Birthday pictures

As promised, an update with pictures (click for larger versions)

Todd enjoys the bubble gun:



And struggles with the mammoth water gun!



Here he is digging into and enjoying his presents:





Here are the Blue's Clues themed decorations:



And Todd blends right in with his Blue ears and big Blue sticker!


Birthday cake (Tres Leches with strawberry filling):



And finally, the pièce de résistance: video clip of Toddy with the bubble gun-- and not believing in letting go!

Happy 4th Birthday (the party)

Celebrated Todd's birthday at Aunt Debbie and Uncle Ron's house today. Unfortunately, the weather wasn't as scorchingly hot as it was last weekend (perfect squirt-gun weather!) so Todd played with bubbles instead. The place was decked out with all sorts of Blues Clues-themed decorations, including adorable stuffed beanie babies of Blue, Magenta and Periwinkle! Aunt Debbie really went all-out! :-)

The celebration itself was nice and relaxing-- Oma and Opa couldn't make it, so it was just the (extended) Knight clan. Todd was still his shy self, ONE of these days Allan's family will get to glimpse the REAL Todd!

Todd was also a bit shy of Winston, his new canine cousin (who arrived yesterday), but the little dog was very friendly and loved to give kisses :-* I'm sure next time around, Todd will be emboldened a bit more and play with him!

They say a picture is worth a thousand words, and I've got quite a few, plus video, stored in my camera. As soon as I upload them I'll post some and updated this entry. Keep checking this space! :)

At the end of the evening, we trooped to Oma and Opa's house to drop him off for the week. Full of cake and well-rested after a nap, the little guy couldn't stop kicking the back of my seat and exclaiming with glee that he was going to Oma and Opa's house. Then, he announced: "You won't see me anymore. I'm staying at Oma and Opa's house for a LONG time. Don't pick up me for a LONG week, okay?"

Awwww... little man won't miss us a bit, will he!

Of Monsters and Boys

Little man and I have developed a new bedtime routine: after all the bedtime stories are read, we turn out the lights and he snuggles into my arms while saying his prayers and then just generally falling asleep. We started out with me snuggling "for five minutes" (invariably it lasted longer than that) and then somehow he extended it to "ten minutes". Sometimes he falls asleep in my arms, sometimes he doesn't, but at least he's quieted down enough that it doesn't take him long to doze off after I've left the room.

Tonight was one of the rare nights when we actually laid in bed and talked for a little while. Sometimes I ask him what he did in school. Usually reticent, he tends to open up more while snuggling comfortably and just relaxing.

Anyway. Fast forward to tonight. We got to talking about monsters and such. Here's how the conversation went:

(T = Todd, M = Mommy)

T: When you're here, I'm not afraid.
M: Aww, what are you afraid of?
T: Monsters.
M: Don't worry, no monsters here. Mommy and Daddy close the doors and windows, so they can't come in.
T: Where do monsters live?
M: Um... where do you think they live? (Haha! Clever way to get around "I don't know"!)
T: The bad monsters are in jail.
M: (Inspiration strikes) And the good ones live on Sesame Street!
T: But where to they REALLY live?
M: On Sesame Street!
T: No, that's just on TV. That's pretend. Where do they REALLY live? (C'mon, Mom, how infantile do you think I am!?)

After I while I realized he was thinking of the monsters from "Monsters, Inc"!

M: But those are all good monsters!
T: No, not ALL of them!
M: Well yeah, Randall and Mr. Waternoose were bad, but look what happened-- they went to jail!

Again the conversation turned to Todd's fear that they would visit him here. I tried to allay those fears.

M: Don't worry, they won't come here. Even if they did, they'd just make jokes and do funny things to make you laugh, that's all. They won't scare you. But they aren't coming here anyway.
T: They're not? Why?
M: Because I told them not to. I told them you had to sleep and if you're busy laughing at them then you're not gonna get enough sleep! (I was feeling quite proud of myself, thinking this up on the fly. Until...)
T: But I didn't hear you (tell them)! (So how do I know you really did?)
M: Oh, um, I told them after you were asleep.
T: (Still skeptical) How did you tell them?
M: (Starting to sweat) Um, I e-mailed them!
T: How do you spell it? (Obviously he meant their email address)
M: (Crud!) M-O-N-S-T-E-R

That seemed to satisfy him, thankfully. I swear, I felt like I was under some heated cross-examination by a razor-sharp, eagle-eyed lawyer. That boy misses nothing, and we're VERY hard-pressed to put anything past him! Yes, I still believe he'll be a lawyer when he grows up :-P

Happy Birthday, Todd

Today Todd turned 4. Hard to believe that it has been 4 years since the little man got suction-cupped out of my womb and entered the world hollering from here to eternity! Since his birthday fell on a school day, he got a personalized crown that he got to wear all day. Mommy and Daddy treated him to a rare sight-- both parents picking him up from school! Then we drove to Rusty's Pizza Parlor for pizza dinner and some arcade games. Here's the little man and his crown:



Here are the boys at play:

Emptying out the camera

Playing catchup on some photos I've been meaning to post but never got around to... until now!

