Too Bad It's Cold

Most of the time, all Bow uses his language skills for is to ask for food, or water or a blanket or companionship or to go outside. If you only use language to ask for things, then it's not really considered language by some researchers. That's one of the things Nim Chimpsky was criticized for. That, and the fact that most of his remarks were elicited in response to what seemed like a prompt on the same subject.

Bow has said some pretty interesting things in the past, but not lately. Lately, he keeps most of his thoughts to himself, as many teens do. But yesterday, out of the blue, Bow spelled: חבל שקר -- "Too bad it's cold."

Rue anemone in my woods

It has been unusually cold, despite all the beautiful spring flowers  blooming outside.

Lilac at Orchard House

"Too bad it's cold."

That's a pretty inane remark, but not one he has ever made before, and not what we were talking about. I asked him what he wanted. He was reluctant to tell me. No, he did not want a blanket. No, he did not want to go outside. Just this: too bad it's cold. It's not a request. Not a complaint. Just an observation.

Literacy and Illiteracy

It's not easy to find someone who can work with Bow. It has to be someone who has good social skills, can relate well to children and animals, is motivated to try, will work for peanuts or for free, and is not afraid to stand up to bullying by Bow. Oh, and there is one other requirement, one that just recently was brought to my attention: they have to be able to read.

It's funny, but I never actually posted that requirement in any of my ads, taking for granted that in this day and age, all human applicants would be literate. Interns have to have a college degree. Caretakers have to have a high school diploma or equivalent. But I never stated in so many words that they must be able to read.

Lawrence told me yesterday that he knows of a man who would be just perfect for Project Bow, except for one small problem.  This man is excellent with animals. He has trained dogs in the military. More recently, there was one dog whose behavior was so unruly that no one could handle him, but this man took him in and had him very well behaved in no time at all. He loves children and is kind and considerate. He is willing to work for room and board. There's just one problem: he can't read or write. How would Bow talk to him?

Bow spells on the glass to get his message across. If a caretaker can't read, how will he know what Bow said?

This morning, Bow said to me: "Mommy, don't talk to the guy who can't read."

"Why?" I asked.

"It's too hard to write on the computer," Bow spelled.

Come to think of it, maybe an illiterate volunteer is exactly what we need! If he can't read, then Bow will have to use the text-to-speech program to communicate with him!

Cherries Revisited: Not a Liar

We still have cherries. Last night I picked some more. Our first tree was almost out, all except in very high, hard to reach places, and there were ants mounting an expedition to the very tree top. Nothing in nature goes to waste, because there is always someone willing to make use of it. The first tree had big, fleshy dark red cherries with a sweet aftertaste. But the second tree that is now ripening has smaller, lighter red cherries that are tart going in, but leave a slight bitter aftertaste. I know nothing about the origin of these trees, and I have done nothing to cultivate them. They came with the ten acres I bought, and I count them as a bonus, unearned and completely gratuitous. Some years there is no fruit because a late frost gets the blooms. Other years are bountiful. As long as we don't count on having it, the fruit feels like a gift from nature.

This morning Bow had his grapes, and then he asked for cherries. We proceeded with our counting game: one cherry, one pit. But Bow doesn't like the second kind of cherries nearly as much as the first, and in the middle of our game, he got up, took my hand and spelled in Hebrew: "Not a liar."

"You're not a liar?" I asked.

"Yes," he spelled. It was true, the counts tallied. For every cherry he ate, he had given me a pit. But the bowl was still half full of bright, light red cherries.

"Don't you want any more?"

"No."

"Well, what do you want?"

"Milk."

I gave him the milk.

Bow understands everything. He knew that unless the number of pits to cherries tallied, he wouldn't get any milk. He also knew why I care about this: because I want him honest, not because I need those pits. So that's why, when he didn't want to finish his cherries, he observed that he was not a liar.

Now, this doesn't establish that he's not a liar. It does, however, show a remarkable grasp of the situation!

Eating Cherries

Sword and I went out in the front yard after Bow went to sleep last night, and we picked cherries. There are still plenty of cherries left on the tree. We have two cherry trees. The first one has ripened fruit, and the second is still ripening. "These cherries look almost as good as the ones at Wal-Mart," my daughter remarked.

The truth is that they taste better than commercial grade cherries, but they look worse. Each has its own individual look. No two are the same. Cherries in the store look like clones of each other.

