Needs more

On February 1st Danny hit his cheek, hard, on the side of his metal bed slide, hard.  He was in obvious pain and tears streamed down his rounded little cheeks.  As he cuddled in my lap, the heaving sobs subsided a moment for him to say "I wish my cheeks were bigger."  I was surprised into a giggle.  That was not the response I had anticipated.

Usually children rain down pledges of vengeance on inanimate objects that animate themselves to inflict pain on the unsuspecting little people (walls and doors have the most vicious tempers and will burst upon them regularly).

No, Danny's wish at this moment was for augmented cheeks.  My gleefully kissable boy wanted even more fleshy pillows on the side of his face.  "Why"  I asked, wondering what childlike logic had brought upon the wish.  "Because then I would have just bounced off the side of the slide instead of getting hurt."  His sniffles turned to snickers.  "And how large would your cheeks need to be to give you this buoyant bouncing effect?"  I asked, wondering if the logic would fail when put to the test.  Now fully recovered, Danny pounced to his feet, pulled his shirt tight around the middle and pushed out the perfectly protruding little belly he could to its maximum capacity "As big as my belly!"

*badump ching*

Dreamy

Tonight I reached a new level - I busted out 'the nightgown.'

Yes, that large shapeless maternal tent that envelops middle aged women.

My dear husband, oh, he just shook his head as I sauntered through the house in my undergarments pulling out one tote after the next.  What was I looking for on such a sticky hot evening?  My mumus of course!  I have realized on more than one occasion now why the Hawaiians wear mumus. Which is the same reason I have taken to wearing more 'summer dresses.' Who needs more material around your waist band or strapped around your thighs, let alone slurping onto your body in any sort of heat, let alone humid heat!

So tonight I did it, I slovenly embraced the 'comfort factor' and dawned a large shapeless gown to sleep in.  Me, the girl who has always slept in pants (even when I lived in Hawaii mind you) could take it no longer.  Not only did I pull out my most tent like mumu for sleeping, I've packed the other three right upstairs to wear for the rest of the week.  Halelujiah I had the presence of mind to get several mumus when living in Hawaii so no, in the hottest week of the summer in mid-western American, even the Hoosier state, I can feel some real A-Lo-HA!

The secondary factor to this equation is that after I put on said sexy nightwear I went straight to the fridge and pulled out a tub of cookie dough to eat from with my very own fork.  This night is gettin' pretty hot, and that is with the extra T.

Days to Remember

It only takes moments for children to create something which may be deemed disastrous by adults, but to children it is just play.  I am grateful for the mental clarity to remember that I was once a child too and remember doing the very mischievous and creative things that my children are doing now.  They make mud.  They pick forbidden flowers. They build forts all over the house.  They wear five outfits in one day.  They take perfectly organized things and reorganize them.  They play and play and play.  I love them.  Each proud mama moment that is accompanied by a shake of a head and the adage, well, I am sure I did the same thing when I was a kid, brings joy to my days.  These three are more than the 'Three Amigos,' they are perfect partners through every day.  

To accompany their physical shenanigans, there has been a slew of new sayings that have stopped me in my tracks to recognize how far we have come and what amazing individuals they all are:

- While Danny was taking his sweet time to pick out a pair of new underwear from the two packages I had bought for him, and I impatiently requested he move the process along, without moving from his lounging position inspecting the patterns of the briefs he responded "I was just considering which pair I should pick Mom."  Ah. It is something to be considered.

-The latest fad at the Button home as been knock-knock jokes.  I have heard and read more knock-knock jokes over the last month than I had known in a lifetime.  Having tired with the library book versions of the joke format, the kids began experimenting and embellishing their own versions.  Some were nonsense.  Others were variations.  Some had their own sort of satirical humor, such as Viv's favorite for herself, which is a variation on the interrupting cow:  Knock-Knock.  Who's there?  Viv?  Viv who...?  La la la la la.  The satire is in the play on Viv's actually personality - she really does loose interest when asking you a question and diverges into her own singing world before reaching the resolution of the question she first asked you.  Oh my sweet Viv.

- Faith's ballet instructor gave her a mixed CD of music as a gift at completion of the course year.  It contained many of the major ballet music.  Faith was excited to have it played and we popped it into the car immediately.  As she sat listening to the music, poised and relaxed at the same time, she said "Mama.  Certain music makes me have different feelings."  I looked gently in the rearview mirror at my pondering princess and asked how she felt listening to that music.  "Perfectly at peace,"  she responded.   I was happy for the next few moments of the car ride to explore with the children different genres of music and how they made us feel.  How perceptive they are.

