I was just sitting here with Asher and he counted to 6 in German! I knew he could count to 3, but counting higher was a new one. He has a little bit of a lisp where he sticks his tiny tongue out while saying an “s” sound… he’s so cute that it hurts!
He says:
“Eisss”
“Eye”
“Deiii”
“Feeew”
“fooof”
“etss”
Asher is learning so much so quickly these past few weeks. He is amazing me and Phil every time we turn around! He went from saying a short list of words to saying EVERYTHING all the time. He is both repeating us when we ask him to try new words AND he is saying words that we didn’t “try” to teach him. I remember being so impressed with our nephew Corin at Christmas time, since Corin knew his entire alphabet and lots of numbers and random other things. I couldn’t even imagine how or when Asher would learn those things, but now I see that he is following in his brilliant-best-guy-cousin’s footsteps and becoming interested in letters and numbers too! It’s so exciting to watch our little Love grow!
Both of these are a little longer than I typically like to post, but hopefully you will enjoy them as much as Phil and I do. 🙂
1983.
10,957 days.
1,560 months.
Three decades.
30 years.
In just a few days I will turn 30. What?! That is, without a doubt, the most adult age I will have ever known before. Certainly I’ve been an ‘adult’ for a while now, but never in my life have I approached a birthday so void of excuses that might keep me from identifying as one. Am I afraid of aging and being an adult? Certainly not. But I’m not gonna lie, “thirty” feels painfully foreign to my identity.
There has got to be more to aging than just ‘not dying.’ I feel like my 30th birthday is something that should remind me that I am aging. Right? So… how does one become “30?” How can I turn and feel 30 and all that encompasses that magical age of pure adulthood? I am an adult already and I know this because…hmm… adult qualities… adult qualities… Well, I’ve been sleeping through the night and using the potty for a super long time now – I wipe myself and everything! I find teenagers annoying. I’ve known my husband now for nearly a third of my life (met him when I was 20) and been married for almost 6 years. I sleep in the guest room when I visit my parents. I have a son. I pay bills (legit, expensive bills). I clean things that people under 25 don’t realize need to be cleaned like light fixtures and grout. Do these things make me adult enough to be “30?”
I’ve been mentally keeping a list of the things that I need to do and not do in order to start feeling more 30:
-Stop whistling. I’m not good at it anyway and I can feel that it makes little wrinkles around my lips. I guess I’m okay with getting lip wrinkles, but I’d really rather not rush them. Thinking about lip wrinkles seems like a very 30-year-old thing to do.
-Exercise. Other than when I gained the “freshman 15” (or in my case, the freshman 30), I’ve never really had weight issues. Having said that, I know that being healthy is more than just a number on a scale, so approaching my 30th birthday I decided to do Yoga again. I did 19 minutes of yoga while listening to the instruction of an airy-voiced lady (who had a very distracting camel toe) on Hulu. Done and done! 30-year-olds have to work hard to stay fit, so I guess I may end up doing another 19 minutes at some point in the next decade.
-Sing 90s music really loudly. Since Asher is still so young I think I’ve got a little while until I really need to perfect my outdated music singing, but my 30th birthday is, I think, a great time to start promoting outdated music. I truly, madly, deeply do… [plan to] do that thing [I] do… lying naked on the floor… Oops! I did it again!
-Is 30 old enough to poot loudly in public? No. Probably not. I guess I’ll hold that one in for a while longer.
-Choose something to obsess over… like chocolate. Sure. I’ll go with chocolate. Forreal… I loooove chocolate! I live and breath chocolate! I’m not talking about PMS cravings or birthday party goody bags, I’m talking about turning every conversation into a joke about chocolate until people catch on and start buying me ironic home decorations about chocolate and womanhood.
-Get glasses?
