Storytime

I told Eddie that I had stolen his nose, and put it in a bunker: it's in a safe, in a deep cave, behind a deep dark wood guarded by dragons who are guarded by knights.  What will he do?

Eddie told me that knights wouldn't guard dragons (or his nose.) "OK," I said. "So it's just guarded by dragons. What do you do?"

Eddie decided that he would get on top of a dragon and ride it over the woods. Then he rode it down into the cave and told it to melt open the safe with its fire. Thus he got his nose back.

Since that hadn't worked, Papa took his nose again and put it on the moon. Eddie declared that he would take it back. How will he get there? "Can you walk to the moon?"

"Yeah," he said. "No way!" I told him. "You can't walk to the moon. Can you take a bus?"
"No," he said. "Can you take a train?" "No," he said. "Then how do you get there?"

He thought for a second, then remembered: "Fly!"
"Fly with what?"
"A... rocket ship!"
"But where will you get a rocket ship?"
"Rocketshipland!"
So Eddie walked to Rocketshipland, where he eloquently told the King of Rocketshipland of his plight, and the King was moved to give him a rocket ship. Then Eddie rode it to the moon and got his nose back.

Darnedest things

We talked a little bit about moving with Eddie today. We'll have to move in about 5 months. We mentioned that we'll go to a new place to live. First Eddie asked "I'm coming?" We assured him that he will come with us. Then he asked "Vincent coming?" Yes, we told him, Vincent too. But Eddie had a different idea: "No, Vincent not coming."



At dinner, Eddie asked for milk. We were out of whole milk, so he got 1%, which he's hardly ever had before. As I gave it to him, I told him "This milk is different—it's 1%" (Anne, simultaneously: "it's impoverished milk"). He guzzled it anyway. As he was slurping, I asked him "So, you still think it's potable?"

Eddie fixed me with a long stare, then exclaimed "What you say?!"

Papa (laughing): "Do you think it's drinkable?"

Eddie (scornfully): "No!"

Papa: "But you're drinking it!"

Eddie (shaking head sorrowfully over Papa's denseness): "No."

Presents

We got a tree a couple of weeks before Christmas, and Eddie helped decorate it. He thought it was missing a very important piece, though: presents underneath! He asked about the presents many times. We told him that the presents would come on Christmas day, but he thought that presents are an essential part of the Christmas tree, and that a tree without its presents is incomplete, even pointless.

After several days of expressing this point of view, we had failed to take action, so finally Eddie had to take matters into his own hands. He obtained one of Papa's socks, "wrapped" several crayons in it, and put it under the tree. Then he let us know that he'd wrapped a present.

Gingerbread

The nice thing about baking with 3-year-olds is that they're happy with pretty much any end result—they don't know any better!

Jumping

Eddie (heading off to bedroom): "I jump on the bed!"

Papa: "Uh-oh!"

Eddie (joyfully): "That's a bad idea!"

Helping

Papa's been extremely busy recently, with deadlines (hence the lack of blogging!) Often, while at home, I've had to work on the laptop and mostly ignore Eddie.

Sometimes he walks up hopefully, while I'm tapping away on the keyboard, and offers "We push buttons together, Papa?"

Vincent in his gym

Conversations with Eddie

Eddie has started asking incessant "Why"s in earnest.
After running one topic into the ground with "Why", he said (apropos of nothing):
"Bugs!"
"Bugs?" I asked, not sure I'd heard correctly.
"Yeah," he said. "They bugs." (Beat.) "Why?"


(Papa is reading a poem about someone who knows what you need to take 9 from to make 11)
Papa: "Do you know what you need to take 9 from to make 11?"
Eddie: "I like you."
Papa: "Do you need to take 9 from a dragon to make 11?"
Eddie: "Boo!"

Candy

Eddie got some candy trick-or-treating on Halloween. He's been very good at sharing it, and he's obeyed our restrictions (one piece after a meal.) But he obsesses about it all the time. Yesterday, he didn't fall asleep during his naptime, but talked in his crib the whole time; much of it concerned the candy. He called out "Papa, don't eat the candy!"

This morning, while on the potty, he decided to be Frankenstein's monster. When I told him "Good job," he roared and growled "Thank you" in his monster voice. Then he stomped around, growling "Rrr! Candy good!"

It's snowing!

Halloween

Eddie has been really into the idea of Halloween this year. He has been talking about it for weeks. "Halloween is coming," he says. "Where is Halloween?" He has been really interested in all the kinds of monsters and ghouls: he learned about mummies recently, and was really enamored of the word because it sounds a lot like "Mommy" but means something very different.

Talking about mummies revealed a big gap in Papa's education! I told him that mummies are dead and wrapped up in bandages, and are in big tombs, and that if you steal treasure from the tomb, the mummy will come alive and come after you, moving slowly but inexorably until it catches you. Eddie wanted to know what happens when the mummy catches you, and, well, I don't know! What does happen if a mummy catches you? Zombies will eat you, vampires drink your blood, witches turn you into a frog, werewolves bite you, but mummies?

Another time, he gave Mommy the lego treasure piece, informed her that she was a mummy, then stole the treasure ("I steal your treasure!!!" he says. He actually pronounces the exclamation points, somehow.) So Mommy made the requisite angered mummy sounds while Eddie scampered around. Then he had second thoughts about this plan, so he gave it back (saying "I give back treasure.") So Mommy-mummy says "Oh. Well, I guess that's all right then." Does a mummy's curse get lifted if you return the treasure? I don't know!

