The Catechesis of Preschool Boys

We need more saints who did things like drive backhoes and use tools and work in zoos and fire off cannons. It’s always good to have saints, but saints from these occupations would really help me. Hambet is completely uninterested in the sappy preschool religous books that show children frolicking around a meadow having picnics. He likes dinosaurs, hand tools, construction equipment, trains, boats. He wants pictures with action. I would like to bring exclusively religious books to keep him occupied at Mass, but the book that really keeps his attention — for 20 minutes at a shot! — is a Richard Scarry book, What do People Do All Day, which has lots of cool diagrams showing how paper is made and how roads get laid and how firefighters fight fires. If I could just find a book that somehow combined heavy machinery with sacred topics, we would be in business.
Hambet does like this book of lift-the-flap Bible stories. The first picture shows the Garden of Eden, with details illustrating the days of creation. One of the flaps shows an erupting volcano. Hambet loves the erupting volcano, and we usually end up discussing that volcano for quite a while when we read this book. Noah’s Ark is cool, too, and he’s starting to like pictures of the Parting of the Red Sea, and the men who cut the hole in the roof (with a saw!) to bring their friend to Jesus. The men who built their houses on the sand and on the rock are good, too, because there’s building involved. I think St Peter might also become a favorite, because he has a boat.
I tried mentioning to Hambet that God made volcanoes, and that piqued his interest, especially when I told him that God made dinosaurs too. He took his stuffed T.Rex and started enumerating all the parts God had made: “God made Rex, and teef, and feet, and claws, and dinosaur’s eyes, and his tail….”
Later we were driving in the evening and the sun was setting. Hambet commented that the sun was going to bed (“in his very own bed”) so I tried it again: “God made the sun.” Hambet seemed interested again, and immediately asked, “Did God make cement mixers?”
I told him that God made Hambet. He seemed doubtful. God’s making Mommy didn’t seem to impress him either. But when I let him in on the fact that God made Daddy — now that was something.