Seth

My baby is 9 😭😭😭😭😭

It is so hard to remember that he used to be small (ok he was never really "small"), but he was small to me. I look at pictures of him as a baby and it blows my mind.  The years that it was just him and me all day long seems to far away, and short.  In the middle of them, it seemed like forever.

That is the way time works though, right?  Whatever season you are in feels like the only season, with no beginning and no ending, and then it changes...sometimes you don't even notice the change. You just look back and suddenly the baby you spent hours rocking, and then hours teaching to sleep in their own, is 9 and reading Harry Potter and Percy Jackson.

Before I had kids, I spent a lot of time babysitting and teaching in Children's church. I was an aid at a preschool my senior year of high school.  Babies! Toddlers! They are my jam! When Seth was born I really wondered about what I going to do when he got bigger.  I was never really around kids older than 4. I wondered how I would relate. Would I like older kids? Would they like me?

Older kids are awesome! 

Seth and I talk about deep stuff. We enjoy books together. He can do chores!!! (It is so awesome to be able to tell the kids to pick up the living room and then have them do it! Chores are the best!!!)

Seth is also taking band this year at school.  He choose the trumpet.  Oi! I know that it will get better as he goes along, but man I feel bad for the band teacher who has to listen to all the new kids play together.

I am actually really starting to look forward to him getting older, and growing in our friendship.

Lucy

She gets up, showers, does her hair and gets dressed without being asked...but she still says "thinger" instead of finger. 

She is a mix of grown up and little girl and I love everything about her.  

I am so happy that I am raising a daughter in this era of girl power.  The messages she will grow up with are so much more about being a strong, whole person then they were when I was growing up.

It is strange but, when I think about how much "room" I have to encourage her to be strong, funny, smart, and more then her looks, I feel empowered myself. 

And man oh man, she is strong, funny, and smart!  Lucy makes us laugh and keeps us on out toes.

A couple weeks ago I took her to a birthday party for one of her friends.  I was watching her play and interact with the other girls.  It was pretty interesting.  She definitely got along with everyone, but she did not follow the birthday girl the same way the other girls did.  She participated in the party stuff, but I had to keep going after her to bring her back to the party cause she just was doing her own thing.  I hope that security to be herself stays apart of her personality.  

I am not too worried though , as we left the party, she told me "Mom, that was a Damn good party!"

I can't even...

Ezra

THIS BOY!!!!

I cannot imagine life with this funny little man. He is so sweet and happy and fierce and I love him. He calls dogs "ruff ruffs" and dinosaurs "yions" in fact anything that growls is a "yion". He went from saying a few words to full sentences in like 2 weeks. And his grammar is great!  He uses "I" and "me" the right way...I mean what other 2 year old does that?

He tells us stories and makes stuff up.  The other day I got him up from his nap and he wanted me to hold him.  I asked him why he did not want to walk. His answer: that his feet had gone fishing.  WHAT?!? Who comes up with that?  He then went into this whole story about what we needed to do to get them back.  So crazy.

He does not have many words that he says in a funny/cute way, mostly he is pretty clear.  The hard part in understanding him is that he does not enunciate, so a lot of words sound the same. He does say "mymy" for vitamins, "hunch" for lunch, and few other things like that.

He loves under...under the table, under the desk, just under.  We go to Sunday school, and he goes straight for under the table...get done eating at a restaurant and under the table he goes...he does not want to do something, look for him under the desk.

He loves his "Bubba-Lulu", that is what he calls Seth and Lucy.  He and Lucy are buddies. She tells him what to do, and he does it...😁

His relationship with Seth is a bit different. They are nearly 7 years apart, and in such very different seasons of life. So a bit more fighting. I remember what it was like for my sister and I...we are 5 years apart.  It was a long growing up.... We are friends now, so I know that they will be too. It is just is going to be look different then it does for Ezra and Lucy.

I am so grateful to be his mama!

Wilderness

I have been thinking about wilderness a lot lately.  I am reading Brene Brown's book "Braving the Wilderness" (by reading I should say, I sobbed my way thru the first chapter, put it down for two days, read the 2nd chapter, and now 1 1/2 weeks later it is by bed staring at me), her big concept seems to be that it is in the wilderness places that we grow to be our real selves.  I have also been watching YouTube lectures by Jordan Peterson, he is a Canadian professor and clinical psychologist. All his class lectures are online, and it is amazing to listen to upper level college lectures for free. He talks about wilderness too, only he calls it uncharted territory. It is in the uncharted territory that we face the dragons and we have to defeat the dragon because they have treasure, and we need the treasure to rebuild our city. (So I am way summarizing what he says...I mean that is 12 hour+ lectures I just put into one sentence...so yeah)

Anyway I feel like both of these people are describing the same thing from two different perspectives.

This season for Dave and I is really a wilderness season. God is changing and growing things in us. And we are being called to "uncharted territory". We are asking the question "what do WE want?" in terms of job, and where we live and church, and, and, and...

And it is lonely cause we have to leave our "city", of safe, known places, and peoples, and ways of thinking and approaching the world.  And we are having to on purpose go the empty places, the places on the map that read "here there be dragons...".

And I don't want to do it.  I want to stay home.  I want to stay where I don't need a map because it is easy and safe and I know the way like the back of my hand.

I know it is God who put these two voices in my head right now.  To call me out, to remind me that "all the safe paths lead to stagnation" (From Dune...not and exact quote, but the idea anyway).

When I think about the wilderness I always come back to Hagar. Her wilderness story holds me close. She was running "from" more than she was running "to". Or maybe she thought she was trying to get "home" from the "wilderness".  It does not matter.

Jesus called her.  "Hagar" He called her by name. He saw her, and knew her and that was all that mattered.

So I am going into the wildness lured not by dragon treasure like Bilbo, or hoping "to find myself" but because I want to hear God call my name.  I am going to "Beer-lahai-roi" and with Hagar, I will call His name "Elroi".

39 weeks after

It has been about 39 weeks since Ezra was born. He was born at 39 weeks 4 days...so he has been out about as long as he was in.  Kinda funny to think about it that way.  The time since he was born seems to have gone so much faster than while I was pregnant with him. But then again I kinda can't remember what it felt like to have only two...Didn't I always have Ezra wrapped around me snuggling into my chest?

Life with 3...How did I ever think I was busy before?  I am busy even when I do have anything to do. Seth is in 2nd grade.  It is hard to remember that he was once as small and helpless while stands almost to my shoulder and can read.  I love that he reads, I love listening to him in the back of the car reading the signs that we pass...or sitting net to Lucy reading to her (that does not happen often, but when it does, my heart bursts!). I love that I get to share with him all the stories that I love, that have shaped me.  When we finished reading The Last Battle,  he asked me if we could read The Blue Sword, (YAY) and he is liking it (YAY YAY).  I am counting down till he is old enough for me to start Harry Potter with him. I mean his is 7 now, and while think I could start the first one with him, but by the time we got to #4...well we will wait.

How do I describe Lucy?  She is my crazy, intense, beautiful, Joy!!! She is so much bigger than her 4 1/2 years.  She does dishes, like really does them...washes, rinses, empties and fills the dishwasher...she can do it all! We do best when I stand back and let her do, when I try to control everything then we have drama.

(Note: I am going to publish this even though it is not finished...but I started it so long ago that I don't remember what was going to come next...also Seth is in 4th grade and Lu is in 1st...it is time for a new update...)