This morning at breakfast, Bow had grapes, cherries and a little milk. In that order.

When Bow was very young, I used to cut the pits out of his cherries. When he was older, I made a deal with him: "I'll hand you a cherry, you give me back the pit, then I'll give you another cherry." Bow wanted to test how solid the deal was, so the first cherry I gave him, he swallowed the pit. "No more cherries,"  I said. The next time I served him cherries, he had learned his lesson, so every time he finished one cherry, he would hand me the pit, and I would give him the next cherry. But when it came to the very last cherry, he gave back no pit. He had a big grin plastered on his face, as if he had double-crossed me and gotten the better end of the deal!

This is typical of Bow's ethics. He doesn't keep a promise because he feels it is the right thing to do. He keeps it, only so long as he thinks he has something to gain. This morning, he had something to gain. First he asked for the grapes. When he had finished the grapes, he returned the stems to me, and he asked for the cherries. We went through the whole rigmarole of one cherry, one pit.  He gave me the very last pit. Then he asked for milk. If he hadn't wanted the milk, he'd have swallowed the last pit!

What does it matter if he swallows the pits? Well, it really doesn't matter, in terms of his digestion, but as long as I have to dispose of everything that comes out the other end, I get to monitor what goes in. When he is self-sufficient, he can eat the pits, and I won't care.

There is another reason I persist with this exercise. I am monitoring his moral and emotional growth, too. Maybe, someday, he will want to keep his word just because, and not because he has something to gain. If that day ever comes, it will be just as big a milestone as the day he began to spell out words!

Backsliding and the Computer: How Bow manipulates his World

You may be asking yourself: what about the touchscreen computer? Has Bow made any progress on that? Isn't that the whole point of the experiment? To show that he can write by himself? Why do I keep harping on honesty and moral values? Aren't we just trying to show how smart Bow is and how well he can use language?

Well, no, we're not just trying to show that. But as far as his being smart, I think there's no question about that.Take, for instance, the way he's manipulated the situation with the computer.

At first, Bow did seem excited about using the touchscreen computer. He poked at it with his chopstick. He picked out random letters. He refused to say anything meaningful while Lawrence was in with him, but when Lawrence was emptying out the potty in a different part of the pen system, Bow would write things like "out", "in" and "tire". It was a big deal for him that nobody watch while he was typing.

Because the "text-to-speech" program is in English, I can't be the one introducing the computer. I have to maintain Bow's Hebrew. So Bow continues to spell with me on  the glass. Meanwhile,we decided that Bow would need to spell on the computer to get to go out in the big pen outside, or to  ask for an extra snack from Lawrence late in the afternoon.

At first we waited and waited for Bow to ask for these things using the computer. I would put out the snack.  Lawrence would show Bow how much fun the bigger outer pen could be. We thought it was only a matter of time till Bow asked for these things, and then he would start to converse with Lawrence using the computer. But instead, he never asked for the snack, and the snack ended up getting discontinued.  Eventually Lawrence started letting Bow ask to  go out in the outer pen with only his pinky on Bow. So, really, no language work was being done on the computer.

Because Bow didn't ask for the snack, Lawrence started feeling bad that he wasn't giving Bow anything in the afternoon. So, unbeknownst to me, Lawrence started stealthily giving Bow tic tacs. Bow was happy. He thought Lawrence was a really nice guy. And no work got done!

Trust is so important in every relationship. Consistency is very  important, too.  But Bow is definitely  a smart fellow to be able to turn every conflict into a neat little opportunity for himself.

There is not going to be any progress with Bow -- or with other chimpanzees  -- until the psychological and moral aspect of each relationship is as much an object of study as are the formal proofs of intelligence and linguistic ability. You can't have one without the other.

The Pros and Cons of Social Isolation

Everybody needs warmth. Everybody needs companionship. Everybody needs love. To lock somebody away and never let them experience those things would be very bad. But must that affection, that warmth and that touching come from our own kind, necessarily? And, for that matter, what exactly defines "our own kind"?

Some people are fixated on skin color or facial features or some other biological marker of same/different. Some people are against interracial or interspecies adoptions, because they prevent the child from being socialized exactly like his same race/species peers. But did you know that socialization is a cultural, not a genetic thing? Did you know that different groups of chimpanzees that are not in contact with one another behave differently? Did you know that they have different customs and different social rules? Did you know that chimpanzees treat strangers -- even of their own species -- with suspicion and animosity, while they treat family members, even of a different species, with love and affection?