Frankenstein's monster is another of Eddie's favorites. He first saw him in an anatomy book we had from the library a few months ago, and he's also in several of the books we have around now. Ever since that first book, Eddie has always been careful to say "Frankenstein's monster" and corrects us whenever we call it "Frankenstein." He doesn't seem to mind saying the long name over and over: frequently he pretends to be Frankenstein's monster, and he'll say "I'm Frankenstein's monster. Frankenstein's monster likes to play! You Dr. Frankenstein. Read to Frankenstein's monster!"

Anyway, here's Vincent:

The Darndest Things

I asked Eddie to clean up a mess he had made in his room, but he wandered out too soon to have done it and started playing. "Hey Eddie," I said. "Did you clean your room?"  "Not really," he said.

When Eddie wants to be free of parental interference, he says "No coming!" This is almost always a sign that we need to come. The other morning, he said "No coming!" I peeked around the corner and saw him in the glider chair. "Why not?" I asked. When he saw that I'd seen him, he grinned and said "Cookies!" The rascal had grabbed a pack of cookies out of the kitchen and was trying to figure out how to open it!

Today, we went for a walk and Eddie found some hair bands on the ground, which he decided to bring home. After we got back, he wanted to put them in his hair, but it wasn't long enough. He thought about it. "If my hair grows bigger and bigger, then I become a girl?"

We haven't really taught Eddie about the days of the week (we don't have a very rigorous schedule ourselves.) But he goes out to get the paper with me every day, and this morning when he saw it, he said "Paper big. It's Sunday? Big funnies?"

Rabbits

This morning, Eddie had a big box which he was using as a bear cave. While crawling around growling like a bear, he carried a toy rabbit in his mouth into the cave, then said "I ate the rabbit!"

"Yeah," I said. "Bears eat rabbits."

"What do rabbits eat?" he asked. "Plants," I told him.

"What do YOU eat?" he asked. "I also eat plants," I said. "And rabbits too."

"Noooooo!" he said. He was appalled. "Don't eat rabbits!"

"But people eat rabbits," I asserted.

"No, eat food!" said Eddie. "Rabbits are food," I told him.

"No, you eat sandwiches," he said.

Well, he got me there.

Vincent asleep and awake

Brothers

Vincent

Eddie's little brother Vincent joined us unexpectedly early, Tuesday morning! He is wonderful and healthy. With birth weight 7 lbs 6 oz, he's much smaller than Eddie ever was. Vincent loves his Mamma and likes to be with her all the time. When she holds him, he is often very sleepy. When Papa holds him, he often gets riled up, which is good because then he's awake enough to eat.

Vincent is very good at hand control already! He can hit Papa in the face when Papa is making him mad, and he grabbed my glasses off my face and threw them on the ground when he was only 4 days old.

We tried tummy time for the first time today. He managed to roll onto his back, all by himself! (I remember Eddie managing a similar feat around the same age; he didn't do it again for many months.)

Eddie likes to rock Vincent's bassinet, rub his tummy, and sing him lullabies (we're still working on proper volume.) Eddie has also started crossing his eyes a lot, in imitation. Eddie gets excited when Vincent is awake, saying "Baby's eyes are open?!" Then he'll hold Vincent's hand and say "Look at me, baby. I'm your big brother."

Some photos

Eddie helps Anne open her birthday present

Chilling at the playground

Eddie likes to mail things

Eddie found the best bench

Eddie is a witch!

Looking at light on leaves

Takin' care of the chickens

Farmer buddies

Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man

Whee

Howdy, pardner

Eddie loves selfies

Anchors

I was walking with Eddie to the Navy Yard today, and we passed some anchors which he likes to stop and climb on. He said "What are these, Papa? What are these?"
I said "Those are anchors."
He said "What do they anch?"

Worker play

During dinner, Eddie was wearing his hard hat (he has a plastic hard hat from the Touch-a-truck event.) He said "I'm a worker. Worker likes to play!" He still regularly sees workers outside our windows, working on the parking lot.

I said "Play? Workers like to work!"

He said "This worker likes to play."

Mail

Eddie likes to open mail these days. He will often declare that some of our junk mail is "his." He likes to look through catalogs and open envelopes.  He thinks envelopes should have something inside, so when he finds an empty return envelope, he always stuffs something in.

Today he asked for some mail before dinner and I gave him a subscription ad for a kid's magazine. "Mail for Eddie?" he asked, and I said yes.
"What's inside?" he wondered. "I don't know," I told him, then went in the kitchen, while he stayed sitting at the table.

In the kitchen, we heard him have this little conversation with himself:

"What's inside?  Hmmm. Is it a tiger? No." He said "No" with a great, are-you-kidding-me kind of tone.

Robbing

Eddie got a new Lego set (thanks, Grandma Subie!) which has a royal knight guarding a treasure chest from a couple of robber knights. Anne was a little worried about explaining the conflict to Eddie, but he grasped the situation right away. He said that the two robber knights were "pirates," and he took one of the robbers and had him jump on the treasure chest, and said in his best raspy pirate voice: "I want all the treasure. It's my!"

Potty learning

Eddie's been doing a great job using the potty. He waited for the right time and he's made himself a self-directed success. He's gone on outings to the park, playground, market, and voting station--staying dry all the time. There have been some accidents at home but many more successes. Yesterday he had his first poop on the potty and was very impressed. When asked if he needs to do that today he said, "Nooo. I need not go do poopies."

Potty

Eddie peed in his potty today! Then he emptied it into the toilet, wiped with some toilet paper, put that in the toilet, and flushed it. (This is not stuff we've been trying to get him to do—it's on his own initiative.)
Then he peed in his potty two more times! Finally we had to drag him off to eat his dinner.

Boat

Eddie was excited to see pictures of the Constitution sailing in the paper. It went on its last sailing voyage for three years this weekend—it's undergoing repairs until 2018! He was inspired to build a Constitution himself; it's entirely his own work.

