Addictions

The question of the day, the Leapster, fabulous educational toy or preschooler crack? I had been concerned that he wouldn't be able to manipulate it and wouldn't be interested in it, but Brendan has been obsessed with it. It's so bizarre to see a 3 year old become so engrossed in an electronic game. I can definitely see how kids become totally addicted to game boys and the game systems. Brendan and I played it for hours yesterday. At one point, with only a break for dinner, we played Letters on the Loose for almost 2 hours straight. He was a pro almost from the get go at using the pen from having used one similarly with the Leap Pad. He can't really manipulate the arrow keys well enough to completely play on his own, so he sat in my lap and we played it together. That was nice actually, it's not often that he wants to just sit on mom's lap anymore, at least not when he's not tired and cranky. And if it wasn't that we had to stop for a bath (the prospect of his new shower toy winning out over the Leapster) we probably would have kept on playing. I should add that normally I wouldn't let Brendan spend that amount of time playing an electronic toy, but with his being sick it was keeping him from running around so I figured why not. I did feel a little guilty about it while we were playing, but less guilty about it today. Brendan seems a little sicker today, or at least more whiny and cranky and didn't have the level of concentration with the Leapster he had yesterday. He spent the better part of the day whining and clinging on to me, so yesterday's Leapster addiction seems preferable in comparison. I wonder what it is with the Leapster. So many of the Leap Frog products have had a really pull with him, especially the DVDs, but not nearly to this extent. Maybe it would be this way with any kind of game system? Or maybe Leap Frog is just a really scary company.

And I really shouldn't talk. While we were playing yesterday, I had my crack, i.e., the TV. They were having some fabulous movies on TCM yesterday, Sunset Boulevard, Philadelphia Story, It Happened One Night and then Casablanca which I got to watch all of while we were playing Letters on the Loose. This has been one of my absolute favorites since I was 9 years old. It was the day after Christmas when I was 7 years old that I became a huge Ingrid Bergman fan. My uncle from Michigan had brought his two psychotic dogs home with for Christmas, one of which had scratched me on the face. The cut got infected and my mom had to periodically drain the wound throughout the whole day. To keep me still she put on the TV and tuned to a Hitchcock festival. I started to get interested during Notorious and got hooked on Spellbound. My main exposure to old movies prior to his had been kid standards like Wizard of Oz and the chanel 11 Sunday morning Abbott and Costello fest. But this was different, I was just mesmerized. Ingrid Bergman was just all glamour and beauty and I loved her. Every time Spellbound was on after that I watched it. A year or two later my mom suggested I watch Casablanca if I loved Ingrid Bergman so much (I did a 5th grade book report and presentation on her if that tells you something) and wow, this was it, this was the movie for me. I permanently borrowed a copy of the script from the public library when I was about 13 and told them I lost it and to this day can practically recite the script by heart. When I was 15 or 16 there was an exhibit of film props at the Cooper-Hewitt museum and Sam's piano was there. There was no barrier to it and I touched it. It set off silent sensors and a security guard came running, but he laughed when he saw this kid who was just agog at an ordinary looking piano (actually salmon-colored, not white like you'd think from the film). The years have passed while other Hitchcock films are by far my favorites (I'll have to tell my stories of how I've visited locations in North by Northwest), Spellbound is still a sentimental favorite of mine, and Casablanca, for a comfort film, it just doesn't get better than that.

I guess I can cut the boy some slack then, right?

Christmas fun and fever

I guess it really doesn't compare to last year's illness extravaganza when we spent Christmas with me recovering from the flu and seguing into bronchitis and Brendan in his 4th week of the ear/adenoid infections, but of course what would Christmas be without an illness?

We had a really nice xmas eve morning, lazing around the house and playing games. I put on the Pottery Barn Kids xmas music CDs that we got from Jen and Sami and Brendan was chilling on the easy chair to the music. Chilling too much, he was getting almost comatose. I said hmmmmm, it was of course one week to the day that he saw his cousin Kyle who was hacking up a lung (just a residual cough per my SIL, uh huh) and checked his temp. It was 99.7, not bad but not normal. We went to my parents where Santa had visited a day early, bringing the much coveted black wallet, already filled with $$. He also got a big set of dinosaurs, a giant calculator, a LeapFrog globe, a talking clock and a Dr. Seuss pop-up book. Brendan loved everything, but he barely ate and around 2:30 he went to the back room and laid down on the couch. He was out in a minute. He slept through dinner and eventually I had to wake him, and even then he just wanted to lay in my lap and sleep. And of course he was running a fever by then.

