Brains.

I laugh sometimes at how different my boys are from me. If I had to put myself into a category, I would definitely be the "creative" type. I have instant access to my creative side, and writing stories, poems, songs, music, etc., has always been second nature. As my oldest boy is growing up, I am finding that his brain works in ways that are a mystery to me.

Yesterday was Luke's first piano lesson. We decided to put our young five year old in piano at this particular time to see if it would push his budding brain to think in ways that he's not accustomed.

For example, yesterday the baby was crying in the crib. Luke heard him, checked on him, and went to tell me."Mom," he said, "Michael is crying. His face is pressed against the parallel lines in the crib."

Yup. The parallel lines. Luke is just...just...literal. He colors, puts together jigsaw puzzles, and builds with blocks and legos. And.that.is.it. For all the storybooks he's been read, for all the free time to play, he has little to no imagination. For him, all he knows how to "play" is building and solving.

What?????

So, to spark a little right-brained action, I thought piano would be the perfect challenge. I should have expected it out of him, but he seemed most impressed, looking at the keyboard more thoroughly, at the patterns the keys made on keyboard. Three black, two black, white, etc. And to think I thought piano would work the OTHER side of his brain, here my kid is looking for patterns. I should have known.

This is all confusing and new to me. My mind doesn't work this way, and I definitely get frustrated at times with the lack of "play" that my oldest should be able to do. But, we're trying, and maybe this will be a step in the right direction. Get it? Right Brain?

What type of learners do you have in your home?

Busy Bees.

Today marks the start of week #3 at Mark's new job. I can't recall time moving this quickly in a very long while. The days have flown by, with the list of things to do growing exponentially each day. Mark is working hard, with him already have worked into the night, or over the night a few times, and this week marked with two separate depositions that will send him across the state and overnight at the beginning of the week, and six hours away to a separate state and the end of the week. This is different for us! And...what they say about corporate law (as opposed to government law...) is mostly true, we've found. Here we go!

Transitioning back to a familiar area has been the easy part. Of course, I have to get used to having the grocery store more than a half hour away, but I can cope with that. Now on our plate is another thing brewing. We have a house, you see, one that's being rented for the time being. But, along with transition comes change, and more excitement in the air. Sometimes our prayers are answered so definitively that it's difficult for me to imagine how people maneuver through life without prayer. Oh goodness, life isn't dull, is it?

And for today? My boys are building blocks. I'm in cahoots, but that's all right.

(For the record, I'm using the word "cahoots" totally incorrectly, but I like the way it sounds. Understand?)

The View From Here

We are now only a short few days away from saying goodbye to the Great White North. Permanently. Since we have three boys, packing and cleaning our house takes a massive amount of patience and planning. Because Legos, socks, toast crust, and hot wheels have a talent of finding their way into every nook and cranny, we have successfully "shut down" multiple rooms in our house and are down to bare bones living.

This means that the computer is on the coffee table, we have one couch, paper plates, and a box of cars for the boys to play with. We have to make it until Friday like this, and even though we're restless and bored, I'll take this any day over the stress of packing all the "putsy" stuff that finds its way unaccounted for after all the furniture has been packed. This time around, nearly packing and moving experts, our furniture and boxes are ready and waiting in the garage for a fast and easy load into the truck.

I'm ready to go, in every regard. My planner is already being filled with activities for me and the kids, and events that I don't want to miss this fall. We will be on the move, busy, involved, and relieved to be in a less rural territory with more options for young families. We will be especially grateful to be back in a familiar diocese. I could really go on and on about that, but I'll refrain for the sake of Charity.

I am so, so, excited. You don't even know ;-) .