SICK SICK SICK!

We're all sick here. For the last 7 years or so, whenever I've gotten a cold, it's ended up being a long, drawn out cough. I also have a tendency to cough up these nasty phlegm globbers when I'm sick. Yes, I know that is more than you need to know. Well, Paul is sick now, and guess what, it's gooey.

Paul: coughing, spitting and generally making gross noises.

Leo: "It's disgusting. Ewwww"

Paul: "Yeah, I've turned into your mommy"

iPad

I couldn't resist. Terry showed me his iPad when I was in Portland and I fell in love. Another guy at the conference had one and let me play with it - a great substitute for the 5.6 lb MacBook that I lug around when I travel! So I ordered one. I was so excited, I told Leo, "Guess what I just got! An iPad!!!!" He didn't know what it was, of course, and I told him it could do anything and how cool it was. He replied, "Can it take an x-ray of your body? Can it take out your eyeball and glue your eyeball back in without hurting it? Does it have a microphone to hear food talk? To hear bacteria talk with real understanding?" Nope, guess it ain't that cool after all.

New book by Leo, 'wroten in Alien language'

Leo wrote a book which is "wroten in Alien language", which he reads in this video, titled, "Finding Drago". While an outrageous plagiarism of the Leapster book, it is a very emotionally charged version of this lovely Bakugan story.

What if I kill someone?

We got a free book from Playfair Toys as part of their push for child literacy (somehow I doubt Boulder literacy is down these days but we like books!) - Always. It's about how a mom tells her kid that she will always love him no matter what. I asked if Leo if I loved him even though he made a mess - he said yes. I said even if he didn't eat and he said yes. I said even if he drew on the cork floor with a pen and said yes. I asked if I would love him no matter what and he said no. I asked what he would have to do for me not to love him. He said if he killed someone I would not love him. I was stumped. We'd never talked about something like that before. I said what if it was a bad guy and he was trying to hurt Leo? We decided there could potentially be acceptable reasons for killing someone. We discussed car accidents where someone died. And then finally I told him that even if he killed someone and it wasn't an accident and it wasn't a bad guy, that I'd still love him no matter what.

Trouble

Today when I picked up Leo from school, he said, "You're going to be mad at me. Please don't be mad at me. I need to show you something." We went inside and he explained that he had brought in his Easter candy to school and had been giving it out to the other kids. At one point, he apparently told them to help themselves and in the ensuing fight over candy, the teacher went over, saw the candy and confiscated it. Leo had gotten in trouble (my bad) last week for bringing in a cough drop to school. This time it was candy.

He also said that he had tricked me. He was worried at home that his pockets were too small. He had pretended to put his Easter candy in a special hiding place in his bedroom and then asked if he could bring a backpack to school. He ran down to his room to get stuff for his backpack. When we were putting his stuff in his cubby at school, he got all secretive and said, "I'll bet you don't know what is in my pocket!" I asked him if he had candy in his pocket or anything edible and he said no. He played that little game with me and I eventually gave up. He wouldn't let me check his pockets and he claimed there was no food in his pocket. It turned out there was nothing in his pockets - it was all in the backpack. I saw him showing his backpack to his friend Louisa but he told me not to watch them so I left.

Anyway, I guess it was our first major transgression. He certainly knew what he had did was wrong. He hid it from me and the teachers. He gives people candy at our house all the time and its no problem, so I can see that he might have thought giving away candy at school would be similar. But he must have known it was against the rules because he hid it. I asked him why he tricked me and why he didn't tell me or the teachers what he was doing. He said he didn't know. He was very upset coming home today because he thought Paul would give him a time-out. I explained that Paul probably had a lot of sympathy for people who break rules because Paul was a rule-breaker and that it was me he should be worried about because I was such a goody-two-shoes.

We decided he would not get any candy or video or any treat today. And that I would put the candy up high somewhere so he could not access it. He said, "Mom, you can't do that because I can reach anywhere. You have to lock it up!"

Sperm in the Brain

Yesterday as we were trying to get out of the house, Leo set up a "locked gate" for me to get through to get out of the kitchen. I had to push buttons on his hand and twist a drum sitting on his leg and do all this stuff to get out. I wasn't really paying attention and did it wrong a couple times.

He later said he had a question for me. He doesn't usually ask that in a serious voice, so I took him seriously. He asked, "why do mommies and daddies sometimes forget things that kids don't, even when mommies and daddies have bigger brains? Your brain is so big it couldn't fit into MY head. Is it because your brain is getting old? And the tadpoles, I mean the sperm, I mean when you get old you don't have as many sperm branches."

That led to first, a correction that tadpoles, sperm, and neurons all looked alike but neurons were in the brain. And that we only used a small part of the brain. And that people remember different things depending on what is important to them. And that there are fewer neural pathways when you get older and this is why kids brains learn so much faster than adult brains.