Skin Deep

Beauty... it is a struggle for me. I see it ebbing away a little more every day - as a new wrinkle or gray hair makes its first appearance. I vacillate wildly between two desires: just giving up and letting nature take its course and fighting it with every dollar in my wallet. It's not an uncommon struggle, but I know that some women care about it more than others, and I'm not sure why.

I have experienced the distinct financial woe of having two children who have braces - with another three probably around the corner. I had braces, and so did my husband. It's amazing to see how messed up the human mouth can become. Teeth start growing in all kinds of places they shouldn't. In Claire's case, teeth aren't appearing where they're supposed to at all. It makes me think...

What was creation like in its first days? How perfect were Adam and Eve? I bet they didn't have snaggle teeth. I look around me at the wonders of creation... the vivid colors of a sunset, the intricacy of a seashell, the beauty of an eagle in flight... and I wonder how they could possibly have been more perfect than they are, but I know that they once were. They are only trace reminders of what God is capable of creating. I have been on some sight-seeing trips - the Grand Canyon, the Rocky Mountains, the Smoky Mountains, the Pacific cliffs, the Gulf of Mexico. Their beauty was breathtakingly remarkable. However, there is something very clear to me when I look at them. They are broken. The ocean, for example, no matter how pretty, has brownish water, washes up various smelly dead things, and reeks an undeniable odor. The Grand Canyon is a giant hole in the earth... a beautiful crater, no doubt, but still a void where something even more beautiful used to be. Even in my own back yard - which is fantastically beautiful especially in the winter, when snow is on the trees - dead tree branches litter the landscape. Dust from our gravel road settles over everything - making it seem ordinary again.

However, even the most marred of creation often strikes me with such beauty and awe that I can scarcely contain it. I can see that it is not the way the Creator meant it to be, but my fallen mind cannot fathom a more beautiful perfection. Or can it? It is just outside my grasp. My reach is simply too short. It makes me ache inside... much like I do over my own inability to grasp the beauty that has always been so illusive. I wonder what it was like to live with a mind - not fallen - that could bear to see the wonders around it with fresh eyes. Over generations of fallen vision and reduced perfection, we have become farther and farther removed from that for which we were created.

And us... the pinnacle of the beauty He made... the zenith of His creative genius... the reflection of His own image and glory... we are the farthest fallen of creation. Even the most primitive of human emotion is beauty in action. The showing of it - anger, fear, trust, joy, strength, exhaustion, sadness, grief, desolation, wonder - all hold the possibility of a dignity not our own. We were made for a greatness we no longer own - a glory we find difficult to reflect.

As life continues to overtake me, my greatest prayer is that I can better reflect the glory I was created to reveal... not that I am seen, but that I disappear as Christ is seen. I pray that any favor I receive will be supernaturally obtained and therefore that the glory will be given back to Him to whom it is due. Our bodies and our souls suffer many things. They groan, as does the rest of creation (Romans 8:21-23), as we await the redemption of our bodies.

Romans 8:18 - 19

¹⁸ I consider that our present sufferings are not worth comparing with the glory that will be revealed in us. ¹⁹ For the creation waits in eager expectation for the children of God to be revealed.

2 Corinthians 4:9-12

⁹ [We are] persecuted, but not abandoned; struck down, but not destroyed. ¹⁰ We always carry around in our body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be revealed in our body. ¹¹ For we who are alive are always being given over to death for Jesus’ sake, so that his life may also be revealed in our mortal body. ¹² So then, death is at work in us, but life is at work in you.

Romans 8:21-23

²¹ ...the creation itself will be liberated from its bondage to decay and brought into the freedom and glory of the children of God.

²² We know that the whole creation has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth right up to the present time. ²³ Not only so, but we ourselves, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for our adoption to sonship, the redemption of our bodies.

Cars Are People Too

For as long as I can remember, I have personified cars. What I mean by this is that I think of the cars I see as seeming like people. For example... a new pickup is like a "weekend warrior". An old pickup truck is a guy in flannel. A station wagon is a person with a large rear end. A Land Rover is a hiker. A sports car is a guy with gold medallions tangled in the midst of an excessively hairy chest, etc. An Oldsmobile or Buick 4-door sedan (whose turn signal lamps, incidentally, need frequent replacing) is an elderly person . The car with the open gas cap has its fly open.

