Tag: little-boys

Tearing it all Down

April 18th, 2026

I tore down Asher’s baby crib a couple days ago. I had been avoiding that particular task for as long as I could. This piece of furniture is actually a combination crib/changing table. It has numerous parts, all of which are held together with hex nuts. I hate hex nuts. The little hex wrenches are always awkward to use and easy to misplace. It would have been okay if all
I needed was one wrench for all the nuts. But nooooooooo, I needed two wrenches and I usually tried to use the wrong one first. There was a lot of swearing going on, which somehow seemed inappropriate.

Asher’s crib has been in his bedroom for over five years. Asher has slept in it a total of one time, and that was for a brief daytime nap. Asher has almost always slept with Karin and/or me, mostly with me. So, the crib is essentially brand new. We are giving it away to a Methodist church in Racine, Wisconsin, not too far from where we live. We are also donating Asher’s stroller, highchair, and anything else that a five-year-old no longer needs. Since Asher came to our house from the NICU back in December of 2020, we have accumulated an enormous amount of stuff that needs a new home. The goal is to get this paraphernalia to people who need it more than we do, and at this point we don’t need any of it at all.

Getting rid of the crib opens a space in Asher’s room for his big boy bed. This bed used to belong to Asher’s uncle many years ago. It has two large drawers underneath that are on rollers for easy access. Asher is excited about having a big boy bed, as well he should be. Now, he can sleep alone if he wants. I expect that he will use his “new-to-him” bed most nights. Sometimes, he will probably find his way into my bedroom when he needs somebody to hold him. I am sure that Asher will get used to sleeping by himself, and then someday, maybe in fifteen years or so, he will once again want to sleep with someone else, albeit for very different reasons than he has now.

It seems natural, although perhaps sad, to tear down something in order to build something new. Things become obsolete and have to be discarded. These things might be physical objects, or they can be habits and routines. Asher has outgrown the crib. As his caregivers, we have to outgrow any attachment we have to his time as a baby or a toddler. Not everything goes away. Hell, we still have child safe electrical outlets from when Asher’s mama was a little girl. Life moves forward and we have to move along with it.

I had to tighten up the frame of Asher’s big boy bed. It’s held together with hex nuts.

Finish the Story!

February 19th, 2026

“Finish the story!” is the first thing that Asher says to his grandma (Oma) in the morning when he sees her.

Asher is five years old, and he loves stories. More specifically, he likes the stories that Oma tells him. Actually, the various stories are just small parts of one huge, never-ending epic. The stories are tales that Karin makes up as she goes along. However, they are never just her ideas. Asher often interrupts her and changes or embellishes the narrative. They are both endlessly inventive, so the story careens from one plot twist to another with enough characters to fill a Russian novel. I have been told to record the story for posterity, but I don’t see that being possible, since I am not there with Asher and Oma all the time. I catch snippets of the tale while I am in earshot, but then I lose the thread when I am absent. So, the best I can do is give you bits and pieces.

All the characters are animals, some real and some fantastical. Like Adam in the Book of Genesis, Asher gets to name all the animals. One of the animals is a zebra named Black Stripe. The main characters are three young elephants, Grey, Blue, and Teal. They are named that way because those are their respective colors. The three elephants are with their parents on holiday. They are at a campsite, and they start their adventures there.

Seeing as Asher demands his story at the beginning of the day, Karin starts by describing what the elephants are having for breakfast. Since Oma is a German who likes her traditional “Hafergrütze” (cooked or soaked oat groats), that is what the elephants eat. Oma adds strawberries, apples, and bananas into the bowl, so the elephants get to enjoy those things in their meal. They also get golden yoghurt in the mix. There actually is such a thing as golden yoghurt. It’s made by Clover Meadows, and it contains maple syrup and vanilla. It comes in a bottle with a gold-colored lid, hence the name.

The elephants frolic at the campsite. They have interesting visitors. Unicorns show up, of course. One of them is named Sparkle. That seems to be a common name for unicorns. The unicorns take the elephants to Unicorn Land, and there they do magical things. At one point, Unicorn Land is invaded by dinosaurs. Asher wanted to know if the unicorns and elephants are going to be okay. Karin told him that the T. Rex is a nice dinosaur except when he gets hungry, so the elephants keep him well fed. They all eat rainbow-colored pancakes shaped like themselves.

Then a dragon rudely enters Unicorn Land. He causes havoc for a while. The unicorn fire department tries to put out his flaming breath but then decides to let the dragon be like a small blowtorch to light campfires so that everybody can roast marshmallows.

And it goes on and on and on…

The saga reminds of the book The Neverending Story by Michael Ende. That story is in many ways similar to the tale of Asher and Oma. Ende is one of the most imaginative authors who ever lived. His book often veers off on a tangent and briefly hints at other fascinating subsidiary plots. However, Ende always reels himself back in and simply dismisses the nonessential details by saying,

“But that’s another story and shall be told another time.”

I am still waiting for “another time”.

Oma’s tale has many side stories, and I expect those will also be told “another time”.