The Story of Christmas

Probably many of our fellow preschooler parents have this same book on their shelves...

The brief and nice version of the birth of the baby Jesus.

We have been reading it at bedtime for several nights now.

Here's how it starts out

Mommy [reading]: Do you know why we give gifts at Christmas?

Weston: Yes.

Mommy: Why?

Weston: Because we have to.

Mommy: No! [reading] We give gifts because it is Jesus' birthday.

Weston: oh.

UPDATE:

Big Boy Bed

The anti-crib.

We knew this day would come sooner or later. We had always thought that the trigger for switching to the big boy bed would be when Weston figured out how to escape. Once the cage no longer could contain the beast, we'd set him free, as it were.

But the beast seemed disinterested in escaping. Contrary to all other evidence, the beast was not so wild as to reject his crate-like abode. We waited for that fateful morning when he would appear in our bedroom having figured out how to extricate himself from his bedtime confines. But it never came. On occasion I literally would try to teach him how to climb out of a crib. I'd show him how to pile up his blankets and stuffed animals in the corner to stand on... then how to brace himself as he swung the first leg over... and then the second.

Why would I try to teach my kid how to climb out of his crib, you ask? Is it because I'm crazy? Crazy awesome. I'm trying to teach my son important life skills. But truthfully, he was never really interested in making a prison break. And no attempt was ever made.

And so we were content to keep using the crib. Until this afternoon...

Upon waking from his afternoon nap, he announces to Stefanie that he now wanted a big boy bed. Naturally, we had never thought to ask him. So with a quick turn of the Allen wrench, we converted his crib into a big boy bed, much to Weston's joy.

I was puzzled by this unexpected turn of events, so I asked him, "Hey, how do you know about big boy beds?" Weston's response: "Well, they're perfect for lying down."

Tail engine...

Weston has entered the world of pretend conversations among his toys. I find eavesdropping on these conversations endlessly entertaining, although I can rarely remember them afterward, in part because they are frequently nonsensical.

But here is one that I managed to write down...

Mater: Tail engine? What's a tail engine?

Airplane: A tail engine helps the people not roll off the plane.

Mater: Why don't they roll out the plane?

Airplane: Because they have windows.

Mater: Oh.

--enter lightning mcqueen--

McQueen: Mater, what are you doing?

Mater: Talking to the airplane.

Conversation was then cut short, as he caught me watching him!

As an aside, I think that he was talking about how the tail of a plane stabilizes it, which his poppa told him about a long time ago.... but I can't be sure.

Let my people go!

Weston, what did you talk about in Sunday school?

WV: Chapel.

What about chapel?

WV: A desert box.

What was in the box?

WV: Sand.

Were there also 10 rules?

WV: Yes.

What did they say?

WV: Let my people go!

Bedtime routine

Tonight's bedtime ritual was like a comedy show...

getting out of the bath:

Mommy: ok let's go put on your pa-JAM-as

WVL: um... they're called pa-JAH-mas

Mommy: ok, let's go put them on.

putting on said pajamas:

we got out some of our warmer pajamas from last year since the temperature here dropped 20 degrees since yesterday. (they were a "button-up" shirt instead of a "t-shirt" top.)

Mommy: put your arms in

WVL: what's that?

Mommy: it's a pajama shirt

WVL: I think it's a sweatshirt.

Mommy: (laughing) anyway... it's too small! let's get some different pajamas. Here's some Cars pajamas

WVL: I think they're Lightening McQueen pajamas.

Mommy: right.

prayers:

Mommy: dear God...

WVL: Dear God, we love you very much. Bless mommy and daddy and weston (YAWN) and mommy and daddy and weston and daphne and (puts thumb in mouth)

Mommy: and all the...

WVL: and all the little babies. Amen.

then of course we had to retrieve our special blankets from downstairs and (finally) get into bed.

"Halloween is dirty"

Many folks would agree, although perhaps not in the way that WVL thinks!

Conversation on the way home
(A large inflatable pumpkin is on top of a store)
WVL: Look a pumpkin!
Mommy: I see that big pumpkin, that's because it's going to be Halloween soon.
WVL: NO!
Mommy: You don't want it to be Halloween?
WVL: No, because Halloween is dirty!
Mommy: (eyebrows raised) Why is it dirty?
WVL: Because it's stuck in the mud.

