One Tired Cowboy

Justin loves cows and horses and anything farm or cowboy. He has this rocking horse, and every night when we put him to bed, we can hear him in there riding and whooping and making a LOT of noise.

The other night, Bryan went to check on the kids before we went to bed, and he couldn't find Justin. He wasn't in his bed. He looked around in the dark for a couple of minutes and this is what he found:

Carsten the Invincible

Carsten is not a baby anymore. At 15 months, he is, most decidedly, a toddler- or a “todd” as his brothers and sister are fond of saying. Because he is a “todd,” he gets into everything. Now, he has, of course, been pulling things out of cabinets for awhile. This is different. In the last month, he has mastered both the art of moving and climbing up on chairs AND opening all the doors- even the ones that go outside.

And so, overnight, he has become “Carsten the Invincible.” He runs outside to get on his little car and go riding around the driveway. (Fortunately, our house has an alarm, so the doors beep when they’re opened.) He can get into all the bathrooms and unroll toilet paper or squeeze shampoo bottles. Worst of all, he can get to the kitchen countertops and drawers. I’ve had to move the knives and other things away. In the picture, he has gotten several small tools out of the junk drawer. You’ll notice in the picture that he looks as if he’s going to close the drawer. That’s what he does when I catch him. He just quietly puts whatever he has back- or hands it to me- and then gets down and plots his next adventure.

Funny Things

Here are a few random funny things that the kids have said lately:

Nathan: He was trying to memorize a particularly long Bible verse, and he finally said in frustration, "Mommy, I don't have enough memory! This verse is taking up a whole gig."

Justin: Justin is our passionate and impulsive one. He was mad because I told him he couldn't do something, so he shouted out, "Bad Mommy!" I went to him and told him very directly, "Justin, you are not to say, 'Bad Mommy' or 'I don't like you.'" He looked at me with this hurt and imploring expression and said, "You no like me, Mommy?" Of course, we all just cracked up and explained it to him. Now, he's been saying, "I like you, Mommy," many times a day since then.

Megan: Seeing some candy on the counter, Megan said, "I'd better move that so that Justin isn't temp-a-tated."

A Matter of Perspective

This is a picture of Megan's room. This display constitutes "cleaning up." Now, to my way of thinking, this is actually a mess, but not to Megan. It's really a matter of perspective.

You see, I have given all the children, Megan included, bins. I love bins. They can be labeled and stowed away and all the mess is out of sight and out of mind. They have bins for toys and papers, bins for books and crayons. These bins are, once filled with various and diverse junk that was previously spread all around the room, meant to be slid under the bed in a neat row, labeled side out.

The boys pretty much follow this pattern, although once a week I have to make them pull the bins out from under the bed so that they can clean up the stuff that has mysteriously found itself behind the bins, safely hidden from view. Still, it's "out of sight and out of mind," so I'm happy.

Megan, on the other hand, likes all of her treasures displayed. This doesn't just apply to conventional treasures like, say, a jewelry box, but also to those things that only Megan defines as treasures: Toilet paper roll crafts from Sunday school, every picture she has ever colored, shoes, hairbows, stuffed cats, books, and scraps of material. These treasures she carefully arranges as if she's setting up a display in a store window.

It's not really a matter of laziness, because it takes her longer to arrange her displays than it would for her to toss her stuff in the bins. It is, instead, truly a matter of one's perspective. In Megan's world, things only have value if you can see them. In my world, things you can see constitute clutter. Chances are, that this appreciation for the visual side of "things" comes from Megan's artistic bent. It may also be attributed to her more patient nature. And these things are very good and defining parts of her personality. So for now, Mommy will just say, "How nice, Megan" and just try to keep her from drowning in paper.