We finally got around to having a lazy weekend after many weekends of plans and work.
Saturday we hung around listening to music and doing art projects in the morning, had a pizza party for lunch, did laundry, picked up some groceries and stopped by lowes to see forklifts, played soccer and practiced drawing letters in the backyard, ate BBQ chicken for dinner and watermelon for dessert. I fell asleep at 930.
Sunday we went to Tom’s for pancakes then spent the morning at Underhill playground (Asher calls it UnderWEARhill Playground), cleaned up, hung on the stoop for a while, had Uncle Danny over for dinner and did more laundry.
Looking forward to the week ahead – one of my last before work really picks up.
I know I’ve been talking a lot about what Asher is up to these days but I am finding that this 2.5-3yo age is so interesting. They are really inquisitive! Besides having to know everything about everything, Asher wants to know how to do what we are doing. Its cute and also time consuming but anything that keeps him busy during tv time enough that he forgets about turning on the tv is fine by me.
Using Chopsicks
Asher loves sushi, yes the raw fish kind. I know its weird but he’s always loved lox so I guess its not all that surprising. Since little kids aren’t really supposed to eat it I only let him have 1 piece of salmon sushi with his miso and edamame. After unsuccessfully trying the 2 handed chopsticks method I started putting together these kids chopsticks and he is really getting the hang of it! It makes for a very serious dinnertime. Pretty damn cute though.
Identifying Coins
Asher likes to tell you which coin he is putting in his bank, his favorite is the quarter.
Juicing Oranges
Also a very serious activity. I picked up this little juicer because I HATE squeezing lemons by hand and it seemed like a fun thing for Asher. It is. He loves it. Do you see how hard he is concentrating??!!! Its a little hands on for moi – I took it out thinking he could do it himself while I’m cooking but not really. He doesn’t push hard enough yet but I just let him do all the pieces on his own (cut into 8ths) and then go back and quickly squeeze them all when he is done. Still a good time waster of an activity and he gets a cup of fresh juice at the end.
Shaving
Matthew impulse purchased this bathtime shaving kit and it has saved us from many a bathtime meltdown. He used to shave side to side but he’s really getting the hang of it. (why so serious?) (also yes, our shower has wood paneling. I’m gonna let that sit with you for a minute)
Checkers
Our landlords/upstairs neighbors have 2 grandsons close in age to Asher, he is actually right in between them. Sometimes the older guy sleeps over on Friday nights and we play on the stoop with him but one day they went inside and learned how to play checkers.
Every word to every song ever written
His song of the moment is “Leaving on a Jet Plane” – this clip is from a couple weeks ago, now he can sing all the way through the first chorus without prompting. The best is when he’s playing with his blocks and he just starts belting it out. He was very interested to learn that the Paul who sings this song is a different Paul from the one that sings Hey Jude.
Other learny stuff he’s been obsessed with, for the archives:
Counting to 100
Distinguishing dinosaur carnivores vs “obovores”
Identifying the sound of musical instruments
Naming different types of flowers (I need someone to make an app)
Who sings which Beatles song
What subway goes where
Asher and I have been spending A-L-O-T of quality time together lately. Matthew’s been working like crazy, we haven’t seen him in 8 days. He finally has off tomorrow and I’m pretty excited. I’m anticipating a lot of male bonding, and also using the bathroom alone. That’ll be nice.
The week went fast. Jackie came over a couple of times, Asher went to preschool and music class. Ramona stopped by. Friday I took him to soccer then Tim came for dinner and Asher talked his ear off and taught him all about his favorite app.
On Saturday Asher and I headed over to the yearly ‘touch-a-truck‘ fundraiser at a local elementary school. I asked if he wanted to go inside a fire truck and that seemed to pique his interest, then I explained where we were going and he was pretty excited. He dubbed it the Truck Factory.
They closed down the block of the school and parked the trucks out front. This is what we were in store for:
FDNY fire truck
Ambulance
NYPD police car
Dump truck
DSNY Garbage truck
Tow Truck
School bus
Bucket trucks/cherry pickers
Sean Casey Animal Adoption Van
Concrete mixer
Green-Wood Cemetery Trolley
As you can tell by his extremely smiley face in every picture it was…very exciting stuff. We ran into Gabriel and got a cookie in the shape of a truck. The lines to “drive” the trucks were crazy so it probably would have been smarter to bring another grown up. Asher was not interested in waiting in any lines. Not even for frites and meats!
