This weekend, while Calfgrit5 was in his room taking his nap after lunch, I went into the office to fiddle around. While there, I saw out the front window, Calfgrit9 was sitting in the grass of the front yard.

His zip-up sweater was off and lying in a pile on the grass next to him, a plastic hoe (that he uses as a sword and a rifle) was in the grass on the other side of him, and he had some small toy in his hand. He was just sitting there, sort of staring off into space. He’d shift or move occasionally, but he seemed deep in thought more than playing with his toy.

I watched him for a minute or two, wondering what he was thinking. I got a little worried; I thought maybe there was something troubling on his mind. So I left the office and went downstairs to put on my shoes to go outside.

I walked up to him, “Hey buddy.”

“Hey Dad.”

I plopped down in the grass in front of him. “Whatcha thinking about?”

He didn’t hesitate, but stated, “About how some animals are pretty smart. They make their own homes, they form groups, they communicate. It’s like they’re as smart as we are.”

“Yeah,” I said. I totally didn’t expect that to be his thoughts. Here I was, worrying that he was bothered by something, and really he was just thinking intelligent concepts.

We chatted about animal reasoning and instincts for a few minutes, and then he wanted to show me an ant mound he had found over in the common area next to our lot. He had experimented with the ants by covering the exit holes with leaves and rocks, to see how they dealt with it, how they’d work around the obstacles.

After showing me his experiment, we walked around to the back yard, and our conversation wandered to what we’d do in the yard when the weather warmed up with spring.

I was relieved that he hadn’t been sitting in the yard fretting about something. I was rather impressed that he could just sit peacefully and think. That’s something I like to do sometimes. It’s something that I really don’t get a chance to do very often, anymore. Maybe next time I won’t disturb him.

Bullgrit

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