‘the stwetchy giwaffe’

Charlie very carefully drew this on his white board this morning:

before bed

The children went to be a little late tonight.  For some random reason, the time before bed became naked-time.  And then, I cannot tell you why, naked-time turned into wrestle-with-Dada time.  Before we knew it,  wrestle-with-Dada time turned into smother-Dada-with-kisses-time.    And that was how, in a matter of seconds, all hope of being-sleepy-soon was replaced with shrieking-giggle-laughs . and it was totally worth it!

She Pulls Up, She Flips, She Cooks!

Here’s a little update on Wendy for the Grandparents.   She has really been learning a lot lately!  She has become quite proficient at pulling up and falling back down on her bum now. This week she has even started to get the hang of cruising about in a very wobbly, slow-motion sort of way.

She learned about being upside down from her cousin Ziva during Charlie’s birthday bash. Since then, it is her favorite thing to do. She throws herself backwards so suddenly and violently that we are both convinced she is playing a game to see which parent will mess up first by dropping her or letting her whack her head on something nearby.

Wendy loves eating big people food.  She usually eats almost as much as Charlie and is a LOT less picky.  Her main goal in life during her waking hours is to make sure that she is as close to Charlie as possible.  (He does not always see this for the delightful adoration of an older sibling that it is.)  The sight of her little bottom fast-timing it in a crawl down the hallway after him has got to be one of my most favorite things in the world right now! 

She loves to say “Hi” (it sounds like ‘ahhhh’) while she opens and closes the fingers of her hand.

  Coincidentally, ‘hi’ sounds a lot like another word she says:

She also says ‘ba ba’ and waves bye-bye about three minutes after someone leaves.   Her vocabulary of sign words is growing too.  She has signed “more” and “down” and “food” and “milk” and “light” and “hot” –some more consistently than others. 

My absolute favorite thing about Wendy is her joy.  She delights in her family.  If any of us have been out of her sight, even for a few minutes, her enthusiasm about seeing us is like we’ve been parted for months.  Her smile seems like an overflow of a body and heart brimming full with happiness.   We also wonder what she will look like when she looses her baby fat.  Her cheeks are so wide that you can watch them widen in a grin from behind her head!!

 

 

Conversations with Charlie -or- hitting our stride with 3-year-old logic

• He doesn’t go to school, and there is no context.  He made this statement out of the blue while I was folding the laundry:  “Mama, I jus’ don’t have time to go to space, because I left my backpack at school. Yeah, it’s so sad.”
• Charlie:  “Mama, I think Batman is good at banging down bad guys, but God is good at banging down monsters.”
  Mama:  “God is strong enough to take care of the bad guys too, honey.   God is real and Batman is part of a world that is a story, it is not real.” 
  Charlie:  “But I want to go there!”
• “Sometimes when you take a bite of rice and you cough real rough, your rice comes out.”
• Charlie: “I like me winning!”
  Alaythia:  “I like you winning, too.”
• Explaining to me about gagging on a bite of avocado, which he recently decided he doesn’t like: “When my throat wrinkles, that means it’s yucky.”
• Church:  pronounced “choach”
• “I wish that he was real. Superman.  So that I could ride on his back!”
• While holding his roll at dinner, and talking to us in a squeaky, high-pitched voice: “Hey, I’m hewpin’ the bread talk. Cuz the bread don’t know how to talk.  It’s a baby bread, so it doesn’t know how to talk.”
• Charlie, suddenly looking intently at the navy blue socks I’m putting on his feet: “Mama, are these Batman socks?”
  Mama: “I don’t know, Charlie.  We’d have to research that.  I don’t know if anyone has ever seen Batman’s socks.  I don’t know what they look like.”"
  Charlie: “Maybe us two, just you (pointing) and me, and not Wendy (pointing to her where she is foraging for crumbs under the dining table nearby, looking for all the world like a duck with its bum up in the air) maybe we could go to the world where Batman lives and we would see him and I would tell him to take off his boots and we could see his socks! Then we could talk to him about his Batman socks.  Yeah! That would be a good idea!!!!”
• A silly rhythm rhyming game has been going on for a few minutes.  Charlie has just got the hang of it and is starting to participate.  Then,
  Dada: “123 pot!”
  Mama: “123 rot!”
  Charlie: “123 this game is DONE!”
• Charlie at dinner, changing the subject after I asked him to eat his green beans:  “Daddy are you strong enough to bang a troll down with your glasses on?
  Daddy: “I don’t know, I’ve never fought a troll before.”
  Charlie: Maybe when I’m older we can bang down a troll togeddew.  Just the two of us.
  Daddy:  Maybe we could, if it was a mean troll.  What if it was a nice troll?  Maybe we could be it’s friend instead? We could invite it to dinner to eat green beans with us.
  Charlie: I’m not so ascared of trolls this day.  I’m still not strong enough.  But if it’s a nice troll we will talk to it and be nice to him.  But we won’t invite a mean troll to have supper with us.  [Turning suddenly to Wendy, who is scavenging for green bean scraps on her tray and paying absolutely no attention] I’m tellin a little troll story that had a little Billy goat that was not mean.  But I am not a Billy goat. I am a child.  So I like to eat lots of different things.  [listing now in a sing-song voice] Carrots…beef… noodles…[looking around, noticing his bowl, a moment of silence]…but NOT green beans.”
• Mama: “Charlie, why did you choose to spill those Cheerios and milk on the floor?”
  Charlie, cheerfully, while watching me wipe up the mess: “I just had the idea in my body to spill the cheerios and milk there and then we could take a cloth and wipe them up!”
  Mama: “I have an idea in my body.”
  Charlie: “What?”
  Mama: “This is my idea.  I think you should lean your chin over your bowl, like you know how to do, so that it doesn’t spill on the floor!”
  Charlie, shaking his head sadly: “But Mama, my mouth is just toooooo big for the bowl.”

