The House on Lindsey Lane

The House on Lindsey Lane is Moving!

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Tue, 15 Jan 2019 16:50:00 +0000

You are about to be redirected!!

This blog has moved to Wordpress, which means that from now on, you'll need to access the blog at the following address:

bekahvickers.com

All the previous posts and all future ones will be at that address, and I will no longer be updating this website. My technical staff is on permanent vacation, so I'm doing all the behind the scenes work for this move based on what Google teaches me, so please be patient with any hiccups along the way....

Thank you always for reading this crazy little blog of mine!! :)

Girl Talk

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Thu, 10 Jan 2019 17:29:00 +0000

Last night, we split up into a "boys' car" and a "girls' car" for the rides to church and back home, since, as usual, we'd met P for dinner before all heading to Wednesday night Bible class. On the way home, Sarah talked, and I listened, and it was great.

She said her favorite memory of just the two of us was that time when we went to the mall. Seeing as this isn't the 90's and I'm not Cher Horowitz, I was a little surprised by this - and to be honest, I still don't actually remember the trip in question. Apparently we bought Sarah a lunchbox (at the mall?? I don't know...) and she thought it was a super cool experience. She went on to wax poetic about The Mall, with its stores and yummy places to eat and that really cool sarcophagus that "remember, Mom, I went into it and you took a video of me coming out like I was a mummy? And it was SOOO funny..." What's funny is how a seven-year-old finds endless delight in an ancient Old Navy, a limited-service Sonic, and the truly bizarre SeaQuest Aquarium, which not only exhibits an array of pitiful, captive sharks, rays, and chickens (so weird), but also has a functioning sarcophagus.

You never know what's going to 'stick' with these people.

For instance, I would've sworn that her favorite memory of just the two of us would have been our trip to see The Nutcracker at Bass Hall last month. That was certainly my favorite experience of the recent past - getting dressed up together (pantyhose all around!), weaving our way through the stunningly gorgeous (and incredibly crowded) foyer, all the way to the entrance for our seats, which were mere yards from the stage and perfectly positioned to see everything; as we waited for the show to begin, we gazed in wonder at the beautiful Hall interior and watched the parade of little girls in Christmas dresses being guided to their seats by mothers and grandmothers and dads and big sisters... And then the curtain rose! The music! The dancing! And our excitement to see our little friends Harriet and Bruce, shining throughout the entire party scene! The costumes and the set! It was truly a spectacle of wonder... Sarah was fascinated by how strong all the male dancers were - how they kept picking up the girls and carrying them around! And I loved watching her initiation into performance arts, her eyes transfixed in wonder on the stage, both of us lost in the beauty of the movement and music... I loved that she enjoyed it as much as I did. I loved that I could point out one thing that amazed me ("look how high he jumps!") and she would return with a comment of her own ("Her dress is so beautiful..."). I loved the fun of getting a snack at intermission, and how determined Sarah was to have her picture taken with one of the nutcrackers standing in the foyer. Afterwards, we did not see our friends (they had probably gone home as soon as their roles were over), but as we lingered out on the sidewalk, waiting for our boys to pick us up, I noticed a handful of people exiting the side of the building and guessed by their heavy make-up and slicked hair that they were some of the performers - and so we cautiously approached one of these women so that Sarah could meet her and tell her how much she loved the show; the woman told us yes, she was a dancer, and that she was in the Dance of the Flowers, and would we like to take a photograph together? And although my sweet girl was too overwhelmed to say a word, she nodded fervently and smiled big for that picture with a real ballerina.

When I mentioned the ballet during our car ride home last night, Sarah said, oh yes, she loved that, too - she had just forgotten about it! And then she was quiet some time before asking me, "Mom, were you sad when your grandmother died?" I tried to explain that strange sort of sadness that we experience when we miss someone deeply but are happy for them, too, and she shared that she thought that she would be really sad if one of her grandmothers died. We both agreed that she has some pretty special grandmothers, and then Sarah said, "I just can't wait to be a grandmother. I mean, I can wait, but sometimes I don't want to." I asked her why that was, and she said, "Because when you're a grandmother, you get to have kids and grandkids."

I love this girl of mine so much. She continues to amaze and bless me with her sweet thoughts and insights, her generous spirit and her fierce loyalty. She is deeply thoughtful and carefully observant, and given enough space and quiet, she will let you in to her world of wonder and invention, and you will probably be the better for it. Or at least deeply entertained.

January!!

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Tue, 08 Jan 2019 00:08:00 +0000

The best month is here.

That is all.

Maybe It IS the Most Wonderful Time of Year...

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Mon, 26 Nov 2018 16:56:00 +0000

Someone needs to check my temperature.

I think I'm actually okay with the holidays approaching.

(Come to think of it, I have had a nasty cold lately - do sinus infections often result in personality changes?)

Maybe it's the fact that I made four delicious pies for Thanksgiving, without breaking much of a sweat. (Granted, those pies are incredibly easy to make. Who knew? All this time, I thought Mom was slaving away.... but now I know the secret, and it has a lot to do with refrigerated pie dough and Eagle Brand.... But this'll be our little secret, too, right? We want everyone else to continue to be super impressed.)

Maybe it's that I've ordered our Christmas cards already. (It helped that our photo session was in April. Bluebonnets and snowflakes are a perfect match, no?)

Maybe it's that I'm just really looking forward to justifying countless hours of extra TV time with the excuse that classic Christmas movies need to be watched. Truth? Truth.

Maybe it's Amazon Prime. Oh, how I love thee, Amazon Prime.

Maybe it's that my kids spent the entire summer being forced to pick up their toys, and I'm pretty sure that for the first time, they basically get it when I say, "You don't really need any more stuff." Sure, sure, they'll still get more stuff - but it helps that for the first time ever, they are not working out of a place of (mis)perceived poverty.

Maybe it's that the kids are old enough now to decorate the tree entirely on their own. Because really, is that a task that any grown-up really enjoys? (Okay, okay, maybe I am still a bit of a Scrooge at heart...)

It's definitely got something to do with an early Thanksgiving. Y'all. It's still November!! For the first time in a decade, I don't feel like the calendar rushed on without me! It's the week-long equivalent of the end of Daylight Savings Time. Free. Time. I plan on wasting every second of it, you can be sure of that.

But probably, just maybe and perhaps, I'm in a better mood about Christmas this year because of something else. Several weeks ago, a friend and minister at church asked if I'd be interested in helping him write some daily meditations on the Nativity. He had envisioned a month-long, multi-sensory study of the birth of Christ that might be of some encouragement to the families of our congregation as they head into the holidays. Since then, we've both been writing and writing (24 posts is a LOT of writing for those of us who regularly blog only bimonthly...), and eating and sleeping and breathing the birth of Christ.

It's hard not to be excited, when that's the focus of the season.

Up until now, I always thought it was the focus of the season for us - I mean, how many corny rhymes do we need to remind us of that? Christ in Christmas, Reason for the Season, Greatest Gift of All..... But, as it turns out, no magical mantra is really enough to ensure that our focus is truly on Christ - unless our focus is truly on Christ.

In the past, I'd spend so much time and energy Pinterest-ing ways to lead my kids to think about Christ during Christmas - that by December 24th, I was just done. I did not want to see another shepherd or wise man for another 364 days, thankyouverymuch. But this is what I was missing - before I try to lead my kids to think about Christ, I need to be doing it myself! Ha! I mean, it's not rocket science....

Anyway, it's been a great blessing to do this. And I'm learning a lot, too - not the least of which is how ill-equipped I am for this task. But I know that I join the ranks of a lot of ill-equipped servants of the Lord, and I'm praying He'll take my broken vessel and shine brightly through the many cracks. If you're interested in following along, we'll start posting on December 2. You can find us at oholynight.org.

Until then, I'm going to go take some Sudafed and sit on the couch with Andrew and watch Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer until our eyeballs fall out. Merry Christmas!

Life in Harmony

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Mon, 19 Nov 2018 20:57:00 +0000

Yesterday, we sat down at Chuy's for lunch, and while Philip and I ate our weight in chips and Creamy Jalapeño, the kids all set to work on the Chuy's coloring pages. I found myself staring at them in wonder - and not just because they were sitting quietly and behaving like angels in a public place. If it had just been Sarah coloring, I would not have been surprised - she loves to do that, any time, any place. But for both of the boys to be engrossed by this was really out of the norm - especially for Luke. He practically invented the "one scribble and I'm done" attack on coloring pages.

But as I watched them, I realized that the boys have probably taken their cue from Sarah's example; they see how much she enjoys drawing and coloring, and so they have decided they will enjoy it, too. And I began to think about the ways that the others' interests have also rubbed off - Luke loves reading and especially listening to audiobooks, and although Sarah is not naturally inclined the same way, she has recently commandeered all the Narnia CDs - and is working on memorizing the whole of our Shel Silverstein audio collection. Andrew is still too young to have many interests that are wholly his own (other than snuggling with me), but he definitely joins in on anything his siblings are doing - from Legos to Barbies - and even chores. This morning, Luke was dusting the living room for me, and Andrew was right behind him begging to vacuum. [Come to think of it, Andrew insisted on vacuuming AND de-dog-hairing the sofa AND then threw a fit when I wouldn't let him sweep... could cleaning be his special interest?? Lord, let it be so!!]

It's so awesome to see the way that these three separate humans do life together. They don't really know any other way, of course, but I think I could learn a lot from them anyway. Like the way that they are able to enjoy each other's interests without losing even an iota of their own personality. The way they celebrate each other's gifts without feeling the need to compare the strength of their different abilities. And the way they are devoted to each other on such a deep level that they never need to question it, even in the midst of a no-holds-barred squabble (of which there are plenty).

