Our favorite age-inappropriate television

Why oh Why am I writing about Lost on my children's books blog? I don't know, but for some reason Calvin is as addicted to it as everyone else in America.

We're total fuddy duddies when it comes to TV in our house - we just don't watch it.  But we do rent DVDs, and we just started watching Lost (so don't spoil it!)

We tried unsuccessfully to get Calvin to bed, and just let him watch it with us.  He was happy as a clam, sitting between us late at night on the couch with his bottle of milk, and people screaming on TV around the wreckage of their airplane.

The next night Calvin said, "Wanna watch the Lost?"

He asks to watch Lost all the time. Sometimes I get worried that it's going to warp his mind, like when the pregnant lady started screaming bloody murder and he imitated her for the next ten minutes. But clearly, something about the show appeals to him.  The waves? The golden lab? I don't know.

Added bonus: He's learned how to say L-O-S-T spells Lost!

Ducks have feelings too!

A couple days ago Calvin started to develop a nurturing side.  He started carrying around a fluffy duck that Katie gave him for his first Easter and announcing, "The duck is sad!"

Then he holds the duck out for me or Quinn to hug and kiss.  Then the duck will get sad again, so he'll hug the duck and say, "Oh, poor duck."

He's also been extra connected to other ducks.  We couldn't leave the pool until he said goodbye to the rubber duckie that he was playing with, and kissed it's bill.  We went to Ashley Pond and spent twenty minutes talking to the ducks and wondering what they were thinking about.

Then today, he brought the duck with him to preschool.  He's had a hard time adjusting to preschool, especially the Ark, where he seems to rotate between a few different classrooms.  He went in clutching the duck and he was still holding him when I picked him up three hours later. His teacher said that he did so much better and didn't get upset once.  When he got into the car, Calvin told me that the duck wants pizza.

Do you remember the words to Puff the Magic Dragon?

Quinn and I have been trying to sing "Puff the Magic Dragon" to Calvin since he was born, but can never remember the words. So I was delighted to find this book and CD set. It has the song "Puff the Magic Dragon," sung by Peter Yarrow (of Peter Paul and Mary) in book form with paintings by Eric Puybaret. The CD also has a few other relaxing songs.

Our multi-lingual Easter

Calvin's favorite DVD is Here Come the 123's by they Might Be Giants, and he watches it so much that he has all the songs memorized.

On Easter we went to Vespers at the Orthodox Church in Los Alamos. Their tradition is to read the Easter gospel in every language that people speak. The whole thing was really impressive, because there were only 12 people there and the gospel was read in 9 different languages.

It was Quinn's job to read it in Spanish, and my job to read it in German. Quinn got up and was nervous, because his Spanish is pretty rusty. Calvin was sitting on the bench with a coloring book being pretty quiet, but when Quinn started to read in Spanish, Calvin started to sing one of the songs from the DVD - the part where they start to add in Spanish.

Quinn just lost it. He couldn't read because he was laughing too hard. I was laughing too. Unfortunately, nobody else could hear what Calvin was doing, so they must have just thought Quinn was just nervous.

Then it was my turn. I was trying so hard to concentrate and ignore Calvin, but it was impossible because he started stuffing crayons into the pockets of my dress, which made me laugh. It was not a good day for public second language speaking.

Blue Moo

This CD/ book set has 17 funny Sandra Boynton songs sung by a lot of famous singers. My favorite is BB King singing the One Shoe Blues. The book has illustrations for all the songs, plus all the music so you can learn to play the songs on the piano.

Our latest, have to read it five times in a row, favorite.

This version of Chicken Little has 5 out-of-it birds running around underneath an umbrella with no plan because the sky is falling.

It's fun to read out loud because you can make noises like "Bonk!" "AWK!" or "oof!" and "AhhhChoooo!" (sorry, I don't want to spoil the ending). Plus the pictures are colorful and goofy.

Fun book about shapes that helps your child draw

I recently bought "Shapes that Roll", by Karen Nagel. What really made it stand out for me was that it's a colorful book about shapes that comes with tracing paper tucked between each page so your kids can try to trace and color.

My son isn't quite ready to draw shapes, but I've noticed a huge difference in his coloring since he's been doing it in the book. He tries to imitate what he sees on the page.

Plus, the pages are glossy so if they're using a magic marker and they make a mistake and draw in the book, it will wipe off.

The Alphabet Puzzle is a hit!

I just bought a floor sized foam alphabet puzzle at the thrift store. And he has been going nuts over it. I can't keep it together because he keeps pulling the letters out and handing them to me.