Arming himself with a squirt gun at Aunt Debbie's birthday party, April 12:



Hatching out of a dinosaur egg at the Santa Barbara Zoo, April 19:



Enjoying a snack break from shopping. With Mommy in the coffee shop, enjoying zucchini bread and milk :-9 (April 20)



One of Todd's doodlings on Mommy's whiteboard at work. It started out as an elephant (hence the big ears), but halfway through, he changed his mind and decided to draw a doggie instead. So, I present to you, Elephog! (Eledog?)



And finally, a typical shot of the little man, all splayed out, sound asleep... this time with a doggie resting watchfully over him. No, nobody posed the dog like that. You know how it goes. When the humans aren't watching...

More new words

Putting together reading and phonics is starting to go more easily for the little guy.

Last month I started with words that end in "AT", and since then we've progressed to:

-OG : DOG, LOG, FOG, FROG
-UG : BUG, HUG, MUG, RUG
-IG : BIG, DIG, PIG, WIG, TWIG
-ET : GET, LET, NET, PET, WET

We've enrolled him in a reading class that starts in mid-June. He should be well-prepared for it now :-)

Crazy Hair Day

This entire week has been special dress up days for the kids at Todd's school. Yesterday was backwards/inside-out day, and today? Crazy Hair Day. Followed by Pajama Day tomorrow, Crazy Hat Day on Thursday and Sports Day on Friday.

Not much that can be done with a little boy's hair, especially when his parents have a penchant for keeping it closely cropped (esp in hot weather). But luckily it had been long enough since his last haircut that Daddy was able to take some hair and shape and mold it into a nice little faux-hawk. Here's the results:

What's your name?

It's been so long since Todd has seen Opa and Oma that his Chinese is becoming rusty. He got a chance to talk to them today while calling Oma to wish her a Happy Mother's Day. Opa answered the phone, and Todd naturally fell into speaking Chinese with him, albeit haltingly. Then Oma came on the phone, and he refused to speak Chinese with her. He tried to tease her: "What are you talking about, Oma!?" whenever she said something in Chinese, though we could tell he knew perfectly well what she was saying.

Oma tried to persuade him to speak Chinese by saying "I don't understand you. Speak Chinese!"

Oh, but Todd was not to be fooled, and was quick to correct her: "Yes you do! You can speak English!"

There is, however, one Chinese word that he still prefers, and that is his (nick)name: Pao Pao (simply, "little boy" in Chinese).

So much so than when Mommy or Daddy try to say his full name, Todd Knight, he shakes his head and insists: "No, I'm not Todd. I'm Pao Pao. My name is Pao-Pao Knight!"

Little boy Knight? Well, I suppose that's apt, too!

Big brother?

Daddy was commenting on how Aunt Debbie was his big sister, and that he's her little brother.

Ever the literal-minded boy, Todd insisted that Daddy was the big brother. No, Daddy kept insisting-- "I'm Aunt Debbie's LITTLE brother!"

Exasperated, Todd made it clear why Daddy was wrong:

"But you grew up so big, like a giant!!"

Slip 'n Slide

What a scorcher this weekend has been! Sunday morning we had all the doors and windows open to let in some air, with temps rising in the upper 80s, even low 90s predicted! Not too bad on the surface, but for Santa Barbara, and its humidity, it was record-breakingly HOT! Little man got a visitor-- one of the neighbor kids, a little boy almost 8 years old (who has a 2-year-old brother, so he plays the caring big brother role very nicely) stopped by to see if Todd wanted to play on the slip 'n' slide they set up in the backyard. So Todd joined the fun and got to cool off while Mommy and Daddy did housecleaning.

Here he is during one of his forays down the slide... his expression is priceless! That grimace (click for larger pic) accurately reflects his initial hesitance.

