Momentous Amongus

James cut his third tooth while out at Harmony Hill. At least, that is when I discovered it. I had not been looking for a tooth where this one came in. It is his top left next-to-the-middle-tooth tooth. Poor thing had kind of a hard time at HH. First he cut a tooth, then he and JL came down with a bug that either was or turned into Rosiola. He probably thought that HH was hell, poor thing.

Joel, on the other hand, enjoyed as much of HH as possible. He was constantly in a state of exhaustion like every other child there, but he had a huge sand box to play in and friends from church that he was familiar with. He was quite introverted most of the time. Then there would be outbursts of the true Mr. JSW that he was keeping hidden. Such as when we would go to the "potty store" - the bath house - to get ready for bed. He liked talking to particular ladies about his puppy dog towel and tooth brush that lights up. He also had quite a conversation with Elder Shafer about horses. There was a little misunderstanding about the type of horses that Elder Shafer owned - not 5 rocking horses, 5 real horses. It was a priceless conversation. Then Joel decided to befriend a little girl who wore pink crocs. He put his arm around her shoulder, and she reached up and held that hand. Then after class he took her hand in both of his and lead her to the play ground, saying the whole way, "come with me; it's okay; look, your mama's coming too" all the way. Later on she asked her mamma, "where's my Joel?"

I'm still not sure that I like this....

This is Daddy. I haven't written anything here yet, but this is primarily for Mamma to tell her special stories. Still, I must agree that the trip to the Hill was momentous. The experience of spending a week like that was priceless for Mamma and for the boys. Joel learned some interaction skills as mentioned above, and James had to deal with being away from the comforts of home. Schedules are out the window, and everything is unfamiliar. It was good for them. It's easy to get comfortable and lose the art of dealing with tough situations. I am very proud of the way Jamie handled it. Her sister helped her a great deal as well, and I'm very thankful to her for that.
It was precious to see my son up there with the rest of the class. He forgot what he was supposed to do while he was up there, but that made it all the more precious. I'm glad this will be apart of his life as he grows up.