An End and A Beginning

The pool came down for the season today. Just one of those blue Intex inflatable ring pools....but it's a lunker, 18 ft across and 5,000 gallons....it's certainly large enough to cool off the Leo clan (and occasionally some guests as well). This is the second season we've had it up...it's been just about the best $200 bucks our family has spent. We love this thing. I was a little sad to watch it drain out....The kids had a blast in it this year. Gavin went from being a little sketchy about it in June to turning into a fish by August. Ivy spent most of her pool time clung to Mama's side, but she dug it too. Sometimes I'd get home from work, walk through the door, and find the house empty but could hear the faint laughter coming from the backyard. The family would already be swimming and I pretty much wouldn't break stride as I rushed across the deck and down into the backyard to join them. One of our favorite new traditions that we've started this Summer was to have a pre-dinner swim, then head over to the raspberry or blackberry patches and eat a few handfuls of berries before going in and getting supper going.
I'm super psyched for Autumn, but it was a little sad to see the "Big Blue Bag Full of Water", as Gavin calls it, go down for the year.

Also today, Gavin and Ivy participated in a long standing central Massachusetts tradition today....It was their first lunch at George's Coney Island hot dog stand in Worcester. C.I. has been a staple of the Worcester County food scene for nearly a hundred years. I'm pretty sure that you need to prove that you've eaten at Coney Island before they issue you a drivers license around here. It's a total experience: HUGE neon sign to greet you on your way in. The inside looks like some Eastern European detention center holding room meets 40's art-deco. The booths are wood, and there are THOUSANDS of names (including mine) carved into them, generations of customers..."vandalism as census" I've heard it called. They pretty much only serve hot dogs. There are a few other sandwiches on the menu, but you rarely see one served. The way to get your dogs is "Up", that's C.I. lingo for mustard, chili sauce, and onions. And chocolate milk....you GOTTA wash them down with chocolate milk. The kids aren't quite ready for the spicy of chili and onions so Ivy took hers plain and Gavin has 2 with ketchup and mustard, and chocolate milk, of course.
Coney island is a place where everyone from this area should have a memory of. I have several. In High School I found a wallet with not ID in it, but containing $300bucks taped to the underside of one of the tables (no kidding). I brought Chrissy there when we were up from college visiting my folks. When Gavin was born, my folks came to visit in the hospital and brought a dozen or so C.I. dogs ("up", of course) with them...we stunk up the whole floor with that chili and onions....great stuff.

It was nice to share that experience today with my family. They are such a blessing to me. It'll be a few years, but I'm psyched for the day that Gavin decides he's ready to take his dogs "Up". He may need an extra chocolate milk to wash them down, though.

That Guy

Chrissy and I married young. Well, young, I guess, by current standards. I was 21 and she was 20. We were married for 10 years before we had our first child. In that decade, we saw scores of friends, friends of friends, co-workers, acquaintances, etc. get married and move into parenthood. We had a front row seat for watching "cool" people turn into moms and dads...and, from our perception, those titles were impossible to ever be combined. We watched husbands and wives start to dress alike. We witnessed the transformation of "funny single guys" into passive "yes dear" husbands who were afraid to sneeze for fear of reproof by their wives. We saw all kinds of kooky stuff go down as we watched from afar and secretly longed to be them. Well, at least longed for the parenthood part.
But the one thing that happened with pretty much everyone who had kids was that they talked about their kids all the time. All the time!!! ALL. THE. TIME. "This one walked", "that one said this", "She rolled over", "he pooped in the potty", "she has 9 teeth", "this one ate a dime", "This one loves books/legos/cars/dolls/blocks/penguins/vegetables/sleeping/not sleeping/whatever".....it made me crazy. Shut up about your kid. I pretty much can't stand your kid. I'd probably like him more if you'd stop talking about him for 2 seconds and breathe. I'd have conversations like this with my wife:

"Chrissy, I don't want to go to the _________________ (insert location/activity/event) because _________________ (insert name of annoying parents) will be there and so will their wiener kid ___________(insert name of wiener kid) who they never shut up about. Every time I see them these days it makes me want to ________________ (insert creative/humorous self injury) and bleed out all over the floor."

I vowed never EVER to be like these guys when I became a parent.
Now...you all know how this plays out, right?

yup.



I am That Guy


and I love it.

love it

LOVE. IT.

I get it. I didn't then, but I get it now. These people talked about their children all the time because that became their whole lives and the sum of so much of their love/energy/time/money/mindspace. The successes of their children became their successes, their children's failures and frustrations were theirs. As their children were discovering the world, so were they. And not in some unhealthy, vicarious way, but through the eyes, mind, and heart of a parent who has dedicated themselves fully to the success of their child.

