rockinbabies

Birthday Stars

(Jude, Age 2, our Carrboro apartment, 2007)

   Jude has been doing this funny thing lately where he closes himself in the laundry area and looks out the window. He has always had a penchant for peace and quiet. When he was littler (see above) he would crawl into the cabinets and shut himself in only to giggle and sit quietly in their dark insides. Now that he is almost 7 (!!), I usually see a flash through the kitchen and notice the door just as it is clicking closed right around the witching hour of dinner-cooking-Ambrose-dancing-baby-screaming-6-o-clock. I love that he has found a corner that he can feel is his own. The Laundry Room is a place where he can collect his thoughts and have some peace. I have closed the door on that back room myself a few times since the brood got bigger. It is a nice little haven. 

(Jude, age 6.9999999, our Laundry room, Nashville, TN, 2012)

We started the "countdown" of "Jude's-hours-left-as-a-6-yr.-old" on the way home from school today. And all evening I have been watching him let the whole idea settle. I love how he really thinks on things. He has always been this way. Ideas really sink in for him and I can actually "watch" him carry them around and turn them over and over again as he processes what he heard or saw throughout the day. It is a really cool thing to watch. He is quiet, thoughtful, and sometimes seems completely aloof. And yet nothing is ever lost on his little mind and he always surprises us later by sharing a reflection or making a remark that proves he was not only listening with his ears but also with his heart. We read earlier this week in school about how St. Benedict calls us to listen with the "ear of our heart". Jude seems to do this instinctually, naturally, without effort. I am inspired by him as I watch and want to learn how to do it more myself.

Tonight, after letting him have a good while by himself in his secret "room", I quietly knocked on the door and asked if I could join him. He put his arm around my neck and pulled me towards the back window. We were watching the sunset and he pointed out a bright star-like planet stuck in the middle of the sky, smack in front of our faces. "See!" he said. "It is my Birthday Star set out just for me on the Eve of my Birthday!" There was no explaining this idea away for him. It was just plain fact. When I said something about it being a planet his assurance and delight only doubled, "A whole planet!" and then in a happy whisper, "wow."

  And again I delight in his instincts : to look out on something beautiful that God has put out in the night sky and see it as a gift, particularly and lavishly given, a bright and sure sign that God is loving and rejoicing in the simple fact that you exist (Jude) and that it is your birthday. And I feel that. All the time I do. Happy Birthday Little Jude.

It is almost someone's birthday over here....

And while we do the offical minute to minute countdown, it is worth commenting on the progress of that famous Lego Winnebego...

With a little help and a lot of tolerance (Ambrose is a bit of a "crowder" when he JUST wants to get right in your face and help..right in your grill..),

Jude managed to finsih up most of the Lego Vanagen this past weekend. He is a miracle worker. I even freaked out silently a few times. But he remained pretty calm and collected and paced on through until dinner time. What a dude.

Lazzzzz

This guys...

captures hearts.

So much so that Brosie had to make a portrait of him.

Practically perfect in every way.

Big Light Records

 

We are in the midst of some good things cooking around here...all to be discussed right around the corner. But the best perk of all has been the fact that these new projects puts us in the company of some of our very favorite peaople. Saturday night found us attempting to catch Bryan, Keeg, and the rest of Roman Candle on video for some "explaning" but it ended in a lot of laughing and a little video. I think we even woke Ambrose up.

Anyways, there were more than a few minutes when I looked up to see all of us siblings and friends in our new "grown up" states still sharing the room and world and the same laughter that we have had the fun of sharing for a handful of decades now. It felt lucky and I am grateful.

These other shots are just Lazzy refusing to be ANYWHERE but in Uncle Logan's lap whenever he comes over. I say thislightly but LAz is as serious as a heart attack. You try to take that kid away and he screams like you pulled out his eyebrow hair. Amazing.

"Brosiedon"

Getting Ambrose to sit down and finish his dinner is a nightly battle of patience, will, and a pathetic fight forthe last hanging shreds of our parental sanity. The trouble lies in Brosie's personal and unalterable "pace" by which he lingers, nudges, and peruses the contents of every meal. It is not unusual for Jude to have finished dessert, brushed his teeth, be in his pajamas and waiting with a story by the time that Ambrose is rounding the bend of his second pile of dinner food. Maddening becomes a thought.....

