05/08/2023
Since I was a young boy I always found anything mechanical, fascinating. From marble runs, Jacobs ladders, even my first piggy bank that had a really cool mechanism that responded to the different weights of coins and sorted them accordingly.
I've never really been one for clairvoyance and mystics, but I did always have an odd feeling of certainty that I would one day have a little boy.
His birth and entrance in to our lives and family, along with my own experience of becoming a father has been a wondrous, almost surreal event that is worthy of all the cliches.
I once heard Jerry Seinfeld say "fatherhood! It's like surfing on rainbows, man"
From the moment I realized Vincent would be entering this world I did what I do with most other things I experience. I try and read and research as much as I can until I feel confident in my understanding and knowledge.
I dove into all the parenting and child development literature head first. I found books on Maria Montessori and Piaget's psychology of the child pretty interesting.
Now that Vincent is 2 and I'm witnessing his natural wonder and amazement in the simple physics of the world. The way he mimics and learns language.
The advancement of his motor skills. The way with each day he is able to do things he once couldn't.
We made these cubes and triangles out of toothpicks and pieces of cork. Watching him very carefully and accurately sink the toothpick into the hole in the cork with such careful concentration is something that delightfully plays over and over in my mind.
His fascination with building simple structures out of blocks and then knocking them down.
He loves setting up simple ramps to use gravity to propel his toy cars faster and faster. The sense of joy and accomplishment when the car gets up enough speed to roll into the next room.
I started this book on Friedrich Froebel and how he created this system of very simple toys that you give a child. Starting with something as simple as a ball. As the child mind develops each toy (gifts, is what he calls them) progresses to something slightly more complicated. One ball, turns to 3 blocks (keep in mind, this was the early 1800s 😁) with each gift, the toys generally increase in number and decrease in size.
So three blocks becomes: three blocks, three triangles, and three spheres, and so on.
While reading this I started to think of all the toys and things I have made for Vincent. Which is now becoming things we make together. (Pictures)
I actually started reading this book because on the cover there is a picture of a large castle-like structure made of very small simple blocks. When Vincent saw this he got excited and started pointing to it, pointing to his blocks and then pointing to me. Basically saying "hey Dad, see these blocks you made me, I want more like this, so go get busy"😆
A child is such a gift. Without knowing it, this little boy gave my life so much meaning 😊
