Category Archives: Elisha

About the boy

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Opening 2010. Lots going on.

Sorry it’s been so long since I’ve written here.

A lot’s been going on, but I’ve waited because none of it “stable” enough for me to write about it; to set in stone as “reality.”

But now I figure if I wait till it’s all at that level I might not remember enough to record a bunch of the neat things that God has provided recently.

While Jay was home over the holidays we made a major effort to pull the house together and (since then) to maintain it on a daily basis.  Two weeks now we’ve maintained the house at what I would call a company-ready level. (A *major* accomplishment for us.)

We have two or three “clean-up sessions” a day: one after breakfast, a sweep somewhere between lunch and Jay coming home and sometimes a third before bedtime.  The kids are getting a little better at responding to the daily (small) tidying, but they’re still not fully on board when it comes to the bigger work days (e.g., when there are 6 baskets of laundry to fold and put away).

They are nearly perfect on their morning staples though: beds made, breakfast cleared, jammies away after getting dressed.  I’m relieved at least one set of jobs is becoming automatic.  I use it as hope for the future, that there will come a time when even more things will happen un- (or minimally-) prompted.

A few days before the end of the year Jay initiated family bible reading.

Our church is following the M’Chayne bible-in-a-year reading plan for the second time this year, and Jay began before the year ended with the assignments for those days.  We read two chapters a day “privately” and two Jay reads aloud to everyone.

It’s a total of four chapters a day, a pace I’ve never been able to maintain before, but reading two per morning and snuggling the kids a bit later while Jay reads us the rest; that’s been quite comfortable.  Morning reading works especially well for us because the children are already inclined to be still and snuggly when they first wake, and having scripture be one of the first things they hear in the day seems very appropriate.

Jay started reading to us from the version he reads from (ESV) but now we’re reading from the NIrV, an adaptation of the NIV to a 3rd-grade reading level.

At the beginning of the year I pulled out my cardfile boxes (the only chore system I’ve ever attempted/maintained with a measure of success) and set it up between what I remembered the “guidelines” being and what I felt I needed to maintain.

The original system (that I maintained between Melody’s and Elisha’s births) divided card color based on chore frequency (yellow was daily, blue weekly, green monthly, etc.).  My current system is divided by assignment, and it works very well for us, allowing for a single (mom-maintained) box that everyone–sans Jay– can work from: Blue are mom’s jobs, yellow the kids and pink are school.

Frequency is listed on the top right corner, and as each job is completed (or day ended) the cards are moved to the next day that assignment is scheduled for, allowing for a perpetually renewed to-do list that requires no additional set up on the day of working.

This in intensely useful in two ways:

  • I don’t have to discover/find/remember what needs to be done in a particular day; it’s already laid out.
    • The biggest thing I learned form my exercise in scheduling last year is that anything already settled doesn’t require further energy from me.
  • I know when I’m *DONE*
    • Everybody reading this knows that housework is never finished, that there is always more to do, and if I ever feel discouraged “at home” it is usually for that reason.  With this system I know that I’ve already planned for the proper time/intervals to accomplish everything that needs to be done, so I only need to wait until the next assigned day comes around.

It was toward the end of our first full week of maintaining this system (and the rest of the house, as I mentioned before; the card system helped with that), that I saw some unexpected maturity bumps (as in, leveling up) in both Melody and me.

Actually, all the children seem more level and “secure” to me, and I’ve had (overall) more patience and perspective in parenting as we’ve been closing our days.  There are more factors and elements than the cardfile, of course, but having the clear plan to work with each morning has helped all of those areas.  I pray now that this will continue to be an effective tool.

~ ~ ~

Jay put Elisha in underwear all day his last several days at home, hoping the experience would motivate Elisha to use the toilet more.  It didn’t.

This week (Tuesday, actually) I asked Elisha in some exasperation if he wasn’t ready to leave diapers behind.  He said no, and I asked when he would be ready.

“In a week,” he said matter-of-factly.

Staying calm I carefully asked if he was ready to put his last diaper day on the calendar and he agreed.  So we are looking at January 11 being special to Elisha and Natasha both. (I’m very thankful we don’t have many places to go that week. Lord-willing we’ll have several days to solidify things before church and the busier following week.)

