Dog Logic

Okay, now for an actual short post. The last was was supposed to be short. But I lied.

A few days ago Kiernan and I were sitting outside having lunch. He likes to go outside and eat sometimes, no matter what the weather is like, and since we're trying to sell the house I'm happy to accommodate him. More meals outside means fewer times I have to vacuum. Cha-ching.

On the day in question, Kiernan wanted to hear characters from Mickey Mouse Clubhouse. This was a rare day, as most of the time now we do the voices of his friends from school or the characters of the Hundred Acre Wood. But he was in a Mickey Mouse mood, so fine.

Mainly he wanted to hear Goofy. For some reason he likes my Goofy voice. It's terrible, you should know. Sort of a generic southern redneck goofball kind of voice, but he likes it. He even does a version of it himself, which is great.

He had me switch back and forth between being Goofy and Pluto for awhile, until he paused, thought for a second, and asked,

"Are Goofy and Pluto dogs?"

"Yes," I replied, feeling as though we were reenacting a scene from Stand By Me.

He then asked his marquee question:

"Do dogs stand up on two feet?"

And I was once again left with the task of trying to explain the animal hierarchy in Disney's world.

Thanks Walt.

All The President's Toddlers

Hmmm. I'm going to try to walk a tightrope here with this short post. I want to share an amusing little anecdote, something Kiernan said that touches on politics, albeit barely, without straying into making any sort of political statement. I have strong feelings in this arena--how can anyone not these days?--so this is hard. But this blog is about Kiernan, not about me (no matter how much I might talk about myself), so I'll just focus on the Kiernan-ness of the moment.

To help me start out in the right frame of mind, I'll insert an unrelated picture of a lion here...


Okay. Cool. That helps.

The other day, after Wendy picked up Kiernan from school, she sent the following text to my phone (we've found texting to be a convenient way to share and preserve the great little things he says until later when we can write them down):

Mom: "What picture did u make today w/ shapes?"

Kiernan: "President Bush."

Mom (after laughing): "Who was talking about PB today?"

Kiernan: "I was. With my friends."

Now, we still have not figured out the context for Kiernan's responses in this exchange, if indeed any context exists. I was supposed to ask his teachers the next day if they had any idea, but I forgot. Hopefully when Wendy takes him to school tomorrow, she'll have a chance to ask. We both thought his responses were hilarious...and amazing, and even a tad disturbing. Not darkly disturbing, mind you. Just, wow-where-does-he-come-up-with-this-stuff disturbing.

Until I know for sure I won't just write off the exchange as random. We've long since learned that just about nothing that Kiernan says is random, unless it's one of his made up words, and even those follow a certain situation-usage logic (see calakanarius and bikkin-bo-bikkins). Most of the things he says, even when they seem random, link back to something that he heard earlier. Something someone was talking about on the radio. Or something someone said to him five minutes before, all but forgotten, except by Kiernan, who has been mulling it over for the last few minutes.

I don't know what it means for the larger picture. Are we unwittingly raising an Alex P. Keaton? The next Barack Obama or Jon Stewart? Who knows.

We don't talk about politics in our home a great deal, regardless of how passionately we feel about what is happening in our country right now. There simply isn't time when your days are filled with singing about the fifty states while doing impressions of the girls in Kiernan's preschool class. "Now can Nicole sing the states song? Now can Talia sing the states song? Now can Moira sing the states song?"

Still, little things slip out. I watch news shows and political commentary, and even listen to a skosh of talk radio, so names come out here and there. At some point one of us mentioned President Bush. Or else his image appeared on the television.

"Who's President Bush?" Kiernan said.

He is fascinated with his puzzles of the United States, so this was fairly easy to answer. Wendy even came up with a great way of putting it when the answer, "He's the president of the United States," didn't suffice.

"He's like the boss of the country. Of the United States."

We didn't editorialize. I'm not sure how I feel about this. I know of plenty of parents who wash their children in their own political beliefs. I have a startling anecdote from a minister friend in Mississippi about the time his daughter did a report on Bill Clinton in her elementary school class. I just want Kiernan to be able to think, even if he doesn't think like me.

Whether this means shielding him from my political beliefs, or being open about them, I'm not sure yet. Although I do know I shouldn't have to worry about it before he's even three years old.

I suppose if he's already having political discussions with his friends in preschool, though, it's too late. He'll probably just say, "That's nice, Dad. But I prefer to stick with what I talked about with the twins during Outside Choice Time today. We call it the Winnie-the-Pooh doctrine."

Pre-Cool for School

Kiernan has started preschool, ladies and gentlemen.

This is a picture of him on his first day of school. Behind him, looking on with pride, are his best stuffed friends, Guinea Pig, Meow Meow Kitty Cat, and Pooh Bear. These are the three friends that are absolutely indispensable at nap time and bedtime. They also have been known to go along when Kiernan goes somewhere in the car, although generally they need to stay in the car so as to prevent them getting lost. If Meow Meow Kitty Cat and Pooh Bear were ever to get lost, it would be very sad. If Guinea Pig were ever to get lost...disaster. Guinea Pig is the one friend we cannot do without. Naps, and thus civilization as we know it, would cease to exist.

Yes, yes. I do realize that I must prepare for the eventuality that Guinea Pig is going to go missing someday. This is the reality with little kids and toys. I still remember the family trip when Pooky went missing, never to return. Pooky was a cute little stuffed monkey that went with me everywhere. I left him in a hotel room. By the time I realized it we were hours away. It was awful. I almost cut our honeymoon short because of it.

