Lizard in the House

This won't be one of my normal posts, because Charlie didn't say anything astounding today, however, I am still in awe of him. There has been a lizard living in his room for at least 3 days now. I first saw the lizard on Friday morning. I thought for sure the poor little guy would be dead by sundown....but I was WRONG. Now, don't be mistaken. I used to hang lizards from my ear lobes and try to shoot them with homemade darts blown through a straw. I'm just a little older, a little slower and I bruise easier, so I wasn't able to catch him without bruising my legs or throwing my back out.

This story isn't about the lizard, but now that I have your attention.... I finally caught the little *&#^$& today , but only because he's been without food or water for at least 3 days and he was too slow for big bad mama. (Wow - that sounds sad when you put it into words.)

Anyhoo...in my efforts to catch the sickly lizard so that he wouldn't die a slow, lonely death, I completely destroyed Lil Charlie's room in order to catch him. Chests and toy boxes turned on their sides, every toy in his room piled onto his bed; the whole 9 yards.

When Lil Charlie and Dad got back from the driving range, Lil Charlie helped me for 2 hours as I put his room back together...lego by lego, truck by truck, gun by gun....he didn't miss a beat. Secondly, when we were finished, he hugged and kissed me and told me how he loved everything that I did in his room (which included a little re-arranging). Totally worth the bruises and 3 hours I invested in catching that damn lizard and cleaning his room.

Here is where I became totally in awe of Charlie and realized that I have totally underestimated his intelligence. If you could imagine a child with an obnoxious number of Lego and Star Wars toys...that is Charlie. I can't help myself. I'll buy him a huge Lego project and he will sit completely focused for HOURS until he's finished, or until I drag him to bed kicking and screaming. Literally, he sat at my sisters for 7 hours straight (with lunch and potty breaks) to finish a vehicle that was labeled for 8-10 year olds. Charlie's only 5yrs old. He refused to do anything else until he was finished.

I didn't realize the level of his Lego/Star Wars fascination until we were cleaning his room and I would pick up a random piece of plastic, in the shape of a gun, a Lego piece, or any other random shape, and he would tell me exactly which Lego project or Star Wars toy it went with..and then be able to locate said project or toy within seconds. This went on for 2 hours. I started to test him...and he nailed it every time. There wasn't one little piece of plastic in his room that he didn't know where it belonged.

The icing on the cake was the last little piece of plastic that I picked up. It was a teenie tiny gun. He has over 50 of what appear to me to be the exact same gun, however he was able to tell me exactly who it belonged to and where that person-toy was. Boba Fett. Star Wars. Lego Box. Living Room.

His mind is organized chaos...brilliant, I tell you...just brilliant.