January 11 is special to Natasha because she gets both her birthday and party on the same day.

I’m thankful because she agreed peacefully to a very small party (few people) and that excites me as a chance to do interesting stuff (i.e., slightly complicated stuff) with a smaller group, and I think that will make for a more memorable party.

I “picked up” my novel again for the first time in hmmm, 3 months? and cut over 12,000 words in the first go.  I’ve got another perspective on the story and hope working it into reality will both make it better and bring down the word-count significantly.

Just now those words seem like an, “I’ll eat less and exercise more” resolution in its vague meaninglessness, but I’ll try to refine it as I clarify for myself what they look like in reality.

Today was the first in a series of planning meetings for the 2010 Care Net Sonshine Tea that Mom and I co-chaired last year.

We’ve both committed to lead again this year, hoping before we’re done to form a template for whomever comes after us.

Also this week the girls re-started ballet.

Natasha is more enmeshed than ever, moving gracefully through the day (often with sweeping arm-movements), but Melody indicated she might want out.

It was in a tired-but-lucid moment, and I’m praying about how to handle the question.  I’m beginning to sense the beginning of  a desire to differentiate from her sister– something that has not been very strong up to this point.  I want to support her in that (I sometimes imagine I’m a better parent to Melody than Natasha, having grown up the middle kid), but I don’t want her to leave ballet too soon.

And I had my first ESL (English as a second language) class with the two homeschool moms in my group who asked me in December to teach them.

This was amazing, and I wonder if this is the beginning of the more meaningful friendships with women I’ve been praying for.

In all the “class” was simply perfect.  No matter what I talked about it was useful and of relevance.  These are two smart women fluent enough in English to converse with and listen to me, but new enough that specialized words (bias, paraphrase, paradox, extrapolate) still need explanation.

This resulted in a situation where my tendency to fill most of the conversation (and fill it with extensive–if relevant– tangents covering all manner of life and experience) was perfectly suited for the setting.  I pray this interaction continues to be useful and mutually encouraging.

Melody seems to be picking up her interest in reading.

Earlier this week she read to Elisha a book Natasha read to her. Some of it might have been memorized, but we’d just gotten it from the library and if she can recite after one or two hearings she’s a different kind of genius.

Even so, she used her finger under the words with perfect one-to-one correlation, so at lest some of it was word recognition. I’m very excited for her.

Really, I think I was more excited than she was.  My hanging over her shoulder seemed to unnerve her and she asked what a particular line said before she finished the page.

She’s been watching me giving Natasha spelling tests and has asked for her own.  I think we’ll be starting simple 3-letter words on Monday.

This is what I meant by a maturity bump– she seems becoming aware of the world outside herself and beginning to look for her place in it.  By turns I see in her a desire to fit in, stand out, be independent and be catered to.  This is why I’m moving very slowly (for me) in relation to the question about ballet; she’s still learning her own mind, and I want to let it be her mind that is expressed in the conclusion we reach.

In Value Village last night Natasha was cooing over the horse coloring book we found, burbling about the pictures she was going to color first, when a subdued Melody admitted, “I like horses too.” Natasha expressed genuine surprise. “I thought you just liked kittens!” “I didn’t learn I liked horses till just now.  I’m still learning things about myself.” She sounded defensive and confused.

I assured her it was just fine to continue learning new things about one’s self, and that I’m still learning things about myself too.  She seemed surprised and relieved at this and visibly relaxed.

Another first with Melody was a discussion about her appearance, where I was able to tell her exactly what I find beautiful about her and that seemed to be very effective– not to mention God’s good timing.  (I’ve always been reluctant to complement one child at a time– about the same thing– and to complement everyone at the same time, well, I never trusted that kind of complement, since I couldn’t be sure if it came out of fairness rather than full truth.)

And Melody was the first one up so we had a very sweet and meaningful time together where I could focus just on her.

SO there you have it.  The last couple weeks, basically, but mostly the last three days.

Can’t promise I’ll do better with posting in future, but I know I don’t want to forget these steps.  God’s good faithfulness is beyond words.

