Nate Nate

A LIST FOR 7 DAYS

ON DAY NUMBER 1 SING STATE SONGS IN THE MORNING THEN WE EAT BREAKFAST THEN LUNCH THEN DINNER

THEN ON DAY NUMBER 2 I SING GOING THIS WAY OR THAT WAY OR FORWARDS OR BACKWARDS OVER THE DEEP BLUE SEA

ON DAY NUMBER 3 THEN I POSTED A STORY

ON DAY NUMBER 4 I SAW A TECHER

ON DAY NUMBER 5 I WAVED GOODBYE TO MY FAMILY BUT THEY COME BACK

ON DAY NUMBER 6 I SING AND THE CAPTIN SAID TO ME

ON DAY NUMBER 7 I WENT TO HEVEN

A Few Pictures from the Weekend

Ordinary play activities, so there's not much to write about.  The last picture was taken just as Mina said "Mommy, he said 'I love you.'" 

SEA MUSIC SONGS DAN ZANES

HEY UNCLE DAVE DO YOU KNOW THE DAN ZANES SEA MUSIC SONGS YES STRICKE THE BELL FARWELL NOVA SCOTIA CAPE COD GIRLS SHININDOAH BLOW YE WINDS IN THE MORNING ALL FOR ME GROG WINDY OLD WETHER SLOOP JOHN B LONG TIME AGO MULTAPLY BOAT SONG DEEP BLUE SEA THE MERMAID ROLLING HOME

THE BACKYARDIGANS THE (TEA) (PARTY)

FIRST 4 GUYS GOT OUT OF BACKYARDIGAN NUMBER 3S HOUSE THEN THEY 4 STARTED ON THEIR ADVENTURE AND IT IS A TEA ADVENTURE FOR SURE THEN TASHA START COLECTING THE TEA .......THEN 1 DAY THEY SAW A GRUMPY GUY AND THE NAME IS AUSTIN AND HE WAS SO SO SO SO SO... SO SO SO MAD THAT HE SCARDED THEM AND THEY WENT AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH AND THEY STARTED TO RUN AND THEY WENT AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH AGAIN ... THEN (AUSTIN GOT SOMEWONE AND IT WAS ALL 4 OF THEM AND AUSTIN SURE IS THE MONSTER AFTER ALL) ... THEN IT WAS THE LAST THEY 4 RUN IN AUSTIN'S HOUSE AND SAY AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH REALY LOUD THEN AUSTIN GOT THEM THE LAST TIME THEN THEY 4 HURRYED OUT BECUSE AUSTIN WAS ABOUT TO GET THEM THE 2ND LAST TIME THEN PUBLO SAID HUUUUUU THAT WAS CLOSE AND THEY WALK SLOWLY OUT OF (THE) HOUSE THEN THEY WENT BACK THROUGH THE FOREST THEN THEY WENT THROUGH THE DESERT.......... THEN THEY HAD SNACK AT 5:58 PM AT SOMEBODY'S HOUSE

Adventures In Eating

Jonah, a long-time devotee of Whole Foods sushi, had his first ever outing to a real sushi restaurant yesterday, and man, did he love it.  It didn't hurt that I took him to one of those places that delivers the sushi to your spot at the bar via cool little floating boat, but it wasn't strictly necessary, as Jonah was mainly there for the food. 

First he gamely tried the miso soup, blowing on it with an unbridled enthusiasm.  He was a fan.  Next he pointed to the wasabi and recited the "wasabi-hot hot HOT!" line from his My First Book of Sushi story, which we'd read for the occasion, several million times.  Finally, the "spicy [tuna roll]" he'd ordered came, so he dug right in.  Jonah, younger brother of a guy who has had nothing but pancakes and almond butter/jelly sandwiches for the past 3 years, loves spicy tuna roll.  He gobbled it up while waiting for his pieces to sail in.

Next came salmon.  Jonah loves salmon.  "More salmon!" he cried.  "More salmon."

I encouraged him to try the yellowtail.  He shook his head emphatically.  "Jonah," I reminded him, "you didn't know that you liked salmon until you tried it.  Why don't you just give it a try?" "Ok," he agreed.  This is such foreign territory to me.  I do try to convince people of things for a living, but I'm just so used to unmitigated failure in the let's-sample-new-food realm that I hardly knew what to do at the sight of a little boy trying a strange brand of raw white fish.