But I digress.

I include Guinea Pig in this story because he was instrumental in helping Kiernan get used to preschool. Last year Kiernan went to school two days a week. He was in an infant/toddler program at a great charter school in our area, and we'd take him to his two-and-a-half hour classes, staying with him for the duration as parent participation was part of the program. This was great for Kiernan socially, as he learned how to interact with other kids around his age. I also learned how to be nice to people.

But Kiernan was going to "age out" of the infant toddler program in November, so we needed something else for him, and, really, he needed more of a challenge. At the age of three months--I'm not kidding--we put him on a wait list for a very special preschool called the CSUN Lab School. This school is on the campus at the Cal State University at Northridge, so the location couldn't have been much better. Plus, the program there is fantastic. It is called the "Lab School" because the teachers in training at CSUN work and learn there. It's kind of like a teaching hospital, like on the show "ER", but for teachers instead of doctors and without two idiotic freak helicopter accidents within the space of a single season.

But again, I digress. A few months ago, after being on the waiting list for so long, we finally found out that Kiernan had gotten into the CSUN Lab School. This was no sure thing. They accept very few kids as they want to keep the teacher-to-student ratio as high as they can, and they want to get just the right mix of kids. We were ecstatic when we found out Kiernan had gotten in, though it seemed pretty silly to be worried about such things as admissions before our son had even turned three. Furthermore, when I found out that Kiernan was going to be going to this five days a week, I have to admit I freaked out a little bit. Five days of school a week? Before he was three? Without us?

Deep breath.

This summer we had what the school calls "Transition Class" to prepare for the upcoming semester. Transition Class was a chance for Kiernan to get used to his new school two days a week, a chance for him to learn how to properly separate from us for the half day of school, and a chance for us to learn how to manage our feelings of helplessness and despair when it turned out he was pretty much cool with being away from us.

At first it was hard. For all three of us. Kiernan would cling to whichever one of us brought him to school, refusing to let us out of his sight. He would howl if we ever tried to leave the room. We would go out, promising to be back in ten minutes, and in five he would just sob for us to return. It was awful.

Eventually, however, he adjusted. After a few days he started to get more and more used to his teachers, bonding with them and starting to trust them. Guinea Pig was quite helpful at this time. The teachers suggested we bring in a "transitional object" that Kiernan could look to as a part of home, and Guinea Pig served that purpose. We'd bring him with us to school and hand him over a teacher. She would put him in one of her apron pockets. When the kids came in from "Outdoor Choice Time" she would put Guinea Pig in Kiernan's cubby outside the classroom, explaining that if Kiernan needed him all he had to was ask for him.

As the days progressed Kiernan would, of his own volition, just bring Guinea Pig in and put him in his cubby straightaway, never seeing him again until after school was over. Now that school has started--half days, five days a week--he barely even notices when we leave, giving us a quick kiss and going off to play with his teachers and his new friends. We're very proud of him, but it is a little weird watching him become independent.

This is way too long.

Anyway, let me just say that school is going well for him and I'll post again with a couple of other things in a bit.

Quick Draw, McKiernan

In addition to knowing the states and understanding tortilla chips better than I do, Kiernan has now revealed he can also draw better than I can. Seriously. Just ask Tric Wesp. She was the professor who was tasked with trying to teach me costume design. She had to look at my renderings of the human form for an entire semester. It's no wonder she required that we provide Mimosas during our final presentations.

Yeah, so my toddler son can draw better than I can. I'm fine with that. I do look forward to next year, when I anticipate he shall teach me how to drive. If it even takes until next year. His mother, who sits in the back seat with him when she's not driving, is already grooming him as her sidekick backseat driver. "Tell Daddy to turn left here, honey." Like I needed another one.

I suppose it could be worse. Remind me to tell you about "stupid apples" sometime when we're face-to-face. It's an anecdote courtesy of our friends Nino and Jessica. I'm not sure it belongs in a child's blog, so you'll have to wait, but it is gold. (How's that for a tease?)

Anyway, above is a picture of Kiernan's first very clear drawing of a face. I was preparing dinner and Wendy was playing with Kiernan. She is just an awesome mom. She comes home from work and without skipping a beat takes over playing with Kiernan with joy and exuberance. I'm sure this is made easier by the fact that as soon as she walks in the door Kiernan's wattage rises by about 150%. He just lights up when he sees her. I love it. And I'm just amazed by her ability to work a full day, sit through a couple hours of traffic, and not hint at a complaint as she jumps into taking care of our boy. All without a cocktail!

So Kiernan was doodling on one of his dry erase boards and he came up with that face. Wendy called me in to see it and I was able to capture the moment in pictures. All hail digital cameras.

We've already documented Kiernan writing his first word, though I did not post about it here. His first written word was, fittingly, "mommy". He did this outside, with his sidewalk chalk. I didn't even notice at first. I was out there with him, but my mind was sort of wandering. In the background I heard him talking to himself as he doodled on the sidewalk.

"M...O...M...M...Y," he would say. It was a bit more spaced out and randomly timed than the quoting above lets on, so he did it a couple of times before I finally focused on what he was doing. Plus, the letters were going in a spiral and were over other doodles. But when I really tuned in to what he was up to my mouth dropped open.

