Speaking of time, Jason is now the ripe old age of 33. I always enjoy the seven month period where he is a whole number older than me. He continues to improve on his crotchety old man-isms in keeping with his lifelong dream of one day owning a rocking chair and cane and handing out tiny bags of pebbles to small children who dare ring the bell of our unlit house on October 31st. He likes to think that, despite that, he will be able to keep up with all the tech and gadgets of the youths of 2050. However, since he's already writing off so many things these days as things not worth his time [read: any piece of tech that seems silly to him and every social media platform newer than Facebook], I fear he is destined to the same inevitable fate of everyone else who reaches the 65-year-old mark: technological obsolete-ism. It's okay, love, I'll be right there with you and we will be blissfully content with our outdated device/knowledge and only a little bit bitter about how we ended up in the exact place we promised we would never be.
Sometimes I feel like I need to make an actual effort to stay connected with the times [how old does this make me sound? ugh]. I do eat avocado on toast, but I've done that for two decades. I try not to grimace when I'm in a store playing pop music. I even joined Instagram a long, long while ago, but then I never did anything with the account because I got overwhelmed by how pushy and creeper-ish it felt to go and "follow" people without them expressing interest in being followed by me. Sometimes I open up the app. I get up the gumption and decide to give it one more go. But then I see the tiled page of random pictures and videos of strangers I don't know/don't care to know and realize I'm still not ready. I'll get there one day. My pre-33rd-birthday bucket list: Be brave and follow more than 2 people on Instagram. Take that, my crotchety self!
Moving on down the line, we come to Lucas. Now, talk about a kid who is older than his years. This kid. He keeps growing and maturing and amazing us with his sheer awesomeness. Among the things I find most impressive about him is all the things he can do with a writing utensil. He loves to write and draw. We gave him a notebook to doodle in anytime he's in his room and it is a treasure trove of awesome. It has hand drawn maps of countries, street maps, art, connect the dot pictures, color by number pictures, random musings, and keys and legends galore. It is amazing. I love getting a glimpse inside of his quirky little mind! His handwriting and spelling seem so beyond a just barely 4-year-old. He can write small and neatly, or big and kid-like. He likes to spell everything correctly [he can spell legit words like excitement and scratching and everybody and jumper and meanwhile and birthday... and the list goes on] but also loves to make up new words in other languages. I taught him how to play Hangman the other day and gave him easy words like "Big Bear" and "pickle." And then on his turn he did "asaot" which apparently is "a made-up Chinese word that means lizard" and "T'dontengi" which, obviously, means "help" in "made-up Indian." What am I supposed to do with that? I love my boy so much.
Finley is his own little man. He is 16 months of energy and grunts and drool. He loves dancing if he even suspects there might be something musical in the air. He cannot get enough of Lucas, which Lucas enjoys 10% of the time, tolerates 30% of the time, and gets annoyed by 60% of the time. He is much rougher than Lucas, though this may just be the lack of awareness that comes with being a baby. We will see how that plays out. I suspect it will continue on as it has been going... I find it interesting how much Lucas as a baby has translated to Lucas as a kid, and I am quite looking forward to seeing if this will be the case for Finley. Because, if so, our house is going to be SO lively. Finley is not making much effort in the talking arena. He is in a really awesome book phase. He thinks the only kind of bear is a panda bear and does not recognize a normal old brown bear as a bear. He is obsessed with food right now. He is still pretty lacking in the hair department and every other day I find Jason sadly/encouragingly stroking Finn's hair, quietly coaxing/asking it to grow more. A dad and his boy, bonding over their under performing hair follicles...So, this is us. We're all getting older and whatnot. Life continues to happen even when blog posts don't. Go figure.