I have no idea what he means...but it's hilarious!

W is the first in the show

Weston's been working on his letters pretty good. I mean, pretty well. He's keen to point out a "W" or an "S" on a sign. Just the other day at swim lessons at the YMCA, he spelled out h-o-n-e-s-t...what's that last letter? Y. H-o-n-e-s-t-Y.

Daddy has been waiting write a hit song since, well, forever. Seemed like it might be a good thing to help WV learn to spell his name. A few minutes, and a few chords yielded the following.

Behold!

Overheard in our house

All these lines have recently been spoken by WVL; who/what he is speaking to and for is described to the best of our ability.

Pteranadon: (talking to a Matchbox Honda S2000 who is currently hitching a ride in a boxcar being pulled by Thomas the Tank Engine) No, I was told in 3 minutes it would be my turn to ride the train. Get off the train.

see how the cars ride the train?

***

Car: (talking to a plastic "pop bead train engine") Your wheels are amazing.

***

Car: (talking to Lightening McQueen) Hey Steve McQueen come meet our new friends! This is our brother van.
This is our brother Mater.

***

Workin' on the highway....

A follow-up video documenting our current "Boss" fascination...

Original Song

Weston is quite the songwriter. I managed to capture a couple versions of his newest piece.
I have attempted to transcribe them for you....


...too much play
when we go to night
and the cars are night
and we don't need cars
they go to height(?)
they
and the too much play to plllaaayyyy

in the second part of the video I asked him to sing it again for daddy to hear....

the moon is out to play when we go
and the cars were wheels
and the too much dark to plllaaayyy

Where is YOUR family?

@ dinner Friday night

WVL: Where are we going tonight?

Mommy: Where do you want to go?

WVL: To Costco.... that's where my family is.

Mommy: (laughing and crying, holding head in hands, thinking that is the most embarrassing thing my child has ever said)

Daddy: Who's in your family?

WVL: (points at daddy) Chaw-Caw

Daddy: (laughing) Who else is in your family?

WVL: (points at window and randomly around room)
Tummy
(at first it sounded like Tommy, but after the rest of the list it became clear that it was a body part)
and Bottom
and Penis
and Legs
and Feet

Maybe our next lesson should be on family?

To be clear, we did not go to Costco tonight, but to Bahama Freeze for snow cones.

This is my question...

Weston has not yet mastered the concept of questions.

He frequently uses the phrases

"let me ask you a question"

-or-

"listen to my question"

-but-

what follows is not necessarily a question or IS a question that makes no sense at all.

Example:

(Saturday morning)

WV: This is my question. How can I build a train track if I don't want to?

Mommy: What is the answer?

WV: The answer is practice the game.

Another example:

(Dinner time)

Mommy: [Science chattering]

Daddy: [School blathering]

WV: [Interrupting] Listen to my question!

Mommy: What's your question?

WV: The question is... [a long declarative statement consisting of a string of non sequiturs including but not limited to: construction vehicles, garbage trucks, animals, dinosaurs, trains, cars, what happened at school today...]

Daddy: That's the question?

WV: Yeah.

Mommy: What's the answer?

WV: The answer is... Pteranodon!

Daddy: I wish I had the video camera...

The Boss

This week we began teaching Weston about Bruce Springsteen, called "The Boss." Weston thinks that Bruce is "The Boss" and that all his songs are called "The Boss."

"Glory Days" playing on ipod.
Mommy: Weston are you ready to eat your quesadilla?
WV: I do. [But] I need to dance until "The Boss" is done.

Little Red Ca-what?

If we haven't mentioned it (more than 10 times) before, Weston LOVES trains. Give him a group of almost any item and he will line it up "like a train." A train of cars. A train of trucks. A train of puzzle pieces. A train of blocks. A train of chairs.

We have at least two recorded versions of a song called "Little Red Caboose." (Lisa Loeb does one that is not annoying if you are in the market for a train song.)
Little red caboose
Little red caboose
Little red caboose
Behind the train
Choo choo

Weston likes to make up songs (another post on this topic later) and also to substitute words into songs to make them funny. So Friday morning he started singing:
Little red ca-mommy
Little red ca-daddy
Little red ca-Weston
Little red ca-Daphne

Are you know....

