iPhones, The Human GPS and Other Tales from the Heartland

The biggest news around here last week was Sarah's purchase of iPhones for us as a Valentine's Day gift. I know her gift was given to me because of love, but there is no doubt it is also part of Sarah's continuing effort to drag me, against my will, into the wireless age (an iPod was bought at her insistence after she saw me carrying around a Sony Walkman at our gym.) To those of you who already own an iphone, my awe at the many applications it is capable of would probably amuse you as much as it does Sarah. The ability to make a phone call, cruise the Internet, identify a song being played, get the weather or a street map of anywhere in the world, all on a device the size of your hand is amazing...and that's only a few of the applications that have already been installed by Apple. I have not yet begun to download!

Elijah continues to amaze me as much as the iPhone does. As a previous post noted, the child is indulged to no end. As further evidence of this I will take him at his request through a neighboring subdivision so he can view various basketball goals. What is amazing is that no matter how many cul-de-sacs and winding roads are in a development, he will always tell me the right way to turn and get me back to the main road. Garmin couldn't do it any better.

















His artwork continues to be a constant source of pleasure and amazement. Be it renditions of a couple of minor characters from Shrek 2 or a Pooh math lesson, his eye for detail is acute.











But nothing prepared us for a book he "wrote" detailing men losing and finding their "masts" ( as best as we can figure they are some sort of hat.) I would love to post the entire book, but Sarah would kill me, so I'll just give you a sample of what he wrote and drew regarding a barn:












This picture can't do justice to the detail of the barn, especially since the entire book is only an inch and a half by two inches. Everybody who has seen it (and believe me I have shown it to quite a few) are flabbergasted by his abilities.







Alas signs, like basketball goals, never seem to be too far from his mind. Yet every once in awhile he will draw a sign that truly captures a philosophy or idea that strikes a chord (an earlier posting showed his YIELD NEW THINKING sign.)









I couldn't have said it any better!

Indulgence 101

As any reader of this blog knows, Elijah's skills as an artist, as well as his fascination with traffic signs, have been well-documented over the past few years. Recently, due to both the arrival of his own signs (as mentioned in a previous post) and a rekindled interest in a couple of YouTube videos created for the Five Man Electrical Band's hit "Signs," our home has become an art gallery for every image seen on the two films.

One of my favorites is his interpretation of a "tree sign" depicted in one of the videos. I'm sure if our local nursery sold the seeds for such a sapling, we would have a grove of them in our backyard.

As if allowing this display wasn't enough spoiling of the child, Elijah's alphabet fascination also has made a comeback of sorts, and his letter renditions now grace our home office's walls. If you look closely you can make out all the letters and what they represent. (One hint: animal torsos are not his strong suit. Most if not all of them have a very compressed body shape that looks as though they have been on Jenny Craig for awhile.)

There are also a variety of hearts on the wall, which he created and cut out by himself. Thankfully they don't seem to detract from the mammoth undertaking of the "letter project" that appears on the same wall.

The part of this I find most amusing is that Sarah, who wouldn't allow certain pictures on the walls of our house as they seemed like clutter, not only has permitted this display, but actually embraces it. I guess to her way of thinking, anything is better than the wallpaper now up in the dining room.