Rocks In My Dryer

Cheers, friends!

I suppose it's the sign of a good year when you're sad to see it end. So, friends, here's to letting go, holding on, moving up, and digging in. And trusting, always trusting, in the One who never changes. Happy new year!

*NOTE:  This post was imported from my original Blogger.com blog.  Comments could not be imported and are no longer available.*

Gee, I can't wait to have teenagers!

I could only shake my head when I watched the news story this morning of the 16-year-old boy from Florida who ran away to Baghdad as part of a youthful experiment in "immersion journalism". The boy got to Iraq and called the Associated Press to offer his journalism services. The AP promptly reported him to the US Embassy.

Now, I have no experience raising teenagers, so I'm trying to picture the kitchen-table conversation that would occur after an incident like this. "Honey, you know we've told you not to hang out in insurgent-infested war zones..."

How, precisely, would one handle this conversation? And just what would you ground this child from? Oxygen?

*NOTE:  This post was imported from my original Blogger.com blog.  Comments could not be imported and are no longer available.*

Worth buying

My mom bought this DVD for my kids, and I have to report how impressed I am with it. I'd seen it advertised and wondered if it is was all it was cracked up to be! I know we all discuss "stranger danger" with our kids, but this DVD seemed to define it in a more structured way than I'd ever seen before. It addresses the issue of "personal space", and it cleverly puts all people into three easily-defined category for kids (ah, if only life were really that simple for adults!....)It was just a little beyond my four-and-a-half year old, but it was suited perfectly for the older two (ages seven and eight). I would imagine it would be useful to kids even as old as 10 or 11. Best of all, it was actually funny and enjoyable--a must for any DVD my kids will sit down to watch! I expect we'll watch it many times to reinforce what we've learned.

I hate to sound like a commercial, but this is such an important issue I couldn't resist passing on the recommendation.

*NOTE:  This post was imported from my original Blogger.com blog.  Comments could not be imported and are no longer available.*

Date night

I had a wonderful date tonight, with a charming, funny, smart and handsome man. We laughed over sandwiches, ate messy ice cream in the car and he even went purse-shopping with me. What a catch!

My date was with my delightful eight-and-a-half-year-old son, Adam. It's a favorite family tradition that on their "half birthday" the boys get to go on a date with Mom (our daughter will have a special date with Dad when she's old enough). The half-birthday boy gets to plan the entire evening, and for once, in our noisy family, it's all about him. (Okay, not the purse shopping. I talked him into it, I confess.). I have brief one-on-one moments with my kids throughout the day, but extended times like these are all too rare in our family of six. What a treasure these times are.

Tonight Adam took me to Subway (his favorite), and as always happens when I have a quiet moment with one of my children, I'm amazed at what mature little people they are becoming. He was so excited to be spending an evening with me (I know, he likely won't feel this way in five years, so I'll enjoy it while it lasts)--he was grinning so big he could barely chew. We talked about his friends, his favorite subjects and his new Christmas toys. He quoted his favorite movie lines. When he saw people step outside to smoke, he expressed concern that their "lungs were turning black".

When we adjourned to Sonic for ice cream, we sat in the car and listened to his favorite songs. Then he turned the music down. He turned to me very pensively and said, "Mom, I have a question for you. What is your favorite thing to do?" I opened my mouth to answer, and he interrupted, "And don't say 'be our mom' or 'talk to dad'. I mean fun stuff." I sat there, choked with emotion at the thought that my eight-year-old boy was wanting to know more about me--the "me" that is apart from my role as wife and mother. I told him my answer, and he told me his, and our wonderful conversation went on for quite some time.

In priceless moments like these, I think of Mary in the second chapter of Luke: "But Mary treasured up all these things and pondered them in her heart." You know that she, like all of us moms, had a stockpile of precious moments deep in her soul--moments so perfect that they were almost too moving to express aloud. These are the moments we mull over in the stressful or monotonous times. When we're discouraged, or frustrated, or lonely, we pull them out of the deepest part of heart to remind ourselves why we fight, why we work, why we love. It's so worth it.

