The Fun Never Stops

Yesterday I had a little adventure.  I seem to have a lot of little adventures these days.  I was going to meet some friends at a park at 11:30.  To save time and effort, I went to Burger King for lunch instead of making something at home to bring with us.  I went through the drive through, ordered my food, and as I proceeded to the window, I discovered that I did not have my wallet, and thus did not have any money to buy the food.  

I had already had somewhat of a frustrating morning, maybe because I was a little tired, or because the boys were running around wild and excited after they found out we were going to a park.  The whole wallet thing just did me in.  

I called Aaron tearfully and told him what had happened as I drove home to look for it.  He suggested that I call Lowe's to see if I left it there when we went the night before.  For some reason, I was convinced it was at home, not at Lowe's.  So, I drove all the way home, which was on the opposite side of town.  I looked all over the house, and the backyard because Izzy, trying to be helpful but not really having a clue, told me that it was somewhere in the backyard.  I was obviously not thinking clearly.  

Finally I looked up Lowe's number and called.  They had it.  So we drove all the way to Lowe's which is back on the other side of town again, picked up the wallet, went semi-shamefully through the line at Burger King for the second time, and FINALLY got to the park, almost exactly one hour later than I was supposed to.

The funny part is that while we were driving home the boys wanted to know why we didn't get any food.  I told them I didn't have my wallet.  Then I said, "And if either of you took it, you're getting the biggest spanking EVER!"  Even as I said it, the logical part of me acknowledged how lame that was.  I might as well have said, "You can't come to my birthday party!"  Even mommies can be childish sometimes.

Sayings

Here is some more good stuff from Izzy.  He is just in a stage right now where he says really funny things.

When we had to leave Jumpin' to go back home, he said, "I don't like our house.  I hate it!  Bad guys are gonna throw it in the trash can and it will break!"

Talking about Simeon, I said, "He's so serious with those chubby cheeks.  Like Winston Churchhill."  Izzy promptly shouted out, "Don't say that!  Simmy's not a church!" in a tone that clearly said, "You're so silly, Mommy."

Upon entering my room one morning, Izzy announced, "There's some little bad guys downstairs.  But they're sleeping."  That was a little weird.

His explanation one night of why he got out of bed went something like this, "A toy fell behind my bed.  Some things fell behind my bed.  I need you to get them out or my bed will crack!"

A random comment, "Simmy can't jump, Dad!  He can't jump cuz he's too little and strong!"

Izzy recently informed me that he was not going to be my girlfriend anymore.  

When our neighbor and his friend were working on the swing set, Izzy told them, "My brother loves me a whole lot!  But not too much."

And here is my personal favorite:

Referring to a cookie, he said to Aaron, "Give me another one, Dad."  Aaron asked him, "What do you say?"  Izzy replied, "Because I'm so proud of you.  I'm so proud of you, Dad."

Malachi will still, on occasion, say something goofy.  Here is one that made me laugh:

After being told to be quiet, he said, "I can't make my voice quieter.  See my tummy?  It pouts down when I do that."

Messy Ever After

Not long ago I wrote optimistically of how certain I was that my messy days were diminishing.  Well, I think I spoke a little too soon.  

My problem, I think, is that I underestimated my son's ability to stay out of things and not make a mess.  And then I overestimated the ability of the apple juice lid to stay on the bottle and hold in the apple juice.  I also failed to factor in the circumstances of making eggs and talking on the phone at the same time, thus rendering me too distracted to get Israel his juice before a disaster struck.  Therefore, a disaster did  strike.  

Now, of course, in the grand scheme of things, this was nothing.  Compared to the entire world and the events of the entire world, and hurricanes and tornadoes and war and poverty and AIDS epidemics, this was basically a nonevent.  But in my world, my small, everyday, mommy world, this definitely qualifies as a event.  

You see what happened was that Israel tried to pick up the juice container, one of those big Wal-Mart apple juices, which was about three quarters full.  Obviously, it was very heavy for an almost three year old, which resulted in him dropping it.  That's when, somehow or other, the lid must've hit the floor, and it broke.  

And that is when half of the apple juiced poured out onto the kitchen floor.  

