Homemade Halloween

This is actually Carter's secondary Halloween costume. On Halloween night, he'll be playing karate kid (the original). But since he also needs to dress up for afterschool on Wednesday, and because his school usually does book character dress-up day sometime in the fall, we created this additional costume.

Afterwards, I took a ballpoint pen and wrote Anaklusmos on it for him to carry in his pocket. He was excited until he realized that it did not, in fact, turn into a sword. (This probably only makes sense to you if you're familiar with the books).

We are currently reading book 3, having finished book 2 recently and having just seen the second movie this weekend.

Given that my natural interest in books aligns very closely with that of tween boys and teen girls, this is my second time through them, but it's fun to be enjoying them together!

Heroes

title: Heroes

authors: Carter and Max

price: $1

You should buy my book. It has interesting facts. Only 2 copies left!!!!

Please leave your order in the comments. 

After Dinner Mag

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August/September Carter Fun

He's got style, that's for sure. This was just a normal Friday at school. Normal for us, anyway. 

Having fun with a box; he made this almost all by himself!

The illustrator of this book visited his school, and Carter has been illustrating his own Creepy Carrots ever since. 

Carter lost his second tooth! He lost the first one while I was traveling and the second when I was at Dragon*con (more on that later!)

Doing the Wild Thing

Carter has taken a big step backwards in the potty training this week, due to his (minor) illness (we think). But, tonight, he had a major success on the potty. As we were giving him lots of verbal praise, he started dancing and jumping around. I asked, "Are you doing a potty dance?" and he immediately responded, "I jump li wi tin!!!" We couldn't quite make out his articulation, but he kept repeating it as he jumped around. Finally, tired of us asking him to repeat himself, he ran to his room and returned with a copy of Where the Wild Things are, and repeated (more clearly, thanks to the visual), "I jump like a Wild Thing!"

Quick as a Cricket

Quick as a Cricket was always a favorite book when I was a kid. My mom pulled it out when Carter was in Arkansas, and while he initially insisted on reading one of his own books, after Mom managed to read it to him once, he was hooked. We now often have to read it multiple times in a row. It's his latest favorite.

Another new favorite thing is popping the trunk. Carter figured out how to use the key remote to open the trunk, and he can be entertained for quite some time with popping the trunk and closing it. He lets out an excited squeal every time the trunk opens, and he's just as excited the fifteenth time as he is the first. Two small problems here - first, minor concern that this much opening and closing is not good for the trunk, and second, he unfortunately punches the panic button instead of the trunk button on occasion...

New Read-Aloud Books

Another thing Carter and I did this weekend was to go to the bookstore to spend a gift certificate he got for Christmas. We got Where the Wild Things Are, one of my all time favorite books to read aloud. We also found two new books that I really like! The title of Llama Llama Mad at Mama immediately caught my eye. The story is told in rhymes and hilarious pictures, and it details a fairly realistic experience of shopping with a little one. The other one we found was Ten Terrible Dinosaurs, by the author of Dinosaur Roar (also a favorite of ours). It's a counting backwards book that starts with ten exuberant dinosaurs, and it has a really fun ending to read aloud.

Just in case you were looking for a good toddler/pre-schooler read!

Back to Books

I've finally found time to start reading real books again (I've put down the child-how-to books for now). I just finished Jonathan Lethem's Fortress of Solitude, recommended to me by our friend Mikael Wood. It's a coming of age story about a boy growing up in Brooklyn in the 1970s. I thought the writing was quite good; you really only have to read the first page or two to get a glimpse of how well written it is. The author was occasionally trying too hard to be profound, but most of his attempts were successful. Overall, I thought it was quite good, though I would have enjoyed it more if I had understood more of the numerous references to music of the 70s, 80s and 90s.

Now I am reading Barbara Kingsolver's newest, Animal, Vegetable, Miracle. I'm a huge fan of her fiction (Poisonwood Bible, notwithstanding), so I thought I'd give her non-fiction a try. Plus, I heard a story on NPR about it that piqued my interest. The book is about the year her family spent trying to eat only foods that were grown locally. I am interested in the "local food movement" (it just makes sense to eat food that is grown near where you live, intstead of eating food that was hauled across the country in a truck), and the book is very informative (so far). I frequent the local farmer's market in Prospect Park weekly and have been trying to buy much of our food there, which means that we ate an awful lot of asparagus in April and May, and that now we are eating tons of zucchini, yellow squash, string beans and wax beans. And last week they had okra for the first time. Sounds delicious, right? Tomatoes should be right around the corner... In fact, after Carter's music class this morning, we're headed to the market!

Next up, I'll be re-reading Harry Potter 6 in preparation for the final installment. I made the mistake of thinking that I had book 6 all figured out from early on, and I refused to believe what was happening for a good 50% of the book. So I need to go back and re-read it!