Bow is living with family. Yes, we have our disagreements, our small misunderstandings and our moments of disharmony, but doesn't every family have those? Bow is quicker to anger, but also quicker to forgive, warmer than I am. He's just not very honest, as warm people tend to be. My human acquaintances who have a warmer disposition than I do also lie more often. It seems to come with the territory. Warm-hearted people are naturally dishonest. Honest people are more dispassionate. But as different as our dispositions are, we do love each other and we are a family.

Do I want Bow to have other companions besides family members? Of course, I do. That's why I invite interns every summer. That's why I have tried to make contact with other primatologists and other chimpanzee people to find friends for Bow who might come over to visit. That is why I am planning in the long run to find him a mate.

"Don't get him a wife until I am twenty," Sword counsels me.

"We'll see..."

"Mommy, get me a wife fast!" Bow insists.

He's eight years old. Does he need a wife right now? He thinks so. But in reality, if he were with his own kind, it is quite doubtful that the Alpha male would let him mate.

I am working toward raising money to make Bow's dream come true. In the meanwhile, wouldn't it be nice if he were allowed to talk to other chimpanzees over the phone or on Skype? True friendship isn't just about physical touching. Bow has a mind, and he is perfectly capable of sharing his feelings and his thoughts with others in more abstract, non-physical ways. What possible harm would come of letting him try?

Why road blocks to check ID are bad for chimps

It's a slow news day at Project Bow. Just a lazy, lazy weekend. Sword and Bow exchanging not so pleasant opinions about each other over breakfast, Bow chewing his cud after lunch. Me with a hubber score of 100 and about two dollars in earnings on Hubpages today. One of our hens took an exceptionally long time to lay an egg. Nothing much happening. But everybody on the web seems to be all concerned about the right of Arizona police to check for proof of citizenship or legal residency. And all I can think of is: how would this law impact chimpanzees?

Bow is a native American. He was born in Missouri. He is not a foreigner. But the one time we were stopped by a police officer at a roadblock where they were looking for illegal aliens, I got very scared. Luckily, everyone in the car behaved well, and the officer didn't ask me to step out, so we passed that test unscathed. But it could have resulted in pandemonium, if anything had gone even slightly wrong.

We were on our way back from New Hampshire, and we had just crossed over into another state. I think it might have been Vermont. In that part of the US, you can't go very far without crossing a state border. But this wasn't a border stop. It was something more random than that. They were stopping all the cars and talking to all the people.

I had no idea what the laws with regard to chimpanzees were in that state. The officer was bound to notice that Bow, strapped into his child safety seat in the back of the car just like Sword, was not an ordinary child. Between them, trying to keep the peace and provide entertainment on the long and tiring trip, was Samina, our summer intern. Samina was from India, but her name sounded Arabic. Were they looking for terrorists? Would they stereotype her?

We had not flown, because the airlines would have treated Bow like cargo. We had to drive. It was the only way. The police officer examined my driver's license. Then he asked Samina where she was from. He tried to ask something about her immigration status, and she didn't understand what he was asking her. I hastened to explain that she was on a six month tourist visa. He examined her documents and accepted this. "Is this your child?" he asked me, pointing at Sword. "Yes."

"And is that your chimpanzee?"

"Yes."

"Okay, then. Have a nice day."

We were lucky, I think, that everybody in the car behaved so well. Because if any one of my kids had chosen that moment to throw a tantrum or get out of line, that might have been dangerous. If I had been asked to step out of the car, or Bow had thought I was being hurt in any way, he wouldn't have just sat back and let it happen. We always kept far away from confusing encounters with strangers, but the one stranger you can't avoid is a police officer intent on questioning you.

When you have special circumstances, then you understand how scary being stopped needlessly by the police really can be.

Reverse Psychology

I've been very preoccupied lately. Interviewing potential interns, looking into alternative ways to monetize my sites, recruiting singers, and talking on the phone with old friends. I don't always give Bow 100% of my attention, even when we are locked together in the confines of the pen. Sometimes he tolerates my inattention, sometimes he protests against it, and sometimes he uses reverse psychology.