I know that personifying vehicles is not something that only I do. In fact, if you've seen the movie CARS (like I have about 3,000 times), you know that they've pictured a Hummer as a drill sergeant and a VW van as a hippie. I'm not saying any of this in a "this is what your car says about you" kind of way. Obviously, people from many different walks of life own and drive many different types of cars. It's more like what I see when I look at a car.

Cars that bear the evidence of crash are "sick". I steer clear of those cars, for fear of getting "sick" too. My van is a mother, after all and can't be taxiing children all over town when she's sick. Cars with tape over a window or tail light are bandaged and not generally contagious.

I get more and more comfortable with my van. The more dings, dents, and dimples she has and the more she sags and squeaks, the more I identify with her. She's dependable and quite reliable. She hasn't let me down yet. Tonight, I discovered that one of the van's headlights was burned out, and it seemed as though I was wearing an eyepatch all over town. I felt quite conspicuous. Fortunately, the police car who followed me for quite awhile on my way back home didn't pull her over for it.

My husband has had a little fun at my expense with regard to all of this car silliness, but his driver's side window doesn't roll down in the cold weather and has been the source of my own embarrassment on more than one occasion. So his car is as crazy as I am. Either that, or it likes to frustrate me - much like my husband does.

It's a blessed wonder that God doesn't look at people the way I look at cars. He takes no stock in the outward appearance. In 1 Samuel 16:7, God talks to Samuel about how to choose Israel's next king and says, "Do not look at his appearance or at the height of his stature... for God sees not as man sees, for man looks at the outward appearance, but the LORD looks at the heart."

I am most thankful that God sees my heart... and loves me anyway.

The Way We Were

I just finished watching the movie The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants. I am a little late; I know. I have had it on my Netflix list for over a year, probably, but other things just kept bumping it. I really enjoyed the movie, and my husband, who was in and out during the movie, didn't seem to mind that we had to watch it during our nightly workout. If you haven't seen it, it is about 4 friends who find one pair of pants that fits each of them perfectly, which is a "miracle", because they are each a different body-type. They pass this pair of pants around amongst themselves by mail during the summer of their Junior year... when they are all separated from each other for the first time in their lives. Each of the girls is very different from her friends. One is a provocative, blonde, sports star. The other three are brunettes... one is a prudish artist. One is a vivacious writer, and the third is a rebellious filmmaker. At one point, my husband turned to me and said, referring to the blonde one, "I just don't picture her being friends with those other girls." I thought about it for a second, and then I assumed that he meant that he couldn't picture 3, sensible, creative brunettes being friends with the athletic, haphazard blonde. I responded, "Well, when you're young, you get thrown together with other girls and you pretty much get along, and, if you grow older with these same friends, it doesn't matter what type of person they become (whether or not they're different from you), because they have always had your loyalty, and they always will."

After he got in the shower to get ready for work, I got to thinking about the friends I had as a child. When I was in early elementary school, I had friends who were boys and friends who were girls. I had friends in every spectrum and type of lifestyle. Most of my friends were what I would have thought were better off financially than we were. I remember one friend whose mom was a dance teacher. They lived in a subdivision. She seemed to have the perfect life. She had all the cute, dance costumes and got to dress up, for real, any time she wanted. She was blonde and always had her hair curled in just the perfect way. At the school programs and on picture day, she always wore the cutest, most fashionable clothes, beautiful earrings (yes, she had her ears pierced), and her blonde curls were in perfect place. Her perfect teeth glowed when she smiled, and she always smiled. I was a brunette myself - with freckles and corduroy knickers (thanks, mom) and teeth that were completely the wrong size for my face. I also another subdivision friend whose mother was a Mary Kay lady. Her mom had a pink cadillac. This friend had the most amazing collection of play makeup under her bed that we could use whenever I spent the night there. I had another friend who had a huge, beautiful house on the nice side of town. She had Elvis movies and dry spaghetti noodles. Whenever I went there, we could watch TV (which she wasn't nearly as impressed with as I was), eat sugar cereal (which my parents were against), play with Barbies, sneak down at night to eat dry spaghetti noodles, and eat at McDonald's - each getting our own meal Happy Meal. (My dad was a big believer in sharing and was the first conscientious objector of the Happy Meal.)

