Kids say the darndest things

Wife went to hear second megillah reading. My dad brought Shlomik home and Shlomik asked where mama is. I told him she went to listen to megillah. My dad, who was in another room, asked Shlomik where his mother is.
Shlomik then produced the following:
Моя мама пошла в могилу (My mama went to mogila). In Russian, mogila means grave.

Later when Leah came home and was getting dressed, he asked her what she's going to be. She told him she's going to be a Cave Woman. He turned to me and told me that mama's going to be Cake Woman.

Gangsta

Wherever he goes, nothing left around but bullet holes.

Get out of my way if you want to see the end of today.

It's good day to be a gangsta

 

My old lady

Shlomik's Shearing

Sleep walking

Several times, Shlomik climbed into my bed while I was sleeping and went to sleep.  Last night was slightly different.

We're trying to get Shlomik to stop wearing diapers and to use the potty.  Last night, he again climbed into my bed while I was sleeping.  When I woke up in the morning, I saw that he was in my bed but didn't notice anything different.  NY went to sleep late and I was still sleepy so I went back to sleep for another hour.  Shlomik informed me he wanted to watch cartoons and climbed out of bed ahead of me, that's when I noticed that he wasn't wearing a diaper. What the?!  As I followed him to his room, I came upon his potty, situated in the middle of the doorway and definitely not empty.

Last night, Shlomik climbed out of his crib.  Took of his diaper and threw it in the garbage.  Then he dragged out his potty into the doorway and peed in it.  The night's escapades were concluded with his climbing into my bed, sans diaper.

Shlomik and Nochum

Shlomik and Mottle at Moshe's wedding

D'avino cement mixer music video

Shlomik absolutely loves this video

Bad parenting

Today, Shlomik asked me for a cookie. A big cookie, at least 4" in diameter. I gave it to him and I'll give him another one later. Why would I give my 2 year old a big, not healthy cookie instead of something that's good for him? That's because I'm a bad parent. I've managed to convince him that rice cakes are cookies. Who needs a small cookie, when you can have a cookie that's at least twice the size and is always soft!

I don't have soda in my house or any of those sugar filled snacks that parents so love to give to their kids. The group that my son goes to has home cooked meals and snacks, a big reason for why he's there considering the price they charge. No sugar snacks at home and no sugar snacks in day care and when my dad picks him up from group and they go for a walk, the cookie is a saltine.

Right now, he's sitting on my lap and eating another one of his favorite snacks, raisins.

Stewie annoys Lois

Every time Shlomik sees this, he wants me to play it over and over and over and over...
In the end he also says "hi" and laughs.

Those Who Hunt Elves - Ежик и туман

Another one of Shlomik's favs. He loves the tank in this one.

Tokyo Mew Mew - Sugar Baby Love

Shlomik's current fav.

A fair trade

Every morning, Shlomik watches cartoons and drinks from his bottle while we both get ready to go outside. Yeah, I know, he's too old for a bottle, but it's less mess and the only safe way to change him. The trick though, is measuring out the juice so that he would finish by the time we leave.

Last Friday Shlomik still had half a bottle left and absolutely refused to give me the bottle, both at home and at the group. He ended up taking the bottle in with him. I forgot to tell my dad, who picks up every day, to make sure to get the bottle back and the bottle is probably gone. The same thing happened today. The bottle wasn't empty and Shlomik refused to give to me. I tried reasoning with him, telling him to put it on a box and it'll be there when he comes back in the evening, asking him for the bottle, telling him that it'll get lost if he bring it to the group. No dice. Then I had an epiphany. I offered him a trade, his bottle for a cookie. Success! He gave me the bottle and took the cookie. Ironically, instead of eating the cookie, he ended up holding it in his hand most of the time. When I reminded him about the cookie as we were walking, all he did was to just place it in his mouth.

Поезд (Poezd)

Shlomik loves trains. Whenever he sees a train in a book, on TV or the above-ground subway, he points and happily says "Поезд!" (poezd, train in Russian). Every day, when I take him to day care, we pass under the Q train. That has quickly become the main attraction of our short walk. Starting from a block behind and until a block after, he's looking for the train and saying "поезд." If we're really lucky, there will be two trains passing at the same time and maybe another one in thirty seconds.

