Snakes and Snails and puppy dog tails

Here's what this little boy is made of:
1) Legos. I catch him pretending to blow up bad guys with fighter jets he has created or figuring out how to put separate rooms in the houses he makes. He'll spend hours sometimes in his own little Lego land. At first he just copied the instructions for the kits we bought (to make certain ships or houses), but now he uses those ideas to make other things. I love his creativity.

2) Brother Time. He loves playing with Ben who makes him laugh a lot. Ben jumps in on any opportunity to play with Sam. Sam loves teasing him until Ben attacks. I think Sam has run to me scared of Ben more than the other way around, so it's a pretty even match. It's funny to see Ben play with Lucy and Sam -- with Sam he's a tough mean guy. With Lucy he's a baby she puts to sleep or a sweet puppy who follows her around. He wrestles with Sam and plays house with Lucy. But this isn't Ben's blog, is it? But here's Sam doing the Haka (slap dance).



3) Learning new things. I met him for "Lunch on the Lawn" at school today. He was carrying a little scrap of papers with a mess of letters that didn't make sense to me. He said he learned a new rule that none of the kindergarteners even know! It's about what letters come with C and K. It didn't make sense to me, but he seemed to relish his newfound wisdom. He's also quite proud of his new tricks like riding bikes or doing a pull-up. He's just starting to ride on his own pretty well and he's gaining confidence. He can't wait to show his cousins or family that come around. Here's Sammy mastering the easy-ski.

4) Jokes. Today for the first time he finally got the "Orange you glad I didn't say Banana" knock-knock joke. We've told it to them over and over helping them learn it, and I guess he struggled learning it because it didn't make sense! Tonight Chris told it to him and he laughed and laughed at the punchline.

Here's some stellar stand-up Barney style.

5) Experiments. His favorite thing to do after school is experiment. He mixed soap and sunscreen the other day and mused at the bubbling goop. He loves food coloring. He always asks "Wouldn't it be cool if....?" questions. He wondered if the sidewalk was hot enough to cook an egg last week when it hit 110. We tried it. It didn't cook, but we had fun trying! Sometimes he'll create things he's seen on TV. He tried to make a fuse line (Tom and Jerry style) with lots of random bits of rope/string/anything that could connect in any way. He wanted to light it to watch the flame crawl along the path he had made but I talked him out of it. That kind of experimenting makes me a bit nervous, but he's usually responsible. Here's the egg --