I wish we could be more like that in our church family. I wish that brothers and sisters in Christ could participate alongside each other in different acts of service and worship without the slightest bit of comparison or doubt. I wish that we could recognize strengths without letting them set up walls around what we can and cannot do. I wish we could love each other so deeply that we'd happily set aside our own interests just to spend time side by side with our brother or sister. I wish we could love each other so deeply that we could speak of our differences and hurts and anxieties with faith that our relationships can handle some discord.

But in order to have those kinds of deep relationships, we must do life together. We must be vulnerable. We must love deeply. And we must be humble enough to see that sometimes our kids have a lot more of life figured out than we might have imagined.

Halloween Is Terrifying

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Tue, 30 Oct 2018 15:07:00 +0000

When I was in 4th grade, a rumor circulated in my class that someone was going to gruesomely murder all the blond-haired, blue-eyed girls on Halloween night that year. As a result, my best friend's mom convince my mom that we should skip neighborhood Trick-or-Treating AND the middle school Fall Festival and only drive around to visit people we knew.

I think that was the moment that ruined Halloween for me forever.

Now, the holiday is nothing but misery, always leading me right down the quick road to Crazy. This morning was the perfect example:

I had been telling a friend recently that I usually end up purchasing a book to go along with whatever costume my kid wants to wear to Storybook Character Day because I'm just not doing the multiple costumes in one year thing - and who ever wants to be an actual book character when you can be Spiderman or Elsa?? - when lo and behold, my youngest surprises me by coming up with the adorable idea of being one of the Three Little Pigs. He wants to be "the red one" and spends some time helping me understand exactly which book features that particular Pig. I get further sucked in when he seems excited about the idea of making the ears and nose and tail out of paper - and I get SO swept away that I end up purchasing a plastic pig nose and a cheap headband with pink ears already attached. He continues to be thrilled and runs around in the costume for a half a day after I've brought it home. The next two nights at bedtime, we read every version of the story that we own.

But happiness in parenting is always destined for a fall.

The morning of Storybook Character Day starts off innocently enough - but then we cannot find the exact color of clothes that the pig is wearing in the book. We spend no less than 20 minutes trying to get the pink pipe-cleaner tail twisted just right. And the kicker: nothing will convince the boy that his skin isn't "pink enough" for a pig. I manage a few pitiful photos before I totally lose my cool. There are threats involved in the effort to get us loaded into the van when it's time to go. And, as you might have guessed, by the time we pull up to the school parking lot, all elements of the costume have been removed (except the tail - which will cause a small scene later on at the door to the classroom), and I deliver nothing more than a grumpy 4-year-old dressed in blue and holding the remnants of what might've been our family's most triumphant Storybook Character Day costume yet.

Oh, Halloween, how do I hate thee? Let me count the ways:

1. I hate being bombarded by "spooky" decorations at every turn.
2. I hate that "sexy [anything]" is basically the only alternative to "witch" for adult female costumes.
3. I hate how much candy I am forced to purchase for strangers.
4. I hate having to begin the "what will I be" discussion on October 1. [No, who am I kidding? That discussion always begins on November 1 of the previous year - but at least I feel justified in not engaging until T Minus 31 days.]
5. I hate having to repeatedly broadcast the math on how many days until Halloween, often beginning mid-summer.
6. I hate seeing babies dressed as zombies.
7. I hate seeing anyone dressed as zombies.
8. Just don't give me any zombies. I hate them.
9. I hate watching the Halloween episode of sitcoms - especially during any month that doesn't begin with "o."
10. I hate Trunk or Treat. As a wise Instagrammer recently pointed out - why are we teaching kids to take candy from the trunks of strangers' cars? Really?? Really.
11. I especially hate church Trunk or Treat. REALLY???
12. I hate cold cream and pumpkin guts.
13. I hate Pinterest during October, with its stupid "witch's brew" cocktails and spider printables.
14. I hate dealing with my oldest child's insane expectations for costumes. I'd rather diffuse bombs for a living.
15. I hate preschool Storybook Character Day, with its ridiculous expectation that we bring a book to match whatever costume our Tiny Tyrant deems acceptable and pleasing to him on that morning.
16. I hate those little white poppers that one of our neighbors growing up used to leave all over his sidewalk for poor innocent kids to step on. Pure evil.
17. I hate the buckets of candy wrappers that haunt me through November.
18. I hate the candy buckets, too.
19. I hate the Spirit Shop. Hate. It.
20. I hate the inevitable disillusionment that occurs at some point between the purchase/gathering of a child's costume and the donning of the costume, often resulting in a terrifying last-minute scramble to wear something else.
21. And I hate that just as soon as we get to throw out the rotting Jack-o-lantern and return to dressing up purely for the joy of it, we have already waded chest-deep into discussions of "what I want for Christmas"....

Someone save me!

Candlelight and Ebenezers

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Tue, 16 Oct 2018 17:57:00 +0000

I am a fierce creature of habit, and I've always claimed a spot at my dinner table and refused to relinquish it to anyone. In my childhood home, I sat in a small chair that did not match the rest of the dining set, and which was probably too small for me by the time I was in high school - but was my chair, and therefore it never occurred to me to give it up.

In our current home and dining arrangement, I sit at the head of our oblong kitchen table. Sarah often tries to steal my seat when I'm not in it, but I always force her out. That is momma's chair. As a parent of three, my odd behaviors have been reinforced by the undeniable fact that if I am the only one sitting in a particular chair, it is less likely to get as sticky and messy and crumby as the other spots at the table. I am less likely to set my morning Bible study supplies down in a puddle of milk (or honey), and my pants are less likely to develop a Golden Graham crust.

But I also like being able to see everyone, sitting at the head. Last night, P was working late, and so it was just me and the kids sitting around the table. It was late and dark and rainy; this fall all of our weeknight dinners happen after piano or karate or dance or church, and so they are always late and often rushed by the fact that bedtime is moments away. I'd made a delicious chili yesterday afternoon, perfect for the monsoon season we are currently experiencing, and perfect for warming in the crockpot so that it'd be ready as soon as we got home. I'd known my children would not share my satisfaction with the menu, and so I'd added fritos and cheese to their helpings - and as an added barrier against the griping which so often accompanies our family meals, I'd asked Sarah to help set the table and get out the candles. Something about the firelight...

It danced off their eyes as they asked how many bites and as they shared their "high, low, and buffaloes" of the day. The boys endeavored to "accidentally" blow out the candles while Sarah shared (again) her great despair concerning her BFF Ellie, who was home sick today, and Samwise whined from the torture of not getting to eat the chili. Andrew, as usual, did not eat much at all of his dinner, but he surprised me with a very grown-up recap of his day - his "high" was watching TV all morning, and his "low" was eating chili for dinner, but still, I marveled at how big this kid was getting; it wasn't long ago that he couldn't recall anything that wasn't immediately occurring.... Luke did not surprise me by highjacking the discussion I tried to have about what I was learning in BSF; he couldn't quite recall that Joshua fought the battle of Jericho, but he made up for it by recounting every time that God parted waters for people to cross on dry land. In case you were wondering, silence is never an element of our dinners together these days... it's a blessing and a curse... A jazz playlist quietly playing in the background set the mood for laughter and winding down and filling our stomachs and hearts with just a moment of all that is sweet about family, even in the midst of the Busy Seasons.

It has certainly been a busy season for us, and I am facing challenges of my own that require most of my mental energy and attention. However, I am balancing those demands by lowering my expectations of myself in other areas. No extra house projects, and only the most necessary of chores. I'm giving myself permission to read All the Novels - and watch TV - and listen to podcasts - and sometimes, to just sit on the couch in the living room, or in the parents' seats at karate, or on the bench at the school playground - and just watch my kids. Or other kids. Or the dog. Or sometimes the rain dripping down the windows. Whatever. I don't have to be busy; there's enough "busy" in my life already. When the moments of peace come, I welcome them with open arms.

And I love this, because it lets me See. It lets me see my kids, and their quirks and weirdness and wonder. I watch Andrew sorting his bucket of tiny plastic animals into neat rows. I watch Sarah murmuring to herself in a world of her own creation. I watch Luke scratching away at his homework, with the tip of his tongue peeking out and a drawing of fierce dragon-creatures developing off to the side of the math problems. I notice how Sarah gazes off into the distance, how Luke never passes the piano without plunking out a few notes, and how Andrew will probably smother Samwise one of these days. I get to be a part of Luke's endless quest to Know Everything There Is To Know, and a part of Sarah's already intricate friendship experiences, and a part of any number of Snuggle Games with Andrew (last night we spent ten minutes whispering in each other's ears during the big kids' piano practice; it was so silly, and so incredibly sweet...). I know these days fly by, and I seek to treasure each one in my heart. But some days, that requires an act of God, and on those days, I fall before Him so thankful. Thankful I'm trapped at piano lessons. Thankful the Walmart Pickup queue is extra long when we stop by after school. Thankful that our ride home from church on Wednesday nights is a slow 20 minutes. Thankful it's raining and I don't have the energy to do anything but sit in my living room and let my children entertain themselves, three small whirlwinds of activity orbiting my stationary self.

