Tuesday, June 17, 2014

What would happen if...?

Enzo filled up his digging hole with water.

My son has hair on his legs. He’s a mammal so you are not surprised, I know. But it's getting darker and he is growing up! He was a baby once! And now an energetic four. Oh, my beautiful boy. This is just one more example of a nearly daily occurence where I am enthralled as I recognize the obvious; my children are growing and it is amaaaaaaazzzzzzing.
I'm pretty sure Enzo is trying to play with weapons but knows that we, his parents, are against it, and so is trying to be creative in getting around it. A few days ago he asked me to make him a paper knife. Why, I asked. Pause. So I can cut pretend food, he answered. Hmmmm, I thought.
Recently I over heard him asking his Tata something about death and the answer had something to do with heaven. I don't remember the question or answer exactly but I did note at the time that Enzo has never asked me that exact question though asking me many many question per day including some on the general same topic of life and death, on occasion. Circumstantial, but I think Enzo has realized on some level that people are different and that, even as he works to make sense of this world, he has recognized that it is better in his mind for his interests, whether they be to play with certain toys or to avoid processing conflicting explanations of realities from trusted sources, to modify his questions and words for different audiences. It's neat to recognize this level of brain development. It will be interesting to watch him process the pile of variation his mind will accumulate in the coming years. As I recall, it was a major pain in the... head, reconciling and structuring a world picture out of what was left unresolved and requiring attention in the teenage years. Not sure if that mental torture laced with hormones is a valuable right of passage but I hope he does not suffer too much when it is his turn. Perhaps he will have less to process at that point in his life than I left for myself at that point in mine.
Other updates on The Kid. I heard another cool milestone occur. I don't remember the song now, but I felt certain that I could basically guarantee that Enzo had never heard it before when I played it a few weeks ago. After hearing just a little, he began singing along with the chorus as well as other lyrics that hadn't repeated yet. You know what I'm talking about? This is a major skill! You know, when you are hearing and singing at the same time along with a song you are hearing for the first time? It's doable and the brain must be on high alert activity mode, processing the incoming sound with the known vocabulary and micro-temporally shifted vocal cords. My son is practically a full fledged human! At four! Humans are amazing. My son is awesome-amazing.
Every now and then he will, as will Ana, tell me that he doesn't want me to die. It's happening less as time goes by since we have had to explain death to some degree. But one day he said something to me and I responded that he had to give me besos y abrazos (kisses and hugs) for ever, even when he is an old man. He calmly told me that no, he wouldn't, because when he was an old man I would be dead. Well, thanks kid! I said, yeah, well, I get them for as long as I can ask for them.
His favorite color is red. That's what he has been saying recently. He really gets into imaginative play, talking for different characters that could be cars or planes or cut out paper. Not too long ago he asked Tami to draw him a bee. Then, he asked for scissors to cut it out. Ever since he has been playing with drawn paper toys. He asks me to draw new things regularly including spiders, sharks, dolphins, orcas, fish, rockets, and spaceships. Then he cuts them out. I always ask him if he wants me to draw them from the top view or from the side. He always thinks about it. Then he says from the top. He cuts them out and they swim or fly around the house, speak through his mouth, and sometimes crawl or swim on the paper oceans or spiderwebs that he draws.
He really likes watching Bill Nye the Science Guy. I had to purchase the second season. He is in to the first season but I thought it was time to add more variety. We don't watch them straight through in any order. I let him and Ana choose a topic from memory and occasionally I just announce a new topic and show a new-to-them episode. Then, they have a new topic to ask for. By far the most requested episode, this from Enzo, is “the eating plants one” which is really just called Plants and has a short segment about carnivorous plants like the Venus Flytrap that he is really fascinated by. I just realized this irony. The Kid is being brought up in a primarily vegetarian household and his favorite Bill Nye episode is the one where the vegetation is carnivorous. That's funny!
An update on Enzo would not be complete without these next two items that I have saved for last. His favorite saying lately is “okay ma-maaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!” Ha! He says this so much. Not just to his mom. To anyone. Me, his mom, and his sister the most, I guess, as he sees us most often. I can't help but laugh. It's his equivalent of “what d-ya-know daddy-oh.” A phrase he can throw out regularly but, instead of as a start, it is a response. Ask him to do anything or remind him of something and he just might say “ok ma-maaaaaaaaaaaa!"
But there is nothing he says more these days than “what would happen if…?" And when he is on a role, these come rapid fire, many per 10 minutes on the clock, all over the place in topic. And this happens EVERY DAY. Here are some recent examples that come to mind, many of which are used multiple times over weeks as he sometimes returns to a theme.


What would happen
If an adult couldn't walk
If a baby didn't grow
If someone never went pee
If someone didn't have arms
If a fish didn't go back in the water
If someone picked up a starfish
If a person didn't have ears
If a person didn't have the hole in their ears
If there were no trees 
If there were no plankton
If their were no people 
If someone couldn't walk 
…etc. and so on

Awesome. And after each thoughtful answer I give (sometimes, instead, I ask what he thinks and sometimes he answers and other times he says "no, it's your turn!") in answer he responds with “why?” After the thoughtful answer to that "why" comes either a follow up “why,” or, if satisfied, “Papi.... What would happen if.....!"

Eventually he moves on to a toy or, when it is late and he is in bed, I remind him that it is time to sleep. “Ok, Papi.”