Auntie time

Ticka, ticka, ticka

Airplane!

Auntie!

Eye of the beholder

Henry called me out to the front porch, where he was watching a neighbor working on his car. The trunk was open and the hood was up.
"Look!" said Henry. "It's a butterfly car!"
And a few minutes later: "It closed its wings and flew away."

A barrow full of boys

Off to the park...

...to look at the train.

Sometimes I worry about this

One recent night, while Henry was having an unscheduled bath, James stood at the coffee table in the living room, building buildings out of blocks. He would build one to his satisfaction, then cover it with a piece of purple felt that's been knocking around the house for the last month or so, and, after a moment, snatch the felt away with a flourish, crowing with delight at the surprise underneath--over and over again. I was in the kitchen, washing dishes.

Without a doubt, Henry and James play differently--and better--when I am not around. The difference is even more striking when they are playing together.

If I am sitting in the room with them, or am visibly watching them, Henry is far more likely to snatch things away from James, push James down, or lie down obstructively in the path of wherever James is trying to go. James, in turn, is unlikely to go longer than five minutes without coming over to tug at my shirt, asking to nurse. Or, these days, to bite me. But if I disappear, productive collaborations are likely.

This morning, they did a spot of cooperative brick-laying, as well as a considerable amount of shoving long thin things into tubes and bottles. For at least 45 minutes, they worked together outside, while I peeked at them through the window from time to time, and listened. Then they came inside to make yogurt out of blocks--together--in an old yogurt-maker. The only hitch came about when they came to find me and offered a cup of yogurt. I dropped it, shattering the glass.

"I'M careful with glass," Henry said. "I'm a big boy." And a few minutes later, more sympathetically, "I know how you feel when stuff breaks."

I know this is good. In keeping with all my demographics, I am (mostly) on board with Free Range parenting. I want my children to have private lives, I want them to develop relationships with each other and the rest of the world that are unmediated by me. I am all for intrinsic motivation, learning through play, and NOT playing with my children except when it's actually fun for me.

However. Quite apart from the fact that this idyll is always in danger of being interrupted by a sudden and ferocious physical attack that I will be unable to prevent, or that it may result in permanent damage to our propertly, collaboratively (and silently) inflicted, there is a something that niggles at me: THEY are doing what they are supposed to be doing, but while they are doing it so beautifully, so usefully, so busily, what is it that I am supposed to be doing?

Speculative fiction by Henry

What if we found a baby dinosaur?
What if the dinosaur was very, very gentle?
What if I petted it?
What if it lived in our house and tickled me?
What if the baby dinosaur grew up to be a mama dinosaur?
What if somebody found out we had a dinosaur?
What if somebody wanted to take our dinosaur to a museum?
What if our dinosaur got into a rocket ship and flew to outer space?
What if an astronaut looked out of the window and saw the dinosaur?
What if he looked out of the window and saw a big dinosaur BONE?

Remember this

We are having such a nice morning. I'm sure it won't last. But I have cleaned the kitchen and the bathroom (well, almost), the house is redolent of rosemary & lavender, Henry helped fold laundry ("I'm a big boy, so I know how to fold things!) and is now single-mindedly constructing a folly of a garage for a Hot Wheel car out of blocks, and James is drawing with colored pencils on beetle-sized bits of paper he tore up.

Last week's iteration.

Last night we were all lolling together before bed and James plunged toward Henry saying "Mmmmmm"--his idea of a kiss. They grappled for a moment. Then Henry sat up and said, "I guess James wanted to pour his love into me."

Some days I don't really enjoy my life much until everyone is asleep, so I want to remember this.

This is for you, Ray Canoy

Police Boy

And Fire Baby