Prodigy

We had ward conference today and it reminded me what an excellent father-in-law I have as we were able to sit and listen to him teach some of the members of his stake about the importance of filling our lives with things that invite the Spirit in order to tune out the noise of the world. One thing that stands out to me that I can do to invite the Spirit is seek out and invest in relationships with good people. Part of that is letting you know what's going on in my life.

We are just getting over a cold which has passed through the family. The last couple of nights have been a little disorienting as children have actually slept through the night! We wake up and it's dawn ! Weird! I guess that's only mostly true - I've learned not to count the obligatory get-up-and-give-Matthew-a-bottle-once-or-twice interruptions as such.

Emily gets tired and frustrated a lot when everyone in the family has a cold for over a week and her husband is gone a lot. She claims that she has to clean up after me as much as she does after her kids (I think if she would just do it a little slower, I could clean up after myself). And then there's the pattern where I (gallantly, no doubt) do the dishes - then she does them again. She watches Pride and Prejudice when things get a little down at home. She loves reading stories to Matthew after the others have gone to bed (don't worry, they get theirs too)--right now she's giving him his "art lesson" - reading A Picnic with Monet from the Mini Masters series. Her other encounters with the arts include playing piano for the ward choir, teaching piano lessons, and editing family photos. On the side, she's an art critic specializing in fridge-style crayon-on-paper sans frame.

I have spent a lot of long hours up with kids as well, but I must confess that I have also spent some long hours awake because I'm so fascinated by the fifteen or twenty interviews and documentaries on Stevie Ray Vaughan posted on YouTube.com (not to mention so many performances). His life story and talent are pretty inspiring.



I've also spent some time learning about Kim Peek, the fifty-four-year-old inspiration for the film, Rain Man. Quite possibly the broadest-deepest collection of readily-accessible data in any human mind! A couple of quick facts:

• He remembers about 98% of everything he ever read (and most of what he hears, musicwise) and reads books by simultaneously scanning one page with each eye.
• He can tell you the zip code of any city in the country and probably name the streets around your house. Uncanny.
  
  
  
  

Hayley enjoys calling her relatives on our cell phones and singing and telling stories like "We have a new boy at our school, but he knows everything we know because he did it at his old school." She also commented on the academic quality of her preschool: "Not a lot of learning at my school. We do a lot of playing...learning songs...making masterpieces..."

I'm not sure just what Nathan's problem is lately; he's really into ignoring us. He doesn't act angry or disappointed, he just doesn't respond much when we ask him things. Tonight, for instance, we noticed that he was sitting reading a book by himself, which was nice. Then, a little while later, he came in and announced, matter-of-factly: "I ripped my book - big rips and little rips." Then he does odd things like color on the wall, throw blocks at Hayley, push Matthew over, push his dishes off the table, and deliberately pour out his water on the floor. He doesn't seem to be making any particular statement or complaint with these things - sometimes he is frustrated with something, but other times he's not. He's a great little kid. He loves to tell me things (like just now, actually he spontaneously said "Daddy, you the best pall EVER!" and gave me a kiss) and ask questions and find out what I'm doing. At this moment, he says, "I want to type. I want to type 'J'." hjhjgjkgh kgjh "Does that spell 'J'?"

Nathan is going to help me write about "My Brother Matthew":
Matthew is crawling. Matthew is playing with shoes. Maybe I can go see how he is doing and you can type. "How are you doing, Matthew? Good? Okay. Me and Dad were just typing about you when we were done typing about me. Okay? Goodbye!" Matthew goed away. I want to write 'Matthew goed away!" Let me type Elmo. When do we get to the end?

It's time to go play Keyboardorama with Elmo. Thanks for listening to our family ramble.