It's Beginning to Look a lot Like Spring

3.7.14

3.10.14

(I'm starting to recognize a pattern.)

 

 

3.12.14

(Nate has an interesting technique for getting out of a snowsuit.)

 

(3.13.14-3.15.14: short break from outside adventures for family to catch and recover from stomach bug.)

 

3.19.14

(This time it's paint on his coat, not mud.  Variety, it's the spice of life.)





 

 

 

 

Just in case you've been wondering where I've been the last several days: doing laundry.  Lots and lots of laundry.  I think I'm caught up.  Until tomorrow.  It's official: spring has sprung.  Bring on the detergent.  

Brothers

Someday, they'll kill me for this photo.  But not today.  Of course, they're brothers - the kind who know which stuffed animal will bring the most comfort, and how to torture said animal to elicit instant screams.  They might kill each other first. 

Jason and I didn't walk the short road to parenthood.  Ours was three years long and dimly lit.  Some days, the only things linking us to parenthood were the words we spoke: about hurdles, possible solutions, hope.  Most days, our words dried up: browned leaves, crumpled and blown away. 

Then, on a bright day after Halloween, Audrey was born.  Healthy and vibrant, she passed out her personality like free treats for the taking.  We were a couple of kids eager to fill our bags.  Soon, they were stuffed, full in places we didn't realize had been empty. 

Cheeks coated in sugar, we were hesitant to talk siblings, the taste of dehydrated leaves still fresh on our tongues.  We liked living in the land of Counting Our Blessings rather than the Badlands. We almost decided to call it a family.  But we didn't. 

Had I known the who(s) that awaited us at the end of that big, dark question mark, I would have plunged from that cliff head-first.  But I couldn't see the bare-bummed brothers bath time photo from the precipice, only the harrowing distance of the fall down. 

Today, the boys are four and weeks-from three.  Their accumulated years are small, but their impact large.  After all, without them we wouldn't have these moments, scribbled and saved on scraps in the kitchen drawer waiting for a blog:


Nathan (legs under his covers preparing for bedtime, a puzzle piece held up to his ear): Audrey!  Audrey!  Why can't she hear me? 


In the past year, the kids have been enjoying nursery rhymes.  Audrey checked a book of nursery rhymes out from the library and read them to Nathan.  They decided to write their own.  A game ensued during lunch in which each would take a turn creating and reciting his or her own rhyme.  If the other liked the rhyme, he or she would yell "Nice!"  If not, the listener would yell "Trash can!" (As in, I'm throwing your rhyme away.  Apparently, we're also into tossing out one another's artwork.) 


Over the summer, Audrey would conduct "school" with Nathan.  One afternoon, I heard her yell that it was time for school.  Nathan, next to me and intrigued in his own project, yelled back, "I'll be there in two minutes.  No, five minutes, Auds.  Auds, I'll be there in eight minutes!" 


Nathan had a paper shark that he folded in half and gave to Jack.  Jack put it in his pocket.  Later, Nathan tried to get it out of Jack's pocket and said, "It's broken."

"It's not broken, it's folded in half," I said.
"Well, it can't swim when it's in half." 


Jack was singing one afternoon while standing next to Nathan.  The song contained two words, "Ella Bella," repeated over and over. 

Nathan (looking at Jack, bewildered):  My name is Nathan.  Jack, did you forget my name?


One September afternoon, Nathan and I were reviewing an alphabet movie.  "The 'a' says what?" I asked.

Nathan:  ă.  
Me:  Right.  The 'a' says ă.
Jack :  A dog says 'ruff.' 


Wednesday morning, Jack and I were making banana bread.  He mumbled something about being dangerous. 

Me: Dangerous?  What's dangerous?
Jack: I'm dangerous.
Me:  You're dangerous?  Why are you dangerous?
Jack: I'm a boy.
Me: Boys aren't dangerous.  Boys are nice.  Just because you're a boy doesn't mean you have to act dangerous.  Who told you boys are dangerous?
Jack: Nathan.


And, finally, some bathtub humor to bring us back to the photo at the top. 

