The Age of Analogy

I doubt I'll ever catch up on the backlog of memories I hoped to impart via the blog.  I have the walks in the woods with Dad, our camping near Deception Pass with preschool, walks with Beezle, dinners out and various important moments in each child's life.  

However, if I am ever to blog again I must acknowledge my infirmities (that absence of time and will, that need to watch Grey's Anatomy or read another crime novel instead of blogging) and move on with the present which is still crisp enough to touch.

You know they write about the terrible twos and horrible threes.  Developmentally,  Wren at 4 has entered the Age of Analogies.  He has always been intense, creative and dramatic and has now learned that simile and metaphor in his speech adds intensity to his demands as in this morning's:

"I cannot find the iPad and that is breaking my heart into little pieces as small as germs!"

or the later 

"You are not listening and my heart is broken into millions of tiny pieces!"

Its not that I am a bad mother, playing Xbox while he withers with neglect.  Wren talks ALL THE TIME.  I asked him about it in the car after speaking firmly to him (a bit meanly, actually) asking him to Please.  Keep.  Quiet. for a few minutes.

"But if I keep quiet you will not know I am there!"  he complained.  Frost tries to win us a bit of time by encouraging Wren to play the Quiet Game where the person who stays quiet longest wins but really, its only 2 minutes max before he starts to ask if he has won yet.

Amidst the constant commentary on feelings and observations Wren is also fond of sharing his wisdom.  As we walked  to fetch Frost from the busstop Wren told me that he knew "baby trees are called saplings.  They fall from big trees and grow up into small shrubs you can plant somewhere else."

I was impressed.

"Did you learn that on your nature walks?" I asked, thinking that his Waldorf preschooling was bearing fruit. 

"No, I learned it on Minecraft!  In Minecraft if you smash up a tree for wood to make a block of wood then bits fall down and make saplings so I knew that baby trees are SAPLINGS!"

"See, computer games ARE Educational." said Frost, with some delight.

"You are giving me a headache making me sit here. ARRGH"

Wren with a large pop sculpture downtown on Dad's visit to Dahlia Lounge

  FACTS and FANTASIES

• I have lost my digital camera and can only take pictures with an old camera that is the size of an old SLR thus we have no new photos.
• Wren is going to school 3 days a week now, not 4.
• Wren is getting a neuro-developmental assessment in the weeks ahead (as recommended by his cardiologist before kindergarten),
• We are starting to look at Kindergarten's for Wren next year;
• Beezle is showing an interest in eating shoes but so far has only eaten paper, lego and plastic packaging, and half a chocolate donut Frost left in the car with him;
• I foraged the first 2 cups of chanterelles of the season but have not been on a serious forage since the rains WHERE ARE MY FORAGING FRIENDS & FAMILY!!!?????
• Halloween is coming up and we are considering creating a scene of zombies at our dinner table;
• My 19 year old sister has rubella;
• My step-mother fell off her bike and broke a rib but is still taking a business trip to China (or India);
• I am ready for Winter, almost.  I just need to repair the roof.  "Hey Josh.... we need to call that guy about the roof."