Down at the Swings Again
the boy
Sunday at the Park and on the Trampoline
Finishing the Toolbox
Yesterday was the cut day; today we assembled everything. I struggled to figure out how much to do and how much to let him do, to decide how many mistakes to correct and how many to let slide.
“Oh, Daddy, that nail is actually coming out of the bottom.” That’s one to correct.
“Daddy, I didn’t evenly space these nails.” Just pat him on the head and say, “It’s not a big deal, buddy.”
In the end, it wasn’t perfect, but he’d done almost all of it — a good reason to do your best Dr. Seuss character imitation. (“Daddy, why do so many of the characters go around with their eyes closed?” he once asked. I’d never really noticed that.)
Around the House this Evening
Lena in the rain# love it
The Boy wrote this post, playing with hashtags — he doesn’t quite understand them yet.
Scouts
Coming home from scouts tonight, the Boy and I had a conversation about friendship. He talked to me a bit about what happened to Malfoy in the third book of the Harry Potter series, which K is currently reading to him. Apparently he got mauled by some creature.
"Oh, that's not good," I said.
"But Malfoy is bad!" E clarified.
"Yes, but that's no reason to wish ill of him. Besides, he might not turn out that bad by the end of it all." I knew this from conversations I'd had with L about the series, but I didn't want to give anything away to the boy.
"Yeah, L told me that he and Harry become friends in the end."
So much for not giving it away.
"That's sort of like T and me," the Boy continued. "We didn't use to like each other. Well, we really didn't know each other, but then we got to know each other and decided to become friends."
I thought about that for a moment, pondering the choice of words: "decided" to become friends. I imagined this conversation between the two boys, a negotiation of sorts.
It's hard to imagine, isn't it?
T might not even be aware that in E's eyes, they "decided" to become friends. For all I know, T might not even consider E his friend but merely an acquaintance.
Kids and adults see friendship differently, I think. I feel I'm more jaded than I can imagine him ever being. That's the magic of childhood, I guess.
Down at the Trampoline
The Boy Writes
"Daddy, can we make a web site?" the Boy asked today. Granted, I think he was just looking for an excuse to spend more time on the computer, but there was only one way to find out.
"Sure. We already have one," I reminded him.
"Oh yeah, the family web site." He knows it from looking at pictures from the past. "Hey, E, come look at this picture!" "Hey, L, come watch this old video." But I don't think he realized it was something he could contribute to.
"You want to learn how post things there?" I asked.
"Yes!"
And so I created an account for him, showed him the basics of adding media and text, and turned him loose.
We'll see how long it lasts.
science work#boring
science work is so boring!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! It is a school and all kids know that all school is boring. well but Ravi loves it from bunkt. Ravi is from bunkt.Bunkt is a comedy and if you don't know what bunkt you need to watch it unless you are like 5 it can get scary.
Together
It used to happen more often: the kids and I would play something together and for a while, everything else disappeared. It's been a long time since that's happened. This afternoon, we had a little reminder of what that was like.
As the Girl gets older, she's less and less interested in the things the Boy loves. He can't handle the ever-decreasing attention and resorts to the old tried-and-true method of getting attention: he pesters her.
"That just makes her want to spend even less time with you, buddy," I've explained more times than I can recall.
"Okay," he grudgingly admits. And then heads off to pester her again.
Today, though, we went down to the trampoline/swing/hammock area and managed to play like we were all five years old again. There was laugher. There was silliness.
And then we came up to get dinner ready, and it all disappeared.
"E!" cried L, stretching his name into a three-second yell. "Leave me alone!" He was at it again.