And that's when I almost burned the eggs because I was trying frantically to mop up the juice.  

And while I was keeping the eggs from burning, Izzy decided to squeeze out the paper towels that had soaked up the juice all over the floor.  As if there wasn't enough juice on the floor already.  

And that is when I considered tearing out my hair.

Third Time's A Charm

So, this is my tribute to my third baby boy....

Simeon, my third son.  By now it would seem I have seen it all, there is nothing new.  I have seen all the firsts twice over.  But the third time's a charm.  And I am charmed by him.  There is something special about him, beautiful and buoyant.  His eyes have so much life it brings tears to mine.  Eyes so deep and mossy green, but bright, shining, reflecting.  His eyes tell me he knows a good secret.  If only he had words to tell me.  He smiles as though I have just told him a good joke.

Around Christmastime, I was really struggling to be "merry".  I usually love Christmas, but this past year was hard.  I was homesick and feeling low, and Malachi was SO excited that I felt that I couldn't possibly be excited too or the world would implode or something.  We were short on money, so I knew I wouldn't be getting a whole lot, and I have to confess, I LOVE PRESENTS!  I love giving them and I love getting them.  As a Christian, I feel like confessing this is tantamount to saying I am secretly a kleptomaniac or a compulsive liar, or even something worse.  You know, we're supposed to be all about giving and not care if we get anything.  Well, I care.  There I said it.  

Anyway, whatever the reason, I was bummed.  And I remember one night, I was sitting in my bedroom on my bed holding Simeon in my arms, and I thought, "This is the best gift I could ever receive."  I knew that even if I got nothing else, I had the most precious gift in my arms. 

I really do feel delighted by him.  And lately, I feel like God has helped me to delight in all my boys more.  It is too easy to get caught up in everything and forget to really enjoy them.  I ask God to help me all the time with that.  And He does.  

Playhouse Process

Many thanks to Sam's Club for having a good deal, Noble Energy for overtime, and our neighbor and his friend who built pretty much all of this.

7 Significant Events

Seven recent significant events:

1.  We bought a really cool playset/fort thing for the boys at Sam's Club.

2.  Aaron's mom had gall bladder surgery, which is normally a quick in an out procedure, but she had some complications so they had to go back in to do another surgery, and she is still in the hospital, but she's doing good.

3.  Many times as a parent, it is hard to see the light at the end of the tunnel when it comes to discipline and good behavior, but on Saturday we went out to eat at Cracker Barrel and the coolest thing happened.  We were sitting there eating those delicious biscuits waiting for our food, and a woman came up to us and said she wanted to thank us because our kids were so well behaved and were sitting there quietly, and she thanked the boys too and said she really appreciated how good they were.  After she left, I looked at Aaron and said, laughing, "Well, that's never happened before!"  I have noticed that Malachi especially is getting better at listening and obeying, and Izzy isn't doing too bad either.  It's nice to have someone else notice too, for a change!

4.  After that lovely experience, we went out to our van and discovered that the keys were locked inside.  We had to call a locksmith.  I tried to take the boys for a walk to one of the outlet stores while we waited, only to find after carrying my purse, the diaper bag, and Simeon (which probably adds up to about 40 lbs all together), that the store was closed because it was after eight.  

5.  With everything going on, plus the half rainy half sunny days we've had, it had been really hard to even start putting the playset together.  It turns out that our next door neighbor is a carpenter, and he offered to help Aaron.  When I say help what I mean is that he is pretty much building the whole thing for us.  And he refuses to take any money for it.  Even though he is taking up a lot of time on his days off to do it.  With Aaron working so many hours at his job, it is the biggest blessing for him to do that for us.  I have to give many thanks to God for providing someone to help us when we needed it.

6.  I don't know how significant this is, but yesterday Izzy was eating a lifesaver, and all of a sudden I heard a choke/cough.  I looked over to make sure he was okay, and he was crying, but he was breathing, so I felt relieved.  Then he came over to me with crocodile tears in his eyes and said forlornly, "Candy gone!"  like it had died or something and he was mourning it.  Then he gagged and threw up, narrowly missing me.  And there was the candy, amongst other foods he had ingested.  It is a testimony to the good frame of mind I was in that I found this really, really funny instead of really, really horrible.  I just laughed and tried to keep everyone clear of the puke while I cleaned it up.

