Monday, November 26, 2007

Jesus Loves Lucas

Update on Lucas

I realize that it's been a few weeks since I last blogged. It's not because there hasn't been anything happening; just the opposite. A busy few weeks for me personally and family-wise. So I thought I'd jot down a few lines while my confirmation kids take their quiz on the Ninth and Tenth Commandments.

Lucas has been eagerly awaiting the time when the leaves would begin to fall and snow to fly. The reason for this is quite simple: his father has been reminding him that Christmas won't come until the leaves fall off the trees and the snow begins to make its annual appearance. Both events have transpired in the past few weeks. We held onto our leaves longer than normal, it seems. A late fall provided for that, no doubt. But when they began to fall, they fell quickly. The church provides for a lawn service, for which I am truly thankful. The men worked for more than three hours this past week cleaning up our front and back yards (which aren't large), and they had all the necessary power tools to do so. If I had done the job they did myself, it would have taken me at least twice as long. Then on Thanksgiving Eve we had our first real snowfall. I didn't really think that we would see any accumulation based on what the weather folks were saying, but as it turned out we did have a sprinkling of snow that stuck. When I threw up the curtains in Lucas' room on Thursday morning, he got a glimpse of our newly-whitened neighborhood and declared that it was now time for Christmas. Naturally, I had to break the news to him that he would need to wait, but that Christmas was getting closer. I always try to use any mention of Christmas by Lucas to remind him about the Christ Mass. He seems to be catching on.

Lucas' anticipation of Christmas, however, has more to do with his looking forward to receiving additional pieces for his wooden train set. His favorite pasttime remains looking at Thomas the Tank Engine items on "Dada's computer." He pulls out his "train map" (little flyers that come with each engine) or his "train book" (the larger catalog) and works his way through requesting to see on my computer just about everything he finds in those. His memory is pretty impressive, and the fact that many of the engines are numbered has also helped him in identifying his numbers. When a cousin, whose not familiar with all the different engines, was calling each of them "Thomas," Lucas quickly corrected, "That's not Thomas; that's Diesel 10," etc. His father and he have become quite the "experts."

Besides his memory, one other thing that impresses us about Lucas is the relative ease with which he expresses remorse. He's a pretty sensitive kid, so when he says, "I'm sorry," it's pretty clear that he really means it. We don't usually have to ask him to express his sorrow about things. What's even more interesting, however, is how quickly he says, "You're forgiven." For instance, when he's been playing on the floor before, I've accidentally swiped him with my shoe as I stepped over him like a klutz. I'll say, "I'm sorry, Bub," and he'll say, quite non-chalantly, "That's O.K., Dada. You're forgiven." I haven't been around enough three-years-old to know whether or not they usually understand the concept of expressing forgiveness so readily, but we're happy to see that he's catching on.

Lucas had lots of fun playing with his cousins over the Thanksgiving weekend. He actually had the opportunity to play with cousins Sarah and Nathan for an extended period on four straight days. He and four-year-old Sarah finally have begun to mesh in their play together, as Lucas has seemed to catch up with her on a imagination level. The past two evenings were spent "going to school" and "making meals" in our downstairs playroom. While there is still the occasional fight over this or that item, those fights have begun to take place much less frequently. It's obvious how much Lucas has begun to enjoy this play time because when it comes to an end he has an emotional meltdown (though he recovers quickly).

That's a little update on Lucas. An update on Grace is coming soon!

Monday, November 5, 2007

Standard Time & Costume Critique

It was nice to "fall back" into standard time the other night. The only drawback these days is that children can't figure out the difference, of course. Lucas was asking to have someone get him at 5:30 A.M. this morning. I broke the news to him that it wasn't time to get up yet. He took it like a champ and kept quiet for another half hour or so (though I'm sure he didn't fall back to sleep). Grace, on the other hand, is still sleeping at this point (my suspicion is that she's going to be the type of girl that we have trouble getting out of bed when she's a teenager). Our two children continue to be a study in contrasts.

When one of the members of my Wednesday night Bible study arrived this past week on the evening of October 31, he gave me some instant feedback on Lucas' Hallowe'en costume: "Lucas was really cute." Judge for yourself. (He's Buzz Lightyear for the "Toy Story Uninitiated")