Gawk!

"Gawk!" "Gawk!"
My little baby (ok he's not a baby, he's almost two!) sounds like a squawking bird whenever I pull the car into a parking lot.  In his limited vocabulary, Asa wants me to know he does NOT want to be carried, but wants to walk.

Walk in the parking lot, walk in Target, walk Amelie in to preschool.

The boy who was the slowest to walk can't get enough of walking now.

And so life has slowed waaaay down.  When I have my companion along we don't rush in and out of a store.  Appropriately, we "gawk."

Gawk in the dollar section of Target.
Gawk at the Elmo cards when picking out a card.
Gawk at the snacks spilled onto the ground (and then grab them and eat before mommy can pick them up - ewww).
Gawk in the woods.

Over spring break we visited dear friends in Tennessee.  They led us on a couple of beautiful hikes and proved patience with our family as Asa insisted on gawking for as much of the hike as possible.  We did notice more leaves, bugs, interesting trees, and birds but we also took quite a bit longer to complete the hike than ever before.

Life slowed down is rare for me.  I like to conquer the world as quick as possible - whether shopping or hiking, I'm a let's get it done kind of girl.

Occasionally God sends something into my life to slow me down for a season.  Accepting the slowness drives me crazy at first and then I notice more, enjoy more, even feel more.  I'm working to accept this slowing down as God's message to me that life needs to more savouring.

Thanks to Asa's insistence that we gawk.

 

Magical Four

It was a unicorn birthday for Amelie and now she is four!

I spend more time with my sweet Amelie than anyone else.  Often I feel we are attached at the hip and we talk (or she talks) all day long.  Mostly we talk about being a kitty, when is snack time, how much we love daddy kitty, and how we need to be kind to Asa.  Occassionally our personalities bump against each other and I see my own stuborn-ness combined with daddy's stubborn-ness and how that has created this incredibly stubborn little girl (er...kitty).

But most of the time, she is laughing and twirling and whirling and hugging Asa too tightly. I know she won't always be here to talk to and when I will most want to know all that's going on inside of her she won't want to tell me. So I listen to her deep desire to be a kitty and how her favorite color is now purple even though five minutes ago it was purple and pink.  The fact that my favorite color is red and doesn't change from being red mystifies her and actually makes her kind of annoyed because red after all is not a very pretty color.

When the doctors lifted Amelie into this world, incredible relief and great hope flooded through my body.  For what had seemed like a lifetime I never thought I would have a second child and then she was a sweet girl.  A daughter.

Just four years and there has been more sweetness than I could imagine from one little person.

Happy Birthday to my sweet Amelie Kitty.

What's that Asa?

Woof Woof Wooof Bark!
What's that Lassie? Timmy fell down a well?

Uh, um babadub.
What's that Asa? The balloon floated into the bathtub and you can't get it out?

And so the day goes.  Asa encounters a problem. He appeals to me through a series of sounds strung together in a usually undiscernable way and I get to play detective and interpreter to figure out what he is trying to tell me.

There are a few words in his vocabulary that I understand but mostly they all sound like either "mama" or "ball."  The rest of the time he communicates through a series of "uhh"s, "ummm"s, and "blabublub"s.  (I really love the blabublubs the best and I think this is the word for marshmallow, balloon, or something else super cute.)  Often he physically pulls on my leg and drags me to where the problem lies - usually a ball stuck somewhere or a snack he wants in the pantry.

Most of the time, Ican figure it out but you probably wouldn't be able to.

Asa never got into sign language. While Asher quickly picked up on being able to say the necessities like more, milk, thank you, and a wide variety of animals, Asa never showed any attempts to try our terms of communication.  He prefers the screaming, dragging, and temper tantrum ways of letting us know he needs something.

He presents the fact that there is a problem.  Then we spend the effort to figure out what the problem is. 

"Rawr, AHHHHH, RAWR"
Oh, your dinosaur is stuck under the chair?
"Uh-huh"

"MaMa, ahh, Mama, Mama"
Would you like some milk, Asa?
"AHHHHH, ahhh Mama"
Oh, you need some water?
"Uh-huh"

Everyday my prayer for Asa is that we will be able to understand him.  Amelie prides herself in being able to understand Asa's babytalk and actually often she is the one who figures out what he is screaming about.

He is not even two yet, and maybe my expectations are too high.  But then I see other toddlers speaking in full sentences that I, as a stranger, completely understand and I laugh at our cryptic Lassie/interpreter relationship.

"Ahhh, mama, Ahhh, gaaa"
What's that Asa? You can't find giraffe in your bed? 

Got to go put on my interpreter hat.
Such is life with my Buddy Boo.


 

Seven!

Asher celebrated his seventh birthday last Saturday.  As the big day approached, he could hardly contain his excitement and I became more and more nostalgic of what my life had been in those last days leading up to the birth of my first child.

I remember giving a final presentation at work, wondering how I would fill my days at home and what I would do without the camraderie of my coworkers,  I couldn't imagine how the baby inside of me would make it out into the world.

Seven years later, my days look a billion times different and I have a new group of friends who are comrades in these motherhood trenches.  This different is good.

My boy can't get enough of his DS which drives me crazy, but he also can't get enough of reading which fills me with pride.  I can see his internal battle as he struggles to figure out how to control and correct ways to express his emotions.  Some times control wins and other times emotions win - you could say the same for me.


He loves his alone time and needs periods of just doing nothing with no one.  I've learned that for his introverted personality, these hours spent in his room recharge his personality and bring back my happy Asher again.  But he also loves his friend time. 

