We had a visitor for lunch today. I tried to be a good hostess by finding out more about our guest -- even if he did stop by unannounced -- and was very surprised by what I learned.
"Ben" is a small brown puppy whose favourite food is dog biscuits (cinnamon flavoured). Luckily we were having cinnamon biscuits for lunch -- not of the dog variety, but they seemed to satisfy Ben and the boys -- phew! He lives with "the kids" (never really got a clear picture of who these kids were or if I was expected to feed them too - I hope not!). He has his own dog house, in some undisclosed location, that is equipped with many closets and a kitchen.
"There he goes under the table!"
Darn, I missed him. Ben is very fast and very tricky I'm told.
His favourite game is Hide and Seek, and he always wins. You see Ben also possesses the ability to turn invisible -- a handy skill when playing Hide and Seek. The only way to find him is to bump into him.
"Look, there he is again!"
"Oh, he's turned invisible."
Rats! But he must have been there because look at all those crumbs he left on the floor -- bad Ben!
Ben's most special attributes are his invisible, retractable arms. They hide behind little brown doors on the side of his body (which, I was reassured, do not hurt him -- I must have looked concerned). These doors look just like his fur, so you'd never know that they were there. Wow, what I wouldn't give for an extra pair of arms some days!
When Ben fetches the paper (like all good dogs do) he brings the whole mailbox! The boys seemed to find this part particularly entertaining. Poor Ben then has to fix the mailbox, but with his secret invisible arms and his box of tools that he keeps in his dog house (like all good dogs), the job is a snap.
Well, since I totally failed to get a picture of Ben, I asked the boys to draw me a picture. After all, if I ever meet Ben I want to know that it's him! Owen decided that I was on my own, but Isaac and Aidan were happy to oblige.
This is Aidan's picture. Ben looks rather fierce -- yikes!
Isaac's version looks tamer and would be welcome in my house anytime, as long as he cleans up those crumbs -- I swear they were not there before!
) that tells about important historic events and famous people's birthdays (today, by the way, is Beatrix Potter's birthday, and Peru's Independence Day, among other things). Anyway, my plan was to tell the boys a little bit about Rembrandt, show them some of his paintings, then break out the paint ourselves. Well, it didn't happen on that day, or the next day, or the day after that. Before I knew it a week had gone by, then 2 weeks ... well, you get the picture. But we finally got around to it this week.
