Tales Of A Rambunctious Almost-Kindergartener

I bought a little doll house hutch at Michaels several months ago with a particular wall-hanging idea in mind for my craft room.

However, like many of my 'projects', there are usually a few stages to the process, and this one needs a coat of primer as it's first step.

While I was working on my entries for the fair this year earlier this Spring, Judah would keep me company in my craft room which was where he first discovered that little hutch, and for weeks afterward I would find it in various places throughout the house, Judah having incorporated it into his play.

After rearranging my hutch for Easter, for instance, I turned around and found this, and upon closer inspection, I learned why

Apparently hutches make really great manly cases for guns and ammo.

:: :: :: ::

Judah has observed things around here for long enough to know that if I need to remember something really important, I stick a post-it note reminder somewhere I know I'll see it first thing in the morning.

Bright pink and green post-its can be found around my house at any given time with reminders or notes from Jeff, usually on my fridge, my bathroom mirror or my desk.

And recently, after asking me what they all said, I found this attached to my desk.

Awww... a love note from Judah.

Not sure what it says, exactly...as he's only just gotten a handle on writing his name and all the letters of the alphabet, but it was the thought that counts.

I sure do love that boy.

:: :: :: ::

Jeff's oldest brother-in-law has been living in a Veteran's home for the past couple of years. He has had kidney failure for many years, and requires routine dialysis and other careful monitoring of his health.

Recently, he was moved to the hospital due to a serious blood infection that nearly did him in. Being on dialysis puts a person in a high risk category for these things, and there have been several occasions in which we've nearly lost him, but by God's grace he's pulled through.

Last month, I had just returned from a weekend getaway with my college roomies when we learned from Jeff's sister that he was in a coma.

She was sick and dealing with some serious health issues of her own, and unable to get any clear answers to her many questions from the overworked staff there, so we offered to go to the hospital on her behalf to get a better picture of what was going on and to pray over him while we were there.

We arrived at the hospital in a rather somber state, thinking it might be the very last time we saw him. To our absolute astonishment, he could be heard talking to one of the nurses as we walked down the hallway towards his room, having just come out of the coma. He was still very ill, but once again the Lord had spared his life.

After our visit, we walked through the beautifully landscaped grounds around the hospital to where we'd parked our truck.

Our desert-dwelling sons were enthralled by the bunnies as well as the ducks and geese which could be seen meandering the green lawns.

We saw several mama geese with their little rows of goslings swimming in the various ponds we passed, as well as a duck with her fuzzy little ducklings in tow. So cute.

This was a photo I took on my cell phone, trying to capture this scene, where the mother goose had just gotten up off her nest (by the pipe works on the left) for a bite to eat.

As Jeff and I stood marveling at our brother-in-law's recovery, the kids were gazing at all the wildlife in this serene environment, and Judah suddenly darted off across the lawn in pursuit of the goose. Usually they just run from him, and he enjoys the thrill of the chase.

But this time, just as I was about to warn him, "Careful, they'll bite!" he gained on the unsuspecting creature and managed to grab it from behind!

Funniest thing ever!

I tell you, I just never know what that kid is going to do.

I think he was just as surprised as the goose, who suddenly arched it's neck around trying to defend itself, and Judah dropped it and quickly retreated.

It skedaddled off in the opposite direction, incensed.

I only wish I could have captured a picture of what happened next, and the expression that crossed Judah's face when the male goose began to chase him, head bent low, hissing and flapping it's wings at him.

We've never seen Judah's little legs move so fast...nor the look that passed over his face as he glanced over shoulder while running to see if it was gaining on him.

Jericho, too, was forced to run, though he was laughing his head off the entire way.

Boy did we get a good laugh out of that!

:: :: :: ::

Recently, we had to take our boy in for his pre-K physical, after which we had to get the rest of his paperwork into the school for registration.

My husband, who is a Middle School teacher, has a long-running tradition in which he cuts his hair into some crazy style for the last day of school. This is always shaved off before Church the following Sunday.

When Judah learned Jeff's haircut was to be a mohawk, he begged to get one, too.

I agreed, only if he would get it shaved off before Sunday as well.

However, we were invited to a birthday party at the home of one of Jeff's best high school buddies, and Jeff wanted Judah to keep his mohawk just until then so his friend could see it.

Which meant two weeks of church services in which Judah sported that hideous haircut. **cringes**

As a mom, I've always tried to stress with my boys from an early age that they will be taken more seriously, look more respectable and, when older, be much more employable if they are clean-cut.

Mohawks totally go against my grain.

Anyway, he was also sporting this same haircut on the day we went to the doctor, along with a host of scratches from our puppy and scabbed over knees and elbows because of his newish bike.

I felt like his newly assigned doctor, who we'd never seen before, would get a rather inaccurate first impression of him as some little thug-ruffian, and stressed on the way there that he needed to be very polite and answer all the doctor's questions.

Unfortunately, he'd not been anticipating having to undress and put on the hospital gown, and that immediately got his nose out of joint (figuratively speaking, anyway).

