buckets

i think he's singing, or something.

this would be after i asked him not to stand on my bucket. so he sweetly brought it over to me and asked, 'do you need to stand on your bucket, mama?'

not long after that, the bucket kind of fell apart.

how can i not laugh? i love his charming voice, his funny little grin, and the puppy dog eyes that he got from dave. at any given time, it can be easy to resist one, even two of these. when they are all combined together, and the sun is shining, i fight a grin of my own. i ruffle his hair, kiss his head and thank God for him.

there will be time for buckets later, these days won't last.

boys who run

like myself, zaya is made for this land. wide open spaces, ready for running feet, ready for adventures. when the sun is out, and his energy tops off the empty spaces in the house, i send him out for a little run.

at first, he is somewhat dismayed to be outside. then he finds a stick. suddenly, everything is a dragon, a monster, something to be poked and chased. off and running, i wish i could hear what he is thinking. his secret world has grown by leaps and bounds this year. every so often, i get a glimpse. it makes me smile.

i feel incredibly blessed to have such a strong and healthy boy. he seems to slip through life, unchanged, yet growing in grace and love.

love, laughter

lia loves to laugh, zaya loves to laugh. it's a perfect match. pretty soon, zaya will probably be spinning lia around and laughing. i will be laughing and holding my breath, hoping that there are no sudden falls. this must be how parenting works, moments of beauty intertwined with the breathless feeling of time's relentless power.this moment will never come again. i'm glad i have the camera, but i'm also glad i don't remain behind it. for every moment like this we have in pixel-quality color, i've got a hundred more stored in my head. times we all spun around, times we all ran around the room dodging each other with giggles, or times we just sat on the futon and watch the clouds going by while zaya tells me 'that one is a bird, mama. that one is a fish with a bat. it's stellaluna!'.

outside, together

i feel like this window of being able to be outside together is very very small. winter is nudging up from the mountains, each westerly wind brings with it the promise of many long and cold nights. while we can, i try to get outside.

sometimes, most days, i feel like the entire day has slipped away in the middle of naps, and feeding lia, picking up toys, chasing zaya around for fun, and trying to make sure lia doesn't get too blue after trying to do everything that she wants to do with zaya. i try to grasp these days, but their golden moments slide through my fingers. and with a sigh, a smile, and a few babbled comments, we are ready for bed once more. each night, i make a promise to try harder to do more, and to do it better.

steel pipes

the internal world of zaya has been developing at an enormous pace. he has always been good at pretending, entertaining himself, and finding new things to do, but lately his world has changed. previously, toys only interacted within their sets. trains were with trains and did not mix with the legos or the cars and trucks. now his trains talk to each other as they do things.

outside our door to the north, is the state road that they drive cattle down out of the desert during the winter months. across this road is a train track. the trains, at least 2 miles long each, come thick and fast all day long, shrieking their lonely whistles at our unmarked, unlit RR crossings. zaya loves the trains, we both do. so we watch them go by and speculate as to their destination and their contents. some cars carry food, some carry coal, some carry potatoes, and some wind turbine parts. the best ones, though, are the cars that carry loads of steel pipes.

zaya likes the steel pipes. they usually are on the same trains that carry the wind turbine parts. so for zaya, it's steel pipes and toothpaste. now thomas carries steel pipes. except his steel pipes are old batteries. it's another way to recycle the dead batteries.

licking beaters

it occurred to me that i had chocolate chips. it also occurred to me that zaya had never licked beaters. it seemed a good idea to remedy this situation while lia napped.

so we did.

we made some chocolate chocolate chip cookies, and zaya was impressed. as he licked the beaters, he would keep stopping and wiping off his hands and face. somewhat like me, he doesn't like sticky hands or a sticky face. so i showed him how to take a finger and swipe the necessary batter from the beaters and then lick the finger. i don't want to forget about these other small pleasures of having a 4 year old. besides, cookies will be a good motivator, something to earn on his sticker chart.

sometimes i worry that in the middle of taking care of lia and worrying over her color, that zaya will be too much forgotten. he is a happy child, one who is content to play alone for hours. his laughter and joy of life are often the brightest spots in the day, his tantrums and boundary testing are the darkest parts. it is my goal to teach him and train him, to allow him to develop into his strengths. i don't want to force change upon him and never allow him to be alone, but i need to remember that it is good to be in company as well.

fishing

zaya the magnificent enjoys another day outside.

the warm days are shorter and shorter, the sun no longer burns throughout the day. as we careen into fall, the golden yellow of the sun is thinning into a chilly companion. for now, though, zaya can still run outside with abandon.

the room we spend the most time in is the family room, a large and windowed room that gives me clear views of the yard and the mountains in 3 directions. when we added onto the house, i designed a room that would feel almost as if we were outside. i'm glad we did, it's been a long year of confinement. without the sun and the light coming into this room, i think we would have all become slightly crazy.

often i send him outside to play so he can run off some energy and be a little bit more free than anyone can be inside the house. poking my head outside, i can be treated to all kinds of wonderful stories. today's story was about fish.

