dear vava (ten!)

darling vava.

you are ten months old.

it feels like five, tops.  

i can't believe it's been ten months.

you are nothing like we expected.

no, let me amend that.

you are a lot like we expected.  you are beautiful, delicious, and irresistible.

and you are a firecracker.  you have a long fuse ... you're pretty patient with sam, and his rough & tumble hugs, his less-than-generous toy-trades, his big loud laughs.  but sometimes you want what you want and you aren't going to stand for anything less!

like when you want to stand up.  you grab on to whatever is nearest and you pull yourself up.  you're so strong, baby.  and you love to run.  you clutch my index fingers for all you're worth and just go.  crazylegs labelle is what we're calling you these days.  vava VROOM!

you have an adorable wave.  like the queen, on fast forward.  you have the prettiest little leopard-print birthmark.  your hair is just starting to grow in, coarse blond fuzz all over your lovely bald head. you're gorgeous.  

we all love you and everything about you, vava.  sam cheers every time you crawl, or try to walk, or run.  you miss each other if one of you is asleep.  he's teaching you to throw, and you're surprisingly good.  (surprising for your age, yes, but also considering your parents ... we never won any prizes for sports, baby.)

you like to eat finger food, but you hate purees.  you've loved pickles since forever, and today you had a tiny taste of a blizzard ... but i think you still love pickles best ;).

a few nights ago, after we put you in your playpen, we knelt down and peeked through the sides and you were delighted to find our faces there.  you laughed and grinned and high-fived us, and kissed us, and drooled through the mesh.  it was a party.

then last night, well, you wanted us to do that again.  but we didn't understand.  you can't talk yet, baby.  you're fiercely smart - you understand so much, and you communicate a lot, but we didn't understand, so instead of sleeping last night you just cried.  and thrashed.  and got so so angry.  red in the face and yelling.

it took a long time before you went to sleep.  we knew something was wrong, but we couldn't figure it out.  tonight, you batted the side of the mesh really hard, over and over - until your slow mama finally caught on and i realized - you wanted us to play again!

so we did, and you smiled such a triumphant smile.

you're a sweet sweet love, vava-my-darling.  your kisses make me happy like birdsong, like starshine.  thank you for ten wonderful months!

broken (five-minute-friday)

naptime is broken, snapped clean off after 45 minutes, and i try desperately to stitch it back together. 

i whisper into the monitor "good night" and you ask "coze?" and your sister is stirring. 

i climb the stairs, these knees clicking and creaking and with every click i remember the falls; holding you, holding her, landing slam on my left knee, my right.  each knee bore the weight of me holding you both, the scars, the damage.  i'd do it again without thinking twice - without thinking once - catching you comes easier than breathing.

and there is something about mothering that breaks me down, and keeps these knees pressed hard to the floor.  there is so short a time for me to catch you.
i'll never stop holding.
i'll be pulling you on to my lap when you're a freckled eleven, a brawny twenty, a thirty-year-old holding your own newborn.

and i'll keep on crashing to these knees, broken.



(writing prompt broken from lisajobaker.com)

come down!

check out the first few verses of psalm 144.

Blessed be the Lord, my rock, who trains my hands for war, and my fingers for battle; he is my steadfast love and my fortress, my stronghold and my deliverer, my shield and he in whom I take refuge, who subdues peoples under me.  

O Lord, what is man that you regard him, or the son of man that you think of him?

those possessive pronouns kill me.
my!
really?
the Lord, my rock?  my fortress?  my shield?

i think they must have killed david too, the way they come so naturally, even when approaching God Almighty.

because after that collection of pronouns, david bows and shakes his head.  what is man, that you regard him?

can the God of all creation really care about ... me?

the God who is mighty in glory?  above all and in all and by whom all things exist?  the God who spoke the universe into being, who knows the stars by name and has hosts of angels at his command?