He was particularly mad that I had to tie a bow in the back.

"I look like a GIRL with that dumb bow!" Clearly not a happy camper.

I knew then it would probably be a good idea if I just kept to myself the fact that his Star Wars underwear were peeking out the back of the gown.

The hairstyle was already a strike against him as far as first impressions go. We didn't need a meltdown to go along with it.

Later, as we turned in all his registration paperwork, he could barely contain his excitement when the lady in the office said, "Well, Judah, you are now officially a Kindergartener!"

Once again, however, his disposition changed when he learned it would be weeks before school started.

**sigh**

At least he's excited about starting school.

He's just sure it's going to be all fun and games, because big brother 'gets' to go, and he's just sure he's been missing out all this time.

And for now, I think we're just gonna roll with that.

:: :: :: ::

I know it's probably hard to believe (after some of the stories I've recounted about Judah here) that Judah is usually a polite, obedient and well-behaved kid. Not perfect by any stretch of the imagination, but he makes friends everywhere he goes, gets along well with others, and I often get compliments for his good behavior and his manners in public.

It's taken a lot of training to get him to this point, and of course there are still the occasional times in which he throws caution to the wind and does crazy stuff out of the blue, but for the most part he's a well-behaved, if rambunctious, little boy.

Nevertheless, to keep things real, I'm recounting for posterity the following tale:

We've been having a little problem around here lately with Judah taking things that don't belong to him.

His grandma's old cell phone which had been recently replaced with an upgrade (which I didn't recognize and thought he'd stolen from one of the youth group kids recently at our home for a party) was recently found stashed under his bed, along with a bunch of coveted Lego sets and Star Wars figurines which Judah had gone pillaging through his brother's bedroom for while big brother was gone to football practice.

He'd been disciplined repeatedly for this behavior and we thought we had a handle on it up until this latest incident.

Yesterday he came up to me and asked, "So when do I have to apologize to grandma for stealing the cell phone from her?" This was one of the terms of his discipline, along with grandma's enlistment to read him the riot act when he does.

I replied gravely, "Probably tonight. You do know, she's going to be veeeeerrry disappointed that you stole from her. Daddy and I are very disappointed that you stole from her... and from your brother. Stealing is a SIN, Judah. Sins are what put Jesus on the cross. It makes us very sad that you continue to steal and sin when you know that it's wrong."

Of course I said all these things with a grave tone to my voice, and he was squirming and avoiding eye contact, switching from foot to foot as he stood in the kitchen where the conversation took place.

This may sound overly harsh to some, but I was doing my best to use the opportunity to put things at his level of understanding, and incorporating in some other things he'd been learning recently from the Bible and Character training stories we read to him at night.

Instead of being repentant, however, he tried to use the feeble defense, "People do it."

To which I replied very soberly, "Stealing is a very bad thing to do. And just because other people do it doesn't mean it's okay for you to. Any which way you try and look at it, stealing is a sin!"

Then, I dug out the old tried and true reasoning of generations of parents in my family, "If everybody ran and jumped off a really high bridge would YOU do it?"

I mistakenly assumed this would bring to mind the big bridge we'd seen from the freeway a couple of days before and marveled at how high it was and that it had to have a high fence along both sides because if a person fell off, they'd die.

However, my question had the opposite effect. It stopped him dead in his tracks and his eyes jerked back to mine, "Wait...is jumping off a bridge a sin?"

Epic parenting fail.

I suppose I should have used "cliff" or the "Empire State building" instead, especially so close on the heels of yet another exchange Judah recently had with Jeff:

"What is it called when you tie the rope around your feet and jump off a bridge?"

In an effort to avert catastrophe, Jeff replied, "It's not a rope they use...it's a special kind of stretchy cord...and it's called Bungee jumping."

**Spoken in breathless excitement** "I wanna go bungee jumping...and grab the soda out of the river."

You may recognize this gem of an idea from a soda commercial on TV in recent months.

Marketing agencies and companies, in their bid to incorporate 'extreme' stuff into their commercials to make them extra appealing and 'cool' to the younger generation have no idea what mothers of impressionable 5 year old boys like mine suffer as a result!

I believe Judah files all these ideas away as things he's going to try the moment his mom turns her back. (In fact, I'm thinking that I should probably go gather up all the accessible bungee cords I've seen in the garage and the one used to hold the BBQ cover in place just as a precaution...)

Trying to head off at the pass any of Judah's harebrained ideas, Jeff replied, "No-noo-noo...that's not a good idea."

"Why? It's too dangerous for kids my size?"

Jeff nodded. "It's even too dangerous for me."

With a gleam in his eyes he said, "I can't WAIT to do it when I get big!"

This kind of thing strikes fear into my heart, especially when my sweet, adorable little 5 year old, who it seems was just a baby in my arms last week, informs us with that same gleam in his eyes after the Osama capture, "I wanna be a Navy Seal."

I knew it! I knew his fearlessness and all his daredevil antics were leading up to something like this.

Pray for me.