'i doing because i'm a fish, mama. i'm a fish that was swimming, and i was so wet. there were sharps (sharks), and they had teeth. God made them sharp. and that's why we call them sharps. would you catch me, mama, and cook me?'

walkabout

someday we still dream of living somewhere truly wild. not like this desert, which is partially wild with its coyotes, big cats, wolves, and other predators, someplace really wild. like maybe Africa, or South America. it's still our dream to do relief work or missions. for now, we're all practicing self-reliance and the ability to enjoy even the mundane as something wondrous.

like this stick. it once was used to hold up pepper plants that failed in the cold wet early excuse for summer that we had this year. then it blew over in a fabulous wind storm that we had later in the summer, and the plants broke. now it's zaya something-or-other-special-and-mysterious. he uses it to fish, he uses it to find other sticks, he uses it to balance while he walks.

sticks are such great toys, and i'm sure that we'll find them just about anywhere we live.

phone

i've begun allowing zaya to choose who he wants to call.  he only has three choices: daddy, pop-pop, and nana.  i show him the numbers, and he presses it and then presses 'green'.  as he talks to them about everything important in his world, he wanders around.  when explaining something to nana or pop-pop, he will either touch or point at the item he of which he is speaking.  i usually end up translating at the end.

his conversations begin like this:

'hello?'
'hi! are you busy?'
'i'm doing pretty good!'
'how are YOU doing?'
'i was doing to look at the train'
and other random statements follow.  but it's fun to listen.  i only wish we lived closer, so that we could visit family more often.  i also know that this is where we are supposed to be for now, and so we are enjoying every aspect of this homestead lifestyle.  it may not last forever, and i want to build some good memories.

copying

zaya likes to copy:

this is hailey the bear. i don't know where zaya came up with this name, but he did. this is how i put lia to sleep. i place her in the pocket and then i rock back and forth, or walk around singing. zaya helps me by holding his bear and doing the same thing. when i'm finished and lia is in bed, i let zaya put hailey in the pocket and he sings to his bear.

when we are at church, lia is often in her pocket as it is usually around her nap time. she almost always sleeps through a good portion of the service.

storytime with hailey, zaya's own made up thing.

swinging

i like to call lia 'liajoy'.  so zaya copies me.  yesterday he said to me, 'this is liajoy, mama.'
'yes, she is.  who are you?'
'i am zaya delight!'

i couldn't help it, i laughed.  he has brought such joy into our house, such delight.  to hear him name himself as what i feel he brings to our family was amazing.  to see him share his love and laughter with anyone who comes within his radius is precious.  even the grouchy people at walmart can't help but smile at his infectious 'how are you doing?' and his smiles.

popsicles

from time to time, zaya earns a treat.


lia was quite impressed with the popsicle,

so zaya carefully kept the popsicle out of her reach while enjoying every last drip.

zaya is so easily pleased, a popsicle, a piece of cheese, an extra quesadilla, it's a joy to give him things. each time he will say 'thank you for giving me that quesadilla, i really appreciate you giving me that'. i hope that he carries this gratitude for the simple pleasures through his life.

copying

zaya loves to do what lia does. she loves to do what he does. it's a match made in heaven for them both. when zaya hears lia laughing, he comes running to help her laugh more. his deep chuckles are teaching her to laugh in different ways. her smile is teaching zaya the joy of serving.

last night, i asked him to clean up his toys. he was working for a while and then announced that he was done. i congratulated him on a good job. then he asked me, 'should i pick up lia's toys?'

i let him do it. afterwards, i gave him a treat of a few raisins. because the joy we find in serving is something that is taught. i think it is catching on.

bible stories

he does pay attention, he really does. lately, i will get up in the mornings and zaya is downstairs doing things. he's not really getting into trouble, just playing with what he finds. the past few days, it's been the baskets and a piece of climbing rope. he ropes them all together and hooks it on the door knob. when asked what he was doing, he sweetly replied, 'it's noah and the boat'.