Hitting the Mark

Nate: Eli, did you pee in here?  (We keep a large bucket next to the toilet.  It is for filling the many large humidifiers we need in Minnesota winters.)

Eli: Uhhh-mmmmm, I wathz going potty in here [points to toilet] and it went in there [points to bucket, a foot away].

Now, I know Eli has poor aim – I clean up the results every week.  But seriously!  How is it possible to “accidentally” pee into a container two feet away from the center of the toilet?!  Either he could win a peeing for distance contest, or he is lying.

  n8 chooses to believe he is talented.  I clean the toilet, and “talent” is not the word I would use.  I think I’m going to start encouraging Eli to SIT to pee.

Two

A couple of days ago, some fellow moms and I were meeting so our kids could play together and we could talk to other adults.  One of the moms has an almost-one-year-old baby.  The rest of us were telling her how much we felt for her, this being one of the more unpleasant stages of childhood, and we did not miss that age at all: the slurpy drooling, putting everything in the mouth, grabbing suddenly, not old enough to communicate, and–as parents–not knowing how much they comprehend and can be held accountable to.  I confidently told everyone that I liked the age of Two.  It was one of my favorite stages of kid-hood.

Navayah is two.  This morning I gave her an unlidded cup for breakfast.  She dipped her eggs into her juice and spilled it all over the table, herself, her booster chair, and the floor.  When I gave her a bath, she complained that Hannah and Eli were not bathing with her.  I went into a frustrated tirade (not expecting her to understand much) on how Hannah and Eli did not spill their juice cups!  They did not dip their flippin’ hands into their juice and tip it over.

“No, egg.”

That stopped me.  No, Mom.  I did not dip my hands into the juice, I dipped my eggs.  The hands were merely holding the eggs. 

She is two.  She should not be old enough to correct her mother’s speech.

Then there has been the rest of the day.  She found my backpack lodged between the couch and chair.  She pulled it out.  She emptied the pockets.  She found a pad of post-it notes and ripped every last one apart, crumpling them all.  In six minutes I lost an entire pad of paper.  And it was the good kind too!

She found my nice pens in the backpack and used them to write on her hands and also the only light material on my backpack.  Then she lost them for me.  She found a sheet of stamps.  She folded them several times–not on their grooves– and pulled a few of them off the sheet.  Stamps are now almost 50 cents a piece!  The post office sends back letters with stamps that are taped onto them.  I think I lost about two dollars’ worth.

She found the sugar container still sitting on the table from breakfast.  She opened it.  Sprinkled sugar on her hand.  Licked her hand.  Sprinkled more sugar.  Licked it again.  All this on the carpeted living room floor.

Navayah found my colored pencils and decided to make soup with them.  Water, several cups, an empty (or formerly empty) milk jug, a little juice, and several eating utensils were needed for the process.  Part of the blame goes to Eli who enabled her.  He got the cups of water.  She supplied the creativity.

Today I am really wondering what I saw in Two.  Why was that a magical age?  Really, was Two that enjoyable when Hannah and Eli went through it?

I threw Navayah onto the couch and tickled her and asked her why she was being so difficult today.  I asked her if she wanted to go live with someone else for a while.  She picked Mrs. Vickie (Mickie), her “gramma” from our church.  Then she thought about it.  “No-o.  Nayah no Mickie.  Need Mommy Two.”  In other words, she did not want to live with Mrs. Vickie because then she would not be able to nurse anymore, and she could not live without that.  This is not good news to me; I am trying to wean her.

Now she is walking around the house singing, “Hi-Ho, Hi-Ho” and looking around for something to “work” on (destroy).  I need to tie her up now (buckle her into her booster chair and feed her).

Worship

My kitchen floor is a patchwork of smeared jello, dollops of spaghetti sauces, and squished peas with bits of toilet paper and leaves mixed in.  My living floor has a small pile of leaves on it, courtesy of Hannah, who—while we were raking leaves in the dark—picked out her favorite leaves and placed them in her pockets, which had to be emptied on my living room floor.  My bathroom looks like a boys bathroom from an elementary school: bits of toilet paper and… liquid…scattered all over the floor.

Hannah and Eli told me today that they want five children in our family, the last two being twins.  Eli wants two boys like Paul and Lucas because, “they’re tho cute!” and Hannah wants a girl and a boy like her and Eli.  Five is down from yesterday when Eli requested twenty children like our pastor’s family (they only have ten) so that he has more friends to play with, many being boys.

To boost our family size more quickly, I borrow children.  Today I only had one extra child over (a boy, explaining part of the bathroom mess).  Four children is fairly easy, especially since Joshua is creative and an only child, so he has many ideas of how to entertain my three.

Joshua came over to our house last night.  He and Eli slept in the same bed on the top bunk.  I was certain that the arrangement would not work, but I have to let them have the fun of talking and giggling and being warned fifteen times to go to sleep OR ELSE.  After I tucked them in last night, I picked up Paul David Tripp’s book called Age of Opportunity, which is a book on parenting teens.  I’m preparing for the future.

This is a small taste of what it was like trying to read after I put the boys to bed.

“When brother and sister fight aggressively over who gets the telephone, or when a teenager wants to die because of a lack of peer acceptance, it is important to remember that worship is being expressed.“

“Mom? Joshua hit me in the face with his blanket.”

“Children are worshipers, and their lives are shaped and controlled by whatever they worship.“

“Miss Bett, Eli’s pushing me and taking up all the room on the bed!”

“That means that every moment is a God moment.”

“Mom, I licked Joshua.  Mom! I licked Joshua.  MOM!  I LICKED JOSHUA!”
(I heard you the first time, son.)

“In every moment, a child is accepting his role as a creature and living in worshipful obedience to God, or he is exchanging God for some aspect of the created world he is living to get.”

“Miss Bett?  My thumb hurts.”

It is a little amazing how God sometimes chooses to act out His truths using our children; showing us our hearts, prompting us toward our real purpose.