As you can tell from this video, however, he quickly warmed up. After lunch, he went back out and played with squirt guns, the hose, and the little plastic wading pool. All in all, a nice way to cool off on a hot day :-)

Okay, Blogger is annoying me!!! Everytime I go to edit this thing, the video shows up in the preview and in the code, but when I publish the post, it is nowhere to be found. What gives!? Here is the Photobucket version, hopefully it shows up better. If Blogger decides to finally kick in and update this thing, you'll have 2 of the same video to enjoy. My apologies in advance for any possible duplicates...

Math whiz

A month ago I blogged about Todd teaching Pistachio how to add using his beads. He's continued to practice his addition since then.

We use flashcards that have an addition problem on one side, and a subtraction problem on the other. Last week, as we were doing the addition exercises, Todd turned the card over and noticed the subtraction problem. He wanted to know what the minus sign was. So, I decided it was time to start teaching him subtraction!

We started off with some simply ones. 4-1. 5-3. 6-2. He quickly caught on, and our nightly study sessions now included subtraction as well as addition.

He is always eager to do his arithmetic, mostly, I suspect, because he simply enjoys playing with the beads. Whatever-- as long as he's getting some learning in with the fun, why not? Beats having to struggle to get him to sit still and learn!

I started to wonder, though, if he truly grasped the concept of arithmetic or if it was just some bead-sliding game to him.

So today, I got out his box of mini tangram puzzle pieces, and got out the flashcards. I set him in my lap, and gave him the first assignment: an addition problem. He dutifully got out the requisite number of pieces and worked out the sum. Then I gave him a subtraction problem. He hemmed and hawed for a bit until I explained that subtracting means "take away". He got it after a few moments and was able to work out the rest of his arithmetic problems with the puzzle pieces... and nary a bead in sight!

Next up: using his fingers! :-D

Todd learns to read

Little man has, for a while, been able to identify what words correspond to certain sequences of letters, as I wrote about earlier:

http://toddsdiary.blogspot.com/2008/01/words-so-far.html

Well, this week we added several more words to the list, but not by the usual route. I got Todd's deck of ABC flashcards and decided to try to put some of them together to form short words. He knows his ABCs down cold and he knows his phonics, at least in terms of the sounds individual letters make. Figured it was high time to put those two skills together.

I started off with "A" and "T", forming "AT". After Todd understood how the "at" sound was formed, I added another letter to the beginning. C-A-T. And then M-A-T. A light bulb went off in Todd's head. The next few letters, R, B, and H, came easily. 5 new words!

Couple days later I tested him to see if he remembered it. He needed a bit of prompting at the A-T stage, but once he got it, he was able to fly through those 5 words. I added a couple new letters just to make sure it wasn't rote memorization, and he was able to get the words "pat" and "sat" without any trouble. In fact, he even went on to further define "sat" for me, explaining that it came from "sitting"!

Later that night, I quizzed him verbally: "What does C-A-T spell?"
"Cat!" came the immediate response, and likewise through all of his -at ending words.

Our ittle man is reading! :-)

Stop Hitting Yourself...

Do you remember when you were a kid, and you'd grab your, say, brother's hand and smack him in the face with it, repeating: "Stop hitting yourself!" and laughing at his consternation? Well, Todd adds a new twist to it. Observe... Todd and Daddy's hand:



Oh, and if that wasn't silly enough, Todd figures he can do the job just as easily and efficiently all by himself:



So if Child Services ever gets called on us, this is our evidence that he really did "do this to himself", honest!!

Guess who?

In case you're wondering, that Spongebob bucket is part of the Easter gift baskets that Todd got from Aunt Debbie and Uncle Ron when we all went to Grandpa's house to celebrate Daddy's birthday... which fell on Easter this year!

Happy Birthday, Grandma!

Happy Birthday, Grandma! Here's a little hand-drawn greeting from your little man. The picture at the bottom is a cake with a couple of candles on top :-)

Prayers for Oma

Todd has added a small get-well prayer for Oma, to his daily bedtime routine. He keeps asking how Oma is doing, and if she's still sick-- yearning to go back to LA.

Tonight, he explained how exactly God heals people: He has to touch you on the head, and then you will be made well! I guess he's retaining more material than I thought, from all those stories he's had read to him!

Knott's Berry Farm

Todd remained in LA for the rest of the week while Mommy and Daddy returned to SB, and back to the grindstone, on Sunday evening.

