Baby Brothers are a Gift!

I remember the faces of the baffled people when our prayers were answered. We had a boy. The school jumped off the ground. Karla was elated. Sr. Lucy was amazed. We were all so grateful for the tide of change that came to our family at the blessing of a boy. All children are a gift from God, but when one has persevered so in childbirth as my mom did, to try to find a boy baby in the seeming sea of girls, it is remarkable. I am still grateful and in awe at the both of them having blessed our lives. Thanks mom, for my brothers! Happy Birthday Ton!

Today is an overcast and muddy day.

It certainly reminds me of the many muddy days we spent at Baisley Park. I remember, with fondness the glistening eyes of my baby brother running into my arms and full of mud, with a froggypoo in hand. Dirty days they were. I learned much about the happenings of the wildlife in Baisley park, through the eyes of the nature boy that God had blessed us with. Many days I just knocked him on the ground, just to exercise my loving authority, as I saw it. My favorite memory was that of the St. Bernard dog that caught Abby, between the trees, just outside the baseball diamond and the tennis area. We were on a hill, horrified and sure that we were about to see our baby devoured by that huge beast, only to see the dog, lovingly showering him with salivation. We showered him, thusly ourselves, I am sure. Grandma Delaphena always warned us and Grandma Ruth, to stop kissing those boys. We didn't listen and now, I am glad that we didn't. I have many a treasured memory of kissing my baby brother.

Tis the day before the boys were born! "Make a wish"

We stayed up all night. I never get tired of talking about how we waited for those boys in our lives. We laugh that before the boys we lived in a convent. All girls and all girly stuff. Dad tried to pretend that we were boys and Dad called us boys. But, there were no trucks and no cars and no catchers' mits. We did stuff that was boyish like climb trees and walked on the ice with Dad, but we didn't have any boys in the house and it was felt.
November 24th, we were all crammed into the little bedroom in the upstairs looking out at the stars. They called cousin Karla over. That meant that mommy was going to the hospital. Lets' wish hard on the stars. We stayed in the window and wished and wished. It has to be a boy, we said it is coming on the 25th like Christmas. It has to be a boy. We wished and wished and sang and wished. Some of the girls say they didn't wish for a boy. Cousin Karla told us to pray for a boy and I was with her. Enough of this all girl existence. That was one of the most memorable nights of our lives, next to cousin Karla's wedding. We got our wish! Not just one boy, another boy came after him. What an amazing providence and gift. I do love the remembrance of every one of the precious gifts that my parents gave me. Going to the stork's house every year, just to get me another playmate. But when they got me the boys, it was best of all. I am not kidding. We begged Grandma to give us Michael and I kissed the mole on the back of his head and prayed to God that He would give us a boy for all of the crying we were doing to get that boy. God did both. He gave me my own brother and He gave Michael back to us later on, as well. Talk about answered prayer...

Brotherly Love!

When I think about brotherly love, the only picture in my mind is the 2 little brothers that I had and their precocious little ways. What one didn't think of, the other one did. We would never have even thought about some of the antics that they got away with, or didn't get away with, as the case often was.
Dad had nothing to compare their brotherly love to.
There was a way that we were all brothers, and there was something most sacred about the love that those fellows shared. They were cherished by us all and we loved having them, but they were not impressed with eachother like we were with them.
Everything that they did awed us, because we hadn't seen boys in our family before.
I love you Ton' and I know that this is a very hard season for you. God can fill every deep grief. Learn to pray when you think about the pain that you feel for not having him here.

We are all missing Dad today and we are all missing Ab today, but there is a special way that, only Ton' is missing them both. Man to man.

I am so proud of the beauty of the time that Ton' and Mom and Jo spent in Dad's last days. I was pregnant and couldn't enter into the beauty of the sacred sitting by the river Jordan with Dad. They will always have that memory. God comforted me with the beauty of his face, when I went into the room upon his departure. I imagine that Grandma and Ma and his mother, under God, had planned a special surprise party for him and he had the face that said, "Is this for me? Is this the heavenly welcoming party for me, who had mustard seed faith?"

