The boyfriend

Sydney has a new love. I'd say her infatuation has reached obsession level. The subject of her affections is a young man named Diego, and he's an animal rescuer with a really cool rescue pack. Have you figured out by now that he's a cartoon? Diego is the cousin of Sydney's previous favorite, Dora the Explorer, who suddenly seems to have lost her appeal. (Though, thankfully, the Dora boots are still the favorite footwear of this fickle toddler.)


It's as if she's saying, "I can't be bothered with pictures right now, Mom. Can't you see I'm busy watching Diego?"

I hope this isn't an indication of how she'll act with teen crushes.

On the plus side, we can accommodate this obsession quite easily (and inexpensively.) AJ once loved Diego, too. So we're already well equipped with Diego toys and DVDs.

Another plus: when Sydney watches Diego, she does more more than just sit and stare. She's an active participant, which makes me feel a little less guilty about TV time. It's pretty adorable to hear her answering back at the appropriate cues and attempt to sing, "Go Diego go. Go Diego go. Al rescate amigo. To the rescue my friend!"

P.S. If any of the song lyrics are misspelled, it's because I'm trying to spell them like she pronounces them. It's certainly not because I might have forgotten any of my Spanish language lessons. That would never happen.

South for the winter

I could consider this another sign of fall, except this annual goodbye usually happens about a month sooner.

Grandpa Bill and Grandma Jo are heading south, so last night they stopped by to give the kids one more big hug to last until spring.

As we snuggled last night at bedtime, AJ proved what a strong memory he has. Anytime he asks about particular poisonous snakes, spiders and other critters, I tell him not to worry because they only live down south where it's warmer. He obviously took those comments seriously because he told me, "I don't want Grandpa and Grandma to go to Texas. I will miss them. And I don't want them to get bit by a scorpion."

Banana buster

Suddenly, Sydney loves bananas again. All summer long, she refused to eat them, preferring various fresh berries instead. But all at once, she's asking for them again.
Maggie is thrilled by this development. Maggie loves bananas too, and knows that typically Sydney can't eat an entire banana. This means it's usually not too tough for Maggie to convince Sydney to share.

Saturday morning, however, Sydney was not in a sharing mood. As I was washing dishes, I could hear Sydney ordering, "Go lay down Maggie!" Maggie apparently was ignoring her, because the next thing I heard out of my 2-year-old's mouth was, "Back off Buster!"

(Of course, Maggie was only too happy to lay down and mind once the camera came out.)

I asked Sydney where she learned a line like that, because it's not something either Jeff or I say. It was from her daycare teacher. Sydney answered, "Sheri say 'back off buster!'"

Winter can wait

Twins baseball hat? Check.
Twins baseball shirt? Check.
Warm and sunny afternoon? Check.

You could almost be fooled into thinking this was summer. Which made Saturday a perfect day to play baseball and enjoy a picnic lunch outside.

I've given up trying to make sense of this year's weather. Cold all summer, it warmed up just in time for September. October was rainy and miserable. And now, just when we should be experiencing the gales of November, we're getting awesome days to be outside instead.

Sydney and I took a nice long walk around the neighborhood after lunch. Walking through our wooded development this time of year, I couldn't help but feel a little nosy. With all the leaves off the trees, I could suddenly see backyards and other home and landscaping features that are normally blocked. I also could see at least a half dozen neighbors up on their roofs, taking advantage of this unseasonably warm day to prepare for the next season. By hanging Christmas lights.

All the world's their stage

Outside the library in downtown Duluth is a wonderful stage. The stage itself isn't in the greatest condition. But the fact that it's there is a wonderful thing. Because after 45 minutes of constant reminders to Ssshhh! inside the library, it's a great place to burn off stored up energy.

The fact that we're a week into November and the kids didn't need winter coats was just an added bonus.

And so they ran and marched and reveled in the way their voices echoed in the cavernous space.

To days like these, I say, "Encore!"

A star is... worn (out)

AJ's reign as Star of the Week has come to an end. He thinks he has to return his special necklace for next week's Star to wear. I'm fairly certain he gets to keep it, otherwise I doubt it would have been sent home with him.

AJ definitely enjoyed the extra attention that accompanied his Star designation. (His preschool rotates the honor in alphabetical order based on first names. Aidric was first, followed by AJ, and next week it will be on to Ava.) Each day he's wanted to skip his time at Cool Kids and go straight to preschool.

Wednesday, I got to spend the last half hour with him in class, sitting on a tiny chair in front of everyone while AJ showed off his All About Me poster. (The teacher told me she couldn't help but smile every time she looked at it, because she loved the pictures of AJ smiling.)

And then it was time to read Dino-Hockey. Amid instructions for the kids to sit "criss-cross applesauce," (I suppose it's no longer politically correct to tell children to sit Indian style. That's how I was taught to sit cross-legged.) I got to read one of AJ's favorite stories. The kids loved the play-by-play story of a hockey game between the meat-eating and veggie-loving dinosaurs, and when we finished, AJ wrapped his arms around my neck in a great big hug. I can't help but wonder how much longer he'll be willing to show such enthusiastic displays of affection in front of his friends.

The end of storytime meant the end of class for the day. Rather than bring AJ back to Cool Kids, so that I could return to work, we both played hooky for the rest of the afternoon. It was kind of fun to be able to focus just on him for a couple hours. Call it star treatment.

Dream kitchen

Can you picture how adorable Sydney would look playing with a kitchen like this? More important, can you imagine how many hours of fun she would have?

I can. And so I'm blogging about it, to give her a chance to win it.

If you've never heard of Melissa and Doug toys, then you probably don't have kids. I happened to be checking out their Web site in search of a couple items for Sydney for Christmas, when I stumbled upon their blog and this contest.

By coincidence, just last week I helped present a seminar on social media for our clients at work, and so reading through the rules of this contest makes me realize that the marketing folks at Melissa and Doug are as clever as the toy designers.

Keep your fingers crossed for Sydney!