Snow and Jet Blue

Well, we're off on Jet Blue tomorrow. It's snowing but we're all determined to make it to San Diego.

I'm a little bit nervous, have I been good this year, will Santa get me anything? The darn recession.

The Holidays are coming, Oh no!

It is not easy being a model. Smile. Smile. And smile. After ten minutes I don't want to smile any more. After 15 minutes I don't want anyone to see my face. Now I know why super models demand big money.

My sister Julie ran an in-depth photo shoot of the girls, but I decided to take a couple extra, because parents are greedy. So these are the holiday photos that probably won't be on the card but are close to my heart.

Giant Balloons

Sponge Bob, Dora, YES, YES, YES!
It was really fun seeing my heros come to life. Sponge Bob promised to clean all the buildings on 81st street and Dora was going to explore New Jersey for Thanksgiving. That's where I went for Turkey, though I only ate macaroni and broccoli.

It was fun watching Emma admire the balloons. She had a little melt down amidst the throngs of New Yorkers who come to see the balloons, demanding I provide her magically with Orange Juice. I in turn had a melt down, demanding a private viewing of the balloons and a sippy cup filled with Orange juice. We made it home with great Thanksgiving memories.

Punky Brewster

This is an outfit Grand-ma Renee sent me. I put the tights on myself.


We were a little late for school because Emma insisted on putting the tights on herself. The thing on the back to tighten the skirt vanished into the opening for the pull thing, so I carried Emma from the bus, as the skirt was falling down. They fixed it at the office, fishing the stretch pull through the back with a pin.. The school director said, "That's the price of fashion."

Room 615

School's been going great. I rode a tricycle, made a dot painting and had my blood pressure taken.


Room 615 has a blog. These are some pictures of Emma from Room 615.

Rainy Day Mommy

It's rainy but that doesn't mean baby can't go out. I got baby some milk and pushed her stroller through the deepest puddles.



I'm not sure why Emma rolled the baby back and forth through the puddles. Maybe she wanted to toughen up the baby. Emma appears ready to be a mom.

Halloween is a family holiday

The whole family went to the Halloween Parade at the Hippo Playground. All of the kids went crazy. They thought I was the real Elmo. They wanted to hug me and touch my red fur. I was a little panicked but my dad, the ditzy clown and toddler body guard kept me safe. I got to eat a Dunkin Donut and drink fresh apple cider and even carved a pumpkin.

We decided to have Emma eat all of her trick-or-treat candy for breakfast the next day. She was so hyper she wrote an opera on the school black board.

Born to rock

Man, did you ever feel like you were born to rock!
My hands strum the magic strings and words channel through me. I wrote a song entitled, Marly the Cat. 'Marly is ready to sleep and she wants a family dog!' the song goes.
We no longer have a cat, because they like to attack kids, when kids grab their tails, but they're fun to write songs about.

I bought this pink guitar from a Mexican man wandering around the upper west side. Emma had spoken about wanting a guitar and when a man with a giant box of guitars wandered past me, strumming a miniature guitar right in front of Zabaars, I took action.
"Ten dollars Poppi" he said.
Sold American!

Halloween is coming

Putting on the fuzzy reds of Elmo makes me feel like I can lift 200 cookies with my bare hands, though I can't feel my hands, as they are covered completely with fuzz.

People seemed aghast that we would dress our child like Elmo. "Don't induldge these children," I was told by a grump guy in Starbucks.
"It's Halloween," I said.
"Not for six days," he said, picked up his latte and stormed out.

Tub Seat

Maddy is in the tub! Her seat was used by the astronauts who went to the moon and were scared of floating away into the galaxy.
All of my toys fit into the seat like a shopping cart. We both got squeaky clean and I showed her how to draw and make mosaics. I got an A+ as a big sister.

It was a stroke of genius getting the baby seat for the tub. I am in fact a baby wrangler extraordinaire.

Target sponsors Columbia Book Fair

I made sticker bags, I ate a monster sized muffin, stood on daddy's shoulders, battled stilt people (people on stilts). Yes, there are no limitations at the Columbia book fair. Lisa Loeb showed up to talk about dating and tanning salons. Target had a book tent where I got 5 cools books. I support Target book day at Columbia.

I'm still in shock. Lisa Loeb sang an anthem about apples and bananas, broke down in tears and was carried off the stage by a giant Elmo. If I've learned anything, it's that children's entertainment is not easy.

Tash·likh

My parents said, "Emma, we're going to throw bread into the Hudson river. Do you want to go?"
Yes!
It's called Tash·likh, which is one of the many things you do for Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year.
Then they said each bread crumb represented a sin from the past year we were symbolic-ally dumping into the bottom of the river. You can see all the bread in the river. Jews up and down the west side were clogging up the Hudson River.
Daddy took a giant piece of bread and through it like a discus all the way to New Jersey. I wonder what his sins are.

I really didn't do anything full of sin this year. No late night partying in the West Village. I'm sure there's something bad, bad, bad I did, so I threw a giant piece of stale Challah all the way to New Jersey, to cover all bets.

Boogie-board Fever

Imagine just standing up, not having to move your legs or knees and still getting around town. That is the genius of the Boogie-board. It's like surfing, and the stroller is the wave. I feel good.

The issues and debates hitting hard in the Dermansky home is weather or not our union needs/wants/deserves a double stroller. I am strongly anti-stroller, while my opponent, well, my wife, is pro double-stoller. I have won round one, as Emma rarely uses the stroller anyway, but there will be more on this issue to be hashed out, discovered and lobbyist are just getting involved.