A novel way to drink

band-aid, iron man

Yesterday morning, undeterred by my (Nonno's) previous reluctance to get on the floor, Eddie insisted, "Play on the ground, Nonno, on the ground!"  When I reiterated that I would get cramps and that my knees and back hurt, he thought a moment and then offered a solution: "Do you want a band-aid, Nonno?  Get a band-aid!"  When I laughed, he broke out into a big grin and said again, "Are you kidding me?"

Eddie has an Iron Man mask that he has ordered me to wear the last couple of days and to act out Iron Man. Sometimes he wears it and says that he's Iron Boy.  After I've worn it for some time and have used a different voice, pretending to be Iron Man, he gets nervous and comes to take it off to make sure that it's still Nonno under there.

He likes to play monsters and pirates and such, but within limits.  If the monster is too convincing, he gets worried and then frightened and yells, "No!  Don't scare me!" or "Don't eat me!"  Before reaching that point, when he starts to become unusre, he asks, "Are you a happy monster/pirate/Iron Man, or a mean one?"  So, when I played pirate the first day or so (donning a bandana I brought back from Cammina Molise), he kept asking me, "Are you a happy pirate?" and more recently, "Are you a happy Iron Man?" wanting to be reassured that he isn't in any real danger of being mutilated or devoured.

This morning he had me don the mask and play Iron Man all morning, even reading to him as Iron Man.  Later, when we went out to lunch (and I wasn't wearing the mask--thankful that he didn't require to keep wearing it in public), we ordered a ham and cheese sandwich for him.  He ate the ham and cheese, but left the bread.  When Anne asked me if I wanted it and I accepted, Eddie exclaimed, "Hey, Iron Man is eating my food!"  But he then generously let me eat it.  He was just kidding me.

Are you kidding me?

The other day, on the day I (Nonno) was to arrive from Iceland, Eddie woke up in the morning and made three announcements to his Papa:

"I had a good nap."
"I want a little cake."
"Nonno is coming today."

Coming in after cake isn't bad.  I'll take it.

Ever since I got here Eddie has been asking me--well, ordering me: "Play with me, Nonno!  Play with toys."  When I say "OK" and try to play from where I'm sitting, he commands, "No, play on the ground!"  Today, after I explained that I was old and couldn't play on the ground all the time, that my knees hurt, and that it was hard for me to get down on the floor and get back up easily the way he did, he looked at me quizzically for some time and exclaimed, "Are you kidding me?"

Comeback

Eddie was eating something, and Mommy asked him if it was yummy in his tummy.

He looked at her, perhaps a little concerned for her mental welfare, and said "No, Mommy, it's yummy in my mouth."



Eddie likes to talk about how nice Mommy is. He frequently comments "Mommy nice. Nice Mommy," often at some length. Sometimes we suggest that Papa is nice too, but he laughs and says "No, Papa not nice." So I asked him "What's Papa like?"

He thought for a second and said "Odd." At least that's what it sounded like!

Hmph! A couple of days later, he was again delivering a monologue about how nice Mommy is, and we asked him "What's Papa like?"  This time, he said "Papa's funny."

Construction

So the landlords are turning our back yard into a parking lot. They've been cutting down trees and tearing down fences for months, but things really got started last week, with excavators, front loaders, dump trucks, and other big machines. This has some drawbacks (like the day with 12 hours of jackhammering down the walls) but Eddie loves the chance to have a front-row seat at the construction site.

More poems

In the bathtub tonight, Eddie had some toy letters. I mentioned that one was a Q.
Eddie looked at me seriously and said " Q was once a little quail."

"Oh yeah?" I said.

Eddie continued:
"Q was once a little quail
Quaily, Faily, pudding and pie
Kissed the girls and made them cry
When the cots(?) came out to play
Georgie Quaily ran away."


I have been reading a book called Regular Polytopes. When Eddie sees it, he says
"Polytope, polytope, nice postman
Give me a hug as fast as you can
Pat it, and prick it, and mark it with an E
And put it in the oven for Eddie and me!"

I am pretty sure this is an utterance original to Eddie among the billions of people who have ever lived.

Poems

Eddie often recites poems, sometimes altered for the current circumstance. This morning, Eddie wants to go out to play, but thunderstorms are imminent so we're staying in. Eddie says

"Georgie Porgie pudding and pie
Kissed the girls and made them cry
When the boys came out to play
I want to go out to play!"

Another one from the other day:
"Fee fie fo plum
I want to eat a plum."

Rub a dub dub

Eddie was sitting in his tub, reciting "Rub a dub dub." I tried to unobtrusively record him, but he saw me and came over, wanting to see the pictures. I told him that there was nothing to see until I got a video of him! This convinced him to get back in the tub and recite the poem for the camera. So this is staged.

Past tense

Sometime lately, Eddie has begun using the past tense, without me noticing. It becomes noticeable when he tries to use irregular verbs.

For example, he was at the Monument a few days ago, chasing squirrels around. After several squirrels had evaded him, he came to me and complained. He just wanted to pet the squirrels, he explained. He saw another squirrel nearby and chased it, shouting "Pet! Pet!" Alas, the squirrel fled, and Eddie came back, reporting "Squirrel runned away."

Later, he was examining a bug, which left. "Bug flyed away!" he said. "Oh, the bug flew away." I said. Eddie picked up on the difference and said "Yeah, bug flewed away."

Thunder

This evening, there were a couple of thunder storms. After his bath, Eddie was in his towel getting dried off when he decided to trick us. "Thunder," he intoned in his deepest voice. "Thunder?!" we exclaimed. Then he laughed. "No, I not thunder," he said. "I'm Eddie."

Ages at Aquarium

Yesterday we visited the Aquarium. Eddie had lots of fun watching the fish.

At the top of the big ocean tank, we saw the giant turtle swimming around. I heard that he was 85 years old.  I said to Eddie, "Wow! That turtle is 85 years old! How old are you?"

Eddie didn't hesitate; he's got this. "I'm 8," he said.

I poked him in the belly. "You're 2 and a half!" I told him.

Eddie laughed. "Papa's 2 and a half," he said.

"No, Papa's 30," I told him.

Eddie nodded thoughtfully. "Papa's 2 and a half," he said.

Pronunciation

Eddie has trouble saying Ls. When an L is at the beginning of a word or between vowels, he substitutes a Y, but otherwise he leaves it out.

This can be kind of embarrassing!

For instance, whenever we're out walking and he sees flags or bunting, he exuberantly points it out. "Flag, flag, flaggy flags," he'll say loudly. But he leaves out the Ls.

On the landing of the stairwell outside our apartment, there's an extremely large clock. So when we're out in the hallway getting ready to go out—and we're liable to run into our neighbors—Eddie points it out. "Big clock!" he says. It's exciting, so he says it loudly. "Big clock!" But he leaves out the L.

Taking care of Papa

We were in the bedroom playing "I spy," with colors. Papa said "I spy, with my little eye, something blue!" Eddie found a blue blanket.  Papa said "I spy, with my little eye, something orange!" Eddie found an orange piece of cloth. Then Papa said "I spy, with my little eye, something silly!" Eddie didn't miss a beat. He pointed at me and said "Silly Papa!"

Then Eddie tried it. He said "My little eye, something blue!" Then "My little eye, something Papa!" and "My little eye, something Eddie!" He rolled around on the bed laughing, then said "Poor Papa." "Poor Papa?" I asked. "Papa cry." he said. Papa was confused. Eddie made it clear that this was an instruction. "Papa cry!" So Papa cried "Boo hoo hoo."

"What's wrong?" Eddie asked solicitously. "Need a hug." He gave me a nice hug and I felt much better. Then we repeated the exercise a half-dozen times.

Story

Today I pretended to read a book in my hands and asked Eddie how the story went. This is what he came up with:

Once upon a time there was a dragon. It went to the city. It was eating the city up, nom nom nom. There was a boy, and his Grandpa, and Grandma, and Mommy, who is Eddie's Mommy, and Papa (Eddie's Papa). They played ball.

Plenty bright

When I got Eddie up from bed, I turned on the light. He squinted and said "Need glasses." (He was referring to his styling pair of sunglasses.) "Is it too bright?" I asked. He said "Need glasses. I'm not too bright."

Crooner Eddie

As I (Nonno, just arrived today for a short visit on my way to Italy) sit here listening to Eddie talk and sing himself to sleep, I suggest that he's going to be a crooner.  He is singing the ABC song, "The wheels on the bus go round and round," and other top hits.  His parents inform me that he is also a poet, quoting appropriate verses as the situation dictates.  On the way to Whole Foods he announces, "To market, to market, to buy a fat pig!" and on the way back he proclaims, "Home again, home again, jiggidy jig!"  When it rains, he commands, "Rain, rain, go away.  Come again another away.  Little Johnny wants to play."  In the park, when he saw kids playing, he intoned, "Boys and girls come out to play!"  Expanding his repertoire beyond nursery rhymes, when picking up his toy tiger he declaimed, "Tiger, tiger burning bright."

He has mastered tunes and memorized entire books.  In that he follows in the footsteps of his papa, who memorized "Are You My Mother?" when he was a pre-schooler and thus he could fool people by giving the impression that he could read.  Eddie fooled his father in a similar vein.  He, Eddie, loves to look at ads for books on the back cover of other book or in magazines.  I noticed this myself today, when I read one of the Kolya books to him (books we got for Kolya when he was a child starring him as the hero): Eddie pointed to the ads on the dust jacket, and I read the titles to him.  Well, when papa took him to the library recently, Eddie picked a book from the shelf and exclaimed, "The Pig Parade!"  Papa was amazed.  He had never seen the book and had never read it to Eddie.  He marvelled, "Whaaaat!  Can he read?"  It turned out that Eddie had seen the ad for the book when reading with mommy and she had read the title to him, and he remembered the cover.

Strangely enough one of the two Kolya books that grandma Subie sent to Eddie is titled "The Big Parade," and when nonno read the title, Eddie shouted, "The Pig Parade!"

Trains

Last week, there was an open house for the MIT Model Railroad Club, and I wanted to take Eddie. So I asked him "Do you want to go see some trains?"

"No," he said scornfully. Huh?! I guess he was thinking "I see trains all the time, Papa, get a grip!" He continued "Go library." (Pronounced "whybwerry.")

"But these are little trains!" I told him. Eddie seemed taken with this idea. "Little trains. Little trains," he said. But he still thought he'd rather go to the library.

Well, Papa wanted to see the trains, so that's where we went! We walked over to MIT and across its campus, a good long walk. On the campus, Eddie noticed a really big sculpture and pointed it out. I saw that we could go underneath and said "Do you want to go under it?" Eddie said "No." I thought he was just being knee-jerk negative, so I said "C'mon, let's go under!" But as we got close, Eddie said "No! This way!" and pointed around it. He really meant it—he didn't trust that sculpture.

As soon as we got through the door to the club room, Eddie said "Wow. Wow wow wow. Wow! Wow wow! Wow!" He was totally entranced by the trains. It wasn't a big room, and it was full of tracks with little buildings, people, trees, farms with animals, and so on around it, with six trains running around them. Maybe a dozen other people were there for the open house.