I am so comforted, when I remember the expression on his face and the fact that there are no wheel chairs in heaven. I will see my daddy run, like he did on the tennis courts and to chase a hoodlum off of the corner. Or the time I saw him chase our stolen car down the block when a hoodlum stole it. It will definitely be worth it all, when we see Jesus. His face seemed to say that to me. I am grateful to have gotten to see it.

Froggies, warts and ABBY-JO. I am remembering the hiking that began with Abby and Jo through Baisley Park. They would traverse, high and low. Places that I wouldn't dare go. I guess, that once they had lived through the St. Bernard incident there was no fear of any dog eating them up. They came home with pet frogs and other Baisley Park wildlife seemed to follow them. We called Ab the nature boy, because he felt more comfortable at Baisley Park in the weeds and the shrubs than in the house. Toady warts and yucky icky stuff was always in their hands and all over them. They seemed to have a relationship with the wildlife out there at the park. Only now that I have free time at work to make friends with the wild life can I have some understanding for this kind of relationship with wildlife. Back then we only teased them about the warts and the frogs and the relationships with the birds.

My other blog is fiction about my relationships with the wildlife around my job.Robins don't lean
Like AA Milne, I am trying to share with my own little ones my fictional thoughts at work.

Who bumped his head on the radiator?

I have a little 5 year old now who has been walking around with a mysterious knot on his head. He gave me the long winded explanation of how it happened. But I wasn't there so I cannot picture it. First it was blue and then it was just a bump. Big sister, Elyse took care of that boo-boo and she's become quite adept at kissing boo-boos in this season of our lives.
I remember a little brother of mine, who will remain nameless, so as not to shame him. Let's just call him brother. I don't even remember what age. He was just belly high to me at that time. and he came running and put his head into my stomach and he was crying and crying and screaming that he had hit his head on the radiator. I could not dislodge him from my stomach. When he came out of my stomach we watched as the knot on his head grew big and purple, right before our eyes. We were all scared to death of what was going to happen. No parents were home at the time and we knew that there was going to be a price to pay. Intimacy with one another has a cost. The cost is that we went through those kinds of terrors together and lived to tell about it. We loved one another through those hard things.
I have so often bumped my head and had to run to God in just that way and everytime I put my head into the Lord's belly to receive grace and mercy and forgiveness and kisses for the boo-boos in my life, I remember that He is so much more compassionate than I am. I know that one of the best feelings in my life is the feeling of a little brothers' feeling better after the boo-boo has been kissed away. God does that in a spiritual way and when I bend to pray, I imagine His big belly couching my big boo-boo and a big blurple bump on my head, like you know who :).

Today was the day 39 years ago

That we introduced the precious "BOY" to the Great Grands. We woke up in the morning and said, Good morning,"boy". Kissed and hugged him profusely and adoringly.
Can you all believe we got a boy from God? was the question that we kept asking each other. His name is Tony, everyone kept telling us.
We were truly Thankful to God that year except for the couple of us who hadn't prayed in unison with us for this boy. Amy was cutesy and had a raspy voice and Jo was sweet as a button, but now we had "BOY". An amazing wonderful day.
It was only months before that we were begging Grandma Ruth not to send our first boy cousin away to adoption. Can we have him, please? We cried and cried. She said you all are crazy. We were.





When we went to Grandma Delaphena and Auntie we said, " We want you to meet "The Boy". Don't cry, boy, she's our grandma, don't cry. Grandma said you girls stop calling him boy or he will be 40 years old and you will still be calling him boy.
God heard our prayers and gave us a BOY. I love you Tony "Boy".
My children tease me and say that "when you get old, mommy, we are going to come and visit you and you are going to say, is that you Tony, boy?" I act like he's the only baby I know
XXOOO