Costume-building Inspiration

I thought I'd share a post from last October's costume preparations to get you in the mood for costume creation. It's also my post that gets the most hits. Apparently other kids out there like ceiling fans too. Or else parents just like sarcasm.

Brian is in charge of the boys' costumes this year and they're going to be awesome. Just wait.

Here's last year's costume creation, one step at a time. Enjoy.

How to Make Ceiling Fan Costume in 38 Easy Steps

1. Find a good time to leave the boys at home with Dad and then walk to your local craft store. Buy three sections of black foam board, black t-shirts, Velcro, duct tape, and baseball-size Styrofoam balls from the floral department.

2. Bring home and store in a heap on the counter for 3 days.

3. During boys’ nap time, while Babysitting Girl is watching Baby Einstein, take out foam board, ruler, scissors, pencil, and place on the floor.

4. Outline the first blade in pencil with the help of the ruler.

5. Get up and put Baby Alex back on the rocking horse.

6. Return and try to cut the board with the scissors. You can’t.

7. Go to the closet to get the exacto knife and cardboard to put underneath the foam board.

8. Turn off video. Play peek-a-boo with Baby Alex while running in circles (after carefully placing the knife down?)

9. Return to floor and make first cut with knife.

10. Get Baby Alex a cup of milk.

11. Return to floor and successfully cut first blade.

12. Retrieve Baby Alex from toddling down the hall to wake up the boys. Read her The Nose Book. Read her the First Words book.

13. Answer the door. Send Baby Alex home with her daddy. Squirrel away fan materials behind the recliner and on the counter.

14. Do some dishes. Get dinner things ready. Chat with husband when he comes home.

15. Walk to the library to tutor Freshman Dancer Girl. Tutor. Walk home.

16. Eat dinner and discuss the various sauce colors Dad has made with the boys for their hot dogs.

17. Do a craft with paper plates and colored felt that gets spread all over the living room.

18. Apply pajamas. Read stories. Brush teeth. Make boys clean up their toys. Clean up the other toys. Find all the necessary comfort stuffed animals. Tuck in. Say prayers. Close door.

tumbler of wine for late-night steps

19. Clear and wash the table. Uncork wine.

20. Move fan materials from squirrel holes to table. Pour glass of wine.

21. Open Word document. Begin typing how to make fan costumes blog entry.

22. Cut the rest of the blades. Remarkably easy with no kids and on the table!

23. Finish glass of wine. Exhausted, go to sleep.

24. Wake up to kids wanting to make pancakes. Make pancakes, allowing kids to help. Clean up spilled flour. Stop egg just in time from rolling off the counter. Cut up apple chunks and sneak into pancakes for fruit serving. Administer pancakes. Clean up pancakes. Wash syrup off all surfaces in the vicinity of the table. Load dishwasher. Start dishwasher.

25. Answer door. Neighbor has locked herself out. Help her open her door. Show her fan costume pieces. Boys give her Halloween cookies they made and explain each shape to her: cat, bat, pumpkin, house.

26. Show boys the fan so far, and the hot glue gun from a safe distance. Glue blades on center to complete one fan. Clean up the tiny trimmings from the blades that have been removed from their neat pile and strewn about the house.

27. Trim sides of Styrofoam balls and glue on base for lights. Wash Styrofoam bits off four little hands. Hot glue the “lights” to two circular bases.

28. Get call from friend in the area. She is coming over with her twins. Try to straighten house quickly. Forget to look in mirror. When she arrives show her fan costume progress. Apply Velcro to one shirt front and affix the “light fixture” to it. Gain her approval of fan design idea.

Velcro-ing fan to shirt

29. Put shirt on Calvin to much screaming. Try to hold the fan behind him and get a picture so he can see how cool he looks as a ceiling fan. Doesn’t work. Take off shirt. Say goodbye to friends. Look in mirror. Holy hair.

