Lessons in Grace (or Why This Mama is Super-Proud of Her Little Girl)

It is much easier to show grace when you have previously experienced a need for grace. 

The Back-Story, Summer 2011

Last summer, Cosi was still pretty new to our family and had many lessons to learn on proper behavior.  One day, while I was waiting for Cosi to climb through a Chick-fila play place, I heard (from within the play-place) a little girl yell "that girl hit me."  I was pretty sure "that girl" was probably a confused Cosi, who didn't really know how to play with other kids and might have felt threatened by the little girl.  So, I climbed up into the play-place, found Cosi and brought her out.  As we were exiting, I heard the mother of the offended girl ask, "which girl hit you?" and I saw the accusing finger reach out in Cosi's direction. 

I was embarrassed and unsure of what to do.  What I really wanted was grace and understanding for Cosi.  For good and for bad, I constantly feel a need to defend and protect my little girl from a world that has not always treated her well.

As I glanced at the mother, I saw hatred in her eyes.  She was protecting her daughter and was waiting to watch me punish my daughter.  I apologized to the mother and daughter.  I offered a bit of an excuse by saying, "My daughter has just joined our family.  She's still learning."  I told Cosi to apologize and helped her to say she was sorry.

Then, I turned to Cosi.  I was planning to talk to her some more and have her sit on my lap to take a break and "think about" her behavior.  However, the little girl continued to stand next to us and stare at Cosi.  Her mom allowed her to do this (and actually stood back to watch, too).  It was like she wanted to say "haha, you're being punished and I'm going to watch!"  Cosi, not one to back down ever, then brought on my most embarrassing mom moment yet.  Cosi looked right into the girls eyes (the girl was about one foot away) and spit in the girl's face.    

At this point, the mother gasped.  With a horrified expression on her face, she whisked her daughter away and fled the play-place. 

Okay - don't worry, that's not why I'm proud of Cosi. 

Yesterday, Summer 2012

Yesterday, we were back at Chick-fila and in the play-place.  Cosi was trying to climb up the steps to get to the slide, but a two year-old boy blocked the way.  I saw him swing at her and knock her in the head.  Kids started yelling, "that boy's hitting people."  Cosi came down the steps and ran to me.  She was okay, so we went to find the little boy's parents. 

As the little boy's mom was talking to him, Cosi (always up for telling a good story) ran to tell Rob what had happened.  Rob asked her, "Did you forgive him for hitting you?"  Cosi thought about it and said, "no."  Then, she ran back to the boy and started yelling "Boy!  I forgive you!" 

And, here's where Cosi's parents get really proud.  Not only did Cosi forgive the boy, but she proceeded to invite him to play with her.  (He didn't really want to play with her, but that's not the point) 

As it turns out, this little boy just joined his family two months ago.  He is from Bulgaria and he's just now learning a few lessons on proper behavior. 

I was able to talk to his mom and encourage her.  The new mother is a bit frazzled and overwhelmed.  I knew the feeling. 

Cosi continued to follow the boy around and try to play with him.  She has a pretty strong mothering instinct in her and she was happy to reach out to the boy (whose name is Christian).  And, whether or not he appreciated it at the time, I think it was good for him to get some smothering extra loving from a well-meaning 4 year-old. 

Anyhow, this incident made me reflect on how we respond to people who hurt us.  Do we continue the cycle of hurt?  Do we rejoice in their pain or punishment?  Or - do we forgive them and reach out to them with grace? 

My little girl made the choice to forgive and I am super-proud of her :)

America the Uggle

Overheard yesterday in April's parents house (which, by the way, is in America)

Cosi: I want to go to (East Asian city where we once lived)
April: Really? Why?
Cosi: I don't want to go to America.
April: Why not?
Cosi: It's uggle (rhymes with "snuggle," Cosi's word for 'ugly')
April: America is ugly?
Cosi: yeah, we have to find another airplane.

I guess we never really thought much that Cosi might prefer East Asia.  Maybe once she gets to Disney World she'll change her mind.

Cosi's birth story, according to Cosi...

I was already large with child (Trey) when we adopted Cosi.  This has shaped her life.  She is obsessed with pregnant women.  She loves to touch their bellies, try to pull up their shirts (sorry!) and talk to them about their babies.

Then she tells them that their baby will 'come out.'  She likes to elaborate a bit on this.  Her knowledge comes from one picture of Trey that was taken 5 seconds after he emerged from my nether-regions.  He was covered in blood.  Cosi thought this was awesome, so awesome that she stared at it for 10 minutes the first time she saw it.  At that point, she wouldn't even watch an episode of Mickey Mouse Clubhouse, so her tired mother might have been willing to let her look at the picture a few times a day.  She was really into it.  She even asked for it by name, "mama, Cosi see blood."  She might be a doctor or nurse someday.  Who am I to argue with the girl's desire to see blood?  In fact, as of yesterday, her new favorite show might be 'A Baby Story' on TLC, or at least the birth part of that story. 