I LOVE talking about my kids. I talk about them all the time. Because that's what I've got in my life. My Kids. My Wife. My God. Those 3 things are the subject matter of about 97% of what I talk about in casual conversation. I'm sure that there are people who hear me and think about me what I thought about those parents back before I was one myself. And I'm fine with that. Just like they were fine with it back then.

3 John 1:4 reads:
"I have no greater joy than to hear of my children walking in The Truth".

That verse is right on.

When I hear Gavin walking through the house singing a hymn to The Lord. When he recited his catechism during family worship. When he initiates prayer for a need that arises. There truly is no greater joy than to witness that.

Ivy will be there soon, and when she is, I'll tell you all about it.


Whether you want to hear about it or not.

:^)

Gavinism Chapter 2

Communication has always been important to Gavin. He has had a knack for expressing himself from even before he could speak. Chrissy and I taught him a bit of sign language as a baby, and he got to a place where he had 50-60 signs down and could form simple but complete sentences...like More, Water, Please...stuff like that. On a couple of occasions he even told us, through sign, that he needed a new diaper. It wasn't so much that we put tons of effort into teaching him as much as it was that he just took to it really easily. When he started speaking, it was the same thing. He'd come up with really interesting ways of describing things or feelings....he'd speak in simile. Or he'd describe, in crazy detail, a situation he was in or something that he saw that day. We kept a journal for a while of stuff he came up with. Some kids gravitate towards building things, or art, others towards sports or role playing, Gavin seems to gravitate towards books and words and communication, which makes for some hilarious and poignant stuff at times, hence my chronicling of them here in "Gavinisms". Let me set the stage for our second chapter:

Time: 6:45am
Place: Living Room Couch
Who: Gavin and Myself

Gavin and I had just finished reading a few scriptures before I left for work. I hugged him and as I got up to find my keys/wallet/phone/glasses, he initiates the following exchange:

Gavin: "It's like a frog in a bucket"
Me: "What's like a frog in a bucket?"
Gavin: "Sin"
Me: "What do you mean?"
Gavin:"It's like slimy and hard like a rock or like metal"
Me: "Interesting. What's it like when God forgives our sin?"
Gavin: "Like mashed potatoes. Or like medicine, tickly medicine all over your body."

He's got it. Mashed Potatoes. God's forgiveness of our sin is like a big steaming delicious plate of mashed potatoes. Comforting. Wonderful. Reliable. Forget "Chicken Soup for the Soul"...I'll take "Mashed Potatoes for the Soul".

Best Simile Ever. Nicely done, son.

Garbage Post

Every once in a great while, usually on a Saturday, our family will wake up and indulge in a breakfast concoction that is equal parts wonderful and terrifying....the garbage omelet. In a garbage omelet, anything goes. Literally. Some leftover chili? toss it in. that 1/2 inch of salsa at the bottom of the jar that you can never quite get a chip down far enough for? toss it in. Leftover broccoli? fried onions? stewed tomatoes? 3 day old Christmas ham? toss it in.

That's this blog post. The Garbage Omelet Post. A little bit of everything.

The past few weeks have been kind of hectic. It included a 10 day trip to New Jersey to visit Chrissy's family, Ivy's first birthday, and a day trip or two. Here's some photos and commentary of what's been going down:

Ivy's First Birthday



Birthday Balloon Girl



Ivy is wearing her present from her Mommy and I: a necklace with one pearl. We're going to give her one pearl every year for her birthday to add to a necklace. This year, we added some little diamond-looking things to jazz it up a bit.

One Candle for One Year



and Who doesn't like presents?



Next up: Party's at Playgrounds!!





Monkey Bar Madness



My Girls




Gavin and I checked out the Riverside Park Classic Car Show:



a sharp '63 Chevy



Gavin literally has these EXACT 3 cars in Matchbox. Same colors, too. We line them up, just like these.



The Rambler was like the mini-van of the 1950's.


AND....on the way home we stopped by the "Warbirds over Woodstock" R/C Air Show:





"O.K. for takeoff"





You've got to be a little bit crazy to fly around in this thing.



Future Pilot?


Well, that just about brings us up to speed on what's been happening around here. The Garden is still producing, lots of 'maters, TONS of cukes. The peaches were wonderful and the blackberries are HUGE, but kind of tart.

Later this week is the "birthday gauntlet". Chrissy's birthday is 8/13 (AND she's a twin :^), mine's the next day on 8/14, and my mom's is the next day on 8/15. Should be fun.

One last item: The Lord has really been drawing me to Psalm 55:22 lately: "Cast your cares (burdens) on The Lord, and He will sustain you. He will never let the righteous fall." Sometimes I hang onto the dumbest emotional and Spiritual baggage instead of turning it over to Him. But I'm learning. And He's faithful. And patient. Very Patient. Thankfully.

