It's easy to say that Curtis is inspiring and leave it at that but there are any number of specific examples which articulate the point. Yesterday, Curtis and I were walking down my parents driveway and started walking towards the "rivers" his cousing Jayden was creating with the hose. Curtis stopped in his tracks and asked me if we had any chalk. He then searched the box for a white piece of chalk, returned to the rivers, and started drawing white dashes in them to create a series of highways. He insisted on putting in at least 15 minutes on this project before we could attempt some wiffle ball.

Last week on the way to play basketball, Curtis insisted on holding the two cups of uncapped water we were bringing to the hoop "to stay hydrated", in Curtis' words. When we reached the street, he stepped on a horizontal soda can so he could loge it in his sneaker and create that crunching noise as he walked. So now he's holding two cups of water which he's trying not to spill and crunching this can underfoot and his mission is to see if he can make it to the hoop with all three items. I asked him why it was necessary to turn a 5 minute walk into a 20 minute walk but all he repeatedly said was "There's no rush, dad. Are you going to wait for me?" Naturally I did and he was proud of himself 20 minutes later when he accomplished his mission. I bit my lip and took the walk on the chin.

A couple weeks ago, Curtis was at a cupcake shop, heard Michael Jackson and immediately started dancing. The girl working then played more Michael Jackson and so he just kept dancing through 4 or 5 of his MJ favorites. The store clerk asked with permission to mention Curtis' visit on their facebook page.


East End Cupcakes Our Vanilla w/ Vanilla had seven-year-old Curtis dancing to Micheal Jackson for 20 minutes. It's been a great morning.


Curtis will seize any opportunity he is presented with and does not care what anyone thinks of him dancing in a cupcake store, or carrying a Smurfette doll around the Farmer's Market (as he did yesterday). He certainly didn't care what anyone thought of his attempts to dart behind every cash register or his attempts to get into employee only areas at every business he visited between ages 4-6. His curiosities often present challenges for his parents and caregivers to say the least, but he always finds a way to teach you a lesson in the work. Like Miyagi making Daniel paint the fence or wax his cars.

Greg, Dad