Eric is awesome. The church is going well, and he looks after kid, family and home stuff in my absence without even blinking an eye. I've been on multiple field trips with the boys this month- the post office with Isaiah, the zoo with Micah and the farm museum with Elijah. Eric covered two school events- kindergarten tea and recorder recital tomorrow. Micah is doing REALLY well with his piano lessons, and Elijah picked up the recorder pretty quickly. Micah was the only one of the three boys to memorize all of his verses in Sunday School and received a prize along with 4 other children last Sunday (Isaiah and Elijah were just one verse short and seeing Micah receive a prize totally motivated them to try harder next time).
Which leads me to a great story. Sunday afternoon after the church picnic, I walked into the entryway of our house to see Isaiah crying (not unusual) but it was unusual that he didn't seem angry or hurt. I asked what was wrong because Elijah was standing there too, but Lij just shrugged his shoulders and went back to playing with the water balloon he was concentrating on tying. Zay sobbed out... no...thing.... shoulders still shaking.
I gave him a minute to catch a breath while I set my stuff down, looked back and Lij one more time who looked back at me blankly and shrugged. I asked Zay if he could tell me why he was crying. Here's what he gasped out between sobs.
"Mommy, I couldn't ask for a better brother than Elijah" and he collapsed into my arms still holding back sobs. I looked at Lij who promptly started talking.
"Mommy, Isaiah brought home the etch-a-sketch from church because he thought it was a prize. I told him it wasn't to keep so I took it back over to the church. I told him that I'd get him a real prize (dum dums and Twizzlers were the real prizes) and bring it back over to him. Well, when I took the etch a sketch back, I forgot to get him a real prize and so when I got home and he was sad I gave him my lollipop."
Isaiah again, clutched at me and held up the peach Dum Dum for me to see, proof of his brother's generosity.