Almost Seven

My sweet baby boy is long gone, and now I have a fine, strapping young man of very nearly seven years.

Lately, he has become fascinated by "When I was a child". Not me. Him. When he was a child...oh my.

So, first we went through the hundreds of photos of his first few years.

Now, he is working his way through "As Jack Grows", the blog I kept when he was little, as a sort of electronic baby-book and "letter to Grandma" all in one. I've been reading over his shoulder, of course, and reliving the early years. It's fun.

But now is a lot of fun, too.

Jack has developed a real passion for gardening. "But only with you, Mamma." I wondered why only with me. "Other people tell people what to do and are bossy. You make it funny". Ummm, ok.

Turns out that he likes my very, very collaborative methods. And yes, a lot of giggling is involved. As an example, we dig rows together. We have very sandy soil, so the only hard part is getting through the thatch on top. So, we each have foot on the shovel, and we shout "Heave!" as we push down to break up the grass roots. Once the shovel is buried deeply, we shout "Ho!" and pull the handle down to lift the soil out of the hole. About half the time, Jack pulls so hard he ends up falling flat on his back in the next row, giggling so hard he can't get up.

We work hard out there for hours, and this year Jack really *is* working hard for most of te time.

The interesting thing is that the hard physical work seems to be making his brain "thirsty", too. After we put in five days last week in the garden, Jack pestered to do school almost non-stop for the next several days. He was keen to review his math and move on to subtraction from the addition he has just finished. He wanted to study just about anything we'd work with him on.

I haven't been up to that kind of hard work this weekend, and Jack has been disappointed. Especially because "the moon is in Pisces and that's good for all garden work, Mamma. On Monday it won't be perfect anymore".

What a guy!