Marriage on his mind

Last night, while we were reading books, Xander looked at me with those huge brown eyes and said 'Mommy, you're beautiful. I want to marry you.' Then he got tearful and announced that he didn't want me to marry daddy. I cuddled him and laughed and said 'But if I weren't married to daddy then there wouldn't be a Xander and a Jason.' My very logical son then pointed out that since they were now here, I needn't STAY married to daddy and I could marry him. Grin. Tom just grimaced.

Later, while Tom was taking Jason to the loo, Xander and I were again talking about marriage. Xander told me 'I already married you.' I said 'Yes, and you told me that I would be a princess.' He nodded and then, in one of those lightening changes of topic told me 'And I like peanuts too. The ones with the lids.' HUH! That puts me in my place!

Namesake behavior

Sometimes I have to wonder if maybe my children spoke to me inutero. Why? Something to do with 'the naming of cats' I supposed. Well, there was a good example yesterday: Tom and Jason were playing soccer in the backyard. Xander (Alexander the Great) was outside, dressed in his armor and carrying his sword. He decided to join in the game so he charged about kicking the ball at random. I said to Tom 'I don't know whose side he is on.' Tom laughed and said 'Why, he is the forces of chaos.' At that point Tom kicked the ball towards Jason's goal. Jason charged after it only the be confronted by his little brother, sword raised, blocking his path. "BOW TO ME!" roared the conqueror. Jason (little buddha) nearly collapsed, he was laughing so hard and Tom (The Big Fish), came up behind and tapped the ball into the goal...

Twice Married

I often tell people that while Jason never read the books on Child Development and so went his own way, Xander WROTE those books. He has proved it again. The other day, while I was sitting on the couch, Xander marched up to me: 'Mommy, I will marry you. I am a prince, when you marry me, you will be a princess.Take my hand.' (I did) 'Now Stand up' (I did) 'Say 'I Do'" (I did)'Now we are married.' I laughed and turned to Tom to comment on it. Tom growled and said 'You are already married to me. You can't get married to anyone else.' Xander gave him look for look and said "I AM A PRINCE!" and that ended the discussion. Grin.

Flat Stanley

We have a visitor -- a fellow named 'Flat Stanley'. Here is an excerpt from the letter I am writing to FS's family. It describes our Sunday trip to the Pacific Science Center:>

Dear Nic and Lisa
Here I am when I first arrived at the Dean house. Jason, who is 6, and Xander, who is 3, were so very excited to meet me – and to introduce me to their cat, Papillion (Did you know that ‘Papillion’ is the French word for butterfly? HA! This cat is no butterfly, believe me! ) I was relieved to discover that she wasn’t all that interested in me. Was nervous for a moment there. Here is a picture of us. Jason is holding me up next to his cat, Papillion
This is Xander. He is 3 – he likes me a lot, can you tell?

Once they had introduced me to the cat, the boys made me some nice warm clothes – I guess that the weather has changed here and it has gotten wet and cold. Jennifer, the boys’ mother, tells me that they never even had a summer this year, only a couple of warm days and then RAIN! After they dressed me, they made me a bed (turns out that I arrived just after dinner time and everyone was getting settled for the night.) and then Jason, who is an avid reader, read me some books. Xander was very nice and polite and sat and listened with me.
After reading, Jason and Xander took bathes (They offered me a chance but I was so nice and cozy in my bed that I decided to pass. I took a quick wash in the morning.) and had snacks and night time books. One of the favorite nighttime activities here is to do ‘Mad Libs’ – those are books of sentences with words missing. You have to fill in a word (Noun, Adjective, Adverb etc) without knowing the story. Then you read the stories that result. They are really funny. I shall have to see if I can find any that I can bring back for you. I slept in Jason’s room. It was lovely, warm and dark and the only problem was that the silly cats (they have three, it turns out) insisted on knocking on the door at 5:30 am! The next morning was Sunday. We got up, I had my quick wash, and we ate home made pancakes. Then we all loaded into the car and went to the Pacific Science Center in Seattle. Jason and Xander have been doing a ‘Dinosaur ‘ Unit for their homeschool and it just so happens that this month, the Science Center is playing host to a traveling exhibit of Dinosaur Fossils – From CHINA ! Can you believe it? Wow, it was cool. Wish you could see it. Here are some pictures of the exhibit – I am digging for fossils in a couple of them.:>
Oh, did I tell you? The fossils in this exhibit were found by a combined Canadian/Chinese research group!

There were a couple of exhibits that made me laugh – one was of the ‘Crichtonasaur’ – it is a dinosaur that is name d after Michael Crichton, the mad who wrote the novel ‘Jurassic Park’. That novel actually has some good lessons – like you should study and learn, for yourself, take responsibility for what you do, not just grab for the quick reward then blame others when things go wrong. . Anyway, it is a funny looking dinosaur. Here is a picture:
And then there is the re is the dinosaur for which they have only found one piece! But paleoentologists have STILL managed to build this giant skeleton , based on what they think are similar dinosaurs elsewhere. Wow!
Here I am, digging for Dinosaur eggs. I THINK that this was the nest of a saurapod… These two bones are from the same sort of Dinosaur. The little one is from a baby. The bigger one is from an adult. Do you think you will get that much bigger? Will I? These are replicas of the eggs of the Oviraptor. The name means ‘Egg thief’ because when they were first discovered, Scientists thought that the dinosaurs stole and ate other Dinosaurs eggs. THEN they found a Mama Oviraptor sitting on a nest and realized that the ‘eggs’ belonged to the raptor – they weren’t stealing and eating them, they were guarding them. This changed a lot of peoples’ ideas about dinosaurs – some species were ‘Good’ mothers and guarded their babies and even fed them! AND oviraptors are amongst the ‘bird hipped’ dinosaurs. They are ancestors to modern birds! They even had feathers, or so the scientists now think. Wow. This is a map of where they have found dinosaurs so far. After seeing the sxhibit, we went into the main building and the boys played virtual soccer and chess on a giant chessboard. By now, it was getting close to Xander’s nap time and the drive home is a bit long so we all piled back into the car and snacked on sandwiches and cheese sticks on the way home. By the time we got there, I was tired too so I went with Jason and we lay down and listened to a CD of Hank the Cowdog. Those are really funny. The man who wrote the stories (and there are lots of stories) was a cowboy for many years. He is really good at writing in the first person and in writing from a Dog’s point of view.

The rest of the day was pretty quite. After naps, the boys and I went out to their ‘tree house’ – it is not your typical tree house – they don’t have a tree to put on e in so Tom, the boys’ Dad, built this building. When it is all finished (they still have to paint it with pictures of leaves and dragons) they will move it back underneath the great huge pine tree and it will become an official ‘Under the tree tree house’! Then Tom discovered that he needed some pieces for the shitters so we went to the Hardware stores, ate Popcorn and looked at paint. When we were done there, we went for a long drive. It was neat to see the countryside. We drove through the farming country and finally ended up in a nearby town called ‘Kent’ – isn’t there are Kent in England? It was raining and raining . We stopped at a local mall (outdoors) and had dinner at a hamburger place called ‘Johnny Rockets’ – styled like a 1950s’ hamburger joint. Then we went and stood in the rain near a great huge open fire place. IT was strange, the contrast between the cold WET rain and the bright warmth of the fire. Then it was time to head home and get ready for bed.