Quirkle Master

Grafton beats Mom at Quirkle!

And he's off...

Grafton vs Grafton

PopPop introduced Grafton to chess many weeks ago, after giving him a children's book on how the game is played. Thanks (in part) to the adventurous illustrations of Kings and Knights (etc.) throughout the book, Grafton continued to be interested in it. And he was even motivated to continue learning to play the game! We ended up playing a number of games, while I continued to teach him the rules. I was surprised at how well he learned all the chess piece moves within a few games (although the Knight still gives him occasional trouble when he's tired).

As is usually the case with Grafton, once he gains interest in a topic, it becomes a requirement that we learn more about it on the Internet. Partly because he loves to see images on the things he's interested in, but he also loves for us to read to him historical accounts of nearly anything related to the topic. At one point  I had mentioned the movie "Searching for Bobby Fischer", and how it was about a boy chess prodigy. So Grafton was soon asking "Who is Bobby Fischer, Dad?" Wikipedia provided a truly in-depth account of this enigmatic man's life. We both found it interesting to read that as a young boy, Bobby didn't have many available opponents to play against and so continued to teach himself chess by playing against himself! We both found this quite interesting and talked about how difficult it must be to switch sides each move, and knowing how your opponent would think and plan his moves against "you". 

Well, one day while Dad was at work, he received this Google Hangout chat from Mom:

G's playing himself at chess!

That's fantastic. 
Is he winning?! 

Yes and losing.

Grafton says the white side has the most pieces left, but he can't predict who will win because the winner will be decided by who protects the king the best.
Check mate! White side won, black lost.

After the match, Mom told Dad that after the game was over, Grafton demonstrated a high-level of sportsmanship by shaking his own hand!

The Deep End trick really works

At the beginning of the summer, Grafton declared to us that he was going to take on the challenge of learning to swim. As the summer progressed we continued to encourage him to try, and did our best to show him how it's done. But he didn't seem all the motivated and often gave up in the pool before making much progress. We didn't want to push him too hard, knowing he'd make the effort once he was ready (this has always been Grafton's way).

A few weeks ago, and only a few days before his first day of swim lesson in Amherst, we were able to push him to give it another shot. In the shallow end of the pool he was able to take a stroke or two without his feet falling to the floor. Encouraged by this improvement, Mom suggested to Dad that he take Grafton slightly into the deep end to see if he really could keep his body afloat without touching his feet down. Holding his underarms, Dad pulled him out past the shallow end and let go. Grafton splashed and struggled, but kept his body afloat and moving forward--he was truly swimming! All of us were thrilled and Grafton was particularly proud of himself.

Over the next two weeks, Grafton made great strides in the water under professional instruction. In each of his first two classes he was promoted to the next more advanced class, reaching the Duckling level. He became comfortable with bobs and underwater blastoffs (a bob and jump). Most impressively, he became comfortable jumping into the pool and then swimming back to the wall, all under his own power and flotation. Seeing this happen, Mom and Dad shared a great sense of relief, knowing that his ability to survive a slip into the deep end of our pool would no longer  destined to be tragic.

A week later, we hosted a pool party for Grafton and his friends to celebrate the end of summer and the arrival of Kindergarten. A number of his friends were already capable swimmers.  They made heavy use of the diving board, splashing down into the deep end and then swimming to edge, ready for to go again. Grafton is not one to be left behind by his friends' activities. And even though we had never yet let him swim in the deep end of the pool on his own (without flotation assistance), before we even knew it he was jumping off that diving board, splashing down, and swimming right back over to the edge without fear or struggle [1]. While we knew he could do this, Mom and Dad weren't prepared to see him doing it in the deep end of the pool. But we were very glad to see it, and knew we could finally relax (a little more!) when Grafton is in the pool area with us.

[1] We did have a lifeguard on duty, otherwise we would have been watching him like a hawk!

Can't Even Scare Him to Behave

After days of challenging behavior from our son during our vacation, we jokingly (in desperation?) told Grafton that we were simply going to have to swap him in for another, better-behaved boy from another family.

The next day he explained that our plan simply wouldn't work. He reasoned no other parents would agree to the trade if they knew that they would be getting a boy with worse behavior than their current child.

Foiled again!

Knight's Bed

Grafton pointed out that along with King and Queen size beds, there is also a Knight size bed.

Adam & Eve

Back in April, Grafton inquired, "Who was the first human?" Of course, a detail discussion of the Darwinism ensued. I wonder if he remembers any of it.