*NOTE:  This post was imported from my original Blogger.com blog.  Comments could not be imported and are no longer available.*

In which I attempt to come down off a five-day sugar high

In an effort to shake off the post-Christmas haze that has plagued me all day, I thought I'd sit down to do a little bloggin'. I have nothing earth-shattering to report, just a full and happy heart after a wonderful holiday with family. Some of the highlights included

• A Christmas Eve celebration with the "five cousins" (I'm the oldest). We grew up doing this every year, but it was the first time the five of us had been together on Christmas Eve in 12 years. Through marriage and babies, our original five has grown to 16.
• A wonderful time of fellowship with my brother and his family. They live Far, Far Away, and we see them much too seldom. In a future post I'll tell you about the brilliant gifts my sister-in-law made for the kids.
• Way too many toys for my kids, but boy, it was fun. Gifts included (but are certainly not limited to) football uniforms, light sabres, stamp collections, video games, baby dolls, and a Magna Doodle (or, as Joseph calls it, his "Doo-Doo Pad").
• A beautiful Christmas morning service at our church, concluding with a breathtaking rendition of the Hallelujah Chorus. On a less spiritual note, during this service, Joseph turned to his 60-year-old grandfather and asked him why he had so many "cracks" in his face.
• A pact made among all the adults to focus more next year on the less material aspects of Christmas. One idea was for all of us--even the non-crafty ones--to make our gifts for each other.

There were many more sweet moments, but this is all my sugar-warped brain can accomplish at the moment. I hope you all had a blessed holiday with your families!

*NOTE:  This post was imported from my original Blogger.com blog.  Comments could not be imported and are no longer available.*

My Little Man

There are two grown men that live in my house. One is my husband. The other is the 40-year-old man that is trapped inside the body of my 8-year-old son.

This is the boy who stays abreast of speed limits in our city and alerts me when I’m exceeding them.

He’s the boy who can use words like “vortex” and “nocturnal” with the same ease that other little boys say “boogers”.

He’s the boy that will cut short a dessert because he says he’s “had too much sugar”.

And when he expressed some anxiety over a bad dream the other night, he gladly noted how safe our home is since we’re “secured by ADT.”

Oh, I love that boy.

*NOTE:  This post was imported from my original Blogger.com blog.  Comments could not be imported and are no longer available.*

Signing off for a while...

Merry Christmas to my new friends in the blogging world! Here's wishing you much laughter, rest and pie in the next several days. I will probably be away from the computer until after Christmas. My parents, grandmother, brother, sister-in-law and two little nieces will be here. As much as I love blogging, I love them all more!

I'll leave you with this poem by Leslie Leyland Fields--

Let the Stable Still Astonish

Let the stable still astonish:
Straw-dirt floor, dull eyes,
Dusty flanks of donkeys, oxen;
Crumbling, crooked walls;
No bed to carry that pain,
And then, the child,
Rag-wrapped, laid to cry
In a trough.
Who would have chosen this?
Who would have said: "Yes,
Let the God of all the heavens and earth
Be born here, in this place"?
Who but the same God
Who stands in the darker, fouler rooms
Of our hearts
And says, "Yes,
Let the God of Heaven and Earth
Be born here--
In this place."

*NOTE:  This post was imported from my original Blogger.com blog.  Comments could not be imported and are no longer available.*

Thinking about Mary

Here is an excerpt from Elisabeth Elliott's Keep a Quiet Heart (it's long, but I promise it's worth it):

We see her sweating in the cold of the stable, putting her own life on the line, as every mother must do, in order to give life to somebody else. We see her with the tough shepherds, breathlessly telling their story of the glory of the Lord and the singing of the angel choir. Everyone else is astonished (a word which comes from "thunderstruck"), but Mary does not join the excited babble. She is quiet, treasuring all these things, pondering them deep in her heart. We see her with the mysterious travelers from the East bringing their lavish gifts. She says nothing as they kneel before the baby she holds in her arms. We see her on the donkey again, on the roundabout journey to Egypt because her husband has been given a secret message in a dream. She does not balk, she does not argue.

