Super Seven

There's something special about this one.
From the moment of his birth, he brought light, hope and love.
He came, healthy and screaming, into this world and gave us the promise of future. As a tiny newborn, he wrapped our mourning hearts in a healing balm and showed us that that it was possible to always remember our stillborn son and still choose happiness and life.  As an infant, we could feel his heart bleeding love for us and as he grew we realized that it bleeds that love for everyone around him, too.
This makes him such a sensitive, beautiful person. 

Recently, I have noticed that the rate at which he bleeds that love is slowing down a bit.  I think he's finding his footing and recognizing that he can look out for himself and make his own choices.  His sensitive, caring, vulnerable side has been covered with a thin layer of self-confidence. This is wonderful.  I work hard to help him build that confidence and feel triumphant for him when I see it grow.  There is still much work to be done; my goal is to help thicken that layer until it shields him like a heavy blanket strong enough to protect him from the demons of his middle-school years and beyond (be they other people or himself), but soft enough to be able to feel the beauty and texture underneath.  I believe he will be a beautiful, compassionate person throughout his life.

I looked at him playing in the waves the other day and saw the muscles in his back work with him to ride the waves.  They're small, those cute little muscles, but they're bigger than they were and I know all too soon they'll be long and strong.  A big, strong body to hold that beautiful personality?  I think I'll love to see that.

But he's seven today.  Seven years old and melting my heart almost every day.  His eyes somehow have the ability to pierce me through like an arrow and speak to my heart in something so much stronger than words.  Of course a mother loves her son, but I love him so. so. so. much.  Just thinking about it gets me all choked up. 

Anyway...

He's gotten into this habit of making us laugh.  He's hilarious!  The other day I was singing a (very awesome) song complete with clapping that went something like this, "Let's open the blinds, open the blinds, we'll open, open, open the blinds!" and instead of glaring at me with an embarrassed 'I can't believe she's my mother' look, he bounced up and down to the beat and bopped like a coordinated chicken all the way over to the nearest window.  Of course, receiving such positive reinforcement, I continued my song, clapping and laughing, and Carson continued his dance until all the rooms were lit.

Plus, he's such a caring kid that all he does is laugh when Timothy spits up all down his shoulders and back (*giggle*  Oh no! *giggle, giggle* TK's such a *giggle* cutie pie, Mom!  Could you get me a *giggle* spit-up rag?).  I worried a bit that his fierce devotion to his littlest brother would diminish as the baby grew, but I needn't have worried.  It's just getting stronger.  He cannot concentrate on anything - even his favorite movie - if Timothy is crying in his crib or fussing on the floor.  It's a common sight to see the two of them cuddled together.

His birthday was awesome and simple this year.  His excitement was palpable.  It started with the requested cinnamon roll breakfast in bed.  Carson, please always be that excited about a giant cinnamon roll.  Life is full of wonderful things just. like. that.

 We then watched the sun rise

and played with packing peanuts.

It wasn't long before we were all in our swimming suits, heading down to his favorite spot.  The beach pool. 

He had a blast playing in the water, and I had fun playing with my new favorite toy:  my underwater camera case.  (LOVE, LOVE, LOVE it!)

 After he'd had his fill of water-play, we headed back upstairs to make the cake masterpiece.  Carson came up with the whole concept on his own, and then we worked together to create all the little pieces.  I've kind of gotten into this habit of having the kids help me with their cakes, and it's pretty awesome.  They surprise me with their creativity sometimes!

Daddy came home after that and we had the requested 'chicken pillow' dinner,

opened presents,

(and, Miles was hilarious to watch with Carson's new Nerf gun... it requires some serious muscles, that thing!)

gawked at how adorable Timothy is,

sang happy birthday,

and ate cake while we laughed all the way through Despicable Me (seriously... how have I not watched that movie more than once in my life!?).

I went to bed happy that night.
Carson did too,
which is probably more important.
Happy birthday, my love.

Camera vs. Face

Isn't he beautiful?  Even with a gash across his nose?

I let Miles use the camera.  That was the first mistake.  Truthfully, it wasn't even my camera to let him use, but he asked so excitedly, and his red curls have that magic tendency to pull a yes from me.  I'll deal with the reprecusions from McKenzie later, I thought as I handed her prized purple camera over to the eager hands and watched him run down the hall.  Minutes later I heard a solid thwack and Carson came stumbling out of the bedroom with his hands over his face, crying out in pain.  

Each of my children deal with pain differently.  McKenzie has a tendency to collapse to the floor and roll around moaning if her hangnail pulls in a funny direction.  If she doesn't get attention, the moans quickly escalate to a frantic loud panting, whimpering, and eventually end in deep screams.

Miles largely ignores pain.  The kid has more bumps and bruises than I can count, but I rarely hear about them (unless he remembers that Band-aids exist in this world and then he'll ask for several).  When I do hear about his pain, however, it's big.  Jumping up and down, shaking hands and screaming big.  His face goes pale and gigantic tears course down his cheeks.  (One time he even turned blue and passed out before he took a breath from the initial (hard) impact.  Scariest. Thing. Ever.)

Carson braves his way through it.  He'll try to hide his tears by blinking them away quickly and fool the world with a closed-mouth smile until the shock of the pain wears away enough for him to tell me 'It's okay.  I'm okay.' 

