Mercurial

Everybody comments on how good-natured he is. And he is. He is one of the happiest, sweetest children I have ever met (not that I'm biased or anything).

But he is a child.
He is mostly sunny. With chance of thundershowers.

Just in case the cherub face and curls had you completely convinced he was not of this world... 

More Anecdotes

Not much time to linger these days on contemplation. Just seems like we're going going. Someday I might be actually able to think straight again. Right now I'm working on writing a book for the Aquarium's 75th Anniversary in the spare moments between being a full-time mom. Burning the candle a little too much. It's a fun project, though, and is all I can talk about if you actually run into me (poor Toe. He and J bear the brunt of my rambling).

In the meantime, we used one of our rare sunny days last week to take the car out for a spin. Toe's much better about driving but still doesn't understand the steering thing as well as he should. We're working on it. I spend  a lot of my time saying, "Look where you're going!!" He LOVES driving. Yeah, I see that one coming.

 Halloween. Toe decided over a month ago that he wanted to be a white kitty with black spots and has been unwavering in his determination. Didn't really find a white kitty outfit and I don't really sew, so we had to punt. He'll be wearing a black shirt and pants and sporting some kind of kitty face (either make-up or mask. I'm pushing for make-up so his vision is not impaired). I love that a three year old is thrilled with this jurry-rigged costume. He feels like a kitty in it.

As a side note, the mountain goat is out.  He has been alternating between kitty and  sheep lately. When I was this age, I pretended to be characters from the books my parents read to me. I find it fascinating that Toe is just as interested in pretend play, but ONLY pretends to be animals.

J and I, on the other hand, are expected to be the voices for his stuffed animals, his cars, and any other inanimate objects he feels like talking to. I was asked today, "Mom, what are my enzymes saying to me?"  My response, "EAT ME!!!" Ok, so sometimes it's pretty easy.  When we wash his hands he says, "What are the germs saying to me?"  "Oh no! We're going down the drain! Can't get Toe sick!"  I find the anthropomorphizing of everything fascinating. Not sure if we did that to him or if he picked up on it and ran with it...

Three Weeks With the Goonies

My friend Mick Alderman just published a book, Three Weeks With the Goonies, on his experience observing the location filming of The Goonies (that cult classic from the 80's that was filmed in Astoria). He read excerpts from his book and had a book signing last week. J and I both went and had a great time. It was like getting the DVD extras from the movie in person.

When the movie was shot, Mick made a deal to be able to be a "fly on the wall" of the production. So he had a lot of standing around, but also got to witness the process of making a big budget film (which IS a lot of standing around). It was neat to read the anecdotes but also neat to get a 19 year old outsider's perspective on the movie business... Mick does a great job of describing what was happening even if he did not understand it at the time (he was not allowed to read the script, so he had no clue about the plot of the movie as he observed everything being filmed). The part that is amazing is that Mick wrote this book while doing post-production work on the movie Crimps, which he wrote, directed, edited, and has been slaving over for almost three years. For more information on the book, go to 2001productions.com

Made me think of the first time I saw The Goonies. I was in Phoenix, Arizona, visiting my cousin for two weeks, the longest I had ever been away from home. I was homesick. My cousin Jes had recently moved away from the Oregon coast and when we sat in the movie theater and saw Astoria, Ecola Park, and Cannon Beach, we held hands and cried. For me, the movie was about home. Such beautiful cinematography.

And when I moved to New York for college, that was how I described where I was from. "You've seen The Goonies? I live there."  (Incidentally my favorite geography lesson in college was with someone who said,  "Seaside, Oregon? Is that somewhere on the Great Lakes?" Those opposite coasts can be confusing. To make it simpler, my father once told a cabbie in Manhattan that Oregon was a suburb of California)

Goings On

We've been so busy lately, just had to make a few notes.

