First Flight

We fed the birds today.

It was 57 degrees, sunny and I needed an excuse to be outside for just a moment.

After the usual dog poop sweep, I set The Boy loose in the back yard. Usually he hauls out his machinery to play with, but today he flew.

With his skinny legs pumping as fast as they could, he reached straight up to the sky and flapped his arms down in front of him. More pumping legs. Then reach for the sky and pull down double hand-fulls. Back and forth between the bird feeders.

"I am flying to the tree! I am eating aaaaaalll the suet! I am peck peck pecking the good seeds! I'm a piggy Stellar's Jay!"

"I am flying into my nest!" And he "climbed" a tree. Which is to say, he sat down on the lower branches of a weedy fotimia. But it's still his first tree-climbing experience.

It was one of those moments I will remember forever. They'll be wheeling me through some sterile Home and I'll drift back to this morning. Maybe I'll stay for a while.

Not Only Are There Opinions, but They Are Complex

This morning we were out the door early. I was off to the orthodontist's in Seattle so The Boy was off to Grandma's.

Still in his jammies and tucked into the car seat with a mug of milk, he chimes in to my morning reverie.

"News (NPR was on) is Daddy's favorite."

Yes.

"Abba Dabba (Honeymoon) my favorite."

Yes, it is. (I know. I know.)

"Listen to Abba Dabba."

Yeah, okay.

"Mama sing not."

Right.

Having cleared up the music issue, The Boy moved on to future concerns.

"Get on bus. See Buffalo." (We went to Northwest Trek in ... April? I didn't think he was paying attention to the buffalo, but apparently he was. How do they remember this stuff?)

The stock answer of late has been, "When Nonnie gets here, we'll ride the bus and see the buffalo."

As I took breath for the rote answer The Boy jumps in: "Wait for Nonnie not. Get on bus. Go see buffalo today."

Wow.

I've been told that there are developmental "bursts" where kids synthesize mental (vocabulary) and motor (speaking) skills seemingly overnight. Since he wasn't talking like this yesterday, I'd say "bursts" are a fact.

Hidden in the Brush Mower

Matt was out working on the brush mower with The Boy while I went to get a pizza (dinner was a failure — don't ask).

My return was greeted by the announcement, "Brush mower has nose goblins. Come out."

Oh. Really.

Tell me more.

Matt had got into the bearing and taken out the old grease. Quite nose goblin-y.

Now they're out there "polishing" the brush mower while I clean up my dinner disaster.

Daddy Do ... ?

This morning while I was dressing The Boy, I got the plaintive question I get every morning: "Daddy downstairs?" (Such a wistful, little voice.)

And, as it is five days out of seven, the answer is, "Daddy is at work. He'll be home at dinner time."

This morning, though, the question went further. "Daddy at work do ... ? Daddy at work do ... ?"

[He looks so intense when he is trying out new words or concepts. It looks like he's 1) not asking it right and 2) is concerned whether you will understand.]

I hadn't planned my answer to what Matt does at work but I gave it a shot.

"Daddy listens to people's problems and tells them how to fix it."

The Boy thought for a while and declared, "I help Daddy."

Well, yes, you can help when you're older. But for now, you can help him best at home.

"I have tools and hammer!"

Yes, you do. Those are very helpful for Daddy and I.

"I help mow grass!"

Yes.

"I brush mow!"

And the list went on and on. Turns out there's a lot of things he can do.

The Boy *IS* Twitter

The Boy provides a running — and constant — commentary of every thing he does.

Shoveling dirt.
Making hole.
More dirt.
Dirt everywhere.
Pat dirt.
Eat it?
Nummy dirt.
Mommy running.

The Boy is Twitter incarnate.

A TWO Red Letter Day

First Red Letter:
With every major developmental milestone (rolling over, standing up), people have said, "The party's over now!"

I've breezed by that statement. The Boy is pretty groovy about boundaries and no-boy zones.

But tonight, I think the party is, indeed, over. The old party, that is.

Tonight we had our first I Can Do It Myself.

You know that silence that rings after someone says, "You said you had the tickets," or "Will you accept a collect call from Thurston County jail?"

Yeah, it was like that.

Second Red Letter:
The I Can Do It Myself was prompted by the new potty chair.

There's been a lot of potty talk around the house lately. We've been talking about the day when diapers will no longer be necessary. The Boy seems interested in the concept.

So today I thought I'd see how he felt about the execution.

The ICDIM came from The Boy's dawning realization that he now has a reason to pull down his pants. There was a lot of pant readjustment, sitting and standing.

Oh, my genius boy, I thought to myself. He's going to be trained in a week and all will be self-sufficiency and pride.

You have to give me my flights of fancy.

It was a great ten minutes until he figured out the potty can be disassembled. Yes, that's right. It's a bowl, a toilet seat insert and a step stool. This was way better than some thing to sit on.

A list of Rules burst from my mouth:
The pot stays in the seat (it does not go on your head).
Nothing goes in the pot, through the seat or into the base that isn't poop, pee or paper.
It is not a truck.
It is not a tractor.
It is not a boat.

What finally got through: The potty is a tool just like the lawnmower and the chainsaw. You use it for only one thing.

So the party may be over.

But I think a new one has begun.

Exhausted but Present

Not the most alluring shot of Matt.

It's the end of day 22. 22 straight days of work; drilling in the National Guard. Four more days and he can be done for a bit.

But Matt's a Good Dad and absolute brain dead-ed-ness notwithstanding he is takes on Boy Care from the moment he walks through the door.

Tonight, by the time he dozed through dinner, flopping on the beanbag and staying awake was all he could manage.

The Boy figured he just had one more toy.

Daddy: Better Than a Swing Set.

Dad was, by turns, a horse, a plow, a car and some unidentifiable bit of machinery. Matt must have kidneys of teflon and a bladder of steel. There were a lot of giddyups and kick starts.
At one point Daddy the Tractor wouldn't start. The Boy walked around to see what the matter might be. He inspected Dad's nose the most closely and firmly announced, "Well, there's the problem."

Which was funny. But I can't figure out what the high point of the evening was. Either watching The Boy climb back onto his perch using Matt's face for a leg-up or seeing Matt's head flush a deep fuschia when The Boy when around back to "put the train in the tunnel."

Me? I was sipping a very nice glass of wine and laughing. I certainly didn't want to interfere with their bonding.