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.