But How Does Lowly Worm Drive The Apple Car Without Arms?

As a parent, I want to make sure that Peter develops his own taste in things. I don’t want to force my likes or dislikes on him. I don’t want to try to get him to love the things I loved just to validate my own childhood attitudes. I’m totally groovy with him digging his own thang. Unless he got hooked on The Wiggles. But anyway…

 

I do have a slight exception to the above statement. I did import one thing from my childhood to see if he’d like it: Richard Scarry. I think when he was just an infant I picked up a copy of Richard Scarry’s Best Story Book Ever, which is a big collection of various little Golden Books anthologized into one big volume. Now at the time I got it he was too young to get into it much, but it managed to stay close to him. And now, at 21 months old, it has become An Important Part Of His Life (sweet!). Almost every night before he goes to bed he wants to go through the book, usually to find his favorite part: the trains. The train section has drawings of a bunch of engines over the years, from the first steam engines up to a relatively modern Amtrak type car. But he’ll grab the book for himself, go through a bunch of pages, get to the trains (then point and chat to us) and then go back to shuffling through the pages. Then he’s ready for night-night.

 

When I was a kid I would do pretty much the same thing with those books. There was something almost hypnotic about the drawings. Something in the cats in lederhosen that made me just stare and appreciate it. Something in the style of architecture that looked like it was in Amsterdam, yet other things that looked as familiar as looking in the mirror. I could look at a single page of drawings and words with more intense appreciation than if I had the Mona Lisa set in front of me. And now I see Peter doing the same thing. Maybe it’s hereditary.

 

 

In other news & notes, Peter had something this weekend. He wasn’t really sick or anything, but his nose was generating copious amounts of snot, which he would sneeze up for several hours after getting up both Saturday and Sunday. He was mostly ok in the afternoons thanks to his being upright. But that was the only symptom he displayed. And then he was perfectly fine this morning. Go figure.

 

Saturday was Valentine’s Day, and he had dinner with his Grammy while his Mom & Dad trudged out alone to a fancy restaurant without him for the first time since before he was born. I’m sure it would have been much more fun to dine with those two, but we, uh, were forced to go out by, uh, the KGB. Or something. Yeah.

 

This weekend coming up is the now-annual trip to the water park hotel in Sheboygan. I’m sure Peter will look like a prune come Sunday afternoon.