The Streetpoet

Yesterday I decided it was finally time for Ian’s first hair trim. For some reason the beginning of haircutting is a sign of growing up for me, and I put it off for as long as I can. Ian’s turn came a bit late, poor fellow, I just wasn’t ready for him to be a big boy yet. (Or more accurately, to try to get him safely still for a session with the scissors.)  I trimmed as much as I could bear to cut, just to get the hair out of his eyes. The back was obviously too long for a little boy, but it still curled most days and looked angelic. Well, one day later (this afternoon) Seth took things (Ian’s curls, to be exact) into his own hands and chopped off a couple curls before I could stop him. Yes, he had permission to be using the scissors for his paper, he just re appropriated them. And so I filled Ian’s first hair trim bag from yesterday with his hair cut from today.

Amazingly, and thankfully, he looks a little younger with his hair at a proper length for a little one and a half year old.

Seth’s conversation during dinner this evening:

“Mommy, I wish we had knives on our feet so we could swing at Grandma’s house!” I asked him why we should have knives on our feet to swing at Grandma’s house and he replied, ” So we could skate on the dirt and in the air!”. Of course.

“Is pasta made out of snakes, Mama?”

“I’m killing it with my teeth!”

“I’m gonna build an alarm to fire up the sandbox!”

“This had turkey meat. That’s why it’s made out of meatballs.”

“Mama, we are flying on an airplane, a pretend one.”

“That airplane is making a contrail for the people to walk on! It’s making it wider!”

“A parachute is coming down here onto the ground, gently.”

This was all between mouthfuls of dinner, then he was excused (after finishing my meatballs) to go play in the sand box until dark.

 Thanks for letting me shoot some portraits, Jane! And thank you for your time and love given so freely to us.

Jane has been so gracious to spend some time over here with us and a couple meals at our table before leaving on a missions trip this week. Here are some pictures of her time with my three and one year old.

Seth’s phrases that I’ve jotted down this week, always with a smile on my face, or laughing:

“Do whales have guts too, Mama?”

(This was at the breakfast table out of the blue. My only guess is the Seabird book on the shelf beside him?)

“I’m dancing in the blue!”

(We had one movie night on the lawn this past summer, and as the guys were setting up the projector, the screen was blue and the children were dancing in the blue light casting their shadows larger than life…in the blue.)

“Mama, it’s me moving the light!”

(During Ian’s nap the boys and I crawl through my bedroom window to access the bathroom through the laundry room. Today Seth said that and I turned to see him bouncing in a squat IN my window, enjoying watching his shodow bounce on the wall.)

“May I drink the fuzzy?”

(The boys are coming down with colds and Seth enjoys the emergenC he gets to drink.)

Poor Jerome.

Tuesday night he got a hematoma on his forehead when his friend jumped on him as he was hiding under a pillow on a tile floor. It wasn’t maliciously done, just thoughtless rambunctiousness, and they were both in tears. The bump gave Jerome quite a bruise, but he hasn’t complained about it hurting and the swelling went down fairly quickly thanks to soft ice packs and arnica gel.

Then last night I was putting the big boys to bed by 9 and it was quarter til and I told them they could  have a little ice cream while I read a book to them on the couch. Jerome came in the kitchen to help me. He got down the bowls and spoons and lifted out the ice cream for me. I didn’t get a good grip on the scooper (my wrist is still weak and bothering me from handling my big camera for eight hours last week), the ice cream was hard, and I should have slowed down. Just as I lost the scoop and my hand flew up, Jerome leaned in to see and the scoop hit him in the eyebrow. Now, if it had been any old regular ice cream scoop it would have been just another bump on the poor boy’s head, but it’s not…it’s a Tupperware fancy scoop with a pointed tip. Just from his reaction I knew it was bad. I had to pry his hands down to look at it, and I had cut his eyebrow pretty badly…with an ice cream scoop. We both cried. And I have been thanking God ever since that Jerome still has an eye. It was so close, and sheer accident.

He got three stitches. His first stitches ever. And it’s not even his fault, it’s mine. He was a blue ribbon patient, but mostly that’s on account of Dr. Tim’s patience and gentleness. Huge thanks to Tim for saving us an ER visit! The stitches will come out Monday night, and hopefully I can find some forgiveness for my own folly by then.

in our back yard.

It’s an orchard, so it’s not a problem to have an enormous mud puddle for days. The boys and their neighbors have been muddy for two days and counting. They’ve spent hours in the mud, and my shower still hasn’t recovered from all of them bathing after the adventures are over…a couple times a day. Jerome and I are learning about the River Nile and ancient Egypt in The Story of the World so it was just natural that one should appear in the freshly plowed dirt. It’s been a blast.

And the pictures of the wood and carving tools was taken by Jerome of his own carving with Daddy’s real tools!