change

I'm not jumping into anything. But I am slowly and prayerfully moving into what seems to be a new season and stage for us. I knew something was up, and we are SO ready for it.

I'm falling in love with homeschooling all over again. I'm learning so much about our endless possibilities. I'm getting more and more excited, looking forward to what we are setting off to do over the next 14 years together.

I'm starting to realize that (just like my Mom has always said) Zeek's smarts have a lot to do with his circumstances. The fact that I am here with him always. That we make learning fun of everything we do. That he is so thoroughly taken care of in every way.
I'm also starting to see that along those lines, and others, having an "only child" does have it's advantages, and I'm ready to leave my pity party and start celebrating our life.  

We have decided to take Zeek out of the play/pre school. It is time to steer back in the direction of what we believe and what we feel is right for us at this time. There are so many things that we could/should be doing in our position. So much to explore and be a part of. We are grateful that he did play school. It has been good for him. He has grown so much in it. We have all learned so much from it and are grateful to the wonderful hardworking teachers who took such good care of him while he was there.

Zeek has been asking to play soccer again for...ever, and we are looking into where and when he will be able to start.
We also joined an AMAZING mom's group that we met with today for the second time this week. They are incredible. This is parts of the intro on their website:

(We are) a parenting playgroup that combines small age specific home groups, family weekend events, Mom's night outs, and larger events for kids of all ages within a safe Christian environment for kids and parents to learn and grow in their relationship with God and eachother.
This is an environment where it is ok to talk about God if you want to, where there will be others that understand and want to hear about what He is doing in your life, where community will be built, and our kids can grow with the foundation we are comanded to raise them with...
...We hope in this environment we can encourage, teach, learn, grow, build relationships, and watch our cherrished gifts, our children laugh, play, and learn together. 


I mean, HELLO! Does it get better than this? 
Well, it turns out, after the amazing time we have spent with this group, IT DOES!!! They are incredible. Their vision for the group, the community aspect of unity and whole family involvement, the behavior and expectation of the adorable well guided children, the calm and relaxed, open and loving embrace is unbelievable. AND the majority of them are homeschoolers!!!!  
We had high hopes, but I never expected this. 

I have also never seen my son so at ease. He approached kids, talked with them, made up plans and did things with them. He laughed and played and behaved and didn't get hit or threatened or hear any trash talk or bad words. He even played with a 10 month old baby on his own! He was doing peek-a-boo and laughing with her! I had to check his head for a fever more than once. :)


I'm so pleased to have a refreshing new path in front of us. It feels so good and right, and that's saying a lot these days. 


Thank You God for putting up with me. Always.   

My Son,

Tonight, you threw a toy at the dog, again. I told you to give me the toy, that it was now mine. When you handed the toy to me I walked to the kitchen and put it in the garbage. You cried. For real. (You don't cry very much, and it was a junk toy that would have ended up in the garbage soon anyway)

I watched you for a while as you genuinely cried tears down your face, asking me to give you your toy back. I felt hope that this might actually matter enough to teach you a lesson for once.

A few minutes later I went upstairs with you (still crying) to get your room ready for you to sleep while you brushed your teeth. Once in bed I was a little concerned because you were still crying, real tears. I asked you if you were upset because you threw your toy at the dog. You said "yes" and cried harder.

So, I walked you through asking God for forgiveness, retouching on why we are forgiven and that it is a sure thing when we come to God sorry for our mistakes. (this is not a new topic for you)

But taking this action did not have the effect I expected. You were still very very sad and began to squeeze your chest with your fists (you tend to want to hurt yourself when you are mad).
I decided to teach you to redirect your need to let out this anger-energy of yours. I was telling you that you should punch your pillow instead of taking it out on yourself, and that's when I thought of something...

I asked you if you had forgiven yourself for throwing the toy at the dog. You said,
"no. i don't forgive myself."
I asked you why not and you said,
"i never forgive myself."
I asked you why and you said,
"because i don't like myself."

You went on to explain to me that you (think you) are bad. That you are not important or valuable.

And this should have been shocking for me to hear you say. It might have been if I didn't live with your Dad, who also doesn't like himself, and never forgives himself for anything. ever.
And I don't know if it's genetic, spiritual, learned, or what...but mark my words, it will not happen to you, my son. It. will. not.

