Sass and Magic

A few weeks ago, Cubby caught the croup. I braced myself, knowing that eventually Cubby, sweet little brother that he is, would share this with the Bear. Yesterday, I took the Bear to the Doctor's office for a diagnosis. Officially, he is suffering from a bronchial infection and will be on a course of steroids in hopes of repelling any potential for pneumonia. I am sad for him. But that isn't what I want to write about today. I would like to write about the Doctor's office. Particularly, the waiting room. Specifically the "sick side" of the waiting room. Then I will alleviate your suffering and share a bit of magic.

First, a cringe-worthy story. Most Pediatric offices have a "well" side and a "sick" side in a valiant effort to keep cooties contained. This is all well and good for the cheery folks over on the well side, but for those on the sick side, well, we are less fortunate. Not only do we suffer watching our little ones cough, sneeze, and rub their weary little eyes, but we also have to be wary of the other sick children and their own unique little infections, which may not be the same malady that brought our own little one to the Doctor's office. This means that you can take your baby to the Doctor for an ear infection and leave with scarlet fever if you are not careful. I am always careful.

For example, when the Bear and I walked into the sick side yesterday we were greeted by two little boys his age, one suffering from a hacking cough and the other from chicken pox. These children were sitting quietly on their mother's laps, coughing and whimpering, suffering silently as they waited their turn. I sat with the Bear on my lap and proceeded to exchange details of symptoms and worries with the other moms.

Then they walked in.

The twosome every waiting mother fears will enter the sick side where her child waits--- an irresponsible guardian and his overwhelmingly contagious and disobedient brat.

When the child charged in, a boy of lets say three years old, he was followed by a germ infested cloud of mucus. Think Pigpen from Peanuts meets Taz from Looney Tunes, and maybe that combination of cartoon just ingested a crack rock the size of your fist while simultaneously suffering from a particularly virulent strain of the plague.

Taz

Pig Pen

Now adding to our plentiful imagery is the elderly gentleman in charge of said Pig Pen/Taz/Crack/Plague child--"Plague Boy" for the purposes of story sharing. This guardian of Plague Boy suffers from a touch of Marty Feldman and a generous amount of Pablo Escobar.

Marty

Colombian douche bag

Apart from looking untidy, disgruntled, and severely bug eyed, he waltzed in a total of three minutes after his presumed child made an entrance. He appeared to be in no hurry to follow his charge and maintained his uncaring, uninvolved demeanor throughout my time in the wait room.

Plague Boy ran into the waiting room spewing snot and hacking a very wet cough in all directions. Identical looks of horror swept over our faces as we watched him hurtle his body into the office door at top speed, over and over again. Each time he slammed his body into the door he would fall backwards onto the waiting room floor, laughing manically and collapsing into a fit of wheezing, before standing up and repeating the process. By the time his guardian strolled onto the scene, Plague Boy was wiping bits of vomit off his mouth and onto his shirt.

I hope you're cringing as you read this. Surely it is only a tenth of what I felt at that moment.

The careless man strolled up to the nurse receptionist's window and spoke with her while Plague Boy walked up to each of us with a greeting that included snot, vomit chunks, and hacking cough germs spewed in the direction of our children.

As soon as he approached me, I shielded the Bear with my body. Plague Boy began hitting my legs in an attempt to touch the Bear.

I calmly said, "No. Do not touch us. Please sit down on the other side of the room." He looked at me and ran away towards Mom #1, coughing harshly before vomiting on the floor next to her child. I reached into my bag, found my bottle of travel Lysol and sprayed my legs and the surrounding area.

One mother let out a short laugh. The other shot me a look as if to say, "Please hand it over so I can use it too." The Guardian, however, came over and had the audacity to scold me for using my Lysol.

I looked him squarely in the eye, lifted my can of Lysol and squirted a bit in his direction with a sassy and satisfying "Pfft."

