This bacon thing is getting out of hand

I used to make turkey bacon and thought it was great.  Then one week, I ventured off the health-food track and picked up some pork.  We’ve never looked back.

As my kids get older, and their palates mature, somehow foods they once loved become suddenly indigestible.  The antidote to this trend, it seems, is inevitably more bacon.  First I bought bacon bits for salad.  Then I found myself sprinkling them into green beans, next burgers, then meatloaf.  Now, I can’t say for sure, but I might have sneaked a tablespoon or so of bacon into their oatmeal the other morning.

Running parallel to this developing bacon addiction, has been the sudden influx of widely available, bacon-infused products.  Would my children eat more broccoli, if I had a bacon-scented candle lit on the table?  Would they remember to brush every morning, if their toothpaste tasted bacon-y?  I think it’s altogether possible.

I’m not sure what I was thinking, last week, when I picked up yet another bacon incarnation: bacon flavored spaghetti sauce.  And it wasn’t because I was making the kids a quick, little pasta dinner.  No, I took the ultimate risk and added this absurd concoction to the world’s most amazing, Italian dish – which should never, ever be messed with – lasagna.  I know a lot of people who claim to make a fabulous lasagna.  It makes me snicker, really, because how can you possibly go wrong, when you are preparing a dish that is made up of layer upon layer of pasta and cheese?  But anyway, you are all going to have to bow out of this informal lasagna competition – I have it won.  I now have the ultimate secret recipe: Bacon Lasagna.  My kids always love lasagna, but they have never before eaten the whole pan in one meal.  All hail – bacon.

I’m thinking about weaving bacon around the turkey next week for Thanksgiving.  If I do, it might be the first time ever that 6 people, most of them children, eat an entire 16 pound turkey in one meal.  I haven’t committed, but I’m seriously considering the endeavor.

One note of warning: Bacon flavored soda pop.  We knew it was wrong, but we tried it anyway.  Stick with Bacon Lasagna.

Let's burn a book

A few years ago, my kids’ curiosity about childbirth began to surface, so I thought I’d take the birds and bees by the horns. I went out and bought the first two books in a series that offered developmentally appropriate, values based information for my kids’ age ranges and we read them together.  The older book included a very basic, but direct explanation of intercourse.  I thought it was a great first step to unveiling the mysteries of life to my older girl without freaking her out.  I explained to her at the time that this was private information, which she should not share with her friends or younger sister.  She's been open, since, about bringing me her questions.  The book for my younger daughter was much less specific about the baby making part of the equation.

My big girl did a great job of keeping it to herself. Seeing my middle girl’s shock this week, I knew she hadn’t been told.  I was just building up the courage to tackle that same reading with my middle daughter, now that she’s approaching that stage of late-elementary curiosity, but the elementary school library usurped from me the privilege of being able to break the story gently.  She checked out a nifty book the librarian recommended to her about the human body, and during her free reading time later in the day, she discovered a chapter on reproduction that included a diagram of a penis inserted into a vagina.  Needless to say, when I picked her up from school, the first thing she did was to show me the book and seek an explanation for what was, to her, a pretty confusing and disturbing image.

I am, needless to say, livid.  Although I empathize with the school, in that it is difficult to know what is on every page of every book in the library, a diagram that graphic should have certainly been caught by someone along the way – the writer who was aiming to sell the book to elementary schools, the publisher who supposedly reviewed and approved the material, the librarian who with a simple look at the table of contents could have seen there was a chapter on reproduction that should, perhaps, be reviewed before putting the book on the shelf.

Now, instead of gently introducing these mysteries to my daughter, I have to work backwards from her awkward dismay to reassure her of God’s plans for our bodies.  I can take part of the blame for not having covered the material sooner; she could have heard the news on the playground or in the backyard by now, but no fellow school kid was going to explain it to her with the vivid and shocking specificity and credibility that she encountered in that diagram.

We took the book to the principal and the librarian called me back to let me know the review process the book has to go through before it can be pulled off the shelf at her school and the two other elementary schools in the district that also have it in their collection.  I’m hoping no Kindergarteners decide to check it out before they make up their minds.  In the litigious atmosphere of schools, they did not, of course, offer any apology.

 That is why a man leaves his father and mother and is united to his wife, and they become one flesh. Genesis 2:24

Babies are dumb.

We brought our first daughter home from the hospital, pulled her out of the car seat, laid her in the middle of the living room, and told her, “OK, now do something funny.”  We didn’t have to wait long; sure enough the laughs began.  Why?  Why do we find our offspring so entertaining?  Because babies are dumb.

My future Mensa candidate

Babies can’t help that they’re dumb.  They don’t realize that when they hide their face behind the window curtains, laughing with delight at their amazing disappearing ability, the entire rest of their body is still in plain sight.  They don’t realize that the fuzzy new toy they can’t seem to quite pull into view is the hair that is still attached to their own head.  One of my favorites: they honestly believe that they can fit on the miniature dollhouse toilet and will try futilely to sit on it.

My baby girl topped her sisters this week, on proving my mantra that “babies are dumb.”  She got a hold of a bottle of Japanese Cherry Blossom hand sanitizer and dumped it down her face and body.  Because I had no idea how much she’d actually consumed (FYI- hand sanitizer is extremely high in alcohol and only a small amount can give a child alcohol poisoning), and I could smell the fragrance on her breath, we got to make an evening visit to the ER.  She showed no signs of inebriation (although that probably would have been funny in only the sickest sense), but we still had to let them do a blood draw to make sure she was OK.  It was excruciating, holding her down for it, knowing that she had no way of comprehending why she was being put through this torture.  Then we had a long wait in the room, while they ran the labs, twice, because they got an error the first time.  On top of that, I had to endure the inquiries and suspicious glances of all the hospital personnel, who are legally obligated to report me, if they suspect this happened as a result of abuse or neglect.  The labs came back clean; she hadn’t actually swallowed anything at all, for which I am grateful, and certainly not anxious to repeat the exercise.

