The Big 0-3

Yesterday was the big day, the anniversary of my second birthday. No more blaming my behavior on the "Terrible Twos." It's time to face the fact that I am three.

Where have I been lately, you ask? Well, things have been changing around here. The baby (which, if you'll remember, I thought was just what we were calling my mom's protruding belly button) decided to come out of my mom and start living in our house. That has put limits on my computer time. Not only are Mom and Dad too busy to help me get on the computer, but any time I do get on, the internet is so slow because my parents are using all the bandwidth to email and upload "cute" pictures of said baby.

Ok, she's not that bad. She is actually a cute baby. See:

For those of you who are not Facebook friends with my parents and who missed the announcement, her name is Amira Eve and she was born on January 15 (which means Gillian was the winner of "Baby Watch 2013" and she got her wish, which may now be a curse, to have the baby born on her half-birthday). She is stealing most of my parents' attention, but I still like her, so I guess we can keep her for now.

But, back to me, since I am the real star here. My birthday was awesome. It started with my big sisters (see, now I have to specify "big" sisters or "little" sister) jumping on me in bed. This happens every morning, so it really wasn't anything different. Then I got Yellow Rheneas--Rheneas is actually a red train from "Thomas and Friends" but in the movie "Blue Mountain Mystery," which is my favorite Thomas movie, he gets a new coat of paint, and yellow is my favorite color. Victory all around.

Then I got a party at school, complete with cupcakes and an awesome hat.

After school I got to spend the afternoon at Nana and Gaga's house so Mom could do our laundry. (Because this was the perfect time for our washer to break. Not like we use it that often--now with six people in the family, two of whom wear cloth diapers that need to be washed every few days.) Nana and Gaga's house is awesome because of Gaga's model train set. I am an awesome conductor!

In the afternoon the girls (the big ones, not the little one) gave me an awesome Take-n-Play Thomas set. It even came with Duck and Cranky the Crane. I love that Cranky. The day ended with ice cream and more cupcakes, so it was a pretty cool day. Apparently there will be more celebrating this weekend when the Chicago part of the family will be in town. If it involves cupcakes, I'm in!

Baby Watch 2013

It seems that things are about to change around here. There are lots of tiny pink clothes that are too small for me folded up in my bedroom. There is a swing in a living room. There's some kind of strange rocking basket in my parents' room. Every time anyone talks to my mom, the first thing they say is, "Baby here yet?"

All this leads me to believe that the baby will be here very soon. It is just starting to dawn on me that there is going to be a new, smaller person in our family. For a long time, I just thought "baby" meant my mom's belly button because it kept getting bigger and was fun to poke. But, no, there's going to be an actual baby person. Which means I won't be the cutest anymore. But I will still have the most majestic hair--at least until my birthday in February.

So, it's time for you all to get in on the action. When is this baby going to make her appearance and ruin my life? The official due date is January 13, so today Mom is 38 weeks and 2 days. Liana was born at 38 weeks (but she was born by cesarean, so it's not completely accurate), Gillian came fast and furious at 40 weeks and 2 days and I made the world a more awesome place at 38 weeks and 6 days.

Mom has picked January 3 (because 1/3/13 looks cool), Dad has also picked January 3 (because it's the first day back from winter break with students and he doesn't want to go back to school), Liana has picked January 12 (because it has the same numbers as her birthday, 11/21) and Gillian has picked January 15 (because it's her half-birthday). What's yours?

And here are a bunch of photos, since we haven't posted much lately. (You can see that we were practicing for the baby at the children's museum.)

HAIR HAIR HAIR HAIR HAIR HAIR HAIR

When I am walking with my mom and sisters, it is very easy for someone to lump me into a collective, "you have such beautiful girls."  I could be wearing camouflage  holding my trains in one hand and a sign saying "I AM A BOY" in the other and I will still get called a girl.  Yes, I have very nice features, but they are young boy not young girl features.  What makes people think I am a girl is that I have magestic curly long flowing hair.  It is beautiful.  When people see little people with long hair, they think girl.  But I am a boy.  Grr.

So why do I have this coif a kin to a 1983 prog rocker? All because of that great Jewish Torah Tradition. There is a practice called upsherin, shearing off in Yiddish. Upsherin calls for a boy to not have his hair cut until he is three years old. I am like a beautiful short redwood. I am watered and given light and sustenance (water, love, food). Eventually, I will be the tallest tree in our forest (family) but right now, I am still the world's tallest sapling (a two year old). Jewish law says that a farmer is to leave a newly planted tree unharvested for it's first three years as a gift to G-d. This is why I have not had my hair cut. Getting my hair cut will be a celebration. It will be a step forward where I will no longer be a baby. I will be ready to harvest. That sounds weird. So, sometime in February, probably the 9th, I will have my hair cut for the first time. The big question is what style should I go with? That is where I need all your help. 

So, for the time being, I will look like a little Fabio.  Which is not that bad.  

Felgate, have a better day tomorrow.

Mr. Sandman, Lend me a Train... Do Do Do Do....

Hello Ashfans,  I hope that Buyer's Remorse Tuesday has been treating you fine and that all of your Black Friday, Small Business Saturday, and Cyber Monday purchases were not just impulse buys.  Mom and Dad do not know that I know, but I know that they bought a Soda Stream half off on CM.  I saw the payment when I was trolling their account looking for fraud.  Just something I do for them since they let me crash all by my lonesome in a big room.  I am still a little confused why they are trying to get me out of my three sided transformer crib/toddler bed which I call Matressmus Prime and into my Thomas-Linened Big Boy Bed (TLB3).  Yes, I know that it is for the baby, but to be truthful, I still think that Mom's belly button is the baby.


So since I started talking about beds, I wanted to let you guys and gals in on a secret.  I have found the best and most comfortable way to sleep, ever!  Different people in my family have different thoughts on how to have a great night of sleep.  For Dad, it is facing a wall with one foot out of the covers.  This has to happen or he cannot sleep. When I go and visit them in the night, I like covering his foot and making him wake up almost immediately.  It is funny.

Gillian does not really have a sleeping idiosyncrasy because she is so frantic that by the time she lets herself settle down, she passes out almost immediately.  She squirms around a lot in the wake time though.

Liana was interesting.  When she was little, she would sleep with some stuffed animals.  That is normal.  What was abnormal was that she also needed to sleep on a Baker's Dozen of assorted books.  These were not flat across the bottom of the bed but scattered all nimbly pimbly in the crib.  To add to the "Den of Madness," she slept with an assortment of dreidels.  Plastic, wooden, small, and not so small, they all found their way into this baffling bed.  She eventually outgrew the crib and with it, the books and dreidels.  Now she sleeps with mob of stuffed animals meticulously placed nightly in just the right spots staring at her.

They are all crazy.  I would like to state that I am not.

I choose to sleep with four baby blankets on me,  three stuffed animals at the end of the bed looking away from me, two library books (Thomas, of course) that I sleep on top of, and the piece d'resistance--four to six miniature trains (Little Engine and the car, two circus transport cars, my new bullet train and car from China)--also under me.  I have to be sleeping on these trains.  If I am not, I wake up and start hunting.  Even when I choose to make my parents' night of sleep better by joining them in their bed and kicking or screaming at them, I bring the trains with me.  You should try it.  This is Tots Legit.  I think I have found the holy grail of sleep aids.  Diecast or wooden trains making indentations on your chest as you sleep.  Anybody else doing this?  We should trade trains.

I am Back!

Hello ladies and gentlemen.  Asher is back.  I know that it has been a few months since my last post so I wanted to just apologize.  Like many people, I did not realize the time commitment school was going to put on me.  Boy, school is a lot of hard work.  I get to play with cars and the train table, paint, have snack, and look cute and awesome.  Yes, I only go two days a week, but the homework is killer.

A lot has changed since August.  Mom is much bigger and tireder.  She is preggo, remember.  Small interlude:   Tonight mom and dad went to the hospital to bring Liana into the world seven years ago.  Wow.  Her birth was not nearly as cool as mine.  She did not want to come out and complications ensued   Me, it was like going down a water slide. But on this water slide, I got to go head first.  Happy birthday, Liana, hope you have a nice one.  I will celebrate your day of birth by not monopolizing dad's tablet, forcing you to play train, or hitting you for not reason with a smile on my face.

