Quick Pic(k)s

Wild woman in the cheese section at Costco. I love her impish grin and foot in motion.

Our little family on my birthday. Viva Taco Boy! L is waving to someone here. Probably a cactus.

Yep. We're in trouble! Don't think she'll be waiting to get a phone until 16 like I did, or 18 as Thomas did.

On kindness

Wow. Today has been a doozy. Where does that term come from, anyway? The good news is that "doozier" days make for better blog fodder, I think. As do bowls of chocolate Cheerios (a new love--go buy them IMMEDIATELY if you've never tried them and you're a chocolate girl like me).

About 11am, I decided to take my slightly feverish, slightly disgruntled baby off to our neighborhood pool, figuring that the cool water will feel good to her, or would at least be better than errands. School is back in session, so the pool was pretty uncrowded. There were a couple of 3 year-old girls splashing around while their moms chatted on the side of the pool, as well as a couple who had parked themselves as far away from kid zone as possible. Lillian, of course, made sure to wander over there later and thus foil their plans, though they didn't seem too bugged. I recognize the moms from church and we exchange the tight-lipped "hi" of people who know just enough of each other to be friendly.. I asked how old the girls were ("3"),  and the conversation stopped there. One of the women told me that I looked like her brother's girlfriend from Baton Rogue. (sidebar: people tell me these sorts of things all the time, and even with years of experience, I still never know what to say. Seriously, what is the socially correct response here? I usually stick with a smile and brief chuckle. Lame, I know). They made no comments about L, so I got the message and Lillian and I navigated into the middle of the pool by ourselves. (sidebar zwei: if you are somewhere and you see a mom with a newly-minted walker, tell her how cute her kid is. She will be incredibly proud of the new skill and will be thrilled that you can recognize her child's amazingness as well.)
A little while later, L decided that she'd had enough of the water and that she wanted to run around on dry land. We splashed in puddles, picked up leaves, and made 87 beelines towards the 3 year olds' Barbie dolls (incidentally, the little girls were as unfriendly as their moms--"no baby! don't touch! mine!"). L was having a blast until she tripped over a little crack in the cement and fell. First to her knees, and then the full face wipeout. She immediately started crying, so I picked her up and what seemed like buckets of blood poured out of her mouth. We trotted off the bathroom and I cleaned her up while she splashed in the sink. Her lip is a little busted but will certainly heal. Timing isn't great with family pictures tonight, but hey! that's life with a baby! I was a little shaken up since this was a first for her, but she had quickly stopped crying and was behaving perfectly normally.
 I gathered up our stuff and prepared to head out, which is when we will come to the whole point of this long-winded story. The two women, who were chatting about the price of Lunchables while their kids played on the other side of the pool, did not acknowledge me at all. Despite the fact that I had just hauled a screaming, bleeding child off to the bathroom, they could not be bothered to stop discussing school lunches and take 2 seconds to ask if she was okay now that I had returned. I was pretty mad, especially considering I knew that they attended my church and considering that their kids were not even playing within eyesight of them (therefore they weren't overly preoccupied with them). In fact, every time I think of this moment, I feel my mommy hackles raise up and my indignation kicks in. But here are some brief conclusions I've come to in the few hours of reflection I've had since this happened.
1. They could not have known that the whole "bleeding, screaming" child was a first for me and therefore more traumatizing than it needed to be.
2. They were being selfish, a sin I am guilty of all the time. When I ignore third world poverty and the girl at the Bible study who doesn't know anyone and the man in church who looks a little different and the fact that more slaves exist now, today, than in the entirety of the transatlantic slavetrade (how's that for a mind-blowing stat), I am saying to untold fathers, mothers and children, "I'm too busy to be concerned about your problems; I'm too preoccupied with my own comfort to do anything for you." Granted, those scenarios/realities are not all equal, but the underlying principle is the same: I have been given grace upon grace upon grace, and as such, I need to extend the same. To these women, to the people in Harris Teeter, to people around the globe.
3. I want to teach Lillian to be kind. And I don't mean the vague, generic sense of this term. I mean the in-the-trenches, grace-upon-grace, doesn't-always-feel-good kindness that Jesus practiced. Obviously I'm still learning this and failing often at this myself, but Lillian's first busted lip will always remind me of the importance of kindness. Of taking time to talk to people, to invest in them, however briefly.
And in the words of Charles Spurgeon

"Gracious Spirit dwell with me; I myself would gracious be, And with words that help and heal Would thy life in mine reveal, And with actions bold and meek Would for Christ my Saviour speak."

