It's Hard to Recall

While at the doctors office, waiting for the doctor to show up, Grafton and Dad were looking at the ABC poster on the wall. It showed the full alphabet with a picture next to each letter. I was quizzing Grafton on his letters, and he got one, or maybe two, correct. But after a little while Grafton looked a little distraught, and said, "It's hard to remember."

I think this was the first time I heard him use the word "remember" on his own, without first being asked about "remembering" something in particular. I found it interesting that he was aware of his effort of trying to recall knowledge. I guess I just wanted to remember this moment myself.

Tuesday Notes

On our evening walk, we found some volleyballs sitting in a field and started playing with them. Grafton's getting pretty good at catching, if a (large) ball is thrown at his chest. He's got a pretty mean throw too, winding up his whole body and chucking the ball with a 2-hand sidearm pitching style. In the middle of our game of catch, he told us wanted to pee outside. We were very excited that he finally recognized his need to pee and telling us that he wanted to go. He also remembered something Daddy did on our hike together the previous day, at which time I told him how he too could pee in the woods, if he wanted. And he remembered. We scurried him over to a tree, but by then the urge was gone.

Grafton likes Jazz. When he hears it on the radio he tells us, "This is Jazz. I like Jazz." Tonight, he was fiddling with the iPod in his room and told me, "I want to listen to Jazz."

Johnny Cash is by far Grafton's favorite musical performer of late. It's all he asks for now, "I want to listen to Johnny Cash." Even though the Man in Black doesn't do Jazz. It only takes a few bars of music before Grafton is demanding we get out his guitar for him to play along.

Day in the Berks

It's been a while since our family's been able to just hop in the car and take off for a carefree day of fun. But with Mom and Dad back to health, and the sale of our house in motion (fingers still crossed), we took advantage of a beautiful Sunday to spend time together as a family out in the Berkshires.

Our first stop was at our local Tailgate Picnic deli to pick up lunch for, well, a picnic. After driving up Route 20 from Westfield, we stopped at a road side picnic area along the Westfield river near Huntington, MA. With full bellies, we headed further north to Middlefield, where we parked at the Keystone Arch Bridges trail head. Grafton had fallen asleep in the car, so we started out on our hike with Dad carrying the groggy boy in his arms. But Grafton soon awoke and was easily convinced to his hike on his own.

 

 

 

He hiked alongside us for almost 3/4 of a mile and would have gone farther on his own, but the all of the bugs buzzing around us required a faster pace. So we tossed him in the pack.

With Grafton now traveling at Daddy speed, we continued up the trail to check out the beautiful 70' Keystone Arch bridge, once used by trains heading through Berkshire mountains. It was a steep, slippery slope down to the bottom, descending from the trail that previously crossed the bridge.

 

 

After the hike, we headed over to the Lee Outlets, ostensibly to buy some clothes for Dad, but Grafton's the one that made out like a bandit (as always), picking up new pjs, shorts, and shirts for the summer. And we also found a hat for him we couldn't resist buying.

With lunch having taken place many hours earlier, we headed to our favorite Berkshire pizza spot in Great Barrington, aptly named Manhattan Pizza. Neva went in to order our pizza, while Dad stayed in the car with a sleeping Grafton. After bringing the comatosed kid in to the restaurant, he woke to the smell of our freshly baked pizza, smiled, and started right in on his dinner. The only proper way to follow-up such a yummy meal, of course is to get ice cream! So off we went to the SoCo creamery in town.

Where Grafton danced to music inside while we ordered and then ate Daddy's ice cream outside on the sidewalk.

 

All sugared up, and ready for more, we took out Grafton's bicycle for him to ride while we walked alongside down the main street.

As we came upon the Mason Library, Dad noticed its circular sidewalk leading up and down to the entrance, and thought it would make a great race track for Grafton to burn off his sugar high. But after one lap on his bike, Grafton decided he preferred to race around on his feet. We seriously think he did over 20 laps of this course. Fast. Hat flying off, and subsequently retrieved, on just about every lap. Sweat dripping down his brow and arms. A few laps with Dad and Mom racing around with him. All of this fun being had post-bedtime, and over an hour away from home.

On the way home, Grafton did not fall asleep in the car. But he slept well overnight. We all did. So we should have energy for hopefully more fun today at a Memorial Day parade...

The full set of photos of our Day in the Berks

Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious

Grafton can say it! (Yes, he loves the movie, Mary Poppins.) [Apr 24, 2011]

Today [May 14, 2011], Grafton is jumping around and dancing in the den, and then explains he's got a drum on his back. I realized he was imitating the Bert's "One Man Band" from the movie.

Language Challenges

Yes, English is a difficult language to master. Grafton's trying to, and doing well, but he's got a lot more to learn. Here are a few quotes, showing some of the current challenges:

"That's mines" (keeping the pluralization when reversing "that's yours")

"Where is them?" ("where are they?")

"I'm all doned with that." (forming past tense with irregular verbs, applying -ed suffix unnecessarily)

While eating corn on the cob, we explained that it can be "hard" to do. He started pointing at his sternum, saying "bones, my bones are here, they're hard". Oh, the challenges of homonyms! We gave him different examples of how the word "hard" is used, trying to show him that it can be two different words entirely. I'm pretty sure kids don't learn about using homonyms correctly via this type of classroom-like instruction, but we tried to explain it anyway.

While not a challenge, just wanted to note here, while talking about language, that the "why?" question is back in full force.

Dinosaur Dream

After waking up after a nap at school, Grafton went over to his teacher, Rachel, with a worried look. He told her that he had had a weird dream, "I dreamed a dinosaur ate my lunch. He ate my bagel."

Spider Extraction

While outside on the front porch, Mom and Dad spotted Grafton swiping at the floor with a wet tissue, while saying "bug, bug over here".  After a few seconds, we were able to recreate the events that led up to this moment:

While Mom and Dad were outside on the front porch, Grafton had spotted a small spider inside the house, near the front door. Grafton remembered that Daddy had been performing spider extractions earlier in the day, and knew what to do. First, he would need a tissue to grab the spider safely. He walked down to the den and retrieved one from the tissue box in the den. Next, he would have to wet the tissue (of course). So he retrieved his stepping stool, and brought it over to the kitchen sink, turned on the faucet, wet the tissue, and turned the faucet back off. Finally, he walked back over to the spider and started swiping at with the wet tissue. Mom and Dad, hearing Grafton talking about a "bug" looked over to see what was Grafton was up to. Seeing a spider evasively jumping around on the floor, Dad went over to take the tissue and spider away, and threw them in the trash.