On Monday Todd, Opa and Oma trooped to Knott's Berry Farm for some R&R and a much-anticipated visit to Snoopy:



In Todd's arms is his newest favorite stuffed animal-- a Pokemon creature that Uncle Ron and Aunt Debbie gave him for Easter yesterday. It resembles a turtle because it has what looks like a turtle's shell on his back. But it also has a twig with leaves growing out of its head-- in true anime fashion ;-P It's name? Why, Pokie, of course!

Todd had a great time, riding many of the kiddie rides by himself, and wore himself out so much that he fell asleep on the way home-- in the middle of eating a banana!

Happy Easter

I wish I had remembered to bring the camera with me when I went to pick up Todd at school this morning! It was 11:30am and the kids were lined up to do an Easter procession, each class walking single-file up to a foam cross set up in the center of the play room. They carefully tucked in their hand-made flowers and then stood in a semi-circle around the cross. One little girl, upon spying her parents amongst the gaggle of camera-wielding grownups, broke from the line and made a beeline for her folks. That cracked everyone up. After the procession, the kids sang songs and finally, the head teacher led us all in a prayer. As usual, she instructed the kids to fold their hands and close their eyes.

I couldn't resist. I looked up and snuck a peek at Todd. And what did I see? My little boy with his hands carefully folded, and eyes closed... not just closed, but scrunched tightly shut, almost in a grimace! Hey-- he was certainly following instructions!

Afterward, we met Daddy at Cajun Kitchen for a delicious breakfast lunch (no, not brunch-- breakfast food at lunchtime) before heading home to clean up and trek down to LA for the weekend.

Campers, packing and lunch

... continued from the previous post...

This morning I kept reminding Todd that since school is dismissed at noon today, we would be picking him up early and he would eat lunch at home instead of at school. Then I told him we'd go to Oma and Opa's house later tonight, and eat dinner there. He perked up at that, and asked: "Why can't we eat lunch at Oma and Opa's house?"

I explained that he got out of school right AT lunchtime, that it would take a long time to drive there, that we still needed to clean the house and pack up, and that by the time we got there it would be far too late for lunch = too hungry!

Todd's solution?
"We can eat lunch in the car! (i.e. on the way)"
Hehehehe....

On the way to school, after getting off the phone with Daddy, he asked me if I'd finished packing everything yet. I said no, and he suggested this time-saving technique: "You can clean up while I pack lunch!"

Before long, we passed by a truck with a camper attached and Todd wanted to know what it was. I explained how people can use it to sleep while traveling. So, Todd hit on another bright idea:

"When I grow bigger, I will get a camper. Then I can drive while you and Daddy sleep in the camper!"

You mean we can travel and not have to worry about transportation!? Awesome idea, son. I'm posting this here for posterity-- a couple decades from now I'm gonna remind you about this little deal next time we want to travel far away on vacation ;-)

Getting Dressed

Todd must have enjoyed a good night's sleep last night because this morning he was bubbling with all kinds of cute things.

Today he managed to get dressed all by himself. He's been able to remove and put on pants and socks all by himself for a while now. But he insisted that he wouldn't be able to learn to do the rest (i.e. shirts) until he got older. Then last night, I pointed out that his friend Molly, who is younger than him, has been able to dress herself entirely for some time now. That must have gotten him motivated.

This morning, I helped him out of his jammies, and then, to save time, I laid out his clothes in front of him and instructed him to get dressed. (Meantime, I was busy dressing myself) Fully expecting him to tackle only the pants and socks (hey, that's still less work for me) I was surprised when I peeked over and saw him pulling his T-shirt over his head, and then studying the logo to make sure it was in front. To my amazement, he continued with the flannel button-down shirt that goes on top of the T-shirt-- not only did he get it on, but he managed to fasten every button except the top button! Of course, it took him about 10 minutes but hey, I was busy getting stuff ready anyway, so it was a good use of time. I periodically asked if he needed help, and he kept refusing it (till the last button). Lo and behold! Little man had finally gotten dressed ALL by himself, without any help, for the first time!

He was so proud of himself that when I suggested he tell Daddy later today about it, he wanted to share the news sooner, while driving to school: "When I hop in the car, you call Daddy and give me the phone so I can tell him!"... and tell him he did :-D

Watch the road!

As I was on the road, heading home after picking Todd up from school, I casually flipped the rearview mirror down so I could see him in the backseat and observe what he was up to. I typically do this, but apparently today Todd wasn't about to let me. He proclaimed:

"Put the mirror down! You have to concentrate on driving!"

