Before, After, and Some Other Stuff, Too

I can't believe it has been one whole week since my mom left.  I miss her being here so much.   And not just because she was so busy getting stuff done!   Dad, I miss you, too.  And I sure wish you were closer. I want to return to the subject of our unpacking.   I know, it's so interesting.  I can feel that you are on the edge of your seats because it is unbelievably fascinating to see all of our brown boxes.   I bet there are a lot of questions, like,"What's in that big one?" or "How can socks end up with a mug, a chalkboard, a fancy train car, and tie-on cushions for chairs?" or "Does she know that if one more box goes on top of that pile it will fall?" The real question is,"How can they still have so many boxes to unpack?"   Do you know what's left?  A lot of papers.  And toys.  Papers and toys-all of which have not been missed so I can just toss them, right?   Oooh, and electronics paraphernalia.   That stuff is Mike's department, though. Are you waiting for me to get to a point?   Well, good luck with that.  Just kidding...here it is.  I want to show you the results of my mom's hard work.   She is the champion of the HWF (House Wrestling Federation), having taken on this behemoth of a project and come away unscathed. Here is a series of before and after shots... literally, in one corner- and she got it down to three boxes or so. Then there was this corner... and again, down to about three boxes (this is a lot of the wirey, tech stuff-oh, Mi-ike, where are you?). She made a walkway here; the pictures don't do her job justice.  The boxes went from the wall where the built in bookshelf is over to our sofa which is floating in the middle of the room. "Why are there baby shoes in with the dried garlic?" Ah, the schoolroom...a really effective learning environment, no? You say no?   Well, this is better, isn't it? And here is one of my masterful towers.  She had the nerve to remove it. Cock-a-doodle-do, good morning to you.  A much nicer greeting when we eat breakfast (or any meal for that matter). Yes, my putting-away-clean-laundry problem remains a problem. She helped me put it away, and get stuff folded when it came out of the dryer.  Mom, I could hire you.  Now will you move to Dallas?  Dad, I can hire you too.  We need someone to cut the grass and watch the kids and wash the dishes.  We have plenty of work for you all.  Send me your resumés ASAP and I will get back to you very soon. There are many things that I don't have a picture of, but I hope I have conveyed just a bit how much she helped us.

TOP TEN REASONS WE NEED GRANDPARENTS IN TOWN

#1  They always want to see what you did in school.

#2  They will tickle you.

#3  You can tickle them.

#4  They help find missing toys.

#5  They cheer for your soccer team.

#6  They are sew special. They always have a fun project to do.

#7  They share their slippers.

#8  They love midnight snuggles.

#9  They get to go to your birthday party.

#10 They go through all of the random stuff that was thrown together at the last minute when you moved, sort it, and help to put it away in a proper place.

There are a million more reasons why I would love for our families to be closer, my parents, Mike's parents, siblings, cousins, and all.  But I am so grateful for how close we are in spite of the miles between us.  Our homes may be separated by many, many states, but our hearts are connected by a bond that somehow bridges that distance.

A Beautiful Morning

This morning the girls and I went for a walk. It was so nice out, cool and a little overcast. It made them want to run. They ran and walked and stopped to smell the roses, or whatever flowers happened to be there. We studied roly-polies... and noticed flowers that we had never seen before... Of course, these beauties are always around... beautiful pinks... beautiful reds... beautiful daughters... a beautiful friend... It was, indeed, a beautiful morning.

For the beauty of the earth,
For the glory of the skies,
For the love which from our birth
Over and around us lies;
Lord of all, to Thee we raise
This our hymn of grateful praise.

For the wonder of each hour
Of the day and of the night,
Hill and vale and tree and flower,
Sun and moon, and stars of light;
Lord of all, to Thee we raise
This our hymn of grateful praise.

For the joy of human love,
Brother, sister, parent, child;
Friends on earth and friends above;
For all gentle thoughts and mild;
Lord of all, to Thee we raise
This our hymn of grateful praise.

For Thy Church that evermore
Lifteth holy hands above,
Offering up on every shore
Her pure sacrifice of love;
Lord of all, to Thee we raise
This our hymn of grateful praise.

For Thyself, best gift divine,
To our race so freely given,
For that great, great love of Thine,
Peace on earth, and joy in heaven:
Lord of all, to Thee we raise
This our hymn of grateful praise.