He's still writing his letters, although to keep them interesting sometimes he dresses them up in costumes. "Costumes" is his term for what he's drawing. He'll write the alphabet as usual ('C', 'J', and 'S' do tend to show up backwards, which is, of course, fine with us), but then he'll draw little lines and designs within the letters. Sometimes 'R' will end up looking fuzzy, or 'A' will look as though it is filled with stained glass panes. It's nifty.

It's cool to see him graduating to pictures (he draws flowers, too). Good that he's already grasping what his father sometimes forgets: life is more than mere words.

France-ville and Gammy

Kiernan's Gammy and Grance--Wendy's mom and stepfather--are currently travelling the world. Their first stop was in Peru, and yes, they were there for the big earthquake a couple of weeks ago. They were actually in Lima the day of the quake, but had flown out several hours before and were happily touring around Cuzco, blissfully unaware that an 8.0 quake had happened 90 miles south of the city they had just left. Regardless, the two of them are fine now and are kicking around France.

In the above picture, Kiernan and his mother are reading a postcard from Gammy and Grance. If you look real hard you can see that the postcard has an image of a llama gazing wistfully at Machu Picchu, as llamas are apparently wont to do.

I don't really have anything amusing to say about any of this. Gammy and Grance are away and we all miss them. And envy them (I'm talking about you, Gigondas). I just thought I'd post a couple of pictures of Kiernan that they might enjoy. Communication with them is at present spotty, and this strikes me as a good alternative way to touch base.

We last visited them in August, right before the start of their adventure. One of the nights of our visit when we weren't entertaining foreign dignitaries or watching people get their nails done, we all went out to dinner to celebrate Susan's (Gammy's) birthday. We went to a place called The Keg. Don't worry, it's a steakhouse, not a bar ("You have a baby...in a bar!"). There we were treated to an excellent meal of gigantic lobsters and steaks. In a strange reversal of roles, I ordered the lobster and Wendy ordered the steak. I almost never order lobster because it usually disappoints me, even when it is cooked properly. It's not that I object to eating bugs, I just find crab meat to be so much more flavorful.

At any rate, we had a wonderful meal. Below is a picture of Kiernan with Grance, going over some important papers before the meal. Don't be concerned, the Old Fashioned in the foreground belongs to Grance.

Spider Boy, Spider Boy

We went to the zoo the other day. They have a new exhibit called "Spider City" and I'm happy to report that Wendy made it all the way through the entire thing without freaking out. She was a brave little camper. We had a great time with our friends from down the street, Nino, William, and Baby Isabella (sadly Jessica, the mom, had to work). It's been fun going to the zoo over the course of Kiernan's development. It's interesting to see his progression, from the time he was a little baby sleeping against my chest in his Baby Bjorn and getting nursed by his mother near the giraffes, to going with his godfathers and riding in a backpack, to now when he runs around on his own, actively excited about seeing the different animals. And just as excited about the snow cone stand.

I'm proud of him. Researching whether snow cones--or the ice cream he eventually opted for--taste the same in captivity as they do in the wild is an important area of study. The work can take years, I'm telling you. Years.

He was even upset when we left because we didn't have time to visit the snake place. Snake house. Snake pit. I don't know what they call it. Anyway, we'll have to go back, not only to see the snakes, but because the next day, upon waking up, Kiernan's first words were, "I want to go back to Spider City." Mom couldn't have been happier.

Here's a picture of Kiernan with William, goofing off at the house.

Statesboy

Kiernan is crazy about the states now.

It really is amazing to me how quickly he picks up on things. Once he decides to go after a particular thing, he goes after it whole hog. He's like his mother in this way. It's important for me to mention this, because I want people to realize we're not pushing Kiernan to learn all of this stuff. We introduce a wide variety of concepts to him, and he takes some of them and runs with them. Like letters for instance. He has always loved letters. Now it is true that we bought him many, many sets of letters to play with. Several sets of magnetic letters for the refrigerator. A couple sets of foam letters for the bathtub. Some big foam letters he could play with outside and make a mat out of if he wanted to. We both love letters and words so we focused on that. Still, he has cars and little plastic jungle animals and play-doh and stuff like that too.

But he really took to the letters. He loves writing his letters on the sidewalk or on his dry-erase boards. He loves the "ABC" song and insists we sing it with him--in a variety of voices--throughout the day. He sometimes takes his letters to bed. Sometimes I'd rather play with his toy cars--I admit it, singing about the alphabet two-hundred times a day in a sad imitation of Piglet's voice can get to me--but he won't have it.

His state puzzle was the same way. Wendy bought Kiernan a little state puzzle, pictured above, and he was immediately interested. I was a bit leery because some of the pieces are tiny, so not only is the puzzle a choking hazard, it is also really hard to do. I'm not sure it's clear from the photo above, but there are no channel lines for the puzzle pieces. The puzzle is a simple wood cut out and it is smooth, and the pieces don't click together or anything, so every time you bump it the pieces move. Two-and-a-half year olds don't tend to have the best fine motor skills, so there is plenty of bumping going on.

The choking thing was of no worry. Kiernan was a kid who put everything in his mouth when he was still crawling around. He seems to be over that now.