Seven years have been good.  The birth of my Asher, my creative child who always has an elaborate solution to solving problems changed everything seven years ago and I couldn't be more thankful for him.

Missed it

It was the last quarter of the last game.  The team had proven to be tough over the long season.  Although tired, the players pressed on continuing with their passing and shooting.  The Panthers stacked for Asher.  He broke away towards the basket.  After receiving the pass, he turned to eye the basket.  He raised his arms and released the ball for the shot.  And SWISH! He scored!

At least I imagine it happened this way.  Asher's basket.  The one and only of the season.

While this excitement happened at the church down the road, I rummaged through the storage room at home sorting camping gear and delighting in the growing pile of items to take to Goodwill. Asa slept soundly upstairs during his usual afternoon napping time.  This precious nap time was the reason I stayed home and also the reason that

I missed it.

I missed the big moment of Asher's basket.  For the million other moments I have been there.  Throughout soccer season, I refused to miss a game hoping that week would be the one when Asher would score a goal. We are still waiting for that first goal.

Through basketball season, our family prioritized the games.  We all went, we all cheered for the team, and encouraged Asher.

And then when it happened, when he made a basket, I missed it. 

I don't think Asher minded too much that I wasn't there.  He might have been happy enough to just tell me about it.

As a mom who has prioritized my kids enough to stay home with them full-time, I can't help but kick myself.  I can't be there for everything.  But I sure want to.  I would love to witness all of their successes, cheer them through all of the failures, and celebrate every victory. 

Realistically I know there are a billion moments I will miss.  Little ones and maybe some big ones.  It's part of the growing up and separating away.  Seven years ago, I felt his every movement and knew everything that went into and out of his body.  I can't say I'm nostalgic for all of that feeding and diaper changing, and surely someday I will not miss the many hours of sitting at practices and games.

Through this separating and moving on, I simply want to remain there for his life.  I want to experience it, rejoice in it, shed tears when we need to.  Ultimately I don't want to miss out on my boy.  Whether he retells the story to me, or I get to experience the moment in person, I hope there will be more moments of being there than missing it.

Soccer season will start soon and I will once again be in the front row at every game in a absolute refusal to again admit that I missed it.

 

Asa's stool

A foam rocket shot up on the counter?

Crayons out of reach on the craft table?

A comfy couch waiting for someone to lounge on?

No problem.  Even though he is only about three feet tall.

No problem when he has a stool anyway.

Being the third child, Asa doesn't have many things that are solely his. Toys blend together. He plays with tea sets, eats with a pink spoon, and reads our tattered copy of Goodnight Moon even though the binding no longer holds the book together.

But the black plastic stool I got free with a rebate at Menards is Asa's.

The stuffed animals, the books, the blocks, Legos, those are all ambiguous and at any time ownership may shift from one child to the next. 

The stool is always Asa's.

Maybe because I know what it's like to not be able to reach something on your own two legs.

And it's partly because I totally love his ingenuity to go get a stool when he sees something up high he can't reach or wants to sit on the couch and no one is around to help him up.

Upstairs, downstairs, it doesn't matter where he needs to reach, he doesn't mind lugging the stool up and down.  It's almost half his size, but the handle in the middle makes it manageable and gives him the ability to be one of the big kids.

I feel a bit sad that I haven't been there to always get what he needs or lift him to where he wants to go. but I am proud of him for figuring it out on his own.

I love this determination in my Asa and will continue to defend his stool.

Staying sane

I'm not crazy, really. 

That screaming you heard from the garage on Monday morning, that was um, that was my happy filled with excitement scream. OK fine, that was actually my scream that gets the kids to stop their own screaming for just one minute while they try to figure out what in the world mommy is doing.

Earlier Monday morning I reminded myself not to start yelling because that meant they had control over me (Being a good mom who reads good parenting books, I felt proud of myself for remembering this good piece of advice).  So I kept my voice in check. Held my temper down. We were going to make it out of the house with all of mommy's emotions bubbling up, but not yet boiling over.

And then he said it.

In the middle of a heated argument with Asher about why I wasn't even going to discuss with him whether or not he needed going to school, he shot back at me, "All you do is stay at home with the kids."

Hold everything.

That statement is the one causing every stay at home mom to suck in her breath and decide which aspect of that outrageousness to address first.

Should I list out the billion examples of what I do during the day other than just sit on the couch watching kids? Or maybe I needed to let out my pent up frustration over sacrifices of money and self-satisfaction given up to stay at home. 

In one millisecond, of my anger, I thought of describing how much I cared about him and his brother and sister and this love motivates me to stay at home with them.

But, continuing with my good mom facade, I simply told him that staying home with the kids doesn't mean I don't do anything all day.

I left it at that and continued the crazy morning routine of getting Amelie to speed up and convincing Asa he does need to wear a diaper and we do not need to carry all of his earthly possessions into the car. 

It was this shrieking insistence from my baby that he needed to bring giraffes and snacks and blankets into the car, which made my emotion boil out.  I screamed as I carried him to the van.  I kept screaming while I buckled him in.

All three kids stopped their own screaming, whining and arguing and stared. 

I think they got it that now was the time for obedience and quickly getting into the car. 

For the three minute drive to drop Asher off at school, I laid out what I do all day. I described what life would be like for me (lots of positives!) and for them (lots of negatives!) if I did not stay at home with them.  Whether they understood or will remember, I don't think so, but I dot think Asher will not be saying that again - at least not in the near future.

We continued our drive, dropped Amelie off at preschool.  Then Asa and I waited at church for mom's group to begin.  While we waited, I realized my baby never really did get to finish his breakfast, but at least he had brought his pop-tart along.

What a good mom I am.