Do it Anyway

Our sassy Cosi is 100% my daughter. 

Cosi:  "Mom, may I throw this sand?"
Me:  "No, you may not throw the sand."
Cosi:  "I think I'm going to do it anyway."

I thought it was pretty good usage of the word 'anyway.'

you gotta protect your brother

This is a story about how proud I am of Cosi.

We've been trying to teach Cosi to protect her brother (instead of beat him up).  We're hoping that we can teach them to take care of each other as they grow up. 

We'll ask Cosi, "What should you do if someone hits Trey?"  She'll say, "I'll tell them 'NO NO - Don't hurt my brother!'"  Well, Cosi had a chance to put those words into action. 

I was in the hallway when I heard Trey crying.  As I walked into Cosi's room, I heard Cosi tell her friend, "No, let my brother out! He doesn't like it." Cosi's friend had locked Trey in the closet and was holding the door shut. (side note:  Cosi, herself, has done this very thing to Trey on occasion) However - this time, instead of joining in, Cosi was helping her brother. 

Our little girl is growing up :)    Or - at least placing sole rights on the torture of her brother...

All Cosi wants for Christmas is...

A Bra?

Seriously.  If you ask Cosi what she wants for Christmas or her birthday, she answers that she wants a bra.  I'm not totally sure where this desire came from, but I suspect it relates to her wanting to be just like mommy.

That girl cracks me up.  I suspect she might make Santa blush.  We'll see...    

Sand and Water

I love online garage sales (via Facebook).  I recently purchased a sand & water table.  The kids love it!  Here are some pics to prove I'm not lying. 
















Note the messy, sand-covered floor.  You don't see that in the advertisement pictures.  The kids in the ads are also pretty good about keeping sand & water separate, but those elements were combined within the first minute over here.

 Trey's a bit of a climber these days.  Cosi, on the other hand, takes her sand play quite seriously.  She is constantly filling cups with sand, dumping cups into other cups, etc. 

"Picture time is over," say-eth the baby.

At our house...

This happened yesterday while we were outside working on the garden.

(April yelps and giggles as a lizard runs near her foot)
Cosi:  "Mommy, what happened?"
April:  "A lizard just ran past."
Cosi:  (confused at first, but then a knowing smile emerges) "Oh, did it tickle you?"

Apparently a lizard just running past wasn't reason enough for me to yelp/giggle...

_______________________

Trey is getting better & better at communicating these days.  Today, he looked at me and signed "more."    I asked him, "more what?"  Then, he ran to get a book.  He opened it to the food page, pointed to the picture of a cookie and (again) signed "more."

He's only 16 months-old.  I think he's a baby genius with a big sweet tooth.

 

Jogging with Jesus

Trey's latest addiction is walking in the street in front of our house.  He likes to walk in the middle of the street, bark like a dog, and then wander in the direction of anything that answers.  And most times, I'm happy to just be daddy-in-the-background- close enough to keep him from doing anything stupid, but far enough back that he's free to roam.

This afternoon, while Trey was a-roamin', a jogger went past.  Not just any jogger, mind you, but one of those super-fit Adonis-types with no shirt who has a body that makes me instantly aware that I am in my mid-30's and incapable of even the mildest athletic feats.  This jogger went past and caught Trey's eye.  Trey watched him round the corner, then tucked his little head down and took off after him as fast as he could toddle.  I love my little boy's confidence.

When I was reflecting on that story this evening, I realized that I tend to think of Jesus that way- he's our great example, the perfect runner, taking great strides and showing us how it's done.  And I'm the little toddler who runs with all his puny might, with no hope of really catching up, but happy to just be going the right way.

It's sad how much I think of Jesus that way and how seldom I picture him scooping me up and carrying me as he runs...

Pardon My Introspection...

I just finished my first 2 days of seminary classes.  I feel...predictably let down.

Don't get me wrong.  I actually enjoyed the classes, and it's been great reconnecting with old friends, making new friends, etc.  What you need to understand is that I've been looking forward to this day for about 14 years, and seldom do things live up to that kind of anticipation.  I knew I was going to feel this way.

