Bergen Hawkeye

Anyone can slay a dragon . . . but try waking up every morning and loving the world all over again. That's what it takes to be a real hero.

  • Bergen Hawkeye

    Don’t Leave The Path.

    Can I just tell you a little story about poop? (I mean, it’s not as if I have never done that before – right?) Last Friday our home school Suburban headed to Pisgah Forest in North Carolina for a Stream Investigations Class. The class was great. The water was cold. I dressed the kids in matching tie-dyed Look Up Lodge shirts so that I could easily spot their wayward selves among the thirty other children. I am not normally a children-match-one-another kind of mom. But it worked out pretty perfectly, actually. Otto Fox stayed strapped to my back in his carrier most of the day. Sometimes he was happy about…

  • Bergen Hawkeye

    words to the wise.

    My boy Bergen, the one who just turned six, says some beautiful words. But earlier this week, while on a family nature hike, Bergen Hawkeye uttered a genuine nugget of wisdom. Words I would encourage all of our other children to follow closely. While attempting to climb high along a stack of rocks upon which he should not have been attempting to climb high, Berg turned around and seriously announced, “Never do what I do.”  

  • Bergen Hawkeye,  HomeLife

    Tuck In Time

    Last night I tucked in a five-year-old. This morning I woke up a six-year-old. Happy Birthday Bergen Hawkeye Norton. You know, I love tucking this kid in. I love it about as much as I love the fact that he calls his back teeth his “boulders” and I just cannot bring myself to correct him yet. Last night he asked me to cuddle with him. (Like he requests every night of his young life thus far.) And I know and I know and I know that he won’t keep asking me for long. So I climb the ladder to his loft bed and I place my head beside his on…

  • Bergen Hawkeye,  Field Trip,  HomeLife

    The Hawke Has Landed

    I sat down tonight (or last night, if you read this during the day, like regular folk. or tonight if you are alece and you read somehow in cyber space over my shoulder as I type in the nearly wee hours.) to type a little post about something else. I can’t even remember what right now. Because I was interrupted by a boy named Bergen who was telling me stories about his recent ManTrip 2011. It was really too late for him to be awake, but since he arrived home and crashed after the trip from about 5 p.m. until about 7 p.m. – wrecking both tonight’s rest and possibly…

  • Bergen Hawkeye,  HomeLife

    Love And Do Not Love: A List

    Any given day has its highs and its lows. Any given person has their loves and their not-so loves. We can all agree upon that – right? Take today, for instance. I really love whoopie pies. And I love that our vacation begins this Wednesday. I do not love hearing my name called as if it really is on some horrible loop. “MommyMommyMommyMommyMommyMommyMommyMommy.” I love King Solomon’s current background. I do not love white icing from the inside of whoopie pies smeared on the leather sofa. I love sitting up far too late into the evening and talking about life with Sarah. I love Aunt Sarah stopping in for a…

  • Bergen Hawkeye,  HomeLife,  Keiglets

    almost out the door

    Perhaps my favorite phrase yelled at me by any human being that has ever existed. Berg. Dashing through the house. Decked out in full pirate attire. On his way to adventure and life. The great outdoors calling him. His hand is on the door knob. The entrance to What He Has Been Waiting All Morning For. He stops. Hesitates. Searches for me. Finds my eyes. And shouts, “I love you mom. I love you more than everything in the world except God!” And then he’s gone. Back to the wild which holds his heart.

  • Bergen Hawkeye,  HomeLife

    weekend switch.

