Lego my Legos...

We're not really what you'd call "Lego" people. We've never been to Legoland, we don't have Lego models on our mantel & Husband is still twitching over the 1500+ piece faux-Lego police station set I purchased for Ethan during an Ambien-fueled Black Friday 2am in-store ToysRUs purchase two years ago.

All those tiny pieces. Left all over the floor waiting to bite the arches of my feet in the middle of the night. Who needs it? And yes, I totally get that the hopping around on one foot and cursing has way more to do with the lax toy-clean-up policy in our household, but let's not get into a "legos don't hurt people; people hurt people," argument, mkay? Legos effing hurt when you step on them.

And whether its his age, or his lack of attention span, the vast majority of Lego projects started by Ethan are completed by Husband, me, or one of Ethan's older, more Lego enthusiastic friends.

So while we have quite a few sets of Legos, they tend to sit in little plastic storage boxes for the most part. Perhaps some day we'll bust them open with more frequency & build us some crazy Lego towns, but for now, unless they are a Star Wars Lego figurine (when did Lego co-opt Star Wars, by the way?), they aren't really our favorite.

Or at least they weren't until this past weekend. With some of our aforementioned Lego enthusiastic friends, we attended a Lego exhibit in town and......wow. People take their Lego shit seriously.

Exhibit A: Look at the sheer volume of people. This is just one corner of the 2-3 ballrooms that were opened up for the exhibit. People were lined up 3 and 4 rows deep to get a peek at the Lego Death Star.

Exhibit B: Legos & History: Double Threat. A whole bevy of historical tableaus constructed of Legos. For the history buff who can't quite seem to move out of mom's basement. In between the The WWII tank scene & the Roman Colliseum, please note the scene entitled "Nam River Rescue." Because nothing captures the ravages of war like little plastic VC. Actually, really, the swath of destruction and human cruelty in these displays is really staggering, given they are constructed from Legos. Note that the Colliseum kit comes complete with caged lion ready to rip some unfortunate gladiator to shreds for the entertainment and bloodlust of the Lego crowd.

Exhibit C: Just to prove you can totally be into Legos & still keep your street punk cred.

Legos are badass.

Exhibit D: Cellar-dwelling artistes not to be outdone by cellar-dwelling history buffs--yes, that middle picture is a Lego version of Van Gogh's self-portrait. I just...I don't....what???!!!:

Exhibit E: The Fear. Note the expression on Husband's face in these pictures. This is not a man who is hoping said exhibit sparks a love of the Lego in his child's heart. This is a man seeing his weekend's swallowed whole by Lego construction. He's considering running, screaming from the room like his hair is on fire....

In this picture, he's glossed over completely & shut down, brain short-circuited & overloaded by the idea that his future could be overrun by tiny little pieces of plastic. He could be searching for airfare information on his phone in this picture, planning his escape to some country where Legos are outlawed. Does that country exist?

Exhibit F: Just some randoms that made me giggle....

the only thing sillier than the Weener-mobile is the Lego Weener-mobile...

It aint' easy being made of green Legos...

Hi, Lego Darwin....

This one was entitled "meditation." Please note that the meditator seems to have an automatic weapon draped across his lotus'd legs. Peaceful.

Now that I've offended all Lego enthusiasts everywhere (as if more than 2 people are reading this anyway), take comfort in the realization that we mock what we don't understand. I'm just jealous. That's right.... :-)

Biketastic!

Mr. I'll Meet My Milestones When I'm Damn Good & Ready struck again yesterday when he, out of the blue, right before dusk, decided to tell me that he knew how to ride a bike & wanted to show me.

Okay.

Ethan got his big boy bike almost two years ago, a 4th birthday present from my parents.

and he was over the moon about it, as long as it had the training wheels securely in place...

...like so. (and how cute is that face he's making? sigh)

Then came the "strider" bike, the one with no pedals. The bike we paid for that, had we thought for even a second, we would have realized we could have made out of the big boy bike we already had by simply taking. off. the. pedals.

Der.

But anyway, he loved that damn strider bike and learned how to balance like a pro on it. Well, until this happened:

And then the strider bike kind of lost its appeal for a while. What with the split-to-the-bone chin injury and all.

