For Posterity's Sake: Week in Review 124

photo from recent visit to the Indianapolis Art Museum

Friday, before going to bed, Audrey asked that I keep the doors unlocked - just in case Peter Pan stopped by. She had tucked Peter Pan into her library tote during our last visit, and she and Jason spent several toasty nights curled into a nest of pillows and blankets by the fire reading the chapters before he left for a week in Brazil, requesting that we not finish the book while he was gone.

By Friday, Audrey was sure Peter would make a house call. I fielded questions regarding Lost Boys and the degree to which they were lost and the nature of jealousy in women, particularly mermaids and fairies. I couldn't help but feel stung by irony as my little ones begged for more chapters (against their father's will) about children clinging double-fisted to their youth as mine proved daily how hell-bent they are to grow-up (dragging me, clutching their suddenly-too-short pant legs, in their wake). Irony is ageless. My little ones, however, are leaving Neverland behind.

Our stories from the week past:

Nate is growing his vocabulary. His latest additions include "Love, love, love" and "moose" - so far, not used together. But regardless of any verbal limitations, he seems to get his point across just fine. Early this week I was awaken by the little man standing by my bedside. He was playing his castanet. I opened my eyes. He handed me my cell phone (my version of a watch) and my glasses. Point made.


Tuesday night, I set the security alarm. Wednesday morning, Audrey beat me downstairs. The alarm was bleating a siren's yell before I hit the bottom step.

"Who was trying to go outside?" I asked after disarming the alarm.

"I wasn't trying to go outside," Audrey said. "I was just letting a bug out. I didn't kill it. It was just a baby bug and I was wanting it to have a little of a life."


Thursday, I came downstairs from putting Nate down for a nap to find Audrey playing dead.

"When you came down, I was pretending I was dead," she said.

"That's not very nice," I said.

"Why?"

"Because if you were dead, I wouldn't be able to play with you or hug you again."

"You could still hug me," she said. "I just wouldn't hug you back."


Friday morning, Audrey (once again) put her boots on the wrong feet.

"Your boots are on the wrong feet," I said.

"I always put them on the wrong feet," she said, sighing audibly.

"And someday, you'll always put them on the right feet."

"And then I'll get tired of that?" she asked.


Jack, for his part, tries to sneak out the baby gate; if successful, tries to sneak up the stairs; tries to sneak his brother's sippy cup and the crumbs that drop from the table; and is sneaking closer to being a boy and less of a baby every day. It's troublesome. It leaves me itching for some pixie dust - and a visit from Peter Pan.

For Posterity's Sake: Week (Humor Me) in Review 123

Well, crap. Audrey said something funny last night, but dinner was being brought to the table and I forgot to write it down. I remember Jason and I laughing and exchanging glances in a we-must-control-ourselves sort of way, which leads me to believe she attempted to say something quite grown-up, quite wrong. Now, the moment has passed me by.

I have begun this post several times, but in an attempt to not let Christmas, or Jason's vacation, pass me by, I've yet to get it all down. Now, back to an ordinary Tuesday, I feel a heft upon me that I imagine the local librarians must feel after returning from Christmas break to find the return chute jammed and the book carts teeming. The awaiting material is immense and Dewey hasn't laid my groundwork. So let's get down to the stacks, so we can move on at a more reasonable clip, shall we? The post, how it began the first time:

This summer, Jason grew red chili peppers. He mentioned drying them. After noting how they were strung from the doorways of shops in Rome, I came home, threaded a needle through the stems of our crop, and dangled the spicy necklace from a hook I attached to the window frame above the kitchen sink. Audrey told me it was cool.

Yesterday, she nearly smacked into me, breathless. "Mom, the peppers are ruined! You let them get ruined."

"Is that what Dad said?" I asked.

"No," she said. "You know how my sheets get wrinkled and I have to fix them and make my bed?" I nodded, confused. "The peppers are like my sheets. They're wrinkled. They aren't good anymore. You let them get wrinkled."

I should have told her the peppers were okay. I meant to. I might have. I don't remember. What I do remember are images of one of the strangest metaphors I've ever heard turning themselves over in my mind: shriveled red chili peppers and a little girl's wrinkled lavender sheets.

I remembered those two non-like things clumped together later as I dashed off to run errands. The last of the Thanksgiving dishes were finally washed and stowed, the holiday (and Jason's vacation days) were coming to a close, and I couldn't help but think ahead. If a to-do list could make a person itch, mine was crawling with bugs. Jason said he'd take the older kids to the neighborhood playground if I took Jack with me to run errands. I agreed. I packaged a gift for delivery, wrote a card, slipped a hat and blanket on a sleeping Jack, and restocked the diaper bag. By the time I pulled out of the driveway, Jason was waving to me from the backyard, just back from the playground. My cell rang five minutes later. "You forgot something important," he said. I checked my loaded passenger seat: package to be mailed, gift to be dropped off at a friend's, bags for grocery shopping, coupons.

"What did I forget?" I asked.

"Jack. He's in his car seat on the floor."

Sometimes, the holidays are like that: a juxtaposition of objects that don't go together - time meant for family and a to-do list that leaves them behind, even when I don't intend to.

I pulled into my subdivision two-and-a-half hours later, greeted by the newly strung Christmas lights of my neighbors. My first thought was that hanging lights might not get crossed off the list this year. But as I watched the lights play across their new landscape, I thought of the first lights: torches and lanterns used to guide one's steps, allowing a person to see clearly only what was before him. The narrow scope of those first lights would have forced the bearer to focus only on those objects directly in front of him - a fact I couldn't help but recall as I lit the candle that sits in the middle of our kitchen table and sat down with my family for dinner, focusing on those illuminated before me.

Our moments from the last two months:

Every child-rearing adult has their own method for convincing the kids around their dinner table to finish the food on their plates. My mother liked to employ the "eat three more bites" technique. At my neighbor's house, we strove to be members of the "clean plate club." Jason uses a tactic I call storytelling. One night, he tried to convince Audrey to eat her corn by informing her that if she ate it, she would see it again the next morning. She cleaned her plate. The next morning she walked out of the bathroom clearly disappointed by her lack of performance. "I wanted to see that corn!" she said.

