I think I need to start collecting Calvin and Hobbes books. Not just for entertainment, but for tips from Calvin's mom. Andrew has been on a vegetable strike all week and you know how I broke it? I disovered that if you cut the bulbous bottom parts of a red pepper just right, they look like snakes.

In other parenting news this week, Andrew is now obsessed with knights. I don't really mind this, beign a medeival / fantasy junkie myself, but I do get tired of confiscating "swords". I bought a little "How to be a Knight" book from the older kids section of our bookstore, and he found it and started getting us to read it to him. Now he will spout things like, "Oh mommy, you need to get me dressed so I have some proper padding under my armour" or "First Aaron has to be a page or groom before he can be a knight, mommy".

Aaron, on the other hand, is obsessed with dangerous and prohibited things and also telephones. One of his favorite activities is to be carried around the kitchen and talk about which things are dangerous and which are not. We point to the knife "knife, sharp". "ouch" and the oranges "oranges, they're okay" "o-anj", then the pots "ouch?" "only when they are on the stove top. Over here, not hot. Over here, ouch, hot" "ot". I was holding him in one hand while putting rice and water in a pot to cook today, and he kept pointing to the rice and saying "ouch". So I said, Nope you can put your hand in it." and as a joke he kept just touching it with the tip of one finger (like I do to show a cup is hot) and sa ying "ouch" and looking alarmed. I just hope my worse fear is not realized -- a child with Dave's taste for danger and my lack of common sense. We shall just have to watch and pray.