Thu., Jan. 31

We used the beginning of the year to start bearing down on teaching Justus the months of the year, days of the week, etc. This is the first time Justus has his own calendar in his room. It was a big deal to him, today, that it has been the last day of January.

Jeremy, who knows not-too-much Spanish, likes to throw around “uno,” “dos,” “tres,” etc., and often when he is talking about two of something, he says, “Dos nachos.” Tuesday night Justus was struggling with how much Split Pea Soup he should eat. Jeremy had told him, “Three more ‘man bites’ (as opposed to tiny ‘little-boy bites’ Justus would like to get away with…).” A few minutes later Jeremy checked up on Justus’s progress: “How many have you had, ‘uno’?” Justus said, excitedly, “Dos AND nachos!”

Chewie has a short time to grow into a big dog. He eats, plays for two seconds, sleeps, poops, and then starts the cycle over. It is so much like having a human baby again in that way…! Chewie is so heavy! He’s not dependable to make it from upstairs to outside before piddling, so we carry him down the stairs and out the door to the potty spot. It is not safe, he weighs so much! [There are plans in the works to adjust the kennel situation so we no longer have to carry him downstairs! We won’t be able to much longer!] Jabba, on the other hand, Mr. Seven Pounds, eats hardly anything (typical Maltese), and goes a zillion miles an hour all around the place. Well, as excited as Jabba is about having a canine friend in-house, when Chewie is awake Jabba absolutely runs CIRCLES around Chewie. A couple days ago I was watching them play together. In the time it took Chewie to take two of his floppy, huge-puppy-paw-steps, Jabba did three 360-degree spins! Jeremy, when noting this major difference said, “So, one of our dogs is a Tweaker, the other is a Pothead.” Ohhhhhhhh MAN! LOL! NNNNNNNNO!

Jeremy worked a half-day today, so we had a lovely rest-of-the-day together as a family. N & J DEVOURED the books we brought home from the library on Tuesday. We’ll go pick up more tomorrow!! ‘We’ skipped J’s nap, so while our spare ribs supper was cooking, the five of us (Elaine’s day off) played Boggle and Ker-Plunk together. [Ker-Plunk is a bit like Pick-Up Sticks, except the sticks are stuck horizontally through a hollow, 3”-diameter vertical clear-plastic tube; then a handful of marbles is placed on top of the sticks. The sticks are then carefully pulled out one at a time, and whoever makes the fewest marbles fall is the winner.] After that, I coached Natasha through making Spaghetti, also, for supper … like a ‘side dish’. I know I don’t need to state whose idea THAAAAAT was, considering the Spaghetti-lover to whom I am married! So, my two least-favorite meals were combined tonight. Eesh… Good thing I had a hearty lunch! (I planned that.) After supper Justus and I made Snickerdoodles for the Lock-In … that actually turned OUT since we followed the recipe accurately. Now therrrrrre’s an idea…. Natasha taught Jeremy the two chords she knows on the guitar, and they strummed a few other chords as well, using the chord chart. Sweet!

While e-mailing Summer about “The Golden Rule” it reminded me that I heard/read somewhere that every belief system in the history of the world has included some form of the following command, “Don’t do to others what you don’t want them to do to you,” but only in Christianity is the command given in the positive form, “DO to others what you want them to DO to you.” Is that interesting to anyone but me?

And, one more little tidbit. Last night around 9:30 Jeremy was perusing our copy of Songs of Faith and Praise, a songbook we miss very much. (This congregation currently uses a different, older songbook.) [I needed a song out of SoFP for Ladies’ Day, so Jeremy brought it home from the office where he’d been using it for this-and-that.] He found a song we didn’t know, and began sight-reading it. He said, “Ohmygoodness this is a great song. We HAVE to learn it right now!” So he ran upstairs to made copies of it, knocking on Elaine’s door on the way by: “Mom! Come learn this song with us!” Justus hasn’t been quite AS interested in singing as Natasha is … well, singing out of the songbook, that is. I’m convinced it’s because he’s not a fast reader yet, and that as his reading improves he’ll enjoy songbook singing more all the time. Lately the singing in our church meetings has been strong enough on the soprano/lead part (in part due to Natasha’s contribution!!) and on the alto part that I can drop down and sing the tenor part – in the tenor range when the song is pitched correctly, which they usually are lately! (Yay!) Fascinatingly, even though Justus can read neither the words nor, certainly, the music, at times when I am singing the tenor part on a song he ‘knows’ – from having heard it a number of times before – he sings the tenor part with me!!!!!!!!! SO, SO GREAT!!! So, last night when the five of us sat down to learn this new song, Justus joined right in, though he could only listen to learn it. Jeremy and I took turns singing the lead until Natasha got comfortable with it. Elaine sang the second alto part; I sang the first alto part when not singing the lead. Then, toward the end when Jeremy switched down to the bass and Natasha had the soprano part down, I bopped over to the tenor, and felt so surprised to notice those last few times through, that Justus was singing THE TENOR PART with me!!! (blink, blink) It’s like it feels completely natural to him … like it was born into him. … “Ya think??!!” ;) !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! lol!!