~ ~ ~

Last Sunday the topic under discussion was Psalm 1.  The question was offered, What is *BLESSING*?

Most answers thrown out were along the lines of “happy” “good” and variations on that theme, sometimes with material implications.

When I hear “blessing” the word seems more like being wrapped in a huge blanket.

It’s nothing small enough to hand to someone or wrap in another single word.

After a few minutes listening I couldn’t sit quiet any more and burst out, “It’s so much more than something you feel or get!”

I felt an unexpected surge of emotion and felt a desperate need to say more; to say something that had meaning to more than me.  My mind was swirling with the hugeness of what God has given me– the tangible, yes, but so much ineffable beyond that that the physical things are just an outward manifestation of.

I knew I didn’t have much time and I fought to keep the emotion out of my voice as I tried to hold the floor long enough for my words to reach the essence of my thought.  I finally lost the first battle as I won the second: “Have you ever had the feeling like falling back into a ball pit and being completely buried?”

You know, those play places with the bins of light, colorful balls are piled in an area almost deep enough to swim in. At least a few people seemed to know what I was talking about.

That‘s what it feels like God is doing for me.  It continually feels unreal; how so many things just work, how the connections happen, and the *joy* that permeates it all.

“How can I keep from singing?”

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Elisha’s Trauma, Elisha’s Epiphany

Elisha was stung today: five times.

A group of children were playing outside the church after services today and they ran into a wasp nest. Elisha was stung between fingers on both hands (one each) the thumb and bicep of his right arm.

Natasha was stung too, on her leg under her skirt.  Melody came down with a freaking attack of the I’m-hurt-too-notice-me-mores (she’d scraped her heel somewhere) but Natasha took the wet teabag I gave her and went off out of the way while we worked on Elisha.

The church didn’t have any baking soda (the first thing I was looking for) but I saw a gallon ziplock of Lipton teabags, and wet those to use as poultices on each sting as we found them.

Lots of people hovered (thankfully outside the kitchen), but there weren’t many ways to be useful; we were all a little stuck for “next steps.”

At the beginning of the incident, one child offered me some leaves “to chew up and put on the sting, to draw out the poison.”

I didn’t think about whether or not she knew what she was talking about.

“I have a firm policy of not putting things in my mouth when I don’t know what they are, ” I told her.

I remember trying to be careful with my tone, but feeling disgusted at the idea. Even when an adult confirmed the idea, I couldn’t stand it.  Especially since, by then, the tea had already eliminated the swelling on the first sting we applied it too and the need no longer existed as it had.

~

I ended up asking one family to bring Melody home behind us so I could sit in the back in between the needy-wounded.  It wasn’t till later it occurred to me I could have just ignored the under-12 rule and gotten us all home in one car, but I’m thankful no one tried to point this out to me at the time.

~

Once home (and only a cheese-stick’s worth of silence later) I asked mom to keep the girls a while and she came to get them.

Elisha moaned and cried through the rest of the afternoon, asking for more water on his teabags when they dried out (the swelling was gone from all the stings, but he kept the last two bags on the stings between his fingers.  He indicated more than once that those were the most painful.

Finally– almost 6 hours after his first dose when we got home, Jay and I decided it was close enough and re-dosed Elisha with the (nurse-suggested) larger dose of Ibuprofen.  Jay took a shift of snuggling him while I ate, and maybe 15-minutes later Elisha perked up in the lap and said distinctly,

“I don’t hurt anymore!”

We all cheered and praised Jesus while I watched him adjusting to this new pain-free state.  Jay talked Elisha into a glass of milk and set the boy at the table across from me.  Elisha sat there, a smile spreading on his face. “I don’t hurt any more!”

Then a connection was made.

“God healed me!”

“Yes!” I answered. “We thank God for healing you!”

“God healed me!” he said again, the delight splitting his face into a grin.

The girls came home, everybody went to bed and to sleep.  I responded to a few calls of concern that came in during bedtime, delighted to tell the story of Elisha’s revelation.

His Sunday school teacher filled in the missing piece for me.

