Raindrops on Mittens and Whiskers on Kittens..or something

A lot of people have been posting their children's 'favorites' as part of the new school year. I think it's a great idea, as it's really cool to take a time-capsule-esque snapshot of a kiddo at that date and time.

Julia, as of now, your list is really quite easy:

Favorite Food: Placenta
Favorite Band: The Darkness
Favorite Song: The Sound of Silence; Heartbeat
Favorite Movie: Dark City; Dark Crystal
Favorite Book: The Heart of Darkness
Favorite Activity: Growing, Bouncing on your Mommy's bladder.
Favorite Place to hang out: the womb

But soon enough- yikes...in 2 weeks!- you will soon have a whole new experience, and we can beef up your musical and culinary tastes.

But Aidan, your favorites are a bit harder to pin down. You can be obessed with something for weeks on end, or minutes on end. Some favorites are evergreen, like Toy Story or the color Yellow; you never get tired of them. Others, like broccoli or sweet potatoes, you may have over-dosed on and now you aren't as fond of them as you used to be. I set out on a week's long quest to find out all of your favorites direct from the horse's mouth. This was foolish, because one cannot simply ask a 2 year old what their favorite movie if they have no intention of watching said movie and, as mentioned before, your favorites vacillate from day to day on some items. So, there is some parental editorializing in the lists. But, trust me, this is pretty accurate, and has been approved by your mother.

Favorite Color: Although you love many colors, this one's easy:Yellow. Always has been. 'Nuff Said.

Favorite Super Hero: Hulk. Unless Buzz Lightyear counts as a super hero.

I made your lunch for school yesterday and included a little hand-drawn Hulk that said "Hulk Love Aidan." Miss Jessica said when you saw it, you whispered "WOW!!!"

Favorite Book: This is a tough one. You LOVE to read. In fact, you fell asleep on a book over the weekend, napped on it, and spent the rest of the day with 'newsprint' on your face.

You've loved two pop-up books nearly to death: "The Wheels on the Bus" and "Charlie and Lola's I will not Ever Never Eat a Tomato." Those could clearly be candidates for favorite book. "Olivia" was a fan favorite for a long time, as were the old "Sesame Street" books Mimi and Pops brought over. You love "Mouse Cookie"(what you call "If You Give a Mouse a Cookie") and "Everyone Poops" ("Poops book!") "Gossie and Gertie" and REALLY love "Ice Mice" (what you call "I can Read with my Eyes Shut"); In fact, 1 of the 4 times I asked you what your favorite book was, you replied "Ice Mice." Time two, you said "Horton Hears," which is a very good book too. But, 2 out of four times you said the same book:

"Hippo, no Hippo"

and

"Hippo book"

So, you really like Sandra Boynton's "But not the Hippopotamus." And that's going down as your favorite!

Favorite Song: This is a tough one. You love you sing; you love to listen to songs; you love to request songs be sung to you; you love to do sing-a-longs with Mommy and Daddy.

 Lately you've been singing "Happy Birthday" to yourself quite a bit (Happy toy ou/happy to you/happy to you). You've also been really into Muppet's Bohemian Rhapsody for the longest time. You used to call it "Mama," now you call it "Muppets." But the cool thing, is that now you are singing it! You know one whole verse, and sing it like this:

Easy Come/Easy Come
Little High/Little Low
Any rainbows
Dont Matters
To Me
to me!!!!!!!!!

So that's definitely a candidate for favorite song.

But, you also love 'classics' like the "Itsy Bitsy Spider,"  "Twinkle, Twinkle," "Old King Cole," "You are My Sunshine," "I'm Looking Over (A Four leaf Clover)."

Your favorite Lullabye right now is "Pooh Song" (aka "The House on Pooh Corner" by K-Log), which was one of your favorites as an infant and has recently made a comeback.

But, executive decision here, I'd have to say that your favorite song is "Let it Be." This is one of your favorite tunes, whether it's "Letter B" (the Sesame Street cover) or the actual "Let it Be," this tune rocks your socks off for some reason. You sing it with us, you sing it on your own, we can us it as 'bait' to get you into the car when you don't want to go ("Want to listen to "Let it Be?"). The answer is always "YES!" to Let it Be.

Favorite Food: You are a pretty dang good eater. The problem comes when we find something that you really like, and then make a lot of it, and then you burn out on it...like mashed sweet potatoes, rice, etc.

But, some foods are always golden, and you could probably eat them every day if we let you. But we're not going to risk letting you burn out on them!

So, your favorites are: sausage, edamame, mango, oranges and avocado. Oh yeah, and pizza!

Favorite Movie: Toy Story. You love Toy Story. Toy Story 1, Toy Story 2, Toy Story 3. You've loved Toy Story since before you could talk. You called it "Ha ha" because of the scene where Woody and the Shark have that little conversation about Woody's hat in the first movie (yes, we've seen it a million times). You love Toy Story so much that you had a "Two Story" themed second birthday party. Thanks to some very kind Uncles and Aunts and Grandparents you have a whole "Andy's Toys" set. You carry them around and play with them daily. Buzz is your favorite. You cheer "Finity and BEYON!" at home...and on the swings...You know the words to "Fren in me" ("You've got a friend in me"). So, yeah, Toy Story is the bomb.

You've been branching out lately, though and enjoy "Horton Hears a Who," "Bug's Life," "Madagascar," "Finding Nemo" and "Monster's Inc."