The very next morning, however, my darling girl discovered a fresh pile of dog poo, ripe for the curious eater.  Imagine my surprise when I turn around after only a moment’s distraction to see her hand up to her mouth and a bright green turd between her lips.  I have no idea what dog poop tastes like, so I can’t be sure if it was my dismayed directive or her sensitive palate, but it took only a moment for her to spit it out and there were no teeth marks or other signs that it had actually made it into her mouth.  I wasted no time in throwing her in the bathtub and thoroughly brushing her teeth.  Not that a bath was going to do any good at removing dog poop from her insides, had it made it there, but it definitely made me feel better.

My word of advice while I was bathing her, “Sweetheart, if you’re going to gargle sanitizer, do it after you eat the dog poop next time.”  See, babies are dumb.

Here are some proverbs of Solomon: Children with good sense make their parents happy, but foolish children make them sad. Proverbs 10:1

We lived too long with rouge furniture.

It’s been weeks since I took the leap and started moving things around the house, in anticipation of setting the big girls up in the downstairs bedroom, and moving the master bedroom upstairs.  I pulled all the toys out of the bedrooms and stacked them in the hallway.  The kids’ clothes have been in disarray, shifting from one closet and set of drawers to another; trying to stay one step ahead of the move.  The piles of clean, folded laundry on the couch grew to become a fixture, because I saw no point in hauling them upstairs to a closet, only to haul them back downstairs to another closet when we completed the move.

My attempts to move the project along progressed to the point of actually moving furniture a good two weeks ago.  Our small house doesn’t accommodate much rouge furniture, so getting through the transition involved living for a time with a vanity and mirror blocking the kitchen hall, and a very large chest of drawers making its home smack dab in the middle of the living room.

I no sooner got the project to that point that my husband saw an open weekend and suggested we take a break from the moving things around to hold a garage sale – maybe it would ease the whole mess to eliminate some clutter and lighten our load.  I generally argue for Good Will donations, over garage sales, but once every ten years, I concede.  We did the work, held the sale, and remembered more clearly why we prefer to make Good Will donations.  We made a few bucks, probably broke even for our effort, and still have a backlog of stuff we need to unload.  Plus – there was still that chest of drawers in the living room.

Then we had pickups and drop offs for summer camp that occupied much of our free time for a week.  Then we needed to get the taillights on the camper to work, so we could have some hope of actually camping in the thing before winter.  Then the Olympics started.  Then the bills were due.  Then…then…then…

Now that I’ve thought more about it, I’m scared to count back and even know for sure how long we’ve been dancing around a chest of drawers in our living room.  All I know for sure is that yesterday, finally, it found a home.  Not just any home, but an insanely useful home, where it not only has quit blocking my view of the baby when I want to check on her from the kitchen, but where it now stores, with complete visual anonymity, copious amounts of family clutter.  Items that once graced every horizontal surface of our ground floor are making their way into designated drawers, offering me such a massive sense of peace and relief that I might even find it in me to put all those clothes away, and find a better home for the toys.

Yep, it was a real milestone.

Then that time will come when the Lord will give you fresh strength. He will send you Jesus, his chosen Messiah. Acts 3:20

My kids don't think I'm parenting them.

The girls have coined a new term this summer.  They like to point out my “Mom Mode.”  More specifically, they like to celebrate the instances where, according to them, I’ve forgotten to be a mom.  They generally take me completely by surprise with a sudden, “Ha!  We love it when you get out of Mom Mode!” or, “Uh, oh, now you’re back in Mom Mode,” as if we’ve been hanging out in the basement together watching R movies, chugging beers, and smoking dope.

Two times they cracked me up with a Mom Mode comment this week.  One time, a family outing to the park segued into an episode of “This is Your Life,” as the kids began quizzing my husband and me about our early romances.  They wanted to know about our first kisses, how many people we dated, whether we ever fell in love before we met each other.  This segued back into a little bit of water play at the drinking fountain before we headed out.  On the way back to the car, I got one of their happy comments about Mom Mode.  I had to chuckle to myself that the kids thought we had forgotten for even a moment that we were parents.  As if we weren’t measuring every word of every phrase, trying to answer their questions with honesty, but also knowing that this moment of curiosity was a key opportunity to impart our wisdom and values to them before they begin their own romantic pursuits.  We really pulled it off, if they mistook “Mom Mode Hyper-drive” for not being in Mom Mode.

Another comment came when I joined them in the pool.  With an hour or two of daily swimming, the kids’ swimming skills have been advancing quickly this summer, resulting in the Incredible Shrinking Swimming Pool effect.  When they were spending most of their time on the surface, playing with float toys or splashing, the pool seemed large to them.  Now they are tooling around under the water with goggles and snorkels, dive sticks, and underwater tricks.  They bump into each other more and more.  Every now and then, I find a time to get in with them and introduce some new pool games, or some new challenges to make the old games harder.  You know, my sneaky way of making the pool bigger again, getting them to challenge their swimming skills, and therefore avoiding aquatic bickering.  After an hour or so of crowding up the pool, I made my way to the ladder and they gave me a gratifying whine that they were disappointed I was going back into Mom Mode.

Of course, I’m enjoying this whole Mom Mode thing immensely.  It takes me by surprise every time.  The best part is knowing that parenting doesn’t have to mean never having fun together.  Their comments remind me of exactly the opposite: sometimes we do it best when they don’t even realize we’re doing it.  Hopefully, instead of disciplining them for fighting with each other, I will get to enjoy watching them play pool games together.  Hopefully, instead of hiring surveillance and grounding them for their entire teenage years, I will be able to hear about their developing relationships and help them navigate those muddy waters.  Maybe not, but at least I’ll know I tried – I’d definitely rather play with them now than yell at them later.

Let’s face it, I could never forget that I’m a mom – but it’s OK with me, if they forget it sometimes.

