dinosaur mania

We have a big pile of dirt on our driveway from lots of yardwork that we've been doing. The kids have been loving it. Roen has especially loved it with his current dinosaur fixation. He's made a whole dinosaur museum out of dirt clods. I can even recognize the dinosaur types, which is suprising since we are talking about dirt clods here. He's got an apatosaurus, Tyrannosaurus, and a slightly smaller allosaurus. Pleiosaurus is out there as well - although that's not really a dinosaur. It's in some other category of ancient sea creatures. Anklysaurus is his favorite.

Despite favoring herbivores, he talks about being a carnivore a lot and says things like, "Watch me crush ice with my powerful jaws." He was chasing another kid the other day declaring he was a predator and the other kid was his prey. It was pretty funny. The kids took turns playing predator tag.

His latest is pretending to be a fossil himself. He lays down in the sandbox and covers himself with sand. I then have to discover him and dig up all the bones. Drag him over to the patio (aka the museum), then put him together and set him up on display. He then strikes a variety of dinosaurish poses.

When he's not playing dinosaur, then he's drawing them. He draws great dinosaur skeleton pictures. Sometimes, he models them out of clay. Recently, he's tried building them out of Legos.

Doctor Lawyer Banker Thief Sailor Soldier Indian Chief

Roen is always planning out his future career. It changes frequently. Maybe he'll be an artist/illustrator. Then, he wanted to be a race car driver for awhile. Then, suddenly, he wanted to be a soldier. Erk!!! The one career I would never want him to have. I hate it when he talks about wanting to be a soldier. Not that I have anything against soldiers, I simply wouldn't want Roen in harm's way ever.

Anyhow, he switched today and decided that he wants to be a paleontologist. He said,"Some people might think it's boring to try to put a dinosaur skeleton together but not me. I would like it. It would be a puzzle. I want to be a paleontologist and go find anklyosaurus bones." I worked in a paleontology department for a year -- so his comments made me feel quite chuffed and also relieved that the"soldier career" may have passed.

Later, he was pensive and told me that some people grow up to be thieves and he wanted to know why. I never feel like I have good answers for these sorts of questions. I told him that most of life is about making choices and some people make bad ones and go to jail for their bad choices.

pickles and pancakes

Ro had an unusual dinner at Grandma's house. He had pancakes topped with butter, syrup, and pickles. He even insisted that Grandma follow the two bites rule, which is that you must try two bites of a new food and it will help you grow new tastes on your tongue.

For breakfast, he wanted the same thing but with a pizza twist. A pancake scattered with sliced sweet pickles, blobs of blackberry jelly, and little pats of butter. My stomach curdles but he says it was delicious. Maybe, he's struck upon a way to get revenge for all the new foods he's been eating.

(Real) Mother's Day

I had a really nice (real) Mother's Day. Roen made me a puzzle piece pin at school. He was very excited about keeping it a secret until the right time. He did a good job. He came bounding up the stairs first thing Sunday morning for me to open his present and his card. After I opened it, he ran downstairs and wrapped up our barrel of monkeys game for an additional present Then, he ran downstairs again and made me a second card on the back of a receipt, which I will unfortunately have to mail to a company. He was so excited. He's been so on about Mother's Day, I feel like he was waiting for Christmas.

spider hands

Simone's favorite game is to play spiders. My hands are the spiders. She just loves it. She likes the spider to sit on her hand, which is an elevator. The elevator takes the spider from her feet to the top of her head where it likes to make nests.