By the time the fourth child passes milestones, they often slip past without much fanfare. Not that they don’t get noticed at all, but it is a little more muted.
Still, in the first nine days of Advent it’s been fun to watch Michael really connect with this season for the first time. I realized that the concentration of spring birthdays in our household means my other children have been pushing three before they had their first real Advent experience. So with Michael I’m seeing Advent in a whole new way.
First, a portrait of Michael. He wants to do everything, and he gets very bent out of shape if he’s passed over. He’s beginning, finally, to attempt to talk a little bit. Not spontaneous words, but increasing willingness to repeat (or attempt to repeat) words. Some spontaneous signing. He’s also toilet trained, as long as you don’t put any clothes on his lower half–even to the point where he’ll tell me he needs to go. I’ve never toilet trained in the dead of winter and it makes me wince, but it doesn’t seem to faze him. I’ve targeted the week after Christmas for knuckling down and making the transition to toilet-trained-while-clothed. And he’s singing “Twinkle Twinkle Little Star,” sans words, with enough pitch/rhythm accuracy that we can identify it. (“Is that normal for a two year old?” Christian asked. “I don’t know,” I said. “That’s not one of those skills they put on developmental charts.”)
Lately people who know Michael’s propensity for destruction through exploration have been pointing me to that U. of Iowa study about messy kids being smarter. It was really about babies smashing food, but it sounds good, and I made the leap as quickly as everyone else. The kid is impossible to keep out of anything: the iPad, the Advent calendar, the refrigerator, the pantry where the graham crackers are kept (on the up side, since he can get into anything now, maybe I can move them back to their old location on the lazy susan and free up that pantry space at last). You can see the intelligence in his eyes, just before he pounces. He’s a whirlwind, into everything. He knows how to turn on the computer speaking voice from the “unlock” screen,” and twice we’ve caught him almost purchasing something from iTunes via the iPad. The difference between him and Julianna, who has always, from age two to age almost-seven, been content to sit quietly and rifle through books and cards, is quite profound. She just never did get into things the way he does.
So it’s been really, really fun to watch him make Advent connections. I kept him (and Julianna) home while Christian took the big boys to get the Christmas tree on Saturday, because it was just so brutally cold. But when it was finally time to put ornaments on, he was so excited. He had to do it himself, and he had to point every one of them out to me afterward. Making cookies was Heaven. I get to measure spices, snitch batter, AND spread icing and sprinkles? And last night, when we bundled up and rang the Salvation Army Bell at Bass Pro, he was the cutest thing, walking up to people and ringing the bell at them, grunting for attention.
I’ve enjoyed every Advent since we started using Advent calendar activities to keep us organized and able to make time for service in December, but it’s different this year. I thought it was because I’d finally mastered the appropriate balance of activities, and I’m sure that’s part of it, but I think it has at least as much to do with watching Michael process it all for the first time.
Kathleen M. Basi 