If the weather is nice on Sunday morning, I will take my grandson Ben for a walk. When he pushes his cart, I will follow him as his bodyguard and when he sits on the cart, I will be the rickshaw pusher. My daughter said this is a good bonding activity for two of us.

This morning, the sun was shining brightly, I pushed Ben to the residential area where a highway bridge runs up on top of the roofs of the bungalows to see the effect of cars running above the roofs. After getting there, I parked Ben’s cart on the side of the road so Ben was facing the highway bridge, I squatted next to him looking ahead and asked Ben: “Did you see the cars running on the roof?” Ben answered immediately: “Meiyou.”(No in Chinese) Then I pointed to the highway bridge in front and said: “Look, there are big cars and small cars passing by on the roofs!” Ben still said: “Meiyou.” (No) I guess the traffic signs, big trees and roofs in front of the bridge prevented Ben’s eyes from focusing on the cars running on the farther away bridge, so I pushed him to the place where the highway bridge stood in the air beautifully. However, Ben was not interested in whether there were cars at high altitude, so he got out of the cart and pushed himself to an open space under the bridge and played for a long time.

When Ben got tired of pushing, he climbed on to the cart to sit down, it was almost eleven o’clock. While pushing him home, we passed by a basketball court and saw someone playing there. Ben, who loves playing ball, pointed over there which meant he wanted to go over there to watch. While walking toward the basketball court, I saw a shirtless young man shooting and dribbling. We stooped at at a place less than ten feet away from the court, Ben sat on the cart and looked at the player quietly with an expression of eagerness to try from time to time, such as kicking his feet, smiling, leaning forward, and standing up. I asked him if he wanted to get off the cart and play. He then quickly walked to the basketball court after getting off. I also followed Ben to the court and asked the young man if he could let Ben play with his ball. He quickly put on his shirt and handed the ball to Ben to play with. We exchanged names and happily discovered that Ben, a 17-year-old high school student, and Ben, a two-year-old toddler, met by chance. Watching the two Bens playing basketball together, I praised Big Ben: “You are good at playing with children. Do you have any younger siblings?” He replied: “I only have a 19-year-old sister who went to college in Berkeley.” I asked again: “Then where did you learn to play with children?” He said: “I volunteered in our church to babysit children about five years old. They are older than Ben.” “What kind of church?” “Catholic.” I told him quickly: “Oh, I graduated from the Catholic University of America， which is next to the largest Roman Catholic Church in North America, the church is the biggest National Shrine of the United States.” I felt that it was his first time hearing about the Catholic University of America and was very happy to advertise for my beloved alma mater CUA.

Big Ben was playing ball with Little Ben and chatting with me. When Big Ben learned that little Ben has a six-month-old sister, he casually asked: “Can his sister crawl?” I was impressed that a high school boy could ask such a relevant question, so I praised him: “You really know kids! His sister is almost able to crawl.” Hearing my praise, he smiled shyly like a school kid. I looked at this sweet boy and thought about the common saying that high school students are studying long hours, so I asked curiously: “Do you feel high school studies are very time consuming?” He said: “Studying is okay, I spent many hours on a lot of extracurricular activities.” I asked: “What extracurricular activities? The school basketball team?” He said: “I am the president of the school leadership club and I am responsible for organizing activities.” It sounded like a high level club, so I asked : “Is it easy to join this club?” “Every year about half of the applicants can join. The club has about fifty of us. I also host a writing club and participate in a Vietnamese culture club.” “Are you Vietnamese?” “Yes, both my parents are.” I said, “Little Ben’s parents are Chinese.” I also told him that I studied chemistry at the Catholic University of America and later became a software engineer. He said that his parents were both engaged in medical research, and his sister majored in biomedicine. I asked him: “Do you know what you want to do in the future?” He said: “I want to join politics or become a lawyer.” I said: “Not many Asians participate in politics. It’s great that you have this wish so young! Your parents must be very proud of you.”

They had been playing for almost half an hour, and it was already past 11:30. I told Big Ben: “Little Ben should take a nap at 12 o’clock. Could you please go first? That way I can easily convince Little Ben to go home.” He said : “Okay, I’ll go first.” Before he left, I asked again: “Do you usually come here to play on weekend days?” He said: “I usually come here to play at night. This morning my mother asked me to go to a restaurant for breakfast with my uncle from Texas, because he came from Texas yesterday to attend another uncle’s wedding and he was leaving today. After breakfast, I had nothing to do, so I came here today.” I said: “I am retired and like to write short stories. Can I write a story using the photos of you two playing ball together?” He said: “Sure.” We then exchanged phone numbers and I said: “If you come here to play during the weekend in daytime, please let me know. I will bring little Ben here to play with you?” He said, “Okay.” Later I sent him the video and photos I took of them playing together and he liked them.

