Strawberry Fields For...

...a morning.

Monday we loaded up with some friends and went strawberry picking!

...and eating.

 Then I used them to make jam and strawberry pie!  Yum.

The Great Pretender

I suppose it is the privilege of most children to have immediate and unlimited access to an inexhaustible imagination, though I can really speak only for mine, and in the case of my Frazier I can say this is undeniably true.  He is unencumbered by convention and the possibilities for anything are infinite.  It's a beautiful thing to witness.  He was always one to see how many ways any given object could be used and whether or not they could be used in tandem with something seemingly unrelated.  Even when he was very young he could focus on one thing long enough to fully exhaust the possibilities.

These days, he is the master of pretend.  We can stay home all day long and Frazier has no trouble entertaining himself for the entire day.   I fear 28 years in the world has diminished my imagination so that I am of little use except for the preparation of snacks and an occasional chocolate milk.  At any rate, he prefers to do most of his pretending alone and though he tolerates my intrusion on occasion, I feel I am only in the way.  He is always busy setting up little dioramas in the windowsill or speeding vehicles along the carpet or packing picnics.  He sets up a variety of guests at his playroom table and serves them pizza.  He makes my treadmill a firestation- all his firegear at the ready.  Then he puts on his hat and boots and coat, slides down the sidepost, jumps on his firetruck and tells me he is off to fight a fire.  He moves the barstools and helps himself to fruit, he can open the back door himself even if it's locked.  He goes outside and plays in the sandbox or runs around the yard like an airplane.  Every evening I return everything to it's proper place so that he can start over the following day.  I take the trains and the veggies out of the picnic basket, the aliens off the birthday cake, the playdough out of R2D2, the firemen and the frogs off my bed and my mixing bowls out of the playroom.  All the while I wonder what scenarios these things saw that day.

What I find even more impressive is that he is a no-toys-required kind of pretender, too.  Once when we were baking, he sat at the counter and played with a stick of wrapped butter and my dough hook.  They talked and ran along the countertop together and then suddenly the butter tripped and fell and the dough hook helped him/her up.

Once we were going around the block in our neighborhood; I was on foot, Frazier on his tricycle.  As he rode, he periodically flicked an invisible bell on his bike handle and made a vocal "brrrrring" sound over and over.  I smiled down at him and said, "We need to get you a real bell, huh Buddy?"  and he looked up without pause and said, "This is a real bell."

The other day we were at looking at produce at the store.  I'm scoping out the stuff in a refrigerated case and he's doing whatever it is he does somewhere at my side.  "Here's you some money, Mom" he says suddenly with an outstretched fist.  I put out my hand and he deposits nothing into my open palm.  I thank him and then go right back to my shopping dropping my hand without thinking.  "Mom!" he cries falling to his knees and picking up the imaginary money. "You dropped it!"  So the second time he handed it to me I put it in my imaginary pocket.  Live and learn.  Something else I have learned?  Frazier carries a grocery store's worth of imaginary food at any given time and I am expected to do so as well.  You know, just in case there's an occasion for imaginary peanut butter and crackers.  Or scrambled eggs.  Or pie and pizza with blueberries.

I love it.  I admire it.  And I envy it.  I hope he never really outgrows it.  I hope the possibilities are always endless and what convention dictates for the majority is something he always considers merely one option among many.  I hope he always has something imaginary in his pocket...just in case he should need it.  I hope he never only sees things simply for what they are, but always for what they could be.  That's why when he runs around with a stepstool on his head, I don't tell him it isn't a hat.  Because there will be enough people in his life who do...and really, who's to say it's not?

Meet Lentil

Today we got to see our first good pictures of...

our daughter- a.k.a Frazier's sister!

Frazier was right...and I was wrong (yet again). The kid's clairvoyant- he said he was getting a sister and stuck to it. Evidently he doesn't get his abilities from me because my sixth sense is nil. I was sure Frazier was a girl- so much so that there's a little Rubbermaid bin in my attic of little girl stuff that's now about 3 1/2 years old, and I was so sure this one was another boy I didn't want to buy anything pink!

It was such a relief to see her perfectly formed, right on target in every way. We'll have another ultrasound in about ten weeks so we'll get to see her again before too long. Even though it took 45 minutes to finally get the baby to turn right so we could tell, our ultrasound tech didn't sound at all unsure about the gender. It was much easier when we found out Frazier was a boy. It took, like, two minutes. Lentil was just shy...or super comfortable all balled up.

I think I was a little surprised to find that feeling this baby kicking for the first time and seeing her today on the ultrasound was no less exciting, no less miraculous, than it was the first time around with Frazier. I think it may have even been better, because while we watched her wriggle around and punch at me from her cozy little cushioned sack we had Frazier there with us, playing with airplanes on the floor, a huggable reminder of what she'll be when she's with us on the outside. An adorable little person we couldn't stand to be without...who makes every day something special just because she's in it.

"For you created my inmost being;

you knit me together in my mother’s womb.

I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made;

your works are wonderful.

I know that full well."

Psalm 139:13-14

Happy All The Day

Our Easter weekend began on Friday- since Josh was off work- with a day trip to Jefferson where the Andersons met us for the afternoon. The weather was beautiful all weekend so we spent lots of time outside playing...and running...

...and porch sitting.

Then Saturday Mae Mae and Pop along with G and Grampa Jim, joined us for the day here. We started the morning at our church where we had a walk through the life of Jesus...

...an egg hunt...

...and a train ride!

Then it was out for lunch......and then home to dye eggs!

We took a break from Easter festivities to celebrate G's birthday which is actually today...happy birthday, Debbie!

Then we hid the eggs and Frazier hunted!

...and then Frazier hid the eggs and we hunted.

Sunday it was off to church early, then home again to enjoy the rest of the day. :)

Before the throne of God above

I have a strong and perfect plea

A great High Priest whose name is love

Who ever lives and pleads for me

My name is graven on His hands

My name is written on His heart

I know that while in heaven He stands

No tongue can bid me thence depart

When Satan tempts me to despair

And tells me of the guilt within

Upward I look and see Him there

Who made an end of all my sin

Because the sinless Savior died

My sinful soul is counted free

For God, the Just, is satisfied

To look on Him and pardon me

Behold Him there, the risen Lamb

My perfect, spotless righteousness

The great unchangeable I AM

The King of Glory and of Grace

One with Himself I cannot die

My soul is purchased by His blood

My life is hid with Christ on high

With Christ my Savior and my God

-Charitie Bancroft

For God, who said, “Let light shine out of darkness,” has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.

-2 Corinthians 4:6

"I believe in Christianity as I believe that the sun has risen: not only because I see it, but because by it I see everything else."

-C.S. Lewis