30. Give in to polite but persistent pleas to puddle-stomp. Apply necessary garb. Go outside and supervise the happy hollering and splashing. Take a video. Entice boys to come upstairs by telling them they get to watch the video of themselves. (Is this wrong? Maybe.)

31. Peel off saturated clothing. Wring out and hang up. Tip over rain boots to dry. Change diapers, reapply clean, dry clothing.

32. Make lunch while boys watch videos of themselves puddle-stomping. Boys eat lunch. Read story. Tuck into beds for nap. Sigh.

33. Eat yogurt and mac and cheese crumbs from boys’ lunch.

Old elastic necklace and button as pull-cord

34. Find old necklace made of elastic for pull cord on fans. Cut two pieces off and attach with hot glue to “light fixtures” with the help of buttons.

35. Get a call that the 5pm Halloween party is actually at 4pm.

36. Cut second set of fan blades out and glue together. Affix all pieces to t-shirts.

37. Take shower. Pack costumes. Pack diaper bag. Wake up boys. Change boys. Greet husband coming home. All leave together to walk to party.

38. Arrive, a giant ball of awesome, with two smiling ceiling fans at party.

Ceiling Fan A

They were a little party-shy at first.

But soon they were gobbling lollipops.

Looking out the window of the 15th floor. Ceiling fans have good views!

Thursday Thesicle

Sometimes beer bottles turn into a ceiling fan.

 

American History Museum, Abbreviated

Our latest museum trek was on Sunday, when my mother-in-law and I took the boys downtown to the National Museum of American History. We drove to the metro station and hopped on the very front of the train like last time. It actually makes the trip much more interesting for the boys. Clark loves sitting up on his knees and looking at the tracks as we go, and Cal loves talking about how he doesn’t want to look at the tracks because it scares him. Both ways, it gives the boys good material to talk about, which lasted all the way to the Federal Triangle stop, where we got off and walked into the museum.

I knew that the kids’ lab that they have at the museum is closed right now, but I remembered how cool the transportation exhibit is, and so I figured we could do that and see how much time we had left over and what our other choices were. After the boys touched the tracks and railroad ties on the big locomotive, we went into the On the Water exhibit about maritime tales in America. For any kids who are interested in boats, specifically ships, this would be a great place to take them. They have a bunch of model ships that are beautiful. There’s a huge old whaling boat and some gigantic whale teeth, a giant steering wheel, and…wait for it…wait for it…a huge propeller that looks like a…ceiling fan! They liked it for a few minutes, less than I thought they would, (is their obsession passing?) but they mostly wanted to play on the touch screens that were scattered around. That used to bother me, but after the flea display trip, I’m used to them obsessing over things that aren’t cool and ignoring the truly cool things. Huge whale teeth right in my face? Intricate model ships with to-scale crews and passengers? A life-size engine room? Nah. Touch screen with world map. Touch again. Push brother who also wants to touch screen. Yell. Push. Touch again. Exit exhibit.

Ship? Eh.

Touch screen that ruled the day

Ceiling fan-ish boat propeller! 

We tried to give them a snack on a bench just outside the On the Water display, but we were quickly told by staff that food and drink are not permitted there. So we packed up and found some tables outside the museum café and had a snack. The tables are great and I will plan to bring a lunch next time we come, so we can just stay in the museum to eat. Then, with full force, recharged by juice and crackers, we hit America on the Move, the transportation exhibit that is set up in chronological order. I was just as impressed with it as I had been in the past. The boys liked it, but I think other boys who are more car-inclined than mine might like it more. My boys have never been as enthusiastic about cars and trains as some boys I know. They did enjoy it though, and there are little interactive pieces all over. Next to a huge freight train that you can touch, there are boxes that open like refrigerators so you can see the variety of freight that got shipped by such a train. The life-size model people scattered around the exhibit I think add a lot to it. In some cases it’s kind of creepy, like when you peek in the side of an old trailer and are startled to see a mom and daughter making dinner, but for the most part, it adds to the experience by setting scenes. So we spent around an hour in America On The Move and when we’d had enough (aka Calvin was freaked out by the old Chicago L car that shakes when you get on it) we changed diapers and headed out onto the street, past the men playing their buckets, to find lunch.

