Fate

We went to soccer practice on Saturday this week instead of Friday due to a scheduling conflict. We had to leave much earlier in the morning so the kids were pretty quiet in the backseat. Bohdin had his eyes closed and the sun was just up past the trees in the horizon. When his head was facing out the window he could see through lidded eyes the variation from red to darker the sun was making. At one point he said "The pattern was like a big red book and the sun turned the page.". A minute later he said "The next page was when the car zoomed by. It was like the wind turned that page.".



When Bohdin was about Cora's age we visited his cousins. The eldest was around the same age as current Bohdin. We took a kid's game to his house and tried playing with him and his younger brother. He ended up losing and crying. I swore that I would not have a kid like that. I would do a much better parenting job. In the intervening years I've learned not to make such judgments. I've also learned it is easier to parent a hypothetical child than an actual one. Last night Buddy and I were playing a board game with Bohdin when he started crying about halfway through. I talked to him about it later. He was just sad that he wasn't winning. Five and a half years later I now have the child whom I smugly thought I would never have.

When we went to Costco after Bohdin's soccer practice we found a large Playmobil farm set.  It had the hay baler that Bohdin wanted and  house with accessories that Nyla wanted.  We decided to get it as a joint Christmas present.  The kids both saw it and wanted to open it immediately upon returning home.  We said no.  It's a Christmas present.  The next morning Bohdin asked to borrow a light.  Buddy said that Bohdin was going to use it to look for his present so I went down to the basement and found Bohdin with a pair of scissors about to open the box.   We talked to Bohdin again about needing to wait.  Finally Bohdin came up with a solution.  He asked if we could use that present as an advent calendar and get one thing per day.  It seemed like a reasonable solution.  I know he wants the hay baler to be item #1. I'm hoping he will be so occupied by his birthday presents that he'll forget about this.  That seems really unlikely though.