The LORD answered, “Could a mother forget a child who nurses at her breast? Could she fail to love an infant who came from her own body? Even if a mother could forget, I will never forget you. Isaiah 49:15

We're not wasting change, even when it feels like we are.

In our years of church life, my husband and I encountered a fairly steady stream of troubled kids.  Often they would come to church activities and programs with their wounds emotionally oozing all over us.  Whether it was sassiness, obstinacy, compete lack of social skills, or intense neediness and a relentless pursuit of our attention, it was easy to diagnose the deep, open hole in their soul, that no one in their life was filling.  After hearing a heartbreaking back story on one of these kids, my husband was discouraged, wondering what the point was in submitting ourselves to so much bad behavior; as if our meager kindness could somehow make a difference in lives that were so steeped in brokenness.

Trying to encourage him, and myself, I suggested the metaphor of a well.  Every kid has a well where they store up the love and care they’ve been given.  Some get their well filled at home, and they go out into the world whole and confident, needing only a little top-off now and then.  Others have an open, empty well, and we are trying to fill it up with one little penny at a time.  Every little thing you do for them, from a warm smile, to a pat on the shoulder, to a cupcake snack or a firm redirection, is a penny tossed into their well.  You pray you’re not the only one tossing in pennies, because it may never be enough.  But if enough of us are tossing pennies into these empty wells, we can hope and pray that it will eventually make a difference for a kid who never otherwise had a chance.

Once in a while, you actually get to hear a penny strike the bottom, like when a kid, half a dozen years later, quoted a lesson back to me about how I’d once challenged her to open her Bible to any page and she could find something encouraging about God’s love or power.  She said she’d tried it over and over again – and never failed to find a message of God’s love.  Those moments give you the encouragement to keep tossing pennies, don’t they?

If you’ve been tossing pennies into empty wells, I have another story of encouragement for you.  It involves my sister.  She is in Africa right now, about a day’s hike away from the summit of Mount Kilimanjaro.  Lots of people will be impressed when she comes home and tells us the adventurous story of her summit attempt, but that’s just another feat on a long list of her accomplishments.

My sister was once one of those kids with the empty well.  She was sassy and rebellious.  She dated older boys, dropped out of school, moved out of my parents’ house, and added a tattoo to her piercings.  Not to hate on tattoos, but she went and got the biggest one she could afford.  She wandered a while looking for her calling, first in one state, then another, until she ran out of steam and money in Colorado.  My sister was never a bad person, she never pillaged or stole, got in trouble with the law, or hurt others, but she was definitely the so-tough-on-the-outside, you’d never guess she’s soft-on-the-inside young person, that others find difficult to love and even harder to help.  She also had a huge educational deficit.  She was bragging one time about how she couldn’t wait to get to college, because high school was so lame.  When I mentioned that someone who was flunking high school should hardly expect that college was going to be a breeze, it was not our friendliest conversation.

Fast forward fifteen years: my sister has a Masters Degree in Education and Curriculum Development.  She is bilingual in English and Spanish.  She’s studied and taught in Mexico and Spain.  She was accepted to a highly competitive Denver Scholars program that only takes 1% of its applicants.  She has three years of teaching under her belt, all in bilingual classrooms of the Denver Public Schools systems, at schools with free lunch rates over 75%.  There is no scheme those kids can pull on her that she didn’t once use herself.  She’s done all this with a G.E.D. and a well-full of pennies, tossed in by teachers, friends, aunts, grandparents, mentors and others.  I am so grateful to the people who invested their loose change in my siblings and me.  We’d never have become who we are without you.

Here she is at the top of a peak in Colorado. 
She's been blogging her preparations at: http://ucdkiliclimb.wordpress.com/

My sister applied for the program to go to Africa, knowing it was an incredible opportunity and willing to work for it.  She thought she might be able to get a half-scholarship.  Imagine her excitement when they offered her a full scholarship to come participate.  After she summits the mountain, she’ll spend two more weeks in Africa, experiencing as much as the continent has to offer and gaining a thousand moments of inspiration that she will bring back to her classroom this fall.  She got a new job this coming year – same district, but teaching Spanish and Art.  Where she will go on tossing pennies down wells – and now and then hearing a gratifying clink when they hit the bottom.

I think she’s pretty incredible.

 Don’t get tired of helping others. You will be rewarded when the time is right, if you don’t give up. Galatians 6:9

I'm adopted.

My husband and I were already engaged before I met his favorite uncle, and that uncle’s fiancée.  They were planning a July wedding, about two months ahead of our own.  I don’t remember exactly what it was about them: the casual hospitality of their lake house, the fun afternoon of sun and water activities, or the absurd way I was included in the early morning wakeup call of “Good Morning, Vietnam!” blasting out of the stereo by my head at dawn.  Something about them, right from the start, included me, as if I had always been there; as if we were related by something more than marriage.

They put me up every week for years, when I was commuting to Kansas City for seminary.  They hugged me tight and expressed admiration for my courage when I was trying to be brave after a miscarriage.  They go out of their way to come by when they are in town, even when they are booked tight for holidays.  They keep an open home and open hearts, not just for my husband and me, but also for our girls.  From braving the heat to spend an afternoon at the petting zoo with me and the kids, to coming up with the wildest array of kid friendly meal options every time we come to town; they show by deed as much as word that we matter to them.

We visited my husband’s aunt and uncle on our way through town twice this week.  My daughters pitched a fit when we wanted to take them out for breakfast, because they love so much sitting around their table, eating strawberries, and chatting through the morning.  I can see why – it is a lot of fun to visit with people so well-read and thoughtful; always giving us something new to think about before we hit the road to head home.

It is such a privilege to share our marriage year with a couple who live out such a true expression of mutual submission and boundless love.  I grieve that they didn’t know each other soon enough in life, because their kids would be amazing people, but I’m grateful to God for giving them such a bounty of love to share with the rest of us!  We are, indeed, related by something much more than just marriage.

