family

Trevvy On The Verge

/ J. Thorp / 2 Comments

Our youngest turned five on Sunday. Hard to believe he’s headed to kindergarten in the fall. In lieu of photos, here are a few written snapshots from the weekend.

* * * * *

Dozens of boisterous children are shouting, giggling, scrambling over the intricate jungle gym playground at the campground where our church group was staying. Above the din, a lone low growl rises to a roar. The small knot of grownups I’m standing in turns to stare as Trevor mounts the tallest tower. He throws his head back, pounds his chest, and roars at the trees and the sky and no one in particular.

* * * * *

It’s bed time, and Trevor and I go into a single bathroom to brush and get ready for bed. Trevor has to pee, and there is no divider between the sink and the stool.

“Dad,” he says, his voice dramatic, “DON’T … LOOK … to the SIDE!”

I smile and shake my head. “Alright, little man,” I say. “But we’re both guys here, so it’s not that big of a deal.”

He thinks a second, then says, “OK, Dad — LOOK … to the SIDE!”

I glance to the left. Trevvy is grinning up at me, peeing with remarkable accuracy as he does so.

“See?” he says. “That’s why you’re not supposed to look to the side!”

* * * * *

On the way home from the camp on Sunday afternoon, we’re asking Trevor what he would like for his birthday dinner. The menu: stringy spaghetti noodles (you know, the ones that look like lines), grapes and spinach (for the people who don’t want grapes), and garlic bread.* For dessert: brownies with white frosting and red and blue sprinkles.

* * * * *

We went to Mass after spaghetti and garlic bread and before brownies and presents. It’s been a busy weekend, and Trevvy falls asleep in minutes. He’s our preschooler on the verge, stretched full length on the hard wooden pew, peacefully sucking his thumb …

* * * * *

* Trevor genuinely likes fresh spinach, and eats it as finger food, leaf by leaf.

Gabe’s Twisted Sense of Humor

/ J. Thorp / 2 Comments

We’re at Bren’s baseball game, with our backs to the high-school girls’ softball team. Behind us: PING!, then “Heads up!” A fluorescent yellow softball rockets over the backstop behind us, over our heads, and slams into the fence around the ball field in front of us.

“Wow!” I say.

“They shouldn’t say, ‘Heads up,'” says Gabe, “because if you stick your head up …” — and he extends his neck as high as it will go — “… you have a better chance of getting hit by the ball.”

I smile and nod. “Maybe they should say, ‘Duck and cover!'” I suggest.

“Yeah,” says Gabe, “and then it’s like you grab a little kid to duck under!” … and he laughs and laughs.

Trevvy Figures It Out

/ J. Thorp / 1 Comment

Our youngest, Trevor, spent most of his Friday at the home of a friend who is pregnant. Exactly how he knew she was pregnant, I’m not sure, but apparently partway through the day he approached her, sized up her belly, and said, “You got a baby in there.”

“Yes, I do,” she said.

He looked at her belly again. “Sometimes if people eat a lot they look like that, too,” he said.

She laughed. “Yes, I guess they do.”

He hesitated a moment, then said, “Maybe that’s how you get a baby in there!”

Four Kids; Four Tidbits

/ J. Thorp / 1 Comment

Blogger’s Note: Thought I’d share a little bit about the family from the past few weeks. Just random stuff. Little things …

I was digging through a closet and found a stack of National Geographic magazines from the turn of the century (the 21st Century, unfortunately). The April 2000 issue has an open-mouthed great white shark on it, and as soon as I saw it, I had a flashback to when Brendan was about three years old. I flipped it open and found a feature story called “Yemen United.” I flipped several more pages and found a full-page portrait of a dark-skinned, graceful Yemeni girl, her face more African than Asian, with deep brown eyes, wearing a purple headscarf with black flowers, a colorful floral-and-stripes dress, and a beaded necklace and silver rope chain around her neck.

I showed the cover it to Brendan. “Do you remember this?” I ask.

“Yeah,” he said. “We watched a show about those sharks.”

I open to page 52. “Do you remember this girl?” He is confused by the question and shakes his head no.

“She was your first crush,” I tell him. “When you were three, you used to find the shark magazine every night, look through it until you found this picture, and tell this girl, ‘Good night.'”

He looks embarrassed. “Really?” he asks.

No reason to be embarrassed, Bren. She’s beautiful.*

* * * * *

The Easter Bunny brought the kids Night at the Museum on DVD. Sunday afternoon, Trevor said he couldn’t wait to watch “Hotel After Dark.”

Later in the day, one of the kids said something about the Easter Bunny laying eggs in our house. He or she quickly changed it to hiding eggs, but the whole deal got a big laugh .. and got Trevor thinking.

