normalcy is grand

Yesterday we spent so much time in the car and ran so many errands that knowing we had to run to the Commissary to grab a few items didn’t even faze us! And we were both pretty excited that today was Tuesday, which meant gymnastics. BB loves his gymnastics class and really looks forward to it each week.

So after a morning spent homeschooling we loaded into the car and ran over to Cove. Brooks is extremely outgoing, which is why when he claims he’s shy it cracks me up. He can make a friend anywhere he goes. He’s made a few good friends at gymnastics and looks forward to hanging out with them as much as he does attending the class.

After gymnastics Little B had a playdate, we ran to the commissary to stock up on food for our Spring Break trip to San Antonio, and came home to work on D.Brooks latest care package.

There is something about assembling care packages for D.Brooks that makes me feel somewhat better about him being so far away. I love sitting down and writing him a letter. Sappy and long. But then there’s the care package. A simple box that with a few thoughtful items and home baked snacks screams “home” in every sense of the word.

I can’t ever imagine all the things Brooks goes through. The sacrifices alone are overwhelming when I think about them. He doesn’t get to experience the comforts of home. He misses sports practices, events, trips. His schedule is never his own. And that’s just the tip of the iceberg. Brooks would never complain about that kind of stuff. If he’s homesick I can decipher it by the tone of his voice or the things he doesn’t say, as opposed to him actually telling me. My point is, that although I’m told from time to time that my sacrifices are big too, I just don’t buy it. While Brooks is on the other side of the Earth, doing who knows what, I’m in our home, comfortable, spending each moment with our child. I don’t miss the practices, the events, the trips. I make my own schedule. I get to kiss our son every night and listen to his nonstop chatter and see the gleam in his eye when he’s being silly. I see him grow and change,  notice the subtle changes in his likes and dislikes.

So when we put our care packages together we’re trying hard to bridge that distance. To bring a piece of ourselves and our home right into his Chu “over there.” Because we want to make it better for him even if he’s not asking us to. Maybe, I’m trying to make it better for myself too. Because I know he sacrifices so much because of us. And knowing that is sometimes too much to bear.

So after our Commisary trip The Boy and I were both looking forward to finishing up the latest care package. We filled it with homemade snacks, art projects, and homey things for his room. Little Brooks got it in his head that Daddy could use a banner in his room and so for art today I pulled out some items so he could do just that.

Here’s the banner, in all it’s glory, currently tucked into a box, ready for shipment first thing tomorrow.

Hopefully it’ll be a speedy delivery!

in which the boy manipulates wire and creates mini-sculptures

Last week I saw a blog post about creating sculptures out of wire. I thought for sure The Boy might like to try his hand at it. When I set the wire in front of Brooks he ignored it. He took the paper sitting to the side of him and began to draw a monster. He then proceeded to cut the monster out and find a good spot for it on the already crowded side of the fridge. This is his latest thing… drawing something and then cutting it out and taping it or hanging it somewhere else.

So much for that, I thought to myself. Except that while Brooks was working on his monster, I was messing with the wire. I like doing art with Little Brooks. Watching him is interesting enough, but a lot of the times, I’ll confess, I’ll pick out an idea because it looks like fun to me.  After he found a good spot on the fridge for his monster Little B came over to where I was working at the dining room table and watched how I was manipulating the wire. He sat down with a length of it and began to twist it and turn it, all the while biting his tongue in concentration.

Which as a side note, always reminds me of his father. When I first met Big Brooks I noticed that he had this habit of biting his tongue when he was concentrating on something. And Little B does the same occasionally, though never to the extent that his Dad does. When I see little things like that, small glimpses of my husband in my son, it makes my heart ache in such a raw way. Genetics are crazy. I love seeing that, little pieces of him still here, even when he’s gone.

After a while he’d gotten a good hand for some of the ways that he could manipulate the wire. He then sat down and created mini-sculptures of twisted and bent wire.  They turned out pretty neat and he was quite pleased with the result.

He then sat down and made a monster face on paper and used the drawing as a reference for making the monster out of wire. It turned into a collaborative effort since he needed help with some of the pieces. BB is looking forward to sending a few of his mini-sculptures to his Dad in the next care package. I’m hoping he lets me keep one at least!

The rest of our day was nice. The weather today was so mild that we spent a good hour outside this morning, playing catch and setting off rockets with an air pump. After homeschool we headed into Copperas Cove for BB’s gymnastics class. He was so excited to get to class the little stinker opened his car door while I was still driving and almost gave me a heart attack. After a play date and a milk run we came home and worked on our wire sculptures.

 

Tomorrow we have absolutely nothing on our schedule. I think this calls for a Pajama Day. We may end up looking like crazy homeschoolers tomorrow, especially since we’re going to give the bike riding another try, in our pajamas no less. Wish us luck! We’ll probably need it!