Randall is learning to read.
Concerns
Next year I’m going to kindergarten.
Only teachers can talk. The kids cannot talk.
Otherwise they’ll distract the teachers.
The only thing I can do at the kindergarten is listen, but I cannot listen a lot.
Late Autumn
It is getting chilly here and the leaves have started to fall. Yet we are just in time to get a glimpse of the autumn colors. The boys, barely aware of the cold weather or the beautiful surroundings, are having a good time together running around, picking stones, and acting traffic lights.
Big Plan
Randall: Were you guys good friends when you were kids?
Mom: No. We knew each other after we grew up.
Randall: Then what?
Mom: Then we became friends. We got married, and then we have you.
Randall: OK, I’ll do that, too.
Mom: Do what?
Randall: Get married with Elise.
Mom: When do you plan to get married?
Randall: After I go to college.
Ninja Turtle
More than Pumpkins
It’s the pumpkin time of the year, and we finally got this nice beautiful day for a pumpkin patch trip. It was a long drive and nothing was too interesting except a road sign saying “Randall Rd. Exit 52”. But as soon as we arrived, we realized that it was well worth the drive.
The place was definitely more a farm-style amusement park than a pumpkin patch. There were just so many fun things to do: the corn box, the pumpkin express train ride, the petting farm, the munchkin corn maze, the pony ride, the little digger which Randall became a master of manipulating, and a lot more!
Randall enjoyed feeding the animals and couldn’t have enough of it. And of course in the end, we came home with a bunch of weird-looking pumpkins. Randall liked one of them especially, which, in his own words, “looks like a balloon but smells just like a pumpkin”.
The Big Lake
The sun, the breeze, a perfect day for the beach.
“Is it a lake or a sea?”, asked mom.
“Lake. No, sea!”, said Randall.
Conversation
Mom: We’ll probably go to New York in a couple of weeks.
Randall: No, in ten weeks.
Mom: No. Just a couple of weeks. A couple means two or three.
Randall: Why?
Mom: Because it’s our schedule.
Randall: Bendule. It’s our bendule.
Mom: No, schedule!
Randall (laughing): Bendule.
Mom: Ok. It’s our plan.
Randall (laughing even louder): It’s our can.
Mom: …
Randall: How did the doctor cut your belly open?
Mom: Let’s change a topic.
Randall: When can we go to Hawaii again?
Mom: …
Saurus in the City
On a very hot summer day, we take a train ride into the city. This is Randall’s second time at Millennium Park. The first visit was a year ago and he has certainly grown a lot, for he no longer needs help when climbing up and down the big structures. Still, for Randall, the best part of the playground is the skate park, where he wins a race over daddy.
We end our visit with a boat tour along the river, learning the city’s legendary architecture and the history behind it.