But, when you ask to watch "Woody Moozy" we know that you're a Toy Story guy at heart.

Favorite Toy/Posession: "Blankies." That's your blanket. We don't know how it happened; you've slept with many stuffed animals and toys and even books. But you grew attached to your Blankies. It's great to sleep on, makes a great monster maxsxsk (as you showed your mother and I last night), and even is sometimes a lion's mane! It's great to hide under, and to wear as a cape, or to tuck your toys in to bed with.

Where you go to sleep, blankies goes too.

Favorite Activity: You love to play outside. Running around, picking up rocks, making rock soup, looking for rolley polies, blowing bubbles, doing 'airplanes' and kicking the ball...you're an outside kinda guy. You have been for a long time.

But, you're also a water guy. If there's splashing or dripping water around, you're gonna find it, you're gonna splash in it, and you're gonna love it!

Favorite TV Show: Wonder Pets/ Timmy Time/ Blue's Clues/Sesame Street

You don't watch many shows, but when you do, you've got an opinion on what 'epsodes' are the best. You do love Sesame Street, and were asking for it yesterday ('sesame street moozy plesase'), but as of today, I think that if you had to choose any show to watch, it'd be Timmy Time, the spinoff of Shaun the Sheep (which you also love, and like to sing the theme song to "Shoppa Sheep, Shoopa Sheep...Bleet!), the spinoff of Wallace and Gromit.

Favorite Animal: Tough one. You've been liking horses, dogs, koalas, kangaroos, grasshoppers, butterflies, cats, and pandas. But, here's another executive decision, your favorite is the "elephant." You love making the elephant noise, singin the elephant song (from the "Jungle Book"), reading "Stomp the Swamp" (an elephant romp), and "Horton Hears a Who" (a Seussian Elephant of great esteem).

Favorite Phrase: Normally only sitcom characters have catch-phrases. But, here are a few of my favorite 'catch-phrases' that you love to use as you're learning this language.

"Bye-bye, See ya!" (useful to say bye-bye, see ya to inanimate objects, animals, toys and nature as you're leaving a room, building or park. Such as "Bye-bye park, see ya!" Or "Bye-bye bed, bye-bye diaper, bye-bye Buzz. See ya!")

"Have it" (like "Strawberry. Have it!" or "Have it, Daddy!")

Alright, so it's taken me a week to put this post together, and thus, your favorites have probably all already changed and changed back. But, consider this a 'snapshot' of a young man, with a lot of opinions, and a lot of love...and a lot of favorites. Your favorties may change as you grow up, but one thing won't: you're one of your mother's and my favorite boys in the entire world (and our favorite first-born son). So put that on OUR lists. It won't be changing.

A Week of Firsts

Last Thursday, you went to your first day of school.

You had visited the school a few times before while we were checking it out, and really liked it.

So you were really excited to go. You even like saying the word 'school!'


So, you got your lunch packed right, your boots tied tight (alright so they were velcro) and off you and Mommy went.

You ran right in to the classroom and started playing with the toys.

Your teacher, Miss Jessica, said that about 15 minutes after your Mommy left, you went to the window and looked around and then started to cry a bit. You noticed that your Mommy was gone and didn't like it.

But, they said you quickly got over it and had a great first day playing with the other kids and that you really liked going to play outside. You even took a nap on a mat, which impressed your Mommy and me very much!



Then, your Mommy came to pick you up before you knew it and you ran to her arms!

The next day, your second, was a little more rough. You figured out that you were being left at school, without us. And you bear hugged your Mom's legs so she couldn't leave. You wanted her to hold you and sit on her lap. You wanted to stay and play, but you wanted your Mom to stay and play with you. When she finally left, you cried and cried and cried. They said you were pretty sad for a while, but that some of the other kids came up to you and comforted you. They said by lunch time you were no longer so sad, and had a good afternoon. Before you knew it, your Mommy came to pick you up again!

Since you're only going 2 days a week, that was the end of your first week.

Week 2 has gone even better. You cried and cried when your Mommy dropped you off both days, but Miss Jessica let us know that the crying only lasted a few minutes, and then you went on to have a lot of fun playing with blocks, and friends and their car. Of course, your favorite part of the day, was playing outside. The teacher says you are always the last one to come inside!

As a reward for our big boy's first week of school, and since we've been itching to try it for a long time (since you're so good at watching "Toy Story" and some selected other movies at home (like "Wallace and Gromit," and "The Jungle Book,")) we decided to take you to your first movie in the theater.

"The Muppets" was playing at our local dollar cinema, so we figured, "what the heck!" If you lasted 5 minutes, no worries!

But, you lasted 2 hours! The second we sat down, you got cozy in your Mommy's lap and calmly watched the pre-trailers, the trailers, the Toy Story short cartoon and, then, the main event: The Muppets!
You basically sat calmly and watched the movie, while occassionally being interested in the emergency exit lighting on the floor. But, mostly you loved the movie.

You got really engaged when they were singing, especially when they sing "The Rainbow Connection," which is also one of your lullabies!

Near the end, you got really excited and stood up on our laps and held on to the chairs in front of you, bouncing and sticking your tongue out.

Your first in-theater movie experience was a total success. We will have to take you again sometime.

It's amazing to me that you're almost 2 years old and we still have so many firsts to experience...but I look forward to the seconds, thirds and fourths too!