Jesus and the people he makes holy all belong to the same family. That is why he isn’t ashamed to call them his brothers and sisters. Hebrews 2:11

Destination: Arkansas

Well-traveled as I might consider myself, I know next to nothing about Arkansas.  I’ve never seen a PBS travel show about it.  I’ve never thought, “Oh, man!  Add it to the list!  I gotta’ get to Arkansas!”  Razorbacks and Hope: that’s the extent of my Arkansas trivia.  I’m not hating on Arkansas; it has just never made it onto my radar.  At all.

So it has been with some mirth that we’ve responded to inquiries about our holiday plans this week with a chipper, “We’re going to Arkansas!”  And with even more mirth we began to pile up the incoming brochures and travel guides.  They were ordered for us by my brother, who came up with the perfect home base for our Arkansas adventure: Devil’s Den.

There is actually more to recommend Devil’s Den that you might imagine, or more than I ever imagined, anyway, especially given the name.  There’s the Ozarks, with plentiful hiking, and river activities, and even the intriguing possibility of a zip-line adventure.  There’s also a nearby Civil War battlefield to visit, and somewhere in the vicinity are some presidential relics from the Clintons.

Of course, the biggest reason to visit Arkansas this week, is Texas.  It’s a 14 hour drive from my house to my brother’s - not an impossible distance, but certainly a challenging one for our two larger families.  It has been two years since I last saw my nephews and my niece is almost a year old without my having met her.  So we agreed to meet up half way, and Arkansas was the ticket.  If the only thing I get out of visiting Devil’s Den is a three-day-long game of Skip-bo with our combined 7 offspring, I will come home with glorious memories of Magnificent Arkansas.

And that could make me become a regular.

“Say of your brothers, ‘My people,’ and of your sisters, ‘My loved one.’ Hosea 2:1

I was made for this.

I’m only a month into this “stay at home Mom” gig, but it’s by far the best job I’ve ever had.  The to-do list I was hoping to conquer by being at home is still about three years long, and growing instead of shrinking, but we came in from swimming in the EZ-set backyard pool the other day, to sit around the dining room table and eat bologna sandwiches.  Between slapping cheese and mustard on our wheat bread, we contemplated what we would do during “quiet time,” the two-hour interlude when the baby takes her nap, and read the day’s message from our paper chain (we made a chain of all the days until school starts, and wrote little messages to ourselves on each link).  My oldest suddenly breaks a grin and says, “You know what?  We would be hanging out alone in the youth room trying to keep the baby happy right now.  I’m so glad we’re here doing this instead!”

I’m sure we would still be grateful, even if I’d been home with the kids straight away from Stork’s first delivery, but having spent so many years juggling work and kids, I think we all are feeling the blessings in a much more profound way.  Life is suddenly measured in all these little moments of weed pulling and bologna sandwiches.  I’ve been able to spend hours at the library choosing books with the kids, then actually sitting down and reading with them.  This week, I was able to take them overnight to visit an aunt and uncle, and see a cousin’s first dance recital.  We’ve painted our nails, planted beans, written letters, and made crafts.  I’ve been able to go days in a row without driving thru anywhere to pick up a lunch or dinner on the run.  And that, that is probably the sweetest blessing – we haven’t had to feel like we were living “on the run.”  Instead of trying to get from one thing to the next, and fulfill our obligations quickly enough to leave a little time at the end for each other, we’ve been able to put it in “park,” and make being with each other our only obligation.  We’re contemplating cancelling swim lessons next week, just to savor more of these precious days, just being together.

Not everyone gets the privilege of staying home with their kids, and I realize not everyone would even desire it, but for me, in this moment, it is absolutely the sweetest blessing in my life.  Now forgive me if today’s confession is a little brief and not especially funny – I’ve got a job to do, after all.  The kids have been watching a movie and it’s high time I turned it off and took them outside.
I could do this job forever, but am all too aware of how brief these days will be.

Don't you see that children are God's best gift?
      the fruit of the womb his generous legacy?
   Like a warrior's fistful of arrows
      are the children of a vigorous youth.
   Oh, how blessed are you parents,
      with your quivers full of children!
   Your enemies don't stand a chance against you;
      you'll sweep them right off your doorstep. Psalm 127:3-5

I was finally star struck.

Flying with a school group from Detroit to D.C. for the 1993 Inaugural Festival, we were waiting to board when my dad realized something amazing was happening.  He says, “Emily, do you see who is next to us?” 

I looked over his shoulder and replied, “An old, black man is talking to our choir director.” 

He says, “Look again.” 

I looked again and corrected myself, “An old, blind, black man is visiting with our choir director.” 

After being redirected one more time, it finally hit home that Ray Charles was sitting next to my dad, waiting for the same flight.  As everyone around us went a little nuts and started interrupting Mr. Charles to get pictures, I thought, “Eh, leave the man alone, he just wants to catch his flight.”  I noticed that he had a Braille book in front of him, and even as he looked up and smiled for pictures, he continued reading.  I just refused to give in to the temptation to disrupt his peace and soak up his celebrity.

I had a similar reaction when my roommate, an active college Democrat, was short on volunteers for a presidential visit and begged me to drive for the motorcade.  I turned her down because I had too much homework, and she convinced me that you spend most of the day waiting in the car; I could get a lot done.  I ended up having quite a madcap adventure that day, including getting firm with police and secret service who weren’t convinced that the dirty, blue Olds they had assigned me, really belonged in the motorcade.  It all ended with a brief moment of being face-to-face with Bill Clinton, while we waited for the photographer to set the flash.  I was, again, so nonchalant about meeting the president that I’m not sure I really grasped the moment, even as I grasped the hand of the leader of the free world.  I passed my souvenir photo on to my mom on my next visit and haven’t seen it since.  Last night I lived to regret it.

