Kids Say The Darnedest Things!

Okay, so this past weekend we went out to dinner with two of Jared's coworkers, Peter and Tim, and their families. Peter thought it was really funny that we went to a Brazilian restaurant in Chinatown in Japan. We had to agree. Anyway, we had a great time. Jason charmed all the waiters into playing peek-a-boo with him, and ended up being given a toy car and this funky shaggy dog hat, which you see here.

On Saturday, we took our pumpkin to the zoo, which he absolutely loved. I thought it was funny when we showed him the giant anteater, and he insisted that it was a squirrel. He was very eager to see the giraffes. Unfortunately, they didn't have animals from the African savannahs at the Yokohama Zoo. He'll tell you, though, that he did get to see elephants, lions, a tiger, a polar bear, otters, seals, and a kangaroo. And he loves them all. Since Saturday he runs down the list on an almost hourly basis. "I love the elephants. I love the lions. I love the tiger..." and so on.
Jason's become addicted to yet another movie over the past month, Disney's "The Wild." He knows it so well that he acts it out, whether or not it's on. I had to laugh when he declared the other day that he needed to go find his son, Ryan. He also gallops up and down the apartment on all fours, and he does it pretty quickly, too. I've decided this has to be a Hale family trait. I've never seen kids do that except on Jared's side of the family.
Finally, we just bought Jason a set of flash cards called "Spell-ominoes," which basically have a few letters on them that you can match up to make all kinds of words. We're trying to get Jason to practice blending sounds and reading. Yesterday, though, I realized he may need supervision as he's putting some of the cards together. I was washing dishes in the kitchen, and he was building words in the living room, calling out each time he had figured out a word. "Dog!" he would shout, "dog starts with a letter D!" And of course, then I'd praise him, and he'd move on to the next word. However, I just about peed my pants when he hollered out "F#@K! F#@k starts with the letter F!" Oh, dear.