Summer Ends

The summer has ended and has been one James enjoyed very much. He is a boy that is never bored. He has enjoyed being the co-host of the Eddie or Cindy Lyons cooking show. He has also been full of inventions like the one in the picture. His favorite event of the summer was of course his birthday, July 1. He is now 12 and already planning his 13th birthday party. His birthday list has gotten a bit more sophisticated - he really wanted a flat screen tv and a hattop (laptop computer). This summer Cindy joined the Mac world with a white Macbook. Shortly after the computer arrived I walked into my room to find a very startled James sitting on my bed with laptop on - his lap. Looking quite guilty and wondering if he was in trouble he said a "Hi Dad". I asked, "James what are you doing?" He answered, "my homework". I took a look and was surprised to see that he had on his own found the Word icon, and had opened a new document and was in fact typing away. His love for a laptop only increases over time. He found Disney.com and the games he can play. His favorite feature at the moment is the movie making capabilities of a Macbook. He loves making movies. One of my favorite was both very cute and at the same time incriminating. He holds up the opened jar of peanutbutter with spoon in hand. (He had snuck into the kitchen and gotten the peanut butter without permission). In his feature film he grabs a spoon and begins to spoon peanutbutter with a peanut butter garbled commentary. It was great. School began today and he seemed comforted by a familiar routine in a familiar class, saying the pledge of allegiance.

I have recently seen some things about the decision of some families to terminate the life of their baby because it was determined that it had Down Syndrome. The idea is that we do these babies a favor because they would live difficult lives with not much hope or quality. I wish they could spend a day with James. He loves life, is always playing, pretending, creating and enjoying a family he adores. He continues to be the a sort of glue that centers our family. He loves us in a way that makes his life more meaningful than we can describe.

And now another school year. More is yet to come.

"Na hase me" "Na hale it"

The other day, I had the pepperocini peppers out and James was showing interest in this new food group. I asked him if he wanted one and he said “me try”. I warned him that they are little bit hot but he still wanted to try one. Knowing that he may not make it through a mouthful of peppers, I parked him beside the sink just in case. He took a big bit and all was well for a second or two and then he grabbed his mouth and said. Oh hot, hot. He discovered that he did not like these peppers. The next day I asked, kind of jokingly, if he wanted a pepper and he said with a bit of disgust, “I hale it.” Which interpreted is, “I hate it”. He picked up this “hate” word from school. As much as we try to discouraged its use and encourage a more gracious alternative, like “I don’t like it”, he continues to use the “hate” word. It has kind of taken on its own meaning for James.

The other night the family went out to eat. It was one of those end of the week, let’s get re-connected as a family and share the week’s stories moment. Needless to say, the stories lasted a lot longer than the meal. After a while James grew impatient and said, “Let’s go.” We told him not just yet. To this he replied, “Na hase me.” No James we don’t hate you but you are going to need to wait for us all to be ready to go. Pretty much any time James does not get his way, he has pulled out the phrase, “Na hase me.” It has become a family joke. James asks his siblings for chicken and they tell him, it is not time to eat to which he replies – “Na hase me.” James go clean up your room and if he does not want to do that he says, “Na hase me.” So pretty much if anyone does not give him what he wants, when he wants, he feels this emotion he describes as “Na hase me.” No James, we love you but you can’t always have what you like. James we love you, but when you do wrong things, you have to have a time out and sit in the thinking chair.” “Na hase me” and “Na hale it” have become part of James’ limited vocabulary. Somehow, we all have found use for this new “James speak” even while we still hope to make him a more gracious boy.

Me Drive...Show Me

Today while I was checking out my newly planted patches of grass, James ran over to the car hopped in. He crawled through the car and strapped himself into the drivers seat. James then motioned to me and asked me to get in. I did go sit with him, primarily because his mother insisted that he should not be in the car alone. I assured her that she was being a bit over-protective and that he could not really do anything to hurt the car or himself. After my husband-like resistance did nothing to change her mind, I went over to sit in the passenger's seat beside him. To my surprise, he had the keys in hand and had already put the house key in the ignition. (Why is Cindy always right and I am such a knot head?) Thankfully, he had the keys for the other car. He kept saying, "Dad, I drive. Show me." "Buy ice cream." Well, at first I told him that he was too young to drive. I then realized that his age would not change his prospects for driving instruction. I am not sure how to handle that just yet. James wants to do everything his brothers and sisters do including driving. Anyway his prompting at least got him some Andy's "banilla" ice cream. He was pretty please with the ice cream. Then on the way home we stopped by the newly opened Walmart and bought him some new "spiderman tennis shoes with lights". Life is good and we are going to have to start hiding the car keys.

James on TV...

Hillcrest High School TV produced a piece on James' Big Day. Robert, James brother, teamed up with Julie Wooten to put this together.

Dad...order pisa!

Today when I came home James was asking me to order "pisa...phone". He had pizza on his mind and before I arrived, Cindy saw him with the phone dialing some number, then clearing his throat to get ready to order. Somehow James has moved into a phone fascination phase.

The other night at around 10 pm, Coco received a call from the Hillenburg house telling her that James had called Mark from my phone. Sure enough we found him with my phone in hand. Apologies for the late night disturbance were made and graciously accepted. I then looked at my phone only to discover that he had called the bank, Boston Baptist College, a pastor friend in Lebanon Missouri and a few others.

Back to the "pisa" request. A while after taking the phone away and interrupting his attempt to order he came into the kitchen this time with phone book in hand. He had thumbed through the yellow pages and had found the pizzas. At first I was amazed at his ability to read only to be reminded that he just found the pictures of pizzas which made more sense. After all of his effort I wore down and ordered a pizza. He was thrilled. Come to think of it, I probably did not help curtail our phone fascination phase. I probably just made it worse. But so what. Cute is cute and the bright smile on his face when the pizza came was worth it.

“Breef Mom”…

The other day Cindy was having one of those overloaded Mom stress moments. While James did not know what was going on, he could see that Mom was having a tough time. He walked into our bedroom, looked his Mom in the eye and then with hand motions said, “Mom, breef (breath) in, breef out.” At this point Cindy and I both erupted into laughter and amazingly enough, the stress was gone. James may not understand all the details, but he does get what matters. Thanks, James for keeping us breathing.

You threw what in the toilet?

One afternoon, I walked into the house after work to find the kind of informal courtroom setting that most parents have learned can be essential to child rearing. Cindy, was sitting in the living room with James seated on the ottoman in front of her. The feeling in the room was serious and the tone of her voice was authoritative. “Tell me the truth” she was saying, as I walked in. “I tell the truf”, James replied. At this point I was brought in as a second questioner. Cindy explained what I did not know. The suspicion was that James who had locked himself into the bathroom with Coco’s cell phone only to emerge with no phone after a flush a minute later, had flushed the phone down the toilet. I said sternly, “James, tell me the truth. Did you flush the cell phone and it went away?” He looked up at me over his glasses and mumbled, “A little bit.” Now how you flush a phone “a little bit” is known only to James. The real truth is that the answer was yes and he was guilty but was trying to minimize his offense with careful wording. It actually sounds a lot like the rest of us. We are very prone and quite expert at minimizing or redefining our mistakes.

One post script to the story is that while Coco was very upset to no longer have a phone, she handled it with a lot of grace. Her gracious response gave way to out and out jubilation when I told her that I had ordered a new phone, one much better than the one that got “A little bit flushed.”