Appreciating the Little Things...

Aileen

Here daddy’s new nickname for her is his little “sugar puddin”.

She smiles and looks wide eyed at her brother when we pick him up from preschool as if she is so glad to see him.

When Avery is sent to the time out corner, Aileen crawls over to him to keep him company.

If Avery is crying, Aileen shows empathy and cries with him.

She enjoys laughing at her brother when he jumps around swinging to play tennis on the Wii.

Averyisms

“Are pears succulents?”

(While jumping over Aileen’s baby toys he has strewn across the carpet) “Hey, watch THIS!  You may be impressed!”

(Avery said this on his birthday) “Today should I get taught how to use the vacuum since I am five?  A REAL vaccum?”

Avery bit his graham cracker in the shape of what he called a “dinosaur tooth”.

Noticing that he had holes in the heels of both socks he was wearing, Avery laughed and said, “When you buy me socks, you just waste money, right?!”  He knows that he wears out his socks quickly.

“Super-Tic-Tac-Toe” – A game invented by Avery with several lines going horizontally and vertically, and in which he gets to decide how many X’s or O’s one has to get in a row to win based on how well his turn is going.  Guess who wins?

Avery - “Hey, Mom!  We both have earplugs!”

Mom – “Mmm?”

Avery – “We both have earplugs.  See?” (Avery folds his earlobe into his ear and then starts chanting loud shouts to see if his “earplug works”.)

Avery - “Mommy, can you give me a license?”  (He wants to be able to drive himself places that he wants to go instead of where he is forced to come.)

“Mommy, I put GermX all over the floor that way there would be no bad germs on the floor.”

Avery grabbed a feather out of his craft box and proceeded to “write like a pirate”.

Avery (while in the van on the way to school) - "What does Jesus look like?"
Mom - "I don't know, honey.  I've never seen his real face.  However, I do know that I have Jesus in my heart."
Avery - "Can my heart print out a copy?  I want to know what He looks like."

Stories

We often will pray with Avery in the van before heading off to his preschool.  One morning, we were asking God to help Avery to be a leader that makes good choices.  Avery interjected in the prayer “Yeah, like not playing the bad guy/good guy game at school cause we can’t use guns at school…..(pause, and then said in a whisper) *I’ll just use missiles.*”

Clint performed a magic show for Avery and his friends at Avery’s 5^th birthday party.  The kids listened and interacted really well.  They volunteered to help with tricks, laughed at Clint’s jokes and even said “Abracadabra” in unison.  Their little faces were cute when they were amazed by the tricks and called out “How did you do that?!” as if they truly believed in magic.  Afterwards, Avery and his friends enjoyed cupcakes with M&Ms on top.  They even tried to say “Abracadabra” to make their M&Ms disappear (and were disappointed that their “magic” words didn’t work).

Sometimes Avery is so excited about what he has created at preschool, that as soon as he gets into the van to go home he pulls out his papers and projects to show me.  In fact, he is so proud of his work at times that he asks if he can hold his papers/projects in his hands on the way home (instead of putting them back in his backpack).

It is a treat for Avery to get to attend his friend’s birthday parties.  At the last one he was invited to, his mom told me that he fell off a bunk bed and bit his tongue.  Then, she laughed and said that he told her “My body miraculously heals itself”, reassuring her he would be OK to keep on playing.  When I asked him about it later, he said that other kids were climbing up the ladder when they weren’t supposed to, and he told the grown ups to give the kids a “time out, but the grown ups didn’t listen”.