• Cousin visit - My cousin Jane who just got married in Italy came to visit. She and her husband Fabio were WONDERFUL with Toe. My favorite part of their visit was watching Toe play the piano with them.
• Fire House- Yesterday we were walking to the small grocery store in town and as usual, we stopped by the fire house to oggle the fire trucks. Toe had his nose pressed to the glass when a man came and asked us if we needed anything. When I told him that we were just admiring the fire trucks, he invited us inside and showed them to us "up close." We saw the inside of one of the big fire trucks and where the hoses connect. Toe got a little nervous and we ended up leaving, but the man (our local fire chief who was working on a Sunday) gave Toe a Junior Fire Department sticker and hat.
• Trip to the laundromat to wash bedding yesterday was a great adventure with Toe. He loves putting coins in the slots. Thank goodness. The large washer required 20 quarters! We spent the time at the laundromat hanging out with my friend Rhonda.
• Toe, J, and I made vegetable soup this morning a la the Wiggles song "Vegetable Soup." We made a few modifications, but it tasted great. Toe learned how to peel carrots and potatoes and munched every vegetable that we used (including raw onion).

Pumpkin Patch

 We took Toe to the pumpkin patch last week with our friends Jen and Tylor. We chose one in Portland that had animals you could pet, slides, and mazes. To avoid crowds, we went on a Monday which worked out perfectly for us. Fewer activities, but less chance of Toe catching a cold, too.

Toe is getting to the age where transitions are difficult for him. He gets going on one activity and it's like pulling teeth to get him away from it, even though the next activity will be even more fun. He is a very easy-going child, but we had a few cranky moments as we transitioned from the dried corn area (where you take off your shoes and climb into a pool of 12 inches of corn and stomp around) to the animal area and from the wheelbarrow to the playground.

The big hit for all of us was the monster slide. There was a smaller tube for young children, but Toe completely bypassed that and went for the big one. He went down by himself without a glance back. Multiple times. We all took turns, too. A fun slide for adults. Every time someone would get ready to go down, Toe would say, "Don't forget to say 'Kowabunga!'"

By the end of the afternoon, our little sunflower got a little cranky about having his photo taken. Unfortunately for him, it just made him cuter.

Do What You Want

Somehow it has become part of the bedtime routine this week to "rock out" to OK Go's song "Do What You Want." Toe requests it, and then proceeds to jump and air guitar through the whole thing. We're actually pretty thrilled. It is very fun to dance to.

OK Go is famous for their crazy music videos. The "Do What You Want" one is people in front of a wall with beautiful fabric wallpaper dressed in the exact same fabric so you can barely see them, just their movements. It's worth a visit to YouTube to check them out. I especially love their treadmill video "Here it Goes Again" and their Rube Goldberg video, "This too shall pass."

My sister suggested that we buy a bunch of flannel and put it up in Toe's room and then make pajamas for him and film him dancing in front of the flannel wallpaper. Love the idea. I think we'll just keep dancing.

The Inevitable

Well it happened. I was making lunch and listening to Toe draw contentedly on the easel, when I came to look at his drawing and discovered that he had instead been drawing on the WALL. On Toe's behalf, the dry-erase board was full and is harder to erase since we moved to dry-erase crayons (yes, they do make such a thing. No fumes, no dried out pens.)

We had a little talk about how that is not ok and you only draw on the easel or paper and then he helped me clean it up.

Just have to give a shout out to my helpful boy. And to Crayola who makes crayons for dry-erase boards that are both good on dry-erase AND washable. Crayola, I bow to your awesomeness.

Toddler Time

It's not just the transitions that are slower with a toddler. Everything takes more time. As you walk out of the house, you must take a detour on the grass and maybe peek into the neighbor's yard. A trip from the couch to the bookshelf to get a book might involve a few extra minutes choosing a car to take with you or a stop to play with a toy on the seven foot journey.

Partially it's the fact that everything is a distraction at this age. And focus is different. You focus on what interests you right now and what is in front of you. So if you want to get a book on the bookshelf and there's an interesting toy on the way, the book can WAIT. It is also that at this age, everything is so new and INTERESTING. New dandelions growing on the path on the way into Grandma's house? Gotta check them out. Now.

I spend a lot of time waiting. I have realized (again) that the destination is not as important as the journey and this little guy needs time to discover and explore. Sometimes when we are on the way to an appointment I have to take a few deep breaths. And at bedtime as I'm trying to get him into his pajamas, I have to remind myself that a few extra minutes are not going to kill me.

We visited a friend the other day and Toe asked to go into her garden and pick blackberries. On the way into the garden, Toe discovered strawberries and started picking those and looking at bugs. My friend said, "Toe, the blackberries are over here." Toe did not respond. My friend laughed and said, "Oh yeah, I forgot, we're on toddler time."