We did some affirming Truth spoken out loud stuff. You repeated after me that you are good, you are special, you are worthy, you are a child of God, He created you and loves you very much, etc...
it was very hard for you to do, and every time you spoke the Truth about yourself, you cried and squeezed a little harder.

I asked you who told you that you are bad. You told me that you tell yourself that.
I told you that is not true, and when you say that in your head, heart, or out loud, you are speaking against yourself and the Truth. I reminded you that the devil wants you to believe lies so that you won't feel safe with God. I asked you to be very careful about what you believe. I told you that the Bible and the Spirit are full of lessons of Truth about who you are.

And tomorrow I will show you. We will start working on this; praying and speaking Truth about who you are. I will find everything the Bible says about you. I will read those Truths to you everyday. We will pick a few simple scriptures for you to remember. We will not let the enemy have this.

I'm so sorry that you don't like yourself. It's a knife in my heart that I can't describe to you. But I get it. And I know that your Heavenly Father will heal you and teach you through it.

Thank You God for showing me this. Please, have Your Way here.  

"good things come to those who wait"

That's what the card I made for Greg eleven years ago said. It was in reference to the way our time together had begun whether we liked it or not, and it's proven throughout our life together to often be the case, time and time again.

In a positive light, when we've waited for things in this life we have seen the benefits far outweigh the momentary joys of instantly getting what we've wanted.

It seems like our knee jerk reaction is usually stimulated by what other people tend to do and in what time frame.

If it's the way of the majority we find ourselves striving for status quo and thinking, "everyone else has a baby right after they're married" or "most people who ever leave their starter homes do it between five and six years" or "only strange people have just ONE child"...

That's where it starts, and then we move onto our own thoughts, "we aren't everyone else" and "we've never been held back by cultural or worldly standards" and "we ARE proud strange people"...
and then we do our very own patented brand of unusual, which usually amounts to waiting.

We don't LIKE to wait. But we know that we could jump and HAVE- or wait and RECEIVE. And we're loving on the gifts that God brings to us when we sacrifice having and wait on Him. In His time. In His Will.

From valuable safe vehicles and a starter home, to many of our belongings that we purchased for silly low prices far below what they sell for, to the precious miracle of Ezekiel, to this amazing house, to making further additions to our threesome, we have waited.

This is all relevant right now because another LONG waiting game in our life is about to expire.

Greg loves to ride motorcycles. He has wanted a Harley Davidson BADLY for the past seven years.

He could have gone out and bought any other bike 100 times over the past 7 years (i would have) just so he could at least fill his heart to ride. But he's wanted a Harley forever, and he knew anything he spent toward anything else would only delay his dreams that much farther. So he committed to waiting.

And yes, everyone we know who's wanted a bike has gone out and gotten one in the meantime. And I know how much that can sting. But in all of our experience on the waiting side we have learned that pain only proves to add motivation to the goal.

And as you may have guessed by now, in three days my husband is going to buy his first custom Harley Davidson bike. He has spent the last fourteen months searching. And he's spent the last couple of months considering, sitting on, smelling, feeling out, praying about, making arrangements and all around loving on one motorcycle in particular.
He has found "the one" and he will be making his big move on Tuesday!!! (it sounds like a wedding)

I'm so happy for and proud of him. I know what this means to him. I expect that he will be a completely changed man by the end of this summer, and scared as I am of that, I'm looking forward to it, for his sake.

Congratulations baby. You have waited this out like no one I know could have, and your reward is just around the corner.

G Force

We are working on you sleeping in your bed all night long, as I've written before.

I have been brainstorming ways to help you feel good in your room in the night. Enough that you will want to stay there if/when you wake up before morning.

We started with a CD player. You and I went shopping and picked out a nice Sony CD radio with a large digital read clock-front. Then we picked out a couple of books on CD for you. One was Tales of a Fourth Grade Nothing, by Judy Bloom (which we are going to see at the weidner center in a couple of months), and a dino-story-filled set as well.

YOU LOVE THEM. You spend a lot of your free time, rather than playing with cars anymore, laying in your bed on top of your covers listening to your CDs. Adorable.

But not quite good enough as you still come down in the night.