Today, I promised Bow he could have an apple for a snack if he behaved while I went out to the mailbox and met Sword as she got off the school bus. Sword and I were chatting all the way back to the house, and when I got back into the pen with Bow, I forgot about the snack. He took my hand and spelled: "Don't give me the apple."

I looked at him, confused, and the look on his face reminded me. "I'm sorry, Bow, I forgot." But just to make sure, I asked: "So, you don't want me to give you the apple?" He got very upset and started screaming at me.

"Okay, okay, I'll get the apple," I relented.

It's not Bow who has the problem with social cues!

Self-Reliance and the Pecking Order

Yesterday, while Lawrence was with Bow, Sword and I introduced our new batch of chicks to last year's brood. Rufus, the rooster, exercised a remarkable restraint and showed himself to be a true gentleman. He didn't once peck at the little chicks, and if he did want them to move, he feigned an attack, but never followed through. It was as though he were thinking: "Future wives for me, better be gentle while they're yet too small." The two Long Island Red hens were not as kind, but reserved their pecking mostly for moments when the little ones were in their way at the feeders. But our other hen, a lowly red, who showed some signs of being a victim of pecking herself, was downright vicious. So we had to separate the little chicks and put them back in their own enclosure.

Isn't this often the way it is in life? Those who have success can afford to be generous, but anyone too low on the pecking order jumps at the opportunity to push someone even smaller around. "A servant when he reigneth."

And what about Bow? What role does he play in our attempts at subsistence farming? He watches from the sidelines, because self restraint is not his forte. He could learn a few things from Rufus.

When I first moved here and started Project Bow, one of my dreams was to teach Bow self reliance. I have ten acres. I had visions of teaching Bow how to milk a cow, how to plant a garden, how to pick fruit.

But without self-restraint, the agricultural life style just doesn't work. Bow would rather eat the seeds than plant them. When given access to lots of fruit, he'll eat one bite out of each and move on to the next. He never plans for the future, and what's more, he seems to look down on me for doing so.

I told a fellow primatologist once that I wanted to let Bow have an Easter chick to raise, but he would surely kill it. She said: "If I were you, I would let him. How else can he learn? If he kills one chick, get him another, and another, and another until he stops killing them."

"But that's encouraging him to kill!" I protested.

"Aya, you eat chicken!" she admonished me. (She's a vegetarian. I'm not.)

"Yes, I eat chicken, but I don't kill them for sport."

What do you think? How best to teach self-restraint? Will Bow ever grow to be a gentleman farmer?

He Gave Us Light

While I was out running errands today, Lawrence stayed with Bow and also replaced the old pull chain to the ceiling light with a cable. When I got back for lunch, Bow was running around in circles, and when he finally settled down, he took my hand and spelled out: "The guy tried to give us light."

"Yes, Bow," I said. "He gave us light."

Pull the Cord

It's a dark day in the pens. Dark and stormy outside. Dark and gloomy inside. The pull cord to the lights that hang on the ceiling above the pens got stuck, and when I tried to pull harder, it broke. Then the remaining cord dangled into the pen, out of reach for me, but not out of reach for Bow.

"Bow, could you turn the light on for Mommy?" I asked.

He climbed up there, and he pulled once, pulled twice, pulled sideways, pulled forward, and broke the remaining bit, which stayed in his hands.

We're going to wait till Lawrence comes next week to fix it. Meanwhile we've been napping a lot. It's pleasant weather for a nap.

People Like Him!

"Bow, just tell me what you want." It was the usual routine. Bow being uncooperative and me trying to encourage him to speak this morning at breakfast.

"They didn't give you a chimp who likes to talk," he spelled out in Hebrew.

Sword, on the other side of the glass, not taken in by his "poor me" act, insisted: "There's no 'they' Bow. You choose what you do. Nobody makes you act like this. It's just you!"

That's when when Bow switched languages. He started spelling out in English: "People like me."

I laughed. "Yes, people like you," I said in Hebrew. We frown on code-switching in this house. I don't let my kids get away with switching languages in the middle of a conversation.

But he spelled out in English again: "OK, I love Sword, too."

Not exactly on point, but much more positive than the usual tangents he goes on.

