Ben Turns 5, and Other Exciting Things

I know it's been a long time since I blogged. I won't fill you in on every little detail, but several things are worthy of notice. But of course I've forgotten a good bit of what went on, so the following are excerpts from Mark's journal.

3/6
Ben turned 5! He'd been looking forward to his pirate party for quite some time. The day was cool, a bit gray, and windy. He was adorable in his pirate outfit. When he climed into bed with us in the morning, I made a big deal about having a 5 year old pirate with us. "But I don't feel 5," he protested. When I asked him when he thought he'd feel 5, he said, "At my birthday party."

Ben has voluntarily given things to his brothers many times lately, acquiescing to their request quite often. Still the occasional selfish whine, but it's encouraging to see thoughtful generosity. This evening after church the asked me to race him to the far end of the field in front of Emmanuel. Towards the end I was trying to spur him on, saying, "I'm gonna get you. Better hurry." He replied, "Hold my hand, daddy, so we can both win."

Yesterday Nate was "painting" the walls with a Magic Eraser Sponge that miraculously removes ugly marks and scuffs. Jennifer finally had to stop him. "OK, enough cleaning, Nate. Time for a nap." Not often you'll hear a parent tell a child to stop cleaning.

3/7
As I put the boys to bed last night, Bradford was explaining to me why he hadn't made his bed. I was very excited that making his bed was even somewhere in his consciousness of duties. He explained that he had many things to do in a short amount of time on Sunday mornings, such as getting dressed, eating breakfast, fixing his hair, etc. Ben commented, "Besides, you're not suppsed to work on the Lord's Day, unless your ox falls in the water- then you can get him out."

3/8
On the way into the building to vote, Nater reached up and grabbed my hand and said, "I love daddies and grandpas. I even love everybody in the whole world. Well, I don't know everyone, but I know some people."

3/15
Nater: "Mommy, you're not all beautiful, because you have on slippers. You're all beautiful when you wear your hose and beautiful black shoes." He's 3! How on earth does he, being 3, associate hose and dress shoes with beauty?!?

And now it's back to me, Jennifer. I'll only add a bit about grandma's gift to the boys. She sent money, so we bought them tickets to go see Thomas the Tank Engine. The four boys had a wonderful boy time with the trains, the fire truck, and the police car. They had their picture taken with Sir Topham Hatt. On the train ride, they noticed one of their friends was in the car with them. How fun-- and I had a grand time staying home with Lizzy. She slept and slept and slept, and I cleaned and cleaned and cleaned.

The biggest news for me is that we are doing school again with surprising regularity. If you call in the morning and I don't answer, it's probably because I'm doing what I'm supposed to be doing. I typed up 18 weeks of plans for Kindergarten, and we've only got 16 more weeks to do. I took off lots of time with baby, holidays, nice days, lazy days, ad infinitum, so I figured I'd best buckle down and do some work with them. So far it's going very well. Mark is on Spring Break next week, but there will be no break at the T Reformed School for Young Gentlemen.

This morning I heard the dryer going, and I asked Mark if it was possible that Bradford heard the washer go off and started the towels in the dryer. No, it wasn't. He came in and showed us his warm bunny. "I watched her go around and around in the dryer. If you hold your finger on the light button, you can see the dryer spin." Well, I learned something new.

And now my battery is almost dead, so I'm going to sign off. I won't promise to write soon, but I will promise to go eat some chocolate.