A quote from Kierkegaard that has stuck with me for years is: "Pleasure disappoints, possibility never.  And what wine is so foaming, what so fragrant, what so intoxicating, as possibility!"  What he is saying is that when things are still in the future, still just in the realm of the possible, then we imagine them to be maximally satisfying.  Once we experience them, even though they are pleasant, they inevitably fail to match the joy we imagined.

So I had some great classes- thoroughly enjoyable.  I'm glad I'm here, I'm thankful to be here, and I am genuinely looking forward to my studies themselves, not just as a means to an end.  But at the end of the day I felt like saying "was that it?"  It's a human tendency to put unreasonable expectations on the people and events and experiences of our life- expectations we borrow from an imagined reality.  Expectations fueled by movies and books and other narratives that describe only the Possible, not the Actual.  And so our marriages, our jobs, our friendships, our lives feel so common when measured against the Possible.  We feel let down or even disappointed because they're not as amazing or as perfect as we imagine they could be.  

Imagination is a great gift, but it is also our greatest liability.  And it is the greatest enemy to our contentment.  And without contentment there is no happiness.

So today I think about the promise that there is a Day coming that cannot possibly disappoint.  A Day that is not worth comparing to anything in our present experience.  A Day that far exceeds all that we could ever ask or imagine.

I don't care if the glass is half empty or half full, I want to know who drank my water!

It's one a.m. and I just finished studying for the night.  Specifically, I just finished memorizing the paradigm for present passive indicative contract verbs in koine Greek.  Don't you wish you had my life?

Seriously, though, before I head to bed, I'm doing my part to keep this from becoming a total mommy blog :)  Heading to bed, I'm thinking about the past few weeks, of which our dying car was only one of several dramatic episodes.  And I'm realizing that I'm still struggling with perspective.

Lately, when people ask how I'm doing, all I can think about are the rough patches of the past few weeks and months.  I even told one naive would-be small-talker that I would defer answering his question until next week, when I would hopefully have a happier answer to "how was your weekend?"  And let's face it, the past few months haven't been easy on the emotions or the pocketbook.

But that's not even half the story.

For every trying moment, for every loss, for every stressful day, there are corresponding and conquering blessings.  Our car died, and we've had new friends and classmates loan us their vans until we could get a more permanent ride.  Our housing situation was up in the air for way too long, and in the end we landed in a great house with amazing landlords.  Unpredictable appliances and sick kids cut into (or totally cut off) my study time, and yet I'm still doing well in class.

I'm not talking about mere silver linings in the midst of our frustrations and losses.  These are the signs of God's abundant blessings in our lives.  And yet I always think first of the dark spots. I wonder if we've become so caught up in the entertainment value of drama in film and on TV that we seek to highlight the drama in our lives.  Life has drama, to be sure, and some lives have more of it than others.  But if all we focus on is the tension, the unfulfillment, the disappointment, then we aren't being true to the whole story.

I want to tell the whole story of my week- not in all the details, both mundane and extraordinary- but the story with all its contours.  I don't want to talk about the low points just for the sake of dwelling in them, but only insofar as they take me back up to the high points of God's redemptive work.

I'm not there yet.  Thankfulness takes discipline.  In the meantime, I may need to stop deferring answers and simply affirm to the people around me that God has been good to me.  Better than I deserve, better than I understand, and better than I'm willing to admit.

Broken Cars and Thankful Hearts...

We love our '97 Mercury.  It safely delivered us to our new home in Florida.  I was hoping it would keep driving our family around for at least a few more months, but perhaps that is not to be...

Today it died.

I was driving the kids back from a church moms group activity.  We had about 15 miles to go.  All of a sudden, the power steering went out.  The car was still running, but the battery light had turned on. 

Rob was in Greek class.  I texted him to let him know that the car might be dying (don't worry - I was at a red light while texting).  I had a decision to make - should I pull over on the side of the road or keep going?  I decided that I was more afraid of being stuck on the side of the road in the Florida sun/humidity with my kids than breaking the car even more.  I kept driving and I started praying.

I called my mom to tell her the news.  I knew she couldn't do anything, but it felt good to share my nervousness.

We made it to within a mile of our home.  That's when the real fun started.  The car started smoking, a lot.  I couldn't tell if it was just overheating or if the car was on fire.  Apparently other cars couldn't tell either, because multiple people called 911 saying my car was on fire.

