Roasted rat, anyone?

I think someone swapped out March and April.  We're back to bundling up in coats.  Last Thursday Ben and I braved the chilly temperatures and enjoyed the bright sun at a local playground.  Ben has traditionally used the space below one of the jungle gyms as his "restaurant," and this time he arranged the menu as follows:

He then asked, "Do you want any died roasted rat?"

His understanding of death and its related vocabulary is (thankfully) somewhat stunted by lack of direct experience, although the passing of our cat last fall did provide an initial exposure.  We've gradually allowed a little more violence into his viewing repertoire.  He now prances around the play yard at school singing "Kill de wabbit, kill de wabbit, kill de wabbit!" a la Elmer Fudd.  He loves watching a DVD of the opera Hansel and Gretel, and in that production a rather gruesome burnt witch corpse is brought out at the end for all of the remaining cast to feast upon.  It saddens me a bit to have to give way to reality like this.  Death happens.  The kinds of death that people seem to take the most interest in are usually pretty violent.  I can't protect Ben from this reality forever, and I guess the honeymoon is over.

But back to sunshine:  Having enjoyed our rat, here's Ben and me cuddling on the jungle gym.

Here he is looking very sweet and contemplative.

And here he is tucking into his chocolate Easter rabbit -- ears first, of course.

Bennyisms and Holiday Pics

This evening Ben announced, "Let's chop down Batman's lasagna tree!"

We have absolutely no clue what this means.

Yesterday at breakfast Ben was chewing loudly and obviously enjoying the sound.  He said, "Listen!" and proceeded to chew for awhile.  "That was Smoke on the Water!"  [Yes, my son chews Deep Purple songs.  Heaven help us once he learns to belch on command.]

And here is a massive onslaught of recent holiday pictures.  Enjoy!

Ben and the hip hop gang

Engrossed in the etch-a-sketch before the Seder

Ben's Seder plate, suitably bedecked

Neil reading to the boys about Passover

Ben took this one.

Easter morning -- found the basket!!!

Playing with some basket contents -- the life stages of the butterfly and frog!  (Yes, even our Easter Bunny is uber-nerdy.)

Why do my bunny biscuits always look more like pigs? 

Ben seems to enjoy them, despite their porcine tendencies.

Easter egg hunt -- in the sanctuary of the local Presbyterian church, of all places.  (Called inside on account of rain.)

The Rapture

This morning Ben wanted to listen to the 4th movement of Beethoven's 9th Symphony on the way to school (the movement that has the Ode to Joy theme in it).  It's a very long movement, and we didn't get all the way to the choral part, but we did get to the point where the cellos introduce the Ode to Joy melody, which then gets passed around the orchestra.  By this time, we were sitting in the parking lot at school, and Ben asked to keep listening until the whole orchestra took it up.  So we did.  As more and more instrument groups joined in and the whole thing was building up in a great crescendo, Ben just sat there with a gaze of pure rapture on his face, and when the whole orchestra finally burst out in full glory, Ben raised his arms and started conducting with all his might.

You gotta love this kid.