    A family mish-mash. A switch. This weekend kids were all over, in other states and in other homes. Riley had a splendid experience hanging out with Emma and Jon. They shopped, cleaned and organized Emma’s house, watched movies and apparently ate large quantities of Italian cuisine. With a bit of a spur of the moment idea, Mosely was willingly whisked away to have her own adventure with this sweet family. She returned home with cupcakes, a huge smile and a bazillion stories she has not stopped sharing.  (But sadly, no photo to insert here.) Our family did not just disperse children, however. We gained one new guy for the weekend…

  • Bergen Hawkeye,  Chaos

    the little details

    When the name “Mommy” is called in this house, the voice often originates from the bathroom. So it was yesterday. So it was. And the voice calmly calling for assistance was five-year-old Bergen. “Yes, son?” I entered the bathroom. “You politely requested my attention to your utmost needs, dear boy?” (I think that’s what I said.) He was standing in front of the toilet. Pants appropriately around his boy ankles. All appeared normal from this angle. Oh. But not entirely normal. His boxer shorts were not lowered. They were, in fact, still neatly at his waist. “Mom,” Bergen looked at me seriously. This was obviously not amusing to him. “I…

  • Bergen Hawkeye,  Field Trip,  HomeLife,  HomeSchooling

    How To Win Friends & Influence People: Jr. Edition

    We visited our favorite museum last week. Hands on! in Hendersonville. Thanks to my sweet dad our family can visit that wonderland any day we choose this year with our handy-dandy museum membership. (That sounded trite.  It wasn’t.  I seriously am so thankful for that gift and so thankful for the museum and I wish someone was paying me to say this stuff, but they so aren’t.) As I was saying . . . We played at the museum. I took a lot of photos using a new technique Page showed me the last time he and his family were visiting. Fox discovered paints and felt it was perfectly acceptable…

  • Bergen Hawkeye,  HomeLife

    small.

    I  don’t like deboning chicken. Who does? (I don’t even think “deboning” should be a word, let alone a verb.) But I like to ease the pain a little by telling myself, with every slippery touch of the gnarly chicken bones, this is love. This is love. This is what love looks like. (It’s a mantra.  On rerun in my brain.) But there are days. Oh, there are days when although I still believe that this is what love looks like doing the small things with great love (thank you Mother Theresa) I still feel that maybe no one is listening. No one is watching. I feel small. Unimportant. Forgotten.…

  • Bergen Hawkeye,  HomeLife,  Keiglets,  Piper Finn Willow

    Backseat Conversations

    A lot of amusing comments are tossed about in the backseats of our trusty Suburban. I can hardly drive for all the laughing. That’s not really true. It would probably be more accurate to say – I can hardly drive from all the crying. Anywho. (Why did I type that?  I don’t even like it when people toss that nonsensical word into the empty spaces in conversations.) So. (That’s my preferred conversational pause filler.) Um. Here’s what I heard from the backseat on a recent outing. Piper: I’m making my hair pretty wet right now. Me: (Somewhat alarmed.)  With what? Piper: Love. Me: Seriously, are you using spit? Piper: Ummmmmmmmm.…

  • Bergen Hawkeye,  God's Pursuit of Me,  HomeLife

    perspective.

    Cuddling with Bergen before bed is sweet. And fleeting. I know. In a recent cuddle-fest, I kissed his ear and whispered, “I love you son.” “I love you too, Momma,” my pint-sized reading machine replied. “Berg – do you know how much I love you?” “No, Momma. I don’t know how much.” And he probably doesn’t. He really can’t. Because he’s five years old. So by his very length of life, he lacks what it takes to understand. He lacks what only age and time and experience can bring you. He lacks perspective. He won’t really understand how much I love him until he’s older. Until he has seen more…

  • Bergen Hawkeye,  HomeLife,  HomeSchooling

    hawke: a running/ jumping/ reading miracle

    My boy. My Hawkeye. He no longer has a mohawk. Which makes me sad. But when I last trimmed the hawk, the Hawke would not sit still under the hair trimmers and I managed to mangle the hawk past all recognition as a legitimate hairstyle. He’s just a mess of a little man. But I love him. So much. He can read. Seriously read. Looking at a cook book sitting on our counter, he says, “Mom – is this Southern Fixin’s?”  (Which might sound like a corny name for a cookbook.  But man, the recipes are amazing.  It’s my go-to cookbook for all things delicious.) Sitting on the counter (I…