If his eyes weren't already bugged out, I'm sure they would have popped out a bit more. He grumbled under his breath at me as he walked to the bench across the way and plopped down with a huff of indignation.

To say that you could cut the tension in that sick room with a knife would be a gross understatement.

I maintained my hold on the Bear and my eye contact with Bug Man while Plague Boy barfed into a plastic bag.

Mom #2, in a polite attempt to break the staring contest between Bug Man and myself, asked me where I had managed to find such a small bottle of Lysol.

I responded, "At Target. I have a bottle in the car and one in each of my diaper bags. You never know what kind of germs are on picnic benches or swing sets. Even at the Doctor's office, sometimes you encounter unsupervised children that are positively dripping in the kind of germs that merit the use of those space suits from Outbreak." I still had not broken eye contact with Bug Man.

You don't mess with me, my kids, or my can of Lysol and expect to go without a great dose of sass from me.

I got up after Plague Boy began dumping his puke bag on the floor. I let the nurse receptionist know that I would be waiting outside, far away from the walking beaker of Ebola virus.

We suffered in the searing heat for awhile before we were called in. I marched past the vomit puddles and took the Bear in for his visit. When we left half an hour later, poor little Plague Boy, still unsupervised, was hacking away in the corner, terrifying a new round of concerned parents.

Gross. I felt sorry for Plague Boy. Certainly a disobedient brat that merited a sound dose of discipline, but ultimately a sick child in the hands of a bad parent.

Now that you are sufficiently horrified let's move on to the magic.

Later that day, I placed a sad and weary Bear on the floor of the nursery for playtime. He walked over to the wicker toy trunk at the foot of his bed and began to dig. A short time later he unearthed a plastic bottle in the shape of a police man.

This bottle was once filled with bubbles. The hat once unscrewed to reveal an attached bubble wand. We used it on our vacation in Michigan this past summer. The Bear loved watching his older cousins at play with these community helper bubble toys which consisted of a policeman and a firefighter. Once they were empty, I broke off the bubble wand, cleaned out the bottles and took them home for the Bear to play with. Unfortunately they fell to the bottom of the trunk and have remained hidden from him for the last month. He found one yesterday and lifted it with a small smile.

"Bubbles, Mama" he said.

He touched the bottle with gentle wonder, as if he were caressing the face of an old and dear face he had not seen in a while. He unscrewed the hat and peered into the bottle.

"Uh-ooooo," came out of his rounded little lips when he discovered that the bottle was empty and the wand had been removed.

Not to be deterred, my son poked his finger into the empty bottle, lifted it to his mouth like an imaginary wand and blew.

"Bubbles!"

Sweet little angel. Sick as can be and still reveling in the magic of his own imagination.

Cubby the Conqueror

Yesterday I noticed a strange bump in Cubby's mouth while nursing him. I began a quick investigation whereupon I discovered the faintest strip of white peeking through his pink gums. I jumped to my feet and began calling relatives to proudly announce, "Baby's first tooth!"

"You get a new sticker in your baby book today!" I said proudly.

"grrrrrrlllllllmamamamamphhhhht" came his reply.

An hour later, the faint strip of white popped and I realized it was only a blister.

'Sorry babe, no sticker in your book today."

Not to be defeated by a blister, Cubby determined to conquer the next mountain in baby development before the day's end. He refused to nap bereft of a landmark accomplishment for his baby book.

I dropped Cubby off in his pack and play, completely unaware of his resolution. I started making dinner, set a mound of dough to rise, and slipped into my room for a few minutes to fold laundry.

No sooner had I set down the last sock when I heard Cubby screaming at full voice. I ran to the living room and much to my surprise, discovered that he was standing up in his pack and play.

Cubby can sit up unassisted, he can crawl a few feet, but he has never before hauled himself up to a standing position. I still have no idea how he managed it! He stood there screaming and crying for a minute while I stared in shock. Then I realized his discontentment came from being unable to lower himself back down. Poor baby. He worked so hard for that one little sticker.

