And Then The Mowers Came

It has been very cool lately. At lunch yesterday I was wearing a jacket. I decided to give Bow only my pinkie to spell with.

Bow was discouraged at first, and he took a break from his spelling to gaze despondently at the windy landscape through the the front door. But then he took up the task and asked for an apple.

Things went more smoothly when Bow requested his meat dish, which was actually the main course for lunch. He finished the entire meal, and then the mowers came.

Bow gets very excited whenever he sees the mowers. He watched them for a while through the front door window.

When he had tired of watching them from the inside, he took my pinkie and spelled בואי אתי החוצה  -- "Come outside with me!"

This is very different from what he usually says when he wants to go outside. Usually he just writes "Let me go outside." But apparently this time he wanted my company.

While the mowers mowed, Brownie took some time to dig a nice big hole in the back yard.

Bow was pretty complacent at this point, and I was able to leave him for a moment out there and pick my daughter up from school, as the bus did not run locally yesterday for some reason. By the time I got back, Bow was ready to come in, and the grass was already mowed.

In the evening, we had a beautiful sunset. If you look closely at the front lawn in the picture above, you can see that it is freshly mown. The wildflowers that sprang up there are gone, but their memories live on.

A violet that once was

Native Wood Violet Postcard

Dark, Cloudy Morning

It's so dark out today that Bow has been napping all morning.

He wakes up every once in a while, flashes me a big smile, then goes back to sleep again.

Bow thrives on sunlight. When it is sunny, he is very active. When the sun hides behind a cloud, he becomes lethargic. He doesn't seem to want to do anything at all.

If the sun never came out again, we would see a lot less activity. But I expect it will come out again, sooner or later, so Bow and I are not worried.  This reminds me of the year without a summer, 1816, with which my new book Theodosia and the Pirates: The War Against Spain begins.

Without sunshine, how could all the flowers grow?

There would be no food and no trade and no money would be made, and people like Bow would not even consider buying books to read.

However, I am pretty sure that the darkness that has descended on us today is temporary.

I can hear thunder in the distance, and everything outside is wet, even though it is not raining here at the moment.

The wetness is good for the poor pea plant in the corner of the outer pen. It is still holding its own, though not climbing anymore.

Maybe we should all be more opportunistic in responding to nature, the way Bow is. When it is dark, we can sleep.

When the sun comes out again, we can regain our vitality. And when we feel like working, we can work. The only problem is that when it comes to lunch, Bow is always ready to eat, even if he has done nothing else all day. I think many of us have this problem.

"It tastes like cat."

One of my friends who read yesterday's blog entry commented that it was a sign of successful parenting that Bow helped enforce the rule of serving one item at a time during meals. I had to agree and was feeling quite pleased. However, Bow is  not unaware of what is going on with this blog. I read him every entry out loud, and I think he must have felt it was time to let me know he wasn't quite that obedient. He still wants to see what he can get away with, as far as wastefulness is concerned.

This summer, Wednesday is going to be my "free day", thanks to Megan and Lawrence. The way it works is that I get up at 6:30 and help Bow in the morning, including breakfast and potty duties. At 9:00 am Megan comes in and takes over. At noon, Lawrence relieves Megan, and he does lunch with Bow and stays until 2:00. At 2:00 pm Megan relieves Lawrence, and she stays until  5:00 pm, when I come back, and Sword and Bow and I have supper together as a family. I still put Bow to bed sometime after 7:00 pm, usually around 7:30. So, even on  my "free day", I am with Bow about five hours all told. Still it's much less than my usual twelve hours. During the year, I don't have a "free day", but it's really a nice thing to have, and I think Bow enjoys the variety of companionship, too.

Anyway, I don't know whether it is due to my blog post about waste or not, but yesterday it seems that Bow decided to play finicky with Lawrence at lunch. I wasn't there to hear about it from Lawrence, but he left me a note:

LUNCH JUNE 9, 2010 (with Lawrence)

* I gave Bow a second apple which was green. He asked for it as usual, but one bite and he told me: "I don't like this apple." I asked"Why?" He said: "It tastes funny." I went and got him another apple, and he ate it.

*   I gave Bow a small portion of my ravioli on his table. He asked: "What is that?" I told him, he asked for it, took one bite and rejected it. He said:"I don't like it." I asked:"Why not?" He said: "It tastes like cat." I asked: "Did you ever eat cat?" He said "No."

Funny, the stuff that goes one when I'm not around!

At Long Last Lunch!

 Today, Sword had a gymnastics exhibition, and she did quite well. While we were out doing that, Megan stayed with Bow and fed him lunch. It was a great success! Bow tried to talk to her in Hebrew at first, but Megan let him know quite firmly that he would have to spell out something that she could understand if he was going to be served what he wanted. He therefore spelled out "apple", "banana" and "juice." It is a bare minimum, considering the many and varied things he can spell, but it is a start! We are all happy! And that was Megan's first week as a Project Bow volunteer! We'll see her again on Tuesday.