Last week, she was asking Jason questions about Aladdin at dinner. "Why did he have to steal to eat?" she asked.

"Sometimes, kids don't eat all their pizza and talk through dinner, instead, so their parents kick them out on the street and they have to find their own food," he said.

"Oh. That's weird," she said. "So, how did he live without his parents?"

"He was raised by the monkey."

"Why did the genius (genie) make the tower fall down?" she asked.

"He was a mad genius," Jason said.

As always, when it comes to stories (or thoughts) on her mother, Audrey always has her own take:

One afternoon as Jason was watching college football, I was feeding Jack on the couch. A commercial for Xbox Yourself Fitness came on. "Isn't that what you used to do in Herrin?" he asked.

"I think so. I'm not gonna lie; it was a good workout," I said.

"I know. You did it all the time," he said.

"She lied all the time?" Audrey asked.

"Mom, you're clever," Audrey said randomly, sitting at the kitchen table. "What does that even mean? All I can think it means is smart."

One Saturday, Jason noticed some dirt stuck in the grooves of the sliding door. "We're disgusting," he said.

"Disgusting isn't a nice word," Audrey said.

"It's not nice to call someone else. It's okay if you say it about yourself."

"She is not yourself!"

The first time we took Audrey to the beach, I was stung by a jellyfish. While some stories bounce off the ears like rubber balls to cement, to Audrey, the jellyfish story bears frequent repeating. And question and answer sessions. She asked for one more rendition in November. I will spare you most of the stinging details and tell you this: we had been warned. The purple flag was hoisted above the sand. Friends had told us that the jellyfish were plentiful. They didn't tell us the waves had fingers. Jason had just run back to shore to take a turn watching Audrey so I could get into the water. I planned to stick to the shallow water when a sneaky wisp of a wave untied the top of my suit. I slid a little deeper into the waves, collecting the bikini strings in my hands. I had just finished knotting the back when I felt a searing hug from behind.

Per her request, we told Audrey the story again. As always, she asked more questions. I explained that I had gone too deep into the ocean while the purple flag was out. Jason explained that I had needed privacy to fix my swimsuit. Somewhere, Audrey got muddled. "What?" she asked, "her private joy?"

She also has thoughts about her father:

Audrey came into the kitchen one afternoon with her father's button-down shirt hanging loosely from her small frame. She grabbed his capped Mountain Dew and pretended to take a swig. "Look, Mom; I'm Daddy."

On Nathan's birthday, Audrey asked, "Is great-grandpa a dad?"

Jason explained before asking, "Do you think I'll be a cool Papaw?"

"No, not cool, but smart and a Papaw that knows stuff."

Jason made a trip to London in November. We picked him up from the airport.

"I'm so happy to be home," he said.

"Well, you're not home yet. You're at the airport," she said.

Other people and things, she's still trying to figure out:

"So Mom, I know Beth is my fairy Godmother, but what's the other name for Boo?"

"You have such pretty hair, you know it?" Grammy said while visiting one afternoon.

"Yeah."

"You're supposed to say 'thank you,'" Grammy said.

"Oh. I still have a lot to learn," said Audrey.

One afternoon, Audrey brought her Bible to me. "I want the one with the three Americans, but I can't find it," she said.

"Honey, I don't think I'm going to be able to find it, either," I said. After a thorough questioning as to the plot of the story, I realized she wanted to hear the parable of The Good Samaritan.

Christmas, of course, brings its own opportunities for joy:

My parents gave each child a copy of "Twas the Night Before Christmas" with a sound recording of them telling the story. At the end, my mom says "Goodnight (name of child), Mamaw and Papaw love you."

Audrey listened to her book. At her grandmother's closing remarks, she responded, "Goodnight. Thank you." She listened to the story two more times. Each time, as the recording came to a close, she replied, "Goodnight. Thank you." After the third time, she looked at me. "Why aren't they talking back to me?"

Nathan also listened to his book repeatedly. At the end of each reading, he would cry upon hearing his grandmother tell him goodnight. He seemed to think his grandparents were stuck in the book, and for those first few days, no amount of talking to Mamaw on the telephone would convince him otherwise.

This year, Audrey participated in the Children's Sunday School Christmas Program. Nathan, too young to attend Sunday school, did not. Audrey played a shepherd. "Nate should be in the Christmas program," she told me.

"He's too young," I said.

"He could be a sheep," she said. "They just crawl around and stuff."


Audrey's part in the program required that she pass out props to the other shepherds. The props included a wooden spoon, dish cloth, Frisbee, and lampshade. One afternoon, we were going over her part. "What do you give each kid?" I asked.

"My friend Nolan gets a wooden spoon. My friend Anna gets a dish towel and Frisbee, and my friend Christopher gets a broken lamp."


The program's dress rehearsal was on a Saturday. Jason had returned from Paris the day before. In a rockstar dad move, he had let me sleep in while he got Audrey ready. I came downstairs to drive her to rehearsal. She was ready and waiting. "Mom, you're like Ariel when the shell opens and she's not there and she's always late, and I'm like the big sister - the one that says 'Ariel's in love.'"


The kids received an art easel from Santa and stockings filled with art supplies. Bright and early on the 26th, Audrey asked, "Mom, can I do anything on the weasel?"


These days, the boys can hold their own in the entertainment arena:

Nathan has decided to talk, after all. Sentences. Short and crisp. They began when he handed me a memory card featuring a beach ball. "It's a beach ball," I said.

"It's a beach ball," he said.

I screamed. I cheered. Clapping was involved. Nathan began randomly shouting out "beach ball" for days just to see what his crazy mother might do.

Now, his most common phrase is "Hi, Mama," most often said as we descend the stairs in the morning or pass in the hallway. I still can't get over the sound, small and clear and bigger than he knows.

A few of his more memorable phrases:

Audrey: Nate, say Audrey before you leave.
Nate: No, Ah-Dee.

One morning, Nate's shirt got stuck as I tried to pull it over his head. To keep him calm, I pretended we were playing a game (as I yanked and pulled and prayed I wouldn't have to cut him loose). "Where's Nathan? Where did he go?" I asked over and over to my silent, hidden boy. Finally, the shirt popped over his head. "Hello!" he said.