He had a crazy good time just hanging out at the back of the firetruck though. I had to pull him out of there.
On our way out there was a bonus fire truck parked at the entrance with a bunch of yawny firemen just waiting around. There was no line so Asher went into the truck to talk to the firemen and check it out. Just as I plopped him on the front of the truck for the best photo op ever the guy we were talking to said “We gotta run” and threw his jacket on and 30 seconds later they were pulling away.
We got out of there and had a quiet evening watching tv and playing with cars. Is there anything cuter than an almost 3 year old hanging out in a helmet?
Asher loves painting at his easel and usually asks to paint every day, sometimes twice. Its…so messy…but he’s really good about getting on his smock and he tries so hard not to spill anything on the floor. How could I say no? Yesterday he was dipping his hand in the (dirty) water to clean it (?) and as I was about to suggest that we just go wash up in the sink he plunged his second hand into the tiny cup and gross dark blue murky water came flowing over the side of the easel and onto everything.
Well, ya live, ya learn and he’s gotta learn so we live.
“Its ok mommy, its just an akident”
(He will say this 400x in 10 minutes.)
He has been very interested in mixing colors so we’ve been doing a bunch of experimenting. He thinks its SO COOL that red and blue make purple. I may sound a bit over-excited in this video but hello, we both went to art school. It was a proud moment for us when he mixed up a bunch of orange. Tear.
Asher and I have been busy, too busy to sit at a computer all day apparently. I have been trying to get my photos organized for posts during my evenings but hanging out with an almost 3 year old is exhausting. All that talking and explaining and T-A-L-K-I-N-G fries my brain. Have I mentioned all the talking?
Plus I’ve been multi-tasking in other areas. I can fold laundry while I watch The Vampire Diaries.
Last week Asher had his spring break from school so Tuesday morning we took advantage of the free admission to the brooklyn botanic garden. Ramona joined us and we had tons of fun exploring. Its really an amazing place. We are SO lucky to live in walking distance.
Being at home with a 2 year old is kind of non-stop. Most days feel like a mix of errands, chores and child wrangling but yesterday I decided to take it easy and we had a great day. I dropped Asher at school then met Eva’s mom Sarah for coffee while the kids were at their respective pre-schools. She’s also got an 8 week old so he joined us but napped in his stroller the entire time so we could chat. It was very pleasant. Super, if you will.
Eva gets out a bit earlier than Asher so after we said goodbye I stopped by the coop for a few things then popped into a local kids shop to check out the sale rack. I ran into one of the moms from music class, also sans child, and we chatted for a while then I walked over to school to pick up Asher at noon. Its about a mile but it was gorgeous out.
We walked home, he ate a huge lunch of lentils and bulgur (or Moujadara if you fancy) while we talked about what he wants on his “birthday list” which is a post for a whole other day. It was very specific and includes brand names and color preferences. Reminder: his birthday is FOUR months away. Super. <——–Sarcastic eyeroll.
He napped at 1 with no issue (usually an issue) and I had to go in and wake him at 4 which is just too crazy for words. Monday he napped 90 minutes. 3 hours is like…a SUPER nap.
The cleaner came so the house is neat and I had a productive time while he was out. I blogged, made a massage appointment for my birthday, ate lunch AND had a work call about a few things that have to be done. I’ll be getting a little cashola this month after all. Super, right! I’m telling you.
Since it was soooo nice out I changed him into shorts and threw on a tshirt. A TSHIRT before my birthday. Unheard of. We walked to the subway without a stroller (effin A!) and went to dumbo to meet Matthew because he was done with work (!!!!!!!!!SUPER!!!!!!!!!) and checked out Jane’s Carousel.
The carousel was empty. We rode twice and there were tons of empty seats. We threw rocks into the river and ran around on the grass and had an awesome time. We stayed later than we thought so we decided to go out to dinner. Asher requested pizza. We went to Amorina and its so good we all left feeling happy. Super happy!
