A Post of Un-Answerable Questions

"Are Asgardians made of magic? Is that how they live? They're made of magic? Is that why Thor can touch the end of his hammer and not get dead? Because he's made out of magic?"

"In the Norths Miss (Norse Myths-- an admittedly tricky tongue twister...) on the Kindle they say Loki is a doer of good AND a doer of evil, but in all the Thor movies he's only a bad guy.... Why is that?"

A Saturday Adventure

Sofi's at a birthday party, Daddy's busy with work, Mommy's cleaning and cooking, SO


The boys are going on an adventure!

Summer lunches...

I was 22 when Sofi was born. I was in a hurry. I wanted lots of children, I wanted them all Now and I wanted everything unpleasant in Motherhood to speed by as quickly as possible.

I spent a lot of the first five years of her life wanting things I couldn't have. I missed a lot of what I did have in the meantime. I sped through her babyhood in a daze. I forget a lot of it.

The big gap between Sofi and Judah represents a lot. Two miscarriages. Lots of tears. Lots of growing. A lot (but not enough yet) of letting go of Me and learning to hold on to Him.

Now I have two boys. I have learned am learning to slow down. God's gift to me is the occasional day like today which starts with my agenda thwarted (by a spill, or a melt-down, or a fight, or....) and then I, slowed down, have time to see what I have here, now, in this moment. The beauty that surrounds me.

Today, by God's grace, I see...

Lunch on the deck



Silly faces



Short people



My Boys





Sky-high eyelashes



Chubby baby curves and binkies



Milk mustaches

My boy...

We read the story of the Martyrdom of Stephan this morning... I explained that they killed Stephan because he talked about Jesus. Judah's thoughts on why the Jews were angry with Jesus...

"They were really mad at him... they were mad 'cause they thought he was gonna fight for them...They thought he was gonna kill all their enemies... fight for them. And he did. He fought for them by dying. He died to fight their sins..."


And another classic Judah moment this morning... 

"Judah, you're doing really well with this-- you're very good at math! (and he really is!)"

As the words left my mouth, he reached for something and knocked a plate full of snacks flying off the table to shatter in a pile of glass shards and pumpkin seeds on the floor.

Agile mind, not so much the body...

Every morning after chores, the boys get a few minutes to wrestle/tussle/play on my bed before school. After listening to this morning's "Play on Mama's Bed" session this morning, I think Jude is quickly regretting his decision to teach Jamie to "Hulk Smash me, Jamie! Hulk Smash me!"

A post about Nicknames

We love nicknames in our family...

For as long as I can remember, nicknames have been a way to show affection and familial familiarity. I think maybe my grandfather started it... He called us all "Lemuel". Or "Lemmie".  Don't ask. I have no idea. My father called us "Munchkins". I do know where that came from! I called my baby sister "Chickie" or "Chicken".  And then I had my own children...

Sofi: Her first name was Cricket. That child had hiccups for nearly nine straights months in utero. My belly hopped around like a Mexican Jumping Bean while she trampolined off every internal organ.

And then we called her Chickie. Or Chicken. Because I was still figuring out how to transition from Big Sister to Mama and it seemed appropriate to call her the same pet name I used for my First Baby-- my little sister, Tess. Who was really my third baby anyway, because Sam and Polly were my babies, too, really. And besides, she squawked and chirped with her hungry mouth opened wide, just like a baby chickie....



Judah: Oh my that boy had the bluest baby blues... and so we called him Judah Blue. Judah Blue Eyed Boy.



And the fat rolls!! We called him Judah Buddha. His Aunt Polly, Queen of Fat Rolls herself, once upon a longlong time ago, gave him that name. And Sofi started calling him just "Buddha" The chiropracter tentatively asked me one day... "Is his name...Buddha? Is that it?" And I laughed and laughed....

His mama still calls him My White-Headed Boy, because he is. And sometimes Scooter, because he did-- for the longest time. And his daddy calls him Buddy, and Little Man.

And now there's Jamie. And he has four people who all make up their own nicknames for him.

Munchkin

Precious

Capital-T-Trouble

Scoofle-noodle

Cuddle Monster

That Boy 

Bo-bo

Jo-jo (because of his inititals)

Scooter

Scooby-doo

Jamie-Jo

..and most recently my favorite, which somehow morphed out of some tongue-tripping combination of those last three names:


Subito




Jamie-Jo, My Subito...

Boys in the Kitchen

Remember our Pinterest Mud Kitchen? We're putting it to good use on a daily basis, now that we've raked up the TWENTY-FOUR BAGS of live-oak leaves that was giving it a vampire-movie-set vibe that made it hard to play out there...

5 Happy Things For Easter Monday

1) 91 pieces of Origami.



2) Bright Red Geraniums in Pots.



3) Approximately 12 dozen egg-- real, plastic, or filled-with-confetti



4) 12 children hunting Easter Eggs. Eight of them are five and under. Five of them are two-year-olds.



5) Two days in the pool.





And now, Spring Break is Done.

