Gunner, Birds and Other Things

I was looking at pictures of my kids from the last couple of Summers.  I'm shocked at how much they change in so little time.  Just last Summer, Gunner looked so much younger, and Hobbes was still covered in chubby baby fat.  Six months later, they are both taller, thinner, doing amazing things, and continuing to keep my laughing with all the silly things they do and say.

I'll start with Gunner.

He really loves birds these days.  Like…Really loves them.  I think it all started months ago when he watched the movie, Rio, and fell in love with Jewel, the pretty Blue Macaw.  He loved that movie.  He would smile all the way through it, and then, unfortunately, completely break down and cry when it was over.  Every single time.  He said he was sad that the birds were captured.  I'm not sure he wasn't just sad because the movie was over and he couldn't see Jewel anymore, but he would get really sad and grumpy.  Sometimes we couldn't get him to snap out of his funk for two hours!  It was ridiculous, and I eventually had to stop letting him watch it.

However, even though he wasn't allowed to watch the movie anymore, he continued his little love affair with that bird by making up an imagination game which he calls his "Rio Game."  Not long after he made it up, we had this little conversation about his game:
Me: How do you play your Rio game?
G: You just sit there.
Me: And what else?
G: Um, you just think about it.

And then this one:
While I was responding to a mid-night call from Hobbes, I found G awake and whispering to himself in the dark.
Me: G, are you awake? (5:30 a.m)
G: I'm playing my Rio game.  It's kind of an awake game.

And this statement from him:
"I didn't get much sleep last night.  I played my Rio game all night long."

Soooo, he sits and thinks the game out in his head.  He has since told me that his game has different levels, kind of like the levels of a video game like Angry Birds.  He has added all sorts of other characters into the game, including the birds from Peep and the Big Wide World (another new favorite show), and some of the people in his life.

Anyway, the point of all this is that he has become infatuated with birds.  He wants to be a "Birder" like his great great grandparents.  He wants binoculars so that he can look for birds.  He talked to a lady at church about the bird charm necklace she was wearing and her favorite bird, the Black Cap Chickadee, and then he spent the next five days cheering for joy whenever he spotted his own "Black Cat Chickadee."

It's a little crazy to me.  I think birds are fine, but I have never thought of them as something to obsess over.  And really, I think it's all because he has a crush on a pretty cartoon bird.  But it's real to him, and he's pretty serious about it.

So much so that when we were with our good friend the other day, and she told him, "Gunner, I love you," he replied, "Well…I like birds."

That's brutal child honesty for you.
_____

Here are a few more quotes that made me laugh recently:

At Christmas Time, we listened to an old favorite version of The Twelve Days of Christmas, and he insisted that the words went like this: "And a partih.  Genepair Tree."  Doesn't matter that those are not real words, I can't convince him that it goes any other way.

While listening to a recording of the HMS Pinafore, I have mentioned that I like the soprano's voice.  He asks me constantly why I like her voice so much.  At one point, he said, "Mom, is she your wishing voice?" Meaning: Do you wish your voice sounded like hers?  (I do, actually.)

Listening to Andrea Bocelli sing "Time to Say Goodbye":
"Whoever those Italians are, they sure have a nice voice."

During a playtime with a group of kids, Gunner got frustrated with some injustices of the playground.  Spiff was talking to him and trying to help him calm down.
Gunner said, "This speak up is getting us nowhere!"

Driving home looking at the pretty city lights:
"Wow!  There are trillions of them!  Brazilians of them!!!"