At this year’s BookExpo America, I came home with a back-breaking amount of books that I’m excited to read, but I was most excited by this year’s offering of picture books.

I declare the winner of this year’s BEA to be Bob Shea, with his new book Unicorn Thinks He’s Pretty Great. I love this book. Goat’s got a pretty good life, until that show-off Unicorn came into the picture. Goat is jealous of Unicorn’s ability to fly and dance and turn things into gold. But wait until Unicorn gets a load of what goat can do! Unicorn doesn’t think he’s so great, but he sure things goat is. Together they make an awesome team.

A close runner-up for BEA winner is Carnivores, the new book by Aaron Reynolds and illustrated by one of my favorites, Dan Santat. A shark, a lion, and the big bad wolf all are a little ashamed about their carnivore tendencies. They try a whole bunch of things to change into plant-eaters, but who are they kidding? They need to embrace their nature as savage meat-eaters. Hilarious.

I ran into Betsy Bird, who has made the exciting crossover from librarian and book blogger extraordinaire to author! Her new book Giant Dance Party is adorable. Lexy loves to dance, but has the unfortunate problem of freezing like an ice pop every time she tried to dance on stage. She decides to be a dance teacher—a genius plan that will let her dance without dancing on stage. There’s only one problem. No one wants to learn from a kid. No one…. except giants! The giants show up for their dance lessons, and they just might need a little help on stage from Lexy when they freeze up, too.

Betsy Lewin has a sweet new real-aloud out, Thumpy Feet. Follow Thumpy Feet the cat as he eats and plays and sleeps. The text is full of language kids won’t be able to help but repeat, with each smacky smack and lick licky licky and flippy flip.

David Ezra Stein also has a new book out, Dinosaur Kisses. Little Dinah the T. rex hatched out of her egg and immediately tried stomping and chomping. Then she saw a kiss, but whenever she tried it it looked more like a WHOMP or a STOMP or a CHOMP. She just needs a dinosaur who can kis like her, and finds one in another T. rex who hatches. This could be a good book for toddlers who are learning what to bite and what not to bite.

Robot Rumpus is the latest from British author Sean Taylor. When Mum and Dad go out for the night, they leave the care of their daughter in the hands of seven robots. What could possibly go wrong? Well, anything that could be misconstrued by those who are programmed, starting with the alligator toy that’s mistaken by Wash-bot as a dangerous animal. My Facebook feed has been full lately with ethical quandaries about drones. Somehow this book is like a precursor to that discussion, but, you know . . . funny.

Hero Mom, by Melinda Hardin, is a lovely tribute to moms in uniform, made lovelier by the illustrations by Bryan Langdo. I’ve had the pleasure of working with Bryan, and it’s always a treat to see his work in the wild.

I also have shelf full of chapter books that I can’t wait to read. I’ll let you know about them as I do! As I’ve said before, BEA stands for Books Everywhere! Awesome!

A couple years ago, I was at an event in Bread and Yoga studio in the Inwood neighborhood of upper Manhattan, and I was captivated by the artwork on the walls. Incredibly, it was all done by kids, students of Scribble Art Workshop founded by a phenomenal art educator who happens to be my daughter’s art teacher, Sasha Schwartz.

I recently met with Sasha to hear about the latest from Scribble Art Workshop, including their upcoming show. Scribble Art Workshop has locations in Inwood, Washington Heights, Riverdale, and Tenafly, NJ, and scribblers range from 18 months old to 13 years old. From the moment kids walk in the door, they’re treated as artist. All kids participate in shows where their art is framed and hung in gallery settings with their names and titles posted next to it. 10-year-olds get to work the shows as docents and art dealers, and pieces that are sold get a little red dot on the tag. Parents are encouraged not to buy the work of their own kid but rather art for art’s sake.  As a parent I found it really difficult to not immediately buy Olive’s art, but then I truly fell in love with a drawing by another child and it gave me great joy to buy it. It was also great to hand Olive $20 and tell her to buy any piece she loved. Both works of art now hang in the kids’ room.

The next Scribble Art Workshop show opens this Saturday. Called “Methods,” the show reveals the artistic process through the product. Think of the action painting of Jackson Pollack where his method of dripping and throwing paint is evident on the canvas. Even toddlers can get in on this action. They made paintings using rice, and on display will not only be the paintings but the rice used to make it. Preschoolers made their own brushes which will be on display with the abstract paintings made with them. Work by older kids will include films showing the evolution of sculptures and photographic portraits of puppet creations.

