Long Building and Tall Man

I helped with the design and construction of the long building but the tall man (on the right) was all Dexter.

Some Sort of Special Drawer?

The other day Dex and I were driving in the car we were listening to the Moth Story Hour on NPR. A woman was telling the story of preparing for the birth of her first child. In predictable fashion, she first explained how she had it all meticulously planned out. She had read all the books and decided how she wanted this birth to go. She even made 30 laminated copies of a typed 8 page detailed plan for everyone in the hospital about how she didn't want any medications, wanted a totally natural birth, no instruments, etc. But after 30 hours of painful labor she was hooked up to every device in the hospital with pain medication zooming through her veins.

As she began to talk about how different the experience was with her second child (she no longer felt the need for total control), Dexter quietly asked, "Does it hurt to have a baby? Did it hurt when you had me?" I explained that it does hurt when a baby comes out, and that it did hurt when he was born but that the pain is only for a little bit and then there is a lot of joy and relief when the baby arrives and when he came out Daddy and I couldn't have been more excited and happy. Thinking I could turn this into a learning moment about the importance of facing challenges rather than avoiding them I added, "sometimes the most important things in life are difficult but they sure are worth the effort." For a few seconds I thought I was off the hook. But then he asked, "Do you have some sort of special drawer?"

How does one respond to this?!  I wanted to laugh but I didn't want to make him feel foolish. I wanted to make sure he didn't have the wrong idea in his head but I didn't want to go overboard with details. Finally I said, "It's more like a baby gate. Girls have a place on their bodies where the baby comes out." Of course the next question was, "where?" I explained that girls have that place between their legs. "Can I have a baby?" "No, boys can't have babies.  Girls and boys have different bodies and only girls can have babies." "How does the baby get in there?" Oh Geez, here we go... "Moms and Dads share a special kind of love and the difference in their bodies allows them to make a baby together. But the baby only grows in the Mommy." I waited a couple seconds for the next question. But it never came. At least not yet.

Inspired by Elissa's Colored Ice Balls

Elissa told me about making colored ice balls with Ian during the last deep-freeze. We decided to give it a try with Dexy.  We filled balloons with water and food coloring and then put them out in the snow to freeze.





After peeling away the balloon casing, we ended up with beautifully colored ice balls that we used to line our front walkway. Unfortunately, the drifting snow quickly covered them up.

Momentum Experiment

The other day when I came home from work Dexter couldn't wait to tell me about the "momentum experiment" that he conducted with Daddy in the basement. They placed a toy pig on a skateboard and pushed it into the wall. When the skateboard stopped, the pig kept going into the wall!

Next, they tied the pig onto the skateboard and when they repeated the same experiment with this single adaptation, the pig stopped at the same time the skateboard did.

The additional variable of My Bologna's excited barking did not change the outcome. Dex explained that they had seen the experiment on Sid the Science Kid and wanted to try it out. I was so happy that Dex has a Daddy who does these things with him. I was also really happy that he got pictures of it!

Pineapple Sneezes

Dex announced to me yesterday, "If you have to sneeze, just say pineapple and you won't have to sneeze anymore." When I questioned where he heard this, he told me his teachers told him. When I asked him if it worked, he said he kept forgetting to try it.  Yesterday, Dex had plenty of sneezes so (luckily?) he had plenty of opportunities to try it.  Sometimes it worked - I heard him say "pineapple" and it wasn't followed by a sneeze. Sometimes the sneeze came out as he said pineapple. I think we now have new measure of how sick Dexy is - the number of "pineapples" he utters per day!

Finally Warm Enough to Try the New Christmas Sleds

Rather than the problem of not having enough snow to try out the new Christmas sleds, this year, we have had to wait for temps to warm up enough to enjoy the snow we do have! Dex is getting really good at going down all by himself,

with the occasional "kerplunk" before reaching the pavement of the parking lot,

and pulling the sled up the hill all by himself.

Upwords. Up, Up, Up!

Dex and Daddy challenged Mommy to a game of Upwords (Daddy should have known better).

Dex helped Daddy think of words and find placements on the board. Daddy needed all the help he could get!

While cleaning up after their thrashing by Mommy, Dex decided it would also be fun to build the tiles up, up, up.