apple-peach?

Every week after Sunday school, we ask Benjamin (3 1/2 years old) about the story the teacher told. Usually we get an answer like "Jesus was in it," or "God happened to Jesus," which I still haven't quite figured out. This week, however, he must have really enjoyed the story, since he said this:

Adam ate the apple peach. God was gigantic sad. They left the garden.

I like that summary, apple peach and all.

Duets

A whole lotta singin' goes on in our family.
Sometimes silly...
"Now let's do Zoe, Mama! Zoe, Zoe, Bo Bo-ee, Banana-Fanana, Fo Foe-ee, Fee fi moe mo-ee. Zoe!

Sometimes sweet (like tonight...)
Sing "I can show you the world, Daddy." The sounds of Elli and Daddy singing the parts of Aladdin and Jasmine wafted down the staircase as they cuddled in bed together.

And sometimes profound...
One benefit of sleeping with the worship pastor is that when a new song is introduced on a given Sunday, it ain't new to me. This week we sang a new song by Keith and Kristyn Getty entitled "Behold the Lamb." I had been singing it off and on all week, but I didn't realize how much I had been doing so until the car ride home from church. I started singing, when halfway through the first line I realized I was not singing alone. How strange it was to hear that tiny voice piping,

Behold the Lamb who bears our sins away, slain for us--and we remember
the promise made that all who come in faith find forgiveness at the cross.
So we share in this Bread of Life and we drink of His sacrifice
as a sign of our bonds of peace, around the table of the King.

I know she didn't understand what it really meant (do I?), but we were singing it together and it was beautiful.

a few recent laughs...

Kate (4 years old) whining and complaining...
Me: Kate, stop complaining or there will be a consequence.
Kate: Mom, this is how it is. I am 4 years old. You are, like, 30 or something. You know how to control me. It is your job.

sigh....if only this were true.....


Daniel talking about ghosts.
Me: Daniel, do you know what a ghost is?
Daniel a little hesitant: Of course I know.
Me: Ok, what is a ghost?
Daniel: It is a white, scary monster that will eat you.
Me: Hmm, OK. What about the Holy Ghost?
Daniel: Of course not the Holy Ghost. The Holy Ghost is shaped like a heart so he will fit inside of you. He lives in my heart and he is nice.

i just saw a pirate in the library (or, how our kids change our perspective)

(This is a cross-posting from my other blog, thus the all-lowercase letters. It seemed to work here, too. Perhaps all the same people read this blog as that? If so, my apologies.)

i just saw a pirate in the library.

i hope the gentleman with the eye patch, no doubt recovering from some injury or surgery or vision trouble, will forgive me for my first thought when i saw him. luke wasn't even with me. nor was he with me when i left the library and passed a fire truck and barely stopped myself saying out loud, "look! a fire truck! and it's blue!"

i think i used to be a compassionate person. i'd like to think that, before i had kids, if i saw someone with an eye patch, i thought about how unpleasant that would be (and at the library reading, with just one eye!) or i thought about the eye patch my mom once endured. i suspect that, before i had kids, if i saw a fire truck, i wondered to what emergency it was racing or whether anyone was hurt (or probably whether a traffic hold up was in my very near future).

but now, six years after (after, you know, my whole new world), a man with an eye patch is automatically a pirate. a fire truck is excitement (is it a pumper? a hook-and-ladder?).

they (who are they, anyhow?) say having kids changes you. and how.

when i read the reports of the toxic drug cocktail that likely killed michael jackson, i know well every single one of those drugs and its side effects. when i hear of a dear friend's father having breathing trouble, i understand intimately the weaning process from ventilator to c-pap and the important statistics of pressure support and oxygen percentages. and when i see a friend in the parking lot at school who also lost her baby girl and she says she's doing well--having a good first week of school and so on--i know what she's not saying. what we're both not saying.

having kids changes you. indeed.

changes your friends, for sure. (don't have kids yet? you'll see.) changes your priorities, no doubt. (my new job this time around? no sweat. don't like my work? okay, i've got more important things to do anyhow.) changes your habits, certainly. (for dinner? whatever it is, it'll include carrot sticks all around.) changes your heroes. (kindergarten teachers, pediatricians, mommy-friends...and dump truck drivers, sanitation workers, and airplane pilots, too.) changes your hobbies (i remember when emailing used to be work. now it's my salvation...ahem, my connection to the outside world.) changes your love language--have you read that book? (make me a meal or do my laundry or clean my house? you're also my hero, and i know you love me.)

i like to think i'm a better person for those changes, though perhaps my pirate friend would disagree. i like to think i know better what's important: why swimming lessons trump editing work every time, why an excellent picture of a wriggly child is worth oh-so-much more than a thousand words or many dollars, why a comfy chair in a messy living room is so much more appealing than a stiff chair in a tidy one, or why chocolate chip cookies taste even better when eaten sprinkled with tears.

Routine Remembered

We've rolled into it quite nicely this time-- the school-year routine with its early mornings and family breakfasts, long days and varied evenings. The children have adapted nicely-- even happily-- to the return to school, and they do their homework without prodding and they ask for screen-time when they haven't earned it and they go to bed too late. Just Like Always.

Of course we are hoping that, in some ways, we've moved on from where we used to be. Our daughter has had quite the talking-to about not correcting her teacher (or anyone else for that matter); we've had the conversations about kindness and loving others No Matter What. And we are hoping that lessons enforced about, say, tidiness in one's homework will carry on into this new school year.

So there he sat-- weary from football practice-- reaching for his math book to do the last twelve problems. His binder-- newly organized and stocked with appropriate supplies-- looked so neat and clean that I had to say so: "Look at that!" I said, "Look at that neat and clean binder." And it was so neat and clean, and there on the top was a nice clean blank sheet of paper, just waiting to be filled with math problems.

Then came the text book, and pulled from beneath the cover was the Other math paper, the one holding the first half of the problem set, all rumpled and wrinkled fit (almost) for the trash can (for that's what happens, don't you know, when you slip a perfectly tidy math paper inside the cover of your math book and then drop it into your book bag).

And there was my son, examining it only briefly, and then smoothing and smoothing it on the coffee table. "It's fine," he said, looking up at us while still trying to rub the wrinkles out. "It's fine, it's fine. I'm not starting over."

speechless with disgust...

once again mommy friends, teach your kids God's truth about who they are. this is horrible...



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