One cool cat!

Last week James had asked me to eat lunch with him at school, and although it sounded silly to me to eat unhealthy food at the school cafeteria when we could comfortably eat some delicious food at home, I agreed to it. As we were sitting together with his classmates, talking and joking, he suddenly gives me a hug and tells him how happy he was that I was eating lunch with him. I gave him a big kiss and told him that it was my pleasure to eat lunch with such a gentleman. His face beamed with joy.

Now since this post isn't about James - it is about Jefferson - let me tell you what happened next. As we were talking, James exclaims: Hey, that's my brother. What I saw totally made me laugh out loud. Jefferson was coming in with his friends to eat lunch and they were each walking in a line. They were all saying hello to other friends they were seeing, except Jefferson. He was walking in deep thought... and with the coolest swagger I have ever seen. With his cap on on one side, and his jacket thrown over his shoulder, he reminded me of James Dean or an early John Travolta. I didn't have my camera with me at hand, so I wasn't able to catch his swagger in picture, but I did ask him for one when he got back from school (although this picture in no way does justice to the real thing):
Jefferson is so fun to have around. He asked me this morning to gel his hair, and while I was doing it, I asked him why was he dressed up so elegantly even though it was spring break. He calmly responded with a cool cat attitude: It is important to dress nicely; it shows who you are and how much you care. And then added: But I'm an FBI agent today; you've got to dress your part, if you want to feel like one. He even had dress shoes on. I'm not complaining.

Another thing about Jefferson that I love is his desire to learn new and various things. He has been reading a lot of history books about the wars as usual, but this past two weeks he has been busy reading Percy Jackson books (he is in the 3rd book of the series) trying to compete with me, and Hugo trying to catch up with Gillian. He has also been in this FBI mindset and has loved working with codes sending them to his siblings and parents. With James, they have been making a lot of paper crafts and origami figures, although I've noticed Jefferson gets more joy our of his own creations than when he follows someone else's designs. And why not when you got the talent. I love the picture of the Bay Bridge he drew in freehand. I love it that each of my children have their own artistic style, but I have to admit that I connect with Jefferson's a bit more since his architectural like drawings resemble mine when I was young. Maybe one of these days, he and I will start drawing plans for our future house.

Lately, Jefferson has been trying to pass his obsession with hats to his younger brother, Charlton. Charlton doesn't usually like to cover his head; he hardly wears his coat. We all love him with the cap that Mama Lu sent him, but he doesn't seem to be interested. However, Jefferson succeeded in finding one hat that Charlton loves, and I have to say we love the way he looks, too:


Last week I accompanied Jefferson to one of his Tiger Scout field trips to the Concord Police Station. I of course had never been to a police station, so I was looking forward to checking it out. They didn't allow us to take pictures inside, but we enjoyed it anyways. We visited the jail, the record keeping office, the briefing room, and even the CSI office where the little ones learned how one transfers fingerprints from any object to paper to the computer. When we went outside, the scouts were excited to look at the inside of a police car, especially the tight area they keep the criminals. They also got to meet a police officer who had a K-9 dog with him. (Did you know that the K-9 dogs don't speak English, and that's done on purpose so the criminals won't smooth talk them? Their trainers have to learn words they use to communicate with the dog in the language of the country they were bought from - this one was from Czech Republic.)
I never thought I would enjoy a visit to the Police Station, but this was quite an informative tour, and I think Jefferson had a good time especially when we got to do some investigative work - finding fingerprints.

I hadn't planned in being a driver and chaperon for Jefferson's field trip to the Oakland Museum of California, but they were in need of drivers and Jefferson really wanted me to go with him, so I volunteered. I had been here before and seen most of the things exhibited, but seeing the museum in the eyes of a boy is quite a different experience than when one goes on her own. These are some of the things Jefferson was interested to learn more and wanted me to take pictures of:
I personally enjoyed learning about the steam pumper (American LaFrance Fire Engine Co., 1898), which was actually used in the San Francisco fire of 1906. This was truly beautiful and historical.
As for Jefferson and his friends, their favorite thing in the museum besides the guns and swords, was the sound effect room. They stayed in that room for more than 30 minutes recording noises and various sounds adding them to the film on the projector. Interesting how just a few years ago those hand activated noises were so important to the film industry where now they look old and outdated by the speed of technological progress.
When all was seen, read and touched we took the kids to eat lunch outside and let them burn some energy before we had to go back to the car and head back. And I finally remembered to ask someone to take a picture of my sweet Jefferson and me (I rarely have pictures of me and the kids together, so I'm trying to do better with that).

My kids are growing up so fast, so I'm very glad I have opportunities like this one to be one-on-one with them. I'm very grateful Jefferson is an enjoyable chap with such amazing qualities. I'm even more grateful that he is a good son and friend to me.