The Planets and Super Ian; Writing Letters and Numbers

Ian's latest obsession is the planets. He can name all of them. Here are some quotes:
"Neptune is very cold."
"The sun is not a planet."
"Pluto is not a planet anymore. Earth is still a planet!" (This is a change from "I don't think Earth is a planet.")
"Mars is red."
"Saturn has rings!"
"Earth has a lot of water."
"Ian and Mommy and Daddy live on Earth." (He was ignoring Lia that day.)

Then we happened to watch a Blue's Clues episode about the solar system and they have a little song that names all of the planets. Steve "skidoos" into a picture of space and is able to fly around as "Super Steve". Jeff was busy last week with work, so I had to give Ian a bath one night. To get him out of the bathtub, I got out a new towel with a hood attached to it and told him he could be "Super Ian". He got out in a hurry. He wanted to wear the towel to bed. As usual, reason prevailed with him. I told him that we had to hang it up to dry so that he could be Super Ian again tomorrow night. He's been Super Ian every night since.

And the other day he says to me, "Ian and Daddy are very tall." I asked him if Mommy was tall, too. "No, Mommy. Ian and Daddy are very tall. Mommy is very short." Humph.

He's been very difficult these days about a lot of things, like eating his dinner, getting ready for bed, taking a bath -- you name it -- so he is constantly being scolded and punished. He's such a parrot. I hear him saying things to himself when he's playing or drawing that we have told him or that his teachers have told him. So the other night I'm feeding Lia and he's finishing his fruit and he turns to me and says, "Mommy, if you are not a good listener and you are a bad mom, I will give you a time out, ok?" I ignored him and he said, "OK?!? Say ok, Mommy!"

Jeff practices writing with him sometimes and he's getting very good at all the letters and numbers. He loves numbers now, too. He often asks us how to say a number, like "Mommy, what number is 3 and 9?" Answer: 39. So he was writing numbers and letters last weekend and I hear him talking to himself, saying, "We write from left to right, not from right to left." He knows what letter all of our names start with and he can write his name and Lia's name. He knows that Mommy has a lot of m's. Miss Tiffany's name has two f's and so does Daddy's. Pretty good!