Making connections

It's fascinating to realize how Xander's brain works.

- When listening to the song about Victor Vito and Freddie eating spaghetti, tabasco sauce, and other foods (here are the lyrics), he always says, very confusedly: "But they didn't say the Hamotzi!"  I think he thinks the whole world is Jewish.

- Lunch today was pizza slices, baby carrots, and a banana.  Near the end of the meal I asked him what he wanted more of: pizza, carrots, or banana?  "Pizza!" he says.  "The carrots and banana are already mixing in my tummy.  My tummy's like a dryer!"  I laughed and told him I loved his imagery, that I could picture exactly how all the food was tumbling about.

- Yesterday we were lucky enough to go to Disney on Ice: Minnie and Mickey's Magical Journey, in box seats.  The parents of one of Xander's friends from school invited us to go with them.  Not only was the view stupendous, but there was a private bathroom, couches, the whole works.  Xander's favorite part?  The sliding door between the room and the outside seating.  In all fairness, we honestly don't watch any Disney movies besides The Lion King, so he didn't really know the stories.  Aside from the door, he liked when Peter Pan and the three kids "flew" in the air.  (I was impressed by how high they got in their harnesses, and how easily they were able to land and skate.)

- After Disney on Ice we went to lunch.  Xander was hungry and tired, which translated to crankiness.  One minute after pulling Ari's toy out of his hands for no apparent reason, he was deeply offended when the waitress deigned to say hi to Ari and tell him how cute he was: "DON'T TALK TO MY BROTHER!"  Apparently the protective "no one can beat him up but me" thing has started already.

- Today on the way back from Rachel D.'s house, I made a wrong turn and turned around to get back on the proper street.  Xander asked what had happened.

"I made a U-turn," I said, "a big circle."
"Why did you make a U-turn?" he asked.
"Because I made a wrong turn originally. I had to get back on the right street," I explained.
"Why did you make a wrong turn?" he persisted.
"I didn't mean to.  It was a mistake."

And then the part I love...

"You should throw it in the water."
"What??"
"You should throw it in the water.  The mistake," he clarified.  

And I got it - he was paying much closer attention to taschlich last month than I had thought!   Pretty good memory, too.



And so that this won't be all about Xander... Friday was a really cool day because I got full back access  to the AJA.  Though I've been processing collections, whenever I've wanted to access something, I've always filled out a form, given it to an archivist, and then they pulled my material from the back.  Friday I learned how to do that myself!  So for at least the in-house work (not my private research), I feel like a full-fledged (albeit junior junior junior) member of the team, complete with a keycard that gets me into "AJA Staff" restricted areas. :)