Learning English is tricky!

Weston speaks very well and almost always in complete sentences.
But he does have some common mix-ups. (Although he gets better and better every day, so some of these are already out of date.)

--Adds "can" to "want" instead of "have" to make it a question.
Can I want a cookie?

--Word order
I drank my milk all.

--using a phrase correctly, but in a strange context
Shoe is all better. (after mommy dumps the sand out of them)

--My favorite one recently is the use of "are" instead of "do"
Mommy, are you know that I love you?

Interview with Weston (@ 31 months)

I shamelessly copied this idea from KB @ Bogle Family Blog, check out their link on this page if you want to read true hilarious stories of our favorite Greenville, SC family.


1. What's your name?

Weston Dickory-dickory-dock, the mouse ran up the clock, dickory-dickory dock.

This is verbatim. We have no idea how he came to believe that this was his name (this is not his name; we have not encouraged him to think that this is his name). Perhaps dickory sounds a bit like vickers, and dock like leacock?


2. What's your favorite color?

Blue

True. Daddy's encouraging "black."

3. What's your favorite tv show?

Cars-movie-on-the-plane.

The judges will award Weston this one...on a technicality (that his parents really want him to watch it on the plane). He can't really differentiate between television and movies. "CARS" is the first/only movie he has seen and we watched it on our new portable dvd player bought for our summer air travels.


4. What's your favorite food?

Black beans.

Not true to semi-true (he loves baked beans). Hot dogs, quesadillas, or any fruit would have been accepted by the judges.


5. What is your favorite toy?

Car.

Yes, true. We have approximately 41 vehicles on our coffee table.


6. What is your favorite book?

Cat in the Hat Knows A Lot about That

Actually, that IS a TV show, but he does see Cat in the Hat picture on many of his books.


That's as far as we got, but it was quite fun. We'll try to brush up on our interviewing skills before his 3 year interview!

All the Young Dudes

(With respect to David Bowie, whose Ziggy Stardust mullet Weston occasionally sports)

So, Weston is into a lot of things: guitars, brooms, guitar-brooms, shovels, shovel-guitars, hot dogs, backhoes, trains, motorcycle spotting, garbage trucks, backseat driving, matchbox cars, lacrosse, free-style Old MacDonald-based mash-ups, vacuuming, chugging juice, teeny tiny grapes...AND, lately, dinosaurs.

Actually this stems from a television show that Weston has recently taken a liking to called "Dinosaur Train", a show combining two themes of--you guessed it!--belly dancing and professional badminton.

So, on a recent trip to a bookstore, we headed over to the children's section to find a new book when Weston spied a small stuffed dinosaur that he wanted to "hold." Which means "buy for me to have." So, I let him "hold" it.

When we got home, I asked Weston what his new dinosaur's name was. We got stuck in a bit of a conversation loop, and rather than try and explain it here, let's go directly to the transcript:

Rob: What's your dinosaur's name?
Weston: No, I wanna watch "Dinosaur Train"!
Rob: OK. But what is your dinosaur's name?
Weston: What is the dinosaur's name...?
Rob: Tell me his name.
Weston: Tell me his name...?
Rob: No, you tell me his name.
Weston: Tell me his name...?
Rob: No, you, Weston, you tell me what your dinosaur's name is.
Weston: Dinosaur name...
Rob: Yes...?
Weston: His name is... Mawt.
Rob: Mott?
Weston: Maught.
Rob: His name is "Mott"?
Weston: Ummm, yep.



Television man is crazy saying
we're juvenile delinquent wrecks
Man, I need tv when I got T. Rex

Remembering Karina

December 17, 2010 --- March 28, 2011

Karina Elin

December 17, 2010

Our friends Katherine and Chris welcomed twin girls

Karina Elin and Emma Linnea

in Yokohama, Japan.

March 2011

Massive earthquake hits Japan

The family is ok; then evacuates to Taiwan.

For unknown reasons, in Taiwan Karina stops breathing and is unable to be resuscitated. After a week in the NICU there, she passed away.