The Method I like best of all is Sasha’s teaching style, so respectful of each young artist’s expression. Sasha enthusiastically brings kids to inspirational spaces and gives them supplies and direction, and then the art happens. I remembered seeing a picture on Facebook of some of the toddlers covering themselves in paint. Asking if she got any pushback from parents about that she expressed the children’s physical need to experiment, “Do I stop the drive or do I give into the drive? It’s a way for them to explore the world through their body. As an educator I have to allow this, and to not let them do it is a travesty.” I love that. I’m always happy when the kids come home dirty and covered in colors—the sign of a day well spent.

Sasha reminded me of this marvelous TED talk by Sugata Mitra: Build a School in the Cloud, specifically calling out this quote, “It’s not about making learning happen, it’s about letting it happen.” Scribble Art Workshop shares that philosphy.

Check out the classes for your kids, and buy some beautiful artwork at Methods, which opens this Saturday, June 15 from 4:00-7:00 pm at Apt. 78, 4447 Broadway. All sales go towards making classes available to kids who can’t afford them. Find more details on the Scribble Art Workshop Facebook page where you can also see gorgeous examples of the student work.

You know that thing where you’re ready to go get a drink with your GeekMom friends after BookExpo and one of them scored an invitation to the Disney/Hyperion rooftop party with Mo Willems, which you might have gotten, too, if you weren’t too busy in the Disney/Hyperion booth stuffing your face with delicious pigeon cupcakes? Yeah, me too.

So we go to the fancy party and I tried to act all cool when I met Mo Willems, not gushing about how I was buying up his books before I even had kids. I’ll never forget seeing Don’t Let the Pigeon Drive the Bus and knowing I couldn’t walk out of the bookstore without it. That was 10 years ago, people. The Pigeon is celebrating his 10th birthday!

There’s a commemorative box set of the Pigeon board books that is super cute, and we learned at the party that there’s a new Pigeon book coming out, The Pigeon Needs a Bath. Ozzie needs that book. Pigeon goes through the classic routine of fighting the bath—fighting, fighting, fighting—until he finally gets in it. And… you guessed it, now he never wants to get out. Familiar.

The other exciting party news is the release of Don’t Pigeonhole Me! Two Decades of the Mo Willems Sketchbook. This one is legitimately for me, not the kids. It’s a luscious coffee table book that combines 20 years of sketches. The Mo Willems Sketchbook began as the annual December issue of a publication called Ersatz, and morphed and grew until it started spawning the picture books we know today. I adore the stories before all of the different sketches, like this one before the sketches that later became Don’t Let the Pigeon Drive the Bus: 

The Pigeon, who would years later star in my debut picture book, was born in the corner of a notebook, complaining about how he was better than the other doodles I was making.

…

Exasperated by his outbursts in the margins of my sketchbooks, I decided to try to put him in a story. The original idea for teh story features a little boy tasked with the job of not letting the Pigeon drive the bus. But that was no good for the Pigeon. He wanted to star, alone.

Clearly these drawings take on a life of their own. I also love the series of sketches that was Mo’s grown-up answer to easy readers, a “hard reader” starring an intoxicated Belligerent Bunny where all of the words sound something like what they mean.

This is an amazing book for lovers of kid lit (it even has a foreword by Eric Carle), and it’s great for artists, too. It’s a good reminder to just keep doodling. Look what can come of it!

Once again I’ll mark the remarkable passing of time with a birthday interview. That’s right, my little girl is turning 8. 8!! Here are her declared favorites of the last year, with a little bit of running commentary from mom.

Favorite Video Game

Skylanders Giants because in Skylanders Giants you can do more than in regular Skylanders. (No surprises here that Skylanders has captured her attention for the second year in a row, this time with Giants. Next year I’m sure we can look forward to Swap Force in this spot.) 

Favorite App

Plants vs. Zombies because I like to try getting all 40 flags in Survival Endless. (Are you familiar with the evil and cruel Survival Endless mode on the PvZ iPad app? I leave Olive on her own with this now because we can’t get past even 20 waves of zombies, and we’ve been trying for a long, long time.)

Favorite Museum

The Museum of Math because I like to ride the square-wheeled bike. (Our new children’s museum in Manhattan, all about math! What’s not to like?)

Favorite Book

Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban because [major spoiler if you have lived under a rock for 14 years] I like at the end where they find out that Sirius didn’t actually kill 11 people with one curse.

