Guess What, Mom! I'm Having A Party!

Mister Man arrived home on Tuesday in his usual flurry of activity. His backpack was quickly slung to the floor, his shoes kicked off and disappearing in different directions, and his backpack opened for unpacking. Then the wailing started.

Moooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooom! I forgot my note. I lost my note!

What note, Sweetie? I asked, confusion on my face, hoping it wasn't something from the teacher.

My note, Mom! I left it in Mrs. C's car, he sniffled.

Oh, that's ok. We can call her, right? As soon as you can stop crying, I can call her and talk to her about getting it back, I intoned calmly.

The sniffling quickly slowed, then ceased. Mister Man took a deep breath, and I picked up my phone. Hey, Nancy, I said. Mister Man left a note in your car today. He's freaking out - any chance we can get it back from you at some point? What kind of a note was it, Mister Man? I asked to the side.

It was Post-It Notes, all stuck together, he explained eagerly.

My eyebrows raised, I repeated the new information. And he's saying that there are a bunch of names on it, too. Any luck? I heard rummaging in her car before the triumphant note in her voice told me she'd found it even before she announced the success.

As I got off the phone, I turned to Mister Man to try to figure out what this note could possibly be. Well, Mom, it's a list of everyone who wants to come and everyone who can come. Oh, and everyone who can't come but wants to come and everyone who doesn't want to come but can come, he blurted excitedly.

Come? Come to what? I took a deep breath, fearing to hear his answer.

My party, Mommy! My dinosaur party on Saturday, he explained, somewhat impatiently.

Your what? What dinosaur party? I could hear the panic in my voice already.

The party to make dinosaur eggs. I asked everyone in my class, and they can come on Saturday at 11am. My note shows everyone who can come, his explanation began to grow impatient.

Mister Man. You have tae kwon do on Saturday until 10:45 and won't be home until after 11. Little Miss has a soccer game from 10:30-11:30. How exactly are you supposed to have a party? And do you think maybe this is something you should talk to me about, I explained as calmly as I possibly could, mentally writing the email to the parents in his class explaining that there was no party on Saturday when we would not be home.

A little backstory.

On Monday, Mister Man was reading his Boy Scout magazine and came to an article on how to make dinosaur eggs. The boy wants to be a paleontologist, and his favorite birthday gifts have been the toy dinosaurs he "excavates" from a sand/clay "egg" with tiny little tools. When he'd asked if we had sand (yep, sandbox) and flour and salt and coffee grounds (well, sorta), I had agreed that he could at some point make a dinosaur egg, provided that Daddy agreed to save his coffee grounds.

Annnnnnnd enter autism.

I love that he had the social instincts to want to invite his friends. I love that he wanted to share this great thing with them - and that he knew to ask if they were interested in it or not. But the whole planning a party that he didn't talk to me about first because he didn't think through the whole thing, that I don't love so much.

After long explanations, I thought he understood that he could have a party at some point but that we'd need to plan it together.

Fast forward to Wednesday morning. Mister Man, Little Miss, come on upstairs. It's time to get dressed for school, I called down - just like I do every morning.

But Mooooooom, I'm busy. I've only gotten through two and a half of these so far! Mister Man whined back up at me.

Call me suspicious, but I booked it down there to see what he was so hard at work on that he couldn't come upstairs to get ready for school. My suspicions were confirmed.

Note that he picked up on the fact that the party can't be at 11am. It's now at 11:03. And I believe he snuck a peek at the calendar to see what day might have fewer things going on, though he neglected to discuss this with me.

I will give him kudos that he (successfully) figured out how to divide his class evenly into four groups - since he thought he was going to use his four small dinosaurs that he'd excavated previously. The fact that he hadn't thought through the fact that his friends were probably each going to want one of their own or that the eggs wouldn't be dry by the time the children left never entered his mind.

I sighed again. And I checked the calendar. June 4 does work for us. And he's gotten his class so excited about it (to the point that his teachers have requested that I chat with him about how he can't talk about it during school anymore). And though he also told Little Miss that she could invite her whole class to the party (ummm 40 kids in my house making dino eggs, I'm not that much a saint), he now understands that she can invite one or two really good friends, but that's it.

And that email to the parents explaining the fiasco? Yeah, I'm about to hit send on that one. Then again, if he's going to plan a party without asking me, I suppose I'd rather have him do it in first grade than in high school!