I had a German friend - whose parents were immigrants who spoke very little English. They lived near the cement plant in town, and had one whole wall missing from their house. It was very cold there in the winter. Her toys were few and simple, but she was one of the happiest friends I had. I also had a friend who was a boy - whose mom invited me often after school to their home on our side of town (the south side). Their home was plain and older. She had an odd quirk - which didn't disturb me that much as a child, because I wasn't sure how uncommon it was, but she fed her own children food when I was at their house, but she never fed me. If I was there over lunch or supper, she fed her own family and left me to sit at the table without food. I always tried to figure out if I had done something wrong or if I wasn't even supposed to be sitting at the table and should just be off playing. If she brought popsicles out to the little treehouse in back, her two sons both got one, and I received nothing. I always wondered if it was because she didn't like me or if they didn't have enough money to feed me, but I was afraid to tell my mother, because I didn't want her to tell me I couldn't go back there anymore. I thought about packing my own food sometimes, and I'm not sure I didn't, once or twice, sneak a box of raisins or something in my schoolbag if I knew I'd be going there.

I had laotian friends from our neighborhood also, whose culture and lifestyle were completely different than my own. One of my friends didn't have a mom around at all, and her dad was a car dealer. She only had brothers, and it seemed she didn't have any interest in being a girl at all. One of my friends' parents were caretakers at a summer camp, and we had great adventures playing there. One was the boy who was our backyard neighbor - whose brother was mentally handicapped. We spent hours pretending the basement stairs were a Firebird or a T-Bird or a Camaro or a Mustang, and that he was a cook and I was a waitress and my sister was a teacher. We dressed him up in chocolate hair mousse and barrettes.

I had friends whose parents were married and friends whose parents were divorced. In fact, the girl whose mom was a dance teacher eventually moved out from her dad's house in the subdivision and lived in an apartment over the dance studio - which, as a child, I thought was so much cooler, because now we could go play in the studio whenever we wanted. I never imagined how difficult it was for her to be going through the transition she was... until she told me. I remember crying with her about it and then crying privately with fear that my parents might someday do the same thing.

All of these friendships bring back sweet memories - no bitter ones - no, not even the kid whose mom didn't believe in feeding, freeloading child guests. Each held a special place in my life at that time and will live in my heart forever.

I guess the apex of all my thinking tonight came down to one thing. The diversity of my friendships then was so much more than it is now. Most of those early friendships dissipated for one reason or another - many moved away. Many changed schools. We moved to the country when I was 10 and left many of my friendships in town. One way or another, things changed. Our lives led in different directions.

Today, I love my friends, but I have to acknowledge that many of them are people with the same life path as I have. They are stay at home moms. They are middle class. They are Christian. They are married. Don't get me wrong, I do have a few friends who work. I have a few who are other religions and some who are single, but they surely aren't the majority. It's not something I have worked at. I haven't tried to narrow down my friendships. I haven't cut off people who work. I haven't alienated single people. I haven't hung out a Christians Only sign. I just think that it happens to us as we get older... if we're not careful. As people get older, they become "lactose intolerant" or find out that certain foods don't agree with them, but I think we also become "different intolerant". We just don't have the time or want to make the effort to develop friendships outside our sphere - our comfort zone. We find that certain people "don't agree" with us, and then we minimize contact with them for our own convenience.

This realization almost made me long for more complicated days... filled with the richness of different types of people. Don't get me wrong. There is a most certain blessedness in the comfort of people who I know will understand me and with whom I can confide and in whom I can trust. However, the simplicity of the way children generally relate is something I envy. They don't see all of the things adults see which "turn us off" to what we perceive to be a certain type of individual. They don't see economics. They don't care about race or creed. They have a flawlessly objective viewpoint that gives them the opportunity for simple, gratifying relationships with a multifarious blend of people. Much of it is my vocation, I understand. When I worked outside the home more, I came in contact with a larger variety of people. This is one of the reasons that I am enjoying the opportunity to volunteer - in kind of a selfish way. It benefits me, because I am getting to meet and know a much grander variety of people. However, even within my vocation as a "SAHM", I see cliques that form based on personal preferences, etc. How far do we have to segregate ourselves, as adults - down to the point that even those within our own profession are strangers to us? Those who are the most familiar with our plights, our frustrations, our joys, our fears... still remain strangers over issues as small as what they believe about pacifiers, breastfeeding, co-sleeping, etc. The sadness is palpable but remains. I suppose we are destined to narrow our viewpoints even further by sticking primarily with the like-minded.

