Updates

1) James is no longer quite so scared of the dark. About a week ago I put on Zarathustra, took out our camping lantern, and turned out all the lights in the house. James was going along with it until the last light went out. I even asked him "James, should we turn out all the lights and just have one lantern on?" "Yeah, oh wow!" he said. When the last light went out he started to shriek and cry, and he wouldn't calm down until we'd turned on EVERY light in the house, even in the rooms that we were avoiding because they meant brushing our teeth and getting in the crib.
But today, he discovered my Mag-lite and carried it around for most of the morning. (James, don't shine it directly in your eyes.) This evening I gave it back to him and turned off all the lights one by one. He laughed uproariously as he toted around the sole light in an otherwise black house, delighting in "extinguishing" it by holding it under a pillow. With him occupied and unable to see, I put away all of his toys. This was exciting because when he sees me putting away trains and blocks and trikes, he knows that bed time must be near, and he tries to take out of his toy box whatever I'm putting in. When the lights came back on, everything was already stowed for the evening. (Albeit in a rather messy heap.)

2) For all those concerned, we found Lego kitty this week. Lego kitty (or "mow-mow," as James calls it) is one of two plastic animals that came with a duplo set he got for his birthday last year. The other animal is a little doggy (we call that one "woof-woof") and we'd been missing the kitty for several weeks. James would get out the duplo box, point to the picture of the cat, and say "Where's mow-mow?" Then he'd look under the sofa for it and forget what he was actually doing, because looking under the sofa is so much fun. But anyway, it got to the point where we were sad whenever we saw "woof-woof" because we didn't know where "mow-mow" was. We found Lego kitty under Mommy and Daddy's bed (?) earlier this week, and promptly lost Lego doggy for several days. But this morning I found Lego doggy under the Christmas tree skirt, and the two friends were reunited at last. James didn't want to let them out of his sight all day, and they had to come with him when we went to check the mail and when we drove to Staples. It was very fortunate that I've retained some of my hearing, because when I heard the "click" of something falling I thought to look in the aisle behind us and saw Lego kitty lying beside a box of printer paper. A salesperson also pointed out to me later that "your son dropped his toy" and we had to go back into the store after we'd purchased our printer ink to retrieve Lego doggy from the checkout area.

3) Our printer is temporarily up and working again, now that I've purchased some ink and installed all of the correct drivers. That poor printer takes a lot of abuse. James finds it fascinating, and will come running into the bedroom whenever anything is being printed so he can dance to "music" it makes. He also turns it on and off recreationally, and has been spotted cramming toys into the paper tray.

4) James and I discovered a charming low-cost Christmas tree stand at a greenhouse about a half a mile up the road from our house. If we'd gone there instead of the Dairy and H---eye falls in December the whole Christmas tree fiasco could have taken about 45 minutes. Also, the number of people who've read that story is shockingly high, given the number of illicit undergarments contained therein. But pretty much everyone has found it humorous, and we haven't (to our knowledge) been disinherited by anyone yet.

5) Our stock sound for "Pittsford Library" has changed from "ooh-ooh, ah-ah" to "choo-choo." Whenever we tell James we are going somewhere, he has a reactionary sound. For example, if I say that we are going to Daddy's church, he says "choo-choo." (There is a train there.) If we say Wegmans, James says "choo-choo." If we say Barnes and Noble, he says "choo-choo." If we say Uncle Calvin, he says "mow-mow." (Uncle Calvin has a cat.) If we say "Mommy's church," James makes drumming motions. "Grandma's house" also means drumming motions. Alexa's house is "whooooo," which is the vacuum sound, and the carwash is "swish-swish." There are two Curious George dolls on the children's shelf at the library, which is why it usually is "ooh-ooh, ah-ah" but there has been a train display up there for the last two visits, so it has changed to "choo-choo."

6) We are still never bored.