Late in the afternoon I gave him a nice warm bubble bath. He emerged from the tub smelling sweet and lemon fresh. I combed his hair and tucked him into his teddy bear pajama. Then we sat down together, opened his baby book, and I helped him paste on the newest marker in his book.

He is 8 months old today and already a conqueror.

Palacio de los Jugos

Nothing I write will do this place justice. Palacio de los jugos is both alien and home, strange and comforting. It is a small third world country on the corner of Miller and 102 Avenue. Painted an alarming shade of pink and guarded by massive electric palm trees of green and blue, a few natural palm trees also border the property, looking a bit shocked but otherwise happy to be daily permeated by the scent of grease.

We drove to my parent's house today so that we could catch the Eagles game on television (we do not own a TV). I dropped J and the kids off and let my stomach do the driving. After a busy week and a massive craving for Cuban food, its no surprise I found myself at Palacio de los Jugos. Largely ignored while I was in high school, discovered during my vacation time home from college, and regularly visited now that we are living here for a season, Palacio de los Jugos has become quite the hot spot. For those of you up north that have never experienced its equivalent allow me to give you the verbal tour...

First, the mental image.

I pulled into the parking lot, careful not to run over the bustling stream of people coming in and out of the store front and also avoiding a red truck overflowing with home made rocking chairs. I drove into an extremely narrow space, flanked by an old chrysler and an 80s BMW. The owners of the rocking chairs sat in two of their own creations under the nearest palm tree while they played dominoes on a fold out table and smoked cigars. The crowd was rife with guajiros, my favorite. Skinny old men, dressed in their best Sunday guayaberas, although now the top three buttons have been undone since church has long since let out and for most, a straw hat perched on their heads. A plump wife at each one's side, inspecting the large selection of dried meats, pig ears, and pickled feet. The occasional next generation Cuban decked out in his "papi" wear, generously greased hair and sporting a heavy gold chain, is also in attendance. The sound of chancletas smacking on the tile while everyone peruses the multiple aisles of fruit and vegetables. Most of the fruit, by the way, seems to have jumped off the page of a Dr. Seuss book. I love tropical fruit, but its a bit unsettling to find a giant green booger with purple spots and pink spikes staring at you from a grocery shelf. It makes me wonder, Strange little guy, surely only a fiffer feffer feff could ever eat you---a far cry from green eggs and ham, I will not eat you, no matter what you say Sam I am.

They are equipped with a small kitchen towards the back of the shop and are regularly churning out all kinds of artery clogging delights. The juicer is situated at the front of the store for orders ranging from freshly squeezed papaya, orange, mango, guanabana, to giant green boogers with purple spots and pink spikes if your taste runs in that direction. This is also where they keep shelves stocked with ethnic spices you wouldn't find in your average grocery store. Ha! Forget it, not even a specialty store would have most of this stuff. After all, I spotted a bottle of dried horse hair for sale today. You're good Whole Foods, but you're not that good!

Did I mention that they have a window for special orders? Well they do. So if you don't feel like bumping elbows with the elite of Miami, you can stand outside and desperately try to get the attention of the window cashier who is usually chatting away on her cell phone.

Get the picture? Now, the walk through. Just in case that mental image has prompted you to fly down to Miami for a quick jaunt through Palacio de los Jugos, here is the survival guide...

I walked in today in search of their tamales and masitas de puerco. Which in English translates as yum and yummy, or tamales and fried pork. If you want either of these items you have to stand behind a large pile of people that in no way resemble an ordered line. All of these people are somehow related, at least that is the general mood of the "non line" since they are all shouting at each other with astounding familiarity. Remember last week when you shouted to your cousin, "Oye, Mami! Be careful with that dulce de leche, it'll go straight to your ass!" only that person wasn't your cousin but in fact, a complete stranger? Who's mother, you will discover before you leave, grew up in the same Cuban village as your Dad?