I was quick to follow his safety caution and thank him for the reminder ;-)

Fast forward to just a minute ago: I was getting ready to vacuum quickly in the living room. Todd wanted food. I wanted to vacuum and offered to fix him dinner after I finished vacuuming. His compromise solution?

"I can eat dinner while you vacuum!"

Sounds like a good plan, son! As soon as Mommy finishes typing this up, she shall get to it :-D

St. Patrick's Day

Saturday was the St. Patrick's Day celebration at the community center for the student housing complex. Brunch was served-- piping hot green eggs (scrambled), green hash browns, and ham (not green), along with an assortment of rolls, croissants, and other sweet pastries. The kids enjoyed some fun outside: painting, play-doh, and a candy hunt (picking up candy hidden in a grassy field).

Todd enjoyed playing in the playground with another little girl about his age. She reminds me a lot of Molly-- same size, same hair, same age, same independent streak. It's no wonder Todd took to her immediately and assumed his "big brother" role with glee.

Here's a couple pics of Todd. I forgot to bring my camera, so the first shot is from my phone-- it features Todd on the see-saw, after having his hair freshly spiked and sprayed with green paint. The next picture was taken a few hours later, after we'd gone shopping and returned home-- by then I had the camera, but his hair color had mostly faded, and the spikes relaxed. Note the hand-written name tag, though-- in an appropriate color, too-- green!





Todd LOVED having his hair dyed, and enjoyed the little festivities. It wasn't much, but for a little kid, it's plenty of excitement :-D He kept asking when it would be St. Patrick's Day again, and if he could dye his hair green again. He was a bit sad when showertime rolled around and he observed the water turning green as I washed the last of the dye out of his hair. Ah well-- as quickly as time flies, next year's St. Paddy's Day will be upon us before we know it!

Computer geek?

Not if I can help it :-P

After a nice long nap this afternoon, Todd and Mommy settled down to play a few educational games on the Nick Jr. website, all with the Blue's Clues theme. We played a couple rounds of Memory and "What's that Sound?" Then we found Doodle in Blue's Room-- a talking easel that draws by himself.

Todd got plenty of practice using the mouse, because part of the game featured free coloring-- click on a color, and then drag the mouse around the drawing pad to draw. At first he could only scribble all over the screen, but before long, he figured out how to control the mouse motions, and he was not only able to color a picture reasonably within the lines, but also write his name-- even though the D's engulfed the T and O by the end ;-)

Before long he was able to select different colors on his own, click the eraser to start over, and even select different pictures to color! Between his typing and his mouse skills it won't be long before he is completely comfortable using a computer... but, uh, let's teach him to read first so he can actually READ what's on the screen and type things other than his name! ;-)

Teaching Turtles

I am giggling as I type this, for Todd is busy teaching Pistachio.

But first, let me backtrack.
A few months ago I'd started to teach Todd how to add-- we had one of those little workbooks and I used pennies to help Todd add small sums. He soon got the hang of it, and enjoyed it. At first it was 2+3, 4+2, no big deal... but having to keep lots of pennies gets cumbersome. So, several weeks ago I bought some beads-- 10 rows of 10 colorful beads each. I think 100 beads is plenty to keep Todd occupied until he can do arithmetic without their aid :-)

Anyway, this past couple weeks I'd been teaching Todd not only sums under 10, but sums OVER 10-- like 6+7 and even 11+4... Todd quickly caught on to the concept of using multiple rows of beads.

Today I watched intently as Todd held Pistachio and told him to add "2+5". Through Todd, Pistachio used his fins and went through the exact same motions Todd always does when doing his addition problems: first counted out 2 beads, then 5 beads, then pushed them together and counted them, finally pronouncing at the end "Two plus five makes seven!" Clever turtle! ;-)

I commented on how Todd was teaching the turtle, and he explained further:

"The class is in there (pointing to the bedroom), but there is a man sleeping in there (Daddy's sick and in bed) so we have to do it out here. This (the living room, where we were) is outside the classroom!"

Pop makes for an unlucky Pops

Todd and Geronimo were saying a thank you prayer before bed today, and Geronima began expounding on all the things he was thankful for-- a cute Pao-pao, Mommy and Daddy, clothes (yes, he still has the onesie on), a warm bed... and Todd summarized it nicely: "You're a lucky turtle!"

I pointed out that Todd was a lucky boy too, for all the same reasons. He pointed to me, saying I was a lucky Mommy. Indeed! I agreed. But then he turned the tables.

"Not Daddy. He's not lucky."

Why not!?

"Because he drinks soda! Soda is not good for you!"

:-D