Traveller's Wisdom

We're on our way to Kentucky this morning. Here's a parting thought for any of you on the road this weekend. At 4:45 this morning, Tobin offered this nugget of wisdom: "A house doesn't have a mouth, so it can't say 'bye' to us."

Tobin Bread, a recipe

Tonight, dinner was a pasta bake. Allison made penne with a ricotta-spinach blend and red sauce. While we were eating, she asked me if I'd like some bread. After I said no thank you, Tobin asked both Allison and me if we would like some bread. I asked where he might get the bread to give us and he said "From my little oven." He explained that when our oven "be little" that he could use it, since he isn't allowed to touch it as it is. The following exchange occurred:

Matt: Would you make some bread for me for breakfast tomorrow?
Tobin: Yes, when oven be little I use it.
Matt: What kind of bread will it be? What will it have in it?
Tobin: (Very seriously) Peaches . . . spinach (pronounced without the "s") . . . onions . . . peppers . . . brown sugar . . and flour.

With each new ingredient, he would hold up another finger to keep track of how many ingredients he had listed. I asked him to name the bread and he just listed the ingredients again. I'll be sure to save you a slice if our oven "be little" tomorrow morning.

Halloween

This was Tobin's first real Halloween. When he was 5 months old, we were caught off-guard by all the kids in his daycare class who were dressed up. Last year, we went with a jack-o-lantern onesie but not much else. Allison and I aren't usually big on Halloween, which is probably why we haven't really done anything before. But this year, I'm really glad we made more of an effort. We even carved pumpkins. For me, an interest in participating more started a few weeks ago at work. A friend of mine has a son who's about 10 months older than Tobin. We were talking one day about our boys' love of trains and cars when she offered their old Thomas the Tank Engine costume for Halloween. We've had it in the house for a few weeks but didn't show it to T until this week. The first time I saw him in the costume he yelled "I Thomas! I Thomas!" with an exuberance it would be impossible to accurately relate.

We met up with Bryon, his wife Allison, and their 19-month old son Miles (the mouse, below) for Halloween night. A park in Durham had hayrides, a haunted millhouse and other things to see and do. With all there was to see, it seemed to me like Tobin liked the luminaries that lit the paths most. The hayride was fun, but we were seated next to a kid with an Elmo costume. I've added a picture to the right of the kind of costume he had. Now, Tobin loves Elmo, but he seemed concerned. During the hayride, he kept asking something I couldn't understand. I finally realized he was saying "Elmo have in his mouth?" It didn't occur to me until then that, to Tobin, the costume looked like Elmo was about to take the last bite of a little boy he was slowly eating. I'll be curious whether this comes up the next time we see Elmo on TV.

The event we went to was pitched to families and kids, so we weren't expecting scary scary. Still, I did a test walkthrough of the "haunted millhouse" before we let T go in. I was pretty sure he would like it, but any worry I had was eliminated when a little girl jumped out near Tobin and tried to scare him. The exchange went something like this:
Little Girl: RAAAAAAAH!
Tobin: Hi!
Little Girl: Um, hi.

We also confirmed, in case you were wondering, that Tobin likes candy. Smarties especially. His most frequent response to "Did you like Halloween?" was "Tobin want more candy." Here's a picture of Tobin and Miles, followed by T blowing his train whistle on his way to the car and the park. There are more pictures at our flickr page.