-Sit on the points of my butt bones. This is very important to me. You see, when I was a little girl, I think I was about 6, I remember sitting down on the toilet to pee and was horrified to see my thighs flatten as I rested them on the toilet seat. My eyes got hot, my heart raced, and I sat there alone, pantless and crying because I did not feel old ready to become a woman. I don’t know why I thought that flattened thighs meant that I was a woman, but to me in that moment, flat thighs were epitome of womanhood. My childhood was over. No more playing with dolls and not knowing how to clean up spills, suddenly I was in a world of flat thighs, high-waisted jeans, and scrubbing grout and I wasn’t ready. Fast forward to today: I am no longer afraid of ‘turning into a woman,’ I do still notice my thighs flatten on chairs. In order to maintain some control over my aging body, I will henceforth sit on the very tippy-tip-pointy-points of my butt bones so that my thighs will never flatten. I may live the rest of my life with teeny little bruises on my buttcheeks, but I swear I will have the legs of a 6-year-old FOREVER! Because THAT is what is important.
<I accidentally posted this before I had a chance to write an ending. Since Asher thinks he too should tap his fingers all over the computer any time I so much as look at it, I typically write Blog posts in sections when I have a few moments to myself. The last time I was working on this I accidentally pushed “publish” instead of “save draft.” I accept this. Sorry there is no wrapping up at the end. Maybe I’m too old to tie all of my thoughts together? Next time.>
Time for another healthy dose of videos of our super cute little boy! Here goes…
The child loves to dance! He dances any where any time, all day every day!
This is not the best video. I set the camera on a shelf and didn’t realize that we were almost out of the shot until after it was done. Here we are playing on the bed and practicing counting. Asher counts in German! It doesn’t matter how he is asked to count something, he always starts out with “eins…” He doesn’t always follow up with “zwei, drei…” yet, but he does sometimes.
Here I am trying to get him to show me all the doors in the house (see next video) as he tries to see the back of the camera. I guess he is old enough to understand that I am filming or taking photos and wants to see every one RIGHT away… which sometimes means that I just can’t capture video or take a picture. Please also note that you can hear him grinding his teeth. He had stopped doing this for a while but now does it again. It makes me crazy!
Last one! This was from a few weeks ago when he started saying the word “door.” Now he points to every single door that he sees and says “dooh!” Let me tell you, there are a lot of doors in this world when you’re looking for them.
This was published on another one of my Blogs: I wrote it in 2012 and published it one year ago today. April 6, 2011 was the due date for our first little One. Naturally, when I saw today’s date I thought about that baby and went back to read what I wrote on what would have been that baby’s first birthday. Loving someone who is important and irreplaceable is worth a hurt heart. God is good. Life is good.
(An expression of loss.)
Today, I’m not busy.
Nothing going down: Nothing going up.
Nothing going on or off at all.
Something in my heart tells me that today should be a Day.
Today should be a real Day with Thoughts and Feelings and a Heartbeat.
Why have you gone, Day?
(Today is gone.)
Oh that I would light a single candle. A candle for you(,) Today.
Today(,) people walk past me.
Today(,) wind blows behind me.
Today(,) music plays without me.
Today(,) the sun shines only when I blink.
Today(,) food falls through me.
Today(,) I am not awake: I am not asleep.
Today(,) You are gone.
Today(,) You will never be again.
I am hurt.
I am angry.
I am confused.
Time does not heal all wounds.
Time only teaches how to live with the deep wounds that days…
cannot…
will not…
…cannot fill.
(Time, be in my arms.)
(Time, stay with me.)
(Time, don’t leave me.)
Time, you were stolen from me.
My memory grows weak.
My tears dry up.
Should I, can I, move on?
What is life, if I move on?
What is death, if I move on?
Come back Memory, come back Tears.
Come back Thoughts, Feelings, Heartbeat.
Flicker softly.
Sway gently.
Grow quickly.
Laugh heartily.
Die abruptly.
Die before You hear my heart beat.
Die before Your body feels pain.
Die before You take a breath.
Die before Your eyes meet mine.
Die before Your heart aches.
Die as I go breathless.
Die as my eyes bleed for You.
Die as my heart breaks.
Die as my Love drips out.
Pieces of chopped liver.
Perhaps I was not ready.