Of greater surprise to me is the fact that the level of difficulty issue was also of no worry. I cannot express to you how amazed I am at his learning curve on this thing. For the first few days, maybe a week or so, he wanted us to do the puzzle with him. Over and over and over again. Then he wanted to help. Then he would ask for help, but it was clear he didn't really need it. Either he was using us as a crutch, or else he was trying to make sure we didn't feel useless. I'm not sure. But within the space of about two weeks he was doing this puzzle on his own. Even the fine motor skills thing became a non-factor as he became able to maneuver the smallest of the pieces into place without help. Another few days and he was naming all of the states as he did so.

I'm not kidding.

Kiernan is not yet three years old and he can name every state in the union.

He's not reading them. Yes, he can read short words and recognize longer ones, but he has somehow memorized all fifty states by their shape and size and where they go. If I hold up Missouri, for example, and tell him I think it's New Hampshire, he'll say, "No, silly Daddy. That's Missouri. New Hampshire is over there. Next to Vermont."

Again. I'm not kidding. He knows the states better than we do. Far better. It's a little scary.

But as the man in the infomercial says, "Wait...there's more..."

Ask him if Washington, D.C. is a state. Go ahead. I dare you.

"No," he'll say.

You will inevitably then ask him what it is, if it isn't, indeed, a state.

"It's a district," he will say.

I'm working on the concept of commonwealths next.

What have I gotten out of all this? In addition to extreme parental pride I've learned each state's motto, so next time you see me, be sure to quiz me.

Otherwise, how am I ever going to get any use out of the knowledge that North Dakota is the Flickertail State?


Just don't ask me what in the world a Flickertail is. Or, for that matter, a Palmetto.

No matter. By that time I'm sure Kiernan will be able to tell you.

Tricky Letters

'E' is missing.

I just realized this. I was just going to post some pictures of vowels, because Kiernan is still into them. Not exclusively anymore. Of late he's taken to carrying around L, M, N, O, and P instead, which is a big shift, because for awhile the vowels were the favored letters to carry around and jump on the bed with and use as sleeping companions alongside Meow Meow Kitty Cat, Pooh Bear, and Guinea Pig.

I have to say this is entirely understandable. The "L, M, N, O, P" portion of the "ABC" song was always my favorite part, even if I did spend a ridiculous amount of my childhood thinking that "LMNOP" was a single letter.

After 'E' went missing the vowels gradually fell out of favor. Not that he is actively against them, they are just no longer as important. I have no idea where the letter 'E' has gone to. We've looked in the mesh bag that holds Kiernan's bath toys and letters over and over again, to no avail. We've looked under and behind furniture. We've looked behind his bed, the most popular place letters go to hide. We've looked in the toy box, in the cupboards, in the cushions, in both cars. 'E' is nowhere to be found. But now that I see this picture again I realize I have a clue, at least. 'E' was still around the day this picture was taken. So there's that. Now all I have to do is call "CSI: Bathtub" and I'm sure we'll crack this case.

Oh, and we have a "Vowel Update": it is understood now by everyone in our household--yes, this includes our cat Cali--that 'Y' is what is termed 'A Tricky Letter'. I wrote previously that while Kiernan knew his vowels, we were avoiding The 'Y' Conundrum ( a new thriller by Robert Ludlum) because we thought it would be too confusing and anyway, Y's refusal to pick a team annoyed me. But then I went and bought a "Sometimes Y" t-shirt to commemorate Kiernan's learning his vowels. He noticed 'Y' in the middle of the Ven Diagram all alone, and so his mom taught him about 'Y'. We needn't have worried about the confusion. In no time at all, he was on it.

"Y is tricky!"

"Why is that, Kiernan?"

"Because it's sometimes a vowel and sometimes a consonant!"

When my dad heard Kiernan say this over the phone he said to me, "You know his Kindergarten teachers are going to hate you."

Dad didn't really say this. Nobody really says this. It's just a joke I throw out there because it's a creeping fear I have. I'll get over it.

You should also know that 'G' and 'J' are tricky letters. This is because 'G' sometimes sounds like "guh" and sometimes sounds like 'J'. This makes them tricky. In case you were wondering.

Throwing in The Vowel

Hello all! Long time no post. Have a world of stuff to catch up on for the blog and don't know when I'll get to it, but I wanted to get a couple of things up here today.

The picture above is one of Kiernan eating lunch during a recent trip to Virginia. I realize this does not look like a picture of a person eating lunch, but it is. This is what Kiernan looks like while he is eating lunch in a restaurant. Notice the complete lack of a table or any food in the picture. Rather than saying that he is a restless toddler who has far too much exploring to do to be bothered with any food that is not ice cream while in public, I'll just say that he is an amazing multitasker like his mother and leave it at that. Accentuate the positive.

As I indicated above, there is a great deal going on in Kiernan's life right now. He is starting a new school, planning a change of residence, and has undergone a major wardrobe transformation. I'll try to cover those things in posts to come. In this post let me just cover five letters that have become very important to Kiernan.

Wendy has been teaching him the difference between vowels and consonants. I know, it's ridiculous that we've waited so long to teach him this concept. I feel horrible about it. Luckily he's picking up on it quickly, and with no small amount of passion. He loves the vowels in particular, carrying around his foam A, E, I, O, and U bath letters and singing "The Vowel Song" over and over again. ("The Vowel Song" is an invention he and his mother came up with; the song basically takes "Old MacDonald" and replaces the animals with letters.)