We see her in the temple handing over her baby to old Simeon, to whom the Holy Spirit has revealed the child's amazing destiny: a revelation to the heathen, glory to Israel. But to Mary he gives the far deeper message of suffering, for there is no glory that is not bought by suffering: her son will suffer--he will be a sign which men reject; she, his mother, will suffer, will be pierced to the heart. No question or answer from her is recorded. Again we know only her silence.

We see nothing of her for twelve years--days and nights, weeks and months, years and years of caring for the infant, the toddler, the little boy, the adolescent. There is no mention of any of that. Mary has no witness, no limelight, no special recognition of any kind. She is not Mother of the Year. Hers is a life lived in the ordinary necessity of their poverty and their humanity, no one paying attention to her attention to Him. Whatever the level of her comprehension as to the nature of this boy, she knows He was given to her. She remembers how. She treasures all this. She ponders things in the silence of her heart. Did she share any of them with Joseph? Could she? Could he receive them? We know next to nothing of the dynamics between them. She was content to be silent before God.

The apostle Paul tells us we are "hidden with Christ in God" (Colossians 3:3, NIV}. There is mystery there, but when I think of the life of Mary, I see some facets of that mystery that I missed when I read the apostle. Hers was a hidden life, a faithful one, a holy one--holy in the context of a humble home in a small village where there was not very much diversion. She knew that the ordinary duties were ordained for her as much as the extraordinary way in which they became her assignment. She struck no poses. She was the mother of a baby, willing to be known simply as his mother for the rest of her life. He was an extraordinary baby, the Eternal Word, but His needs were very ordinary, very daily, to his mother. Did she imagine that she deserved to be the chosen mother? Did she see herself as fully qualified? Surely not. Surely not more than any other woman who finds herself endowed with the awesome gift of a child. It is the most humbling experience of a woman's life, the most revealing of her own helplessness. Yet we know this mother, Mary, the humble virgin from Nazareth, as "Most Highly Exalted."

I am thanking God that unto us a Child was born. I am thanking Him also that there was a pure-hearted woman prepared to receive that Child with all that motherhood would mean of daily trust, daily dependence, daily obedience. I thank Him for her silence. That spirit is not in me at all, not naturally. I want to learn what she had learned so early: the deep guarding in her heart of each event, mulling over its meaning from God, waiting in silence for His word to her.

*NOTE:  This post was imported from my original Blogger.com blog.  Comments could not be imported and are no longer available.*

Oh, the things that come out of my mouth!

In keeping with yesterday's post about our nativity scene, here's a much less holy story about the same little figurines, from a few year's back.

At that time, I was trying to keep the nativity scene on the coffee table (I have since learned better). One evening, my husband was in the living room with the kids, and I walked in the room just in time to see my then one-year-old boy grab the little manger and pop it in his mouth. I yelled, "Marc, stop him! THE BABY JESUS IS A CHOKING HAZARD!"

The baby Jesus is a choking hazard. If I ever write a book about motherhood, that's what I'm going to call it. Isn't it strange, though, the sentences that come out of your mouth when you're a mom? Other sentences I never thought I'd say (but oh yes, I have) include:

"We don't eat earthworms."
"Don't stand on your brother's head."
"Don't salt the hippo." (Don't even ask about that one).

*NOTE:  This post was imported from my original Blogger.com blog.  Comments could not be imported and are no longer available.*

Need a reminder?

I know I did.

I have spent the last three days nursing a sick child, packing for our first Christmas celebration this weekend, planning meals for our second one, wrapping gifts, planning a school party for Friday, etc. etc. And I have grumbled and complained and snapped and been about as pleasant as old Ebeneezer himself.

But after a particularly irritable outing the other day, I sent Joseph into the living room to play while I unloaded the fruits of my latest plundering...er, shopping. Unbeknownst to me, he was playing with the little ceramic figures of our nativity scene, and when I joined him in the living room, this is what I saw:



All the figures quietly circled around the baby Jesus, at my little son's suggestion.

I needed that.

*NOTE:  This post was imported from my original Blogger.com blog.  Comments could not be imported and are no longer available.*