Tomi was reading through one of the boys' favourite books, given to them by GAMPA! just after their birth: a collection of many great children's sotries, illustrated by many great children's illustrators. But when he came to the images of the gestation and birth of a chick, he became entranced; and kept asking, "(What is) this?!" as he pointed to the various stages. Leo, meanwhile, wanted a posed picture of him with each of his growing collection of Absolutely Necessary for Bedtime and for Morning Milking Animals. Worm* won out in the blog selection process, but the funniest one (when it was being taken) was the Dinosaur one, because of the antics (opening the dinosaur's mouth, and ROWR!-ing); and the Goo-Goo Bear one was the sweetest, because he insisted on a few takings, in order to get the perfect image of his love for that little bear (a gift of his Great Aunt Peggy a tthe time of their birth)...And now, back to the addtions to the previous post's suggestions:
1) The "special things" high up in one corner of the kitchen are things like juice boxes, chocolate, etcetera. They're things for "special moments" or when we're out and about, that kind of thing...
2) The cake with the crown is a Three Kings Cake. On the day of the Epiphany (the first Sunday of January - in France, at least), you gather around a cake with a small surprise baked into it. The person who gets the piece containing the surprise is the king/queen, and wears the crown for the rest of the day.
3) I'd also suggest that Pretend Soup not be given to a child before their third birthday (as Ellen did). Molly Katzen mentions that age as the starting age, and also that most of the recipes are really for slightly older kids, but can be done with extra help from an adult from the age of three. So far, we've done the pizzas, Zucchini Moons and Noodle Soup, and (although it is, honestly, alot of work when two three year olds go at it at once - and sometimes necessitates dividing the boys up for a few seconds & letting each one have his moment of glory while the other one has a window to get into the "special things" corner) they've all worked spectacularly, and the boys are really, really proud to have helped to make their lunch, supper or snack, as the case may be.
4) Of course, of course: hours after I'd blogged about the Jurassic Park incident, the boys were begging to watch it again. It was clear that they hadn't forgotten the "really! bad! boys" and "really! bad! dinosaurs," but it seems that didn't matter as much as I'd feared. (For instance, they'd be begging, and one of them would start talking about the events in the movie - as though to be sure that I knew what movie they were talking about - and say something like, "Really bad dinosaur eats one man! Breaks little house! Rowr! Yom! Yom!" referring to the lawyer's demise in the latrine.) In any case, we've put the movie away for now...
Here are a couple of images from last Tuesday's First Secret Session (hah! hah! More information later...), which culminated in a couple of cute moments between Marion and the boys. The third picture is a clearer image of (Tomi engaging in) one of the boys' lateset obsessions: stick gathering and waving. They are only allowed to do the waving "outside," of course, so the terrace has become more important to them of late...
And a couple of pictures of Tomi's artistic exploits. The drawing (which he gifted me after its creation. To do this, the boys sometimes lay their creations on my desk when I'm not looking. And when I ask about it, they say, "This (is) Mommy's," in a kind of shy way. It's very sweet) ...the picture is of a "little boy." You can see his pink arms. But what you might think are (somewhat insect-like) eyes are actually his ears. I figured this out later in the day, when Tomi came to me, distressed, with a "boy" he'd drawn and was cutting out. Sadly, he explained to me, he'd cut the boy's ears off... The second picture is of our first cutting accident. When he turned around with a cry for help, I found his scissors entrenched in his t-shirt! He'd been holding them close to his body for better stability, and the t-shirt got scrunched up into them. It seemed that he thought that if he didn't move and if I helped him, his t-shirt could be saved. Another very cute moment. (Oh, and that's hot chocolate that's covering his face. He was saving it for later.)
* Worm was a 1-year birthday gift from Ina & Jerry Lowenberg. He dethroned Goo-Goo for a while, but they now share that seat, and their reign is a peaceful and happy one. The lizard that the Lowenbergs gave Tomi is second in command to Teddy (a.k.a, Telly), and is often called (make a blathering noise with your tongue, something like:) "blah-uhl-ath-uhl," as in: "Mommy, my not find blah-uhl-ath-uhl!" ( = "Mommy! I can't find lizard!")
