Tastes like Lake Erie

Louis loves finding ways to relate the books he reads to his life. For weeks now he has been waiting anxiously for a real snowfall so he could build a snowman named Ned--a reference to the P.D. Eastman-illustrated book Snow. He was delighted when it snowed a few inches last week. There wasn't enough snow for a snowman and it was too powdery, but I bundled him into his snowsuit, and he went out to help Baba with the shoveling. If you've read The Cat in the Hat Comes Back, you'll know why he was so eager to pitch in.

When I was a child, getting into your snowsuit always seemed like a huge hassle. Louis, on the other hand, was ecstatic. "Winter clothes!" he yelled, referring to a line in Frog and Toad where Toad says, "I have no winter clothes." Now that we have Louis in our lives, so much of what we encounter in life relates back to the books we read. Food often relates back to Dr. Seuss or the Frances books, as we sing Frances's egg song and talk about running away from home when we run out of raisins. If I can think of a book reference he likes, we can get him to do almost anything.

Sometimes I don't recognize his quotes and I call my mother for advice. "Do you know why Louis is running around the house yelling, 'Fix the tree! Fix the tree!'?" I asked one night this week. She knew and told me about some Christmas story about a porcupine. She couldn't remember the specific line--but apparently Louis did.

Toad may have felt differently, but the "winter clothes" were such a hit with Louis that he asked to put the suit on again later that day, even when I told him that he had to wait for his father to get home to go back outside. He didn't care. He happily wore it around the house.

(As a side note, those are his "Curious George Washington" paper dolls. Louis insists on using full names whenever possible. When I say "glasses," he says "sunglasses." When I say "Aunt Shai," he says "Shaileen." The other day when he was playing doctor, John addressed him as "Dr. Louis," and Louis corrected him with "Dr. (our last name) Louis." He loves that his father wants the cousins to address him as "Uncle Baba John," and jokingly calls him that occasionally.)

As Louis shuffled around the house, he realized how silly it was to be wearing a snowsuit without shoes...

so he put on his boots.

He loves his boots--even more than he loves his socks.

As we enjoyed our last day of our long weekend together today, I asked Louis to help put cupcake wrappers in our muffin tins. He loves this task, and he set to work in his usual focused, determined way.



After we filled the tins, there was a little extra batter, so I put it into a little round pan and we baked a little cake. Louis happily ate two of the mini-cupcakes, and he seemed interested in the small cake. I sliced it into two rounds and spread raspberry jam on the middle, then iced it.

After dinner, I asked whether he wanted a cupcake or a slice of the small cake, and he said he wanted a piece of the cake. He watched me cut a wedge and place it on his plate.

He took one bite and handed it back to me.

"You don't like it?" I asked--not surprised, of course.

He shook his head. "Tastes like Lake Erie," he said.

This time I didn't have to call Grandma to ask for an explanation. I've read The Lorax with Louis, and even though our more-current version doesn't feature the line, "I hear things are just as bad up in Lake Erie" that was included in the original version of the book, I knew exactly what he meant. And I could picture the illustration of the Hummingfish sadly leaving the Thneed-machinery-polluted waters of their lake.


Those poor Hummingfish. If the lake tasted as bad as the cake, no wonder they had to hike out of town on their fins.