A Nephew's Vote of Confidence

My nephew Andrew said this on his way home from our family party on Saturday:

"I want to go to three places, the museum, the library, and Trent's house."

:-)

When a baby smiles at you...

A friend of mine just told me that recently his one-month-old son "woke up, looked around, focused on me, and gave me a big smile.  It was pretty awesome -- the first real smile I've seen where he was clearly smiling at me."

A Fun Mental Image

From a friend on Twitter:

Sometimes, when I sneak in and kiss Cara on the cheek while she's napping, she'll smile in her sleep. #parenthood #rewards

A Rare Experience With A Baby

A friend of mine posted the following on their Facebook account, which is something we don't get to enjoy very often:

"just experienced a baby fall asleep in my arms..."

A Place of Silent, Intense Peace

Yesterday I went into a local Repartee Gallery to drop off a picture to get framed. The contrast was amazing: outside was a busy parking lot with talkative groups headed into the surrounding restaurants; inside was a refuge where art students were silently focused on their drawings. It startled me to find about 8 people in there, sitting in various positions around the room, so I stopped for a second at the threshold and some of them glanced up at me. Down to my left was someone sitting on the floor rather than in a chair; it was Nicole, my neighbor. We said "hi," and she pointed out her mother, another one of my long-time neighbors. They were all sitting quietly, each person doing a pencil drawing of a green pepper. The atmosphere was remarkable: it was a large room with fine art filling the walls, where a group of people all sat in silence, every one intensely focused on their creations.

It reminded me of a temple, one where every attendee was applying their full power of concentration, working independently but on much the same task. The word "reverent" even came to mind.

After respecfully breaking their silence and finishing my business, I walked out... but I paused outside the door, where there was a small fountain in the shape of a man cradling a huge fish in both hands and pouring water out its mouth. I savored that grand feeling of peace for another few seconds before continuing the rest of my chores.

A Growing Girl

Tonight Ellie came home from a party late at night. At first she didn't say much, and she went straight into her room to drop off her things. Then she came out and told us how they'd played foozball, and how we have got to get that game because it is SO much fun: there were about eight girls, so they'd each taken one of the handles and one side was BYU and the other was the U of U, and it was fun to play against each other.

The greatest thing, though, was watching Ellie talk. I can see the beginnings of a more mature young lady showing, one who has a lot of zest for life and friends and good times. Her natural beauty is more and more apparent, and it shines more brightly when she is exuberant and expressive. It was a joy to see.

a gift of decorations

Last weekend was Olivia's birthday, and the older neighbor girls decided to give her a surprise: they crepe-papered our house, forked our lawn with balloons attached, and they dropped off some edible gifts (Olivia's favorite).









What a fantastic, fun gift! They spent valuable late-night time and energy to secretly leave something that we'd stumble upon in the morning. I daresay it's not everyone who has friends that make such a creative effort to celebrate their birthday. That is loving kindness.

And you can tell it was appreciated!

Raw Nature, in a movie and under a moonlit sky

Tonight we saw "Into The Wild", the movie about Christopher McCandless, the 20-something who left his family and life behind to travel on the road and went to Alaska and died in the wild there. It was very intriguing for me because I've always enjoyed the outdoors, but I appreciate it more and more as I age. This year's camping trips with my family have been some of the highlights of my whole life; I wish that I'd taken the time to write about them. So the movie brought to mind what it might be like to live a less structured lifestyle in a more wild environment. I don't aspire to do anything like that, but it was an interesting feeling, and the movie was well-done.

One thought from the movie was that you don't always need other people around to enjoy the best parts of life. That struck me. I've been very focused on the rewards of life that come while doing things with people, but I think there's some validity to that idea as well. (Later, he says that happiness comes from sharing with others.)

Afterward, I went out into my backyard where it was chilly; I was wrapped up in my coat, and I lay down on our padded bench and simply enjoyed the chill and the dark sky with a bright full moon and a few scattered stars. I only spent a few minutes out there, and I dozed off a bit... and I enjoyed every second.

Dancing and Skating Together

Tonight we all went to the street dancing at Bountiful's Summerfest, where we have dancers from around the world perform and allow us to dance with them in the street. We saw some square dancing by people from Denver, some Russian dancing by Cossack youths, and some other group dancing by Greeks. Fun stuff!

What was awesome was that everyone enjoyed something: Lynnette enjoyed my dancing (maybe because I'm so adept at embarrassing myself); Olivia got to dance flamboyantly in the street with other people; Ellie and Tolman skated down some sloping streets on their Wave skateboards; and Thomas caught serious air because I'd pull him up by the arm as he jumped. I enjoyed it all!

What's particularly rewarding is that there was a lot of whining and anger before we left, but everyone has a much better attitude after just a few minutes at the event. Physical fun is good for the soul.

Menial Labor

Yesterday I spent 30 minutes on whatever individual children wanted to do (which is something I aim to do each week, with varying success). First, I went roller-blading down the street with Tolman, then Thomas wanted me to push him on his swing. As I was pushing Thomas, I suddenly realized that I was doing the same thing, over and over, and there was nothing else going on: it was quiet, and Thomas didn't even feel the need to talk. It was repetitive work, there was little intelligent interaction... and it was nice.

July 4th with the family

Yesterday was West Bountiful's Independence Day Celebration. Yes, it is still June, but our city does our stuff on a weekend far from the national celebration so as to avoid conflicting with everything else that happens. We're a small town in the middle of a large urban area (we still have horse property all around us!), so we have the feeling of a smaller community. I really enjoyed our little parade, carnival, and then time afterward as a family. The whole day was kind of up-and-down; there was a lot of complaining and crying and disappointment and outright boredom, but there were also a ton of smiles and mingled in our myriad of activities. I was pondering life issues this morning and I realized that it was truly a memorable day, and a fond memory at that, so it is worth recording here.

It began with our city parade. Ella and Tolman sang in the school choir, so they got to ride and sing in a float.









Thomas and Olivia seemed to really enjoy it. Olivia was up and around, cheering for the floats, and waving enthusiasticallythe whole time; between that and chasing after all the candy thrown out, it was quite the interactive event.













Then we went to the park where the first performance was the school choir. Naturally, Ella sang with all her might; Tolman sang some things, though I don't have a picture to prove it. The kids did well... for kids. But it seems to be more fun to watch what they do on stage that isn't part of the performance, especially when they're supposed to be performing.


















Of course, the kids had to go on the blow-up slides and obstacle courses; anyone who knows Olivia, Tolman, and Ellie will recognize a bit of their personalities in each of their styles.





And this is where I have to give a hand to Lynnette, because she took every one of these pictures; Thomas went down a slide, too, but we don't have a picture of it because I took him to the different one that he wanted to go on, and I don't typically take pictures. Sorry about that.












So then the cousins invited us over for swimming, just to make the day perfect. (That last picture is of Ella's legs: she's doing a handstand underwater.)















Yes, I'm skipping over the part where Thomas threw screaming fits at the park, and where I was disappointed at going swimming because I wanted a peaceful afternoon at home. But for some reason it's easy for me to forget about those parts as I consider what yesterday meant to my family. And I didn't even mention how the kids got to stay up late at the neighbor's house (yes, all the kids), or how I helped take down at the park, or how Lynnette and I put together a few bookshelves, and how we quietly watched the city's fireworks from afar on our porch.

Hm. Yep. A heck of a summer day.