Him?

can he really want to be my rock?

and of course, the scriptures stand firm and abolish any insecurity on that point.
God persistently pursues us, from eden to calvary to the doors of death itself ...

david calls, his voice a tiny cry in the echoes of endless eternity,
bow your heavens, o Lord, and come down!

and of course ...

he did.

but that's another story :).

courage

be of good courage.

courage.

not a character quality i've ever been noted for.  i'm definitely the stay-home-with-a-good-book type.  bearding lions in their den?  uh-uh.  let's just stay away from lions' dens altogether.

but i think it's one of the key qualities that i need to develop if i'm going to live a life with my heart turned determinedly toward God.

i've been loving matthew 6 lately.  Jesus points us to the beauty of discretion, of living a gorgeous life in secret.  as my friend's grandfather put it: christians should be better than they appear.  hidden from all but God, our hearts should be devoted to praying - fasting - giving - forgiving.

not for others to see - but for Him to see.

and i think in this twittery facebooky world, it's hard to do.  i want to announce to the world when someone wrongs me.  i don't want to absorb that hurt and quietly forgive them.  i don't want to bear injury in secret.  i want commiseration.  validation.  maybe even a little mocking session, to make myself feel better.
and when i'm doing something good?  i want to announce that too.  hey!  look at me!  i'm being awesome!
but ... that's exactly what hypocrites do.  announce other people's wrongdoing, and trumpet their own good deeds. 

shame on me.
that's not what Jesus would do.
that's not righteous.
that's not loving.
that's self-centred.  me first.  me best.  me always.

so ... why courage?
it takes courage, to live righteously for God alone.  it takes courage to admit - to myself, and to you - that i haven't been.  it takes courage to realize i'm building a legacy of unrighteousness with my self-first actions, and face the fact that i need to tear that down and live righteously.  it takes courage to value the hidden life over the public one ... to live for the one who sees my motives and intentions, not just my facebook status.

i was thinking about what God's facebook might look like.  i'm not trying to be irreverent or anything, but i think of the things he could say vs. the things he would say, in keeping with his character.
he could say:  seriously!?  she asks me for kids and then complains about them when she has them?!  gah. grow up, pansycakes!
but he'd more likely say: lovin' my peeps!
or something like that.  :)

because love covers a multitude of sins.  it doesn't bring them to light for everyone to see.  it covers.  protects.  bears.  heals.

 and that takes a brave heart.

the narrative that is

i've been thinking a lot about nature lately - innateness, characteristics - that kind of nature.

some writey friends and i have a fb group where we chat about our stories - our characters - the worlds we create.  we're kind of a diverse group, but one of the challenges we all face in creating our stories is crafting a world that makes sense within its own context.  i mean - the world in a story can be anything - fantastical and magical and wondrous in ways ours isn't - but it still must be true to itself in order for a reader to sink into the story and follow along.  readers can suspend disbelief while in a story-world, but if the story-world is false to itself, that strikes a jarring note and pops the reader right out of the imaginary world. 

(as an aside, i think it's interesting that truth and consistency are foundational concepts in narrative - and as a Christian, i see God's character woven into the very way we understand stories.  but i digress.)

so, i was thinking about evolution.  what this world would look like if it was formed by the big bang.  what kind of universe that would be.

and it made me smile, because it's kind of a funny fiction.  i think it's the kind of world where we wouldn't be surprised to open our cupboards and find our ingredients had turned into a fully formed cake.  where we could encounter a 30-storey brick building in the middle of nowhere and reasonably assume it had emerged from the ground as a result of rocks and solar energy and time.  the kind of world where i would open my purse at the end of the day and see that my pencils and notebook had jostled together in such a way that now the mona lisa stared up at me off the page.  the kind of world where we regularly pull letters from the scrabble bag and find they form a tiley copy of war and peace.  the kind of world where babies actually do appear in cabbage patches, and where logical things with laws and innate orderliness just form from chaos.  the kind of world where a bulldozer drives through a junkyard and a camaro forms in its wake from the scraps left behind.

but that isn't the world we see, is it.

we know it, we breathe it, we rise and sleep to its rhythms ... this is the world of creation.  things are made - built - created.  anything that is complex must be put together by intelligent intention.  the only thing that occurs without intervention is decay.  the very nature of nature goes against the possibility of a big bang as a creative event.  (i should note that i'm arguing against the big bang on its own - not as a tool in the hand of an intelligent designer.)

i'd love to go to sleep at night, reasonably expecting that the eggs and cheese in the fridge would appear as an omelette for breakfast.

if we lived in a world where bits and pieces arranged themselves into order, a big bang creation would make sense.  but ... we live in a world where bits and pieces tend only to decay. 
and i know.
i have a toddler.
he leaves a trail of crumbs and pieces after every meal.  but those crumbs don't reconvene into a bowl of fragrant, buttery mashed potatoes.  not ever.  no - they turn grey and mash and separate further.  (yuck.)

it's really obvious, isn't it, when we think about things we find in the wilderness.  say we're in the middle of absolute nowhere and we come across cave-drawings - maybe a few stick figures.  we know someone made those, because in the world we experience there is an obvious difference between untouched nature and nature that has encountered humankind.  if our friend looked at the same cave-drawings and insisted they spontaneously appeared due to the presence of some drawing material, possible energy in the cave, and the passage of time - we'd think our friend was nuts.  because in this world, basic elements are only ever made more complex by a do-er's hand.   

that's the narrative that is.
it makes sense within its own context.