Jack (pointing to Nathan's nipple in the bathtub): Is that your belly button?
Nathan: No.  Those are my dots.

On a separate occasion, Nathan came out of the bathroom grabbing his testicles and asked, "Mom, what's in here?  My lungs?"


Maybe those boys are a little dangerous, at least to unaccustomed funny bones - especially when those boys travel in pairs. 

Our Fearless Leader

Sometimes, being a fearless leader is more about donning a fuzzy horse's hat and planting yourself in the snow.  Or maybe that's just us.

Jason is our provider.  He provides the calm steady voice in a crisis, the biggest lap, and the strongest set of arms.  He also provides our daily humor, or at the very least, provokes it. 

A few notes I ran across recently:

(Last Father's Day - let's not even talk about how long I've been hanging onto this scrap of paper)

Jason was resting on the family room floor.  "I better go lay some grass seed.  But I don't want to get up."

"Well, it's your day.  You can do whatever you want," Audrey said.

"Can I lie here all day?"

Audrey snickered.  "If you trust me to do the grass seed."

(August 13, 2013)

Jason was making lunch while talking to Nathan.  "You're a turkey."

"I'm not a turkey," Nathan said.

"You're a turkey, and guess what I'm having for lunch?" Jason asked, moved toward Nathan with his fingers curved into claws.

"Not turkey." 

(Friday the 11th, month and year apparently not important enough to write down, but 2013)

Audrey: It's so nice out, too bad it's too wet.

Jason: Well, Mom might have a plan.

Nathan: Nope.

(On a day Jason was preparing for an overseas trip, presumably after Friday the 11th)

Jason: Too bad I don't have another one of those (pointing to the new Surface he had bought me to replace my old computer) to take with me. 

Audrey: Too bad you don't have another one of those (pointing to me) to take with you.

(A day in 2014.  I was cleaning out the pantry and overheard the following go down in the kitchen from my work - hiding - place.)

Jason (to Audrey):  If you do [garbled muffled garble]* again, I'm going to throw it off a high building.

Audrey:  Where are you going to find this high building?

*I have no idea what garbled muffled garble she was doing.  I do know that sometimes it's good to be the one snickering behind the closed door of the pantry, instead of the strong-armed one.  Or the one wearing the horse's hat.  And that we don't know what we'd do without our equine-wearing leader, except laugh less. 

Moving Forward

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Last night, I found my little artist asleep in his bed with the etch 'n sketch on top of him.  I moved the etch 'n sketch to his desk.  This morning, I overheard him telling his brother about his latest drawing.  "This is a picture of Daddy as a kid.  See, he has hair."  (He apparently also resembled Johnny Depp characters from the 80's as a child.) 

 

I just returned from spending a weekend with my little sister's family in California (a Christmas present from the guy captured in the drawing above - Jason, not Johnny Depp).  As I spend this week playing catch-up with housework and schoolwork, Nate's words resonate.  Some of us don't have as much hair as we used to.  (In Jason's defense: he has hair - shaved very short.)  Time marches on.  Except for on this blog, where apparently, time has stood still since December 14th.  I've recorded moments on my camera.  I've recorded a few moments in texts and on paper.  I have recorded nothing here, each time thinking that first I would get to the Christmas blogs, the December birthday blogs, the winter snow scene blogs.  I haven't gotten to any of those blogs.  Instead, I have backlogs.

 

So in the spirit of moving forward, I'm pulling out the notes on scrap paper and scanning through old texts in hopes of writing down a few captured moments here in the days to come that I don't want to forget.  But first (in full disclosure, lest some of these moments not make sense), I should mention this:   

 

 



We've been counting down the days in weeks around here.  Twenty-eight to be exact.  We spent the days before Christmas sharing our news with family and close friends.  Our children spent those days telling anyone in sight. 

One afternoon, I took the kids to a homeschool Christmas party.  The hostess held a nativity before the kids and began retelling the Christmas story.  She reached the part where Gabriel visits Mary to give her the news that she'll soon have a child.  "My mom is getting a baby!" Audrey piped up.  A few of the mothers sitting next to me turned with upraised eyebrows.  Nothing like upstaging Jesus at Christmas. 