He slept pretty well through the night, only waking once. He ran into my room at exactly 7:00 (our agreed upon Christmas morning waking time) announcing "There's presents under the tree, get up Mommy!!" I told him Merry Christmas and he replied "Thank you for the Merry Christmas." We went downstairs and it was so much fun to watch Brendan in ecstasies opening his presents. Santa brought him an airport, big measuring tape, Leap Frog DVD, a foam puzzle of the US, the Leapster L-Max and games, a cash register, a talking watch, a Dora Christmas book, a shower toy for the tub, a green handy dandy notebook in his stocking and a Blues Clues Thinking Chair. He went nuts over the watch and wore it most of the day, pressing it almost every minute to hear the time. He couldn't believe that Santa brought a thinking chair and ran to sit in it constantly. He opened and closed the cash register giving me money and scanned bar codes. We played several games on the Leapster together. He was crazy about Numbers on the Run. It was just such so much fun seeing the joy on his face.

He was so busy with presents it was almost 9:30 before I got him to stop to take his temp. It was already 101.7. I was very glad we weren't going anywhere. I'd already given him Triaminic for his nose which was a green gushing faucet. By the time Grandma and Grandpa came at 1:00, he was already getting a little subdued. He played alot through the day and even ate a little, but wasn't really himself, even with the Tylenol to bring down the fever. He was really cute, disappering at one point with the tub toy. I found him in the bathtub in his clothes sitting there telling me it didn't work, lol. After a real bath later on, more Leapster playing, and a thank you letter to Santa, he was off to bed.

I wish that Brendan had felt a little better, but all in all it was a good Christmas.

Some recent keyword activity

That led people to my blog. I especially like the third one. Aside from having no idea how that would lead to this blog, you have to wonder what the person was searching for it was hoping to find with that search term, lol.

elmo sound clips sneeze
Singulair crazy
chicken pox turn on air conditioner
watching my mom undress

First letter to Santa

Dear Santa,

Please bring me a wallet.

Brendan.

You got to hand it to my child, right to the point.

Games

Brendan is loving them lately. We've been playing Memory, Candyland, Chutes and Ladders and Bingo for awhile. He's also made up his own versions of Scrabble and Boggle when I brought out those games. I mentioned in the last post how he just got Scrabble Jr. and Yahtzee Jr. with the Disney characters, and is enthralled with both games. When he first started playing games he didn't really care about whose turn was whose, about who won, or rather even realizing that there was a winner. For example, during Chutes and Ladders he'd spin more than once if he didn't like the first spin, but not to get to a better square, but say if he got a 6 and just decided he liked a 3 better, he'd spin to get that. But now he really gets the concept of winning and wants to win. At this point I have no problem letting him win and have been doing it with Scrabble Jr. But with Yahtzee, it's really pure luck, whatever the dice turn up. So far he's won more often than me, but I can already see he's not really liking it if I win. And while we're playing Scrabble Jr., he'll start counting up red stars to see how many each of us has and is always gratified if he has more. I find it very interesting to see how this is developing. My nephew who's 4 has understood this concept for a long time and gets crazed if he doesn't win. I'm hoping we don't go there.

He's also been telling me for the last few weeks that on December 21st that we're going to play a game called Desser that apparently involves green letters. I've tried several times to get an idea of what he thinks Desser is, but he never really elaborates. It should be interesting tomorrow to see what he comes up with especially as I will likely be home again all day, darn, freakin', @$%#$% transit strike.

Merry early Christmas

My brother and his family came over to my parents' on Saturday. They never come on the actual holidays so we get extra holiday celebrations, which can be good or bad depending on how you look at it. Actually it was a really nice day. My SIL was sociable, my brother didn't say anything too off-putting and the kids had a great time. And I have to thank my SIL mightily for choosing Scrabble Jr. and Yahtzee Jr. as two of his gifts. Brendan really loves games and he's so enamored of these two. I have to admit that I really like them too. Maybe I'm just tired of Candyland and Chutes and Ladders, but these were alot of fun. Particularly the Yahtzee Jr. with the Disney characters. Every time I hear Brendan pronounce Mowgli as "Moogalee", I split a side.