God has woven His nature into the universe.  creation is innate.

three days' drive

i always imagined being a mom with my mom.

my nana and grampie were really close to us - when i was really young, they came over almost every day, and when i was 4, we moved into a house just 2 houses away from them.  i remember being at their place as much as at our own.

i guess when i was a kid i just thought that was what my life would be like as a mom too.  with my mom in the kitchen alongside me - hers, mine, whichever, and my kids hearing her stories and growing up eating her cooking and rummaging through her cupboards for toblerones or liquorice. :)

it feels weird, when i stop and think about it, to have this house so empty and silent through the day.  i wish i had my mom to laugh with over the funny and silly things sam does, the hilarious noises vava makes.  i wish i was chatting with her about the inconsequential everyday things - the great sausages i got at the deli, and the neighbours' new truck, and the best way to keep squirrels off the deck.  i wish there was someone who really would pop in and love us even if the laundry wasn't folded and sam was tracking mud in and out ten times a day.  i wish there was someone who would call out "love you!" even if i was just running upstairs to get sam out of his crib.

i never imagined i would be raising my kids so far away from my family.  it's really hard.  and i make so many mistakes, and they loom large when i look around and there's just us.  no one else to say "pfft, they'll be fine" when i start to worry.  no one else to hug my kids and be proud of them when they succeed at little things, or to laugh at them so much that they find it easy to laugh at themselves.

the happy, full busyness of a big family is such a gift.

wrap your arms around the people who sit at your table and look at their beautiful faces and put that picture on your mental desktop forever.

i miss you, mom. some days i just want to hop in the car and drive and drive and drive until i get to your door.

xo

snapshot

dear sam and vava:
today is may 29, 2013.  your new cousin miquella was born today!  it feels like the two of you were just born yesterday, so i wanted to take a minute to savour what you're like before i blink and you're standing in front of me with your own kids in your arms.

sam, you are almost 27 months old ... 2 years and 3 months! wow.  you're sitting on the couch right now, watching the incredibles before bed.  you love the running and throwing and laughing. 
this afternoon you came running across the yard to me, gleeful, with a dandelion in each hand.  i was thrilled - was my baby boy actually bringing me flowers, unprompted by papa?  you ran fast, zoomed up onto the deck and stood in front of me.  you yelled something excitedly, then stuffed a dandelion into both of your ears, and spread your arms wide.  "ta-dah!"  you announced.  you were so proud of yourself.  i love every silly inch of you :).
after supper tonight, vava was lying on the floor, kicking her feet and waving her arms.  you helped her roll over and over, all by yourself.  she loved it.  you're such a helper!
a minute ago, you looked up from the movie and we had this funny chat.
     me: sam, do you want to go to bed?
     you (adamantly): no!
     me: sam, do you want to put on your jams?
     you (adamantly): no!
     me: sam, do you want mama to read you your bedtime story?
     you (adamantly): no!
     me (laughing): sam, do you want a pinch on the bum?
     you (compliantly): yes.
oh sam.  i love you so so much.  thanks for being so much fun.

vava, you are seven and a half months old.  you are absolutely amazing.  you can say mama, papa, bye-bye, hi, boo, bottle, and ham (which means sam).  you wave whenever you hear hi or bye-bye, and you clap when someone says yay.  you can roll over and over, and you love to take steps while i hold your hands.  you adore music and singing and whistling.  you're really content and you like to just hang out.   
earlier, you were sitting on a blanket on the bathroom floor.  you discovered that you can put your hands on the linoleum and pull yourself forward.  you scooted the whole way across the bathroom like that.  you little champ.

so.  that's what you're like right now.  delicious and adorable and wonderful.  and sometimes we drive each other crazy, but always always always we're happy to be together.

time to put on your jams ... 

cute scraps

yesterday, vava gave me her first kisses.  we were out for dinner at our friends' place, and she decided it was the opportune time.  i loved it.

