Follow up: Wizard of Oz

I posted a few days ago about Xander's first time watching the "Wizard of Oz". Since seeing the movie, he's become a bit of an OZ-head.

Every single night, we have to read more of his comic book. On Tuesday night, he followed up both all sorts of questions about tornadoes. We tend to answer scientifically, and so far, no tornado phobias are emerging.

On Wednesday, Show-and-Tell day, he brought the comic book Oz to school along with a silver action figure that he said looked "similar to the Tin Man". While Dolphin was dropping off Aria, Xander talked Aria's ear-off about the Wizard of Oz. He kept going on and on to the point, Dolphin had to drag him out of the room. Then, when he got to his own class room he made his friend and his friend's mom look through the book with him as he told them about it.

I am worried the Oz-obsession is sort of contagious. Xander's comic book version is based on the book as opposed to the movie. I've never read the book, but after reading through some of the comic, I may have to.

Rough business

Well, it looks like they were trying to kill each other, but they were really giving each other hugs and cuddling on the floor. At school, things are not going as gently as peacefully for Aria. She comes home with a new bite every week that past few weeks. It's a bit of a biting pandemic going on. She hasn't yet contributed to the biting YET. I guess her class is full of Next-Gen _Twilight_ emulators. Don't let 'em get you Bella Aria.

Chinese New Year

Xander's class made these lanterns for Chinese New Year this year. He's been learning all about celebrating the holiday. They have also spent some time learning about the Chinese zodiac. Most of the class is made of rats (3 year olds) although there are a few pigs (4 year olds, too). Xander was excited to learn that Daddy was born in the year of the Dragon just like this year.

Below is a picture of him holding his lantern (green, of course) and a hat that he designed and made for himself. It's just slightly too big for his had so it is more of a necklace at this point.

Getting her play on

Dressed in her older brother's old clothes, Aria takes a turn with the XBox controller. When she found these, she quickly figured out banging certain buttons would make LED light up on the controller. Maybe she'll be a good gamer like dada some day.

Even though, she's not quite ready for video games, she is quite the PLAYER of PLAYING these days. She wants to explore everything and is pretty fearless about adventuring out of the room to go check something out. I'm constantly in chase mode. She loves to find little bits of things (leaves, lint, paper), hold it up in the air for me to see. I say "yucky", she laughs and then jams it in her mouth. Then, I run over to fish the crumb out. She's brave also. I was holding her brother upside-down and walking around. As soon as I put him down, she crawled over and put her arms up for me to pick her up for a ride. Of course, I didn't hold her by her feet, but I did swing her upside-down while supported in my arms, which she loved.

Aria just loves playing with her brother, too. Most of the time he reciprocates except when he's concentrating very hard. Of course, whatever toy he has suddenly is the most interesting toy in the room. Having her in the same room while Xander plays Lego Duplos is quite an adventure. He tries to build something, she tries to grab pieces off of it, and the structure crashes to the ground. Xander is slowly learning to move away when Aria-zilla comes near. The reserve is true as well. If Aria has a toy, suddenly Xander feels the need to take it an play with it as if to show off he knows how to play with it "properly". Let the sibling battles begin.

Candlelit Dinner

We had absolutely fabulous weather this past weekend with 80 degree weather. After a journey to the park, we took the opportunity to have dinner out on the patio. Given that it's January, it still gets dark early so we had to employ some candle light (citronella). If the mild weather continues, I think we'll have missed winter altogether this year.

Something healthy

Xander, Aria, and I were enjoying some very decadent green chile tamales for dinner. They were part of my plot to train the kids to like spicy food, but they turned out be pretty mild. After a few bites, Xander and I had the following conversation:

Xander: Mommy, what else can we have?
Me: Nothing. Why do we need something else? You have a tamale for dinner.
[Xander walks over to the pantry]
Me: What are you doing over there?
Xander: I'm looking...I'm looking for something HEALTHY. I'm looking for a vegetable.
Me: Uh...ok.
[Xander brings over a can of green beans]
Xander: Can we have THESE?
Me: If I cook them, are you going to eat them?
Xander: If I eat them all up, can I have some blueberries?

He's already become quite the negotiator it seems!

Get Rid of Stuff Muffins

We went to our favorite grocery store, Central Market, today after not having been their since before Christmas. For those of you who have never been, it's kind of giant, Texas-sized gourmet grocery. We like to get certain things there like their amazing everything-you-can-imagine produce or surprisingly affordable bulk food items. Before going, I had to clear out a few things from the fridge and pantry to make way for all the yummy produce we planned to get. I discovered that I had cranberries, granny smith applies, and sweet potatoes that needed to be used quickly. So, after the trip to the store and during Aria's nap, Xander and I made muffins.

Cooking with Xander is usually a fun experience and this time was no less fun. First, he helped me shred the sweet potato and an apple in the food processor. Then, he helped me mix in all the ingredients in a big bowl with the wood spoon. Finally, he put the muffin cups into the muffin pan. I filled the cups. Then, we baked them and every so often, he take a peek through the oven window.

