The New Favorite Baby!

My kids love babies - especially Ottar, who thinks and talks about his favorite babies all the time. But lately Ottar met a new baby who is his all-time favorite. And that is saying a lot! He's baby Shamore, who our friends Mark and Josie just adopted from Ethiopia. He is so cute, it hurts my heart to even look at him. And it's not just his looks - he is one amazing baby. Anyway, he has some kind of amazing karmic energy or something. Even Ezra begged to hold him and Ezra never asks to hold babies. Then the next day after we met him, Ezra said, "Shamore is the cutest baby in the whole world!" as soon as he woke up!

We are also getting some serious mileage out of this boy. Now I can say, "Ottar, don't you want to use the tray on your highchair, just like Baby Shamore?" (He hadn't accepted his high chair tray in over a year. But now he loves to use it!) And also I say, "How about if you ride in the grocery cart - I bet Baby Shamore rides in the grocery cart!" And now Ottar will ride in it for the first time in his life! Hooray! I guess this little 7-month-old is Ottar's idol.

This weekend we'll see Baby Shamore again, and hopefully this will result in more of this type of manipulative inspiration on my part. But better than that, we'll be able to hang with this darling little man. We'll feel so honored.

The Messy House Excuse.

Please let the record show that I have an excellent reason for having an unbelievably out-of-control house.

Here's a perfect example. Today, we got home from an unschooler gathering a couple of hours ago. Ottar is overtired but I don't want him to nap because when he naps he stays up until 11 or 12 at night and I refuse to stay up with him! So, he walked right in the door and knocked a plastic cup of water on the floor, and emptied the recyling all over my office. Then he was calm for about 40 minutes, but then announced that he'd swallowed a penny. Then I gave him sardines to eat (they're slippery) and had him help me make a banana "licuado." After this meal he poured water all over the floor from a water bottle, threw markers all over the floor from two different containers, and stuck his hand in the Chili Mac that was out on the table (something I'd tried to get him to eat earlier) and threw it all over the floor, and then dipped his hand again and threw more before I had a chance to stop him. He immediately ran off to jump on the beds with chili mac all over both hands, and when he came back, his hands were mysteriously clean.

Did I mention that I already had to take the kitchen broom away from him because he was trying to clobber his brother over the head with it? And I just stopped him from knocking the 10' tall, 15' long bedroom screen over onto the beds. I am sure I forgot something.

I just had to write that all down so I wouldn't forget. Now I have to go see what is going on in there while I type. Tomorrow I will post the inspirational story from John Holt - or a story I used to find inspirational from John Holt - about how kids in other countries don't do any of this stuff.

The Wicked Witch

I finally have the technology for uploading Ezra's pictures, but my attempts to upload some rocket pictures failed. So for now, here is a picture of the Wicked Witch of the West he drew two days ago.

The Wizard of Oz - A New Phase

It's been almost exactly a year since Ezra's rocket obsession started, and he still loves rockets and plays with them and says he wants to be an aerospace engineer; however the latest fad in our home is dressing up like The Wicked Witch of the West.

This photo is actually of his *old* costume - his new one is a full-length woman's skirt which he wears up around his neck. Then he asks someone to throw water on him, at which point he re-enacts the scene in the movie where the Wicked Witch melts. I think he's done this about 200 times. His favorite activity now is to go out in the hall with Little Brother, who wears a black strappy cocktail dress over his clothes, and carries a huge blue kitchen broom. Then they wait for passers-by in our building to comment, scream, run away, etc.

Great fun!