The boys are asleep.

I stir from my upholstered island
to wade out between the day’s debris
of train tracks and crayons, legos and laundry.
I follow a trail of Pokemon cards and marbles
up the stairs, breadcrumb-like,
all the way to their rooms.

And here I stop to visit each of them in turn,
amazed in this moment by their united quiet,
by their collective lack of activity.
It’s as though they filled the day
with such relentless noise and feverish enterprise
because they were saving up all their silence,
all their idleness and inaction,
to spend it here, now, all in one stretch.

I sit with Levi, first.
His head is buried under the pillow,
and his comforter is knotted around his body
from consistent rolling in the same direction.
The turbine sleeper.
I push his pillow off to the side,
and he draws a deep breath of relief.
Lord, grow this one in wisdom and restraint.
Guide his steps, and draw his heart to you.

I come to Logan next.
His bed looks empty at a glance,
but a large lump under the blankets in the middle
gives him away.
The fetal ball sleeper.
I scoot him back up to his pillow,
and tuck the blanket under his chin.
He twitches, cocking an eye half open.
Lord, grow this one in courage and perseverance.
Guide his steps, and draw his heart to you.

Then last to Cambren.
His blankets are flung off the bed
and he’s laying with limbs spread in all directions,
perpendicular to the mattress.
The exploding sleeper.
I straighten his little body
and cover him up again.
He grits his teeth.
Lord, grow this one in patience and compassion.
Guide his steps, and draw his heart to you.

I hear pattering on the roof. It’s starting to rain.
Looking once more over the placid faces of my sleeping sons,
I wonder where their journeys will take them.
I whisper a final prayer for the night:
Guide their steps, Lord, and draw their hearts to you.

Levi threw up all over the inside of the van.

We had just come home after a busy day and were in the very act of exiting the vehicle, when Levi, who sits in the back, suddenly stopped and braced himself between the two middle chairs. “Come on Levi, let’s go,” I said. In reply, he made a little burping noise and released a volley of puke all over the upholstery. A moment of stunned silence prevailed, with Lisa and I looking on in muted horror. Then came a second, even more productive heave, as Levi began hosing half-digested foodstuffs like he was Linda Blair. By the third heave I became aware of a desperate and pleading voice crying, “No! No! Noooooooooo!!”, and by the fourth heave I realized that the voice was my own.

Lisa and I spent about two hours last night conducting a hazmat cleanup of the van after the boys were asleep. We removed all 3 carseats, 4 of the chairs, and about 4 bags of belongings, and then scrubbed down and sanitized everything.

This morning the van still smelled like vomit. We went through a second round of scrubbing, but with less hope for a completely restored vehicle.

At this point I’m thinking that our family car has a lot of evergreen-scented air fresheners in its future.

They tell me that Columbus is a decent guy, but they’re getting awfully tired of seabiscuits.

We haven’t yet figured out what inspired this phrase for our boys, but it’s their new favorite thing to shout when they see a dark place. “Oh no! It’s the Darkness of Doom!” In this case, it was the tunnel at the end of the Oregon Zoo train ride.

We went there with my parents and the Waldrons a few days ago, and the boys all had a blast. The cousins are always so excited to see each other that they blitz through the day in a non-stop hyperactive frenzy until the moment they pass out. They are a writhing mass of shouting, laughing, fighting, crying, and making up again. A river of chaos flooding over everything in their path. And that’s just the oldest four. What will it be like once Cody and Cambren are old enough to leap into the fray? The mind staggers at the thought of so much raw testosterone in a single place.

Whatever it will be like, I’m glad to see them storing up great memories and laying the foundations of lifelong relationships. I have no doubt that they’ll all go on together, plunging into one adventure after the other… into the Darkness of Doom itself, and beyond.

All three of our boys have two middle names: a dedication name first, and a nature-inspired name second. With Levi and Logan we added the dedication name later, but with Cambren we decided to just get it on the birth certificate from the get-go and save ourselves a few bucks and government forms. Their full names are:

• Levi Jacob Sequoia Williams
• Logan Curtis Riverstone Williams
• Cambren Louis Northstar Williams

For each of the dedication names we decided to honor someone who had invested time and love in our lives, or the lives of our sons, or both. For Levi we picked Lisa’s grandpa, Jacob (AKA- Ted). For Logan we picked my dad, Curtis. And for Cambren we picked Lisa’s great uncle, Louis. All of them are/were great guys that embody traits we would like to see our sons grow into.

For each of the nature-inspired names we picked something we could find in the northwest that could symbolize spiritual qualities we hoped for in our boys. For Levi it was Sequoia: Standing tall, pointing to heaven, and living in community. For Logan it was Riverstone: Firm and solid, yet shaped by the living water.

For Cambren we picked Northstar. Our desire for him is that he will be a reliable reference point for those around him, pointing them to “true north”, and that he will shine with a clear light in the darkness.

So that’s the scoop.

I look down at him, smile, and say, “Great, did you like it?”

“Yeah,” he says, “now I want to watch the bonus features.”

Uh huh. The bonus features. See, Levi is only four years old, and this stuff is already in his blood. It’s little moments like this one that I think give us some insight into the texture of generational shifts in our culture.

Sure, we as adults are comfortable users of DVD’s, and we enjoy all the conveniences that they offer, but we remember a time in the not-so-distant past when home video meant VHS tapes and strict linear progression through media (some of us even remember the time before that… when there was no such thing as commercial home video). Not so with my son Levi. DVD’s are the way movies have always been. Someday when he’s older and he hears about VHS tapes he’ll probably chuckle, the same way I did when I first heard about 8-track casettes.