Cal petting model girl

The fruit displays are awesome.

Images from old Washington DC

Old DC streetcar

Freight-boy interaction

The boys called this a basketball floor and shot imaginary baskets.

Watching I Love Lucy on a turquoise TV!

I wanted to go somewhere different than last time, not because we didn’t like Ollie’s Trolley when we were there a couple weeks ago, we loved it, but just to try something new. The boys love mac ‘n cheese so I had looked up the best place in DC for mac ‘n cheese the night before. Capital Grille was on all the lists for the best macaroni and cheese and it’s fairly close, so we pushed them over in the stroller. Unfortunately, they are closed until dinner on Sundays, so we pushed the seven blocks back and ended up at good old Ollie’s, with its model merry-go-round that the boys can't get enough of. Uncle A met us on his bike and we had a nice little lunch, capped off with a chocolate milkshake for the boys.

Splitting a milkshake at Ollie's

Covering one or two exhibits in one day with 2-3 year-olds is about the perfect amount and the American History Museum is packed full of so many amazing things to see. If you have a kid who loves trains or cars, you could easily just stay in the transportation exhibit the entire time. The invention exhibit looks great and I want to get the boys back there for some more hands-on fun. I'll wait until Capital Grille is open so they can enjoy some mac 'n cheese.

Check out our other recent museum excursions here.

Costumes and Trick or Treating: A Personal History and Door-to-Door Narrative

Cal and Clark’s First-Ever Great Trick-or-Treat Adventure has come to a close. In retrospect, I’m not sure what I expected, but somehow I was pleasantly surprised. Background: I didn’t go trick-or-treating when I was little for various reasons, among them that my parents didn’t like Halloween, and also, well, where do you go when you live on a dead-end gravel road with only a couple families spread out over a few miles? That dark is very dark, my friends, and Idaho Octobers are very cold. The wolves and coyotes don’t have much to offer in the way of candy, anyway. We would usually dress up in costumes for a church-related harvest festival, and play games for money...that type of thing. I always did enjoy a good round of dress-up, however. But my friends and I certainly didn’t wait for Halloween to dress up. It was basically a year-round, never-ending costume party in my friend Libby’s basement. We probably had musty wigs and high-heeled shoes and silk scarves on for the better part of most weekends growing up.  I know you think I’m joking, but that's probably is not too far from the truth.

Libby and me and the never-ending costume party

Anyway, if my siblings and I were at home on Halloween night, we would have fun giving candy to the one or two families on our road with kids who trick-or-treated, but mostly we would just enjoy having candy in the house and dipping our hands into a big bowl of it and letting the shiny wrappers slide through our fingers. 

My in-laws live in a much more trick-or-treaters-friendly neighborhood, in a paved cul-de-sac not known for coyote or cougar attacks, and inhabited by quite a few other families. We decided to take our little ceiling fans out for a spin. I was delighted that the boys enjoyed talking to the people giving candy more than they were interested in racing on to the next house for more candy.

“Hey, Man!” Clark bellowed at one house, “You don’t have any shoes on.”  Thanks, Clark.

