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!”
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.*
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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!”
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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!
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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!
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* 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.
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.
Blogger’s Note: Every now and again, things work out exactly as planned. What’s funny is that the two oldest kids are at the age now where they recognize exactly what just happened. Gabe got such a kick out of this exchange that he suggested I post it on the blog.
As we were finishing lunch yesterday, Jodi announced that after the meal, all of the kids were going to help clean up the kitchen and the family room downstairs. Trevor swallowed hard and whined, “Mom?” — a long, plaintive note.
“Trevor,” I said, “no complaining about having to work after lunch. Everyone helps. I don’t want to hear it.”
His little mouth bent into a sad pout and his eyes glassed. “I wasn’t gonna,” he choked.
“Oh. OK then,” I said cheerfully. “What did you want to say?”
Trevor wiped his eyes with the heels of his hands. “Um … uhhh …”
“Never mind?” I ventured.
“Never mind,” he said.
Over dessert, Trevor says to Jodi, “Mommy, I can’t remember my godfather’s name!”
“You can’t?” she asks.
“No.”
She prompts him: “Uncle …”
He nods his agreement. “I can only remember the uncle!”
