whooohoo! we got a surprise from grandma rier in the mail today. we love surprises that come in the mail, especially perfectly perfect surprises for odin.

grandma sent odin two books on norse mythology and one of them, “Odin’s Family: Myths of the Vikings” is filled with fantastic, colorful illustrations that i imagine will keep captivating odin throughout the years.

longtime readers may remember that i was a bit skeptical of nicknaming odin after a norse god, but i must admit the name has grown on me and he’s certainly turned out to be every bit the fighter that the name implies ( and is it just me or does he look like he’s raising a “fist of fury” in this picture? ). and now, i can’t imagine calling him anything else and it sounds strange whenever kris calls him “eric”.

i don’t know if grandma rier noticed it when she purchased the book, but we noticed how the artist’s rendition of a young odin could have a passing resemblance to our own little odin.

hopefully she’s not going to try to fuel my fears that when odin gets a little older we’ll find ourselves listening to him plead his case with, “look. i’m odin! if you don’t let me go over to sarah’s house and watch reruns of “the dukes of hazzard”, i’m going to have to go get thor. and you know what that means. whoopass.” 🙂