The smoke was pouring into the drivers seat, passenger seat and across 4 lanes of traffic.  I quickly pulled over, slammed the car into park, shut off the engine, jumped out of the car and started getting the kids.  I always wondered if something like this happens - which kid do you grab first?  I grabbed Cosi first, mostly due to proximity and the thought that she might be relied upon to stay in one place in the grass while I grabbed Trey.     

By this time, a middle-aged man had stopped to help.  I handed the kids off to him and went back to get my purse and the stroller.  Maybe this was dumb.  I guess it worked out okay, seeing as how the car didn't blow up.

My whole body was shaking.  I called Rob, but I could barely hold the phone.

Then the fire trucks and police cars showed up.  They were really nice.  How cool that they drive out to help you when you're in trouble!  The fireman opened the hood and looked inside.  He told me that I was lucky to stop when I did, because the brakes were 3-4 pumps from being gone.  I would have been driving with no steering and no brakes - not a good combination.

The car is now at a shop.  We'll see what they say and if it's worth fixing.  Mostly, we're just thankful to be safe at home.  It was a good reminder of how often God takes care of us, even when we're unaware.  

Anyhow, thanks for checking in as I process my afternoon.  I'm off to take care of the kids while Rob studies Greek.  I might even ride Rob's bike to the grocery store later :)  Life goes on...

**Update - The car is dead.  They repaired part of it (enough to charge us $250) and then said it would cost another $1,200 to repair.  This is more than the value of the car, so we have now gone from a 1 car family to a 0 car family**

Only bad moms let their babies drink lattes...

I love coffee.
It helps me relax.  I easily convince myself that it's a treat when I'm trying to diet.  Drinking a cup of coffee feels luxurious to me, especially in the afternoon.

I love Target.   
Some people return to the US (after living overseas) and are overwhelmed by the choices at American stores.  They're used to having only 2 cereal choices, so having 35 choices (along with a bit of culture shock) might upset them.  That's not me.  Bring on the choices!  I'll walk up and down the aisle, over and over, while smiling like a goon.  Target gives me lots of choices, along with a relatively clean environment and red decor.  I like that.

The merging of Starbucks and Target is pure genius.
Although I rarely buy anything at Starbucks (it's so expensive), I still think Starbucks at Target is awesome.  I like to know that I could buy something, even if I never actually follow through on it.

Pure genius is expensive. 
We've been back in the USA for about 2 months now and although I had been to Target more than once (and by 'once,' I mean a number closer to fifty), I had yet to purchase a Starbucks coffee during my shopping excursion.  That is, until two days ago.  We moved into our new home three days ago.  We have to buy everything for starting a new life in the USA and a coffee maker had not yet made it into our home. 

Starbucks+Target+young kids=not pure genius
As I entered Target with my two kids that day, my caffeine headache convinced me that purchasing a $4 iced latte was a good idea.  What I did not factor in were the two leeches in my cart.  I had forgotten their water cups in the car, so I was especially vulnerable to their cries of thirst.  Trey, with his sad eyes and insistent use of sign language.  Cosi, with her clenched fists of happiness, hands reached out to partake of my drink.

I am weak.
Any other mother might have firmly stated, "This is a mommy drink.  You can have your water as soon as we return to the car."  I didn't think of that.  Instead, I decided to give them each one quick sip of a fully caffeinated iced latte.  It seemed like a good idea at the time, except my kids aren't sippers.  As soon as their greedy little hands got a hold of my latte, they started sucking like they hadn't had a drink for days.  I tried to carefully pry the cup out of their hands, but those plastic cups are tricky and I didn't want it to bust open all over the cart.  By the time I got the latte back, I had one sip and a cup full of ice.

Caffeinated kids+shopping at Target=lousy
My kids are hard to shop with sans coffee, but add coffee in the mix and it's pretty close to a miserable experience.  Somehow they don't see the importance in mommy buying the correct extension cord.

Lesson learned=save money and make coffee at home
I bought a coffee maker the next day.  I have a child gate on my kitchen entrance.  I can hide in my kitchen and drink my coffee in relative peace.  It's a good life :)