Trolley, a Matinee, and Reading

Today John showed Grandmom and Pop-Pops how to ride our old-fashioned trolley. I had to wake John from his morning nap to meet our schedule. He was squinting at me very groggily when I asked, "Are you ready to ride the toot-toot train with Grandmom and Pop-pops?" I've never seen a toddler leap out of bed, wide awake, so fast!

After riding the trolley, Chris and I went to an afternoon matinee date of "Flash of Genius," which we recommend. It is a great American tale of David and Goliath, and a very clean movie except for one marital scene and some salty language.

We were not nervous at all about leaving John with the grandparents and, in fact, John had a super fun time. I admit to one tearful moment while we were out: You see, I have a small purse, which is not a diaper bag. I so rarely have the opportunity to use it that it stays in a drawer in the kitchen dining area. Sometimes John asks me to unlatch the drawer so he can play with my purse ("purse!"), bumbling around the house with it. I was in the middle of the dark theatre, digging around my purse for my lip gloss, when I pulled out not one but the pair of John's Noah's Ark wooden lions. Apparently he had been toddling around the house with my purse over his shoulder and had stored his precious lions inside for safety. Well, I just burst into tears and I can't quite explain why, but I know that other mothers will understand.

This afternoon I discovered that John knows even more language than the great amount I already knew he knew. He owns quite a few children’s picture dictionaries . . . you know, A is for Apple, B is for Bird, C is for Cat. He brought one to me to read to him (“book read!”) for the thousandth time when it occurred to me to wonder if he would tell me what the pictures were. I went through his photo book of farm objects and John could tell me the words for most of them! He recognized "wheat," and when I told him the next photo was "flour," he declared "dough!" because he remembers from The Little Red Hen that wheat is made into flour which is made into dough. Later I went through another picture dictionary and John could tell me about two-thirds of the words, including things I had no idea he knew, like "queen" and "nest."

Also, John invented a pretty cool sign the other day. He knows the sign for BICYCLE and, previously, when seeing a motorcycle, made the sign for BICYCLE. I replied that a motorcycle is similar to a bicycle, but that I would have to look up the sign for MOTORCYCLE. Well, yesterday he saw a motorcycle and made the sign for BICYCLE while saying "vroom vroom!" I thought, what better way to describe it?!