Art imitates life

In the past few months, the boys' fine motor skills have really picked up. 

Dean, especially, is really taken with drawing, writing, coloring, cutting, creating.  He's always making something. Paper airplanes. Wall decor for the playroom. Little pictures to mail to Nana and Granddad. It's really very cute. 

Since we moved into the new house, he's drawn a lot of pictures of houses, usually with a chimney with smoke coming out (because we now have not one but two awesome wood-burning fireplaces! Holla!) 

This week, he drew a picture that was totally cute, of a house with a car parked next to it.

Isn't that little car the cutest?

He made it for Miss Arlene, our after-care provider, but I asked him if I could have it, because 1) It was the first time he ever drew a car on his own and 2) For some reason, it made me get all filled up.

I brought it to work and put it on my desk, where I've been thinking about why Dean's picture moved me so.

And I think it's this:

I once read somewhere that if you own a car, you are in the top 10-percent of wealthiest people in the world. 

Dean drew a picture of a house (likely ours) and a car (also likely ours) which means he associates the two -- a house and a car go together. 

I imagine that an average child in Haiti or Zimbabwe would maybe draw a picture of a happy yellow sun, some grass and a house, but probably NOT a car.

But Dean did. And it reminds me how incredibly privileged we are. 

Sometimes -- even with the new house and the promotions and the private schools -- I know I can feel poor. (Well, maybe that's because of the private schools...lol.) I dream of more, more, more - better vacations, pricier summer camps, the (good ol') days when I used to get my hair done once a week. I think about the things I wish I had, as opposed to being grateful for the things I do.

For example, we went into credit card debt for the first time in our marriage to pay for some of the renovations to the new house. And because of that, we're not going on our beach trip this year. This not infrequently makes me sad. But HULLO -- you renovated a house, Tanika! You're not going to the beach this year because you installed soft-close cabinets and an induction range and office built-ins! Not because you make the equivalent of $2 a day like many, many people in this world. Also, it's the BEACH. Not a necessity. Get over yourself!

(I have to talk to myself this way sometimes. Tough love from me to me.)

The truth is we have a house - a modest, but beautiful, well-stocked, love-filled one. We have a car. We have two, actually. We are blessed beyond measure. We are rich in so many ways, figuratively and, compared to so much of the rest of the world, literally. It's an embarrassment of riches, actually. I mean, really, our cups runneth over.

My son's rudimentary drawing is a wonderful reminder of my blessings. It makes me think of the goodness of God and the arbitrary nature of birth. Why I happened to be born to educated, middle class parents in the wealthiest nation on Earth is beyond me. I didn't do anything to deserve it. But it happened. And I'm thankful. 

My children are growing up safe, comfortable, educated, loved (adored and pampered even). My children are free.

We are so very blessed. 

And I've got the picture to prove it.

(Thanks, Dean, for the reminder!)

Great evening at home with the kids

When I got home last night the kids were in dress-up mode.

In honor of Movember, I decided to heighten the fun and add stick-on mustaches to their get-ups. But the Davises were not as enthralled with this idea as I was. 

I had to bribe Cary and Dean to keep theirs on long enough for me to snap a picture, and Clair isn't old enough to understand bribing, so she just cried and then ripped hers off and threw it on the floor.

(Note: That dinosaur costume is really made for someone Clair's size, but Cary refused to take it off all night. He made us all call him "Dinosaur Cary" and he roared at us 'til bedtime.)

Later on in the night, the kids were all "co-wing" -- Clairspeak for "coloring" -- with pens and stray pieces of paper. This happens quite a bit; there's lots of scribbling and pen-poking and usually nothing really worth noting comes out of their artistry.

But last night, Dean drew an actual person! For the first time ever! 

"It's you, Mommy," he said. "On the beach!"

Awwww. I was really very impressed. One of the fascinating things about parenting is watching how children develop. Sometimes you can see things happening gradually, as with Cary right now and pre-reading. And other times, it's scribble, scribble, scribble, scribble, and then BAM! a stick-figure with a head, eyes, legs and curly hair!

And finally, I felt good about our decision to get our butts to church again when this conversation happened:

Clair, climbing up the stairs, whining because she thinks she's going to fall: "Ah fall! Ah fall!"
Me to the boys: "Cary and Dean, go tell your sister she's OK and that she's not going to fall."
Cary: "Clair, it's OK. Don't be scared. God is always with you."

Isn't that so sweet? I don't think Clair bought Cary's encouragement, because I had to stop what I was doing and come get my poor whining girl, frozen on the stairs. But it doesn't matter. I felt so great about Cary (CARY!) rushing to help his sister, and remembering what they're learning in children's church when he did. 

A rare moment of Cary looking sweetly at Clair. Could we be turning a corner?

And then we all had dinner together, all five of us, and there was cookie-cake for dessert, gifted to us by a friend! 

All in all, it was a really, really good night.

(Until I woke up at 4 in the morning in a full-on heart-racing, blood-coursing in my ears, can't regulate my breathing panic. But that's a post for another day.)

Kate Middleton is pregnant! (and other random baby bits)

The first thing I did when my co-worker and friend Stacey yelled out in the office, "New York Times reports: The Duchess of Cambridge is knocked up!" was not go to the NYT to read up about it.
No, the first thing I did was go STRAIGHT to Suri's Burn Book to see her reaction.

It was priceless! Hands down the best part of this announcement.

In other baby news, on Day 2 of the Big Boy Beds, it took Cary and Dean 45 minutes to settle down last night while I was giving Clair her end-of-the-night bottle. So after I finally got her down, I went in to tell them to "Go to sleep!" Cary was in Dean's bed. And four of the slats in the blinds near Dean's bed had been pulled out. Great.

The thing that baffles me is that those blinds were always there. Nothing has changed about his proximity to them or his ability to reach them. So who knows why now he decided to destroy them. Toddlers are inexplicable.

The good news is it only took that one time to get them settled and they were conked out after that.

So while Lester was at the Redskins/Giants game having a blast, I got all the kids asleep by 8:30, and the dinner dishes and bathroom cleaned up and their next-day snacks made by 9.  Which meant I got to watch two full episodes of Teen Mom 2, in the bed all to myself, no kids, no remote-control-hogging husband and no noise!! Hooray!

In other baby news, Cary and Dean are smart as whips. We played with Play-Doh together this weekend and I was amazed at their creativity. They're also doing so great recognizing all their letters. Cary can recognize them all, and Dean is not too far behind him. And they're becoming slightly more purposeful about their drawing/coloring adventures, which makes for some interesting "Mommy, look what I made!" mysteries. (Most of the time, I'm like, "Uhhh....ummmm....errrr....a squiggly line?? A big mess? Some sort of Rorschach test that will explain your future life choices?")

But sometimes, they surprise me:

Um, Kate Middleton -- let me see your Royal Baby do that at 2-and-a-half! HOLLA!