During that candlelit dinner, I had been trying to tell the kids about Joshua's monuments to the Lord, intended to remind Israel and its future generations of all He had given them and the ways He fought for them and how He protected them. We never got to that, what with the divergence into water-parting episodes, but I'm still thinking about it. I'm still ruminating on the fact that we all need reminders, ebenezers that will attest to things we know - things we should know - but so easily forget. In motherhood, I need this reminder daily. That God sustains, that He guides, and that He protects. But also, that God has been so very generous to me, with these three sweet souls. They are wild and unruly and stubborn and strong-willed, but they are wonderful, and they are made in His Image, and they are my own personal Ebenezer, a sign to me of all that God has done and continues to do because of His powerful love of His children and for the sake of His glory.

The Ants Have Laid Siege To My Sanity

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Fri, 24 Aug 2018 16:29:00 +0000

Tiny but relentless. Terrifying to my three-year-old. Infuriating to me. I've discovered that Mrs. Meyer's Honeysuckle-scented Multi-Purpose Spray kills them on contact (slightly disconcerting, for a "granola" brand...), but still they continue to reroute my morning plans. Every. Single. Day.

It's as if a lifetime of wisdom from all other sources, human and Divine, were not enough to convince me that I am not actually in control... but "Go to the ant, you Sluggard!"... and find that today you will not be working on that photo project or this meal plan or even that shopping errand; you will be cleaning and reorganizing your kitchen cabinets, one ant-infested morning at a time.

I am holding out for a respite in this siege on my sanity; I've even gone so far as to call the pest control company (a chore I've been avoiding for months), and the desperation in my voice must have been clear because they will be here at noon. They will likely tell me that they really can't do much about ants, but I'll feel better knowing that Something Insectal Will Die Today. Perhaps I'm not holding on to my sanity as well as I thought....

Let's blame the ants, or exhaustion, for my shocking slip into despair last night as I lay in my own bed (blissfully unaware of the ant army storming the dog food bowl in the kitchen). Similar to that strange unearthly feeling of overwhelm that I get when I look at the stars and think about the sheer size of things, I found myself zooming out on my life, astonished to have another school year already underway, astonished to have ripped through summertime, astonished to be speeding so much more quickly through this life... astonished, even, that this tritest of cliches is so ruthlessly true: time flies.

My despair did not last long before I plunged into sleep (albeit one riddled with strange dreams of espionage and supervillians), but I know it will lurk in the back of my mind over the next several days, as I wear myself (and my family) out with my efforts to smooth this transition from a carefree, irresponsible summer into an activity-full and expectation-high school year. Is it possible that we are here already? The day that I longed for with every ounce of my being on many a long summer afternoon in July - and now that it's here, I'm more than a little sad? What is happening?

Another weird thing: I have no photos of this summer. With the exception of our Yellowstone vacation and a few family get-togethers, I have almost nothing! It's as if this summer didn't exist. Perhaps that's why I feel so much loss! There Was No Summer!

But y'all, that part of me that almost Lost It Completely upon finding two pairs of small sandals on the floor of my room when I retreated there for bedtime several days ago (nothing is sacred from the mess that These People cause!) - that part that wants JUST A FEW MINUTES to myself - the part that has heard the phrase, "I'm hungry," enough times to make it sound obscene - the part that spent absolutely every single evening this summer in that kind of tired desperation that makes you think that screaming at children from the couch is an appropriate bedtime routine... Well, that part knows that we had summer, and plenty of it. Y'all, my kids told me we "went to the pool too much." In mid-July.

Well. I don't know about you, but now that I've gotten all of that off my chest, the feeling of despair about school starting is good and on the run! (Thanks, I obviously needed this!) (Who needs counseling when you have a blog??)

But one last thing before I go back to wiping down cabinets and mounting another Cleaning Spray Offensive: it's actually been a great summer. We did swim, and enjoyably. We had a marvelous vacation, with thousands of photos to prove it. We went to the library almost every time Luke asked, which is a LOT of times. We made messes and then made ourselves clean up. We stayed home a lot, and stayed inside a lot, thanks to the 100º+ temps that began in May, but we didn't actually mind too much. We played board games and read books and built things with Legos. The dress-up clothes were never completely put away because they were so often in use. We all worked together to maintain this momma's sanity with a few basic chores and strict adherence to afternoon rest time. We watched television without thinking about the AAP and its ridiculous rules. The kids almost never bathed, and they definitely did not ever go to sleep before 10 pm, but we still managed to give ourselves time to be refreshed and renewed - spiritually, if not physically.

We did not go to Six Flags (shh - I don't think they've realized that yet), and we let our museum and zoo memberships lapse. But we spent time with friends and with cousins and with grandparents, and we welcomed our church family into our home on a regular basis. We did VBS and Latin Camp and regular karate lessons, but otherwise we let go of the need to Be Anywhere, and that was truly glorious. We took walks on the abandoned golf course and played basketball in the driveway, and we found that sometimes just being home is all we ever needed.

And that thing I said about no pictures isn't technically true. So just to prove that we did have an actual summer, with actual contentedness laced throughout, I present the following 19 photos. Thanks for the memories, Summer That Almost Wasn't But Really Was And For That Reason Was Perfect!

Never Grow Old

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Thu, 02 Aug 2018 16:53:00 +0000

After a solid year of claiming to be up to four years older than he actually is, Andrew has suddenly taken the position that he no longer wants to "get bigger." This kid, who regularly claims to be "big enough" for whatever it is that the older kids are doing, who last night insisted on being taught to read before bedtime, whose body stubbornly refuses to stop stretching taller and taller.... appears to have concluded that the price for growing up is simply too much for him. Get ready, Mommas, because this is Motherhood Gold:

Andrew doesn't want to get bigger because if he does, he won't "get holded" anymore.

That's right. For today at least, I'm #winning in the Mom Game. Sure, it means that I have a hard time getting anything done that requires hands or arms. And that my lower back is flaring up again. And sometimes the "holding" becomes more of a "trampling." But I don't care. MOTHERHOOD GOLD, I TELL YOU!! #worthit

📷 Cowtown Camera Girl

Things That Never Cease to Amaze Me

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Wed, 11 Jul 2018 01:43:00 +0000

The speed at which toys move from their proper locations to the floor of a random room - not necessarily the room of origination.
That "classics" are "classic" for a reason - right now, I'm reading Tess of the D'Urbervilles, and while it is not likely to be a favorite, I can't put it down.
How long and skinny Andrew's little legs are becoming.
What an effort it is to get dinner on the table most nights.
Our dining out budget (see above).
How hot it is this summer.
The number of politicians, AC repairmen, and car dealerships who still stuff our mailbox with giant cardstock ads.
The way that Luke and Sarah help me sometimes without a single complaint, whether they are fetching a change of clothes for Andrew, emptying the dishwasher, or even cleaning toilets. "Mom Bucks" help, but - to my great astonishment - aren't even always necessary.
How high a certain Yorkipoo can jump. And how much he can chew.

But more than anything right now, how quickly we forget things, like those cute little mispronunciations that we think our kids will never outgrow, and then they do, and then we can't remember what they were... I've been trying to remember a certain thing that Sarah used to say* - I remember even worrying that she might need speech therapy at some point, but I can't think of what it was that she persisted in mispronouncing, and it's nagging me to death! Because in spite of (vaguely) considering speech therapy, we did little to correct her... it was just so darn cute! For the record, Andrew cannot pronounce "sh" and struggles with "an," so he's says adorable things like "sark," "sirt," "hay-erned," and "may-ern" [shark, shirt, hand, man]. There. Maybe I'll remember that I wrote that down here. Maybe.

It's no wonder, though, that we forget - and, I suspect, it is often a blessing - because time moves so quickly these days, racing from one activity or meal or church service or sibling emergency to another. It's nothing like it was in our twenties, years which now seem to have floated down on the lazy River of Life Without Kids, twirling slowly on large, rubber inner tubes, when we were truly carefree and - dare I say it? - often bored - bored enough, at least, to do things like watch all the Oscar movies or learn to play Guitar Hero or take our cat on walks around the neighborhood... [Yes. Those are Real Things We Did. I think I'll need a moment of silence now, in honor of the Life That Was.]

P sometimes reminds me to make a video or write down a certain thing that we both agree we'd like to remember forever, but I find myself doubting that this is ever enough - after all, we've got something like 20 hours of video on our hard drive already.... and you, dear readers, know all too well how much time often passes between my blog entries (hello, six weeks ago!). The truth is that I have this feeble and probably naive hope that somehow these moments are indelibly recorded in heaven, like the teardrops in a jar, and that we will be free to spend eternity perusing them at our leisure. But then again, this Eternity - if it is what I believe it will be - will likely eclipse this life so entirely that our memories - so precious to us now, and so part of who we are and who we are becoming - will draw our attention even less often than all those unwatched hours of video on my hard drive.

A wise teacher once said that our lives are simply a process of learning to let go: babies grow as they begin to let go of their mothers, adolescents grow as they learn to let go of their childhood, young adults grow as they learn to let go of their childhood homes, and adults then begin the process of eventually letting go of life altogether. It sounds morbid, I'll admit, but only to the fearful (of which I am certainly one, oftentimes). However, in the context of God's love, each release is a further step towards Him, both spiritually and physically. In this process, we learn that we can trust Him with everything that is dear to us, down to our very soul. Surely our sweet memories are trustworthy with Him as well.

I'd bet anything that there's a video somewhere of Sarah saying whatever it was she used to say - but perhaps it's enough to look at her today and marvel at how she's grown, thanking God for these sweet children entrusted to us for a short period - who daily remind us of our need for Him, as well as our debt of gratitude for His richness towards us.

I guess that's something else that will never cease to amaze me.