Shlomik's love of trains gave me a great idea, to take him to the New York Transit Museum. We realized that idea this Sunday. The museum is located underground and the entrance is made to look exactly like the subway entrance. The first floor houses the gift shop and the main part of the museum, including attractions for kids. The basement is a real train station with two trains on each side which are made up of different passenger cars from different years. One of the trains is terminated by a yellow work car on one end and a locomotive on the other. You can enter and walk around all of the cars, except for the locomotive. There's also a floor display of the drive system.

On the main floor, there are photographic and video presentations. There are decommissioned turn-styles, money counting machines, money changing machines, a control unit for raising and lowering a bridge, model trains and much more. For kids, there are interactive exhibits showing how different engines work, an exhibit letting kids "refuel" a bus, operational traffic lights and even an MTA trashcan which is topped by a fiberglass cover in case visitors decide it's a trashcan instead of an exhibit. The main attraction for kids are the front parts of two buses and and a train where a driver sits. They can sit in the driver's seat, spin the wheel, turn on and off lights and windshield wipers and flip switches and press buttons. Shlomik had a grand time pretending to drive a bus and a train.

On the way out, we visited the gift shop. The gift shop is surprisingly cheap and stocked with merchandise for both kids and adults. We bought Shlomik a metal locomotive, t-shirt, train whistle and a children's book about trains. Next to the store, Shlomik almost got into a fight with the museum's feline mascot. He loves cats and now he finally met a trained cat that didn't run away from him. He cornered the cat and one of them was about to go into offensive before we dragged him away.

We all enjoyed the trip. One part of the trip that I didn't at all enjoy, though, was dragging the big heavy carriage. They should really make the train and museums more carriage and wheelchair accessible.

At the zoo

This Sunday we went to Prospect Park Zoo. The main reason to go there on chol chamoed Sukkot is tashlich. There's a pond with fish in the World of Animals exhibit that's perfect for saying tashlich.

This time, we went with Shlomik. We went to the zoo a little late and didn't have enough time to see all of the exhibits. We did, however, have enough time to visits the red pandas, meerkats and the petting zoo. Shlomik absolutely loved the red pandas and was especially happy when one of them walked near the glass, right in front of him. The meerkats were also a great source of enjoyment for him.

The most hilarious part of the trip was at the petting zoo. Initially, Shlomik was very happy to get acquainted with the goat and the sheep. He was even trying to stick his hands inside, through the fence. The friendliness, however, quickly turned to displeasure over a very crucial item, food. My mother went to get some animal feed pellets and started feeding the sheep. Shlomik was very much enjoying the show and even wanted to feed them himself, or so we thought. After giving him a single pellet, he immediately attempted to put it in his mouth. After I snatched it away, he started acting as if the sheep were taking away his food. He started trying to hit my mother for feeding them and trying to hit them for eating his food. I think he was also saying no. From the side, it was very funny.

Inside, there was a cow and two llamas. The cow, Shlomik's favorite animal, was unfortunately too busy eating hay and was standing with her back to us. Trying to bribe her with animal feed didn't work. The llamas, on the other hand, were very happy to get their pellets. Shlomik was at first somewhat afraid of touching the llamas, but after I took his hand petted the llamas, he became brave enough to do it himself.

Altogether, it was a nice trip. We all enjoyed it very much and are planning on coming there again soon. First, I have to renew my membership online or at the aquarium. Unfortunately, no such option at the zoo.

Ike Ike

My son Shlomik loves music. When he was less than a year old, Бременские Музиканты (Bremenskiye Muzikanti) was all he needed. He could watch over and over and really loved music and singing. A couple months ago I found the cartoon По Дороге с Облаками (Po Doroge s Oblakami) about which he's also now crazy.

Recently I introduced Shlomik to something different and the result is amazing. I often listen to Kawaii Radio on Winamp. Unlike other Japanese radio stations, they only play songs from anime. One song in particular that I decided to look up on YouTube was Ike Ike by Hinoi Team. The moment Shlomik saw the video and heard the music, he was hooked. He learned how to pronounce Ike Ike and is asking for it constantly and after he finishes watching the music video, it's around three minutes, he says "more." He loves the video so much that he even tries to mimic the moves, or at least claps. If he dares to learns more of the lyrics than I, no more Ike Ike.

