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.

Clever/Funny Boy: A Four-Part Expose

Aidan,

You are making some stellar associations and doing some great imaginative play as of late. Sometimes, they amaze us, sometimes they crack us up (because, c'mon, some of this stuff is funny to an adult); but all in all, they just show how fast your brain is working and continually learning and re-assessing the world around you.

Disappearing Act

A few weeks ago, when you had a double ear infection and bronchitis, we had to give you medicine via oral syringe three times a day. This stuff must taste horrible...because you hated it.

At first you fought us...that didn't work.

Then you thought you could cry your way out of it. That also didn't work.

Then you adapted and tried something more clever. You kept your raspberry motor running the whole time, so anything that entered your mouth would be immediately spit out. That also didn't work...babies gotta breathe.

So, you figured out the ultimate solution: if you could just disappear, then we wouldn't be able to see you and we couldn't give you your meds! But how to make oneself disappear...oh, that's an easy one!

When you saw your Mom or I approaching with the antibiotics in hand, you immediately covered your face with your hands! And, as an avid player of peekaboo, you know that when the hands go up, Aidan disappears!!! Cute, clever, funny and very smart of you. Unfortunately, that trick didn't work either. But, good news: the ear infections are gone (and so are the antibiotics).

Under The Sea

Back track a little: your vocabulary is growing day by day, but sometimes there are easier ways for you to talk to us than use your words. Most of this creativity comes out when you request a song for us to play on the iPod.






When your arm reaches to the sky dramatically and you say 'Mama', you want to hear the Muppets sing 'Bohemian Rhapsody.'

When you used to say 'Ha Ha,' you wanted to hear "You've got a friend in me" from Toy Story (Because 'ha ha' meant Woody at that point.)

"B" means you want the Sesame Street classic Beatles spoof, "Letter B."

When you trumpet like an elephant, you want to hear the elephant march from the Jungle book.

Your song-du-jour for a while was this little ditty from "the Little Mermaid." (at this point you and your Mom had just watched the Little Mermaid, and you loved it!)



You request this song by conducting a bit with your hands and singing in a high voice "Hoo hoo ho ho." Under the sea entertainment at its finest

Okay, flash forward to last weekend. We took you to the Dallas Children's Aquarium, and we walk into the door into a magical world where we're seemingly underwater. Fish surround you in big tanks and your first reaction was to sing The Daughters of Triton, "Hoo hoo ho ho!" And they say that the seaweed's greener in somebody else's lake...

In the Bathroom, by the sink, on the toothbrush...

Another amazing feat of cleverness that has just been cracking us up is your budding skill set as a detective. You're finding clues everywhere!

Now, this post is really making us sound like parents of the year because I'm talking about all these movies and shows that you watch. But, give us a break! Your Mom's pretty much been sick 24/7 since week 4 of your baby sister or brother's journey! So, at any rate, lately you've been really in to Blues Clues. I'm really happy about this development, actually, because it's a pretty educational show and it does for attention spans what lying does for Pinnochio's nose..that is, makes it longer. I'm so ADD from my Sesame Street-riddled past that I could hardly watch the show at all. Plus Steve's pleated khakis are gross. But, the issue was that you didn't want to watch it either. It was either too slow, or too advanced or something. But, around when you turned two, you actually requested to watch this show. You saw Blue, the dog, and said 'arf arf arf!' So, we watched it, and you loved it.

In the show, the dog leaves her blue paw prints on items...these are clues. Then pleated-pant Steve solves a mystery based on these clues. Not a scary mystery like "who stole the mummy's emerald scepter?" But a more cool mystery like 'what song does Blue want to sing?'

Any way, so you've been a fan of Blue's Clues for a few weeks. You even request the show by name" "bloo cloo." And then, all of a sudden, while your Mommy and you were brushing your teeth one morning with your Snoopy Tooth brush you started saying "cloo! cloo! cloo!" It took your Mom a minute, but then she saw what you saw: right there on your toothbrush were Snoopy's paw prints! And of course, paw prints are clues!

Then you started seeing 'clues' everywhere: on paw printed washcloths, and towels and t-shirts. And you'd tell us: cloo! cloo! Cloo!

You even started pointing out semi-clues. The apple logo on the back of someone's iPhone? Close enough! It's a cloo too!

We are tickled pink by this development. You're so smart and clever, and unintentionally funny too; and we couldn't be more proud of our budding detective. You even like to try to draw a clue on your MagnaDoodle with Mommy's and Daddy's help! We even play a little "Blue's Clues" ourselves from time to time, involving a crudely crafted clue on a piece of construction paper that materializes from time to time!

Do Eat the Pictures

Okay, okay, final bit of bragging about my clever, funny, creative boy.

We've been encouraging you to stop and smell the flowers for a long time. You do this quite well with real flowers all the time.

A while ago, I can't quite remember when, you started smelling flowers in books. I think it must've been that interactive sensation, "Pat the Bunny," that originally encouraged this type of imaginative engagement with literature. Now you smell the flowers whenever the appear in books, even if they don't actually smell.

For Valentine's Day, your Aunt Sham gave you a cute Valentine shaped like an ice cream cone. What's a kid to do but lick it? We know you're pretending because, after the first lick, the jig is up that it's not really a sugary treat. But you kept on licking.

Now, to be honest, I can't remember which came first the Valentine or the about-to-be-described behavior, but they go hand in hand...or tongue in mouth.

When reading "The Very Hungry Caterpillar," you used to name all the foods. Now, in addition, you help yourself to tasting all the foods too!

When you come to this page, which is now pretty much the first page you flip to and the only page worth eating... I mean reading, you take your time and lick, pretend eat (nom nom nom) and chew up all of the foods.

Did you try the watermelon today?

"Pop!" you say, before trying the lovely lolly.

Mmm...pickle.

This, as you can imagine, is hilarious, endearing and just plain awesome.

I just hope you don't get a paper cut on your tongue.

One of your other favorite books has no edibles in it, but you also started to interact with that one too. In "Hello, Van Gogh," the other night you decided to greet Van Gogh's Landlady in a very romantic way:

You planted kiss after kiss after kiss on this painting, while your Mom and I beamed with pride.

You truly are a book lover.

Between the books and the clues, the singing and the hiding, you are just wowing us around every turn. You're creative, you're making connections, you're hilarious and you're aware of so much. You're melting our hearts...and our faces!

You're Aidan at almost 25 months...and we couldn't be more proud!