The bigger picture

My husband never really paid much attention to nature before he met me. I don't think he really noticed birds, and probably killed the insects that he did notice. He was particularly not fond of spiders. Which makes this little story all the more compelling.

The lightbulb in our laundry room burned out a few nights ago, and neither one of us has had the extra energy it takes to pull a kitchen chair over there to clean off the light fixture and put a new bulb in. Last night I finally said something to Jav, and reminded him about cleaning it out since there were alot of dead bugs inside the light. He replied that he had been putting it off because of the spider that has spun a web all around the light. He said that it was such a clever place for a web, since we get moths in from the garage at night all the time, and he didn't really have the heart to tear it down after all this time.

Excuse me, but who are you and what have you done with my husband?

I agreed to try to very gingerly change out the lightbulb the next day, which was today. Jav stood below me and watched, and while I was carefully trying not to scare the spider, Jav said, "Oliver. That's a good name". I replied, "Yes. Yes it is." I looked to see if this was for the kids' sake, but they were no where to be seen. So I said, "Oliver, I'm really sorry about your web, but there's a whole bunch of it left that hopefully you can piece back together when I'm done." I gave the fixture to Jav and he just stood there looking at it, and I said, "You don't really want to clean it off, do you?" He shook his head. "OK, I guess it will be ok to put it back just like this." Oliver was obviously a little freaked out and stood hunkered down to the side while I finished re-attaching the light.

I checked an hour ago, and he seems to have moved back to the web like all is back to normal. Which Jav was happy to hear.

I have such a strong belief that all life on this earth is life given from God and therefore should be valued. It's not that I won't kill something, but it has to be something harming me or the ones I love before I'll get to that point. And now I guess my husband has seen the light and feels that way too, which makes me so very happy. It probably makes Oliver really happy too!

Finishing up September

Every year we try to visit Haydee, an old friend of Jav's family and godmother of Jav's sister. She has been a cloistered nun for 25 years now, and her "nun" name is Sister Maria Rosario. She is Cuban and quite a character. Her home for the past five years or so is the Monastery of the Infant Jesus in Lufkin, Texas. Even though she is Tia Sandie's godmother, she is a little closer to Jav. She was thrilled when she found out we were going to be parents and made us promise to raise them right and be sure and visit her often. This trip is old hat now to Gabriel, who was a bit freaked out by the nuns the first couple of times we visited. I was concerned about how Joel would react, but in typical laid-back Joel style, he just accepted everyone with a big toothless grin. We complain about the trip every year, because it takes all day to go there an back, sometimes into evening, and it's just tough to do car trips with little ones. But we invariably end up having a really nice time. The drive there is very pretty, and the convent itself is absolutely beautiful, surrounded by huge East Texas pine trees. It's so quiet all you hear is birds singing. And the nuns are ever so sweet. They love it when kids visit and several always drop by to say hello. Most of them have great senses of humor, which for some reason surprised me at first. They have to stay behind the railing seen above, but can hug over it. They also let the kids be behind it some too. I still need to find out exactly what "cloistered" means one day.

Here is the third walking stick we saw this year. I think they are so cool.

Joel talking to me from inside. Notice Zoe looking at me too.

Really pretty almost full harvest moon. It was supposed to be one of the brightest moons we've had in a long time, and it was beautiful. My picture doesn't do it justice.

My sweeties having a blast in the backyard. Our grass always gets really thick and pretty this time of year, but this year it's even better. It's like walking on a really cushy wall-to-wall carpet. In a vibrant shade of green!

Gabriel in his Beatles cartoon tee he got for his birthday, which has caught the attention of lots of people every time he wears it!

The almost-perfect (Joel looks sad, but he's just not liking the bright sun in his face) end of summer picture, with my lantana in full bloom. We had tons of butterflies, bees, and even hummingbirds eating and pollinating it all summer.

Beatles Tuesday...literally

Tuesday I sing Beatles songs to Gabriel and Joel at bedtime. Or any other time of the day, like bath time. Yellow Submarine is a great bath song.