The holiday humor continued today. A woman at the diner we were at for breakfast this morning asked Brendan if he was ready for Santa. He told her "No, Santa doesn't come until the 25th, today is only the 18th." She laughed and asked if he'd written a letter to Santa and her told her "no, not until the 23rd."

My mom had planned to take Brendan to visit her old school to see the children's chorus do their winter concert on Friday. If there was a transit strike though the concert was going to be cancelled because there would have been a 2 hour delay in school starting. She told Brendan on Thursday she didn't know if they'd be able to go the next day because there might be a strike. Today he's brushing his teeth and tells me, "When there's a stripe on the school, you can't have any music." LOL

Brendan and Kyle one of the three or four times they put together the map of the US (Brendan telling Kyle all the capitals and Kyle telling Brendan what football team plays in each state), Brendan in ecstasies playing Yahtzee, the two little men watching the game, and my nut boy at home while we were playing Scrabble Jr.

Stuff Portrait Friday

This is for Casey. As instructed, portraits of something red, something green and something you decorate.

Something red. Brendan's current obsession, his handy dandy notebook.



Something green. Ahhhh, the Grinch.



And something you decorate. Better than the tree.

Miracle catch

I'm just weepy about this. This has always been one my greatest fears since we also live on the third floor. I have a ladder for us to use in a situation like this but I wonder if I'd be able to get it set up to use.

http://www.wnbc.com/news/5540879/detail.html

Mom Tosses Baby From Burning Window

NEW YORK -- A Bronx mother, cornered by smoke and flames, prayed as she tossed her 1-month-old baby from a third-floor window to the crowd below.

"I said, 'God, please save my son,"' a weeping Tracinda Foxe, 30, told the Daily News in Thursday editions. "I prayed that someone would catch him and save his life."

Her prayers were answered by Felix Vazquez, 39, a Housing Authority supervisor and former lifeguard, who made the catch and gave the baby, Eric Guzman, mouth to mouth resuscitation.

"I didn't think," Vazquez, a father of three, said after the Wednesday morning rescue. "I just reacted."

Moments later, Firefighters D.J. Martin and Bobby Eustace burst into the burning apartment, found a hysterical Foxe and gave her an oxygen mask. Mother and son were treated at a hospital and released.

The new hero, by the way, is also a catcher on his local baseball team.

Deck the halls with picket signs

We're 12 hours away from a possible transit strike. I guess to most people outside of NYC it's hard to understand how a lack of public transit can cripple a whole city, but this is a biggie (I mentioned this on a board I post to and one of the women who lives in Alabama commented she'd never used public transit in her life, and "don't worry you'll find a way.") We haven't had a strike since 1980, but for some reason I get the feeling that they may actually do it this time. I have someone who I can get a ride with if the strike lasts into Tuesday, but no way before that. Actually I have one co-worker who'll pick me and another co-worker and then drive to Staten Island where yet another co-worker will drive us to NJ and then into the city. The co-worker in Staten Island has a disabled parking pass from the city so if we get there early enough (think before 5:00am) he may still be able get a place to park. It's so crazy.

And then my poor uncle, his company was hit by a strike two days ago. He's a manager for the company that does the fueling at Newark airport. When the workers strike he has to do the fueling and winds up working 12+ hour days 7 days a week. He did the same when there was a strike at JFK during the summer and he wound up working that punishing schedule for over 6 weeks until it was resolved. My uncle is 56, has had health issues, and working that kind of schedule in the bitter cold, I feel so bad for him. He's also the one who host Christmas day every year and as there's a good chance the strike would last through the holiday, he's really disappointed.

My request to Santa, please bring the MTA and TWU to an agreement before the strike deadline. And please let my uncle come home for Christmas.

Genetic Theory of Harry Potter

From this week's NY Times Magazine, their annual Year in Ideas issue. I don't know what I love more, that Nature published the letter about this to begin with or that the NY Times considered it one of the most important ideas of the year.

