We do family supper every night together, sitting down at the second hand Ikea table. We hold hands to say grace but Anne likes to pray (and try to imitate her Papa) so grace usually sounds like “Thank you, Jesus, for our bodies. We bless it all. And we pray we can all go to White Rock together and for the glory and for the food. Amen.” No more high chair, Joseph is thrilled to be sitting at the table in his little booster seat, eating with two hands.
The mess is awesome.
The dishwasher has been broken for 10 days now (and counting). I’m standing in front of my kitchen sink, up to my elbows in hot-hot-hot soapy water, scrubbing supper dishes. I’m looking out the window, into our dense forest watching for our trio of screech owls to make their evening appearance but all I see are the tiny rabbits, butterflies and birds. The tinies secured permission to take the cushions off the couch and are having a bounce party in the living room which means that the clean-up song will be sung a few times later.
Then it’s quiet. I’m always suspicious of quiet since it’s such a rare occurrence. I peek over my shoulder. Joseph is sitting cross-legged on a cushion across from Anne who is “reading” (reciting) a book to him. He’s paying close attention to every word, sitting still. These moments are happening more and more, he’s settling out of this whiny stage, the scream-when-you-don’t-like-it stage. In so many ways, he reminds me of Brian and these are two of them: he loves to be touched and he is his own little man already, somehow incredibly confident in who he is at not-yet-two.
When the story is done, they stand up and Anne starts to tell me about something but Joseph stands right in front of her and wraps his dimpled arms around her thin waist. He stands right against her, holding her tightly, whispering “bighugbighugbighugbighug” and she pats his back absentmindedly because he always does this, holding onto her or me when he feels like he needs a hug.
The other day, we were at my parents’ house, sitting out on the back deck before supper. Joseph stood in the middle of the grown-ups and started to dance.
He danced and danced and danced.
There was no music but his feet were flying, like he was tap dancing, he was laughing, his arms were wide open. My parents laughed so hard, they nearly cried.
Out of nowhere, he just decided to dance and so he danced with all his might.
