The Best Place on Earth?

1. It's free.
2. It's not crowded.
3. There are trolleys
4. There are airplanes flying right overhead.
5. Lots of room to run.
6. And now, as we've just discovered, there are sticky spider webs in the trees and sticks to poke them with.

Really, Balboa Park may be Heaven according to these boys!

"Look what I did!"

As I was fixing lunch, both boys called me over to view their separate activities. "Look what I did!" They both yelled.

It's funny to watch kids as they go through a "sorting and lining up" phase. For all the chaos they seem to enjoy causing, it's nice there is a desire for order, balance and symmetry too.

Action Shots

We are doing our best to take advantage of the sunshine and life before it gets a little crazy in March. Lately, we've been getting to the park everyday. The boys love it and the sunshine keeps me energized. This very warm winter reminds me that A) I don't need a winter wonderland to feel like we got in all our "seasons." Especially in a small apartment I dislike being cooped up during cold, wet weather. B) it is worth the higher cost of living to have this kind of weather. I love it!

Here are some action shots of the boys:

Bookworms

They love their books, Tracee! :)

I Can't Caption This

I guess some pictures just speak for themselves....

Sense of Justice

Michael has been all about "bad guys."

I don't know when it started, but he frequently asks questions, "Are bad guys happy?" "Do bad guys get presents?" "Do bad guys get dessert?" "Do bad guys lie?"

Often these "bad guys" are exempt from the normal protections we offer to good guys. Like, it's not ok to push Matthew or other children, but "it's ok to push bad guys."

I am not entirely sure if I'm doing the right thing by saying it is ok to push bad guys, because of the whole "love thy enemies thing" but sometimes I envision these bad guys being the sort of people that sneak into bedroom windows at night to try to take things...and yeah, in cases like those, it's ok to push them.

Since loving thy enemies is a more sophisticated teaching in the pedagogy of morality, we're still at rudimentary principles: good guys are happy and don't get punished, bad guys are sad and do get punished. So in our house, bad guys are not offered much in terms of mercy. That can come later. In our house, bad guys are the most unlikeable types for whom nothing goes well.

Michael does not like bad guys. Somehow, even "hating" them crept into his vocabulary (where does he get that? Do I say I hate stuff? I didn't think so....) He talks about them all the time. He likes to emphasize the fact that they don't get things he gets to have. I like this. I want him to see that being good is what you want to do because then you'll be happy and it's how you get all that really matters. In all honesty, it's the Beatitudes adapted to a 3 year old boy's mentality: Blessed (happy) are the peacemakers, blessed are the meek...etc...they get the good stuff.

At lunch today, Michael surprised us by his dislike of the bad buys when he told us, step by step what he was going to do with the bad buys.

"I'm going to get the bad guys."

-"What will you do with them?"

"Put them in the basket."

-"Then what will you do with them?"

"I'm going to dump them in the parking lot."

-"What will happen once they are in the parking lot?"

"They'll get squished by a car."

-"Who will drive the car?"

"Mommy and Daddy and Michael and Matthew."

Michael Sr and I are cracking up, on the one hand slightly disturbed by the violent nature with which he will deliver justice against the bad guys. On the other hand, aware that at a certain point, this is not much less violent than the Biblical teaching of the Wheat and the Tares. I mean, does it not say in Matthew 13:36-43 that, "The Son of Man will send out his angels, and they will gather out of his Kingdom all things that cause stumbling, and those who do iniquity, and will cast them into the furnace of fire. There will be weeping and the gnashing of teeth."

So, we're going to let this be in our home for a while to further cement how undesirable it is to be a bad guy. I'm sure as time goes on, we can develop who the bad guys are, and make sure to always teach mercy and the willingness of our Lord to forgive anyone who asks for it. But, if this is a good springboard to make them want to avoid being a bad guy and do the things that good guys do: praying, being kind, listening to Mommy and Daddy, going to Church, etc, then I think we are heading on the right track.

In the meantime, if Michael comes up to you in a parking lot with a basket in hand, I would go the other way.

Goodbye. Hello.

It's New Year's Eve and reflecting back on 2011, it's been both a rough and a great year.

Here is Michael and Matthew at the beginning of the year:

(Not even walking!!)

And here they are now:

They have both grown so much and are so much fun!

About the year....It started pretty rough. It's hard to believe we spent just about every other week from February to April in the doctor's office either for colds, ear infections, or mysterious eye infections. In fact, the doctor even commented how frequently we were there and commented, "It's not like your kids are in day care, right?" It was that bad, folks. I guess in doctor's minds, there are several levels for sick-kid frequency:

1. Bubble-Boy Level (never sick)
2. Kids Go Nowhere Outside the House Level (the rare sickness)
3. Kids Have Normal Outings to Parks and Stores (the occasional sickness)
4. Kids Play in McDonald's Playhouses Frequently (Sick regularly)
5. Day Care Kids (always sick).

So, despite the sacrifices made to stay at home and keep the kids fairly unexposed, we still managed to reach that enviable Day Care Kid status. (I say this tongue and cheek, no judgment on Day Care...I'm just amused that my doc compared them to kids in Day Care!)

After several rounds of antibiotics, several (expensive) trips to the emergency room due to fever and swollen eyelid and much anxiety, Michael's eye was cured with a....drumroll....Warm washcloth!! Glad it was a simple solution. Bugged we didn't find it sooner.

The brunt of this took place during Lent and we tried to remind ourselves about the importance of suffering and whatnot. Of course, Holy Week just wouldn't be Holy Week without Lent with a little extra. This Holy Week, we got a lot extra. We lost our little Gabriel, as you all well know. That was a suffering that lasted through Holy Week and quite well beyond. While the burial brought us a good deal of closure, I can with all honesty say that not a day goes by that we don't think of our little one that we have yet to meet. We pray for him daily and await our reunion in Heaven.

Around Pentecost, our year started to turn around and we received many blessings of good news: the upcoming news of a new baby for Michael's sister, the continued health of my sister's pregnancy, and the good news of a new baby of our own. Though Gabriel's life was very, very short, he would make way for a baby that so far, has been given a longer span of time, and God willing, will outlive us all. It's a bittersweet mystery: that had Gabriel not died, this baby would never be, but still wishing that we wouldn't have lost Gabriel. Oh would we could have had both! But also, of course knowing that the blessing didn't cause the loss, but was a gift of consolation in the midst of it.

The next few months found the familiar tune of first trimester sickness which somewhat slowed our pace, but didn't stop us from enjoying Michael and Matthew and their ever-increasing boisterous antics. During this year, those boys have become fast friends. They play, they laugh, they plot together and have brought us so much joy.

Michael grew in boundless amounts in maturity and emotional stability and Matthew grew in laughter and smiles.

The last part of the year has been great. Between the birth of our fourth nephew and the continued health of Baby Barber's growth and the continued health of our soon-to-born nephew on Michael's side of the family, it's been a very calm and blessed second half of 2011. Health all around, happiness, and a lot of anticipation for what 2012 will bring.




Happy New Year!