Stories (and portraits) from December

  Strider asked me the other day about Christmas and Jesus’ birth and how come He was a baby, and where is He now, and how come we can’t see Him, and where does He live?  Eventually the very difficult and confusing conversation got over to the subject of Heaven.  We talked about how God lives there and how we’re going to go there too.  Then he asked where Heaven is.  Although I knew it wasn’t quite necessarily theologically true, I told him it was above the sky, not knowing what else to say.  But THEN he asked, “How are we going to stand up on the sky??”  I told him there would be houses there, but that didn’t satisfy his gravity question and he finally asked me, “Is this for real, or for pretend?”

Another day, he heard me asking Pete what he wanted for Christmas this year.  Not to be excluded, he came running in saying “I want something for Christmas too!”  We had never asked him what he wanted before, or really even told him there were going to be presents, so I wasn’t sure what he would say.  He scrunched up his face for a minute and then said, “I think I’ll take…. a brownie.”  This kid is still a cheap date!

The other day on Oprah, there was an underwear fashion show at one point.  I was watching it and then realized maybe I shouldn’t be because Strider seemed to be watching rather intently too.  But as I started to change it, he asked, “Why does that girl have something weird on her hands?!”  (She was wearing funny mittens) So I guess he wasn’t too interested in the underwear part.

As I was cooking dinner the other night I heard Strider telling Rayna, “Rayna, don’t touch that.  I still love you, but I don’t want you to touch that!”

I came in Strider’s room the other day and found Strider and Rayna both on the floor, sitting facing each other.  They were holding hands and Strider had his eyes all scrunched up, closed, and was saying, “…. and please bless JT and help him to get better.  In Jesus’ name we pray, Amen.”

Rayna’s favorite position these days is to have her head down on my right shoulder, with her thumb in her mouth and her other hand on the back of her head.  When I’m sitting on the floor, it’s never very long before Rayna walks or crawls over and puts her head right on that shoulder – always the right side!

Rayna still hasn’t mastered many of the normal “first words,” like ball, duck, dog, etc.  But she does say a couple of funny things:  “doi, doi” (to get us to sing the “I’ve Got the Joy, Joy, Joy” song) and something that sounds suspiciously like “how YOU doin’,” (a la Joey from Friends).  Strider walks around saying that a lot, and I think Rayna is now too!

An Adventure with a Swan

Some of the birds on our pond

Today I was in a situation I never would have foreseen.  

When I went out to the curb to get our mail today, I saw that one of the trumpeter swans from the pond across the street was on the sidewalk in front of our house.  Well, apparently that guy is speedy because by the time I turned back around to come in the house, he was already between me and the door, at our front step.  I tried to go towards the door, but he seemed to be guarding it pretty well.  And since this particular one has been to known to hiss at people who get too close, I decided to avoid that the whole situation and went around to our back door. 

  Fortunately, I remembered, I had left that door unlocked on purpose earlier that day.  But, when I got to it, I found that it was locked again!  When I knocked, Strider came to the door (I was thankful he wasn’t at the other door letting the swan inside!) so I told him to unlock it.  

He got the all-too-common mischievous look in his eye and just shook his head “no.”  We battled through that for a few seconds and I started to worry because I realized I had no immediate repercussion to give him if he continued to disobey. 

Finally, though, he saw I was stern enough and unlocked the door.  Never thought I would be  stuck between a 3-year old and a swan!