Mobile Device

Grafton is increasingly trying to spend time using Mom's old smartphone, which now he all but assumed is his. We probably had something to do with encouraging that sense of ownership. Hmm, probably a bad parenting move. Although we've mostly only allowed it for educational games. But now we've slipped (more than?) a few times, and let him play Angry Birds. And now I think we went down a slippery slope from which there is no return. At least we can use smartphone privileges as an incentive to achieve other desired behaviors. But that's probably an even more slippery slope that we as parents should avoid! Oh, what have we done.

One interesting thing that happend with the smartphone: After using the phone to take photo that came out too dark, he realized that he could use flashlight app to take a photo with more light. Bright idea!

Almost afloat?

We're finally seeing Grafton put in a real effort to try and learn how to swim. As soon as he's wants to learn or do something, it usually follows quickly thereafter. So here's hoping...

"Yes, sir!"

When he knows he needs to be obedient, Grafton now responds "Yes, sir!" to his Dad's requests. (I also heard at least one "Yes, Ma'am").  He says he picked this up while staying at the Harrison's a couple of weeks ago.

Deciphering Behavior

We finally figured out the causes of Grafton's various moods and we offer this handy guide to anyone that might need to take care of him:

• Uncontrollably silly, giggly, or affectionate: Exhausted
• Mean, aggressive, obstinate: Starving
• Refuses to eat: Constipated

Swinging

Was at the playground with Grafton, watching him swing. He's got the self-propulsion down pat now. He mentioned he had finally figured out how to do it while at his friend's Birthday party on May 31.

Early Stress

"I'm getting stressed because nobody will help me!" (while trying to work on his rubber band bracelet)

Coolatta

After drinking about 1/3 of his Dunkin Donuts Strawberry Coolatta, Grafton declares, "I'm listening to my body and it's telling me I had enough."

Whoa!

He was still pretty nutty for a while afterwards anyway, as that plenty of sugar for his small body.

(He gets about two of such treats per year, by the way.)

A few things of note

Grafton is demonstrating increasing use of symmetry & organization when playing with his building toys. His space ships are very perfectly symmetric now and he lined up boats and cars (etc.) when playing with city street set.

He read all three of Baba's "learning to read" books to us tonight. It was clear he wasn't just (always) reciting memorized words and sentences. The last sentences of each book would trip him up, but he figured out the words on his own. In one case he saw a word he recognized from another page, so went back to that page to remember how the word sounded and then returned to the original page to complete the sentence. He is also sounding out simple words quickly now ("can", "you", etc.) when he is unsure of the word.

He is still difficult as ever when he is tired and/or hungry.

He mad many days last week where is behavior was markedly improved. He was very agreeable and aiming to please his parents. Tonight he even bussed dishes from the dining table on his own accord.

Grafton dug out Mom's old smart phone and started playing with it more this week. While we generally discourage this, we have been able to get him to play educational games. Though he likes to mix these up with an occasional session of Angry Birds.

He asked me how Velcro worked this morning.

His drawings are getting much more involved and interesting lately. They include many characters and have many things going on at in the scene.

He scratched his face near his chin this weekend, falling on rocks. We'll see if this one heals completely or scars lightly as have the other scratches to his face.

Over the past month (or more?) he's become very interested in Star Wars, thanks to his friends at school. He tells us all about the characters. I love it when he demonstrates how Darth Vader breathes and speaks. He has not yet seen the movies. He asked me today why different characters have different Light Saber colors.

Grafton never really seemed sad at Mazzy's passing. He is very matter of fact about all matters of death. It doesn't seem to affect him.

Kids Say the Darndest Things

1. "They look dashing!" Grafton's response to seeing Dad's new dress shoes.
2. "Some bugs have been reported in the software". Overhead while Grafton was enacting a conversation between his dolls.

Shoelaces Knot a Problem Anymore

He's finally done it. Grafton can now tie his shoes. I'm convinced he could have done this a year ago, but why give up such a handy parental service before one has to? I watched him tie one shoe on his own earlier this week while at school. And yesterday morning he tied both of his shoes, proudly presenting his tied shoelaces to both of his parents before heading off to school.

Too Big for Mom?

It seems Mom's days of lifting up Grafton for a hug may be over. He's too big now! (And Mom's back is too injury prone.) And life moves on...

Athleta

After dinner, I found Grafton sitting on our recliner checking out the latest Athleta catalog to arrive at our hose. It had a women in a bathing suit on the front cover. I asked him if he liked the catalog and he shyly admitted that he did, with a grin. I asked him why and he told me, "the people". I followed up, "Pretty ladies, aren't they?" And he agreed.

Organization Gene?

Grafton organized our DVDs today, categorizing them by parents and kids movies. This is definitely the first time I've seen him try to organize anything.