Expect to stand in the line for fifteen to twenty minutes. Your options for last minute impulse buys include: canned sugar cane, bird seed cookies, salvia plants, coconut flan, chicken feet and lollipops. If you manage to get the attention of a clerk, shout your order at them before anyone else gets a chance. They will fish out a few tamales from a giant cast iron pot, wafting with steam, located not in the kitchen but right next to the cash register. If you are reaching for a credit card then you obviously haven't read the giant sign measuring 2 x 3 inches proclaiming, CASH ONLY. Good luck shuffling through the crowds to reach the ATM in the back of the store next to the Dr. Seuss fruit and a 75 year old man clothed in tight unzipped shorts and a mesh blue tank top clinging tightly to his old man-boobies. Excellent. $10 in cash later you are walking out of Palacio de los Jugos, accomplishment steaming from the plastic bag in your left hand and your right hand still feeling as if it should be holding a passport or travel visa of some sort.

A fixture of my city. A comforting, terrifyingly commonplace pit stop in my old neighborhood. The kind of place my kids will die laughing over when we come back for visits, or even worse, a place they will roll their eyes at.

I love that its one of the only places in Miami that has the feeling of a small village. While the rest of the city passes you by with no eye contact and not a word of hello, walk into Palacio de los Jugos and its non stop chit chat. Everyone refers to you with a term of endearment, "Mi hija," "Mi nina," "amor."As if you grew up on the farm down the road, and your family exchanges a small share of eggs each week for someone else's root vegetables, the way they always have for the past fifty years.

Unfortunately, that ambience is a dying memory. Fifteen or twenty years from now it will no longer exist. That beautiful old generation will be all but gone. The next generation will find themselves searching for that feeling, unable to find it, and then desperately trying to recreate it, only to find themselves producing disingenuous and mediocre copies.

Our only comfort will be found in the small hole that the cloud of fried grease has managed to burn through the ozone layer. An atmospheric tattoo that will watch over us, long after Palacio de los Jugos has gone.

Busy Bees

The week shot passed us way too quickly. On Monday, the Bear went to his new gymboree class. Cautious as ever, he made sure to watch every activity at least three or four times before trying it himself. He scaled a wall, jumped on an air log, played on the gym mats, and learned the difference between "high" and "low." Homeschooling continued on as usual, and every small bit of progress felt like a huge victory.

On Wednesday I went to my first Bible Study Fellowship meeting. When I arrived at the church, the parking lot was inundated with cars. I wondered if the Mayor of Miami died and I had somehow missed the memo about his funeral services. But no, there was no funeral in the sanctuary that day, just four hundred plus women waiting for their BSF year to kick off. Yikes.

Funny how I walked in with 3 major assumptions that were all shot down within 1/2 an hour.

#1 The only people in attendance will be middle-aged white women in cardigans.

#2 The whole meeting will be a mass of emotional women, crying over every little word.

#3 It won't be anything I haven't already heard.

Well I walked in and much to my surprise, sat in a row with not one single "middle-aged white woman in a cardigan." There was one white woman in my row but she was decked out in a caftan and tribal jewelry (with a hint of patchouli wafting from her person).

When the lecture began, I was the one that started getting teary-eyed, much to my own horror! Everyone else seemed cool as a cucumber, including my 7th grade English teacher, who spotted me and ran over to sit with me. She is a southern belle and still quite the pistol, even at 80+ years of age. She felt quite free to scold me for not bringing any paper to the lecture and had no qualms about reaching over to scribble things I neglected to include in my notes. (Love her!)

Finally, I was quite delighted to realize my error in assuming that this study would fail to reveal anything new. Turns out, there is a lot about the book of John I don't know. Imagine that...

Suffice to say, we had a busy week, especially when you throw in three house visits, a girl's night out, and a card party. I made three quiches, home made biscotti and scones for the Saturday morning party. By the time Sunday morning I arrived, we were all pooped!

