Making Rivendell in the Desert: March 2014

Isaiah is a big boy now. He is being potty trained. He reads his Richard Scarry books on the potty, and is very good at spotting Goldbug. He'll spend so much time with his "Cars an Trucks an Sings dat Go" and "What do peeple do day?" books.

Once, as I was reading him a book, he looked up with a thoughtful face and announced "Mommy, brown poops are not tasty." With as much conviction as a human can put into a voice, I agreed with him whole-heartedly, trying to ensure he never tries to test his hypothesis.

Jenny has joined in the potty training fervor. At least, she begs for "Pot-tee! Jenny Pot-tee!" when Isaiah gets called away to the glorious place.

She's even filled her little potty a few times, to much clapping and adulation. The problem is she wants to stand up every 10 seconds, look into her little potty bowl, and clap for herself joyously exclaiming "poop!" even when there isn't anything in it yet. And her up down up down motions mean that sometimes, bad things happen on the floor instead.

But its so cute to see her there, flipping authoritatively though Isaiah's alphabet books, looking up at me to grin, joyously exclaming "Jenny Pot-tee!" every now and then, glorying in her grown-up-ness.

Isaiah has also taken to loving bedtime stories. His favorites are, "Sain George an de Dragon", "Gowdiwocks an de three bears" (he likes roaring with Papa Bear), "Baby Jesus an de Tree Kings", and "Story of de Red Sea", and sometimes "Firebird" (although that one I couldn't remember what happened and left a rather unsatisfactory ending of Dmitri exploring a mountain or something).
The Firebird was his first fascination, when I was reading him Beatrix Potter on the potty, he pointed to the doctor magpie in 'The Pie and the Patty Pan' and said "FIREBIRD KILL DE KING!"

After explaining to him that the firebird didn't kill anyone (in our version at least...), he then would point to it and say "Firebird NOT kill de king!" I decided his imagination needed a boost in imagining the firebird as more than a magpie.
After getting him all excited how we were going to see a firebird, I took him to the computer and we used the great google image search. All we got were cars. I think we're going to need to remedy this somehow.

Now his favorite (at least, by the number of requests) is 'Sain George an de Dragon'. It's his first request, every night. Last night during bedtime, as I was feeling bad, I was out, and came in to find Isaiah snuggled on Josh's lap as Josh told him the story. When Josh got to the part where the people are going to give the princess to the dragon, he burst out with "YOU NEVER GIVE DE PRINCESS TO DE DRAGON!"
<3
That's right Isaiah.

This influx of new stories can take strange turns, like when I overheard Isaiah telling stories to himself "Goldbug, Crucify!" or another tale where "Cap'n Merica" was facing a "green dragon, on a bicycle."

He's also taken to singing along with me at bedtime songs, but keeps interrupting the song to burst out with "GOOD JOB! GOOD JOB!" when he gets all the words. He does it about every half phrase, rendering our bedtime songs something like
"As the Deer-GOOD JOB! GOOD JOB!-for streams of wa--GOOD JOB! GOOD JOB ISAIAH!--so my soul--GOOD JOB!!!..." etc.

Here's a picture of Isaiah discovering the wonder that is glitter.