Jarbidge to the Oregon Trail

My oldest child is car-less at the moment. She also is home alone with three under 3 and going stir-crazy. It wouldn’t be quite so bad but every weekend she thinks she will have her mini-van back and then the mechanic calls and there’s some set-back. This weekend was no exception.

And this weekend her husband had a planned trip out of town. Talk about feeling stranded! She called me at work yesterday to whine and asked “If you’d like to see your grandsons, why don’t you come over and visit me… ” meaning: I’m bored, I need adult conversation and I need someone else to entertain small peoples.

I wasn’t really sure how I would fit it in this weekend, but I also knew I could not afford to not fit her in.

I set some “urgent” projects aside (mostly gardening and art projects which are never really “urgent” except to me) and I went over to see my boys. I just cannot believe how much they change. Can’t we keep them toddlers forever? And why didn’t I appreciate my children when they were toddlers? How is it that I am 54 years old (almost) and I suddenly like people under the age of four? I’ve never liked people under the age of four!

Javan lights up when he sees me. He’s fifteen months old now and makes sounds that I suppose mean words. “GUCK” or maybe it’s “CLUCK”. I gave him a “ghost” Halloween bucket and he tried that word out: “goest”. He’s a little turd, too: I watched him at dinner time as he carefully leaned over and touched his brother’s chair. Don’t tell me he doesn’t know his brother hates that. I can hear it in my head: “MOM! He’s TOUCHING me!”

Where do they learn this? There must be a prerequisite class in the “Before You Are Born” division for siblings: “How to Annoy Your Older Sibling 101”. Levi knew it intuitively and Javan seems to know it, too. It’s amazing how it works!

Zephan is always my funny little boy. He has a pet snake. I can only tell you the Facebook version of the snake:

Sam caught a snake at work and decided to bring it home to show the boys. eaves it in a cup in his truck… yep, a cup! and it escapes before he gets off work. On his way home, it sticks its head out of the dashboard to hiss at him and disappears again. In the process of trying to find it again, it falls on Sam’s head!… lol… serves him right, leaving it in a cup! 🙂 And now I’m taking care of a snake… hmm.

It’s a western yellow-bellied racer. And for perspective – it isn’t a very large snake at all:

While I brought Javan a bag to collect Hallowe’en treats in, I brought Zephan a small terrarium, a water dish, some snake bedding and five crickets to feed the poor thing. it probably won’t eat for a couple weeks anyway, just out of shock. But when it is ready to eat: it will have a cricket ready.

I almost bought it a small baby mouse (a “pinkie”) but I couldn’t garrantee that the snake would eat the mouse right now and the mouse wouldn’t survive very long without its mother. So that was a mouse that got a lucky break and didn’t become snake food. ICK.

We loaded the boys and their car seats into my car and brought them over to our house for barbecued hamburgers and to see Poppa and the Puppies.  Arwen needed a break in the food department as well: who wants to fix dinner when you’re the only one who will eat it?

Lordy! Javan looks like Zephan at the same age. Suddenly I love toddlers and I don’t want them to get any bigger.

I have so many thoughts on this photo.

1. How does he remember that we have a plastic shovel with his name on it?

2. How does he remember how to use that shovel when I only showed him once?

3. If I attempted this same maneuver, I’d put my back out for a week. Period.

Zephan is the shy child and the cautious child so I was surprised when he insisted on going into the backyard with the dogs. And he didn’t cry when they barked. And he wasn’t afraid when Murphy tried to steal his shovel (and got bopped on the side with a roll of newspaper). He insisted we get the shovel out and he was thrilled to get to go into the veggie garden to dig “holes wib my shobel.”

Darn. He’s just so adorable.

And then there’s Eli.

Arwen deliberately looked away from the camera. But look at the little chunk there in the sling! He’s awake, he’s aware, he’s got purpose.

I just love these little guys.

And the one in Colorado, too. And the one on the way.

I love my boys.