this land

A few weeks ago, out of the blue, I started singing the chorus to “this land is your land” in front of the kids. I saw Josh immediately perk up. So, I took the time to learn the correct chorus and first verse of the song and I sang it to the kids. I could tell that Josh liked it. For the next few nights I offered to sing it to the kids before bed and each time, Josh seemed mesmerized. It made me feel good to have him listen to me sing.

Today, Josh and I were on a "date" and Josh started talking about his day. He said they had a talent show at school and went on to describe how not all the kids were in the talent show. I asked him if he was in it and he said he was. I asked what his talent was. He sang to me the verses of “this land” that I had been singing to him. I hadn’t heard him sing it up to that point. I would have given anything to record that moment.  It brought tears to my eyes. He said he was nervous to sing it in front of everyone, but he did it anyway. Again, I am so amazed.

This Land is Your Land (by Woody Guthrie)

This land is your land, this land is my land
From California, to the New York Island
From the redwood forest, to the gulf stream waters
This land was made for you and me

As I was walking a ribbon of highway
I saw above me an endless skyway
I saw below me a golden valley
This land was made for you and me

cbp

This refers to US Customs and Border Protection. I saw them jump into action this weekend. It all felt pretty surreal to me!

I went on my Portland getaway this weekend (very quick, fun and a different story!) and I left on Friday night. I was at the border around 9:30pm. The Nexus lane was closed, so I went into the regular lanes. There were 2 open and the line up was only about 8 cars deep. Not too bad.

When I was 3 cars from the border, a swarm of about a dozen CBP agents came out of the main building. Who knew they were all sitting inside the building all this time poised to jump into action if necessary?! As they made their way over to the other open lane, they told the first car in our lane to shut of his engine. Oddly enough, my first thought was, ‘oh great! how long is this going to take?!’ hahaha….

Behind the cover of all the concrete structures and standing ready to pull out weapons, the CBP agents surrounded the car that was at the customs booth in the other open lane beside us. When I told Brian the story, he asked, “what were they saying?”. Maybe if i was thinking, I might have rolled down my window to try to listen to what was going on. But I guess i was a bit shell shocked by the whole thing!

I’m not sure what they were saying, but eventually, the driver of the car came out and had both his hands up. They made him walk to the back of the car, turn around and some of the agents cuffed him. They escorted him into the main building. While I was still processing what was going on, a passenger got out of the same car! It didn’t even dawn on me that there was a passenger in the car! He also had his hands up and the remaining agents cuffed him and escorted him away.

About 5 minutes later, then opened both lanes again (the car of the arrested suspects was driven away by a CBP officer). It felt kind of strange that I could scan my Nexus card and the CBP officer just waived me through, barely acknowledging me as I crossed (in light of someone JUST getting arrested!).

As I drove away from the border, I contemplated what just happened. Like: what happened in the minutes before the swarm of CBP agents came out? Did the guys know that they had been flagged? And what was it all about?! What did they do? Could it have evolved into some sort of gun fight with a bunch of by-standing cars in the line-up?! Hahaha…Lots of excitement for a Friday night at the border! And even though the excitement broke up the monotony of the drive, I hope when I come home a little later tonight, I won’t witness any other “situations”!

sleepy talk

Josh and Aves both ask for me to sleep with them often (they share a room but have separate beds). Typically, we let them come into our bed if they wake up at night, but we don't usually sleep in their beds. This week, for whatever reason, when Josh asked me to sleep with him, I told him, as a treat, I would.

I've often wondered if Josh and Aves interact at night. I know they talk alot before they fall asleep, but I wondered what happens in the moments before they both come stumbling into our room together. Well, I found out this night.

I’m not sure what time it was, but judging from the darkness outside, it was still the middle of the night. Aves screamed out because I think she had a bad dream. This woke me up and startled Josh because I heard a body part smack against the wall!

Aves continued to moan a bit. Josh settled back down and I waited to see if Aves would settle back down, too. Now, I was in Josh’s bed and I crawled in at my bedtime, so I don’t think Aves was aware that I was in the room.

In the same sad moan, Aves called out, “Joshie…”. I heard Josh’s sleepy voice reply, “Yes, Aves. I’m here.”. Then Aves said, “Joshie, I yove you.” and Josh replied, “I love you too, Ave.”. And they both went back to sleep. I’m so lucky that I got to share that moment with them.

missing

I had a conversation with my sis tonight. I’ve been feeling a bit down but I told her that I am truly starting to understand that my life is not that bad at all. She said to me, “It’s not even that your life is “not that bad at all”. Your life is not bad. Period. You are just missing it.”

Wow. In the moment that she said it, it felt so intensely profound and meaningful that it made me cry. Now, if only I could figure out what it means...

commercial-ism and mondegreen deux

Josh was playing with his Lego today and he often includes a narrative in his play. Sometimes I listen to what he is saying (it often has to do with shooting and dying and killing). Today, I started to listen in just as I heard this: “…and the police truck does too. Each set sold separately.” Hahaha…

Josh (and Aves, to a certain degree) love to identify lyrics to songs. These days, Josh is looking for meaning in the lyrics and it’s such a hoot listening to his interpretation. He has had many mondegreen moments, but I keep forgetting to write them down, save this one. Today, he actually needed the mondegreen to make sense of the song:

(listening to Adele’s Rolling in the Deep in the car):
J (singing): There’s a tire playing with my heart…Mommy, is that what she’s singing?
Y: No, she’s singing, “There’s a fire burning in my heart”.
(Just after I said it, I realized the wheels that I had just set in motion!)
J (after a few moments of intense contemplation): No, Mom, I think she’s singing, “There’s a fire burning in my house.”

from busking to acrobatics

The first time Josh and I did this, we were on the floor. When he was up on my hands and holding my feet to form a ring, Aves came along and jumped right through the ring we had formed. I felt like we were in some sort of freak Chinese acrobatic show! The things you see when you don’t have a camera…

josh, dynamike and the beginnings of a busking career

J&C came up for a visit this weekend, so we decided to spend Saturday at Granville Island (read: Uncle J told Josh he would get him some Lego so we made a trip out to the Kids Only Market to shop for Lego).

We ended up having lunch there and since it wasn’t raining out, we found a table outside. A busker who called himself dynaMike was setting up for his performance. Seeing that he had a short uni-cycle and a 10-foot high uni-cycle, how could a 5-year-old NOT be interested?! And because my son is as shy and introverted as he is, he went up to dynaMike and asked him what he was going to do. I guess this seemed like a perfect opportunity for dynaMike to work a ‘cute kid’ into his set-up, because he pulled Josh in quite nicely.

At some point, it dawned on me to videotape it (ha. did i just say videotape?!). I know that this is 5 minutes long, but it’s quite entertaining (for me, anyway!). If you don’t have 5 minutes, fast-forward to the 2.5 minute mark. The end part is pretty cute!