The Anti-Florist

His Little Brother Syndrome is flaring up again.

And Abby is learning the hard way that if you leave your bouquet-in-progress unattended, Caleb will make quick work of disassembling and loading it, petal by petal, into the back of his tiny dump truck.

He's a hard worker, that middle child of mine. And no job is ever too big, or too small, when there's a toy truck involved.

Funny guy

We don't know what to call it.

Abby and Caleb call it his "Jacob face." That's probably about right. What else are we supposed to call it when our almost 8-month-old scrunches up his nose, purses his lips, squints at us through those big dark eyes and reverse snorts at us until we fall over in a fit of giggles?

His Jacob face, that's what.

He does it when we haven't paid attention to him in a while. He does it when I try to feed him something he's not in the mood for. He does it when we do it back at him, if he doesn't start smiling first. He does it in restaurants, to strangers passing by in the grocery store, and when he's riding in the back of the van facing his siblings.

He's hilarious, and he knows it.

Early in the morning

The sun is not quite up, but it will be soon. I wish I could say the same for myself. But I've been up for a while now, always rising early to get a few essentials (shower, brush teeth, start breakfast) out of the way before the kids get up.

But early this morning, while the sun is still climbing over the horizon, Abby is already awake. She remains in her bed, as she's been instructed to do, and she is singing softly to herself. I know this, because from my comfy chair in the hallway, I can hear her quite clearly. (Perhaps she's not singing that softly after all.)

I came here to spend a few quiet moments with the Lord before the rush of the day sets in, and I find myself mildly annoyed that there's a concert going on in the background. I'd really like it if she would sleep in.

But then that still, small voice in my heart tells me to hush, and to listen.

So I do. And I realize I can learn so much from my children.

I thought God was going to meet me this morning in the pages of his Word, or in prayer. He meets me here, all right, but beckons me out of my comfy chair.

So I stand outside my daughter's door listening to see what it is she's singing that God sees so fit to have me hear this morning.

My heart overflows. My three-year-old has woken with praise on her lips.

Strains of an old hymn we sing often waft from her room in her tiny little girl voice. The words are slow, deliberate, almost a whisper, and I have to press my ear to the door to hear clearly. The pace and volume increase when she approaches the chorus as she sings from her heart in a voice I'm certain will wake her brothers.

"Low in the grave he lay, Jesus my Savior,

Waiting the coming day, Jesus my Lord!

Up from the grave He arose;

with a mighty triumph o'er His foes;

He arose the victor from the dark domain,

and He lives forever, with His saints to reign.

He arose! He arose! Hallelujah! Christ arose!

Death cannot keep its prey, Jesus my Savior;

He tore the bars away, Jesus my Lord!

Up from the grave He arose;

with a mighty triumph o'er His foes;

He arose the victor from the dark domain,

and He lives forever, with His saints to reign.

He arose! He arose! Hallelujah! Christ arose!"

Perhaps God is showing me what he means when he asks us to have faith like a child. Maybe, just maybe, he wants me to wake with praise on my lips, not a finger on the snooze button. What if early in the morning my song rose to Him, and what if my first thought each day was a simple reminder of the truth of the gospel?

Today, at least, I think my attitude will be a little better as I face the daily battles that rage among toddlers and deal with the business of entertaining three little ones. Because in the big scheme of things, as I have been so simply reminded, "He arose! He arose! Hallelujah! Christ arose!"

Organizational skills

Her hair is often out of control, and it only makes sense that the accessories would follow suit. So we set up shop in Abby's bedroom, piled all the hair bows and bands in the middle of the floor, and set to work sorting them in an unused tackle box I found in the garage.

"Is this a special Mommy-Abby date?" my darling daughter asked me as she carefully removed some tiny hair clips from their cardboard holder.

It sure is, I told her. And following her instructions, I spent the next 45 minutes helping her sort clips, ribbons, bows and bands into very specific piles.

There were piles for sparkly things with sequins, and piles for sparkly things with glitter. There were piles for hair bands with curly ribbons attached, and for plain hair bands.

Polka dotted bows go here, striped bows there, and solid color bows were arranged according to size and hung on the back of her door.