All this month (the 2-3 year-olds do the same story every week for a month) his class has been reviewing the story of Naaman (who asked the prophet Elisha for help), talking about how Naaman was so sick his mama couldn’t help him, his papa couldn’t the doctors couldn’t.  Only God could heal him.

And I just marveled at the perfection of God’s timing– that Elisha would be prepared to praise, and be prepared with the words to use.

If Elisha doesn’t remember this on his own, I know this is a story I’ll be telling him: Even when Mama and Daddy can’t fix it, God can.

The current list of praises:

  • The quick reduction of swelling: the nurse said swelling could last up to 2-3 days
  • No threatening reaction despite the number of stings.
    • The nurse said if something *bad* was going to happen it would happen within the first two hours
  • Elisha was wearing long pants and long sleeves, protecting most of his body.
  • He wasn’t stung more.  The grandma watching everybody when it happened said he was swarmed.  A couple wasps even followed him into the church when he was brought to find me.
  • The nest was found by investigating adults who know what to do about it.
  • The teabags were there and they worked so well.
  • Everyone was so respectful and responsive– helping us manage, but not trying to manage us.
  • All the children were asleep by 9 p.m.

“All praise to God who reigns above.”

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Family Quick-Takes (Vol. 2)

Another brain-dump thanks to Jenn’s lovely idea at Conversion Diary.

Enough on my mind I did two this week (another one at UntanglingTales)

~ ~ 1 ~ ~

Elisha broke 3 last month (I had a sprained knee the day of his annual check-up and missed it– still haven’t rescheduled), and he is decidedly no longer a toddler.  He is a little boy, becoming increasingly verbal, and increasingly understandable at that.

He’s stacking blocks right now, and he loves playing in the dirt (right now our trouble is getting him and his sisters to play in the garden and not in what was last year’s dirt-pile and this year’s dog yard.

~ ~ 2 ~ ~

I love being married to an engineer.  I love that he includes me in his world (that he imagines parts of our vastly different worlds to be related enough that inquires for and values my opinion.  And it’s really good for getting me outside myself when he calls in the middle of the day with, say, a question about embroidery hoops.

~ ~ 3 ~ ~

I’ve been playing piano again (in bits) and Natasha said this week she wanted to do a song together (me and her) for the church some day.

She sat next to me for the next half hour as we sang her choice and more, then asked for directions about playing one of the songs herself.  She’s grown since the last time, or gotten stronger, because she can play both the A and D cords now.  Not quickly, but deliberately.

~ ~ 4 ~ ~

How do you be friends with someone you have nothing in common with– other than wanting to be friends?  I keep digging for new things and it only highlights what opposites we are.

And I’m not talking in the “opposites attract” way that some people believe in.

We’re talkin’:

music vs. no music
My movies vs. “scary”
reading and writing (self) vs. “not really interested in that stuff”

She has a very sweet spirit and she’s been homeschooling *years* longer than I… I just have no idea how to build relationship without similarities.

Suggestions? Advice?

~ ~ 5 ~ ~

I pick what parks the kids and I visit based on whether they allow dogs.

I’m sure 10 years ago I would have thought this was weird, but now I feel it’s not really fair to leave the dog indoors while we go play outside– and kind of counter-productive too, since I’d just be needing to exercise her later or deal with wired-dog all evening.

~ ~ 6 ~ ~

Natasha has a tooth coming in behind her lower teeth.  She’s wiggling the one in front, and has hurt herself several times biting wrong, but nothing’s ready yet to come out.

~ ~ 7 ~ ~

Melody is so close to reading.

When we left Forget-me-Not bookstore on Monday each of the kids was reading their own books and Melody looked up and asked, “What’s an enemy?”

And that is one of the words in her new book (a Dinosaur adaptation).

I am *so* thankful for that bookstore.  I love having the chance to own so many neat books.

I try not to be scared or sad about how devastated I’d be to lose them in a fire or something.  So many were unique finds I can’t imagine replacing them all  (certainly not for the amount they were collected originally…).

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Words are so Fun

Got a bunch of books yesterday, and sat a while reading the new ones to the kids.

