Joy Drops

Life is interesting.  It's challenging, strange, frustrating, tall, confusing, discombobulating, hectic, tiring and full on.  It's covered in love, pasted with kisses, embraced in hugs, filled with hilarity and splattered with joy drops that come in so many different ways.

I love my son.  He makes my heart sing.  When he laughs, it makes me ecstatic.  And oh, he does enjoy laughing!  When he's happy, he kicks his feet around like he's dancing a gigue.  Because as you know, a smile is happiness showing, laughter is happiness that can't be contained by a mere smile and must be heard, so dancing is happiness that must be seen!  All ways that joy explodes and affects those around it.  Our boy is good for making that happen.

He's getting so expressive.  The other night he woke up for a feed and didn't want to go right back to sleep.  Adrian was putting him to bed and had put him down for a bit to work off some of his energy.  I walked in the room past him to see how it was all going.  As I entered the quite dark room, our son shouted happily: "Bup!".  I'm not exactly sure what 'bup' means, but I think it's one of these three things:

a) Good day, Mom! It's great to see you and have the whole family in one room.  Shall we party?
b) You never told me how exciting it is to be awake in a dark room!  Shall we party?
c) Ha ha, I think its morning time even though it's completely dark outside.  Shall we party?

I'm glad that he's starting to make sense and be utterly understandable as Adrian and I are losing the ability.  Our little fellow is close to eating solids and is making this need known by waking up more frequently for milk in the night and he's been a bit under the weather, so we're tireder than we have been in awhile.

As you may know, babies make all sorts of sounds, some of which aren't used the in the language group that they are born into.  They lose the ability to make these sounds that they don't hear early in childhood.  The other day, our boy made a clicky-poppy sound.  I was very excited and asked Adrian if he'd heard it.  Adrian said, "Yes, it's just like a calamari bushman."  Now, to be fair, he and our boy had just been playing with a Lamaze toy in the shape of a squid who is called (and I refer here to the tag, we didn't name him) "Carl Calamari".  {An aside:  While it is interesting that Lamaze would encourage children to think of animals as food (surely Sammy Squid would work), it's also an interesting combination of names.  Carlo Calamari sounds better.  Especially as the squid friend is a pirate.} Also, to be fair, it is only one sound different from Kalahari.  And later that day I did tell my brother that he was a good physician, I mean physicist.

Perhaps if we all spoke as succinctly and used more "bups" and dances than words to explain ourselves we would be more effective.  Or maybe just more effective as spreading joy.

Memories are made of this

[Setting: a tranquil room flooded with sunlight.  A baby and his mother sit and gaze at each happily.]
Mom: [bellowing] Can you grab me the nose picker?
Dad: [offstage] A nose picker or the snot sucker?
Mom: [looks thoughtful] The snot sucker.
Baby blows bubble out of nose.


Parenthood is filled with all sorts of marvellous times and adventures that become treasured memories.  Strangely, some of the most memorable (and perhaps, best loved) are those with the gross/messy factor.

I'm not sure why that is.  Is it because it makes us laugh? Is it because it is endearing to watch a little one grow and change from needing almost all things done for them to being self sufficient?  But still in the back of my mind, Perry Como sings these words as we experience some of these joy studded times.


Sweet, sweet: the memories you give-a me.  Can't beat the memories you give-a me.


And I do cherish these moments.  Like when I was feeding our son, and he pulled back and burped and the little spit up that came with it landed in my belly button.  Or the time that the baby bath spilled before the child got in and while it was being cleaned up and I was holding our naked child, he sneezed and pooed on me at the same time.  The countless times that a bit of spew or drool went down the front of my shirt.  Sunday morning before church when I realized that my hair was plastered to my chin with my child's boogers. Changing my shirt four times in less than two hours to get rid of vomit, even while the smell remained.

And poop memories are eternal.  I can clearly remember holding a young cousin of mine 10 years ago at a wedding and having the contents of this cousin's diaper leak onto my beautiful blue dress.  No problems.  Everybody poops, after all.

Yet, in all of these circumstances, I found myself laughing.  Just as I hold dear the times when he cuddles into my neck or tries to eat my chin - although it does hurt when he bites it and I wasn't as impressed when he left hickeys on my shoulder (babies like to suck things, especially if those things smell like Mom as Mom = food) - so too I enjoy these mildly messy moments.

Ah, but he's a joy.  The way he swings his arm around while he's feeding, making sure I'm still there, making sure my nose is still attached and there's still more food for him.  The way he smiles like it's the best thing ever when I enter the room he's in.  The little chortles of glee for no real reason.

He even makes times better when other memories bother me.  Like this week when I found a huntsman (the spider, not the Snow White character) in the clothes that I had just sorted and therefore just touched as I prepared to do laundry.  He made that day better by smiling and laughing and squealing and making funny noises.  He didn't actually kill the spider, but I'm sure we'll be able to train him to do that.  That's the progression right?  Sits by self, stands by self, wields shoe and kills arachnids?

So who cares if this morning I swallowed a mouthful of drool (I had been holding him and my take out coffee cup and he drooled over the lid when I looked away)?  I'm loving all these little memories in the making.

Happy Father's Day

Today it is Father's Day in Australia.

What a wonderful thing fathers are!  I, myself, have a splendid Dad with whom I enjoying hanging out.  He's good to talk to, supportive, helpful, funny, strong and really loves my Mom and their children.  But most importantly, he's faithful to God and clings to His promises.

I have married an equally splendid man with wonderful attributes and I'm chuffed to have given him a son, so that he gets to celebrate Father's Day.  It's been incredible watching Adrian grow as a father to our little one: more patient, more kind, more gentle, more tired, more loving.

Happy Father's Day to the dads out there.  Know that you are appreciated and loved, even if your children don't always say it.