As a child, I didn't balk for a second at sleeping in a house with three walls and a plastic sheet, freezing cold, in the middle of winter with a friend whose parents only spoke German. I was just glad to be with another girl - one who liked My Little Ponies and Rainbow Bright and who liked to climb on the monkey bars... one who liked to sled in the winter and run through a sprinkler in the summer. I felt proud when she taught me to count to 10 in German, and I was proud of her for being bilingual... something that seemed so hard to me. Life was simpler then, and I wonder if I would be so quick to befriend someone like Monique today. I imagine my daughters would be.

Back to the movie... some things are fairly universal to personhood in general, but this movie focused on girls/women. Many of us know the rejection of a parent... a difficult relationship with a father... fear of saying we are angry... the desire to be known but the fear that it will bring us only desertion... the exhilaration of new love... the loss of someone dear... the desire to rebel... the will to create... the need to compete... the ache of emptiness... the desperation of loneliness. All of these things - so universal - yet we remain separated. I guess tonight I find myself longing for a little bit of the way we were.

Water Parks and Mother Hens

My little guy is 3. I grew up with 2 sisters. My first children were two daughters. I know I've said it before, but boys continue to be a mystery to me. I'm not saying that I think males are mysterious. In fact, I tend to like what I perceive as the way that they are basically uncomplicated. When they say something, they pretty much mean it. When they do something, there isn't a particular, unobservable motive behind the action. I often find myself looking for a motive of some type only to realize that there truly isn't one. This simplicity doesn't, by any means, equate to a lack of intelligence. It just makes them often more dependable and predictable. It makes conversations less complicated, because I don't have to wonder if there is something covert or implied. I don't have to "read between the lines". When dealing with the men and boys in my life, I just have to listen and trust.

Last week, we went to an indoor water park. It has become a tradition of ours to go on a Christmas trip to the water park, or, as Levi calls it, the "park water". I find the dynamic of the water park amusing. The lifeguards are always teenagers who range from very bossy and conscientious to very laid back and permissive. They have ambiguous rules. For instance, the sign near the children's slide stated simultaneously: "Single riders ONLY" and "young toddlers MUST be accompanied by an adult". As my husband was trying to coax our one year old daughter down the slide, he decided to take her up and let her ride down on his lap. I told him this was a "no-no" according to the rules and suggested that he take her on the side-by-side slide, holding her hand. As usual, he decided to do what he wanted to do. As he got to the top, he sat down and put her in his lap. At just this moment, a teenaged girl who was in charge of that area walked by the slides. Her attention was drawn to this major rule infraction. She blew her whistle at my husband and yelled that he needed to put her down, and that she couldn't ride with him. I watched in amusement as the turmoil churned within my husband. I could see that letting her tell him what to do was truly a struggle. After all, he didn't let his 32 year old wife tell him what to do, now he was supposed to let this teenaged girl tell him? Knowing the eyes of all the children around were on him, he reluctantly set Violet on the slide in front of him giving her hand to me and letting me guide her down the slide. We didn't speak about it. :)

This year Levi was able to go up to the bigger kids section of the park. I followed him closely, and he felt "big" as he led mom around the park. We stayed under the sprinklers mostly until I asked if he wanted to go down a slide. He said he didn't want to, but I asked if he would watch me go down one. He agreed and followed me to the top of the slide. I went down the short, tube slide and out of his sight. When I stood up at the bottom, I turned to look up at him, and he wasn't there. I started to wonder where he had gone when I heard a splash behind me. I looked, and there he was. He had decided to go down after me. I was proud of him. It was an exciting milestone that turned into his leading us down the same slide a dozen more times. Then we decided to try the medium-sized tube slide. He led me down that several times, and then we graduated to the big slide. I followed him down that slide 50 times if I followed him down it once. My arms were aching from hoisting myself out of the basin at the end of the slide, but he was thrilled to lead me around and find new adventures together. When I finally needed a bathroom break, he told me he'd show me where the bathroom was. When he led me into the women's restroom, I asked if he had to go too, but he said, "No. I just went already. I'll wait for you right here." (I wondered if he meant he had gone in the park somewhere or if he was referring to when he had gone when we had first arrived.) He stood outside my stall for my return, and he directed me to the sinks for hand washing. I found, during this outing, an interesting thing about Levi: the more I let him lead me, the more mature he acted. There was nary a tantrum or a lost temper or a disrespectful word. He blossomed under the weight of my trust in his capability to lead me. He rose to meet the challenge and then some.