There Is a Theme Here

Just recently Mike shared some comments and in those comments he calls me "a loving, sacrificial, and gracious wife and mom."  He goes on to say,"I am glad that Jesus embodied the truth that our relationships are not built on merit, or our own plans for them, or our ability to fulfill such plans, but on the kind of love, sacrifice, and grace that he shows to our family through you." Now, I share these words not because I want to show you all how wonderful my husband thinks I am...but in order to say that the truth is that he is the sacrificial one, loving and gracious, selfless and serving.  One week ago we had a birthday party for Christian, and he spent a great number of hours hunting and gathering for this event.  My one job was to do the cakes; he took care of everything else (my mom and I did run to one party place for a few things, and he did the rest).   He pretty much ran the party, while I stood around looking dumbfounded and feeling overwhelmed and greatly respectful of Kindergarten teachers in particular; he made sure the games were being played in orderly fashion (well, as far as that possibility goes when 20 children are running around like tasmanian devils with their tails lit on fire); he cleaned up almost all of the party paraphernalia and trash and then offered to load everything up and bring it home. (I want to do a shout-out to my mom here, because, Mom, you are not being overlooked-she was on call for all manner of things, and set the tables at the party, and filled the goody bags, and watched over Eliana, and helped clean up, too.  Then she took Eliana for a walk in her stroller when she was already tired so we could finish cleaning up.  I love you, Mom, and I'm so glad that you were able to be here and I wish you and Dad could move here and live with us.) After dinner, bath, and bedtime (which is all a blur to me) we were left with quite a disaster in the kitchen and dining room.  I honestly cannot remember the way the rest of the night played out.  I have no idea what I did.  Eventually I went to bed, and when I woke up I saw that Mike had cleaned up the dining room and kitchen, handwashing most of the dishes, the cake stand, and the clay jelly roll pan from Christian's sheet cake.  All of these things under normal circumstances would be so sweet, they took so much time and he has a very long to-do list that he set aside for the day in order to focus on Christian and his party. What makes it extra special, and makes me want to tell everyone how great he is, is that it was his birthday.  He was 33 years old on April 28.  But he never said a word about his own birthday, he received no cake of his own, and I didn't even get him a card (I did sing him a fabulous happy birthday song in a message on his cell phone...I'm sure it made his day).  We all sang Happy Birthday after dinner (I think!  It was sometime after the party.), but that was it. He would say it's no big deal, and he would mean it.  But to me it is a big deal.  I see it as one more example of how he strives to do things that will make these important people in his life happy.  And one of those people is me-he goes to great lengths to make me happy, and I am a hard person to make happy. Mike and I have our ups and downs, like most couples do.  We can be on the same page one minute and the next minute we are the poster children for Men Are From Mars and Women Are From Venus.  But I am so grateful for all he does for us and for who he is for us.  He provides calmness, stability, and compassion when I am ready to fly apart.  He is wise in so many situations in our family circumstances when I feel like I am still a child and unable to think well about the situation at hand.  He gives of his time when he doesn't have it because it's important when I want to crawl into bed and sleep or sit at the computer and fiddle around.  He washes his hands or changes his clothes when he can see that my OCD is ruling over me and making it hard for me to handle the fact that he just loaded the washing machine or came home from a ballgame. When I say,"How can you put up with me and all of my tomfoolery?", he says,"I would do it all over again."  He tells me that he loves me. What can I say?  He looks at me and he tells me that he loves me and it amazes me every time.    Here is a man who committed himself to a woman that turned out to be a nut instead of a jewel.  But when life gave him a nut, he made peanut butter.  I don't know what that means.  What I'm trying to get across here is that I appreciate this guy.  I love him, too.  He's my companion; he's my friend; he's my jelly.

Ewww?

I wasn't sure whether to put this in the quote section or with the regular posts.  I guess I decided in with the regular posts, eh? Michaela called out to me yesterday that Eliana was poopy, so I picked her up and started carrying her into my room to change her diaper.  She held out her hand and said,"Eee-you."  I heard,"Ewww."  As in, yuck.  I looked at her hand and saw this... I quickly put her down and tried to discern what this brown blob was in her hand and if she had managed to pull it out of her own diaper.  Much to my relief, I discovered that it was just play-doh.  Hello!  She had told me that..."Ee-you."  Of course.

The Well Will Not Run Dry

Welcome to where it rains every day, and it's balmy and green-the tropical rain forest in...Dallas? It has been pouring here for days.  Today (Sunday) is the first day since Tuesday that the heavens weren't blessing this dry and barren land with mucho agua.  I'm sure the area needed it badly, and I like the atmosphere of a stormy day.  I like the swirly gray sky, the dark yet bright green of the grass and trees, the sound the wind makes blowing through leaves, the growling thunder, and the way the lightning suddenly flashes, brightening the room for a second or two; I like listening to the rain on the roof, rolling down the sides of the house, pattering against the windowpanes; I like watching the kids color quietly as they listen to all the sounds of the storm, comfortable and safe in our home. Yesterday we were out and about just before a major thunderstorm passed through town.  When we arrived at our house, it was overcast, but it quickly went from slightly cloudy to dark as night-it was 3:00 in the afternoon. While storms outside wreak havoc and leave disasters behind, they are also the cause of great disasters inside... Actually, the kids were very good and had a great time "inventing." I'm not sure what new stuff they came up with, except a new mess to clean up.   You would have thought someone shot a duck in the living room; feathers were everywhere. After that initial darkness came the torrents of rain. So much water came down in a matter of minutes that the cars driving by crashed through giant puddles and sent enormous waves up their sides. The rain and the low light that comes from the hiding sun make such beautiful greens. The thunder carried on for quite a while, and once it was so loud I jumped in my seat.  Eliana would run over and say,"Boom, boom!"  She didn't know whether to laugh or be scared.  She did fine, though. Sometimes we wish the rain would go away, especially if kids are involved and everyone is stuck inside all day (or several days!).  I know it's hard for me to come up with organized and productive things for the kids to do (which is why they drag a whole bunch of crafty materials out and glue feathers and glitter all over fingerpainted paper) and often there is the distinct and imminent possibility of mutiny.  Yesterday happened to be a good day, without a great deal of fussing or boredom.  It was a chance to be quiet and busy, an opportunity to be together even though we had no specific agenda.  And the rains came to nourish the earth and give life.  In Deuteronomy 32, verse 2 says,"Let my teaching fall like rain and my words descend like dew, like showers on new grass, like abundant rain on tender plants."  I'm taking this moment to listen to the reminder that I need that life-giving nourishment that comes from above, the teaching that we have so available that it pours down like rain and showers us in abundance.  I should never complain that I am thirsty; if I am it is because I am sitting on my bucket next to the well, wondering how I'm going to get that water out.