A Long Post About Rhys. Please Comfort and Reassure Me.

Little boys who run around the house and yard incessantly pointing anything and everything they can find--sticks, necklaces, pillows, spoons, every toy, gold high-heeled shoes (from the dress-up box)--at other people and saying "pchew, pchew, pchew. I'm killing you," can still grow up to be normal, loving, righteous, well-adjusted non-violent non-criminals, right? I can't make him stop. It is his one consistent waking thought, "Shoot! Fight! Kill!!" Even when he is playing with toys (which he does adorably), he is almost invariably making them fight each other. It doesn't seem to matter what I say or how I react, it's just hardwired into his little brain. I'm glad we don't live in an era without guns, because then he would have to play that everything is a sword, and those require actual physical contact to kill, which means he would be hitting things all the time instead of simply pointing and making a sound.

I try to re-direct him (because I know just telling him to stop will have zero effect) by telling him to shoot chocolate love arrows, like we did with Sam and Willow, but, though he loves it when we pretend to catch and eat them, he will never admit that they are not real arrows for killing.

He seems to love us. He doesn't seem to be angry or really violent, he just has to "Kill!" all the time. I'm not quite sure what to do about this, or if I even need to try. I would really appreciate advice or wisdom from those of you who have been here before.

Some other notes on Rhys: He is continuing his dry streak. We had a day or two of two or three wet pants but mostly it was when we neglected to take him to the potty ever. And one accident always seemed to snowball into more. But if we took him and he went, we usually don't have to take him but every hour and a half or so. We even went to the Zoo yesterday and he was dry the whole time and went in the potty there. He was also dry during nap time. Yay!

This morning Rhys discovered a way to circumvent my blockading him downstairs by shutting the door. He can't open knobs yet, but this morning when I had shut the door to keep him from escaping upstairs while I was changing his clothes, he left the bathroom while I was finishing up and suddenly I hear Neoma from upstairs say, "What are you doing out there?" He had opened the sliding glass door and run around the the slider into the dining room upstairs and begged to be let in. He did it again later this morning, but let himself in upstairs because it was already unlocked. I needed him to be downstairs so I got him and brought him back down, but this time locked the sliding door. I set him down and shut the door to the upstairs and without hesitation he ran straight to the back door and tried to get out. When he found it locked he sat on the floor and wailed. I'll have to keep a better eye on him for now.

And a last funny: There is a big rock outside under a tree in the front yard. Rhys love to climb up and stand on this rock whenever we let him out of the car (which we park near it). As soon as he is there he starts calling out to everyone. And as you approach, he pauses he preaching to explain to you, "This is my 'Jesus Real.'" I assume he is referring to how Willow usually starts her testimony by saying, "I know that Jesus is real," because he then continues his dissertation, "I know Jesus real. Name of Jesus Christ, Amen." Then he climbs down and is on his way.

The Hand of the Lord in my Life: Kevin is gone. I'm a little sad, but mostly excited. How this is evidence of the Lord's hand: Kevin was able to be home for all of the vital things he needed to do to license to be foster parents and as soon as it was done, he had a job waiting for him. We got the application turned in, had all of the paperwork sent to us for him to sign, received our fingerprinting forms (for the background check), had our prints taken, took CPR and first aid classes, had TB tests done, and the day after our TB test was started, with our appointment already made to go back and have the TB spot interpreted the next day, he got a call to ask if he could come in the day after that. The Lord is arranging things and looking out for us. It is very important the Kevin be working right now not only because it has been a long time and our savings are being drained (which they are, but not so much that we are insolvent), but because we need to save up a little bit more for a down payment and have evidence of what his paychecks look like this year in order to successfully apply for pre-approval of a mortgage loan. After that, we can look for and buy a house. Hopefully sometime in the next two months. Whew!