sis

eli calls david "day day"
he calls jacob "jake"
he doesn't say anything for claire. that is, until we came up with "sister". he now calls her "sis".
i like it. we're all using it now.

eli

eli is in a big boy bed now. it's been a bit of a nightmare as he simply won't stay in it. he climbs out of his packNplay, he climbs out of his crib. he wants to be in the bed but he doesn't know how to fall asleep in one.
jon's been sitting beside his bed waiting for him to fall asleep. i've been laying beside him waiting for him to fall asleep.
it's getting tiring.
and yet we celebrate this step toward "big boyhood"

a big problem

"mom - do you know what the biggest problem is?" she asks in a serious tone.
"what do you think it is?? i answer.
"i found out you can't listen to a book on CD and read a book at the same time. you can't keep track of both of them. it's a problem" she said. in her quest to read through all the A to Z Mysteries and the Clementine series she's been trying to inhale words and stories as much as she can.
i love her thirst for stories. i love her excitement for digesting as many as she can.

of TV shooters and melting like an ice cube

goodness. it's been awhile since i last posted.
but a few things have happened since then, mostly notably a finished dissertation.

hoping to start this up again.

here goes.

some jacob-isms:
-he calls TV satellites "TV shooters"
-this morning, he said he was so cold he was "melting". "Mom - I'm melting. Help me. I'm melting into an ice cube"
-he frequently whispers (to no one in particular): "Aslan is on the move". Listening to books on CD, especially Narnia books is one of his favorite activities. Junie B Jones is another.

eli-isms:
-he REFUSES to use his high chair and demands that he sit in a regular chair like everyone else
-he demands to have a pillow in his crib, that he be tucked in like the brothers, that he be given a stack of books just like the brothers
-he still likes to throw things - across the table, across the room. He has a great arm so sometimes we don't get mad but rather we comment on the good throw.
-he's obsessed with Whitby (our backyard neighbor dog)

david-isms:
-he LOVES playing on his soccer team (jon's the coach).
-he's still so competitive with just about everything that he cries when he loses (this happens frequently when we play board games).
-he still wants to marry gaby rooks when he gets older.

claire:
-she loves reading the Boxcar Children, A to Z mysteries, Geromino Stilton.
-her 4 front big teeth are finally growing in. watching her try to each corn on the cob or an apple is quite funny
-she LOVES her 2nd grade teacher and class
-she's into finding fossils

that's it for now. enjoying my kids. that about sums it up.

Lent

My dear friend Lynn gave me a new idea for a Lenten practice. She suggested that I try to do random acts of kindness during Lent, a way of adding something during Lent rather than taking something away (as I've often done in the past). While I realize we're already almost half way through Lent, I'm posting this as a way to hold me accountable.

I've tried to get the kids involved in this practice. At night time, Claire and I try to tell each other what we did (when we remember). We then brainstorm other things we could do.

Here's a list of some of what we've done...
-flowers to a neighbor
-holding the door open for someone in the grocery store
-buying a coffee for a college student at lemonjellos
-letting someone go ahead in a line (that was one of Claire's!)
-sending a card to someone who wasn't feeling well
-asking someone to play with you (Claire's idea)

I've been thinking a lot about this in these last few weeks, weeks of more intense dissertation writing for me and thus, less of everything else that I/we normally do.
Is it easier to show kindness to strangers? Is it easier to be random about it? Or does the randonmess encourage more of a discipline of kindness?

I've been thinking about this concept of "discipline" since reading 1000 Gifts. This book is about living a life of gratitude/thankfulness. It's more than saying thanks. It's more than being thankful at particular time. It's about living thankfully, grace-fully, with a spirit of God's goodness to us all the time.

It's hard work!

I try to write down 3 or 4 specific gifts of my day in a notebook before I go to bed. I started listing general ones (friends, kids, good weather) and then challenged myself to be as specific as possible. It has been in this specificity that I feel I'm (slowly) changing the way I see and experience things.

To be thankful for my children is one thing. But, to be thankful for the tight grasp of fingers around my neck when Jacob gives me a hug, or the smacking noise that Eli makes when he tries to imitate Jon giving me a kiss on his way out to work, or the twinkle in Claire's eyes when I get to the punchline in the funny story I'm telling her or when I see David working hard to find the tiny piece of LEGO that Jacob says he has to find right now...these are gifts that I can continue to look for and be aware of.

The specificity of gifts, something I once viewed at being thankful for "tiny" or "little" things, encourages me to be attentive, to be more present so I can notice them, enjoy them, express thanks for them.

take apart party

last night we had a demolition party with some friends. we collected as many old/broken electronics that we could find (cameras, fax machine, laptop, toaster, etc).

we let the kids take them all apart. it was awesome.

jon was in his glory. while i was proud of myself for getting screws out and opening up a camera face, jon was creating his own little machines by hooking up batteries, wires, fans, etc. jacob and david loved taking the keys off old keyboards. claire loved making art creations with the pieces she found.

it was cool, and, it was a good step for me in getting past my fear of physics (lest i forget how i didn't understand a thing in my physics class in high school).

he's a smart one

we're trying to keep eli's pacifiers in his crib (only giving them to him when he takes a nap or goes to sleep for the night).

the little stinker makes a bee-line for the stairs whenever we put him down. he climbs the stairs in a matter of seconds, giggling to himself as he does it. then, he makes his way to his crib in his desperate attempt to get his pacifiers.

i've got to give him points for that.