Thank God all of that awful college football is over. It was really stressing out the kindergartener in this house. Garrett is of a peaceful, non-warring species, like his mother. To see two teams clashing violently on the gridiron was really giving him some serious anxiety. He's an odd little bird. He's always loved wrestling and playing "tackle daddy" in the backyard, but seeing the real thing on tv is different, I guess. It's just too much conflict and barbarity for him to take in.
These three boys are no stranger to the fine art of tackling, let me tell you. When we play football together - it's usually Bodie and me against the two bigger boys - and it gets pretty rough. When I get the ball, Gavin and Garrett each grab a leg to try to take me down, then Bodie (my faithful teammate) punches me in the pills then jumps on my head as I double over in pain. It's a lot of fun.
I noticed Garrett's football angst earlier this year when we were watching the Cornhusker vs. Wisconsin Badger game. He was sitting on the couch with a look of serious discomfort on his face, a look similar to a squeamish person watching a live surgery. I asked him what was wrong, he said simply "I don't like all that tackling the Huskers are doing." I told him it's just part of the game, it's fun for them - just like when we play in the backyard. "They don't look like they're having fun at all," he replied solemnly.
We watched on for awhile and I tried to acquaint him with the more refined intricacies of the game: the passing, kicking, strategy, the referees (who are on the field, of course, to make sure everyone is having fun and following the rules). He marinated on this new information for awhile, then came out with this bombshell: "Well dad, I've changed my mind about something. When I grow up I want to be an astronaut and a football player." I cheered for this loudly and obnoxiously "WOOHOO! That's my BOY!!" He stops me with sober look and a little 5 year old hand on my knee. "BUT, I'm going to play for the Wisconsin Badgers so I can stop the Huskers from doing all that naughty tackling." Being a lifelong Cornhusker fan, this is a real kick in the gut. I wept openly, just as loudly and obnoxiously as before, hands over my face. Garrett observed this reaction for a moment, thoughtfully. Then with a hug he added again quietly, "Don't worry dad, I won't be THAT good… only when I play against Gavin. If he is on the other team, I will really tackle him down."
These are inquisitive times. Bodie is in that mode where almost everything that he says comes in the form of a question. His questions demand answers immediately, or the line of interrogation will continue until the right answers are found. He's like a mini Sherlock Holmes, tireless in his pursuit of the truth.
Why do toddlers ask so many questions? Easy: they don't know very much! You have to be patient and answer their questions, even if it's the same set of questions day in and day out. Their little brains are just learning how the world works, and repetitive questions help drive home those basic concepts. I also think it's comforting to them to hear the same answers all of the time, like a security blanket for their curious little minds.
As parents, we forget about how it feels to be a new little person in the world, where everything is possible, parents are like Gods who know everything, and magic is real.
These "why" questions can also just be a test - as in a test of your patience. Observe this tete-a-tete: "Daddy, I need ice cream please." "No." "Why?" "We don't have ice cream." "Why?" "We ate it all." "Why?" "It was yummy." "Why?" "Because it's ICECREAM." etcetera, etcetera….you get the point. The barrage of questions almost always comes right when I'm in the middle of doing something important, and it's a frustrating distraction. I try my best to be patient with Bodie - the last thing I want is for him to stop asking me questions!
Garrett is in Kindergarten now, and he's just thrilled to be going to the same school as his older brother. Pre-school was really dragging him down, I think it was cramping his style a little bit. He had lots of days where he just didn't want to go, he was literally bored to tears with the subject matter. He's a smart little son-of-a-gun, I'm expecting great things from this kid. There's no telling where his brain will take him! We've got to keep his mind energized and thriving. He's been reading since he was 2, so re-hashing the alphabet in pre-school was starting to become counter productive. It was a great school, but I feel like we could have done more to cultivate his gray matter. I mean, he was reading books about he solar system to the class for show-and-tell, and it made him sad that the other kids weren't "in to it" like him. Toward the end of pre-school, I think he was feeling like he was a little bit different, and he may have been masking some of his intellect at times to fit in better. His buddies were all into Transformers, and Garrett would play with them at school, but when he got home he would say "I know that Transformers are not real. They are boring." I'm thinking "Wait a minute! I liked Transformers!! What the heck?" Oh well, scratch that one off the Santa list.
Now that he's in Kindergarten, he has a new batch of friends and a specialized program to keep him moving forward. It's great! He loves school again. He seems a lot happier all of the time now, not as moody or dark like he was. I'm sure the Feingold diet has helped that tremendously, but it also has to do with his new found "liberty of thought". For whatever reason, he feels safer in Kindergarten to let his ideas be known, not to conceal his extraordinary grasp of concepts beyond his years.
The very first time he met his teacher is the best example of that. It was open house night, and parents were meeting the teachers in the classrooms while all the new kindergarteners were playing in the cafeteria. After we met with his teacher, we brought Garrett in from the cafeteria where he had been sitting at a table with crayons and a paper. After a bashful introduction, he shyly handed his new teacher what he had been working on - a complete map of the United States - and she kind of stared at it in disbelief. The conversation after that was priceless, I'll never forget it:
"This is neat Garrett! Did you trace this from a book or something?" "Well... I used a crayon and I just remember." He said sheepishly. "Wow! Really? Were you looking at a picture of a map?" "Well... kind of. I think about the pictures from Google Earth on my computer." (by then her jaw was on the floor) "This is incredible! You can do this from memory? How do you start it?" "I know Kansas goes right in the middle, then I add states when I think of them. I messed up with West Virginia." She was laughing in a confused kind of way. "Hey, it looks pretty good to me Garrett! Maybe I'll have you teach the class about maps for me." "Well, I think I'm too little. And this just looks silly because Hawaii isn't really right by California. It's far away in the Pacific Ocean."
Garrett's a funny little thinker - a deep thinker. He's almost always deep in thought. Sometimes he has trouble with the shallow thinking stuff, like getting dressed. He'll be at the chalkboard, toiling away on some made up number game, and I'll tell him to get dressed for school while handing him his clothes. Ten minutes later I check on him, and he's wearing one shoe and a backwards shirt - nothing else! It happens all the time like that. He's like a nutty little professor. There's so much going on in his brain, I think the little tasks get lost in his ocean of ideas.