In her family, Karina was a daughter, grand-daughter, niece, and sister.

But her story made her even more.

She and her family were prayed for around the world.

Connections were made from Idaho, Texas, California, and many other places across the world to Taiwan.

Her life revealed that people are willing to do much for others during times of crisis when they share the love of God.

I was unable to attend a memorial service for Karina and with her parents permission this is my way of honoring her life and her family. When I look back at these blog entries documenting the life of my son, I want Karina to be remembered too.

Wardrobe selection

Mommy: (holding out two shirts) Do you want to wear the guitar shirt or the bulldozer shirt today?

Weston: No, that's not a bulldozer.

Mommy: What is it?

Weston: It's a backhoe.

Mommy: Oh, you're right. So you want to wear the backhoe shirt?

Weston: No, guitar shirt.

Sometimes it's miracle we make it out of the house.

Leave a message

Weston's preschool does a really wonderful job of teaching the children how to express themselves verbally and how to listen to what others are expressing. They refer to this as "messages."

Example:

Weston: takes puzzle piece from friend M.

M: yells "NO"

Teacher J: Weston, did you hear M's message?

Weston turned the tables and used this lesson in another way.

Daphne: Barking and jumping on mommy

Mommy: NO!

Weston: Mommy, Daphne did not listening to your messages?

Oh, we have names?

Quote of the day:

A Rob is kind of like a daddy.

A Stefanie is kind of like a mommy.

Photo Booth

Lizards and dinosaurs

Over breakfast.

WV: (sees a drawing of a ladybug on his animal plate and tries to pick it up)
Daddy can pick up ladybug?
Mommy: No, we can't pick that one up it's just a picture. Maybe we'll see one outside.
WV: We might see a lizard outside.
Mommy: That's right, we might see a lizard.
WV: We might see dinosaur outside.
Mommy: We probably won't see a dinosaur. Dinosaurs don't live anymore, we only know them from pictures.
WV: We have lots of dinosaurs in our backyard.
Mommy: We do?!
WV: Smiles and nods

Not unrelated, and I do not take credit for teaching this, but Weston recently observed that dinosaurs and lizards and alligators are similar animals. That a child's brain can make that association is truly astounding.

Happiness is holding your hand.

Sunday morning.

Coming down the stairs.

I hold out my hand...

"I hold mommy's hand. I make mommy happy."

Kids/Robot Game

Everyone knows that Weston loves to rock the guitar.

Weston also loves balloons.

And thanks to Uncle Travis, Weston's getting into the sports.

I know what you're thinking. What do these things have to do with each other? I'm glad you asked...

Weston has invented a new game. Sadly, we did not film the first few rounds, which included much more yelling of, "I got it, I got it."

He first told us it was called "kids game" but then said that it was, "robot game." It's a bit of a golf/hockey hybrid, but played with a guitar and a balloon. And there's no goal. Or out of bounds, unless you get it on the dining room table. In which case someone tall has to get it for you (but that's not really out of bounds). Really, we should go to the video:





Please note that kicking the balloon is illegal. It's, like, a major rule. You can totally pick the balloon up with your hands though. Smashing your guitar Pete Townsend-style is discouraged.

What do you do with a seed?

Weston is clearly benefiting from his pre-school education. Each class at his school has planted a garden. They water and care for their plants. Weston has streamlined the "farm-to-plate" model of food production in favor of "farm-to-mouth" as he picks lettuce and radishes and eats them straight from the ground.

As Weston's mom has never really grown any plant successfully, you know he did not learn this from me. But as I was cutting an orange for him last night, I said, "Wow, this one has a lot of seeds." He said, "you can put them in the ground."

The Garbage Truck Song

Several blog posts have addressed Weston's love of song...

Many times specific song requests are accommodated by inserting requested item into Old MacDonald.
Example:
WV: Sing the cat song
Mommy: How does it go?
WV: Old MacDonald had a cat...

And although this trick would likely have worked for garbage "truck"... instead we made one up!

The garbage truck rolls
All over the town, over the town, over the town,
The garbage rolls all over the town
Picking up the garbage cans and dumpin' 'em out.

The people in the town say
"Thank you very much, thank you very much, thank you very much"
The people in the town say "Thank you very much" for
Picking up the garbage cans and dumpin' 'em out.

