If we could have bought Rango on the way out of the theater, we probably would’ve. It was that good.
And since our movie outing was Lucas’ extra-special treat for having 10 school days with no bad marks AND Atticus’ first movie ever, it’s a very good thing it was so good. 🙂
“I wish I was really short and had really long feet, so I could run real fast.”
-Lucas
“Is Heaven in the sky? Yeah, ’cause it’s not down here.”
-Atticus
<3
Getting Valentine’s Day cards ready for Monday, Lucas helped check off the names of the kids in his class until he got check-happy and checked half the class before making their cards.
That’s when I stepped in and marked with a line each one we’d already made as he called out the names.
It was interesting watching Lucas decide which card (and which flavor Dum Dum) to give to which of his classmates. He wrote all 17 of them. Pretty neatly, too, if I may add.
Atticus picked out a few of the cards he’s taking to Susie’s (our sitter/preschool teacher) but was distracted as usual, so I got to pick out most of those and write all of them.
And by the time Kevin came home with dinner from Pizza Hut, we were done.
Lucas, pointing to the box: It says, “Dum Dum Pops.”
Kevin: Don’t say that! They’re probably pretty smart.
;(
I love-love-love getting pictures made especially for me!
At left is “Happy Alien” by 6-year-old Lucas, and at right is “Snake in the Water” by 4-year-old Atticus.
<3
This is our family as envisioned by a five-year-old Lucas, who is now six. He drew the picture and asked me to write the names he wanted on it.
I’ve spent a lot of time appreciating it over the last year or however long it’s been hanging on the fridge.
The main thing I love about this particular piece of art is that our family is all together. Unfortunately, that doesn’t happen very much anymore.
And we all look happy.
We’re not holding hands, but our arms are outstretched toward each other. (One of mine actually is right in front of Atticus’ face.) We’re enjoying each other’s company.
I also notice:
At the beginning of last summer, I went through the artwork box I’ve kept for Ryan all these years, hoping to weed out some things that aren’t so keep-worthy. But it’s so hard for me.
Seeing those little hand-print turkeys and cotton-ball Santas takes me back to a time when my firstborn was my baby. I look at him now and wonder where he went. As much as I love Ryan today, I miss that little kid.
And I know that someday I’ll look back on this picture by Lucas and all the other artwork that he and four-year-old Atticus make with a smile and a catch in my throat.
Woohoo! That kid can really read!
We’d just picked the kids up from the sitter’s house this afternoon.
“This is not the way to home,” Atticus warned us, as Kevin turned the car west, down a state road that would wind a bit through the woods.
“We’re going a different way home,” we said.
As we came upon the still-iced-over pond, I asked Kevin to stop the car for a minute, so I could take some pictures from the open window. The boys both gaped over the frozen pond.
“Is the water stuck, Mommy?” Atticus wanted to know. “Aww.”
Kevin explained how water is more likely to freeze in a pond than a river because it’s not moving as much.
Then, he asked Lucas if he would walk out on the ice.
Lucas said he’d walk out on the edge first to see if it would hold him, and then move out to the center if it did.
“That wouldn’t be a good idea,” Kevin said.
I explained that we can’t be sure from one solid area that the rest is necessarily solid, as well. Just because you step once or twice or ten times without crashing through to the freezing water beneath doesn’t mean your very next step won’t buckle under your weight.
(This is especially true around here in southern Virginia. My dad has old tin-type photographs of early 19th-century people skating on the rivers around here, but it’s not a normal wintertime activity. I don’t think I know anyone who’s ice-skated outside a rink, actually.)
We talked about what would happen if you were to fall in, too, how the thick ice that held your weight would become your crystal prison from underneath, fighting for air and muscle-shocked, searching for the hole that granted you access to the frigid water. What an awful feeling that must be!
And we talked about George Bailey and his friends sledding onto the frozen pond in It’s a Wonderful Life and how his brother would have drowned if not for George, who ended up with a deaf ear. (They both want to watch the movie now. Yay!)
So Kevin hammered in the lesson (“So don’t ever walk across the water”), to which I threw in a clause (“Unless Jesus tells you to walk across the water”), which he cautioned against (“You better make sure it’s Jesus”).
And then we were off to the house from the back way, through our favorite tunnel and on down the highway.
photo credit: Samuraijohnny
Kevin’s spent the last couple of hours watching The Passion of the Christ with the boys.
Lucas sat on the sofa the whole time, engrossed. (Yes, it’s violent, but its impact is definitely worth the gore, unlike most of the superhero movies we usually watch around here in boy-central.) Asking question after question of Kevin, Lucas clearly took in the big picture.
Atticus ran around the house with his 3-D “bird-man” glasses on (“This is my red eye, and this is my blue eye”), but spent enough time in the living room to be able to share his commentary with me (“Jesus has blood on his face”…”There’s a hole in Jesus’ hand”).
And Kevin? He ran commentary the whole time, rendering himself a bit hoarse afterward, even.
One sliver of conversation:
Lucas: How did Jesus turn the water into wine?
Kevin: He’s God. He can do anything. He could turn you into wine if He wanted to.
Lucas: Then I would be spilled all over the couch.
I was grading papers and planning the whole time, so I didn’t get to watch and listen to all the conversation like I would have liked. But I started thinking afterward about how I may view it differently if I saw it through their eyes.
Kevin said he was trying to see things the way the kids (mostly Lucas) would, so he could explain what they may not understand. A couple of his observations:
By the end of the movie, the kids both agreed that Jesus is the best superhero ever. Not only is he powerful, but he also heals the people who would hurt him (like the guard whose ear Peter cut off when Jesus was first seized).