Category: Uncategorized (Page 17 of 40)

As we break for Summer from Gardner, I am surprised to notice how much this little boy has grown, both inside and outside. He is polite, thoughtful, empathetic and quite chatty. Being at Gardner has fostered a level of independence I would never have expected at 3 (takes himself to big boy potty, washes hands without prompting, and cleans up after himself–most of the time, after only being asked once!). We’ve had some challenges, too, but I think the days of him blatantly breaking the rules upon seeing me at pick up (remember the sand throwing?) are over.

We are back at The Goddard School for the summer, where D has been reunited with his old pals. At first they all hardly recognized each other: faces slimmer, hair darker, all much taller. But by the 3rd day, D was wanting to pretend his friends–old and new–were playing with him at his house, eating with him, bathing with him, and, most importantly, sleeping with him.

He does get lonely in his bed at night and will sometimes make an appearance near my bedside complaining of a “sore leg” or of being cold.

(I was recently reminded of how, in other cultures, children sleep in the same room with their parents, sometimes until quite late in life, when reading Jhumpa Lahiri’s moving Unaccustomed Earth)

The other morning he came into our bedroom quite early, round 5am, and stage-whispered in my ear “Mommy, I love you right up to moon, and back!” Although he knew he hadn’t stayed in his room until “6-2-6” (6:26 am, a joke between us), he thought he could sweeten the blow by delivering this poetic message to me.

He just can’t wait to be out in the world each day…to get out and flap his wings, get some sand between his toes, earth smeared in his palms, blueberries forever tattooing his clothes.

Here is a great example of the confident young man he has become (in the first shot, that’s him toward the back, getting some help from Miss Liz. Since he is so light, he floats above the ground, a hovering butterfly).

I noticed from a very young age that D would give up too easily when trying something new. For a long time we’ve been trying to re-enforce that he needs to learn to do things even if they seem difficult. I’ve been trying to cultivate in him the art of struggling.

This morning I was greeted with an unexpected manifestation of our efforts: D opened the safety gate that is meant to keep him away from the stairs when groggy (or should he prove to be sleepwalker). As I was making my coffee I heard a click, then “Mommy, I did it! I got the gate open. I kept trying!”

As parents we too need to remember this — and some days it’s not easy. I work on food a lot, often re-introducing things D thinks he doesn’t like, and it’s magical when it pays off. After a lifetime of not wanting to eat rice, D said, “More rice, please!” at dinnertime. Eventually he just forgot he “didn’t like” rice. Hooray!

And speaking of sticking with things…the other morning I went into D’s room when I saw him get out of bed (via the web cam), and found him on his room potty. He got up, pulled his pants up and shooed me away, stating: “Mommy, I still want to sleep.”

D has a surprising amount of patience when assembling Legos (with Mom or Dad– still not quite ready to play with Lego brick on his own. He is much more interested still in making the assembled autos go).

Here are the results of their efforts!

In what was perhaps the best example of his perseverance — and the biggest treat for me — was that D insisted upon joining me on my entire 5k (3 mile) Melanoma Fun Walk! I didn’t think he could stick it out, especially before hand, with all the crowds, vendors, people talking over PAs– lots of sensory overload. But once we hit the road he found his stride and was so proud to cross the finish line with me.

Thanks to all of you who donated for your participation!

Taking streetcar to the Fun Walk

Group warm up

On the road raising money for Melanoma Research

At the Finish Line

Tuckered out post walk (not really asleep)

D has been into putting on shows lately, and talking about different instruments, and bands. He likes to talk about who will be in his band, and what they will play. He is also intriguied by those artists who can both sing and play an instrument at the same time.

On Monday D and I stayed home to tend a bad cold of his; I showed him some youtube videos of people singing while playing an instrument. He couldn’t believe it when he saw a young Bob Dylan singing, playing a harmonica and a guitar. He promptly fetched his harmonica, and I held it up to his mouth while he strummed his ukulele.

Now he just needs to work on his rhythm and singing style (although a quirky singing style made Bob Dylan!). Oh, and maybe learn another song.