One really cute one is Lingingstone Mouse where the little critter is searching for China, where he wants to set up his new nest after leaving home.  The first time we read it I had just said the bit from his mother about it being time to leave, and LM was excited and ready to go.

Melody squirmed with anticipation beside me and gushed, “Ooohhh he’s gonna get stepped on!”

Our developing tragedian.   Hmmm.

~ ~ ~

Elisha’s ability to articulate has been increasing.  He is participating in the household rituals with the solemnity of a priest– informing me for the first time that they had become rituals:

M: Elisha!

E: Yes?

M: I love you!

E: I love you too.

He’s also gotten to where he can parrot whole phrases and count in sequence.  The girls have memorized Flint by Christina Rosetti (ask them to recite it for you sometime), but Elisha’s nearly got it too, and will recite bits with them.  Barely understandable unless you know what he’s trying to say, but if you know what you’re listening to you can hear every syllable and all the inflection (which, of course, all the children learn as faithfully as a tune).

Other clear phrases we’ve heard recently:

  • I love you
  • Thanks mom
  • Too much mom

Oh, and every dog is “joule.”  Not just its name, its identification.  Joule is now his word for dog.

Precious.  I enjoy it immensely.

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Protective Boy

I wrote about Elisha’s first protective act here, but there have been three more in the last few months that were clearly deliberate, and I want to remember them too.

Back before Jay returned from Antarctica I would send Natasha out with Joule to hold the leash and make sure the dog did its business in the right place.  One of these times the door locked behind her, and she was stuck out back.

I was in the midst of a morning rush, focused on my work and didn’t hear her calling for help.  What I did notice was Elisha stumping first to the back door, then to the entry way for his boots, then to me to ask for help putting them on.  I helped him, only vaguely wondering what prompted this sudden interest in shoes.

We have a hard-and-fast rule that the children cannot enter the garage without something on their feet.

He next tromped to the back door and went into the garage.  I followed to give the “What do you think you’re doing” speech and finally heard Natasha’s frantic yells.  Elisha had already run across the garage and I followed him.  I still don’t remember who opened the door for her, but I was quick to tell Natasha it was Elisha who first heard and came to her rescue.

~

More recently the children were just finishing the dishwasher and Melody got her finger stuck in the door.

Now, Melody is (currently) my most reactive child, and that causes me to filter every sound she makes and sometimes to discount the significance of her distress.  On this particular day, all three children were standing by the door and has happened before, someone besides Melody initiated the closing of the door.

She has screamed about this before with her hand hanging on the closed door, so I hope anyone will understand when I admit I launched into my “this isn’t how we communicate” lecture.

Through wails that nearly obscured her meaning she finally communicated that her finger was stuck, and before I could cross the room Elisha had stepped forward and pulled the door back open for her.

This was something the girl could have done for herself if she had thought of it, but one of my current frustrations is that she will fixate on a problem to the exclusion of looking for a solution.  This is *very* frustrating to me.

My own M.O. is to “manage” any pain or issue by focusing on the solution or the search for one.  I hope this is a difference that we may work out sooner rather than later.

~

Then, just today (sparking my interest in writing all this down), the children were watching Finding Nemo and Natasha called to me to sit with her for “a scary part” (she’s not truly scared, anymore, but it has become something of a ritual) when I came to her she was leaning against Elisha (who would be half her size except he was sitting on the arm of the loveseat) with his arm around her shoulders.

“He told me, ‘Don’t be afraid, Natasha,’ ” she said, obviously delighted.  “I don’t need you now.”

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Elisha’s first Lie

I’ve always heard of stories like these but hadn’t any first-hand experience.

Tonight I saw Elisha in the hallway going through a spilled box of new pencils, putting them back in their box.  There were a few eraser ends next to him on the floor and the tail-end of an unsharpened pencil headed for his mouth when I flicked him and reminded him (again) erasers aren’t for biting.

I walked away and heard a matter-of-fact tone that included the word monsters.

“What did you say?”

He pointed toward his bedroom.

“Monster ate it.”

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We have a dog again.

Chocolate lab, already semi-trained, 3-years-old and loves to cuddle.

The girls adore her and we’re teaching Elisha that “long-suffering” does *not* equal asking for more suffering.

