The most wonderful time of the year

Whether or not this is the most wonderful time of the year, I can attest to the fact that it is fun with Aaron.  He is at the perfect age for all this crap.  Mike and I are those parents who tell their son that Santa is pretend, but Aaron doesn't buy our lies for a single second.  We went to our town's tree lighting ceremony, at the end of which Santa makes an appearance on the roof of City Hall and climbs (precariously) down a firetruck ladder.  Whenever I say that Santa isn't real, he retorts, "You were there when he climbed down the ladder.  You saw him!"  It's probably good that he has a healthy amount of skepticism for things we tell him.  I am surprised at how uncomfortable I am with the Christmas stuff.  It's not like I'm soooo Jewish.  But Aaron knows about Chanukah and we'll light the menorah.  He goes to preschool now, so he pointed out that we do not light the kinara.  Does anyone celebrate Kwanzaa anymore?  It seems so '90s. 

We went to the home of one of my colleagues to decorate a gingerbread house yesterday.  It's a real production.  I went friday to help bake the pieces, which include melted lifesavers to make stained-glass windows.  By the end of the day yesterday, Aaron was covered in candy, frosting and "glue" (meringue fluff), as was his yellow car (see below)

In the beginning:

It's hard to tell, but on the right hand side, there are gummy dinosaurs attacking the house.  In front, of course, are cars, also attacking.

 

The "bumblebee car" gets an adornment.

 

 Painting cookies with a heavy hand.

 

The finished product.  No that's not the virgin Mary on top, that's Santa coming down the chimney.

Halloween!

 Halloween was a busy weekend in the Lovell house.  Mike & I had two parties and then trick-or-treating on monday.  Friday night, we went to a fundraiser for Aaron's school. We were told that all the parents come in costume, but we were among the 7%-ers who did.  At least we looked good.  It's hard to tell from this picture the level of detail of Mike's Captain Kirk jacket.  He became obsessed with finding the right pins and buttons.  He told everyone he was not Kirk, he was William Shatner. The fundraiser was pretty boring, but the big news is that I talked to a couple I didn't know.  And we had a great time talking.  And they wanted to get together so we exchanged phone numbers!  Take THAT, mommy-group-that-unfriended-me. 

Monday morning, was the Halloween parade at Little Learning Academy.  Aaron looked so cute in his puppy costume ("it is NOT a dog, it's a puppy").

A typical picture of 3-4 year olds:

Bath time

Bath time has become quite an event in our house and I just wanted to document it in pictures.  The last ones are with the 30 (thirty!) cars Aaron brings into the car every night.

Peter and Amanda's wedding

We just got back from Peter and Amanda's wedding in Spencer, MA, where Aaron played a pivotal role as one of the ring bearers.  Prior to the ceremony, he seemed to take the job very seriously.  We practiced at home and at my mom's prior to going and he knew it cold.  When we got to the location, he got all fancied up in his outfit, which matched cousin Reuben's (a fact that Aaron was thrilled about!).

The boys were completely unable to keep their shirts tucked in.  No one noticed (except my mom), because the kids were so cute walking down the aisle.  Reuben held the little ones' hands until Aaron broke free, hid the ring pillow behind his back, and sidled/sashayed down the aisle.

The kids also had a great time at the reception.  They ran around like crazies, laughed, ate candy and wore themselves out completely.  We were able to get a good "three kids on a couch" picture and some of them in action, thanks to cousin Andrew.

Aaron and mommy at dinner:

With Baba in the park the next day:

A pox on our house

Aaron has the chicken pox. He has had the first of the vaccines but some kids still get a mild form of it. He had what I thought were mosquito bites a few days ago that then developed into the classic vesicles on a red base yesterday morning. He is out of school all week so he doesn't give it to everyone else. Luckily, he is not febrile, has no belly pain and is acting like his normal self.

I took him to the park yesterday and he demonstrated some of his deft sword fighting skills.

Down the shore

Despite the earthquake and the hurricane evacuation, this was one of the most enjoyable vacation weeks I can recall. Over all, the weather was good. Our rental was 3 blocks from the beach. Uncle Jimmy came for the week and Uncle Jonathan came for three days. And Aaron was really good most of the time. There was, on average, one meltdown a day, but they usually resolved quickly. Aaron informed me several times that I am not the boss of him. He was corrected, but still seems delusional about this issue.

Caveat about the pictures- I forgot my camera and all of this year's pictures are from the cell phone.

This was Aaron this time last year:

He looks like such a baby compared to this year!!

Luckily, he still naps every day. Around 2pm, he was down for the count, in the house or on the beach:

Waking up Uncle Jon:

The best parts of every day were on the beach, though, whether hanging out with us or with his friends. The other kids were so sweet to him, including him in running bases (no tagging anyone under 5 years old), digging holes, and wiffle ball. He actually didn't care if he was tagged out, as long as he got to be near 8 year old Aidan (far left in photo), his hero.

More beach pictures:

The second best part of every day was getting ice cream after dinner. Or should I say, wearing it.

It's hard to believe, but I think Aaron is getting cuter. Most of the time, at least. He has his moments, as all preschoolers do. For instance, he suddenly decided he was mad at me one day, told me I wasn't his friend any more, yelled at me that he wasn't talking to me any more, and stormed out of the room. When I didn't follow him, he came right up to my face and yelled even more loudly that he wasn't talking to me any more. This continued as I moved away from him. I tagged out and went upstairs. Once he calmed down, he reportedly (from Mike) was fine and acted like nothing had happened. And most of the time, he is absolutely charming, as long as you are doing what he wants. In the picture above, he is talking to Baba on his "phone", which is really a portable radio. The funniest part is that when the battery died in the radio, he said he said his phone had died and wouldn't talk on it again until I replaced the battery.

