Of course, I see him as the immediate answer to negotiating all things electronic for me. If I follow his instruction: “Give it to me”, he can work wonders with my iPad or iPhone. The kid is a whiz when it comes to figuring out the battery life on my iPad, knowing how to access and organize music through Spotify and in general knowing how to read any set of instructions and put almost anything together. I’m not just talking about Legos. However, he rushes through putting Legos together like he wrote the instructions. To suggest it is beyond me leaves him smiling.
He received a couple of Lego sets for his birthday and had them assembled in no time flat. Of course, he says the kit can be disassembled and reassembled to make about a dozen different things. It doesn’t matter to him that he has to take apart one project to create another.
I watched him assemble the orange truck and his little fingers were moving 90-to-nothing. I’m not sure he even had to think about where the pieces went or which pieces went on first. The airplane on top of another airplane was a creation he came up with on his own. He brought that with him from Cat Spring to show Granddad.
I have a roll top desk that I’m planning to send his direction. The General says we no longer have room for the desk. I opened the roll-top desk up so he could see inside. He was ecstatic. At a moment’s glance, he had a plan for organizing his pencils. He said they could be organized by color and explained to me where everything would go.
One day this week, he looked into one of the kitchen drawers at our home and asked the General, “Do you remember when I straightened and organized this drawer for you?” Without waiting for an answer, he went on to add: “It looks like it is time for me to do it again.”
Jake has the gift of story-telling down to a fine art. Trust me, the kid talks nonstop and he has never met a stranger. There is something about Jake’s persona that reminds me of Garrison Keillor talking about Rhubarb Pie and the dark Lutherans in Minnesota.
With the same kind of charisma that Keillor uses to communicate the benefits of Rhubarb pie, Jake can make you believe that Boysenberry jelly can turn a piece of white bread into the most scrumptious desert in the world.
As a statement of fact, he announced yesterday that bread and Boysenberry jelly makes him feel good. The kid is a ham. He looked at me and smiled. In looking through some of my files on the computer earlier this week, I found the first week of daily blogs that I posted in April 2014. Jake was four-years-old at the time. We were keeping the kids for a week at Camp Lejeune, N.C. One of the blogs I chronicled related to the experience of going out to dinner with the kids.
It was like negotiating a 3 – ring circus to get them to stop playing and/or fighting to get into the car, so we could go to dinner. At any rate, when we were finally seated in the restaurant and Jake had access to bread, he said with the sweetest look on his face: “Bread and butter makes me feel good.”
I had shown him that article this week. He was referencing bread and Boysenberry jelly and making sure that I had heard that it made him feel good. Actually, Mrs. Holly at church is the person who introduced Jake to Boysenberry jelly. She was distributing jelly to folks as a gift and he was given the Boysenberry. The next time he was at church, he went up to her and said: “Mrs. Holly, I really need some more of that Boysenberry jelly. It was really good.
Jake’s modus operandi is that everyone is his friend. He is not at all shy and he is routinely polite. Add a smile and “thank you” and he has a Boysenberry supply for life. As for me, I wouldn’t know a Boysenberry if I saw one. The same is true for Rhubarb pie. It is all Greek to me.
Jake and his dad left the house at 5:30 a.m. They’ve done that every morning since Christmas. With the exception of yesterday afternoon, they’ve gone back every afternoon. Big Louie has carefully avoided Jake’s gun. Interestingly, William was in another deer blind on Friday and he got a view of Big Louie. Of course, by family agreement, (aka – a directive from his dad), Big Louie was off-limits for William. William already has a shoulder mount in their home. This one, along with a freezer full of venison, is reserved for Jake. Louie just needs to show up at the right time.
William and Jake have a great relationship. While Craig was deployed for most of the first half of Jake’s life, William – as the older brother, tried to fill the gap. They have always been close. Becky, Jenna and William headed back to Cat Spring yesterday afternoon. Both had to be at soccer practice. Jake and his dad will go home later today. Hopefully, he will have accomplished his dream.
The days since Christmas have flown by at our house. There is something about the sound of silence after the family is gone that is a little unsettling. In addition, Aunt ‘Dre and Uncle Kevin have done most of the cooking. Trust me, it doesn’t get any better than that. For lots of reasons, it has been the best Christmas ever.
I don’t take for granted that our family is close knit that love one another. That is the kind of family I grew up in. Sadly, I know too many other families that don’t share a sense of closeness or even a healthy respect for one another. It is very sad; particularly at Christmas.
All My Best!
Don