I desperately needed a bit of R&R. Please read next post for chosen method of R&R

The threshold of change

I still remember getting dressed that tuesday morning. Red oxford shirt. Hideous blue uniform shorts.

As usual, I had no time for breakfast. Two freshly printed essays were safely tucked away in my backpack and my sister was complaining that we would be late for school, again. On the morning drive we listened to the oldies station and when we parked in my coveted Senior parking space at our high school. I bid my little sister a quick goodbye and ran off to find one of the English teachers.

I raced to Mrs. W's room, anxious to show her my scholarship essay. We discussed with great enthusiasm my hopes for the months following graduation and the adventures that lay in wait. I longed to go out into the world and change it, to leave it a better place. Like most high school seniors, I was brimming with possibility and everything in that moment was hope, determination and invincibility.

Then we all marched off for the second chapel message of Spiritual Emphasis week. We had a guest speaker scheduled to speak all week long about our relationship with Christ and about witnessing to others. He was the Billy Sunday type, charismatic to the point of being annoying. It would be more appropriate to say that the school invited someone to yell Bible verses in our ears for an entire week. He had no sense of voice control and absolutely hollered every point at us. That morning he was making a particular point, "Nobody knows when they are going to die. It could happened at any moment. Where would you go if you died right this second?" I remember wondering why speakers always tried to scare teenagers into loving Jesus. My mind wandered as he continued with his fire and brimstone.

Suddenly, one of our guidance counselors shuffled into the room with a frantic look in his eye, he walked up to our speaker and whispered something into his ear. Our speaker, being a man of great opinion and zero tact, said the following words:

"I was just informed that a plane has crashed into one of the World Trade Center Towers. You see? No one knows when their final moment has come. They didn't know it. Do you know where you are going?"

He continued to belabor the point. We were shocked. Someone in the sophomore section of the auditorium let out a strangled cry, her Dad was in New York on business, mainly at the WTC. Then people began shifting, whispering, crying. Our brilliant speaker continued much to the horror of our guidance counselor. He literally had to wrench the microphone from this man's hands in order to offer up a prayer and send us all to our classrooms. I barely heard a word. A feeling had seized our small school and it was thick with fear and panic.

No one had yet uttered the words "terrorist attack," but somehow it permeated the air just the same. I began searching the bleachers for my sister and found that she was already looking at me, and her face was extremely pale. We were told to walk quickly to our homeroom classes.

The school, obviously confident in their ability to efficiently corral the students into rooms and wait for further news, were not equipped to handle the insanity of some of our parents. When I reached the outside of the auditorium, it became evident that something far greater than a mere plane accident was in our midst. Parents awaited us. Frantic parents. One mother in particular, hysterically weeping and telling us to prepare ourselves, that the end was upon us.

No one had ever said things like that to us before. It was a Christian school, we had our share of lame ineffectual speakers, most of us were believers, but we had never seen an adult in true panic that the end was at hand.

Then we saw our teachers. Some were calm, others worried, and one man in particular, our resident conspiracy theorist and my homeroom teacher, stood ready to inform us of political implication and impending doom. We filed into his room, the TV already tuned into CNN and smoke from the towers seemed to lift off the screen and penetrate the room in a cloud of confusion. My boyfriend at the time asked him, "This wasn't an accident was it?" Our teacher began listing potential terrorist organizations that were suspect in his book. He was regaling us with the possibility of an incensed drug cartel in Columbia when the second plane hit. The shock of being informed of the first plane was nothing like the horror of watching the second one slam into the tower and shatter that last thread of youthful innocence. No one felt invincible anymore. The world we so longed to break into now lay broken at our feet, and someone outside was still screaming that it was the end of the world.