Yummy Gluten-free "Pancakes", Or How I Get My Children To Eat Squash For Breakfast

I know I've been a little heavy on the recipe posts lately, but I'm just so excited about the way our diet has changed since the first of the New Year that I can't help myself! Every time I find a new way to cook veggies that my kiddoes will EAT, I just have to TELL someone!

My latest concoction is based on a 21 Day Sugar Detox staple-- the banana pancake. It's called a pancake because the banana makes it sweet-ish, but it's really more of an omelet. It relies on the egg to give it some texture and bulk.




It's super fast-- way faster than regular pancakes-- and I can simply add ingredients to the bowl in approximate amounts as I begin to run out of batter (if I need more). And here's Judah's endorsement of the recipe!! Have you EVER seen such an enthusiastic grin on the face of a kid eating BUTTERNUT SQUASH before???




Ingredients:

Cooked butternut squash or pumpkin (I roast mine in the oven, cut in half, flesh side down in about 1.2 inch of water, at 350 till soft)
bananas
eggs
cinnamon
nutmeg
ginger
cloves

In a ratio of 1:1:2 (so, equal amounts of banana and squash, with two eggs per banana) mash up the veg and fruit together and add eggs. Season to taste. Mix vigorously, pan fry in butter till brown.

NOTE: The lower the heat you use and the longer you cook it, the more pancake-like a texture you'll get. A hot pan and a quick browning gives you something puffy and light-- more like an omelet, but it will fall fast. I top with home-made whipped cream and strawberries.

YUMMY!

This I know.

I know one thing about mothering. One thing beyond a shadow of a doubt. It is this:

My Words Have Power.

The words I speak to my children create reality for them. I can tear down or build up with my words. That's my job. Everyday I must selectively demolish and build. Demolish the bad-- harmful habits, hurtful words, disrespectful patterns of speech and behavior. Build the good-- diligence, bravery, perseverance, kindness in speech and actions, faithfulness in the little things and self-control. I build these things largely by talking about them, teaching them, praising their first timid appearances in my children's characters.

So I know this. The problem is, sometimes the demolition seems to take up all my energy, all my time and emotional resources. Sometimes the bad and ugly seem to rise far, far above my puny little wrecking balls and loom over my head with promises of visiting my children in juvie one day soon... the little delinquents.

Today I woke up remembering that demolition is only half of my job. If I tear down and neglect to build in it's place, then I create a vacuum, and we all know how nature feels about that. If I spend all my time disciplining, training, giving out consequences and negatively reinforcing, and then collapse in exhaustion on the couch, my household momentarily bullied into a semblance of peace, then I've missed it. Because while I rest and recuperate, slowly at first and building to a tempest, comes in all manner of  horrible things pouring into the vacuum created by my unfinished work.

Today I woke up determined to do some Rebuilding. I had to slow down first. As always. It always starts there. Giving up my right to Accomplish Many Things. So we started slooooow. We did our chores. We went for a looooong slooooow walk.

We ate lunch.

We read books.

We drew pictures.

That's it. That's all I did today. At least, on the surface. But down deep in Judah's heart I was building all day. Laying the foundation of the man he's going to become one day-- by God's Grace. I praised his bike-riding. His strength. His endurance (he biked nearly four miles while I ran with Jamie in the stroller). I told him about scientists and their keen powers of observation when he noticed a funny kind of grass growing beside the path. "Hooray! I'm going to be a scientist one day!!"

And all the rest of the ride he noticed. Everything. I mean it. Ev. Erything. I was interested in him all day. I taught him that he is important to me, that I care about what he has to say, that I enjoy talking to him and listening. (I'm writing this post in 45 sec bursts, in between helping him with his snapping turtle play-do sculpture).

I know my work is not done because we had one good day. I know there will be plenty to knock down and tear out tomorrow, but I've been encouraged in my determination to Speak Truth into my children's lives. Partly because because I can see it working....




"Mom, sin is really tough to fight. When we try to fight it, we lose... but if we relax... if we relax down in... God can get up and fight it away for us. It's like a big wall in front and we relax down behind and God can *swooosh* fight off Satan for us.You know how in church? In Church we say dat when we sing and pray... Satan TREMBLES? You know dat? It's jist like dat."

Merman

 (this is the third in a series of posts I'm writing about my Water Babies. you might want to read part one, part two and part four)

Judah... Judah in the pool.

Oh my heart.

Of all our children, he is the one we most worry over. The one we pray God we don't ruin. He seems so easy to hurt. So hard to Shepherd. So hard to understand.

But in the pool, he is strong, confident, brave. He is happy.

When this child is in the water, he is all. the. way. in. He's the one I rarely see breathing. He often just floats, spread-eagle, face-down. He dives, strong arms, broad shoulders-- so like his daddy's, but so small. He's so thin and light, it's hard work to get to the bottom to fetch a diving stick. But he charges down, dolphin-kicking determinedly.

The water seems to fuel his imagination as it does Sofi's. He talks to himself continuously, narrating a hundred adventures and ballads. His imaginary friend, "Betend Friend" (B.F.'s been around since Judah first started talking, many moons ago), swims and plays and "talks" with him. He spends a lot of time upside down. He doesn't so much swim, as he just plays.. underwater... He hardly seems to acknowledge the difference between air and water, up and down are equal, there are no limits, no rules, no expectations. Here in the water he doesn't have to worry about spilling things, knocking things over, running into stuff. His absent-minded way of walking through life is totally fine, safe, acceptable-- in the water.

