Interview with Elijah, One Year Later

So... I'm literally sitting in front of the computer with both boys in my lap, needing something to do. So I'm going to ask LJ some questions :)

1) What did you do today?

I went to Bible school.

What did you learn?

Coloring.

(Judah sneezes-- we're all covered in beautiful baby snot.)

2) Where's is the beautiful mama right now?

At work.

What does she do at work?

Yeah, yeah. (This means he doesn't know.) Daddy-- Judah's chewing on that string (USB cord).

3) What's your favorite song?

I need to see Lion of Judah NOW!! (maybe that's it?)

4) Do you like your brother?

Um, yeah.

Why?

I do NOT like Judah.

Are you sure?

I don't know. (Runs away.)

5) What's your favorite puzzle?

Dinosaurs-- see yesterday for the picture of him standing over it.

6) Two more-- what are you doing now?

Playing with the light. May I pull it?

7) Do you want to go to bed now?

NO! no!

When do you want to go to bed?

I want to stay down here.

DADDY! Turn around and open the dryer door!

So I turned and looked... bad idea

--AND AT THIS POINT ALL HELL BROKE LOOSE....

Judah was throwing papers and LJ was running around like a maniac, so I quit.

--. The moral of this story is that 2-year-olds are very funny to interview (http://lifeonkingarthurscourt.blogspot.com/2011/11/interview-with-lj.html) and 3-year-olds, not so much. Well, I had "fun", at least!!

Lingo Heard Around This House

I was sitting around the house this evening (feels like the first time I sat down in say, two weeks) and realized that like any household, we have a bit of our own lingo. For example, there was a conversation that went something like this.

"Rach, have you seen the Duj?"

"No. I thought that you had him."

"Daddy, Duj is in the kangaroo house."

"Oh, good. I need to change him."

"Oh, I already checked... it was just an FGW."

"Oh, OK. I won't bother yet then."

This conversation would be much easier to follow with some explanation/ translation, eh? So here goes. Duj (pronounced "Dewge" is Judah, who about a year ago Elijah called "Dujah" for a good couple months and it stuck. Except that in this house, we unnecessarily shorten everything, so it got shortened to "Duj." Try to pronounce it at your own risk. Actually, just call him Judah. He'll like you better when he grows up. My poor youngest sister Naomi got stuck with the childhood nickname "Chumpy" for like, ten years. It was awful.

Second, the kangaroo house is the little area that Elijah creates whenever his imaginary kangaroo comes to visit. It's even better when he becomes the kangaroo, jumping around yelling something like "I have a baby in my belly-- it's named Joey!"

Finally, in case you didn't ask and didn't want to know, an FGW = Fart Gone Wrong. It's what we call the little excuse-me bits of excrement that stink like a real #2 but are really just a really big gas blast.

There's the little behind bassoon maestro right there!!

There are a couple others of note as well: "Daddy, I'm a woman!" This is not Elijah expressing any kind of gender confusion, but rather what he calls himself when he wears a shirt with one arm in its sleeve and one arm hanging completely unclothed over the shirt, like an off-the-shoulder dress. He's been doing it for almost a year; we still have no idea where he got the idea from.

And finally, there is the great love of Elijah's life, the 'combo' light... in truth, it's just what happens when a fan and a light get together and hang out in a bathroom ceiling, but to Elijah it's the BEST THING EVER. A fan-- his first great love-- and a bright light.... TOGETHER!!! He loves them so much that anywhere we go with one, he insists on "examining" it upon first entering the house and, in the case of one good friend, insists on praying for it nightly. I have put my foot down on this one, though. We only pray for people at night, else we'd be praying for Paloma's combo light until the wee hours of the morning.

Have a wonderful night all!

Easter Occurrences that May Impress Only Me...

A) The general amount of exuberance in our house compared to the general lack of sleep: in relative chronological order, here's the things we did starting at 7pm Saturday-- 1) went to a 3-hr Easter Vigil, which was completely worth it; 2) had a crazy-feeling party to celebrate after; 3) went to sleep; 4) woke up at 5:15am for a sunrise service; 4b) had a party-feeling breakfast afterwards; 4c) had our family pictures taken; 5) went to 11am Easter service; 6) went to Easter dinner at my folks' afterwards, for which my favorite quote was when I asked my mom if it was really ok if we brought 11 people to the dinner, she said, "Of course, there's plenty of room-- evangelistically speaking," which meant that in actuality they had invited 29 people to a room that fits 20, and it totally worked!!, and 7) had Easter dessert at 7:30pm, because we hadn't seen the Tubbs' yet and it wouldn't be Easter without seeing them.... and we did it on, in age order, 5 hrs sleep; 8 hrs (that would be Rach); probably about 7 hrs (LJ didn't sleep much at all that night), and 9.5 hrs-- and then the boys refused to nap!! I was impressed at least. LJ pulled a 15-hr stretch without sleep (even for him, at 3, that's a long time )!

