Men and Tools

Tonight J and Toe decided that Toe's chairs needed to be taken apart and put together again. I think a desire for a color change was the impetus. Or maybe it was just a chance to play with tools, I'm not sure.

Engrossing conversation about hex wrenches.

Suddenly J was dragging his tool box into the living room and they were talking about nuts and bolts and looking at hex wrenches and socket wrenches and screwdrivers. It was a total father/son moment. J and Toe have those all of the time in all kinds of circumstances, but this one was just classic. I can't do it justice.

"Wait!? There's a second level? Dad! There's a second level in your box!"

Working on the chairs

 The chairs went from two-tone to four color jobs. Not sure how we'll delineate them now ("Toe, could you grab the red chair?" Not so much...) but I think we're up for the challenge.

Fully reassembled chairs. Note Toe peeking out of the orange back.

Celebratory root beer

Mandatory Mud Puddle

Toe is learning how to ride a bike, and in the meantime is also using this amazing device called a Skuut. It is like a bike, but with no pedals. He learns balance but uses his feet to push along. It's pretty ingenious. The other day we took the Skuut down the Riverwalk. It was sunny but the wind was pretty icy. Toe began complaining right away and my wonderful friend (who had been invited for a walk, not to serve as a pack mule) ended up carrying said Skuut. We continued to walk. Toe always talks as he goes, so when things got quiet, we turned around to see how far he had fallen behind. 

There he stood, completely entranced by a puddle. He said, "Look, Mom! I'm making mud!" Many nature writers talk about the importance of having unstructured time in nature, for a variety of reasons. One is that nature provides items that can be used for a variety of purposes and spark the imagination (Mud can become mudpies, paint, or an entire village to squish. Pine cones can be eggs, grenades, building materials, etc.). Another is that natural surroundings provide calming and focusing effects. It doesn't have to be capital N nature - the beach or the grand canyon. An empty lot or back yard also provide these benefits. As do mud puddles on the sidewalk, apparently.

I saw it all in action. Toe found a stick, which he used first to stir mud and gravel into the puddle. My friend and I sat down to watch. Next, he wanted to have us put gravel into the pond with him, which we politely declined. The stick became a magic wand to make us do what he wanted. Said wand was defective on that account, but we did have fun seeing what else the wand could do. As I recall, it worked some mojo on a huge clump of blackberry bushes behind us. We stayed at the puddle for more than ten minutes, with our backs to a glorious view of the river, watching a more intimate connection with the natural world. Or, some of the elements of the natural world: water, mud, rocks, sticks. Doesn't get much simpler than that.

Maritime History

We took Uncle Awesome to the local maritime museum the other day. Toe has become infatuated with the Coast Guard display that you can see from the Riverwalk. He likes the "danger music" that plays during the documentary (there are speakers outside). So we finally went inside to investigate. Uncle Awesome told Toe that the 44 foot Coast Guard boat we looked at was the kind Grandpa Boat used to drive and to train people to pilot. Toe loved the hands-on aspect of the museum and maybe learned something about the area. The place is an amazing reminder of how powerful the river and the ocean are.

Geography Lesson for Mom and Dad

 The other night J was helping Toe brush his teeth. Toe pulled the stopper for the drain so that no water would leave the sink. When J protested, Toe said, "It's okay, Dad. It's a science experiment." He had discovered that when he spit into water, the foam made cool shapes. He thought they looked like the continents. "Look, Dad, that one looks like Africa!" He spit next to it and said,"There, that's Madagascar." He then added Antarctica before they called me in to show me the world.

Thanks, Nana and Papa for the world map that started conversations like these.