Tune: Wheels on the Bus
(Copyright 2011 Stefanie Leacock)

You owe me 5 cents every time you sing it to your child!

Look, I made a castle!

He announced in the kitchen after dinner.

I honestly don't know where he learned about castles, but everything that he builds he calls a castle now.

Funder?

This morning...

WV: I hear funder.
(Note that it was not raining this morning. I can only guess he heard the water in the shower running.)
Mommy: You hear thunder?
WV: No. Funder.
Mommy: What's funder?
WV: What's funder?
Mommy: I don't know. I think you just made it up.

"good" times

Lately, Weston has started telling us when things are "good."

Sunday night after chapel at the Upper School, he told me,
"We had a good time at church, mommy."
(*We* actually did not have a good time, as he was pinching my face and yelling while his dad was preaching. But if you don't count that, then we had a good time.)

As an aside, when there is a small crowd at the Sunday night community worship at the school, Rob invites everyone to form a circle at the altar for communion. Weston loves this and frequently makes "proclamations."
One Sunday night as Rob ate the bread, he proclaimed, "Daddy ate the cracker."
Another evening he said, "I need to eat that."
This past Sunday night after Rob said, "Do this in remembrance of me," he said, "WOW."

Last night, he was still eating his grapes, while daddy and I were cleaning up the kitchen, and he said, "We had a good dinner, mommy. Thank you, mommy."

(sound of heart melting)

His voluntary use of "thank you" has also increased exponentially lately. We frequently hear "thank you mommy" or "thank you daddy" without prompting.

He's a real sweetheart - MOST of the time!

New development 2/25/11
Now, he have moved on to thanking us for eating certain foods.
Example:
"thank you for eating quesadilla, mommy."
"thank you for eating sandwich, daddy."
I'm not sure if he means "thank you for MAKING" it, or that he is just copying us saying, "thank you for eating."

Bedtime Prayers

Mommy: Dear God

WV: Dear God

Mommy: Thank you for this day

WV: Thank you for this day

Mommy: We love you very much

WV: We love you very much

Mommy: Bless mommy

WV: Bless mommy

Mommy: and daddy

WV: and daddy

Mommy: and Weston

WV: and garbage truck

Mommy: and Weston

WV: and car

Mommy: and Weston

WV: and fire engine

Mommy: (trying not to laugh) and all the little babies

WV: and garbage

Mommy: (giving up) Amen

WV: Bless Weston

Mommy: Amen

WV: and all the little babies.

Mommy: Amen.

WV: Amen.

Eda-what?

WVL frequently entertains us with stories and jokes. However, rarely do we have a pen to write them down or the memory to write them down later. But this one I didn't want to forget:

At dinner one night, we were having a veggie mix that had edamame in it. For those readers who might not regularly eat these delicious soybeans, it's pronounced:

ed·a·ma·me (edəˈmä mā)

Mommy: Weston, would you like some edamame?
Weston: No, eda-daddy!
Mommy: HaHaHaHaHaHaHa, you're pretty funny!

Snow Day

It's an Austin snow day!

We got (almost) 1 inch of snow overnight....as seen in our handy rain gauge.


Virtually, every school district in the area canceled classes.

What did we do with our day?

First, we made blueberry pancakes... note the blueberry face!

Then mommy realized if we waited too long the snow might melt. So we layered on the clothes to go outside. (Please note that the jacket he is wearing was purchased to be the right size for next year. But today the criteria of "waterproof" outranked the criteria "fits")





Thinking of all our friends and family across the country who are also snowbound!

Dudes' Weekend

Mommy’s job of turning lead into gold (the six legged turkey project has been tabled for now) sometimes requires her to commute to her laboratory in Dallas. The result is that Daddy and Weston get a dudes’ weekend. Sounds glorious, doesn’t it? Well, it is. And not just in the way it sounds but in actual reality.

What gloriousness might a dudes’ weekend include, you ask?

Well, first one learns to appreciate how overrated “personal appearance” is. Why should we let society dictate which shirts go with which pants? Who says you can’t wear pajamas until 4pm? Who made up the rule that you can’t wear a shirt two or three days in a row? Because you totally can. The stains make the shirt even better. Also, washing and bathing habits can be a bit much sometimes. And if you want a lion face, drawn with wax pencil...done and done.