One night at dinner, Jason asked Nate if he could say "amen."

Jason: Say ah.
Nate: Ah.
Jason: Say men.
Nate: Me.
Jason: Say amen.
Nate: Oh jeez.


Jack, on the other hand, has spoken complete monologues since birth. We just don't know what he's saying. But a couple things are crystal clear: when in distress, he can yell "mama" as plain and loud as any eighteen-year-old, and this one has no plans of pacing himself. Two teeth, crawling, and pulling up on furniture under his belt, when we stand this little man up and give him two hands with which to steady himself, he bends a knee and lifts a foot as if he plans to walk on out of here. Regardless of lacking the appropriate vocabulary, this one makes his point known.

While Jason was in Europe, Jack woke up (after a long night for mama) at 6 a.m. The other kids were still sleeping. I tucked Jack in close to my side, attempting to convince him to join them. He spit out his pacifier and bit my nose.

Later that day, Audrey brought Jack's pacifier into the bathroom. "I need to wash this off," she said. "I used it to smash a bug. It was a fly. I thought it wasn't dead, but it already was!" Karma, Jack. Karma.

Dear son, I'm not sure what karma has in store for you for only sleeping a couple hours at a time and waking your exhausted parents with your awe-inspiring, wall-piercing moaning during the hours in which you do sleep. But when he or she arrives in thirty years bearing your sweet mischievous grin and insane ability to subsist solely on catnaps, call me. Just not at 4 a.m.


The holidays are over. The Christmas tree and lights, which Jason surprised Audrey and I with one day when we arrived home from a birthday party to Christmas carols playing and house aglow, have been returned to their boxes. Earlier that week, as I tried to compose an ambitious Christmas plan-of-attack, Audrey sat at the kitchen table, making her friend a birthday card. She oohed and aahed over its loveliness as she filled it chock a-block full of stickers. "I'm giving her my joy," she told me, happily. I decided to take her lead. I bowed out of several of the typical holiday traditions this year. Instead, I focused on a select few: the ones that brought me joy. I kept my focus narrow, a light cast directly in front of me, so I might have some joy to pass on in the every day - time for bedtime stories or one more game of memory or five more minutes of daydreaming with my little ones of the magic to come. Happy 2012, everyone.

For Posterity's Sake: Catching Up (Week In Review 122)

As a kid, I loved the book The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe. I was taken from the moment Lucy pushed through the fur coats of the wardrobe and felt the bristle of pine needles from a forest unknown brush her face. Stepping through a door into a world all my own - one of adventure, popping with magic - was a secret I wanted in on. Not knowing of any such door, I created what secret spaces I could (a library under the frame of my bed, a second on the top shelf of my closet), places requiring a flashlight, stack of fiction, and tolerance for cramped quarters.

The first week of September, Audrey and I were attending a meeting at church when she had to use the bathroom. Drying her hands, she asked, "where does that door go?" Before I could answer, she opened the closet door reflected in the bathroom mirror, a door that I must have looked at a hundred times without ever seeing. We didn't delve into the closet to explore what hid behind the hanging clothes, but as has happened countless times the past five years, I left with my eyes opened wider and my imagination tripped. The past several months have reminded me of the magic in plain sight as our family has taken on new adventures at home and an ocean away. Jason and I ventured to Rome for a belated ten-year anniversary celebration; our family ventured with some of our closest friends to Disney World; and at home, we ventured into homeschooling (more on that later). As I finally buckle down to the job of "getting back on track" (uploading pictures that date back to summer, clearing away the remnants of a recent fifth birthday celebration, and wiping down the fifth chair in the kitchen that designates Jack's new place at the dinner table), I can't help but feel the sensation of something small, yet real, prickling around me - pine needles against cheeks. I think we may have just walked through a door.

But before we address the magic of the days at hand, a quick look back to magic past:

Jack's eyes are the shade of Becoming. They are not the Ball jar blue of his siblings, reflecting the light of fireflies, making it their own. His are embers of flint, slowly burning their own fire, shape and path unknown. While the rest of us wonder who he will become, he seems to know himself just fine, speaking (or screaming) his mind and threatening to crawl at any moment. The only sure fact, as a smile sends sparks to his eyes, is that his fire is catching.

Nate still prefers to let his actions do the talking as he catapults himself from the rocking chair into his brother's crib (with Jack in the crib, usually asleep), or soothes Jack's cries by picking up a bottle (and the slack) when he notices my hands are busy, or balances said bottle on Jack's head as if it's his latest party trick. He refuses to say "please," but can be coerced into saying "ooh la la" when receiving a meal, and says "elbow" just because he can. Of course, who needs words, when plugging your fingers in your ears and laughing when your sister begins to sing gets your point across just fine.

Audrey, as always, speaks for herself.

On her mother:

"I love you so much that if I woke up and you were dead, I'd cry." Thanks, honey. That's sweet. And morbid.


One Sunday I was sick in bed with a stomach bug. Audrey brought me up a glass of water and placed it on the nightstand. I asked if she could hand it to me. "I don't know if we're allowed to drink in bed," she said with a sly smile.

On her father:
"Why are you so competitive?" she asked while trying to win an argument during an international phone call.


"I'm kind of a big deal," Jason said, attempting to keep a straight face at dinner one night.

"You're just a box with old numbers in it," said Audrey.

On faith:
While at my parents' house during a visit from my little sister, Audrey informed her aunt that when she's afraid, she just puts her trust in God. Later, she asked me to push her on a decades-old swing hung from a tree branch. After checking out the rusted chains, she said, "I'm a little afraid that branch might fall down, but I'm putting my trust in God." I warned God that He'd have a real uphill battle on His hands if that branch gave way.

On attitude:

I was attempting to change one of the boys' diapers so we could leave to meet my sister. Audrey kept jumping in the way. "Audrey, I need you to move so we can go see Aunt Ashley. Can you choose to be crazy another day?" I asked.

"Okay," she said, "I choose tomorrow."

