The Era of Lego has dawned at our house. Zag loves Lego. He assembles and disassembles things with great intensity.
So much intensity, in fact, that he’s started pooping in his pants. Three times in the past two days, I believe. All while playing with Lego.
Uncle J, any suggestions on how you’ve learned to break your Lego concentration enough to remember to attend to your basic biological needs…?
I’ve been approved for ordination to the priesthood! The big day is scheduled for Friday evening, Feb. 6. I’ll never have any trouble remembering my ordination anniversary… Any and all are welcome to come on up! We’ll find places to put you up. My bishop from NC will be performing the ordination, and our local bishop will be present too. It’ll be an honor to be with them both, and it should be quite a party.
When I told Tilt and Zag, Zag was dismayed and said he didn’t want me to be a priest. Tilt asked him why, and Zag replied, “Because we don’t want a priest like Mama in this neighborhood!”
He went on to offer another reason: “She should be my whole mama in the universe!” That, of course, made me sad… whatever we try to tell him about how I can be a deacon/priest AND his “whole mama”, he knows, and I know, that life now is really different than it was when I was mostly home with him.
I’m trying to do better about organizing my time, so I have peaceful moments and make conscious choices about what to do with each hour. I need to make sure I’m choosing to spend enough hours with my son.
EDIT: After reading back over this, I want to make it clear that Tilt and Zag are doing great together. Zag is getting a lot of high-quality parental attention – it’s just that a lot less of it comes from me than before I started working. I’m blessed and privileged to be free to think about how to nurture our particular relationship, rather than worrying about his getting adequate care from any loving adult… an issue for so many families who can’t have one parent mostly home.
…. you mention your intention to get out the tonic water, and your three-and-a-half-year-old says brightly, “Where’s the gin?”
I can’t decide whether this means we’re raising him wrong, or raising him right…
Two conversations with Zag, today.
At some point this morning, while we were driving around getting apples, he got very cranky about the fact that married people come to our church. I think this was because I was doing a wedding this afternoon?
Anyway, he started fulminating about how he didn’t want married people to come to our church. Tilt told him that our church should be for everybody, and we want everyone to feel like they can come to our church. Zag answered, “No! Our church is just for us.”
Tilt pointed out that we, and many others of Zag’s favorite people, are, in fact, married. Zag made no reply, but grumbled to himself in the backseat for a while, then announced, “When I grow up to be a reindeer, I will butt those married people away!”
Trying (vainly) to get to the bottom of his evident strong feelings, I asked him what he thinks married people are like. He grumbled to himself for another minute or so, then answered vehemently, “They’re disgusting!”
This is what we get for raising our child on the campus of a liberal seminary, I guess….
This evening, keeping him company while he bathed, I told Zag that I’d been looking at some old pictures of him and had been reminded how bald he used to be. (He had almost no hair until he was nearly 2.) After asking what “bald” meant, Zag explained that the artist had drawn him that way.
I said, “Yes, I guess so. But now, you have beautiful curls!”
Zag answered, “Yes. The artist didn’t know how to do that before, but now he does. Now he has a good pen and he can draw the curls.”
WB: What’s the artist’s name?
Zag: I think his name is Betty.
WB: Did the same artist draw me?
Zag: Yes.
WB: Did the same artist draw Daddy?
Zag: Yes.
WB: Is it God?
Zag: No, it’s Betty. (pause) But he sees God a lot.
Putting in a brief appearance on my blog, while listening to post-debate analysis on NPR…and occasionally cruising over to Five Thirty Eight and Ben Smith to see what they think of it all.
We were home with my folks for a few days – almost a week. It was a great visit. We had no particular plans for our time in the Hoosier State, so naturally we were so busy that I came home exhausted. Tilt and Zag are still out of town, visiting Tilt’s brother and SIL, so I’m on my own, which is just as well since I worked, oh, 10 hours yesterday and 11 today. I’ll try to have a normal day tomorrow… I need some rest. (more…)
I had a dream last night about having too much to do (… gee, I wonder where that came from?). In part of it, I was making this pasta casserole, for some guests who were coming over. It involved cooking some spaghetti, and making a special sauce with tomatoes and garlic, and then mixing all that together with some little bits of broken crayon. I was rushing to finish it – I was running late – and I was just about ready to add the crayons when I realized I hadn’t yet taken off all their little paper wrappers. Doh!
This came to me in the shower yesterday morning.
Those tempting fruits on the tree in the church garden? Inedible.
That pile of unused commentaries on my office floor? Worthless.
Gather, consume, sell, seek, produce, my mind exhorts.
The crackling air and blazing trees just laugh.