Sibling Love

Today as I was cleaning up the bedroom, Anneke laid down on the bed next to Jonah with a stack of books. He listened attentively for about ten minutes and then drifted off to sleep. It was so sweet to see them both cuddling there together. I would have gotten a picture, but then Ani couldn't resist giving him a very enthusiastic snuggle and woke him up.

More Sibling Love

I am so happy to have to kids who love eachother and much as Ani and Jonah love eachother. I'll often be driving along with the two of them and suddenly hear them both cracking up at eachother. It is such a beautiful sound.

I have often tried to do something special with Ani -- either leaving Jonah at home with someone or when he's asleep. I'll say "So, now we can do something with just the two of us!" and she'll say "But where's Jonah?! I want him! I love him so much!"

She also says that when "him get bigger, him gonna put on him dwess and DANCE!"

Also: "When him get bigger, him gonna sleep in my woom and my gonna cuddle him and Cuddle him and CUDDLE him!"

Jonah Gregory's Baptism

Jonah was baptized today and it was a profound service. Early this morning Karen Muyskens, a member of the Church, died after a week-long struggle with a mysterious infection which came on very suddenly. So poignant, this telescoping of the beginning and end of the Christian life into the same, hour-long frame. Utterly heartbreaking and then mysteriously comforting in the same breath.

Jack preached on John 15: 1-11 which is Jesus' image of himself as a vine. I don't know if this was intentionally written to tie in with the baptism, but Jack's description of entrance into the Christian life as analagous to when a branch is grafted onto a vine, which does not always seem to take, was both beautiful and bittersweet.

We were worried because Jonah didn't get his morning nap in, but he was well-disposed and cute nonetheless. During the baptism itself, Anneke, who was somewhat worried about this whole thing on Jonah's behalf, whispered excitedly to her Mom, "He's yiking it!"

Eating Buh-Nanas

Writing about Names contained in words reminds me of how Anneke first learned to say "Banana." It was just the two of us eating breakfast and she kept insisting banana was much too hard a word to say. So I just had to remind her how often she says "Nana" as in: "Nana and Pop" (Mulder). Then I had her repeat after me, slowly: "buh," long pause, "Nana," then "buh," short pause, "Nana," then, "Buh-Nana." She thought it was hilarious for some time afterwards - "Buh-Nana," "Nana Buh-Nana," "Does Nana want a Buh-Nana?" and so on and so forth.

Don't Harm Anneke!

Yesterday Anneke and I figured out, somewhat accidentally, that her name is fully contained in the musical instrument we were both playing around with at the time: the harmonica.

This presents a new solution to the problem of explaining the pronunciation of her name to those tripped up by its Dutch spelling. We can advise them to just say "harmonica" minus the "harm". Otherwise it's just the old "Hanukkah", minus the "H" or "Monica", minus the "M".