The countdown has begun: My son Charlie is in his last two months of being ten years old. A tall boy with big feet and able to reach an octave on the piano merely by opening his hand wide, and not really able to read.
When he was three, we started to teach Charlie the alphabet. He had quickly learned the numbers from 1-10 and we thought that he would pick up the letters with equal ease and speed—but after a few letters, confusion set in. Too many of the letters had an “e” sound (b, c, d, e, g, p, …read more

Jim pulled out Charlie’s big new red bike and went back for his own—-and Charlie went back and appeared with his old yellow bike. He said “helmet” and went and found it atop a box and started to strap it on backwards: “Other way,” we told him, and Jim helped him straighten the helmet with the visor-like edge pointed forward. Charlie ran back for Jim’s helmet and placed it on the ground beside the yellow bike and Jim concluded that, for the first ride of March, it would be just as well for Charlie to ride his old bike. “The …read more