Lonely Planet

The lastest craze for A is the planets. He has planets hanging up in his room and recently got a book all about them from nana and papa, which we read and re-read every day, along with a booklet that him and his dad found on the internet and printed out.

We have all been assigned a planet identity. As testament to his age, in true Freudian fashion, mom is Jupiter and dad is Pluto, which he likes to emphasize is really a "dwarf planet" due to its small size. He has assigned himself to be Neptune. So, we all call each other by our planet names. This has even resulted in the creation of an imaginery planet friend -Mercury. Neptune and Mercury are best buds. This morning Neptune got out of bed and said, "Okay, me and mercury are going out here to play." Later, he came running in to tell me that Mercury wanted to ride in the carseat on the way to school.

The parents have also been assigned friends, Earth for me and Venus for Pluto. I am not willing to indulge in any possible symbolism for these assignments!

A funny exchange:
Neptune: Hey, Jupiter, how's your great red spot doing?
Jupiter: Oh, fine, how's your great dark spot doing?

Since Neptune is a blue planet, this was another funny conversation. "Neptune" was listing his various parts: "My head? It's blue. My feet? They're blue. My legs? They're blue." This continued through at least twenty different body parts, including "elbow-pits" (the inside of the elbow).

Finally, Neptune and Pluto made a "science chart" together, in which A. wrote in all of the planets and the number of moons. As we learned later, that is a typical activity in a Fourth Grade curriculum.

Confidentiality?

No posts for awhile with the holidays and celebrating A's fourth birthday, but I will get back on track!

Tonight, my husband came home from picking A up at school with a funny story from the teacher. Apparently, they are doing evaluations for all of the kids now and writing them during class. A. went over and took a look, and then began to read them - outloud!! The teacher said, "well, this has really never been an issue in a 3-year-old classroom before."

Negativity

We had another "math surprise" tonight. At bedtime, A likes to ask us the answer to math problems that he makes up. Tonight he brought up negative numbers... We have no idea how he learned of negative numbers - I mentioned to him about two months ago that when you get less than zero, the numbers become negative, but that's the only thing I have ever told him on the subject. He was saying things like "what's negative 1 plus 100?" I would say
"what do you think?"
"99." "Right!!" [Shocked looks exchanged with husband over A's head]
A: "What's negative 100 plus 98" Me: "What do you think" A: "negative 1." Me: "Close, very close."
We went through about ten different math problems like this, though mostly with regular positive numbers.

At the grocery store, he had been quizzing me with three digit addition, and I finally told him that I went to law school for a reason, rather than becoming a mathematician. He replied "Well, you need to become a mathematician." I think I'll leave that to you, sweetie!

Future Union Agitator

As we got in line at the grocery store tonight, A. saw the clock and announced to the cashier that it was 6:01pm. Surprised, she said that she wished it was later so she could go home. I asked what time she left, and she said 9pm. So, I asked A how long she had left: "3 hours," he replied. Then he took over the conversation
A: "when did you get here?"
Cashier: "1"A: pm or am?
C: pm
A: So, you'll be here for 8 hours.

Scrabble

A. woke-up around 5:30am on Sunday while we were staying at my MIL's. There was a Scrabble game that he had taken out of the box the day before, which he then tried to get me to play. I tried to discourage this (largely because it was 5:30am) by telling him that it was really a game for grown-ups. However, as usual, this backfired:
"No, the box says 'ages 8 and up.'"
We ended up playing Scrabble. He needed a lot of assistance finding words, but he sat and played for close to an hour before losing interest, a remarkable feat for an energetic pre-schooler.

Our son, another Republican for Obama

We had lot's of funny moments with A. this weekend. We took him canvassing for Barack Obama, and, despite the fact that he has been insisting that he is a Republican and supports McCain, he got really into the canvassing. After a few houses, he made up something between a cheer and a song, totally out of the blue without any prompting:

"Go Obama, Go Obama,
We're waiting for November 4th,
Go Obama, Go Obama,
We're waiting for November 4th."

Now if only I could get him to do it on camera. And then figure out how to post that here...

The Phone Call

The inspiration for this blog comes from a phone call I received earlier this week. Generally, in child-proofing, it's safe to leave books with no pictures within reach, so having a three year old reading fluently presents totally novel challenges. I think that the phone call fairly represents these challenges.

My son, who will turn four in three months, was staying home with my mom for the day. I was sitting at work when my cell phone rang:

Me: Hello?
Anthony: Hi mom. May I read David Sedaris while I sing "Where oh where is my friend Griffin?"
Me: No, sweetie, I don't think that you should read David Sedaris. That is a grown-up book.
Anthony: But I am a grown-up, I am Miss Nicole [his teacher, and one of his many alter-egos].