He used to want to go to school

This morning, I saw Sword off to the school bus and came back to ask Bow what he wanted to eat. He had already had grapes, but I figured he probably wanted something more. So he took my hand next to glass, and I asked him: "What do you want, Bow?" Just as I asked this, we saw the school bus through the window on its second run past our mailbox. "Once, Bow wanted to go to school," Bow said.

"And you don't want to go to school, anymore?"

"No," he answered. "Everybody is bad."

"Okay. So what do you want now?"

"Cereal."

I gave him cereal. What else could I do?

Music Lessons

Yesterday, Sword's music teacher made a house call. It was very kind of her to do this and goes way above and beyond the call of duty. Normally, I have a sitter with Bow when I take her to her piano lesson, which takes place every Wednesday afternoon. But this week Lawrence's wife is away at a conference, and he has to stay home and take care of the baby. So he can't sit with Bow while Sword has her piano lesson.

The music teacher came to the pen to say hi to me and Bow before she went off to teach Sword. She and Bow have already met, as I consulted with her once on a different musical matter. Then she and Sword started their lesson in the interior of the house, and Bow listened, entranced, to every note they played. (I could hardly hear the music myself, but Bow has much better hearing than I do.)

At dinner last night, Bow had this to say: "I'm mad at the music lady."

"Why?"

"Because she didn't teach Bow."

Sword said: "Oh, come on, Bow, you wouldn't have studied. You just wanted to play with her."

Bow agreed: "Yes."

It's not that I haven't tried to get him music lessons. Bow enjoys music, and he even claims that he can sing better than I can, which, of course, isn't saying much. Back when he was three, I tried to get him to learn how to play the recorder under the tutelage of a well known flautist, Bettine Clemen. I got him a cheap plastic recorder, and it was my hope that he would follow her instructions. "Blow! Blow!" we all encouraged him. He did seem to be blowing into the recorder, but no sound was coming out. Then we saw that he had already cracked open the whole back side of the recorder!

We tried other things. Kazoos, harmonicas, toy pianos ... Nothing really worked. Eventually, we switched to drums. There is even a video of Bow playing the drums while Bettine Clemen plays the flute.

But even drums can be destroyed. Nowadays, if Bow want to drum along with a musical piece, he can always bang in time on the grid of his pen.

Unbribable

Bow is unbribable. In this sense, his personal integrity surpasses that of many a judge I have known. However, this poses almost insurmountable challenges for me as a mother and a researcher, when trying to find positive motivational strategies.

Sometimes Bow and I have really counter-productive exchanges. For instance, this weekend, I could tell that Bow wanted to go out in the yard, but he refused to say so. Mind you, he didn't refuse to spell out words. It's just that he would say things like: "Everybody is bad" instead of "I want to go out." He'd be looking toward the yard with great longing, and he'd be gesturing toward the door, but when he spoke, it had nothing to do with that. "Bow, if you want to go outside, just say so," I told him. -- "No. They won't win."

I'm not sure who "they" are, but I can't help but feel that I'm included.

He does this kind of thing with Lawrence on the computer, too. Lawrence will tell Bow that he can have a snack or go out, or some other thing that Bow obviously wants, if he'll just spell it out on the touchscreen. Bow will pick up the chopstick as if he is about to do something, then put it back down, and start examining his nails as if he really doesn't care. Then, just when Lawrence is leaving to empty the potty and is no longer in the same pen with Bow, Bow will finally break down and spell "out", and the computer will sound out the word.

It's very important for Bow that we know that it was his idea to say something and that he's not just doing it to get a reward.

Gossip

In a small town, people like to gossip. We're all interested in what our neighbors are doing. Bow is no different. When he started spelling out words, in the summer of 2007, one of his favorite topics was what the neighbors across the road were doing. He told me some really tall tales, which I am not going to repeat here. Those neighbors have long since moved on, but I don't have any real faith in Bow's veracity, and I think he was telling these stories as a way to keep himself entertained.

Yesterday, when I went into town to get groceries, I heard about a tall tale that someone has been telling about me. Apparently, some guy has been going all over town telling people that I live with a troop of monkeys and an orangutan, and that the interior of my house is constructed entirely of bullet proof glass, all paid for by government grants at the public's expense! The lady who related the story to me laughed, as everyone knows that none of that is true.

The fact that I have an adopted chimpanzee who can spell out words and that I raised him along with my own child using my own money is not sufficiently entertaining. We need a castle made of bullet proof glass,a troop of monkeys and an orangutan to turn it into spell-binding tale!