He'd been back on & off the strider bike for a bit, while the big boy bike gathered dust (and likely black widow spider eggs--remind me to hose that sucker off) in the garage. Husband & I were not sure when the transition would happen, but it hardly seemed worth the fight--we both agreed that he was not likely to be toodling around on a pedal-less bike in college, so whatever. Pick and choose the battles. Deep breaths & all that.

So I was surprised yesterday when Ethan abruptly looked up from his coloring book (all Star Wars, all the time) and announced that he had something to show me outside. "I can ride a bike. With the pedals. Want to see?"

Okay. We dug the big boy bike out of the garage, strapped the helmet on and, lo & behold, without much wobbling at all & very little holding on the back of the bike to help him steady, off he went.

Wha???!!!!

Where was the entire weekend of falling down & getting back up? Of breaking our back hunched over holding onto the seat of the bike while he wobbled down the driveway? What happened to the confusing trust issues of "when do I let go of the bike & let him do it himself? Do I tell him I'm letting go or will that make him anxious? I should just let go & hope he doesn't fall, because if he falls after I let him go, he's going to totally blame me for that & never be able to have a functional relationship with a woman in his life. I should just let his father teach him how to ride a bike," type stuff?

True, I did help him up once after he slow-motion keeled over into a neighbor's shrub, and held the back of the bike to help him regain some confidence. But he clearly knew exactly what he was doing from the word "go" and needed no real assistance. Yet another example of Ethan's watch & learn & then do-when-I-know-I-can-do-it approach to life. Crawling? Potty-training? Swimming? Sleeping? And now bike riding. In his own time & his own way. We've learned to just trust him when he says he's not ready for something & we sit back and wait. Eventually he always finds his way to whatever it is, and then its really his.

After showing me what he could do, he pleaded to go down the street to the school yard so he could practice with more space. Hard to say no to that on a gorgeous day & given his level of enthusiasm, so we biked (well, he did--my bike *might* be covered in black widow spider eggs, too.) to the school yard and off he went...

On our way back from the school yard, Ethan informed me that pretty soon, he'd be able to trade in his bike for a motorcycle. Um. Nice try.

Ethan Glitter....

So Ethan went to a birthday party yesterday for one of his oldest girl friends. It *might* have been at a girlie make over place. And he *might* have been the only boy there. But he had a blast and the make over girls did an awesome job at transforming him into a glittery rock star--

Being a bit old school myself, I wasn't so pleased with the headset mic--with that on he looks more like a phone operator than a rock star, but I guess we live in a world where Justin Bieber is for better or worse, relevant, so "rock star" headset mic it is.

That was a whole lot of glitter. And whoever said that glitter is the herpes of the craft world because once you get it, you can never get rid of it? is right. Once the face paint under the glitter started to crackle and Ethan complained of the itchiness, we put Operation Futile Attempt to Wash Off Glitter into place. Twenty cotton balls and almost a whole bottle of baby oil later, the face paint was gone, and while some of the glitter had become one with the cotton balls, much of it was simply smeared out of its neat star formation and sparkling all over Ethan's face. Shiny!

And then there was finding all the bobbie pins in his hair and washing out the glittery red, silver and blue hairspray. Apparently there had been an attempt to faux-hawk his hair up which failed and led to this faux-cornrow look instead. We decided the only way to keep the colored hairspray and glitter from washing all over his whole body was to kick it old school and lay him down on the kitchen counter, using the kitchen sink to wash his hair.

There was a lot of glitter in my sink. My apologies to anyone who eats at my home any time in the next few years. No matter how much I scrub, you will surely end up with some glitter on your plates and/or utensil, and therefore in your food and likely your digestive tract. I'm sorry to be be-dazzling your intestines.

When the majority of the glitter & paint was out of his hair (and he had stopped screaming about how much he hated having his hair washed in the sink), I chased him around with a towel, not letting him sit on furniture without his hair wrapped up because there were still red and blue patches in it.

An evening bath and hair washing later, it seems as though *most* of the glitter and hairspray was gone. Most.

Last night, when I went in to check on him while he slept, I couldn't help but smile at the few little flecks sparkling on his nose in the glow of the nightlight.

Rite of Passage

It was bound to happen, but I thought it would be a few years down the line...

That, my friends, is my son's introduction to Playboy magazine. The magazine he will one day, invariably, read for the articles.

How did this chance meeting come to be, you ask?