Despite a very busy week, we decided to take all three kids to see President Obama out at the Iowa State Fairgrounds.  We knew from past political rallies that POTUS is never on time, so we ignored the advice of the organizers who suggested getting there at 3:30pm, and instead didn’t head out until 6, stopping on the way to drive through A&W and eating our spoils in the parking lot before going in.  We cruised right through security with the small band of latecomers and realized as we were ushered into an amphitheater with only a hundred or so other people that we had blown it – we were in the overflow and would only get to hear a piped-in version of the presidents’ speech.  One of the volunteers explained that, if we were very lucky, the president would stop by after his speech and say a word or two before heading out; we should get comfortable for the potential wait.

Imagine our surprise when maybe 3 minutes later, before the official appearance next door, the crowd went nuts and the president walked out on stage right in front of us.  The crowd was so small that we were only a few feet away as he made a few remarks about the brilliance and work ethic of Iowa’s citizens, then he came down off the stage and worked the line, passing just an arm’s length in front of us!  Throughout the evening, our oldest daughter had exactly the nonchalance I used to.  She didn’t see why we needed to walk so far, to stand around in the heat, to give up our evening, just to see some guy in a suit.  Why all the fuss?  He’s just a person like the rest of us.

But after she saw the excitement, heard the nice things the president said about the people of her state, actually looked the nation’s leader in the eyes, her attitude shifted.  Walking back to the car, she expressed her gratitude that we had dragged her out there, and we all marveled at our good luck.  We didn’t have to crowd in with 15,000 other people and look down with binoculars to see a pin prick image of Obama; we were just about close enough to touch him.  On the way out, my husband and I started to say, “That’s probably the closest you will ever get in your life to the President of the United States!”

And my middle girl chirped, “Unless we are her!”

 Among the crowds there was widespread whispering about him. Some said, “He is a good man.” Others replied, “No, he deceives the people.” John 7:12

We're going boy crazy.

Picking the kids up from school recently, an exceedingly young couple was walking home together, holding hands.  They paused to hug at the corner before parting ways.  I wanted to vomit, because they seemed way too little to be “in a relationship,” but instead used their public display as the entry point into a conversation with my daughters about whether their lives or friendships are being affected by romance, yet.  In doing so, I opened the floodgates.

It has set in.  My daughters have gone a little boy crazy.  They were just waiting for me to ask.  I’m thankful they tell me so openly about their lives, but I found myself growing bored quickly when they started outlining the list of boys they like, which other girls like the same boys, which girls the boys like, and all of the various dramas that ensue.  I tried to keep a stiff upper lip, to act very casual about their interest in romance so they would hopefully keep these communication channels open, but on the inside, I was just so SO sad.  I pray their search for Mr. Right doesn’t crowd out the wonderful breadth of interests, friendships, and activities that have, up to now, brought them joy and contentment.

Their sudden excitement about boys got me to thinking about the posting and conversation trends of people I know who are single, as well as my own experiences from back when I was single myself.  Those memories were buried some sixteen years deep, but I pulled some out and dusted them off to try and relate.  I had forgotten how consuming it is, waiting for your other half to come into your life.  Every new room you walk into, “he” might be there; I remember now the daily anxiety and anticipation that goes along with knowing you weren’t meant to be alone, but not knowing yet who it is that will fill that void.

I’m sure I sometimes lost control of my senses and went a little boy crazy in those days – letting my hope for love cloud my enjoyment, possibly even my pursuit, of other interests.  I rejoice to realize all the spare time and mental freedom I have to play and learn and cook and sing, because my time and attention isn’t consumed with the quest for the One.  I can go about my business, dressed however I want, focus on what I’m after, and not care who is or isn’t noticing me.  It is very liberating, but I’ve taken that for granted since I realized my husband was "him."

As we head into the turbulent season of adolescence, I wonder how I can help my daughters appreciate that while God designed us for partnership, their lives are now; they don’t start some day off in the future when they partner up – they are beautifully complete works of art, all on their own.  I hope they will let romance happen upon them while they are doing all the other exciting and meaningful things that fill their lives with contentment and satisfaction, rather than surrendering all those wonderful things and letting their pursuit of romance become the central focus of their lives.

It sounds so basic, but I know it will not be easy.  I pray a lot.  For their self-worth, for their discernment, for the boys they’re going to fall for along the way, for the dreams I hope they pursue, and ultimately for the marriages I hope they’ll have.

Two are better than one, because they have a good return for their labor: Ecclesiastes 4:9

P.S. Farming can be women's work, it seems.

Looking up info on our disabled 9N, I found this bit of nostalgia at http://www.tractorshed.com/cgi-bin/gallery/gallery_pic.cgi?pic=http;//www.tractorshed.com/gallery/vphotos/v9546.jpg&firstrec=9&Parameter=9n&w=vphotos&cc=0  Ad from March 1945 'Country Gentleman.'

Ad goes on to say: 'As effortless and simple to operate as her household applicances. Not only does the modern farm woman find the Ford-Ferguson Tractor, with its automotive type controls, as easy to drive as the family car, she also changes implements with no more effort or complication than shifting the attachments on her vacuum cleaner.' 'Raising orlowering the plow or cultivator with the Ferguson Finger Tip Control is as easy for her as throwing the lever to start the wringer on her electric washing machine.' The FergusonSystem's mechanical 'brain' controls furrow depth in much the same way that an oven temperature control 'watches' her pies while she plows.'

I'm reluctantly sentimental about a tractor.

It was my biggest concern when we considered moving to the hobby farm: the pasture.  In addition to the 2-3 acres of lawn mowing, owning this place was going to mean cutting down another 3 acres or so of pasture as many as half a dozen times every summer.  The seller had been using an antique tractor with a 60” Brush Hog to get the job done.  My husband reasoned, whenever I questioned him, that if a 90 year old could keep it up, all by himself, certainly we could together.

