I just love that this crazy kid still loves to do stuff with his mom! He's been wanting to go on a bike ride lately and yesterday turned out to be the perfect day for a little 5 miles jaunt. Neither of us could get off the couch once we got home, however.
As the kids have been growing up, we've really emphasized to them that we must each take time to do things with each other, even if it's not something we enjoy. By doing something the other person enjoys, you show them you value them.
This has led to Chloe spending hours by Gavin's side playing Minecraft and lots of outdoor time with Bennett and some type of ball. The boys often set up and sleep in forts with Chloe because they know that's special time for her. Chuck and Bennett are fixtures out in the front of our house forever playing game after game of basketball.
Oftentimes, Gavin will go outside and bounce a ball while Bennett is out there practicing his free-throws. Although, Gavin is really using that time to think and talk to himself (out loud) about formulas and abstract ideas he feels that by just being out there with Bennett and bouncing a ball in his hands like his brother counts as time together. And I guess in Gavinworld it does. Bennett has spent years learning to like and play Gavin's games such as Yuh-gi-oh, League of Legends, Chess and Minecraft.
Another thing I really appreciate about Gavin is that he will sit and listen to me ramble. I can talk to him about any idea I have floating in my brain and he'll listen and always give me his feedback. I love how his brain processes the world. It's so completely different from mine. I inevitably learn something from him every time.
We also enjoy sending articles, TED Talks, and YouTube videos back and forth to each other. However, the older he gets, the more unfair it gets for me. I try to understand math, truly I do. I desperately want to so that I can keep talking to Gavin and he doesn't have to keep rephrasing things at an ever lower cognizance level. But the day he sent me the link to this TED Talk, I felt my heart drop to my stomach.
This is the description: "At TED2010, mathematics legend Benoit Mandelbrot develops a theme he first discussed at TED in 1984 — the extreme complexity of roughness, and the way that fractal math can find order within patterns that seem unknowably complicated." My immediate thought was: what's a fractal again?
But I'm so thankful he did! I watched it and learned so much that I never would have ever known. Gavin keeps my mind ever expanding, ever learning. The roles are reversing. Once, I was his teacher. Now, he is mine. I love that he sends me things of interest to him and he trusts that I'll watch them, read them, learn from them. He pushes me to keep learning. Then we talk about what we learned together. This is my ticket into Gavin's brain and his heart. This is what love looks like to Gavin.