On her brothers:

One Friday morning, I sat Jack down in my closet to roll around while I got ready, thinking I had saved him from possible roughhousing by his siblings. Audrey, not realizing he was in there, dashed through the door looking for me, stepping on her brother's face. Jack cried, but quickly recovered. Audrey shrieked inconsolably, flailing her arms and pointing at something on the carpet. Finally, I saw the twig she was motioning to, which she had mistaken for something that had once been a part of her brother's face. (What's that you say? You don't all have random twigs hiding in your closets waiting to be mistaken for body parts?)

Nate likes to wipe up the table after he's eaten. One afternoon after lunch, I noticed a washcloth on the floor and handed it back to him. As I handed it over, I heard Audrey say "no." She was sitting to his left. I was trying to keep Nate occupied while I finished the dishes and told her it was fine. "No it's not. He threw it at me twice," she said.

"Audrey, you're sitting over there now. He can't reach you. It's fine."

"How would you like it if he threw it at you twice?" she asked.


A couple weeks later, I found Nate dressed in a blue dress while Audrey played princess and referred to him as "stepsister".

On exercise:

"Do you want to see my sports' run?"

"There's a difference?" I asked.

"Yes. You have to hold your powerhouse in. Wanna see?"

(Apparently, the three times I've convinced her to do my Pilates DVD with me, were three too many. She also enjoys instructing me to "squeeze my tushie" - while we shop for groceries.)

On women:
One afternoon, I overheard Audrey teaching Nate about women. I'm not sure what secrets she revealed, other than "look at my pretty shoes."

On things that may or may not exist:

"You know that Humpty Dumpty? I don't think he's in real life."


One night, Jason and Audrey were talking about a crab that Jason had made up (during a previous dinner) and tried to convince Audrey was real, but too fast for her to see. Audrey was revisiting the topic, asking if the crab really existed, her expression doubtful.

"You've never met my dad, but it doesn't mean I don't have one," Jason argued.

"Your dad is a crab?"

On escape plans:

As I made dinner one day, Audrey asked me about fires and how we would exit the house from every room were a fire to start. After covering the plan room-by-room, she said, "If there's a fire, I'm grabbing that, that, that (pointing to the last three Lowe's Build and Grow clinic models she had made) and the chocolate bon bons."

On housework:
"I put Jack's clothes on top of his dresser. I was going to put them away, but I didn't understand it." (Referring to my organization of the drawers.)

On having too few or too many:

One weekend, while shopping for groceries, Audrey wanted to ask the cashier for stickers. She forgot. She remembered while leaving the store. Jason told her to not worry about it this time, and maybe she could ask for double next time.

"What's double?" she asked.

We tried to explain that it was twice the amount. After a few failed attempts on my part, Jason said, "it's a lot."

Later, Audrey wanted her drink at dinner. Jason told her to eat more, first. "I've already eaten two (noodles)," she said.

"Eat double that and you can have your milk," he said. "Do you remember what double is?"

Audrey sighed. "A lot."


While doing puzzles with her Uncle Boo, Audrey lost one of the pieces.

"You have to find that missing piece," I said.

"It's MIA," said Boo.

"Don't worry. It's in his A," Audrey said.

On school:

This summer, we thought we might be moving to England for a few months. The children got passports. Jason and I discussed school options and that we thought it might be harder for Audrey to transition abroad if she had started, and been pulled out of, preschool. We waited to hear if we would move. We heard nothing. Tuition came due. A choice had to be made. I chose to homeschool this year and called the preschool to say Audrey wouldn't be attending. We got the call saying the move had been approved, but by the time Jason's work visa could be acquired, he might be finished with the majority of his work in Europe and onto Brazil. We stayed in the Midwest, but decided with Jason's travel schedule to move forward with plans to homeschool.

I broke the news to Audrey while driving in the car. I tried to win her over with the positives (lunches with Daddy when he's able to work from home or we're able to travel to his office, the ability to study subjects in which she's interested, and lots of field trips). She asked what I wanted to do during school this year. "I want to take field trips," I said.

"Okay, mama. But where is a field?"


One day, after reading a story, Audrey decided to copy some of the words she saw printed on the book's pages to practice her handwriting. After a few minutes she asked, "Mom, can you get me a drink, because writing a story does make us thirsty."


We've been reading BOB pre-reader books to practice reading skills. Some of the books feature characters who look like shapes and do various activities that highlight shapes. After reading one such book, I asked, "What shape is Seth hiding in?"

"A rectangle."

"No."

"A square."

"What makes it a square?"

"I don't know. God?"


One afternoon, she was completing a worksheet with a picture of a frog on top. I asked her to name the animal at the top of the page. She studied the frog for a minute before nodding her head decisively. "Cathy," she said.

On aging:

"Mom, how big am I?"

"Pretty big."

"I know. Thanks for the opportunity."


"Mom, it's my birthday!"

"I know."

"No you don't."

"Honey, I was there when you were born."

"Oh."


I was there the day Audrey and each of her brothers were born. While I knew on those days that they had begun for us a world anew, I could not see past the tight grip of their fingers or wrinkled brows, past a set of toes and fingers longer than I had expected, or the cry that subsided as long as I was willing to snuggle. I could not see this day, begun with two big kids climbing into bed to stretch and yawn the day into being, the oldest now five, teaching me to learn all over again, the youngest ignoring my requests to stop growing and pace himself, for his mother's sake. The middle one, content to move at his own perfect pace, taking time to beat his imaginary drum at all music he hears, reminds me: be still and watch, the magic is here - no flashlights or wardrobes necessary.

For Posterity's Sake: Week (Ahem) in Review 121

One Sunday, while riding home from the library, Audrey said, "If I were big, I could pick up houses." After thinking out loud about how she would move houses around if she were to find herself suddenly being of Herculean proportions (and abilities), she asked, "What would you do if you were big?"

"If I were a giant, I would wade across the ocean," I said, surprised at how quickly the words came. Beyond attending an elementary school with a giant as its mascot, I'd never contemplated living that large. "I would walk across the parts of the ocean where I normally can't touch," I said. Then, being neither within spitting distance of the ocean, or possessing boats as feet, I drove home and made dinner like everyone else.

"It's been six weeks since you've blogged," Jason said a few days later. "If you don't blog soon, people will start to worry that something is wrong." That was at least two weeks ago.