After one bite, Jonah stood up on top of his seat and yelled to the sushi chef, "I WANT MORE LEYOTAIL PLEASE!"

The one thing about taking Jonah out for sushi is that it's expensive as all get out.  Because he ate about as much as Steve does.  But he definitely loved it.  Also amusing was when the waitress, who was clearly smitten with my two year old sushi-gobbler, studied the little Hapa face under his confusingly blonde hair and asked, "Does his daddy...like sushi?"

Nate did not, unsurprisingly, try any new foods yesterday, raw or otherwise.  He did, however, express a new and previously unheard of in our household viewpoint.  He recently received a book on Presidents from Grandma Nan, and so he has become very interested in the Presidents.  He was talking about our 43rd President, George W. Bush, and I reminded him that we are getting a new President soon, and that nobody likes George Bush.  Nate leapt to the defense of the underdog.  "Well, I like him!" he announced.  "I like George W. Bush!"

Hey, he's entitled.  As long as he understands that we are not letting him use our votes.

THE BACKYARDIGANS SINBAD SAILS ALONE

THERE WAS A LOUD SONG GOING ON WHEN YOU HEAR IT THEN THEY STARTED ON SINBAD'S SHIP AND PUBLO HELPED (SET SAILS) AND THE PLACE WHERE THEY 2 GUYS WANTED TO GO TO IS THE END

OF THE RAINBOW - (...THEN SINBAD SAID TO THE END OF THE RAINBOW THEN 1 DAY THEY LOST ALL THERE DRINKING WATER AND THEY WENT TO THE ISLAND OF THE SIREN THEN THEY KEEP ON GOING

THEN THEY STOPED AT THE ISLAND OF THE DOSA THEN THEY WR..... CLOSER TO....... THE (END) OF THE RAINBOW THEN THEY WR... HEADING TORD A WATERFALL WHILE THEY WR. SAYING AAAAAAAAAAAAAAH THEN PUBLO HELPED SINBAD THEN THEY HAD SNACK AT 2:59 PM

You Didn't Want To See Pictures Of The Kids Frolicking In The Redwood Forest, Did You?

Particularly if they were beaming and giggling and running through giant redwoods and meeting a myna bird that said "hello" and "I love pizza" and generally having a blast?  Good thing, because we left our camera and its fully-charged battery home alone to collect dust today.   

Even without any evidence, you'll have to take my word about what a fabulous Mother's Day 2008 we had.  The guys were on their best "Mommy's special day!" behavior (it didn't hurt that we spectacularly began with a trip to Burger King).  We had an absolute blast hiking around the trees, crossing a cool little river on a somewhat swaying bridge, and speculating about whether there might be bears living in some of the larger hollow trunks.  Jonah went from announcing: "I can't go in there because that's scary cave!" to happily running loops with Nate through one particularly accessible two-holed trunk.  Nate delighted in finding the numbered markers for the historical spots and tracing each one with his finger. 

We were also not without hysteria in the car (and thanks to the arrival of Nate's giant new big boy booster seat, we were able to throw his old carseat into Daddy's car, which meant Mommy got a day off from driving).  In Daddy's car, we get to hook up our iPod, which meant Nate could have some fun showing off just how impressive his "Name That Tune" skillz are.  We thought we'd already uncovered the extent of it (see video below) when he could name any one of the 89 songs on his states playlist within seconds.  Today, however, we had the whole iPod on shuffle, and we got to hear him instantly announce the name of everything that came up.   So it turns out he's just as quick with the classical music, which I personally find extremely impressive, since I would be horrible at it.  So song #3 on shuffle was a Mozart number, and the instant, and I mean instant it came on, as in, on the first note, Nate's whole face lit up like an extremely bright flashlight.  "Mom!!!" he cried.  "It's Symphony No. 41 Jupiter Molto Allegro!!!!!"

Words fail me.

And then after Steve and I laughed hysterically for about five minutes, Jonah, always one to pick up on the funny, spent the next hour going, "molto allegro!  molto allegro!  molto allegro!"

I mean, there just has to be a game show out there for him.  Anyone?

