new animal

We went to a Christmas lunch with David's family today. Dennis had an excellent time sitting and chatting with his cousins and an even more excellent time opening and playing with presents. He asked Uncle Steve out of the blue "Why don't they put wheels on surfboards?" and he answered that fish would hit the wheels with their fins and tails and slow down the surfboard. This answer satisfied Dennis, though he looked skeptical and had a good laugh over it. Another excellent Dennis-ism happened in the car on the way home. He is now able to play the alphabet game with us, and we were doing animal names and then got to the letter "U". He thought for just a second before he said "U-ah-pus". Later tonight he revealed that "they don't really live, Mom, it's just a word I made up. Sometimes I like to make up words." Yes, he certainly does!

He's been happily playing with his new remote control police car, his Green Lantern action figures, and his Lego police van since we got home. He gets very focused on new toys, but he gave them all equal attention tonight, hours for each new thing!

This morning Dennis discovered Neely the Elf kneeling in front of his nativity set, his hands clasped in prayer. He ran to find us, telling us we just had to come and see what Neely did (as he does most mornings). We ambled bleary-eyes to the living room and Dennis announced amazedly "Neely is worshipping the baby Jesus! Isn't that wonderful?". We agreed that it was. I'm so glad the true meaning of the holiday is important to Dennis. At school, Mrs. Nancy asked each student what he or she would give Jesus for his Christmas birthday. She cut out large squares of wrapping paper and attached a gift tag and bow to each. She wrote their replies on the gift tags (which read: to Jesus from ...). Dennis' tag read "I would give him myself. That's what everyone should do!".