Costumes

This year, Vincent is a bat

and Eddie is Batman. (Blue Batman, to be specific; we have two Duplo Batmans, one black and one blue, and he wanted to be the blue one.)

There was some trick or treating in Eddie's school in the afternoon, after school let out, and then we went trick or treating after dark here in our neighborhood. There were some really spooky houses (with fog machines, scary sounds, moving automata, the works) which we skipped, and a lot of less-spooky houses giving out candy. We just went two blocks in each direction. It was chilly but not too cold—yesterday's snow has mostly melted, and tomorrow is supposed to be warm.

Skeleton story

Eddie brought home this picture from school and wrote the words at home. He was spelling the words out phonetically. It reads "I am Eddie Skeleton and I know somebody named Eddie who says he knows somebody who is called Mama AND he loves Mama."

First day of kindergarten

Two years after starting kindergarten in Canada, Eddie is starting kindergarten in the US!

He has been very excited. He went for an assessment last week, where he was asked to write his name, among other things. He later told us that he wrote the letters better than he ever had, because he is ready for kindergarten.

They gave him a coloring book to take home, and he carefully colored it in. He is taking kindergarten seriously.

Of course today is also eclipse day! That'll make his first day a bit more chaotic, I think. We're getting about 93% obscuration here.

Human prerogative

Eddie insists that animals cannot paint. I told him about Koko the gorilla and elephants that paint, but he claims I am telling him made-up stories, or talking about a human named "Koko the Gorilla", or just lying. He is ADAMANT about this.

Bed

Today, Vincent moved out of his crib into a bed! He seems happy about his new digs, although we haven't tried actually sleeping in it yet.

Brothers at Preschool

Vincent joined Eddie yesterday for Sunflower Preschool's "Summer Camp", for his first preschool experience! They are both going for four hours (8:30–12:30), three days a week. This is some of Vinci's first time away from his parents.

He really wanted to go to preschool with Eddie in the spring, so he's happy about this. Just in the past few weeks, though, he's entered a more shy and scaredy-cat phase. The teachers report that he was very quiet and well-behaved on his first day. Today (his second day) he was already more talkative. I'm sure that pretty soon he will be positively boisterous.

When I went to pick them up from the first day, Vincent saw me first. He was happy to see me, and pointed me out to his teacher, then ran around to meet me by the gate. I asked where Eddie was, and he led me to him, in a shed—Vinci was keeping track of his brother. After collecting Eddie, we had to get their lunchboxes, and Vinci was very excited because he knew where they were! He ran to the carts where the teachers had put them and picked up his own lunchbox. He was very proud that he could help Papa find his things.

Hike

I took the kids for a little hike around Sunshine Canyon.

They found some mountain streams to investigate.

Later, V said "I need help."

"With what?"

"Boot."

"What about your boot?"

"Dirt on it."

I explained that dirty boots are OK outside and he persevered, dirty boots and all.

Groot

To accompany the previous entry, here is a cute picture of Groot which Eddie drew for me a couple of weeks ago.

Papa is standing next to Groot.

He also drew an even cuter picture of "Baby Groot", which unfortunately I can't find right now.

(He hadn't seen the comic book covers at this point, so he was basing this solely on a small picture of a lego figurine he had seen, and me telling him that Groot was a kind of living tree that could walk around.)

Superheroes

Yesterday, I took the kids to the comic book store for free comic book day. The batmobile was in the parking lot, along with the Ghostbusters car, which was playing spooky sounds.

We had to stand in a long line to get free comics, and as we wended our way through the store, we checked out comic book covers. Eddie saw several with Groot, who he's been a big fan of since becoming aware of him in a Lego catalog.

Later, sitting by Vincent on our swing, Eddie had me list all the guardians of the galaxy so he could choose one to play as. "I'm Star-Lord!" he decided.

Vinci chose, too. "I'm Maia!" he declared.
"Maia?" I asked. I wondered if he meant Gamora, who I'd listed, but no. "I'm Maia Boomer-face!" he said. "Boom! Boom!"

Food

Mama provided Vincent with an enticing arrangement of foods for lunch—some toast, blueberries, and clementines. Later she was pleasantly surprised to find that Vincent had cleaned his plate! (Lately he never seems to eat anything.)

Later still, she found the toast hidden under a napkin.

Interpretations

Eddie was looking through a booklet of coupons. He showed me a page. "Does this say 'We do it all?'"

"Yes," I affirmed. "That's what it says."

Eddie was offended. "What if somebody ELSE wants to do something?"

