He is introverted, shy, artistic, creative, prone to temper tantrums and unbelievably stubborn. On the other hand, he is quiet, innovative, passionate, loving and focused. He also has a thing for doing stuff with tape.
Yes... that's correct... tape.
He isn't particular about his tape. He's used duct tape, masking tape, scotch tape, electrical tape and even double-sided tape.
Yesterday, he created an interesting little... uhm... thing. He had taken a recorder -- you know those kinda flutey-type plastic instruments that you play in elementary music class -- and he wrapped all the little finger holes with scotch tape.
Then, he took a whoopie cushion...
Yes... that's correct... a whoopie cushion.
Which could take us on an entirely different tangent, but we won't go there right now.
The kind you blow up and sit on and it sound like a fart. Are you with me so far? See, these things he makes are really quite difficult to explain...
And he attached the opening of the whoopie cushion to the recorder's mouthpiece...
... with scotch tape... of course.
When I saw him, I had just walked out of my bathroom having taken a shower -- and there he is, RIGHT in front of the bathroom door waiting for me. He is squatting on the floor over the whoopie cushion --- in position.
Zayd: Mom. Mom. Look what I made.
Me: Uh. Okay.
He sits on the whoopie cushion and the recorder makes a loud, long, loud - did I say loud? - sound. Or noise. Or... musical note?
Me: Wow. Zayd. Wow.
Zayd looks up at me, still squatting, with a huge grin on his face.
Zayd: Isn't that cool?!
Me: Well... sure. Pause. Yes. Yes. It's very cool.
Zayd: Yeah! Watch! I'll do it again.
Me: Uh...
The loud, long, loud noise cuts me off.
Me: Okay Zayd. Please don't do that again, ok?
He runs off to show his dad.
That recorder/whoopie cushion instrument thingy was just the most recent tape creation. A few weeks ago, I walked out to our patio to find all the legs of one of our lawn chairs methodically wrapped in masking tape. I mean - this was beautifully done. It must have taken at least a couple rolls to accomplish. The wrapping was done at a diagonal and was evenly spaced.
Me: Who did this?
Zayd: Did what?
Me: Who wrapped the lawn chair legs in masking tape.
Zayd: I did.
Me: Why?
Zayd: I was bored.
Me: Ooookaaayyyy... so what made you think of doing this?
Zayd: I don't know.
One of my "favorite" scotch tape creations is some sort of magical illusion thing he saw in a book, or on TV. He takes a clear plastic, screw top bottle (sometimes pop, sometimes water...), suspends a penny using tape and fishing line to the inside of the cap, screws the cap back on... This looks (kinda) like the penny is suspended in thin air in the bottle. Which is fine.... the first time. But I find this creation in my kitchen at least once a week. Sometimes, he'll dump out the remains of a liter pop bottle in order to make this thing.
One day, I found tiny pieces of scotch tape all over the floor of his bedroom. It looked like he had taken the tape, and either cut it, or ripped it into little pieces, which he left on the floor for whatever reason.
Another time, he had taken tape and covered a good chunk of my kitchen counter top - "to protect it."
He has a magnet board in his room to hang up anything he wants - it has plenty of magnets. He uses tape.
In his mind, anything can be solved, fixed, or made with tape.
Needless to say, when I need to wrap presents, we never have any tape.
Three thoughts:
ReplyDelete1) At first I thought "He needs a bagpipe."
2) See how he does with athletic tape. He could have a career as a trainer or coach or Burgess Meredith in Rocky.
3) You should buy stock in 3M.