We walked all around the layout. For a while, Eddie sat in a corner watching the trains go around a big loop-de-loop where they change altitude. He was watching intensely, not smiling, when he suddenly announced "Eddie happy."

See? Sometimes Papa knows best.

There was also a big model of the Green building at MIT, a big rectangle of a building with windows in a big grid, and controls so that you could play Tetris with lights in the windows, reproducing a hack that MIT students did with the real-life Green building in the past. Eddie enjoyed pushing the buttons and making the lights move. He was not very good at Tetris, though (his favorite button was the one that makes the shape go straight down.)

Pasta

For dinner tonight we had spaghetti. Eddie took his fork and announced "Eddie do this," and twirled his fork in the spaghetti! He got a pretty good ball going, but it fell off when he picked the fork up. That's pretty advanced eating technique, Eddie!

One of Eddie's favorite books right now is a book of action rhymes we have from the library. He calls it the "music book" because we sing most of the poems ("If you're happy and you know it", "I'm a little teapot," "Heads, shoulders, knees, and toes," etc.) He knows pretty much all the poems and loves acting them out.

Marathon Monday

Yesterday we all went over to our friend Jami's place. She lives right on the Marathon route, around the 23 mile mark. After a while, Eddie understood the idea of cheering the runners. He clapped, and he'd put his hands up and say "Wooo!" He ran up and down by the course, laughing and clapping (and stopping to pet some doggies.) I think the cheering crowds were a little intense for him, though, because he'd frequently head down side streets or around the grounds of a church on the street there, to get a little bit away. He went in the parking lot behind the apartment building several times.  While we were back there, he started running through the parking lot, pointed at himself and said "Eddie runner! Eddie runner!"

"Eddie's a runner?" I said. "Wow! Go Eddie!"

"Go Eddie Go!" he said, running down the lot.

Eddie also had fun with Jami's two cats, who were very friendly. He got to pet them (other cats he knows don't like to be petted.) Inside the apartment, he saw marathon runners on the TV, and cheered for them: "Woooo!" (He was probably more vocal cheering for the TV than in person!)

On the way home, we were stuck on the train for over an hour while it was stopped in the tunnels. Eddie was very patient. When we finally emerged, we went to Chipotle to get dinner. While we were there, Eddie said "Home again, home again" (completing the rhyme he used the day before when we went to the store: "To market, to market, to buy a fat pig; home again, home again, jiggety jig.")

We were all glad to get home! It was a long day. It was beautiful out and we did lots of cheering!

Easter

On Saturday, Eddie had a very exciting day! First he went to the Charlestown Easter Egg Hunt, which was at 10 am. You need to be early for that, it seems! We heard them counting down as we crossed the street ("10...9...8...") and by the time we got to the field a minute later, the eggs were GONE. Fortunately, the mother of a little girl who had way too many eggs took pity on Eddie, who was toddling hopefully into the field with his empty basket, and had her give him a bunch of eggs. They were plastic eggs with prizes inside, like a sticker, some jelly beans, and lots of foil-covered chocolate coins.

Eddie also got to see the Easter bunny at the egg hunt! Eddie was really fascinated with this guy, and kept going back to stare at him. He wanted to show him one of his eggs.

Easter Bunny

Opening the eggs

His mouth is full

After we'd done the activities at the egg hunt for a while, we decided to head over the Cambridge where they were having the Robot Zoo again! Eddie and I had gone to that last year. This time, Mommy came with us too. We caught a bus near the egg hunt, then took the train up to Cambridge, and had lunch near Harvard Square. We went to a Mexican restaurant with paintings on the walls of Annie Oakley, Geronimo, and various desperados, which Eddie thought was pretty cool.

Then we went to see the robots! There were little dancing guys, lots of rolling robots running mazes, lego robots, and some robots kids made there with paper cup bodies and markers for feet which whirled around drawing on paper. Eddie really liked an underwater robot he saw, which turned and propelled itself in a big tank. This was just one corner of the huge Science Festival. Eddie also saw some real dinosaur footprints from Massachusetts.

Then, outside on the lawn, there were tubes full of bubble solution, and lots of kids making bubbles!

BUBBLES

That evening, Eddie went out for dinner with his pal Luke, and brought their parents along too. What a day! Luke's family gave Eddie a cool toy barn with some animals, which Eddie was really excited about. On the way home, we were talking about it, and I said "Aren't you lucky?"

Eddie slowed down and looked at his hands. "Eddie yucky?" he asked. Silly Eddie! (Eddie pronounces Ls as Ys, so he says "lucky" and "yucky" the same.)

When we got home, he started playing with the barn and didn't want to go to his bathtime. We let him play for another minute and told him that the animals were sleepy and wanted to get into the barn to sleep. He put all the animals into their own rooms in the barn, and closed it up for the night, carefully closed the barn door, then went right off for his bath. It was so cute!

Eddie woke up bright and early Easter morning. He wanted to come out and play with his toy barn. But when he got up, he found an Easter basket waiting for him! One of his stuffed bunnies, Pasquale, was in it, along with some big chalk, plastic eggs full of jelly beans, the book "Silly Sally," and a tambourine.
Unfortunately, he had some candy from his basket before breakfast, and he became a bit of a monster! He kept demanding candy and wouldn’t eat his real food, and was generally unmanageable.
He was really interested in dying eggs, though. We let him in the kitchen, with his stool to stand on, so he could help putting eggs in the dye. He thought this was really cool.

