a day with Joa

In September this year Joa will start primary school and by the end of spring he will be a big brother and we will be sharing our time together with a wee one.
I noticed this today as we spent the day together. I noticed it and held the day tight in my heart.
As always being with Joa is a mixture of wonderful, enlightening, slightly surreal and down-right hilarious. So I thought I would write a little about our day to never forget these times with this boy as he is right now.

Joa and Mr Brown the listening bear

He started his day with his favourite breakfast which is milk and hot porridge. I helped him to get dressed and he chose to wear one of Garry's ties, which dangles down to his knees. We took Rebe and Benny to school then we dropped 'Mr Brown' back to preschool. Joa was awarded the honor of taking Mr Brown home to look after yesterday because he had done such a good job of listening.

It was a beautiful day so Joa and I decided to go for a walk. We pumped up the tyres on his bike and got on gloves and warm coats and took his bike to the bottom of the hill. We stopped half way down to listen to a little robin who was sitting in a tree singing his head off. Joa told me later that he was singing 'Jingle Bells' and did a pretty good impression of him.

Walking with Joa is still at the very, very slow stage. It's not really a walk at all, more of a stop with a few pockets of walking in between.
He cycled for a while until he found a big branch that he thought we might take home and hang things from, but I explained it was a bit too big. So we found another more manageable stick that we could poke down the back of his coat that he could take with him. We cycled on but he decided to abandon the bike for a while and we walked together hand in hand along the road.
We met a friend of ours and his new puppy that Joa bent down and stroked and gave part of his stick to. Then we thought we had better check out the house that Joa built. He does like to claim credit for the whole house, in fact he just sat on the digger drivers knee for a small while when they were digging the foundations, but that's almost tantamount to building the whole thing himself.
Next we supervised the man who was taking down the Christmas lights and Joa and he had a good discussion about Christmas.
Then on to the pier to look at the boats and spot jelly fish. We didn't see any jelly fish but much to Joa's interest we found several crates of rotting, stinking fish skins and carcases which needed careful examination.
He had wanted to go to the shop, but I explained it was closed due to a family bereavement. Joa was very interested in this and asked if we could go over and if I would lift him up so he could look on the floor to see the dead body. I tried to explain what I had meant, but he was pretty convinced that a burglar had shot a customer who had gone to buy some sweets and this had upset the shop keeper and thus the shop was closed.
We walked back with a few more stops: to watch someone with a powerhose and someone else whose car was having trouble starting.and to check to see if Joa fitted into a hole we found on the beach.
We picked up his bike and he had just enough puff to get to the bottom of our hill, but he did tell me that 'This walk is so busy my face might burst'.
We had a snack when we got home and he did his own thing while I did a little house work.
For lunch he said he wanted a cheese and raisin sandwich. Thinking I might have misunderstood (and also because that is a pretty yucky combination) I gave him a cheese sandwich and a little bowl of raisins. He quickly put the raisins in his sandwich with the cheese and ate it with glee.
I picked up the kids to his delight and he spent a good half hour running around the kitchen with the excitement of everyone being home. Garry was watching Elvis' 80th Birthday commemoration on the tv. The kids asked how he died. Joa thought it was probably that he was in a desert without any water. Then he played with Benny until dinner time. He spent much of dinner poking chop sticks down the holes in his tights and asking if I wanted him to kiss me.
To end the day he and Benny had a shower. He is very happy to let me wash and brush his hair on the understanding that I use the hair dryer to 'defeat' his curls and make his hair really big. I'm always happy to oblige there! We read his bedtime story and I tucked him in meeting his list of demands of his 'fresh water, hot bottle, the DVDV on the tape clayer and his loves'.

defeated curls and a slightly scribbled face

He is a special, special boy and adds so much fun and colour (and a few grey hairs) to our lives. I adore him at this age, I adore him at every age and I know that this time is passing. How sweet it is to savour these little moments of childhood.