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.