Last week during winter vacation, Ethan and I spent a day trolling through one of my favorite little coastal towns; between bouts of collecting shells on one beach & pretending to be salty old pirates on another (being sure to keep at least 300 ft from the baby sea lion pups basking in the sun--its the law), we made a stop at my favorite vintage junky-artsy shop. There we climbed piles of broken tiles and glass (Mother of the Year award, right here, baby!!!) looking for the perfect pieces to use for stepping stones for our garden. We shuffled through a yard full of old door knockers, vintage winery signs, and the odd brass buddha. Think Anthropologie tchotchkes, but not mass produced. And cheaper.

At one point, nature called, and so we asked the nice little hoarder guy who owns the shop if there was a bathroom inside. He led us down a hallway of more flea-markety artsy junky stuff to a little bathroom. And there we met....the Playboy.

Vintage 1968 copy, still in its plastic wrapper. Just hanging out all Bunny-rific, on the counter of the bathroom. And like the proverbial moth to the flame, Ethan almost immediately assumed the posture above and maintained it the entire time we were in the bathroom. No questions, no "what is this?" No questions about the woman wearing the bunny ears bathing suit. Just quiet, reverential contemplation.

And its not like he hasn't seen women in bathing suits before. We go to stores where there are bathing suit sections and there are marketing ads of women in bikinis far skimpier than the tastefully provocative bunny ears one piece gracing the cover of this particular magazine. He spent a week on the beach last week in full view of any number of body types in any number of bathing suit styles. But for some reason, this image, with the letters PLAYBOY over it, captivated Ethan into a prolonged silence and appreciation I've not seen him maintain since he first discovered The Beatles.

Oh my.

Best Comment Evar!

So my last post a couple weeks ago about the The Fresh Beat Band garnered comments from my best bloggy friend, and yes, Amy, at first opportunity, we will be taking Ethan to see Paul McCartney (pleeeeeeeease don't drop dead, Sir Paul, until my kid has been in your presence--pleeeeeeeeasssseee!), and Sarah, I may have spit my drink out when you compared the first Marina to 90210's Andrea (pronounced, Awwwndraya, please).

But by far, my favorite comment on this post was left by "someone" called Fresh Beat Concert Tickets (her parents must have been clairvoyant hippies with bad taste in music), and it went something like this (Well, actually that's exactly how it went because I couldn't make up or edit these sentences no matter how hard I tried...)

The Fresh Beat Band is one of the most popular Band in our children’s and as well as youth also. The main thing in these are to target the child and use the memory of every person childhood life... I love TFBD

Um.

What now?

I just....I don't....WHAT?!!

Now this is not the first spam comment I've gotten before. Its not even the first one in which the grammar and usage has left a bit to be desired. But seriously, as a former English teacher, this comment makes my eye tic. Is someone being paid by some business to leave that comment? And do they know that the person they are paying to leave that comment is randomly picking words out of a thesaurus and threw the words Fresh Beat Band in there for good measure?

I have to say the phrase "target the children" made me look twice. Target them? That's pretty aggressive language for someone trying to promote a happy bouncy, loudly color-blocked quartet of kiddie entertainers who sing about friendship & the joy of making music.

So very weird. Perhaps my next career could consist of providing style & composition classes for blog spammers, because if we're going to get these types of comments anyway, they may as well be written in a way that does not make our eyes bleed. But then, I guess it wouldn't be nearly as much fun to mock them. And I do like mocking them.

Fresh Beat Mania....

Because we are gluttons for punishment ,super parents ,crazy, we got tickets to take Ethan to see the Fresh Beat Band last weekend. You know, these guys:

Freakishly cheerful singers of infuriatingly upbeat & ear-wormy kiddie tunes. Late 20-somethings pretending to be bouncy teens involved in some sort of otherwise un-academic "music school" in a town comprised entirely of smoothie shops & primary colors. So right up my alley. Oh my god, the horror.

Ethan's been watching the "Fresh Beats" since they were called the Jump Arounds and had the original Marina before she mysteriously disappeared (perhaps hacked up & turned into a fruity concoction by Melanie, the proprietor of the Goovy Smoothie). When they first appeared on the scene (before I learned how to operate the DVR), we planned our park trips around their TV schedule--much like I did my college class schedule in regards to General Hospital's air time. They were a major fixture in our daily entertainment line up, much of which consisted of music---Music Together class, Guitar Hero, and The Jump Around/Fresh Beats. At the sound of "What a great day!", signaling the final song & dance number of the show, Ethan would stop whatever he was doing & try to get his little 3.5 year old body to do the same thing as the 25 year old 6' tall blonde kid was doing on the TV screen. We are all grateful he wasn't ever injured in these attempts.

