Gualby Nation : Birthday Interview with the Wood Man

All of Woodys answers are unprompted. It's so funny how current his opinions are. Most of his answers would be different if I asked him the same questions on a different day. Whatever we have been doing the most recently seems to be his favorite things. I really wanted to guide him in his answers to what I think his answers should be. The "right" answers! Haha. But I simply asked and recorded. For example, his favorite food is NOT chicken. Sometimes he chews it forever and then has to spit it out. Cheesy beans are his favorite food. He is so excited when we have super easy and budget friendly cheesy beans. And when he answers "cow"??? How about hamburgers??? Hamburgers with an obscene amount of ketchup is the "correct" answer. Haha! At any rate, Woodys birthday interview done at four years and two months, uncensored.

What's your name? Elwood

When is your birthday? March 15th

And how old did you turn? Four

How old is dad? 35 Mom? 30, hmmm, whats after 30?

What is your favorite thing to do outside? catch fish and catch eels for the fish tank. and swim in the ocean and catch coconuts.

What is your favorite thing to do inside? play with toys, and paint and coloring

What is your favorite activity to do with:

Dad: make fires, catch fish and crabs. swim with daddy.

Mom: swim and cook pancakes

Tohi: play swords with her really gently.

What is your favorite food? granola, spaghetti and chicken. No No . . . Cow.

What is your favorite special treat? gum

What is your favorite color? (Laughs) Mom! you know! rojo!

What are you going to be when you grow up? A doctor, a doctor for animals and for people and for kids. No, no a singer person because my songs are so good.

Who is your best friend? Manu and Teo

What you are like at four years old:

Elwood, you are the nicest, most fun, funny, caring sweet little buddy. You love your family so much. The kindness and high regard you hold us in has not been taught, it's who you are at your core. You deeply care for those you love. You are a loving, affectionate, cuddly, smiley, happy little guy. But your personality only starts there. You are funny, at times you hold your own with jokes and social cues as if you were an adult. You crack dad and me up. You are quick witted and funny. You are silly and high energy. You LOVE to swim. It's the first thing you ask to do in the morning. You swim multiple times a day almost everyday. You have really come a long way with your swimming since we have moved to Panama. I think it's a combination of your age, your near constant exposure to the ocean and the swim lessons you go to with Elena. Whatever the combination, everything has clicked for you. You are brave and strong and smart in the ocean. You are cautious when the swell gets big in front of our house but you are still brave, diving under the waves and tucking your body up in a ball as you bob around in the wake. You dive under and grab things from the bottom and do hand stands. You can do the crawl and breast stroke and roll over and float when you are tired. You love under water tea parties. Just the other day an eel bite you hard on the toe, you stayed calm and simply said ,"Um, something just bit me" and then you were so excited to see the beautiful eel. I would have screamed and gotten out but you calmly explored the ocean and wanted to know what animal had said hello to you. You told me later that you "stayed calm in the ocean so now the eel knows you're a nice boy." You get your calmness from your dad.

You are SO nice and loving to Tohi. You just LOVE HER! The times you get in trouble with her is when you are loving her too much! You want to play with her and wrestle her as if she was your age and we have to remind you that she is still just a little friend. You also get frustrated when you try to explain how to play a game to her and she just walks away and is more interested in a tupperware container. You look out for her and you love an opportunity to help her. You try to hold her hand and help her up and down the stairs. If you see her struggling with her water cup, you jump up and go help her use the cup correctly. You sing to her while I change her diaper so she wont fuss and cry. When she is captivated by you singing to her, you only pause to give her a kiss on the forehead. It is so adorable to watch. Also, the lyrics you make up while singing to her crack me and dad up. Most songs are about how much you love her. Just the other day, your lyrics were "Our little sweetie. Our little sweetie. I am your brother. You are my sister. I love you. I love you. (change the tempo) Such a butterbean! Such a butterbean! Our little sweetie. Our little sweeetie."

You are a big helper around our house. You help clean up and vacuum. You help with almost all the meals, your specialty being all doughs and anything sweet. You help dad with most of his projects and sometimes you really are helping, using the power tools with dad's supervision and other times you are doing a side project next to his. I see you watch him hold his saw and cut and then you emulate his movements. You pause on your project and ask to borrow the level after he's done with it. You use it just as you saw Dad use it, thoughtfully gazing at the little bubble and then handing it back. Your "project" just as important as his. You are sharing tools like two grown men. It's hysterical and adorable to watch.