Hinoi Team have another song, Night of Fire, which is fun to watch but not as good. I saw some of the other music videos, but they weren't even as good as Night of Fire. Shlomik also responded well to Shangri-la and Asu e no Brilliant Road by Angela, though nothing comes close to Ike Ike.

Pony ride

On Sunday we went to the annual street fair on avenue M. The primary reason for going was to put Shlomik on a pony. We bought some things for ourselves. Bought Shlomik some toys, including maracas from a Native American stand.

Native American stands are my favorite at the fair. They always have cool music, musical instruments and clothes. We bought a sweater there for Shlomik. Last year I bouht t-shirts with wolves. This year, unfortunately, they didn't have anything with animals.

Shlomik got to ride on a pony for half a block and back and got his picture taken. He somewhat enjoyed the ride, would've enjoyed it more if he wasn't tired. Unfortunately, I didn't bring a camcorder or camera. The pictures were taken by the ride owners using a polaroid and that's why they look so bad. I'm amazed that they still use that outdated crap. The film is pretty expensive, the pictures are bad and very small. For the same money or less they can either buy very small capacity flash memory in china or have a photo printer in their car. Another solution would be to burn CDs which cost only $.10 and take less than a minute to burn. Even if customer does not have a computer, something unforgivable in this day and age, local and regional photo development shops accept any kind of media and because of the high resolution of digital cameras the resulting images can be printed as small or as big as you want.

Jaws

Today we went to see the doctor for Shlomik's checkup. He grew 1.5cm smarter and 1.25" taller.
He was behaving somewhat better than last time, though that could be either because his grandpa was there or because of the time past since his fun visit for a blood test. Shlomik also got a shot. Next visit is in another three months.

Shlomik hasn't had any new teeth in months. This shabbat, we found a new tooth in the front. Originally, he had four on top and three on the bottom and this was the tooth he was missing from the bottom. I was somewhat concerned about his tooth not coming out for such a long time. I asked the doctor if it was a problem. In answer, lo and behold, the doctor showed me that Shlomik actually has two back teeth that already broke through and I think he mentioned another two. Now he'll finally be able to chew his food better instead of swallowing it half chewed, if he's not too lazy.

Prospect Park

We took Shlomik to Prospect Park zoo today. Never noticed before that Prospect Park train station has an elevator. It's in the middle of the platform and instead of walking to the park's main entrance, you can just cross the street and walk along the road to the zoo.
When we got to the zoo, Shlomik fell asleep. We walked around waiting for him to wake up. The baboons had a baby. Shlomik woke up when we got to the red pandas. He loved them. He kept screaming and pointing. My mother even bought him a small plushy of a red panda. We tried to get him inside a turtle shell that's towards the end of the trail but he only agreed to sit on top of the shell. He liked the sea lion feeding.
Before going to see the sea lion feeding, we went to the "Animals in our Lives" exhibit. He loved the meerkats. He stood right in front of the glass and started banging on it and yelling. He looked very happy. One of his first words was moo, or boo as he says it, and now he finally got to see a cow. He was pointing at it and saying boo, but did not want to get too close to it as it was big and I guess kinda scary for him. We also saw sheep, goats and llamas. Shlomik decided that a llama is also a cow, boo.
There were some changes in the zoo. Mice, hamsters and guinea pigs got replaced with insects. Insects are not that cute, put back the guinea pigs. Capybaras got replaced with two Asian Small-Clawed Otters. The otters are very cute, but I liked the Capybaras too. A Capybara is the biggest of the rodent family.

Shlomik

Shlomik learned some new words. One word is matzah, no wonder here. He loves matzah, in fact, that's the only way he'll eat soup, by filling the bowl with matzah. Another word was water, didn't sound very cleat so not sure about it. Also, he should be saying juice instead since that's what he mostly drinks. Today, he also said Anna. Anna is my friend's daughter who dropped by today. There's a picture of her feeding Shlomik on the photos page.
I got my firewire cable today, which means I'll be able to upload some videos of Shlomik eating. Unless I'm too lazy of course.
We're going away for all except one meal for Shavuot. For that meal, the menu is beef tongue, yum. We're eating duck now, and that got me thinking of buying a duck and roasting it in the rotisserie.