Hi Charlie!

Our youngest son is a hit, and not just with the predictable crowd, women and old people.

Thursday afternoon I brought him by the school cafeteria, where Will was at after-school care. After stopping to dance in the hallway with the custodian, he sprinted into the cafeteria. "Hi Charlie!" yelled a little girl, who along with two others began following him around. A couple more joined in, as Charlie dutifully made his way around picking up the various balls lying around. It was fun.

Friday I took him by the school playground, and the scene repeated itself, only with the boys following him around. Will and his friends James (yellow shirt) and Dylan (gray shirt) guided Charlie around, not that he needed it.

The affection these kids show for the little guy is really something. When Charlie took a break to sit on my lap, James touched his arm and said "His skin is so soft!" Dylan took a good look at him and said "My sister is two years old!"

Just another one of those fun scenes to take in ...

Tubular

Last week when I picked up Will at Kidz Club, he asked me "Daddy, do I have four dollars at home?" Yes, I replied, why do you ask?

"Because I want to buy that tube from Devin."

Devin was holding a tube, maybe four inches in diameter and six feet long. It was quite a big cardboard tube.

"We can race cars down it," Will says.

But four dollars, really?

"Yeah, Devin made it cheap."

The moment passed, but not the sentiment. A week later, leaving the minivan on our way into school, Will was talking about that damn tube, looking under the seats for money. I told him we'd make it a priority to find a tube over the weekend.

Friday, when we got home after school, Will was sorting through money, presumably to buy some terrible goopy crap he saw at the IGA. He then reached for two rubber balls, street value of about three cents.

"I'm going to try to give Devin these for that tube," he says. Is that something you discussed with Devin? I asked. "No."

Should make for an interesting negotiation.

Give or take a decade

I've had a couple of recent Will events on my mind since Thursday morning. The sequence of these two events are as follows:

Scene #1. Will kicks off his socks near the dining room table. I ask him to pick up the socks. Will starts to pick up a sock, gets distracted by a Hot Wheel, and forgets all about the socks. I remind Will to pick up the socks. He turns, looks at them and kicks then around the floor. I ask Will to pick up the socks again. Will, who has been putting his clothes in a laundry basket for more than two years saying, "I don't even know where to put them!" After a bit of voice-raising, Will eventually picks up a sock. I find the other one under the table at about 10 p.m.

Scene #2. Scott and I escort Will to kindergarten on the third day of school where he promptly takes his agenda book and folder and walks over to his desk. Will carefully takes the chair off the desk, tucks it nicely away, opens his folder and agenda book to the proper day and stands in almost-military fashion by his desk until the teacher comes into the room. "Can I play now?" he asks her. "Did you do your jobs?" she responds. "Yes, I see you did. You can play now."

Let's review, shall we? This amazing woman got Will to listen and remember his jobs in TWO DAYS ... something I've been trying to do for 5+ YEARS?

"Wow, you've certainly found a way to motivate him," I tell her.

She's got a twinkle in her eyes when she says, "Well, I have been doing this for twenty years."

Great. In only 15 more years, I'll be able to get Will to listen to me.

Scandinavia Stomp

I went to a meeting in the Collect.com Auctions office where they had a plethora of bubble wrap. Of course, I thought of Will, and asked if I could steal a small piece for him. My friend Jill said that she would give me a bigger piece with even bigger bubbles! Check out this video ... the boys made quick work of it.

I almost feel like we saw Stomp when we were in New York City.

First day of kindergarten

Here are a few pictures from Will's first day of kindergarten. He had no trouble posing at home but after that, he repeatedly requested that we not take pictures. He also walked way ahead of us, which, I think, is the five-year-old's version of having your parents drop you off two blocks from the movie theater.

Girl crazy

The four of us went to meet Will's teacher and see his classroom today during his school's open house orientation.

Will's teacher seems very nice and she mentioned that she'd heard a few other students in the class saying that they know him.

"One thing I noticed though, Will," she said. "All of them were girls ... why do so many girls know your name?"

Will, charter member of the "Boys Club", took the comment in his usual subtle manner.

"Girls? Oh, DARN!"

Charlie's Celebrity Impressions

We went for a bike ride recently and I experienced one of those amazingly clear memory-making moments. Will, sitting so tall and handsome in the bike trailer. Next to him, my little Charlie, barely visible from behind the trailer except for his enormous pile of hair, bouncing up and down as they headed down the trail.

Every time I think of it, I still smile. And every time it's time to cut Charlie's hair, I just don't want to do it. It's just such a part of his personality.

As if to make my point for me, I found these pictures on my camera tonight: Charlie at dinner, doing what seem to be a variety of celebrity impressions with little more than his hair and a bit of banana goop.



Robert Pattinson: He makes that tousled look seem so effortless but it actually took Charlie quite a bit of effort to accomplish this masterpiece.





Orlando Bloom: He probably should have dyed his hair for the full effect.






Kate: OK. This is just mean. But that hair flying out in the back is just plain cartoonish (yeah, I mean her).






James Dean: I think he must have originated the messy men's style.






James Franco: I've got to be honest...I may have mixed up the James Dean and James Franco impressions. Some mom I am...yikes!




Chris Farley and our Charlie: Both of them have always made me smile.

Monster Mash

There's less than a week to go before Will starts kindergarten. I'm excited to learn that he only has 14 kids in his classroom ... this is a teacher-to-student ratio that I have witnessed since my Pineview Elementary days.

Anyway, all these pencils, erasers, new school clothes got me thinking about Fall and that got me thinking about Halloween ... and that's what led me to ask Will what he wanted to be for Halloween this year.

"Oh, I know, a VAMPIRE! Or, wait, no, maybe a SKELETON! Hmmm, I could be a MUMMY."

"So you want to be something spooky this year, huh?" I asked, thinking to myself that I could probably handle the face paint for dracula but I'm not sure how much toilet paper I'm willing to go through for the sake of a mummy costume.

"Yeah ... but I definitely, absolutely do not want to be Frankenstein."

Ah, apparently the man-made monsters aren't spooky enough for Will.

He's got skills...they're multiplyin'

That pint-sized world traveler known as Will Tappa is spending a week in the U.P. with Grandma Clary, Aunt Mavis and Uncle John.

My mom reports that he has been busy, busy, busy and has even made a new friend named Dalton.

She overheard this exchange between Will and Dalton yesterday afternoon:

Will: Have I told you that my Daddy LOVES sports?

Dalton: Nope.

Will: He does. I play sports too. I played soccer and t-ball. I haven't played other sports but I do have the skills.

Two boys around the house