Frank Sinatra, Puppies, and Violets

As a mom of young children, nice, long showers can be difficult to come by.  So when my husband told me he'd handle supper prep tonight while I took a shower, I was happy to oblige.  He headed to the kitchen, and I headed to the bathroom.  About 5 minutes into my shower, I heard the bedroom door slam. I could recognize that particular door slam just about anywhere.  It is the property of a little blond girl who looks almost exactly like this:  

Now, this is Violet.  She is a little girl with a big way about her.  I don't want to put it in negative terms... not attitude or naughtiness really... just personality plus.  She also has a habit if shutting doors with flair.  The doors of our house shudder when they see her coming, and the entire household wakes up with her.

On this particular occasion, Violet wasn't mad or even annoyed.  She was just being her cute, little, door-slamming self.

She said in her sweet voice, "Mommy?"

I replied, "Yes? What ya doin', baby?"

"Mommy, I got poops."

"You do?  Want me to change your diaper?"

"Yep."

"You know daddy's out there, right?  Maybe he could change it for you since I'm in the shower."

"Nah.  I want you do it."

"Um, okay.  You'll have to wait till I get out."

"Okay, I'll wait here."

Now, I know this is trouble.  She's in the master bathroom which is full of fun and exciting things for children of all ages (toilet brushes, tooth brushes, makeup brushes, and hair brushes), but Violet thinks she's a princess.  I don't know why she thinks this.  We've not indoctrinated her with princess talk.  I honestly have never had a princess in the house.  The other two girls might have gone through a month or two phase of wanting to dress up in a dress or crown, but these days they'll barely touch a dress with a ten foot pole.  Violet is entering about month 6 of trying on every shoe in the house - especially the ones with heels.  She loves jewelry - the bigger the better.  She stands next to me during every makeup application begging for her "share" of the pretty paint.  She carries not just one but several purses around the house and bids everything smaller than her (which in our house only includes pets and stuffed animals right now) to submit to her governing authority.

The "rest of the story" from the above photo.  Violet with 4 purses and some sweet heels...

Last Sunday morning, she crawled into bed with us and told my husband that she needed him to make her a horse.  "Make you a horse?" he asked groggily.  "YES," she replied with urgency. "Because princesses need horses to ride, and I am a princess."  Ugh... all I can think is, "Is this going to be a long next 16 years or so?"

Well, she passed the time in our bathroom trying on my glasses, jewelry, shoes, and about anything else she could find... as I tried to finish my shower at warp speed.  Violet is extremely "helpful".  She spends half our mealtimes getting everyone extra napkins and facilitating the passing of food and condiments.  Helpful as she is, when I got out, she was kind enough to give me a towel.  She wanted to help put lotion on my legs, and was doing so, but her overwhelming diaper stench was stinking up my sweet smelling lotion space, and I said, "You stink.  Are you sure you don't want dad to change your diaper?  He offers a great full-service poopy diaper change, you know?  Three wipe minimum, a little powder, and a kiss when you're all done.  If I wore a diaper, I'd be happy to have him change mine."  She looked at me with her head tilted to the side (kind of like a confused puppy), and smiled broadly saying, "No, I want you change it."  I acquiesced - to the smile, the smell, and the sweetness of the request (not to mention what turned out to be well-founded concerns of the very real possibility that daddy might be overwhelmed trying to cook dinner all by himself), and after I got dressed we got her diaper changed.

A little while later I found myself wondering if everyone says weird things like that to their kids.  I talk to her about things she can't possibly understand because it's fun.  Don't get me wrong, I like to try to get daddy to change her diaper sometimes.  I think it provides good "quality time".  I have to be honest.  I'm at the stage where I'm between wanting another baby to cuddle and being so happy I'm not dealing with cribs, high chairs, and other baby paraphernalia anymore.  I'm more on the second side.  And, as Austin likes to remind me, I'll probably have grandchildren before my kids are even all out of the house.  Ah, the joys of big families...  Not hoping to rush any of that, but since he's 13 years older than Violet, he's probably right.  Mark and I got a surprise pregnancy 3 months into our marriage, and Levi was born on our 1st anniversary.  So we've been dealing with diapers since early in our marriage, and I dare say it will be a happy day in this house when the last diaper has been changed.  Mark has been offering the kids a bounty to whoever potty trains her... which is way easier said than done.  She's keenly aware of what everyone else in polite society does, but she likes the convenience of her own way - not unlike Frank Sinatra and puppies.

Eye Was Wrong

Tonight as I was relegated to the back seat as Austin drove us home from church.  This often has the effect of making me a little car sick, but tonight it gave me an opportunity to hobnob with the little ones in the back seats more than I normally would.  As we drove toward home and I snuggled with Levi, something must have dawned on him.

