Indiana Idylls

Paul and Alex are at Game Day at the library. I am playing pretend with Leo. He's wearing a glove of finger puppets and I am a Playmobil horse. I was talking about the weather, and I asked Froggie and Chicken where they go when it rains. "Cincinnati." "What do you do in Cincinnati?" "There's a rope and... and robots and butterflies." "A rope? What do you do with the rope?" "You swing on a rope into the water... on a skateboard!" I think I want to go to Cincinnati when it rains, too!

This articulated something I like about planning, better than I think I've been able to. "Plan in advance. Don't expect to get up Saturday or Sunday morning with no plan and say "ok family, let's spend the day together". It's fun to look forward to the day and it's important to structure the week to get our work done (laundry, bills) and plan the activity so we can make it happen." It appeared here .

I have been cleaning out my box of college notes, and wanted to preserve the Film Lists from my various Media Study classes. Non-Fiction Film, Fall 1999 Best Boy, 1979, Ira Wohl Lumiere Brothers' First Films, Thierry Fremaux, ed Nanook of the North (restored), 1922, Robert Flaherty Trimph of the Will, 1936, Leni Riefenstahl The Wonderful, Horrible Life of Leni Riefenstahl, 1994, Ray Muller Olympia, 1938, Diving Sequence, Leni Riefenstahl Excerpts from early social documentaries: Drifters, 1929, John Grierson Housing Problems, 1935, Edgar Anstey & Arthur Elton The Plow that Broke the Plains, 1936, Pare Lorentz The River, 1937, Pare Lorentz Night Mail, 1936, Watt & Wright Night and Fog, 1955, Alain Resnais Salesman, 1968, Albert Maysles, David Maysles, and Charlotte Zwerin Don't Look Back, 1967, D.A. Pennebaker Crisis: Behind a Presidential Commitment, 1963, Drew Associates (Robert Drew & Richard Leacock) Blood of the Beasts, 1949, Georges Franju Titicut Folli...

Yesterday at a friend's house, Leo bumped his head and came over to inform me. "Leo bonk head." "Awww," I said, "That's no fun. Are you OK?" "Yes," and he started to walk away but soon changed his mind and returned. "Need kisses." Kisses were happily applied, and achieved their purpose. "Feel better now!" It was the first time he had requested kisses for an alleged injury, and it was pretty adorable. A similar scene played out this morning. Lucky mom!

Lego KidsFest, Cincinnati, OH, March 24, 2012 Mom: What did you do at the Lego party? Alex: Build lots of things. Mom: What kinds of places were there to build things? Alex: First, there was a big pile of bricks on the floor. There were probably 200 legos ! I built a Droid battleship. A lot of people were sitting in this giant puddle of legos. PILE, not puddle. What if it was a puddle? Who would make a Lego puddle? It would be hard to make a lego puddle. Who would have thought of that? I don't know. I built things out of only green blocks that were very thick and there was only one kind of them. There were only thick four pieces, so there were two dots on one side and four on the other. Eight dots. That was the only kind of block they had in that area. I don't remember what I made. Dad made a Lego toilet. We saw lots of Lego sculptures. There were a lot of Star Wars sculptures. They were made of all Legos and they were like two feet tall or something. Mom: Were they bigg...

I can't believe I didn't write this up sooner. It is now February 8, 2013. Paul is away in Columbus, OH, for Global Game Jam. He is due home late tonight. During dinner, Leo mentioned at least twice that he heard something. "Check!" he implored. When we were all quiet, we couldn't hear anything. Cleaning up after dinner, Leo is on the tower. I don't remember what I am getting for him, but I turn to use the sink and there is a mouse on the edge of the sink. I'm sure I yell and jump back. Leo can see him, and starts getting nervous. I shoo the mouse, thinking I'll watch where he goes and learn where they're coming from. The mouse goes over the other side of the sink. I shoo him again, and now he runs up into the spices, which are stored in ball jars on small shelves. He seems to be daring me to catch him. Not knowing what else to do, I go to the garage and get a pair of gloves. I try to catch him, but he runs further back into the spices and th...

It's hard to remember last New Year's, when Leo could not yet walk. I do remember, as late as August (my last post, in fact), wondering if he would ever stop making that TV-static-noise. What a different boy he is as 2012 begins! His vocabulary is growing by leaps and bounds on a daily basis. There are still some quaint Leo-isms, like "la-lahp" to mean "water", but most of his words are spot-on and he strings them together to tell great stories. A few examples: Two weeks ago, I was pulling cookies out of the oven when Leo came around the corner. I told him it was hot, but he was already backing up and saying "Hot. Hot." Then he surveyed the scene, and looked up to where the cookies were cooling. "Cookies! Cookies. Eat. Those. Please. Happy." "Check" is one of his words, and I want to laugh almost every time my little investigator wants to follow-up on something unknown, whether it's a beep outside ("Beep! Truck! Check...