All he knows about the birds

This morning I opened my bedroom window to a cacophony of birds chirping. It wasn’t sweet and intermittent, it was raucous and intense and unrelenting.

I said, “Wow. Listen to those birds sing.”

And my son said,“They aren’t singing. They are having a meeting.”

“Oh?”

“Well, you know, it’s springtime, right? And birds have a lot to do in the spring.”

“Really? Like what?”

“Well, they have to show the babies how to fly and how to perch after they fly, and they have to get worms to feed the babies, and then they have to teach the babies the most important thing of all.”

“Really?” I said, quite amazed by this outpouring of bird knowledge. “What is the most important thing of all?”

“Not to get stepped on by humans.”

Yep. That sounds pretty important to me.

 

You’re not supposed to eat it, but apparently he does

It was a crisis of epic proportions. Friday night we ran out of the Hot Wheels toothpaste (of course, it isn’t actually Hot Wheels, but there was one on the label). We did not have a spare.

We did, however, have another brand, something in a “Sparkle” flavor. He tried it. He rinsed his mouth close to 25 times before announcing that maybe he would get used to it. He did not. I will spare you the drama and the endless rinsing and spitting and washing of the tongue stories.

So this morning we stooped to a new low—opening up containers of toothpaste and tasting them in the store. Lucky for us, it took only three tries before the right one was found. (Yes, I bought all the ones he opened and rejected, too!! We didn’t stoop that low.)

In case you are wondering, the top choice around here is Colgate 2-in-1 watermelon flavored toothpaste. I’m thinking about buying a lifetime supply.

 

Not what I expected

Walking home from school one day last week, GP announced, “Mom, I’ve decided something.”

“What have you decided?” I asked, as he went on to tell me all about these furry faux pets.

“Real puppies grow up into great big dogs, and I don’t want a great big dog,” he said. “But if I had one of these puppies, he would always be a puppy and I could take him everywhere with me.”

“Hmmm.” I said. “I guess we can talk about it with daddy.”

And then, suddenly the furry faux pets were everywhere I looked. For sale at the local variety store. Peeking out of backpacks in the school yard. “Isn’t he a little old for this?” I asked a girlfriend, whose son happens to be the same age.

“Are you kidding me?” she said. “My son has a dozen of them.”

On Friday we brought it up with James, who immediately scoffed at the stuffed animal idea, but changed his mind as GP persisted. We went to the website, looked at the catalog, talked to other friends.

On Saturday, we went to the local toy store. “Remember,” I said, “if you don’t see the one you want, we can keep looking.” He keyed in on the chocolate lab. He took each one out of the bin and lined them up on the counter. He told them he knew they were all brothers and sisters, but he could only pick one to bring home. They looked identical. There was nothing to distinguish one brown puppy from another, but maybe he saw something—a spark, a twinkle, a tiny grin—because he pulled one close, tucked it under his chin and said, “This one.”

“I will call him Fudge,” he said, as we walked back to the car. They spent the day yesterday getting to know each other. Every five minutes, he told us some unknown fact about Fudge. Fudge can rollover, jump and do a handful of other tricks. They were inseparable—and all this before typing in the secret code and creating Fudge’s virtual life online.

Fudge was even introduced to last night’s dinner guests, including the friend whose son has a dozen. “You did it!” she said. “Isn’t he sweet? You’re going to have so much fun together.”

This morning, after a night cradling his new pet, GP climbed into our bed with his furry friend in tow. “Mom,” he said. “Isn’t Spot cute?”

“Spot?” I said. “Who is Spot?”

“Um—wait a minute,” my son said, as he literally scratched his head and looked at me in confusion. “I forgot. What’s his name again?”

And all this time I thought they were getting to know each other.

 

The high cost of therapy

We are currently into our second week of vision therapy. And it’s going better than I expected.

Tuesdays are a little hectic and rushed, but so far, we are managing to get from one place to another without too much drama. The truth is, he’s kind of into it—not the vision therapy, per se, but the free pass on Tuesday night’s homework, and the special snack in the car, and the extra time at the rice box for doing a good job at OT. Not to mention the possibility of dinner out on the way home.

We talk a lot around here about solving problems. When my son gets frustrated or angry about something, I will often ask, “Okay. What can we do to solve the problem?” And then I’ll say something like, “Should we cry?” and he will say, “No.” And then I’ll say, “Should we stomp our feet and throw things?” and he will say, “No.” And then I’ll say, “What do you think we should do?” and he will say, “Talk. Figure it out. Work together.” (Months of work, my friends, to get to this dialogue.)

So, when he became extremely frustrated and upset last week over the eye exercises he is supposed to be doing at home, I said, “What do you think we should do? What will make you feel better about doing these exercises?” And he said, “Hot Wheels.” And I said, “Well, that’s a lot of Hot Wheels. Maybe we can think of something else?”

Then it hit me. Money. The perfect solution. So James and I offered him the chance to earn quarters for doing a good job. “This,” I said, “is better than Hot Wheels. You can use money to buy any toy you want. It’s perfect.”

And because he is a master negotiator, he convinced us that his in-office therapy sessions are worth a dollar, and his home exercises are worth a quarter a day.

On Tuesday, however, he increased his price. He was given a new exercise to do at home. So he bumped his day rate to 50 cents.

 

Send in the clown

My son is obsessed with this show. I don’t remember when it started, but a while back he caught maybe 10 minutes of it before bed one night. And that was it. He was hooked.

