What's This

No, it's not a song from "The Nightmare Before Christmas," it's Arthur's new trick. He'll point to something and then say "What's this?" We'll name the object, and then he'll go on to another next to it. He's especially interested in objects he knows are forbidden.

Arthur (heading toward the electrified barbed wire): "What's this?" (Looks back with a 'Who, lill' ol' me?' expression.)
John (picking him up and setting him down in the next county): "What do you think it is?"


Other current tricks include

• demanding that we call various relatives long distance so he can speak with them for two seconds.


• saying "Puppy on!" while turning on the puppy sprinkler so he can run through it for two seconds.


• saying "Arthur making Library (or roses, or car, or pizza)" while he hammers on a wooden block for two hours.

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Arthur likes the local park. It has a dangerous play structure on it. The front has a sculpture that looks just like basalt columns for the kids so they can climb about seven feet into the air. There's even a platform (behind Arthur) where the kids can climb even higher and go down a very long slide.

I'm glad it's there, because after about 90 minutes of running around the park, Arthur usually uses up all his extra energy.