Growing into Charades

My daughter uses her hands to explain things, tell me things and invent stories.

I do too. It's like she has learned somehow, from me, from teachers, that to explain something accurately, you must use your hands. It seems like a conscious decision she's made, not just a reflex.

She is well equipped to play charades, but for her brother it has not been easy to play charades. Re-creating concepts/things with ones hands has been out of reach. But, suddenly, without warning over the weekend, charades has become a game that all four of us can play together. Out of the blue, he started challenging me to guess what he was acting out.

Before, someone always got left out or misunderstood or misinterpreted and it was just not worth the heartache. But now, we've all grown into charades. He's learning from his sister how to use his hands.

The latest charades included: writing with a pen that is running out of ink, Santa coming down the chimney, throwing a ball to a puppy and listening to grandma (and therefore, too busy to play charades right now).

Comments

I entered August without you.

I won't visit you this month. You won't call. I will raid your garden and you won't get any of the vegetables. I will make plans without telling you about them. We'll go to the store and not buy you one single thing. Whole books will be read and I will not tell you which ones. I will watch movies and not inform you. The nasturiums will ripen. Last month was different. I changed my schedule and took time off work to be with you. I dropped all kinds of plans for us to be together. You sent me messages, I received them. I picked up food that I thought you would like at the store and sent you pictures of every beautiful thing I saw. I sang with you. We watched the Great Canadian Baking Show. You chose the recipe for the garlic scape pesto and gave me instructions for making the gooseberry jam. I am in August without you. You are in July.

Keep telling yourself that.

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