I’m awake. It’s 6:15. On a Sunday. This is slightly unprecedented. And by slightly I mean completely, when not involving an airplane. For Jack it’s a regular but I got up before him today. It wasn’t long before I heard something. It sounded like one of the cats was shutting the open dryer door. Instead, I walked around and saw Jack sitting cross-legged on two plastic storage boxes, Iron Man sunglasses and red Cars walkie talkie in hand. I so wanted a photo – but decided that would be one of those pictures that just stays inside.

“Good morning daddy.”  He thought I might be upset that he was on there. “Good morning, Jack. How are you?” “Great.” Kisses. “Keep going.”

My first instinct was to work a little, low-brain, time-intensive stuff. But then I realized I’ve been trying to write a few blog posts all week. It’s now 7:08 and Jackie has been in and out talking and playing. Jasper started wailing though I left the room with both mom and Jasper sleeping. I went in and saw the second sweet boy smile of the day. I’m still waiting for the third, but he’s not up, yet.

“Daddy … What?” (Sounding more gentle then it looks on the screen.) … I love you 61 times. Noo, 31 times. 61 has become his favorite number, he walks around telling people he will give them. 61 bucks. Yesterday he started correcting it to 31; I like to think he’s being more careful with his money .. but then he just said, “I love you 81 times.”

I actually woke up at 5:40. Went to the bathroom, got dressed and was headed out to wake up the kids ready for a work day when something clicked that it wasn’t a work day.

It’s 7:25 and Jack has now been sent to his room by mom – it easily could have been me – for complaining, loudly and poutily no one reads to him, continuing to flick a book’s pages even when being asked and then told to stop. He hit Jasper’s bouncy chair after making a special effort to walk around the table to do so.

I’m now watching the 1st episode of the 6th season of West Wing on my phone as I type. Mom and Jasper are now outside, enjoying the early morning coolness. The day has begun.

Today Jasper left his enclosed world for good and is on his way to a world of daycare. It’s a shame that has to happen but who’s independently wealthy these days. And those who are, well they tend to be to busy and ignore their kids.

But it’s not a competition. It’s funny that everyone wants to say “he looks like you Carrie” or he “he looks like his daddy.” Truly truly truly he’s healthy, he’s smiling now and it doesn’t matter. He is lovely. He is going to be lovely, like his brothers.

We are so happy to see him. And so overwhelmed with gratitude.

UPDATED 19:26 with more and bigger pictures.

So, the boy’s a smart one and a near neophyte when it comes to solving puzzles and noticing patterns. It can be easy to overlook that for me, mostly I guess, because we don’t give him enough puzzles to work through. Sure, right now with the tooth missing and the haircut, he looks something like a cuter Alfred E. Newman. But there’s some crazy hidden madness to his method.

Over the weekend he wanted to play rush hour. I didn’t want to point out that the weekend didn’t have a rush hour, and Jack was asleep so sure, go out and play in the one-car-every-90-minutes traffic.
And by that I mean the game Rush Hour. I got it out for them about a week ago because it has cars and they like cars and it was a moment where I needed them distracted so I could get something (who knows what?) done. Eddie immediately said he wanted to play it, and I said “It’s more difficult than it looks, we’ll play it later.”

If you haven’t seen the game before, you put cars and trucks down in a pattern set down on a challenge card. The goal is to get the red car out the exit ramp. It’s really rush hour in a parking lot. Here’s an online version, to give you a good idea.

He tried the first one, of 10 at the beginner level. It was 9 and he got stuck because they get more difficult from 1 to 10. But then he started another, and after getting the idea that he could ONLY slide them, he got this big surprised goofy look on his face when he saw the path clear to the exit. He did all the others randomly, skipping one because he couldn’t do it but then sailing through all those and a few in the Intermediate level.

He stuck with it a while beyond the usual 6-year-old attention span – what Jon Stewart used to (and by used to I mean early 1990s) call Short Attention Span Theater.

What, me worry?

On October 12th, Eddie G. took about 12 minutes to read, Gold Stars – Red Tractor by Sue Graves. Carrie and Temple were on hand to guide him through some of the words; just hinting at sounds and so forth. He got a little frustrated when some words were introduced but also sailed through words we thought would be tough. But he did not give up.

It was the first book he read, having progressed at the beginning of his kindergarten year just over two months ago (started Aug. 10) from “readers” which were stories he could tell us with just pictures.

With emphasis on the first syllable this evening was – AWEsome!

This is what Eddie read:

Pg. 1
This is Red Tractor.

Pg. 2
Red Tractor helps the farmer on the farm.

Red Tractor can pull heavy loads in a wagon.

It can pull heavy things behind it.

One day the cow got stuck.

She got stuck in the mud.

Red Tractor pulled her out.

It pulled her out of the mud.

One day the horse got stuck.

He got stuck in the mud.

Red tractor pulled him out.

It pulled him out of the mud.

One day, the farmer got stuck.

He got stuck in the mud.

Red Tractor pulled him out.

It pulled him out of the mud.

But one day, Red Tractor got stuck.

It got stuck in the mud.

The farmer and the horse pulled red tractor.

They pulled Red Tractor out of the mud!

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TASKS: Look back in the book. Can you find these words: Red Tractor, farmer, mud, horse, cow