----
*I couldn't stand the suspense and was finally victorious in locating a video clip in which Sarah pronounces "because" as "we-cause," and I'm pretty sure that was the one I was trying to remember. And it was still unbelievably adorable to see her say that. Plus, I'm proving myself wrong about the value of all of that video footage....

Friday Morning on the Back Patio

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Fri, 11 May 2018 14:40:00 +0000

A small flock of wild geese roam freely through the 18th Fairway behind my house, with carts and golf clubs no longer a threat to their wanderings. The tall grasses need mowing, yet sway so beautifully in this Grand Prairie breeze... trees towering above me in full leaf let forth a symphony of sound, swelling in an ocean roar and then becoming still and silent, letting the distant hum of a neighbor's mower break through before the leaves begin their singing once again. The baby birds in our craft-store birdhouse screech loudly until Momma appears, darting back after her latest bug-hunting expedition. Let's hope it was successful, or there may never be peace in that corner of the yard again...

I am so overwhelmed by life. I used to be an "on top of things" kind of girl. I had my ducks in a row and my "stuff" straight. But, as I suspect happens to most of us, the older I get, the more bewildered I feel. Those things I thought I knew, the things I thought I was, the things making up all my plans and ordering my life so neatly - well, they can vanish pretty quickly, can't they? So many fantastic illusions, crumbling under the force of reality. And before I know it, every morning is a new existential crisis - but also, by the way, when am I going to tackle that load of laundry or prep that meal or buy those groceries or clean that toilet or sign them up for this or schedule us for that thing....

I am thankful for the mundane, urgent things, though. The work of our hands is redemptive. And I'm thankful for the Works of His hands, for they quickly put me in my place. Just when I had fully positioned myself in the center of His Universe, I look out at six wild geese in the field and think, "You know, I guess God is thinking about those guys, too." And the wind in those symphonic trees drowns out the philosophies in my head, drawing my eyes upward and further outward, rootedly reminding me of the weight of glory all around, dwarfing my own self, humbling me so that I may resume my rightful place in tHis world, like a wandering child being gently ushered back to a place where he may be safe, where he may thrive and grow in the way that he should.

The Tooth Fairy

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Thu, 26 Apr 2018 16:39:00 +0000

My dad wrote the best Tooth Fairy notes. In fact, it always seemed to be a bonus when the Tooth Fairy forgot to visit because that guaranteed a bona fide written communication from the Fairy Herself, complete with magical swirls and fancy jargon that only the truest of mythical tooth-loving creatures could conjure.

Unfortunately, I inherited neither my dad's note-composition skills nor the necessary penmanship. Try as I might, my swirls always come out lopsided and my cursive is jarring, giving the note the appearance of one written by a fifth grader experimenting with her non-dominant hand rather than a passable memo from the Fabled Madam herself.

Thus, when we forget - as we ~~often~~ always do - then we must employ other creative powers.

This week, Sarah lost both of her front lateral incisors. First of all, this left P and me really sweating because we know that she has inherited my natural toothlessness (we are both missing seven permanents), and we were terrified that she had been rendered gap-toothed far earlier than we'd hoped. I myself managed to keep those two baby teeth (and the two beside them) until my 30s... But *praise the Lord* her dentist confirmed for me yesterday that she does indeed have permanents for the chompers in question. (It's the next ones over that are AWOL. Cross your fingers, and don't you dare bump her in the mouth.)

Anyway, Tooth #1 fell out on Sunday. P helped her find a baggie and she dutifully wrote two notes to the Tooth Fairy: one requesting that the tooth be taken and the other illustrating where four coins may be left in its stead. I was not aware of this last bit; in fact, I was not aware of anything until P woke me up Monday morning with the frantic whisper, "We forgot! And she beat me waking up, so she knows!" I will try not to relate P's description of her disappointment; no need for us all to be in shameful tears this morning...

So I did what mothers around the world have done since the beginning of time, when we first created these wretched fictions to bring joy to our children: I jumped out of bed and started tearing through our closet in search of the gold dollar coins that our personal TF trades in. But to no avail; as it turns out, I have recently reorganized our closet, and now I can find Nothing. Especially in times of crisis.

P entered the room just as I was giving up hope and joined the fray, but all we could scrounge up was a small tin of Susan B. Anthony coins. Not as flashy as the gold ones, but better than nothing! Now for the next task: creative storytelling.

In the past, P has "helped" the kids look and miraculously "finds" the coin in the process, but this time, the bed had already been searched - and the tooth in its baggy alongside the two untouched notes were still all too accusingly in view. So he had done his best to console ("Maybe the Tooth Fairy takes Sunday off?") and continue with the other morning duties.

Meanwhile, my brain is churning out one harebrained scheme after another, absolutely refusing to give up on this. After all, I know we can't manage the prerequisite note to explain the day-late visit: Tooth Fairy HAS to have come on time.

And then God bless the kids' nasty sheets... for therein lay my answer: I would go up to change the sheets (a long overdue chore as it was), and then, behold the Miracle: The Coin that Could Not Be Found Earlier Has Been Found.

Y'all, it worked. Oh, that sweet little girl of mine, so hopeful and so ready to believe. I held all the balled up sheets in one arm and the coin in the other, screwed up my face in confusion and explained how I'd found this coin - was it Sarah's? Her face mirrored the confusion in mine for a millisecond before that melted away in the heat of pure joy - "It must've been from the Tooth Fairy!!! She didn't forget!! AND she let me keep my tooth!!!!!!!!!" [Meanwhile Luke is in the background, trying the claim the coin as his own: "I lost all of my coins from the Tooth Fairy, so it's probably one of mine...." Luckily his claim is quickly dispatched by the clear fact that this coin is SILVER while his were all gold.] Sarah, bless her, went on to concoct a whole backstory for the event, and our minor disaster was officially averted.

The Skeptic in my head attempts to chastise me for my Intentional Deception, and for capitalizing on the Innocence of my Own Child. But here's the thing: I can still see the look on her face - relief, joy, thrill - and all I can think is - this is Love. This is the "always believes" Love that Paul talks about. It's the kind that is able to discern the moments when the Law falls away in favor of a deeper Truth. Sarah, in the epitome of childlike faith, was able to understand and celebrate the expression of Love that the Tooth Fairy represents - the kind of love that makes parents go to absurd lengths to delight their children over trifles. She doesn't have to understand all the facts in order to receive the blessings that we choose to shower over her (in spite of our forgetfulness and failings). We do it because we love her, and we love to see her joy. And she knows that, in her childlike way, and she is not so foolish or proud as to choose mistrustful misery over the gladness of heart openly offered to her.

Could it be that God interacts with us in much the same way? Although we know that He is incapable of deception, we must still choose to trust Him - and accept His bountiful blessings - when we don't fully understand the facts, or when we are not let in on the entire story. This is hard for adults, terribly hard for me at times. And perhaps that's why it's so good, every so often, to see the delight in my children's faces; to learn from them what it is to enjoy a Father's gifts, receive these gifts as Love, and leave the cynicism to the grown-ups.

An Ode to That Which Is Beyond Me

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Sat, 21 Apr 2018 19:17:00 +0000

One of the things that many people don't know about me is that I minored in Mathematics in college. In fact, I'm probably still certified to teach math in the state of Arkansas, in case you needed something to keep you terrified at night. (At least if you live in Arkansas. And have children. And want those children to actually learn math.)

Because I took dual-credit Calculus in high school, I actually didn't have that many math classes at Harding (another thing to terrify the math-honoring soul). I can honestly only remember taking four courses... but of those, I learned certain lessons that have stayed with me - not because I actually use my mathematics training (I most definitely do not) but because (shock of the world) the fundamental principles of math dwell in quiet repose beneath most of what goes on in this complex but ordered Creation.

In Advanced Geometry (my least favorite class with my least favorite professor), I was taken by surprise one day when my professor abandoned his typical somniferous lecture for a detour into the relatively young field of fractals and chaos theory. Vague recollections of Jurassic Park ran through my mind as I studied the colorful, computer-generated swirls of pattern without end, and as I considered this paradox of Biblical proportions: that apparent chaos is in fact deeply defined order.

[Math lovers, if you are still with me, forgive my simplification of this. And also forgive me for having attempted to teach a whole unit on Chaos Theory to the senior math class during student teaching. Bless.]

At times, God seems to speak so loudly to me that my ears hurt. My personal Bible study, a women's conference, a lunch conversation with friends, and a randomly encountered podcast all teaching a truth about the same topic. It's shameful at times to think how dense I must be, that I must hear it over and over... (and yet praise God for His mercies....)

Often, the lesson is clear: Do not worry. Trust fully. Build relationship. Tame your tongue. Use your gifts.

But sometimes it is very, very vague, nothing more than a word spoken into the recesses of my gray matter at intervals throughout the week, something just outside of my mental vision, escaping the grasp of my grappling reason like a bit of eggshell refusing to be caught back up in the spoon.

It is complex.

That is the Word during this season. I hear it, I think it, I come back to it as the focal point of all my experiences and readings and conversations. It is complex. Tricky. Not easy to understand. Not easy to explain.

It is a fractal, infinitely planned but chaotic none the less. There is a pattern. We cannot know it.

It is complex.

Who I am, what I believe and think and feel and want and need - and why. All that has shaped me and changed me and built me up and torn me down. The nature as well as the nurture. The possibilities to come. There is a pattern, but I cannot quite pin it down.

My relationships with others, each as unique as the individuals themselves - more so, as my relationships do not resemble yours. The intricacies of respect and love and trust and communication, the walls between us and the experiences that bind us together.