Favorite Movie

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Part 2 because [major spoiler if you have lived under a rock for 6 years] I like the end where they show Harry’s kids getting on the train for the first time. (She even skipped after school today and after some park time we came home and watched this. Again.)

Favorite TV Show

The Saddle Club because they tell you a lot about horses. (Olive discovered this on Netflix and it has spawned a major love of horses. I like this quiet Aussie show waaaaay better than the Disney tween shows.) 

Favorite Toy

My doll because I like to brush her hair and do stuff with her hair and put her different clothes on. (I never thought I’d succumb to the American Girl empire, and yet… That’s going to need to be its own separate post.)

Favorite Website

InnerStarU.com because it has a lot of games that you can play and get things to buy, like you can buy clothes to wear and you can buy pets and stuff. (This is the site you can access for free after spending a bajillion dollars on an American Girl doll. Apparently American Girl is the new Webkinz.)

As always, I can’t wait to see what the next year brings. And I’m always tickled to look back on each year.

Interview with a 7-year-old

Interview with a 6-year-old

Interview with a 5-year-old

Interview with a 4-year-old

It’s not often you get to interview people whose work you love and admire, but I aim to make this the first of many interviews with people doing great work in children’s media. Christian Jacobs is one of the creators of our beloved Yo Gabba Gabba, and more recently he has given older kids The Aquabats! Super Show! on the Hub Network, where he is also the star and lead Aquabat, The M.C. Bat Commander.

I watched a lot of TV growing up (a lot) and The Aquabats! Super Show! is reminiscent of Saturday morning cartoons, Superfriends, The Monkees, and the old Adam West Batman. Everything about it rules, but it’s almost shocking to watch it with the weirdness and plentiful explosions I remember from the shows I love but that I don’t see much of in the shows made today. The first season of The Aquabats! Super Show! is available on DVD and is now streaming on Netflix (just as Yo Gabba Gabba has been cruelly ripped from Netflix), and season 2 premieres this Saturday, June 1 at 10:00 am PT/1:00 pm ET. In the meantime, learn more about the awesome Christian Jacobs. 

MM: I’ll start with two questions from my daughter. She asks why Crash McLarson grows so big when he’s mad.

CJ: Oh man! We are going to have to explore that later in another season. That means we’re going to need more time! We need more episodes! THE WORLD NEEDS TO KNOW!! HA!

Also, what happened to the MC Bat Commander’s front tooth?

THAT is going to be addressed in an episode we are writing now! HA! For reelz! The episode is called ‘THE TOOTH.’ Kids are going to love it…

The Aquabats! Super Show! brings to mind so many Saturday morning shows of the 70s and 80s. What shows are influential in your creative process?

Are you sure you wanna go there?? Haha! There are SO many shows that influence the Aquabats in general. TV is a huge influence on us. I think I watched way too much TV when I was a kid. I can barely figure out how to file my taxes but I can tell you the fall line up of Saturday morning cartoons from 1977 -1984. I’ve got some BIGFOOT and WILDBOY residue in my brain, some KROFFT SUPER SHOW, anyone for the FUNKY PHANTOM? RICKETY ROCKET BLAST OFF!!! Ha! THUNDARR THE BARBARIAN?? JASON OF STAR COMMAND!! SHAZAM!!? Oh YES! So many more.

Between Yo Gabba Gabba’s Dancey Dance Time and The Super Music Friends Show and the guest spots on Aquabats, you’ve had an impressive array of celebrity guests. Who were some of your favorites to work with?

AL YANKOVIC! Al is a consummate professional and total gentleman. Mark Mothersbaugh guest stars on THE AQUABATS! SUPER SHOW! this season. He is such a great fellow. Jack Black, Jon Heder and Dave Grohl are total dudes! Like really good buddy types. Wayne Coyne is the wizard of rad. Great guy. Oh man… MOS DEF, Tom Lennon, Busy Phillips, Sam Levine, Martin Starr… Anthony Bourdain, Bill Hader, Lou Diamond Phillips… The list is so long… I think if you have any desire to be on YO GABBA GABBA! or THE AQUABATS! SUPER SHOW! you have to be pretty self aware and able to laugh at yourself. That makes for some good hanging out with some great people.

Who would you love to work with that hasn’t yet been on one of the shows?

The PIXIES, Frank Black, Bill Murray, GORILLAZ, Bad Brains, Robert Downey Jr. and um… Donny Osmond!  HA!

The Aquabats! Super Show! could have easily have been for adults, going the route of shows like Flight of the Conchords. Why make it for kids?

