Bull sharks live on land.

I was the kind of kid who spent many gorgeous summer days lying on the glider with a book. A biography of  Helen Keller or Babe Ruth, another installment of Sweet Valley High. Didn't matter. If I started it, I didn't want to stop until I finished. On these days, I didn't care who was playing baseball, racing bikes, swimming at the quarry or selling lemonade to fund the acquisition of GI Joe guys. I just wanted to read. 

So you can imagine how excited I am now that my boys love books and that Julian, ever since starting kindergarten some weeks ago, has stopped pushing away my finger when I drag it along the words of the books he's picked out at the library. The boy has taken a serious interest in learning to read.

He asks what the letters spell and now, each night, it's become our routine to have him "read" a book to me and Kai. For about a week that book has been about Star Wars Heroes and Villians. Eh. But tonight, that hero/villian book could not be found. And so I suggested my recent and fantastic Goodwill find, a book about sharks and rays. If you know me at all, you know that this equals awesome.

Pittsburgh Zoo, Fall 2009

But it gets even awesomer. Because when Julian reads, I mostly just listen to whatever story he gleans from the page. (Right... wrong, I don't know—but I'm going with right because it seems to be a great confidence builder.) Anyway, these are the fantastic things I learned about sharks today:

• Great white sharks have really big, big teeth, which makes them FIERCE. And they have pink tongues and they are white. And great.
• "Hammer sharks" (I couldn't resist correcting this one) have eyes on the the end of their heads.  Hammer sharks, I mean hammerhead sharks, are really FIERCE and they like to bang their eyes. Hmm....
• Bull sharks are really FIERCE and they have really big teeth. And they eat bulls. (There was a illustration of a bull on the page, people. This was a logical conclusion.) And that's why bull sharks live on land some of the time.  

I love age 5. So, so much.