The sound of silence

 

There are but rare fleeting moments of silence in my world. By silence, I am only referring to the voices that fill my life with much of its chaos; the screams, laughing, crying, and bantering of children; teenagers protesting anything that is asked of them with gasps of disbelief and endless debates of which they have no chance of winning; Melanie's voice calling the teenagers names over and over again (because they act like they cant hear her) which begins to resonate like nails on a blackboard; and the very loud muffled screams of parrots that have claimed the entire garage as their sanctuary. Someone or something is always making noise around me. When the silence comes it is typically 3:00 am, or possibly all the planets have aligned. Either way, it does not last long. When it does, I savor its very essence, and listen to every sound that I can hear that is normally masked in a sonic white wash of the Miles home, only to hear familiar sounds return for a visit like an old friend.

  The wind dances rhythmically through the trees in waves of intensity and frequency. Silent in its own right, she makes her presence known by rustling the thousands of leaves on each individual tree. Joined by all the other trees that surround my house, a symphony is formed; a soft whistling from the fir tree to the west, the chattering elms on the north, fluttering fig leaves, and not to be left out, the clattering palm fronds from the neighbors house across the street. Amongst this gentle background ensemble, high in the trees above comes the melodic twirling of a song bird, interwoven with the calls of humming birds squabbling over the best flowers, their wings beating with ferocity as they zip in and out of the trees, complimented by the warning sounds of the orioles that have staked their claim to the nectar feeder. I close my eyes and breath it all in knowing that at any moment the silence can be broken with the shrill scream of a 2-year-old. Years of construction have taken their toll on my hearing, so I am amazed by what I can still hear and curious about the things that I can not. Ignorance is bliss I suppose.

  Orion has the lungs of a howler monkey it would seem. His voice is loud and powerful. He can hit notes with his 2-year-old voice that can cause china stemware to shatter. It is a game in my house to see who can scream louder and longer between Apollo and Orion. In the end it is Melanie that wins the prize, even though she was not competing. Fortunately for Orion, he has a very sweet talking voice to make up for the shrill screams. He speaks with feeling and expression and always says please and thank you. But my favorite sounds are that of his new found singing voice. His favorite song to sing is the chorus of Real in Rio from the Disney/Pixar movie Rio. His version is "Rio, Rio," he belts out, "All by itself itself." he fades off into a mumble and then repeats. Of course Apollo sings right along with him.
 

Apollo can scream like a school girl when he likes, much to Orion's delight. This always gets him in trouble unless we are at the beach running from waves. Apollo enjoys screaming just to get Orion started. The two of them scream back and forth until someone stops them. We try to encourage other forms of vocal interaction and our favorite game is, 'Orion say;'. Orion will say anything that Apollo asks him to. This game goes for 5 to 10 minutes at a time offering entertainment for all within earshot.
  Orion absolutely adores Apollo and mimics everything he does and says. Its very endearing watching Orion going through the same attitude mannerisms as Apollo; instead of one kid throwing a fit, we now have two. The problem is that Apollo likes to cover his ears when he doesn't like what he is being told. Often he will even announce with a scowl on his face that he is putting his earplugs in. Orion will scowl too and then cover his ears while mumbling under his breath. I have to blame my genetics for this one. I know I sure don't want to listen to someone when I don't agree with them.

  On our most recent motorhome outing, we stayed at Sugarloaf mountain. The campground has very nice showers, so, Melanie left me in charge of Apollo and Orion and went to enjoy 20 minutes alone and a hot shower. I constantly keep my ears and eyes open for these two. I was out side the RV packing things up, while Apollo and Orion were inside playing. I could here them and see them through the doors and windows. Soon, I only heard Orion's voice. I climbed inside the RV, looked around and could only see Orion. I called out to Apollo several times, and there was no answer. I began to think that Apollo slipped outside without me noticing. My heart began to race. "Orion, where did Apollo go?" I asked. "Apollo go door," Orion replied pointing to the bathroom door in the RV.
"Apollo?" I began, "Are you in there?" I did not see any shadows moving under the door nor did I hear anything. I did not want to barge in because I know how much Apollo likes his privacy in the bathroom, and I assumed that if he was in there, he wasn't answering for this reason. "Apollo! If you are in there and don't answer me, I am coming in." I pause to listen..."Apollo?" Still he did not answer so, I opened the door, and there was Apollo seated on the thrown, pants around his ankles and hands over his ears. We looked surprisingly at one another. Without saying a word, I closed the door and backed away, then went about my business. A few minutes later, Apollo emerged from the bathroom and began to play with Orion again.
  When I heard his voice, I returned to the RV and inquired, "Apollo, why did you have your ears covered in the bathroom? Were you trying not to listen to me?"
  "Nope," he replied, "I just didn't want to hear myself poop."