We got the tractor worked into the deal, and it sat under a beautiful, giant oak tree, snuggled under a tarp, all winter.  The image on the fender of a heroic eagle with a flaming pitchfork evoked the era of its manufacture, and reminded us that, with its revolutionary 3-point hitch, this machine had once been the essential workhorse of any Midwestern farm.  The seller had given us a briefing back in October and we had each taken a practice lap around the field.  Yet looking out at that tractor all winter, I couldn’t help but feel anxiety about the pasture.  Would my husband enjoy driving the old beast?  Would he want to come home from a 40-50 hour workweek and spend his free time dragging a Brush Hog around the property in the blazing sun?  Would the noise, the dirt, the grease, and the smells bring him the joy of rural life or the burden of it?  I already knew from my own childhood that mowing an acreage was not my favorite summer pastime, but I hoped he might like it.

On the flip side, even as I considered the possibility we might want to trade our working museum piece in for a modern, wide-bladed mower, I couldn’t help hoping that old tool would become the centerpiece of a new way of life for us.  It might pull a wagon around for hayrides.  It might run a tiller for the enormous garden.  It might drag tree trunks to the woodpile.  I imagined all the possibilities its heroic eagle evoked, and knew this machine was so much more versatile than any modern mower would be.  Who knows, maybe even I might find myself enjoying the work, when it was on my own property?

Getting her ready
for the maiden voyage.

Last week the grass was tall enough; it was time to move from anxious hope to reality.  Sure enough, the old engine started easily, and after airing up the tires and checking the oil, we fired up the brush hog.  My husband quickly found himself at ease at the controls, and mowed down the first section of pasture in short order.  With a big grin on his face, he crossed the creek and began to mow the front section, finding himself completely confident going up and down the hills and around the trees.  Our vision was actually coming true!  I was elated, and I am pretty sure he was, too.  Our stress melted away and jubilation replaced it.

Who smiles when they're mowing?  That's my husband.  Living the dream.

He waved as I passed him on my way out to pick up a kid and our grins matched.  It was, however, a different story, ten short minutes later, when I got back.  The tractor was backed into a brush pile at the edge of the creek, and my husband was leaning over to one side and the other, fidgeting with the controls.  He eventually came in to report that something in the drive had snapped, and the tractor had freewheeled, backward, down the hill.  Because the breaks only nominally work, it was only my husband’s lightning reflexes that had allowed him to steer the thing into a cushion of brush, instead of coming to a hard, possibly limb-threatening, stop by hitting a tree or landing in the creek.

Now, aside from praising the Lord for my husband’s safe landing, we’re back to square one.  While a clutch assembly is a mere $150, installing it requires splitting the whole machine in half then putting it back together.  My dad did that once to his old Case when I was a kid – he winched the front end up to a tree to do it.  We’re not so mechanically adventurous as my dad.  Plus, the thing is disabled, on the far side of the pasture, on the wrong side of the creek.  We may have to rent another tractor, just to drag it out of there!

Check out that emblem on the fender.  Awesome.

All logic tells me that investing in a newer model mower with the widest cutting deck we can afford is our best option, but the sweetness of nostalgia for the old ways, for the possibilities, and the ambition wrought by the image of a pitchfork wielding eagle make it hard to give up on our old 9N.

Remember the days of old; consider the generations long past. Ask your father and he will tell you.  Deuteronomy 32:7

The end of a season.

My husband picked up the soundtrack to Message in a Bottle back when we were first married.  The movie was nothing really special, but that CD played in the background through many of our early adventures and travels.  When our new, used minivan brought the luxury and convenience of a 6-CD changer into our lives, he dusted off the old soundtrack and plugged it into the rotation.

The last bleary-eyed new
parents picture.

Listening to these songs again invoked a wave of sentiment I didn’t expect.  Of all the milestones we’ve crossed so far, the one we’re crossing now seems to be the most bittersweet.  Our littlest girl turns one tomorrow and there are no more babies on the horizon for us.  We are beautifully complete as a family.  I am thrilled to be watching my children grow up, arm in arm with my dearest and most beloved best friend (who also looks pretty hot with a little facial hair).  I am excited for this next season of our lives, as our children become independent and our dreams have shifted and formed into our reality.  But I also feel the season of “young married life” slipping away: the falling in love, and getting married season; the getting to know your in-laws, and deciding who sleeps closest to the door season; the who is going to change that stinky diaper season; the what will our children be like season.

Every season of my life has had its high points, I have always found joy in the days as they go by, but this last decade-plus has been a treasure like none before.  I loved every minute, beautiful and ugly.  While childhood, high school, and even college came to an end for me with some relief, our early married life comes to an end with nostalgia and a little bit of longing.  There are many treasured moments still ahead for us, but for the first time in my life, I feel that something is passing away that I will miss and never get back.

Such a grown up girl already!



But, thanks in part to Hootie and the Cranberries, a large collection of photographs, and the best souvenirs ever – three darling little girls and the aforementioned husband – I’ll bid this season farewell knowing that the love and joy it brought can still be savored and recalled – like a sweet love letter, bottled up and waiting to be reread.

Happy birthday to my baby girl.

Everything on earth has its own time and its own season. Ecclesiastes 3:1

Less than heroic.

Last weekend was a blast, starting right from Friday morning.  I pulled my sewing machine out of mothballs and discovered that I can still pull off a fairly professional-looking hemstitch.  I love the satisfaction of a good sewing project, and it was a bonus that I got to help out a friend.  Then, a rarity since the baby was born, my husband and I got to enjoy, childfree, a fantastic, seafood dinner that felt like anything but fasting.  I savored every bite of Volcano Roll and Whiskey-glazed Char – and every moment of uninterrupted conversation. 

Finally, to top it all off, a friend and I spent Saturday evening at Super Prom!  It was a charity event where costumes were optional, but of course we had to go in costume!  Since we share the same name, we decided to go as Super Emily-s.  The fun started when we hit the costume shop and found coordinating red and blue wigs, silver dresses, and crazy red fishnets.  We planned and plotted for weeks: scoping out the Dollar Tree for masks, coordinating our make-up, cutting out our hero emblems.  The kids were fascinated by all my preparations Saturday evening and got a kick out of the big photo session before we left for dinner and the Prom.  We were already having so much fun; we even admitted to each other that we both initially put our “E”s on our dresses backward, not realizing we were looking in the mirror. Ha!