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/12/11/magazine/11ideas_section2-3.html

December 11, 2005

Genetic Theory of Harry Potter, The

By STEPHEN MIHM

This summer, the journal Nature published "Harry Potter and the Recessive Allele," a letter that argued that J. K. Rowling's tales of the young wizard Harry Potter offer an opportunity to educate children in modern theories of heredity.

As almost everyone above the age of 3 knows, the Harry Potter novels depict a world divided into people who possess magical powers (wizards and witches) and those who do not (Muggles). Not everyone can be a wizard; indeed, after careful review of the evidence, the authors of the Nature letter concluded that wizards evidently inherit their gifts from their parents as predicted by the theories of the 19th-century geneticist Gregor Mendel.

Apparently, wizardry (or the lack thereof) is determined by a linked pair of genes, or alleles, that you inherit from your parents, one allele from each parent. The researchers hypothesized that wizardry is a recessive trait, like blue eyes, meaning that an individual who inherits from his parents one wizard allele and one Muggle allele (wM or Mw) will not display wizarding powers. Only individuals with two wizard alleles (ww) will display magical powers. Such individuals - like Harry and his nemesis, Draco Malfoy - are more likely to be born to parents who possess ww genes.

But children born of mixed marriages need not necessarily live a life of Mugglehood: those with a pure-blood wizard father (ww) and a part-Muggle mother (Mw) can inherit the precious ww genes. Children can also inherit the trait when neither parent is a wizard but both carry the wizard gene (Mw). Here the researchers cited Harry's friend Hermione Granger, the child of two Muggle dentists, as an example of the recessive allele surfacing against the odds.

Case closed? Not a chance: no sooner had the letter appeared than a group of plant scientists at Cambridge fired off a rebuttal: "Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Presumption," in which they claimed that the recessive-allele hypothesis was "deterministic and unsupported by available evidence."

Given Rowling's penchant for plot twists, details may yet surface that prove once and for all that wizarding is indeed a recessive trait. Until then, Rowling, whom religious fundamentalists have pilloried for glamorizing witchcraft, may well be preaching a far more subversive message, one that leads young readers to pursue the study of heredity, genes and - inevitably - evolution.

The ex files

Picture a cold December Sunday at the mall. It's casual dress all the way. The beat up pair of Express jeans that are so damn comfortable but that are so worn and shiny at the knees it's almost embarassing to be seen in them. The stretched out Old Navy t-shirt with the fraying hem and the greasy child handprints from the pretzel he weaseled out of me. Hat hair. Also picture having been in said mall for a couple of hours that's becoming steadily more crowded. The stroller is tilting over from the newly purchased crap that's hanging off the handles. The hyped up child dashing all over the place. Picture hissing "Brendan, get back to this stroller right now", said child coming over and the stroller falling over as I let go of it. Picture someone leaning over to right the stroller and it's none other than the ex. Not just any ex, but THE ex. The one who became the ex mainly because children were just not on the agenda (well that and the cheating). And this is how we meet up again, with me of course the ever so perfect specimen of happy and organized motherhood, not. Aaaagh!!!!!! We chatted for an awkward minute or two. Finally Brendan couldn't take it and shouted "LET'S GO MOMMY!!!!!!!" My sentiments exactly at that point. Now, I don't really give a shit about what the ex thinks about me or my child. And I'd by far rather have greasy handprints on everything I own than have spent the last 4.5 years differently, but damnit, couldn't I at least have been looking a little more put together? Although shock of shocks I did get a compliment on my new shade of red. Maybe I should have extended an invitation to the ex to come and babysit? (Evil grin inserted here).

`Tis the season

For holiday songs and rainbows too.

Mr. Independent

Brendan's always been lazy, you know why undress yourself if Mommy can do it for you, etc. But in the last few weeks, he's doing everything for himself. He's dressing and undressing himself. He gave up the kid's cutlery and is using adult silverware. Except when he's drinking in the living room on the carpet, he's only drinking out of a regular cup. He's totally independent in using the toilet except for still needing help with the flush. He's washing himself in bath, he even started washing his hair this week. He cleans his own ears. He's been brushing his teeth for awhile, but even cleans the toothbrush now afterwards. He uses the remote correctly to change the channels to the shows he wants to watch, uses the DVD player. He gets what he wants out of the fridge, opens containers. He amazed me the other day by getting a spoon and then going in the frifge and and getting his Dora yogurt., opening it, eating it and then throwing it out and the spoon in the sink all without coming to me. I keep wondering who this kid is, lol.

