February 19, 2005 - Saturday
The boys completed their first seven-week swimming lesson session this morning and their mother and I agreed that maybe it was time to reward them with that new Bionicle that they'd both been wanting. I told Harry after the lesson that because I was so proud of him for doing so well, and being so [relatively] nice lately, that we were going to do something special. Then on the way to the store I admitted that we were going to get something. And from there he guess it would be the Bionicle. Jeremy, bless his heart, said "thank you, daddy" on the way to the checkout counter. They were both very excited.

The real joy in all this, though, came in the afternoon when Harry and I built his new Bionicles (the one he chose had both Toa Lhikan and Kikanalo, a kind of horned bear/steed, in the same box). There's no way around it: it was classic father-son bonding stuff, not just because we were together doing something, but that we were truly doing it together. Harry, having played with other Bionicles for two months and apparently taken them apart and put them back together, was surprisingly adept at building them even though the box says age 7+. He was showing me as much as I was helping him and it was glorious: the confidence, the partnership, the common goal, all of it. I showed him how to read and follow the directions, but I wanted him to do, and he did, most of the actual building. Kikanalo, Harry calls him the "Bear," was harder for Harry because it didn't seem to share as many pieces as his other Bionicles, and because it just had more pieces and was more complicated. But he hung in there remarkably well. In fact, we worked on these things for an amazing two hours and twenty minutes and Harry stayed solidly focused for about the first two hours. We ultimately had to take a little break before finishing Kikanalo's head, but when we went back to finish it only took a few minutes.

I built Jeremy's "Spider guy" myself, but that was to be expected. Jeremy did hold and hand me the pieces, so at least he was involved.


Comments, Opinions?