I love these conversations.

From Sunday -

Dad: "What did you do in church today?"
Benjamin (three years old): "Played with the trucks."
Dad: "Did you paint that picture?"
B: "Yes."
Dad: "Did you sing any songs?"
B: "No."
Dad: "Did they tell you a story?"
B: "Yes."
Dad: "What was the story about?"
B: "God."
Dad: "Did they say anything else?"
B: "No, they just said 'God, God'."
Dad: "Did they say anything about Jesus?"
B: "Yes.
Dad: "Did they say anything else?"
B: "Just God God and Jesus."

So there you go.

Christmas in March

What makes a three-year-old boy smile like it's Christmas morning? How about re-paving of the parking area in front of our townhome? There are trucks, steamrollers, frontloaders, shovels, asphalt...All at the top of a little boy's list of Awesome Things.

We watched them pave for an hour. The six-month-old baby even took in the action. This all saved my sanity, since aforementioned baby only napped for a grand total of ninety minutes today, therefore being Mr. McGrumpypants all afternoon. Thank you, big trucks, for making my afternoon survivable.

See How You Are?

We give our friend and neighbor Daniela a ride to school every day. This morning I asked her for an update on her Apollo 11 project, an essay she was working on several weeks ago.

"I'm finished," she said.

"Wow! Good for you!" I said. "When is it due?"

"Next Monday," she said.

"Wow," I said again. Today, you realize, is Tuesday. Which means she had finished her project At Least A Week Before It Was Due.

"Wow," I said, with real admiration, "I was never that kind of student."

And Will chimed in, a note of regret in his voice: "I used to be that kind of student."

And then Everett, his confident voice drifting up from the back of the mini-van: "I will never be that kind of student."

Something They Never Taught Me in Science Class...

Has anyone out there had the desire to see a theory turned into scientific law? If you have, here's one for you to get cracking on...
I have never made detailed records, but I'm sure that if I did I would find that the likelihood of getting EVERY red light and being stuck behind either the person who insists on going EXACTLY one mph under the speed limit or the biker whose wobbly balance makes it too risky to pass goes through the roof when you have a crying baby in the car with you.
Can I get a witness?

put algae in bowl. put a littel of grass.

She collects things. Anything, really, that appears to have value or might possibly one day have value or used to have value a long time ago. Especially Natural Things. Things from Outside.

Case study: the tadpole that is gaining life in an old salsa jar on my kitchen counter. She brought it home from school last week in a Dixie cup. It was still an egg at the time, but she promised me with honest eyes that the small round darkness in the murky water drifting near the bottom of the cup was Most Definitely and Absolutely a Frog's Egg, and that it would Hatch and that it would be a Tadpole and that someday it would be a Frog.

And sure enough, in two days it was indeed a small straight darkness, motionless at the bottom of the salsa jar, and I was Certain it was Dead.

It was not, and it has now very nearly tripled in size and is, as I said, gaining life on my kitchen counter, exhibiting all the proper signs of being a tadpole.

Like I said, she collects things.

So one day last week I decided that we needed to clean out her backpack. It was Entirely Too Heavy for a second grader who totes only two slender homework folders to and from school every day. Two folders, but it easily weighed several pounds. It was time to investigate, and here were the contents:

four books of various weights and thicknesses all belonging to the school and needing to be Returned;

a bottle of Gatorade seven-eighths drunk-- left over from an after-school event in February;

a bit of stick, maybe ten inches long, skinny, with all the bark peeled away ("That's my magic wand," she said);

the remnants of a bag of pretzels, ie., the bag, virtually empty, and Lots and Lots of pretzel crumbs and dust which was coating

several pencils and pens, also of various weights and thicknesses;

folded and crushed sheets of paper, on whose various notices the information was Seriously Out of Date;

a dime. a penny which was coated, on one side, with some sort of waxen substance. Red. Maybe it was gum;

a bookmark she had knitted of green yarn;

a Christmas ornament she had made from a paper clip that had been turned into an angel;

a large, green, plastic, four-holed button on a string that she has turned into some kind of spinning game;

a painted wooden butterfly threaded through with yellow string;

a crushed baggie of what once must have been crackers (different pocket from the pretzels);

four fist-sized (adult fist-sized) rocks.