After his nap he had a much better afternoon. He walked with us to the store. He wanted us to make sure that the library was closed. Then we went to the “market”—Eddie was singing “To market, to market, to buy a fat pig.” On the way home, we walked by the Monument, where lots of people were out enjoying the sunny day. Eddie ran around and had a great time. He walked up to a plaque, which a maternal tourist was reading to her son (who wasn’t paying attention.) Eddie walked up and looked at her. She ignored him and droned on: “Built in 1842 of Quincy granite…” Eddie pointed at the big picture of the monument on the plaque and said “Tall!” As she still took no notice, he repeated “Taaall!”

Geez lady can’t you see what’s essential here?

Eddie is talking and singing up a storm these days. He picked up the word "tambourine" right away, and he seems to learn the major lines of a story after just a few readings (and then he can tell it to us.) He picked up a new mannerism today: adding "Papa says" or "Mommy says" at the end of a statement. Sometimes he's accurately reporting what we said: "Go to store Mommy says." Other times, it's more like what he wishes we said: "Open candy Papa says."

Poopdoh

These days, Eddie does not like to have his diaper changed. So when we ask him if he has a dirty diaper, he always says "No." Sometimes, though, there is olfactory evidence which can't be denied. Now he's hit on the strategem of blaming others for this.

The other day, I asked him if he had a dirty diaper, and he said no. So I asked "What is so stinky?" and he said "Mamma farts."

The little villain might have been more credible if Mamma had been in the room!

Another time, I had gotten him to the changing table, but he still denied that he needed a new diaper. He acknowledged that there was poop, but when I asked "Did Eddie poop?" he said "No." "So who pooped?" I asked. He thought for a second and said "Poopdoh!"

Yes, our son made up a character named "Poopdoh" to blame for his stinks.

Baby o and mommy O

Nonno is visiting (and posting this) and has been reading Tomie DePaola's MOTHER GOOSE with Eddie.  Yesterday we were looking at the cover, where the author's name arches over the top in lower case letters and 'MOTHER GOOSE' under it all in upper case in such a way that the o of 'Tomie' is directly over the O of 'MOTHER' and the o of 'DePaola's' is over the OO of 'GOOSE.'   Eddie points to the first and says, "Baby o and mommy O" and then when his attention is drawn to the second, he says, 'baby o and mommy and papa O."  It turns out that he knows the letters of the alphabet already.

Spring

On Thursday, we took a walk up to the Monument to celebrate the first day of spring. Eddie was excited by the nice weather. When he got to the top, he said "Eddie play on grass!" He climbed onto the lawn and plonked down, saying "Eddie sit on grass!" Then he sensed something amiss and looked at his hand. It had gotten a little dirt on it as he sat down! "Hand dirty," he said. He reached the offending hand plaintively toward us to be fixed. "Hand dirty!" he wailed.

Rough and tumble, that's Eddie.

Children's museum

Mamma's got some energy back! Yesterday I walked more than 8 miles. And this morning Eddie and I bused and walked across the city to the children's museum. He was thrilled the entire time. Bus, walk, museum, lunch at a restaurant, another bus, an adventure out with Mommy! It was wonderful to see him so happy. Then we went home and both took a two hour nap.

Playing the pan

Doing his shopping

Helping the older boys check out

Doggie poop

So Eddie was eating a cheese stick, when he suddenly started insisting that it was doggie poop. "Doggie poop," he said, pointing at it emphatically. "Doggie poop!"

"What?" I said, grossed out. "That's not doggie poop!"

He laughed. "Doggie poop."

"No, that's cheese!"

"Doggie poop."

I had to get across to this kid that this was not good table conversation. "No, doggie poop is gross. We don't touch it, and we don't put it in our mouths!"

Eddie considered this. "Mommy doggie poop," he said.

"Mommy does NOT touch doggie poop!" I exclaimed, scandalized.

He thought for a second, then said "Grandma Subie touch doggie poop!"

"No she doesn't!" I said, practically apoplectic.

Eddie just laughed.

Adoring Eddie

At some point every day, Kolya and I will comment on what a good kid Eddie is. He's gentle and inquisitive, attuned to his family and world, even patient and grounded--for a two year old. He loves snuggling and reading more than just about anything else. (He also loves Lego, food, and 'going to the city'. And he's been talking a lot lately about swings and going to the beach.) He's been acutely aware of my general malaise and exhaustion lately and has become absolutely adoring. He'll reach for my face, coo, "Mammaaaaaa, Maaammaaa." He'll rub my cheek, puckering his lips, and say, "Nice Mamma!" He clings and crawls all over me a lot, but he often knows when to give me space. He seems a little concerned for me, but patient. Some days I simply cannot sit upright or keep my eyes open. Eddie dotes and brings my water bottle. It's just that, he's such a good kid!

Words

Somehow, Eddie has determined that certain classes of words aren't useful, and he doesn't deign to recognize their existence. These include prepositions, articles, and auxiliary verbs. He's memorized the titles of most of his books—but only the important words. "A Kiss for Little Bear," for instance, he calls "Kiss Little Bear." "Ghosts in the House" is "Ghosts House," "The Cat in the Hat" is "Cat in Hat," and so on. He clearly doesn't have trouble remembering lots of words, since we have a lot of books, but he's not going to bother with fluff!

He also economizes if he's repeating what we tell him to say. If we ask him to say "May I have some apple, please?" he pares it down: "Apple please!"

He picked up a new word a couple of weeks ago and started using it all the time, but we couldn't understand what it meant. It sounded like "okoonk" or "ahdoon." We wondered if it meant skunk, or what? He seemed to use it in response to questions, but about such widely varied topics (types of food, or types of clothes, or what he'd done earlier...) that we couldn't imagine what he might be trying to get at. For a while, I thought that he'd come up with a good word, and was just trying it out on everything until he came up with what it meant. Then, the other day, I finally realized that he was saying "I dunno!"

