May 22, 2002 - Wednesday
The boys' mother had a spring picnic at her work today and took the boys with her, as several coworkers remember Harry's birth, as well as Jeremy's, and have indirectly followed both boys as they have grown. Not surprisingly, she reports that it was a rather tiring day with very little sustained conversation with adults at the picnic. Still, Harry has often talked about going to "the archives" and this seemed like a good opportunity to bring him back for the first time since he was a baby. And, he did bring home memorably stories of playing with a toy elephant that one of the people since keeps in his office, a larger statue outside the archives, and having chicken at the picnic. His mother says he feel asleep within five minutes of getting in the car to come home at about 1:30pm, a sure sign of excitement and intrigue in a day in the life of a two-year old.

When I laid down with Harry at bedtime and talked about the days events, I thought the obvious response to the standard question "what did you do today?" would be more stories from the picnic. But, the question has become so routine - mostly from Harry asking me - that his answer was a fairly direct, "I went to Christine's [daycare]." I replied with, "you didn't go to Christine's today, what did you do TODAY?" Harry said he got a boo-boo on his knee, also an incident from yesterday.

Harry's been using the word "yesterday" since last fall, although there has always been a question as to how much of the concept he really understood.
"You went to a boo-boo at Christine's YESTERDAY, what did you do TODAY?" I asked.
I could see Harry's brain at work, the two-year old furrowed brow, and then a smile came to Harry's face. "I went to the archives." It was the right answer, of course, and we went on to talk about the day, including some adventures I had yet to hear. But, I also got the sense that Harry was hard at work processing this idea of "yesterday" and "today."


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