Boy, oh boy, all boy.

We were having one of those great dinners tonight during which the kids are actually not only getting along, but actively engaging each other and me in conversation (Jeff was working). After Aisie regaled us with tales of her gym class exploits, Dylan was telling us about how he'd built a worm kasteel (a worm castle) in the sand and had repopulated all the residents of the sandbox to these new, er, digs. He stopped midsentence and looked thoughtful, then alarmed.

"Mommy, I have something in my pocket that you're going to guess but only if you promise that you won't be mad at me."

I gave him my skeptically amused askance look and asked why I might be mad. He contemplated this and revised himself.

"I'm not going to tell you what it is, okay? So you just close your eyes now and I'll show Aislin."

"Dylan, is it something alive?"

Long pause. "Probably."

"Probably?"

At this point Dylan gravely pulled open his pocket so he could peer inside to check on whatever might lurk therein, then raised his eyes to me with concern.

"Okay, Mommy," he began, as if I'd tortured it out of him, "it's a worm." He reached in and pulled out a handful of something. When he opened his hand to me, sand cascaded through his fingers until only a sand-clotted worm remained -- a long one, dangling right over Dylan's plate. Dylan gave me his best, innocent, "aren't-I-so-adorable-that-you'll-forget-what-I-did" smile. Little did he know that Mommy has a soft spot for worms.

Since it still showed some vital signs, I told Dylan to repatriate this one before its family missed it. I suggested that the bush just outside the door might be a superior habitat to the sandbox. As he solemnly released his charge back to the wild, Aisie asked why I was laughing. I told her that Dylan reminded me of the time when preschool-aged Aunt Meg came into the babysitter's house with something even better in her pocket... a dead mouse. We agreed that, sand on the plate aside, the worm was a better dinner guest than the mouse.