So I get home this afternoon and the Doodlebug is out in the backyard, carefully cutting up chunks of mud with the side of a garden spade.
What are you doing, Atticus?
Cutting up vegetables.
He recently figured out how to cut up his pancakes with the side of a fork, and the other day he got to help dad cut up carrots with an actual knife. Apparently this new skill is very simulating for him, because I got him a plastic knife and he literally sat out there for two full hours doing this. We had to drag him in for a bath but promised him that he can work on it again some more tomorrow.
I think it is amazing when the kids hit on something that coincides so well with their development that they are willing to concentrate on it for hours. It's pretty amazing. He was just so relaxed and happy out there, perfecting his technique.
In other news, we go to the dinosaur museum and the "bug guy" is there with a cart full of snakes, turtles, and tarantulas. When we walk in he's sitting there with a snake around his neck. Franny-bug, of course, shrieks, "A snake! I want to PET IT!" and makes a beeline for the snake. She loved on that snake and let it lick her all over the hand and face with its little forked tongue. (Ugh, right?) She didn't even hesitate for a second.
I'm kind of proud of her for being so brave, but it also terrifies me a little on a daily basis. I mean, this is a girl who caught a bumblebee in her bare hand. I'm a little scared she might walk in the door with a rattlesnake one of these days.
One more thing: I try to take the kids' questions seriously and give them the best, most truthful answers I can. So Atticus asks me the other day, completely thoughtfully, "Mom, why does everything have sides?"
Good grief. What do you say to that?
