Skywards

For us, the hardest part of parenting is enjoying our children. Not that Gemma and Joshua are hard to enjoy. But it's hard to clear out a little room from all the other important stuff--the focus on their characters, the discipline, the training in the admonition of the Lord, not to mention the running of a household and the bringing home of the bacon. When all of that is going on, it's easy to forget that these are two terrific little people who delight us. And who delight in us, too.

Since the diagnosis, it's been a lot easier for me to enjoy these kids.

One such moment:

Bryan brought home a lot of SWAG from Alabama. (Laura guessed it. Alabama??? Why would missile war fighters gather in Alabama? Aren't the country's principle military space programs concentrated here in the Springs? But, yes, we do have some stuff going on in Huntsville.)

SWAG is Stuff We All Get. I don't know if this is a real term, or just one that Michael invented on The Office, which is where I heard it. But I like it. And I'm going with it.

He was without shame in collecting it. Hit every table every day, and as the tables were hosted by various military hardware manufacturers hoping to get the next rocket booster contract, there was a lot of nice SWAG. Laser pointers. Mini flashlights. A lot of calculators. Pens, pens, pens! One of which is in the shape of a rocket and the body of it has a light-up lava lamp thing going on. Canvass tote bags. Stuff, stuff, stuff.

I asked Bryan if anyone was looking at him askance as he "collected." He said, "Everybody was 'collecting'!"

The best of the SWAG were foam rockets with rubber bands on their tips. We took them outside last night and started launching them. They got some serious air. Gemma loved chasing after them and bringing them back to launch again. Joshua held on to one and was determined to fire it. He couldn't do it because the rubber band is heavy duty, but he tried and tried and tried. Then he switched to a different model of rocket that did not have rubber bands and started throwing them, making explosion noises every time one landed. He's 3. I think I'm proud. . .

After a while, it wasn't enough simply to send them skyward. We started launching the same time to see whose went the highest. Then, yes, you saw this coming, we started launching them at each other. Specifically, Bryan fired at me and Gemma swooped in to pick them up. I told her, "Here, Gemma, it's Mommy's turn."

And she said, "No, I'm on Daddy's side!"

Side? There are sides? And you picked him? Where's the love, Gemma?

I was fired upon many times.

Then I cut her fun short and got to the rockets first. Picked them all up and stowed them in my cargo capri's pockets. I had 4 rounds and a target smiling back at me.

"Give something to shoot at!" I told him, thinking he might assume a spread-eagle kind of pose.

Instead, he turned his back to me, canted his hips, looked over his shoulder, then kissed his fingers before using them to pat his butt.

I lost it. Could hardly fire, I was laughing so hard.

This eventually gave way to simply lying on the grass, the 4 of us, watching Bryan launch the rockets above us.

One of the kids on our cul-de-sac drove by in the midst of our activity. "Drove," even though she's 9, in a plastic, battery operated Cadillac Escalade. Gemma and Josh love to drive with her, too, usually. That evening, Gemma looked at her friend, then looked back to me and said, "This is a lot more fun than driving in a plastic car."

Amen.