While his ardor has cooled somewhat and we no longer have to schedule our lives around Nick Jr's programming, when he hears that the Fresh Beat Band is coming up next, he is still very much a captive audience. And these days, a better dancer.

So we bought the tickets. For the show in Stockton, which is almost 2 hours away. Because the show 20 minutes away was sold out. Well. Was sold out of seats that we thought were good enough for our special snowflake (::hanging head in shame::)

We bought the tickets in January, but having learned our lesson about sharing information with Ethan too far in advance of a fun event, we kept our pie holes shut about it. Ethan's natural impatience combined with his burgeoning interest in all things clock/calendar related has made sharing any information with him about upcoming events, from vacations to impending play dates, a "how many more hours/minutes/days/seconds until...." nightmare. So it wasn't until Friday night that we spilled it that we had a "surprise" for him on Saturday. This, as expected, began a every-5-minute "is it time for my surprise" countdown that threatened to keep him awake well into the night, brain swirling over the possibilities of said surprise. Imagined surprise went from the mundane, "Is Daddy staying home from work tomorrow?" (um, yeah, its Saturday. Let's focus on days of the week in school a bit more, shall we?) to the grandiose "Are we going to London?!" (dial it back a bit, kid. Wait. Are we?!!! Are we going to London???!!!!)

The best part of the lead up was that every time we saw a Fresh Beat show or ad on Nick Jr, I'd casually throw out a "wouldn't it be so cool to see them in concert?" and Ethan would stop what he was doing and say, "I would love that. I would love to get up on stage and sing with them." Sigh.

Somehow we managed to get through breakfast, swim lessons, a few hours of incessant questioning and outlandish guesses on Saturday morning and then it was time to head to California's armpit, Stockton. Not a fancy place, that Stockton. Not what you'd call a destination.

Ethan's reaction at the big reveal, walking up to the theater and seeing the name Fresh Beat Band in lights, was more subdued than I had expected. Perhaps because he was in a state of total shock and emotional shut down--it seemed the only way to keep his head for exploding clear off his body in sheer excitement. But once we got in to our seats and were surrounded by the other mini-music-maniacs with their Fresh Beat Band shirts and flashing glow sticks (we were grateful that Ethan didn't once ask for a shirt, because...no. But we did indulge him in the flashing glow-stick), and he saw that stage all decked out in its mod-esque shapes and primary colors, he got all fever-pitchy and excited.

The rest is a bit of a blur, but it looked a lot like this:.

and this:

and so on...

At one point, the tall lanky beat-box "kid" came out into the audience (as a friend said later, they must draw straws pre-show and who ever gets the shortest one has to endure the throngs of slobbering preschooler/kindergarteners, rabid with looooooooooove and squeeeeeeee'ing delight the likes of which rivaled the panty-slinging histrionics usually found only at Elvis or Tom Jones concerts). As "Twist" neared our row, Ethan bounded out of his seat and ran, like a moth to flame to the TV-star turned "he's RIGHT IN FRONT OF MY FACE" human being. Somehow he got through the throngs of other kids and gave Twist a giant bear hug and OMFGGGGGGGGGG, Twist hugged him right back, all happy & best buddy-like, and not at all Jerry Sundusky-ish. While it freaked me out to see my kid run into a crowd of kids in a semi-dark theater and hug a total man stranger (seriously, have our discussions about stranger danger meant nothing to him???!), it was sweet to see such crazy wish-fulfillment (and to set his future expectations so freaking high--yay us!) for our little guy.

It wasn't *quite* getting up on stage and singing with them, but Ethan was content, when the lights went up and the Fresh Beats disappeared off the stage and back into the realm of the TV screen, that he'd had a pretty awesome time.

Pintrest: More Than Just a Time Suck...sort of.

