Once in a blue moon Becca and I will get a brief rest from the yelling and screaming (aka "playing") of the boys. Inevitably we will only hear the faint rumblings and crackles of Lego being swished around in their room. They build and build, like little boys should. However, there is always the dreaded follow up.


Joseph, coming out of his room: "Daddy, look what I built!"

Dad: "Wow! That's great!"

Joseph: "Do you like it?"

Dad: "Yes, it's very nice! I like the different colour lines!"

Joseph: "Do you know what it is?"

Dad: "Yeah. It's really nice too."

Joseph: "What is it?"

Dad: "Um... What did mom say it was?"

Joseph: "She hasn't seen it. What is it?"

Dad: "Um...

... it's a jumbo jet."

Joseph: "No!"

Dad: "I mean a part of a train."

Joseph: "No! It's a sandwich! How come you don't know that? See, here's the bread, some lettuce, cheese, and the red is the bacon. Don't you know that!?"

Dad: That's a great sandwich! I want to eat it! Go ask your mom what it is..."

You see, it's tough. But secretly I'm proud of him. I mean... a bacon sandwich... what could be better than that?

Good Friday Tradition

An annual Good Friday tradition here is to make the Passion scene out of Lego. Of course that's Judas hanging out on the side. John Paul built a boat with canons and guns besides everything. When I asked him what he was doing he said: "This is a boat that the soldiers catch Judas with."

Theolego

Lately every time we want to eat a meal we've had to clean up all the lego at the table. I finally got around to repairing Joseph's sets and, somehow, we've just played lego instead of putting it all away. It's too educational to put away. By educational I mean theologically educational, of course.

Undoubtedly lego teaches us much about theology. Take Joseph's playing with his sets. He receives sets, just like we receive grace from God. Now sometimes he takes these sets and does great things with them. Other times, sometimes too frequently, he breaks them. Minor repairs are manageable (venial sins), though slow down the playing process. Major breaks are serious (mortal), and halt the game all together. Well back in May he had a series of mortal sins in the lego department. He severely maimed nearly half of his sets. Bad Joseph. They were then put away. Dare I say he even forgot about them for a while. No doubt he was living a dissolute life in the meantime. Probably too busy playing outside of the house(/Church).

I'm God in this whole analogy. It's nice to play God. Now Joseph needed me to rebuild his sets. Yet, even his desire to want them rebuilt was induced by me (taking them out, eventually). Together Joseph and I patiently worked on mending the sets. Some of the sets were missing parts, and we had to do our best (sin has consequences). Others I repaired them even stronger than they were before (O happy fault). Through this whole process Joseph unknowingly learned the deeper truths of human nature, forgiveness, and God's mercy.

Sadly life is more complicated than this. We need to throw the devil into the equation. Enter John Paul. Joseph somewhat manages to handle his lego sets, and enjoy them, on his own. But when John Paul comes around, who is bent on the sets' destruction, complications arise. At first John Paul enters very jovially. He even gives the hope of being a worthy companion to play with. But once he gets his hands on one set, it's lights out. We are left with a broken set and Joseph despairing in anger. Only when he calms down and seeks God (me again!) are things made right. Sometimes Joseph tries to avoid John Paul/devil all together, and locks himself in his room. But me/God, in his omniscient ways, sees it wiser to permit John Paul to roam somewhat constrained around Joseph. It's nice to see Joseph handle John Paul properly. Again, there is deep theology here.

However, considering August 15th, the Assumption of Our Blessed Lady, is upon us, we have one final character. Recourse to Mary. Enter Becca. Now when Joseph breaks a lego set it makes me upset. How could he do this? Why? He takes things for granted! Mary (Becca) soothes the situation. She checks in on the mending of the sets. She helps find missing pieces. Through her the re-construction takes place fruitfully. When Joseph is smart enough to involve her, in any way, in the rebuilding of the sets then things always go better. Isn't this always the case. When we say "Mary", Mary says "Jesus." 

This little analogy is not to be taken lightly. In it Joseph is learning about God. As he grows older and we explain sin, forgiveness, and mercy to him, it will connect with him better. It will just make sense. The whole process is already being engraved in him. May the faith and love of God be built up in Joseph, brick by brick. 