He doesn’t always remember when it’s on, but when he does and we let him watch, he is all a-giggles. From 7 to 8 p.m. EST on Sunday nights, the boy is quite seriously, rolling on the floor and laughing out loud.

Last week, he figured out how the show works. And now, he wants to send in a video. Of us. Being silly.

I may have mentioned this before: I don’t do silly.

Sigh.

 

What will he think of next

I was fiddling around on the computer yesterday afternoon and James was sitting across the room, reading, when our son wandered in and asked, “Are you guys thinking what I’m thinking?”

“What’s that?” we asked, as we exchanged raised eyebrows and grins over his adorable, bobbing head.

“Toys are us,” he said with authority. “I’m thinking Toys are us.”

 

To be a boy

I was at a friend’s the other day, standing in her upstairs hallway chatting about the new tile in her bathroom, when the discussion turned to boys. She led me into her 7-year-old son’s room, which is currently being shared by his younger brother (since the construction supplies for the bathroom renovation must be kept somewhere). “Just look at this,” she said, pointing to the trinkets and treasures covering every flat surface. “They are such boys.”

Yes, I thought, as a vision of my son’s room popped into my head. Boys tend to collect things, useless things, other people’s junk. “It makes me crazy” she said. “You can’t even walk in this room.”

And while she was lamenting the temporary lack of space with two beds in a bedroom clearly too small for two, I think I know how she feels.

My son’s dresser and book shelves and storage bins are home to an eclectic mix of trash and treasure. Empty toilet paper rolls (“I’m going to build a limousine with those,” he says), stray wheels and broken signs and pieces of an old construction set (“I’m making a junk yard”), and piles of cars and trains that for reasons only he understands, must be kept separate from other piles of cars and trains.

He’s always kept his things organized and because of that, I’m not a stickler on clean up. Every few days he’ll come to me and ask if I will help him clean his room. And while I used to do the lion’s share of the work, lately, he’s more than halfway done before I’ve set aside what I’m doing and climbed the stairs to help.

But it’s the bits and pieces of salvage and scrap—a cotton ball that fell off an art project, a broken rubberband, a torn piece of blue construction paper, a rock, an old piece of cardboard—that has me shaking my head. I look at these things and wonder what value they could possibly hold.

While I am tempted to rifle through his stuff and toss the trash in the trash, I remind myself that it’s not about me. What a fine thing it must be—to be a boy in possession of spare parts for a limo and a junkyard.

I mentioned this to my friend and she nodded her head in agreement. “You know,” she said, “I did have to draw the line at the empty toilet paper rolls.”

 

What yesterday brings

Yesterday was a long day. From school to the eye doctor to OT, it was an afternoon full of demands and a great deal of sitting around waiting rooms.

On the way home from OT, GP asked me if we could go out to dinner. He knew James had an event after work and that my brother had gone into the city for the day. “Just us, mom. Please.”

It was late. I was tired. I had less than $10 in my wallet. And I wasn’t feeling great. I wanted to go home.

Not too long ago, GP would not have been able to manage his disappointment. He would have cried, complained, carried on for miles. But yesterday, he was quiet. Then, “You know, we’re just about to pass that diner we like.” He really has an uncanny sense of direction. For someone who doesn’t often know where his body is in space, he always knows where he is on the road and how to get where he wants to go.

But I was gone. Drained. Wiped out. So we compromised. “How about we stop at Wendy’s? You can order chicken nuggets and fries and we’ll take your dinner home to eat.”

“Great idea, mom.”

So, off we went, feeling only slightly guilty about the fast food agenda. But while we were in line at Wendy’s (no drive-thru!!!), he asked if it would be okay to eat his dinner there. Again, I had to say no. “I want to go home,” I told him as he started to whine and push into me.

Okay, I thought, this is it. He held it together all afternoon and now he’s going to lose it over a bag of takeout.

But guess what? I don’t think a full minute passed before he squared his shoulders, looked up at me and said, “It’s okay mom. You are tired. Let’s go home.”

And that is what I remember about yesterday.

 

Art 101: Color and realism

This—

—led to this…

Resulting in this—

—and this.

To say his interest in drawing has increased doesn’t begin to cover it. The picture above was a two-day project beginning with a pencil drawing of a street in town and then much debate over whether markers, paint or colored pencils would yield the best result. He choose the pencils.

The “roadway” on the bottom of the drawing is littered with red, yellow, green and blue cars. As you can see, there is a lot of traffic on this street. Probably due to congestion at the Pizza Parlor, where he even drew in the tables and chairs under the giant pizza in the window (click the images for a larger view).

 

Just another snow day

He woke up asking for his snow pants and his mittens.

He brought all the heavy machinery out of the garage.

He tested the snow to make sure it was solid.

(It was.)

He put some finishing touches on yesterday’s snowman.

(Who had to be re-built this morning following a tragic fall during the night.)

He looked at the snow through a magnifying glass.

(Because, as you know, no two crystals are alike.)

He pulled chunks of icy snow off the bushes.

And he had a rip roarin’ good time.

 

Start spreading the news

As the dad on the small screen (we rented one of the Benji movies from the library) continued to mistreat his son, I felt I needed to say something, to make it clear to GP that not all kids have good parents. “It’s a good thing I have a really good dad, right mom?”

“Yes. It is. You are very lucky.” And because I couldn’t resist, I added, “What about me? Do you have a good mom too?”

“You are the best mom in the whole world,” this child who has stolen my heart exclaimed. “But don’t go spreading it around the neighborhood, okay?”

Um. Okay. Sure. I won’t tell a soul. I promise. You didn’t hear it from me. No sir.