Pictures of Jon in his natural habitat.
Jon and 2 dump trucks, two race cars, and a handful of MardiGras beads.
It had been raining all day. We came out of the building on our way to run some errands and Jon found a spout and a puddle of water. Mom went to run the errands and Grandma watched while Jon explored and played in the small oasis of water. Two of his greatest loves, water and trucks, combined to occupy him completely for the better part of an hour. Only when his hands were all puckery from so much time in his small pool and his sleeves sodden from the splashing and the drizzling rain did Jon finally stand up and look around. He saw me and lifted the sopping wet cuffs of his jacket to show me--he then decided that he was thirsty and sucked on the sponges that now surrounded his wrists. I asked if he were ready to go in and he reluctantly nodded. I began to walk around the corner to the main door of the apartment complex--Jon, still held mesmerized by the magic of the downspout's miniature waterfall. I walked slowly--only glancing back out of the corner of my eye. Jon still stood there--watching the water trickle down from the spout. He noticed my absence and walked quickly to catch up with me at the corner. "Where's your truck?" I asked. Looking around him, he spotted the bright orange of one of his favorite tracker trailers and ran back to recover it. He fetched it, but was still reluctant to surrender and come inside--where he had been stuck for the last three days--held captive by the frigid rain and high winds. I kept walking, he finally caught up with me and we went back inside and upstairs to his apartment; home.
I am enchanted by the faerie look of him here.
While Jon was playing with his truck and the water, he also found a few rusty nails that had been washed off of the roof--who knows how long ago. He found one that was about 3 inches long. Now, one of Jon's joys in life is putting things INTO other things: he specializes in putting his smaller cars into his larger cars. This nail, he discovered, was the perfect size to put into the circular slot where the semi connected with the trailer. He carefully placed the nail into its place and, for a time, concentrated exclusively in "giving a ride" to the nail--pushing the semi carefully on the sidewalk around where he was crouching. He attempted to place some muddy soil onto the top of the nail so that he could then wash it off in the water dripping from the downspout. The nail, he discovered, did not possess the lateral surface area to carry the dribble of mud in sufficient quantity for Jon to then put it under the spout and clean if off. The semi, however, as well as the trailer were perfect for this process and he spent a long time carefully getting the vehicles "dirty" and then immediately washing them clean again. His hands, too, it must be noted, were also washed completely clean after each mud-to-truck-to-downspout cycle. He found great satisfaction in creating a logical series of events and then carrying out that series again and again. Very serious stuff--must be repeated to be perfected and established as a viable system in Jon's world.
I write this and wonder what things I am trying to link and then repeat in order to give my daily experiences order and routine.
Here, he sits on my small suitcase as he tells me about his red COOL CAR.
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