The life and times of Oscar Marcos Perez-Cytron. Born Thanksgiving Day 11/22/01.
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If you want to add something to Oscar's baby-blog, send an email to megan@alpha60.com and we can set it up so you can post...
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Sunday, November 23, 2003
11:36 PM posted by Oscar
 Yesterday was Oscar's birthday. We got an early start. Oscar ate breakfast and then opened his present from me. A bundle of "magic nuts and seeds" wrapped up in a leaf and tied with an iris leaf.  This is a reference to his favorite movie at the moment, My Neighbor Totoro. It's a Japanese animated film about two little girls whose mother has tuberculosis. They move to the country with their father and then discover all kinds of beautiful thing in nature, including three "totoros"--ranging in size from little bitty to great big. And also "dust bunnies" or "soot spirits" (which later turn up in another of his films, Spirited Away). And most of all "catbus" or "autobus-meow" as Oscar calls it. This is a bus that is also a cat. His eyes are headlights and the seats are alive and furry--unbelievably imaginative. Of course, only children can see these this world within the world, all based near a giant camphor tree.
Friday night we took him to see Winged Migration. He really seemed to get into it and sat through an hour and a half of nothing more than footage of birds flying--probably more than most American adrenaline junkies could handle! This movie really was amazing, just seeing how worldly birds are and the hardships they face making these epic journeys. It made me realize how limited the human experience really is. Seeing what these birds are able to do sure makes going to Spain for a year seem a lot less scary! Last week we went to see Brother Bear--ick, over-sentimental, trite, and questionable moral lessons, and most of all terrible music by Phil Collins. But what are you going to do--there's just not much of cinematic value out there for two-year olds. Still Oscar seems like a natural film buff, so we try to take him to see anything that won't irrevocably scar him or too seriously insult his intelligence. But I digress...
On with his birthday... after breakfast we went down to the Air and Space Museum. I'll admit that this is only the second time I have gone. The first time was many years ago when Christian's family was in town and I dragged them to a pathetic "Barbie in Space" diarama with about five dolls in stewardess outfits. Let me first say that this museum is a national disgrace. The informational aspects of of the museum haven't changed since the seventies and early eighties, so anomolies like Skylab get more play than you would ever imagine. For this reason, it is also very interesting, you can extrapolate a lot about our country by examining what it doesn't show. The place really comes across as a big advertisment for the militarization of technology. There is very little educational value here, but plenty to buy (a huge gift shop and a McDonalds inside the museum).
 Now that I've unloaded my political baggage, I'll admit that Oscar loved the place better than almost anywhere we've ever gone and cried huge pools of tears when we had to leave. He is so obsessed with planes right now that (aside from Totoro) it's one of the only things he can really talk about. He just ran around pointing and yelling "avion, avion" over and over. He's also very fixated on the moon right now, so I think he enjoy seeing the little videos (many of which I think must be the basis for those natural science spoofs on the Simpsons) . We'll probably be going there quite a bit this winter, since it's right on our metro line and is a good indoor space to run around in and make a ruckus without causing major problems.
 After we managed to calm him down upon leaving the museum ("aye, mama, papi, avion avion!!"), we went to Teaism for lunch. Oscar ate tofu and watched the fish. Then we headed home. Oscar napped. Then we watched the Finding Nemo dvd--while eating sushi, sorry fishies--that Bett gave him for his birthday. He loved it (and we did too). Then off to bed. The earth went around the sun twice and Oscar is now two years old!
Today we did our usual Sunday thing. We walked down to Dupont Circle. Went to the farmer's market, bought some apples and other stuff for Thanksgiving dinner. Hung out in the circle... Oscar found a big stick and rode it around the park like caballito (horse) for almost an hour chasing squirrels and blowing on dandelion fuzz. Ate again (!) at Teaism. Tofu and ochazuke. Oscar had a bit of a tantrum, recovered and carried on. Then we walked home through Adams Morgan. Sang "al tambor" and "los pollitos." He's taking his afternoon nap now. New words: granada (pomegranate), playa (beach), buho (owl), snow, "where are you?", tea, deer...
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