Jay and I were sharing a hug and kiss just inside our room as our girls ran past, down the hallway.
Natasha (4 years old) stopped in her tracks with a soft, “Awww,” and a wispered, “Come’ere” to her little sister.
We held each other a little longer without looking at them, me silently fighting the giggles, so I’m not sure who made the blissful little sigh before they moved on.
I’ve aways felt children like to see their parents happy together. This was a fun reminder.
Natasha asked Jesus into her heart today.
The conversation started while we were making pitas for dinner. She was talking about heaven, how she wanted to go there, and how she’d see Great-grandma there, “and meet Grandma Teena’s daddy.”
I asked her how she could get to heaven. “Ask Jesus into my heart.” (This is the answer to a question the 4 & 5s are asked each week in Sunday school.)
“Do you want to ask Jesus into your heart?”
She paused, like she was thinking about it. “Yes,” she said. “Well, when it’s dark.”
“You want to wait until bedtime?”
“Yes. I want Jesus to come and die in my heart.”
“Jesus is done dying,” I explained. “He only had to do that once. If you invite Jesus he comes to live in your heart.”
(I’ve been thankful I’ve not yet had to explain how this works. So far the metaphor has just worked for her.)
She seemed to be thinking about this. “I want to go to heaven,” she said. “But I’ll need some grown-ups.”
“You won’t need grown-ups in heaven,” I said. “You’ll have Jesus.” She still looked thoughtful, then brightened.
“Oh! I’ll have great-grandma! She’ll be my grown-up!”
We talked about heaven for a while, and Natasha clarified she didn’t want to go right away– that she wanted to wait until she was “great big and grown-up. Like you, Mommy.”
After regular bedtime stories we read “TheLost Son” out of her NIrV (not planned, particularly, she saw the painting/illustration and asked for the story).
Some comprehension questions are after the passage, and those seemed to prompt her memory. She said again she wanted Jesus to come in her heart.
I asked if she wanted to pray herself or repeat after me, and she said she wanted to repeat, so we did that. When we were done I prayed for her, then asked if she wanted to pray herself.
I wish I better remember what she said, but it’s the first thing I can remember her praying that sounded like it was all hers (up till now I’ve heard her say mostly things with identifiable sources).
It was only two lines and very sweet and tender, something like, “Thank you for having heaven for me.”
When Jay came in for bedtime hugs Natasha told him that she’d invited Jesus into her heart.
I honestly feel this surreal sense of having a new baby in the house.
Shadow started retrieving this afternoon.
She progressed from simply chasing a ball (which she wasn’t doing three days ago) to picking it up, to carrying it around, and eventually to bringing it back near me (to me is a little more precise than she’s yet mastered).
Have I mentioned Elisha can throw now? About a foot. It’s adorable. It makes him feel very grown-up, especially when he’s playing with Daddy.
We were playing in the front yard and Shadow came and lay between us. She kept leaning over to pick up the ball after he threw it, and he’d crawl to her (I swear he was exasperated with her: That’s not for you.) and take it out of her mouth.
I was right there the whole time and was impressed with them both, his fearlessness (purposeful but not mean) and her compliance.
At one point I threw a ball across the yard and Shadow just stayed panting in the shade. Elisha looked from me, to the dog, to the ball and booked over to get the ball himself. He was almost there when Shadow seemed to realize he was serious and trotted off after him.
He sat up and looked at her when she came even with him, then turned his back and collected the ball he was after. Shadow went over and picked up a different ball nearby.
In all this Shadow has never tried to challenge Elisha’s “authority” and is gaining great points of confidence from me.
She’s also seeming like more fun as she’s becoming interactive and available more more than snuggles or belly rubs.
I’ve started this post four or five times, and it keeps being more of a laundry-list than anything else.
But:
I now have my dog.
She isn’t vizsla (though she does have the compact, muscular body with the short hair– dark brown instead of russet), and she isn’t a Brittany (though she is that size and already proving quite trainable and perfect with the kids).
I just mention the above because those were the breeds I was researching/pursuing the most recently.
A lab-mix, Shadow displays the best of the mellow of that breed, and has learned since Thursday night several things that are very desirable to our family.
She has even managed to not-bother Jay, though that may be as much to Jay’s credit as the dog’s.
It was Jay who emphasized we shouldn’t consider the animal shelter’s 10-day exchange policy as a trial period.
“I expect the transition to be bumpy,” he said. “So we just need to commit to her and go for it.”
Amazingly, the transition has been rather smooth, so far. The girls are becoming more assertive and Shadow is learning quickly.
The one rough spot we’ve had was Friday night when the neighbor across the street brought her dog over to meet our new arrival. That deteriorated into awful barking from both of them, so we didn’t trust them nearer each other.