7.  Today I took the boys to McDonald's for lunch since they have to stay out of the backyard while Bill is building the playground.  I decided that since I was neither pregnant nor watching over an infant, I would go play in the play tubes with them.  The one we went to has giant tubes and even says on the sign that parents are welcome to play too.  So I took Sim, and we climbed all over that thing, which was a little scary.  I wasn't sure I would ever do it again, but when I went down the big tube slide with Sima he just laughed and laughed. After that it was worth it to me to do it again.  I love hearing my babies laugh.

Human House

If you think about it, people are kind of like houses.  When looking for a house, there are things that are more important than how it looks on the outside.  

Say you go looking for a house to buy, and you find one that appears to be absolutely gorgeous.  It has lush green grass in the front yard, it has mature trees, the house is freshly painted in the exact right color, everything looks nice and new and clean.  You think, Ah, now this is my kind of house!  

Then you go inside.  

You notice that there are holes in the wall.  The paint is peeling.  The floors have nasty carpet from some long ago era, and it smells like some animals have been using it for something other than just walking on.  Aside from cosmetics, you then find that the furnace is busted and needs a replacement, the water heater is shot, and the electrical wiring is outdated and hazardous.  If that wasn't enough, the foundation is crumbling, and water leaks into the basement.

At this point you have to decided if you're willing to pay the price to have all that fixed.  And here is where houses and humans deviate.  What if it weren't possible to have all that fixed?  What if you had to take the house as is or not at all?

That's how it is with people.  That's how it is with you.  You can look nice on the outside, but, as it has been said many times, it's the inside that counts.  

So, if you're looking for a friend or a spouse or someone you can trust, you have to look past the outside.  Some  of those people may have patchy grass, so to speak, or a sagging porch or peeling paint.  But that's only the outside.  When you go inside you find a place that's clean and dry and warm, a place you can rest and be safe.  Those are the people you want to choose, because if you choose someone who is only nice on the outside and think you can change the inside to be more to your liking, you'll be disappointed.  Only God can change people's insides.  The rest of us have to take each other as is.

My husband is the perfect example of this.  He is a little rough around the edges.  He looks a bit scruffy sometimes, and he says and does some things that are, well, for lack of a better word, weird.  But that is only the outer facade.  Inside, he is far more than he appears to be.  I compare him to a treasure chest.  The chest might look like an ordinary wooden box.  But when you open it up, when you look deep inside, you will be amazed at the treasure you find.  I have been.  I still am.  A lot of people are like that.

You know the funny thing too, is that some people can only be fixed up inside after you accept them just as they are.  Sometimes that's exactly what they need.

Food Fight

 

I have a confession.  I hate feeding my kids.  Okay, maybe hate is too strong a word.  But I do find it to be one of the more frustrating things about my life right now.  

As newborns, they're hungry all the time.  You might as well just find a cozy spot on the couch and park there for the next three months, 'cause all they'll be doing is eating and they take forever to do it.  Which I wouldn't really mind if I didn't have myself and other people to take care of as well.  

Next they get bigger, and eat faster, and eat more.  But they have no teeth and can't use utensils, so the challenge is to find food that is soft, but not too soft, and healthy, and filling, that they can pick up themselves or will allow you to feed to them.  

Then comes a switch.  They become toddlers.  Suddenly, nothing you give them is right.  You gave them spaghetti last night and they ate every bite and loved it, but today they will not touch it with a ten foot pole.  "I hate spaghetti!" they say.  "No you don't, you just had it last night and you loved it!"  They insist, "No, I hate it!"  And, instead of eating their food, they will pick at it and end up spreading it all over the table or high chair tray, and probably get some on the floor too while they're at it.  There's no winning with toddlers.

What really gets me is that even though they may not eat hardly anything you set in front of them, causing you to wonder how they even survive on such a meager diet, you don't have the option of not feeding them.  You have to feed them.  Well, you have to try, anyway.  And if, for one day, you decided to take a break from trying to force feed the little guys, they would probably wail all day long that they're hungry.  It is a toddler's nature to be contrary. 