I just like stuff that is inclusive. You know stuff that doesn’t leave anyone out. That is the mission statement of kids TV. I think in the early plans for The Aquabats! show it felt a little more ‘mature’ or more for ‘adults’ but having kids of my own really brought me back into wanting to do things that could include them. The Aquabats! were always pretty clean, but having a family really made me want to let them in on the fun, too.  It’s more fun when things can work for all ages. There are so many shows competing for the most clever, hip, adult comedy of the year but there aren’t a lot of really well done shows in the kid’s space.

Like… what if Pee Wee Herman decided to stick with HBO and adult audiences only etc. We wouldn’t have PEE WEE’S BIG ADVENTURE and so on. That show wasn’t ‘just for kids’, that was just for… EVERYONE! Ha! That’s the kind of entertainment you can feel good about forever. Anyone can drop a ‘blue’ joke or the F-bomb but is it really THAT clever? I just want to stay 9 years old I guess. The world is more interesting from a kid’s point of view.

I do a lot of work in preschool entertainment where I’ve noticed that many creators, marketers, and educators like to play it very safe. I got my hands on the pilot of Yo Gabba Gabba and it seemed revolutionary, not playing by the conventions for preschool entertainment. Did you intentionally shake things up?

Yeah, for sure! But we were coming from a very organic place as dads, lovingly wanting to make a show for their kids. I know our hearts were in the right place but we wanted to shake things up for sure. I think it was just time for someone to metaphorically ‘John Belushi’ smash the acoustic guitar of pre-school shows and get funky! It was time to add our generation’s take on what we wanted to watch with our kids. SESAME STREET was the pioneer, but then along the way ‘pre-school’ kids TV got SO super soft. I think a lot of it got to a point where it felt really condescending and patronizing to the audience. We wanted to make a show that it felt like it was being made by kids in the sandbox. And, actually there are a ton of conventions in YO GABBA GABBA! but you don’t really notice them because we consciously tried to break up so many of the ‘established’ kid show formulas. We just knew from our own families that kids AND parents don’t want formula… they want the real thing!!

On a similar note, over the weekend we binge-watched a good part of The Aquabats! Super Show! season 1. I think the last time I saw that many explosions was when I binge-watched The Muppet Show. What kind of resistance do you get from the network or parents or kids for your comic mischief?

That is a GREAT compliment!!  I wish Crazy Larry was our PyroFX dude on the show! AND, yes, we tested the show a little and there were some parents that were angry and like ‘this show has NO redeeming qualities and it’s …. (aghast) VIOLENT’. I think they must’ve sounded like Sam the Eagle when they were reviewing our show!

We do get a gaggle of notes and resistance from standards and practices from Hub Network about fighting and political correctness (boring) etc. SO, the show has been rated PG. But that’s what we wanted! We want dads and doms to watch and hopefully get hooked into the show too. I just saw IRON MAN 3 with my kids and the audience was FULL of kids. That movie is FULL of people exploding and being killed etc. but… no blood…. It’s weird how we draw a line in the sand with TV. I think our show is cartoony enough and campy enough that kids can grasp the idea that it’s ‘safer’ than maybe that Marvel movie world. In the end, parents should decide what is best for their kids and have discussions about things they are watching together etc. That alone is more important than anything. Parenting! The new babysitter! Ha!

When all was said and done, the best review and highest marks we got from the testing came from a 7-year-old girl who said that she’d been waiting her whole life for THE AQUABATS! SUPER SHOW! That is so cute!

What crosses the line for you?  What do you think is not appropriate to show to kids?

I think ‘life’ is important and I think there are HORRIBLE things out there for both kids and adults in regards to respect of life. All of that torture movie, slasher crap, etc. is so hurtful. I think as a kid, I thought I liked that stuff but as a parent I REALLY abhor it. We deal with some violent ends of things on the show at times but it’s different. We aren’t desecrating life. Death is part of life and must be understood with respect. We deal with that a little too, like when The M.C. Bat Commander is eating a burrito off of someone’s grave. We hope kids see that Karma comes back to settle the score in the form of a ghost in his video game!

I think kids don’t need to be corralled into growing up so fast either. There are TV shows that seem to try to fast track kids into moral destruction. All the Teen Mom stuff in between shows about ‘hook ups’ is SO awful. Keep pornography FAR away from kids. Forever. Let’s stay golden. Let’s cherish innocence and virtue.