God's church. Its many body parts and intricate weaving of service and skills and gifts and grace. The pattern can be seen but not predicted. Not programmed or planned in committee.

God Himself, in full paradox, with promises and faithfulness and mystery and majesty. I am not worthy but I am accepted. What He wants and desires - what a heart truly devoted to Him looks like, in its billions of iterations over the course of all our lifetimes - never appearing the same but all according to a Plan. It is there, but so far beyond our reach.

Heaven. The blades of grass so real they hurt. New earth, refined by fire. Images that cannot be reasoned into doctrine, promises that cannot be understood without walking out on the invisible bridge of faith. A reality in the Already and the Not Yet.

It is so complex.

God did not have to do things this way, but He did. And as we stretch our minds to encompass these complexities, to see the stars and understand the infinity above us, below us, even within us, we reach to our very limits without venturing past the shallows. But God holds it all in the palm of His hand. It is one of the ways that Creation continuously glorifies Him, acknowledging the Greatness and the Magnitude, demanding our obeisance as we fully face the complexity of it all, as we fall to our knees in Wonder.

At the heart of Chaos is Peace Himself.

Praise the Lord.

Nature Boy and Sneaky Sue

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Tue, 27 Mar 2018 15:37:00 +0000

I really feel like my two youngest need "daring duo" names. When they are together, they have this powerful alliance with each other which enables them to play together for hours without interruption - unless, of course, they are interrupted by an older sibling of theirs... (He often breaks in on their fun with literal destruction, but it's hard for me to be upset with him because I know it's difficult to be on the outside, watching those two have all the fun... even if it IS Barbies and baby dolls, and in reality he gets bored after a few minutes in their company.)

But Andrew and Sarah have a bond that continues to astonish me, even as it draws up memories of my own two youngest siblings, who were also quite the pair in their day. Andrew still sobs when Sarah leaves for school (or when he discovers that she has already left, and he slept through it), and he lights up with all the world's joy when I tell him it's time to get the big kids at the end of the school day. This morning, he spent the drive to preschool mumbling through some story about why he's mad at Sarah, but I'm pretty sure that in threenager jargon, being "mad" at someone is just another level of deep kinship and loyalty.

And as for Sarah, I keep expecting that any day now, she will decide she's getting too old for her little bother and start shutting him out of her activities, but thankfully that apocalypse has yet to occur. Instead, she continues to band with him for All the Adventures, whether it's a cardboard spaceship or a stuffed animal fashion show. They cook together in the play kitchen, construct cities together with the Duplos, and sketch together for hours - or until the dog has stolen all the paper and pencils that they inevitably have left within his reach.

And truly, those two fit together quite well. Andrew is brash and fearless and completely without shame. (Yesterday morning, he played upstairs for close to an hour buck naked... every time he'd come to the landing to "show me somefing," I'd bark at him to put on clothes, but he would only peer down at me with distant amusement - and then walk off with no intention of obedience. He finally caved when I started suggesting that he must really love to be naked - I think I hit too close to home - and then the next time he appeared with clothes on, and loudly shouted, "TA DA!!" as if he had succeeded in curing cancer or something.) Andrew jumps wholeheartedly into any of his sister's schemes, even when it involves him being tied around the neck with a leash or some other such atrocity - not so much because he adores her and will do anything for her (although that's true), but mostly because he's just totally up for anything that might possibly be fun. What a tremendous and terrifying thought...

Sarah, on the other hand, is my reserved girl, carefully plotting every move and every word, casting those lovely eyes of hers about sharply as she deliberates. She is fierce and silly and creative in her own way, not so much imaginative as just drawn to create, and she is the stubbornest of my children. I remember realizing once when she was really little - just beginning to walk and talk - how easily she would try to deceive us in order to get her own way about something. At the time, I was absolutely SHOCKED that my perfect, beautiful, sweet girl would tell a FALSEHOOD to her own MOTHER without batting an EYE. But then again, as Becky Brooks once said, we have yet to birth a Savior in this family... Sarah still sometimes struggles with truth-telling because she is a master at crafting her stories and revealing only what she chooses to reveal, but mercifully, her heart is good, and she is old enough at least to know better... and we're working on it. One day perhaps that will be a gift she uses most often for good. Until then, it is invaluable in her schemes with Nature Boy, and so I do my best to hold her to the truth when it's important, but let them run wild with their passions and plotting as much as possible.

So if you're driving by and see them hanging from the branches of the crepe myrtle, or digging in a corner of the backyard, or perhaps you'll even hear them loudly singing Moana songs in Sarah's bedroom - then please think nothing of it. It's just another day of saving the world for Nature Boy and Sneaky Sue....

**Fun Fact: "Sue" was the other name we'd considered for Sarah. Susanna, really, but she would've been Sue, in memory of one of my favorite teachers - and in retrospect, she is much like Mrs. Brophy, who always had a twinkle in her eye and a taste for excitement, adventure, and intrigue. As well as an eagerness to befriend young children and lead them on incredible expeditions of thought and fancy...

Today's Snapshot

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Tue, 20 Mar 2018 16:36:00 +0000

Things That Are Eating My Lunch Right Now

~beautiful spring blossoms (all of which i am allergic to)
~field trip chaperoning
~novels that are too good to put down, even at two a.m. (looking at you, liane moriarty)
~all the mealtimes, so. many. mealtimes.
~my dreams for our landscaping
~summer looming, with its threats of bathing suits and bored children
~weight watchers points
~preschooler fits over: getting up, going to preschool, going to bsf, going to church, getting dressed, eating food, not eating snacks, playing with the dog, fighting with the dog, taking a bath, getting out of the bath, going to bed, staying in bed....
~spelling tests

Things That Are Saving My Life Right Now

~beautiful spring blossoms (especially when the wind blows them across the sky and showers them throughout the world, the premier flower girl at work)
~conversations with my eldest about the books he's reading and the thoughts he's thinking
~coffee
~an upcoming adventure in yellowstone, necessitating my finest skills in organization and planning
~friends who are a text away
~escapes to my [parents'] home
~sunshine and open windows
~grapes and diet soda
~long snuggles with the tiny terror in between his fits
~rereading great novels
~thoughtful remarks about life and God from my daughter
~naps
~my best friend and mate, my perfect other half, the one i miss when i leave town without him
~our beautifully painted house
~the treadmill, which gives me enough extra points for wednesday night ice cream
~a practically house-trained dog
~time: to write, to process, to breathe, to plan, to dream

Hello Sunshine!

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Fri, 09 Mar 2018 21:05:00 +0000

Oh my goodness, I'd almost forgotten what Spring feels like... buttery sunshine that never presses down too hard, unpredictable gusts of sweet-smelling breezes, colors returning to their proper homes... the birds are feasting regularly at our feeder now, and Sam and the little kids prefer the backyard to any other corner of the house. I do, too.

So not only is this basically the best time of year, when tasting resurrection afresh feels like tasting it for the very first time, but also, we just finished having our house painted, so I can sit in the backyard in pure and simple delight instead of periodically fretting over the way things fall apart, even in a modern house. It's pretty superficial and materialistic, but I don't even care! I love it! And to make matters even better, the porches and shed were all cleared out for the painting, and so I've been able to spend the last two days reorganizing and rearranging the garage and our outside spaces, which means I'm basically in OCD Heaven. (Will Heaven be a comfortable place for the OCD, I wonder? I sure hope so... anyone want to place bets on how many times I'll rearrange the furniture in my mansion over the span of eternity??)

Just look at that lovely paint job!

P suggested the navy garage doors. Isn't he the best?
(ignore our no-man's-land side garden;
better yet, come help me plant something!)

I'm now sitting in one of those chairs under the umbrella.
It's perfection.

See? Even the puppy is completely at peace.

Thank you, Lord, for Spring, for fresh coats of paint, and for an audience who will bear with me when I'm bursting with joy.

NOLA Weekend!

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Tue, 06 Mar 2018 16:45:00 +0000

There are many, many things that make my husband remarkable, in my totally unbiased opinion, but his sweet, unassuming and unhesitating generosity is something that sets him apart. (From me, at least...) It's a family trait that he shares with his mom and siblings and most of the rest of his blood relatives, but I still find myself being surprised by his ability to give so cheerfully in so many circumstances. And even though I am far from achieving that level of unselfishness myself, he continues to give graciously to me, day after day and week after week.

There is no doubt that my dear P spent this past weekend giving me a truly wonderful gift: time away from home with my best friend Sara. He rearranged all his work commitments (as well as all his free time) to take care of the kids so that I could fly to New Orleans on Thursday evening and have a glorious weekend of mani/pedis, shopping, eating, shopping, walking, eating more, sightseeing, eating, museuming, and eating - all accompanied by nonstop talk between two old souls who will never be strangers at heart. As I was boarding the plane home on Sunday, I texted Sara to say that I literally felt like I'd "been to the world's best spa for the soul," which is horrifically cheesy and as far from poetic as one might travel, and yet still a pretty perfect way to describe the weekend. We laughed together about our children's reactions to the idea that we were each spending the weekend with a friend ("Mom, you have friends?"), and then we offered up prayers of thanksgiving for the precious, precious gift that our friendship has been - and continues to be, in spite of the distance between us.

When I got home, I found out that P had not only kept the kids and dog alive all weekend, but he'd cooked dinner TWICE, made it to karate practice and school and church, and handled two different vomiting kids and three loads of vomit-y sheets, leaving no trace at all of the chaos for me to have to deal with. In fact, when I walked in, everyone was upstairs putting the finishing touches on cleaning the kids' bedrooms. If that's not a miracle - and a gift of the highest degree - I don't know what is.

