Popsicles

 AKA, no good deed goes unpunished.

 I swear, I'm never going to buy small person treats again.  Giving him some just makes him want more.  I bought the popsicles (Dreyers Fruit Bars) a few weeks ago and he loved them.  He's been begging for popsicles ever since.  We came home from M's birthday party yesterday and he immediately started asking for a popsicle.  Well, he'd already had birthday cake and pinata candy, so no, we weren't having a popsicle.

  Small person is not entirely deprived of treats.  We did go to four birthday parties in three weeks. That means at least once slice of cake per party, plus several sets of pinata treats.

In any case, the popsicles are gone and Anthony was quite concerned about what treat I would have since he was having the last popsicle.  I was pleased with his compassion, and am quite pleased that the things are out of my freezer.  At least, until the next hot spell.

Painting a Piggy Bank

   Today we headed off to Fireworks Ceramics to paint a piggy bank.  It was a perfect excuse for an excursion--Anthony had so much fun painting his frog that a repeat was in order AND he'd been begging for a piggy bank for months now.

  I just love Fireworks Ceramics.  The owner is so incredibly friendly and patient.  Its in an 92 year old house in downtown Mountain View.  The first floor is her shop and she lives upstairs.  She makes all the ceramic pieces herself in the basement.

  In addition to getting us started on our project, Lisa spent TONS of time showing the many finished pieces off to Anthony.  He really enjoyed seeing everyone else's artwork.  (I was amazed at how many people never show up to get their projects.)

Plants in Paper Cups

   We've had pretty good luck this year with plants that arrived here at the house in paper cups.  His green bean plant from preschool yielded a handful of beans.  The overall quantity was unimpressive; I was just impressed that paper cup green beans actually made it!

  We came home from Sheep to Shawl with two baby sunflower plants in paper cups.  One didn't make it, the stem broke.  The other one decided to bloom this week.  Anthony is pretty impressed that its taller than he is.

  On a barely related note, we're working on little white lies and social skills.  Anthony insists that the one that broke is Joshua's.  Normal small person behavior.  However, we really don't need to tell Joshua that.  But, alas, we do.

A Trip to the Dentist

   Anthony was less than cooperative at the dentist this morning.  He wasn't scared or nervous really.  He just chose to be difficult.  I made it clear to him that he could do his cleaning and check-up the easy way or the hard way.  The hygeneist started in on the hard way (nothing like force) and he rapidly decided that maybe the easy way was a better choice.

  They had all sorts of junky prizes in the tooth bucket.  He chose a pair of vampire teeth and is truly enamored with them.

Oh, how I hate Chuck-E-Cheese

   But not for the reason many of my friends do.  I don't terribly mind the pizza, even though its the worst I've ever had, I can handle the noise, and I'm not terribly germ-phobic.

  My biggest issue with CEC is how anti-social it is.  We went there this morning for a neighbor girl's birthday party.  Anthony and S are pretty good pals.  They really do play nicely together and genuinely enjoy each others company.  Therefore, I agreed to take him to the d*** birthday party even though I knew EXACTLY how it would turn out.

  Besides the birthday girl and her big brother, Anthony didn't know anyone there.  At a different party, it wouldn't be too big of a deal.  At CEC, on the other hand, it left him without anyone to play with.  There were three different parties at the place, so lots of kids.  We can't recognize most of the other guests by sight and the birthday girl is paired up with one close pal.  (I don't blame her, 4 year olds have poor social skills and she is no exemption.  She's actually pretty introverted.)  Besides, most of the games are for one or two kids max.

  Basically, Anthony and I played together the whole time.  At one point another child joined him at the air hockey table.  The kid is pretty good at air hockey, by the way.  We also spent a lot of time playing an Ice Age themed touch screen bubble popping game, that was quite fun.

  He had a reasonably good time, played some games, ate some cake.  I will think twice before going to another party there.  If he isn't friends with a bunch of the other kids, I don't think I'll accept the invitation.

