Bobbin

That damp thing there, that's a bobbin.

Maybe a year ago, perhaps more, he confidently pronounced this body part a 'bobbin'... and who were we to correct him?
He says is very precisely: bob - bin; you hear the 'i' as in 'pin'.
Even better, he sees bobbins all around him. A peach has a bobbin. My attempt at coffee froth art looks like a bobbin. Bobbins are funny, of course.
It was a beautiful day today. "All the white is turning to blue," he says, looking at the sky. He insisted that we go to the zoo, but "not the zoo I go to with Grandma, the other zoo". Er, what's at the zoo with Grandma? "Giraffes and meerkats." What's at the other zoo? "Not animals." Ah. The Botanic Gardens... opposite the zoo.

I only had my phone camera since I just wanted to be there, all for the moment and for him. He could have spent hours in this spot. No-one seems to mind that kids love to paddle and race leaves and flowers down this water feature. I suspect it was designed with that in mind, really.

Other funny word confusions from today: "They are all going in the same collection as us, aren't they?" (direction). And "tadpole" for "seedpod"... we'd seen and discussed both, then he found something he thought was a seedpod and called it a tadpole, then seedpole, and we had quite a discussion about all that.

He's growing so fast. Three and a half. In two terms he starts Kindy, and much as our time together can be frustrating and intense, I am already seeing it slipping between my fingers.

'Premature nostalgia' - a concept from Michael Chabon's book The Mysteries of Pittsburgh, that I read over and over in my 20s - that feeling of missing something already, when you're actually still within the experience.

I'm just going to try to put aside that melancholy and eat him up as much as I can. And his brothers, for that matter. More days like this. Does anything else matter nearly as much?

- Jane x

(I believe a film was made of that Chabon book; a bad film. I'm glad I haven't seen it.)