I tried to get Yuki to stay in your room all night. She loves to fall asleep in your bed when you are tucked in next to her listening to us read to you. But she comes right down to be tucked into her cage when we got to bed. So that doesn't work.

You watched and loved G Force a couple of weeks ago (a new movie full of action hero guinea pigs). We also went to see and LOVED The Chipmunks squeakuel over the weekend. So I had small fuzzy rodents on the mind in hopes and wonder of making your room more stay-able and cozy for you.

AND your fish tank needed a real make over. BAD.

So, after your first day of Friday morning play school I took you to the pet store to have a little looksee. :)

We got eight new baby fish, an awesome Horton-Hears-A-Who-gone-sea type algae ball thingy, and... ta-ta-da-da!!! A new sweet baby girl guinea pig!!!

You picked her. I told you that you could have rats, mice, hamsters, gerbils, or a guinea pig. You picked "Guinea". That's what you named her.

With new books on CD, an awesome looking fish tank, and an adorable little baby girl nibbling away you would think that you would stay put...

well, not quite. yet.

keep workin' this angle, kid. we'll see how much you can get out of this deal. :)

we'll get there.

Thursday: Date Day

You and I are going out together on Thursdays. We haven't been doing that a lot since we moved here, and it's time to start. So Thursdays are date days.

You don't much like to leave the house. I tried to get you to go to the library and out for ice cream with me the other day, and you were horrified. :( We waited for the next day. You are like your Mom and Dad. And this huge fully stocked "vacation-like" house does not help matters.

So, for our first outing we invited our friends, Afton and Miss Bethany. They met us at your favorite bowling alley in town for some bumper bowling. You bowled a lot last year with some boys from your YMCA gym and swim class, and you've always liked it.

You and Afton were SO cute. She looked like a Chipette from the Chipmunks. She was dancing and twirling and wiggling like crazy. She is SUCH a girl! :)

You were, well... such a boy. If you didn't knock down what you wanted to you would turn around with a display scowl and grunt "that wasn't supposed to happen." :) Your ball rolling throwing was great, too. Once you started doing well you were VERY happy with yourself.

You were polite and humble and let Afton "run the show" without any complaints, which I loved.
And then we all went over to Hardeez (your favorite) for lunch and some more play.

Afterward, you got your hair CUT. You haven't let Barb cut only "trim" your hair since we moved here. This time you wanted a mohawk, again. I refused (because you never want it once you're home and you made me cut the last one out a week after you got it). But you did get a stylish little JCrew, runway looking cut, and it's adorable. :)

We went to "war-mart" after that. You fell asleep in the cart! Got a lot of attention from people in the store for that trick. And then we went and bought your cd clock radio at Best Buy.
It was a fun day.
This week I'm hoping we can do something outside!

kitty said what?

So, one day Greg said we should get Zeek a cat. He has loved them SO much for SO long, it's almost wrong that he doesn't have one.
My response.
no way.

Then Zeek watched and loved The Lady and the Tramp... and the husband gives the wife the little dog in the Christmas package...and i got to thinking.
So, I brought it back up with Greg. How sweet it would be to have a little kitty in a wrapped gift box for our cat loving boy on Christmas morning. How excited and surprised he would be.

And then we realized that Becky, Mark, Levi, and Cedar are all very allergic to cats. :( And for all we know, other people who we like to have over are allergic as well.

So, we decided that we need to continue to prioritize the humans over the felines. To keep the house open, available, and suitable to everyone. Thus, no cat in a box for baby big boy. :(

The pooping cat (candy dispenser) was the best I could do. And my brilliant Mom gave him a purring mewing stuffed cat, too.
I kept open the thought process of an outdoor Tom cat rescue in the spring as an option (we have an obscene amount of chipmunks here), and for the time being, that was pretty much that.

Then, somewhere around three days after Christmas a grown grey and white cat showed up at our door. She was so definitely an indoor cat, plump, fluffy and of course, wanting to come indoors.
My response.
NO WAY.

But it was 18 bellow zero. So I decided to at least send out a little can of tuna for her. She loved it and went on her way into the night.

A couple of days later she showed up again (no doubt looking for tuna). This was the first time Zeek got his eyes on her. I went outside and pet her a little (no food this time). And on her way she went again.

