Hand-Made Valentines

There is nothing sweeter than a hand-made Valentine, especially when it's from your 5 year old son. Daddy and I got these special gifts from Dex on Valentine's Day.

My Bologna Poem

The other night after dinner, Dexter recited for Ben and me the poem he made up about My Bologna:

My Bologna likes to eat meat.

When it's cold outside,

he gets his feet cold.

Yes, his feet.

"It rhymes!" He added excitedly.

We Are Cowboys

I walked into the kitchen to find Dex and Daddy sitting at the kitchen table with these hats on. "Mommy, we are cowboys!" Dex announced.  When I came back with the camera, Dex said, "If you put on the other hat, you can be a cowgirl!"

Four Hour Bug

Last week I left early for work only to hear the traffic report on the radio saying that the snowstorm was causing a two hour commute. Rather than waste two hours in the car (one way!), I pulled into Starbucks and worked from there all morning. When I called home at 11 to say that I would probably need a couple more hours, I was interrupted by Ben saying he had to go because Dex was throwing up. I immediately packed up my stuff, picked up some crackers and Gatorade at the Walgreens, and headed home to see how he was doing.

Dex was sitting with "pinky" (his throw-up bucket) on the couch wrapped in his "sick" blanket. He immediately asked for some crackers and Ben volunteered that he had just eaten a waffle but had refused food all morning before he tossed his cookies.



I was concerned that it would all come back up so I gave him just a little Gatorade and a few crackers. He wolfed it down and asked for more. Dex continued eating all afternoon without any other incidents. He requested sausage pizza for dinner and ate half the frozen pizza. We don't know what it was but it passed really quickly.

Dirty Jeans. Dir Tee Jeans.

When I was driving Dex home from pre-K the other day, I heard him singing softly in the back seat. "Dirty jeans, dir tee jeans."  I asked what he was singing.  He was quiet for a moment then said, "I can't remember the name of the band." I asked, "Is it AC/DC?" "Yes!" he exclaimed, "Daddy and I got AC/DC from the library." I remember when I first heard Dirty Deeds as a child and I, too, thought they were singing about dirty jeans.

Right Back Atcha, Mommy!

When Dex noticed I was taking pictures of the drawing machine, he quickly built his own camera and started clicking it at me.

Drawing Machine

Last Sunday morning Dex and I built a "drawing machine" with his fancy gear legos.

We put a marker on the arm and when Dex turned the crank, the machine moved the arm and the marker drew on the paper.

Ring Ring

This morning as I was typing up my reading reflections for my field methods class, Dexter was building "machines" with his gears legos. He came over to me and handed me a little contraption - a long, skinny red lego with a gear at each end. "It's a telephone!"  I picked it up and said, "ring, ring." He looked at me and realized he had to quickly make another telephone in order to receive my call.  He didn't have any more big gears so he made an identical "telephone" with smaller gears and "answered" it.

D: Hello?

M: Hi!  Is this Dexter?

D: Yes.

M: What are you doing?

D: Do you know why it took me so long to answer the phone?

M: No. Why did it take you so long?

D: Well, I had to build a little phone.




I asked him to describe it to me (prompting for describing and comparative words) which he did.
Then he said:

Don't forget to tell Daddy where I work if he forgets.  Tell him I work at the Weekend Workbench.

I agreed to do that and we hung up our phones.  Then he called me back and said, "Do you remember what I told you?"  I said, "Yes. Tell Daddy that you work at the Weekend Workbench." "But only if he forgets," Dex corrected.