The bone.

Eli wants to be a palaeontologist. I know this because he frequently tells me (and yes, I am impressed that he can say palaeontologist!). He lives up to this claim quite well too, because he's often busying himself out in the back garden looking for bones. What's even more remarkable is that he was busy digging a few weeks back and he actually did find a bone. It's obviously one that a dog had buried (we don't have a dog, but the neighbours do) and it looks like it has been in the ground for a while now.

Regardless of its origin, Eli was thrilled to have dug up a bone in our backyard! He was carrying it around like a trophy and he proudly brought it inside with him. Of course I told him that he couldn't bring it inside, but he was so excited by his find that he would occasionally forget that rule. In the end he declared that the bone was going to be part of his collection, so I agreed that he could keep it so long as it didn't come into the house. The compromise we struck was that he could keep it in the garage...near where my own collection of bones is (so I only have myself to blame).

Here are some photos of Eli sporting his trophy bone, near where he unearthed it.