Spirited Away

Last weekend we went to a friend's house (one of S's coworkers) to see a movie with J. Our first choice was Spirited Away--a PG film. What's the difference between PG and G, anyway? So 10 minutes in, as Chihiro's parents get turned into pigs, S and I look over to J, and see that he has a look of abject terror on his face.
"J, do you like the movie?"
"NO! The pigs! The pigs scare me!"
Oops. I guess that's the difference between PG and G. So we went with The Princess and the Frog and all was set aright, even though they managed to get turned into frogs...

J is hilarious these days. He absorbs language like you wouldn't believe, and he generalizes like crazy. This leads to funny results. Here are excerpts from just today:
Forgetting my keys in the car door: "You begot the keys!"
Pointing at a telephone wire in the sky: "Look, a rainbow!"
Eating a carrot: "I'm eating a carrot log."
I hiccup: "You hic'd up!"
On being accused of being grumpy: "No. No! No I amn't! (sullenly) I amn't."

And there are at least as many just today that I can't remember.

Sensitivity and J-dar

J-dar is what we're calling J's uncanny ability to be listening to your conversation while looking like he's completely absorbed in something else. It's pretty freaky. For example, at a meeting with a midwife, S described how the doctor in PR did an episiotomy against our instructions:

"So she just said 'a little nick' and then she cut me."
Comes running from the corner where he was playing with a train: "Wh.. wh.. wha.. why did they cut mama?"
Oops.

We've long known that J is sensitive (like his dad). The other day I got hit in the face playing racquetball before picking J up at daycare:
"I need to go inside to get some ice for my lip, okay?"
"You got hit in the face with a racquetball racquet?"
"Yes, that's right. I got hit in the face, and I need some ice to help me feel better."
After getting ice: "Do you know what else would help me feel better? If you sat on my lap."
Sits on my lap. "Ahh. That helps me feel better."
Starts crying. "Why are you crying? Is it because you don't want to sit on my lap? You don't have to."
"No. I'm sad because daddy got hit with a racquetball racquet."

J's First (Original) Joke

"I want granola."
"Can you ask nicely? Can you say 'please'?"
"I don't want to say 'please'. You say 'please'."
"Umm, ok. Please."
"You're a policeman!"

In other news, J knows how to hold a guitar correctly and loves to play it (though it only has 3 strings and it's out of tune). He was playing it today on a Skype call to Grandma and Grandpa.
"Are you strumming the guitar?" (I taught him the word for strumming the other day).
"No! No! I'm not strumming! Not strumming!"
"Okay, okay. What are you doing then?"
"I'm moving my fingers like this." (wiggling his fingers, picking the strings)
"You're fingerpicking!"
For the record, I never taught him about fingerpicking. He figured it out by watching, I guess.

One Was Johnny

"One was Johnny who lived by himself. Two was a ..."
"mouse!"
"who jumped in on the shelf. Three was a ..."
"cat!"
"who came after the rat. Four was a ..."
"dog!"
"who came in and sat. Five was a ..."
"turtle!"
"who bit the dog's tail. Six was a ..."
"monkey!"
"who brought in the mail. Seven a ..."
"bird!"
"BLACKbird pecked poor Johnny's nose. Eight was a ..."
"tiger!"
"out selling old clothes. Nine was a ..."
"robin!"
"robBER who stole an old shoe. Ten was a puzzle, what should Johnny do?"
"Where's the puzzle?"
"It's an abstract puzzle, not an actual--"
"Where's the PUZZLE?"
"It's ABSTRACT, it--"
"WHERE'S THE PUZZLE?"
"It's an ABSTRACT PUZZLE!"
"WHERE IS IT?!"
That's when S broke it up by laughing.

You Got No Trumpet

J surprised me this morning by remembering when I promised him yesterday that we could get bagels in the morning. I guess he's smarter than he looks. S was running in SF, so we got her the makings of a veggie #2 to go, which she very much enjoyed.

Later today S was commencing shutdown procedures (a.k.a. trying to get J to take a nap) in the face of moderate resistance. She finally left him in the room to see if he would power down by himself. When I checked in on him a half hour later, he was curled up in a ball on the rocking chair. Very cute.

Last weekend we got J the book "Ben's Trumpet" at a yard sale. It's a great book--S says it made her tear up the first 10 times she read it. It's important that we like the books we get J, because he makes us read them 10 times a sitting. I'm realistically estimating that at bedtime today we read it for the 100th time already. Two new phrases seem to have crept into J's lexicon: "You're crazy! You got no trumpet" and "he's the cat's meow". He definitely is.

S is having little luck in the search for maternity clothes. I find it hard to fathom that maternity clothing can suck as bad as it does, given that women have needed to clothe themselves while pregnant for millenia. I still mock S over the blue mumu she bought in desperation in PR. It made her look like a blueberry.

Now a Born Blue Child

This blog has been languishing since our Unborn Blue Child was born (in 2008). Henceforth, he will be referred to as J. S has kindly allowed me (A, dad to J) to co-opt the blog to allow make it a repository for things we want to remember for posterity.

So to kick it off, let's get up to speed. We moved away from PR last year, and we now live in a co-op in the Bay Area. We live with 2 other families (KJ+DO with daughters RJ+TJ, and TH with son AH). S is pregnant again! UBC2 is due 12/25/10, which isn't a problem since we're Jewish. We're (sadly) moving out of our co-op in the not so distant future because there just isn't enough room for UBC2 to join the ranks here.

So today, J was playing with TJ after dinner while I was chatting with KJ + TH. TJ is 4 months older than J, and apparently has figured out the doorknob principle--something still missing from J's every expanding repertoire of skills. The door slams closed, and TJ comes charging gleefully back inside. J is not with her, so KJ and I re-open the door. J is halfway down the steps, coat in one hand, nerf ball in the other.
"J, where are you going?"
"I go for walk!"
"By yourself?"
"J go for walk by self!"
He was dragged back in with much protest, but J and I did go for a walk later with 2 dogs in tow. I can't believe he was just heading out like that.

S says that one of her favorite things in the world is when J calls himself "sweet potato", as in:
"J, are you my sweet potato?"
"I'm a sweet potato!"
If he's crying, he'll occasionally say that he's a "sad potato".