The resulting muffins were a huge hit with Xander. He ate 4 whole muffins. Aria liked them OK enough to eat a few mights until she bit into a cranberry.

Here's our Get Rid of Stuff Muffin recipe:
1 sweet potato shredded, skin on
1 granny smith apple shredded, skin on
4 eggs, slightly beaten
2/3 cup olive olive - these are not light muffins
1 tsp. ground ginger
cinnamon, Xander randomly shook in some amount of that
1 tsp baking powder
2 tsp baking soda
1 cup whole wheat flour
1 cup general purpose wheat flour
2 cups cranberries

We mixed in all the ingredients in the order of the list, poured into muffin cups, baked at 350F for 25 minutes.

Cooking with Xander does seem to be a good way to get him to eat more vegetables. In the recipe above, he was fine with the sweet potato even though he refuses to eat them plain. A couple of weeks ago, I made cornbread with him and we mixed in a whole bunch of spinach. He loved it and of course, normally, he wouldn't do raw spinach. I wish we had more time to cook together.

Wizard of Oz

Xander's Aunt Kristin got him a Marvel "Wizard of Oz" hardback comic book for Christmas. He really enjoys reading it with DADDY. I have a really hard time reading comic books as the text is jumping all around on the page and the font is non-standard. I try to avoid reading them and prefer regular books. In any case, Daddy and Xander finished reading the ending this week so Dolphin downloaded the HD version of movie for Xander to watch. Who knew they could make such an old movie HD?

Xander's first reaction in the beginning was that he didn't like it because everything was brown. I guess in the HD version they made it brown and white instead of black and white. We reassured him that as soon as Dorothy gets to Oz, it's going to be colorful. He was relieved to see the colors. He seemed to really enjoy the movie and recognize the main characters and plot from the book.

Apparently, there is a sequel comic book so that may be next on Xander and Daddy's roster.

Copper's new best friend

Aria was at home sick today. She was very tired most of the day, but we did have a little fun with Copper Dog. It's good to see Aria has some early sharing skills here.

Circus

We had our first trip to the Circus for both Xander and Aria, and it went a lot better than I had expected.

Not surprisingly, Xander did NOT partake in any animal rides. He did get to see elephants in real life for the first time as they do not have them at our local zoo. We asked him what is favorite part of the circus was. He told us that the whole thing was his favorite, but after we pressed him a little, he settled on the music and lights. Based on how emphatically he dug into the pink cotton candy, I think that ranked pretty high, too. I was mostly impressed that while he was well overdue for a nap, there were no battles when I wouldn't get him a toy or ice cream at the end of the show. There is hope that he will grow out of his trying threes after all!

Aria was a little bit fearful of the loud music, but she did really well on my lap during the show. She even showed off some of her clapping ability throughout various times during the show. I gave her a tiny piece of Xander's cotton candy, and she wasn't too impressed. This is surprising given that she is always picking up lint around the house and shoving it straight into her mouth.

Dolphin's favorite act of the show was the elephant. Broadway Bob, as he was named, could play instruments, balance on two legs, skip around the ring, and walk on top of a rolling cylinder. He was quite an impressive elephant.

My favorite act was the clown act which involved the tiniest dog you could ever image dressed up as the tiniest toy elephant. He was such a well trained dog. Perhaps, Xander was inspired by this dog because when we got home, he gave a full bag of treats to the dogs before we could stop him. He said they were really, really good dogs.

Overall, a very fun experience that I hope we can do again in the future. I still wonder though, as I did throughout watching the show...how does one get into the circus business these days. Can I still threaten the kids if they don't behave, I'll send them off to join the circus?

Child unsafe

My newest Christmas present may possibly be the unsafest item, but I love it anyway. We've got a nice choking hazard here with the fireglass, finger pinching opportunities with the doors, burn hazard with the fire itself, and carbon monoxide poisoning hazard. We have employed some safety measures though. We have one side taped with clear tape to keep it shut. On the other size, we push an ottoman in front of the doors while Aria is in the room. After the kids go to bed, I get my half of a shot of Di Sorano and some me time in front of the fire. Thank you to my awesome husband for this wondering Christmas present.