A few minutes ago, here at home, Levi hollered from the bathroom, "Mom! Can you help me? I need more paper toilet!" I got him a roll of toilet paper, and helped him clean himself up. As I did, he said, "That's my girl. I'm proud of you." After I was done, he said, "I need to wash my hands." He stood atop the bathroom stool observing his reflection in the bathroom mirror. He said (half to himself and half to me), "I'm a big boy. I don't hit people. I don't say 'shut up', and I don't point at people - like this..." (as he proceeded to point at me about three, different ways). He said, "I obey my parents, because that's a good idea." I agreed emphatically with him - enjoying the self-involvement of a three-year-old.

Learning how to fall into my role as a mother hasn't always been easy. Fighting my selfish instincts is a daily task. However, learning how to mother my son has been more difficult than learning to mother the girls. I feel that I usually understand the feelings and motives of my daughters, but boys don't work the same way. Babycenter.com has sent me e-mails updates once/week for each of my children since they were in-utero - a "your baby this week" email, telling me what to expect of my fetus, infant, or toddler that week. It never ceases to amaze me that most of the time they have it right, down to the week, what the baby/toddler will be doing. In that way, most of my children have mostly followed what is apparently an accepted, "normal" pattern. In another way, they don't fit a pattern at all. Each individual is so unique - their personalities and quirks so completely distinct from one another - but it's my task to be consistent with each one... loving them the same, treating them the same, handling each situation that comes my way -whether they are reading quietly or climbing the walls - with consistency and fairness, no matter my own mood or feelings.

A few weeks ago, the girls had Matthew 11:28 as their memory verse. I have them write the verse out and tell them they can illustrate it if they want. As you see below, Sadie illustrated her verse the following way:

The illustration shows "mom" saying the words, "Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened; and I will give you rest," but, in the Bible passage, Jesus is the One who says those words. When I asked Sadie if she knew that, she said she did, but that she thought the best way to illustrate it was with a mom saying it to her family. (What look like pets in the picture are actually crawling babies.) The dad is yawning and hanging up his coat. Looking at this drawing was a defining moment for me in some ways. It showed me what she thought a mom's role should be... giving rest to her family - being a "soft place to fall".

Author John Eldredge states in his book Wild At Heart that he believes that men and women both display unique attributes of God and that one of the attributes of God that women display is nurturing. In Psalm 91:3-5, the Psalmist writes about God giving us refuge "under His wings" and covering us "with His feathers". In Matthew 23:37 and Luke 13:34, Jesus says of Jerusalem, "how often I have longed to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, and you were not willing." These passages say to me that Sadie's portrayal of Jesus's words in Matthew 11:28 are not all that far from God's feelings for us - that He longs to show us His tenderness - if we are only willing. He will no more force us to be receptive to His affection for us than we can force our children to accept our love. However, not unlike our children, sometimes our circumstances force us into a place where we are more willing to accept the loving kindness of God. Violet, for instance, is fiercely independent. However, a tumble off a chair or the presence of a stranger will usually propel her into my arms. Likewise, our own difficulties might be an opportunity to turn to safety in the arms of the One who promises "I will give you rest".

All Male

Lately our youngest son, Levi, has been becoming more and more conversational. He is just 3, and, being a little tall for his age and quite talkative, often gets mistaken for an older child - that is, unless he throws himself down on the floor and wails... and ends up giving his toddler-hood away.

This morning, I was putting some designs on the walls of the room he shares with his nearly two year old sister. I was enjoying the work - despite the manifold interruptions - and the occasional "terrible two" who enjoyed peeling the vinyl back off the wall after I had applied it.

Levi is at an age when he likes to dress himself. He prefers, of all things in the middle of winter, shorts and t-shirts. This morning he was looking for a particular dinosaur t-shirt. I had found one with dragons on it, but it wasn't the one he "needed" to wear. As I had my back turned (working on the vinyl), he had, unbeknownst to me, emptied his entire shirt drawer onto their bedroom floor. Once I finally noticed this, I hollered that he needed to come in from the living room to clean up his shirts off the bedroom floor. I still find myself surprised, for some reason, when he is actually able to comprehend and complete a chore that I ask of him. He seems, in fact, to enjoy chores, and I often use sometimes meaningless chores to distract him or to keep him busy.

