Gender Equality

This morning, Jack asks me, "Mom, how do they tell girl dogs and boy dogs apart?"

Awkward silence from me. It's only 7am, after all. Do I really need to have this conversation now?

I decide to take the cop out route: "Well, the same way you tell human girls and boys apart."

Silence.

Then Jack's face lights up, "Oh! They give the girl dogs girl names and the boy dogs boy names, right?"

Sigh. "Yes, dear. That's right."

Pets

Today I pulled a crumbled piece of paper out of Jack's backpack. Normally, they bring home worksheets, drawings, etc - not twisted pieces of paper. LOL. I asked Jack what it was, and he matter-of-factly told me, "It's my pet tornado."

Oh yes, of course. A pet tornado. What else could it be?

Reading Update

The boys got their latest report cards last week and both have moved up from a Level 50 in reading (5th grade level!) to a Level 80, which apparently is the highest level they can test for at the elementary school. I'm more than a little impressed, although we tried not to make too big of a deal out of it. Problem is, the boys are both too smart NOT to know what that means.

Case in point: last night as we were driving back from the Graden Book Fair (and Pancake Dinner!), Erin, our 1st grade next door neighbor, was having trouble sounding out a word in her new book. Without any hesitation, Nathan said, "I'm a Level 80 in reading. Let me see it."

Well at least there are no problems with confidence issues at all in this house...