Arctic Adveturer

Xander: Mommy, what's that ocean that is really cold?
Me: The Arctic Ocean?
Xander: YEAH! The Arctic Ocean. I want to go there. Alex wants to go, too. His mommy says he cannot go there. Can I go?
Me: It's very cold there. When you are big maybe...if you still want to go when you are all grown up, then you can go.
Xander: I will, and I will bring my jacket because it is really cold. I will need a BIG jacket because it's REALLY cold. I will need a map, too. Does your phone have a map to there?
Me: Hmmm...I don't know. My phone might. We can check to see if it has a map to the Arctic Ocean.
Xander: Not NOW mommy. When I'm all grown up, we can check.
Me: Ok. Fine. We'll wait 'til then.
Xander: When we get home, I'm going to tell Daddy that I want to go to the Arctic Ocean. What are some of the other Oceans?
Me: The Atlantic? The Pacific? [Note: At this point, I started to question if I could beat of 5th grader]
Xander: Pacific. That's the one I told the teacher about.
Me: A long time ago, you visited the Pacific. We went to the beach and you played with daddy in the water. It was just a little bit cold though, not like the Arctic.
Xander: Yeah, I went swimming and I drank the water. I'm going to do that in the Arctic Ocean. [Note: He did neither of these things in the Pacific when we visited]
Me: Well, it's pretty icy there.
Xander: What mommy? The ocean is not SPICY.
Me: No, ICY. You know...cold...ice...icy. Brrrrrrr....
Xander: Yeah, I'm going to go BRRRRRRRRRR because there will be ice everywhere and snow.
Me: Well, let's hope there's still some there when you grow up.
Xander: There will be ice and I'll eat ice cream and I'll make a snow man. There's snow that will melt into ice and I'll go BRRRRRRR.


So, there you go. He's got it all planned out. This is one trip I'm not taking him on. Hopefully, I'll be retired in some nice warm place while he's on this trip.

Speakeasy friends

It's been a few weekends now that I find myself in strange parts of town. Our phone navigation takes us through narrow streets, as we pass loading docks in a commercial district. Why are we ending up in such places? Well, it seems in our town, these old abandoned commercial buildings are the perfect place to build an indoor inflatable playland for kids. We've attend a number of birthday parties in these hidden playlands.

Most recently, this weekend, I took Xander to a birthday party while Dolphin and Aria stayed at home. It was a lot of familiar faces, both kids and parents. Xander did one of the inflatable obstacle courses at least 20 times. One face was missing unfortunately, and that was Auggie. Augustus is Xander's best buddy at school. They are inseparable. In fact, if you try to sit them apart at a meal at school, Xander gets all upset. Xander asked me if Auggie was at the party, but unfortunately, he wasn't.

Xander and Auggie were in the same infants and toddler class, but they were separate for the 2-3 year. When Xander moved to preschool in August, they were reunited. Of course, they didn't remember each other. As much as they love hanging out, they also get into big rows every now and then. One teacher called in a love-hate relationship. I think most of Xander's friend relationships tend to be this way. His best buddy in his 2-3 class was a big biter and they were always getting into it. With all this friend experience at just 2 and 3 years old, he's going to be a great friend some day.

Finally, I think one part of being a good friend is having empathy. I think Xander is working in that directly although he has a ways to go. Whenever, I'm upset he asks "Mommy, why are you making that face?" Either I'm super easy to read, or Xander is learning some important social skills.

Christmas Swing

Daddy installed Aria's Christmas present in one of our backyard trees. The tree has a nice horizontal branch just begging for this swing.

While we were out in the yard on a beautiful day, Xander wanted to get out the swimming pool. I agreed to get it out but found that somehow in the past few weeks, it's been damaged. With cracks, it won't hold water. I'm thinking about turning it into a sandbox.

All done!

We've been working on the all-done/finished sign.

Sucking and such

For over a year and a half, Xander has had no pacifier during the day time. However, we still let him have it at night. He would suck it to fall a sleep at night for a little bit and briefly when he woke up in the morning. As soon as he was out of bed, he'd put it away. Just last month, he chewed up his last bink, and he doesn't like them when they are chewed up. It's been rather uneventful change for him. Today, we were reading a book and he told me binks were yucky. Yay, I think that seals the deal.

Aria is still using her pacifier for naps and bed time. She just doesn't seem to have the need for sucking like Xander though. She's just not into nursing or pacifier for comfort. I am suspecting she will wean early despite all my attempts to keep things going. It's almost impossible to nurse her anywhere but in her room, in complete silence, while she is both tired and thirsty. I guess I should consider myself lucky that I'll have some more independence earlier, but I really do enjoy that special time with my baby.

Jumpstreet

Dolphin took Xander to Jumpstreet some time ago. Ever since that visit, he has been dying to go back. Every time we drive by Jumpstreet or Petsmart (which has a similar logo), he brings it up. A trip to Jumpstreet made for a very good first reward for his new responsibility chart. He was rewarded for no potty accidents, getting dressed by myself, and eating vegetables.

Today was my first time going. It is a totally crazy place with tons of kids, most a lot older than Xander, jumping like crazy. They have a special area for kids under 7 fortunately or I imagine there would be a lot of hurt little kids. I saw one who could barely stay standing up. Xander enjoyed the bouncy slides and all sorts of different trampolining maneuvers. It's great exercise, too. I saw so many people with very athletic looking calves there...they must do a lot of bouncing.

It's a good indoor place for kids to use their energy. We really shouldn't need one right now since the weather has been so perfect, but it is Cedar fever season. Apparently, everyone in the family is susceptible to Cedar fever except me. Dolphin is miserable even with high dosages of antihistamine. Xander is doing a lot better after I got him some children's Clariton, but his eyes were super red and he had tons of congestion without it. Aria is suffering with lots of sneezing and congestion, too, but too young for OTC antihistamines. Now would be a good time for retailers to raise the price on tissues.