“Mama, I have all these songs in my body and I’m tryin’ to decide which one you can hear!”
“Mama, I want to fetch a pail of water for the garden.”
“I will bring my scooter outside and then people will hear it going “ba-bump, ba-bump” because there are cracks and then they will play with me. Maybe Bud or Betty will come out!” (Bud and Betty are our 80 year old neighbors)
G: “I’m still a little bit sad.”
Me: “Oh, yeah? Why?”
G: “I’m still sad from yesterday.”
Me: “What made you sad yesterday?”
G: “You were loud with me.”
Me: “Oh, I’m sorry that’s still making you sad. Is there anything I can do to help you?”
G: “No. Don’t worry. My sadness will go away soon.”
Me: <heart aching>
As I was finishing my lunch in the dining room, I suddenly realized there was silence coming from the basement when just a few moments earlier there had been rambunctious banging of “music” wafting up the stairs. Wondering which object I would find flushed down the toilet this time (and when exactly I would learn not to leave him alone in the basement), I rushed down the stairs saying, “Griffin! What are you up to?” Imagine my surprise when I came upon Griffin unloading the dry clothes from the dryer and loading the wet ones from the washing machine.
“Wow, buddy! What a helper you are!” I said as I marveled at how big and responsible he was getting.
“Yeah, Mama! Hey, remember that time I pooped on the rug and in my underwear?”
Griffin, much to our delight, absolutely loves books. While he might be a bit hyper (and I say that lovingly), he will almost always sit down and listen to a story. He has been loving the book Leonardo the Terrible Monster by Mo Willems lately. He has asked me to read it to him three or four times in a row in one sitting! Today, he plopped down on the kitchen floor and said, “I’m going to read Leonardo to you!” I was fortunate enough to catch it on video (sorry for the poor sound quality):
After nearly four hours at the park with two playgrounds, a pool, and friends, we return home and Griffin immediately says, “Momma, will you play with me?”
Griffin: Are spiders scary? Me: Not really Griffin: Well why can’t we touch them? Me: Sometimes they’re too fast to touch. Griffin: Well I think it’s because:
Tonight at dinner, Griffin saw a truck pull up in front of our house and wondered aloud who it was. Andrew said, “A guy in a t-shirt” to which Griffin replied, bewildered, “A dying teacher?!”
He may have been born in California, but Griffin is definitely Minnesotan now. When I asked him about the cool lego train he built today, he explained that it was a “Corn Weeder.” Further discussion revealed that he was talking about a combine harvester. I didn’t even know what a combine was until a few years ago when Sarah explained that she drove one for a summer job long ago. Griffin is way ahead of me!