Each snowy winter, the kids get out and make snowmen.  Families of snowmen.  This year was no exception.  After the first big snow, the scene out our window looked very much like the ornament above, with the snowmen spaced a bit farther apart.  Audrey was the architect and general contractor of the operation.  "Did you make the baby?" Jason asked as she came inside.

"Oh, I made mama's belly extra big."

That's how it goes as we ease slowly out of winter into the days of coming sun.  Time marches on: and what we're lacking in hair, we're making up for in baby weight. 

Reindeer Games

Yesterday, Audrey and I finished the school day with a rousing game of Conquer Mesopotamia, a "board game" in which the person who reaches the finish line (moving squares by rolling a die and doing whatever action is on the square) first, wins.  Some of the squares contain questions that, if answered correctly, allow the player to advance more squares.  Audrey, always looking for an angle to position herself for a win, asked for extra questions any time she fell behind.  I was happy to comply, asking questions such as: "Nebuchadnezzar's beautiful wife wants to return home to Persia.  What does he build for her?"

Answer: According to Audrey, it's the Hovering Gardens of Babylon.  I let her move ahead two squares.  After all, you know at least one of the poor sods forced to build that wonder felt like those gardens would never stop hovering over him. 

Audrey won by three squares - not that any seven-year-olds were counting.
 

After school, we moved onto a little culinary project - chocolate-covered reindeer for Audrey's Girl Scout Christmas party.  I stole the idea from the December issue of EveryDay with Rachael Ray.  Ours didn't turn out as shiny bright as Rachael's reindeer.  Ours looked a little like distant cousins of hers - the offspring of those that wed illegally.  (Pay attention to that one in the rainbow sunglasses, he'll be important later.) 

I set up the project "pieces" (pretzels, red hots, marshmallows, sucker sticks, and sunglasses that Audrey had traced and colored - found online at www.peepseyewear.com on princess paper dolls) and melted the chocolate.  Then I got out of the way.  (If a hovering mother were that great, they would have made her the eighth wonder of the world.)  We ran into one little hiccup: how to store the marshmallows while they were setting.  Florist friends would have probably had something awesome on hand to solve the problem.  We had a teacup, dental floss, and scotch tape.  It wasn't perfect, but neither was Rudolph. 

Audrey got down to business, humming "Deck the Halls" and decking marshmallows with antlers and sunglasses.  Remember that guy in the rainbow shades?  That's her Sistine Chapel.  Let's call him Liberace, shall we?  She became very particular when it came to Mr. Rainbow Shades.  She found out which plastic bag Liberace had been assigned and scrawled her name across it (you can just make out the last few letters of her middle name in the picture above, just in case her first name wasn't sufficient).  She may have made the reindeer to share with her Girl Scout friends, but no one was getting their hands on Rainbow Shades but her.  After all, that's what Girl Scouts is all about: leaving the world a better place, and marking your territory (we might be a little shaky on the pledge).

As for me, I had a little love affair with this guy.  Oh, those upside-down antlers.  Sigh. 

Audrey reunited with Liberace at the Girl Scout party and all was bliss.  I accidentally took my scissors to one of the bags while trying to curl the green ribbons.  Which just goes to show you ladies: don't get too fancy with your packaging, or you just might lose your bag. Or patch it with scotch tape.  Your choice. 

He Told Me He's The Elf on The Shelf

He may also need a haircut.

And now, an excerpt from the boys' bath time last week:

The boys practice swimming while taking their baths, switching from "floating" on their backs to sliding the length of the tub on their stomachs.  They had flipped over onto their backs.  Jack looked at Nathan's nipple and pointed.  "Is that your belly button?"

"No.  I only have one of those.  These are my dots."


And now, a few stories found scribbled on a pink sheet of computer paper stashed in a kitchen drawer.  I can't tell you when these stories actually occurred, but the paper I found them on has a note scrawled across the top instructing me to "figure out a plan" before October 8th (with an exclamation point, two to be precise).  So without further ado, stories presumably from September (but more likely from the first week of October scribbled by a frantic mama without a plan):


Jason went to check on Nathan one night before heading to bed.  He put his hand on Nathan's back.  A drowsy voice issued from the pillow, "Is that God?"