I am so thankful to have found her.

The short story: We’ve been looking at the shelter a couple times a week the last few months.  We’ve looked at a number of dogs (even tried two out in our home: one for a few hours one for almost two weeks), but this is the one who is fitting.

She was an owner surrender with “not enough time for her” listed as the reason for giving her up.  She had a restless first night and barks more willingly than we like just now, but she has been perfect with the kids, strangers and the other dogs we’ve met in class and at the dog park.

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Snapshot Update

Two weeks ago, now, Jay and I droe to Anchorage and back, leaving Friday afternoon and returning Saturday night.

view-from-our-windshield.jpg

The next weekend the Renaissance Faire got rained-out, but the girls still got to wear their costumes:

girls-will-be-girls.jpg

On Saturday to Papa and Grandma’s, and Sunday to church.  Yes, Melody wore a shirt under that vest.

I find I didn’t get a picture of Elisha in his bi-colored “jester” outfit, but Mom got several, so I’ll have to get hers.

He didn’t really care for it on Saturday (thought we managed to “trick” him into wearing it, which is no small trick these days).

But when Elisha saw the girls in their costumes on Sunday he was excited to put his on again, and as soon as Jay tied the back you would have thought he was wearing a cape, because he began at once to make these flying leaps between pieces of furniture.  I felt a little shell-shocked.

Something about costumes, I guess…

That same weekend a bird flew into our garage:

bird-in-the-garage.jpg

Elisha was the first to notice him (Jay and I couldn’t figure for the longest time what he was so excited about).

He was still stuck after hours with the door open and it took some getting to get him out, but it was finally accomplished. (A flashlight in a dark garage and a dry humidifier figured largely in this process.)

Just this last Saturday we did a lot of biking around, and Jay found a way to fit all three kids (and yes all buckled) in the bike trailer.

3-kid-trailer.jpgYet another moment when I’ve marveled at the perfection fo God’s timing and design in giving us children of these ages and sizes.

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General Update

Let’s see, I don’t have dates for these, but they weren’t happening before, so we’ll get them on-record.

Elisha is jumping now.

It started with jerky one-steps off a low stair and has progressed to a full-grown hurling of himself from any permissible hight to the next-lowest point.

Permissible is defined as anything Mom or dad has not prohibited— whether or not it’s been noticed yet.

I twisted my ankle last month (most readers know this already).  I am mostly recovered and  would be functioning normally (I believe) except I just got slammed with this nasty viral sinus infection.

I still couldn’t move quickly– because of the ankle– and now I’m in a state of thickness and near-confusion as my senses struggle to function normally through inches of displaced fluid.

Had a nice visit with a new friend a couple days ago (I hope she doesn’t get what I got– two littles of her own).  She enjoys writing and talking about ideas, so we had a grand time.  Definately pushed the kids to the edge of their napless abilities.

I know this because Melody put herself to nap as they were leaving, and Elisha had difficulty going down, which was abnormal.

Have I already said that Natasha reads?  She can read both silently and aloud, and her inflection is wonderful.  The first time she reads something aloud it usually sounds as I read it to her, but once she owns a story and grows in confidence the inflection becomes uniquely hers.

It is really fun.

She’s even able to read the Bible aloud, but she doesn’t like much to do it.  Which is  a little disappointing because our current Sunday school set-up has lots of opportunities for children to read aloud, and we brought her out of the 4/5-y-o class to participate and she’s not been very interested.

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Cutes and Funs

Thursday Night Elisha showed an understanding of… something new.  I don’t know what to call it.

    • “Oops, sorry that was me.”
      • He cried out when I bumped him, and stopped when I apologized
    • Pretending to be asleep
      • In his car seat.  This comes from copying his sisters who do it wanted to be carried in.
      • It was hard not to giggle at him.  He even tried a pretend snore, and I don’t know where he would have gotten that, since the girls haven’t used it.
    • understanding apology/restitution
      • Asking it of him (to apologize– still in sign) and having him accept his sisters’ apologies (and mine, like above)
    • going to sleep w/o the cuddle-down first
      • Gave him the option: “Do you want a snuggle?” and he said  “No.”