To the bird outside my window at 3:48 a.m.

"He who blesses his friend with a loud voice early in the morning,
It will be reckoned a curse to him."  

-Proverbs 27:14

Lizzy writes a full sentence

She told me this reads, "Lizzy's going to sleep."

Two priceless things

Two priceless things:


Caleb using the potty alone and unprompted,


and Lizzy singing in the tub (paraphrased from Hello Dolly), "I have elegance! I have elegance!"

Wordless Wednesday

Shaving cream + food coloring + kids in the tub

Busy growing up

Besides the usual, there are a few reasons I haven't been blogging much.


1.  Caleb is potty training.  It's not a very photogenic process.  Plus, the photos I do take are unfit for worldwide viewing.


2.  I've been busy planning next school year.  Getting ready to simultaneously teach 4th grade, 1st grade, and preschool while caring for a two-year-old takes all the preparation I can muster.


3.  Spare thoughts have been going toward finalizing details of our new house plan and starting to get this house ready to sell.


We did spend time one evening when Jason was out watching Hello, Dolly again.

And time marches on.  The very first item we moved and set up in this house nine years ago was the crib, for newborn Jeddy.


Yesterday I dismantled it and put it away, we believe for the last time.

Big boy bed.

The disassembled crib, a basket of diapers, and other non-childproof detritus from the boys' room.

It was an all-day project, since little boys who sleep in big boy beds need a completely childproof room.  That meant moving out an awful lot of stuff, including two bookshelves of books, which landed in the girls' room.

Yikes.


And to add to his big-boy transformation, Caleb's carseat got turned around to face front.  Now when I look back there I've got four faces looking back at me.

Caleb's already rolling his eyes, teenager-style.

A tribute

There is one woman in this world who, along with my dad, fed, clothed, and housed me for 18 years and then sent me to college.  When I was growing up, my mother enforced good grades, taught me to do chores around the house, and bought braces for my crooked teeth.


Mom carried the unborn me all through a very hot summer; birthed me; and nursed me all through the winter.  She got me from school countless times when I was sick, made me a sick bed on the couch with my pony blanket, gave me apple juice and ginger ale and cinnamon toast, and cleaned up after me when I threw up.


Amazingly, she didn't disown me as a crying baby, an unreasonable toddler, an awkward preteen, or an obnoxious teenager.


Mom stayed home with me all through my preschool years.  She brought me to church and taught me Scripture and the doctrines of God.  She let me see daily how faith affects life.


My mom demonstrated (and still demonstrates) a faithful, long-lasting marriage.  How would I know what it is to love one man for life in glad commitment, were it not for a living example given to me?


Mom and Dad gave me years of memories of a consistent Friday night dinner date--week in and week out, we got fed and sent to the other room while Mom and Dad prepared a special meal, lit candles, set out the china, closed the dining room door.  An hour later they would emerge with empty plates and wine glasses; bellies full and marriage nourished.  My mom loved me by loving her husband more.


My southern-bred mother matter-of-factly endured many long years of extreme northern living because that's where Dad's jobs were.  She kept the family together and warm (enough), despite her obvious preference for a more humane climate.  This was just one more sacrifice she made for us.


And when I arrived home from the hospital with my first baby, overwhelmed, clueless, and weepy, Mom was there in my living room:  capable, calm, proud; cooing to my baby as she had cooed to me decades before, while she showed me how to swaddle him.


Mom stayed up all night with that newborn baby, providing comfort to him and guidance to his frightened new mother.  In later years, she would stay with us for weeks on baby watch as my subsequent babies seemed to take longer and longer to enter the world, away from her own home, ready to take charge of a young household at a moment's notice.


May God bless the woman who taught me to talk, read, use the bathroom, clean a bathroom, cook, balance a checkbook, do my best, revere marriage, fear God, and love my own babies.


Her children rise up and bless her.  -Proverbs 31:28

Life School for little ones

Mr. and Mrs. Methuselah

Lizzy told me the other day, "You and Daddy are gonna die soon, because you're old."

It wasn't quite as tactful as the time one of their grandpas said he was older than dirt, and Jeddy said, "Not ALL dirt."

The problem with Pinterest

In my heart there is a treason
One that poisons all my love

-Sovereign Grace Music, "In My Heart"

We own the new lot.


We have a terrific builder.


We've looked at every available plan there is in our square-footage range.


We found one that might work.  We made some tweaks.  It got better and better.  There were only a few awkward problems left.  Our commitment to the floor plan grew.  We were engaged to be married to it.


Then Jason flexed his considerable genius and started creating a floor plan from scratch--an endeavor that is much more difficult than it sounds.  And when he showed it to me, the other plan got dumped.  


We haven't spoken to it since.


Next steps include having the lot surveyed and having blueprints drawn up from Jason's plan.


And obsessively browsing Pinterest for house set-up ideas.


Pinterest has great organizational ideas.  It's much better than ripping pages out of magazines.  It's easier to show Jason a pin than to try to explain what I want.


However.


Aside from being an addictive time suck, and the fact that many recipes and crafty ideas become colossal failures in the homes of real people, I have a problem with Pinterest.


Some people have more time on their hands than I do.  So I view pictures of their kid's birthday party and now I feel inadequate because I didn't make my whole house into a fairy dreamland when they turned 2.  I can always find something better than what I have or what I do.  Plus, there are so many brilliantly organized pantries that even if my pantry were one of them, it's never all of them.


Pinterest shows a limited view of reality:  a corner, not the whole room; one successful craft, not the weeks of flops; the playroom 10 seconds before the kids actually enter it.  Scrolling through page after page of loveliness lulls me into believing that's how everyone actually is all the time.  Quite a shock to close the computer and look at my real world.


The real problem of Pinterest is that it tempts me to think happiness is out there.  Just as soon as my closets and spice drawers and window treatments look like that, I'll be satisfied.


In other words, it tempts me to discontent ("Restless aspiration for improvement" is how Merriam-Webster defines discontent.  If that doesn't just describe me rabidly scrolling through pins.).


In other words, the problem with Pinterest is that there's a problem with me.


God, let me rejoice in order and beauty but not worship it.


This only serves to confirm my suspicions
That I'm still a man in need of a Savior

-DC Talk, "In the Light"