all star

These brown Converse All Stars are on their third child.  Don't they look nice with pink monkey jammies?  They're a little faded from lots of washing, but that gives them a kind of character you just can't get fresh out of the shoe box from Zappos.  I remember thinking how huge they looked on the elder lad's foot when he first wore them as a toddler.  I'm not sure they'll hold up for the fourth child, as they are starting to come apart in a few places, but we'll sure try.  Her brothers and sister would all get a kick out of seeing her wear them.

funny girl

Little Miss is capable beyond her nineteen months.  Deciding play dough was what she wanted to do this afternoon, she went to the drawer where we keep the tablecloth designated for play dough and other potentially messy creative ventures and started spreading it on the kitchen table.  This attracted her brothers' attention, as both of them can hardly resist the lure of play dough. 

Speaking of brothers, our young lady has hers working for her.

She now prefers the younger lad's pajamas to her own.  She looks so cute in his shortie PJs with the skateboarding dog on them.   He's cool with her wearing those -- but not the ones with the tools on them *or* his firefighter jammies -- as well as his soft yellow t-shirt with an image of four construction vehicles.   They have an understanding. 

The elder lad doesn't want her in his "little Legos" but is more than happy to rifle through the box of Duplos for more "guys" for the trucks he builds for her.  He also lets her wear his yellow firefighter raincoat and is only too happy to slice anything and everything for her -- play dough or otherwise.   Once the play dough and tools were set out, she had the elder lad slicing the dough for her.  

Funny girl she is.  She kisses on her baby "sisser," swipes bites from the plates her "bubba" the younger lad abandons (although this moniker applies to either lad), and implores her "Daddy-o" to "read!  Georgie! [as in Curious]  book!".  Not only that, but she melts her mama's heart with every request to "hold me."

As neat as it has been seeing the lads' personalities emerge, so too it is with the lass.  She wants to be outside digging in the dirt with her brothers, but also likes to dress up in her pretties.

She and her baby sister may not always appreciate or want their brothers' protection or welcome their presence, but with a closet full of truck shirts and broken-in jammies at the lassies' disposal, these brothers are pretty handy to have around.  The lass certainly thinks so.

king me

In a week's time, the elder lad will be an official kindergartner.  He is fully registered at the parish school and seems to be looking forward to the new adventure.  Now if only his uniform shirts were not gargantuan, but that's his mother's doing -- buying clothes at least a size or two too big in the interest of longevity.  Thankfully, his slightly-older cousin has some outgrown uniform clothes that will likely fit our elder lad.  Now he'll be on the receiving end of the hand me downs, an idea which seems to appeal to him.

Our soon-to-be-kindergartner is relishing his "oldest child" position.  He keeps making reference to it.  As much as he might like to think himself king of the castle, today we taught him how to play checkers.  The strategy involved is right up his analytical alley, and the glee on his face when he says "king me" is a sight to behold. 

Sure, he got tired of the game before it was quite finished and wanted instead to use the playing pieces as coins in a game of store, but then later he taught his younger brother how to play checkers.  Tomorrow the elder lad wants to rewrite the rules to start with kings that dissolve into singletons after a successful run across the checkerboard.  Instead of "king me," what will we say then?  "Abdicate?"

this could be a problem.

I am (more than) moderately concerned that the younger lad will scoff at the extensive collection of orange shirts he stands to inherit from his elder brother.  In fact, I have it on pretty good authority, as tonight when the elder lad suggested his younger brother paint a hypothetical Mack truck model orange (the elder lad's longtime favorite color), the younger lad responded adamantly "I don't like orange!  I like red."

the Bonnie box comes full circle.

Growing up, I passed along a lot of my outgrown clothes to a girl five years younger than me.  Our families are close like family, though we're not related.  She called the periodic windfall "the Bonnie box," and apparently it was something very exciting for her.  I'm honored she felt that way.

Now that we're both mothers, we refer to each other as "sister mama," as we've long thought of each other as sisters.  We live close to four hours apart, so we don't get to see each other very often, but we find ways to stay in touch.

