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.

Driving Mr. Aaron

There is no need for me to drive Mr. Aaron these days, since he is happy to drive the car himself. He is always asking if he can pretend to drive the car. He particularly likes to press the "triangle button" (the hazzard light), which he knows we only really use in case of a "mergency". The video quality isn't fantastic, since it's from the cell phone.

Aaron in pictures

I'm not sure who told me I could do it all- be a full time mom and work and run a household. I hold the baby boomers responsible! In any case, I can't garner the strength to do a full post, so here are some pics for those of you who are looking for an update.

A typical morning at the Lovell house. Once you get Aaron on the internet, he can point and click on anything and moves around with frightening precision and good results.

Aaron is finally potty trained! He is even going at school. I'm sure that by the time he is old enough to read a newspaper, there will be a dedicated iPad in everyone's bathroom.

Playing the card matching game:

He's really good at this game, but we figured out how he cheats- here he is consulting his cars about each of the cards. Seriously. They each get a turn.