Or is it block by block?

Imaginary Friends, Lego Inventions, & The Good Apples

I don't remember having imaginary friends, but I sure remember my brother Blaise's. Doyo and Datya lived around our house for a long time. Whether it was Blaise's own perseverance that kept them around or the fact that the rest of us thought it was pretty funny and encouraged it, I don't know, but they sure stuck in my memory.

Enter Joseph, some 17 years later. He has three imaginary friends: Bob (presumably from Bob the Builder books), Dina (from the song "I've been working on the railroad" - "Dina won't you blow your horn"), and Siri (presumably named for the iPhone voice). Sometimes they sleep in our basement, sometimes they sleep through supper and we have to be very quiet, sometimes they drive their truck with us to the grocery store. They hang out here a lot!

"Shhh! My friends are sleeping," Joseph told us again and again at supper last night. He has the gall to tell us to be quiet because, of course, that's just what we tell him when his brother is sleeping. "Why are they sleeping? It's supper time," Dan asked. "Because they're really tired. They'll wake up later. Bob and Siri are waking up a little bit now. But Dina can't wake up."

Joseph simply refers to them as "my friends." He will carry on entire conversations with them, often as we're going out the door and I'm giving him instructions for getting ready to go. And we have entire conversations about them, as if they exist and are hanging out at our house.

"Siri, are you going to drive the police motorcycle?" he asked as we left for the grocery store. "Mom, Siri is going to drive the motorcycle and we'll go in the police car. Bob and Dina are coming in their truck." "Ok. Joseph, did you put on your toque and mittens yet?" "Siri, you have to go carefully so you don't crash." "Joseph, your toque and mittens!" "My friends are going to come, Mom!"

His REAL friend!

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------We're at the point (already) where we think we have about as many toys as we want! Ha. I say that in the face of Christmas in just a few weeks. But, really, we like the different "sets" we have and like the idea of just adding to them if need be. 

Like Lego. Can you ever really have too much Lego?

Joseph loves Lego. I can't even begin to describe how much he loves Lego. He plays Lego ALL day, EVERY day. Not only do I think it's especially great for him and his imagination and learning to invent stuff or rebuild sets, but it's very welcome for me when all my attention is taken up with John Paul (all day, every day). 

Often he can be found pouring over directions booklets, looking for that one little piece he needs, and, of course, making anything and everything that runs on wheels. Sometimes we think it would be worthwhile to just buy a whole bag of Lego wheels off Ebay. 

The only problem, of course, is when John Paul decides he really likes the Lego that Joseph's carrying around with him everywhere. "JOHN PAUL! No, you can't have Lego. You're too little. Mom, John Paul wants to choke the Lego!" are things I regularly hear from the other room. Despite the fact that we've moved the Lego to Joseph's bedroom, bits and pieces always find their way out because Lego creations are amazing and the proud little builder wants to share his creation.

He asked me to take a picture of one:

Daddy helped him build this helicopter

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Our Advent is low-key as far as Advent traditions, so far. We don't have an Advent wreath yet, which is something I'd like to begin doing each year. But this year, thanks to my mom, we have a Jesse Tree for the first time. It's a beautifully hand-painted wooden set.

I pruned some wild Saskatoon berry branches in Nipawin last weekend and stuck them in a pot of dirt for our "tree". We discovered Holy Heroes (Seriously, moms, if you aren't already aware of all their cool stuff, you have to go check it out!) this year and although many of the activities are a little old for Joseph, we've been doing their Advent Adventure. Each day Joseph and I watch the little video that tells the Bible story for the new ornament and hang the ornament up! Joseph loves it and asks me all day long if we can watch more "Jesse Tree movies."

After reading, watching, and talking about Adam and Eve and the Fall we put up our ornament with the apple and a serpent. Joseph was intrigued. God said they couldn't eat that apple, but what about ours? I told him ours were okay to eat because they didn't come from the tree in that garden.

The rest of the week Joseph kept telling us, while eating his apples: "God said we can eat these apples" and "God told me to eat this apple."