It was 5 am ...

... and I know where my children are.  They're right in front of me, playing with the iPad.  Now, it's not particularly strange for me to be up with Vivienne at this time.  Despise me if you want, but it works for us.  I'd be willing to settle down earlier, but she bounces through the night and goes down with the sunrise, and I have yet to convince her that this is not the way it's supposed to be.  My earliest work day starts at 4 pm, so if this is what works, I'm all for it.  I probably get more sleep in general than lots of mothers of eight month olds.  Tonight, however, Jonathan is joining us for a bit.  He tends to go do much earlier and stay in bed a really long time (though some of the time he is amusing himself and not sleeping), but tonight he keeps waking up miserable with a bad cough, so Notre Dame (a French/Quebecois musical that was Jonathan's babyhood favorite) and the iPad are tiding us over until he's tired enough to go back to sleep, because daddy's too sick and tired to stay up with him (though they had a good cuddle session the first time he woke up), and mommy doesn't really know how else to keep them both happy.  At first, he was sad and sick and tired and she was up and bouncing and driving him crazy.  Now he's pretty up and she's getting fussy because she and I should be down for her sleep about now, but oh well.  No trips to the pool for this family tomorrow, I guess.

Baby Giraffe Part 1: The Making of a Doudou

Baby Giraffe is to Jonathan what the blue blanket is to Linus, only he's "much too precious to let out of the house," as Stephen put it, so unlike Linus, Jonathan spends most of his quality time with his "security blanket" in bed.

When Jonathan first came, he had lots of soft toys from which to choose, I loving baby toys and he being my first chance to indulge in baby accessories.  He had a strawberry-car-driving giraffe from Ikea with a rattle inside that now lives in the black-hole-of-mysteriously-missing-baby-things, so it is good that though he enjoyed it for a time, he wasn't too bonded to it.  

Why a strawberry car?  Who knows.  Must be a Swedish thing.

He has a Heffalump lovie blanket from Toys-R-Us with a crinkle corner and crinkly ears that got its fair share of chewing early on, but he seems to have grown out of that one.

At one point, I thought of this as his favorite toy.

For a while it looked like his chosen companion would be the wonderful little blue bunny with the floppy ears sent to him all the way from Finland.  Those ears were made for chewing.  

His arms didn't taste bad, either.

All of these were strong contenders for the spot of honour as Jonathan's best loved companion.  However, in the end, Baby Giraffe pulled into the lead and is now firmly established as the love of Jonathan’s life.  Secretly, I’m glad of this.  

There were two things I bought when Jonathan first came that were a little pricier just because I wanted to give him a few special things.  One was a set of three sleepers from Mother Care (a British store they have in the department stores here) that I bought because of the Noah’s Ark theme and that he wore to his coming home party.

Jonathan rockin' his Noah's Ark sleepers last year

The other “welcome to the family” gift I bought was a little giraffe which is part puppet, part blanket, and part stuffed animal from a wonderful French company called Doudou et Compagnie.  Although at first Jonathan didn’t seem any more interested in the giraffe than in all the other toys I put him to bed with at various times, somewhere along the way it won out over the rest.  I’m not quite sure when it happened, but one day we realized that there was magic in this little floppy animal.

Decisions, decisions.  An almost-7-month-old Jonathan clutches both his baby giraffe and his Heffalump at Oasis Missionary Retreat Center in the South of Taiwan.  I can’t believe how bright and clean and orange the giraffe looks in this picture.

The word doudou is French from the word that means “sweet, soft, gentle” and I like it so much better than the English word “lovie”.  (Unfortunately, the pronunciation doesn’t work so well in American English, sigh.)  It’s a baby’s special toy or blanket with that Je ne sais quois that transforms it from simply a bit of cloth into an object of affection, companionship, comfort, and love, or, in psychological jargon, a “transitional object” to be a mommy substitute as the child moves towards independence.  It was made by a company that markets these toys to be a child’s doudou, but really, you can’t manufacture it (though they did design it well).  When I bought it it was just a toy, and all the engineering and branding in the world couldn’t make a doudou.  Jonathan had to do that.  This giraffe is special because Jonathan decided it was special.  It’s special because Jonathan poured his love into it.  It has picked up his scent.  It bears his marks -- mostly teeth marks.  