Aaron is loving his "new school", the Little Learning Academy (LLA). He is having a great time at their summer camp. I wish I could go, too! Last week, he met some dogs one day and rode a pony the next day! Yesterday, a balloon man came to school and made very fancy balloons. Aaron requested a motorcycle and voila:




How cool is that bike?! My dad would have flipped out over that bike. (Of course, he then would have crashed it.) But balloon bikes are not as sturdy as real ones and by the time we had gotten home from LLA, one of the segments had already popped. Things really started to fall apart with it after that:

He recovered pretty well and we talked about not being upset when balloons pop because they're just balloons. He admitted that he would be a little bit sad. The remedy to his sadness was popcorn, which he made good use of:

Cars 2!

We went to see Cars 2 in the theater on friday! I'm not sure that any movie could live up to Aaron's expectations, but it came close. He really liked the popcorn and the movie itself but he didn't like the theater. Cars 2 is very different from Cars, in that it's a James Bond themed spy thriller with cars instead of people. So there are lots of car chases and, of course, the World Grand Prix, but there is also a lot of shooting and exploding. One spy car is semi-tortured and then blown up in the beginning. The plot, which concerns biofuel versus fossil fuels believe it or not, is hard to follow for a three year old. He is also small, so the seat kept folding up on him. He spent much of the movie on my lap, but not before I got a few pictures of him.



In the end, it will probably be a few years before we go to a movie theater with him again. Which is good, since the tickets for two adults and one child came to $33. By the time we go again, it will probably cost $50.

First day notes

Aaron had a great first day, as evidenced by the report below:


We asked him about his day and all he would say was "good" and "I played and played and played". He couldn't recall many details, which is not uncommon for a three year old. He is the only person in the universe! Why would he notice anything else? Mike really wanted just one detail so he kept asking who Aaron played with, if the kids had names, what they looked like, etc. Aaron kept replying, "I don't know". Finally, Mike asked what the grown-ups looked like. "They were all ladies with circles for heads." I love it. More proof that preschoolers make lousy witnesses.

In Cars 2 news, we are still obsessed. As a First-Day-of-School-We're-So-Proud-of-You present, Aaron received Francesco Bernoulli. He is in love with this car. I tried to make some of this cars obsession into a learning activity, so this afternoon, we looked at a world map and talked about where each car in the World Grand Prix comes from. Then I printed out pictures of the cars and we taped thread between the pictures and their countries of origin. I had to make it a little bit interesting for me. Here's the result. I'm pretty proud of it! (Double click to enlarge it.)

New School

Aaron started summer camp at his new preschool this morning! We've been referring to it as "new school" for a long time, but it's actually called the Little Learning Academy. The name is a bit much, but it looks like a great place and the kids seem happy. When we went to check it out a few months ago, he was deemed "purple-room material". We brought him about 30 minutes ago and although he was apprehensive for about 10 seconds, he did go over to look at some car stickers that another boy brought to show him. We said goodbye to him but he didn't notice when we actually left the room. He'll be going three days a week for the summer and full time in the fall.

Here he is showing off his new Lightning McQueen lunchbox, which he has insisted on carrying with him all weekend. A good match for his Lightning bathing suit.

In front of "my new school"

Better late than never?

Note: This blog post went online on June 10, not May 11.

It's been a while, I know. Between Aaron's hundred thousand questions and working the night shift, I hardly know what month it is. As far as I can tell, it's The Month Leading up to Cars 2. It's become an obsession in our house. Aaron talks nonstop about Holly Shiftwell, Francesco Bernoulli, Finn McMissile and Carla Veloso. He cannot wait to see it. June 24th is the opening date, but since he doesn't know what June 24th means, we may go a little later.

His constant line of questions all begin with the word "why?" In fact, on the way back from passover in Massachusetts, he asked so many "why" questions that Mike and I put a moratorium on them. The conversation went like this:

Beth & Mike: Hey, Aaron. How about no more why questions for a little while?
Pregnant pause
Aaron: How come?

He is so flippin' smart.

Here are a few pictures of him with his cousins Alessandra and Reuben. I love the giggling. They ran around like crazies and had such a good time!

Alessandra after her second outfit change

Aaron after his visit to Massachusetts:

We've done some other fun stuff as well. Aaron and I went strawberry picking at Johnson's Farm in Medford, NJ. It's a working farm where they convince otherwise smart people to pay to do the backbreaking labor of picking and then paying for their own fruit. Genious. Picking strawberries with a 3 year old is like picking them by yourself in that you are picking them by yourself. We got to ride the tractor out to the field, which was a big hit. Then Aaron got to ride on a stationary tractor.

After a haircut a few days later:

At a pool party at Colin and Henry's house having a fabulous time on the swing:

Last week, Mike's Defender Association softball team played the DAs. A police officer in full SWAT outfit came by in his police van, which Aaron thought was the best thing ever. He walked right over to it, looked in and said, "Hey Policeman, cool van". The officer let him sit inside and look around while Aaron told him about how he wanted to be a policeman. I can't say it's the line of work I'd choose for him but he's only 3, so I don't think he needs to lock in on a career now.


We're going to CT and MA for Alison Weiss's bat mitzvah this weekend so I'm sure there will be more pictures. We'll see mom's family, Nora's family, and friends Becky, Rebecca and Cate and their kids. Not relaxing, but it should be fun.