Now it's clear why "ahdoon" is the answer to questions about every topic under the sun. Now that we understand, we've given him a little guidance about how to say it, and it's getting slightly more understandable, but it's still pretty strange (I doubt anyone but us would recognize it as "I dunno.")

I see you

We were walking down the street, returning from Whole Foods, with Eddie lagging behind me a bit. The buildings on the street have small windows for the basement level just at Eddie's height. He often likes to touch the bars or mess with latches on these windows (which I discourage.)

Today he stopped at a window, put his face between the bars and crooned "I see you!"

Pretty creepy, kid!

Singing

Eddie loves singing—mostly, having his parents sing. He requests for us to sing all the time, and assigns us topics. "Sing Nonno," he'll say, or "Sing Basic." Sometimes we'll be inspired with involved lyrics and plot, but usually our songs are pretty repetitive ("Basic Basic Basic Basic woof woof," perhaps.) Other popular subjects requested include "Doggy," "Mommy," "Papa," "Grandma," "Subie," "Bone" (as in doggy bone), "Strega Nona," and whatever has his attention that day. More recently he's requested combinations in a song, like "Sing Nonno, Papa, Eddie" or "Sing Basic bone."

He also heard the song "Who let the dogs out," and it's one of his favorite things to sing himself now. He'll sing "Who doggies out. Woof woof woof!"

Paper bag

We had an empty paper bag around, and Eddie asked for it. Then he put it on his arm, and said "Bye-bye. Bye-bye." I guess that was all he needed to be ready to go! But where was he going?

"Eddie city. Eddie city." He goes over to the front door. "Eddie boots." (His boots are out in the hall.) "Eddie boooooots!"

Later, Eddie wears the bag on his head.

Eddie throws a punch

Eddie's opinion of his parents

We were getting ready for naptime when Eddie said, apropos of nothing apparent, "Big one, little one."
I asked "What's big and what's little?"
Eddie said "Baby little."
"Yes, babies are little," I agreed.
"Baby wah-wah," Eddie said.
"Yes, babies say wah-wah," I agreed.
"Papa wah-wah," Eddie said.
?! "What? Does Papa say wah-wah?" I asked.
"Papa wah-wah," Eddie confirmed.


In the afternoon, we were on our way back from a walk when Eddie stepped on a grate. "What's this?" he asked. "A grate," I told him. He perked up in recognition at the word. "Mommy great!" he said.

Oh brother!

Boskone

Last weekend, Eddie went to his first sci-fi con: Boskone 51.

He got a name badge to wear, and a cool ribbon attached which says "My First Boskone." He was a big fan of that. After a few minutes staring solemnly at the woman who gave it to him, he poked at the stack with the rest of them. She said "Oh, honey, we need to keep those for other people at their first Boskone!" and he was like "Ok" and took his hand back. Oh man he is so cute when he is being shy and well-behaved!

First we visited the art show, which had a bunch of paintings and sculptures he liked to look at. One painting had the face of the Grim Reaper. Eddie laughed and said "Funny!" I was a little taken aback, and said "That's Death." This didn't make a big impression, so I tried "That's a skeleton." Eddie said "Ha ha. Funny skeleton!" So there you have it: Eddie laughs in the face of death.

Then we went to a filk show (ie, music) for kids. There were a few kids running around and a man playing a guitar and singing. Eddie just stared at this for a long time, not sure what to make of it. I gave him his milk and he guzzled that for a while. Then he said "Away! Away!" Pretty soon he started off and I had to ask him to wait for me.

We wandered around the Hucksters' room, which has merchants selling books, toys, food, etc. Eddie found a couple stalls with stuffed animals, and glommed on to some crocheted octopi. He's been talking about octopi a lot lately, and had even conveyed, earlier, that he wanted a toy one, so I decided to get him one. I asked him to choose which color he wanted: he chose the black one, which was the only one that has fangs, for some reason. (He was quite definite about it.)

After that, he hugged his octopus close as he wandered around. We went by the Dragonslair—the kiddie zone where the music was—again, and I asked if he wanted to go and dance with his octopus. He said "Away!" and kept going. But after a minute he slowed down and looked at his octopus and said "Octopus dance." So we went back to the music room, where Eddie danced with his octopus. He looked like he was gamely having a good time for the octopus's sake.

Soon it was time to head home for his nap. On our way out, someone tripped on the escalator and swore in German ("Scheiße!") and Eddie picked up on it right away. He repeated it several times on our way home.

He had occasion to, since there were patches of snow and ice on the sidewalk. Eddie is not a fan of these (although he's gotten better at it over this week.) At one patch near home, he got really upset and cried and wouldn't proceed. I borrowed a tactic I've heard work with Eddie's friend Luke, and asked "Are you tough?" Eddie said, still crying, "That's Luke!" Silly Papa. But he found some resolve and kept going. There were more patches, and I encouraged him to keep going to see Mommy, and asked if he was tough. "I'm tough," he said. "See Mommy."

When we finally got home, the first thing he did was show Mommy his octopus. The next thing was to report his story: "Ice," he said. "I'm tough."

Driver

Eddie has a big toy dump truck that he got for Christmas. He was playing with it, and I asked him "Who's driving the truck?" The truck has molded driver seats, which you can reach through the windows, but no built-in driver. I thought he might make someone up.

Instead, he bent down so he could put his eye right up to the windshield and peer in. Then he exclaimed, in a surprised tone, "Chairs!"

Color cards

Eddie has some Pantone color flashcards, which all have names like "Elephant Gray", "Jellyfish Pink",  "Lilac Purple", and so on. Apparently he's picked up on this naming scheme, because this morning while he was looking at them he named them:

"Seal gray. . . leaf gray. . . duck gray. . . berry grey. . ."