Bow and Social Ranking

A basic rule in the pens is that people go in with Bow one at a time. During an initial introduction to a new person, I will sit in with them, but I will sit in a corner, making myself as small as I possibly can. After Bow knows somebody, and that person has earned the right to enter the pen, then Bow and that person can proceed with their relationship, but we never go in all together. Why? Because of social ranking, dominance hierarchies and the need to duke it out.

Bow wants to know who ranks higher. We all secretly do, don't we? Even if we're just having coffee with a friend, we might in some hidden part of our mind be wondering: "Who is more important here: him or me?" We've been socialized not to think like that, but 'fess up! Haven't you ever wondered?

There are human societies that are highly hierarchical. When two Korean students meet, for instance, they have to ask each other when each was born, so that they will know who ranks as senior. This will determine who will call the other "elder brother/elder sister" and "younger brother/younger sister." I don't know much about Japanese society, but I understand that it is also highly stratified, and requires the use of an extensive system of honorifics. How you rank determines what you call everybody and how you address them.

In French, as in many other European languages, there is a politeness distinction between addressing someone as "tu" or "vous". Originally, "tu" was second person singular and "vous" was second person plural, but the need to indicate verbally who is more important led to a different usage. English went so overboard with its politeness to everyone that it totally leveled the distinction between singular and plural second person. Nobody is addressed as "thou" anymore except for God, who obviously doesn't rank very high.

I come from a relatively egalitarian background. In Hebrew, second person singular still means you're talking to one person, and plural means there are several people being addressed. But even in egalitarian societies, not everybody ranks the same.

For a chimp, ranking is a matter of utmost importance. Bow wants to know who is more important, and he thinks the best way to find out is to start a brawl and to see who ends up on top. We try to avoid this by going in one at a time.

The other day, Bow's sitter, Lawrence and the computer guy, Tracey, were both on the same side of the zoo glass, away from Bow, for a moment. When Tracey, the computer repairman, arrived, Lawrence let him into the pen away from Bow. I looked at Bow and he was bristling with excitement. He let out an involuntary cry indicating that a fight was about to ensue. Bow was beside himself with joyous anticipation. "Fight, fight!" his vocalization said. He was so disappointed when the two human males did not gratify his need to find out which one ranked higher!

"We don't do that, Bow," Lawrence said to him. "We don't have to fight."

Bow's been raised among humans all his life. He's never seen a fight, except on TV. But he has a theory of mind, and like all of us, he projects his own motives onto others. He can't help but expect Lawrence and Tracey to behave the way he would under the same circumstances.

Bow and Chess

This morning at breakfast Sword mentioned that at the school MAP test dance today, in addition to dancing and refreshments, there will also be board games.

"You mean like monopoly?" I asked

"Yeah. But there'll be easier ones," she said, "like checkers and chess."

I wonder why she thinks chess is easier than monopoly, I thought. As I was pondering this, Bow took my hand and spelled: "They gave me chess once."

"What is he talking about?" Sword asked, not really trusting that Bow had anything important to add to the conversation. (They are going through a rough patch in the sibling relationship.)

"What do you mean, Bow?" I asked.

"Bow played chess once," Bow spelled in Hebrew.

"Oh, that's right," Sword remembered. "You weren't any good at it..."

When Bow played chess with me, if I took one of his pieces, he insisted that we change sides and that my side of the board should be his. When he played with Sword, he tried to copy every move she made. Then when these strategies did not work, he gave up.

Bow is plenty smart enough, but he needs to stop being so fixated on winning.

Where will my kids go to high school?

My daughter informed me yesterday that she wants to go to the local high school when the time comes. (She's in fifth grade right now.) I had dreams about sending her to a really "good" school ever since she was born. I was thinking of Putney, in Vermont. I was hoping we could all move there, when the time came. But now with restrictions on non-human apes traveling, and the difficulty of generating revenue for Project Bow, the local high school is looking like the most probable final outcome. And she wants that, because that's where all her friends are going!

I never went to high school. I never had all those "normal" experiences. Maybe letting her do that is the best thing for her.

Poor Bow is so very much longing to flex his own social muscles and impress a few conspecifics with how "cool" he is, too. I wish there were a local high school for him to attend.

Bow loves parties. Here he is singing along at his eighth birthday party: