“Mom, what vowels make the “g” say “juh” instead of “guh?”

So I was trying to think of some examples and thought of “genes” and “gigantic.”  Then I said,

“But not the kind of jeans that you wear, the kind of genes that make up your genetic code.”

Then I’m thinking, What am I getting myself into, trying to explain what genes are!? But I already started it, so then I said,

“Like the DNA code…”  And I looked at Jake and started to try and explain what DNA is.  But he stopped me, waved his little 5 year old hand in the air as if to motion me to stop and said,

“I know what DNA is, Mom.”

I said, “You do?”

He said, “Yeah.”

I said, “Okay, what is it?”

He said, “You know, they’re like the building blocks of life.”

I know this kid well, so I was only mildly surprised at his answer.  Mostly I was just glad that I wasn’t going to have to do any more explaining of a subject that I know nothing about, so I said, “Yeah, you’re right.”  Then he started thinking more about DNA and asked me,

“So is DNA alive?  Like a cell or a molecule?”  So at that point, I said the only thing I could say,

”I don’t know.  Let’s Google it and find out.”  He said,

“Google it?!  What’s Google?”

My little Jakob Hays Yoakum may be able to tell me what DNA is, but at least I get to teach him how to “Google” things!

So we Googled his question about DNA and then we Googled his other question from earlier that day, “Why is it called a “Jack-o-lantern?”

So in case you are wondering or have an emerging little gifted scientist on your hands like I do, here are the answers to his questions that we found…

DNA stands for Deoxyribonucleic Acid. DNA is not technically alive. However, it is contained in all living things. Even single celled organisms, bacteria, and viruses contain DNA. It contains genes that carry the information about a living creature. So, it carries the information that determines what a thing will look like, what diseases it may be more prone to, how the thing will function, and so on. It also is needed for an organism to create cells, proteins, and RNA. This is why DNA is often referred to as a blueprint. Though, as stated before it’s not technically alive.

AND

A jack-o’-lantern is typically a carved pumpkin. It is associated chiefly with the holiday of Halloween and was named after the phenomenon of strange light flickering over peat bogs, called ignis fatuus or jack-o’-lantern.

Sometime after writing that last post about chick flicks and mine and Wes’ anniversary I had some memories from my childhood resurface.  I am so thankful for my parents!  In many ways it is because of the values they instilled in me that I have a healthy perspective of marriage and relationships.

Here’s one of those memories from when I was about 14 or 15.  A value that my Mom shared with me and one that I would eagerly share with any girl in need of some encouragement when it comes to boys.

I think we were riding in the car somewhere and I was telling my Mom about my guy frustrations.  I was probably complaining about how I liked this boy but he didn’t like me, or how there was this other boy who liked me but I didn’t like him, and what is a girl supposed to do about that?!  I honestly don’t remember much about that conversation…except this one thing that my Mom said to me.  After listening to me worry about my future and how it was all going to work out, she spoke these words of wisdom to me and it felt like time stood still.  The world stopped revolving around me and for a moment all my problems were solved.  She said,

“Stacy, you don’t need to worry about finding that right guy.  What you need to be concerned about is being that right girl, for that right guy.”

And for some reason that only God knows, I not only believed her, but made that my mantra over the next several years.  I stopped worrying about boyfriends and going out on dates and started paying more attention to the kind of person I wanted to be.  Over time I began to dream about my future and trusted that God was preparing someone out there just for me.  Looking back I can see how I unconsciously decided that if I was going to work hard at being who God wanted me to be, then I wasn’t going to settle for anyone who wasn’t focusing on the same thing.

Thanks for that, Mom.

Another value my Mom help instill deep within me is, “I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made.”  Psalm 139:14.  It was the first scripture I memorized, and I’ve known it since I was five years old.  Psalm 139 is still one of my favorite Psalms.  What girl doesn’t struggle with an identity crisis along the way?  Or lacks confidence and has moments of weakness when it’s hard not to believe lies of worthlessness.  I know that I can always go back to Psalm 139, the truth that tells me who I am and Who’s I am.

Thanks for that, Mom.

Approachable, Available, and a Listener.  In my teenage years, especially in high school, that is how I saw my Mom.  Maybe it was because she took me seriously and talked to me like I was mature (even though I wasn’t in so many ways).  I knew that I could talk to her about anything.  And I really appreciated that she let me do most of the talking.  She listened so well, with few things to say in response to me.  But when she did respond I could tell it was well thought out and reflecting wisdom from the Lord.

Thanks for that, Mom.

Bible Class Teacher.  Teaching God’s Word to little ones was always a priority for her when we were growing up.  I remember one time when I was in college and had gone home for a holiday or something and she and I went to a class at church where we were handed a Bible trivia questionnaire that was relevant to the lesson we were about to hear.  I think my Mom was the only one who knew all the right answers.  I remember her being surprised by that.  But when you have spent 20 plus years in the Word, teaching it, then of course it is going to be written on your heart!  Because of her example, I want to be the primary Bible teacher for my own kids.

Thanks for that, Mom.

Hospitality.  Another value instilled by my Mom.  Having people over was always a joyous thing.  The presentation and how nice everything looked wasn’t ever the focus when we would be getting ready for company.  I learned that it’s more important for your guests to be comfortable and feel like your home is a safe and welcoming place.  My Mom truly finds pleasure in cooking for guests in her home.  So much so, that I think it is a form of worship for her!  She taught me a lot in the kitchen when I was growing up.  It was like pulling teeth for me to be in there, though.  (Sorry about that, Mom!)  But now that I am 32 years old and have a family of my own, does it surprise you that I love to cook for people and desire for our house to be a place of peace?

Thanks for that, Mom.

Okay, one more thing.  This one is just for fun.  When I am my Mom’s age, I have hope that I will look as good as she does!  She taught me the importance of taking care of your skin!  Without even realizing her influence on me, I began to do the same thing in my early twenties and started taking skin care seriously.  You can be sure that when I am her age you’ll be hearing me say,

Thanks for that, Mom.

I love you.  Happy Birthday!

Mom and me with baby Jakob on my first Mother’s Day, 2006.

Mom and me.  June 2011, our first furlough trip back to Texas.

Since we drove into College Station from Levelland the day before the party (a mere 9 hour drive), Grammy was a lifesaver and made the cake ahead of time for me.  All I had to do was the most fun part and decorate the cake to be the Superman cake Derek has been dreaming of for the past four months!

The look on his face when we sang “Happy Birthday” was priceless.  He was so cute and proud of himself for turning 3!

We had pizza, cake and ice cream.  Then we played with his new presents for a while and to get a break from the 4th of July weekend heat, we went over to Grand Station to play glow in the dark mini golf and video games.  Fun times!  Such a special day for a special little boy!  We love you so much, Derek!

So last Wednesday he went to his first day of Kindergarten at the International Christian School of Lima!  He was very excited and walked right in like he had been there a hundred times already.  His teacher’s name is Mrs. Mysheel Kerekes.  She is very sweet and can relate to the kids in a lot of ways, because she is a “third culture kid” herself.  She was born in Ecuador, but spent at least 18 years in the States going to school and working, she’s also travelled to other countries like, Hungary, where she met her husband.  There are 9 other kids in Jake’s class, and they also come from different parts of the world–Korea, Mexico, USA, Australia, South Africa, and Peru!  How cool is that?!  When we picked him up after his first day he said, “Do we have to leave? Can I stay here?”  I smiled and told him not to worry, he would be coming back the next day (and the next day, and the next day…little does he know he’ll be going back for the next 12 years at least).  :)

On his way to big kid school!

After school: Jake and James, his friend from Australia that we met several months ago.

On furlough we got to visit my good friend, Kimberly, in San Antonio.  She has three little boys and her sister-in-law made her a sign that she hung up in her house, and I absolutely love it!  Because the sign says it all,

“There’s these boys who stole my heart.  They call me Mom.”

There’s no way to describe how proud I am of my boys and how thankful I am to be their Mama!

a stick

plastic bowling pin

dust pan

rubber door stop

tennis raquet

toy saw

plastic bottle

a small toy giraffe

cheese grater

my cell phone

And here are three recent pictures of PURE CUTENESS.  I love this kid.  He’s so much fun!

]]> http://theyoakums.net/blog/you-think-derek-likes-baseball/feed/ 3 http://theyoakums.net/blog/the-new-seat-belt-nazi/ http://theyoakums.net/blog/the-new-seat-belt-nazi/#comments Wed, 01 Sep 2010 03:52:52 +0000 Stacy http://theyoakums.net/blog/?p=772 In 1983 I was four years old.  You may not know this, but right around this time citizens of the USA  started pushing for laws requiring that drivers and passengers wear seat belts to save lives and increase safety on the roads.  About every five minutes there were commercials on TV that showed what happened to people who didn’t wear their seat belts.  People would say things like, “If you love your family, then you’ll make them buckle up.”  And in 1984 the seat belt legislation was passed.  I’m not making this up, really.  I looked it up on Wikipedia.  Since 1983 I have been know in our family as “The Seat Belt Nazi.”  Every time we got in the car to go somewhere I would shout out, “Put your seat belts on!!”  Every.  Single.  Time.  Drove my parents and my two older brothers crazy.  But I didn’t care.  I couldn’t live with myself if we had gotten into a wreck and I didn’t make sure they were buckled up.  Congratulations are in order to those people who made those seat belt commercials.  I’m sure I wasn’t the only 4 year old imprinted with frightening images of what would happen if the people you love don’t wear a seat belt.

And now congratulations are in order again.  Because my 4 year old has been brainwashed by all the recycling commercials he sees on TV.  When he sees me throwing away anything paper or plastic or metal or glass or anything that looks like it should be recycled Jake asks, “Mom, can we recycle that?” or “No, Mom, don’t throw it away, we can recycle it!”  Well, his persistence is working.  My kid is turning me into a tree hugger.  After we move into our new house I will figure out how we can start recycling here in Lima.

But not only that, lately he doesn’t want to throw away anything at all.  Nothing.  I’m not exaggerating.  Now, I’m sure this probably has something to do with the slight instability in our house right now.  The movers are coming tomorrow to load up our stuff, and I’ve been busy for the last week getting things in boxes.  So our life schedule has been a bit out of whack.  Derek keeps looking for his toys saying, “Wear, wear, wear, r my toyeez?!”  Translation–Where are my toys?!

This morning Jake came running in the room crying hysterically.  I couldn’t tell if he was scared or hurt, but I thought for sure it had to be one or the other.  No.  He was crying because the trash men came and picked up some of our boxes that we left outside with the trash.

It continued throughout the rest of the day.  He didn’t want me to throw away anything.  He said we could recycle it.  He said he could use it to build something.  He said we could use it later.  He said he needed it.  I thought the day of not wanting to throw anything away was finally over when I started getting them ready for bed and got them in the bath.  Nope.  His band-aid got wet in the tub.  I told him to take it off and I’d give him a new one when he got out.  Fearing the truth, he started crying and asked me if I was going to throw away that used, wet band-aid.

Yes, Jakob, I am.

But I want it!  We can save it for later!  Use it again!

We are throwing it away, Jakob.

After the bath, I get him dried off and dig the band-aids out of the box that I already packed them in.  He puts the band-aid on by himself and when he pulls the little white plastic parts off the band-aid–you know, the part that sticks to the sticky side?–I kid you not, the boy asks me if he can keep those little white pieces and not throw them away!

No, Jakob, you need to throw them away.

This time there are no tears.  Apparently he was formulating a plan.  While I’m standing there next to him, washing my face, I see him from the corner of my eye looking for a place to hide them on the floor back behind the toilet!

No, Jakob, throw them away.

He steps outside the bathroom and just a few feet away finds a box that’s been taped up.  Very sneakily, he slips the two, little, white fragments of his band-aid into the crack of space under the flap of the box.

This is the part where I gave up, turned my head as if I didn’t see it, smiled real big and tried not to laugh out loud.

The new Seat Belt Nazi, indeed.  Makes me kind of proud.

UNTIL…he got to eat some cupcakes and open his presents!  Then he decided this whole party thing was worth it and perked up like normal.  Thanks to all of our friends here that made his jungle birthday special!  He loves every single one of his new toys (and so does Jake).

***Sorry for the lesser quality photos in this post.  Wes’ camera wasn’t working right and then mine wasn’t either until the last minute.  Thanks again, JM for taking pictures for us.  You did a great job with our little point and shoot camera that finally started to work.

The lion CupCake and monkey cupcakes, too.  (I did eventually find that food coloring since Jake’s party.)

Jake helped me with the monkeys.  He insisted that one of them have arms.

Wes made a monkey to play pin the tail on the monkey, but then we ran out of time and forgot to play.

Family from Texas at the party via skype.

After cupcakes and presents we all paraded over to the park to kick off our 4th of July celebration with our first annual Home Run Derby!  Pretty sure that was the first home run derby that park has seen.

We all had a blast and can’t wait to play again next year.  Although Wes wants to play everyday and I’m sure would take anybody up on it who’s willing.  After the derby Wes grilled burgers for us.  And thanks to our teammate Stephanie, we had 2 half gallon tubs of Blue Bell ice cream for us all (that she scored from the Embassy)!

How could it be a complete 4th of July celebration without fireworks??  We didn’t think it would be too hard to find them.  They were homemade and a little sketchy (as in when Wes went to buy them the guy said wait here, and came back with bundles in his and hand and starting wrapping them up in masking tape–NO JOKE).  So, Wes took them to the roof to set them off instead of our backyard where they might have taken out a kid or two.  All was well and they were LOUD.  Our neighbors thought so too, since they called the police and Wes had to have a little visit with them.  REALLY??!  This is Peru, remember??!  All in all it was totally worth it.  Even though one of the last ones went off in our neighbors yard.  It’s probably a good thing we are moving in a couple of months.  :)

Click here for more pics from the party.  And for pictures of the fireworks check out the Fletcher’s blog, because Stephanie got some good ones.

I’m glad that Peru has a lot of the same nationally recognized holidays as you do in the States.  Mother’s Day and Father’s Day being the most recent ones.  We had a great Father’s Day weekend and even started celebrating how great of a Daddy we have around here a little early.  Like last Thursday.  I asked Jake what he wanted to make Daddy for Father’s Day.  He said, “A paper tree.”  Okaaay.  I’m thinking, How am I going to either get around this one or figure out how to make this doable?  Well, we found an idea in a craft book (borrowed from Alison just in time) and we made it happen.  We made a paper palm tree!  Daddy loves palm trees.  I think they are his favorite kind of tree.  For the trunk we used a Pringles can, and for the palm leaves we traced Jake and Derek’s hands on green paper and cut them out.  Inside the trunk/can we put candy, because Daddy loves candy.  Jakob helped write a note for him and he signed his name!  He’s so big, it’s hard to believe he can already write his name!  And Derek left his mark, too.  :)

Jake LOVES to make things and had so much fun with this project that he couldn’t hold it in.  So Daddy got his present on Thursday before the big day.  We love you, Daddy!

Yesterday we went out to eat for our Father’s Day lunch.  Mark went with us and we had a good time and ate some amazingly yummy food at Benihana.  Yes, there is one here and we are very thankful!

ANYWAY, so as I turn to go down the next isle to get some apples, Jake is trailing behind me and playing with some tongs that are hanging down in front of some unknown Peruvian fruit.  Next thing I know I hear him screaming and crying, run back over there and find him surrounded by workers and concerned fellow shoppers.  He is holding and staring at his hand, which has several blond, hair-thin, thorns sticking out of it!  I picked out the ones that I could see.  But everyone else around me was highly concerned and eager to help, because Jake was still freaking out.  A couple of ladies were there who spoke English and they asked me if I had any tweezers, because there were more thorns in his hand and they are hard to see.  Needless to say, we found out why those tongs were there–for handling this fruit called a tuna, a cactus fruit.  I guess it’s similar to a prickly pear.

