You, Me and the Bean: February 2009

I haven't been blogging much lately due to...well, life. But there are a few stories that I have been mentally archiving so I could someday retell them and relate how cool The Bean really is to me.

1. Wisdom of the blocks
When Henry was about 2 and a few months, he was playing with blocks kind of like the ones above, except his had even more colors like purple and green and black. He was sitting on the floor in the dining room working with them. At first he was making these sort of repetitive motifs with them. He would make one grouping that might be one red with two greens sideways, and a small blue with a large yellow on top, and then he would repeat that motif and make as many of those as the quantity of blocks would allow. I was amazed by this already and watched as he invented one motif after another and made copies. But I wasn't prepared for the most awesome part. His next project was to group them all into like colors, or as he called them "friends". He would pile up the reds and say, "There we go" triumphantly, and move on to the greens and so on. When he got to the end of his project, he realized that for whatever reason, he only had one orange block. He sat quietly for a moment, holding the single block in his hand and looking at all the other blocks with their "friends". He looked back at the orange, and then a tiny half smile slowly crept across his face, eventually becoming a full-tilt grin, at which point he said joyously to the orange block, "It's okay orange, you can be friends with everybody." He then proceeded to take one block from each of all the other color groups and attached them all together to the orange to form one big multicolored group. He seemed content with that and moved on to another project. I was floored yet again by his compassion and tendency to unite instead of divide, and I felt very lucky to be Henry's friend.
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2. Sacrificial Merry-Go-Round
When we were in Kansas City this last Christmas at Toys R' Us we got Henry the now famous drum kit. Since it was technically from Santa we had to find a way to weasel it into the car without Henry noticing. We decided that I would take him to look at one more section while Mama put it into the car and covered it up. After browsing around we went back to the front of the store to wait for Mama to come back, and here we found a merry-go-round much like the one above. Henry really likes to ride these. He asked if he could ride it and I said he couldn't today because I didn't have any money. "Pweeze, pwetty pweeeze Papa", he begged. I just apologized and told him again that I didn't have any money today. "Okay" he said, and stood patiently waiting for Mama. As we were waiting another kid zipped by him, hopped on, and giggled with glee as it spun to life with the drop of the parental quarter. He watched and didn't say anything. The next morning Henry came into our bed early and rolled around snuggling and telling us about his dreams like he loves to do. When I finally got up and started to get dressed he asked, "Where are you going Papa?" "To work" I said. "Why do you have to go to work?" he continued. "Because I have to make money so we can do fun stuff" I replied. "Oh" he said, and got quiet. I watched him thinking for a second and then stood up on the bed. "Papa", he began. "It's okay. I don't really want to ride those horses, so you can stay home with me today." It might have been one of the sweetest things I have ever seen or heard by a human being. He was willing to sacrifice something that he really loved, so that I would stay home and play with him. I have to say, I almost called in to work that day.
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3. Art
Henry takes his art very seriously. He is making so much of it now that we have created "Henry's Art Gallery" in the hallway on the way to his room. Here are pictures of the east and west wings of the gallery as well as a shot of him at work on the front porch. The medium is chalk on plywood. His pre-school teachers tell us that he often spends the most time of anyone in the class on his creations, paying meticulous attention to things like brush strokes, application of color, and glitter distribution. It is very impressive to see him at work. He draws people and animals now too, and he is becoming very interested in using his new scissors and glue stick. And I am happy to say that last week he decided to learn to write his name, so he will now be signing all his pieces.
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4. Music, Dance
The Bean is an avid music lover. Some of his favorites are Johnny Cash, Blitzen Trapper, Bloc Party, Enon, and Squirrel Nut Zippers. It is an amazing thing to watch his nightly improvisational dance moves . He really works up a sweat as he bounces on his matress we put out on the floor in the living room for safety/fun purposes, and is keen to watch himself in a full-length mirror while he wiggles. I think he is perfecting his techiniques. What is even more beautiful to me is his verbal description of how the music makes him feel, or what he believes it to be about. When he hears a sad song, he sometimes says, "Papa, this is a song about someone who can't find their friends and now they are sad to be alone." Or when he hears a song that has a gentle female vocalist he may say, "Papa, this song sounds like a sweet flower in the sun." Or when he hears some rock or hardcore he'll yell, "Papa! This song is about action! Yeah baby!" He also knows his favorite music extremely well. He tells me, "Okay papa, here is where the cymbals come in", and they do, right on key. Or he'll say, "Listen Papa. Now even the birds will start singing," as the female harmonies creep in behind the lead vocals. It's really fun for me to have a new participant in this kind of musical appreciation.
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5. Understanding
One of my favorite moments as a parent and witness to the Bean miracle is the joy of watching him try to describe something that is new to him in his own way. I am generally amazed by how accurate his descriptions are. The other day he was riding with me in the car when we drove by a house that still had Christmas lights up in the trees outside their home. As we slowly passed the house, the lights twinkled intermittenly as they were alternately exposed and hidden by branches and leaves. "See that Papa?" he said. "Yeah, I see it Henry" I said. "That is how my foot feels when it falls asleep." Yup. That's pretty much exactly how a blood-starved appendage feels. Amazing. All I could say was, "Yeah. That's right buddy. Mine too."
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Henry is at a really fun age for me. Spending time with him is one of the greatest joys of my life, and I can feel nothing but appreciation for the things he is teaching me about myself and the world, and the laughter that he brings into my life. There is no such thing as a recession or work politics or environmental woes or late bills in a house with a kid singing in the bathtub while he plays with his toys and yelling out, "Come in here everybody! I'm cooking up some bad soup made of boogers and dirty diapers!" Sweet!

Henry and I made our first birdhouse together last week and hung it up yesterday. I wanted to start building birdhouses for a few reasons. 1. I want to listen to them chirping and singing in the mornings outside my window on the weekends. 2. I feel like I need to replace the habitat they lost when I took down the birdhouses that the people left that lived here before us and when I repaired the eave that had birds living in it. 3. I wanted Henry and I to have a project together that he had a lot of say in how it came together so he could feel something going from an idea to reality under his own power. The shape of this birdhouse and the color scheme were totally his ideas.

The finished product: A psychedelic choo choo-shaped Ritz Carlton for our winged friends. The entrance is in the front of the boiler and they sort of hop through the foyer which leads to another hole where the main living area is in the cab part. New to the market, very sturdy, and very spacious. Amenities include an extended landing platform, air-tight waterproof insulation, and a smoke stack that holds birdseed.