Tonight with Jack

When Jack naps at school, he goes to bed later than when he doesn't, so there's usually about an hour of playing downstairs followed by putting to bed activities. This was tonight.

- We dug out some new pajamas with elephants on them. Jack was very pleased.

- Jack brushed his teeth (he starts, we finish). "I'm bruffing my tongue," he observed at one point.

- We went downstairs and I told Jack we could play whatever he wanted. He said superheroes. He lined up all of his superheroes, most of which are little mini-figures, about 15 of them. He took one of them (the Hulk) and gave me another (Iron Man). We took turns knocking over the other figures with ours. At one point I brought in a little toy car to run one of them over, but Jack didn't care for that. "We don't use cars in this game," he explained. The last one we knocked over was Jack's Bionicle, this huge Transformer-lego-like figure he got in Ireland. We had to team up for that one.

(Aside: At dinner, Jack ate his chicken and drank his milk. "This will make me strong like the Hulk!" he said. The benefits of super-heroes, I love it.)

- Having knocked over all the figures, Jack now wanted them to go to sleep. He got a piece of cardboard for an art project and put it on the floor. He placed all the heroes on the cardboard in a circle, one by one. They just fit. It was like a Tetris game, with them all interlocked so as to fit on the board. Jack pointed out how Batman, who was the only one with a cape, "has a blanket."

- At one point while they were sleeping, the big dinosaur tried to eat them. The Hulk got up and, according to Jack, "killed him." I said, Well, he knocked him out. Jack: "But the dinosaur is BAD." I said, well, he's just doing what comes naturally to dinosaurs. So Jack agreed that the T-Rex was just knocked out.

- When Emily came down, Jack explained to her in detail how his superheroes should not be moved. We said OK.

- Jack wanted to draw a picture for me, and have me draw one for him. He said it would be a surprise, although he'd draw a T-Rex for me and I'd draw one for him. Here is Jack's T-Rex.

- At one point, out of the blue, Jack said "Do you know the Joker has parents?" I said, er, what? He said "The Joker has a Mom and a Dad. And his Dad is really strong." Who told you this? I asked. "Teddy. He knows ALL about Batman and Batman's friends."

- At bed we read Mouse Tales. Jack likes to skip one of the stories, the one with the Cloud shaped like a big cat. He says that one of the mice is asleep (there are seven mice for the seven stories).

- We then turn out the lights and talk. I asked Jack if he wanted to talk about his day. He said, "No, I want to talk about Spider-man's avilities." Avilities? I asked. "Yes...his avilities like strength...and shooting webs. And he can climb up walls, too."

I'd like to mention that only some of his current interest in superheroes is my fault. I mean after all, it's Teddy who knows all about Batman.