A dudes’ weekend also includes culinary adventures—foods that a certain someone doesn’t usually let us eat. I’m talking about hot dogs AND beans. It’s a necessary meal when Mommy isn’t around. I know what you’re thinking: "You can’t feed a toddler baked beans!" You totally can. In fact, you don’t even need to "feed" beans to Weston; you just put the beans in front of him and he does all the work. He pretty much eats beans better than he does anything else. And the best part of having beans for dinner is the leftovers you can eat for breakfast! And when one little dude is persistent in asking big dude for some of his coffee, what's a big dude to do? Cream and sugar, dude? No? Black it is. Enjoy!

Of course, we love to have Mommy around. A major part of a dudes' weekend is devoted to discussing how awesome Mommy is and when she'll be home.

Hair Cut

"Hey, man. All we represent to them, man, is someone who needs a haircut."
--Billy (Dennis Hopper) from "Easy Rider"

"Some of the worst mistakes of my life have been haircuts."
--Jim Morrison of The Doors


Weston is undeniably the progeny of his forebears. For example: he has his Poppa's cherubic good looks mixed with his Granddaddy's non verbal facial cues. He has the lankiness of a West and the carny hands of Leacock. The kid couldn't deny his parents if he tried.

Weston has also inherited his daddy's righteous mop. Hair, that is. (Back story: back in 2001, one of Rob's seminary classmates, the inimitable The Reverend Dave Collins, from the driveway of the Berkeley Divinity School made auspicious reference to Rob's "righteous mop.") To put it plainly, Weston's bed-head looks better than 99% of the population exiting the swankiest salons. It the kind of hair that God made wind for. It's crazy in the front. Crazy awesome. And then there's the back. Crazier. Awesomer. One of my dear colleagues from St. Andrew's Episcopal School, the peerless Nathan Michaud called it a "Bowie Mullet." All Ziggy Stardust in the front; Spiders from Mars in the back

But several factors have brought us to the following tonsorial moment:

Numero uno: the obvious and practical concern, long, windswept bangs, while cool looking, can be itchy to the nose and cause minor vision difficulties. Lots of face rubbing, wiping, swatting.

Nummer Zwei: Lately, Weston's been mistaken for a girl. It's not that there's anything wrong with that. Why strangers are so insistent upon blatantly assigning gender roles to our child, is beyond me, and, frankly, kind of rude. Just saying. What's interesting is that, in the last couple of months Weston has been called a girl more times than the rest of his life put together. Its curious and awkward-making. For example:

There was that one old guy in the Crackle Barrel near Port Allen, LA who commented, "I bet she's gonna be a lot of fun at Christmas!" And how can you really respond to that? Plus that guy grilled his waitress about half the items on the menu due to health reasons. Proof that he wasn't the brightest candle on the wreath. It's Cracker Barrel, hoss. Not exactly the place to bring your multiple heart bypass concerns.

There was also that [possibly under the influence] gentleman loitering near his truck in the parking lot of the Longhorn Steakhouse in Dothan, AL on Christmas Eve who said that our "little girl" reminded him a lot of his daughter. The previous sentence may raise a lot of issues, and notably Weston was wearing a rather festive outfit, the sort that in an Eisenhowerian world-view might get a person called "a sissy" but I'll cut to the chase here, it was weird all around, mistaken gender identities foist upon our son notwithstanding.

So, we arrived at an unavoidable crossroads: Weston's first haircut. I hesitate to even use that term for all the potential negative and arbitrary values that the word connotes. To me, it basically says, "Hey, there's something wrong with you that needs to be amputated, severed, excised from you." Still, it seemed like something needed to be done.

On our morning errands, I tried to prepare all of us for this eventuality. "Weston," I would ask with as cheerful a tone as could muster. "Do you want daddy to give you a haircut?" How injured I was by his amiable "Yeah!"

So after lunch, I set upon him with brush and scissors. I consoled myself by considering that the homemade trim was a bit more 'punk' than sending him to The Man's so-called professional barber.

Here's video evidence of his transformation from baby to big boy!