I am just waiting for the day when their little boy appetites kick in.  Of course, then I will probably complain that they are always eating and I can't find enough food or variety of foods to keep up with the massive quantity of their consumption.  

The positive is that eventually they will be able to feed themselves, which will include making their own food occasionally.  But that also means I have to teach them how to cook, and keep them from eating something I was saving for a particular meal.  It also means buying a lot more groceries to keep up with three growing boys.  And that doesn't even factor in the possibility of us having more children in the future!

Little did I know, back when I was a single girl dreaming of getting married and having kids, that food would be such a point of contention and turmoil!

Messes, or the Lack Thereof

It is so strange to have snow in May.  Only in Colorado could this even be possible.  Well, I take that back.  There are countries on the other side of the world who have their winter during our summer and summer during our winter, and it's very possible that they get snow in May.  

In any case, I was not expecting snow.  I was expecting it to keep getting warmer.  I was imagining many future blissful days where the boys could play outside and not tear apart my house and run circles around me (they do, literally, run circles around me sometimes).  

Now, last summer, they played outside a lot, but they would also sneak back into the kitchen and get destructive with my eggs or my salt or whatever else they could get their hands on...like the steak knives.  This summer though, things will be different.  This time I've got them beat.  Two words: child locks.  There's one on the fridge AND on all cabinets containing food or anything else that they shouldn't have.  And the wooden block that holds the knives is now on top of the fridge.  

I feel very optimistic about this whole thing.  Not that I expect there to never be messes.  There will be messes.  First of all, because I sometimes forget to lock the locks.  Second, because my children are devious and will find ways around my preventative measures.  Third, because even though the older boys are getting to the point that they know what they should and shouldn't do, Simeon is coming up on the age where he will want to push the limits, whether he knows what they are or not.  So, yes, there will be many more messes in the future.  But with any luck, fewer involving my spices.

Just Laugh it Off

Around the age of thirteen or so, I was not particularly graceful.  I was thin and probably a little gangly, and I was always tripping over something--my own two feet if nothing else.  At the time, I was extremely embarrassed by my klutziness, and I could imagine nothing worse than having someone witness it

Now that I'm older, I can't say that I'm a whole lot more graceful.  I still trip and fall over things.  I've even fallen up the stairs (yes, UP) a time or two.  The difference is I'm not so embarrassed anymore.  I realize how funny it must look, so I laugh (well, I laugh as long as I don't hurt myself).  It's to the point that if I am going to trip and fall, I kind of hope someone is there to see it, that way if it makes them laugh, at least I didn't go down in vain.  I've been there for a few spectacular falls with a few of my friends, and I can say wholeheartedly that if it were me, I would want them to see it, because it was REALLY funny.  Just thinking about it can still make me laugh.

At Bible school I had these shoes that were always making me fall.  I don't know if they weren't the right size or if I didn't strap them tight enough, but they were not safe to walk on.  There were two times in particular that I fell wearing those shoes, and no one saw either one, but if they had they would have laughed their socks off.  

The first time, I was leaving class and going back to my dorm room when I suddenly misstepped and fell into some bushes.  There was a whole crowd of people nearby, but when I looked back, not one person was looking my direction.  

The second time, I was up in the balcony and was walking down the stairs when one of my shoes mutinied once again and I did this crazy spin-turn-fall.  And yet again, no one was around, no one saw.  That I know of!  There could very well be a person out there who still laughs thinking about the girl who fell into the bushes.

Is there a moral to this story?  Possibly.  Do I know what it is? No.  Let's try something like this: Learn to laugh at yourself.  Or how about, "Embrace your inner klutz."  Or outer klutz, in my case.

Only You

Where is my passion?

Where did it go?

The depths of my heart have closed.

And only the shallows exposed.

The passion is there I know

Somewhere in the deep it flows.

