Old bones and new words

I spent the two weeks before Thanksgiving in Germany, looking at dinosaurs. Here I am with the skull of Brachiosaurus...it may have been one of the most graceful and majestic of all God's creatures, but it had a face not even a mother could love.


Mike Taylor was there, too. Here we are sporting our super-awesome orange dinosaur t-shirts and goofing off with a fiberglass cast of an Apatosaurus thighbone. This was in Bonn, where we attended a workshop on the biology of long-necked sauropod dinosaurs.


The highlight of the trip was working in the Humbolt Museum in Berlin. Here I am up on a ladder looking at their Brachiosaurus. They have almost the entire skeleton in real bone, and most of the real bones are up in the mount, except for the neck and back vertebrae which are too heavy and too fragile to put up so high. Those are replaced with fiberglass casts, and the real bones are safe down in the basement. The same company that mounted this beast is putting up the Sauroposeidon neck and head at the museum in Norman...can't wait to see that.

But I know you are just drumming your fingers until I get to some London pix, so I won't punish you any further.


Today London and I visited the Raymond Alf Museum here in Claremont. The Alf Museum is unique in all the world as the only accredited museum run by a high school. It is on the campus of the Webb school, which is a residential school just up the hill. The museum has more kid-friendly exhibits and activities than many larger museums, including the best stocked table of real fossils for touching that I've ever seen. London had a blast. Here he is with the hind leg of Camarasaurus, which is actually not very big as sauropods go. Look at the size of the foot, that'll be important in a minute.


Here's London with Centrosaurus, one of the horned dinosaurs. There are dozens of species of these and even I have a hard time keeping them all straight. Triceratops, Pentaceratops, Anchiceratops, Arrhinoceratops, Montanaceratops...London just calls them all "ceratops dinosaurs".


Here's London in the hind footprint of a really big sauropod. This track is from north Texas, from the same formation as Sauroposeidon, and it's about the right size to be Sauroposeidon, so...who knows. Compare the size of this foot to the one London is standing next to in the photo above. Scary, huh?

LONDON'S WORDS

Lots of new stuff this time...

The other day London and Mumpa were out walking and London saw a patapillar. Another bug that he saw was a tweedle beetle, which he knows from Dr. Suess's Fox in Socks.

They also saw a stretch limo and London shouted, "Look, Momma! It's a weiner car!"

London has tried soda but he doesn't like it. I think the fizz freaks him out. And I've basically given up soft drinks in favor of tea, so the only person London sees ordering soda is Mumpa. This has given him some strange ideas. The other day we were walking into Target, just him and me, and he asked, "Why do girls like soda?" That was a tricky one to answer. A couple of days later he told Vicki, "When I turn into a girl, I will like soda." It reminded me of when Ryan was London's age; he would tell stories that began, "When I was big and you were little..."

He's also learned just enough about some things to be safe but not enough to be socially acceptable. Vicki and London were at the mall and London pointed at a man and his two friends and shouted, "He is a stranger! Those two men are strangers!"

London knows the words 'foot' and 'feet' but usually we call them 'fooses' just to be goofy. When I am putting his socks on I will say, "Give me a little foose," and he'll stick out a foot. Then I ask for "another little foose" to get the other foot. The other day, though, when I said that he said, "It's not a little foose. It's a big foose." I put my foot up next to his and said, "Now that's a big foose. So what is yours?" He said, "It's a little big foose."

Ryan and Courtney sent a lightsaber for London's fourth birthday. Since he already has Anakin Skywalker's lightsaber, this new one is "Obi Wan's Kenobi's wight saber."

London loves building with his Duplo and Lego blocks. "I maded it," he says.

London gained the ability to use the toilet before he got the inclination. To motivate him Vicki and I 'race' him to the potty; these are races we deliberately let him win. Even now if he is reluctant go (say, just before we leave for a long car ride) we can con him into going by saying, "I'm gonna win!" and dashing toward the bathroom. That will get him to instantly stop whatever he is doing and run to get there first. He doesn't know the word 'beat' yet, so after he wins he says, "I winned! I winned you, Daddy!" Once in a while, though, one of us accidentally wins a race we didn't even know was going on, just in the course of going to the bathroom. When we come out we get an accusing look. "You doed it before me!"

The story of "Yuh see mah bahttum?" will have to be told another time. Also in upcoming posts: pictures from Grandma and Grandpa's visit, and London setting up our nativity and decorating the Christmas tree. Stay tuned!