It has been a long time since I danced for five hours straight, but, minus bathroom breaks, we were non-stop partiers until the band sent us home at 2AM.  2AM!  I got photographed with my hero, Kermit.  Emily got photographed with her hero, Rocky Balboa.  We worked together to fight off the advances of Kung Fu Panda.  And we even got a decent picture of Hoochie-Wonder Woman to share with our husbands later.

It was such a hilariously fun and memorable weekend, I wouldn’t change a thing.  But if you’re going to dance, you have to pay the fiddler; I guess that means more than the $20 cover charge for the party.

I’m not sure why 8-10 hours, over the course of three days, put my family into such discord, but by Sunday evening, I had three kids, including the 10 and 7 year old, trying to squeeze into my seat with me.  And then even the dog got into it when she, not once but twice, tried to prevent me from picking up the baby by racing between us and marking a circle around me.  Nothing says “I missed you” quite like a perimeter of urine.

Monday morning, our middle girl had an exhausting appointment with a specialist that raised as many questions as answers about her chronic stomach aches, it’s always stressful at my husband’s work this time of year, and by midweek I felt paralyzed by everyone’s competing needs.  Hero to Zero in three short days.

When my husband called at lunch time, I was near tears, trying to figure out what to feed the baby.  I had run out of all the foods she eats reliably, and she now refuses to ingest anything puréed or that she can’t feed herself.  Even admitting my frustration felt like another failure, knowing my poor husband was busy and stressed out with work already. 

But he was the real hero this week.  Instead of cutting me off and reminding me that he had no possible means to help, and I was ridiculous for dumping my load on him when he was already enormously strained, he heard me out and then gently reassured me that nothing was as bad as it felt right then.  Hearing his reassurance was just what I needed to finish out the day – and the week.  I still haven’t been to the grocery store, the dog is in the kennel at this very moment, the baby is declining her raviolis by tossing them on the floor, and I’m still in my pajamas at nearly noon.  But it’s all good.  I don’t have to be a hero.  I just have to love them.  And I do.

 When the Philistines saw that their hero was dead, they turned and ran. 1 Samuel 17:51

The chickens are going to have to wait.

Imagine the kids’ surprise on Easter morning, when we open a seemingly routine express mail package and out pop – chicks!  Downy soft and ready to eat their first meal, the three day old chicks cuddle up in their warm hands and the girls’ eyes sparkle with delight as our new adventure in hobby farming begins.

We’ve had that image in our minds since we first put an offer on this place.  With great optimism, we imagined that we’d get settled in over winter break.  We’d be hosting sledding parties in January.  We saw ourselves, as March rolled around, rearing to get out there to plant a giant garden and build a chicken coup.

Reality is reining us in yet again.  With the mildness of winter this year, we spent winter break building a shed and cleaning the garage, instead of unpacking the basement.  Old Man Winter withheld sledding until just this past weekend, when we finally got a snowfall that could cover the grass on our hill.  As the dominoes are toppling, I see that our Easter fantasy is fading as fast as my laundry pile is growing.

I am in no way deterred from the vision of what this place is going to be for us, but I am having to rethink the timetable.  We chose a smaller house, and it takes a lot longer to get organized and settled in when you have half the cupboards, closets, and garage that you did before.  My spring chickens aren’t the only thing I have to let go of.  There’s also the extra set of dishes, the spare bed, the computer armoire, that stunning teal sectional…and many, many things that are still in boxes downstairs, yet to be identified for sale or donation.

Finally breaking in the sledding hill last weekend!

We took a lot on, pursuing this vision of self-sustenance and simplicity; it may take us quite a while to achieve even a basic start to all we hope for.  But it was a gratifying moment last week, when my oldest came in after school, dropped her bag and coat by the door, and sighed, “Ahhh…home sweet home.”  Yes, my dear girl, it really is.  And whenever we do get to it, farm fresh eggs and garden vegetables will only make it sweeter.

Hezekiah, I will tell you what's going to happen. This year you will eat crops that grow on their own, and the next year you will eat whatever springs up where those crops grew. But the third year you will plant grain and vineyards, and you will eat what you harvest. Those who survive in Judah will be like a vine that puts down deep roots and bears fruit. 2 Kings 19:29-30

I am helpless against roses.

My husband was the first man to ever bring me roses.  After our first date, I came home to my apartment one afternoon and found a dozen roses, left on my doorstep, with a note from “guess who.”  In the years since, he has often made similar gestures, usually not on Valentine’s Day, or my birthday.  Very rarely even on our anniversary.  Generally, it’s just some random evening that he decides to show up with a romantic gift.  Those moments are wonderful in their unexpectedness, remind me that he still considers me worth wooing, and humble me for being such a cold-hearted, “don’t waste your money on romantic gifts,” kind of girl.  Let’s face it, no matter how down to earth and practical I try to be, there’s still a little girl inside me, who loves playing dress up, things that sparkle, and, emphasis on occasional, romantic gestures from the man I love.

My daughters don’t have any of that practicality yet, but also don’t attach any romantic notions to flowers and jewelry.  Whether you are mother, father, aunt, sister, or random acquaintance, they will joyfully accept any flowers, trinkets, or jewelry you’d like to offer, without making any awkward relationship assumptions.  While, anymore, they seem to enjoy dance for its own merits, it rose to a place of prominence in their priorities when my oldest was showered with bouquets after her first recital.  I think my middle daughter danced her first year, purely in anticipation of cellophane wrapped roses and baby’s breath.