So since Jav is out of town, it has been a tiresome couple of days for me. Joel was particularly fussy all day long, with his cold and teething hitting him at the same time. I tried to put him down before putting Gabriel to bed, but he was having no part of that. So I fed him while reading to Gabriel, then sang a song and told Gabriel good night and moved into Joel's room to try to get him asleep. I kept thinking I heard Gabriel, but the humidifier in Joel's room cushions the sound from next door pretty well, so he had to yell before I really heard him.

I ran in there with Joel and Gabriel was hysterical by then, and saying that he heard a sound and wanted to come sleep with me. Now, Gabriel has NEVER wanted to sleep with us overnight or even for a nap except for one Fredericksburg trip when I took him out of the pack and play and neither one of us could sleep after that. So I knew this was really bad. I felt terrible that I didn't hear him at first because I always tell him to call us if he needs us before I walk out of his room. And honestly, I was a little scared myself wondering what he had heard. I kept asking if it was outside the window, and he kept insisting that it was in the room. I picked him up too and we all headed down to our bedroom. I got him calmed down and went to put Joel down in his crib. It was then that I remembered hearing something like paper rustling while I was reading to Gabriel, but I just figured the ceiling fan was making something rustle.

I would have loved to keep Gabriel with me, but I've been bringing Joel to the bed for the last three nights with his cold and was worried someone would either get rolled over on or fall off of our ridiculously high bed. So I got him to go with me back to his room (which really is just temporarily his room and I don't feel like he's ever been comfortable in there) and try to listen for the sound again. I heard it about the same time Bones wandered into the room and headed straight for some wires behind our file cabinet. And there it was. A big greenish black beetle was walking around and trying to climb up that cabinet and was making a heck of a ruckus doing it. I went and got a big plastic cup and a skinny but firm book, which is my method of choice when it comes to trapping bugs and getting them back outside. But I couldn't get a good angle and the damn thing crawled behind Jav's behemoth of a desk. We were doomed.

Now, I've been trying to teach Gabriel to not be afraid of bugs for about a month now. I want him to have a healthy respect for them. But he has been freaking out lately every time a little gnat lands on him. So this was not a good situation AT ALL. I told him what it was, though, because he had even mentioned Monster at one point and I didn't want that in his head. I tried to keep him back so he wouldn't see it, and I don't really think he wanted to. But because he was so tired he was loudly saying over and over again, "Oh, it's a big black beetle", and of course Joel woke up. I went in to get him back to sleep and Gabriel followed telling his brother what was happening and running into things. I finally had to tell him (probably a little too firmly) that if he didn't go into the hallway and keep quiet I was never going to be able to catch that bug and we wouldn't get any sleep. I finally got Joel asleep again and went to get the flashlight.

I really didn't think I'd find him, but after tapping a couple of things under the desk I heard a rattle and did a very girly yelp and jumped way back. So much for showing Gabriel that I wasn't afraid of bugs. He started whining for me to pick him up. But I bravely shined the flashlight back underneath and saw the bug sitting on top of our blank CD case. After much deliberation with myself and silently cursing my husband, I went in for the capture. Gabriel couldn't hold the flashlight still because of his nerves so I set it in the desk chair. I quickly put the cup over the bug and slowly but very carefully started to wedge the book under the cup, making sure not to leave a big enough gap for the thing to escape. It started finally making a clicking sound when I got the book all the way under the cup and I came so close to just dropping everything and running away. But Gabriel was watching and I had to keep fighting. So I asked him to open the back door for me and moved cup and book outside. I wanted Gabriel to see the bug leave the cup so he would know it was out of his room, but when I started to move the book I was so nervous that the thing was going to fly back in our faces that I sort of just threw the book into the Asian Jasmine, where, of course, we couldn't see the bug leave the cup at all.

But I guess I convinced him it was really gone, because he's sleeping in there now. And the book is still laying in the Jasmine. Even so, I think I earned quite a bit of respect from Gabriel tonight. And Honey, boy do you owe me big for this.