I guess D really took it to heart when I told him that you sometimes need some speed to be able to balance: on roller skates, on skis, or on a bicycle.

Last week something about all this clicked for him. On an evening walk last week, the Skuut bike that had been propping up rakes in the garage called out to him. He built up some speed and started “riding” using balance, picking up his feet. It was amazing, it just happened, naturally.

(I think the foray into roller skating a couple weeks back also helped).

Here he is showing his building confidence!

I cut off the beginning of the video, in which I am being his “coach,” telling him to keep looking forward, keep his weigh centered, and only move the handle bars a tiny tiny bit. He also insisted I use the “green flag” at the starting line, signaling the beginning of the race…

It was on our first Mother’s Day that D started walking; for this Mother’s Day I get another physical milestone. At least for the moment, I can still keep up with him…thanks to Best Daddy Ever for getting this great shot on that beautiful day.

Most Sundays, we have an outing to “church” — our church of tall cedars, cypress and pines, riverside or creekside, among the moss.

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Shelli keeps a sweet chronicle of the day’s events.

Here are some of my recent favorites.

At bedtime, after I tell him the names of all the people who love him, and we have a story about nighttime adventures inspired by the flight in The Snowman. Then if he is feeling anxious about being in his room alone (not wanting me to leave), I tell him that even when we’re not in the same room together, I am with him, in his heart, and he’s in my heart, and it will always be that way, forever and ever. And that’s called love. Then we list all the times this is true: day time, night time, spring time, winter time…when it rains and when it snows…And at all those times, I’m with you. And that my love for him can be seen in every perfect tree, the raindrops, in every flower, and in each graceful fish in the ocean. When the sun shines on your face, or when you sit under a huge tree, when you find a bug and when the snowflakes melt on your eyelashes. At all those times.

Sometimes I do a variation on this and talk about when you can’t see me. We talk about when he closes his eyes, and can’t see me, but I’m still with him, forever and ever, even when you grow up and have your own children. He is grappling with this idea of time, since he is starting to understand as he gets older I might be gone, away from him (like at college); he sometimes walks very slowly, “like an old person.”

This naturally leads to talking about death and all the questions that come with that abstract idea. So we had been talking about death recently, since a child came to school mentioning a relative who’d died, and I ran over (another) frog when backing out of the garage, and I told him I missed “Great Grandpa Rand.” He asked what would happen if I died, and I said it’d be like I was still here, except you couldn’t see me. When we discuss this he sometimes asks, what if you and Daddy died? “Grandmas and Grandpas and Aunt and Uncles will care for you”).

Processing….processing.

Shelli, I so enjoy reading these entries at the end of a long week. Often times she goes back and adds pictures that make it even more special. This is a book we will truly cherish for years to come.

Dashiell enjoys reading the poems in Robert Louis Stevenson’s A Children’s Garden of Verses, a book that was read to me as a child, its fabric bound seams worn thin by years of handling. Thanks to Grandma Lori for getting a new volume for D when he was born!

We have our favorites and usually read the same poems again and again, but once we read My Treasures:

THESE nuts, that I keep in the back of the nest
Where all my lead soldiers are lying at rest,
Were gathered in autumn by nursie and me
In a wood with a well by the side of the sea.

This whistle we made (and how clearly it sounds!
By the side of a field at the end of the grounds.
Of a branch of a plane, with a knife of my own,
It was nursie who made it, and nursie alone!

The stone, with the white and the yellow and gray,
We discovered I cannot tell how far away;
And I carried it back although weary and cold,
For though father denies it, I’m sure it is gold.

But of all my treasures the last is the king.
For there’s very few children possess such a thing;
And that is a chisel, both handle and blade,
Which a man who was really a carpenter made.

Once I explained the term “nursie” to D, he started referring to Shelli as his “nursie,” which she is to him, and so much more. The idea of finding special sentimental items on their outings over hill and dale sparked his imagination. One day I mentioned the idea of gathering treasures to Shelli, and Shelli got inspired to set up a craft at her house.

Who knows what this special box will come to contain? Thank you Shelli for your love for D, your patience, and your crafty skills!