First, you might need a little back story.  You see, last night Levi and Violet had to sleep at my mom's so that we could pick up some extra people on the way to church in the morning.  (Seven people in a seven-passenger van doesn't leave much room for extras.)  When we had been on our way to drop them off at my mom's last evening, 4-year-old Levi said, "Oh, I love to have a sleepover at Grandma's.  My friends are gonna be there, and that's my favorite."  (He was referring to his cousins who sometimes also sleep over when my mom has giant - and getting more giant all the time - grandchild sleepovers once in a while.)  When Mark explained to him that his cousins wouldn't be there and that it would just be him and Violet, he was disappointed, but insisted that there would probably be some other kids there at some point.  Nothing more was said on the subject, if I recall.

Back to the car ride this evening... as we sat together in the back seat, Levi sat up and said to Mark in the passenger seat, "Dad, I'm sorry."  Mark asked, "What for, buddy?"  Levi replied, "For saying I was right when I was wrong.  Last night was just a sleepover for me and Violet - not any other kids, and you told me that, but I didn't believe you.  So I'm sorry.  You were right."  Mark and I looked at each other, and I am sure we were both thinking the same thing.  This was an absolute first for Levi.  This sweet (mostly unnecessary) apology from the child who, whenever you tell him most anything at all, likes to say, "Yeah, I know that already."  (I, for one, was thinking how nice it would have been to have a tape recorder for replay about 6-8 years down the road.)

Mark told Levi that it was okay.  I leaned over and whispered to Levi how proud I was of him that he was willing to say that he was wrong about something.  At which point he leaned up toward Mark again and said, "Dad, you were right, and I was wrong."  There are moments in parenthood that I swear I could see an iridescent almost angelic glow around one of my children.  Yes, it's ridiculous, but that is the kind of pride that wells up within a parent almost irresistibly.  Some parents are proud of achievements in academics or sports.  Some are proud of how beautiful or handsome or strong their children are.  I know that a lot of parents these days seem to think their children are especially gifted with intelligence.  These are all good things, don't get me wrong.  I'm finding that the older I get and the older our children get the more I value acts of good character.  They're in no way perfect.  They mess up like I do, but when I see an act of good conscience or character, it gives me hope that something we're doing is helping produce things in them that will bring honor to God.

Levi also said tonight as we were driving, "Are there any deer out at night?" (We had seen some on the way to church earlier when it had been daylight outside.)  I said that there were.  He said, "Is it hard to see them at night?"  I said that it was much harder to see them at night.  Then he said, "I bet if I turn my light on (the overhead light) I'll be able to see them better."  That's a logical conclusion for a child to draw, of course, but an adult knows that turning lights on inside the car only obscures the view to the outside.  The exchange got me thinking that sometimes we think in a similar way.  We think that if we can see clearly in our own, little sphere - if we can navigate our own minds and thoughts - that we can see others too.  God has been crushing me in the area of pride lately.  I don't say crushing in a negative way.  After all, it's the crushing that makes wine from grapes.  I just mean that He's been weighing on that area in me and showing me the ugliness that accompanies self-reliance and self-focus.

Mark and I took a few minutes last week to drive down by the river and talk... which, because of his work hours, we'd been unable to do for quite awhile.  We somehow got on the subject of hypocrisy and how funny it is that people are quick to point it out in others.  The irony, of course, is that as soon as you start thinking how haughty and above-others another person must think he or she is, you've become the hypocrite yourself.  You have begun to judge the other and are so glad that you are not a hypocrite like that.  I see that happening a lot in just about every circle in which I find myself, from homeschooling to church to motherhood.  For some reason, our human nature dictates that we must try to make ourselves feel as though we are superior to someone else.  Don't kid yourself... even if you are feeding the poor, sheltering the homeless, and loving everyone, you're feeling pretty good about yourself that you're doing better than someone(s) else.  I don't know whether it's based in a deep-down feeling of inferiority that we're fighting against or just that we're so self-centered that we can't give other people grace.  We don't ever automatically assume that God is working on the other person just like He's surely at work on us.  We're all just as desperately in need of His grace working out our many bad character traits as the guy/girl in the next car, house, or seat.

It reminds me of the analogy of a Builder who begins working diligently on building a house.  He's working on it daily for 3 whole days when someone else comes along, proclaims himself an inspector, and declares the house condemned.  "This house is no good.  The construction is shoddy, and it's not livable," says the "inspector".  The Builder says, "But it's not done.  In fact, I just began work on it.  I have help, and I'll get it done.  I just need more time."  We are all the man longing to see our house built - with the Builder's help.  We are working on it together, by His grace and in His strength, on a daily basis.  There will never be a shortage of "inspectors" claiming that they can obviously tell, with their own eyes, that this house is not acceptable.  It is not up to the inspector's standards.  However, the self-proclaimed inspector doesn't see the whole picture... the Master Builder and His crew... the blueprints that are perfectly planned and mapped out... the wealth of highest quality building supplies in a warehouse just waiting to be used... the dogged determination of the Builder.

Anyway, that's the way I tell a short story - make it long.  It was just another reminder to me - that I hope you could use too - that pride and hypocrisy are foolish for an infinitely imperfect people to try to wield against one another.  They are tools we don't have any right to use, because we can't even begin to be perfect ourselves.  This "inspector" needs grace to become more willing to admit that my eye was wrong, and I need to be able to give grace to those other "inspectors" suffering from the same kind of blindness.