Update

Ben, Josh and I were driving along Main St. the other day and I’m not sure what Ben was doing, but it was busting Josh’s gut.  He was dying laughing which is always so funny and cute.  When he finally came up for air, he said, “Ben ahways makes me waugh (laugh).”  Several hours later we drove that same street, but this time it was just me and Josh.  He got a wistful smile on his face and repeated, “Ben ahways makes me waugh” nostalgically.  Nothing better than my kids delighting in each other.  Josh is really into saying prayers lately.  He’ll beg to say our dinner prayer or evening prayer.  He doesn’t feel constrained by conventional praying positions, like closed eyes, kneeling or even sitting still.  Sometimes he’ll kneel with his face in the couch and pray for quite some time things that none of us can hear.  Other times he just kind of wanders around the room, “thank you dat Ben can feew (feel) bettow, thank you dat Nate can feew bettow, thank you I can gwab dis bwanket (as he grabs a nearby throw blanket), and on and on and on and on.  We’ve started allowing the kids to quietly start eating dinner.  When we suggest he finish his prayer, he gets quite indignant and starts over with renewed zeal.  We love Joshua.

Yesterday Ben had a cup of ice water.  He took a nice big drink and exclaimed “Whew, frain breeze!”  He mixes words up like that all the time, and I hope he always will.  I love it.  Yesterday was class pictures at the Elementary school so I told Ben I’d help him pick out something special to wear.  I found a nice red polo type shirt that I bought for Nate a few years ago.  Ben’s eyes lit up as he asked, “Is this a golf shirt?”  He recognized it as the same type of shirt that basically serves as Brennan’s uniform.   This child literally beams when he’s excited, I can’t wait to see that picture cause I’m pretty sure he was still beaming standing there proudly in his golf shirt by the time they had that class picture taken.  Ben is extremely sensitive when it comes to things against his skin.  He won’t wear clothes that have weird seems or linings etc., in the inside.   He also hates the vicks type stuff I’d put on his chest at night to help with his croupy cough.  I always waited til he was asleep because he was a much less formidable foe asleep.  A few nights ago I went in to put it on him, but it was gone.  I always put it on a little white shelf in his room.  It was gone and I couldn’t find it anywhere.  The next day I asked him about it, he gave me that caught-with-your- hand-in-the-cookie-jar look.  “Ben, did you really take it?”  He waited as long as he dared before finally admitting to hiding it and retrieving it for me.  I don’t know why, but that really cracked me up.  We love Ben.

Nate is going through a really cute transformation.   For the first time in his life, he does his hair every morning.  He even asked me to buy hair gel.  He actually does it really well and looks so handsome.  He’s also kind of into clothes all of a sudden, I think the clothes he wants are kind of skater-ish.  Not sure about that, but it’s fun to see him find his own sense of self.  He came home from basketball practice tonight laughing so hard he could barely talk.  Evidently there was an older sister of one of his teammates there.  One of Nate’s friends was quite taken with her.  Nate came home and relayed the following (between fits of laughter):  “I figured out that Kade likes Porter’s sister cause he just kept talking to her and telling her stuff like all the things he likes, like he said, ‘I like picking cherries.’ and then then he totally missed the ball because he was staring at her!”  We were all dying laughing because of how amused Nate was by his own story.  Love that boy.  We love Nate.

Abby had her final performance for the storytelling festival experience yesterday.  She got to perform at a local college’s festival.  She nailed it.  It never gets old watching her get up in front of a really big crowd with total confidence and poise.   Aside from how proud and happy we feel watching her be so good at something, what parent doesn’t hope for confidence for their child?  One of my favorite things our kids do usually on Sunday afternoons is play “pollies”  as in polly pockets, but the boys actually play with their action figures.  They all set up elaborate houses and yards, etc. and all play together for hours.  It’s usually Abby who instigates it.  Each night while I’m making dinner and Joshy gets a little whiny it’s usually Abby who dials in and distracts and entertains him.  She’ll sit and play toys or talk to him or make him laugh.  I don’t usually even ask her to, she’s just tuned in to the people she loves.  The other night one of the kids had kind of a big melt down, Abby sighed and said, “I hate it when someone in our family is sad.”  We love Abigail.

Anna and Chloe have started the process of producing/directing a play.  I always have mixed feelings about these productions of theirs, because it kind of takes over all our lives, but I love that they have that kind of drive and confidence.  Anna lets me read her journal and I love it.  She’s a great girl.  She’s got such a funny, sophisticated wit and writes really well.  She’s very self-aware, but not in a crippling way.  I’m so grateful for a 13 year old who is really comfortable with herself.   My parents had a sleep-over with the grandkids who were in town.  They had their hands full with 8 kids,  ages 13, 11, 8, 5, 5, 5, 4 and almost 3.   My Mom kept telling me over and over how helpful the girls were, especially Anna.  She saw what needed to be done (or stopped ) and then jumped in and helped in her creative, fun way with the little kids.   Anna, Nate and Abby got to stay up late with Grandma and Grandpa and play Skip-Bo.  Anna was thrilled to win a round, she’s got a healthy dose of competitive genes from both parents.  We love Anna.