B) Elijah's sense of comedic timing-- I asked him after a bit of a contrarian exchange with his Great-Gramp Wilson (don't worry, they totally deserve each other... one was named after the other for a reason) if he would tell his Great-Gramp "that deep down, he missed his obstinant nature..." Without hesitation, he turned right to his Great-Gramp and bellowed, "I don't!"

C) Pipe organs and Trumpets on Easter !! !! !! (The trumpet may be my favorite instrument anyway, but a good fanfare... sound of Micah tearing up)

For what it sounded like, click here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mkAKLRthHJM&feature=related

D) Coming home to this pretty picture on our deck after our 7am breakfast! The fabulous Ina Tubbs strikes again!! (We were pretty surprised, especially Elijah, who wandered around saying, "Mama!! I eat all the candy?? " for a good minute.

E) The graciousness of two men (and a couple supporting parents) in our church to give up their Easter service to watch our children (and approximately fifteen others) so that we didn't have to play "bounce the LJ" and "feed the Judah" all service. They were the only people with the safety training to be available and willing, and, in what really made me proud to be in a church with men like this, neither of them had kids near nursery age! Really, there wasn't anything in it for them at all. I won't spoil their reward by naming them for everyone, but an absolutely incredible act of service and not taken for granted by this grateful set of parents!!

Happy Easter Monday from our family!! (Honestly, this is the best picture of the whole set-- I swear!)

Passion + patience =

*Get your minds out of the gutter! :)*

= RESURRECTION!

and

= a wonderful Good Friday service that ended sometime around ten o'clock!

(A wee bit late for this charismatic-turned-Anglican!)

--> As a public-service announcement, if you are local and want to proclaim the Risen Christ at the earliest possible time on Easter morning, the Easter Vigil is being held tonight (Saturday, 4/7) at Christ the Redeemer, 188 Elliott Street in Danvers, starting at 7:30 and lasting (possibly longer than me, we'll have to see) until midnight, at which point there will be great rejoicing at the fact that death's power has been broken and a midnight breakfast feast!!

And then, at 5:30, this family will wake up to go to a sunrise Easter celebration at 6am overlooking Bass Rocks in Gloucester followed by more breakfast!! We'll all look like Elijah does above when we wake up... but so worth it!

Easter is one of our entire family's favorite holidays because it encapsulates that great hope that we have stored within us-- the hope that somehow, someway, death isn't all that we have coming-- that by some inexplicable act of mystical love, we might get pardoned.

C.S. Lewis explains it this way in his book, The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, when two of the main characters look for the powerful lion Aslan unjustly slaughtered by the White Witch:

At that moment they heard from behind them a loud noise — a great cracking, deafening noise as if a giant had broken a giant’s plate…. The Stone Table was broken into two pieces by a great crack that ran down it from end to end; and there was no Aslan.

“Who’s done it?” cried Susan. “What does it mean? Is it more magic?”
“Yes!” said a great voice from behind their backs. “It is more magic.” They looked round. There, shining in the sunrise, larger than they had seen him before, shaking his mane (for it had apparently grown again) stood Aslan himself.
“Oh, Aslan!” cried both the children, staring up at him, almost as much frightened as they were glad….
“But what does it all mean?” asked Susan when they were somewhat calmer.
“It means,” said Aslan, “that though the Witch knew the Deep Magic, there is a magic deeper still which she did not know. Her knowledge goes back only to the dawn of time. But if she could have looked a little further back, into the stillness and the darkness before Time dawned, she would have read there a different incantation. She would have known that when a willing victim who had committed no treachery was killed in a traitor’s stead, the Table would crack and Death itself would start working backward.”

And that's why I stayed awake for almost three hours watching the re-enacting of our Lord's death last night and will watch for four hours tonight awaiting his awakening from the grave. When death is swallowed up in victory and the grave holds no power over we foolish mortals anymore, that's something worth getting excited about!!

Good idea, bad idea

Nights when the 'beautiful mama' (that'd be Elijah's favorite thing to call the Queen) leaves for work and lets the inmates run the asylum, there are the highest of highs and the lowest of lows. Tonight was no different, and it reminded me of an old segment called "Good Idea, Bad Idea" that used to run in a 90s cartoon called Animaniacs... a couple clips can be seen http://www.youtube.com/watch?NR=1&feature=endscreen&v=uuUVfPYtd4M & http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JE4lkpq09xI here.

Anyways, without further ado, here are some "good idea, bad ideas" from today, courtesy of the young madmen seen above (and below) hunting for Easter eggs.

Good idea: Encourage your two small boys to "start a band," a la Brad Paisley. They look at each other and decide that Judah will play the guitar and LJ will be the percussionist. Melts my heart. Honestly, one of the top ten proudest moments I've had so far as a parent.

Bad Idea: The moment your ball of sappiness breaks as your percussionist decides he's going to use the guitarist's head as a drum.

