August 4, 2025

Tomorrow Harry Boi turns three!!

If there’s one thing my fam knows about me, it’s that I don’t like change. I love routine and counting on consistency. But watching this Harry Boi change day to day, week to week, month to month, and year to year…there’s nothing like that. But we manage to count some constants in his life as he changes and grows.

Mondays with Lolli…Harry isn’t old enough to have a long time ago, but if he was old enough, I’d say I’ve been watching Harry since a long time ago when he was about three months old. He’s changed a lot, and he’s been changed a lot. So. Many. Diapers. But with all his changes, so many things have stayed the same.

There’s never a Monday or any other day that I don’t huggle and snuggle a wiggly, giggly Boi. Smooches and chases and tickles and monster hunts and brownies and Papa’s chocolate chip pancakes. I’ve been taking him outside for walks since before he could walk. I guess we could have called them “carries” back then. And by now he knows all the neighborhood dogs…Black Dog Willie and White Dog Jubi. He used to fall asleep in our arms, but now he snoozes in his rocket ship with his boppy and Papa’s very own Big Brown Bear. He eats in his own chair, but now we aren’t spoon feeding him; he has his own Big Boi spoon and forks and he doesn’t need help.

He has practiced doing stairs at our house since he could toddle, and he’s gotten better, but the rules have stayed the same. Lolli tells him almost every single time “hold the rail, eyes forward, go slow,” and he says it now on his own without my prompting. He has grown into a competent stair stepper, but he still likes to hold Lolli’s hand for stability.

We’ve connected by FaceTime most nights since he was an infant. We tell him we love him and ask what he’s been doing all day. For a long time, he didn’t understand what we were doing, but now he tells us about his day and shows off his new toys and skills and silliness and tells us that he loves us. Same old faces on the phone, but we are watching him grow before our eyes.

These things we do with Harry over and over fashion our habits and rituals, customs and conventions. Muscle memory requiring no thought as our steps fall into a reflexed cadence that we don’t even remember training for. “Why do you do that,” is answered with “it’s what we do.” A hollow-way, sunken path, worn by unwavering, deliberate determined passage from here to there. Day to day. Week to week. Month to month. Year to year.

Harry’s language has exploded along with his imagination, which explains his obsession with Mothman and all the other monsters at Lolli and Papa’s house. And he loves looking for icky bugs (stink bugs) at everyone’s house, and he swats at the skeeters in the Garden of Dappled Light when splashing in the bird bath, and he loves looking for spiders in the garage. Not the Itsy Bitsy Spider. No! Harry likes the Mighty Frighty!

And he says so many things about 80% correctly but 100% cutely. When we walk across the bridge, he knows we have to be hold handers. And he doesn’t give smooches, he gives fwoonches. We use the scooper to fill up the bird seeders. His fruit pouches are patchows. He eats peanu-bu-jelly sammiches, and chocker chip pancakes with sticky dip-dip, and chicky nu-nugs with red dip-dip.

Mondays with Lolli mean telling stories before naptime. It’s amazing how many friends can squeeze inside that rocket ship. Wynken, Blynken, and Nod. Black Water Hattie, the Okeechobee Swamp Witch. Lola, Tony, and Rico from the Copa. Jimmy Buffett. Ethel and The Streak. Bad, Bad Leroy Brown, and Harry knows not to Mess Around With Jim. Harry Loves Rock and Roll, even though his momma don’t dance and his daddy don’t rock and roll. Lolli’s no singer, but I do appreciate a good story set to a melody. Maybe when Harry Boi grows up, Harry Grown Up will wonder why he likes songs with good story lyrics. Or maybe he won’t wonder, he’ll just remember.

But one of my newish fave things with Harry Boi, is the Big Giant Under. A long time ago, he started calling over passes “unders” when we would drive under one. Get it? I’d open the sunroof and Harry would call out “under” each time we’d pass below an overpass on the highway. It’s a whole thing and he loves it. Now on Mondays since Winston Salem increased the cost of street parking, it’s cheaper for Grace to use the parking deck when she’s working. So Monday mornings, instead of Grace dropping Harry off at my house, I pick up Harry downtown. We meet in the 6th and Cherry Streets deck, and I take the Boi for a roller coaster ride up and down and up and down and up and down inside the Big! Giant! Under!

I’m not worried that he won’t learn the correct words or that his language will be stunted by his made-up descriptors; he’s just learning to make sense of his world. It’ll all work out. These words and sayings will pass. They disappeared as Harry’s momma and aunts grew up to learn the right words. But even now, nearly every time I drive in the rain and my view of the road ahead gets drippy, thanks to toddler Grace, it’s a conscious effort for me to turn on the windshield wipers and not the swish wishers. And someday Harry will know that honey birds are really humming birds and that Unders are really overpasses. I’ll mourn that. Sigh.

Someday the parking deck won’t thrill Harry anymore. He’ll probably bore of it sooner than I will, but for now, if you’re looking for me early Monday mornings, I’ll probably be taking a corner on level 4B.

The receipt: