L.(5) is a bit of a puzzler. He gets a magazine from Highlights called Puzzle Buzz and is always so very excited when the newest issue arrives. He particularly loves the hidden picture puzzles, and will often curl up next to me on the couch so we can do them together. But just as often, I’ll find him hidden away somewhere in the house, carefully studying the pages and solving the puzzles. With a mom (and a grandmother or two) who are also big fans of puzzles, I guess it’s to be expected.

I love coming across these quiet moments of concentration.

Visit 5minutesformom to see more Wordless Wednesday participants.

But when L.(5) saw the poster board I had brought home for his brother, he was instantly jealous. I attribute his jealousy to two primary underlying facts:

1. L. is a big fan of paper in general (you would know this if you ever visited our home and saw the piles and piles of paper stashed in various places), and in his mind — the bigger the paper, the better. Just imagine what could be done with a piece of paper that’s almost as big as you!
2. L. firmly believes that he should be allowed and perfectly able to do absolutely anything his 13-year-old brother does. Age, maturity and stature mean nothing — they are brothers and should be treated exactly the same. Therefore: if C. has poster board, L. should have poster board.

It will not surprise you to know that L immediately asked if I could get him some poster board the next time I was out — and also, if I could make that next time happen very soon.

While my next outing (at least, my next outing that took me to a store that sold poster board) did not happen quickly enough for L.’s liking, it did eventually happen. On Sunday, I came home from the store with a gigantic piece of paper, just for L. Coincidentally, Sunday was the day C. chose to do his project, using the previously-obtained poster board of his own.

I should have been able to predict what happened next.

C. worked diligently — gathering, cutting, and pasting pictures and facts relating to the invertebrate assigned to him (it was a black widow spider, and since I am most definitely not a fan of spiders, this poster cannot head off to school fast enough, in my opinion). And unbeknownst to me, L. began to work on his own “animal poster.” He decided to dedicate his project to Ants. By the end of the afternoon, we had two creepy crawly type posters in our home.

Due to the fact that L. used a pencil to write out his “ant facts,” you most likely can’t read them. Allow me to help.

L. drew several different types of ants and made notes about them all. He has:

• “This ant blends in with colors.” (that would be the one you can’t see on the black construction paper)
• “This ant looks sad because its blue.” (blue ant on red paper)
• “This ant is big.” (ant at the bottom with 30 legs)
• …and a few things that I did not understand, despite L.’s best attempts to explain them to me. I think it’s because he was making up words.

If you can make out the pictures, you’ll see that the “ants” L. drew on his poster have many, many legs — far more legs than the scary black widow spiders on C.’s poster. Let me assure you, if I found any ants in our home that size and with that many legs, I would a) call the exterminator, and b) move out.

I learned a few things from the poster board projects:

1. Do not use outdoor porta-potties if you can at all avoid them. Aside from their inherent disgustingness, black widows apparently enjoy hanging out in them. Don’t ask me why. Just stay away.
2. L. really, really loves his big brother, and wants to be as much like him as he possibly can be.

This is just one example of the cute little copycat who lives in our house. L. looks up to his brother in many ways — always watching, often imitating, deeply loving. And I have the privilege of being the mom who gets to soak it all in.

Hello, friend. It is okay if I call you “friend,” isn’t it? After all, we’ve been hanging out together for about a month now, spending “quality time” together most days of the week. And even though, at the beginning, I could only stand to be near you for ten minutes at a time, I’ve gradually found it easier to spend longer and longer sessions with you. Now when we get together, it’s for nearly half an hour. So yes, I think we could consider ourselves friends.

Anyway, here’s the thing. Spending time with you has been good for my heart. My heartrate no longer soars to perviously unknown heights and ridiculously high numbers as soon as I begin to move, and that’s good. But still, when I’m done, my legs are all jello-y, I can hardly breathe, and I feel like immediately falling upon the couch and taking a nap. So could you take it a little easy on me? Or at least say something encouraging while I’m working out? Things would be a lot easier if you said things like, “Good job,” “Keep it up,” or even better, “Katrina — you totally rock!” while I’m exercising.

So, um, work on that, okay? Thanks.

Your friend,
Katrina the Jello-Legged

***

Dear Trader Joe’s,

You do realize that you threaten to counteract all the hard work I’m doing with my dear friend, the elliptical machine, right? With your aisles of yummy trail mixes, cookies, chocolate covered coffee beans, peanut-butter-filled pretzels, and other such goodies…well, it’s hard to visit you and then consistently uphold good health practices.

And yes, I know the food you offer is, in many cases, healthier than the stuff I would buy at Ye Old Standard Grocery Store. But still. If I eat your offerings in enormous amounts, it’s going to cause a problem.

So: you should hereafter sell more vegetables and fewer yummy snacks. Sound good? Good.

Sincerely,
A Very Tempted Shopper

***

Dear poor, neglected boxes in the garage,

I know. I’ve been ignoring you. You moved here with us, from our old house, last October. And while I dealt with many, many (many) of your fellow boxes — unpacking, arranging, storing, putting away — a few of you were left behind. I didn’t abandon you purposely. It’s just…the holidays came, and things got busy, and well…there you are. Faithfully waiting for me, against a wall of our garage.

But perhaps you’ve noticed that I’m back at it. I’m back to unpacking, finally. My goal is to be done unpacking before we’ve lived here 4 months. And that’s coming up quickly. So take heart! You are on the agenda. You will be neglected no longer!

Affectionately,
A fairly rotten unpacker who should probably never move again

But recently, his pediatrician advised him to start taking some multi-vitamins that are, shall we say, sizable.

They’re not the biggest pills I’ve ever seen or taken, but they are substantially larger than your standard fever-reducer or sinus-decongester.

C. was not impressed.

Despite my urgings, he claimed that water and other liquids just wouldn’t do the trick. The big pills were being difficult. So one day, I plopped the vitamin into a yogurt he was about to eat and — voila! — a solution to large pills was born.

Now, I’m fine with him gulping down a pill with a spoonful of yogurt, or even some applesauce. But C. has not been content to stop with these standard mushy food items.

Instead, I regularly find him searching through the refrigerator for the next, latest & greatest, vitamin-swallowing helper.

To date, he has taken his vitamins with:

• Bleu cheese salad dressing
• Straight BBQ sauce
• Jello
• Tartar sauce
• Chocolate syrup (Suggested by my husband, and to which C. replied, “I’m sure my doctor would love to know that I’m taking my vitamins with chocolate syrup.” But of course, he didn’t turn it down.)
• Pickle relish
• Sour cream
• Ketchup (yes, just a spoonful of ketchup)

There might be more. But honestly, I’ve stopped looking. I just give him the big blue pill and trust that, one way or another, it will make its way down.

If you ask me, I think he could probably swallow the things with a swig of milk. After all, chocolate syrup is mostly liquid, so if it goes down with that, it should go down with milk. Or juice. Or water.

But what fun would that be for C.? After all, with his current approach, he gets to play with condiments and drive his mother a little crazy. A little bright spot in every day.

It’s okay though. I love this kid — vitamin-taking quirks and all!

And let me tell you, it just warmed my heart.

**

L.: I think we should go see that movie.

C.: Well, I’m not sure that movie would be appropriate for a 5-year-old.

L.: Why not? Are there some really scary parts in it?

C.: No, I don’t think so.

L.: Then, what? Is there bad grammar?

**

Score one for grammar geeks! (That’d be me.)

Okay, so it’s possible that when L. said “bad grammar,” he was actually thinking more, um, globally, and meant something akin to “bad words” instead of just “bad grammar.”

But still, the mere fact that those words would come out of his mouth, and that he would sound somewhat horrified at the prospect of bad grammar has to count for something.

Right?

It seems I’ve been fitting in lots of reading lately — and from a variety of books. Here are some things that jumped out at me this past week.

From J.I. Packer’s Knowing God, which our pastor has challenged us to read as a church during January, February, and March of this year:

Many of us [would never] naturally say that in the light of the knowledge of God which we have come to enjoy, past disappointments and present heartbreaks, as the world counts heartbreaks, don’t matter. For the plain fact is that to most of us they do matter. We live with them as our “crosses” (so we call them). Constantly we find ourselves slipping into bitterness and apathy and gloom as we reflect on them, which we frequently do. The attitude we show to the world is a sort of dried-up stoicism, miles removed from the “joy unspeakable and full of glory” which Peter took for granted that his readers were displaying (1 Pet. 1:8). “Poor souls,” our friends say of us, “how they’ve suffered.” And that is just what we feel about ourselves!

Oh this struck home with me. How I long for a deeper knowledge of God, so that the heartbreaks of this world do fade to nothing in light of the joy found in knowing Him, so that disappointments and bumps in the road don’t matter, because my perspective is more like His.

**

I’m also reading The Next Story by Tim Challies (I’m going through it with my friend Jennifer). This past week, I read Chapter 4, where Tim talks about how very much we communicate in our culture. Between emailing, texting, and social networks, we face the very real potential for communication to be nearly constant. In light of all these words, Tim says:

The caution that marks our speech must also mark our texting, our e-mailing, our commenting, our blogging, and our tweeting. The fact that we communicate at all should cause us to stop and to consider every word. The fact that we communicate so often today and do so before so great an audience should cause us to tremble. As we communicate all day, we give ourselves unending opportunities to sin with our words.

Isn’t that the truth? “Unending opportunities to sin with our words.” It’s sobering, and makes me think I should probably be much slower to “speak” (whether it’s verbally or otherwise).

**

What have you been reading this week? Did anything really stick with you?

Visit Barbara’s blog to see what words others are remembering.

In case you have never been to the grocery store at 4:00 on New Year’s Eve, allow me to give you some advice: don’t. Because everyone and their uncle will be there. You will park far, far away from the door. And you will sigh deeply as you find aisle after aisle difficult to maneuver. And you will wait in long — very, very long — lines when you finally get to the checkout area.

Or maybe that was just me.

Anyway, let’s just say that things were rather crazy at the grocery store.

And they were so crazy that somewhere between paying for my groceries and getting out the door, I dropped or misplaced or otherwise lost a gift card for the aforementioned grocery store.

(Small bit of background, not that you asked for it: We purchase grocery store gift cards through C.’s private school and do most of our shopping with those cards. It serves as a bit of a fundraiser for the school, and gives us a percentage off tution. Win-win.)

The gift card I lost was partially drained, but there was definitely still some money on it. And by the time I realized it was missing, two days later, I didn’t even know where I might have lost it and figured it was gone for good.

First, because there was no identifying information on it.

And second, because I was pretty sure that anyone who found a gift card lying around would rejoice in their discovery and tuck it away in their wallet.

While I was bummed about the loss, I just hoped that it was found by someone who really needed it.

Imagine my shock, when, 2 days after that (4 days from the original loss), I got a call from the grocery store, asking if, perchance, I had dropped something in their store within the last four days.

Incredulous, I asked if it was a gift card. And it was.

Someone had found it lying in the store, and rather than tucking it in their wallet, had turned it in to the store’s office.

And then the manager went out of her way to track down where and when the card had last been used, and whose store discount card had been used with it… and then located my information and called me.

I was surprised, thankful, and amazed to be reunited with the gift card. And to be honest, I was a bit humbled as well. Humbled that the extra kindness — out-of-the-way, above-and-beyond kindness — of two nice people had saved me from my own flusteredness or disorganization or whatever it was that led to losing the card in the first place.

I truly appreciate their kindness, and I am officially on the lookout to pass that same kindness on to someone else.

…because sometimes, all the Lego men and women have to embark on dangerous missions that involve balancing on a steel beam, far above the earth. I’m not sure what they have to do there, but I’m sure it’s very important.

We do, however, enjoy seeing movies based on some of our all-time favorite book series. We love the Lord of the Rings trilogy (and are anxiously awaiting the Hobbit movie coming out at the end of this year), and have enjoyed the three Chronicles of Narnia movies out so far.

And recently, Chad and I decided to (finally) watch the Harry Potter movies.

Both of us read the Harry Potter books as they came out, eagerly anticipating each new installment. And although I’m the only one who cried during books 4 and 7 (at least, Chad hasn’t owned up to crying), we both left the series with that sad, “I’m not quite ready to leave this fictional world” feeling. We had grown attached to the characters, involved in their story, and knew it would be a long time before another equally-enthralling book series would come along for us.

But yet, we hadn’t watched the movies. We’d seen the first two, and at least parts of the third, but that was it.

So recently, when Amazon.com had an awesome deal on the DVD set, I picked it up and last week, we finally decided that we were going to engage in a Harry Potter movie marathon.

Some notes about the phrase “movie marathon”:

• When you are old like us, an “eight-movie marathon” does not mean watching eight movies in a row, hour after hour, like it might to some spry, energetic teenager. For us, it means watching movies during your leisure time every night until you are done with the aforementioned “marathon.”

• And also, when you are old like us, and when you have a teenager who does not go to bed at a reasonable hour like your 5-year-old does, and who is not permitted to watch the movies because he has not yet read the books (we have a book-before-movie guideline we like to follow around here)… then a movie marathon involving very long movies might also mean that several of the movies require two nights of movie-watching to complete.

That being said, we embarked upon our movie marathon with excitement.

Our teen was not nearly as excited, though. He knew that every night, we would “encourage” him to head upstairs a few mintues early to read before bed, so we could get started on that night’s movie. We knew that we turned into pumpkins around 10:30 (and 10:30 is actually fairly late for us), so we had to get started as early as we could.

