Silver Linings

        

          “Grandma, you don’t need to ask Google…just ask me,” said Austin.  That was a directive  from my grandson during our visit over the holidays. 

            Austin is 6 ¾ (he adds the ¾ because he has a birthday soon.)  He is a collector of facts, mostly about things related to Nature but also Geology and Astronomy and anything under the umbrella of Science.

            “What do you want to be when you grow up?”  I asked him.

            “I’m going to be a scientist,” he replied without hesitation.

            “What kind?”  

            “I like rocks and chemicals,” he said.  “Especially when we do experiments that explode,” he told me.

            “What about animals and plants?” I asked remembering our summer nature walks around Biltmore Lake and the Arboretum.

            “Yeah, that too, ” he said with enthusiasm.

 

            Austin is a like a sponge and when I asked him where he gets the many specific facts he spouts he said, “Wild Kratts” (a Canadian/US TV show for kids on Biology, Zoology and Ecology) or “from my Science teacher”.  Ms. Michelynne, is hired by parents of kids in his “learning pod”.  They meet once a week in Simon P.’s garage to do real experiments.

            His enthusiasm for science comes from home schooling due to the pandemic and Ms. Michelynne’s class. (That doesn’t stop us from wondering about the possibility that we might have a future scientist in the family.) Austin is one of the lucky children who has thrived during the many months schools being closed.

 

            Our bonus this holiday season was a visit from Austin and his parents to Asheville. The minute Austin arrived from Washington D.C.,  he brought the anticipation of Elf on the Shelf, Santa, geocaching, tennis, CLUE, rock hunting, inventions, and the many new things he is  enthusiastic about since we saw him six months ago.  He is a talker and starts his conversations with adult words like “actually and basically”.

            Testing his progress in comprehension, I spoke to him in Spanish whenever we were together.  He understood it all and answered more fluently than he has in the past.  It’s clear he has not lost ground in developing bilingual skills.  His improvement is due to a Spanish speaking caregiver, Angie,  who works daily with him and his best friend, Niam, on their online lessons from Mundo Verde Bilingual Charter school.

 

            “We are going to go geocaching,”  he told me one day.

            “What’s that?” I asked.

            “That’s when you go hunting for treasure or caches,” he said.  “I’ve found about 13 so far.”

            I learned that geocaching is an outdoor recreational activity which involves looking for treasures using a phone app with a GPS. Now he and his Dad do “geocaching” whenever they go somewhere on weekends or on trips.  It’s a new hobby which Austin is challenged and captivated by. 

 

            On a hike around Biltmore Lake one day, I overheard Austin talking with his Dad about inventions and how he’d like to be an inventor. Hayden listened and encouraged him.  Austin had ideas he wanted to draw. Later that day he asked me for paper and pencils and a stapler. 

             “I’m going to make a book of blueprints for my inventions,” he told me. “I’ll show it to my science teacher,” he added.

            That afternoon he spent hours drawing different shaped objects. He asked me to help him spell words so he could label each invention and labeled each carefully in print letters.

            “Tell me what you have here,” I asked.

            “This is a CO2 Sucking Machine designed like a backpack.” he said. (Later I learned that Ms.Michelynne told him the carbon dioxide would get absorbed into the ground and help trees and plants grow.).  Turning the page he showed me his Duplicator which makes a 3-D copy of something you put in it.  He also had a drawing for a hoverboard which “let’s you hover on top of the ground.”

            He stapled his blueprints together and discovered he had put some pages in the wrong way.

            “Do you have an unstapler?” he asked seriously.  Art helped him remove the staples and he patiently rearranged his blueprints correctly.

            He neatly wrote “Austin’s Book of Inventions” on the front cover and was proud of his work.  I had not seen him so engaged in a creative project by himself.No screens and no video games but pure imagination.  

            “I’m going to take this home to show my Science teacher,” he told me seriously.

 

            Christmas came and went with snow Christmas Eve and many presents on Christmas morning.  There was no doubt that Elfie and Santa knew just where Austin was because they had followed his “wish list” exactly.

            What were your favorite presents?”  I asked him.     

            “I have three,”  he said holding up that many fingers.  “The first is the Chemistry set (our gift), the second is the rock tumbler, and the third is my REI backpack (also from us). 

            The blue kid-sized REI backpack was definitely a hit. Every time we left the house Austin wore it.  He delighted in the many hidden pockets inside and the nifty side pockets for one or two small water bottles.  

            “This is just like Niam”s,” Austin told me more than once.

  

            Austin told us about his two “best” friends, Simon P. and Niam and how they like to do the same things he does. “Niam and I have the same teacher…but Simon P. is in another section,” he told us  While Austin was in Asheville, we heard that Niam had gone with his family to Florida to visit grandparents. Simon P. was in Vermont visiting and skiing.

 

            We watched Austin hit the tennis ball several afternoons when the sun came out and it was warm enough to play on the Biltmore Lake courts. Hayden is wonderfully patient hitting him tennis balls and reminding him of his stance and form.  Austin takes weekly tennis lessons at a USTA tennis center in College Park, Md. and has been moved to the 8 to 10 year old group.

 

            Evenings we played family games of Sleeping Queens, Slamwich and UNO and board games like Clue and Scrabble.  Austin is competitive and likes to win but he’s not as emotional as he used to be when he loses. Our last day before they left I got out my many beads thinking Austin might have an interest in looking at the different rock/gems.  He did and told me all about his rock collection.  I showed him and Jess how to make beaded necklaces and he was quite enthralled with making his own patterns with beads and stringing them on a wire.  He made himself a necklace which he was proud of. It was a reminder that it isn’t time yet to get rid of my beads.

 

            We welcomed 2021 together before Austin and his parents drove home to Washington.  In reflecting on the new year I realized that I had not made any resolutions as I have all my life at this time. Instead, I have shifted towards a fulltime habit of practicing gratitude. That is what kept resurfacing thinking back over 2020.  Gratitude for the silver linings (now a cliché) that has allowed our Washington D.C. family to come to Asheville more often for longer periods of time for a kind of R & R (rest & recuperation) from inner city Washington D.C. life.