fambly, jotuns, and gorgons

This is a big season for family visits. After Grandma and Grandpa visited in early April, Granddad Joe came down for a weekend at the end of the month. Of course he brought another Bruder monstrosity-- this time a logging truck. The nice thing about this visit/truck (there's a one-to-one corresondence) was that, for the first time, Levi was able to share in the joy delivered by Granddad Joe. The truck came with real-fake logs, which Granddad Joe supplemented with some real-real logs cut from the downed Avocado-tree branches.



This picture documents Micah's current obsession. Since late March, this book has been all that he's wanted to have read to him. It's D'Aulaires Book of Norse Myths with colorful illustrations. Micah now is an expert on Thor, Odin, Loki, Balder, Freya, and Frigg. He's the only three-year-old (not for long!) that I know of who goes around talking of riding a "steed" (eight-legged, at that) and of "crushing the stony heads of Jotuns". His favorite parts are reading about Thor's escapades with the Jotuns ("I want to read about Thor and the Jotun Utgardsloki"), the death of Balder, and, of course, Ragnarok. We were a bit uncomfortable, at first, with how violence remains in these kiddie-versions of the myths. In the end, I think it's ok. I can still self-edit as we read and we can discuss the events of the story with him in a way that we couldn't do if he were just watching scary/violent movies at a friend's house.

Grandma and Grandpa gave him the book for Hanukkah, at my request. Micah will insist on reading from it for hours, roping in anyone who is willing. This grew a bit tiresome for us after several weeks, but fortunately Grandma and Grandpa also gave us D'Aulaires' Book of Greek Myths, so now we're getting started on Zeus, Hera, Athena, Apollo, and Artemis.

So now, next week when Nanny, Pop-pop, Nanny Gorgeous and Uncle Victor come, they will get to read for hours about nymphs, oracles, titans, gorgons. And a week later, things will come full-circle, when Grandma and Grandpa return for birth-days.