 

ps) I promise some pictures in my next post!

Of first birthdays

Okay, so I wrote this post last week and never published it. In the meantime, Lillian has turned one! She has been officially celebrated, present-ed, doctor-ed, etc. We had a wonderful weekend with family and friends celebrating our sweet girl.

(As I type this, Lillian is methodically emptying my purse--current favorite find, a partially-filled plastic water bottle--and Sullivan is just as methodically attempting to take said items from her hand. So if this is a bit jumbled, I blame them.)

This is a big week for our little family. Lilian, lover of dogs and mischief, is turning one. Now, before having a kid, I never understood the importance of the one-year old birthday party. "One? Big whoop. They're still just babies." But now I see that celebrating the first birthday has less to do with the child and more to do with the parents--"we've kept a tiny, irrational and helpless being alive for 365 whole days!" Of course it is slightly sentimental, too. As I plan her party, I imagine her planning parties with me as she turns 4, 6, 12, 19, 32...I remember dark nights (ha, no pun intended) from those first few months when I couldn't imagine surviving until her first birthday. I remember on night #11 or so passionately declaring to Thomas that we were done having kids. (Yeah, I do really well with lack of sleep. I don't get crazy or dramatic or anything.)

And this week I'm excited to celebrate Lillian. To get excited about who she already is, who we imagine her becoming, dreaming about what the Lord has planned for her life. I'm not overly sad to say goodbye to the baby stage. Seeing this 2.5 foot tall little person walk, and hearing her babble incessantly, and watching her explore the world around her is (in my book) infinitely more fun than all the little snuggles and moments of babyhood. I love watching her point at Sullivan and say "dog!" as she slides down his haunches.

Lillian update

I have officially written more posts this year already than I did in 2010 and 2011. Huzzah! Not bad considering I took a 3.5 month break in the spring/early summer!


Don't get too excited though, because I don't have much to blog about today. Lillian has her first real bug and it is a doozy. Hand, foot and mouth disease, though it is much less gross than it sounds, is still not fun. Fortunately she is feeling better today and is happily playing near me while I type this. She just pushed her little portable piano into our poor snoozing dog and scared the metaphorical poop out of him. If I haven't mentioned this before, Sullivan is pretty much the wussiest dog alive and acts like he weighs 7.5 pounds instead of 75 pounds.
Oh, and L is just about a full time walker! She took her first steps about a month ago, and has been steadily progressing since then. For long distances, she still crawls, but walks or cruises everywhere else. 


I promise to write a more substantive post next week, but here is a picture of Lillian to tide you over until then. Poor kids of today--so many different places to post embarrassing pictures of them!

11 months old! We've almost made it!

African sky blue

If anyone is interested in seeing a little of what we saw on our safari...now you can!

Here is where all four (so far) of the Kenya/Tanzania videos my dad has compiled are located:


http://www.youtube.com/user/LeeFvid/videos?view=0


My favorite of the four is the "Africa intro"--who can resist Toto's awesomely 80's "Africa," incorrect geography and all?

A couple of reticulated giraffes and a warthog at Lewa Conservancy in Kenya

Warning: this post might make you think

So, something happened on Sunday that I have been thinking non-stop about for three days, and I think that my head might explode if I don't get it written down. Don't get too excited; it's nothing earth-shattering or life-changing. (Or is it?)