You love to garden! We have really gotten into getting a big garden going and you love it. You work hard too! Digging up plants and chopping other plants down. Planting seeds and watering. We have a section of the garden where our Katuk is doing great and producing berries. You love to pick the leaves and berries as well as leaves from our mint plants and roselle plants and make snacks for us. I love sitting outside and watching you know so many names of local plants, knowing which you can pick and eat and which ones are not edible. Most nights, your vegetable for dinner is a salad you pick from our garden.

You love playing outside. Sometimes I just listen to you talk to the plants or bugs that you see or to a toy you have brought outside with you; just lost in your own make believe world. You like running and being timed at how fast you are. You like cars, and smashing them together, a game you have creatively named "Smash Cars." You like playing pretend where we have swords or lasers and we are battling some bad guys that are hiding in the jungle around the house. You love playing hide and seek and you are getting much better at it. I have to cheat and watch where you go because sometimes I get nervous if I can't find you right away! You love to color and paint. Your goal seems to be: leave no white on any page. You go to two activities in town. On Tuesdays you go to a cooking class following by an art class. You love the teacher, Miss Cristin. She is lovely and awesome and lets the kids use real knives and put as much frosting on the desserts as you want. Your art projects are colorful and we have quite a bit of fabulous art on our walls these days. You love the cooking and art but you also love the buddies that are there. All the other kids that go are bilingual and you come home with spanish phrases and I can tell you want to be able to speak spanish too. Sometimes you use pretend words and you tell me what they "mean" in english. We have started "studying" a little spanish together and you are catching on quick! Your other class in town is Jiu Jitsu. You absolutely love it and look forward to Thursdays all week. When you come home you show us all the exercises and tell us stories of who is wrestling who and who is the best. You are the littlest kid in the class but the teacher has told me more than once at pick up, "Woody is tough. He is a tough little guy." I prep you before class at what is important in Jiu Jitsu and you answer, "Listening to the teacher and trying hard and having fun" Yes!Great job little buddy. I am very proud of you for being tough but even more proud for being a good listener.

You are mine and Dad's number one fan. You say things like, "Dad and I are so strong. Stronger than you and Tohi. And we know so much stuff, about animals and plants." Then, you will point out a plant to me and tell me if it's poisonous or not. As much as you think Dad is the strongest and smartest and fastest, you are my great defender. You love me so much, I can do no wrong in your eyes. No one on your watch is going to talk rude to me and tell me I can't do something. If Dad is teasing me or telling me jokingly that I am not allowed to do something, he can barely get the sentence out before you are correcting him. "No! No, Dad! Mom, can do that! Mom can spill the water if she wants to." Or insert whatever thing Dad is teasing me about or telling me I can't do anymore. It cracks us both up. Dad can't help but laugh and I always whole heartedly agree with you. "Yeah, Dad, I can spill the water if I want!!" Ha ha!

You have a couple funny expressions that you use that Dad and I love. A few months ago we started talking about the truth and telling the truth and what lying is and why we don't do it. So now, if you are trying to say that you are telling the truth or someone else is you say, ""No, I am being true!" or "Dad! No, Mom is being true!" Being True. I love it.

Another funny Woody expression that we use:
The store in town has these small mints that you and Dad both love. We occasionally buy them when we are headed to Bocas to enjoy on the water taxi ride or just as a special treat for you. Dad always buys a bunch and sometimes lets you eat more than one (when you guys are doing boy stuff without Mom: the treat enforcer) So, Dad said to you: "Let's go to mint town. Woody, you're the major. Let's go to town on these mints!" Then, to your delight you both ate about half a bag of mints together.

So now whenever you want more than one mint from Dad, you say,

"Let's town it up on these mints." It's too cute to correct. Dad responds with, "Lets do it! Lets town it up on these mints, boy!"

We have recently started a "good behavior" jar. Each week, it starts with a dollar made up of dimes, nickels and pennies. Depending on your behavior we take away or add to the jar. At the end of the week, it's all yours to spend. It seems to be a pretty effective motivator right now.

You are hysterical about it. You'd of thought we gave you twenty dollars to spend at the store. Just the other day, we were walking to the store to spend your 85 cents and I asked you what you thought you were going to buy at the store and you answered,

"Those chips that Dad lets me buy. The ones with the chemicals in them." (the super dyed, artificial everything chips that I don't let you buy) Then you go on, "I'm gonna buy two bags. one for me and one for Dad cuz Dad loves the chemical chips too. (pause) What do you want? A juice? . . . Yeah, I'll get you a juice," It was in this grown up voice and you are so proud to be able to buy treats for everyone else too. Obviously, we went over the 85 cent mark but we made it work because I just love how generous and thoughtful you are. You bought Tohi a juice too.

You are just about the most awesome little buddy Dad and I could ever hope for.

We love you so much.