    He is so my child.


  

Growth spurts

 Youth is magic. Pure and simple magic. After over 5 years watching Apollo grow from birth until now, and then Orion, I am still fascinated and astounded by how they grow, learn, and develop. Everyday my little ones add a little more shape to the essence that forms who they are. The light in their eyes gets brighter and more vibrant, and I feel the wealth of my existence magnified with each passing moment. I love watching them grow together and as individuals.

  Orion has "it"; that thing that cant be explained that just makes everything he does completely adorable. When he is happy, mad, indifferent, playful, tired...it doesn't matter, he does it with style and cuteness. Dont get me wrong, I was completely smitten with Apollo (and still am) with everything that he did, it is just that Orion has that "new puppy" kind of playful charm to him that is infectious and shows no signs of going away. He is the only person in this household that says "please" and "thank you". and he says them both consistently and for anything and everything that he asks for. And the way that he says them is priceless. Apollo, on the other hand (like his father), still feels that "please", "thank you", and "I'm sorry", are all words that show a sign of weakness, and have to be coaxed or pried out of him.

  Life is interesting around here. There is so much going on all the time. It seems chaotic at best. Life has taught me that there may be no tomorrow...no second chances. Consequently, we try to seize every opportunity that we can to do something with our kids. We run them pretty hard and try to keep them active and stimulated. Apollo and Orion both have a great amount of stamina for their ages. They are often up and ready to go by 7:00 am on weekends. We will take them on long bike rides, swimming, shopping, back home, have a water fight, play in the yard, go on an after dinner walk, read stories, work on writing (with Apollo-thanks Melanie) and they will still be going strong at 10:00 pm. Orion will usually fit in a 40 minute to 1 1/2 hour nap, but not Apollo. We consider ourselves lucky if both kids are asleep by 11:00 pm. The next morning they are up early, much to Melanie's chagrin, and ready to go again. Apollo, Orion, and I are often evicted from the bedroom in the mornings so Melanie can get a few more minutes of sleep.

I dont know if is the sunshine, exercise, fresh fruits and vegetables, or a combination of all of them, but both boys are really in full growth spurt mode. Apollo is learning to write and read, and he is really enjoying it. He has an incredible memory and often surprises me with what he knows and remembers. As an example, we were in a FedEx Kinko's making some copies, and Apollo points to the name of the  machine I was using and says, "Hey dada, that machine has the same name as your camera" (Canon). I didn't even know he had looked at or noticed the name plate on my camera before. His brain is like a sponge at the moment. He will not settle for a child's answer for anything. By this I mean, I cant tell him things like, "That's just the way it is" or "That's just how it was made."  I can't even tell him "I don't know." Apollo will get mad and demand that I explain things to him and in detail. He keeps me in check with this behavior. I cant just brush him off with a simple answer.

  Orion is in high gear physically and mentally. I swear he has grown an inch in the past week. The past 3 weeks has been an explosion in the speech department as well. He will repeat any word he hears. Apollo asks him to say all kinds of words and Orion will repeat them right back. The cool part is that Orion adds many of these words to his vocabulary and has really advanced his ability to communicate his needs and desires. I am completely blown away by how fast his language ability has progressed the past few weeks. "I wan' this one", "I wan' try", "I wan' play", "this one mine", "I wan' go ride car", "Marmi (Remi), go outside!", "Dada! No night-night!","Where mama?"... these are but a small sampling of his regular phrases. The show stopper for me is "help me." It absolutely melts my heart to hear him say, "Dada, help me." He will use this phrase when he is climbing up on something, trying to reach something beyond his reach, or if he cant get a toy to work. "Dada, it not working. Help me." I love this.
  What I was not ready for is that Orion really understands what "help me" means. I must admit that I was choked up at one point. Orion started to get sick today and began to cry and fuss. In the sweetest little weakened voice he said, "Dada, tummy oweee..." as he points helplessly at his stomach, "...help me dada, help me."