All I can say is this: I have average feet. I can't transverse the ocean in mere strides. And that's fine. In fact, I have a feeling that had I the ability to rise up out of the water, I'd miss being in neck-deep. There's so much goodness to get swept up in here.

Since I can't remember everything in order from the last couple of months, this "Week" in Review is going to take a different form. Here, from our experiences of the last couple months are the things I know for sure:

Four-year-olds don't care what size their shoes are. Kids see themselves as one-size-fits-all, and that size is Bigger Than They Are.

I believe Audrey thinks herself ready to take over for me at any moment, should I be deemed unfit. Thursday, I heard Jack gag and turned from doing dishes to find her sticking one of Nathan's spoons in Jack's mouth. When I told her Jack was still too young for spoons, she insisted, "He has to learn." (Apparently, very concerned for her brother's education, she only relented from the exercise when I removed the spoon from her hand). Last month, she asked to give Jack his bottle. A few minutes into the feeding, she positioned his hands together at his chest, propped the bottle on top, and clapped at his ability to hold his own bottle. When she sees me feeding him now, she often reminds me that he can do it himself.

On Tuesday, Audrey asked if she and Nathan could play upstairs while I cleaned up the kitchen. I agreed. After a while, it was quiet. I yelled for her. She came downstairs. "Where's Nathan?" I asked.

"I put him down for a nap."

"Where?" I asked, envisioning her attempting to hoist him (a mere 10 pounds lighter than she) into his crib.

"In my room," she answered. "I scooted him to the end of my bed, put my covers on him, and told him it was nap time."

I went upstairs to investigate. I found a green-and-white-polka-dotted mound at the edge of her bed. Carefully, I pulled up the quilt. Sure enough, there he was, sandwiched between layers of covers, fast asleep, a pacifier between his lips.

Audrey attended Vacation Bible School for the first time this summer. "What will I do at VBS?" she asked a few days before the program started. I told her it would be a lot like Sunday School, but she'd do even more fun stuff. I told her they would sing songs and do crafts and learn about God. "Will they teach me to drive a car?" she asked. I told her she might be disappointed with VBS after all.

The next week she informed me, "I think I know how to drive a car because I rode on the lawn mower with Papaw." (I've been keeping my car keys on a very high hook, just in case she decides to attempt cutting the grass with the SUV).

When it's 85 degrees inside, air conditioning is nice. Having the resources to fix the air conditioning is a blessed thing. But shade trees and friends who distract you when your air conditioning is broken are luxuries no one should be without.


The strong silent types are apt to break your heart, or every bone in their bodies.

Nathan is a boy of few words. I know he knows some. Last month he brought a shoe to me, said "shoe" perfectly and walked away. I'd never heard him say it before, and I haven't heard it since.

I haven't heard much out of him at all, which is troublesome, because in those moments of quiet, every other part of him is busy.

Nate has been trying to jump from a standing position for a month. He can manage to get one leg off the floor, but unbalances himself too much to get airborne with the second. He has, however, figured out how to pull himself up onto the coffee table and jump onto the couch from that vantage point.

Last week, I walked into the office to find him sitting on top of the desk. I had moved the chair away from the desk earlier in the day thinking I'd eliminated that ability. I put him on the floor and asked him how he'd gotten up there. I meant it rhetorically. He answered me anyway. He pulled open the bottom drawer (initially intended to hold a typewriter), used it as a step, and pulled himself onto the desk.

Yesterday, he discovered that if he gets into the coat closet, overturns his sister's basket (dumping out her bicycle helmet, scarf, hats and mittens, and sunglasses) he can use the basket as a stool to reach anything on the kitchen island he desires. I need to put bells on his shoes, because it seems the only person he wants to make noise for is the little boy reflected from the stove front who dances just like him.

Sometimes, the deepest kind of gratitude can be found in the discovery of the simplest facts. For example, Nathan is not allergic to bees - something I discovered after he overturned a buried hive in some mulch, receiving seven stings before I could reach him and pull him away. Gratitude. Gratitude. Gratitude.

Those rumors about apples and trees? They just might be on to something.

I bought some peaches last month. When I got them home, I grabbed a stoneware bowl, filled it with the peaches, and placed it on the counter. Then, I watched as Audrey put a place mat in the center of the kitchen table and grabbed an empty colander from a cabinet that she placed on top, before dumping our newly purchased bunch of bananas inside.

Jason has been trying to break himself of saying I thought in my head, since, well, where else do your thoughts come from? Last month (and tonight) I overheard Audrey begin her sentence, "We'll have to think in our mind..."

This month, Audrey returned from a birthday party to find me watching the food network. I asked if she wanted to come outside to play while I did yard work. "Only if you record this so I can watch it later," she said.

Baby smiles are contagious, and their kisses therapeutic. (Lately, I've been the lucky recipient of both).

Sometimes, the littlest among us leave the biggest footprints.

Lately, I've been calling the baby Chief, as in Commander-in-Chief, because I find myself to be constantly in the act of moving him to a more secure location to save him from mass destruction. And somehow, as we all fawn over him (Jack accepting this fate with the widest of grins) the name fits.

One never outgrows the magic of fireflies. Or S'mores. Or reading books by flashlight.

If wonder is the default state of childhood, then the default state of parenthood is shock and awe.

The first day of July, the older kids ran upstairs while I was busy feeding Jack. After several minutes of quiet, I yelled up, "Audrey, what are you guys doing?"

"We're up to something!" she said.

Ten days later, Audrey was sent to her room within ten minutes of getting up for the day. I sent her back to her room for a timeout. When I went to get her, I found her dressed, her bed made, and the clean clothes that had been stacked on a chair put away in her dresser. I sat down to "talk to her" about why she had been sent to her room. I was really steadying myself to keep from passing out from the shock.

One rare morning last month, when Audrey was allowed to begin her day by watching something on television, she became disgruntled with the sun coming through some curtain-less windows (above our standard windows) creating a glare. "Mom, the sun!" she complained.

"Honey, I can't do anything about the sun."

"You could put pillows in the windows," she said.

One afternoon in late July, Audrey found a fly swatter in our basement. A few minutes later, I heard her say, "Nate, you're a fly. Run!" (A few minutes after that, I saw him biting her toes).