We neither of us lost control of our animals, but neither dog really listened to our embarrassed orders to be quiet or “nice” either. We might try again in a week or two, to see if Shadow being more settled will make a difference.
In the mean-time, I’m going to begin classes with her, and I’m hoping the presence of a more experienced dog-person will make a difference in canine introductions. There have been no problems with people.
Both girls have really embraced their role as the dog’s boss (something in question earlier in the week), and Natasha’s favorite thing right now is “walking” the dog– holding her leash and pretending to chose which direction they go in. She frequently tries to “sneak” the leash out of my hand when I’m talking to someone, but I will only let them walk together in the fenced yard.
Sometimes Shadow indulges Natasha’s preference, and sometimes Natasha is reminded the dog is stronger.
It is very fun to watch them together.
The girls were watching me get dressed this morning and Natasha said, with some surprise:
“Your baby tummy is gone! What happened to your baby tummy?”
What I would call my baby tummy is not gone, but I felt such a sweetness from the comment, drawing as it did the direct connection between baby and belly, and my daughter’s delight in what my body had been able to do.
“Where do you think it went?” I asked her.
“It went away when Elisha was born,” She said, authoritatively. “But why?”
Well, Elisha turned 1 Monday.
We had a little party for him– my parents and a couple friends over for dinner.
Afterwards we stripped Elisha down to his diaper and gave him his bowl of cake and ice cream. He had his first spoon, too, and knew exacly how to use it (he was surprisingly dexterous) breaking off bite-sized pieces.
The only problem was that he couldn’t get or keep them on his spoon long enough to bring it to his mouth.
He had his first cup of cow’s milk, too, but didn’t think much of that. He made a face and pushed the cup away.
~
The next day I noticed he’s made another milestone: he’s figured out how to tip up a cup and his head so he can drink from a cup that’s not full.
He is also climbing up the steps against our bed and the kitchen counter. He’s very good at it, and will stand up there grinning like one of the big kids, but he still doesn’t know how to get down, and doesn’t watch where he’s stepping, so he will step right off the side sometimes.
Elisha still rides well in the Ergo (always on my back now) but as soon as Dad comes in the door at the end of the day: Nothing else will do.
And if Dad walks by without picking him up– all the world falls apart.
It is very freeing for me to watch Elisha develop an attachment to Jay. It make me feel less-essential in a very good way.
It’s been cool and cloudy all day today.
At lunch, Natasha looked out the window and shouted,
“Look mom, it’s starting to snow! It’s the end of summer!”
Natasha has for a while now been “reading” familiar books aloud (something that Melody is also very prolific in), but in the last couple weeks she has also begun inventing stories based on the characters or components of what she’s read, and what she’s thinking about.
I used to say I loved the girls’ original songs because they let me see the girls’ minds. Now Natasha’s stories are letting me do the same thing.
One thing I’m very thankful for is that she prefaces her stories with “I dreamed” or “Here’s a story.” She also “reads” her creations from blank or wordless books.
A friend has a son with a similarly vivid imagination, and a tendency to tell stories as if they actually happened, no matter how fantastic they are.
With Natasha there’s never been (as far as I can remember) any confusion for her distinguishing between “real” and “imaginary” in the stories she relates.
I wonder if that’s a personality thing (I distinctly remember having Bible stories and Greek myths in separate categories in my mind), or the result of reading a lot…
Most likely (now that I think of it) it’s the result of telling stories of our day and story-stories too, exampling the difference. And maybe from fracturing the story-stories, too (The three bears going for a walk and discovering a moss-covered rock).
I like to think that we have to have a strong grounding in what is before we can play with it, and maybe that makes the play more fun and at the same time keeps reality secure.
She told this to me and Melody during lunch on Friday 4/14. We were at the church that morning for Jay to do some work, and sat longer together than we would have at home, having other things to do.
Once there were 9 children, all in the same family.
One day they they all made hot chocolate for a snack and decided to go for a walk in the woods, because it was too hot.
While they were out walking…
THREE BEARS came into their house and drank up all the cocoa!
When the 9 children got back they saw all the cocoa was gone, but the Daddy said, “That’s okay, we can make some more.”
But the teapot was out of water, and there was no cocoa in the box.
“That’s okay,” said the Daddy. And they all went to the store to buy some more.
But there was no chocolate at the store either!
So they all went to the Easter palace to visit Papa, and found chocolate easter eggs all over the yard.
Before the children ate them, they found Papa and told him about their day, and he told them about his day.
Melody is talking more, more fluidly/understandably, and sleeping-in when she’s been up too late. All things I (because of Natasha) associate with being three.
She continues to have both a larger need for time alone and a greater (or at least more vocalized) need for one-on-one/touch/”snuddle” time.