C.(13) was a good sport, though, and mostly just rolled his eyes at his silly parents who wanted to watch movies about magic and danger and the epic theme of good vs. evil.

Chad and I found that although we split the first two movies into two nights apiece, we then became eager to finish the rest of them, and stayed up as late as it took (we paid for it the next day) to watch movies 3-8.

Our conclusions?

• We genuinely enjoyed the movies, and loved our week of Harry Potter, but we had some issues with the ending.

• Even though we had read the books, we still felt loads of tension during the movies.

• We were surprised by how much of the story we had forgotten. Though the movies made some deviations from the books, we often found ourselves saying things like, “Oh yeah… I had forgotten about that part.”

• We were pretty disappointed with the very, very end. I won’t go into detail, so as not to spoil either the book or the movie, but suffice it to say that the very end was drastically different from the end of the book series. We figure it was probably done so they could engage in more “cinematic effect,” but we, personally, thought the book stood well on its own and didn’t need any “help” to make it more dramatic. But this disappointment did not detract from our overall enjoyment of the movie series up to that point.

• We loved the portrayal of certain characters — especially Professor Snape and Professor McGonagall.

• I’m thinking I might want to re-read the HP series sometime this year. I’ve said that in other years, but have never done it. But the movies made me want to re-visit Hogwarts and the rest of the HP world.

I stand by my belief that for the most part, books are almost always better than their movie counterparts. That is certainly true here. The books held so much more, and delved more deeply into the characters and the backstory. But the movies were a nice accompaniment to a much-liked series. I’m glad we finally made the time to watch them together.

Don’t get me wrong — I can’t help but approach a new year with that “fresh slate” feeling, full of dreams and ideas of how things might look if I would make some key changes and commitments. But sometimes, when I write out grand-sounding “Resolutions,” I become rather all-or-nothing about them. And then, somewhere around January 20th or February 17th or April 5th…when it becomes apparent that I have not attained the goals I was shooting for, I tend to give up completely.

So this year, rather than a list of resolutions, my approach is simply to implement a few small changes in a couple areas.

One of those areas is my lifelong tendency to dabble.

The truth: I am a dabbler.

I love to research and I genuinely enjoy attempting new things that intrigue me. But it seems that I often jump from one thing to another, especially in the realm of hobbies. I learn just enough to feel like I’ve made progress and then it’s on to the next thing. I end up feeling a bit like a “jack of all trades, master of none” when it comes to hobbies.

Some things I’ve dabbled in:

• knitting (I believe I’ve completed about 3 items — all baby hats)
• sewing (one pair of pajama pants and one backpack completed)
• photography (took a photography class and played around)
• baking bread (one fall season of learning, er…attempting, to bake bread)
• computer programming (barely stuck my toe in the water there)
• writing (wrote magazine articles ages ago…then let it go)
• learning Adobe Illustrator (lots of playing around, but little lasting knowledge)
• gardening (one summer wherein I was mostly defeated by the local bunnies)

While each of these little hobbies have been enjoyable in their own ways, I regret that I haven’t stuck with any of them long-term. I don’t regret the time I’ve spent with them — they are all good skills to have.

But I decided that this year, I want to spend some time going a little deeper in a few of them. I want to bring a bit more focus to my hobbying.

What am I hoping to gain?

First, I’m hoping to become a bit more proficient in a few hobbies. I don’t need to be a professional, but it would be nice to feel some level competency in the things I really enjoy.

Second, I want to discover which of those hobbies I would truly enjoy long-term. I believe that along the way, I might realize that some of them were nice to learn, but I don’t want to invest hours and hours into them over the long haul.

And third, I might come to the conclusion that for me, hobby dabbling is just more fun. And that’s okay too.

But for now, I’ve decided that each month, I’ll focus more deeply than usual on one of my hobbies. I’ve given myself permission to continue with a hobby for multiple months if I end up having tons of fun with it. But the bottom line is that I want to dedicate a good chunk of time to one hobby each month.

January’s hobby?

Knitting.

My husband, Chad, had asked for a knitted scarf for Christmas. Since he made the request in December, you might well imagine that…well…it didn’t exactly happen in time for Christmas. But we still have a few cold months left, so I dove into knitting last week:

I finished the scarf last night, but don’t have a picture of the final product to show you. However, Chad is very pleased with it. And I’m pleased that I have another project, and some more knitting experience under my belt. Now on to the next knitting project!

How do you approach hobbies? Are you a dabbler like me, or do you have a few that you remain committed to?