He WILL sustain you.

Gavin's First Song

So, I have this second-hand guitar, a total beater, that we have strung and sitting on a stand in the living room. Gavin loves to take it down and strum it. It's a full size guitar, so he basically stands up and plays it like an upright bass most of the time. Or, he'll sit with it on the couch and crank out some noise. Yesterday he wrote he first original composition, complete with chords that we hashed out together. Here it is, chord chart and all:

Animals Go Around Town
words and music by Gavin Leo
composed 7/17/10

D...............A
Animals go around town
D..................A
Animals drive around town
D...........................A
And they pick up a toy dragon
D............................A
And they pick up a toy spinning wheel
D...................................A
And they drive around in a toy pick-up truck
D..............A
Animals go around town
D.................A......D
Animals drive around town


Ladies and gentlemen, your future headliner at the 2021 Newport Folk Festival.



Also, today was Gavin's first ever treat from the ice cream truck:



Cotton Candy Swirl!!!

Ivy just kicked it in the swing....

Shorn

We loved the tussled mop-top, but it's too darn hot in July. It was time for them to go. We set the kid up on the kitchen counter with a barber's cape and a Tootsie Pop and daddy got to shearing:

Before



After



Gosh, he looks like he's 15....where does the time go?

Growth

It is absolutely amazing to watch things grow. Like most everybody else, we have a door jamb with increasingly higher lines and accompanying dates scrawled on it, marking Gavin's height. I measured him recently for the first time since late April and he's a full inch taller. Unreal. I both love and dread seeing my children grow. Tonight I was reading books to Gavin before bed, it's one of my favorite parts of my daily routine with him, and my mind briefly flashed to the future and a time when I no longer read to him before bed...I never want that time to come.

However, a time that I LOVE seeing come is the time of year when the garden starts to really pay out for all the work that has been put into it. We're just about in full swing here. Everything is paying out except the 'maters; which just started ripening a day or so ago, and the blackberries and blueberries, which have about a week to 10 days to go before first harvest....and apples and peaches in late Summer/early Fall. Everything else is spitting out the goods like crazy. Last year's gardens, for most folks in this area, were downright awful due to a crazy rainy and cold June. Everything was rotting on the vine. This year seems to be making up for it big time.

Gavin and I took a spin through the yard early this morning before the girls got up. here's what we saw...


A view from the back deck


Peppers-a-Plenty


Future salsa and red sauce


Last week we saw stems of 12 or so cherry tomatoes on-the-vine going for $3.99 at the local market. Craziness.


"Daddy, there's a squash in there *THIS BIG*!!


Come on down to Cucumber City!!


We've been hearing reports of neighborhood cats disappearing around here. We're pretty sure that the pumpkin plants have been eating them.


Future Jack-O-Lantern






Blackberries
Blueberries
Granny Smith Apples
Peaches....won't be long now.



Here's what today's yield ended up being. With all the cukes we made......



Our first ever batch of homemade pickles! We used a recipe that we got from a friend who got it from a friend. Going to give them until tomorrow to let all the spices and juices mingle, then tear into them. MMMmmm.

When you spend time working your land, you really see why God used so many planting/gardening/growing analogies in His Word. You spend so much time cultivating the soil, planting the seeds, watering the seeds, weeding around the seedlings, pruning the plants, protecting against varmints. And only after all that is done does good fruit come forth. Our lives are so much like that. God cultivates the soil of our hearts, in doing that we recognize the need for Him. Then seeds of Salvation, Grace, Love, Mercy are planted. The seeds are watered through discipleship by studying His Word, hearing the Holy Spirit, and sitting under wise teaching. Weeds of sin are removed while areas of our lives that will inhibit us from producing good fruit are pruned. We stay close to Him, the Master Vinedresser who keeps us protected from evil and on His path of righteousness....THEN, good, Godly fruit is produced in our lives. He is so wonderful.

Psalm 8 (New King James Version)

1 O LORD, our Lord,
How excellent is Your name in all the earth,
Who have set Your glory above the heavens!

2 Out of the mouth of babes and nursing infants
You have ordained strength,
Because of Your enemies,
That You may silence the enemy and the avenger.

3 When I consider Your heavens, the work of Your fingers,
The moon and the stars, which You have ordained,
4 What is man that You are mindful of him,
And the son of man that You visit him?
5 For You have made him a little lower than the angels,
And You have crowned him with glory and honor.

6 You have made him to have dominion over the works of Your hands;
You have put all things under his feet,
7 All sheep and oxen—
Even the beasts of the field,
8 The birds of the air,
And the fish of the sea
That pass through the paths of the seas.

9 O LORD, our Lord,
How excellent is Your name in all the earth!