Mischief Brewing

My parents have introduced Gavin and Graeme to their new role models: Calvin and Hobbes.  Since I mentioned that Gavin had taken interest in some comic type books at the library, they sent along a few collections of Calvin adventures for Gavin to read.  He's hooked.  This is great in the sense that he's reading something he enjoys and gets exposed to some pretty hard vocabulary.  There is, however, a down side in that they get introduced to a lot of other words that they quite enjoy: "World Class Poophead" and the like.

It's not that they haven't heard things like this before, and I'm choosing to see it as an opportunity for conversations now rather than when they hear the words from kids at school in the Fall.  Most of all though, they stay entertained while I'm making dinner.  Can't beat that.  And I hear this laughter frequently, which also makes the heart smile:

They've also been busy still playing with words.  They'll make up "word search games" and recently I was surprised to see them playing a game called "find the letter".  For a little background, usually when I'm taking a shower, the boys get into everything they aren't supposed to... well, snacks and craft supplies.  (Graeme in particular enjoyed making "snow" from some Styrofoam balls that were in the craft bag.  Ugh.)  This day, unlike others, I found them playing in the school room and having a great time.  The game consisted of scribbling on the chalk board as crazy as they could, then the other child would try to find a letter (or something that resembled a letter) in the mess.  Then they'd write it up top and make a word out of it (like "pig, "cat", etc.).  I was impressed.  And now I can see that Gavin REALLY needs kindergarten.  He might just teach the class; he does quite well with Graeme as his student.

Tonight they were quiet again and, though I wondered what they were up to, I didn't dare disturb them.  After about 20 minutes (enough time for me to read a magazine and have a glass of wine - good mummy), they emerged with these:

This is, according to Graeme, a diesel electric #1 engine.  You can see the "#1" even though the shape is somewhat questionable.  Gavin cut this out for him, but he drew it... not too shabby.

 
Gavin came out with Harvey, who is the crane engine on the Thomas the Train series.  He's written Harvey, minus the "e", and has a cute little hook and everything.  I was impressed again.  Then they made little beds for their trains and put them to bed in their rooms.  I'm sure they'll want cereal in the morning too.  Trains and cars are still quite hungry around here.