So the next time you see my lovely spouse, pat him on the back - and maybe invite him to a deer lease or something. He could probably use it.

Weird But True

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Fri, 23 Feb 2018 15:34:00 +0000

We have moved into the rainy season here in North Texas. One week of "mixed precipitation" and our yard is already half lake... And if you are wondering how I'm handling it, I'll just give you two words: Wet. Dog. {insert faint sound of a primal scream deep within}

The kids aren't particularly loving it, either, as it means a lot of "indoor recess." Luckily for Luke, I happened to teach him the immortal card game of SlapJack on Tuesday night, so he has been the Popular Kid for bringing a whole new level of fun to indoor recess this week. As he and Sarah were detailing their recess activities through the entire drive home yesterday (because recess is the only part of the day they ever tell me about), I found myself reminiscing over the old days of "Heads Up, 7-Up" and "Four Corners"....

I don't remember our having much free time in the classroom, even on rainy days, but we must've had some time because I clearly remember those glorious days when some lucky kid (whose parents OBVIOUSLY loved him and were also probably very wealthy) would bring to school a copy of every elementary kid's coveted Dream Book: The Guinness Book of World Records. The thick trade paperback tome would make its way around the room slowly, as eager little hands gripped it tightly and splayed it open wide to pour out the the marvels held within. It didn't matter where you started - each of the 498 pages held amazing facts that you could pocket like treasure and then whisper to a neighbor, who would most certainly react as to the most shocking of classified secrets. Oh, the joy and the power of those World Records!

Once I stumbled upon the fact that the world record for longest fingernails was held by a wealthy man in India; the small black-and-white photo revealed those nails curling grotesquely to the floor... And as new editions were produced, we would check to see if that guy who was over 7 feet tall still held the record for height, or if the fattest person had yet been toppled by another, larger (and surely more miserable) soul.

The latest World Records was often available in our Scholastic order or book fair, but I remember that it was always too expensive (and - now that I think of it - probably also too Not a Real Book) for my mom to agree to its purchase. Sometimes the library had a copy, but it was nearly always checked out (or lost), and so I truly relished those days when that benevolent son-of-a-rich-parent would share his copy, and I remember savoring my chance to open to a random page and hope to strike weird-fact gold.

These days, they produce the Guinness Book of World Records in full color, with giant pages and holographic covers sure to draw children of any age into its realm of mystery and wonder. And there's no need to wait for the library copy to be returned because you can always just check out Weird but True or Fact or Fiction? or Ripley's Believe It or Not, each matching World Records in appearance as well as glorious content. And how do I know this? Because we have yet to make a library trip this year without Luke selecting at least one of these magical volumes to take home, enabling him to immerse himself in endless factoids, each of which he stores away until the time is right to impress (or more often trick) someone with his strange knowledge.

The Old School part of me is tempted to sneer at those colorful pages and carefully curated facts - no more sifting through endless lists of banal records to find the true gems... But the truth is that the joy is not lost - the wonder of it, the possibility... I think kids still glory in all those Records because they still know how to dream that the impossible can be true, and they love to see the limits of humanity and nature being met - and surpassed - even in the most disgusting or horrifying ways.

I've been ruminating on this idea that "it is for freedom that Christ as set us free" (Gal. 5:1), and I can't escape the many ways that our souls long for that freedom - we were absolutely created for it, and then, when we fell into the slavery of sin, Christ set us free again! So often, we have associated the life of a Christian with captivity, with rules and "no's" and oppression of the soul, but the Bible is so clear in teaching that the true captivity is that of sin - the sin that entangles. But when we taste and see... and begin to know true Freedom... there is nothing left to do but rejoice - and wonder at the limitlessness Christ has purchased for us, the chance to surpass ourselves and become the kind of people whose feats are worthy of awe, because we are made in the image of the greatest record-breaker there ever was.

Forming Our Fellowship

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Fri, 16 Feb 2018 15:42:00 +0000

I wrote the following article for our church bulletin a few weeks ago and wanted to share it here as well.

—-

Over New Years, our family got a puppy (because sometimes having three kids causes insanity), and I insisted on naming him Samwise Gamgee. This is not a name that one often finds on dog tags, but Samwise is one of my favorite fictional characters, and I decided that if I’m adding a new character to my family, well, I want that creature to be a lot like Tolkien’s humble, loyal hobbit, who sneaks into an important mission uninvited -- and then plays a vital role in helping his friend Frodo achieve that mission.

If you haven’t read the Lord of the Rings trilogy (or at least seen the fantastic Peter Jackson films), then add it to your bucket list -- you won’t be disappointed. There are a handful of books in this world that have revolutionized my understanding of God, and this is one of them. It isn’t just a story about wizards and orcs and hairy little hobbits -- it is the Story of the fellowship we are meant to have with each other. It is a tale about creatures who are so different from each other but called to the same purpose; it is a chronicle of hardship and struggle, despair and loss -- and ultimately of victory, and a hope that does not disappoint.

And hope is the reason I love Samwise. He isn’t a great fighter, and his brains aren’t especially sharp. He is often afraid and never claims to have things figured out. But he keeps going -- and he keeps Frodo going -- right up until the last, terrifying step of their mission. Samwise wraps his arms around Frodo and speaks hope to him, walking him through the moments that Frodo cannot face alone.

Tolkien didn’t invent that storyline; God did. We see it quite literally in Exodus 17, when Aaron and Hur hold Moses’ arms steady so Israel’s army can defeat the enemy. And we see it again in Ruth and Naomi, Jonathan and David, Mordecai and Esther, Barnabas and Paul. Even Jesus himself did not live his earthly life without intimate friends, some of whom walked with him all the way to the foot of the cross.

Like Frodo and Samwise, we are charged with a mission that is crucial to the survival of our world. And like theirs, our mission is often dangerous and uncertain, and it will require all our strength. But God invites us to form our own Fellowship, that we might not attempt this alone, and that we might find in that Fellowship the courage to keep on. This is what we were created for. Let us to choose to be like Samwise: finding that friend or neighbor, spouse or loved one, classmate or coworker, who needs a companion for the journey ahead to help them have hope, reminding them that “in the end the Shadow was only a small and passing thing: there was light and high beauty forever beyond its reach” (Return of the King, Book 6, Chapter II).

—-

The original article is published here.

PyeongChang 2018!

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Tue, 13 Feb 2018 19:32:00 +0000

It's that time again, when our television set stops spouting endless animal facts and blasé morals about going potty and sharing our toys and instead stays tuned into NBC for nonstop Olympic action!

We have tried hard to obey the APA about television viewing in our house, but when the Olympics are on, we throw off all the rules, certain that two weeks of watching the best athletes in the world do their thing (and letting the reporters string out the best of the athletes' life stories) is worth the consequences. (Aren't we such rebels?)

This is the only photo I've taken since the Olympics began.
Us on the couch. In our jammies. That pretty much sums it up.

And yes, I've already teared up twice - once watching Mirai Nagasu nail that triple axel - because who could resist that reaction at the end? - and another time reading an interview with Scott Hamilton about his fight with success and cancer. I laugh at the Hershey's Gold commercial with Apollo every. time. - and there have been a LOT of times - and if I see the one about the Chevy Traverse one more time, I will definitely throw something. (P and I both agree that we'd like Chevy to start using real actors again.) And as for Johnny Weir, well, P and I have become quite adept at the Entire-Conversation-in-a-Look technique:

[silently]
P: Do you SEE what he is wearing?
B: Yes, now HUSH.
P: It is so, so.... [wide-eyed emoji]
B: BE QUIET. The kids don't need your opinions on this.
P: If they EVER wear their hair like that...
B: BREATHE. It'll be okay. We will still love them.
P: You might, but I'll get the scissors.
B: Good grief.
P: Fine, I'll be quiet this time. But one day...
B: Thank you. Yes, one day we will discuss this with them in more depth. But today, we don't need to give them any reason to start judging people based on appearances.
P: I know. You are right, as always, most beautiful and wise wife of mine. I am so lucky to have you in my life.

I'm pretty sure that's how the conversation would've been translated into words. It's possible that I misinterpreted a little bit, but you get the idea.

And as is true of so much of this momma's life, watching my kids is really the best part of the Olympic season. I remember when Sarah was still so little and we watched the London summer Olympics while she crawled around on the floor and couch, oblivious to the TV but happy to be with us, and now I sit on the couch while that girl dons her socks and paper plates for a very serious "fan dance," a unique mixture of figure skating and Found Object Artistry, which her brothers can't resist joining ("where's my socks?" can be heard all over the house in the evenings), and which serves as far better entertainment than any of NBC's video clips of young future athletes' home videos on the ski slopes.

While the two younger kids still spend most of the time playing, Luke is glued to the TV as if his life depended on the outcomes - in fact, we let him stay up late on Saturday night to watch Men's Snowboard Slopestyle but made him go to bed after they switched back to more figure skating. In the morning, he insisted that I get him up to speed on the figure skating scores... It's fun to watch with him, and it's especially fun to discuss with him what event he would like to participate in - he is so very practical, like his parents, so he doesn't even pretend that he might do any of the ice skating events, but he is willing to consider the idea of a skiing event. ("Is there any event that involves reading a lot?" he asks... and his parents shake their heads in shared sorrow, knowing they'd all be contenders if that were possible...)

Our excitement always dies off before long, and I am always disappointed that they show so little of the weirder events, like that one with the brooms, but while the fun lasts, we will soak it in, immersing ourselves in the stories and steeping ourselves in the thrill of victory and the agony of defeat.

