An egg is to break

I was sitting and reading to Alasdair last evening, and our chosen story was A Hole is to Dig.  It is illustrated by Maurice Sendak, and written by Ruth Krauss.  It is a book of definitions, but not adult definitions, more definitions that children would give.  'Hunh! Rugs are so dogs have napkins', 'The sun is to tell you when it is everyday', and 'A floor is so you don't fall in the hole your house is in' are a few of my favourites.  Alasdair likes the 'boodlyboodlyboodly.'

Reading this got me to thinking about how Alasdair sees the world.  For example, I was trying to teach him to look both ways before crossing the street on the way home one day.  We would get to the corner and I would say 'Watch for cars'.  I soon learned that his interpretation of this was to stand on the corner and wait for a car to come along, no matter how long it took, watch it go past and then cross the street.



We went to the new playground at Assiniboine Park yesterday.  What an amazing place!  Alasdair was nervous about the swings, but he enjoyed climbing up to the slide and playing in the sand and water.  He thought that the human-like frogs playing instruments were monsters.  I don't know where he even learned the word monster, but I suppose he's kind of right about those frogs.



Here are some definitions that I think he would give if he could:

A brake is a tool to fix handlebars.
Handlebars are to attach to a seat post.
A small lego plank with wheels is a skateboard.
Dogs (or Sadie in particular) are to torment.

Sidewalk chalk is to graffiti the house.
Pebbles are to pile up on a slide.
Curbs and flower beds are to use as balance beams

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Once there was a boy and one day he found an Uncle Greg at his door

I love the illustrations in Oliver Jeffers' book Lost and Found, and the story is sweet as well.  It's about a little boy trying to help a penguin find his way home.  As the book begins, the boy finds a penguin on his doorstep.  This past Friday, we (thankfully) didn't find a penguin on our doorstep, but instead Uncle Greg arrived to spend the weekend with us.

In the story, the boy and his penguin have quite an adventure.  Our weekend may not have been quite as adventurous, but we had a lot of fun.  Unlike the boy in the story who tries to figure out how to help the penguin, I tried to come up with some fun things for us to do.  We didn't visit the library to figure out where penguins come from, but we did go to kindermusik, to the Forks for cinnamon buns and to Auntie Betty's for dinner (she had carrot cake for us too!).  We didn't have a rowboat to test for size and strength (at this point in the book, Alasdair used to pretend to hammer on his own head) or to set out in for Antarctica, but we did swim at the Y, and we even got to see an 'iceberg' at the Titanic Exhibition.  Alasdair was pretty impressed with that, and also with the spoons and brushes and bowls that they recovered from the ship.



Our weekend story ended with Auntie Terrie and Uncle Richard joining us for some lunch at the Y and they took Uncle Greg off to greet Nana at the airport.    Instead of giving away the book's ending I'll jump to the back leaf where there is a cute picture of the author as a child.  This picture is an important part of the story for Alasdair and I because when Alasdair said his own name for the first time a few months ago it was because he thought the picture was of himself.