Ha - we have been generating an extremely large rock collection for several years. This spring DD3.5 has gone nuts with collecting rocks. And she wants to wrap them as gifts too. She is also quite into maps and globes right now.

Kriston - you'll appreciate this one. As a summer project for DS7, we are going to build a time line and mark up a world map for all the world wonders, technologies, leaders, cities, from Civilization 4. Maybe build a mini reference.

Ooooooh! Love that! I want one. Sounds like a homeschool project for us...

Yeh, Belle,
I'm really sick of that 'Bewilderment Look.' ((shrug))
I guess it goes with the territory.
Grin

I would have never really considered my DS5 a chart child but this weekend he was given a weight watchers food counter by my MIL while she was babysitting him. He loved looking at the dietary fiber, calories and total fat of each food package to determine the points based on the sliding system. He spent the morning at my MIL's house labeling all her food and then when he came home in the afternoon he also did all the food in our house.

I was impressed at his determination as it took nearly 2 hours to label all the food in our house. I think it was also a great lesson learned in healthy and unhealthy foods.

crisc what a great story!! I can just imagine those little brain gears turning with all the food labeling! My DS5 loves the game monopoly - not the child version, but the real one...he is ruthless! He is fascinated with the various costs/rent/fees with the different properties and how much each one costs depending on the number of houses/hotels on them..so I came home the other day from shopping to find him and my husband side by side on their tummys with their feet up in the air furiously writing on a chart tablet...I looked over and laughed to see that my son was one by one, reading off the rent, and the various charges depending on 1, 2, 3, 4 houses...for each property as my husband wrote each item down on his chart paper....then when they finished, my son proceeded to come up with his own set of properties and names and their rent/charges and then he compared how each were more/less (shmuzzy lane cost $1,345,564 if you landed on it when it had a hotel) :-) ...he carried that silly paper around with him all afternoon and kept asking me if I wanted to know a certain charge for a particular property :-) but this is the 2e child who can't seem to score a proper score on an IQ test!

DD4 doesn't care too much about maps yet, but he has always loved road signs. We just got back from a fabulous trip to aruba (lucky me!), where DD4 had to be in control of the map with the quite different road signs on it. He would see the signs and yell out what they meant to the driver.

We also risked paying extra for our luggage, hauling back the giant bag of rocks he collected to add to his other rocks. When I was carrying his booster to the baggage line, a bunch of rocks fell out of the cupholder. I asked him where they came from, and he said "the road - they're gravel rocks." These mysteriously didn't make it home with the rest of the beach rocks... I'm also expecting a meltdown when he notices that the very big beach rocks he collected did not find their way home.

Belle - your son's schmuzzy lane reminded me of my son's 2-year-old obsession with the upside-down show. He called himself "shmuzzy" in the parent-tot classes, and collected little fuzzy pompoms and called them schmuzzies, like the critters on the show. He made different houses for them all the time.

My kids both ADORE that show! They think Shane and David walk on water!

Ok, I am SOOO glad that someone else knows what a shmuzzy is!! My DS's favorite shows are Cyberchase,the Upside down show, and he was in love with the Discovery Channel's Tornado chaser show with the TIV to the point that we had to buy the series on DVD..strange mix! I lost my mind one day and bought a bag of large pom poms and glued wiggle eyes on them and the play scenarios he made up over the following months with those silly shmuzzy pom poms were hilarious. He pretends that imaginary shmuzzys like to turn things upside down and then it has progressed into the shmuzzys inviting over their friends the snurples which evolved into the creation of shmurples...no issues with creativity here :-)

My kids just like to take turns holding the imaginary remote and making one another do strange things. It's hilarious to watch the 3yo try to do things in slow motion or fast forward.

I suspect you have to have a screw loose to watch that show regularly! Very imaginative.

Oh, and DS6's favorite shows are (in no particular order): The Upside Down Show, How It's Made, Mythbusters, anything and everything on the History Channel or the Science Channel, Dancing with the Stars, Mr. Roger's Neighborhood, and NASCAR racing. (This looks like a lot, but he watches about an hour of TV a day, tops, so he doesn't see most of these very often.)

Anyway, I hear you on the strange mix!