Merry-Go-Round

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Thu, 08 Feb 2018 16:45:00 +0000

When I was in elementary school, they used to take us on field trips to the local parks, which seems really weird now but was absolutely the highlight of the year for us kids. We'd go to Pecan Park and hike up and down the Lanana Creek Trail, watching for rogue tree roots and the water moccasins that were rumored to populate the creek running beside the worn dirt path, and then we'd troop back through the perfectly spaced rows of pecan trees to the front of the park, where the playground awaited us, hot, shiny metal slides and swings that soared toward the top branches of the pines. And when we'd had enough waiting in line for the slide or hanging by our knees from the monkey bars, we'd stake a claim to one of the huge concrete conduits, where we'd curl up against the cool inner curve of the pipe to whisper our own secrets to each other before reading the ones etched on the rough walls of the concrete. (If you were ever wondering where my education in profanity began...)

Other times, we journeyed across town to Pioneer Park, often to meet up with kids from another elementary school, but my memories of those trips are a little more hazy - bees buzzing around the trash cans, buses lined up in the parking lot, a scattering of playground equipment across a hillside covered in pine trees and carpeted in needles. But this is the park that had a merry-go-round, and it is impossible for me to encounter such a structure today without immediately traveling back to that one at Pioneer Park.

It was probably red and blue originally, but time and small bodies had worn most of the surfaces to a polished silver; the places on the bars where you held on were brown and smooth, and the floor was frictionless, in spite of the bumps hammered into the metal. The best kind of merry-go-round. I'm sure the reason I don't remember the rest of the park is because I went from the bus to the merry-go-round and back; no other piece of playground equipment held a candle to the thrill of centrifugal force.

Over time we developed a system for taking turns: alternating between being the "runner" - who risked life and (more often) limb to get the thing spinning at top speed - and getting to ride, testing out all the positions before finding a sweet spot - maybe standing on the edge, or wedged on one's back between the bars like a slice of pie, or, if it was near the end of the day, closer to the middle for a bit of a "cool down" so that it would be possible to walk back to that bus. On the merry-go-round, there was no need for secrets or patience, just an endless day of speeding up and slowing down, watching the tree limbs twirl before that patch of clear sky, screaming like mad at the joy of it, collapsing on the ground with a head deliriously spinning.

I think of the merry-go-round now because it's so much like life. As a kid, I knew that running was fun, but riding was much better; but as a grown-up, during those times when I feel the centrifugal force taking control of my hours and thoughts and motions and responsibilities, I'm not so sure I can relax into the ride like I once did. I want to be on the outside, fully capable of reaching a hand in to slow the thing down when I think it's going too fast, and also able to speed it up when I'm ready for some fun. Some days I imagine that if I can just make a long enough list, or if I had just the right kind of planner, or perhaps with a few hours of quiet time.... but I cannot harness this beast that is life! No amount of time or planning will give me control over it, in spite of what I tell myself. As a kid, that was okay - I knew who had control of things, and I trusted them implicitly. But as a grown-up, it's just harder. Trust isn't so easy anymore.

So when life starts to get a little crazy, my mind begins panicking because the tree limbs are blurring too much, and I'm paralyzed by the speed of the spin, hanging on for dear life because the only thing worse than being on this merry-go-round is getting off of it... but then slowly, slowly, those days at Pioneer Park come back. The laughter, the flushed cheeks, the friends, and the carefree-ness of it all. The fun and the joy of those wild rides... And I decide that that's how I want to spend these days. No, I don't have control. Yes, it's scary. But I know Who is in control, and I choose to trust Him as best I can with my very life - so all that's left is to sit back and relax. And maybe scream like mad a little.

A Brief Discourse on Justin Timberlake

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Tue, 06 Feb 2018 17:08:00 +0000

I enjoyed most of the Super Bowl by eating food I wasn't going to track and visiting with church friends that I haven't seen in ages (thanks to my current nursery sequester), but needless to say, all chatter and munching paused reverently when Justin Timberlake took the stage. After all, our entire crowd (sans our kids) has watched him since he wore mouse ears, so he is basically family. Or maybe our one cool friend....

He did not disappoint, and I'll go on record saying that Selfie Kid was my favorite part. But every part of the show demonstrated Timberlake's gift for performing, for smiling like he's having a blast, for seeing the people he's singing to, for laughing at himself and being totally committed to that stage. For making us all laugh at him and adore him all at once. But you guys must know I wasn't the one wearing the homemade Justin Timberlake concert t-shirt, and the Trolls anthem is the only tune I could honestly sing along with... my fandom consists primarily of watching Timberlake on SNL and Jimmy Fallon and then rocking out to his Amazon station whenever I have to mop the floors. (I think it helps me feel less housewife-y and old to hum "SexyBack" while scraping up crusty dried cereal.) Oh, and then there was the Mickey Mouse Club and that one *NSYNC album that everyone owns.

But this morning, I'm sitting in La Madeleine with headphones on so that I can hear Man of the Woods instead of that generic French classical stuff they pipe in, and it kind of makes me feel like a spy. What, kind old gentleman next to me? You believe me to be so refined and mature, with my plain coffee and bran muffin? HA HA! You should hear what I'm listening to!!

(Side Note: Maybe I should get out more...)

Anyway, here's the thing: when I watch Justin Timberlake perform, I feel that same sense of awe and adoration that I feel when I look at an original Van Gogh or finish reading Shakespeare - or watch a Meryl Streep movie, for that matter. It's beauty, in a purer form than most people offer - the best that art and music and theater and poetry can be, for now. I know that it's weird to say, but these people who share these great gifts of theirs, well, I think they show us a bit of Heaven, a bit of the beauty of God.

Sometimes it's hard to think that's possible - after all, most of Timberlake's songs are NSFW (and you better believe I'm not mopping the floors with the kids around) - how can that be anything akin to Heaven? Van Gogh had some questionable life choices, and Shakespeare practically invented potty language... but still, if I told you Madonna was a representation of the perfection we will find in Christ, you'd probably burn me at the stake, right? Why is it so scary to think that we can see the beauty of Christ in people who have demonstrated themselves to be so unlike Christ? Is it because we have trouble sifting the Light from the Dark - or perhaps because we do not know how to love someone without idolizing them?

I certainly don't know how to deal with all of those questions, but I'll tell you this: if watching Fallon and Timberlake do a History of Rap can fill me with such light and joy and admiration, then I can only think, "Wow - what will it be like to see Christ!?" Maybe I'll get struck by lightning for saying it, but I think this is just one more instance of jars of clay carrying the light of Christ. That worship we feel for our favorite singers or actors or writers is not entirely misplaced - it is the beauty of God shining through their art that we can justly adore and rejoice in - and make our homemade concert t-shirts and sit on the floor with friends in rapt attention as our stars do what God created them to do best. After all, the Heavens aren't the only ones who declare the glory of God in this world...

What have we done...

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Thu, 01 Feb 2018 18:33:00 +0000

Meet our newest family member, Samwise Gamgee.

Don't worry - I don't think I'll be taking more pictures of the dog
than of the kids (as if that were possible).
Mainly because it's really hard to get a photograph of him
that looks like anything other than a solid black dog-shape.

Yes, that feeling of shock is the same one that my close friends and parents also expressed at this news. To quote one friend, "Nothing you could've done would have been more surprising to me."

We are not Dog People. We both grew up with family dogs (outside dogs, dogs that were fed mostly table scraps and were expected to take care of themselves), but we have never elected to own a dog ourselves as adults. We haven't even had pets - other than His Royal Highness, Prince Albert (may he rest in peace), who was really more of an experiment in adulting that I forced P into during the first years of our marriage, and who was happily relocated soon after to my parents' farm, where he became a Wild Thing and lived his last years as nature intended.

But a dog is serious business. Not just a dog, a puppy.

What were we thinking?!?!?

Y'all, it's like having a newborn, except you don't love him quite that much and there are no extra hormones to keep you going when your patience has worn off completely. And on top of the 24/7 puddle-or-poop watch, virtual confinement to our home, and Operation Save the Furniture, I am also dealing with a threenager who was most assuredly not prepared to share his "I'm the Baby" Throne with a four-legged stink-bomb with needle-sharp teeth. Ahem, I mean, with a dog.

"If I sleep in the dog bed, will you make me the center
of your attention again??"

And yet.... I must grudgingly admit that a dog has its benefits. For one thing, it has taken my mind off other matters that might be driving me to the brink right now (such as taking charge of our church nursery this year, or having a threenager, or reading the news each morning...). Also, I swear our floors have never been cleaner (at least, until the next Surprise occurs). And it has been really good for our family and, as we'd hoped, especially for our kids. We don't expect them to do all the feeding and house training (yet), but they have been great about taking Samwise outside in the afternoon so that I can retreat to my room for 30 minutes of dog-free bliss, and they are quickly learning to help give him potty breaks, or train him to chew his toys and not their fingers. And best of all, our living room has never been tidier, thanks to the sacrifice of a few stray toys in a lesson I'd like to call, "If You Leave It, He Will Eat It."

And you guys, we've lived in our house five years now, and every. single. spring. I spend who knows how much time and money working on our backyard so that the kids will play outside instead of begging me incessantly for screen time. My efforts generally pay off for two or three days. But y'all - a dog! A dog did it in wintertime! He has them begging to go outside and then spending all of the daylight on the swings and trampoline, digging out toys and treasures that they buried back in their pirate days, soaking up the sun as all kids should! It's amazing. I should've done this sooner.

