Odds and Ends

I admit that my attitude this year has left something to be desired. At times, this school year has felt like a series of unfortunate events. Between hurricane power outages, computer failure, job rejections, sicknesses, limited car access, and the more frequent immediate demands of business school, I have felt a little worn out and irritable, and the semester has just begun.

However, when I step back and get things in perspective, I can see all the good that has come of these little irritations. The hurricane gave us more time together as a family and with some of our favorite people, the Wilkersons; not having the Internet or my computer gave me more time with my kids; not having the car and being sick has made me more creative about family activities; and Patrick being busy has given me time to write more and it's also made me enjoy the good time we do have together. And beyond these little challenges, our lives are very blessed.

Most Especially, I Have Very Funny Kids

Eli is incredibly verbal for an eleven-month-old. His words include "wa-wa" (water), "kaka" (cracker or anything edible), "da-da" (Daddy, said with so much excited delighted; also means people he likes in general, I think), and "ahhh-da" (all done). This last is the funniest. I've tried to use it consistently to mean the end of a certain activity-- high chair time, playing with a certain toy, being held when he's wriggling away to play. And he, brilliant little munchkin, has applied it to nap time. After I put him down in his crib, he'll call out, "Ahhhh-da! Ahhhh-da!" I don't think so, little boy!

Caleb's vocabulary is increasing faster than his pronunciation, which I didn't realize until I noticed friends of mine couldn't understand him when I've always thought he was so good at expressing himself. Ah well. Mothers are blind to these things. I'm not that bothered by it. Someday his pronunciation will catch up. As it is, I love his language skills. Two recent additions are the word "sure" (which he says properly, and uses it to mean yes, and says it either with enormous excitement or a calm shrug of assent, but it's very grown-up yet cute sounding), and the phrase "just a second" is also new, but it's pronounced "just a sen-ic." Patrick corrected him the other day, and I told him not to. It's too dang cute.

Caleb is also hilarious, though not always intentionally. As part of our bedtime routine, we do a scripture story before reading out of the actual scriptures. For scripture story one night, I was telling him The Good Samaritan (a favorite).

I'd just begun: "Jesus told a story of a man who was traveling to the city of Jericho when some robbers attacked him. They beat him up and hurt him . . . "

"And they took his money," Caleb added.

"Yeah, and they took his money," I agreed.

"I would do that," Caleb said thoughtfully.

"Do what?" I asked, taken aback. "You mean, you would beat somebody up and take their money?"

"Yeah," Caleb agreed.

Holy Cow! Well, a mother's dream come true: my son aspires to be a thief. Great!

(As a disclaimer: 1. This is only funny because Caleb is not an excessively violent child. He's very mild and calm, so that's why it took me by surprise. 2. I did have a discussion with him about what this actually meant and hopefully I destroyed all of these violent aspirations permanently.)