So imagine the glee when a couple of days my lass received a box of clothes in the mail from my childhood friend's younger daughter, several months older than my lass.  My lass may be too young to fully own the delight of the occasion, so for now I'll do it for her.  She may be our only girl, but like her brothers before her, there's someone a little further down the path of life sharing her hand me downs.

hand me downs

My elder lad has outgrown his shoes and pants -- the ones I bought several sizes too big a year or two ago just so we could maximize the wear he'd get out of them.  Fortunately, he has a younger brother who can wear a lot of the things the elder lad has outgrown.  This has financial and logistical advantages, though I think there are some emotional costs for everyone involved.  The elder lad is in some respects excited to be growing up and getting bigger, and also seems to like picking out some new things for himself to wear.   He's pretty good about letting go of many of the things he's outgrown so that his brother can wear them now and seems to like hearing stories about how he wore certain things when he was his brother's (or even his baby sister's) age.  On the other hand, there is some internal struggle with seeing his brother wearing something like what was his favorite hoodie or pajamas.  He understands the need, but it's still difficult.

Likewise, my younger lad seems to enjoy donning some of the togs with fun graphics or colors that he's seen his brother wearing, but some things he flat out rejects.  He too has gotten to choose some new things for himself, like the firefighter boots he just got a few days ago and hasn't wanted to take off, but he also struggles seeing his brother get new things, things that maybe he (the younger lad) doesn't need and therefore doesn't get something akin to. 

It's funny how there are some articles of clothing that serve as tangible tokens of a particular child at a particular point in his or her life -- what they liked to do or what developmental milestones they were mastering at the time, or what else might have been going on in our family life at the time.  In some instances, seeing another of my children in the same article of clothing has been jarring, simply because of the associations I have.  One such example is a bright orange hoodie my elder lad has now outgrown.  We could barely get that thing off of him last winter; he wore it all. the. time.  My younger lad refuses to wear it now.  I think he may have the same association I have about the hoodie: that's his brother's -- not his. 

We are trying to cultivate a deep sense of consideration for each other within our family and also for those around us who may not be as fortunate as we are to be able to afford such things as new clothes and shoes and what not.  Our children's needs do not always coincide, so meeting them as they arise may mean that one gets something new (or new to them) and another doesn't at the same time.  While it's fun and sometimes necessary to get new things, it's far more important to meet the needs of our family members and for those whose basic needs would otherwise go unmet -- not just temporal but spiritual and emotional as well.

I can only hope to instill in our bambini a concern for the less fortunate and for each other in the family, confident that each one will be tended according to his or her need. The value each of us has in the family comes from our being unique and irreplaceable creatures of God, due all the respect, love, and care by virtue of that status as His children. 

I know my younger lad will bring his own moxie to the clothes he's been handed down, as will my lass.  I pray for the grace to help all three of them clothe themselves in Christ.

shoes optional

We went to the shoe store today.  This is no minor undertaking for us.  I'd much rather order shoes online (and likely will still do so), but I thought it important to have the lads' feet measured for sizes.  When we got to the shoe store, I began the unloading process -- a bit like one of those puzzles that has nine spaces but eight squares, and you have to move one into an empty spot to get another free and eventually get it arranged just so.  So it goes for a solo adult unloading the bambini in a parking lot along a busy street.  I digress...

... I come to unload my wee lass and notice she only has one shoe on.  I find the other one and stick it not on her foot but in the pocket of my sling, thinking I'll put it back on her foot inside (of course I forget to and only realize she's wearing one shoe to the shoe store when we get back to the Bambini Ride having bought no shoes).  This calls to mind a trip last week to pick up my elder lad from preschool only to find my two and a half year old younger lad has socks on but no shoes.  I had taken the sneakers he had vetoed out of the car and intended to bring along his boots, but got distracted during that boarding process and left the boots at home.  So here we are at school with two shoeless children (the lass didn't have shoes on either, but this was less of an issue since I sling her).   I carried them both in to retrieve our preschooler.  That morning the elder lad had wanted to wear the sneakers that were at his school in his "just in case" change of clothes bag, so when I got there to pick him up after school he wanted to change into those.  Handy, since the younger lad had no shoes.  By the time we got back to the car, he was wearing his older brother's sneakers -- the ones he'd been wearing at school all day.  Nevermind that they're two sizes too big *and* have been worn all day already.

I hope he'll forgive me for that someday.

Epilogue: having accomplished the sole objective of making it possible for the younger lad to walk himself to the Bambini Ride, he was promptly relieved of his brother's shoes and reunited with his own upon our arrival home.