Hair bands that were deemed too stretched out from being wound around one too many ponytails were discarded. Hair bands that could fit around her wrist and double as bracelets found their own special place in the tackle box next to a couple of necklaces we found under the bed. Small hairbands -- "these are tiny, for tiny pigtails, Mommy" -- were paired according to color.

When we finished sorting, we found a place for everything in the tackle box. Places of honor were given to any item that was pink, or glittery. Then Abby closed the box, handed it to me, and gave her final instruction.

"Put these up high, Mommy," she insisted, "so Jacob doesn't eat them."

We bribed them with marshmallows

And it worked.

Happy birthday, Grandmother!

Personally, I don't think you could ask for a much better present than getting four generations in one picture without any shouting or tears.

Master negotiator

Some days aren't as good as others.

Some days, it's rough being the big brother.

Some days, in the middle of playing quite happily with the teeny white truck, you look over and realize your little brother is playing with the teeny orange truck.
I don't think any of us realized how much that orange truck meant to Caleb until Jacob showed an interest in it and scooted over to play with it. (Mobility is providing the little guy all sorts of new opportunities to offend his siblings.) It's funny how things suddenly matter so much more when someone else has them.

I tried reminding Caleb that he had lots of other trucks to play with. I tried pointing out that Jacob only wanted to play with that one toy, and the right thing to do would be to let him play in peace. I talked about kindness, coveting, and taking turns. But none of that matters to a two year old in the middle of a crisis.

So while the little brother continued to gnaw on the teeny orange truck (so named because it is orange, and smallish), I distracted the big brother with promises of being allowed to pull all of the clean laundry out of the dryer to make a fluffy warm mountain to drive his other trucks on.

It worked, and for a moment Caleb forgot all about his misery. Until he pulled Jacob's clean puppy out of the dryer.

"Jacob loves this puppy?" he asked. I nodded.

"I share this puppy with Jacob," he said, mostly to himself I think, before marching off to start negotiations.

Jacob was still right where we left him, still slobbering all over teeny orange truck, when Caleb approached him with an offer he couldn't refuse.

"May I have my teeny orange truck, please, Jacob?" Caleb squatted down to get eye to eye with his little brother and pushed the puppy into his free hand. "I got your puppy for you."

Jacob grabbed the puppy, shoved it in his mouth, and did a quick double roll away from his brother. Caleb took that as a yes and began zooming the orange truck across the rug.

And all is right with the world.

More peas, please

So much cuteness!

Seriously...how could you not love this kid?

Look behind you

Hey Caleb!

Yeah, I'm talking to you, tough guy, over there filling your sister's Easter basket with dirt and rocks.

You, the big boy with Lightning McQueen underpants peeking over your waistband.

I meant to thank you for potty training yourself the other day. You must have overheard me talking about what a miserable time I had teaching your sister to use the potty, so you spared me the trauma and drama and did it yourself.

I wish I could take credit for your success, but in all honesty, I had nothing to do with it. You just up and decided the other day that you'd like to use the toilet. (Coincidentally, you also decided that you should have a marshmallow every time you peed or pooped. I'm happy to oblige, little man.)

It took you a few days to warm up to the big boy underpants, but daddy says that if you're going to wear shorts and play outside in the dirt, you can't go commando anymore. He's right, you know. There are a lot of bugs in our yard.

Now that you'll actually wear them, you seem to really like your big boy underpants. You only have one complaint when you put them on.

"But I can't see the trucks anymore, Mommy," you tell me each morning as you hike up your undies. "The trucks are on my bottom."

Sorry buddy. Life only gets tougher as you get older.

Earning her keep

She's working toward her Big Sis merit badge.

Ever the helpful big sister, Abby's always on hand to sing to a fussy baby when Mommy's making dinner or to help a little brother find his missing airplane. She's a ball of fire most of the time, but has a sweet and gentle spirit that comes out at just the right moments.

I love the big girl she's becoming.

Bottoms up

He's trying to crawl. He really is. He scooted forward almost two inches today.

But my seven-month-old is having a really hard time motivating himself toward mobility. Perhaps it has something to do with the fact that his siblings are just so kind and thoughtful. They simply can't stand the sight of him stretching and straining to reach something on the floor that is just out of reach. Never mind the fact that I put it there on purpose. The second they see him struggling, they push that toy right under his nose.