 

 

And yet I am always bent back towards his maddening little "pace" by the details of how he fills his "table-time", particularly when I engage in his thoughtful and intentional dinner conversations. Tonight's topics: The animals he knew (ant eaters, bears, a chicken, puppies) and their Notable physical features ( A quote: " an ant eater is much like a badger except they don't have identical eyeballs"), how a chicken gets from the farm to the grocery store to our table ( again, a quote: " I think they grab that chicken by the head and then flatten his head into a round oval. Then they take that right off and wrap him in plastic so he will be ready for us when we get to Trader Joes."), or just the silly details of how sweaty his forehead is or how much he dislikes the "white parts" of his lettuce. 

All of it-- every single inch-- is told with gusto . And for that I guess I can just sit right back, relax, listen, and enjoy the minutes as thy tick, tick, tick on by...

Getting Ambrose to eat his dinner is a nightly practice of patience, will, and holding tightly to the last inch of our parental sanity. The funny thing is that his "resistance" is usually just a matter of having his own "pace". And, of course, at the end of a day with dinner being the last detail and children dropping like flies around him, his "pace" becomes a bit of an issue.

 

 

 

 

New Slates

He told me he had a "surprise" to give me and that he needed a few extra minutes before bedtime. When I walked in and saw that he had cleaned off the Lego desk I kind of panicked thinking I might have scared him into thinking I truly held cleanliness as my highest delight. No one wants a clean freak as a Mama. Silly but it's true. But then I saw in him the simple joy of having a workpace clear and ready for the next creation. He was absolutely thrilled and it had nothing to do with me at all. Such a pure delight for him. He jumped up on the desk and laid flat down across it. It was a tactile happiness and I "got" that. See the confusion, clear the space, see what you imagine, make it happen. In a lot of ways we are all right there, right now.

Next step: Jump your highest right off the top of it!

Family Values

Apparently, knowing how to use a guitar is a "Life Skill" in our family...

Count em. 1,...

 

 

2,...

3!

And yet, every single one of those rock axes was thrown to the side like a floppy washcloth in the wind once Uncle Logan came over last night. I actually had to duck to avoid being womped by the enthusiastic discard of Lazzy.

 

And then a whole new kind of mayhem ensued...

perfect.

New Baby Tricks

Time to paint the dining room...

I took my little helper with me this morning to buy a gallon of paint for our dining room. He was pretty much completely adorable and fantastic for about, well...ten minutes.

And then he went ahead and emptied the entire bottom two rows of this paint swatch section in what seemed like the blink of an eye. Seriously..I mean "blink"..."blink"...Swooooooooosh.

Ha. Real funny. Real, real funny.

That was nothing compared to the squeeling-pajama-footed-maniac-cougar-cub that writhed in my right arm while I pushed a loaded cart to the front of the store with my left arm, somehow made it through the check out with out him busting loose and falling to the ground before we made it through the sliding glass doors with all eyes on me (yes!) only for him to decide "oh, what a great time to become cuddly and calm and suck my thumb on your shoulder all the way to the car". Ah, parenting. Sometimes I think they are just playing me like a looony fiddle. Woof.

SeeMeRead!

For all of the hulla-ballullah that I give Ambrose for being my most "chatty-constantly-interrupting-every-conversation/lesson/bathroom trip/moment-of-silence-I-have Kid, for all of the moments during our school-time where he is requesting peeled bannana after peeled bannana and standing on his head in the arm chair, and for every time I have to shake my head and let my eyeballs rattle around in my face just to remember whatever I was trying to explain in the first place...well, I have to give him some massive props today for blowing my mind.

As soon as we launched in to the school day Brosie sauntered in, sat down across from Jude as if it was the most normal thing in the world (to sit in the chair on his butt, of course. And without an immediate request for food, no less) and then he picked up his dry-erase board and gave me a message: "See me read!" Ha! Are you kidding me?! No. Way. No....Way. Apparently, as he went on to exhibit in a board full of perfectly spelled words and two or three sentences ( I will admit to bragging here but I am also just a little bit stunned which I think lends some sort of clemency). Again, my eloquent and thoughtful immediate response: "Well I'll be darned. Look at that."

Guess I should have seen this coming. For weeks now he sits in the car right beside Jude and mouths out the sounds to every sign on the road and every word in the car-book of choice. But now the facts are clear: He has been totally hazing me. Pretending to bounce off the walls and cartwheel through every lesson and yet the whole time he was preparing to walk in, write down some sentences, and join the world of readers and writers with the ease and irony of a heel-click and a wink. Sounds pretty "Ambrose" to me.