Otto Fox Wilder
There comes a time in every rightly consructed boy's life when he has a raging desire to go somewhere and dig for hidden treasure. - Mark Twain
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Five Finds Friday (surprise! & the warmest socks & the silliest picture)
We all know why this week sped right past all of us. Yes – it’s already Friday you guys. Here we go …… FUNNY Humor plays a vital role in my life. If it’s not outright sustaining, it absolutely is what makes certain days feel endurable. (Is endurable a word?) Our friend Abby has endeared herself to my children through several methods. One – she sends stellar care packages that have rather specific instructions on the outside. Instructions such as “For Kids Eyes Only” and “Whatever You Do – Don’t Let Your Mom Open This Box”. Two – she shows up in surprise ways and says yes…
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Five Finds Friday (cheesy dip & Otto’s song)
FUNNY Otto told me that he wrote a song for me. I was pretty thrilled of course. Until I heard the lyrics. Here’s his song: You and me together. You and me together. You and me together forever. Or. Until I get married. FASHIONABLE You remember Jo, right? From such places as My Friendship and A Fellow Homeschooler. Her etsy shop has a new logo — designed by Emma (how fun when worlds collide) — and phoebeflock has a couple of really cool new items in stock. They’re all beautiful – the ombre zipper pouch and the throw blanket with wool embroidery. But I currently am loving the library tote…
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Five Finds Friday (29) (the dress everyone should own & why my car is destined to be dirty)
I think I missed one of these posts because – well – I was doing cool things and my computer was far away from me. But now my computer is all right here and so am I so I guess I can resume my Friday posts. FUNNY I wouldn’t say one of my strengths is having a tidy car. (My dad wouldn’t say one of my strengths is keeping my car’s gas tank full.) We’d both be right. Anyway. The kids were at Jo’s house and I was at the gas station filling up my tank with the stuff. I looked in the car that had just seen some heavy…
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happy birthday otto fox. you make seven lucky.
Half past midnight. I’m rolling over, reaching to turn out the light when I see it. A six-year-old elbow with a substantial scratch. Unfamiliar to me. I don’t recall kissing it or tending to it and that somehow hurts me a little. Gently I lift that sleeping arm, hold it to the light, examine it for a minute. I place my lips on that scratched boy elbow and kiss his boo boo. I shift around so I can stare at his boy face in this soft night time light. Today, this exact day, he grew up a bit. Today, he changed. He’s already tan for the summer. Hair already…
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Five Finds Friday (fifteen) (loose tooth and BBQ sauce. unrelated.)
Hooray. It’s Friday. FUNNY I have six children. They each have a mouth. And in those six mouths you would find the normal human amount of teeth. And – during the course of five of their lives – they have all lost the normal amount of baby teeth. I’m not great at math and I’m unwilling to figure out the exact number but you can assume with me that the baby teeth lost numbers are high in this family. Yesterday Otto – the baby of the family and the Keigley with the most baby teeth still in his mouth – lost his FIRST tooth. It was perfect poetic justice that the…
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writing without a plan. (rambling, in other words)
I had a web hosting snafu this week and the blog was down and out for a while. But I’m all back now and I think I have a plan. (It was actually very comforting to receive the texts and messages alerting me that my blog was unavailable. Made me feel loved by you guys, knowing that you read the words and click over to this space. Thank you, friends.) I’m a little here and there with a handful of loose ends these days so I don’t have a stopping or a starting point tonight as I write this. Last Sunday we had baptisms at church. Man. I start to…
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dear singing son ….
Dear Wilde Fox of an Otto, I held your hand while falling asleep in bed beside you. My left hand in your right hand. It was neither comfortable nor convenient. Criss crossed and upside down (because you prefer the right thumb to suck at night). But I never let go because I didn’t want to. My son. I carried you piggy back on the return walk from the marina. It was neither necessary nor easy. You are now nearly fifty pounds of heavy and your dirty shoes were brushing against my clean jeans. But you asked for a ride and you offered kisses as payments and I had no desire…
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the six year old that lives here
His knees are brown. And it’s not from being tanned. The calendar says September and our basking in the sun days have faded with the end of summer. It’s dirt. Streaky and stained. The boy is just filthy. Ankles. Fingernails. Knee caps. He’s boy dirty. From running and chasing and frog finding and idea hunting and game gathering. It’s the kind of dirt that says his day was well-spent. He enjoyed the gift of time. The privilege of being a boy growing up outside with the type of freedom a parent has to be intentional to create. The kind of life that says no to more so it can say yes…
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school words from a wilde fox.
We are working on our math and Otto looks up at me, surprise in his bright blue eyes, “Mom. I actually like school.” I grin at this last scholar of mine and pat his growing little man back. We move on to a new-to-us program called Draw-Write-Now that I am thoroughly enjoying. Otto has learned to take special pride in his writing this year and I have been pleased to see how neat and tidy his first grade work has become. “Son, I love your penmanship,” I tell him as his pencil writes the sentence about the Cherokee tribe. “My penmanship?” he asks, perplexed. “You must mean my pencilmanship.”
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that time at the park when the wheels came undone
We’ve never really lived in a house with a concrete driveway that leant itself to safe bike riding for children. Therefore, the kids have always been late comers to the biking world. Piper Finnian still needs training wheels. And that’s alright with me. Recently, Bergen outgrew his bike and we realized it was a good fit for Piper. I bought some training wheels. Universal, the bag side. Fits any bike, the instructions read. With the training wheels attached and the bikes painstakingly crammed in the back of the Suburban, we drove to a large parking lot to practice before trying to hit the trail together. Otto is grinning and riding…
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the prayers of a wilde fox
He prays like this — earnest and sincere ….. God, please help the Forrests as they fly to Bangladesh and maybe they are still on the plane. Maybe not. And. Please God. Help no more of our toads escape under the house.
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he speaks. we laugh.
Out of the mouth of O-T-T-O. (Which is how he says his name some days. All spelled out.) “I love everybody in this house – but not strangers.”
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tuck in time.
I love the simple honesty of six. Tucking Otto in at bedtime is always sweet. He’s cuddly and huggy and all adorable with his back rubs and his face touches and his little cooing noises. But it’s been a little hard lately come the bedtime hour because it seems as though we returned from Virginia but perhaps Baby Timmy has not. As if we need anything else to make our bedtime routine more traumatic than it already is. (Baby Timmy. Otto’s special blanket. His special very-very-worn-out-kind-of-super-gross-but-special-to-us-ratty-torn-up-tied-together-used-to-be-yellow blanket and sleeping companion. Yes, I agree that six might be too old for such a ragged out sleeping buddy. But. I don’t care.) Anyway.…
