George is 4!

and he just loves it. He was quite worried the day after his party- "am I still four?" and we were happy to reassure him that he was. Now he talks about "when Thomas and I are both 4, we can play with all my big boy toys together." And in the far, far off future when he is 6, George talks about how he will be all-the-way-big and will drive his car to the bus stop for kindergarten.

We hosted a science themed birthday party for him at the local children's museum. I have to admit I had waaay too much fun planning this party. But I think the kids appreciated it- including the molecular fruit salad!

Merry Christmas!

big brother

George specializes in doing silly dances to make Thomas smile.

I can't wait to see these two guys together in ten, fifteen years.

Emmanuel

The kids have a sense of the immediacy of Christ that is so incredible and wonderful and humbling to me. When George talks about Jesus, it's as though he is talking about a friend he just saw yesterday. He can be really upset about stories of Christ being hurt or threatened. Just now he goes on a lot about King Herod, he's still worried that somehow Herod might chase Joseph, Mary, and the new babe into Egypt and find them to hurt them.

And naturally George really, really hates the crucifixion. He will run around the house trying to be as tall as he can and making his loudest "roars." If you ask him why, he says he is practicing to scare the naughty soldiers away from Jesus. He desperately wants to turn back time to make this event not have to happen. "Didn't the soldiers want their sin nature taken away?" he asks. George has even asked why Jesus didn't say "Hey, I'm God" and make the soldiers stop. Try as I might, I cannot explain this satisfactorily to him. In fact I'm not sure that there is an understandable explanation for this, this side of heaven anyway.

This is a picture George drew recently, "the naughty soldier holding the cross." Next to him is the sticky tape to stick Jesus to the cross (!!!). Aparently HOTO is the man's name.

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I dare you not to smile!

on having a preemie

Something that may not have occurred to you on having a preemie.... there is SO MUCH extra newborn time. Thomas' first six weeks basically "didn't count" at all. His weight, his developmental milestones, all are calculated against his adjusted age which is his age from his due date. So instead of smiling at 6-8 weeks he was smiling at more like 3 months. This has been a little bit hard because that insane eating/sleeping/pooping/schedule-less newborn time was so long and exhausting, only now are we getting a rhythm to our days. But even harder has been the simple wait for him to DO things.

Even with all the interventions at NICU, his oxygen sats were none so great the first few days of his life, and his doctors were somewhat concerned that this might have had a negative effect on brain development. Thus we are enrolled in the 0-3 program and have a public health nurse visit every few weeks to check up on him, so that interventions could be started up right away if he showed problems with motor skills or speech skills. And for weeks and weeks he really wasn't doing anything, the nurse kept reassuring us that it was okay, "he's really only 4 weeks old not 10 weeks" etc. but it just felt wrong. Because he was so old, and also so completely enormous (far bigger than my other two kids as infants!), it just looked like more should be happening. I was getting nervous.

But then things started happening, and within the last couple of weeks LOTS of things have been happening! Thomas not only smiles but chuckles, he coos and loves having "conversations." He can grab for toys and maneuver them into his mouth. When he's on his back he kicks his legs and gets on to his side- he'd be rolling over if he could work out what to do with the arm that's in the way. We're far from being in the clear in terms of development but we're so happy to see him interacting and happy.

questions I have been asked in the last 24 hours

Why didn't Jesus just tell the naughty soldiers no? Maybe I should just scare them away. How would I scare the naughty soldiers away?

Why do some eggs have baby chickens in them and others don't?

When I get a poke, then what happens to the little hole in me? ("your body heals itself") but HOW does it heal it?

How is Jesus the same as God?

What is space made of? Why is it black when there is so much light from the sun?

How does food go from my mouth to my bottom?

Why does snow melt into water? Could we turn it back into snow again? Could we turn it into ice?

How does fire burn things up? Can I help the firefighters if there is just a little fire, like in the garage but not in the house?

How could I get Jesus out of my heart? ("why would you want to do that?!?") I think it's my turn to have a naughty day, so how do I get him out of there?

(each followed by a series of about a dozen "whys," of course)