Save That Other Planet

Oo has a new obsession: the former planet Pluto. She first learned of Pluto last summer, when we bought a floor puzzle of the solar system. As she and I worked on the puzzle, we talked about the sun, planets, comets, and other celestial bodies illustrated in the puzzle. And as you can see in the picture below, Pluto has tears streaming down its face.


She was very curious about why Pluto is sad, and I told her that it may be because Pluto used to be a planet but isn't any more. After that, whenever she puts the puzzle together, she asks why Pluto is sad—not because she doesn't remember my answer, but because she's hoping for a reason that doesn't sound so grim.

This Friday, we received a shipment from Amazon, which included among other things, Martha Stewart's "Cupcakes" cookbook (yum!) and the They Might Be Giants' DVD/CD set entitled "Here Comes Science." A song on the album—"How Many Planets?"—teaches kids the names and order of the planets in our solar system. The song also addresses the Pluto situation and explains why, in 2006, the International Astronomical Union reclassified Pluto as a dwarf planet.


The song has re-ignited Oo's interest in Pluto, but with much fervor. After watching the song's video, she pounded her fist into the palm of her hand and declared, "I will not rest until Pluto is a planet again." Her approach to free Pluto from its sorrow involves contacting the government and telling them they must change Pluto back into a planet. To this plan I nodded my head, not daring to inform her that the government is pretty busy with other stuff right now.

Her devotion to Pluto is unfailing. She has been composing ballads to Pluto:

Pluto, oh Pluto, I will always be your friend.
Don't worry, oh Pluto, you'll be a planet again.

She has made a couple drawings of her and Pluto holding hands (notice, Pluto is now smiling):


She also challenges me multiple times throughout the day to name all of the planets. When I name them—Mercury through Neptune—she gets really ticked off at me for not including Pluto. A teeny, tiny part of me enjoys getting a rise out of her. A little tit for tat, if you will.*


* While wearing a mischievous grin, Oo admitted to Adrian this weekend that she likes to ask us "Why?" over and over and over. She calls it "The Why? Game." I call it "Let's Fluster Mommy."

St. Patrick's Cookies

A Happy Belated St. Patrick's Day to all of you!

We celebrated simply this year, as we usually do — green paper shamrocks taped to the front door, Adrian's fabulous corned beef pizza, and of course, the wearing of the green. Add to that, however, St. Patrick's Day cookies, which I volunteered to bake for the party at Oo's preschool.

I found a delicious cookie recipe online: Blarney Stone Kisses. So yummy! I made the dough on Monday, let it chill overnight, and then sliced and baked the cookies on Tuesday. T stayed close by my side during the whole process. While the cookies were cooling on the racks, he stared at them longingly (and without much patience). After a time, he informed me:

T: Hey Mom, these cookies are sad.

Me: Yeah? Why is that?

T: Because they want frosting on their head.

Much to T's delight, the next step was to drizzle green icing over the cookies and top each one with a Hershey's Kiss. Here is a picture of T excitedly enjoying one of the many Blarney Stone cookies he has eaten this week.

Ballet Party

I have a ton of house cleaning to do right now—we have a new sitter coming tonight, and I'm always nervous when someone sees our house for the first time—so I must make this post brief.

Oo went to a friend's birthday party this afternoon that was held in a ballet studio. She had an amazing amount of fun! Here are a couple pics:

Mr. Tidy

T is my little "Mr. Tidy." Now, I'm not saying that he never makes a mess or ignores me when I ask for toys to be picked up. Lord, no! But in the "Odd Couple" that is Oo and T, T is the Felix to Oo's Oscar.

Oo leaves a trail of toys behind her as she walks. If she knocks something off a shelf, she leaves it on the floor where it fell. If you ask her to come to the table to eat, she flings whatever happens to be in her hand across the room to fall where it may before she'll come sit down. She prefers to have books in stacks on the floor rather than on the bookshelf, because that way she can keep the ones she has read separate from the ones she needs to read next.

T, however, wears a big toothy smile when he hangs up his coat and stuffs his hat into the sleeve (he'll also hang up Oo's coat if she forgets too). He practically giggles when he tosses his empty sippy cup into the sink. And as soon as he notices a couch pillow on the floor, he puts it back on the couch automatically.

Today, I came into the family room and saw T stuffing balls between the wall and the back of the couch. It's a tight squeeze back there, so not many of the kids' balls would fit, but he was trying his best. I asked:

Me: "T" what are you doing?

Oo (who always answers for T): He's shoving balls behind the couch.

Me: I see that Oo (I also see that T has begun shoving Oo's My Little Ponies behind the couch), but I asked T. T, why are you shoving things behind the couch?

T: Momma do not like a big mess.

I appreciated the attempt at cleaning up, but I did not enjoy having to move the couch to fish out ponies with dusty manes. Yuck! Didn't I just move all this furniture to vacuum behind and under it? Oh, wait... that was last summer. Yuck!

February's Highlights

I spent a little time this evening downloading pictures from my camera and organizing them on the computer. (One of these days, I'm going to actually order prints and put my pictures in albums!) Below are a few pictures from February that I thought you might enjoy.

We had our 2nd annual Valentine Walk on our street. At one o'clock on Valentine's Day, all the little kids on the street walked around delivering Valentines to each other. This year, T was old enough to grasp the concept of getting mail from his friends. The picture below doesn't show his excitement (it was freezing cold that day), but once we were inside and reading all of the cards, he kept shouting, "Momma, look! Look! Anuhder Balentine!"


After the Valentine Walk, but before we headed inside for some hot chocolate, we played in the backyard for a while. When the snow gets deep back there, Adrian shovels out trenches so the kids can swing and play in their toy house. (I haven't been back there in a few days—I've been stuck in the house since Sunday with a sick Oo—but I've been informed that there's an igloo back there, just waiting for Oo to climb inside.)


For Christmas, the kids were given a small drum set, a toy guitar, and a couple of microphones. Adrian has been working to teach them a song by The White Stripes. Here's a picture of them rockin' out with a friend.


One of my favorite ways to be pampered is to be left alone in the house... by myself... alone... with no one yammering away in my ear or pounding on the bathroom door. On a recent Sunday, Adrian took the kids to the zoo to give Mommy some alone time. When they returned, the kids were excited to show me their new stuffed animal friends that they got from the zoo's gift shop. Oo named her harbor seal "Harrison" (we have no idea how she came up with that name), and T named his shark "Speeka." It was the first time that T ever named a stuffed animal by himself.


Oo has taught herself to read. It happened very suddenly, and it's super exciting for us on many levels. One cool thing about her being able to read is that she can now read books to T. He loves it when she reads to him (he's very proud of her), and she's happy to be playing the role of the big sister. You would think that I'd take that time to slip away to do a load of laundry or sneak a piece of chocolate (depending on the kind of day I'm having), but I don't. I find it hard to pull myself away. I love hearing her read.