It’s not that this changing of media formats means all that much in the greater scheme of the cosmos, but when you put it together with hundreds of other tangible little elements of the daily experience, you begin to see, in the accretion of all these things, the raw materials for a paradigm shift. Contributions to a new cultural vocabulary.

As my children and their peers grow older I want to be a good enough student of their cultural context that I can continue to understand, at least in part, the perspective that they’re seeing things from, and be able to communicate with them in the ways that they find most instinctively meaningful. There are some important things that I want to share with them. Ideas about life, and God, and the universe that I want to come across as clearly as possible.

And I happen to know of some nice bonus features that they might be interested in too.

Anyhow, the really funny thing is never the joke itself, but how he prefaces it. I’m not sure where he got this, but each time he’s going to tell a joke, he starts like this:

He says the “turn it on” bit with a growly little voice, like he’s Louis Armstrong or something. I’ve gotta say, his material still needs work, but the kid has mojo!

This little chat took place while we were circling the parking lot waiting for Lisa to come out of the grocery store with a couple things for dinner. I didn’t think Levi even had much of a mental concept of Canada, but apparently he’s been in endorsement discussions with them for some time.

Congratulations son, that lifetime supply of maple syrup is coming in the mail.

(Insert ominous B-movie fanfare here…)

The boys had finished eating dinner, and I had just sat down to start eating, when all of these things happened, one after the other, within the space of about 10 minutes. It still amazes me to recall it…

1. Logan emptied all the soft soap from the hand pump onto the bathroom counter.

   Then, while I was cleaning that up…

2. Levi pooped his pants (uh… not in a diaper).

   Then, while I stood Levi in the bathroom, took off and threw away his underwear, and attempted to salvage his pants…

3. Logan pulled all 60 or so wetwipes out of the diaper wipe dispenser and distributed them around the living room.

   And while I stood in shock, staring at that…

4. Levi wiped his poopy bottom with his bare hand.

   Then, best of all, while I ran the decontamination drill with Levi…

5. Logan climbed up in my chair, ate part of my dinner, and rubbed a dirty sock in the parts he didn’t want.

   Which finally leads us to the punchline, where…

6. Levi said, “Daddy… why do you look so upset?”

Ahem… good times.

1. Mommy: “So what was your favorite part of the Noah’s Ark story today?”
   Levi: “The part where they brought in the food.”
2. “I don’t have any yawns in me tonight.”
3. And drumroll please… “I’m sorry I pooped on the couch Mommy.”

I’m not kidding about that last one. That was Levi’s heartfelt apology made about an hour after the occurrence of an event so catastrophic that I will spare you from any more elaboration.

Well, sometime during the first couple days I began to doubt that diagnosis and I specifically asked him if he had stuffed something up his nose. “Noooo,” he told me, with an incredulous look. Of course not. Why would a three-year-old stuff something up his nose? That’s crazy talk. I took a look up there and couldn’t see anything, so I took his denial at face value.

Days went by.

A week.

Then, yesterday, Lisa was helping Levi blow his nose and what came out? A WHOLE UNCOOKED PINTO BEAN. You know, the rock-hard, speckled type. And this was not a shy little pinto bean either — this was a king-size pinto bean. The sort of bean that makes the rest of the bag jealous.

Of course, Lisa had a safety chat with Levi about the importance of not stuffing things up your nose, and we hope that he learned something from the experience, but only time will tell. He didn’t seem to remember where or when the bean-stuffing occurred (or maybe he thought the details were best forgotten), but we theorize that the bean probably originated from Nana and Papa’s “Beanland” — a tub of dry pinto beans that my parents keep for the boys to play with (and which, need I point out, is harmless to anyone with an ounce of common sense).

Remind me to add, “And don’t cram anything up your nose,” to my list of important safety tips for children.

Some nights I ask Levi what he wants to do or be when he grows up. Not because I want him to be concerned about that stuff yet — he needs time to just be a kid — but because his answers are always so humorous. Here are a couple exchanges:

And on another night…

As you might infer, Lisa and I are changing a lot of diapers. I would have to rate changing diapers as probably the least wonderful part of being a parent. If I was writing a book about parenthood I would be tempted to title this chapter something like “The Abominable Necessity of Touching Other People’s Poo-Poo.” I’ve taken to wearing a medical glove on my wiping hand for especially unpleasant diaper-change assignments, and yet I still end up feeling tainted somehow, in a way that soap and boiling water can’t quite seem to erase. (Insert Lady Macbeth analogy here.)

I’m very much looking forward to the day that both of our boys are potty trained, and can do these things for themselves. Oh, how glorious it will be. Parenting will seem like a downhill coast from that point on, I think. That day can’t come soon enough. Tomorrow would be good. If we can’t make tomorrow, let’s shoot for next Tuesday.

The doors finally opened on August 7 2004 at 12:54 PM, and loyal fans were treated to a special meet-and-greet party with the newly revealed Logan “the Barbarian” Williams. (Okay, okay, his actual middle name is Riverstone. But I’m sure he’ll live up to his honorary title in no time. Levi has certainly lived up to his.)

For those who couldn’t make the premiere in person, I’ve posted a gallery of photos from the event, as well as a summary of Logan’s vital stats. And make sure to print out your copy of Logan’s limited edition collectible trading card. Ten years from now it will probably be worth more than my seven copies of X-Force issue #1, and without even wasting the seven good comic sleeves.

Not one to be outdone, Anne has posted two new galleries of her own: One of Levi’s second birthday and one of Logan’s “zeroth” birthday. Thanks again Anne!