Kid's getting big

Noah just turned 5. Tonight he wanted to play hide-and-seek even though it was bed time. He said he asked SOOOO long ago, when he was 4 even, and I said no. He was telling me the rules, and he said that when the person who's IT is done counting, they say, "Red or not! Here I come."

Noah used to have a hair in his armpit, but he itched it away. There were a bunch of hairs that were connected to the bone. WHy the hairs are there is to help connect the arm to the rest of the body

He was saying the other day that there is something about the library at the school that is very unusual. "Very, very unusual!" Don't remember what it was, but I liked how he said that. He also asks if I'm sure (about a variety of different topics), and if I'm one hundred two million percent sure. 

A topic that comes up repeatedly is about human history. He wants to know who was the first person who ever lived, and did he have a name, and what was it, and are you sure. Three hundred fourteen percent sure.

As we were crossing a street the other day, I put my hand up to wave to a car that stopped. I was kind of saying, "Hey! We're here! Thanks for stopping!" This is just what I always do. But the other day, Noah did it also. 

Yesterday we were talking about un-hugging and un-kissing. Sometimes we play where he doesn't want me to give him a kiss, so I put my hand on his cheek and take the kiss back. When Aviva doesn't want me to clean her hands, she wants me to put the dirt back, so I pretend to do that. But I think she might think I'm really doing it. In any case, Noah and I were talking about undoing things. If you break something, you can remake it,  but you can't un-think something. And you can't un-say something, but Noah pointed out that you CAN use the word "actually." 

Noah drew this

Notice the toes. 

Can you guess which one was done by Noah?

Singing together

It's 9:15 at night. Both kids are in bed, her in the closet and him on the floor of his room. They're both talking to themselves and singing little bits of songs. He starts singing "A B C D..." and she hears and continues "E F G..."  

Life as of late

When Noah grows up, he wants to be a special kind of scientist. What some scientists do is put together skeleton bones, like chickens, to see what they looked like and put them back together. There are certain sounds that an animal makes, and when he's a scientist he can learn about what it means. Like, when a chicken says "BOK BOK!!" what does that mean? He would find out what it REALLY means. Other scientists do other scientist things. There are regular scientists and animal scientists and he mostly wants to be an animal scientist.

Noah also wants to have an airplane job where he can work at the airport where planes land and take off, and he'll check things on the ground. 

On another note, when we were leaving school last week, he passed his friend Addison and gave her a hug. Later, I asked him who it was, and he said he thought it was Addison but then when she hugged him back, he was sure.

We passed a jogger without a shirt on. He asked if he was a hunter. He may be, because that's what hunters do. They don't wear shirts. People don't hunt in Berkeley anymore. If they want some cheese, they go to Berkeley Bowl. But if someone wanted a lion mane, they'd have to hunt for it. Without a shirt. 

He asked me also to "un-inside this out" the other day, and he's also used the word "underheard." I like both of these and they they should be used by everyone.

We should pee right away when we feel like we have to pee, so that our bladder doesn't get distended.

We were playing on the couch and he said I was in big trouble, and he's the police and he's going to take me to jail. My crime was that I spilled everything in the world, on purpose. My punishment was to go to jail but also he has to spray something in my mouth, nose, and ears that smells really bad, even worse than a skunk. So I'm stuck in jail for all my life and also when I"m dead. But I'm allowed to bring food with me into jail, and I have this nice cake, so I can bring the cake. And there's secretly a toy hiding in the cake, and the jail people didn't know that, so when I brought the cake into jail, I was also bringing a contraband toy (contraband being my word, and not his).

There's something Noah has been asking about at random times about who was the first person ever alive. What was his name? I've talked with him about evolution and Darwinism and early humans, but that's not the answer he wants, and he doesn't really understand that. I'm not sure how else to answer.... I am open to ideas.

We visited Willow and Lew's farm 

This is Hee Haw, the donkey

This is a big pitchfork thing

We were looking at a book about people and diversity and the different ways that people can look. Aviva pointed to an African American man with a big nose and big lips and said that was me. She pointed to another person with a tiny chin and long hook nose, and said that was Daddy. 

Then she said that there's Mama and Daddy and Weeba and Wawa and that Veeba sits on Daddy's side and Wawa is on the other side. Realized she's talking about the carseats in the car. She often names all of us and then shows two fingers for Mama and Daddy, and two fingers pointing together is two, and three fingers like this, and she's three years old because her birthday is in January. Then she points the fingers together and sings "like a diamond in the sky, twinkle twinkle..." etc. 

Take this last paragraph and multiply it by 3 (per day) and that is what Aviva is doing.

After I took a shower she asked me if it was a big shower. Big like this? (With arms out wide) or tiny like this (hands scrunched to show how tiny). She likes to demonstrate size that way, including how much I love her or how good was the yogurt. 

When she gets up in the morning or up from a nap, she is very very silly and goofy. She hides behind her hands and says "where's weeba?" and after I find her she says "I tricked you!" So her silliness is hiding and playing hide and seek (all in her crib, mind you) and sticking our her tongue. She's kind of hyper and goofy.

She likes to say that she is Josh Abrams. She likes us to ask who she is, and then she says Josh Abrams and she laughs and asks us to do it again. She's not Josh. Just Josh Abrams.

spiders in a faraway land

Noah asked me if people can get caught in spiderwebs. I said that we're so much bigger that we can move a spiderweb away pretty easily. He insisted, though, that somewhere there are spiders that can capture us. It might be in a faraway land or another town, like China, but somewhere there really are spiders like that. They're really big (he showed me with his hands the size of a tarantula) and they have really really REALLY strong webs. 

Excuse me! Here - take this.

Yesterday at the JCC, some of the older children were sitting out front and handing out flyers for a rummage sale they're having this weekend. This is an activity that is perfect for Noah - he loves giving people things. I did not suggest it, rather he volunteered himself and gave out many of the flyers. He likes talking to strangers, and often starts to hold their hands or snuggle a little -- he feels very warmly toward people/passersby/people outside the JCC.

Also, yesterday Noah and I were walking together, and he started running. He stopped and explained, "There are two different kinds of running. There's running like this: (run run run) and also like this (gallopy dance). One is when you're in a rush and going really fast, and the other one is kind of like a jig." He likes to do little dances and he calls them jigs. "So there's running and there's jigging."

I asked if he meant "jogging" and he said, "Oh yeah! That's what I meant."

Birthday cake for Noah

Noah's birthday is coming up on May 5th and evidently he wants frosting rather than cake for his party. He says he wants to get as much frosting as possible so he requested this: frosting, vanilla cake, frosting, cookies, frosting, strawberries, frosting, gummy bears, frosting, chocolate cake and frosting on top. 

Yum