I can't seem to let it out

I begin to doubt that I can

I can't

Only You can free me

In all the ways I need freedom

I don't want to be locked away

I want to be free

I want to let go

Let go of control

And fear

Fear of unknown

Fear of being known

I want to be known by You

I am Your love, Your servant, Your Bride

I belong to You

Only You

This morning, I was inspired to write this poem because of the song "Worlds Apart" by Jars of Clay, which we sang today in church.  Here are some of the lyrics that particularly stand out to me:

I look beyond the empty cross

forgetting what my life has cost

and wipe away the crimson stains

and dull the nails that still remain

More and more I need you now,

I owe you more each passing hour

the battle between grace and pride

I gave up not so long ago

So steal my heart and take the pain

and wash the feet and cleanse my pride

take the selfish, take the weak,

and all the things I cannot hide

take the beauty, take my tears

the sin-soaked heart and make it yours

take my world all apart

take it now, take it now

and serve the ones that I despise

speak the words I can't deny

watch the world I used to love

fall to dust and thrown away

I look beyond the empty cross

forgetting what my life has cost

so wipe away the crimson stains

and dull the nails that still remain

so steal my heart and take the pain

take the selfish, take the weak

and all the things I cannot hide

take the beauty, take my tears

take my world apart, take my world apart

I pray, I pray, I pray

take my world apart

To love You - take my world apart

To need You - I am on my knees

To love You - take my world apart

To need You - broken on my knees

It's a song I have heard many times before, but it meant something new to me today.  It's amazing how God can take anything and make it new to use for His purposes.  Even me:)

Seven (But Not the Deadly Sins)

In honor of my niece, Mackenzie, here are seven things you may or may not know about me.

1.  I have an extreme capacity for not getting tired of things.  I will get obsessed with something, like a TV show or a book series, and I will watch it or read it until there is nothing more to watch or read, and I won't get sick of it.  I could probably sit and watch endless hours of a TV marathon and be perfectly happy.  At the end, I will be sad there isn't more, and sad that I now have to find something else equally interesting.  When I finally read the Harry Potter series (with skepticism) and discovered how good the books were, and I read them non-stop.  Then I read The Tales of Beedle the Bard, which is connected.  Then I also watched all the movies.  Then I read Looking for God in Harry Potter.  I pretty much exhausted the resources.  When I was in kindergarden, I loved the John Wayne movie Rio Lobo.  For a long time I watched it every day after school, until I finally had the whole thing memorized.  I really get a lot of enjoyment out of having a good obsession now and then.

2.  When I was twelve, I thought it sounded like fun to run away from home.  I was very practical about it and planned that I would need to save about $3000 and I was going to wait til I was around sixteen years old.  I am not entirely sure what my thinking was behind wanting to do that.  I guess I thought it sounded nice to just leave, you know, just go wherever I wanted, without having a plan.  Then, of course, I planned it all out and that must have taken all the fun out of it for me because obviously I never did it.


3.  When I was sixteen I went on a mission trip to Toronto, Canada to reach out to the homeless.  The first day we were there we all went to exchange our money and then walked around downtown a bit.  My friend Scott and I decided to go up on this walkway and see if there were any homeless people up there.  I told my friend Angie where we were going, but when we came back down our group was nowhere in sight.  We were completely and utterly lost in this huge foreign city (I say foreign because we had never been there before, not because it was in Canada--even though Canada technically is foreign, I guess).  We tried asking a few people for directions, but no one seemed to have heard of the Neill-Wycik, where we were staying.  Fortunately for us, there were a bunch of moose statues all around the city, and we basically followed the ones we recognized to get back to where we needed to be.  It was really hot, and we were so hungry, and probably a little scared.  The crazy thing is that when we got back, no one seemed to have noticed that we were gone--not even Angie!


4.  The first year I was at Christ For the Nations they had a big ice storm.  The school is in Dallas, Texas.  Dallas is usually very hot, and in the winter it might get a little snow, but an ice storm was quite out of the ordinary.  Everything was covered in ice, the grass, the trees, the roads, the sidewalks...and the concrete slanting down from the freeway to the off-ramp.  It was probablly the most reckless and dangerous thing I've ever done, but some friends and I went sledding down it.  It really didn't seem dangerous at the time, because, as I mentioned, snow and ice were oddities in Dallas, which means that the drivers were all terrified, and there were only a few people even out driving.  The ones that were out braving the cold and ice were driving so slow that a turtle could have started crossing the road when a car got off onto the ramp, and safely get all the way to the other side before the car ever got there.  Still, it's the kind of thing most parents would not want their child doing, even if their child is nineteen years old.  Later, after Aaron and I were together, I found out that he had driven past us on the way to work and thought something along the lines of "Look at those idiots!" 