Good idea: Each of the boys jumping up and down on their own bed.... many giggles and laughs.

Bad idea: Both boys jumping up and down on the same bed-- many giggles and one really hysterical scream... that would be Judah, who bounced off the bed, bounced off the wall and landed under the bed. If I hadn't had to dig him out, I wouldn't have believed it to be possible...

Finally, a really good idea: Showing your kids how to look out the bathroom window so you can have some peace and quiet in the shower (because that's how this overly modest mouse likely to take his showers-- BY HIMSELF). Hell, I used to sneak into the coach's shower in high school just so I didn't have to change in front of all the other kids... humorously enough, my other two wrestling captains did as well, so we were always fighting over the one private shower... ok, trip down memory lane complete.

Really bad idea: Having the 3-year-old pull down the curtain on the 1-year-old, leaving you with the conundrum of whether to rescue to the hysterical child and face the now-open window or just to leave him there until he figures his own way out. (As a humorous aside, Elijah had against my wishes earlier taken my towel to his room to play with it, adding even more danger to the situation.)

So that was my evening. I hope yours was more sedate. Have a good night all!!

Good morning, world

This is what we look like in the morning... I'm just thankful to be alive; the other two are practicing their 'thousand-yard stares.'

Some people wake up easier than others. In our little fiefdom, Judah and Rachel wake up... pleasantly. Elijah and I-- waking us up is a bad idea. Better to let us rouse ourselves.

I was reminded of this today when my lovely sister Catherine (who has moved back to the frozen north with us, to this family's great delight!) was asking what time she should come over for dinner this week. "Anytime after quarter of 4:00," I said. "At that point, everyone should be both awake and sociable." By that I meant Elijah, whose naptime routine literally goes something like this:

12:30 Lunch

12:45 Walk upstairs

12:55 Parent escapes room with Elijah still talking (we call him our little 'Chatty Cathy' because he talks and talks and talks... and talks. and TALKS. And at this point you just walk away silently and pray he doesn't notice. It's a fifty-fifty proposition.)

1:17 Elijah reluctantly passes out

2:00 Sleeping like zombie

3:00 Still sleeping like zombie; parent comes in and wordlessly picks him up and plants him in front of Curious George and, if they value their life, leave

3:10 Bellows angrily that he's "Hungry! Food ! Now ! Now! NOW!!!"

3:30 Bellows that Curious George is over

3:45 is a real human again.

To each their own... at least you aren't poor Rachel, who needs as much sleep as Judah but only gets 8.5 hrs a night-- her first two years in heaven will be spent sleeping to make up for the sleep debt she piled up on earth!!

Have a good night all!

On why my boys are wild and crazy...

... because they're just like me!! ( I wish I were kidding! Actually, I don't)

This blog is titled Life on King Arthur's Court because deep down in my heart, I really do want these young mad men-- and this week, Judah has been an angry man... there has been precious little sleeping around here as after sleeping through the night for nine months, he's decided that waking up from 10pm to 1am and screaming his head off for three hours is cool (we disagree)-- to grow up into gentlemanly, chivalrous, strong, ambitious young men with a heart for God. In a word, to steal a turn of phrase, 'modern-day knights.' Bar too high? I don't think so. I hope not.

But here's where I might disagree with some of my *listening* audience, and I'd be interested in hearing your side of the fence, if indeed it is different. I think that the way to get LJ and Judah started on that path is to pray for them (pretty damn important, if you ask me) and almost equally as important, to let them be wild, as opposed to tame.

Ask and ye shall receive, I hear the Queen saying ironically in the background. Maybe that's why she broke up the melee this afternoon where Judah would whack Elijah in the head for approaching 'his' TV (where he got the idea that the TV needed his defending is beyond me) and then got really upset when Elijah giggled instead of retreated. I think deep down he wanted Elijah to respect his manly fists. (Give it about six or seven years, Judah. He'll respect you yet.)

I think that's what most of we men (even little men like Judah) want to be... wild and respected. In that vein, if you happen to agree with me, I highly recommend a book by John Eldredge, Wild at Heart, that fleshes a lot of this out as to why we might think this way. No one wants to be domesticated... sometimes it just happens. But this I would submit. We (all of us, not just men) are warriors in some way. And when the time comes, I want my boys to be readyto fight for what is right and true, even if it takes a little wildness in their childhood to get them there. If they ended up as one of these guys here http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B5fgJVxbQQE, I'd be one of the world's happiest men. Not that they have to be Marines.... it's just that there's something in me that wants them to be heroes. And that's worth them mauling me with their little weapons now and then as they grow up.

(Yes.. that is Judah pushing Elijah around in the second picture -- mainly because they pretty much weigh the same so they are interchangeable on their 'fire truck')

C.S. Lewis said it pretty well in his book The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, referring to Aslan the great lion, "Of course He's good. But He's not safe. He's not a tame lion!" My crazy young men could do worse than emulate that.