As it so happens, while he was cleaning up his shirts and putting them back in his drawer (considerably less folded than they had been before), his dad walked into the room. He looked at Mark and said, "Yeah, dad, I was in the other room and mom yelled to me (insert exaggerated, whiny, feminine-imitation voice here), 'Levi, you get in here and clean up these shirts!' So that's what I'm doin'." I was a little incredulous that he imitated my voice. This, evidently, is how I sound to him. I glanced back at Mark to see the wide grin on his face quickly fade to a smirk. I could tell he was amused, and I pretended to be a little annoyed at all this "making fun at mom's expense". However, I couldn't help but find it funny too... the little man he is turning out to be.

As Levi ran out of the room, Mark looked at me, and he said, "He's wearing shorts?"

I said smiling, "Yes. He promises he's not going outside today."

He said, "Those shorts are dirty too. He must have dug them out of the dirty clothes."

I said, "I'm not surprised. You know, I blame you for all this male-ness."

He said, "What?"

I said, "You know, all the male-ness: dirty clothes, shorts in the winter, dumping his dresser on the floor, the mock female voice... It's all your fault."

Mark responded, "Ah... okay."

I said teasingly, "He is half male, you know."

To which Mark replied, "Oh, no, honey. He's all male."

Last night, before I put him to bed, Levi told me that he had a dream. He said, "Dad was the little boy, and I was the dad. He said that, in his dream, Mark had gotten a "hurt finger". He said, "There was blood, and I looked at it, and it was cracked off." I asked, "Did you take care of daddy?" To which he responded, "Yeah, I went and got him a bandaid." I said, "Did that help his finger that was cracked off?" He said, "Yeah, we just threw it in the garbage and he felt a lot better." I guess, since dad's all male he can get a "cracked off" finger and, with a little help from a bandaid, just walk it off.

We get a good chuckle out of many of the things our children say or do... especially the youngest two at their ages. But, having had only sisters and then daughters for so long, I am constantly amazed at what my little boy does and says.

When Mark made the "all male" comment, we laughed, and, as he left the room, I started to think about the wonder of that. A male and a female got together, and, from their union, God made one or the other who is equal parts of both yet only either male or female. Now, if you ask anyone, they'll say that he's mostly Mark from the looks of things, but I can tell, from the temper and some other less desirable traits, that he is also me.

At this time of year, my thoughts turn to another little boy - One who was born of a virgin in a stable in Bethlehem a couple millennia ago. I've always had a little trouble with the concept, or maybe rather the visualizing of, the "fully God, fully man" that Jesus is. He was all Mary yet was all God. And in life, He was truly perfect - being all God. And this conversation, although completely obvious, made things a little more clear to me. Just as Levi, being born of both me and Mark, is fully male; Jesus, being born of Mary and God, was fully God in human flesh. Neither of those little boys would have ever existed, had it not been for the bond between the entities that combined to bring them about. Just as Mary's bond with God was something He used to bring forth life - vitality - from her, my bond with God is something He uses to bring forth life in me... not just living - but vitality, vibrance, and purpose. My own life is meaningless without that bond. Yeah, I could still exist, survive, and plod through my days, and sometimes I do... but I miss out on life if I don't stay connected to the life giver.

⁵"I am the vine, you are the branches; he who abides in Me and I in him, he bears much fruit, for apart from Me you can do nothing. - John 15:5

Hope Floats

I haven't blogged in a while. I'm feeling a little bit rusty, in fact, but here goes...

About three weeks ago, I started meeting with the dietician at our local hospital. I have been suffering from some back problems for a couple years now, and it was the pain in my back that motivated my trips to the dietician. I am hoping that if I lose some weight my back will feel better and I can avoid more long-term treatments and surgery. The dietician was quick to inform me that I am not "on a diet". I am, in fact, "living a new lifestyle". This makes it considerably harder to avoid a complex explanation when people ask me why I'm avoiding sweets or bingeing on rabbit food. "I'm on a diet" has a more noncommittal, less haughty, more slacker-friendly ring to it than, "I've chosen a new, healthier lifestyle." (Take it from a perennial slacker.) Anyway, I have only lost three pounds in three weeks, according to her scale, but I'm down from a size 12 to a 10. So I'm okay with that.

