While Stevie was sick and we were going on multiple daily walks, he started showing some interest in picking up sticks and leaves.  He would say “I WANTASTICK” and upon finding a good one, he’d say “IMAKEEPDIS”.

This made my mom-of-a-boy heart soar.  Not only because he was showing interest in something, anything new, but because this is what little boys do!  Explore!  Get dirty!  Put weird things in your pockets! This is a moment I’ve waited years for!  And of course that means I wasted no time jumping all in with it.  I immediately bought him a big red notebook that we could collect his nature findings in.

Yesterday, once the temps dropped below 90, I suggested we go for a walk to collect some leaves and sticks for his special book, and he seemed slightly interested.  Kind of?  I couldn’t totally tell.  But we went anyway because I’m a glutton for punishment a little bit.  We found a nice picnic area at Griffith Park and I encouraged him to walk around and find some stuff for his book.  He said “no” (obviously) so I showed him a few things that would be good.  He did not care.  So instead, I changed our focus to running up and down hills and climbing trees – which was slightly terrifying.

After he burned off some energy, I once again tried to coerce him to build his collection.  Stevie!!!  Look at these leaves!!!  They are brown and crunchy!  And this is bark from the tree!  Wow, so cool!!

He would tease me by bending over to inspect them and even go so far as to pick them up.  But then he’d just throw them at my head or crush them to smithereens.

Well, I guess that’s kind of a boy thing to do too.  Boys. Huh.

I put him up in this tree for a photo and he almost fell off.  At least he thought it was funny.
He wanted me to carry him back to the car, and I said only if you take a picture with this leaf.  He didn’t like that, but still did it.  Not sure who was the bigger fool this time.