About a boy...

Ian is such a bundle of joy. So much joy! I had no idea before I became his mother that my heart could even hold this much joy. Everyday I find some reason to delight in him. That's not to say he doesn't ever inspire frustration, come on now, he's TWO, let's be realistic. But for the most part I find him quite delightful.

I love how he prays. Every night when we tuck him in he asks "Jesus?". He lets us do the talking but he closes his eyes and gives a resounding AMEM at the end. And before meals when we say grace I confess to peeking at him a lot, because he's just so cute the way he folds his hands, bows his head and keeps his eyes closed the whole time and never peeks himself. I might just have to take a picture of it some time. Would that be sacreligous?

I love how he comes up with new words and phrases that we don't mean to teach him, but he just picks up. He's become quite good at detecting my emotions and if I show any distress, say from stubbing my toe, he'll ask, quite concerned, "OK Mommy? OK?" and offer a "Big hug? Kiss?". It's a fairly accurate immitation of what I do when he gets hurt.
Another recent new phrase is "Mmmm. Taste gooood." The inflection and spacing of his words just about kills me. It's so hard not to giggle at everything he says.

The other day he was jumping over Jayden who was playing on the floor. Something we've been trying hard to discourage. And he tripped on the baby and landed on his face flat on the hard wood floor. Jayden started to cry, and Ian was obviously hurting and crying too. I immediately launch into an "I told you so" type lecture about not jumping over Jay-Jay. As I'm talking sternly and practically shaking my finger at him, his cries intensify and suddenly a drop of blood forms on his lip and threatens to fall to the floor. Out goes the lecturer and in rushes a very sympathetic and caring mommy who scoops up the poor, hurt little boy and tends so carefully to his cut lip that puffs up noticeably right before my eyes. ((sigh)) Sometimes life is hard.

I really like this picture. I took it myself and it took about 4 tries to get the right angle and for both of us to be smiling. I won't be showing any of the others.

Ian really LOVES to "play soccer". Here he and Rob are at the school ground behind our house. According to Ian's rules, his opponent (Rob) must be "away away" at the opposite end of the field standing in goal. Then Ian starting at the other goal starts dribbling the ball down the field until he shoots and "SCOSE!", with much applause and praise. Then the ball is turned over to his opponent who must wait until Ian is back in position at his goal before advancing with the ball to score in his turn. And so it went back and forth. I got some of it on video from our balcony.

Ian attended his cousins 6th birthday party at a gymnastics place. The kids were supposed to decorate their goody bags. Here Ian is decorating for about 30 seconds before heading back to play. He even turned down the cake in favour of jumping around on the trampoline.





So much joy.