Little Episodes

1. Timeline:

At 10:19 a.m., we were under the highway bridge and Ben pushed his cart walked for more than half an hour.
At 11:14, we came to the basketball court to watch Big Ben playing, then two Bens played together.
At 11:44, Big Ben and little Ben fist bumped to say goodbye.

2. Little Ben was watching

While sitting on the cart and quietly watching Big Ben pitch and dribble, Ben showed an eagerness to try from time to time, such as kicking his feet, smiling, leaning forward, and standing up.

3. Two Bens were playing together

Ben, my grandson who was born during the 2021 Lunar Year, is more than eight months old now.

Recently, Ben started to express more emotions than just laughing out loudly. On Sunday yesterday, I experienced the bodily reaction of Ben being frightened when he saw a balloon for the first time.

Last night, after seeing that the birthday balloon with many dinosaurs had been placed in the bathtub, I asked why. Alex said: “Ben was afraid of the balloon so we hid it here.”
I immediately asked: “Really?”
Alex answered: “This afternoon, while video calling my parents, we told them: ‘Ben is afraid of the balloon.’ They didn’t believe it either, so we had to show how Ben reacts to the balloon again, and then my parents believed it. If you don’t believe it, you can try.”

Curiously, I brought Ben from his playroom to the bathroom where the balloon was hidden. When he saw the balloon, Ben cried loudly and turned his head away, at the same time, my arm and chin felt that he was hunching up his shoulders as if he wanted to hide his neck and head inside his body. This was the first time I felt Ben hunching up his shoulders, shrinking his neck, and turning his head while crying loudly, so I knew Ben was truly afraid of the balloon!

I asked why Ben reacted like this. After analyzing for a while, the young parents said that perhaps the balloon was round, similar to a human face. A human face has two eyes, one nose and one mouth. The pattern of a human face was simple, symmetrical and easy to recognize. On the other hand, the balloon had many dinosaurs along with Happy Birthday letters, which makes for a confused shining moving face. Ben probably thought the balloon is a terrible face, so he was afraid.

This morning, at 8:00 AM, Ben and I were playing on the wooden floor in his playroom. I was lying down and he was crawling and playing with his toys. I remember his fear of the balloon and the reason was that the balloon was like a terrible human face. According to the my reasoning, if Ben knows the balloon is not a human face, but just a new toy he has never seen before, he will not be afraid of the balloon. So I put Ben in a corner of the playroom, and went to the bathroom to bring the balloon to another corner of the playroom far away from Ben. I played with the balloon by hugging it, touching it, folding the rope that tied to the balloon to let it touch the ground, and releasing the rope to let the balloon touch the ceiling. Ben looked at me nervously from afar, but he did not cry. I hid the balloon on my left side, crawled over to Ben and let him lie down on my right side.

While lying on the floor, my left hand released the balloon to hover over my body so Ben could see it, my right hand across my body then touched the balloon gently and then I pointed to the dinosaurs on the balloon and said: “Those are dinosaurs, your uncle loved dinosaurs when he was little.” Then my left hand pulled the balloon back so Ben could not see it. I repeated the same pattern of movements so Ben saw the balloon, Ben saw me touching it while talking, and then Ben could not see the balloon. Slowly, my right hand grabbed Ben’s hand to touch the balloon on my left side, but Ben firmly refused by pulling back his hand. I let his hand go, continuing my movements so Ben saw the balloon, Ben saw me touching it while talking about it, then Ben didn’t see the balloon, and I grabbed his hand to touch the balloon again. This time, Ben didn’t pull back his hand, but he was afraid of touching the balloon, he even hid his face on my right side. I started to hold his hand, let the balloon on my left side closer to my right side; while saying: “This is a balloon with lots of dinosaurs on it, your uncle loves dinosaurs when he was little.” Then I pulled his hand over to touch the balloon. Ben started to touch the balloon. Ben and I repeatedly touched the balloon to let Ben feel even a gentle touching causes the balloon to make big movements, I repeatedly said: “This is a balloon, it flies. Lots of dinosaurs are on the balloon, one, two, three, four, five, six, seven.”

At 9:30 AM, Ben began to chase after the flying balloon that he was afraid to see earlier.

Ben and the balloon