We made a trip to Camp Tecumseh last week to visit with friends. As with all car rides, as soon as I put the car in motion, Audrey asked that I tell her a story. She typically gives me guidelines as to what the story should be about (for example, on the Fourth of July, she asked that I tell her a story in which Dora and Boots build a house, after which, Boots eats a piece of bacon only to find that he's allergic). As we drove down the highway, she said, "But this time, the characters will be Dora and Boots" (lately we've been on a baby dragon kick, in which the baby dragon is always discovered hatching from an egg by a little girl named Sweetheart).

"Character?" I said. "You know the word character?"

After a thorough quizzing, during which, I determined that she did, indeed, know the definition of character and that inanimate objects don't count, I did what any, ahem, fanatical English major would and asked, "Do you know what 'setting' is?"

I then explained what the setting of a story is, followed by a brief quiz of the settings of all the Dr. Seuss books we had read that week, before settling into the requested Dora and Boots story, the plot of which I can't remember, only that Audrey did not approve of the outcome, to which I responded, if she didn't like the ending, she could make up her own stories.

Summer is as fleeting as popsicle drips.

The world has its own set of checks and balances to keep you grounded. They are called preschoolers.

When Jason travels, I try to keep the kids busy with special outings and play dates with friends. Upon meeting up with some good friends recently, their mother relayed a little story. Her daughters had recently watched The Incredibles. When she later told them that they were going to see baby Jack, they couldn't contain their excitement, assuming it was Jack-Jack from the movie (a seemingly ordinary baby until he suddenly harnesses the ability to burst into a flaming fireball at the end of the movie). As apt as our family is to All Hail the Chief, I think the girls were slightly disappointed that Jack's only real talent thus far seems to involve projectile spitting and not the ability to instantaneously combust. Although, he has figured out how to light up his mother.

As impressed as I might be when Jason calls and describes his ventures abroad (this summer he's had to make a trip to England and one to Barcelona), Audrey isn't as easily dazzled. During a phone call from London, she asked what he'd been doing and eating (she has a tendency to ask what he's eaten when he's away). "I've been eating in really old buildings," he told her.

"Ah, poor Daddy," she said.

Before Jason left for Barcelona, Audrey drew him a picture of a train. Jason had set the picture on a table just long enough for Nathan to find it. Audrey came across her artwork a little worse for wear. She brought it to her father.

"You need to move your picture so it doesn't get crinkled," she said. "Did you want it crinkled?"

"No," he said.

"Well, it's crinkled."

One night after studying her father at dinner, Audrey said, "Daddy, God forgot to give you hair."

"God didn't forget. I just lost it," he said.

She turned to me. "So Mama, did you see where he put his hair?"

With kids like these, you don't have to be a giant to live large. You just have to remind yourself to sit back every once in a while and take it all in. Until next time...

For Posterity's Sake: Week in Review 120

Audrey just propositioned me for a monkey. But Mom, our house would be its cage. But Mom, it could play with my toys. But Mom, a monkey would be excellent! These conversations lead to bargains. Let's buy an elephant. How about a giraffe? We could keep it in the backyard. A hippopotamus? A sheep? A horse? A pig? These negotiations lead to talks about the Home Owners' Association. I explain that while she sees our house as the perfect "cage" for a monkey and our backyard as suitable living quarters for (at the very least) a pig, others do not view the world through her lens. There's a lot of that going around. Audrey is developing a "world" view of her own. It may not seem cohesive to the rest of us. On any given Wednesday, it might include a pair of flowered shorts being the perfect hat for a sunny day and the branch of a pear tree acting as an acceptable umbrella holder. It's not always ideal. It may not make sense to the masses. But, it's always original, delivered with the kind of pluck that only a four-year-old can muster. And (luckily), she's more than willing to share it with the rest of us. Our moments, from the last few weeks:

The first week of June:

I try to keep the television off while the kids are awake. But, there is something about the nonstop feeding of a newborn that draws me to the couch - and the remote, especially on weekends. I think that Jason has the other kids occupied. I tell myself they aren't paying attention. I turn on HGTV and watch marathon episodes of House Hunters. Audrey plays between the kitchen and the family room, wrestling with Jason, clobbering any available brother, and creating chaos from everyday home furnishings. Midway through my second or third House Hunter's episode one day, she asks, "Why do they let people sneak in the houses?"

Later that week, I was putting Audrey to bed. Like always, we said a prayer. Unlike always, Audrey insisted that we pray for rhyming things. We thanked God for our nose and toes, dogs and frogs and polliwogs (okay, not really for polliwogs, but you get the idea). We try to take a little time to learn a verse or two at night as well. Apparently, Audrey thought she could put her own spin on the verses. That night, she thought she would just create her own. According to Audrey, John 14:6 says, And He will tickle us.

On Saturday, I was clipping coupons. Audrey wanted in on the action. She cut out coupons and any pictures that interested her. She found an ad with a picture of the world. "Mama, it's the whirled! It's the whirled! I want to cut out the whirled!"

Second week of June:

On Monday, I think Nathan wanted to show that he's taking in a little bit more of the world (or whirled, if you prefer) around him, too, as he sat a book, opened to a picture of a bird, in my lap and said what sounded like a Nate-version of "bird". He hasn't said it since, but "ball" has become a vocabulary mainstay for our little guy.

Tuesday, after making a comment that proved Jason wrong, Audrey said, "I got you with that one."

The following day, she and I were building houses with Legos. After showing me her technique, she asked, "Now do you know the proper way to make a house?"

Saturday, while eating lunch, I was telling Jason about running into a friend who, seeing Nate for the first time, said, "Well, you can definitely tell who his daddy is."

"Really? Do you see it?" he asked.

I looked at Nate. He turned in my direction, smiled, and made a monkey face.

"Yes," I said.

Third week of June:

Monday morning, I caught Nate unwinding a skein of garden twine through the office and into the dining room. I told Nate "no." "It's okay," Audrey said as Nathan stomped exuberantly on the twine. "He's just making it pretty and clean."