-  On a bright afternoon I was doing yard work in the front yard.  Any time I am working in the front yard it is an invitation to the kids to ride scooters or bikes.  This day Danny had tired from riding his bike (he had finally figured out how to get himself started on his own which may have exhausted the mental capacities earlier than usual but I was might proud) and commenced kicking limbs around nearby me as I was trying to de-beard my tree.  Generally my best helper, I asked Danny to please retrieve my pruning shears from the porch.  He casually kicked his legs and said half committed "You've got legs Mom, you get them yourself."  A bit of indignant pride flashed over my nerves a moment before I recognized the phrase, my phrase, as it was repeated verbatim to me.  It was well deserved and I chuckled at my boy for having caught on to my own lazy schemes.  He ended up getting the shears eventually, after we laughed together. 

Book of Mormon 1.1

Friday morning as I was reading from the Book of Mormon with the kids Danny began getting up from the table and walking away.  I quickly asked him where he thought he was going.  To get a nice clean paper and the 'scripture markers.'  I assured him that today we didn't need to draw any pictures of what we were reading, it was mostly war stuff.  He cocked his head to the side in disappointment and earnestness and said "But Mom, I can't understand the scriptures if you don't draw a picture for me!"  I relented and added to our growing wall of age appropriate scripture art.  

It is no secret that early on in childhood development a lot of it is visual, so it made sense to try and make the words I was reading them from the Book of Mormon 'come to life.'  The challenge is the fact that right now we are smack in the middle of Alma so a lot of things are war.  I think the kids caught on that this section of the Book of Mormon is not like what we had been reading (early chapters of Alma are about more spiritual principles, which we had had much different talks about).  So I have been challenged by making this section applicable to them.  The pictures were pure inspiration (not the drawing aspect rather, the idea to use them).

Alma 48:11-12

 This was the first one - I really wanted the kids to understand why we point to Captain Moroni so often as a scripture hero.  Also, at the time, it just do happened that each of these qualities related to something each of the kids were struggling with at that time.  We spent a week just talking about the qualities we were going to develop so we could be "Like Unto Moroni."

Alma 48:17

During that week we also memorized this scripture.  The best part is when I was first reciting it with the kids and got to 'forever,' the all simultaneously repeated it back to me in 'Sandlot' terms .... For....eve....er....For...ev...er!  It stuck.  My next favorite part is when they say 'never' and shake out their arms  as if it really were an impossibility.  So fun.

Alma 43:19-21, Ephesians 6:10-18

We did some scripture cross-referencing when it came to how well Moroni prepared his armies with protections, versus the Lamanites who came naked (tehehe).  The kids then loved acting out how surprised and dumbfounded the Lamanites where to see Moroni's armies so well prepared.

Alma 50:1-16

I think I mentioned before how one morning we spent a lot of time discussing how many bad guys should be named and laid dead in the pit of our fortifications.  I thought that the most meaningful part of the lesson would be that we can build fortifications around our city (family represented by the kids=small houses and parents=skyscrapers, totally not what the Nephites lived in, again, age appropriate), but the kids thought the fact that you could kill people better from the safe part proves that they are 'saturday's warriors.'  The bad guy laying in the pit ended up being 'bad words' and the king who is leading the bad guys (just of page R) is 'Power Hungry' and the other two bad guys are 'greed' and 'selfish' trying to get into our city protected by good deeds and testimony and the prophet is the watchman on the tower.  

After this, the kids got used to the pictures (as mentioned by Danny) so it became rather creatively spiritual to find something in the versus they were now so keen on understanding have some application.  It is war time and Amilikiah is still coming-  side joke: When I read the scripture when Amilikiah swears an oath to drink Moroni's blood Faith paused me and said "Amilikiah must be a mosquito."  I smiled.  Before I could get a response in, Viv piped in "No, he is not a mosquito, he is a vampire."  Again, before I could get in the question as to where she had even learned about vampires, Danny added his comic tow bits "No, his is a Mosquito Vampire!"  At that point, what do you answer?  "Maybe.  At any rate, I think he made a really silly oath, don't you?"

Alma 51:1-16

There are some perhaps non-Church sanctioned interpretations of what is going on during the battle, but it was really neat to witness how this section of the Book of Mormon could be applicable to our station in life and what we struggle with as a very young family.  As Moroni is struggling with the Kingmen causing contention within we had a great conversation about how contention inside our safe home makes it harder for us to fight the bad influences from out.  In this version Josh/Daddy gets to be Captain Moroni and I am Chief Judge Pahoran.

Alma 54&55

This lesson I thought was one of my weaker ones, but it must have been guided by the Holy Spirit for it seems to be most memorable to the kids right now - rather that reacting and getting more and more upset because of 'firey words' we can chose the 'What if..." and no people will get hurt.