So when Carson stumbled out of the bedroom crying out in pain, I knew something was probably broken and it got the 'run down the hall' out of me.  (Do you really ever run in your house?  Funny that kids seem to run from room to room to room but, even if I'm in a hurry, I only walk briskly.)  I wrapped him in my arms and asked to see his head.

"Mooooooooooommmmmmm!" came the call from McKenzie.  "You let Miles use my camera and he just threw it at Carson's face!"

Whoops.  Sorry, Kenz.  And sorry, Carson.

Carson let me look at his forehead while he rubbed the tears from his eyes (sometimes I think he's thinking that if he just rubs his eyes hard enough, the tears will stop).  It looked fine... I couldn't even see a bump.  Weird, I thought.  "Well, it looks like everything is fine, Buddy," I said as I stroked his hair.  "I don't even see a bump."  He nodded and walked away, still rubbing his eyes but not crying anymore.  

A minute later he came into the bathroom I was cleaning to ask a question.  I looked up at him and immediately felt like Mother of the Year because, obviously, that deep gash that was crossing the bridge of his nose and dripping blood must have been there when I inspected his forehead for any bumps.  Guess I forgot to check for gashes.

Closer inspection revealed that the gash was deep enough to need a bit of attention and, thankfully, I remembered that my husband had brought home some Derma-Bond (think Super Glue for the skin) from the hospital for just such an occasion.  No ER visit for us!  Even so... Carson was feeling nervous.

He worried that the glue would sting the open wound and all I could say was, "I don't think it will, Bud" because I've never actually glued my skin back together.  McKenzie was delighted to take over the camera and capture Doctor Mommy in action.

Thankfully the cut closed perfectly when he scrunched up his nose... so his job was to scrunch his nose and not move.  Mine was to glue him back together.  Miles's was to sit in time-out.  Timothy's was to be happy without being held.  And Kenzie's was to capture the moment.  We all did awesome, if I do say so myself.  Fantastic shot, Kenz!

Genius who invented Derma-Bond?  You are a lifesaver.   Taking four children to the ER or Urgent Care is something I'd like to avoid.  Forever.

Hold Still while I Shine this Flashlight in Your Face

*Carson is awesome.  He does science experiments. 

This boy needs to make a laminated sign that says But, How Does It Work? and carry it around with him everywhere he goes.  That way he could just flash the sign and save the breath.  He's interested in science, mathematics, nature, physics... asking questions like, 'but how does the electricity charge the battery?' and 'how does the poison from the spider make you sick' and 'how can hair actually grow in your belly?' (he was most disturbed when he saw that Timothy had hair - apparently growing the rest of a human body is acceptable, but hair crosses the line.)  So when news came home from school about the science fair, I knew he would love it. I was totally right.

He and Brian spent some fun time together talking about and executing their experiment.  The question:  How do different lights affect pupil size?
The experiment enrolled several willing participants, one rather forced participant (sorry for shining bright lights in your eyes, Timothy!), lots of different lights, and a find-the-pupil-size chart (I'm sure that's the technical name for it).

Miles was ecstatic to be the headlamp guy.

The day of the science fair finally arrived and, because we are all procrastinators at our house, we had yet to make the poster.  Procrastination is never fun, but this one bit us pretty hard because we had a tiny baby in the ICU on this day... but Brian was excited and happy to help Carson put the poster together while I stayed at the hospital, and I'm almost certain that they had more fun without me there suggesting that they cut the lines a little straighter, or position the pictures a little more symmetrically, or wouldn't putting a mat underneath each picture make it look better?  My poor family.  I was super impressed with their poster, but I was even more impressed with Carson's ability to explain it all.  He did awesome!  And he had such a great time doing it.  The kids he taught were so enthralled with his short explanations and (mostly) at the demonstration part when Brian took the flashlight and showed the kids exactly what Carson had been talking about.  Awesome! they said.  Wow!  Cool!  Carson felt like a million bucks.

Love, love, love it when my kids feel fulfilled by things other than receiving candy.

Free Fallin'

Sitting around a bonfire over ten years ago with 15 other students from our apartments at BYU, Brian taught me how to play a song on his guitar.  We were in that super fun does-he-like-me phase (fun if you suspect the answer is yes, that is) and I was all too aware of our shoulders softly touching and the way his fingers almost touched mine, but not quite, as he showed me where to place them on the strings.  Unbeknownst to me at the time, my roommates sat across the large bonfire and watched us.  "Oh, look!" one of them said to the other in a dreamy tone, "they're having a moment."  It was true.  We were. 

Something about seeing this handsome boy work his fingers raw to get that D cord just right pulled my heart back to that moment.  I hope he has a girl, someday (in the far, far future (but not too far)), that feels the same way about him as I feel about his Daddy.

He was quite proud of his D-Cord Skills and was all too eager to show them to his sweet friend, Kaileigh.  (KAY-lee)

 "You have to push down H A R D," Carson explains.

If you don't know the context, he looks like he's seriously jamming below.  But really?  He's just showing how hard he can push the strings down. 

Maybe he pushed down slightly too hard.  "Oooo, ouch," he said.  Kaileigh ignored him and tried it out for herself.

"See these prints on my fingers?  That's how you know you're doing it right."

I totally have a crush on my six-year-old.

And, speaking of moments, I just about walked straight into the middle of this one:

Thankfully I stopped in time to snag this picture before the moment was gone.  Keep practicing, guys.  Soon enough that D cord won't stand a chance against you.