OLD FOLKS...

I have to Blog this before I forget. I have a meeting to attend this evening so Umma took over as Kai's company before Mike arrive to get him. I left them with Kai playing with the PVC pipes that Mike gave me. If I let him have his way, he will drag all of them to play with...so I just let him have three of them. He was using them as "telescopes" in spite that two of them were triple his size in length. Tara, the girl next door came home with her grandmother from school...and he knows the old lady from occasional encounters. She said hello to Kai and talked to his Umma. Suddenly, Kai address Tara's grandmother, called her Umma, and asked "where is Umpha?" She was delighted that Kai called her Umma after it was explained to her what it means. She has been widowed about four years ago and was taken aback of the question. She told him that he died a long time ago. Nowaday, everybody who looks older, especially grey haired is either an Umpha or an Umma for him. Gosh! I thought I had the monopoly of that title!

After lunch, he was gone and when I found him, he was with Umma in the bedroom. Umma is cutting his fingernails. Every week Umma cuts his nails. He calls the dirt "bugs in nail." Later Umma was telling me that each finger after it has been cut, he will say, "thank you Umma." So that was ten thank yous from his ten little fingers.

For the last two days, I have been "his artist in residence." He asked me to "make" (draw) different color cars. Colors were designated to the owner of each of the vehicles. "Daddy's car...green," "Mommies car purple," "Umma's car blue," "Umpha's car red," "Uncle's car black," and even included a garbage truck, a school bus and Joe fixing his car. Today, he discovered on top of the dinning table some crayons I just bought to use in my en caustic project. I just let him use it, but decided that we have to "make" bugs and different colored snakes. That was what we are doing until he decided to go outside. When I opened the front door, he stood there for a while, came back and said, "It's cold! I get my jacket." After I zipped the front, he wanted his hood on his head. This is funny...sometimes ago, he never wanted anything put on his head. Now whenever the jacket has a hood, it has to go where it belongs.

I was resting when they left. Umma was telling me that Mike had to swoop him up because he is not ready to go home. When you are enjoying what you are doing, let it ride...