“Look, Papa, I built your work,” said Art after building this nice tall thing. It even had an elevator.

Tonight I had a surge of love towards Arthur and went in his room after Jess did bedtime to tell him.

"Arthur, did you know that you're one of my favorite people in the whole world?" I asked him. "I love you so much."

"I love you, Papa," he said, thinking. "And Lewis. I love him a lot."

For those who don’t know, every year the Pioneer Press has a treasure hunt as part of the St. Paul Winter Carnival. The hunt goes back decades and the carnival I think for more than a century. Anyway, the treasure hunt has become a real spectacle. Every year thousands of folks head out to search for medallion–whoever finds it gets $10,000. Whole families take a week of vacation to hunt, people have special night digging gear, it goes on and on. And starting today there’s a daily clue for the hunters.

There’s is a great veil of secrecy around the hunt. No one knows who hides the medallion, no one knows who writes the clues. Even folks at the paper have no idea. It’s quite fun and mysterious. This year we’re doing daily videos of the clue writer reading the clues. Just cause we can. And I, with the risk of boring you, will be posting them here for fun. The first one below is not a clue, but more of a chance to get folks excited and to let them know the medallion was been hidden. And then below that is the first clue.

Jessica loves doing crafty things. Many times I remember going to our Early Childhood class and she’s the first to notice the fun project they have set out, like stamps or water colors. “Lewis, wanna draw a picture with me?” she’ll say as she pulls up a tiny kids chair at the tiny kids table and starts a project. Her enthusiasm for creating things hasn’t entirely transferred to the kids, as Art and Lewis focus more on the process than the result. Cutting, mixing paints, feeling playdough. But Jessica likes to create something and then hold it up to admire. I love that about her. I think Arthur does, too, cause just this morning he asked her to make a “shark” and then an “ant”. She made happily cut both out of foam paper.

As I mentioned earlier, Google Voice transcribes message on my cell phone, and here’s a funny one from jess today:

Didn’t really look for the camera as I dashed out the door to take the kids to the Children’s Museum this afternoon, but boy do I wish I’d had it!  There were some priceless moments!  Art made me a cake in the pretend restaurant and when I pretend-tried it I told him it needed more vanilla and to be cooked longer, so he returned to the pretend kitchen and worked diligantly.  He shook pretend spices and stirred, poured pretend-milk into a measuring cup and then into his mixing bowl, added a plastic potato and ginger, measured some pretend-something-or-other into a teaspoon and added it and mixed.  This busy baking when on for more than just a couple minutes.  Then he brought the cake to me and it was pretend-delicious!  


Art and Lewis also manned the cash register in the pretend-grocery store.  Art brought some stuff to Lewis and asked, “How much does this cost, Lewis?” and Lewis said, “Gwee!”  

Then we went into the water table area and the boys were silent and focused.  I swear, that part of the museum with the water tables and fountains and ping-pong balls going through tubes is just what a little kid wants.  They were entranced.  I mentioned to the dad standing next to me that they should have a coffee stand and some comfy couches for the parents in that area since the kids are totally self-sufficient.  I looked and saw that Art had moved to a different table and that Lewis had moved, too.  In fact, he wasn’t in that area anymore!  I didn’t panic because the place is teaming with kids and parents and I just didn’t think he could have gotten far, but it did take a few minutes to find him.  He had walked all the way out of the World Works area, a good 100 yrds of activity spaces, to the main hallway.  When Art and I found him he was walking back into World WOrks looking a bit concerned, but neither of us had reached real desperation yet.  I told him to stay close, that I was scared when I didn’t see him near me.  Then we went to the coat room and played Surprise with all the people collecting their coats.  That was Art’s idea.

Good times.  Need to bring the camera next time.

So, many people who are local and been around me lately have heard this before, but Lewis speaks Chinese!  In Chinese the same word can mean completely different things depending on how it is intoned and Lewis has several meanings for some of his "words".  I'm sure this is totally typical of kids his age, but it is fun for me to notice that "Eh go?" means where'd it go?  "Eh GO!" means there it is!  "EH GO!" means let's go and, the new one, which is slightly different, "Heh go?", how does this work?  

Here’s Ben and the boys listening to a story during Circle Time at ECFE.  Well, correction.  Art calls it “Eff-cee”.

This is how a boy plays with a dollhouse.  Lewis played with the toy furniture for a few minutes, putting the bendable man on and off the chairs.  If you look closely you can see that he is sitting on a toy vanity.  Then he put two trucks into it.

Lena came over the other day for dinner and Art showed her his Snake book.  In fact, Lena read Art’s bedtime books and gave him a big hug for sleeping.  Then he said, “Your hair is really big.  Why is it big?”