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.
Setting up the New Christmas Tree
Hello to everyone and Happy Thanksgiving!
Xavier's Grandma Penny flew in for Thanksgiving this year.
This worked out for us quite nicely. Rebecca walked in the door, back from her three weeks at Andrews AFB, just after one o'clock in the morning on Wednesday. Penny arrived about ten hours later.
Of course, it's always nice to have Penny for a visit. But now, Rebecca had help cooking the feast (my contribution was to buy everything Rebecca needed; I have never cooked a Thanksgiving meal, nor cooked an 18 pound turkey, so it's best that was my primary contribution).
Rebecca, Xavier and Penny went shopping for some items, most non-food related. Rebecca had also found a sale on artificial Christmas Trees. Since the one we have saw its best years several Christmases ago, we agreed the budget could be bent to afford a new one.
Prior to Thanksgiving Day, Xavier complained every time he saw Christmas decorations, whether in a store, or someone's house, or the neighbors stringing up lights.
"It's Thanksgiving, Daddy! It's not Christmas yet," he would tell me.
That tune changed on Friday. We had a new tree and Xavier wanted to set it up and decorate it. He also thought it would be fun to decorate with Grandma Penny (who left for Fort Collins to help Chelle arrange her apartment to make it convalescent-friendly—Chelle has knee surgery next week).
Xavier wanted to wait til Sunday for Grandma Penny to decorate. However, he did not want to wait to set up the new tree. That, we did on Saturday.
After setting it up, Xavier thought the tree needed something more. He thought his train (a gift from Aunt Chelle two Christmases ago) around the tree would be that special something.
Grandpa's Cowboy Boots
Greetings to you all.
It seems so long ago. Four years and two months ago to put it in the ball park. So much has happened and changed since then.
At that time, Xavier's Grandpa Danny flew in to meet his new-born grandson for the first time. He brought with him a gift, one which Xavier would not be able to use for some time.
His gift was a pair of cowboy boots that he had when he was a boy. As you may imagine, they fitted Xavier rather loosely at the time.
Of course, everyone knew Xavier would grow into them eventually. We put them away, but every so often we would pull them out of Xavier's closet and try them on.
Always, until recently, Xavier's feet slid around in them quite freely. We tried them on the other night, and—at last!—they fit.
In fact, if the socks are too thick, you can't get them on. But once we figured that out, Xavier was up for a photo shoot to show off his heirloom kicks.
Xavier still needs to learn a few things about male modeling, or just modeling. We got a few good shots before Xavier's patience with the shooting thinned.
So, after four and a half years, Xavier finally fills his Grandpa Danny's boots.
To Grandpa Danny, Xavier says, "Thank you!"