Animals

Last year, the Christmas of 2007 Spencer said that what he wanted most was "something with eyes." This meant that he wanted a stuffed animal, or a hard plastic animal, or a soft rubber animal, or maybe some kind of guy. He did not want clothes or board games or puzzles. His taste in gifts has changed since then though. He loves getting books. He says he loves getting clothes and prefers birthday cards to the gifts (but I think that is not true, but said because Spencer is trying to distinguish himself from the crowd of unoriginal six year olds who do not like getting clothes and do not really understand the point of birthday cards). I digress though. Spencer likes animals. He likes dogs and cats and birds and bugs. And he likes playing with little animal figurines. And sleeping with stuffed animals. His bed strongly resembles a nest. He arranges his blankets (I have recently limited him to three, though tonight he managed to get a fourth in there. When left unchecked, he has had as many as six blankets) around him and then he places his stuffed animals into whatever arrangement currently has meaning for him. There is usually some sort of overarching theme or storyline to the placement. He does not have a favorite animal that he sleeps with every night. The animals are rotated frequently. Recently, Jon's parents, Sue and Randy, gave the boys a book titled "Agate," in which every birthstone is paired with a zoo animal. Spencer loves the book. He read it two times the first night and then so many times the second day that he memorized it. That night he scooped up the five animals in his bed and replaced them with just two. An elephant and a lion. He did this because in the book February/Amethyst is an elephant and May/Emerald is a lion. He called down to me later from his bed to tell me that what he really wants for Christmas or his birthday this year is an emerald lion. A few nights later, the elephant and lion were replaced with a mouse, a cat, a dog, and a wolf. These animals represents Wormtail, Professor McGonagall, Sirious Black and Lupin. Obviously we are currently reading from the Harry Potter series.