as in uffish thought we drove

Benjamin and I were stuck in traffic the other day. The boy had requested "a drive," and I had obliged. Traffic was thick on the way out of town and on the way back in.

As we sat in gridlock, Benjamin suddenly said, "Look, papa: it looks like a monster!"

Where? Where?

There!

He was pointing to the car in front of us. Between the shape of its trunk and the shape of its tail lights, it did look very much like a monster staring back at us.

Benjamin said, "It has eyes of flame."

I think that counts as his first literary allusion. He was thinking, of course, of Lewis Carroll's "Jabberwocky":

And, as in uffish thought he stood,
The Jabberwock, with eyes of flame,
Came whiffling through the tulgey wood,
And burbled as it came!

echoes of Halloween at Fashion Square Mall

bb: What are these things?

me: They're called mannequins.

bb: What are they doing there?

me: They're showing us how these clothes look.

bb: Why they don't have heads?

me: I think you're supposed to picture your own head if you like the clothes.

bb: I like those clothes!

me: Well, sweetheart, those are women's clothes...

bb: If we had a zombie, he could take off his head and put it on the mannequin!

Perseus leaves for school ...

... carrying the head of Medusa:

Postscript

These do a better job of showing the winged sandals and the winged helm of darkness:

growth spurt

For the first couple of years, Benjamin was 90th percentile for height. Then at his 3yo checkup, he was suddenly 50th percentile. The doctor acted as if that was fine. He's average, after all, right? But when I pointed out the vector, he understood my concern. The nurse measured Benjamin at 37.5" at the time. That was the same result we got at home, so the doctor told us to keep measuring him and see if he progressed at about 2 inches per year. Only three months later, Benjamin has already grown almost 2 inches! Tonight we measured him at 39.25". A web calculator I found says that that's 82nd percentile for a 39-month-old boy. (But that same web calculator says he was 60th percentile in July.) Anyway, that's quite a growth spurt.

breaking the swing barrier

papa pumpkin & son

grimace for the camera

We've been posting Benjamin's drawings and paintings. I think one or two grandmothers might be longing for a photograph of their little artist.

Benjamin in his playroom
September 24, 2009

it seems boy monsters are happier than girl monsters

pour papa

I was delighted to discover, among the drawings Benjamin brought home, one that said "Pour Papa." I think Benjamin and his teacher collaborated on this one:

Pegasus Suite

This is Benjamin's favorite thing to listen to right now:

P's & Q's

This reminds me very much of raising a 3yo boy:

balloon Pegasus

I'm very impressed with the Pegasus that the balloon-animal guy at the market made for Benjamin:

eye of the beholder

Benjamin brought home this drawing today:

I said, "Oh, this is a guy standing in the middle of a bunch of trees, isn't it?"

Benjamin replied, "No it's not!"

"What is it?"

"It's a cyclops!" he said pointing to the one-eyed fellow in the center.

"Well, yes, but what are these?" I asked pointing to what I thought were trees.

"Those are trees."

"So it is a guy standing in the middle of a bunch of trees!"

"No it's not!"

"These things to his immediate sides, though. Those aren't trees. Are they Polyphemus's sheep?"

"No!" he insisted. "Those are the things he's holding!"

Were we going to repeat the pattern? "And," I asked patiently, "are the things he's holding sheep?"

"No, they're juice bottles!"

marine biology vs classical mythology

I think Benjamin's teacher misunderstood what he was saying he had drawn:

Une méduse, in French, is a many-tentacled jellyfish. But I'm quite confident that Benjamin didn't mean une méduse but rather la Méduse — Medusa herself:

self-portrait

Benjamin brought home some drawings from preschool today.

Here's his self-portrait:

("It's Pegasus!")

horrorculture

I don't think Benjamin knows what a snapdragon looks like, but he loves the idea that there's a flower with "dragon" in its name.

Here's the painting he did at the Discovery Museum yesterday:

("It's a snapdragon!")

Benjamin drew a monster

soporific

Benjamin's walking stick

Here Benjamin walks away from our first letterbox:

What's Benjamin's favorite color?

inside Benjamin's imagination

As Benjamin gets more and more into monsters of all sorts, he reminds me more and more of the comic-strip character Lio:

dentist

Benjamin was so well behaved at the dentist.
I was impressed and proud.

- papa

PS I think it helped that he had his purple monster Bernard there for support.