Wills Turns Two
We've never had very articulate one-year-olds and Wills
has been no exception. One of his first attempts to verbalize was during a time
of family devotions earlier this year. He had run out of the kitchen, and when
he returned, he pointed a water gun at us, saying, "Shoo, shoo!" I'm
sure if you know Wills you can picture the mischievous smile on his face.
The other day Wills decided not to swallow his final
bite from lunch. He walked around with it in his mouth for the next fifteen
minutes, until M happed to mention to me, "So, Willie's almost two! Should
be an interesting year!"
Wills took that inauspicious moment to gulp down the
lump and say a hearty, "Yep!"
Kids aren't supposed to be "terrible" before
they turn two, but we got quite a lot of terrible-ness in advance of this
birthday. So now I'm hoping that all those teaching moments we already endured
will count for something in the coming year...
For instance, I would like to think that he knows
better now, than to run off with my computer mouse, steal books from the shelf,
get into kitchen cupboards, unravel toilet paper, empty out the shoe closet,
and carry a hundred other non-toys from point A to point B from sun-up to
sun-down.
I would like to think that he now knows he should not
crawl under the covers of beds that have already been made for the day
(although I must say that when he pulls the quilt up under his chin and giggles
at me, he looks awfully adorable, and I have sometimes called Daddy to come
look.)
I would like to think that he now knows that he
shouldn't dig through the garbage for old, snotty kleenexes; nay, not even to
show off his prodigious gift for blowing his nose.
I would like to think he now knows better than to fill
his spoon up with beets, and then wave his spoon back and forth as fast as
possible.... or to slap his spoon against the surface of his soup.... or pull
cups and bowls, empty or full, off the counter... or pull a chair over to the
stove, remove a lid off a hot pot, and attempt to stir the hot oatmeal cooking
therein. (Eyikes!)
Ah, but we love this precious boy, and trust God will
make a useful man of him someday! Meanwhile he is good for hundreds of
delicious kisses a day and lots of laughs.
James Says a Birthday Prayer
Jims deviated from his usual morning prayer to say:
"In Jesus name...
dear Lord...
fer I can turn four...
in Jesus name...
amen."
M’s role as the sole IT guy for a
group of companies came to an end, and he was looking for new employment.
One day during this time, Jo randomly mused, "I'm
glad we still have food to eat..."
Today, he wanted to know if he had more money than us
now. We laughed and said no... but later when I was putting A to bed she said,
"But Mom, do I have more money than
you?"
"What do you think?" I asked.
"Well, maybe.... because I do have $71.00 and,
like, 50-something cents..." (The $70
is birthday money from Opa and Oma that she has saved, which she considers to
be quite a fortune.)
I was thankful to be able to assure her that we are not
reduced that far yet. :)
M Starts a New Job
We're happy that life is back to "normal". I
can go back to feeling some dignity as a housewife, in having my husband coming
home to a tidy house in the evening, instead of having him working all day
amongst three very loud boys and a mountain of LEGO blocks and other toys, and
having him try to scrounge himself some lunch on a counter crowded with
schoolbooks, pencil crayons, and various art creations. Not that coming home from work is such a
utopian event for M as I would like it to be... M joked last night that coming
home to dinner sometimes leaves him feeling "shell-shocked", what
with all the noise and bedlam. The kids clamor for their food and compete to
share "exciting" news from the day, and Willie shouts, "Dat!
Dat! Dat! Dat!" over and over and over, like a greedy gull, pointing at
everything his royal highness wants. Quite a switch from the quiet office! Of
course I'm sure he appreciates the love that gets them into this giddy state at
his arrival; love that is further evidenced by little notes delivered to him
with Cheshire grins, containing such affectionate messages as, "I live you
Mom and Dab."
Homeschool Hole
Do you ever notice interesting gaps in your kids'
knowledge? You can feel like your kids are doing quite well academically when,
for example, your six-year-old knows more all about the differences between
monocotyledons and dicotyledons (whereas you hadn't even heard of them till you
were beyond your 30th year), but then you can suddenly find out that he
doesn't even know about something so commonplace as a butcher.
I discovered this during bath time. I'm prone to
reciting little ditties to the kiddies when I'm hanging out with them, and during
bath time the old standby is, "Rub a dub, dub, three boys in the tub. Who
do you think they be?" Last Saturday Jo wanted to know how that rhyme
really went, so I chanted it for him:
“Rub a dub, dub,
Three men in a tub
Who do you think they be?
The butcher, the baker, the candlestick maker -
Round them up, knaves all three!"
Of course this led to questions about what knaves are
and what it means to round them up, etc.
After reflecting for a moment on my explanation of
these mysteries, Jo said, "Well, I can understand how the baker and the
candlestick maker could be bad guys.
Like, the candlestick maker might kill someone by hitting him with a
candlestick, and the baker might throw cakes at people. But what could a
butcher do??"
Jimmy, on discovering a pink razor on the bathroom
counter:
"This is a funny toothbrush!"
Jim Dear has many sweet and amusing things to say, most
of which I can't remember. One day (possibly in the midst of one of the ever-popular discussions on what constitutes good vs. bad deeds), he said, "But I'm good sometimes."
"Oh? How?" I asked.
"I'm good 'cause I share my cars with Willie. I
give him the cars I don't like."
Even our best works are as filthy rags...
Another Chat with Jim-Gem
Jims: "I do tons of nice stuff."
Me: "Oh?"
Jim: "Like I smile yots, and I kiss you and hug
you and say 'I yuv you' yots and yots and yots!"
Aww.. that's all very true of our
Gem, and very precious! I don't know why, but I was a little surprised that he
counted that as "nice stuff" - I thought it just came to him
naturally!
But I saw yesterday that even his sunshiny smile can
take some effort. He was crying because he had spilled a tiny bit of water, and
instead of asking nicely if I could wipe it up, he just sat there bawling and
claiming he couldn’t drink another drop because the table was wet. I told him
if he would just stop crying and say cheerfully, "Sorry mom, I just
spilled a bit. Could you please wipe it up?" I would clean it for him. He
continued sniffling for quite some time and finally was quiet, while the
conversation moved on to other things.
I surmised that he eventually had forgotten all about
it, when suddenly he broke in the conversation with a pleasant, "Excuse
me," and the cheeriest of Jim-grins. I realized then that he had just been
silently struggling with the "cheerful" part of the injunction, and
was now ready to ask politely for his spill to be cleaned.
I love that boy.
