Welcome to the Arctic

 Zane's fascination with penguins started at the St. Louis Zoo where the penguins were always his favorite exhibit. It was the perfect place to cool off, the animals were always really close to you, meaning that sometimes, if you got lucky, they could even splash you. Ever since we left St. Louis Zane has begged me to go see penguins again. The thing is the penguins aren't actually there now, since their exhibit is currently being redone to add polar bears as well. Don't tell Zane but I have it on good authority that the penguins will be returning in March and we'll be making a trip to STL as soon as they are back.

 This love started early, here is Zach and Zane with the penguins in St. Louis.

 We saw penguins at the aquarium in Chicago and Zane got to dress up as one. Look at that baby face.

 And of course he had to hug the penguins before we left.

In the mean time Zane wants to learn about all things penguin and play penguins everyday. This love of penguins led us to find Wildest Arctic on amazon, which turns out really doesn't have any penguins in it, but we have learned a lot about all sorts of different creatures in the arctic (in these films the arctic encompasses anywhere that it is freezing cold, northern and southern hemispheres). Zane wants to play arctic a lot, which we can do since we have all sorts of stuffed arctic and ocean creatures. We have learned all sorts of fun facts like the reindeer are the most energy efficient animals on the planet, or that the arctic fox has the most babies at one time of any land mammal. All sorts of fun facts like this.

On Friday we were home all day, for what I thought was going to be a sick day, but turns out Zane was feeling much better. Our adventure into making all the arctic animals started with just making penguins, but over the past two days it has turned into making ALL the arctic animals. Zane's imagination never stops, the moment I think we have made every animal we have ever seen in any arctic film or book he remembers something else. He had me write lists of all the things we needed to make. He meticulously choose where each animal should be hung. Zane was in charge of all cutting and gluing, usually after I had drawn something for him to cut out. His cutting skills are greatly improved and he informed me yesterday that "trimming is the most important part of cutting skills." He is a bit of perfectionist.

Of course making every animal wasn't enough, we also had to make snow flakes, to be hung in every room. Zane originally requested we make eleven snow flakes, but his enthusiasm began to wain after nine. We hung the glitter snow flakes, all painted by Zane, up in all the rooms before Zach got home so we could have a "arctic dinner." Of course an arctic dinner consists of fish sticks, since penguins eat fish.

 This morning as soon as we woke up Zane was asking what other animals we needed to make. I had exhausted all the pinterest ideas before nap time yesterday and had been free styling ever since. Zane came up with a few more for us to make today, all hung up in the perfectly chosen spot by Zane. This evening he wanted to have a "ocean party" which turned into a blue bath, pretending to be penguins. Who knows what tomorrow will bring, but so far here is the list of what we have made.

 The snow owl, designed based on what Zane's stuffed snow owl from Santa looks like. The arctic fox, and a walrus, which is pretty darn cute.

 This is my absolute favorite, the blue whale, made from a paper plate, very simple, 3D, super cute!

 Reindeer, Zane's take on a snow flake in the blue, and our three penguins. Two Rockhoppers, just like the ones on the cover of Ranger Rick last month, and then a "regular one" like in the zoo. Spiderman had been up on the wall for weeks.

 Snow flakes

 Norwhal

 Polar bear

 The Snow leopard, which in 2006 there were only thirty left of in the wild, so they might be extinct by this point. It is below Zane's picture of the earth on the left, with the light blue area on earth being the arctic. The other two framed pictures are family portraits, obviously.

How did we have to much time to do all this yesterday, you might ask. Well usually when Zane wakes from his nap there is about an hour or hour and a half until Rowan wakes up that I do something fun with just Zane. So on Friday when Zane woke up and wanted to make more arctic animals I said, "we can do arts and crafts until Rowan wakes up." Cue Rowan sleeping for almost three more hours, thanks to him still being sick. Every time I tried to go do something, like laundry, the dishes, or any number of other things I needed to do Zane would say "but you said that we could craft until Rowan wakes up."

We had lots of great conversations during our crafting as well, like about what Zane wanted to be when he grows up, currently landed on a dentist, a nurse, and an art teacher. All noble professions. He asked me what I wanted to be when I grew up, which almost made me cry since this is the question I have been asking myself for about a decade now, ever since I didn't actually want to do the thing I thought I wanted to do my whole life. My answer was that I wanted to be a mommy. That's all I've been able to come up with after years of thinking about it.

Zane also asked me a lot about death, which is a frequent topic in the four year old mind for unknown reasons. In good news he doesn't get sad about it since he doesn't truly understand it's permanent. I do get sad about it and really wish we could talk about it less. We talked about the movie Zach and I saw last weekend (Selma) which Zane wanted to know what it was about. So we talked a lot about being nice to everyone, even if they are different than you are. To which my brilliant four year old said, "yeah, like how I'm different because I have a stripe, and I want people to be nice to me too." Exactly!!! He told me about all his friends at school who have, "different colored eyes than me." Isn't that precious, not that they have dark hair, or dark skin, but that they have brown eyes. Perfectly naive and beautiful. It was a wonderful three hours, watching Zane's imagination at work, being "berry workers," having very deep conversations. And now we have the added bonus of a house completely decorated for winter! Love my life!