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I Am A Paleontologist

The giveaway for a Monopoly board game here ends tonight. And there are seven entries.

If you're up with Disney Princesses, I'm also giving away a family four pack of tickets to Disney on Ice in Chicago for the Wednesday September 8 performance here.

I'm giving away our new favorite book - Is Your Buffalo Ready for Kindergarten here.

***

It always entertains me to see what the wee ones get into. For a long time, it was Thomas the Tank Engine. Mister Man was fascinated from the time he was two and my dad took him to a train show. He knew the name of every single train and conveyance that was a part of Sodor Island, and I think we own most of them now. His room is still decorated with Thomas from the lightplate to the sheets to a rug to wall stickers.

Sadly, Mister Man is growing out of Thomas (although he's nearly seven, so we at least got our money's worth out of it!). While he watched the Thomas movie at the salon last week when we got Little Miss's hair cut, he refuses to acknowledge that he still likes him and have given most of his trains to Little Miss.

And while Star Wars is a huge passion in our house - Mister Man has read almost all the books that are age appropriate and again we know every single character - it isn't the only one.

When given a choice, Mister Man still goes for dinosaurs over Star Wars. He reads every book he can find on them, and he recently discovered the nonfiction section of our library and the great treasure trove of dinosaur books held there.

In his reading, he learns everything he can and insists that his theory - that a meteor crashed into earth unleashing ash into the sky that killed the dinosaurs - is the right one and that no others are valid.

The kid knows more about dinosaurs than I ever wanted to. And granted, I wasn't into dinosaurs growing up (nor am I now), but I can tell you how you can in general know if a dinosaur was a carnivore or an herbivore because of him. I know the names and pronounciations of more dinosaurs than I knew existed. In fact, I now know that T. Rex isn't the largest dinosaur anymore, as I had always thought (it's Argentinosaurus, I believe or maybe Allosaurus or maybe Gigantasaurus - I need to listen more closely to my Little Professor's lectures).

It is entertaining when he's around other children an a dinosaur is part of whatever they're doing. The cute little dino silly band? It isn't just a brontosaurus - nope, it's a special kind of dinosaur, according to Mister Man, and he's probably right. The flying dinosaur picture at the doctor's office? He informed the poor receptionist that it wasn't actually a dinosaur but instead a large flying bird that happened to live during the dinosaur times, as officially no dinosaurs flew. I try to explain to him that while I'm impressed with his knowledge, not everyone else needs to know quite so many specifics about them, and some people don't appreciate being corrected.

Then again, some people do like it. When we were at the St. Louis Science Center earlier this summer, there happened to be an exhibit on dinosaurs. One worker had a game of dino bingo. You had to name the dinosaur model she pulled from under the counter and see if it matched any of the (labeled) dinosaurs on your sheet.

Mister Man named each dinosaur without looking at his sheet. And as more dinosaurs were pulled, he would separate them into groups for the worker. Each was a grouping of the dinosaurs that lived during the era. Before I realized what he was doing, I noticed that some dinosaurs he would lay on their sides, and some were left standing. He soon explained that the ones on their sides were dinosaurs that came from earlier eras and were therefore dead by the time the other dinosaurs were around. The woman was impressed.

Mister Man's favorite song on the radio right now is - of course - "I Am A Paleontologist," which I think is awfully appropriate. I won't even try to type the lyrics, as there are too many dinosaurs I can barely pronounce in it, let alone spell. The song awakened the idea in him that he, too, could one day be a paleontologist and discover dinosaurs and work with them. The idea has him fascinated, and I'm waiting for the day when he asks to be a paleontologist for Halloween (in the meantime, I snagged a really neat clone trooper costume for him for $20).



I love seeing the passion for this awaken curiosity and creativity in my children. It amazes me how much they want to learn and how they see so many ways to use their knowledge and share it with others. It makes him even more motivated in school to learn the math and science he'll need, and I've emphasized how much writing he'll be doing as a paleontologist, taking notes of all he discovers.

This passion may fade, only to be replaced by another, just as Thomas was. But in the meantime, I'll be doing anything I can to encourage his curiosity and his thirst for knowledge. What else is a mom for?

This post was inspired by the new book "Dinosaurs on the Move: Movable Paper Figures to Cut Color, and Assemble" which I received as a part of the Left to Write book club.

As a side note, because I know people will ask - this was a really cool activity; however, needing to find and use brads to put the dinos together was a bummer. We have other dino assembly books that do not require additional materials.