The third time she came we decided to give her some of Yuki's wet food to see if she'd like it. She did.
Zeek pet her. She ate, putted, and off she went.
Zeek was worried about her in the night (i was not because she has survived the first VERY cold evening just fine). But we put a nice thick box outside under the deck with blankets and water for her...just in case.

I still don't know if she uses it to this day. We kind of tucked it in a safer closed in area, and Lord knows we don't go out there very often in this weather.
But we did buy our cat some cat food. We did delegate her a bowl of her own. And we do put food out for her.
She eats about a cup every other day. Sometimes we even get to see her and play with her a little.
OUTSIDE, where she will stay.

Zeek loves having a cat. And i feel like it was a little blessing for our obedience to sacrifice having this for Zeek so that we could remain welcoming with open doors.

God must have wanted him to have a cat too. Minus the gift wrap. ;)

Closet Gaming Mama

Last night I played Xbox360, The Kingdom of the Keflings, cooperative, live-online with Tony for about six hours. It was the best time I've had in a LONG time.

I love video games, but I'm particular about what kind. I don't like the average war/gun/racing/sports game type. I love most games that are creation-based: Sims, Sim City, Restaurant Guru, Tetris...

In the morning Greg and Zeek were playing and they found this awesome Keflings game. They called me in to check it out, assuming it was up my alley. 10 minutes later I was finished with the tutorial in the demo and purchasing and uploading the full version to the system.

In. Love.

So, when my brother called me, hence walking right into my snare last night, it was all over!
I throughly enjoyed my Mom's famous cookies fresh out of the oven, pajamas, pizza, water, Tony, live chat, co-op village building, on 65 inches with surround sound until 12:30am bliss!
Who could ask for more?

One Seriously Satisfied Closet Gaming Mama

our new themed schedule

Today was the first of our "days of the week" theme. For the next couple of months we are doing something specific to enhance our schedule, experiences, and life... Some of the things will be doing are learning orientated for Zeek, or family orientated for all of us, or cleaning/organizing/home beautifying, etc...
And I am loving it! 


With the "new year"-fresh slate-resolution kind of feeling I began brainstorming to come up with a way to motivate and inspire me to get a move on some of the ever growing list of things I'd like us to do in our home and homeschooling.

I’ve learned over time about myself that I really can’t do much of the same thing for TOO long. I can do things passionately just fine for a period of time. But when it’s over, it’s over, and I need a fresh change...I need to craft something more inline with where I am in each season. So this will be revised when that time comes. No guilt, no pressure. Just a loose guideline. 

So far I have decided on this much:

Monday mail: where zeek and I will each prepare something to send to someone. Letter, craft, gift, photos, a hand me down...


Monday make over: where I will chose a room each week that will get a little face lift, be it deep cleaning, rearranging, sorting/purging, added organization, or just a piece of art...


And of course, there's Monday mom’s night: which has always been. Greg has guys night out, and I watch my two favorite recorded evening dramas with something scrumptious to eat and tasty to drink after Zeek goes down for the night. :)

Then Tuesday Treasure Hunt: which will be anything from Zeek doing a reading guided paper hunt, or “bucket everything on this list” hunt, to a full fledged family scavenger hunt in the afternoon. (we LOVE to do these anyway)

Wednesday is going to be Worship and Word Wednesday: I will read the Bible to Zeek in the morning when I do my own devotion time (he has a daily devotion in his school work schedule too), we will do some Worship time together. At night we will have a family devotional (which we so need to incorporate into our lives anyway, now that Zeek is old enough)

I have nothing for Thursday yet, but I usually go out that night with the girls, so I will have to come up with a day time thing.

Friday is Food Fun: picnic, or something like a culture related dinner theme with decorations and or dress up, music, etc... I’d like to invite a family of guests one Friday a month to join us, as well.
And Friday Family night: a game, movie, popcorn, together craft, or an evening out bowling or something fun.

Then it's Story Saturday. Eternally. I want to teach Zeek how to create books. Picture, story, recipe, field journals... I think having a sort of “free day” otherwise delegated to work on it will get the ball rolling nicely.

And finally, Shopping Store Sunday. Zeek needs to learn money. We’re just going to make a little shop for him where we will sell different things (things we already own, toys, and sometimes snacks, or ingredients to a desert we can cook in the end, etc...) 