He's grown quite attached to his vowels. This morning as I strapped Kiernan into his car seat so that he and his mother could go off to his new school, he got upset that he had left them in the house. Wendy had to go back inside the house to get Guinea Pig; as she made her way to the door Kiernan made his vociferous case that she pick up his vowels as well. Guinea Pig is current holder of the title Most Favored of All Possessions, and has been for some time. He's a little stuffed guinea pig named, appropriately enough, Guinea Pig. Kiernan likes to have him along in the car so that he can put him behind his head like a little pillow.

He couldn't have cared less that Mom was going to get Guinea Pig. "I want A, E, I, O, U." He said, at first calmly. "Your vowels are in the house, honey," one of us said. "I want A, E, I, O, U!" As Wendy disappeared into the house he began to repeat this over and over again, his words increasing in intensity and urgency until tears sprang from his eyes. Okay, I'll be blunt: he was on the verge of throwing a fit. About five foam letters. (Lest you think I'm overlooking something here, I'm not. We're ignoring "Y" for the time being. A "sometimes vowel" is not worth the trouble. That's part of it anyway. Mostly I'm just annoyed with "Y" for not coming out and embracing it's vowelhood already. Sometimes Y. Please. You're a vowel. Get over it.)

Wendy came back out of the house. She was carrying Guinea Pig in one hand, holding him before her. She held her other hand out of sight. She approached the car as Kiernan made another impassioned plea for his five favorite letters. "Is someone in this car being fussy?" Wendy asked.

Kiernan bravely wiped away his tears.

"I'm not going to be fussy anymore."

She said, as we often do when he becomes demanding, "I wish there was a nice way you could ask for those letters."

He wiped away more tears and calmly said, "Can I have my vowels, please?"

Can I have my vowels please. Awesome.

Of course, the consonants are feeling neglected. I keep telling them their turn will come, but they're having none of it. I understand, though I do think it's unduly spiteful of them to be giving "Y" the cold shoulder. In spite of my stated feelings about the conflicted letter, he certainly doesn't deserve to be shunned by the consonants.

English is such a cruel language.

Blessing in Disguise

Once again, the picture here has nothing to do with this post. I just love the picture. As you may be able to ascertain, bedtime is approaching. Sleepy clothes are on the floor just behind Kiernan, as is a container of wipes for changing diapers. Rather than pay attention to any of that, though, Kiernan has elected to take my boots for a spin. I don't know if it's the angle of this picture, or what, but his face looks so much older in this shot. Really gives me an idea of what he's going to look like as he matures.

Again, I'm not in any hurry for that.

This past summer we visited my parents in Virginia. During the visits to both sets--Kiernan's Nana & Pop, and his Pap-pap & Sandi--he experienced meals before which people ask the blessing. We do not do that in our household [sorry to break it to you, Mom], so he was a mite confused at first. This was not his first visit, nor his first experience with a meal preceeded by the blessing, but this summer was the first time he really took notice. Unfortunately, we had not prepared him for this eventuality. It had not occurred to either Wendy or myself that we should need to do so. So the first time someone asked the blessing before a meal, when everybody closed their eyes and my stepfather started to speak to God, Kiernan got this confused look on his face [yeah, you got me, I didn't have my eyes closed] and said, loudly, "Let's eat!"

In addition to seeming an entirely reasonable reaction to the situation, this was flat out hilarious to Wendy and me. Of course we couldn't show him that, as it would only egg him on, so we had to stifle our laughter and say, "Shhh!"

"Shhhh!", as it turns out, was a poor tool for keeping Kiernan quiet during the blessing. So we basically just said, "Okay, we're closing our eyes now!" before every other blessing, and for some reason this worked great. There he would sit, holding the hands of the people seated to his right and left, doing this very funny squinting thing while very obviously peeking at everyone around the table until they all opened their eyes. He thought this was a great game. It got us through the pre-meal blessings for the trip, so that was good, but I didn't give it any further thought once we left Virginia.

Until a couple weeks later when we were back home, all seated down to dinner, and Kiernan suddenly reached out for Wendy's hand, then my hand, then did his little squinty thing. Wendy and I looked at each other with a mixture of amusement and terror. What were we to do now? We had to decide immediately. So, on the fly, we just said what we were thankful for on the table, finishing with a hearty "Thanks!" This worked just fine for Kiernan.

A couple months later we had dinner guests--I think it was Kiernan's Gammy and Grance, along with his Nee-Nee--and Kiernan did it again. We were having some kind of pasta dish, and he was making liberal use of the parmesan cheese on the table. I mean, he was going to town on the stuff, putting huge heaping spoonfuls of it on his pasta. Midway through the meal he grabbed Gammy's hand, then Mommy's hand, and instructed the rest of us to follow his lead. We all grabbed hands and pretended to close our eyes. It was silent for a moment, then Kiernan burst out with, "Thanks for the cheese! And the pasta! And the cheeeeeeeese!"

We cracked up.

Fast forward a few months and Kiernan and I are at the table having lunch. It is after Easter, which means it is a new era for Kiernan. He has been given a Mickey Mouse Clubhouse dvd by his Nee-Nee, and now he is crazy about Mickey Mouse and all his friends. Basically life can now be divided into AMM (After Mickey Mouse) and BMM (Before Mickey Mouse, also known as The Dark Time). Barely a moment goes by during the day that he doesn't ask (translation: demand) I do Mickey's voice.

