What Are Little Boys Made of?

Something that really interests me is what children really think about. Every night at dinner I try to get a little sense of that not only by asking them what they did during the day but who their friends are, why they like them, what their favorite and least favorite moments were, and so forth. But when there is food to be eaten, toys to play with, and a sundry shiny things to distract them, it's hard to have much of a conversation with children of this age. It winds up sounding more like an interrogation than a dialogue.

So instead I try to take clues by observing what it is that they value (beyond the toys and books they prefer). What are some of the stand-out items that rank as their own little treasures?

Each boy has his own collection of treasures in the same relative location: on the dresser surface in their room. While individual items may change from time to time, in general the type of items remains pretty static unless an external force (generally parental-enforced clean-up) exerts influence.

For Helios, our older son, this is his current inventory of treasures:

• An elephant humidifier (granted, this would be here whether he wanted it or not but he really likes it)
• A box of tissue (ditto)
• A book night-light (encased in a black zippered sleeve, upper left) that looks just like Mommy's and often is snuck under the covers
• A Nemo flashlight to scare away the monsters and create hand shadow puppets
• A white paper sack that was colored to look like a puppet; its name is Poppers 2 (Poppers 1 having been worn tissue thin)
• A plastic iron-melt airplane made at after care
• His harmonica, a gift from his paternal grandmother and grandfather just before a 10-hour flight across the country (yup, what you're thinking is exactly what we thought too)
• A token for the Loof Carousel in Spokane, WA
• A children's booklet of prayers, gift from school
• A Junie B. Jones, First Grader book (his favorite series right now)
• A Tigger wrist slap bracelet and purple airplane, both gifts from Aunt Elspeth
• A "bug's eye" loop from after school 'Mad Science' class
• A monkey head toy (how to describe this?) gifted from Uncle Thog
• A Zhu Zhu pet, train, camera, and magnifying glass from Grandma Jane and Grandpa Mel
• A Mickey Mouse playing soccer puzzle and Tic Tac Toe game, gifts from the Easter Bunny
• Shrinky-dinks, products of a project with Daddy
• Winnie the Pooh toys, harvested from Mommy's chest of treasures
• A Valentine's fuzzy head sticker with heart antennae received from a kid he likes at school
• An oyster shell given through the fence by the girl next door

Although with many similarities, Hesperos has his own array of treasures including:

• A penguin humidifier and tissue box
• Elmo slippers (Christmas gift from Santa two holidays ago and still fun to wear)
• Half of a Christmas ornament that plays "Hark the Herald Angels Sing" to put him to sleep
• His trophy from his first basketball season at the YMCA this year
• A Thomas the Tank engine watch
• The two current favorite books that he's working on memorizing: "Watch Out Mr. Rabbit!" and "Dr. Seuss's ABC"
• His "explorer" hat
• A thin version of Beatrix Potter's Peter Rabbit, retained from his Easter chocolate bunny
• A flashlight to scare the monsters away
• Various cars from Pixar's "Cars"
• A Zhu Zhu pet and its car, gifted from Grandma Jane
• A Winnie the Pooh slap it bracelet from Aunt Elspeth
• Pieces of a game received from the Easter Bunny
• Parts to a Lego construction vehicle, presumably stolen from his brother's closet and thus far unnoticed
• A pine cone (behind Elmo) from a recent preschool field trip

Though the selection may change somewhat as new treasures are acquired and old ones retired, each one is appreciated separately with a story behind it...and always noticed if repositioned without prior consent.

Helios' Resolution

As may be recalled in an earlier post (see "Believe It or Not, They Really Do Listen (Sometimes)..."), Helios declared that he planned to eschew all cow dairy products. After a few weeks of resolve that wavered just a bit, particularly once he was informed that cheese is a cow product...as is ice cream...as is whipped cream. However, he remains fairly firm in the "no cow milk" area, preferring rice milk whenever possible. He is also very receptive to vegan cheeses, sorbet instead of ice cream, or non-milk based desserts providing he doesn't have to delay consumption of dessert for a vegan alternative to be made available. (Patience is not one of Helios' strong suits.)

In Helios' backpack daily are the products of his hard work at kindergarten. In tonight's delivery was this little gem, conceived, authored, and illustrated, by Helios himself. This is from the last couple weeks from when during the religion session, the teacher facilitated a discussion of what it means to be resolved to doing something. The result is not only Helios' declaration but also an illustration of a smiling, red-stick figure with a disturbingly long torso, short legs, and pronged hands ignoring the cow milk (X'd out at left) and reaching for the "ris" milk at right. The text reads: "My resolution is not to drek [drink] cow milk so I can help the cows."

We will entertain any offers by Chik Fil-a to purchase this drawing for their "leave cows alone, eat chickens instead" advertising in exchange for paying for Helios' college tuition.

Train-Based Enthusiasm

It's no secret that the boys appreciate automotive and locomotive devices of all kinds. They role-play extensively and imaginatively, reenacting favorite scenes from books and movies at any opportunity, whether pretending to be race cars swerving around other shoppers at the grocery store or treating the dining room table like the nose of the Polar Express.

This video captures just a few minutes of Hesperos' active imagination as he aggressively guides the Polar Express through the ice, onto the tracks, that will take the train to the (trackless) North Pole. Although 7-minutes-long (!!), it is a relatively small sample of what it's like living with the boys for whom everyday experiences are simply opportunities to shape their environment into an imaginary adventure.

Believe It or Not, They Really Do Listen (Sometimes)...