Asher is really into Valentine’s Day this year. I blame school and also this blues clues Valentine’s Day book we received in a huge box of secondhand books when he was born.
In the book (which is awful by the way) Blue makes cookies for her friends to show them how much she loves them so guess what Asher wanted to do for his friends?
I wasn’t gonna get into all that but Matthew was up for it. With Asher’s love of cooking we thought it would be fun to bake cookies for his class- since Valentine’s Day happens to fall on a Tuesday/school day. Not knowing if we’d really feel like doing it in the end, last week I made one of his art projects Valentines because I am a genius always in need of a back up plan.
We had these blank cards so I cut them in half and then cut random heart shapes out of index cards while he was playing with his trains. I stuck tape to the back then Asher stuck all the hearts onto the cards himself.
I laid out red, white and pink paints and he went to town with his little valentine making factory.
He painted every inch of every card and I did that thing where you peel away the heart and it leaves a blank heart underneath. I love how every one came out differently because of all his random paint mixing.
They were really cute! I popped each cookie into a bag and tied the card onto it.
The best part was the fun we had making them and no, I’m not even kidding. I got to do the part I like and Matthew did the part he likes. Asher got to do it all AND give them out. It was a pretty fun way to introduce a fun little holiday. Happy Valentine’s Day!
Asher and I got into a bit of a routine in October and every day when Jackie left around 5 we would play outside on the stoop for a while. It started because he likes to watch her ride away on her bike but then he realized we could hang out and say hi to people, wave to dogs and count the airplanes. I liked it because 5-6 is TV time and if he wants to play outside instead that is fine by me. Then all of a sudden the leaves started to fall so we got out his little broom to sweep up the leaves which turned into flopping into the leaves which turned into throwing the leaves.
He loved it.
The weather got cold, then colder but today it was warm again. I think a high of 70. I had the morning off so we spent a few hours in the backyard sweeping leaves into bags for the winter and counting the worms, broom at the ready. Its probably the last of the days we can hang outside without a jacket. So sad!
A while back I heard that somewhere in PA you can ride on Thomas the train and after some investigation I realized its a tour and they swing into our area 2-3 times a year. Last week we decided to look into tickets for this past weekend and that was that.
We told Asher that Thomas was coming from Sodor and he was going to be in this place called Pennsylvania so Friday after art class we were going to go there. We kept it pretty casual and besides finding a hotel with a pool we didn’t make too many plans.
Friday afternoon Asher and Matthew took a dip then we met my old work friend Jamie and her family for dinner. We probably haven’t seen each other in 8 years but we’ve kept in touch via the internets so when we decided to go I emailed and we made plans for our (semi) blind date. They live in the area and have a 2 year old who digs trains so we got to hang with them on Saturday too.
I like Jamie because it was barely 10am when I busted her eating cheese fries and she just laughed. That’s my kind of peeps.
As you can see its a very glamorous place.
They tell you to get there an hour before your train ride and we were like whatever but then we had to park a mile away and walk over through mud so yeah, get there a little early. The good part is that we didn’t have to wait on line. The bad part is that Asher was Very Rushed and Asher does not like to be Very Rushed so he was a grump for the first hour. Also, Matthew had to run while holding his coffee. (sad trombone)
He warmed up a bit on the ride. Since we were “not early” he didn’t really know we were riding on Thomas until we got off and walked to the front.
As you can tell by our 17 different views of Thomas we basically spent the entire time watching the trains pull in and out of the station (vu den?) The Thomas train ran every 30 minutes but they also had what Asher refers to as “Big Black Steam Engine” for obvious reasons.
Luckily Big Black Steam Engine was fairly exciting in its own right, what with a coal tender and all. There was a bunch of other stuff to do, both Thomas related and not. We poked into the music tent, the storytime tent, the train table tent and our favorite part – this ride on a small train I referred to as the Hayride Train. because that’s basically what it looked like.
They also had teeny tiny donuts. Too bad the kids didn’t like them.
The Strasburg Railroad is actually a really cool place we didn’t get to see all that much of. They also have a railway museum and there’s tons of stuff around there for kids. We saw cows, horses and goats from the car and Asher was almost as excited about that as he was the trains. I think we’ll head back when the weather is nicer and do some more exploring. We didn’t even get to pick up any jam!
