Palm trees and bone detectives

Our boys are so funny.

Here's what happened on the way home from church today.

Jacob brought a palm branch into the van that he was given as a part of the lesson they learned today. He waved it around and told us about saying Hosanna, etc.

TJ asked if he could see it. A couple minutes later, TJ proclaimed that he knew how old the palm tree was that this branch came from. Tim bit and said how old? TJ answers with a confident 29 years old. I of course, thinking he's full of complete 8 year olds make up things and can't possibly know what he's talking about, say how do you know that?-he says it because every year a palm tree lives it gets a knew leaf on the branches, so this one has 29. I show my complete disbelief by blurting out how he doesn't know what he's talking about etc (not a recommended response in hind sight) and TJ says he knows because he saw it on a show (gotta be true then). I say, well, I think you are wrong. Jacob (4 years old) chimes in, and says no, TJ is right-he knows a lot about Palm trees (oh, I guess now that Jacob confirmed it, it mustbe true). Tim and I crack up-then I say, TJ-do you honestly think that palm branch is 29 years old? and without hesitation the kid says, no-I didn't say the branch is 29 year old, I said the tree it came from is.

Hmmm...he shut me up:-) Tim cracked up further!

***Editor's note: Tim read this and said I was inaccurate on one detail-TJ said he learned of Palm tree aging via the net-oops-who would've thunk????

The bone story:

So, on Thursday, before I left for the trip to the Hearts at Home conference (which by the way is soooo awesome and I recommend highly!!!) TJ is again telling us about playing outside as it's been pretty nice a couple of days here. Anyway, he tells us about this neighbor kid house he was at and how they found a bone. I was not super engaged with the story but hearing he found a BONE perked me up a bit...uh, what kinda bone, I inquire? Like a chicken bone???

Nope, it's about 10 inches long and they think it's from a leg or arm . Well, it's like 9pm at night and now TJ i all stressed about this bone. He wants to go into the neighbors yard (it was dug up from their sand box)and retrieve it so I can assess what kind of bone it is (being that I closely resemble an archaeologist???) since I'm a nurse. Yea...not an orthopedic nurse. Anyway, I tell him in hopes to make him let this go for the night that on Friday when he got home from school, he could go and get it and bring it home and I would look at it when I got back (again, not the best parental advice, likely). So I get home Saturday and I laid down with him for a few minutes and Tim came to join our conversation and asked if he had told me the bone story yet. Uh, no.

So, apparently, there's another kid who's mom is studying to become a nurse which obviously qualified her to assess the bone. She looked at it Friday afternoon and decided it was a leg bone due to apparent ligaments being visible (mind you I didn't see this bone) and she CALLED THE SHERIFF!!! So, they come out and our kids tell this story. The neighbor who's home it's from isn't home. The sheriff tells the boys (8 and 9 years old) that maybe the dad is a deer hunter and the "SAW" marks on the bone where from it being processed BUT just to be safe, they shouldn't play there for a few days until the department could assure that the bone "ISN'T HUMAN!!!".

Yea...uh, ok. So, this cop takes the bone in a bag that says OUR LAST NAME on it back to the department. Comforting. And worst part, if I'd seen the silly thing, I would have taken a picture of it to make this post way more cool!!!

Today, we've not heard anything of this mystery (freaky) bone analysis. Bu m CSI kid comes to me and says he's found another bone in OUR yard. So, I tell him to show me as I was really wondering if he's warped with his Hardy Boy novel reading. He brings this freaky flat bone with more saw marks on it-spooky. It was small though and frankly, ignorance is bliss and I'm not calling the sheriff again to have more bones taken in with our name on the evidence bag.

So, if you hear about any news flash about two adolescent kids from IN aiding the police in a murder case bust, it might be my Little Sherlock that they are talking about (I hope not-gross!).

PS If anyone wants to confirm my "he's full of it" regarding the palm branch story, please feel free:-)