Progress

At bedtime, Eddie asked me "Did you hear the song about the old woman who swallowed a fly when you were a kid?"

"Yes, I did!" I told him.

"Did your mother or father show you it on their phone?"

"No," I said. "When I was a kid, phones weren't like they are now. They stayed in one place and were attached to the wall. You could only use them to talk to people. They didn't have screens to look at things."

"Then how did you hear that song?"

"I heard people singing it, at school and stuff!"

Eddie seemed to find this idea terribly old fashioned.

Self-awareness

The boys were on the sofa wrestling, or whatever it is they do, when Eddie had an idea. "Vinci, do you want to read a book?" Vincent said "Yeah, read book!" So, with minor tussling, they managed to select a book and settled down next to each other. They opened the book and regarded the page for a moment. Then Eddie said quietly, "I don't know how to read."

Washing

Vincent loves to wash things. He often takes toys or objects that he finds out in the yard into the bathroom and climbs up on the stool to wash them. Eddie is always worried about this ("He's gonna make a big mess! He'll get everything wet!") but really he's pretty good at keeping most of the water in the sink, usually.

Question

At bedtime, I was singing a lullaby when Eddie interrupted. "Papa, when I'm old, and I'm a grandpa, who will be my grandkids? And who will be their grandma?"

Bedtime talks

I was wrapping up my bedtime spiel with Eddie, saying tomorrow he would "go to school, because tomorrow is Monday. Today was Sunday." Vincent added "and Nonno's in Ohio."

Forety-niner

Eddie, Vinci and I were out in our yard with a ball, when we decided to hit it around with a stick. I explained the rudiments of golf and the kids gave it a try. There was a bucket of real golf balls in the yard for some reason, and a depression served as the hole. I said, "When you're about to whack the ball and want people to get out of the way, you say 'Fore!'"

Later, Vincent walked up to Eddie, holding a bouncy ball cocked over his head menacingly, and said "Watch out! Watch out, Eggy!"
"No!" Eddie replied. "Say 'nine'!"

Reality

Apparently Eddie thinks Superman is real. Sometimes on a long bike ride, if Eddie's been quiet a long time, I ask if he's still there, which led to this conversation:

E: "Why do you wonder if I am still on the bike? How could I get off the bike when the bike is going?" (He is surrounded by "monkey bars," so he couldn't really fall off.)

P: "Well, a dragon might fly down and pick you up in its claws and fly off."

E: "No! Dragons aren't real!"

P: "Oh, well maybe a really big bird would fly down and pick you up in its claws."

E: "No! Really big birds aren't real! They're only in that magazine." (Eddie was referring to a Donald Duck comic book with a roc.)

P: "Oh. Well maybe Superman would fly down and pick you up."

E: "Why would Superman pick me up?"

P: "I don't know."

E: "Well Superman lives really far away. If he flew all the way here he would be too tired to pick me up."

It's hard to distinguish reality from make-believe when you're five years old. We tell kids stories about witches and wizards, or dinosaurs, or aliens, or astronauts, or superheros, or firefighters, without any caveats about what's real or not.

Eddie seems to know that dragons and wizards aren't real, and that rocket ships, space travel, and aliens are more real, but he's starting to realize that our real-life space program is a lot more limited than what he's seen in stories. (I wonder what he thinks about knights, kings, and castles, who are always associated with dragons and wizards.) We had a conversation about that a week or two ago.

I told him that we didn't know if aliens were real, because nobody had ever seen one. He was very surprised by this, and asked why not.

"Well," I said, "we haven't explored very much. The only other world humans have been to is the moon, and there weren't any aliens there. There are probably aliens somewhere in the universe, around another star, but there probably aren't any in our solar system."

"Maybe they are on Mars," he suggested.

"I don't think so," I said. "No humans have been to Mars, but we've sent some robots to look around, and they didn't find any signs of life."

"ROBOTS?!?" said Eddie.

First I told him that alien stories were all make-believe, now I'm telling him that robots are real‽

Eddie wanted to know lots more about that. I told him that they weren't "robots with faces" (Eddie's term for androids) and showed him pictures of Spirit, Opportunity, and Curiosity.

Identity

When I picked up Eddie from preschool, he was playing with a little girl called Kat.

On the bike ride home, I asked about her.

"Is Kat a kitty-cat?"

"No!" said Eddie. "She's a kid.  Hey, you saw her when you picked me up, didn't you?"

"Oh, yeah, but I didn't look very closely," I said. "I thought you were a dog."

"No!" said Eddie. "I'm a boy. And I'm a human, and I'm a kid, and I'm your son, and I love you, and I like candy."