I also really hate when things get overboard sarcastic. In THE AQUABATS! SUPER SHOW!, we rarely lash out at each other on the show because I don’t really like to show kids that. I don’t think showing kids how to argue, talk back or snark at authority is appropriate. Like those shows with 45 year olds playing 14 year olds that are just verbally cutting down anyone in their way and disrespecting ‘grown ups.’ Teaching kids how to deceive people and snark their way out of it. I can’t stand those kinds of shows. It’s like do we really need any more kids to grow up narcissistic liars? There are only so many jobs in Washington! HA!

There’s a girl in The Wiggles now. Any chance of getting a girl Aquabat?

HA! There’s always a chance! We’ve been trying to figure out a way to involve more strong female characters in the show but I think deep down, like most little boys … The Aquabats! are scared of girls!

Can you share any good nuggets with us about the upcoming season of The Aquabats! Super Show!? What great heroism and villainy can we expect?

Well, The Aquabats! return to Earth after being stranded in space at the end of last season. Turns out they have come back as conquering heroes, even though none of them has any memory of what actually took place. So instead of their usual underdog status, The Aquabats! have to deal with their newfound fame. You know, it’s sorta like a cult band going mainstream. HA!

There are some new villains and old ones! Bigfoot shows up, of course! There are even some REAL old villains from the 90’s!

Old foe Silver Skull returns to challenge The Aquabats! Shoot! I don’t want to spoil too much. We’ve got some cool cameos. Tony Hawk, Eric Koston, Leslie Hall, Mark Mothersbaugh, Martin Starr, Mikey Way, etc. Gerard Way from the band My Chemical Romance came in to help write and direct an episode. It’s gonna be really fun!

One last little thing. While preparing these questions, I stumbled upon the knowledge that you were the boy in the record store in Pretty in Pink. Would you care to comment on how awesome that is?

Yes, it was awesome. Everyone always asks me “Dude! (yes, everyone says ‘dude’ first) What was Molly Ringwald like? Were you in heaven? Was she so hot?” Well, I was 13 at the time so of course I was in love…. with ANNIE POTTS!! OH MAN, SO IN LOVE!! Like an OMD song!!

It was a lot of fun! Great memories. Hanging around with all of them for a week. Chatting it up with John Hughes etc. It was a great. It’s all about Ducky!

Thank you so much! My family and I are big fans of the shows. I had a second kid just so I could keep watching Yo Gabba Gabba, and now the four of us sit and watch The Aquabats! Super Show! together.

OK! Congrats on the rad family and thanks! Remember to please watch responsibly! Some of the episodes may be a little intense for the under 5 set — so be on your toes!

Olive and I had the pleasure of attending our first movie world premiere on Saturday, with the premiere of Epic the Movie at the Ziegfeld.

I promised Olive that we’d be walking the red carpet. (Why, yes, our designer IS Old Navy. Thank you for noticing our fashion.)  Imagine her consternation, though, when she saw that there was “green grass” and not “red carpet.” Her outraged lasted until we got inside and she spotted the free popcorn and giant table full of tiny Baked by Melissa cupcakes. (She could get used to this lifestyle.)

We were a good hour before the celebs came through the red carpet. I highly recommend the Kidzvuz interviews with the cast as they came in, including Colin Farrell, Chris O’Dowd, Jason Sudeikis, and Amanda Seyfried.

The biggest difference between seeing a world premiere and a regular ol’ movie is that people clap and cheer for the production company logo and during the credits, the producer, director, and art director get much bigger cheers than any of the cast. Also, director Chris Wedge introduced the film.

I’ll have a full review up on GeekMom on Friday, but for now I’ll say this — make some time to see it this weekend. In the meantime, here’s the stunning trailer.

Wanna know something crazy? Today marks five years since my very first post on Media Macaroni! Crazy, right?

To give you a sense of what five years is like in tech years, I didn’t even have an apps category at first. This was my phone when I first started the blog:

Even in my first post, I describe my work in CD-ROMs and DVDs. That’s adorable. Since then it’s been Nintendo and Leap Frog and Nook and apps, apps, apps.

And this is what my progeny looked like when the blog began:

Olive was about to turn three, and Ozzie wouldn’t come along for another two years.

So much growth and change in five years! As always, I’m so grateful for you, the most treasured people who read my blog. Thanks for coming along for the ride!

This Thursday, May 23, head down to Times Square at 11:00 am to see an unveiling of the world’s largest Lego model. All I can say is that it has something to do with The Yoda Chronicles, set to premiere on Cartoon Network on May 29th.