We're sitting at the table having lunch and Kiernan decides he wants all the Clubhouse friends to join us for lunch. Now, we don't have any of these characters as stuffed animals. He just wants them there. So he assigns Minnie the seat closest to him, the seat his mother usually occupies (Wendy is also cast as the voice talent for Minnie in our household), and asks me to move the chair as close to his chair as possible. Then he assigns Daisy the next chair. Donald is seated in the chair opposite him. Then Goofy. Then Mickey, where I'm sitting. A brief discussion of what everybody is eating follows.

Then he reaches out for my hand. "I want the friends to say blessing," he says. So we methodically go around the table, instructing Minnie to take Kiernan's hand, then Daisy's hand, and instructing Daisy to take Donald's hand, and so on. When all hands are held, Kiernan squints his eyes and says, "Thanks for the peanut butter. And the bread. And the plate. And the napkin. And the knife. And the jelly." The other characters then have to give their thanks--with me voicing them, of course [let me tell you, I do not envy the guy who does the voice for Donald Duck]--until everybody has been accounted for, and Kiernan proceeds with his lunch.

A little while later, as everybody is still happily chatting about lunch and our afternoon plans, Kiernan looks at me and says, "They're just pretend."

"What?" I say.

"They're not real. They're just pretend."

"Right," I respond, once more knocked out by the amazing creature that is my son.

Sadly, for my vocal chords, the fact that they are "just pretend" does not get me off the hook for doing their voices for the rest of the day. Oh well. It could be worse. He could be into the Teletubbies.

[The below picture is, again, unrelated. I just love his expression here. He has just sorted his magnetic alphabet into colors. I thought that was cool so I snapped a picture. This is the first expression he gives me. Why don't you guys come up with some captions?]

My Son is Better than I Am: Reason #478

The picture has nothing to do with this post, I just stumbled across it a few minutes ago and it made me laugh so I decided to post it. My brother Mason took it during our visit to Virginia last August. All of our digital pictures cycle through as widgets and screensavers and this one popped up today as I was tinkering with the wireless router during Kiernan's nap.

This post is just a short one about wearing clothes.

Last week Wendy was away on a trip to a conference in Kentucky. I was getting Kiernan ready for bed. We were at the point in our nighttime ritual where he gets to choose his sleepy clothes for the night. He was being difficult, albeit in an entirely charming way: after his bath he wanted to wear his towel--and only his towel--to go jumping on our bed. When he wears one of his bath towels (for those of you without children, they make little towels for kids that have hoods sewn into them to keep their little heads warm) nowadays he says he is a sea turtle. Clearly one of the characteristics of the species is post-bath bed jumping.

As cute as he was, however, I was feeling rather harried so I just ducked into his room and grabbed the sleepy clothes myself. I had to hurry because I didn't want him to beat me to our bedroom and start jumping on the bed without me there. [NOTE TO ALL OF YOU OUT THERE WHO KNOW BETTER: I realize we shouldn't let him jump the bed. I realize we should have never let him start jumping on the bed in the first place. But when he started doing it, well, it was just so precious. So much fun. It seemed like a rite of passage. Now that he's almost two and a half and can jump so forcefully that he could really hurt himself, it's hard to put the toothpaste back in the tube.]

As I opened his pajama drawer I realized I had forgotten to move his laundry from the washer to the drier that afternoon. The clock ticking, I shrugged and grabbed a dinosaur top and and a pair of bottoms that had basketballs all over them. They were both kind of blue, but the similarity ended there. They were not even remotely similar fabrics. But I figured, "Eh...what the heck. Wendy's not home. What's the harm?"

I reached our bedroom just as he scrambled onto the bed. I let him jump for awhile, standing at the end of the bed like a goalie in case he should jump to close to the edge. (I didn't get on the bed with him because, of late, he has taken to saying, "I need space!" if you get on the bed while he is trying to jump on it.)

After a bit I put his diaper on him and then the basketball pajama bottoms. I grabbed the dinosaur top and was about to slip it over his head when he exclaimed, "They don't match!"

I was surprised, but I forged ahead. "I know. That's okay." I tried again.

"THEY DON'T MATCH!" This time he was a mite more forceful, and I realized that I simply wasn't going to get away with it.

I guess he's tired of people being able to tell when his Daddy has dressed him in the morning. Oh well, at least one of us will be a snappy dresser.

The Boys of Sunset

As I mentioned in the previous post, the first thing Kiernan and I did after checking into our place in San Clemente was head across the street to the beach. Actually, that's not entirely true. First we tried to get Kiernan to take nap. He did not go to sleep. I guess I can't blame him.

In order to give Mommy a couple hours to get some grading done, we boys decided to hit the beach ourselves. It was late in the afternoon, so we didn't bother changing into our swim suits or anything. I just grabbed the camera and we headed across the street.

After dropping our shoes off underneath the closed lifeguard stand, we headed down the beach. Kiernan just took off, following the tracks that one of the jeeps that the lifeguards use had made in the sand. Every now and then he would leave the track to go and chase some birds.
This would be a recurring activity for this trip.

We spent some time exploring the beach, checking out the shells and the huge mounds of seaweed that had washed up on the shore ("What's that, Daddy? What's that, Daddy?"). After awhile Kiernan started back the way we had come. We ran into another father and son, and older version of ourselves, playing one of those paddle ball games people play at the beach. The man stopped to hand his paddle to Kiernan and I helped him hit the ball back to the man's son. Then I said, "C'mon, Little Man, let's go." The guy with the paddle laughed. "That's what I still call him," he said, indicating his own boy, who was probably around twelve. "Little man."

