Lovely Leopard Leaf
is what my youngest called this specimen that he collected on the way to school this morning. Yesterday we found what he deemed the world’s LARGEST ACORN.

He nailed it on naming the leaf — don’t you think?

That boy, he decides each day what type of family we are. (Typically we are an animal family of some sort. At the end of the summer, for example, we were whales for many weeks.) This is usually the first bit of information that he gives me each morning on his way through the kitchen. Yesterday we were crabs. This meant, among other things, that walking sideways was imperative as was giving me my goodnight hug with hands held like crab claws.

Today he is a little male Spinosaurus and I’m his mother Spinosaurus. He told me this and then added sympathetically that female Spinosauruses did not have a sail on their backs like male Spinosauruses. He really looked a little sad about it until I told him that it didn’t bother me to be sail-less. This cheered him.

Buster of my heart. He colors up my world something fierce.