Magic Time
The kids were playing (nicely!) yesterday, and I heard A. say that she was going to do a magic trick for R. She took a stuffed animal and a blanket and ran into another room.A good three minutes later (I can just imagine the careful planning and work she was doing in that time) she reappeared with the blanket wrapped up in a ball and sat down on the floor in front of R.
Agra... padagra... brilliant. I definitely like it better that the "official" magic word.R.! Look! Watch me! (as she waved her hand over the blanket-ball)
Agrapadagra, alla kazaam! (and she opened the blanket to reveal the toy)
Creepy Crawlies
It was a rainy chilly weekend in MA, but the rain broke in the afternoon. I went outside to pull some weeds and plant some flowers, and when I lifted a bag of leaves that had been there for a couple of weeks, I saw a bit of reddish color. Luckily it was cold and the little guy didn't move much, so I picked him up and went to find A. (R. was napping)Me: "A.! Come see the salamander!"
One of the happiest sounds in the world is the excited scampering of a 4 year old as you hear her drop everything and dash to see something new. Also ranking up there in the "happy sounds" department is the joyful giggling as I put the salamander down and he scampered to find a hiding spot under my glove.
A.: "Can I touch her?" (the salamander morphed into a "her" immediately, as always)
Me: "Yes, but only a little, on the tail. She needs to stay moist and slimy, so we can't touch her too much."
After a couple of minutes of looking at it, A. decided it was time to let it go back to its home, so we scooped it up and deposited it under a shady bush."Goodbye, Mr. Salamander!" we said, because I guess it switched back to being male.
The picture here is one I found on the web that seems to be the same species. Reddish stripe down the back on an otherwise black/dark-brown body. Our specimen was about 3 inches long. Fun stuff.
3 comments:
I agree with you about happy sounds. There is nothing in the world like an interested child!
If I get a better picture of "our" snake, I'll post it and you can show it to her. Maybe she'd like him. I mean, her.
We had something similar. Except my daughter wanted to keep it as a pet and put it in a plastic box in the sun. Apparently those little critters can dry out darn fast!
Luckily, it wasn't sunny that day!
One thing I regret from the whole salamander episode is that I didn't put it in a box and wait for my son to get up from his nap so he could see it too.
The poor 2 yr old kid gets the shaft from both angles. On one side, I expect him to be more mature than he is because his older sister is so "grown up", and on the other side, I sometimes think "oh, he's only two so this or that wouldn't be interesting to him." I'm working hard to fix my default reactions to situations and to be aware of these tendencies, but it's an ongoing process.
I foresee a salamander hunt in my near future...
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