Wisdom

Me: "Abraham, do I have a bruise on my forehead? Look, do you see anything here?"

A: "No."

Me: "Are you sure? I feel a lump right here, and it hurts when I touch it."

A: "Then don't touch it."

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Me: "You have so much energy right now! Where did you get all that energy?"

A: "From God."

Quotes

"The monster isn't full of meat. It has chicken, rice and macaroni."

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"I want to play a teeny bit more. Teeny teeny. Teenier than a crumb."

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"I love you bigger than an alligator's tail!"

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"The two rules are: don't mess up and don't stop doing it."

transcendental spring

He wants to eat everything outside. Every green leaf, every stick and flower. We have one lone spinach plant that has survived the winter, and every time he passes by, he pulls off a leaf to eat. So today, as he's making and tasting a potion in his water table, I remind him we only eat plants from our garden. So he walks all the way around to the front yard to grab two baby handfuls of baby spinach, adds them to the brew, and chows down. "My potion's so good I'm crying!"

Then I show him how to identify the patches of wild green onions growing all over the yard. These you can eat, too, my dear. Show him how to pull near the roots and find the tiny white bulbs. He hates onions on his plate, but outside, from the ground, he has no hesitation and declares, "These aren't spicy like regular onions."

On the first nice day in weeks, we've been outside for four hours. Ate lunch outside. Painted outside. Peed outside (well, he did). But mostly just explored. He's gloriously filthy. I'm sitting in the sun.

I flashback to my own childhood. Picking wild blackberries along the fence. Sucking honeysuckles. Eating tiny crab apples. Making clover necklaces and climbing trees. It sounds decadently Southern, and yet timeless, placeless at the same time.

That's what I want for him, my son. Not soccer and piano and gymnastics (unless he really wants them), but hours outside, being that translucent eyeball, that self-reliant man, feasting from the earth. Coming finally to bed, sun-kissed and soiled.

Conversation

On emotional self-awareness: "I don't want to go because I'm feeling grumpy. If I go I would just destroy everything."

On delicious food: "Does the salad have salad grease on it?"

On board games: "The game is called 'Mouse, run to get the cheese before a missile comes, or a zapper!'"

On love: "Mrs. Simin, I love you! I will love you even when you are old!"

On flattery: "Your name is lovely, too."

Love

"I really love Naw-Ruz and nothing else, just Naw-Ruz. I really love it. And Ayyam-i-Ha and Halloween and Star Wars and Christmas and Ayyam-i-Ha and fasting days! (pause) And regular days!"

A: "We really need food to live."
Me: "And water. We need both."
A: "And we need love!"

"I always love you every day. Even when I'm captured."

Happy Ayyam-i-Ha!

I wanted to share a little bit of our Ayyam-i-Ha preparation and celebration! Abraham is now old enough to really get into it, so it's been a lot of fun coming up with activities and starting family traditions.

First step in building holiday anticipation - decorations! Abraham decorated the house with cut-out hearts and stars, which was easy for me and gave him complete ownership over the process. I also liked that this also meant the decorations were down at his eye level, so he could enjoy them.

Posing so I could snap a photo.

I made the pinwheels actually for a baby shower, but with the idea in mind
of keeping them up for Ayyam-i-Ha decor!

The one on the bed was "for Daddy."

I love the placement of these two hearts together.

So patient for me to snap another photo! :)

Ayyám-i-Há is a Baha'i holiday celebrated from Feb. 26 – Mar. 1. It is a time devoted to spiritual preparation for the Baha'i Fast (which begins March 2^nd), celebrating and praising God, hospitality, charity, and gift-giving.

"It behoveth the people of Baha, throughout these days, to provide good cheer for themselves, their kindred and, beyond them, the poor and needy, and with joy and exultation to hail and glorify their Lord, to sing His praise and magnify His Name…"

overscheduling

After hearing about some friends who are enrolling their three-year-old in several activities (ballet, etc), Anderson and I started talking about whether we should enroll Abraham in soccer this year, or what kinds of things we might want to enroll him in the future. Our take on it was more to see what he's interested in and follow that, rather than arbitrarily signing him up for something and hoping that he likes it. So when he came into the room while we were talking, I asked him, "Would you want to join a soccer team with other kids and play soccer?"

"Yes."

"Do you want to do ballet?"

"Yes."

"Do you want to learn to play an instrument, like piano?"

"Yes."

"Violin?"

"Yes."

"Guitar?"

"Yes."

"Do you want to take a dance class?"

"Yes."

"Do you want to ice skate?"

"Yes."

"Rock climb?"

"Yes."

He was rapid-fire agreeing to everything, so we started getting extreme. "Go mountain climbing?"

"Yes."

"Jump out of an airplane?"

"With a parachute?" he asked.

"Yes." I said.

"Yes." he replied.

"Without a parachute?" I asked, to clarify.

"Yes." he said.

Okay then! We've narrowed that down!