City boy

We have a real city boy on our hands. He doesn't like walking on snow, especially when it shifts and collapses under his feet. (When we went walking in the woods in Chardon at Christmastime, he cried and had to be carried.) But he likes snowmen a lot.

We went out yesterday to check on a little snowman we had made in the Training Field. But it was gone! Eddie decided to go up to the Monument, and up there we found three big snowmen. He wanted to see them, but he had to trek across the snow to get there.

Whenever the snow shifted, he said "Oh noooo." Then he would whimper "See snowman, see snowman." He bravely persevered, in this pathetic way, till we got to the snowmen. He was excited to see them: one had a bright plastic nose, one had hair made of twigs, and one had horns made of snow!

On the way back, we had to go down a little hill in the snow. Eddie said "Slippy, slippy," then he stopped and wouldn't go down any further (he's fallen down slopes before.) I said "You can do it!" and he said "No way!"

Well, eventually he found that he could do it. Then we went down the stairs and he counted them: "Two, eight, nine, ten, eight, nine, ten, nine, two. . . all done!"

A common conversation with Eddie

Eddie: "Mumble mumble, please." (His "please" sounds more like "peas.")

Parent: "What?"

Eddie nods in confirmation. "Please."

Parent: "We don't know what it is you're asking for, Eddie."

Eddie: "PLEASE!"

Mortification

I was in a small produce shop with Eddie yesterday, getting some eggs. We were the only customers at the time. He pointed at the guy running the shop and said "Fat!"

The guy was portly, but not really obese. He was also wearing a hat. I tried to ask Eddie if he was saying "Hat"? But no, he was having none of it. "Fat!" he said, pointing right at the dude.

He repeated himself several times before we could get out of there.  Oh man.

Words

Eddie's known the word "funny" for a long time. But he's been using it a lot for the last few days. A small tree in a planter in front of someone's door is "funny"; some dogs are "funny doggy"; sometimes his parent's choice of wardrobe is "funny." Occasionally he accompanies this declaration by saying "ha ha" (that is, saying the word "ha".)

We have some bathtub letters that stick to the sides of the tub during bathtime. Yesterday, I spelled the words "Boy" and "Hug," and he kept pointing them out and saying the word. Today I was making some words, and I put up "Hog". Apparently, Eddie recognized the H and G because he said "Hug"!

I thought another word he might recognize would be "Woof." One of his favorite books now is called Fleabag, and it has a dramatic page mostly covered with a dozen copies of the word "Woof!" So I put "Woof" on the tub and asked Eddie if he recognized it. He said "Doggie!"

Eddie still wants us to read with him all the time, and I think he really wants to figure out how to do it himself.

This morning, we all took a trip to the Museum of Fine Arts. Eddie got to ride on the train (he said "choo choo," a sound the MBTA trains don't ever make). We went to the ancient art section. Eddie liked the huge statue of the pharaoh Menkaure, and a neo-babylonian sculpture of a lion, and a bunch of ancient Egyptian model boats (with cute wooden people on them.) He said they were funny. Mostly he wanted to run around and put his hands on the glass.

Count on Eddie

The other day, the paper talked about 100,000 people doing something. I wanted to impress on Eddie that this was a big number. "Wow! That's a lot of people," I said. "Can you count that high?"

"Yeah," he said. "Oh yeah." He nodded.

"Really?" I said. "Let's hear it, then."

He turned to his mother and said "Mamma, start counting."


He recently started asking us what we're doing, all the time, by saying "Papa doing?" or "Mamma doing?" or so on. In the past couple of days, he's hit on asking "Eddie doing?" I guess he's perplexed himself! Sometimes he seems to enjoy trying to stump us with this question: He will walk in, holding his arms in front of him with his fingers all twisted into a weird shape, and ask "Eddie doing?"

You got me, kid!


It seems like—even more than usual—all he wants to do these days is have us read books to him. He has to be enticed into playing with his toys (his blocks, or trains, or trucks); otherwise, he just gets us to read him books.
Well, just two years till we can enroll him in youth hockey.

Knock knock

One of the ineffable joys of parenthood is, when you are sitting on the toilet, to have someone burst into the bathroom and proclaim "POOP!"

Well, today I was in the bathroom, and (inexplicably) I had locked the door. Eddie came along and, finding the door locked, starting knocking, then said "Knock knock."

Papa: "Who's there?"

Eddie: "Boo."

Papa: "Boo who?"

Eddie: "Don't cry!"

Papa: "Ha ha ha."

Eddie: (knocks again) "Knock knock."

Papa: "Who's there?"

Eddie: "Boo."

Papa:  "Boo who?"

Eddie: "OPEN DOOR!"

Literacy

Eddie is starting to be able to recognize his name. He can recognize a few letters, especially O and I, and when we write out the letters E-D-D-I-E, he says "Eddie!"

Lately he is very excited to read stories about bears. He points at our bookshelf and requests "Bears, bears." If we don't act quickly, he will pull out one of our adult books and assert that it is about bears. (Even though we cleared out the lower shelves, he can reach a lot of our books now.) We don't have too many books about bears, so sometimes we read one about something else. Then he seems to say "That was pretty good—but no bears. Two stars."

Today Mommy sat in the chair at the end of the table, which we don't usually use. But when Nonno visits, he uses that chair. Eddie remembers this—when Mommy sat there, he said "Nonno's chair! Nonno's chair!" Then he went to the other chairs and reminded us how they are supposed to go: "Mommy's chair, Eddie's chair, Papa's chair."

Speaking of relatives, Eddie has been talking about Uncle Bo even since our trip. His first words of the new year were "Uncle Bo, Uncle Bo." Sometimes he uses his little wooden phone to call Uncle Bo and tell him about the day.