It was my oldest’s dance acquisitions, not my husband’s romantic overtures, that overwhelmed me this week.  After dancing her first principal role, she was blessed with an abundance of beautiful flowers from us, and from family and friends.  Then she got another big bouquet during curtain calls.  I filled a two gallon pitcher and dutifully arranged them all for her, placing them in the dining room for her to enjoy.  I immediately started a sneeze and runny-nose fest, but I didn’t think it was that big of a deal to live with flowers for a week or so until they died.

After a day and a half of cohabitation with their loveliness and aroma, however, my husband came home from work and blurted, “Whoa!  What’s wrong with your eye!?”  I hadn’t looked in the mirror all day, so I was shocked to see that my eyes were severely blood shot and there was a yellow blister growing out of my eye ball.  I scoured the internet to find out that I had a cyst on my eye ball, and that allergies can cause it.  So much for any future romantic gestures; so much for enjoying the girls’ recital gifts; so much for that lovely Japanese orchid I’ve been hinting about for the last six months (I stuck my face in one yesterday to see if it would make me sneeze; no sneeze, but the reward for my stupidity was a thirteen hour sinus headache and a scratchy throat).

Recital flowers are now quarantined to an upstairs bedroom, and I guess my husband’s going to have to woo with diamonds from now on.

 Flowers appear on the earth; the season of singing has come, the cooing of doves is heard in our land. Song of Solomon 2:12

I'm itching for a road trip.

Between the baby, the move, and financially preparing for me to quit my job, family vacationing has been off the table for the last couple years.  Granted, and my husband would be quick to point it out, we did travel with the kids each of the last two summers, to Arizona and to Wyoming, but both times it was on short notice for a memorial service.  We tried to make the most of the time off and family togetherness, but, in my mind, it really doesn’t qualify as a true “family vacation.”  We have thoroughly enjoyed a few weekend visits to neighboring cities, and I wouldn’t complain about Minneapolis, Chicago, or the Wisconsin Dells, but, again, these short, fun weekend trips were really more “getaways” than “vacations.”

Mostly, those occasions served to remind me how awesome it is to hit the open road with the whole family in tow.  I love those long carefree days of seeing new things together, listening to old school music on the radio, eating deviled ham sandwiches for lunch, and taking turns watching Star Wars movies in the back seat with the kids.  There’re KOA campgrounds calling my name, World’s Biggest Balls of stuff to be photographed and explored.  There’s national history to be learned in person, hotel pools to be cannonballed into, mountain paths to be hiked, and, I hope with all my heart, an ocean to be splashed in.  I don’t care whether we go east, west, or south; I just have that deep hankering to go.

It’s not entirely reasonable.  The baby’s still small.  The house isn’t unpacked or organized.  The summer is still months off.  It always costs more than you budget, someone inevitably spills, craps, or vomits in the back of the van.  At some point, your will to rough it breaks down and you spring for a two-room suite that gives you a locking door between yourselves and the kids.  Yes, I know all the limitations.  But the heart wants what the heart wants.  I long for a 2-4000 mile, 14-20 day adventure, together with my favorite people.  I think it’s road trips that make us American; it’s our patriotic duty to explore this vast and beautiful nation.  Are you buying this?  Because I really want to go.

You brought us here and gave us this land rich with milk and honey. Deuteronomy 26:9

My kid outclassed me (and I didn’t scrub the floors).

OK so, first of all, I didn’t go all Molly Maids on the old house after we moved out.  I figured the new owners were going to give it an overhaul to put their own smell on the place anyway, and, frankly, we had other priorities moving week.  The actual moving, three kids, Thanksgiving, out of town family, and a cancer diagnosis in my husband’s immediate family – to name the most obvious contenders for our attention.  But all excuses aside, we did leave the house without completing our regular housekeeping, so it was not the spotless showplace it had been a few weeks earlier.  Let me know if I’m wrong on this, but I’ve never known anyone who moved into a house or apartment and raved about the previous owner’s housekeeping; cleaning the new place is part of moving.  Or so I thought.

I expected the new people would find something to complain to the neighbors about, but what I didn’t expect was that my ten year old would be approached at school by the child of our former neighbor, in front of other kids, with a nasty accusation about our family’s filthy living – as reported to her parents by the buyers of our house.  As if they hadn’t gone through the house just a few weeks earlier and seen how clean it was when we weren’t in the middle of moving.  I was horrified when my daughter told me what the girl had said.  I couldn’t believe she wasn’t crying and wondered if she was being brave for us.  A well of defensive unpleasantness bubbled up in me, as I took a mental inventory of all the very judgmental and personal jabs I could take at them.  It was a challenging sale, and we had sometimes struggled to remain gracious.  All of those moments when we had to remind one another to be kind, to let things go, and to be generous rather than stingy, were suddenly overwhelmed by a vicious instinct to lash out and harm the people who had turned an adult financial transaction into neighborhood gossip and schoolyard bullying.

As I was about to surrender to my anger and injured pride, and arm my daughter with a slew of nasty responses she could use if it came up again, my husband saved the moment by asking her how she had responded.  She said matter-of-factly that she had told the girl, “Oh, so you must think moving is easy.”  And then she told the other kids who were listening to the exchange, “What?  Did they live in a hotel before?  They can’t clean their own bathroom?”

I could have cried.  I felt so much admiration for her.  She did everything the school counselor says to do with bullies.  She stood up for herself; she disarmed them with humor.  She didn’t take it, but she didn’t escalate the situation either.  I could not have provided her with a better response than she came up with all on her own.  She was the tough but gracious person I wish I was – and she’s only ten years old.

I am embarrassed by the ugliness I felt about the situation and by the defensiveness I’m still battling.  I am tempted even now to give you all the reasons why I think we are nicer people than them.  I am just not as good or confident a person as my daughter is.  She is a class act.  And I have a lot to learn from her.

We work hard with our own hands to feed ourselves. When people insult us, we ask God to bless them. When people treat us badly, we accept it.  When people say bad things about us, we try to say something that will help them. But people still treat us like the world’s garbage—everyone’s trash. 1 Corinthians 4:12-13