I said, "Yeah. I'm not in any hurry for that to stop."

"You and me both," he replied.

Kiernan and I continued back toward the pier, which was still a good ways in the distance. Kiernan said, "I want to go play with those boys." I squinted. I couldn't tell what he was talking about, but we pressed on. When we were almost to the pier Kiernan sprinted ahead to a little boy who was lying down in the sand, tying long thin strands of seaweed into a rope. He looked up, saw Kiernan, and said, "Hi!" I would later find out from his mother that he was six years old.

He popped up to his feet, gathered his seaweed rope, and said, "Come on!" Kiernan followed him to a big pile of seaweed on the other side of where his family was beached and the two boys set about the task of untangling seaweed.

I stayed close, but out of earshot, letting the two boys play. It was so cool seeing Kiernan just dive right in and start playing with another kid without any prompting or help from me. The only time I had to intervene was when Kiernan started to throw sand. The other boy looked past him at me, as if to say, "Are you going to handle this?" I came over and cautioned Kiernan to stop and that was that.

A little while later Kiernan took off for the pier. The little boy kept working at his seaweed rope task, so I followed Kiernan. Once under the pier Kiernan turned, saw me, and said, "I want Andrew to follow me." Without any solitication from me he had introduced himself to this little boy, found out his name, and remembered it. This is a simple task, but it struck me as a giant step.

Life is full of these kinds of moments these days. Things that seem so simple, but are nevertheless fascinating little achievements for a toddler.

Kiernan went back and played with Andrew some more. Everything Andrew did--flopping on his back to do a sand angel, trying to do a back roll in the sand, making weird little trenches with his head--Kiernan wanted to try. I was happy to sit at a distance and let him play along, at least until Andrew and his older brother ran over to the aforementioned closed lifeguard stand, climbed the steps, and jumped off.

I guess you have to draw the line somewhere.

Walking Distance

At the beginning of April we took a little family vacation. This picture is from the San Clemente portion of our trip, which was the second part of the vacation. The first part took place over a weekend in San Diego, where Wendy was slated to give a presentation to a conference. After all, it wouldn't be a vacation unless you had some work to do on the trip.

San Diego was good. We got to visit Seaworld, thanks to my dad and stepmom and brother, and did a little touring of the city. I'll post some pictures from that part of the trip as well, and talk about it more then.

I just wanted to get off the schneid and start posting again. So I decided to go with this picture of Kiernan on the beach in front of the San Clemente pier.

San Clemente is this great little seaside town just south of Los Angeles. Wendy and I stayed there a few years ago; ever since we have both dreamed of going back. A friend back then suggested a hotel/resort that was right down near the beach and we had a great time. I held onto the brochure from the place--because I save everything--and dug it out for this trip. I'm so glad I did. The place we stayed, The Sea Horse Resort, was great for us. It was not the most fancy place in the world, which is to say the amenities were few. But when you're staying across the street from the ocean, with a view of the pier, and can open the sliding glass door and hear the waves crashing all night long, who needs amenities?

We had a great time down in San Clemente doing what I like to do best on vacations: nothing. We got there and Kiernan and I almost immediately went across the street to play on the beach. There was a crepe place just a few steps down the sidewalk from where we were staying. We ate breakfast there all three mornings we were in San Clemente, both because Wendy is nuts about crepes and because the coffee at the place was excellent. I've never really understood the whole crepe thing, though Wendy makes a mean crepe. To me it's like eating whatever you're eating on a thing that would like to be a tortilla but hasn't quite made it and instead tastes like soggy, slightly eggy, paper. But the crepes at this place were good, and the coffee kept me coming back. And one morning there I had some of the best brie I've ever had in my life.

Plus it was within walking distance of our hotel and the beach. That's hard to beat.

All in all the dining was pretty good in San Clemente due in no small part to the fact that we walked to almost every meal. There was a fish restaurant across the street at the pier. We had appetizers there the first night (a great cajun ahi tuna for me) and a great dinner the last night (a fantastic wild striped sea bass for me). The only dinner that disappointed was at a Swiss/German place called The Swiss Chalet. I had remembered eating there during our previous visit, years ago, and thought it might be a nice place to try again. The food was actually pretty good, but it took forever to get to us. Seriously, the salads did not go down until forty-five minutes after we ordered them, and we didn't order appetizers. There was a time when I would have considered this type of wait a "leisurely meal"...that was the time before I had a two-year 0ld. Considering how long it took, Kiernan was remarkably well-behaved though. He also helped us make friends with the people sitting near us, most notably the table of four great-grandmothers. One of them was a neighbor of the chef/owner of the restaurant who was put off by the wait for food as well. So it wasn't just us. She told us the place hadn't been the same since the wife stopped working there, and that sounded just ominous enough that I didn't ask her to elaborate.

Good food though. Not that German food is that hard to do. That's the only thing that puts me off about going to a German place. Most of the stuff is so easy I can do it myself at home, and when I go out I want to get stuff I don't necessarily know how to do myself. Many German restaurants in America are full of simple things, like sausages and pork chops and little else. Maybe the odd rolled meat dish. A couple of schnitzels. The menus are often exceedingly short. I did like the food in Germany when we went a couple years ago, but I was crazy for the food of Switzerland, mainly because in my memory we had cheese fondue at every meal (which is probably why I came back to the states weighing about fifteen pounds more than I did when we left). This place in San Clemente had cheese fondue, but you could only have it if two people were ordering it, and Wendy doesn't eat cheese.

