We took Andrew to the Academy of Natural Sciences this weekend, in what is emerging as a birthday tradition. He loved running around among the animal dioramas and was very interested in the butterfly garden.
One of the funniest moments of the afternoon came when Andrew and Greg were looking at a monkey diorama and Greg jokingly asked Andrew if he had a tail and where his tail was. Andrew responded "Mommy cut it Andrew's tail." He continued to insist that I had cut off his tail, much to Greg's amusement. He has stuck to this story during subsequent follow-up questioning. I do not know what exactly I did to deserve this accusation, but it has given us a few laughs.
We've had a great weekend with Andrew so far. He is starting to understand what Christmas is, probably because we've been promising him presents all month.... Yesterday we had fun visiting some of the light shows at Macy's and in downtown Philly.
We left some cookies out for Santa and lettuce for the reindeer last night, and Andrew was thrilled to see that 'Santa' had eaten the cookie last night and just left a few crumbs behind.
He got the hang of his stocking pretty quickly, and kept digging through that thing for more treats once we showed him how it worked.
After breakfast we turned towards the presents under the tree. The first one he picked was a toy microwave which was a favorite--he actually spent the next 2 hours just playing with it.
He insisted upon putting on his bib half-way through: important to stay clean when you're cooking!
After a few hours he realized that the other things wrapped up under the tree were more toys, and he quickly progressed through the rest of them. Another favorite was a little toy guitar - 'tar' per Andrew-speak. He has been using a broom and a Fisher Price popper as a surrogate guitar for months as he dances around with his Sesame Street videos, and he was clearly thrilled to have a more faithful representation. Here we see him doing his best to strum and sing along with Jason Mraz and Elmo.
We hope everyone else is having a Merry Christmas!!
We visited the beautiful holiday display at Longwood Gardens this weekend. Andrew's favorite part was definitely the various water exhibits. There was a "children's garden," the main goal of which seemed to be to get kids wet. Andrew loved chasing a long, curving fountain in which the water raced back and forth like a snake:
And we got a cute picture of him with this water wall:
Here is a pretty shot of one of the conservatory rooms...
...and below is another. Note all the water! As you can imagine, it proved irresistible to Andrew.
And so of course, the end result was we found ourselves in the (thankfully deserted) basement restroom area toweling off Andrew's shoe, sock, and pant leg. It was the only time in my life I wanted there to be a hand dryer in a public restroom, and of course there wasn't.
Carrie: Who comes on Christmas?
Andrew: Daddy!!
Carrie: No, Daddy's always here. It's Santa.
Andrew: Santa!!
Carrie: And what does Santa bring?
Andrew: Toys!!
Carrie: And what do we say to Santa? [Correct answer: Thank You]
Andrew: Hi Toys!!
Our usual MO is to scramble to put up Christmas decorations a few days before the 25th. Carrie likes to un-decorate on the 26th....so we don't usually have a very long time to appreciate our efforts.
This year since we figure we should give Andrew a little time to appreciate the season (i.e. as much time as possible to eat all the candy canes on the tree and destroy the ornaments), we thought we would get going on the decorations a little earlier.
We headed out to our favorite orchard Linvilla to pick out a tree and visit with Santa.
Andrew had a good time running around between the trees. Once we picked out our 'Charlie Brown' tree (the tree farm's euphemism for 'irregular'), Andrew was a great help in tying it down to the car.
He was excited to visit Santa...until he showed up, that is. Then he clung miserably to Carrie until we promised he didn't have to sit on his lap.
Once we got the tree home, Andrew did an excellent job helping decorate by stringing the lights and hanging candy canes.
His favorite part was hiding under the tree and playing with the lights.