The first house we visited had a head, hands, and feet sticking out of the ground by the front steps, so it looked like a person was buried alive on his back in the flowerbed. All the boys could see were the flashing orange hands and feet by the walkway, which they found incredibly amusing. They bent over them and waved. They said, “Hi hands! Hi feet!” Calvin sat down to get a better look at them. They talked to each other about them. “Those hands have lights. They are orange. They are flashing!” As we finally left the house they kept calling out, “Bye-bye feet! Bye-bye hands"! Then on the hike down the sidewalk it was, “those hands and feet are silly. They are so silly.” And, “I love those hands and feet.” As aside, Calvin has recently started declaring his love for us, which is touchy-feely and sweet, but also for inanimate objects, and apparently even those he hardly even knows, which really waters down the meaning for us, as illustrated here. It’s like when you ponder and edit your Facebook status update to get just the right wording, the right tense, and then someone “likes” it, but then you see on her wall what else she “likes” and you see things like soup, running in place, elephant ears, and milk, and it no longer has as much meaning for you. Aside over.

The fans are ready to hit the streets.

At another house there was a floor-length mirror in the foyer right behind the kindly woman forking over her sweets. The boys were talking to her, and when Cal noticed the mirror, he exclaimed, “Your ‘flection!” Which means, “my reflection!”  He then gently touched her arm and said importantly, “Come in see you better,” by which he meant, “I need to come in and see myself better.” This caused her to swoon a little because she thought he wanted to come into her house to see her better. But no, she soon found out he was a ceiling fan on a mission and she was in his path.

We were a little concerned that the boys would be frightened by décor and costumes they saw so we explained beforehand that it was pretend and silly. They were only a little scared a couple times, and not at the things I would be scared of or disheartened by, like talking to the adolescent with the plastic butcher knife in his head (“What’s that silly fing? they said.”) but they were a little scared by a couple of real, live barking dogs. Brian stood in front of the scariest thing we saw all night, which was a statue of a demon cat, ready to attack, blocking the view.

The best part is that even though the boys made quite a haul with the candy, they didn’t once bring up the fact that we had candy all night after we were out, or even today until I brought it up. And I never showed them the whole pile, since most of the wealth is being redistributed elsewhere. A successful first trick-or-treat adventure.

Clark the Fan's Halloween Conquest

How to Make Ceiling Fan Costumes in 38 Easy Steps

1.       Find a good time to leave the boys at home with Dad and then walk to your local craft store. Buy three sections of black foam board, black t-shirts, Velcro, duct tape, and baseball-size Styrofoam balls from the floral department.

2.       Bring home and store in a heap on the counter for 3 days.

3.       During boys’ nap time, while Babysitting Girl is watching Baby Einstein, take out foam board, ruler, scissors, pencil, and place on the floor.

4.       Outline the first blade in pencil with the help of the ruler.

5.       Get up and put Baby Alex back on the rocking horse. 

6.       Return and try to cut the board with the scissors. You can’t.

7.       Go to the closet to get the exacto knife and cardboard to put underneath the foam board.

8.       Turn off video. Play peek-a-boo with Baby Alex while running in circles (after carefully placing the knife down?)

9.       Return to floor and make first cut with knife.

10.   Get Baby Alex a cup of milk.

11.   Return to floor and successfully cut first blade.

12.   Retrieve Baby Alex from toddling down the hall to wake up the boys. Read her The Nose Book. Read her the First Words book.

13.   Answer the door. Send Baby Alex home with her daddy. Squirrel away fan materials behind the recliner and on the counter.

14.   Do some dishes. Get dinner things ready. Chat with husband when he comes home.

15.   Walk to the library to tutor Freshman Dancer Girl. Tutor. Walk home.

16.   Eat dinner and discuss the various sauce colors Dad has made with the boys for their hot dogs.

17.   Do a craft with paper plates and colored felt that gets spread all over the living room.

18.   Apply pajamas. Read stories. Brush teeth. Make boys clean up their toys. Clean up the other toys. Find all the necessary comfort stuffed animals. Tuck in. Say prayers. Close door.

tumbler of wine for late-night steps

19.   Clear and wash the table. Uncork wine.

20.   Move fan materials from squirrel holes to table. Pour glass of wine.

21.   Open Word document. Begin typing how to make fan costumes blog entry.

22.   Cut the rest of the blades. Remarkably easy with no kids and on the table!

23.   Finish glass of wine. Exhausted, go to sleep.

24.   Wake up to kids wanting to make pancakes. Make pancakes, allowing kids to help. Clean up spilled flour. Stop egg just in time from rolling off the counter. Cut up apple chunks and sneak into pancakes for fruit serving. Administer pancakes. Clean up pancakes. Wash syrup off all surfaces in the vicinity of the table. Load dishwasher. Start dishwasher.

