November 22, 2020

Robert continues to spend his days at home. As the number of COVID19 infections in US increases every day, we have confined ourselves to our home. No hotels, no day long trips, and no restaurants. However, Robert still goes for one or two walks each day. There are a few trails he frequents at Blue Hills  and  Borderland State Parks.  He visits either Stony Brook, Moose Hill, or Broadmoor Audubon Sanctuary, although his favorite Wellfleet Audubon Wildlife Sanctuary is beyond our reach in the COVID-tainted world. The newly-acquired membership in the Trustees of the Reservations allows him to hike in World’s End and Noanet parks.  Nonetheless, even the places we frequently visited in New Hampshire, Maine, and Vermont are now beyond the radius of our constricted world. In April, it became clear that we had to find a new way to enrich Robert’s life and… ours. So in May I ordered the first Kiwico Crate.

It was not easy for my husband to assemble with Robert the color-changing crystal, which arrived in the first Kiwico crate.  In the past Robert connected some electric circuits to turn on tiny fans, or light a lamp, but he had never seen resistors before. He seemed slightly confused and distrustful. It didn’t help that Jan needed more time than usually to grasp how all parts should be connected. A few times Robert left the project and returned reluctantly only after being called many times. But the crystal, although the paper one, was magical.  By setting each of the three levers in different position, Robert could change its color.  It could be blue, green, red, orange, yellow, and of course, his favorite – purple.

Robert was slightly more patient and more cooperative while building with his dad the glowing pendulum. Couple weeks later he became very engaged while constructing with me the wooden automaton.  He found it funny that by turning the knob he made the stairs move up and down, allowing the three balls to move to the top then to slide down to the bottom. However, he constructed most of Kiwico gadgets with his sister, Amanda. They built together two racing cars (with balloons as a power source) and two shuttles. Together they read instructions and then each of them built one item. Of course, Robert was watching Amanda’s movement very attentively and followed her lead.

With each of those projects, Robert’s world became deeper and richer. But so did ours. Robert’s dad, his sister, and I, we all, caught a whiff of refreshing air passing through our stale everyday routines.

Robert likes best those crate which are devoted to and inspired by different countries. Yes, he needs an encouragement to glimpse at the pictures included in thin booklets describing specific places but he doesn’t need an invitation to build a jumping kangaroo or make a coral reef panorama included in Australia create. For three days he patiently colored and assembled all the chapels of the Saint’s Basil Cathedral from Russia box.  After completing the tiny hockey set from Canada crate, he made a few successful shots and he defended one. He built a pizza oven with turning pizza dough and moving flames – part of the Italy crate.  Yesterday, to my surprise, he was very engaged in weaving a small rug to be placed on the back of the white alpaca model from the Peru crate.

In a way, Robert visited all those countries and had a close contact with one or two aspects of their culture. Most importantly, every completed project left him proud and happy.