waking after a total 2.5 hours of sleep. That's the longest nap he's taken in many many months! He's either in a growth spurt as yesterday's nap was long, or recovering from his big weekend. Or both.
The origin of I DONE IT
Sometimes I am dense. In our last update I said I didn't know why Logan had switched from I did it to I done it. Well today I do. He switched because one of his beloved trains on his Thomas the Train DVD says it. "I've done it! I've done it! I've Done it!"