"I give Jacob his toy, Mommy!" Caleb will announce. "Is this so kind of me?" Abby will ask, placing the toy firmly in her littlest brother's grasp.

Or maybe it has something to do with how delicious our floors are. Because it seems every time little Jacob manages to pull his knees up under him, the potential for scooting is stopped short while he licks the carpet instead.

That's alright. He still rolls with the best of them. What he lacks in forward mobility he well makes up for in side-to-side travel.

There were four in the bed...

Zeepy Bear and Hippo are getting a stern talking to when naptime is over.

They are totally hogging Abby's pillow. It's a wonder the kid gets any sleep at all with those animals taking up all that space.

Gently down the stream

In parenting, as in life, it's important to keep your priorities straight. In this family, we place a high priority on fun, and on the great outdoors.

So we sold the formal dining room set, and put the money toward a kayak that makes having fun and enjoying nature a two-for-one deal. It's kind of hard to miss my beautiful china cabinet when Caleb and his dad get to have such a good time after dinner. And spotting turtles and frogs up close and personal is a whole lot more fun than a fancy dinner anyway.

I'm realizing my kids have a pretty good life.

Something fishy

Justin caught a fish. (This is nothing new.)

The kids squealed with delight and demanded to touch it. (Also not out of the ordinary.)

Caleb asked if he could swim with it. (Again, not unusual.)

Justin obliged, and that is how we found ourselves with a terrified little fish swimming in our backyard pool while Caleb ran around repeatedly catching and releasing it. (This was a first.)

Meanwhile, our neighbor referred to our children as "country bumpkins" the other day, and now I think I see where he's coming from.

But if Caleb's going to have a future in noodling, he has to start somewhere.

Me and my shadow

Poor Jacob. His brother and sister are always taking his toys.

They're not being mean. They just understand the rules better than he does. And the rule in our house is that if someone puts a toy down, you're allowed to ask them if you can play with it. Since Jacob doesn't talk yet, they tend to take his stony silence as a yes. And until he gets big enough, or mobile enough, or vocal enough to defend himself, this trend is sure to continue.

But for most of the morning, as long as he rolls in the right direction on the floor of the living room, Jacob has his shadow to play with. And for a solid 20 minutes this morning, that was all he needed to keep himself entertained.

Try as they may, Abby and Caleb will never be able to take that away from him.

Pretty typical

Ah, summer. I can tell you're just around the corner.

The predictable simplicity of our days, the warm weather and the kids tuckered out from so much fun make this our favorite time of year. We will spend hundreds of hours in the backyard splashing in this little pool before the weather cools off again. And being the good mom that I am, I'll always be close by, lounging in my comfy beach chair, careful to not leave my children unattended while they splash. (These are the sacrifices we moms must make.)

And for the remainder of the summer, I know I can count on my kids to provide hours of entertainment for myself and anyone spying on our backyard.

Abby will go down that slide over and over again, never tiring of trying new ways to propel herself into the pool. And unless I interrupt her to feed her a banana popsicle, I can count on the fact that she won't leave that pool unless I tell her in no uncertain terms that it is absolutely time to take a break. And mean it.

Caleb will do his fair share of splashing, too. But he's busy, always busy, and seems most at ease when he has a task to complete. So I'll often catch him standing at the edge of the pool, looking for a cup to fill up with water, or a dump truck to load up with dirt to start his mud factory. Sometimes, if he stands there long enough, I'll ask him what he's thinking. And I'll get one of two answers: "I'm thinking of trucks." Or, my personal favorite: "I'm not thinkin' anything, Mommy." He leads a pretty simple life, I think.

Even Jacob will have his time in the sun. He finally weighs enough to keep the bumbo seat from floating when he's in it, so he'll sit by the slide and wait to be splashed by an energetic brother or sister. When he tires of sitting, I'll help him down the slide, drag his feet through the pool so he can feel the water between his wiggly toes, then scoop him up into a big towel. We'll settle back into my beach chair while my little guy chews on his toes and giggles at his siblings when they walk over and drip water onto his belly.

And at some point, Abby may wander over, like she did today, to let me know they've had enough and it's time to go inside.

"This is too much playing, Mommy," she said as she sank down into the chair with me. "I need to rest a little."