Tidbits of late

One thing is for sure, every new day that we say good morning, we also say goodbye to our child that day. Every day, incrementally, they grow, they change, they leave aspects of themselves that we love behind, and show us new things to love. Another thing is that unfortunately, there is no way that we capture it all, though I think already we could stock another lifetime with just memories of our family thus far, before and after youngans.

SO… for these reasons, here is another attempt to capture some of the things that have happened lately. Maybe these tidbits are entertaining, but the most important thing is that they are preserved (hopefully, and its sort of weird that I am saying this) as a reminder for later.

1. One night when reading to Alder b/f bed, for some reason I asked him if he wanted to listen to my tummy. He did, placed his ear there, and seemed quite interested for a minute or so, intently listening and looking around. I asked him what he heard and he replied, “’dere’s popcorn in there.” He has done the same thing to Heath since then.
2. Funny thing is that Alder will walk up and ask you to “read dis book.” But, while reading a book, if you pause on a page for any reason, he will prompt you to “talk on the page”. No slacking off allowed. On the train last week, he was flipping through a favorite book, finding favorite pages and putting in requests: “Daddy, talk on dis page”, one after another.
3. He is obsessed with books. Even his teacher comments about this sometimes. Today, when I picked him up, he walked out, grabbed a book in the lobby of school, sat in a rocking chair, and starting jibber-jabbering and turning pages, then looked at me and said, “Daddy, I talk on the page.”
4. On that topic, one day I was waiting for him to come out of his classroom, in the lobby at school, I was looking at a book. Alder came out squealing “Hi Daddy”, and took position for me to read it. This book was basically a ton of scene-type pages with little pictures of objects and labels. So interesting the way that he interpreted pictures that he did not know and pictures of things he does know, but in a book he does not know:
1. when shown a key, he called it a saw
2. when shown a whistle, like a coaches whistle, he said it was a vacuum cleaner
3. when I asked him what a hot dog was, he drew a total blank
4. same with a hamburger, even though I would think he’d give a stab with ‘sandwich’ or something
5. best, when shown a scene of the zoo, I pointed at the Gorilla’s. He said “Gorilla, like a monkey”. Then I pointed at the monkeys and he said “monkeys”. Then I pointed at the humans lined up looking at the animals and he said, “People. Like the monkeys.” So cool.
5. We have messed around with teaching him a couple of birds. One day on the back deck there was a cardinal that landed near us and I said, “Ooh, Alder look at that red bird. What kind of bird is that?” He looked but too late to see, so he guessed, “Flamingo bird in da yard!”
6. He calls CDs “TVs”.
7. When we go to the Farmers Market, for some reason when we pull into the parking lot, he says “Fahmuhs Mahkit. Git some MONEY!”
8. We talk about how boats go in the water and cars cannot go in the water, so cars go over the bridge and boats go under the bridge, everyday when we cross the James to go to/from school. One day last week, he was rather quiet in the back seat and I turned and asked him what he was thinking about. “Cars NOT go in the sky, Daddy.” I think that qualifies as early deduction. We never talked about that one.
9. We also sing songs in the car sometimes. Old MacDonald is one. I will start each verse and then when it comes to naming what animal Old MacDonald has, I will point back at Alder and he can pick something. Likewise, when it comes time to sing what the animal says, I point and let Alder make the animal sounds. One day last week, he picked a cow on the first verse, pig on the second, and on the third, he said "Equipment driver!". Biting my tongue, I pointed back to him, prompting him to tell me what an equipment driver says, he pondered this and helped sing, "With a - BE LOUD!! - here and a - BE LOUD!! - there..." Then he picked a dog.
10. Best for last: On a walk recently, in the double stroller, Heath was reclined, staring at the shifting morning light through the trees, and Alder was shoving blueberry pancakes in his mouth.
    After a mile or so Heath started to fuss a little. Maybe he was chilly. It was sort of early and cool out. As is typical, Alder got in Heath’s face and baby-talked “Whassa matta Heath?”, telling him “Do not cry”. A few minutes later, after Heath fell silent again, we looked down and Alder was… holding his hand!!! Quite casually, blueberry-faced and not even looking at Heath, but he was holding his hand. The double stroller has definitely paid for itself now.

For those who read all this till the end, here are two pics from a while back. Haircut.

More details about our recent weekend in B'ham coming soon...