25.   Answer door. Neighbor has locked herself out. Help her open her door. Show her fan costume pieces. Boys give her Halloween cookies they made and explain each shape to her: cat, bat, pumpkin, house.

26.   Show boys the fan so far, and the hot glue gun from a safe distance. Glue blades on center to complete one fan. Clean up the tiny trimmings from the blades that have been removed from their neat pile and strewn about the house.

27.   Trim sides of Styrofoam balls and glue on base for lights. Wash Styrofoam bits off four little hands. Hot glue the “lights” to two circular bases.

28.   Get call from friend in the area. She is coming over with her twins. Try to straighten house quickly. Forget to look in mirror. When she arrives show her fan costume progress. Apply Velcro to one shirt front and affix the “light fixture” to it. Gain her approval of fan design idea.

Velcro-ing fan to shirt

29.   Put shirt on Calvin to much screaming. Try to hold the fan behind him and get a picture so he can see how cool he looks as a ceiling fan. Doesn’t work. Take off shirt. Say goodbye to friends. Look in mirror. Holy hair.

30.   Give in to polite but persistent pleas to puddle-stomp. Apply necessary garb. Go outside and supervise the happy hollering and splashing. Take a video. Entice boys to come upstairs by telling them they get to watch the video of themselves. (Is this wrong? Maybe.)

31.   Peel off saturated clothing. Wring out and hang up. Tip over rain boots to dry. Change diapers, reapply clean, dry clothing.

32.   Make lunch while boys watch videos of themselves puddle-stomping. Boys eat lunch. Read story. Tuck into beds for nap. Sigh.

33.   Eat yogurt and mac and cheese crumbs from boys’ lunch.

Old elastic necklace and button as pull-cord 

34.   Find old necklace made of elastic for pull cord on fans. Cut two pieces off and attach with hot glue to “light fixtures” with the help of buttons.

35.   Get a call that the 5pm Halloween party is actually at 4pm.

36.    Cut second set of fan blades out and glue together. Affix all pieces to t-shirts.

37.   Take shower. Pack costumes. Pack diaper bag. Wake up boys. Change boys. Greet husband coming home. All leave together to walk to party.

38.   Arrive, a giant ball of awesome, with two smiling ceiling fans at party.

Ceiling Fan A

They were a little party-shy at first.

But soon they were gobbling lollipops.

Looking out the window of the 15th floor. Ceiling fans have good views!

The Opposite of Trucks

It seems normal for little boys to like trains and cars and trucks and construction equipment. All the boys’ little male friends like vehicles. They will play for an entire playdate calmly making tractor noises and dumping imaginary dirt with the tractor, slowly maneuvering the (super cool) garbage truck I bought my boys, or dexterously navigating a train on the tracks. Cal and Clark prefer picking up a train track and swinging it like a bat or chucking a cement truck across the room. 

We went to a cool event for kids a few weeks ago with all kinds of vehicles for kids to see, and most of them you could sit in—an ambulance, lots of maintenance trucks, fire truck, bulldozer, mail truck, garbage truck, you name it. They didn’t care. While their friend Andrew watched, wide-eyed at the big excavator (okay, I don’t actually know what it is called… maybe that’s where they get their vehicular apathy) lifting and moving dirt, they practiced running away from me. They. Don’t. Care. So, they prefer whatever is the opposite of trucks.

Trucks? Nah. Give the kid a hat and a horse and some music.

