RBOC: Weekend Puke Edition

• Lucas, who was diagnosed yesterday with a pretty nasty stomach virus after four days of puking ("24-hour flu" my ass), is doing a bit better. He hasn't vomited (yet) today (knock on wood). Just as I was finishing this post, he threw up again. That makes five days of puking. Ugh. Plus he's kind of whiny and he's not eating much.
• While Luke still refers to Sesame Street as "Melmo," his affections have been transferred from Elmo to Ernie. He makes me rewind the DVR so he can watch the Ernie sketches, especially the bathtub scenes, several times in a row.
  
• Has Ernie been using the same rubber ducky since time immemorial? Because it's looking pretty icky these days.
• Lucas has some Sesame Street bathtub fingerpaint/liquid soap. Thanks to the labeling of these bottles, he now refers to the colors red, yellow, and blue (words he hasn't even begun to use) as Elmo, Bird, and Cookie respectively.
• I'd just like to point out to the Toys R Us marketing folks that "PINKtacular" is a really stupid word, and possibly even a troglodytic one.
  
• Finally finished detailing the Camry today and listed it for sale on Craigslist and Cars.com. If you live in the area and are looking for a very reliable car, check it out. Note that, although tempted, I did not use the word "BEIGEtacular" in the ad.
• In the last few days, Lucas finally started using a couple of words to indicate assent. Previously, he disagreed with us by saying "no," and agreed with silence or by repeating a word related to the proposition. ("Melmo!") Now he says "yeah" or "uh-huh." Baby steps. . .
  
• The other day while Lucas was staring at my computer screen, he muttered, "penis." Usually he talks about what's on my screen or reaches for the keyboard while insistently saying "button!" (I assure you there wasn't a penis on the computer screen.) It puzzled me, because although we use the word penis to describe his "private parts," he hasn't seem much interested in penises. But then this morning I watched him flip through the awesome children's book Your Personal Penguin, and the entire time he was muttering "penis" under his breath. Mystery solved: "penis" = penguin, much as "rayniz" = raisins. The boy, he has a bit of verbal dyslexia, as well as some sins of consonant omission.
• Big news: I invited the director of the California Academy of Sciences to come talk to my graduate museum studies seminar, and he said yes! I'm so excited, and some of the other faculty are a bit anxious about the visit, since he's never come to visit the campus before. How anxious? I was reminded via e-mail yesterday that I am to provide him with water, which made me giggle because it sounded like I was dogsitting. Teehee. Here's hoping all my students do the reading so that they can ask him some intelligent questions. (BTW, if you haven't checked out the awesomely green building that is to be the new Cal Academy, you should definitely visit the site.)