A Gem of a Boy

Since we posted Ryan's dinosaur drawing awhile back, he has continued to be interested in dinosaurs and fossils. So, this week during his spring break, I decided to take him to the Museum of Natural Science downtown to see the real dinosaur bones. My Mom had bought him a fossil discovery kit last weekend that he enjoyed, so this trip timed out perfectly to also see some really awesome fossils. Here's a shot of him in front of his favorite dinosaur, the T-Rex.


Ryan Sizes Up a T-Rex

One of the things I love most about living in a larger city is having these kind of places nearby to go and see. I was enjoying it as much as Ryan did! We scoured the museum and, luckily, Natalie was happy to ride along in her stroller. We also saw a neat show at the Planetarium on the Ice Age and changes in our planet as seen from the Moon.

And there was a great museum wing on gemstones that I didn't know about, so we got to see all kinds of amazing and rare rocks and minerals yesterday.

And rocks were on the brain for more than just us, I guess. We went to our favorite park with our old playgroup today, since Ryan was out of school. He loved this playgroup, as he had a "flock" of girl friends he likes to play with (I think he likes all that female attention, myself!
Well, as we were leaving, his friend Elizabeth started running around frantically looking for something. When we stopped her and asked, she said she'd given her sister Rebecca "a rock" and couldn't find it. (Of course, there were MILLIONS of rocks at the park, right?)

So, Ryan starts running around looking for it as well. When they couldn't find it, he stopped and shouted out "Hey, EVERYONE!!! Have you seen Rebecca's ROCK?" I just got so tickled at this. There were probably 50 or more kids, none of which stopped to answer him or acknowledge his question. We then decided to go back to our car and give his friend a big rock we had in our car (happy to get that out of my cup-holder now, thank you) and he was so excited that she liked it so much.

I guess I really feel like my son's open heart is quite a gem in itself. And, it's more precious than all the diamons and rubies in the world to me.


Ryan, My "Gem" of a Boy!