The Bumble Bean and I went to Beaver Brook Reservation on Saturday and then again on Sunday at his insistence. There is a very nice sprinkler deck there, one of the best we've seen. It has natural rocks secured in the cement and is not painted a hideous antiseptic greeny-white. The water is chlorinated and it all makes a nice balance between being natural and being sanitary. There is also a playground structure and bathrooms. Most of the children gather there.
However...
Just down the hill is the actual Beaver Brook. It is not at all sanitary partially because it is natural despite its urban existence and partially because of the dogs who, also leading an urban existence, let off the leash in a huge field with lots of other dogs and a brook go a little insane and engage in the doggy equivalent of a royal rumpus. It is good practice for the Bean to get over being afraid of dogs, not because they are particularly well behaved, but because they are sublimely not interested in human beings in the midst of their little doggy bliss.
Naturally, the Bumble Bean is attracted to the stream. There are many rocks to throw, many slippery spots to fall down and get wet and covered with slime, and of course many opportunities to experiment with physics. This means that we always spend several hours ankle deep in the brook. But this weekend, after the "hurricane" the stream was particularly high and either because of that or because his world view and spirit of adventure are growing, the Bumble Bean decided that we had to walk all the way up stream. This is actually not an easy thing to do. There are many signs that other people simply don't do it.
Not that such a thing would ever stop the Bean since Mommy will figure out the logistics for him, never interfere with him getting filthy and save Kermit when he slips over waterfalls and gets tangled in debris. Mommy of course does this because she feels guilty that she is raising him in a confined urban environment (see the doggy bliss above) and her childhood adventures and magic were centered almost exclusively around the stream that ran along the bottom of her hill. When the time comes, she will undoubtedly foster the Bean in tree-climbing.
I think the urge to go up stream, the urge to find the source is actually much stronger in humans than the urge to go down-stream and find where it ends. There may be some deep mystical reason for this concerning our own mortality, our seeking for union with something greater or maybe it's just that things get more civilized down-stream and we're not very good at civilized.
On Saturday, there was a whole flock of dogs from extremely large Saint Bernard type dogs to Corgies and Jack Russells. There was also a hairless dog which the Bean regarded with horrified fascination for quite awhile and then turned to me and suggested "pig?" I replied with "No, it's a dog" at which he promptly started barking at it. The dog was small enough that he could have probably launched it half way across the field, but for the entire visit (except when we were lost in the tangle up-stream) he was especially wary of the hairless one. I wonder if he will try barking at pigs the next time we see them?
A couple of years ago when he had made another leap in some aspect of mental development, we went to the Museum of Science via the T and came past the T. Rex. We had come that way before, but he had never noticed the giant lizard. On this particular occasion, he saw it, stopped and considered it for quite some time before turning to me and saying (as if he really didn't believe it but was going to give it a try) "Kitty cat?" Thereafter, for almost a year, he would say "meow" when gazing upon a dinosaur.
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