THE BACKYARDIGANS BEST CLOWNS IN TOWN

THEY 3 TURN INTO CLOWNS THEN 1 DAY THE SING A GREAT SONG ABOUT CLOWNS THEN AUSTIN PUBLO AND YERNEQWA AND THOSE 3 SILLY CLOWNS SAW RING MASTER TYROME AND RING MASTER TYROME HAS A CIRCUS TO HAVE IN BIG CITY THEN THEY DID (BAD THINGS TO RING MASTER TYROME) AND THOSE 2 BAD THINGS THAT PEPOLE - (NOT SPOCE TO) DO THEN IT WAS THE END OF THE 2ND SONG IN BEST CLOWNS IN TOWN THEN THE 4 PEPOLE IN BEST CLOWNS IN TOWN MISS RING MASTER'S TRAIN AND THEY 4 HAD TO CATCH THAT TRAIN! AND AUSTIN HAD A IDEA CLOWN CAR AND THE CLOWN CAR HAD PLUNTY OF ROOM AND THEY 4 CRASHED INTO A BARN THEN IT WAS THE 1ST TIME THE TRAIN WAS GONE (AND THEN THEY SAW THE TRAIN STOP) AND THEN IT WAS THE 2ND TIME THE TRAIN WAS LEVEING THEN THEY WAS STUCK IN THE MIDDLE OF NOWARE IN THE GRASS FEELING LOMELY IT WAS THE 2ND TIME THE TRAIN IS GONE THEN IT WAS SHOW TIME SHOW STARTED AT 3:00 PM THEN THEY GET A SNACK AT 3:08 PM AT PUBLO'S HOUSE

All About Underpants

I would like to take a brief moment to clear up any questions about the previous post, the one in which Nate noted that in are family, sometimes we do mean things echother.  I asked him, "What do we do to each other that's mean??" I actually thought that Steve and I were pretty nice, what with the constant trips to playgrounds/hiking trails/amusement parks/zoos/ferry rides/playdates/etc., and the non-stop stream of treats.  "Sometimes we go on top of each other," he admitted.  Which I can assure you relates only to the 4 and 2 year old members of are family; Mommy and Daddy are more likely to referee than join in the wrassling.

Anyway, so the underpants.  Jonah is wearing them!!  On Thursday, he went an entire day using the bathroom entirely like a guy who doesn't wear diapers.  His success rate has been rather spotty since then, but we're still extremely proud of our big dude.  Today he asked to use the potty in the middle of Whole Foods, and then actually used it (again I ask: why must we with the auto-flush toilets?  Don't people know that they scare the crap out of kids, particularly kids you might be in the midst of trying to convince to use unfamiliar potties?).  Unfortunately, in the evening time he neglected to mention that he'd decided to do a whole lot of business in his Spiderman underwear, but it seems that we are still on the road to success.

Nate is an old hat at wearing underpants himself, but he had some exciting news today about Captain Underpants.  As Daddy recently mentioned in these pages, Nate has a weird little habit of coming up with random, irrevocable rules that control his life (such as the rule that there could be No More Toothbrushing Dice).  Although we'd been enjoying reading a few chapters of Captain Underpants at bedtime for a while, Nate announced a couple of weeks ago that there could be no more Captain Underpants until May 6.  "Why not??" we foolishly asked.  "Don't you like Captain Underpants anymore?" Nate assured us that he did, but that Captain Underpants was going on vacation and would not return until May 6.  (I should mention that we were like, right in the middle of Epic Novel Four, which seems like a weird time for the protagonist to go on leave, but like I said, I don't make these rules).  This morning at breakfast, Nate's face suddenly lit up like Chrismukkah morning.  "MOM!" he shouted.  "Guess who's coming back tomorrow??" "[Nanny] Obdulia?" I asked.  "CAPTAIN UNDERPANTS!!!" he beamed.  "Tomorrow's May 6!!!"

He wasn't kidding about that vacation.

Nate Again

THERE ARE 4 PEPOLE IN ARE FAMILY 1 IS 4 1 IS 2 1 IS 37 AND 1 IS 33 AND WE ARE REALY REALY SMART AND SOMETIMES WE DO MEAN THINGS ECHOTHER