Ah, but they love balls. They love bats and golf clubs and hockey sticks. They love books. They love their rocking horse. They love to swing and play anything outside. They love their hats. They love ceiling fans. Cal lately informed Gammy that his favorite toy is his little helicopter because it goes ‘round and ‘round like a ceiling fan. Aside from the ceiling fans these other likes are very boy in nature so I'm generally not too worried about them.


They've recently taken their affinity for balls and books to a new level. They want to not only sleep with their teddy bear, kitty cat, and panda bears, they want to sleep with footballs and baseballs and books. Clark insisted on sleeping with a pile of books at naptime yesterday. I love so much that they love books and so of course I lovingly tucked the required critters in next to the books with the beloved ones the most accessible.

Clark's naptime specifications

Every once-in-awhile I have a mini meltdown in my head, thinking that perhaps my boys aren’t developing correctly if they don’t want to play with trains and cars and such. So then I dump out their Duplo train set and try to set up the simplest track design before they can mess it up. It is all I can do to not scream and throw things at them as my structurally sound and architecturally magnificent bridge is ripped from the green base and my intricate weave of tracks is deliberately disassembled and spread throughout the house as ceiling fans. Then they go to sleep and I set up a charming countryside all over the living room with a train track and meandering cattle and horses for plowing. It is then that I must have the honesty to ask myself, “Who did you really get this train set for?” When they wake up I can’t stand to watch it crumble as they lick the blocks like ice cream cones and raze my countryside with one swipe of the hockey stick. For the record, I still think that Duplo garbage truck is awesome.

Look out, Mom. I need to hit things while wearing Dad's tie.

The conclusion I’ve come to is that all kids go through phases and maybe mine will either not have a trucks ‘n stuff phase or it will come later on. I think they’re developmentally sound. Perhaps my obsession over having my train station color-coordinated and my tracks symmetrical might present an equally curious question about developmental soundness. At least at Christmastime I can channel this strange need for control and order into my gingerbread houses. Maybe I should start meticulously carving some pumpkins.

Another Post About Ceiling Fans

The ceiling fan obsession is still going strong with the boys. It seems like it should fizzle out any day, but it’s not. They remember people based on their houses and the number and location of the fans.

Scratchy and Smoochie live it up.

On our Virginia Beach trip they could not hold back their elation at the seven ceiling fans at their cousins’ house. There was even one in the room we stayed in! They ran back and forth between the office and living room fans and the bedroom fans upstairs. Now, a month later, they are still talking about the colors and sizes of the fans and their locations. When we mention their aunt or cousins, they immediately say, “Have ceiling fans!” The best part about that trip was that even though they left Scratchy Cat and Smoochie Bear on accident, their aunt took pictures of the adventures Scratchy and Smoochie had riding her ceiling fans before they were mailed home. The boys could not get enough of looking at that picture and discussing it. Also on that trip we stopped in Richmond at my aunt and uncle’s house, where Uncle Pierre made a ceiling fan in blue tape on their deck. They ran in circles on it until they got dizzy.

Uncle Pierre makes a tape ceiling fan!

Other ways in which the ceiling fan obsession is manifesting itself is in any artwork we do. Finger paint, bath crayons, window markers, they want us to draw ceiling fans with. They also enjoy arranging objects in the shape of a fan, though that can get a little frustrating for them at this point in their developing hand-eye coordination stage.

Welcoming the fan-gazers

The boys' best bud Nick has been away in Scotland for the past month. We've missed him and his mom, but the boys everyone once-in-awhile check with me to make sure that they turned their ceiling fans off before they left. I assure them they did.

We went to a party at our friends’ house the other day, where we found a sign posted on their office door granting exclusive access to the “Dawnklets” (we can get into the reason for the nickname later, or not at all) for them to enjoy optimal fan-viewing.

I’m not sure what will cure the boys of this obsession. Maybe nothing. Maybe they will continue to be enthralled with them and then revolutionize the ceiling fan industry.