Anyhow, as you might imagine, all this fascination with Trey's birth led to a desire to have her own story.  This was expressed by Cosi telling me, "Cosi born."  Trying to be as accurate as possible, here are some highlights of what we talk about...

You came out of a lady's belly.  You came out of mommy & daddy's heart.  She'll smile at us when she authoritatively tells us that she came out of our hearts.
When you came of of the lady's belly (by some mysterious process that she has yet to ask about), a doctor helped you.  You were soooo little, (and she was, about 3 lbs) but you were strong.  You were covered in blood, because all babies are covered in blood.  A nurse washed you and cleaned you.  You might have been cold, so the nurse wrapped you in a warm blanket.  If you were hungry, then the nurse gave you a bottle of milk.

Sometimes when we talk about her story, we cuddle her just like we would cuddle a baby.  We'll pretend to wash her with water.  We'll hold up a pretend bottle and she'll pretend to drink it.  She loves it. 

We're so sad that her birth mother missed out on raising such a precious little girl, but we're very thankful for this spunky gift from God in our lives :)

Back in the USA, quick post

We're still alive. 
We just arrived back in the USA and we're jet-lagging, but we're alive.

Packing up 12 years of life in Asia for Rob and 6 years of life in Asia for me and 1 year of life in Asia for our two young kids = exhausting and all-consuming, but we're coming out of it.
I can't remember if we've posted about our move on the blog.  I don't think we have, but many of you receive our email updates, so you probably know.  Rob is over halfway done with his MDIV.  We're moving to Orlando, so Rob can finish his degree.  Cosi will also be working on a degree in preschool.  She's super excited, as most preschool children tend to be.

Our other big news is that we're preparing to leave the company that we work for.  The change will be official on August 1st.  We'll be switching to a new missions agency that partners missions work with seminary learning.  As always, lots of things to trust God with - it's a good place to be...

Cosi's big news is that she's going swimming in Nana & PawPaw's pool tomorrow.  Her clenched fists of happiness convey the depth of her excitement.
Trey's big news is that he can jump. Well his feet don't really leave the ground, but his parents think his 'upward twitch' will never get old.  

Kind of missing Asia right now....jet-lag is good for processing....kids sleeping is also good for processing...

Reading this Post Will Be a Waste of Your Time, I Promise.

Seriously, I'm warning you.  The only benefit I gained from writing it was that it may have been a bit cathartic.  You will gain no benefit from reading it.  A father should never spend so much time thinking about his kids' TV shows...

Once your kids start watching TV, you soon realize that their standards of a good show aren’t like yours or mine.  I look for an engaging plot with either humorous or suspenseful surprises.  I want believable characters, realistic dialogue, consistent narrative flow.

My daughter wants to watch Donald and the Beanstalk 10 times a day.

If not that, she wants to watch the episode where Goofy gets turned into a baby.

My son just wants to get up and do his adorable baby dance when the "Hot Dog Dance" music begins.

I’m speaking, of course, about Mickey Mouse Clubhouse- an educational, entertaining, computer-animated cartoon aimed at kids my daughter’s age.  In each episode, Mickey and friends must solve a problem using various “tools” supplied by the freakishly prescient “Mousekedooer” and brought to them by the subservient, ill-used, and (we later learn) emotionally-stunted machine named “Toodles.” 

The problem is, being more deprived of grown-up conversation than before I had kids, my mind starts to pay too much attention to the cartoons.  Way too much attention.  And I start to apply some of the skills I picked up studying philosophy to evaluate what’s going on in the Mickey Mouse Clubhouse Universe.  There are about 100 episodes, I’ve seen about 80 of them (not counting repeat viewings of the same episode).  I've seen so much of this show that I tried to correct an error on its Wikipedia article (someone went back an undid my correction, but they're wrong.  So very wrong).  Suffice to say, I have thought way too much about this show.

