From a distance

One reason why we picked my son's preschool over the other options was its proximity to my office. The school is about 3 blocks away, making it a very quick drive on short notice.

 

This came in handy one afternoon when my little guy suddenly had a 102 degree temperature. I was at the school within three minutes.

 

Occasionally, my son also comes to my office, usually on an odd night when Nana isn't available to babysit and Daddy has some night meeting.

 

Turns out that it's a small comfort to my son that my office is so close.

 

The other day, while playing in the playground, my son found one of his teachers and pulled her by the hand.

 

"Come with me. I will show you where my Mommy works."

 

Lo and behold, through the oak trees that shade his playground, he could spot my office building.

 

Makes me wonder how often he looks toward my office. I know I sometimes look out my window towards his school.

Working the crowd

Sometimes I wonder if my son may follow his father's footsteps into politics.

Case in point: a birthday party this past Saturday at a local indoor playground.

We only knew the birthday boy and his family but that didn't seem to stop my son who felt impelled to introduce himself to the other adults, including the playground employee running the birthday festivities.

"Hi. Do you know my name?" he would start. After getting the expected negative response, he told them.

Then he'd move onto the next adult. His gift of gab had me flabbergasted.

This is only a test

When I found this link on one of my favorite Matthew Macfadyen fansites, I had to try it out for myself.
http://www.celebmatch.com/birthdayform_27251_Matthew_Macfadyen.php

Turns out we're not a good match on biorhythms for emotion (11 %) or intellect (50%) but the physical biorhythm scored a whopping 96%.

This may explain my slight obsession with Pride & Prejudice.

Along came a spider

And we did some experiements with it.

http://www.glumbert.com/media/spiders

This is a nature video like you've never seen before.

Faces

He must have been practicing for hours without my knowledge to coordinate his facial muscles just right.

His left brow arched upward while his right one scrunched downward, giving him a quizzical expression.

"That's my fed up face."

Where he got that term, or that face, is beyond me. But it has become the new game.

He tests all his facial muscles, studying the results sometimes in the mirror. Then he gives me the look, waiting to see how I will react. Each look seems to have its designated moment but it never ceases to surprise me.

I suspect I may have a budding actor on my hands.

Christmas memories

Before I forget, I wanted to recount what a wonderful Christmas season it has been.

My Precious Boy really savored every ritual and tradition, and remembered doing them last year! He helped to pick out the tree. He helped with the decorations. He studied each stocking and discussed the name for each. He wrote his name on the Christmas cards and put the return address labels and the stamps on them. He helped me with the present wrapping. He put the goodies in the stocking. And of course, he loved every minute of cookie baking.

I was amazed by his patience at standing an hour in line to see Santa at the mall. And he loved looking at all the presents and couldn't wait to open him. And he loved all his presents, played with them all.

But I think my favorite Christmas memory will be this tale told by my mother-in-law, when he visited their house one day:
He rearranged the creche, lined them all up like cars, and added Superman. When I mentioned that I didn't know that Superman was at the birth of Baby Jesus, he told me that he put him there to hurt the bad guys who had killed Jesus.

Amazing, isn't it?