Xavier Explores Anatomy
Greetings to all.
It started with someone gifting Xavier several Berenstain Bears books, and Xavier deciding he wanted to read "The Berenstain Bears and Too Much Junk Food."
Actually, it started earlier. Several months ago, in point of fact. Xavier began asking questions about his food and snacks. "Does this have sugar in it?" or "Is this a healthy snack?"
He would also have commentary about food, saying it was healthy or not healthy. This he used particularly when he wanted to eat something or not eat something and he was lobbying for parental support.
Then he found the "Too Much Junk Food" book.
In this book, the Bear family visits their doctor, who shows them slides of what their bodies look like on the inside. There are drawings of the digestive system, the nervous system, the circulatory system, bones and muscle.
Xavier was fascinated by these pictures. He wouldn't let me turn the page. He just wanted to look at them, and ask many questions. We ended up reading the book not just at bed time, but several times a day for many days in a row.
I thought of the Visible Man model I built as a child. So Xavier and I hit several stores looking for one. Back in my day, entire store rows held shelves of plastic models: planes, ships, visible frogs, and visible men. Gone from the stores are those shelves and shelves of models.
We visited five different stores. Nada. We found visible heads, visible torsos, visible feet, but no visible "everything".
We came home empty-handed, but not disheartened. We still had the Internet!
After fifteen minutes of searching, we found nothing. Oh, we did find the Visible Man, but no way was I going to shell out $75+ dollars for it! Apparently, the Visible Man of yesteryear has become a collector's item. Still, I was determined to get Xavier something before his interest in the body's workings waned.
Then, we stumbled on just the right key words for our Google searches!
For just $20 we found better than we originally thought to find. No painting of plastic organs. Instead, the organs are squishy and tacky. Not too much detail to overwhelm Xavier. In fact, just a little more detail than the Berenstain Bear book showed.
And, as Xavier would soon point out, the Visible Man model showed the insides of people, not bears.
We added it to our shopping cart, then headed for the virtual checkout. Surprisingly, it said it would arrive the day before Thanksgiving. Xavier waited and checked the front door step every day. We even followed the tracking number. I arrived in Denver on Tuesday. Excitement grew. Loaded on the truck for delivery on Wednesday, Xavier was bouncing off the walls.
It did not arrive on Wednesday, leaving both of us disappointed. I reset his expectation for Monday or Tuesday. But to our surprise—and the goodness of God!—a deliveryman showed up late Thanksgiving morning. Guess what he delivered?
For the next two days, Xavier carried his Visible Man everywhere. It came with a book that explains the systems as we follow a bite of pizza through the body. We've read that many times. He has even taken it to school for show and tell.
What's next?
Funny you should ask that. The other night, while in bed, Xavier started talking about being in Mama's tummy. His questions soon turned to how did he get into Mama's tummy. My answers to his questions led down a road he is not yet ready for. Soon, however, his Visible Man model is likely to have a Visible Woman model standing at his side.