The Asparagus Song

(If you're confused by the title of this post, read this.)


Short, sweet, and always in motion.  Oh, and his haircut isn't really that crooked.  He has the most infernal hair growth pattern -- we call it the Dagwood -- and that's just the way it was hangin' that day.

Oh.Wow.

Barukh atah Adonai, Eloheinu, melekh ha`olam, asher kidishanu b`mitz`votav v`tzivanu l`had`lik neir shel Chanukah.

That is the blessing that one sings while lighting the candles on each night of Hanukah.  Neil did the honors last December.  Ben was very intrigued, and after a few nights could be counted on to come in on the final "Chanukah".  Once or twice since then Neil has sung it for him on a whim, but we've never made a big deal out of it.

So here's what went down at dinner tonight.  Ben was eating asparagus.  Neil playfully asks him to sing a song about asparagus.  Ben thinks for a moment, and says, "Here's an asparagus song."  And proceeds to sing the entire blinkin' blessing.  Almost word perfect.  Yes, in Hebrew.  With an extra flourish on the "Chanukah."

Yeah.  Have I mentioned that this kid scares me sometimes?  In a good way, mind you.  And just to prove it wasn't a fluke, he went on to sing it again, and then I got him to do it a third time over his late night yogurt.  No, he didn't pronounce every last syllable perfectly.  But the bulk of it was there.

We'd better get working on those Passover questions.

Of Pooh and Geodes

I seem to have a considerable lag time when it comes to the calendar thing.  Here are December and January:

Some of you may recognize the Wonder Pets paraphernalia featured in early December.  Yes, Ben is a fan.  I am too, I must admit.  India Gate (December 7) is our favorite restaurant, up in Buffalo; Ben likes the naan and two large sculptures of a cow and elephant.  That must have been a day that Ben had an audiology appointment and we grabbed a meal there afterward.  The mass of red protuberances on the 8th is a very poor rendition of a large outdoor sculpture on campus that has taken Ben's fancy.  Hanukkah started on the 11th, and we made cookies on the 12th.  On the 22nd we flew to Wisconsin and celebrated Christmas with my family.  We flew home on the 28th, and I honestly have no recollection what the giant 7 on the 29th is supposed to signify.

While we were in Wisconsin, my sister gave us an old VHS tape of Winnie the Pooh (seeing as how her college-age daughter has presumably outgrown it by now), and you can see images of the cast sprinkled throughout January.  Other characters making an appearance are Elefun and Froggio (licensed cartoon characters that just happen to have their own line of toys -- our acquaintance with them is due to a free DVD that came with one such toy), a rather sickly looking Grinch, a Blue Meanie, and Skippyjon Jones (a.k.a. El Skippito -- we borrowed the book from the library and love it).  My sister, Ben's beloved Aunt Kathy, visisted for about a week in January, and we made a really good ratatouille on the 17th, hence the eggplant and zucchini.  Ben and his Best Bud Jackson made their ski debut on the 14th, in our backyard.  Jackson is a natural athlete with no fear; as soon as boots touched skis, he was off on a tear.  Ben is a little more reserved when it comes to such things, and needed some coaxing and cajoling.  We figure they'll be good influences on each other.

And here are a couple of other pictures from my sister Kathy's visit.  In the first one, Ben is signing "red".  In the second, he and I are using a magnifying glass to examine a fragment of a geode that Kathy and Ben had just busted open.  One of Kathy's Christmas presents to Ben was a great rock collection and the accompanying magnifiying glass.

The Grinch on the Pot

We haven't really gotten into Official Toilet Training yet, but we have a little low-key "potty time" every night before bath.  Ben loves it.  I emphasize this because one might draw quite a different conclusion from his post-potty soliloquy tonight.  I should also add that his favorite book right now is "How The Grinch Stole Christmas" -- a little out-of-season, but shows good taste.  After tonight's potty time, we took his hearing aid out as usual (he doesn't wear his CI on the toilet) and put him in the bath.  This is what followed:

"I hated my potty, the whole potty season.  Now please don't ask why, no one quite knows the reason.  It could be my head wasn't screwed on just right.  Or perhaps it's because my shoes were too tight.  But I think the most likely reason of all is because my heart was two sizes too small."

I've commented before on how he has a really amazing memory -- I think that's been a key part of his quick language acquisition.  With relatively minimal exposure, he memorizes long passages from poems, books, songs, etc.  Often, it's clear that he doesn't fully understand everything that he's memorized (something I see in my college students all too often!), but in this case, he was able to translate into the first person, so obviously he's making a lot of sense of this passage.  In any case, I thought it was absolutely hilarious.

Specialness

I'm not sure if that's even a word, but at any rate it's something I've been thinking about lately.  Jess recently wrote an eloquent (of course) blog post about what makes her son Connor special.  Actually, she was responding to the very suggestion that he is "special", and what that word means to her and to others.  Go read it -- it's good stuff.

And my immediate reaction was that of course he's special, in fact her whole family is special, in an entirely positive way that I tried very hard to convey in a comment to her blog post, but I couldn't quite get the words right.  In fact, I confess that I rewrote the comment several times before I submitted it, and even then it never did capture what I was trying to say.  And I'm pretty sure this post won't capture it either, but in re-reading Jess' original post I came across a line that clarified the matter a bit for me.  Here she is describing Connor,  "...who, like all of us, is doing his best to make the most out of what he’s been blessed with."

And that's just it.  I'm sorry to disagree with you, Jess, but that's exactly what sets both you and Connor apart from most people.  Most of us don't do our best to make the most out of what we've been blessed with.  If I'm at all typical, then most of us waste our energy trying to come up with excuses for why we use so very little of our potential, or bemoaning all the things we aren't blessed with.  Every now and then I recognize this, and I vow that I will do better, that I will invest my energy and resources into doing the best I can with what I have.  And I think I've made a little progress in recent years.  Certainly, having a child and feeling the overwhelming love and joy that come from just holding him, watching him, being present in the moment with him, has done a lot to redirect my emotional energy in more productive ways.  But in other areas of my life, I still err on the side of crankiness and excuses.

Jess and her family live 3000 miles away from me.  My only window into their lives is her daily blogs.  They ring true, but what do I know -- maybe she puts up a good show.  Well, we all put up at least a little of a show.  Our inner lives are always more turbid and confused than our blog posts suggest.  But still, Jess' ring true, and I know that the optimism and faith in life, love, and family that radiate from her posts are real, and a daily inspiration.  You don't see it, at least not to this degree, in every family.  My life may not (yet) exemplify it, but I'll credit myself with the sense to recognize it when I see it.

Imagine, if you will...

Ben sitting on his little training potty, singing "I'm a lumberjack and I'm okay, I sleep all night and I work all day!" at the top of his lungs.

Yeah, it was pretty cute.

Let It Be, the movie

This is pretty recent -- sometime between Hanukah and Christmas.


For an explanation of the "phase one" stuff, see this.