The Saga of the Camel

So... It's been a little while since there's been a post from us.

We find ourselves continuing to marvel at the boy and how gosh-darn cute he can be, but as he gets older and the world gets crazier, it becomes harder to keep up with posting everything. And because as of right now, this blog isn't password protected, there are also concerns about just who might be able to stumble upon this and know all of our weirdness. So it might be time to do something about that - maybe a new site, maybe something else... who knows.

Anyway, lately we've been busy with skating lessons, swimming lessons, and searching for a camel. The skating and the swimming were things taht we thought he should do. The search for the camel, well...

It all started a few weeks ago. It was bedtime, and all of a sudden, the boy got really, really sad. His lower lip started to quiver, tears were welling up in his eyes, and he was about to lose it. Steve asked him what was wrong, and he replied, "I can't find my camel."

That wouldn't be so strange if he, you know, had a camel. Okay, so he might have a little camel in his toy nativity scene or his Noah's Ark set, but he doesn't actually play with those these days, so it would be odd (but not unheard of) for him to suddenly be missing a camel from that set.

Somehow, Steve got him to go to sleep. I don't know how - I mean, if my camel was missing, I'd be up all night. And I thought that might be where we were heading, but we made it through that night unscathed.

The other night, I was putting Sebas to bed - same story. Tremendously sad because he couldn't find his camel. I had a few questions about this: Was it a toy camel? No. It's real. Where did you get your camel? From Aunt Doreen. Where is your camel now? He's trapped in the forest - a mean farmer caught the camel and elephant in a net and he won't let them go.

Now, this leads me to wonder... if he can imagine all of that (and I'm assuming that he's imagining because I don't think my sister gave my son a real camel), why can't he imagine that the farmer would let the camel go or somehow figure out a way for the camel and the elephant to escape?

Yesterday, we ran into a woman with a new baby. Sebas looked at the baby and said, "Your baby is cuter than a camel." She didn't quite know what to say, but I assured her that he had just given that baby the most heartfelt compliment he could think of.

When we got home, I read the newspaper while he played, and in yesterday's paper, there was a picture of a baby camel - just nine days old - and its mommy. I showed him the paper, and he squealed: "My camel! I found it. Now everything's okay!" I told him that we would just keep his camel at the zoo from now on, and he was fine with that.