Frankie's Reading List

Frankie has always been an avid reader. Rather, an avid listener, though he does have several favorite books memorized by now. His tastes range from the classics (Beatrix Potter and Eric Carle) to what may be the adult equivalent of beach reading (a series of sports related books that I bought at Walgreens). He tends towards books about bunnies, sports and cats, with the occasional dog or hippo thrown in. Recently, his favorites have included Color Kittens (Margaret Wise Brown) which I purchased for the sweet, colorful retro illustrations, The Richard Scary-illustrated I Am A Bunny, Eric Carle’s Little Cloud (though we often have to just look at the page where Little Cloud turns into a bunny) & The Very Busy Spider, Beatrix Potter’s Tom Kitten, Owen and Mzee (a really cute story of a true-life friendship between a 130-year old turtle and a baby hippo), one of Dave’s old books Harry and The Lady Next Door and several about butterflies (he’s particularly fascinated by the concept that the butterfly eats nectar with a straw-like tongue).

I didn’t remember much about Beatrix Potter books, particularly the style in which they were written until we began reading them to Frankie. The language is quite adult and somewhat antiquated (with words like affronted and repose) and the story lines can be realistic and violent (there is more tail-loss than you’d expect in a kids book)…but they are very funny. Other bunny-related choices include Bunny’s Noisy Book & Runaway Bunny (again, Margaret Wise Brown…the woman knows her bunnies), Bunny’s Breakfast (from the 30’s or 40’s) and Don’t Let The Pigeon Stay Up Late (by Mo Willems…the pigeon has a bunny stuffed animal).

It’s wonderful to see him so interested in a pastime that we enjoy so much ourselves, and we hope he’ll continue to be a bookworm. And it's entirely possible he reads to extend his bedtime later & later. I would guess it's a little of both.

Balls And Bunnies

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Are still two of Frankie's two main interests.

Leaf Pile!

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I love this picture of Frankie playing in the leaves that Maw Maw JoJo took in St. Louis.

Christmas 2007

You'll have to read from the bottom up, folks! Sorry. I am too lazy to rearrange everything now. There will be a few more pictures to come as my mom takes much better pictures than I do. Also, our camera sucks. Excuses, excuses...

Frankie had yet another Christmas last weekend with the Breshears clan...I'll wait for them to send me pictures. Did you hear that, guys?

Trains at MOBOT

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Frankie Enjoys Trains At MOBOT

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Trains at MOBOT

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Model Trains at MOBOT

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Frankie, MawMaw JoJo, Dave and I headed to the Botanical Gardens to see this train exhibit. It was very crowded and Frankie wasn't so sure of it at first...but when we found a good viewing spot away from the tumult, he became more interested. The exhibit combined live plants with some very complex modeling, as you can see from the pictures.

Butterfly House, Again

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Butterfly House

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One morning, we headed to the Butterfly House at Faust Park, in the St. Louis burbs. Frankie really enjoyed the bug displays and the butterfly house (a sort of gigantic greehouse) itself was just incredible. I don't think any of us were prepared for the thousands of vibrant butterflies swarming around. It really was, as Frankie might exclaim, "neat!"

Present Time! Present Time!

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Here's one of MawMaw JoJo's presents - a Playmobil airplane. I love how life-like Playmobil designs are...the plane has a tiny bathroom inside, with a tiny toilet, tiny toilet seat (that can be lifted) and a tiny roll of toilet paper. As you can imagine, Frankie finds it highly amusing to make various figurines go to the bathroom. I also find this funny.

A Delightful Pose For The Camera

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Christmas Morning

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Here's Frankie opening his stocking filled with "Santa" presents. We talked about Santa a little bit and made sure we left him some cookies before going to sleep, but the idea of a dude who brings presents was a hazy concept for Frankie at best. Santa brought Frankie a bag of balloons, playdoh, M n' M's, a Playmobil soccer ball figure with a tiny ball (lost, of course, and probably for the best) and glue sticks (the boy likes glue, what can Santa do?) We were able to spend Christmas day at MawMaw JoJo's house in St. Louis. We drove from Austin to Oklahoma City in one day, saw Great Grandma Ellen and Uncle George and spent the night, then headed to St Louis the next day. Before the trip, I felt immense dread at the prospect of 16 hours in the car with Frankie over a two day period. I figured it would be as close to hell as I had been to date. Shockingly, it wasn't. Frankie was great, except that he wouldn't sleep at all. We stopped frequently, sang quite a bit and I re-enacted a one act play involving monsters walking down a dark alley and getting scared by bunnies...over and over and over again.

Coming Soon!

Christmas Photos! Updates! Information! Excitement! Really! We've been negligent, we know. We'll blame it on Christmas preparation and travel (OK City and St. Louis), work schedules, cleaning...whatever sounds reasonable. I'll start posting some pictures this weekend from our camera and from MawMaw JoJo as soon as I get them (hers will be better...our camera isn't good for inside shots).