…Also….

Even superheroes need a spa day now and then. This morning Batman got a haircut and a 45 min bubble bath complete with unique Charlie-hummed/sung mood music. Last I heard he was bargaining for a massage and Charlie was telling him it was time to dry off and go fight some bad guys because the water was getting cold.

the story of Charlie’s Bedtime Song

Way back when, when I was just out of college, so young and so broke, God lent me to the Hartman family.  I learned I adore young children by nanny-ing their three littles (6mo, 3 and 4yrs old) To be thrust from single girlhood into the duties (part time though they were) of a mother/caretaker of three was quite the learning curve.  And I am so blest by those lessons to this day!  From their parents I learned how to stop to talk, to listen to children and to explain.  From their boys I learned to treasure the seeds of fierce manhood that exist in little boys’ hearts (and a lot of baseball statistics!).  And from that Ella-girl I learned that you could physically fall in love with a baby and end up pushing your own heart around in a stroller.  And so I did what young broke lovers do.  I wrote her a song.  It was a melody made up of nonsensical syllables and I hummed it when I put her to sleep or when she needed comfort.  She called it the ‘Zaza Song’.

When her family moved away and I got married,  a little piece of living heart string between her and I broke.  And we were both sad. Then I put words to her song and sang it as a prayer for her.  Here and there, I sang it over other special children (Cole, that’s you!), falling asleep in my arms.

And now I have Charlie, my own boy, my own flesh, and Wendy, my own heart.              

Though I can’t remember to take my grocery list with me when I go shopping or even what day of the week it is sometimes, this melody stays.   It comes floating back through my mind like a ‘go-to’ salve, with new appropriate words when my children are hurt or sick or scared of the dark. 

Lately it has become Charlie’s only request at bedtime:  “Mama, pwee sing da song you maked up for me.”  The love and prayers I’ve had for all the children I’ve cared for over the years have filtered and distilled into this: 

Charlie’s Bedtime Song

And have no fear, my little bird.
The Lord holds you in his hand.
He’ll keep you safe while it is dark,
and wake you to see the light.

For God loves you and God loves me.
I know that this is true.
He gave us Jesus Christ his son,
To make us his children too.

He helps us when we do not obey,
to confess, repent and change.
He'll never stop, he loves you so,
and Mama and Dada too.

So go to sleep, and while you sleep,
you worship him with your dreams.
And sing your song, when you wake up,
of all that He’s done for you. 

And though I sing it to him every night and he calls it his by right, I still remember a girl with dark curls who began it all. I sing with a thankful heart for the gift of love she and her family so freely shared. So rich we all are in the Father’s care!

From Mama, from KK, with love.

a well-celebrated day

the beginning:: blueberry pancakes in the shape of hearts and airplanes all made before 8:30 class, birthday song sung by all four parents, …the middle:: parks, sunshine!!! (so different from last year), spaghetti moustaches, music, seeing redemptive grace at work in discipline and baby girl lovin’ on me!

the end:: sparkler candles, fairy cupcakes, chocolate mousse frosting, giggling toddlers, and heart conversations…                        From beginning to end I was loved so well.   Thank you, my dear husband, family and friends for celebrating me so well!