Toga, Toga

One day last week J didn't want to get dressed. At least that is what I decided he was trying to tell me when he was wiggling and standing and doing everything possible to keep me from putting clothes on him. So I gave in. He had a diaper on after all and there isn't a rule about children having to wear clothing is there. I did feel kind of bad when I caught him in at the front window trying to get the attention of children heading to the school bus and so I made him a Toga out of his blanket. I was quite pleased with the way it turned out. It is large enough that it wrapped around his little body 1.5 times and then one corner swept up over his shoulder and was securely tucked into the back. As you can see, the little King J was pleased with his Toga, and with his string cheese.

20 or 30 minutes past and he tripped on his toga a few times, the tragedy of falling coupled with the fact that I didn't want him to "help" by "unloading" the dirty dishwasher made the little King sad (still a really cute picture though, don't you think?).

This is what my life has been like the past few weeks. I am tired and quite often nauseated and yet hungry at the same time. I don't really have the ability to spend lots of time dealing with toddler attitude and so most of the time I don't even try. I spend a lot of time on the couch and poor little J has to deal with me. He deals quite well. As the oldest, and only air breathing child, he plays well on his own and when he finds something particularly fun to do- mostly that means he has discovered something that is fun to hit things with- he will bring it to me and show me how fun it is to hit me in the head with this toy, or that stack of Lego's or Mega Blocks. Then he laughs, its great fun.

But something else has been happening lately too. J really seems to know when I need him, when I need a little bit of toddler love. He will bring over some books and hand them to me, then he will climb up onto the couch and snuggle in next to me and we take turns reading. Now, J is only 22 months old, so no he doesn't actually read, but he pretends to. It is so cute, he opens a book and babbles a little then turns the page and continues his babbling story. I wish I knew what he was really saying. Some of the books are favorites and we have read them 100's of times and I think it is safe to assume that he might remember the basics of the stories, but others are brand new to him. I love these story times, I hope they continue. There have also been a few times over the past few weeks when he will stop playing and come over and climb up next to me and just sit with me, if you take into account that this child has been called a "Tornado" by more than one person, sitting still and cuddling with Mommy is close to miraculous. I really believe in God and the Holy Spirit, and I think that they talk to my boy and tell him, "Hey, Your Mama needs you" and he listens.

Another thing that J finds fun to do lately is play with and take pictures with my camera. He can do things with the camera that Ken and I have yet to duplicate, like viewing pictures while the camera is "technically" turned off. But anyway, here are two of J's most recent masterpieces.

I call this one "View from the Top". I don't know if he was sticking his belly out on purpose or if the camera is just really close to his shirt and distorting the image, but I am glad to have proof that I am not the only member of the family who can not see their knees when the look down. Shirt, Belly, Feet, that is what this picture documents. "Aren't those little toes cute?

I call this next one "Self Portrait" because it reminds me of the good old days. As a Missionary, at times I would leave my camera- the film kind- in my backpack or bag thinking it was perfectly safe, only to find a week or two later that I had plenty of pictures of other Missionaries- the younger, 19 or 20 year old male variety. Luckily for me those same Missionaries also left their cameras unattended and they have a few pictures of my smiling face.

I have a good 18 + years to teach J how to take the perfect self portrait, but his first one is pretty good.