I'm looking so forward to all the fun we will have doing this new and exciting schedule of activities. 


Today we did our letters to Auntie Judy (or as Zeek wrote Ante Jode). Zeek loved folding his letter, licking the envelope, sticking on the stamp, and walking it out to the mailbox with me. :)

I did the room make over in the craft room. With a little cleaning, organizing the organization, and purging, it is looking so cute and fresh. 


Next: Mama's night! 
WHOOO-HOOOO! HERE I COME! :)

it's a lego life

You got about eight new lego boxes for Christmas. I was not sure what to do with them all, but I KNEW I wasn't about to let them become wandering, aimless, chew options for the Yook. There had to be SOME kind of organized storage containment for them all.

I scoured the internet in search of the smartest lego storage out there. I was surprised to find that even Lego doesn't sell anything brilliant for them.

So, we finally settled on these, from Walmart:

They are three different towers that can (and likely will need to) be added to in the future. The drawers come out easily and can be transported to other areas of the house for play.

We are storing each set in it's own drawer big enough for the completed construction or just the pieces. We have the instruction books in one of the thin top drawers and the green base squares in the other.

It is just what we needed! :)

your first expenditure

While we were at Target the other day, checking out the toy department for after Christmas sales, I gave you a $20 bill to spend on your own for the first time ever.

Usually, when we are in a toy section of a store you don't even ask for anything. Once in a while you will tell me you like something, but you don't act like it's all for you.

Well, armed with $20 of your own, you were an entirely different boy. You were touching and considering EVERYTHING. You changed your mind about a thousand times, finally falling head over heals for this imaginex water grouping complete with scuba guys and tackle.

It was on sale half off, so you were able to replace your desert Lightning McQueen at $3.99 as well. 

You put your stuff up and said, "on the conveyor belt, right?"

Your Daddy and i hung back with our purchases to watch you. 
"$19.95", the sales lady told you. And up came your $20 bill. 
She gave you your change, asked where you wanted your receipt. You took it and stuck it in your big red bag anyway.
Then off you went, ready for home. :)
When the Packer season is over, which will hopefully not be until after the super bowl ;) I am going to start Store Sundays. Every Sunday we are going to set up a little pretend store. I will have products that we own (some treats for you to enjoy) on sale with prices. You will be able to go through the store, chose your items, and then check out.

We will start slow with adding prices to pay for with unlimited money (you have A LOT of real money to play with). Then we will let you use a certain amount of money and add your items costs as you chose them.

Sometimes we can trade places and you can be the cashier.

You love coins, but you are struggling to care what each is called or is worth. This will be our "homeschool" approach to teaching you money, and adding it.

I can't wait to start! :)

i'm feeling dreamish

thank you cards

After Christmas we made thank you cards to send out. We used an adorable photo of you in your dino box costume.

I photoshopped out the box markings, added a white paper look and the words. I left the spaces for you to address the names and sign your own.

You did a great job writing them in place of your writing for school, and they were in the mailbox just days after Christmas.

You have done thank you cards for Christmas every year. It's important to us that you learn to give tokens of gratitude to people who do nice things for you. We will be working on this more and more now that you are learning to write.

talky-talky

“{Sigh} this crooked world!”

“Um Mom! Apparently Dad is coming back home right now.”

me: well, go check upstairs
zeek: I’m pretty afraid goin’ up there by myself.
me: well turn on a light.
zeek: aaaaalriiiiight. Ya’ big ol’ knooower!
Later.
zeek: aaa. I’m afraid it’s not in there, mom.

"Only the packers get touchdowns, right? Cuz the cardinals aren’t any good."

me: it’s breakin’ my heart.
zeek: anyone who breaks your heart, I’m going to break their heart. And fight with them a little.

Upon waking, Zeek says to me, “let me go! I wanna go see what my Dad’s up to.”

While I’m trying to put the tracks back on his lego digger he says,
“the conveyor belt is really hard to contrapt, you know?”

“I’m just boring boring boring with no tattoos like my Dad. He has hundreds of tattoos. Why won’t anyone give me any tattoos!?” 

To my not-so-tiny sweetness,

Today, I wrote this to a friend who I do "three things" with:


Three things I MISS about my “little” boy turned big.