Tuesday morning, Audrey and I were playing dress up. She placed a red wig on my head, along with my sister's wedding veil. Then, she tried to slide elbow-length child-sized gloves up my arms. "You're the God fairy," she said. "You're the Godfather." I believe I was supposed to be the fairy Godmother, but you can call me The Don.

We typically light a candle at dinner as something that sets that time apart as special family time. Tuesday, the older kids were having a sleepover at Grammy's, so Audrey wanted to light a candle at lunch before she left for the night. We had finished lunch and the candle was blown out. Audrey noticed the melted wax surrounding the wick. "What is the water?" she asked. I explained that when wax melts, it becomes liquid. "Oh! Liquid is inside of toads!"


Toads contain liquid that may or may not be related to wax. Scarface wears elbow-length pink satin gloves. Nate's newly acquired longer reach has him sneaking his fingers into the kitchen drawers and running through the house brandishing a turkey baster. When he stomps on things, they magically become clean. Jack is looking less like a baby and more like the boy he's about to become (and teasing us with the occasional smile). I haven't seen the tops of my counters in weeks. And this house, well, it might just be the perfect home for a monkey.

For Posterity's Sake: Week in Review 119 and then some

This week, I tried to revamp my to-do list method. In the midst of major life changes, I get antsy. Those with sage advice (or just plain common sense) would tell me to simply get a hold of myself, to self-swaddle and reign in my flailing arms that can't keep up with demand - to wait for the pace to settle down around me rather than try to lasso the moving parts into submission. But I can't help myself. When my world kicks up the momentum, my instinct is to grab a rope and pretend I can tie a good knot. Or, at the very list, make a to-do list.

So, I've been making to-do lists: lists void of those refreshing dark black slash marks that acknowledge accomplishment. When life kicks things up a notch, nothing is more depressing than a list void of those black slash marks. After reading this post, I decided some to-do list editing was in order. I added my own twist. I started by making a list of my important life categories: faith, family, health, creativity, and educational activities for the kids (yes, friends also made this list, but time constraints being as they are right now, I decided my friends were realistic and would realize that they aren't going to be seeing me or getting phone calls/emails for a couple weeks). Then, I came up with small (in some cases, minuscule) tasks for each category. My first new to-do list day looked something like this:

Print off chronological Bible reading list.
Make pizza dough with Audrey for family pizza night.
Take a walk.
Blog for 15 minutes.
Make list of daily, weekly, monthly, annual cleaning tasks for 2 rooms (yes, I realize this seems as if it has nothing to do with kids' educational activities, but I've decided that we need to get organized so I can locate the necessary materials to do the educational activities first).

I felt instantly rejuvenated. I had a plan, one that looked simple. I could do this. The day ended. Three of my five simple tasks were crossed off. I laughed at myself.

Last night, my mother-in-law kindly volunteered to come over and make us dinner. Dinner and dishes off of my plate, I had the kids bathed early. All three were in bed by 8:30. Jason had plans, so I had a couple hours to myself. This is typically the time I would blog, or knit, or do something really crazy like wipe the hand prints off the refrigerator door. But my eyelids, of which I'm not typically aware, had a definite weight to them. As I sat on the couch, finishing a row of knitting and trying to will myself to turn on the computer to write, I heard Nate crying. He has four teeth coming in this week (I believe "teething machine" is the term you're searching for) and has had a bit of trouble settling himself into naps and sleep. I left my knitting and pulled him from his crib. We nestled into my bed, and at nine o' clock (a time that my head hasn't seen my pillow since I was a preteen or harboring a fever) we both found sleep - it only took Nathan draping himself across my head, which one would imagine would make it impossible for me to fall asleep, but sadly, it didn't. Waking for a two a.m. feeding session more awake than I've felt in days, I decided that to-do lists were overrated - not that I won't be making one later this afternoon.

To-do list or not, there are a few items I can't help but feel called to do, like write down a few moments from our weeks past, the ones I would hate to forget. So, without further adieu, here is a rather belated, rather simplified, Week in Review for that past few weeks - a highlight reel, if you will.

From the week leading up to Jack's birth:

Monday night, Jason's arm was draped across my belly. Jack kicked a roundhouse that shifted my entire abdomen. "Holy! Did you feel -," Jason broke off laughing, "of course you felt that." Jason rested, his arm up against me for a few minutes before turning to face the other direction. "I don't think I can fall asleep if I keep my arm there feeling that all night." Welcome to pregnancy, honey.

Tuesday night at dinner, Audrey wanted to tell us the creation story. After she finished, Jason asked her what happened to Adam and Eve. "They had to leave the beautiful garden," she said.

Jason explained consequences and that they were asked to leave the garden as a consequence of disobeying. "How would you like that?" he asked. "How would you like if Mommy and Daddy threw you out of the house every time you disobeyed?"

"You couldn't do that," she said, "the porch is hard."

Wednesday, while Grammy was visiting, Nathan began throwing his food from the table to the floor. Grammy told him he was being bad. Audrey, ever the diplomat, said, "He's not a bad boy. He's just making a bad choice."

Thursday, I asked her what she had done at school. "I thought about what I could do for my tea party while I worked on other things," she said.

"What did you think of?"

"Running through sprinklers. Making mud puddles. Going on a flower hunt. Taking leaves off trees." This isn't going to be your run-0f-the-mill tea party.


We had Jack the next morning. Below, a few of my favorite moments and one-liners from our hospital stay:

Friday evening, a lactation consultant made a visit. Before leaving she informed us that the nurse assigned to our room that evening was one of the best. "So you're good until 7," she said.

"What happens at seven?" Jason asked. "Do they bring on the B team?"

Saturday morning I managed to catch the hospital table on wheels (holding a pitcher of water, a folder full of papers, and a slew of medical supplies) on the rail of the bed as I was attempting to reposition the bed. The table flipped over, creating a shower of water and medical supplies. Jason refused to let me help clean it up. I apologized for creating the mess. "It was a freak accident," he said, mopping up the floor with a towel. "You're the freak."

Sunday, our nurse came in for a quick check. "What is your pain level?" she asked me.

"I'm at about a five," said Jason.

