Overheard in the hallway last night after Little T’s bath:

“Hannah Hannah bo-bana, banana fana fo fana, me my mo mana, Hannah!”

As I was laughing and being impressed that he remembered all the syllables in the song correctly, he continued.

“Daddy Daddy bo baddy, banana fana fo faddy, me my mo maddy, Daddy! Towel towel bo bowel, banana fana fo fowel, me my mo mowel, towel!” Obviously looking around the hallway for inspiration, he found another word. “Switch switch bo …. “,  sweetly and innocently, all the way through.

“Electricity electricity bo [pause] bectricity, banana fana fo [pause] me my mo [long pause] mel- [pause] melec- [slowly] melectricity, electricity!” Ah, a stumper.

I think when he tells me he can’t remember what I’ve said about treating his sister kindly, I might not believe him.

Little T and I were reading a book about the layers in the Earth and how volcanoes work. He stopped me to share this scenario from his imagination:

“If a huge dump truck carrying lava in its dumper bed was racing on a dump truck race track and a big wave splashed up and — plunk — on the dumper bed it would land on the race track. Then it would splat down on the dump truck race track.”

Dump trucks and lava are some of his favorite things, so why not put them together?

A bubble bath for Little T is hands-free hygiene. He splashes and sloshes so exuberantly that he creates a self-agitating wash cycle. It’s the only effective way I’ve found to clean under his fingernails.

Little T cooking his own scrambled eggs

I don’t know which is more exciting: gathering fresh eggs from our own backyard or seeing Little T learn to cook them himself. Such independence!

First he requests “the pan that makes them soft and fluffy.” So I retrieve the small nonstick omelet pan and set it on the stove. Then, while he scoots a chair up to the counter, I crack his eggs into a dish and add a splash of milk. He uses a fork to stab the yolks enthusiastically, and then swirls them around and around the dish. Beating eggs is a tricky skill to learn. Then he clambers down from the chair and slides it three feet over to the stove, while I pour the beaten eggs in the pan and hand him a spatula. He stirs and stirs and stirs until the eggs cook. One final quality check from mom while he verifies that they’re “completely dry”, and he’s ready to eat! How fun!

Of course, independence comes with a learning curve. As I am writing this post, Little T comes to me with his water bottle, half-filled at the bathroom sink after I took the lid off for him. “I got as much as I wanted. I dumped out the water I didn’t want in the toilet and the trash can,” he informs me. Uh-oh. “The trash can? Show me,” I tell him. Sure enough, there is water in the bathroom trash can: about a gallon of it, not to mention the soggy rug between the trash can and his stool at the sink. “How many times did you dump water in the trash can?” I ask him. “About ten times,” he replies.  I KNEW it was a little too quiet in the house!

Little T & Peanut

It’s fun to share the meaning of holidays with a little one who is learning it all for the first time. We talked about the Easter story with Little T this week and read a simple book together. He knows that the significance of Easter is that Jesus is alive!

Since tasty object lessons reinforce things more strongly than non-tasty ones, we made Resurrection Rolls for breakfast this morning. We dipped marshmallows (representing the body of Jesus)  in butter and cinnamon (oil and spices for burial preparation) and wrapped them in crescent rolls (the tomb).  After baking them, we bit into the cinnamon-roll tombs to discover – no marshmallows! They had disappeared! Empty tombs, just like the real empty tomb so long ago.

After the church service, we enjoyed lunch and a quiet afternoon with Matthew’s parents and Gram. Visit the Gallery for the rest of our family Easter photos.

Nearly every year, Patti finds a reason to make Christmas Mice. They are clever, tasty, adorable treats that have come to belong to the Christmas traditions each year. This year, after making a large batch for parties and potlucks, she brought one to Little T. Riding in a paper muffin cup, it arrived at our house on a Thursday morning.

Little T was enthralled with this small confectionery creation. He knew it was something special. Grandma explained that  its nose was a chocolate kiss, its ears were sliced almonds, its body was a chocolate-covered cherry, and doesn’t the cherry stem look like a tail? Nestled on the creme of an open Oreo, the tiny mouse was decorated with frosting holly leaves and berries. Little T just grinned and grinned at it. It sat on the kitchen table all morning, and periodically he would stop his play and run into the kitchen to look at it. After a while he began talking to the mouse, and soon he was making the mouse speak too. The sugary goodness lasted all day, completely intact, in its little paper cup. No one told him not to eat it. I began to wonder if he ever would.

The next morning, Little T got up wanting to look at the mouse again. After breakfast, he began carrying it around in its muffin cup, cradled in his small palm. The mouse began to explore the house, but when Mommy warned not to leave it lying in danger on the floor, it took up residence under the Christmas tree.  Later the paper cup was abandoned, and it rode directly in Little T’s hand, but the mouse remain untouched.

Finally, on Friday afternoon, Little T carried his pet into the kitchen and announced that something had happened to its ears. What had happened, Little T? “They got bit!” with a big grin. Sure enough, the almond ears had been truncated just above the edge of the kiss. An hour later, he came to find me in another room. This time the holly berries were gone. “I ate the Christmas off!” he told me proudly, and proceeded to nibble the edges of the Oreo around the mouse. When the cookie crumbled and broke, he nearly got upset, so I gave him the pieces to eat and placed the mouse safely back in its paper holder, where it survived until lunchtime on Saturday.

Patti tells me that several people over the years have refused to eat the mice, instead keeping them as pets in the refrigerator for extended periods of time. Thanks to Little T, I see that they do make splendid pets. I think Little T wins the prize for longest enjoyment of actually eating the mouse.