I had to draw a lot out of this 'strategy' part of the war stories, and yet again was surprised by how things turned out.  I would never have thought going into Alma chapter 32 that such a truly personal lesson for each of my 4 & 5 years olds could come from it - again, higher purpose here.  As we did all the movements around of Moroni's strategy to get the city of Mulek and we came up with our family definition of what strategy is "using your brain to make a plan with the best choices" and it's antithesis displayed by Captain Jacob of the Lamanites "Fury, using your anger to guide your choices."  So we mapped out our life strategy.  I drew mine and the kids put together what they thought was best for theirs (with some parental guidance, certainly).  I love the daily reference to the choices that they will make for their future.

Faith was the one that pointed out that she needed to be baptized when she turned 8 years old.  I hadn't put that in my life strategy so it was purely a choice that she has already made in her little soul.

Viv added in her life strategy herself and her brother and sister and pointed out that while she was in our house it was her choice to always get along and play nice and love her brother and sister.  She also said that we need to keep visiting the temple.

Danny was most intent on drawing himself at the beginning and then trying to catch up with what the girls had already drawn.  He was really excited that he would be a missionary at 18 now since the prophet said he could go then.  I was impressed that even though he was drawing a few of the details in a little slower, the ones he put in were impressive (his spelling of college as 'colliegl' was his own as well as adding two people getting married in the temple).

This has been such a wonderfully fun journey to have with my kids in the morning. I have been afraid for them in this increasingly wicked world (not all bad but certainly a lot more pervasive immoral stuff) and just haven't know how to direct their paths.  I just started having morning scripture study because it is one of the basic instructions of the Church.  I wouldn't have dreamt that just a few months down the road of starting this habit I would feel so more reassured about my childrens' moral footing.  I know that if we keep reading the scriptures in the morning and just letting the Spirit guide our discussions, what is most important will be discussed.  I'm not saying that every day is stellar, just this morning I barely kept their focus beyond a few verses (they were focused on the left-over birthday cake, I hate the lure of sweets, its breakfast for crying out loud!) but we keep the faith and the fortitude, which amounts to some pretty awesome stuff, even for pre-schoolers.

Squirrel

As it is officially fall, we have been having fun watching the squirrels go crazy getting the winter wares stored, and we had some fun mimicking them.  This is how each of my children looks with four grapes in their mouth:

If he weren't smiling you wouldn't guess there was anything unusual about his cheeks

Yes, the are still packed with grapes.

Not quite as well endowed in the cheek department.

Her face is just too petite to accomodate much.

Entertaining us all by making 'grape juice press' with his hands.

Amazing that I caught this one 'grape escape.'

Pediatric Hospital

I love listening to the kids' play. Not only are they creative, but they are funny. Dusti came over on Wednesday and this is one of the pretend games I overheard in the course of their imaginative and animated play:

Viv: I have bugs in my brain. They are eating it.

Dusti: Oh no! We must get you to the doctor!

Dr Faith: We need to cut open her brain right now!

[shuffling as they situate the patient on the operating table]

1st Assit Dusti: Otay- what to we do?

Dr. Faith: First we need to cut open her head fourteen times. [shuffling as brain is being cut multiple times] Good. Now, we need to sing "Open the gates and sieze the day' as we open it up.

[muffled singing, must have been behind their surgical masks]

More amazing sayings...

At Target on Friday we had a wonderful time without any rare outburst or angry accusations. Even at the end, when tensions can run high while checking out, everyone kept their cool, especially Faith. The drinking fountains were situated within eye sight of our check-out stand and Faith, as like most kids, really really likes getting drinks from the fountain. She continued to ask if she could with various reasons why she could do it while I was still checking out. I dug in my heels and insisted she wait until we were done paying. With a slight pout, Faith looked up to me and said, "But Mama, 'I am a Child of God' says 'parents kind and dear' and you are not being kind." Ah, true to the core moral reasoning. You got me.

Another laughable conversation occurred in the after work hours with Josh and I. We decided to make some hot chocolate in our fancy Christmas gift (which we use everyday Steph). As Josh dumped copious amounts of powder into the water I tried to point out that he had poured quite enough in (micro-manager I know) he looked at me smuggly and said "I like my cocoa like I like my women.....' before he had the chance to finish his certainly witty statement, the adjective immediately popped into my head and blurted out my mouth...' Thick!' This statement has been forever been catologued in the 'oops I stuck my foot in my mouth while trying to be complimentary' common phrases. It joins "I like men with scrawny arms" and "You don't like my cooking?"