“I know!” he said. “What if it was Christmas time, and Santa was a polar bear that laid presents!”

* * * * *

After Mass the other day, Father M called Gabriel (and the rest of us) into the vesting sacristy to give Gabe something. Because our middle son thinks he may want to be a priest when he grows up, Father had hinted that he had communion set of some sort for Gabe to practice with.

Gabe was so excited, but almost had to be pushed into the sacristy because it felt “off-limits” — like he was backstage without a pass. Father turned to him, smiling, and presented him with a long purple cleric’s stole, which appeared hand-woven south of the border. “You must always kiss it before you put it on,” Father said, and Gabe nodded, wide-eyed. Then Father gave him a large brown stoneware chalice and paten with the Words of Consecration on their rims. He took them, and stared, and said next to nothing.

Jodi and I both thanked Father, then coaxed Gabe to do the same. He did, haltingly. “We don’t use clay in this church,” said Father, “but this is a real set. Someday, when you’re ordained, you’ll get your own set, but you can practice with this one.”

Gabe said nothing, but nodded. “I think he’s in shock — a little overwhelmed,” I said.

As we walked to the car, I told Gabe that I had thought Father was going to give him some sort of kid’s set: a tin cup and plate, or something. “This was very generous of Father,” I said.

“Dad,” he said, “when I didn’t say anything right away, it was because I was surprised, and overwhelmed, and a little disappointed all at once, because I thought it would be gold, and it wasn’t. I didn’t know it was a real set.”

I told him that I understood how you get something in your head, and when it comes out differently, it can disappoint. “But remember Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade? When Indy had to pick the right Grail and drink from it, but if he picked wrong, he would die? Of all those beautiful cups, which was the right one?”

Gabe’s face lit up. “The carpenter’s cup!”

“Right — the clay cup. Jesus wasn’t rich man, and neither were his disciples. He wouldn’t have had a gold cup!”

You should see him now: he kisses the stole, puts in on, and carries his chalice and paten with such care!

* * * * *

Emma has been working for several weeks, 10 to 15 minutes a night, to read Beverly Cleary’s Runaway Ralph. It was slow going at times — a “stretch” book from the get-go, since she’s just finishing first grade. But she insisted, persisted … and today got 10 out of 10 on her Accelerated Reader quiz, which means she understood what she read. Yeah, Rosie!

* * * * *

* I’ve search the Web over, and cannot find this photo, and I don’t feel right about scanning it. The photographer who shot it has books of famous National Geographic portraits and photos, including this famous Afghan girl. He does good work, and I’m sure he protects his copyrights.

Impulse Buy

/ J. Thorp / 7 Comments

I’ve been buying a lot of books lately. Mostly used on eBay — great deals on good Catholic books. Got a nice former-library Encyclopedia of the Saints, which the whole family digs (10,000 saints — who knew?) for $2 or so.

Also picked up St. Thomas Aquinas’s simplified Summa Theologica, called My Way of Life, the source of that spectacular quote under This Moment on this blog, along with hardcover copies of Imitation of Christ and Imitation of Mary for something like $7 total, including shipping. Nice.

But what I really wanted was a nice pocket-size copy of Introduction to the Devout Life by St. Francis de Sales (pictured), patron saint of writers and journalists, and my confirmation saint. (Lest you think I knew at an early age what I would become, I should note that I was confirmed as a 25-year-old father of two; when I was a teen I didn’t know I would be a writer or a Catholic!)

There were lots of new paperbacks on eBay, and two hardcover editions from the 1920s. The first was a 1923 second edition in the saint’s native French, bound in brown leather. Beautiful book, but I don’t speak or read French, so it made sense that I’d bid on the late 1920s American edition, the size of a coat’s inside pocket, with the yellowed dust jacket still intact. There was another bidder, but surely it was destined to grace my shelf.

I bought the English edition, but couldn’t keep from watching as no one bid on the French version. Minimum opening bid was $5, plus $3 shipping. No reserve. No bids.

A horrible thought struck me: this book would be regarded as worthless and tossed. It would be burned, or rot amongst coffee grounds and banana peels. I had to save it.

I bid $5. Spent $3 on shipping. The book is beautiful, bizarrely bound (to my eyes, at least): a metal strip runs behind the leather spine, with two wire spring clips the hold the pages in. The pages themselves are not uniformly sized and are variously stitched together.

I was fascinated and promptly showed the family. Jodi smiled and shook her head. The kids were vaguely interested in the book — what caught their collective attention was Brendan’s question to me, in a tone equal parts hopeful and impressed, doubtful and incredulous: “Dad, can you read French?”

Um, no. I simply can’t help myself.