"No, just Daddy."

"Just Daddy," said Nathan, eyes still closed. 


An explanation by Nathan to Jack regarding rabbits:

"And they eat carrots, which are so easy to make because they're already made."


An explanation by Audrey to Nathan* as we passed a cemetery in the car:

"See those stones?  There are dead people under there."


*An now an explanation from Mama about the use of the name Nathan.  The really observant among you who had their morning coffee, an early morning jog, and the blessing of all synapses firing rapidly may have noticed that Nathan was not referred to as Nate in this post.  Not a single time.  Some of you with slow Fridays and twiddling fingers might even be asking yourselves why.  Do not fear: I will tell you.  In October, Nathan informed us that he doesn't like the name Nate.  He only wants to be called Nathan.  I asked how he felt about Bear, a nickname his father has used since Nathan was crawling. 

"I like Bear.  But bears are a little dangerous.  Bears hunt, so if a bear is coming after you, he's probably going to kill you." 

Which is a little Friday wisdom we could all use.  Do not refer to Nathan as Nate, and if you see a bear coming towards you, you might want to high-tail it out of the way.  He's probably going to kill you.  You're welcome. 

While Daddy's Away

Sometimes, you have an inkling that you might be loved.  Love follows you like a shadow too shy to tap you on the shoulder, but you can feel the warm fog against your neck.  Other times, you know you're loved.  You know, because while you travel to the UK, your children create "Fake Jason" and carry him around.  Everywhere.  For FOUR days.  Until, Fake Jason's head mysteriously becomes severed from his body and is mourned (before being replaced by a much freakishly-smaller head).  Fake Jason eats dinner with the family (where he gets fed and asked questions about his day), later he is moved to the desk by the computer or spread out across the couch to enjoy some television.  Finally, I find Fake Jason camped out on my bed.  "Don't forget to cover him with a sheet!" my daughter yells on her way to her room. 

I dash off a text to Basingstoke with a picture of Fake Jason attached, "You better make it home in one piece. I don't think I can take 12 years of this."  Sometimes, love smothers those left behind.

Luckily, for us, the time away is never long and each time we find a way to mingle our respective time zones and fit in a daily phone call or two, even if only for five minutes.  But we've found the easiest way to slip ourselves into each others' days is through texts.  This time, Audrey wanted in on the action.  Since she doesn't have a cell phone of her own, I got to eavesdrop.  A little sampling (typed as written):

Audrey:

How are you  I miss you  I move the man I made.to look like you.  When I was writing to you the fake man was sitting at the table after lunch.some times he is playing the race game.i put him to sleep.how is UK warm or cold. From Audrey with love hope hoping you are happy.

Jason:

UK is cold like home.  Did mommy like today's surprise?

(A brief interlude to explain: before he left, Audrey asked Jason to take her and Nathan on a shopping spree to buy me some gifts that would make my week go a little more smoothly.  The gifts included things like bagels for breakfast, a gift card to eat out one night, and - on this particular day - a couple magazines for my reading enjoyment.  I'm not in on the joke below, unless Rachel Ray and the makers of Family Circle are my heroes.)

Audrey:

Mom said she likes her gifts the hero magazines   Ha ha.she thinks the other presents are heroes to though maybe she would say it a different way.we put up the lights out side the boys found interest in zanes little play house I'd some times join them while I rote the phone rang I think it was for moms dentist appointment I had to run the phone to mom.i lost the fake mans face what good is a man with no face.we made a decoration out of cranberries love love love you love Audrey with. Love.love love love.

Jason:

Thanks Audrey that was a great summary!  I agree that fake men are less useful without faces. 


We're glad Jason is home and closer than a text away this week.  Maybe, just maybe, I'm equally glad that Fake Jason's first (relocated) and second heads have been properly recycled and are no longer resting on a pillow beside yours truly.