Here is the set-up: it's Sunday afternoon and I have left a puttering Thomas and snoozing Lillian and shedding Sullivan behind at the house while I hit up the grocery store for what is hopefully the only time this week. Grocery stores on Sunday afternoons are not for the faint of heart--they are crowded and the air smells slightly of anxieties about money and time and oh is this enough chicken or should I get two packs and will my kid eat this risotto or should I just buy box mac and cheese again? Usually I shop on Monday mornings to avoid the crowds, but we needed something for Sunday night, so off to the store I went. A few harried minutes later and I had checked out and was unloading food into the back of my car (sidebar: food is expensive and I am always stressed when I leave because I have inevitably spent more than I want to--produce is expensive and oh my word have you seen ice cream prices lately??). I grab out the second-to-last bag and wait a minute! This bag is taller than anything I purchased and it crinkles. Lo and behold there is a bottle of wine in my cart that I did not purchase. Hmm. Several things pop immediately into my head:

-I should totally take this home! Lillian knocked over a bottle last week and this would replace it! It's perfect! The store will never miss it and no one will know.
-I should take this back inside. I didn't buy it; therefore it's not mine and I shouldn't keep it.
-Trudging back across the parking lot would be a lot of work. It's really hot. I should keep it. I can just slide it into the pantry and Thomas will have no idea.
-Absurdly (Comically? Providentially?), an awards ceremony from my childhood kamp jumps into my head along with the definition of integrity: doing the right thing when no one is looking. Sigh. I should take it back because it's the right thing to do.
-In a bizarre mix of the two, I envision a scenario in which I take the wine back inside and the manager gives it to me as a reward for doing the right thing since she's sure the customer won't come back for it. Wow. Bizarre.

I'm sure you're on the edge of your seats now, so I will keep you in suspense no longer. I took the bottle back in, the manager took it from me with a quick apology, and I walked back across the hot parking lot to my car and drove home. I was angry at myself. Why had I taken the bottle back in? What would the harm have been? Why is doing the right thing so important, anyways? And for that matter, what is the right thing--wouldn't it have benefited me more to take the bottle? Why wasn't I rewarded for my good choice?

Looking back, this two minute incident revealed a lot about my theology and my approach to life, most of which is totally scary and not good. (sidebar: This book is also peeling away a lot of layers in my life. I definitely recommend it.) As I stood in that parking lot with that brown bag wrapped bottle of wine, I imagined God looking down from waaaaay above me, saying with pride, "Wow she's going to make the right choice and I am going to love her more for it!" Now that is completely messed-up theology and I know that. God doesn't love use more for our choices. Period. In fact, He can't love us more based on what we do. That has been drilled into me for years in various Bible studies and confirmed by my own reading of the Bible. But somehow I am entrenched in this merit-based point system of some kind, like I need to make good choices so that God will love me and so that I can impress people. Listen up folks: THAT IS NOT THE GOSPEL. That is not Christianity, even though I think it looks like that from the outside sometimes and Christians often tend to "live there." I'm pretty sure I'm not the only one who does, anyway.

Balancing the law and grace is tricky and much smarter people than me have written countless books on what this looks like. But for me, right now, the point is that I need to trust Christ more, to revel in His beauty and grace and to be impressed by who He is. Not by who I am. Obedience will fall in line and my choices will reflect this.

And this is how Lillian will come to know of Jesus and hopefully to know Him. This quotation by Antoine de Saint Exupery (The Little Prince, anyone?) sums it up for me:

"If you want to build a ship, don't drum up the men to gather wood, divide the work and give orders. Instead, teach them to yearn for the vast and endless sea." 

That's what I hope and pray for Lillian, that she would see a grace-reveling and grace-revealing mom who yearns to follow Christ with her whole life.

And being obedient is not always going to be easy or comfortable or result in free bottles of wine. If I tithe extra, it doesn't mean that a magical check is going to come in the mail the next month. The Lord will provide, but it may not be how I expect. Going on mission trips doesn't mean my kids won't get sick or loved ones won't die or any of hundreds of other scenarios. If you know C.S. Lewis' Narnia series, you'll recognize the quotation about Aslan: "he's not a safe lion." But he's good. And this is why it is okay to trust Him--if you don't believe that God is good, then why in the world would you ever trust Him?


If you stuck with me through this looong and pictureless post, bravo! Feel free to leave me a comment if you so desire. I promise to have more pictures in the next post.