"For the 10th time...pick. up. those. trains," I mutter through gritted teeth, pausing between each word and casting menacing looks at both boys. My parents have been together more than 40 years and I've been with Daddy for almost 14: there's nothing about selective hearing I don't know and it's expected with two little boys, ages 3 and 5. Understanding it doesn't lessen the irritation, though, when they blithely ignore requests to do things they would rather not do and seem to intentionally not remember a request 5 seconds later. It could make any person wonder if their kids are lacking intelligence, suffering from hearing or comprehension problems, or just plain stubborn.

This is why it makes me pause with surprise when they do listen, remember, regurgitate, and understand.

"Mommy, I have lots of problems speaking properly. I need special lessons."

Recently, we started taking Hesperos to a speech therapist for lessons so he can better articulate some sounds. Although it is undeniably cute to hear Hesperos enunciate some words as though he is the offspring of a Muppet and a sock puppet, we know he needs to work past that. After every lesson (which is more like structured playtime), Hesperos gets a prize to reward him for his hard work.

Helios wants one of those prizes. He wants it bad.

So he decided, craftily, to manufacture his own speech problem. After Hesperos's last lesson, Helios shared us that sometimes he forgets parts of works like the "f" in "food" or the "t" in "train." (Note: Helios was able to correctly intone the words when providing them as examples.)

I assure you that Helios has been able to accurately express his wants for "food" and "trains" upon exiting the womb. This was not his most convincing argument. When we reminded him that he normally speaks these words just fine, illustration notwithstanding, Helios became ingeniously threatening. "Well, I want to go where Hesperos goes for his lessons so I can get a prize, too. I'll find other words I can't say!"

Well, at least we know the score!

"The fortune cookie promised me vacation!"

A couple days ago, we were driving around, running errands, when Helios piped up from the back, "Mommy, it's cold and rainy here. When's our vacation going to be?"

Wistfully thinking of my own vacation dreams, I regretfully told him that we don't have any vacation planned for a while but maybe this summer.

"But, Mommy," Helios protested, "the fortune cookie at P.F. Chang's said that I will go on at vacation soon and I'm going to have a really good time. So when will we get to go on vacation like the fortune cookie said?"

(Since that fortune cookie was received more than two weeks earlier and comprised approximately 3 seconds of an excruciatingly long 90-minute dinner at a busy restaurant, we were quite surprised he remembered it at all!)

"I am not going to drink any more cow milk, just like you."

I've been a vegetarian since a child but Daddy is not. That's no biggie; I even cook the meat for him sometimes. But the kids notice the difference, especially when we give them "chick'n" and give Daddy the kind without apostrophes. We've had that talk about why Mommy and kids don't eat animals and Daddy does, which is difficult to do without implying Daddy is wrong (ahem) but we make it work and all's well.

Recently, I decided to become a vegan and Helios noticed that, too. So he asked me why and I honestly explained that it doesn't seem "nice" to drink milk from the cow because it is meant for the calf.

This conversation was two or three weeks ago. So imagine our surprise when Helios announced out of the blue a couple days ago that he's not drinking cow milk anymore because it's "not right." When younger brother Hesperos protested with "I like cow milk!", Helios took it upon himself to convert his baby brother with arguments based on sympathy. (Example: "Hesperos, how would you like it when you were a baby if someone took Mommy's milk from you and you had to eat grass?!") Never mind that those same abilities at sympathy don't extend to sharing toys, I still appreciated his 5-year-old mind trying to rationalize and persuade.

These anecdotes almost make me feel badly about the one time (okay, maybe more than one time) I told Helios that naughty children get returned to the hospital where they were born for a full refund.

But here's my theory: Kids will go to the therapist to sort out their problems they blame their parents for anyway. Might as well give 'em something good (and true) to talk about.

Annie, Clarabel / Potayto, Potahto

Anyone who isn't familiar with Thomas the Tank Engine may be a bit lost on this post so here's some background. Thomas the Tank Engine, when he's not schlepping cargo throughout the Island of Sodor, has two coaches he pulls: Annie and Clarabel. They are effectively identical coaches. According to one toy site, "They were given to Thomas as a reward for proving himself to be a Really Useful Engine. Annie carries passengers and is always pulled by Thomas facing him. Clarabel carries both passengers and luggage, and always travels behind Annie."

Got that? The only way to tell between Annie and Clarabel is their position in relation to Thomas. (Women's studies majors, take note and use this as a basis for your next thesis statement - there's something here about train-oriented misogyny present in early 20th century British children's literature with a compare and contrast in the leadership styles of Winston Churchill and Sir Toppham Hatt under George VI and Elizabeth II.)

So today, when the boys were engaged in passionate debate over who should have Annie AND Clarabel, my thought, as Mommy and Chief Moderator on Duty, was to divide the two virtually identical and interchangeable trains between the two boys, giving one to Helios and the other to Hesperos.

Nuthin' doin'. The boys could handle having only one coach a piece. What they couldn't agree on is who should have which coach. Both demanded Annie. No matter that in a blind touch test or with the names obscured, they couldn't tell the difference between the two.

So how to affect a compromise and some relative peace and quiet so I could write this post and gain some sanity this cloudy Saturday?

I revealed to them the secret that Sir Toppham Hatt didn't want anyone to know but entrusted to me, which I in turn was sharing with them.

Clarabel is Annie's double, her identical twin, in disguise. Underneath the 'Clarabel' in white cursive is the word 'Annie.' So they're really two Annies, but one is in hiding.

Now they argue about who has the secret Annie and who has the visible Annie. Of course.