I vacuumed out the various pockets in the bookbag. I kept the button string game, the butterfly, the knitted bookmark, the angel ornament. I threw away the papers, the baggie, the pretzel bag; I recycled the Gatorade bottle. I wiped off the pens and pencils and put them in a small pocket of her backpack; I removed the dime and the gum-covered penny to Another Place. I neatly stacked the books and returned them to the bag and admonished her to Please Return These To Their Proper Places Tomorrow, and I asked her to Please Take These Rocks Outside.



I put the magic wand back in the bookbag.

Monkey See...

Daniele's post yesterday was gorgeous and heartbreaking.

Here's a post that's neither.

8 AM: I was checking my email. My constantly-chattering 18 month old, Emma Kate, walked behind me. She stopped to pull at the back of my pants, inspecting the contents carefully. Her running dialogue as she checked things out: "Mama has poop? No, no poop." And, thus satisfied, she moved on to other pursuits.

Stillness...and Other Heart Problems

4am. Hysterical, sobbing cries for Mama, Dada from Luke's room. I leap from the bed (Dad doesn't stir, grrr), and as I run into the hall, flipping on lights and dashing into his room, I imagine what I'll find. He has fallen out of his loft. Or he has thrown up in bed (which has happened too many times this winter for me not to imagine it). Or he has had a terrible nightmare.

I fling open the door, and he's still up in his loft. Check that one off (whew--no broken bones!) and move on to checking the bed for vomit.

Me: Honey, what's wrong? (relief, no vomit)

Luke: (absolutely beside himself) Where were you?

Me: I was asleep, love. What's wrong? (nightmare?)

Luke: (almost shouting at me) But WHY didn't you come?

Me: I'm sorry; I didn't hear you. What's wrong?

Luke: Were you in your room?!? (still sobbing and now definitely shouting at me)

Me: Yes, of course I was in my room. What's WRONG? (trying not to shout back, ahem)

Luke: Is Dad in there? (whimper, whimper)

Me: Yes, he's asleep. (yes, he's asleep--asleep!-- sleeping through this 4am third degree...and I still don't know what's wrong, for crying out loud). What's wrong?

Luke: (suddenly totally calm) Oh, I can't find Cardinal.

His stuffed animal. This is the drama?!? Cardinal?!? I get ready to launch into It's-4am-and-you-could-have-turned-on-the-light-or-come-to-get-me...but it's his Cardinal.

Eliza's Cardinal, to be exact. Who is right under the covers, as usual when she (yes, Cardinal, despite clearly being a red male cardinal, is a she) is lost. Be still my racing heart.

And my sweet boy, too; be still. "Be still, and know that I am God" (Ps. 46:10).

---

Cardinal in hand, he drifts happily off to sleep before I can even close the door. Trust restored.

(As for me, well, so much for still. Not so for Dad, who is still asleep. I may as well start the day.)

Could it be!?

7:15pm - read bedtime stories, sang soft songs, snuggled in the rocking chair, dressed in sleep-sack, turned on space heater, put in crib, said prayers, kissed goodnight.
7:30 - Quiet.
7:31 - 9:45pm(!) - Crying. Patting back, shush-shushing. Holding in rocking chair, burping. Back to crib. Crying. Repeat. Repeat. Repeat.
Could it be teething? Cheeks are red. Gastrointestinal issues? He's squirming a lot.
I'm at my wits end. Why will this baby not sleep? Oh God, please help Samuel sleep. I can't take this anymore.
Ok. I'm just going to take off the sleep-sack and nurse him again. Sleep-sack comes off. Calm descends. Huh? Back in crib without sleep-sack. Zzzzzz. Could it be that he was just too hot? Was that what he was trying to tell me for the last 2.5 hours? Oh boy, do I feel terrible.

My First Attempt at a Post in Quite a While...

On the occasion of your first missing tooth, I find myself astonished at the person you have become at 5 1/2, Mr. D.

You choose to shower now. Shower! As in, you come home from soccer practice, take a shower, and eat your dinner. That's not toddler stuff.