For example, I find myself concerned at how the character Pete the Cat is portrayed.  In early episodes Pete is often made out to be that “slightly bad guy” (more on that concept later).  He is greedy- often charging admission into various locations that Mickey and friends find themselves.  It is interesting to note that no one questions Pete’s right to charge admission to the public park, the lake, the Ferris wheel, etc.  It seems that his authority is legitimate, or else his size answers for him (he’s the biggest anthropomorphic character, and aside from Willie the Giant, the biggest character on the show).  Though it is never stated explicitly, one gets the sense that Pete is ‘trouble’- he’s in the way, he’s “that sneaky Pete.”  But in reality, Pete is one of the only characters in the Mickey Mouse Clubhouse universe who actually works for a living!  He’s industrial, entrepreneurial.  Without Pete, there’s no way to buy stamps, ride a boat, buy a hat and tie, etc.  No one else on the show ever seems to work for a living (aside from Clarabelle cow, the special events emcee and the proprietress of the “Moo Mart”- which, I assume, uses her own milk- gross!).  For Mickey and friends, the world is a playground, life is a frolic, and anyone who tries to make a buck is just getting in your way.  That seems to be the message we get.  While Mickey and friends are having “friendship day,” “do your favorite thing day,” or “art day,” Pete is hard at work, keeping society running smoothly.

Yet for all his hard work, Pete is the closest thing the show has to an antagonist.  If the plot requires someone to cause problems, Pete’s your guy.  But what I’ve noticed is that Pete seldom (if ever) is portrayed as intentionally malicious.  Even when he’s at his worst (trying to steal a recipe, dog-napping Clarabelle’s dog, etc.), in the end we see that he’s just craving some attention, he’s going about things the wrong way, or he just got carried away.  When caught causing trouble in the episode “Minnie Red Riding Hood,” Pete explains before dashing off, “Sorry, I can’t help it.”  Pete is the victim of his own misbehavior!  In most cases, you are supposed to feel sympathy towards Pete.  The same could be said for Willie the Giant, who in earlier episodes is sometimes an antagonist (until Mickey gets to know him, then they become friends).  In the episode “Donald and the Beanstalk” (which supports a disturbing view of right and wrong that I shall address at another time), it turns out that the big scary giant really just wants (spoiler alert!) something to hug.  The overall message seems to be that there really aren’t bad people.  If you think someone is bad, they’re probably just misunderstood.  In most cases, the only real antagonist is our circumstances, which we overcome through teamwork and creative use of resources.

 Well, that's a few initial observations.  Some possible topics for future entries:

Magic, Technology, and Professor Ludwig von Drake

Minnie, Daisy, and Clarabelle as Female Archetypes (or Why Minnie is Good for Me but I’m Hopelessly Drawn to Daisy)
The Theft of Boo-boo Chicken and Other Acts of Questionable Morality
The Suspension of Physics within the Clubhouse Universe

Character Size and Intelligence- Inversely Proportional?

The Portrayal of Non-Anthropomorphic Animals as a Servant Class

Toodles- The Emotionally Needy Machine

Boy Characters Don't Touch Girl Characters (or "We Plan to Market this in a Very Different, Very Conservative Nation, Which Also Explain Why You Never See Any Words or Letters on the Show")

April 13th - Trey's 1st Birthday :)

I'm not sure how I feel about this new format for writing on blogspot.  It's intimidating and it's why I haven't written a blog in a few weeks.  However, Trey did have an important birthday that is yet to go down in blog history, so I will force change on myself...

Here are some random facts about our precious boy:
-He started walking when he was 10 months old
-Since then, he's been trying to run, and has the head bumps to prove it
-Now, at 12 months, he's obsessed with climbing onto anything (beds, couches, etc.)
-At his last check-up, he was in the 85% for height and weight.
-He is tough.  He keeps up with Cosi and has won a few tug-of-wars over toys.
-He is finally sleeping through the night - ptl
-He is a stinker.  He is already getting into trouble.  When he touches the shoes in our entryway (forbidden), he grabs them and runs away laughing (as we chase him down).
-His favorite 2 spots in our home are the 3 steps (he climbs up and down - over and over) and the bathroom (also forbidden).   
-He loves eating and often uses sign language to tell us he's hungry. 
-His favorite foods include yogurt, mandarin oranges, chicken pot pie & chicken stir-fry.
-His favorite drink is whatever is in Cosi's cup.
-One of his favorite activities is going out onto our balcony and trying to pull down our laundry (we don't have a dryer, so we line-dry everything). 

Birthday Cake #1 with our team - Trey was more into his new train, but he nibbled a bit at his mini-cupcake.
 

He also took a break to take care of business...
 

 I think he looks like my baby pictures (especially when he smiles), but the general consensus is that he's starting to look more like Rob.
 

Then we had cake #2 on his actual birthday.  Our family of four celebrated with a homemade ice cream cake, because Trey likes him some ice cream.

But, he still likes mommy better than ice cream...














He also likes Cosi hugs combined with ice cream :)


And, of course, he also likes just plain ice cream. He surprised us by using the spoon to get food into his mouth - we didn't know he could do that, but he is a big boy now...


