Blessed Unrest

We got a card game for the trip. But now we are back home and I am trying to teach Asher how to play “go fish.” The outside of the box says “for ages three and up” so I figured Asher would follow the rules as long as I explained them to him. The cards are shaped like fish and come in seven colors, tourquoise, yellow, orange, red, jade green, lavender, dark purple, and blue. “Okay," I say, "I ask you if you have a card and if you have it, you give it to me. Like this, do you have yellow?" "Yes I do!" exclaims Asher. "Great," I say, "Now you ask me." "No. I don’t want to." says Asher. "Okay," I say, "I will ask again. Do you have purple?" "No" he says, although I can see he has two purple fish. "Okay," I say "you say 'go fish' and I will pick a card." "No, I think I get a card now! Here fishy fishy. " Asher squeals. "Oh, look!" I say, wit...

Most adults think that a day of flying is hard. But any adult with a child can tell you a day of flying alone is not as hard as they once thought. First we had a two hour flight to Atlanta and then a two hour layover followed by a five hour (!!!) flight back to Portland . We had an arsenal of toys, games, books and DVDs to try to make our trip more enjoyable. My mom gave us a present for Asher a book with special markers. The images on the pages turn colors when the clear marker is colored over them. I had something like this on a plane about a year ago and Asher wasn’t interested at all. This time, once we were able to get out of or seats, Asher stood in front of his seat (using the seat cushion as a table) and colored for what seemed like an hour. Then he said he had to pee so Daddy took him to the bathroom. They were gone a while and I did not think much about it until they returned, Asher was screaming and red faced with snot running down his face. Mark looked exhausted. “He ...