So we are finally at a school where holidays are actually acknowledged. Since my own teaching days, I have found myself always associated with schools (both public & private) that refuse to accept that you can put on a cowboy costume and not be a devil worshipper, or offend those people who think putting on a cowboy costume (or G-d forbid, a Harry Potter costume) makes you a devil worshipper. And Valentines Day has always been shunned in the class room either because of the inevitability of 25 children going face-down in piles of chocolate, thereby falling into sugar comas & inching this much closer to a life of morbid obesity, or oft-left out word "Saint" in front of it, which I guess makes it a religious holiday. And heaven forbid we offend anyone who doesn't acknowledge saints by eating a chocolate heart and a heart-shaped mold of sugar with the word "cutie" on it. I don't acknowledge saints as any sort of demi-gods, but I do love me a red velvet cupcake, so.....

We've already reveled in the joy that was dressing up for Halloween in kindergarten. Ethan donned his Transformers costume (and somehow managed to elude the clutches of Satan) and paraded around school with his friends. We did a craft and ate some treats (a mixture of uber healthy straw and kibble mixed in with the standard sugar overload one associates with Halloweens of old. And lo and behold, we all survived, both the threat of demonic possession and the risk of Type-II diabetes. Miraculous.

So as we neared the next formerly taboo holiday, I roamed the aisles of Target (starting promptly on Jan 2nd, before the ChristmaHannuKwanziKah and New Year Stuff was cold in its grave) looking at the variety of Valentines candies and crafts available for our mass consumption in the coming month. I was most delighted by the glitter Darth Moll boxed heart o' chocolates I found, because if Darth Moll isn't the very spitting image of baby Cupid, I don't know who is....right?

Imagine my disappointment when I found out that we were "strongly discouraged" from bringing candy into school attached to our valentines cards. Will the assault on traditional values never end? Sigh.

I kid. I'm actually relieved that Ethan won't be coming home from his party today with a bag full of chocolate covered goodies because when he does that, I gain 5lbs from the contact high of being that close to that much chocolates. And also, I eat them. all.

And really, Ethan's feelings for chocolate run very tepid. He doesn't get all swirling-optical-illusion eyes hypnotized by it like I do. So he doesn't care. When the kindergarten moms bring in treats for the parties, he is far more likely to knock a classmate over to get to the watermelon and grapes than the cupcakes. He has asked me, "Mommy, when will my sweet tooth come in?" I hope soon, because right now I'm the only one in the family with a sweet tooth, which means either we partake of NO sweets at all, or I eat ALL the sweets. Neither is an acceptable scenario in my book.

So, candy treats were out. I wracked my brain to think of something non-sugar/chocolate/delicious to go along with Ethan's store-bought Valentines (nothing says "I put a lot of time into this" like a fold over picture of Annakin Skywalker brandishing his lightsaber at you). And then I remembered one of the first things I'd every pinned on Pintrest, wayyyyyy back when.

You take bits of crayons (ideally the nubs of old, used up crayons--in our case, a brand new box of 48 because Ethan wasn't willing to part with his old 1/2 used crayons, and could not see the logic in claiming the new box as his own and chopping up the old crayons. Okay), chop them up, put the pieces in heart-shaped silicon molds, stick 'em in the oven for 10 minutes at 230 degees and VOILA! You have a plethora of funky, swirly, totally usable mult-colored crayon hearts.

Fun mother-son bonding, a handmade gift to go along w/ the store-bought-because-most-of-the-kids-can't-read-anyway cards, and? Zero calories (except for the little heart-shaped box of mini reeces peanut butter cups we split between us during production (and by "split between us" I mean I think Ethan might have eaten one)....so......)

Where does he get that penchant for flirting????.....

....oh. (me, circa 1976)

first we had to peel all the brand new crayons. This might have made me a little twitchy, but I kept reminding myself "they were only $2. they were only $2."

it was a lot of recycling....

then we smashed the pieces so they were nice and small...

While I chopped the crayons up handily with a knife, Ethan stirred the pieces up ever so helpfully in our mixing bowl, to ensure a pleasing color mixture. He begged to be able to chop up the crayons, but the pintrest "recipe" is for melted crayon hearts, not for melted lopped-off finger hearts. So.

Yeah, that cutting board is so trashed.

into the oven @ 230 degrees for 10 minutes...

oooooh, swirly....''

We popped them out of the silicon mold, taped them to the cards & mission accomplished!

We even had a few left over for ourselves to play with.

Happy Valentine's Day!!!