*Mr. Rogers is no longer on T.V. every day, as it had been for almost 30 years. Too slow for modern kids, I guess. It’s only on once a week. Reading Rainbow, too. These are both Art’s “shows” and I’m very sad that I won’t be able to visit with Mr. Rogers or Lavar every day. He’s often said, “I don’t want to watch the [other part of the show], I just want to see Lavar.” Art is also confused about why we are watching the same two (taped) episodes over and over and over, and hasn’t taken to any of the other shows on PBS that we’ve tried. I haven’t either. There is a show on fancy cable called “Little Bear” that he really likes, so we can watch it on the computer, but I’m very disappointed in children’s programming in general. Mostly too fast, too loud and too commercialized. And I’m talking about the PBS shows. Half the time I feel like they are assaulting kids instead of reaching out to them.

Mr. Rogers and Lavar from Reading Rainbow, were kind, gentle, real people who talked about real everyday things and took their time to showhow things worked – and there were’nt any toys tied into them. I haven’t found anything else like that on T.V. There are some lovely shows that deal with feelings or imagination like Thomas the Train, Big Big World – but Art doesn’t really like them. That’s ok. But I’ll have to write PBS and tell them how sad I am about our favorites being sequestered to just Sunday mornings.

Today we watched Mr. Rogers* and he was learning how people make fortune cookies. Art thought it was pretty cool and naturally, he wanted a big conveyor belt and machines like in the factory. I proposed making our own fortune cookies.

So we sat down to write some fortunes. He clearly didn’t understand what the whole thing was about and at first suggested we write, “Emily” on one and “Michael” on the other. And then “Your sister” on another. So I gave him an example. I said we want to write something that would make someone feel happy, so I made one that said, “Hello. You are pretty!” What would you say that could make someone happy, Art?

“Happy birthday!”

So we have fortune #1. “Happy Birthday”

Then I kept egging him on. I made one that said, “You have a friend nearby.” I said fortune cookies often are about what you will soon do, like “You will soon eat salami.” He said another one.

#2 “You will soon play with Henry and Alma.”

Great! We’re making progress! What other things will you soon do?

#3 “You will soon play with toys.”

#4 “You will get a paper.”

Or you can write things that tell someone something that they would like to happen or something about themselves…

#5 “There are not things you can’t do.”

#6 “Your house is big and tall and comes down like magic toys.” (That’s my favorite.)

And, another one…

#7 “Happy. Happy. Happy. HAPPY!”

Well, sadly the cookies were a disaster. I remember a volunteer mom coming into my fourth grade class with a hotplate and cheap skillet and we all made fortune cookies. It all seemed so easy in my memory. Not in reality! I had a bad recipe. But aren’t those fortunes lovely?

(Photos taken with my cell phone.)

Ever since he moved to Minnesota from Arkansas, my brother Josh has learned to ice skate and loves it. Today me and Art and Lew and Josh all went out to a rink near his house. Josh, being the smart fellow he is, turned a old Ikea chair into a skating chair of sorts and pushed Art all around, and at one point all three of us around. As we went into the warming house nearby we noticed they had skates Art’s size (the kind of skates with 2 blades on each shoe). Art wanted to try them, so Josh strapped them on and took him out on the ice. He loved it, and especially loved skating with Uncle Josh. He’ll likely go again tomorrow.

asked Art today. I held back my smile and asked him to go ask Mama, maybe she would know. So he went downstairs. "Mama!? Mama?! Do mermaids fart?"

After a pause, "I think so," she said. "Anybody that poops, farts. Anybody that eats, poops. So, anybody that eats, farts."

As we posted earlier, Arthur loved a particular spatula when he was a baby, as did Lewis. All that changed when it broke. But thanks to Auntie Em’s thoughtful Christmas gift, we have welcomed THREE new spatulas into our family.

And here’s Art with Uncle Mike trying putting on a puppet show with Emily’s very large robot. We went over to Mike and Em’s on Christmas Eve and at Mike’s delicious tortilla soup, complete with tomales.

During Christmas we exchanged joke gifts, and Jessica ended up with Emily contribution–Petey the Pee Cup. He’s the mascot at where Emily works, Health Parnters.

I printed off a set of homeade phallic memory cards with these images I found on the internets.

joke gift giving overall.

Doesn’t anybody comment around here anymore!???!?!

And Merry Christmas, and happy Birthday to all who are celebrating.