Except, it's a lot of work, and I am sure we couldn't have done this sooner. But by my calculations, this timing is just about right - by the time the kids are truly too big to spend all their afternoons playing freely outside, the puppy will be a dog, who will hopefully be more content to sit by their side while they do homework or practice the piano. And by the time the kids are leaving home and freeing P and me for all the world travels we have planned, there's a pretty good chance we'll be saying goodbye to Samwise as well (I'm not trying to be morbid, just practical. [Sorry to the dog lovers. See the first sentence in Paragraph 3.]).

Or, if that doesn't work, P and I already have a long list of Possible Ways to Rid Ourselves of Our New Puppy, and they don't all involve a drop-kick. After all, my parents have such a nice place with lots of land, and always seem so very happy to take in grandpets.... [insert evil laughter, and a guilty glance at Mom and Dad.... Hi, Mom and Dad! I love you!!!]

The Stories I've Sown

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Fri, 12 Jan 2018 22:19:00 +0000

In anticipation of the new movie adaptation, I'm rereading A Wrinkle in Time. Madeleine L'Engle is one of my all-time favorites, and I probably read Many Waters about five times during my middle and high school years, but I couldn't remember exactly when I'd read A Wrinkle in Time - until I found myself having flashbacks to my intermediate school gym as I was reading the other night. It's weird how closely I associate Mrs. Whatsit with the lurid fluorescent lights, echoing cacophony, and shiny waxed wooden floors of that gymnasium. As my thoughts are drawn up into Meg's attic bedroom, I can also feel the sway and bump of my 6th grade school bus, stopping and going, swooshing and creaking as it trundles a sardine-packed load of sweaty, loud preadolescents through the town. And for the scene with the houses that all look alike with the kid and his ball, I'm back in that gym, where the scent of Awkward is still so strong. (I must've had a lot of "down time" in PE...)

For the past decade, I've spent as much time listening to audiobooks as actually reading the pages for myself, and so I have memories of scenes from various books dropped like tiny seeds in locations all over the city and across the highways I've traveled. Dan Brown's Da Vinci Code maps the route Philip and I drove to a family Christmas in Colorado one year, and my first Jasper Fforde book, Something Rotten perplexed us - and kept us awake - for that long drive across Texas from Brady to Tyler (it was the fourth in a series of books that really ought to be read in order; they are marvelously convoluted tales as it is, so there's no need to add extra disorder to the mix). My old commute to work on the North Side is populated with a lot of Richard Peck novels and the Uglies trilogy. The highways between here and my parents' house must have countless stories, but Jo Baker's Longbourne and Sophie Kinsella's Twenties Girl both continue to haunt very specific spots along those roads. E.B. White's lovely reading of Charlotte's Web kept us going from here to Balmorhea one summer, and that big rest stop midway always reminds me of sweet, simple Wilbur.

Audiobooks have long been my best motivation for jogging; in fact, I am proud to say that I jogged the entire Harry Potter series... and let me tell you, a few of those scenes with the Dementors are downright creepy when you are jogging alone on a dark early morning! But I always knew Jim Dale would get me through it... and those recordings are still, I think, the best audiobook recordings ever made. But once the final word was spoken on Harry and Dumbledore and the whole fantastic clan, I stuck to jogging with novels - and my rule of not "cheating" and listening to them while I was not working out. (Yardwork did qualify as "working out," and so Because of Winn Dixie and one of the other Fforde Thursday Next novels are forever attached to the wild and unkept yard of wisteria and weeds at our Tyler home that I occasionally attempted to tame.)

There is a neighborhood in Denton near my sister's old house that contains the climactic scene from Zuzak's The Book Thief, and last year, I left alongside a road in Natchitoches that part in Mrs. Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children about the discovery of the Peculiars' photos. Several of the 2000's decade Texas Lone Star books line the streets of our neighborhood in Arlington Heights, including my first experience with The Hunger Games, before it gained much attention elsewhere (I was a librarian and working hard to stay up on new stuff). I remember that first chapter, and the horrifying realization of what the games were about, and I remember immediately questioning this as a good book for my library. But then I found myself grabbing my library's hardback copy to sneak in an extra chapter during breaks, and then putting that copy in the hands of anyone I could (once I'd finished, of course). The scene from Shipbreaker where he meets that girl and they find the sunken boat waits for me along the Trinity Trail, and the last half of that book lives up there on the second floor of 24 Hour Fitness, where the treadmills are.

The roads in my current neighborhood are rife with the stories I've experienced along them - lots of Bloody Jack novels, several revisited classics, my hesitant forays into the scary world of regular (read: not YA) fiction - and oh, kind Major Pettigrew and sweet Balthazar Jones, The Summer Before the War and The Readers of Broken Bow Recommend, and even Nick Hornby's Funny Girl - taught me not to fear the grown-up stuff so much, especially when the narrator is amazing. My early morning neighbors probably think I'm a quack because these books make me freely laugh out loud, and sometimes cry. I had to stop my jog altogether when I connected the dots about the characters in Lois Lowry's final book in The Giver collection, Son - after all, these lives, these stories, grip me so completely, immerse me in their realities, and cause the actual realities around me to morph into something more. A place with a story attached, growing quietly in the soil, a vision - a memory - that is mine alone to behold.

Turn, Turn, Turn....

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Thu, 30 Nov 2017 16:49:00 +0000

Tomorrow is December, and I don't exactly know how.

Our Fall has been busy but good, in that deep down and healing kind of way. It's been a relatively quiet season - not in the decibel way, mind you, but in the Major Things way - no new babies, no friends fighting deadly diseases in foreign countries, no saying goodbye to relatives entirely too soon, no home renovations... just the five of us, going to work and school, buying groceries, picking up toys and cereal bowls, taking pictures and taking trips, laughing and crying and throwing huge tantrums at inconvenient moments, eating out far too much, serving at church, fighting bedtime... and our battles have been small scale - and yet no less fierce or important, I think. We have fought to make better choices about spending and eating and exercising, and we have fought to keep up with homework and spelling tests and karate practice and Cub Scouts. We have fought to keep rooms tidy(-er) and shoes in their proper places. We have fought to limit screen time and to tackle boredom with creativity. We have fought to let holidays be less monstrous, more precious. And we have fought to get a toddler to preschool or BSF (Every. Time.).

And I think we've won quite a few of these battles, thanks in large part to grace and patience and perseverance and all those other things that we know have no origination in our own hearts....

It has been such joy to watch Luke grow up a little more this fall, not just in height (although that too), but also in maturity. The boy I dropped off at school this morning is not the kid who made a 25 on his first two spelling tests, who scowled at the suggestion that he do anything other than read or listen to audiobooks in his room all day, who steadfastly refused almost every type of food, who terrorized his siblings at every opportunity. I mean, sure, he still does some of those things - and will continue to be a sinful being in so many ways, like all of us - but he has grown. For starters, he scored a 99 on the last spelling test, not only because he's cracked the code to studying, but also because he now writes according to the rules of humanity, as opposed to using some alien code language that wiggled and scribbled in any old direction all over the page... and while he still reads and reads and reads, he makes more time now for playing with his sister and brother, for telling jokes and making up games, and for being a super wild kid in a way that this screen-averse mom can't really complain about. Along with his schoolwork, he's enjoyed working hard to achieve more in his karate lessons, and he is eager to test for the next belt in just a few weeks. As for food, well, we still have a few more years for him to grow up!

Sarah is always my Submarine Child, swimming out of sight and occasionally surfacing for a hug or a joke or to present me with her latest drawing. But it's fun to watch her be true to herself - drawing constantly, decorating her room, picking out her clothes, playing "family" or pretending to be Moana - while she also dabbles in her brothers' interests. I'm kind of proud of the way she decides to play with Duplos or listen to Luke's audiobooks or dress up like pirates with her brothers. Granted, Andrew has played with baby dolls and princess dresses enough already to last a few lifetimes, so it isn't as if she never gets her own way; instead, I have watched her give up her own way more often, and I'm really proud of her for loving her brothers like that. She is not a threat like her brother when it comes to schoolwork, but I know the Reckoning is soon - it was about the middle of Luke's 1st grade year when we discovered we needed to actually help him study for spelling... But she already knows the ropes and still takes great (nerdy) joy in completing her homework or making us review her on spelling. (She is, after all, my own child.) And although I'm dreadfully inconsistent about making her read to me, I've really enjoyed hearing her improve from one week to the next. The other night, she confessed that she had stayed up with Frog and Toad - and actually read the words! No doubt we'll be getting on to her about that before long, but for now, I couldn't be happier.

And Andrew. If Sarah is a submarine, Andrew is Monster Truck barreling down Main Street. Last night, after we'd pulled up in the church parking lot, I freed Andrew from his carseat and he immediately flew past me in order to catch up with his big brother, who was already much further ahead. I watched him run, thinking that no human could possibly keep their balance like that - every step looks like the one just before a major trip - and yet he makes it work somehow, literally throwing himself into the future so that he doesn't miss a moment of what he sees up ahead. And that is exactly how he lives 85% of his life. The other 15% is spent snuggling in my arms, often right in the middle of my breakfast, or when I'm trying to get bills paid, or at 3 am. It's a crazy way to live, but it just seems to work for him, and I'm thankful (and shocked) that he is yet another different person, like and unlike his siblings in so many, many ways.

New things are on the horizon for me, as well, but that'll have to wait because I have a teeth-cleaning to attend. Because you know, life is like that right now: words quickly dashed out between preschool drop-off and dentist appointments, bills paid during karate practice, groceries purchased online if at all... it's just a season, after all....