Finger paint ceiling fans with Dad

Veggie straw ceiling fan

Attempting to arrange veggie straws to Mom's pattern

Crayon ceiling fans

ceiling fans in  bead necklaces with Cousin Jen

fan-gazing at Uncle A's office

Ceiling Fans Go 'Round and 'Round

This is Not Normal. Normal boys are infatuated with tractors and bugs. They crane their necks to watch the tractor pull the tree out of the ground. They stare endlessly at bugs. Not my boys. No. The thing that captivates them more than any toy, more than any blue-collar worker’s job, more than nature, is ceiling fans. That’s right. We go over to their friend Nick’s house with tons of toys everywhere and what do they want to do? Stare at the ceiling, drooling, and whispering, “Ceiling fan goes ‘round and ‘round!” to themselves and then saying it to each other and then screaming it to whoever will listen.

I will admit it was cute at first. But now it is seriously troubling. When will they kick this habit?

We had a grand time with sidewalk chalk the other day. I drew flowers and the sun and a rainbow and a hippopotamus (yeah, that’s right, I have talent) and Brian drew a purple dog and a shark, but what did they want? You guessed it. Ceiling fans. So when I drew one they went over to it, squealing with delight, and asked me to turn it on. Not one of their brighter moments. So Brian started running in circles on top of the fan, which they loved, and then that became their version of turning it on.

So each time we went outside they wanted to run over to the ceiling fan and run in circles on it until they fell over. NOT ONLY did they constantly want to be on the drawing of the fan, they constantly wanted to be looking at the drawing of the fan. From their bedroom window they can see the sidewalk. They would constantly be running to the window and proclaiming that they had seen the ceiling fan and that it was yellow. As if the chalk could change color or draw itself or something. The first thing they’d want to talk about in the morning was the ceiling fan that was still down there on the sidewalk and the first thing they’d want to talk about after nap was the ceiling fan they could see through the blinds.

A few days later I took out the orange chalk and drew (gasp) a second ceiling fan on the sidewalk. Well, this was just more than they could handle. They ran back and forth between one fan and the other one, exclaiming their joy over the fans.


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Ceiling fan-gazing with Aunt Bean in Idaho

At Home Depot last weekend I was killing time waiting for Brian to pick us up after choosing some balcony flowers and so I took the boys to the lights and ceiling fan section. Good call in the killing-the-time department, bad call in the keeping-them-sane-and-quiet-department. They have two gigantic aisles dedicated to ceiling fans,  but the problem is that not a single one was turned on. Oh the distress! Oh the agony! “Turn on ceiling fan, Mommy!” Sorry kids, can’t do it. We had to escape quickly while I exchanged glances with people I thought might have had kids and understand…though no one seemed to know why they were wailing about the fans.

When we visited my parents in Idaho, the highlight of the visit was their ceiling fan. It is white, new, and has lights. My dad showed them how to turn it on and off. (The biggest regret of his grandfatherhood to date) Now when we Skype with them, the boys want to have the ceiling fan in the background and of course command my parents to turn it on and off at their whimsy.

They remember places based on whether or not a ceiling fan exists there. We go to Costco. BAM! They spot the one ceiling fan in the entire warehouse immediately and talk about it and point to it the whole rest of the trip. We go to our friends’ house to see their new baby. BAM! There’s a ceiling fan IN THE MIDDLE OF THEIR LIVING ROOM! We spend the rest of the time trying to play down the fact that they are weirdos and stare at it and want it to be turned on and off the entire visit.

Some places that have ceiling fans offer convenient diversions: the restaurants in the airport that had ceiling fans that worked well for killing time, for instance.

Since ceiling fans really define the world to the boys, everything else looks like ceiling fans to them—the tassels on the top of drawings of birthday hats, flowers, propellers, shamrocks, wheels, windmills, you name it. They love to say, “not ceiling fan. Like ceiling fan!”

What will be next? Or will they be this way forever?