this family brought to you by Walt Disney

I wanted to share a few random stories and then realized that most of them involve Disney in one way or another. Henry's perseveration has influenced the rest of us- that's bound to happen. In a similar way, Tommy is showing a lot of interest in doing puzzles- the 24-piece, 3-6 year old puzzles. So he may become a puzzle prodigy too, modeling after his big brother.

Here are a few bits and pieces of our life recently:

-The Tramp in our current favorite Disney movie refers to Lady with the endearing nickname "Pidge" (a derivative of pigeon, I suppose.) When Henry recites these lines to himself (with his autistic accent) it very much sounds like he is saying a different nickname for a female: bi*%$.

"Hey, what's the matter &*$%@?"

It's stopped me short a couple times during the past week.

-All the dogs in the pound sing a song about Tramp. One bulldog kind of sings backup: "bum bum bum ruff, bum bum bum ruff." Bill sings that part sometimes and the boys think it's really funny. Tommy asked me to sing it last night. I kept trying, but was doing something wrong. He kept saying "no, mommy, sing 'bum bum bum ruff'."

I sang it over and over, when all of a sudden his face lit up and he said "yeah mommy yeah!" with this huge smile. I finally got it right.

-On the subject of a different Disney movie... We were discussing Toy Story one day, and I noted that Sid is a mean kid.

Henry said "Sid...kid... they rhyme!"

-Last night Tommy was playing with our little people doll house and playground sets. (Bought in an attempt to get Henry to practice some imaginary play- they remain in pristine condition 3 years later.) So I was pretty excited to see a child play with these things in the way they are intended. But before long Thomas took two characters to the top of the playground slide, made them fight, and then said "mommy, my girl push my guy down. Talk to her." So I told her that pushing is not ok and to be nice and to apologize to the "guy". But they went right back to fighting. So Thomas' imaginative play seems to mirror what goes on at the babysitter's house. Poor L. She must get tired of telling the kids to be nice.

-Yesterday Tommy and I stayed home with a tummy bug. But I seemed to feel a lot worse than he did. He kept wanting me to play and stuff. At one point I said, kind of to myself, "do you hear me sighing a lot?" And he said "yeah mommy. You is sighing a lot." I had to laugh because I doubt he really knows what sighing is. And he obviously doesn't get the implication that a person who sighs a lot is feeling unhappy/tired/irritated.

And my final issue for today: Eileen, where are you? I've added my home e-mail address to my profile, if anyone feels like writing me rather than commenting. I'd love to hear from you. It's my home e-mail, so I don't check it as often as my work, but I will check it.