Why Swiss places cannot figure out how to make a batch of cheese fondue for one person is completely beyond me. Oh well.

I'll throw one last picture onto this post. This is a picture of the three of us in front of the crepe place on our final morning in San Clemente.

G-I-N-S-B-U-R-G Spells "Dog"

Kiernan read his first word the other day!

Allow me to set the table.

The kid is just nuts about letters. He loves numbers too, but he is absolutely nuts about his letters. He's got the magnetic ones that he plays with on the refrigerator, or on various sheet pans around the house (below is a picture of him doing that with his Pap-Pap and his Uncle Mason at their house in January). He's got a couple sets of foam letters too, some big, uppercase ones that pop out of foam squares that you can link together to form a mat. He also has some smaller ones that are really for the bathtub, as they can stick to the tile walls, but he insists on carting them all over the house and playing with them.

A couple of months ago Kiernan got interested in spelling out every word he saw. In fact, one day in particular, on our way to the airport, he got upset with me because I wouldn't keep the car still enough for him to spell out the signs we were passing. A little while after that Wendy started teaching him how to sound out the letters, and shortly after that he started to sound them out for himself, trying to put together words. He would put a line of letters up on the fridge, sound out the letters one by one--correctly--then make up a totally unrelated word like "blibberflimp" or something.

This seemed totally natural to me until we were at school one day and one of the teachers was playing with him, with some foam letters there. I was hanging back, letting him have some space. She turned to me, sitting a bit away from them, her eyes wide, and said, "He's sounding out the letters." I just shrugged. I mean, I've been able to sound out letters for years. Nobody ever makes a fuss.

At dinner a short while later he tried sounding out some of the words on one of the cool placemats his Aunt Amy made for him. She makes these collage placemats for him sometimes for birthday gifts and he just loves them. One of them has the word "Ginsburg" on it, written vertically. For some reason Wendy's family says the word "Ginsburg" at the start of every meal. Apparently it's German for "We don't believe in saying the blessing"...or something like that. They've explained what it actually means about fifty-three times to me, but I think I was concentrating on saying something pithy about the wine all those times.

So anyway, Kiernan spelled out the word "Ginsburg" on his placemat. He did this very quickly, and Wendy and I looked at each other, holding our breath. Was he going to read this word? Was this the moment?

He then said, "Dog!" and started laughing maniacally.

So...no.

But then on this last Saturday, Kiernan's Née-Née was over at the house to see him. Wendy broke out the finger paints and she, Renée, and Kiernan sat around making hand prints on butcher paper. I sat at the dining room table, writing in my journal. On a whim Wendy painted the following letters on the paper: C-A-T.

Kiernan moved around to her side of the paper, pointed at the letters, sounded them out without prompting, and said, "Cat."

Our three mouths simultaneously fell open. He read a word! Woo-Hoo! Wendy spelled out a few more three-letter words, and he carefully sounded out and read them all. It was a watershed moment, and I'm so pleased we were all there to see it.

I'm glad he picked the word "cat" as the first thing he's really read. It's a good word, and we have a cat. Plus, I think he was genuinely surprised with how the word ended.

Of course, by the time I got the video camera out to record the moment for posterity Kiernan had decided that every word we spelled out was "Guinea pig", so I don't think we have to worry about him getting ahead of himself.

Mom Possible

Hello everyone, from this side of 2007. Now that all of our holiday stuff, our family traveling, and my Oscar ballots are in the mail, I can get back to my routines. Back to work on the final rewrite of my latest novel. Back to submitting for acting jobs. And back to updating The Creeping Kid. It is easy to see which of these is the most important.

Before I get into catching you all up on Kiernan's doings during the holidays and in the early new year, I must first do a Vocabulary Update.

As many of you know, Kiernan turned two years old on November 29--Holy Cow! As I look at the previous post it appears I have not updated this since well before that on November 16...oof. Sorry about that. At any rate, he is developing by leaps and bounds, and the way his vocabulary is developing is a constant source of amazement to us both. Not just his vocabulary, though. I don't just mean he's using big words, though he is. I mean the way he processes concepts and expresses them. From the simple--"I want juice instead of milk!"--to the more complex--"Sit down on the blanket, Daddy...it's more comfortable."--he is just exploding in his ability to convey what he wants, thinks, and feels.

The other night at dinner Wendy did something that was silly. I can't remember what it was. What I do remember is that I said, to Kiernan, "Boy, your mom's a piece of work."

Without skipping a beat he replied, "She's impossible!"

I laughed for about half an hour.

He may be a momma's boy now, and for the foreseeable future. He's got her looks (thank goodness), her smarts (ditto), and based on his persistence in getting me to do just about anything he wants, her drive...but I think we all know who he's getting his sense of humor from.

I just hope he forgives me for ending that last sentence with a preposition.

Pictures: The top picture is him at the home of Gammy and Grance, playing with his activity/craft table. The second picture is him preparing for said trip. It's a companion picture to an earlier one of him hanging out in a suitcase (from June 2005, which I will include here as a blast from the past):