And, one last picture - Trey & Daddy.  





I guess this new blogspot format wasn't so difficult after all :)

Sounds Familiar...

Rob here.
It's been a busy season, and I haven't devoted any time to writing blog posts lately. April, on the other hand, is trying to hijack this space and convert it into a full-fledged mommy blog. Don't get me wrong, she's got some great stuff here (as many thankful jiaozi eaters will attest). But I feel like I should at least put a few words in :)
Fortunately, I prepared a few lists back in December, planning to post one every few days. I got as far as one. Here's list number two. I give you:

Things I Say to My Kids that I Can Also Imagine God Saying to Me:
-When will you realize that when you don’t listen to me, you get hurt?
-I’ll be back very soon.
-You have no idea how much I love you.
-It's OK to cry, you don't even need a reason.
-I'm disciplining you because I want to help you become a much better person.
-Do you really think I don’t know what you’re doing?
-Trust me, I know what I'm talking about.
-I'm not going to stop you, but I know this is going to end poorly!
-I like it when you try to be just like me.
-This is one of those times you need to sit and listen to me.
-You have grown so much!
-My instructions were very clear, and I know you heard me. What happened?
-You can't do everything I can do, and that's OK.
-I know this hurts, but it’s going to make you feel better, I promise.
-Stop whining.
-Be nice to your brother (or sister).

Another recipe - Homemade Veggie & Beef Chili!

I'm not really into beef & beans chili, so (for many years) I thought I didn't like chili. After Rob & I got married, I knew I needed to find creative ways to incorporate vegetables into his diet. Chili seemed like a good option. I knew the veggies could cook down (as much as you want them to), they're covered with a flavorful sauce and it just seemed like a nice way to ease Rob into the vegetable food group. It's been great for the kids, as well. I usually mix their chili with rice.

Anyhow, I started out adding shredded carrots. They can cook down so much that you don't even know they're in the chili. I chop my carrots now, but that's just because I'm lazy and Rob's already hooked on the chili. Honestly, I'll add any veggie in the refrigerator to my chili, so it's a bit different every time.

In this picture, you can see that I've been boiling some chopped veggies (carrots, squash, celery, bell peppers, green beans, etc) in a small amount of water. I added one can of cannelini beans, some tomato paste, garlic, onions and some more water. I also precooked some ground beef and added that, but I forgot to take a picture...oops...

















In the meantime, I scrubbed the dirt off of my spinach leaves and chopped them up (so they wouldn't gag the kids). I also added some chili seasoning that was mailed to me by a friend - thank you thank you!!!

















This is what it looked like after it was done (pre-cheese and sour cream). Like I said, I don't mind the chunks of veggies (I actually like them), so I don't cook it a super long time.

















Just for fun - do you know how we make sour cream in Asia? We add vinegar (or lemon juice) to cream and let it sour.

Family Trip to McDonalds

McDonalds is Rob's 2nd favorite restaurant (right after Papa Johns). I like it, sometimes. Actually, I don't eat it much in the USA, but I like it overseas. It feels like home. I guess that means my home is greasy and full of fat.

We have to take a bus to get to McDonalds. Thankfully, this bus was not very crowded. Can you imagine getting a stroller onto a crowded bus? I can. It's not fun.
























But, McDonalds is worth any bus trip!

Cosi's favorite McD food = ketchup!
2nd favorite = ketchup vehicles, like french fries!
3rd favorite = milkshakes!
forced to eat = chicken nuggets! ("No, Cosi! You must eat 2 nuggets before you can have more ketchup!")
















Trey, however, loves chicken nuggets. He downed 8 nuggets (we de-bread them first) at this meal!!!!! I only bought him 5, so I sent Rob up to buy more. I guess his sodium intake for the day was through the roof....yikes...

Here he is, what a heart-breaker, always looking to hand feed the ladies! Keep your daughters at home :)

















Mmmm.... I could go for some chicken nuggets right now...

What should you do when you forget your sand toys?

Option A: The tired mother should chug her water bottle (which she needs to drink anyway). Then, she should demonstrate to her daughter how the empty bottle can be an awesome sand toy. See picture #2.

















Transcript of Demonstration:
"What? You want to scoop up sand? Go ahead - scoop scoop!"
"What - you like to pour out sand? Pour your heart out!!"


















Difficulties with Option A: Child is not stupid. Child sees other children playing with real sand toys. Child knows there is something better to be had in the sand box.

This leads to option B.

Option B: Make friends. Play with their awesome toys. Rely on your mother to remind you to share the other child's toys with him.