Disappointed you won’t be. Trust me you must.

I’m warning you, don’t read this post if there are productive things that you’re meant to be doing right now. I happened on GeoGuessr in a friend’s Facebook feed on Friday afternoon, and the remaining memories of Friday are a little hazy. It’s possible all I did was play this game. Fortunately, the kids dig it too.

GeoGuessr plunks you down somewhere in the world. You could be anywhere. (Well, anywhere covered by Google’s Street View.) Imagine if you really were dropped somewhere and you didn’t know where you are. You’d start to look for clues, right? You can navigate around and start to narrow it down. What language are the signs in? What side of the road are the cars driving on? What’s the architecture and the foliage like? When you’re ready to guess, you can click the world map and get points for how close you come.

We’ve been discussing house rules for this game. My husband got one down to the street by looking at signage, and at first Olive and I thought that was cheating. We softened when we started to Google what we were finding.

For instance. Look at this pretty scenery. Got a guess as to where it is?

Wait. Turn to the left. A tunnel! Hmmm. The plot thickens.

Go through the tunnel and find a sign on the other side. Well that’s a pretty good clue.

Google break….

We found a map and got pretty darn close.

We also found YouTube videos of driving through this Ohmori Tunnel in Kamoenai Village, Hokkaido, Japan. Isn’t that crazy and amazing? GeoGuessr is such a great path to global discoveries. And now all Ozzie wants to do is watch YouTube videos of tunnels.

Tomorrow’s a big day. Ozzie is turning 3! I know I should be wistful for the end of the baby years, but it’s so much fun to have a big boy. He’s not yet a reliable witness for this interview since he pretty much only thinks about what he’s done in the last 15 minutes, so the rest of the family determined the favorites from Ozzie’s time as a 2-year-old.

Favorite Book: No, David!
A great fit for any 2-year-old, really. We went through quite a long spell where Ozzie would want every one of the No, David series that we have in the house (including David Goes To School and David Gets In Trouble) at bedtime, and nothing else. Honorable mentions for the year go to Go, Dog. Go! and Taro Gomi’s Bus Stops.

Favorite App: Toca Train
Ozzie’s a whiz with the iPad, and loves all of the Toca Boca apps, but Toca Train tops them all. I think it’ the power of driving the train. Pepi Bath got quite a bit of play this year, too.

Favorite eBook: Hansel and Gretel
This is a new category for these interviews, but interactive eBooks have really become a thing this past year, and the one that Ozzie plays most frequently is Hansel and Gretel by PB&J Publishing. It’s got beautiful art and nice voiceover. There are parts of it that freak Ozzie out a bit, but I think that may be part of the draw, like he’s building up his courage or something like that.

Favorite TV Show: Daniel Tiger’s Neighborhood
Yo Gabba Gabba was knocked out of the top slot in Ozzie’s TV roundup thanks to the new Daniel Tiger’s Neighborhood. I think he sees in Daniel a totally relatable kid with experiences that model his own. The musical jingles in each episode are a big draw, too. SuperWHY has also been in pretty heavy rotation lately, and he dabbled in Sid the Science Kid this year, too.

Favorite Museum: Museum of Mathematics
I think both of the kids have been favoring the new MoMATH, with its math-themed rides, puzzles, and projects. The size of the museum is also nice — two floors that never feel overwhelming.

Favorite Music: “Bubble Factory” by Recess Monkey
Ozzie lives and breathes this video. He’s obsessed with both garages and Recess Monkey’s mascot, Mayor Monkey. Everything that even remotely functions like a garage door in Ozzie’s daily life — the medicine cabinet, the butter door of the refrigerator, the hood on his jacket — becomes a space where he can imagine Mayor Monkey inside. He’s also very big into hiding in the curtains with his microphone so that he can pretend he’s on Yo Gabba Gabba introducing the Super Music Friends Show. When he does, he always introduces the same video, Of Montreal with “Bananas, Rice, Applesauce, Toast”.

Favorite Toy: Little People Wheelies Stow ‘n Tow Garage
Did I mention a garage obsession? It’s no secret in our family, so for Christmas Ozzie received two different versions of the Stow ‘n Tow Garage (on is Cars-branded). They’ve got handles at the top and Ozzie will walk around the apartment carrying his two garages. It’s pretty darn cute.

I can’t wait to see what the next year brings!

Previously:

Interview with a 2-Year-Old

Favorites From the First Year