5.  After watching a comedy video of Anita Renfroe talking about how her grandma kept all the stuff she needed in her bra instead of a purse, I am semi-seriously considering going this route.  Without a purse, I'd have one less thing to carry, I wouldn't have to spend money on a new one, and everything I need would be close at hand all the time.  Not to mention, I'd get to see the looks on people's faces when I pull money out of my bra.


6.  If I ask people for money, they usually give it to me.  Not a lot of money, but small amounts.  In sixth grade I bought a snickers bar every day after school from the concession stand and if I didn't have the money, I would ask for it from someone else.  In eighth grade I would ask the school principal sometimes for quarters so I could get a drink out of the pop machine and he would usually give them to me.  So I guess that makes me a bum.  But a successful one :)  Now that I've written this people will probably never give me money anymore.  There's something to be said for not giving away all your secrets.


7.  I love sarcasm and wordplay, and just words in general.  I even like cheesy puns that have a double meaning, like this one, "I've been to the dentist a thousand time so I know the drill."  My most favorite movies are ones that have great lines you can quote.  I love the show House because of his sarcasm, even though I know if someone actually said to me the things he says I would hate it.  But it's funny because it's happening to someone else.  I love the silly wordy humor of Mad Libs, and I love Scrabble and crossword puzzles (just not the really hard ones!) and I like the way words sound sometimes, like "cruciverbalist" (which means "a designer or aficionado of crossword puzzles").

Rescue

Because of a recommendation, I recently bought The Jesus Storybook Bible for the kids.  The woman who recommended it said that she would read to her daughter, but was often touched by what she read herself.  I experienced that tonight, reading the story of Daniel to Malachi and Israel.  It's called "The Jesus Storybook Bible" because every story is written in such a way that shows how the whole Bible is really about Jesus, and every story leads back to Him.  

At the end of the story about Daniel and the lions' den, in reference to God rescuing Daniel from the mouths of the lions, it says this, "God would keep on rescuing His people.  And the time was coming when God would send another brave Hero, like Daniel, would would love God and do what God said -- whatever it cost him, even if it meant he would die.  And together they would pull off the Greatest Rescue the world has ever known."

When I finished reading, I asked the boys, "Do you know who that brave Hero is?  It's Jesus."  And then I told them how the Bible says that the devil is like a roaring lion, seeking whom he may devour, and that Jesus saved us from that roaring lion, just like he saved Daniel from the lions in the den.  

I have to say at this point, that I think that little revelation meant a lot more to me than it did to them.  For one thing, right as I was trying to tell them about it, a spider went crawling across the ceiling, and Malachi was so worried about it that he could not sit still.  He wouldn't rest until Aaron took my shoe and squashed it.

I felt more than a little frustrated at being upstaged by a spider, but I had to just shrug it off, and pray silently that the truth would sink into their hearts for later.  They are so little.  They can only take in and process so much at a time.  But I know this won't be the last time we talk about all of this, and my hope is that tonight would be a building block for those conversations in the future.  

I want them to know that Jesus is the Ultimate Hero.  I want them to experience being rescued by Him for themselves.  But important things take time.  You can't go out into any random field and stick a seed in the ground and expect to see a plant pop up immediately.  First, the field has to be cleared.  Then, it has to be plowed.  And even then, there is so much more to do than just planting.  Cultivating.  Fertilizing.  Weeding.  Watering.  Sunshine.  Waiting.  Time.  Finally, a plant.  And then, even after all that, it is just a little plant at first.  It takes even more of all of that for it to grow into a fully matured plant.  

When it comes to my boys, it may be a long time before I see that little plant come up.  And it may be even longer before it matures into a healthy full-grown plant.  In the meantime, I have to keep working, sometimes without knowing for certain if what I'm doing will yield the desired results.  That's when I have to trust God.  He knows.  And He wants them to know Him even more than I do.  

I am just so glad He rescued me.