1. the way he wanted ME more than anything in the world. ALWAYS. Today he woke up, untangled himself from my arms and said, “move, I gotta go see what my Dad is up to!” :(
2. the sweet way he looked at me like I was the most beautiful, intelligent, amazing, princesest, fabulous woman alive. Today, I’m lucky if he sees anything but through me on his was past my boring, rule enforcing, food making, otherwise nothingness, shell of a woman. :(
3. the way I understood every little thing there was about him and how it got there. Today, I barely recognize my own kid and what he’s made of. Not that it’s bad stuff, it’s just so HIM and not me or us at all. Just BOY and ZEEK. Fast and furious and full of stuff I didn’t put in there. It hurts. 

Tonight it is just you and me. Your Daddy is held up at work with a catastrophe that he called us at around noon for prayer about. :( It will probably be a late night for him.

Today was a mix for us. I'm not sure if you have the weird sleepy cold thing I have or if you are just reacting to me having it, but you are a piece of work. Off and on with sweet and sass. All day long.

You like to try to wear big daddy sized pants, and it gets you into a lot of trouble. You say things like, "good, now get it out of my face" and you like to rebuttal to my discipline with threats like, "I'll send YOU to your room!"

I have been consistently working on you about your lip and how you talk to you Mom. I honestly think you don't fully understand. And I'll take the blame for that. I guess.

In between sassy you have been SO sweet. Cuddly a little. Friendly for sure.

When I got out of the shower and dressed today I was laying on the bed in my room just thinking. You came in and compassionately asked, "what's the matter, Mama?" You crawled up to cuddle me and I assured you nothing was wrong. I was just resting and thinking. You were giving me love and you touched my hair. You said, "well, you didn't take a shower so why do you smell like tangerines?"

I just hadn't washed my hair, but I DO use tangerine body wash. :)

Tonight, I told you that you could sleep in my bed with me since Daddy wasn't going to be here. You were very excited. Later you did some more sassing to me while we were sorting your legos into their new storage containers. I told you that you would not be sleeping in my room if you couldn't talk nice. You kept up the sass, so I decided to have you write as a consequence for the first time.

I gave you your lined paper and a pencil and told you to sit at the table and write mama a note telling me you were sorry and you wouldn't do it again.

I worked on your dinner while you wrote at the table. You were so diligent and adorable with your tongue out, I had to take a photo. of course.

You asked me how to spell "you" and I told you. And later you asked what to put at the end. I said "who are you? you just write who you are, like signing your name."

This was your letter:

Translation:

dEr mome (dear mommy)

i Em sorE (i am sorry)

i WL B GD (I will be good)

I Luv YoYou (i love you)

I eM A sBeShAL BY Zip (i am a special boy. zip) 

SO special. I LOVE it.

and you are sleeping in my bed as I type this. :)

You are getting so big. It is hard to let go of the "little" things about you. But I am learning to enjoy the many new "big" things that you can do now that you never did in your cuddly, sweet, Mama's boy days.

I love you, Special Boy, Zip.

summer in january

it's funny how much it feels like summer in here. the light in the windows, which we don't usually have in the summer because of the tree coverage, makes everything feel so warm and endorphin-y.

the three of us and God. yuki and this house... warm and endorphin-y, too.

today we had a tasty breakfast, built another giant lego design, and i just finished cleaning the house for company. greg and zeek are playing video games downstairs and i'm about to shower. we are going to see the chipmunk movie and picking up some lego storage containers and art supplies. then the fusons are coming over for dinner with the kids. it's been too long.

and it all feels so much like summer

ezekiel

you are growing up so fast i can not even stand it or believe it.
you are so tall.
your actions are so personal and specifically "you".
you are saying things that are all yours, too. not the way you used to, when you would make something cute up. no. things i can more consistently characterize as your things.

you are SUCH a boy.

you want to race cars and "ka-chow!"
you love to speed and zoom and crash and you are so bellowing and commanding. not really in a loud way, just in an all guy kind of way. :)

you sing EVERYTHING in a rap-like dictation. you're playing "da-da-da-daddy car" or eating "ch-ch-chereos!" or "watch me drive fast fast FASTER!!!"