If only he could float, spread-eagle, face-down all through his life, staring off into the deep. I think he could always be this happy.

I live at the O.K. Corral

Getting the boys dressed in the morning has become a Ultimate Fighting Championship Event. The diaper changing, shirt putting-on and shoe-ing is punctuated with fisticuffs, gunfights and jousting.

One might ask, justifiably, if perhaps letting a nearly-five-year-old engage in fisticuffs with his baby brother might be a wee tad bit un-even of a fight. One would be wrong in this case. James is... scrappy. Very scrappy. He gives just about as good as he gets-- despite the fact that he's half Judah's size and weight.

He also has the advantage that he makes Jude nearly helpless with laughter. It's really hard to maintain the necessary Superhero-esque focus when a pint-sized fury is running at your knees, screaming "Waaaaargharg!!!!" Judah giggles uncontrollably as James takes him to the floor and pummels his stomach with both tiny fists.

They both love it. They revel in it. The testosterone is almost visible.

But this morning I think perhaps some guidance from an older, wiser and more chivalrous testosterone-producer may be in order after hearing this:



"Here Jamie, I'll be right back. You just shoot Mama instead for a few minutes till I get back."

Life With Boys

Judah is a very absent minded person. Most of the time this can be compensated for by my constant attention to keep him out of the path of cars, off the feet of other adults and out of the way of small children who might be bowled over if he simply walks right into them

But there are some situations where I cannot help him out much. For example, the bathroom. It's a twenty-to-one shot whether he actually pees INTO the toilet as he gazes vaguely all around the room, or possibly inscribes the arc of Superman's leap across the street from building top to sidewalk in pursuit of the latest villain.

Today, on a lightening-fast trip to the toilet (leaving Jamie unattended longer than 45 consecutive seconds these days is like playing Russian Roulette), I stepped, barefooted (it's Florida, after all) into a huge puddle of pee on the bathroom floor. Pants already unzipped, I splashed right. into. it, my jeans cuffs baptized with the fragrant liquid. I screeched, frantically shaking the drops from my foot, hopped out to the kitchen for a rag and some cleaner and limped back, mom-cursing the whole way. As I bent to mop up the deluge, I realize something...


I wasn't the only one who'd stepped in it.

Gross.

Blaaaaaaaaaaaaaaach.

So I spent the next twenty minutes hands-and-knees crawling around from one mud-pee footprint to another, *spray-wipe-blech*, all around the house.

And while I was down there, I figured I might as well try to scrub off the Sharpie marker Jamie decorated with this morning.

Teaching him to read.

Judah has always been far more verbal than I expected, being a boy and all. People re-assured me constantly, when he was an infant, not to expect him to talk as early or as fluently as Sofi had, since he was male. But he starting talking even earlier, and he really hasn't stopped since. It's made homeschooling him....interesting. A typical reading lesson, in which we are working our way through a word list of two-syllable words;


COMET

Judah: "Cah-mmm-eh--t. Comet. Whassa comet, Mama?"

Me: *explain*

Judah:  "I know what a shooting star is. There's a shooting star in Kipper, Mama. It's the episode where Kipper sees dat dragon. Remember dat, Mama?"


Me: *re-focus*

 Repeat.

Every word has to be explained and discussed, definitions given and examples created. In addition, we occasionally  run across a problem with his accent.

PUPPET

Judah: "Pp-UH-pp--EH--t. Puh-pEHt. Mama, wassa puh-pEH-t?"

Me: *explain*

Judah: "Oooooh! PuppIT. Puppit. Hahaha. PuppIT, puppEHt."

And then he'll get obsessed with the different vowel sounds and go on "PuppIT, puppEHt"--ing for quite some time. Also, "HusbAAnd, husbIIInd. HusbAAnd, husbIIIInd. HusbAAAAnd, husbIIInd....(etc.)"

And of course, in addition to all that, he's definitely a boy, despite his linguistic... uh... skills, so there are plenty of interruptions for noises, dramatizations and questions. Today's lessons came to an abrupt halt with:

VOMIT

Judah: "Vvv... AH...M... it. Vomit. Whassat, Mama?"

Me: *explain*

Judah: falls all over the couch, clutching his throat with one hand, while the other hand mimes vomit flowing from his mouth in copious rivers down the couch, all the while making the most graphic gagging sounds imaginable.

Me: may or may not have given up in gales of helpless laughter.

Talkin' to Gramma Sandy

(Sandy, sorry it took me so long to get this up for you!)

From Judah, for Violet

Hey Violet! Have you read THIS Mr Putter and Tabby book yet??? It's my FAVORITE!

Jamie, One Year Old (the Break-Your-Mama's-Heart-Edition)

Jamie got his first haircut the week after his first birthday. It's like that buzzer just shaved all the Baby off him and left a Judah Mini-Me in it's place.

I got so many adorable pics of the two of them playing in the yard the other day, I just couldn't choose which ones to post. So I just put 'em all up :)