Along with my new lifestyle comes time-consuming tasks like reading labels at the store, hunting for foods that are healthier, and finding the time for exercise during busy days. I am discovering so many new types of foods that are quick, easy, and healthy. I didn't know there was a such thing as chicken sausage. I didn't know a person could make brownies using only a can of black beans and a brownie mix. I'm not saying that these discoveries have made my life more fun, but it is my hope that they will begin to improve the quality of my life.

I decided to make turkey chili this evening, and threw in some hot dogs and a chicken sausage for me. When it came time to put the hot dogs in a bun and turn them into chili cheese dogs, I had to search for the hot dogs - which had sunk to the bottom of the pot of chili. My chicken sausage, on the other hand, was floating on the top. I still can't tell you why it was less dense than the other entrails-based food products in the pot of chili. It just floated. I decided that's because it was "light", and I hoped it was going to make me light too. I mean, I already float just fine. But I guess I don't want to float so easily anymore. Anyway...

This is the week of Thanksgiving. We have decided to try to start a family tradition in conjunction with the upcoming holiday that involves making a strip of a paper chain each night - on it is written one thing for which we are thankful. Each of us writes on a chain link each evening at dinner time. We plan to keep doing this until Christmas and to use it to decorate our house for Christmas.

Tonight was our first night of paper chaining. Austin insisted on a green strip with an "army green" marker with which he wrote, "DOG" with emphasis. Claire, who was sitting next to him, wrote, on her pink strip with her pink marker, "GOD". At first, I wasn't sure if she was just copying off of Austin with a little dyslexia rolled in there. But she was the first to tell me about what she wrote. Sadie and I also wrote something about God or Jesus, and Mark wrote, "FAMILY" on his red strip. Levi wasn't quite sure what the phrase "What are you thankful for?" even meant, but finally he succumbed to the power of suggestion and said, "DAD" (on whose lap he was sitting). So I wrote that down for him. Violet had disappeared from the table shortly after devotions and had wandered off from her plate. What had been a chili cheese dog (without the bun), on Violet's plate, had been reduced to beans, cheese, and tomatoes. We decided as a family that Violet is thankful for "MEAT".

Our supper table reading had to do with anchors and how they hold you fast to where you want to be - usually in safety. As Christians, our anchor is not down to the depths of the sea... He is up - enthroned in the highest of heaven. He, at the same time, holds us in one place (safety and security) and takes us beyond ourselves to an infinitely better place - a place where we not only answer to a Higher Power but to where we are able to enjoy deep relationship with Him. He is the fulfillment of our hopes.

This month (and always) I am thankful for thousands of things, not the least of which are chicken sausages, my Anchor, and other "Hopes" that float.

Killer Tree Branches and Smooshed Woolly Bears

Patience is a virtue... one that is oft times lacking in our household. Yes, we could explain it away that we live in a world of immediate gratification, but some of it is just personality.

Levi is 3 1/2 years old. He was born impatient. From his first days home from the hospital, it was painfully (literally) obvious that he did not have the patience to nurse for longer than 2-3 minutes. He didn't like the closeness. He didn't want to wait around for more food. This continued to his first highchair days - where he would turn purple screaming for more food - faster, faster... He also displayed tendencies that I called "picky", but his dad likes the word "particular" better. His cup had to be on the correct side of his plate. As you can imagine, before he could talk, this was most upsetting for us all. I remember nearly pulling my hair out as he would scream for an hour for no apparent reason - only for us later to find out that things in his world were not "just so". His impatience for us to catch on to his desires was exasperating us all. I've become thankful that he is now aged to a point where reason is at least a possibility and boundaries are much more easily set and goals achieved.

We still have our moments, however, (or whole days) when he loses all control. Where's Waldo, for example... for the rest of my children, this is a relaxing game... something we might play to settle down before heading to bed - not so for Levi. First of all, he is amazing at finding Waldo. He beats me, hands down, every time. I am amazed at how he can look at a book page or game card for less than 10 seconds - having never seen it before - and have Waldo spotted... along with whatever else we ask him to find. He beats everyone in the house - most of the time. It's that contingent - the few times that he can't find Waldo right away - that he loses his mind. It starts with faster breathing as the panic sets in. I watch as his fists tighten into hard, little, balls. His face gets redder and redder, and he starts to shake until he shouts, "I CAN'T FIND WALDO!!" If (and that's a big if) we manage to get him calmed down, we might be able to start over and help him out. Most of the time, however, thing deteriorate to a point where he throws the book or card on the floor, and that's the end of reason.