you love chereos. all of them. yogurt, fruity, honey nut, banana nut, regular...
you love feta cheese THE MOST. you love chicken cheddar cheese nibblers, and mac n cheese, and spaghetti, meatballs, pb&j, and fish fingers!!! :)
you are eating a little more like Uncle Tony than like Withering Zeeky, now a days.
sometimes i don't know where you are putting it all. :)

you play xbox360.
you love to play our iphone applications.
you love to watch Kipper the dog, Diego, Dinosaur Train, Wow wow wubzy...
you LOVE doing artsy things.
you love to play with Yuki.
you love Steve your stuffed dog and greenie your moving mewing cat.
legos, matchbox cars, tracks of any kind...

you love info-mercials. especially oxy clean, which you call "opsy clean", and the toothpaste dispenser that hangs on the wall. both of which we have bought for you.

you love to learn. you do school a little less enthusiastically but that's because you aren't a compliant guy. you'd rather not do something that someone else wants you to. ever.

you can count to 100 with very little guidance (mostly at the ten stops).
you are reading (lesson 55 in teach your child to read in 100 easy lessons).
you are learning money and adding. we are waiting for your math-u-see primer program to come in. you are too ready for it.

you are still in "play school" two days a week for three hours a day. we are considering starting you three days a week soon. you like it a lot, but you are very particular about who you play with and talk to. you don't like to just jump into things at play school. you are skeptical and a little leery.

i feel bad for you when you struggle with the boys. you're not big on the rambunctious, hyper, kick butt kind of behavior they display with one another. you don't watch the things that they watch on TV, or play the things they play in video games, so all that aggression isn't yours.
you also don't see people talking mean to others. so being called "kid" in a derogatory way by another kid hits hard.
i wonder if you think there is something wrong with you because you don't get it.
because you don't want swords and guns and fists and meanness.
i wonder if i'm doing something wrong keeping you (a boy) from those things for the most part.

my main intention in steering clear of it is to stay consistent with the "he who is first is last and he who is last will be first" molding. i can't imagine that fighting, swording, shooting, lipping off or taking aim at someone else in anyway to fire off so they will lose, fake-die, be hit, hurt, punished, pushed away, turned away, etc... would be good training for your heart.
everything you're allowed to do is practice right now. practice for the man you are growing into.

we are influenced in our minds and hearts by what we see. people don't see things differently. we all see the same thing. it's what we DO with what we've seen that's different. i want you to remain humane. i want bad things being done to people "for real" or not, to disgust you. not enthuse.
and it's one of the very few things i am sure of. one of the things i'm willing to be wrong about rather than slide and compromise on.

you go to bed at night between 6:30 and 7:30 depending on how you hang. you have NO problem going to bed or to sleep. you get your jams on, brush your teeth, say goodnight to which of us isn't reading to you. then we pick books, get in your bed, pray, coodle and talk a little usually, then read. you fall asleep SO fast. like, within minutes. and you sleep until between 6:30 and 7:30. funny. i never put together that 12 hour on the dot time span. :)

you are a GOOD sleeper. but you do get up once in the night, sometime between midnight and 4am. and every night you come down to our room to snuggle in with us.
i love this because i get to wake up with you all wrapped up in my arms. but honestly, at four years old, we are trying to figure out a way to teach you to sleep in your room all night. we are not going to make you, or tell you that you can't come down.
that would not be consistent with our style at all. (aka: we can't handle the thought of you being on your own and sad. not proud, but true.)
we'll figure it out. together.
you're smart, and capable. :)


and hot off the press; you are no longer interested in me. :( in fact, if it weren't for food and drink you would hardly have anything to do with me these days.
Mama = Boring. Rules. Discipline.
I don't get coodles, snoogles, loovin', or kisses unless i take them. and even then they are briefly tolerated.
you don't even want me to read to you at night anymore. you ask for your Daddy.
it is sad and hard for me.
i miss you.
baby boy.

HAPPY New Year

New Year

New Plans

New Heart

New Season

New Perspective

New Hopes

New Dreams

New Intentions

I never do resolutions. But this year I have some:

get fully purged from top to bottom.
stay that way.

end distracting myself.
schedule scantly and focus on God, Zeek, and Greg FIRST.

provide a bird feeding refuge outside.

do at least one creative photo album for me.

make the quilt.

grow things.