The first week of May Jason stayed home from work to assist with the day-to-day household functions and help us make a smoother transition into family-of-five status. He took on the role of chauffeuring Audrey to and from preschool. En route on Tuesday, she asked if they were going to be late. He informed her that they should be on time (they were, in fact, several minutes early). She told him that she liked him taking her to school. "Mommy bees (is) late all the time."

The following week, I took advantage of the warm weather and sent Audrey on backyard expeditions while I was busy with her brothers inside. Monday, she asked if she could take a beach towel and a snack outside to have a picnic. I agreed. I noticed she pitched her beach towel right next to the fence where our neighbor was tilling his garden. When she ran back to the door to ask for seconds, I told her to let our neighbor finish his work. "I am," she said, "I'm just talking to him so he doesn't get lonely or bored."


Last week, Nathan attempted to mimic his sister and hop through the kitchen. He would have pulled it off, if he could have gotten his legs underneath himself rather than stumbling back onto his thickly diapered bum. He also decided that silverware (which he had been trying use consistently) was overrated, adopting a vacuum technique of putting his open mouth to plate and "hoovering" his food inside.

That Friday, as we did dishes, Jason and I were remembering how rough our first five months of parenting were and contemplating how different they might have been had we realized that Audrey wasn't getting enough breast milk sooner (something we discovered when she nose-dived off the growth charts at six months old). "But, we're stronger for it," I concluded.

"You're stronger. I'm still weak," Jason said.

"You're not weak," said Audrey, who had wandered into the kitchen.

"Thanks, Audrey."

"You just look weak," she said.


Now, Jack is one month old. He's contemplating longer stretches of sleep, but still weighing his options. Nathan has begun saying "hello," always accompanied by a hand (or stolen cell phone) raised to his ear. Yesterday, after inviting Nathan into the cave she'd just constructed from the kitchen bill-payers' desk and draped receiving blankets, Audrey finished schooling her brother on some topic by stating, "Just check on Facebook and you'll learn all about it." Suffice it to say, time marches quickly and no to-do list (no matter how well constructed) can contain it.

But that doesn't mean we quit trying. Until next time...

A Boy Named Jack

One morning in late April, I woke before the sun, street lights humming, my duffel bag packed with essentials. Street lamps cover only the area in need: one might do well to follow suite when preparing for a short trip. But I find, when about to embark on a life-changing adventure, I like to arm myself with the things that nourish me, regardless of practicality or good sense. Somewhere between grabbing a few bites of oatmeal and my knitting-in-progress, I made a quick pass by the office bookcases, scanning the shelves for something I'd yet to read. My fingers settled on Diane Setterfield's The Thirteenth Tale, pulling it from the shelf and tucking it into one more small canvas bag for the hospital. It was five o' clock in the morning. I was leaving the house to go have a baby. No where did reading fall into my weekend plans. I have a tendency to over pack.

I did crack open the spine of the book toward the beginning of our stay. I made it just past the epigraph, a couple paragraphs into the first page before the events of real life pulled me away. I hadn't yet read the book jacket before opening the book that morning, so I found the epigraph ironically fitting for the day:

All children mythologize their birth. It is a universal trait. You want to know someone? Heart, mind and soul? Ask him to tell you about when he was born. What you get won't be the truth; it will be a story. And nothing is more telling than a story.

- Vida Winter, Thirteen Tales of Change and Desperation (fictional author from the book)

The only person who mythologizes a child's birth more than the child is, perhaps, the child's mother. So let me tell you a story, about the day a boy named Jack was born.

I find the coming of every child to be different. The day we went to the hospital to have Audrey, I knew she was coming. "Something feels different," I told Jason when I woke that morning.

"No," the doctor said, examining me later that day, "let's go ahead and schedule an appointment for you the week after your due date." Sure enough, by ten o' clock that night, I was in labor. Audrey, always one to do things her own way and keep them interesting, was almost delivered with her water sac intact. But what I remember most from that day was locking eyes with her for the first time, knowing that in an instant she had changed who I was.

I thought Nate was coming for weeks. He wasn't. I was in the doctor's office the day of his due date, hooked up to a monitor for a stress test. "You're having contractions six to seven minutes apart," the nurse said, "you're just not feeling them." The doctor suggested we go out to eat while she booked us a room at the hospital for later that evening. While last-minute Christmas shoppers filled the parking lot of the mall nearby, Jason and I went on a date to P.F. Chang's. We took our time, speculating what this little guy would be like and enjoying one last evening out for a while. When Nate did decide to come, he came like a sudden driving downpour, beating our doctor or anything resembling a real set of pushes. But, in spite of his dramatic entrance, Nate brought a sense of calm to a hectic season - our sweet boy, slow to cry and quick to cuddle for whose carefree spirit I have felt a swell of gratitude since the moment I laid eyes on him.

Jack, I believe you wanted to be born in May. If you felt rushed, I apologize. If you were hoping for the attention and quiet that come with being an only child, again, I apologize. By the time you came around, we were quite the packaged deal. Packaged deals require certain provisions - like childcare while Mama and Daddy are at the hospital. So after a week of irregular contraction teases and back pain and steadily making our way to three centimeters, we decided to make an appointment to meet you, a few days early, on a Friday that worked well for everyone involved. Luckily, you took to the plan. You arrived in less than three hours. While your birth was quicker than your brother's, yours was somehow more methodical - paced. After I give birth, I have a tendency to shake - violently. I don't know why. It worried my OB-GYN the first time she saw it. I imagine it worried your father even more. After your brother and sister were born, he made quick trips between me and each baby, not wanting to leave me in that condition for long. But with you, Jack, the tremors held off for a good twenty minutes and I was able to witness your father cut the umbilical cord and hold you for the first time, carrying you around the room; standing next to you taking videos as the nurse checked you out and commented on your tight hand grip; petitioning, once again, for the name he thought would fit you best (he was right). Audrey made me a mother, shifting my priorities and opening untapped dreams. Nathan drew us to bring our focus home, to seek and feel gratitude for the calm there, regardless of the whirlwind just outside the door. And you, Jack, gave me the gift of falling in love with your dad falling in love with you. You have already changed the world as we knew it, and we're so glad you're here.

Jack Hudson
7 lbs. 7 oz. and 19 1/4 in. long
With dark hair, pianist's fingers, and a tight grip on our hearts.