Our homeroom teacher gaped at the screen a few minutes before turning around and stating that our city was quite possibly next. I remember the shot of realization that I had zero respect for this teacher and that I didn't really give a darn what anyone at school would have to say to me that day. I only had one thought racing through my mind. Where was my sister? I quickly ditched the boyfriend and homeroom and went in search of her. I had left her that morning, still surrounded by the cloud of peace and safety that had enveloped us all our lives. It was suddenly gone now and I needed to see her before any of it could sink in. I needed to make sure she was safe. Even if every adult in sight was crying, "the sky is falling!," I would not head for safety until she reached it first.

I can't remember what our first words were. But I know that we were both on the verge of tears. Our school security guard was not allowing any student to go home unless accompanied by an adult. We got in our car and I threatened to run him over if he didn't let us through. He stepped aside after a few other threats were hurled over the top of my window at him. The drive home was a blur.

We came home to find my mother, glued to the television with a look of sheer horror on her face. A handy man was working in our home that day and he stood watching as well. The handyman's father, recovering from recent surgery, was also laid up on our couch and responding to everything the bewildered reporters were saying.

"Did you see that?" he asked. "Someone just jumped from the building. I wondered what that was. Its people. God, they are jumping from the building. They must be roasting alive in there."

I closed my eyes and remembered gazing up at the towers just a few months back. On a visit with my Dad as I checked out Columbia University. People were falling on the pavement where I had stood, wistfully enveloped in the dreams of my future.

We watched together as America fell to her knees when one tower tumbled down and then the other. The beautiful country that blessed our family with political asylum, gave us a home and our freedom, lay vulnerable and bleeding. We watched until that last tsunami of smoke radiated throughout the city. Then the reports flooded in. The pentagon, the field of dirt in Pennsylvania, the terrorists.

We left for a time of prayer in our church that night, the horrible reality of it all pounding in my heart, the charred bodies falling through the sky of my mind's eye.

Maybe I wouldn't remember every detail of that day if I had been a few years younger, the excitement of adulthood many years ahead of me instead of mere months. But my idealistic heart had been so set upon the change I could bring to the world, that when the world changed suddenly with such irreversible horror, I lost my footing.

America was flooded with fear, more so than ever before. But the fear was not outweighed by pride. Pride for our country, love for one another, respect for our heroes and for those that fought for our freedoms. Even if I felt a strong measure of fear, I felt an overwhelming sense of pride in my country. How sad that we suddenly turned in on each other. That pride and love dissipated so quickly into dissension and disrespect. Our leader received a daily flogging for his decision to protect us. The injustice that had taken place in our own country was quickly pushed aside.

One year later, I stood on the fairway of my university along with my new classmates and stood silent for eleven minutes, still wondering, "why?"

I have held such minutes of silence for the past 8 years now, including on 9/11/01 itself. The change I have brought to the world so far is the way I raise my children and the manner in which I use my words. A new change has taken hold of my country. One that has stirred the lion in me. The lion that felt defeated before it could cross the threshold, is now pacing. After all, I have two little lion cubs to protect and this country does not belong to one man but to all men. This country is not about undying devotion to one man but about service to all men. I will not stand by in idle passivity. I will not delude myself into believing that information is out of my reach and I had better leave the decisions to those that are "informed."

There are many ways of bringing a country onto its knees. Sometimes a few airplanes are all it takes; sometimes it is the breeding of government into one giant all consuming machine of ill conceived reform; and sometimes it is the smug pride of one man bending law after law before God and countrymen that can bring a country to its end.

I remember the moments of 9/11. The moments that ended a thousand potential moments. The moments that destroyed a thousand future birthdays, weddings and celebrations. The moments that forever annihilated the shared cups of coffee, movie dates, and Super Bowl parties of many families. I remember the passion and pride we felt in the days that followed. I remember the lessons I learned in early grade school about freedom and liberty. I remember that last November one man brought a volatile form of change to our country.

I remember above all, that America belongs to us all. That our own change can be achieved if we are brave enough to stand up for our rights and not allow the criticism of advanced technology drown out the cry of the people. God Bless America.