"Family Day" at the San Francisco Zoo

 Daddy leaves for China tomorrow, so I declared that today was Family Day, a day for the three of us to spend together.  We headed up to the San Francisco Zoo.  Its a bit of a drive, so we don't go there nearly as often as we go to our beloved Happy Hollow.

  Highlights included a train ride on the "Little Puffer", watching the grizzly bears finish lunch and the hippopotomus.  Mr. Hippo didn't do much except hang out under water and come up for air.  The coming up for air part was pretty darn neat, though.  Who knew that hippo noses could be so interesting?

  The anaconda was pretty interesting.  They grow up to 25 feet and 400 pounds, yet their head (the part that sticks up out of water) was so tiny.  You could easily see its prey not realizing how big and scary the snake actually was.

The Beloved Frog

 Anthony received a ceramic frog to paint as a party favor at Ella's birthday party last weekend.  He fell in love with it.  Alas, he immediately broke it little foot hopping it across the ground.  He really wants to play with it; I'm really trying to impress on him that its fragile and it will break if he's too rough.

  He's had a great time painting it in all different colors.  It came with a small tub of mud green paint, the kind that's meant for ceramics.  Despite an oversize t-shirt AND an apron, he managed to get paint on a nice pair of shorts.  We then switched to regular tempra paint for the rest of the artwork.  He needs more colors anyway!

Songs and S'mores With Friends

 Last night was the last of our church's "Family Fun Nights."  Anthony was really looking forward to it and it did not disappoint.  He had playground time with some of his pals, followed by picnic dinner, s'mores and then singing some of his favorite Sunday School songs.

  His s'mores technique was interesting.  He started off trying to eat it whole, but then decided that an oreo cookie approach was more appealing.  He took the halves apart, at the chocolate, then ate as much marshamallow off the graham cracker as he could, then at the graham cracker and remaining marshamallow together.

Last swim lesson

 Anthony's last scheduled swim lesson was this week. The schedule was pretty intense, 4 days a week for eight weeks straight.  I was initially disappointed that he wasn't actually swimming by the end of the summer, but I realize that he's made some pretty serious progress.

  In addition to the courage to jump off the diving board, he can open his eyes and retrieve objects from the bottom of the pool, can bob independently, can easily swim across the pool with the aid of a noodle and can swim a little bit independently.  Really though, he needs to put his feet down to breathe.

  While he's not a swimmer, the improvement from the beginning of the summer to the end of the summer was really very impressive.  We're taking him snorkeling when we go to Hawaii next month, we'll see how that goes!

Feeding Small People

I saw this funny blog post about feeding toddlers the other day.  My mother thought it was quite funny, especially if you're not the parent of the small person in question.  (She still hasn't quite forgiven me for the temper tantrum I threw when my pb&j was cut incorrectly.  I know this because she still cuts my sandwiches into rectangles when everyone else in the house gets triangles.)

Anthony still manages to surprise me sometimes.  He steadfastly refuses to eat hamburgers.  Yet he will happily eat a "grilled turkey sausage patty" (i.e. turkey burger) while dipping his bun (served on the side) in catsup.  A rose by any other name...

Fun with Ciaran

Ciaran's been spending a lot of time at his cabin in Tahoe, so we haven't seen much of him lately.  To make up for it, we had a nice long playdate at Marymeade Park on Sunday.  We were there two and a half hours and I think the boys would have happily played longer.

The second picture is Bob doing is "magic" to make the water flow.  He was a pretty good magician.  Having an accurate watch certainly helped.

A Week of Camp

 Anthony's regular daycare provider is on vacation this week, so he has spent the week at daycamp through our YMCA.  He seems to be enjoying himself.  They ride a yellow school bus to the Y for their swim lessons, he's made pirate themed crafts (he loves his telescope), and this week they performed at "campfire".   It was a fairly typical set of camp performances, a step above dreadful at best.  Anthony was one of three kids who got to (loudly) sing into the microphone.