Labor Day with Jacob and Oliver
September 7th, 2010
Yesterday started out with Jacob and me going to a men/boys breakfast organized by my great uncle and some others. He’s in his 80s and this is probably his last year doing this. It was out in the woods by the Little Arkansas River. They cooked up bacon, sausage, and eggs and it was a fun time. Jacob enjoyed throwing sticks in the river and sitting on some logs.
Terah, meanwhile, went to Wichita with Oliver. So it was just Jacob and me when we got home.
Jacob spent two hours playing “rivers” with me. A few weeks ago, he and I set this up outside. I found an old length of pipe on our property (my dad thinks it used to carry water from a well) and some cement blocks. I set it up on the blocks so that one end is higher than the other, and the lower end empties out at the top of a small dirt pile. Then I brought a water hose over to it, turned on the water at a very slow speed, and put the hose in the pipe.
The result is a small stream of water coming out at the dirt pile. After it runs just a little while, the dirt is soft enough that you can dig out little channels, or “rivers”, with your fingers or a stick.
Jacob enjoyed this the first time he played, but yesterday he really enjoyed it. We had a fork in the river, and he informed me that he would sit on his bank and I would sit on mine. He also wanted to give “river food” to his river (the fork closest to him). River food was loose dirt that he’d pick up and sprinkle over the water, and watch it get carried on down. I spotted some random bug in the area once, and that bug got food too. I think Jacob and the bug disagreed about whether this was particularly helpful.
Jacob enjoyed playing other games with the pipe. I had showed him that we could send things through the pipe, so he would take out the hose, stuff some dirt in one end, and then make sure I was watching to see if it came out the other end. He sometimes made a fountain by setting the hose on top of the cement blocks and watching the water drip down from level to level.
Then later in the day, I introduced him to Tuxpaint. This is a painting program aimed at children. I had told him I had a “painting game” to show him a few days ago, but because he made some bad behavior choices, he had lost access to my computer for a few days. Anyhow, we tried it yesterday and wow — he loved it. There was constant laughter and excitement. I first showed him how to select colors for the paintbrush. He quickly figured out how to make lines, change colors, and change brushes. Tuxpaint has sound effects for just about everything, which he loved too.
Then we explored the interface together and I showed him the “stamps” feature, which lets you paste pre-made pictures into a drawing. Tuxpaint comes with dozens of these, on kid-friendly themes such as animals, cars, fire trucks, signs, etc. This he loved even more. Terah and Oliver got home about this time, and Oliver and Jacob both sat on my lap for a time, both laughing loudly each time Jacob discovered something new to paste into his picture. Of course, then Oliver tried to eat my keyboard and smash my monitor, but there you go.
Categories: Family