Everyone knows that I love my trains. They are my peeps.  I will post in the next days about my love of trains.  Just wanted to say.

So, I got my school picture today.  I want to know what you think.  Let me know.  I love it.

Talk to you all soon.

ASHER!

Look at How Cute I Am!

A couple things in the world of Asher a Day:

1. Last night the blog hit 10,000 pageviews. Not bad for a two-year-old in two years.
2. Last night's post was one of the most popular posts on this blog. I would like to think that it's because I am awesome and you love hearing about my adventures. But, I know the truth. It's all because of that picture of the grainy outline of my baby sister. She's not even born yet and she's already more popular than me. What's up with that?

Well, I'll win you back yet. She can't talk or type yet. She can't even exist outside the Mothership yet (if you don't understand the reference, check out last night's post). So here you go. Bask in my cuteness.

Woo woo!

Later, I gave the goat a ride. Really, I did. (I'm sure that picture will come up later.)

Cute. Surly. Asher.

Look, they're already making me look like a girl (or a Samurai, as Dad says).

It's like Aliens, Independence Day, and She's Having a Baby all Rolled into One!

Earlier this summer I alluded to the fact that my dear mother might have been gaining weight due to a soon to be sentient parasite growing in her. This parasite could have been a boy parasite or a girl parasite.  Today I found out which type of parasite it is.

Let's backstory for a little bit. Camp was fantastic. I have a new older lady in my life. Her name is Yana, and she watched me so that Mom and Dad could do their jobs this summer. Yana played trains with me and introduced me to all of the other international staff. I was like their mascot. Yana is from Russia so her English was not stellar, but she learned more as she went on. She might not have been super fluent in English, but she was fluent in the international language of... ASHER SPEAK! Yes, I have developed my own language just to annoy my family. Woo Woo is train. Hopkah is pumpkin. Mim is to swim. Ayahyah is Little Engine.  Kachanah porayah is Phelps wins another gold! (Just kidding on the last one, but the rest are true.) She was awesome. More about Yana and camp later, back to the parasite.

When we went to camp, Mom was grouchy. I mean like Oscar the Grouch grouchy. Camp made her a little better, but camp can do that. Thanks to Christopher "Pagan" Weise's suggestion to look up gestation, I learned that Mom was pregnant early in the summer. What I did not know was that being pregnant also meant being inflated like a giant whoopie cushion. I can only asume that she was taken over by a space alien, hence the phrase, Mothership. So there is a little space parasite growing in Mom. Something must be done. 

Today we went to a doctor and we all were tortured. Liana, Gillian, and myself were tortured because we were there for two and a half hours. Mom and Dad were tortured because Liana, Gillian, and myself were there for two and a half hours. There was one highlight though, I got to see the face of my nemesis. Let me make some things perfectly clear. I love my family. I must say, I have really started to enjoy being the baby of the family. I do not have to talk, and people bring me things. I get to be cute and people do things for me, it is just like I am Sir Winston Churchill (he was one cute dude, he looked like a Sharpei). Needless to say, I like my spot. It fits me fine.

Now here comes this space parasite threatening to take my spot. What if it takes over the blog? Four months from now you could be reading "A Space Parasite a Day." Heaven's forbid it. This is my domain. I paid for it fair and square. Hold on, my editor is telling me that the domain was free. Still, it is my thing. Grrr.

So back to the pictures.  This doctor rubbed Mom's stomach with a magic wand and video of the parasite came up on the TV.  I saw its little brain, little heart, little hands, little feet, and little butt.  The parasite is apparently eight ounces right now.  I could win in a fair fight, but it is protected my Mommie Battle Armor.  At least there is only one parasite.  The issue is, I do not know how to fight it.  If the parasite was a boy, easy.  I can beat a boy, especially one that is only eight ounces.  But the aliens fight dirty.  THE PARASITE IS A GIRL!  How am I going to beat a girl?  And once the parasite is out and gangs up with Liana and Gillian, what am I going to do?  Not only do I lose my spot as the baby, but I also will have no one to protect me from being made to look like a girl by my three sisters.  Readers,  please help me.  I am in a low place right now. 

Congrats Mom and Dad for ruining my life!  I'm one sad panda.

Look, it's plotting against me already!