Budding chef

My son fixed supper tonight. He followed step-by-step a recipe out of his new Star Wars cookbook for Galaxy Grilled Cheese, then handed the last step of grilling the sandwiches to me. The cheddar and pickle concoction was quite tasty.

Mid-winter break

Our family did a little snowshoeing during mid-winter break. Our first outing --first-ever for our son -- was on the gentle paths and trails in the woods behind St. Scholastica.

The day was gorgeous -- sunshine, clear blue sky, and a stillness broken only by the crunch of our snowshoes and the excited cries of "Mom, Mom" as our son discovered trees full of woodpecker holes, rabbit and fox tracks and the rock fire pits and birdbaths that dot the woodscape.

Great Super Bowl ad

I can imagine my son and his dad doing this.

Ready for the big game

My son took some grief from his kindergarten classmates when he wore his new Pittsburgh Steeler's jersey to school yesterday.

"Aren't you a Packers fan?" his friend Michael moaned. My son tried the diplomatic approach: "I'm a Vikings-Steelers-Packers fan," he responded, giving nod to his three favorite teams.

Grandma Edna promised him a jersey of his favorite Steeler -- Troy Polamalu -- if they won the AFC championship. Grandpa Cook, a die-hard Eagles fan who knows how difficult it can be to follow other teams in this Vikings-Packers dominated land, bought him the Steelers football a couple years ago.

Now all he needs is a Terrible Towel, and he's ready for game day.

His turn

My son turned the table on us tonight.

Instead of me reading to him, he read to us -- two stories: "A List" and "Dragons and Giants" out of Arnold Lobel's Frog and Toad Together.

Happy birthday MLK

"Mom. Did you know..." my son said from the backseat of our car. From the tone in his voice, I could sense what he was going to tell me was important.

"...that they used to have signs on the water fountains that said for whites only? And only white people could drink the water?" We reflected, in 6-year-old terms, how silly that was.

"And they didn't have enough seats on the buses and white people took all of the seats and black people had to sit in back?" my son continued. "...And there was this one woman, I forgot her name, who was really really tired and she sat down?"

"Rosa Parks," I said, helping him remember the Martin Luther King lesson he had learned in school.

Horse parts

"Horse parts," the manifest read on the box from Japan.

"I hope it's not the head," I joked with my husband as he opened the box. Images of the Godfather played through my head, while my son eagerly helped unwrap the contents.

"I think he uses a translator program," my husband said of his benefactor. Inside was a pair of stirrups a Samurai had used.