God took over for me, because I felt helpless and clueless.  Those sweet ladies (all of them) took care of everything.  One went to go buy some tweezers and another led Jake over to a sink to wash his hands.  Within 10 minutes all was well.

That evening we went to Chili’s for a birthday dinner for Sofia (Happy birthday, Sof!  Can’t believe you are already 5!).  By this time, though, I was feeling worse and didn’t even order food.  On the way home I had the boys in the car (Wes had left to play soccer) and we had to stop and get gas.  Filling up your tank here is actually quite a luxury.  You are not allowed to do it yourself, so every station is full service.  And in some places, they even have fill stations in the medians of the road, so you just pull over and they fill up your tank and then you are back on your way.  Pretty cool.  I only had 20 soles of cash with me (about $6), so I asked the guy to go ahead and give me a full tank, thinking I would pay with my debit card.  This happened to me once before, so you would think that I would have known that this was another bad idea from Stacy for the day.  He fills up my tank, it ends up being about 135 soles, then my card gets denied.  So here I am in the middle of the road, can hardly speak any Spanish, and have no way of paying for this.  I end up leaving my drivers license and car insurance with the guy and tell him I’ll be back after I find some cash.  Long story short, the Thompsons come to my rescue and I clean them out of ALL the cash they had on hand so I can go back and pay for it.  Thanks again, Alison!

So I’m finally on my way home.  By this time I am really feeling nauseated.  And the drive home, which normally would take 20 to 30 minutes, ended up taking 45-50 minutes because I got stuck in horrible traffic.  I was literally praying the whole time that God would let me at least make it home before I threw up, because I was stuck on the highway with nowhere to go and it would have been all over me.  Lovely, right?  Before I made it home, I called and asked Wes to meet me there.  I beat him home and managed to get a sleeping Derek out of the car and into his bed.  But I had to leave Jake asleep in the car and just waited for Wes to get there, because I was in need of a few moments with the toilet.

I’m learning that Peruvian viruses hate me.  I was sick all night and things got worse after that.  Wes said that when he got Derek up this morning he found Derek laying in his own dried up vomit, but he was happy as a lark.  I know, another lovely sight for you to imagine.  Thankfully, after a bath, Derek’s been fine all day.  I, on the other hand, am still in bed.  But at least I am finding time for updates now, right?

Preposterous!  I was immediately infuriated… no way.  There’s no way there are that many rabbits in that field.  And, obviously, my question hadn’t been taken seriously.  I don’t remember exactly how I responded… I do remember being deeply offended.

Looking back, I don’t blame my dad at all for his response… in fact, it was quite brilliant.  Because, I don’t remember it, but I’m sure that question was preceded by the likes of… How many mice do you think are in that field?  Why? How many trees are in the world? Why? Why is the sky blue?  Why are leaves green?  What do ducks eat? Why do ducks eat that?  Did Adam have a belly button? Why? What if? How?

That endless stream of questions is just part of my make-up… I can’t help it.  And for better or worse, along with my hands and feet, I passed that on down to Jakob… it’s part of his make-up now, too.  Sometimes that endless stream of “why’s” and “how’s” from the Jakester leads to innocently profound questions like the teachable moment Stacy wrote about.  Sometimes it just makes you want to pull your hair out.

Not sure why I wanted to share that… but our little question asker is getting to be our big question asker faster than it seems possible.

Derek, on the other hand, is definitely in the midst of the language explosion that happens at his age.  It’s incredible to watch it happen in both English and Spanish at the same time.  He has things he knows only in English and stuff he knows only in Spanish… amazing.  When asked, “Como estas?” He proudly replies, “Bien!”  When we tell him to “Say Hi” to somebody new, he carefully looks at them and decides by instinct whether to say “Hola” or “Hi.”  And, he’s always right.

He’s getting so big so fast… and even though he’s got my body and my walk, I think he still looks like a little Stacy.  It’s wonderful how children can be their own unique individuals and yet we can look at them and, at times, see little reflections of ourselves.

Click here for more photos.

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