This afternoon, as I was helping carve and de-seed pumpkins and squash with the girls, Levi was playing with a branch that had come down near one of our evergreen trees. Somehow the branch ended up offending him, because I heard him screech and looked over to find him picking up the branch and trying to beat it against the ground. He was screaming and pounding it on the ground when it bounced back up and smacked him again. The gloves came off, and he went down on the ground screaming and pulling up fistfuls of grass by the roots, as though all nature was at fault. I may be less than sympathetic as (after ascertaining whether or not true physical pain is involved or not) I try not to laugh about it. I have just never seen someone go from zero to furious in .3 seconds like he does. It's shocking and funny all at once. A part of me is frustrated for him that he can't figure out what to do with all that rage, and then I know that it's a lack of patience with the perceived faults of the people, animals, and inanimate objects around him that drive him to the brink of complete mania. It's basically hereditary.

His tornadoes blow over just as quickly (if not moreso) as they arrived. Shortly after his fight with the pine branch, he decided he wanted a piece of the wretched Halloween candy that sits in a bowl atop our refrigerator. I told him that after lunch - if he ate all of his sandwich and fruit he could have a piece of candy. He said, "I want lunch right now." As I was covered in pumpkin guts and in the middle of de-seeding, I said, "It's not quite time for lunch yet. We'll have it in a few minutes when I'm done with this." He disappeared into the house. About 10 minutes later, Austin came outside to report that Levi was eating a sandwich. I asked if Austin had made it, and he said, "No, I don't know how he got it." I have never seen Levi eat a sandwich that wasn't lovingly cut into dino-shapes or at least de-crusted by myself or an older sibling. However, he had apparently made himself his own peanut butter sandwich. Further evidence was apparent when we went to make more sandwiches and found the peanut buttery knife back in the silverware drawer with the other butter knives. In the process of his impatience-induced independence, by the way, he completely forgot about the candy he had earned by eating his sandwich "all gone". We were all proud of him.

My days are also filled with many opportunities to practice (or lose) patience. If someone wasn't dumping dog food into the dog's water, licking the glass coffee table, finding a water glass on the counter to spill on the school books, scribbling across someone else's school paper, coloring tile grout with a permanent marker, or bringing the outdoor cat indoors to suffocate it with a stack of pillows that is supposed to be "its house" - I would begin to wonder if I was in the right house. Today, Violet brought a woolly bear caterpillar into the house, unbeknownst to me, and set it on the tile floor in the laundry room. While I was rushing from one thing to another, I felt his bristles under my bare feet, followed by a squishy, moist feeling... looking down to find that the guts squished right out the end of wooly and through my bare toes. Ugh... "Don't touch it!" I shouted over my shoulder at the kids as I went to grab a tissue. Sadie held a squealing Violet back until I returned moments later with the clean-up tissue. Life is interesting, and I don't always control my emotions and act with as much patience as I would like. It becomes just raw energy, so much of the time. I use that as an excuse, but what about those times when I do have time to think it through?

I finished the volunteer training for Ogle County Hospice tonight. The graduation ceremony was bittersweet. I was a little sad to see it over, because it has been eye-opening, educational, and perspective-rich. I have learned that, with direct patient care, one's primary job is to listen. This is something I have been trying to practice away from training - at home, with friends, at church, etc., and I am way worse at it than I ever knew. I am a sentence/thought-finisher. I am a quick-thinker, and it leads to being a poor listener. I have answers formulated before the questions are finished. I think I know what another is thinking before they fully communicate, and this is bad for relationship building. It is bad for conversation in general. So... even when I do have time to think - without the pressures of the needs of the children pulling me in five, sweet, little different directions - I still am impatient with others. I don't value them enough to be a good listener - to wait for them to communicate.

That is the root, I think, of most of our impatience - at least in our home. It isn't the perceived deficiencies or exasperating behavior of others (as it sometimes seems) or even just annoyance or frustration at having to wait for someone or something - that throws us into a bout of impatience. It is love of self and putting that self-love as a priority over those around us. It is not only the devaluing of others - it's the promoting of self.

The truth is that I know I am definitely not the most special person I know. I'm not even close. So why do I act like I am? I am looking forward to practicing patience more and hoping that I can make that difficult jump from being patient with strangers (which somehow is often infinitely more easy for me) to being patient with those I live with every day.

Therefore, whatever you want men to do to you, do also to them, for this is the Law and the Prophets (Matthew 7:12).