And bless your heart, as our first born and Mama's first baby, you constantly have to prompt us, your clueless parents, that it's time to move on to the next thing. I'm ready to shower. I'd like to eat with a regular fork, please. I can go get the mail. I don't need help with this, or that, or the other thing anymore, Mama. Right. You are, after all, 5 1/2, and you really don't need that kind of help anymore. If you didn't remind me of that, I'd still have you eating in the high chair, I think.

You hold on to your sweetness, though. You love your sisters with such a nurturing presence, such willingness to help them, such kindness and appreciation of them. You love your friends and share freely and gladly. You love your family, all your grandparents especially, and Mommy and Daddy, with whom you are unabashedly affectionate.

Last night, you called me back in after lights-out. I was expecting the traditional litany of "I'm hungry, I'm thirsty, I'm not tired." But last night, you called me because you had a question. How, exactly, do they capture sharks from the ocean and transport them to an aquarium? Without the sharks biting people? How, exactly, not in baby-general terms? So we discussed some of my guesses and agreed that we'd go on-line the next day do some research. I went downstairs shaking my head, amazed and grateful for all that goes on in your mind.

Speaking of your mind, it is a joy to watch you gravitate with intensity toward letters and numbers. You're learning to read, all on your own. You're doing math all the time, when you skip-count in basketball and quiz me with math facts and count your enormous car collection or the number of times you can hit the ball before it drops to the ground. It is all joy to you, these symbols that hold ever-increasing meaning in your world. It is a joy to me to watch you figure it all out.

And no reflection on my 5 1/2 year old boy could fail to mention how you love your sports. Hours of basketball in the driveway, made even better when Mommy or Daddy is soundly schooled by your accurate shot. Tennis. Soccer. Cheering on your Tarheels. When a game is going, whether you are playing or watching, your attention is fully focused.

Sweet D, we love you. It is with some sadness that we let go of your baby teeth and your baby days, but with even more joy, we love watching you grow. So bring on the tooth fairy. We're ready. I think.

And the lesson is?

Luke and friends are working on a two-sided art project in the Sunday school class I'm teaching, one side depicting Jesus and the disciples in a boat in a storm, and the other side depicting the boat after Jesus had calmed the storm.

Friend: My picture is beautifuller than yours.
Luke: It's not about whose picture is more beautiful (sassy know-it-all grammar correction emphasized, of course); it's about...

And here I'm waiting breathlessly for him to insert a profound lesson he's learned about Jesus as king over creation, about the disciples' lack of faith, something really good (pat pat myself on the back, good Sunday school teacher, good mom)...

Luke: ...it's about getting the pictures on the right sides.

Sigh. There, as a friend likes to say, goes Mother-of-the-Year 2009. Not to mention Sunday-School-Teacher-of-the-Year. Maybe next year...

And only the hat.

The other day I sent my bathed and towel-dried but unclothed son into his room while I hung up his towel. When I got to the room he (still completely naked) had decided to wear his Mickey Mouse ears hat. And only the hat.

Babies Don't Keep

I read this poem on this blog I really like today, and I think it's a wonderful reminder. I'm so grateful for all the sitting and rocking I did over the past three years...and now, so much for the vacuuming; I think I'll go back out and play in the snow.

Song for a Fifth Child
by Ruth Hurlburt Hamilton (1958)

Mother, O Mother, come shake out your cloth,
Empty the dustpan, poison the moth,
Hang out the washing, make up the bed,
Sew on a button and butter the bread.

Where is the mother whose house is so shocking?
She's up in the nursery, blissfully rocking.

Oh, I've grown as shiftless as Little Boy Blue,
Lullabye, rockabye, lullabye loo.
Dishes are waiting and bills are past due
Pat-a-cake, darling, and peek, peekaboo

The shopping's not done and there's nothing for stew
And out in the yard there's a hullabaloo
But I'm playing Kanga and this is my Roo
Look! Aren't his eyes the most wonderful hue?
Lullabye, rockaby lullabye loo.

The cleaning and scrubbing can wait till tomorrow
But children grow up as I've learned to my sorrow.
So quiet down cobwebs; Dust go to sleep!
I'm rocking my baby and babies don't keep.