We are...

I've kept a tally of the Bear's words. He is at 75 right now, and is also repeating almost everything we say to him. Climbing all the furniture, using a spoon and a straw, learning to put on his clothes and how to say his name. He is using the potty and as I write this, he is sleeping peacefully in his "big boy" bed.

Don't ask how it happened. I have no idea. I feel a bit wind blown, like a speeding bullet just whizzed by me and now my hair is all askew.

Cubby is in hot pursuit. Now that he is eating solids, he is packing on the weight. His thighs are huge! Today he ate a banana, 6 strawberries, a sweet potato, a few ounces of pureed spinach, blueberry compote, malanga and pureed garbanzo beans. Just before bed he ate a pear and three apricots. He is all smiles, giggles and baby talk. I love how active he is. I appreciate his sweet, gentle spirit. I think he is the most content baby I have ever seen in my life.

Then there are the rest of us. By us, I mean parents. Adults. The big people. The ones that make the food and change the diapers. The ones that give the baths and unleash the tickle monsters. Us.

We are tired. We are s t r e t c h e d thin. J began our new driveway project this week and we were rained out (thanks Tropical Depression Erica!) We are delayed by a full week now which has set the start date of our picket fence back by a few days. J looks exhausted now that his semester is in full swing and the home projects are piling up. But football season is on the horizon, and there is a gleam in his eye that looks like a Philadelphia Eagle.

I have turned into a Daytimer. Between my homeschooling/tutoring business, the boys, starting my new garden, writing my two books, the co-op and my new bible study (which starts next week), I am one busy mama! Streamlining is the key to my sanity. When the boys are napping I turn into a variation of Monica Gellar/Taz from Looney Tunes. I make homemade baby food, I mix the bread and set it to rise, I sweep and mop the floors, I run the laundry, I try to get a chapter of writing in, I make a lesson plan, I get all of the prep work done for the evening meal, I bake a treat for J, I try to keep my head from falling off....

Really, the nonstop schedule is what I need. I thrive on endless activity, as long as I get my cup of English breakfast in there somewhere.

Once in a while, if I finish before the End-of-Naptime whistle blows, I walk out onto my front porch, sit on the step and let my imagination run wild over my impending garden. Visions of Texas Sage, Blue Daze and Ruellia dance in my head. I am giddy with excitement. My own garden. I can hardly wait.

Now I can't end the family update without mentioning Frankie, our very own Diana Ross version of a West Highland Terrier. He still reigns supreme. He endures both toddler and baby like a champ. He loves his new backyard and the occasional chance for a throw down match with released imported exotic animals that wander into our yard. He says "hi."

A thing of beauty

My son created something beautiful today. He made it and he found value in it and he called it beautiful. "Boo-ke-kull."

Funny how in just twenty months my son learned how to utilize his imagination for crafting and creating. He understood the concept of art today. I am truly in awe of what complex creatures God has created us to be.

It was a drawing by the way. He loves to perch on our sofa at various points during the day for a vigorous bout of scrawling on paper, preferably with either a green or purple crayon. He is forever trying to draw ovals. He loves the word, he loves finding the shape in everyday life and he is in the midst of training his hand to draw ovals. Today he almost made one. He started calling out to me, "oh-val, oh-val, oh-val." I walked over and sat beside him. He pointed his finger and repeated again, "oh-val."

"Beautiful," I said.

"Boo-ke-kall," he said and then he ran his hand over the paper in a loving caress.

What a difference a few months can make for a toddler. The growing stages are flipping faster than the pages of his favorite Dr. Seuss book at story time (This week its "Fred and Ted Go Camping" while he sits on the potty). One week its running and crawling, the next its art appreciation and potty-training. Weren't you just completely dependent on me for everything a moment ago? Where is that moment? Maybe you hid it in the kitchen cupboard along with the iPod, the three of spades and the sippy cup stopper.