And today he was using the computer correctly. I've been using laptops for years, but I still have my old desktop. Brendan loves to type on Wordpad on my laptop but I don't like him using the laptop so I set him up on the desktop last week. Every day he's wanted to type on it. When the babysitter was here on Sunday she changed the font colors for him and he's wanted me to do it too. It was driving me crazy because he'd type for about 10 seconds and then want the color changed. I showed him how to do it using the trackball and he did it!!! He was actually able to manipulate the trackball to get the pointer on the font button and then choose the color he wanted and click it. He did every color. He also was able to manipulate it get on the X to click it closed. I was just so amazed because fine motor skills have never been his strong suit.



And sometimes he really does surprise with me the things he catches onto. He was ripping paper I was putting out for recycling. For the hell of it I gave him a sheet of paper and asked him to rip it in two. He did and I explained that each piece was one half of the whole. I did an explanation of how each smaller piece was one half and that two halves made a whole. I also talked about breaking a cookie in two and having two halves, cutting a sandwich into two, etc. And he totally got it. He ripped another piece of paper and held up one piece and said "one half" and then both and said "two halves". I asked him what two halves equal and he said "one whole". I would love to hear Brendan and his cousin have a math chat. Kyle is obsessed with math. He loves for my brother and SIL to ask him adding and subtracting questions. Recently my brother asked him what 5 - 8 was and without missing a beat Kyle said negative 3. Did I mention Kyle turned 4 in September? Clearly someone must have explained the concept to him, but eeek!!!! These boys scare me sometimes.

33 in the snowy city

Both my age and the temp today. Mother Nature decided to send a snowy Happy Birthday greeting. We woke up this morning to the first snowfall of the season. Brendan actually was excited about it, the first time he's ever seemed excited about snow. For the first time he not only willingly walked in and touched the snow, he actually wanted to play in it. We made some snowballs and he wanted to make a snowman but there wasn't enough snow and it was the powdery kind. He'll be happy soon enough since we're expecting another 3-6 inches tomorrow night. It's really pretty and I'm glad he enjoyed it, but if this would have been the only snow of the season I would have been pretty happy.



It was a pretty low-key day. Brendan sang Happy Birthday a zillion times and made me a playdoh "cake". We went to my parents in the morning so they could wish me a Happy Birthday and so my mom could get some free labor and get her tree and house decorated. I really love doing it though and it was a nice way to spend the morning. Later I went out to lunch with some friends. I had a slice of a decadent chocolate cake for dessert, mmmmmm.

Came home to putting away laundry, dinner, bath and bedtime for Brendan. But he made me laugh a few times. He's been very into Christmas songs and there's a station that's been playing them 24/7 since Thanksgiving. I had the shower radio on while he was in the tub, and I'll Be Home for Christmas was playing. Brendan listened and says to me "Who's Alby?" (I'll be, lol). Earlier when we were at my parents he was singing Jingle Bells for my dad and he was trying to explain to him what a one horse open sleigh is. Then he asked Brendan what the opposite of open was. Brendan's answer, "nepo". And before his bath he had spilled some water on his pants so he took them off to dry. He was standing in front of the TV watching and repeatedly pulling his little boxer briefs up and down. I guess it's never too early to learn how to do a good peep show.

I'm taking off Tuesday for a "me" day as a birthday present to myself. I'm doing some shopping, hitting Macy's Santa Lane and then seeing HP4. Hey, you only turn 33 once, or as Mr. B says "Your age is the number with two 3s. That's cool mommy."

Got the scrapbooking bug

The digital kind anyway. I've always wanted to do scrapbooking but never had the patience or the creativity to work with paper elements. But digital scrapbooking, yes this is my thing. As an early birthday present for myself I got myself some nice software. It's pre-loaded with templates and elements, but you can change and play with everything from backgrounds to graphics to fonts. I'm just loving it. I have so many digital photos to play with, I could be busy for a long, long time. I need to get some good paper to start printing on. I tried printing on the glossy photo paper but the colors ran. I did better on regular paper, but I want something you can put in a scrapbook. I think I'm going to try a matte paper next.

Here are a few of my creations so far -

Snoopy Christmas

Baptism Day

Santa Claus Lane