Aunt-tea feels

I drink tea several times a day, and in the winter, basically all day long. The baby (who is four now and I'm supposed to be calling him the kid or the big boy now, but I keep forgetting) likes to open the microwave for me when it dings--he just calls out "your tea is ready!" From wherever he is and comes running. I won't let him pull the hot cup out yet--it's still over his head and I don't want him burning himself--but he loves being helpful with this thing I do every day.

A few weeks ago, when it first got cold, the kids wanted cocoa when they came in from playing after school because their faces and hands were cold, but we didn't have any, so I made them "milky sugar tea", and they loved it.

So I made it a few more times. 

Then yesterday, they were out of milk and I'd already claimed the jug for garden purposes, and A1, the older one, just looks at me with his little Farkle-from-girl-meets-world face and goes "can we have tea with just sugar then?", and how could I say no? I just wanted to squish his little squishy face, I was so proud.

Their sister, who is 15 started drinking tea before I moved up here, and it was one of the things we bonded over when I moved up here. But this is directly because of me--and now I really want to squish his face. And when the not-baby got up on the table and stuck his face into my mug, took a deep breath, and went "mmmmm, smells GOOD!", I just can't handle it. Their parents both drink coffee--this is me, rubbing off something good and healthy and me on their impressionable, thick, hard-to-get-through-to minds!

I just can't even.

Babysitter Tales: Acorn

I took A2 with me to the bus stop to wait for A1. I'm starting to really like the walk-- it's only maybe two blocks, but that's a long way for a two-year-old to walk, so we walk slow and he looks at a lot of things. It's so strange being with someone so young--everything really is new for him!

We've developed this habit that we'll get to the bus stop, say hi to all the other parents and younger siblings, and then wander another block up so he can see the flowers. He sticks his face right in there and snuffles them like a puppy, and touches all the petals, and sometimes picks one or two. And then we wander back and he picks up interesting rocks to throw at the shrubs or to line up in neat little lines while we wait.

This time, while we were there, he found an acorn. A big fat one (not the one above, but one like it!), more than an inch long. He loved it, and carried it around while we waited. I've never seen acorns so big--Florida acorns are all tiny and hard and round, and even the bigger ones are sort of lean and narrow, but this one was like the iconic acorn, fat and stout and big. I bet it had lots of acorn meat in it.

A1 came and he sort of hugs everyone and then sees what the baby is carrying in his sticky little hands. He found the acorn and asked what it was, which was startling; I forget that five isn't that much older than two, really, and things are still new to him, too. I explained how it's a tree-seed, that there was a little baby sprout in there that would come out and grow into a little tree.

A1 declared "We need to plant this."

So we went home, and as soon as he'd put up his school stuff and gotten a drink of water, we found some sturdy sticks and dug a hole in the ground, and planted it. He watered it from his own prized Avengers cup--and he's not one for sharing, so that's even bigger a deal than you know--and covered it back up.

Every say since then, he comes home from school and goes to that corner of the yard behind the basketball hoop to check on it, and waters it with his own water if it looks dry.

I think if ever an acorn had a chance to be a tree, it's that one.

Babysitter Tales: Leaves and Rocks

For the first few hours of babysitting duty today, I was watching only A2. When I got there, the back door was open, blocked with a baby gate, but he kept going over there and looking up at the trees, so I decided to let him go out. When we were there, he was showing me how to ride a motorcycle, soundeffects and all, he noticed all the leaves on the ground.

He asked "Was tha?" and I told him that they were leaves, and that they came from the trees over their deck. He thought it was hilarious that leaves fall, and he kept looking up at the ones still on the tree, laughing, and then looking at the ones on the ground and saying "Byebye!" when the brushed them off.

After crashing his bike a few times, and telling a spider to come down from it's web in a tone that implied it shouldn't have been up there to begin with, we went down to the back yard. Their house is on a hill, with the back yard much lower than the front yard, and we spent about an hour or so walking up and down the hill while the baby dug up rocks to throw. He loved the way the little ones rolled for ages, but he loved to heave the big ones even though they didn't go as far when he threw them.

After he started getting tired, he found a little place where the roots had made sort of a step on the hill, and he sat on it, and dug around at the rocks there. He handed some to me, saying they were for certain family members, and then threw them all away. Then he found one that had a shiny patch on it and gave it to me--when I had to put it down to use my hand for something, he picked it up and put it back into my hand and told me to hold it. Then he found a big square rock, about the size of a deck of cards, with a yellow side and a brown side and one end green with moss, and he loved it.

He sat right next to me, scootched forward so his feet were on top of mine, and told me some story that I couldn't understand at all, one that involved a lot of gesturing in all directions, pointing to his square rock, laughing and saying the few words I understand that he says--things like "Mommy" and "Daddy" and "Momom" and "Dadda"--and hitting the stones together, just the corners, and looking at how the minerals in them sparkle.

He brought the square rock back inside to show his parents; whatever that story was, it was important!

I'm amazed at how early the storytelling is kicking in!