Cars Cars Cars!

In an attempt to get Ari to stay in his bed, and to stop bringing tiny metal cars to sleep with him, grandma and grandpa gave him these car bed sheets. Needless to say he was thrilled!

Danger Danger! 2 Year Old Approaching!

A dad on the playground once told me that when his son turned two, he spent the entire year trying to prevent his child from dying. I laughed really hard when I heard this. Now I am no longer laughing. I am crying.

Ari will be two in eight days, and the destruction has already started. Wires he was once apathetic about, he is now pulling at, he approaches the table and throws everything onto the floor including the lap top, he walks brazenly into the kitchen, grabs the cat's water bowl and confidently dumps its contents onto the floor. When this is done he laughs and then says:
"Sorry mama." Then he laughs some more, looks at me and says "Wa wa!"

Anything and everything he can pick up and throw he does. This includes: crayons, small metal cars, remotes, cups, plates, the phone, shoes and many more objects that escape me right now.

That dad was right. I shouldn't have laughed at him, I should have given him a hug and said, "Congratulations, your son is alive!"

PREGNANT?

I was feeling nauseated, and it occurred to me that I hadn't gotten my period, so I made Wil go out and get me the following items:

1. Chicken soup
2. Ginger Ale
3. A pregnancy test.

I quickly consumed the soup and nursed the ginger ale. I decided it was time to tackle the pregnancy test.

I ripped open the box and threw the directions to the side. I figured, I've done this before, I know exactly what to do this time! After I peed on the stick, the following results popped up nearly instantaneously:



I ran out of the bathroom and told Wil:
"We're having a baby!"

We were excited, despite the fact that we don't have a lot of money at the moment.

For the next few days I went around telling close friends that I, indeed, was expecting a second child. I was nauseated, craving certain foods, the works. I even stopped coffee for a few days!
I made an appointment with a midwife to see how far along I was.

On one of my daily trips to the restroom, I noticed the second pregnancy test staring me the face. I decided, for some unknown reason, to take the second test. The same result came up, but then I looked at the box:


I realized that I was a complete moron! I wasn't pregnant! I assumed I was with child because both boxes had a line in them. One of them being the "control" box and the second one being the "you're pregnant" box. However, I failed to look at the box, which clearly tells the user to check for a plus (+) sign.


The crazy thing is that I was experiencing many of the early pregnancy symptoms. I guess it was the placebo effect, I believed that I was pregnant, so my body compensated.

The next few days were filled with me telling my friends that I was completely insane.

The moral of the story: read directions.

Purple Tree

Did you know there are purple trees in Brooklyn?

Feline Crayon Fun

In the tradition of Feline Garage, OS/NS Mom presents: Feline Crayon Fun!

A-R-I

Fosterfields Living Historical Farm- Baaa! Moo!

Ari loves animals. When we go into my parent's backyard, in Brooklyn, he asks if there are "Baas" (sheep) or cows there. I decided it was time to take him to a real farm so he could see animals in their natural environment.

After some research, I found Fosterfields Living Historical Farm, located in Morristown, NJ. It's about an hour drive from NYC.

Admission to the farm is $2.00 for 2-3 years olds, $4.00 for kids, and $6.00 for adults. Ari is not yet two, so he got in for free!

The farm is set at the turn of the century so one can get a feel for what it was like to pump your own water and wash your own laundry by hand. Ari loved these activities.




He must have spent half an hour washing and hanging laundry. Then he had a chance to see week old baby piglets, feed the chickens, and collect eggs!


And, of course, we saw some sheep, cows, lambs and even some horses. The horses were named Calvin and Hobbes.


Fosterfields is a great place for kids to have a chance to interact with animals in their natural environment. For more information on the farm, click here.

Feline Garage

I'm used to starting out my mornings with tiny cars strewn all over the living room. However, the following activity was a first. Watch as Ari integrates Simon and Egreck into his vehicular plan.

Surprise! Cat Vomit!

So there we were, drawing on the floor, and enjoying the air conditioning on this unseasonably scorching day in April, when I noticed a strange lump in the drawing pad.

I turned the page, and there it was, staring me in the face: an enormous mass of cat vomit.
"Aaa!" I screamed "That's disgusting!"

Needless to say, this was not what I was expecting to find. I thought maybe there were some homeless crayons keeping warm in there. So, as you can imagine, I was in a state of pure shock.

I am still recovering from this experience. Despite the fact that I threw away the evidence, drawing will not be the same again for a while.

The Superpower of Not Working

If I could possess any superpower in the world, it would be to snap my fingers and have my house be clean immediately afterward. I believe this is because I hate working. I wouldn't call myself "lazy" per say, but I don't like doing something because I "have to" do it.

I don't want everything done for me, just my house to be clean.

Appalachian Trail Wisdom

This weekend we went camping to celebrate Wil's 26th birthday.

On the campgrounds, I met a man and his nine year old son. They were hiking the entire Appalachian trail. They started in Maine and made it down to the New Jersey/Pennsylvania border-- where we were staying. We got to talking and it turned out that he was homeschooling his son. Hiking the trail was part of his son's learning process.

Ari quickly became obsessed with this little boy and followed him wherever he went.

I understood why Ari was fascinated with this kid. He was down to earth, funny and so full of energy that he could not sit still. He was bouncing from tree to tree and cutting through sections of woods that intimidated me. He also gave us some Peanut M&Ms.


The boy's dad said something that stuck in my mind.
"Do you have a television?" He asked
"Yes."
"Throw it out immediately."
"Really?" I replied.
"When we travel and stay in hotels, my kids watch tons of TV, and at their friends houses too. But at home, we don't have one."
"Why not?" I asked.
"It's so easy for the TV to become the parent." He replied.

I thought about this and I understood what he was getting at. It's just a click away to switch on the TV to entertain your child, rather than finding ways to interact with them.

I'm not about to actually chuck my television, but I noticed that when we were away for the weekend, Ari didn't ask for Blue's Clues once. He was so fascinated by nature that he had no need for TV.




This weekend reminded me that there is much to learn in nature, and we often forget about our natural world when we switch on the TV.

Of Grape Juice and Beds

I'm sitting here on the couch, not quite sure what to do with myself because Ari is actually asleep in his own bed. Aunt Mint and Uncle Mike were desperate to get rid of Aunt Mint's childhood bunk beds. They're really nice beds, actually, made by This End Up furniture company. I would post a picture, but I'm not going to risk waking Ari up.

Mike and I loaded the disassembled bunk beds into the Fadermobile and I transported them from Manhattan to Brooklyn. I might add that during this journey the trunk of the Fadermobile was half open and secured with bungee cord and an unofficial boy scout knot that Mike concocted.

When I arrived in Brooklyn, Wil unloaded the Bunk Bed materials and went off to work. Then Mike arrived and began setting up the beds. Mint walked in the door just in time to be his assistant. All this happened right before Passover.

By the time that the Passover festivities ended, Ari had consumed massive amounts of grape juice. He was ready to try out his new bed, but the last thing he wanted to do was sleep in it.



That was Monday evening. Since that time, he's gotten used to the idea that this may be a place to sleep.