Everyday Dinosaur

Like our blog title suggests, we do talk dinosaur.  Everyday in fact.  I know that my posts sometimes have nothing to do with the once plentiful animals that are now extinct (or are they?).  Rest assured though, everyday of our exciting lives is filled with dinosaurs in one way or another.

The "jet pack"

Take the mornings, for example, we wake up and eat breakfast.  Okay, nothing really dinosaur-like about that.  We get dressed and out comes the first dinosaur.  Today Isaac donned a stegosaurus tee.  He sure loves those dino tees.  I've pretty much given up trying to get him to wear non-dino tees with the exception being on Sundays.  Other dino things we do in the morning: watch The Dinosaur Train on PBS and put on our dinosaur "jet pack".

After taking Isaac to school, you would think that us two girls would put all that dinosaur stuff behind us.  Not so.  We frequent the local library and just because we love our boys so much, we make sure that we hunt down a few good books about dinosaurs.  Finding dinosaur books in the picture book section can be tricky.  Here are the last names of some authors that write books about dinosaurs: Barton, Most, Strickland, and Yolen.  The non-fiction section is also a great and easy place to find books about dinosaurs since they are typically all lumped together.

On to lunch.  We eat dinosaur shaped sandwiches!  Now, I should say that I'm really baffled by the power of the DinoBytes sandwich crust cutter.  If you give one of my kids a regular sandwich that's been cut neatly down the middle chances are they will pull it apart and leave at least one element untouched, typically the bread.  But if you cut that same sandwich with the DinoBytes cutter, the sandwich will be completely devoured.  I should also give you fair warning, this is a crust cutter.  You will have crusts left over, which, if you are like me, you will not want to go to waste.  Therefore you will end up eating crust sandwiches for your own lunch.

Our afternoons are also filled with dinosaurs.  Isaac really loves putting together dinosaur puzzles and he is quickly amassing a large collection of them.  I've found that Melissa & Doug make some nice quality wooden and cardboard dinosaur puzzles.  But the toy snob in me should tell you that they aren't very scientifically accurate.  Some of the dinos pictured together in the puzzles weren't alive at the same time.  But the mom in me will tell you that they satisfy the need to see all the famous dinosaurs together on one puzzle.

Our evenings are filled with books about dinosaurs.  And the boys' dreams (and maybe Annie's too) just might be filled with dinosaurs as well.  And I know that some of you might be thinking that a lot of the dinosaur loving is coming from Isaac.  But I assure you all that Orry is on that bandwagon as well.  He's got a class assignment due in about 5 weeks where he will have to give a small presentation about what he wants to be when he grows up.  His answer, a paleontologist.  He will dress the part and give a speech about what a paleontologist is, what kind of education he has to have, what kind of tools he uses, and what contributions he makes to the community.  This really has the potential for being a life-making lesson.  We'll see how it goes and we'll be sure to post some photos.

In the meantime, I hope your days are filled with the things that you love!  Life is too short to not be doing the things that you enjoy.

Wondrous Weather

Here in Houston it has rained for two days in a row!  It only totaled about 3.5 inches, but it helped to alleviate some of the drought we've been facing since about January.  3.5 inches might sound like a lot to some of you, but by this time last year we had about 18 inches fall.  So we are still in a major rain deficit, but this nice soaking helped with a number of things.

It helped to put out some of the wildfires in counties around Eastern Texas.  It helped to water our scorched backyard.  It gave the birds a much needed bath.  Dirty birds.  It helped to drive down our record heat wave.  And it gave us the perfect opportunity to talk about the weather.

Usually, talking about the weather is a sign that a conversation has stalled.  Not so for the Becker household.  We took this opportunity to use our senses.  What were the things we heard?  Thunder.  Birds singing their rain songs.  What colors did we see in the sky?  Shades of grey.  Bright white and blue.  What did we feel when we were outside?  Raindrops slowly falling.  The hot sun on our faces.  Yes, indeed.  The rain gave us an opportunity to discover.

It also gave us the opportunity to learn about weather systems.  Why it rains and how to predict the weather were a couple of the things we got to discuss.  This week I am encouraging Orry to draw pictures of the weather he experienced that day.  Today the drawings were done outside with chalk.

Opportunities to discover something new happen everyday.  We just have to be open to seeing them.  Sometimes it means that we have to look down and dig through the dirt a little.  Sometimes it's as simple as looking up and noticing the birds in the trees; finding a nest to observe.  And if we are lucky, our children will make the opportunities for us by asking curious questions.  We are all so lucky to live in a wondrous world!