Carter & Max, bruhdas

Grafton and I finally had a chance to spend a full day together, which hasn't happened in a while. (Mom was around but taking some "me" time for herself most of the day.) We started out the morning by having Trader Joe's waffles with peanut butter, a recent culinary favorite of Grafton's. After some reluctance I convinced Grafton to join me in putting together his new 100-pc Safari floor jigsaw puzzle. He's certainly got a knack for puzzles and has been doing many simpler ones on his own, during mornings when he's still waiting for his parents to rise from bed. At some point during puzzle time, Grafton declared that today we would pretend to be "brudhas", instead of Dad and son. Apparently, our Dad had died in the Army, leaving us two boys and Mom to fend for ourselves. Grafton became "Proder", and I became "Max". But soon after, Proder became Carter. Later in the day Carter became Aiden, but Carter was the predominant brotherly name today. Anyway, after the Safari puzzle, we whipped through the easier Solar System puzzle, and then needed to decide what to do next. With the impending forecast of rain for the afternoon, I encouraged Grafton to join me on a hike, a challenge he accepted without too much coaxing (finally!).  We suited up in our waterproof hiking shoes, packed our backpack with our rain coats and gloves, and headed out the door. We took the Route 47 trailhead up to the Summit House on Mt. Holyoke. Carter hiked aggressively, without getting hung up on picking out walking sticks (etc.) too frequently. He powered up the steep sections, and we even passed a group of older hikers by the time we reached the paved road. Talking the whole way up didn't seem to slow him down. Near the top I took out my camera to grab a few shots of his final ascent, but he was so quick I nearly missed him, and got winded trying to catch up. We hung out on the summit for a short bit, took a few shots, and headed back down the Halfway Trail. After a slip and fall on his butt down a steep section, he became worried I'd ask him to change out of his now-dirty sweatpants when we got home. So he asked repeatedly whether we could wash off the dirt, allowing him to keep on his pants all day. (He absolutely adores his sweatpants, and wants to wear nothing else these days.) I tried to convince him he could keep them on all day, even if we had to wash them, and he eventually believed my words. We agreed not to tell Mom about the slip and the dirty pants (so don't tell her please, if you're reading this!). Holding hands now, we finished the steep part of the descent to the paved road. At the Halfway House the drizzle set in, so we threw on our raincoats, and started down the final segment of our hike. The rain started in a bit harder, but we were well equipped and so it didn't bother us at all. Back at the car, we saw a few other parties of hikers were also returning from their wet outing. Taking off our wet outer layers, we hopped in the car and headed to Barstow's, where Mom had agreed to meet us. After a nice lunch, we decided to head up to Hadley in one car to get some shopping out of the way. We first stopped at Sam's to get a few last minute items for our (iffy) trip to Lake Placid. Grafton was in a very active mode, making it difficult to shop, but generally well behaved. He did a great job altering his behavior when I explained to him that he was requiring too much attention from me. Next, a quick stop at Whole Foods and then a drive home in the pouring rain. Finally at home, Grafton invited me to build his new fire set Legos together, which we did. As the set had both a truck and a building, Dad took the truck and Grafton the building. He followed the instructions intently, without getting bored or demotivated and build it up perfectly, which pleasantly surprised me. With dinner time upon us, we ate homemade pizza, and followed it up with some Patriots football. Earlier in the day, Dad had told Grafton that he needed to install his snow tires. Dad was going to put off this drudgery for another day, but Grafton remembered the task and told me I had to get it done ("Do it! Do it! You have put on the snow tires, Max!"). He was also intent on helping me, having remembered the importance of his participation from earlier tire swaps. So we suited up in our work clothes and headed out to the cold, damp garage. Grafton was a dedicated, focused helper the whole time. He offered his strength turning the lug nut wrench and tirelessly provided the new lug nuts needed during installation, popping each into the extension socket with great care. Listening to country music all the while (with one song repeating three times during a best-of-the-year countdown!?), we got through three tire changes together before I told him he needed to go to bed. He was starting to put up his normal fight on this matter, but I explained to him that since he was my younger brother, he needed to go to bed earlier than his older brother. And that seemed to convince him it was okay to give in and head inside to get ready. When I finished up the last tire, I headed inside, washed up, but arrived inside too late to give him a kiss goodnight. Grafton had gone to bed quickly, tired from the full day of activities. And that's about as full of a day together as we've had in a long time.