All I Want Is a Proper Cup of Coffee

Alana has learned to sing "All I want is a proper cup of coffee, made in a proper copper coffee pot. I may be off my dot, but I want a proper coffee in a proper copper pot. Iron coffee pots and tin coffee pots--they are no use to me. If I can't have a proper cup of coffee in a proper copper coffeepot I'll have a cup of tea." The version we know is done by Trout Fishing in America, a duo with some awesome music, both for kids and adults.

Silly Thing To Do

Xander and Alana went to a playground with A-gong. Xander was climbing on a climbing structure, and turned around so he was standing on it with his back to it, rather than facing it. He looked at A-Gong and said "That was a silly thing to do...I scared myself!"

I know a lot of adults who don't realize when they're doing something silly, so if he can figure it out at age 2, he's well ahead of the game!

Complements/Compliment

Alana is starting to appreciate wordplay. I had said that AC and I complement each other, and explained what 'complement' means. As an example of usage, I told her that mustard complements ham--and she said,
"Yeah, and it *really* complements corned beef!"

I agreed (we just did a corned beef and cabbage meal, and the kids really liked the corned beef with dijon-style mustard). Then I told her,
"...unless the mustard says something nice about the ham, in which case it com-PLI-ments the ham."

She grinned and said,
"good joke, Daddy!"
Or, maybe she's just learning how to butter me up. She's 5 1/2, so it could be either... :)

Pronunciation

It's interesting. Alana is very well-spoken and clear, but there are still distinctions that she doesn't make. Several M's in words are pronounced as N's by her..."renember" and "naybe" are the ones I most remember. And she still says "chotlik" for chocolate.

*ROAR!*

Xander is particularly taken with a Trout Fishing in America song called "When I was a Dinosaur." He runs around singing the first stanza, including the dinosaur roar. He does this *everywhere*. Recently, he sang it waking up from his nap, even before his eyes were open. Going through LAX, we got more than a few odd looks as he sang his heart out (in his hard-to-understand toddler accent) and then roared.

How Maps Work

Alana looked down from the plane and said: " It looks like a map."
I said, "That's the idea behind maps...they show you how things are laid out on the ground."
"Except sometimes they float words over maps, so you know where things are."
"Um, yeah..."
"Like the Northern Pole, and the Western Pole, and stuff like that."
"Yes, stuff like that."

Not a Wallflower

Alana and her cousins/friends Tommy and Owen go to soccer. At soccer, many of the kids have older siblings who tag along, and hang out together while the younger kids are playing soccer. Xander (one of the rarer *younger* siblings) asked if he could go over and talk to some of these older kids. After AC said OK, he ran over, and chatted up a storm. My fears that he'd be shy in compensation for Alana's outgoing nature were unfounded. :)