Nursery School

School is starting slowly. They're phasing us in, as though we were scared little babies. One hour a day, an hour and a half, now we're up to almost the full day. It's a fun school but I think they underestimate the student body. I think they could use our help on Wall Street.

Emma is doing very well on school. Her teacher has set up a class blog. In fact this picture is borrowed from the class 615 blog. She is ready to go as a student, painting, thinking and taking Nursery school by storm.

Sticker Baby

I had an "aha" moment when I put my newest stickers on my little sister's nose.

Emma thinks Madeleine is her own personal sticker book.

Bronx Zoo

I wanted to play with the Tiger. He was watching me, behind a giant glass, then stretched against a giant tree like a rubber band. Then he suddenly climbed up the tree. Everyone pressed against the glass looking in on the tiger gasped. Then security yelled at us all to get back behind the tigers paws. There were tiger paws painted paw prints on the floor.
"Please get back," this man said, "I don't want a disaster." He seemed a little fearful. The tiger seemed friendly to me.

I had some popcorn. I also had a giant pretzel and went potty. I also put some money in a machine that made a monkey sound as it inhaled a dollar bill.

Emma insisted on buying some popcorn, right before going to Tiger Hill. Maybe the tiger just wanted some popcorn. I am very happy to have left the zoo in one piece. No tigers claws imbedded in my body.
As a side note, they only had one size of popcorn. I asked them, as part of my new assert my concerns lifestyle, why they didn't have a children's size popcorn at the zoo, which is for children. The saleswoman didn't have an answer, just smiled, showing me they only provided her with the one size.
"How can a toddler eat that much?" I asked and got no answer.

All the parents leaving the zoo, deserve a fortune cookies with words of hope and thanks.

The New Computer

The new computer auto-matically takes a family photo. All we have to do is huddle close to the computer and smile. We do this every day now!

I feel so new, as if I got a nose job and a new tie. Smushing my family together in front of the computers automatic camera, I am so happy I don't even need to say "Smile" before counting off the three seconds before the computer snaps our picture. Hooray!

Weebles Wobble

Here is my sister Maddy tipping her self over.

Emma takes great joy in seeing sister Madeleine tip over.

Bye Bye Berkshires

My daddy didn't get a picture of me being bitten by ground bees. Ground bees are bees that have hives in the ground. I started screaming because when you feel pain in your body unlike anything you've ever felt you scream.
But the bees couldn't ruin my vacation. The pain subsided and I watched Elmo's Birthday DVD and had a black and white cookies and ice cream for dinner.


Emma wanted to go potty at this potty which was for sale, 25 dollars at the Berkshire Theater Festival prop sale. Berkshire Theater Festival had a family day, free food, face painting and songs from Oliver.

Emma's first foray into face painting. She had a heart and a butterfly artfully rendered on her cheeks.



Jacob's pillow: Emma was transfixed as she watched a woman grow tree branches and move as if a soft wind were whisking through.

Chores

The tough thing about life in the country is all the chores. I've been doing dishes, husking corn, putting laundry on a clothes line and husking corn!


Emma has been working hard. My back went out so she's been picking up the slack.

I've also been growing food from a garden and picking apples. Thank goodness I'm a vegetarian.

Greta Garbage

Sometimes my parents take me to things that are a little painful. Greta Garbage lectured me and a little boy on the importance of recycling. We were the only two attending her puppet show at the Guthrie Center, a church dedicated to peace and understanding. It turned out Greta Garbage was in charge of the environmental educational division in Rochester and transformed her teachings into a puppet show. It was as if the presidential candidates were using sock puppets to speak their platforms at the debates.

I thought with a name like Greta Garbage how could you go wrong. She did point out to the two children at the show that it was their parents who had destroyed the earth and unfortunately it was beyond repair. My wife looked on in horror. When is the right time to expose Emma to the hard truths of todays world?
At the Greta Garbage show! The Guthre Center, a temple to peace, understanding, and the sixties, seemed like a place for lost souls, which for one morning, Michael the dad was one.

The Wishing Tree

This is the wishing tree. There are so many things I wanted so I combined a bunch of them in one wish: I wished for a day with Thomas, Dora and Elmo. All of us would dance and eat cheese sticks on the top of a mountain under a giant rainbow. Mommy and Daddy would bring us golden Sippy cups.

I wished that the magic of life was available to all of us, and that we all rejoiced with glee. Of coarse, I wasn't able to think of that at the Berkshire Botanical gardens Wishing Tree. So I just wished for self buckling car seats. (You can read my wish if you look closely at the picture)

Tanglewood

Listening to classical music is fun for thirty seconds. After that I like to play kickball or chase butterflies. It's funny, an old guy criticized my mom. He told her, "Some people come here to listen to the music." It seemed like he was hearing the music leading him to his life after death, but it didn't seem like that much fun.

I took Emma to go potty just as the concert let out. 25 old men streamed in to pee and wash their hands as Emma ran around, "No paper towels, me, I do it, I do it." The old men tried to go to sink as though she wasn't there but she held her ground. It was a Tangle at Tanglewood.


My sister Madeleine, rebounding from mosquito bites and a neck rash caused by her not having a neck yet.


A typical lunch scene at Frog Hollow (the name of the house where we are staying)

Professional Play Lady at the Stockbridge Public Library

This woman named Jeannie said that she'd spent the morning with old people who were stuck to their walkers but she was trying to get them to play. She said that she made her living playing with people and was available for birthday parties or to play with adults as well. I think she's spent time in jail. I can tell by her arm tattoo and her fanatic pleas for attention.

Emma was a little scared of Jeannie the Professional Play Lady at first. Fortunately Emma has a big heart and is very accepting and giving. I've been taking her to libraries for reading hour in the Berkshire area and you never know what will happen.