        

It no longer looks new or lovely as the world sees it, but it's now so much more than it used to be.  I get the “real rabbit” bit in the Velveteen Rabbit better now.  Baby Giraffe really does seem to be more real and alive than Jonathan’s other toys.  To him, it is the most important thing in the world (and that makes it pretty important to me, too).  He delights in its company.  This is what it was designed to be, but without the work of Jonathan, it’s just a toy.  

It’s rather like what God does with us, isn’t it.  Designed to be the image-bearer of God himself, we can only really be this when He chooses us and works in us and puts His stamp on us and loves us.    I hope one day Jonathan knows what it is to be God’s special object made real and alive by his love.  (My husband, Stephen, thinks I’m stretching the metaphor a bit, but it makes sense to me.  Take it or leave it as you will.  It’s about as deep in thought as I get this season of life.)

Adventure, Thy Name is NOT Jonathan

A few months ago as I was shopping at Costco, I found a wonderful little Finding Nemo toddler swim set and thought that this would be an excellent thing to have around for Jonathan.  We were going to a retreat a few weeks later where there would be time to go to the beach and he could use it then.  So what if the last time he saw the ocean he refused to be put down and only agreed to go near the water from the safe height of Uncle Jonathan's arms.

OK, so he had been tired that day.  At home, he loves to play in the bath.  He cries if you don't let him hold the sprayer, and he cries when you try to take him out unless he's had a good long play in the water (unlike his sister, who usually cries when you try to put her in.)

Besides, we live in a very hot, almost tropical country.  Really, it just makes sense to play in the water.  Not to Jonathan, it turns out.  We did go on the retreat, and we did go to the beach.  I actually forgot to bring his swim suit -- which really was fine, since he spent the entire time on Uncle Cliff's lap.  He hated walking on sand, and didn't like the water even if mommy was holding him.

But I was not to be thwarted by a little thing like precedent.  There's a place across from the department store near our house that's part swimming pool, part spa.  I've wanted to try it out for years, but have never gotten around to it.  A few months back, Cliff's mother was here for a while and spent a lot of time with the kids.   She went swimming there a lot and talked about it which renewed my interest in the place.  I went and checked it out, and they said they had a play area for kids Jonathan's age.  The adult tickets are a bit pricey, but the kid tickets are cheap and I thought it would be worth it if Jonathan had something interesting outside the house to do that was pretty convenient for me.  And, of course, I absolutely love the water.  I spent my childhood on beaches, at lakes, and in pools, and I am really looking forward to having kids to spend time in the water with because Stephen's really not all that into it and playing in water really isn't the greatest solo activity.  So last week when I had a week off from work, I was determined to get my act together enough to take Jonathan on our first foray into the wonderful world of kiddie pools.  On Thursday night while the nanny was watching the kids I went to the mall and found a great baby swim cap and everything, which Jonathan (who is rather into hats) liked perfectly well in the living room.

So we were set.  Mommy had gone on her recon mission.  We had a bathing suit.  We even had a swim hat.  I didn't bring my own bathing suit the first day because I figured he would just be splashing around in the kiddie pool, right?  Wrong.  From the moment they made him go through the turn stile by himself to that blessed moment he got to put his shoes back on and return to his stroller, he was one nervous, pitiful pile of whimpers.  He consented to being changed into his swim duds and went with me to the pool, but really, he was only content on mommy's lap with one, but not two, feet touching the water.  A few times I walked him out a few feet and left him, so he consented to walk back to mommy through the water, but that was it.  The wonderful slides and the other kids playing barely registered.  The life guards' gentle urgings elicited nothing, not even a smile.  And yet, mommy is determined -- this child needs his world expanded -- and besides, I paid 320 NT (about $10 US), so we were going to spend at least an hour there -- and so we did.  We spent an hour dangling our feet in the edge of the kiddie pool, hopefully getting him a bit used to the place so that next time, there might be a spark of recognition -- cause really, this kid knows how to have fun in places he knows, and this is a really fun-looking place.  Jonathan did consent to sitting by himself long enough for me to take a picture or two of the kiddie area to show you all.

Doesn't that look like a fun place to hang out?  Now that I've seen how big the "kiddie" pool is, I'm bringing my own suit next time and hanging out there, though I'm too tall to be allowed on the slides.  And who knows.  Maybe with that hour of "getting used to it" time, mommy in the pool, and a time less close to nap time, the spirit of adventure may yet seize the child.  A mommy can always hope.