sam has started this new thing, where he says no really long and drawn out.  i was wondering where he heard it, until my neighbour said it to him this morning when he saw him climbing.  nooooooooooo.  haha.  little copier.

the other night, one of the kids cried out in their sleep.  i wasn't sure who, so i tiptoed in to check on them.  they were both sound asleep, and facing each other from their separate cribs on opposite ends of the room.  i tucked their blankets around them and left ... too much cuteness to bear :).

sam calls boots "doots" and shoes "shoo-iss".  he loves bubbles and calls them b'balls.

vava's a pro at saying words that begin with b - bye-bye, bottle, and boo! :D  she wants to do everything her big brother does, and i think it won't be too long before she's scooting around after him. 

when they wake up from nighttime or naps, they just want to be in each others' faces, giggling and hugging.  i love these nuggets!

balloon

you precious amalgamation

precariously knit

shreds of skin and bone

you hum with life

shot-through with veins of red and blue

how vibrant and vivid and impossible you are.

i want to wrap you up inside my jacket

and keep you there, a joey.

instead, i let the long string unfurl

you tug and arc and pull

higher in the wind 

and the beckoning blue sky

i can't

i must

you grow

i cry

good

bye

my

d

   a

    r

       l

            i

                 n

                      g

they forgot me (shereadstruth)

SheReadsTruth challenged us to read the book of hosea with our eyes open for God's heart.  

the more i read it with that filter on my mind, the more surprised i am.  13:6 in particular took my breath away - because He's hurt!  can God be ... hurt?  i never thought about it like that before.  but He can.  He is. 

check this out:

"... they were filled, and their heart was lifted up; therefore they forgot me."  isn't it strange?  there's almost a note of something forlorn there at the end.  "they forgot me."  the sort of thing a fifth child might say after being abandoned at pizza hut ;).

but hosea provided for his wife - everything she needed.  and when she had her fill of grain and gold, she forgot him completely.  she was busy with her lovers - what did she need her husband for?   everything - her food, her clothes, her jewels - passed through her hands, and she didn't stop to think "this came from my husband!"  or even "thanks, hosea."  just - nothing.  she forgot him.



and he didn't quit.  he kept on trying to get her back.  he kept pursuing her.  gently.  fiercely.  in love.



God is the same way!



everything i have and enjoy - the very breath in my lungs, the heart beating in my chest - is a gift from Him.  my kids.  my husband.  food.  shelter.  joy.  friendship.  sunshine.  and instead of turning to him in thanks and delight, i treat these things as if they've always been mine. 



and i'm ashamed to admit that i'm worse than petulant if i find myself without something i think i ought to have.



but still He loves me.  clearly, not because of good in me (i'm gomer!), but because of His joyful, generous, blessed, loving, committed heart.



i think that's what gets me at baptisms and weddings.  there's this moment when two declare "we are one.  we bind ourselves to each other!" and it's for better or worse, for always.  i cry like a teenage girl.  because i know there isn't any one of us who deserve that kind of commitment from Him.  but He gives it anyway.



"they forgot me."



you know in gone with the wind, how scarlett is always pining after ashley, even though rhett is the one taking care of her?  and the whole frustrating awfulness is that anyone can see scarlett isn't worth rhett's effort, but he still tries and tries and tries, even though she's selfish and vain.  and then in the end, she realizes what she has in rhett, and the weight of his love overwhelms her - but she's too late.  she's too late.  she rushes to him and confesses her love, but his heart has been broken by her faithlessness, and there's nothing left in it for her.



i keep expecting God to be like rhett, and to just wash his hands of his faithless, selfish, idolatrous people.



wouldn't you?



but He doesn't.  bless Him.  He doesn't!  He still loves.  it still hurts him to be forgotten. 



there's so much more.  He doesn't stand idly by and let his people wallow in their sin.  He roars and fights and conquers.  but that little verse just stuck with me - that cry of  His hurting heart.

street sweet

couldn't go to bed without popping online and telling you about our night!  we went out for a walk, and the street looked empty.  we didn't see anyone the whole length of the street.  but we started out anyway.

when we got to the second-last block, two girls came around the corner and started walking up the street.  when they passed us, we said hi - they said hi back - and then smiled all recognize-y and said "sup?"  :D 
and on our way back, we passed them at their usual post, and stopped for a quick chat.  they asked if we were sisters :)  we told them we get that a lot.

oh, i'm so glad they were comfortable chatting with us!  i just want to be friends.
and i feel like they feel like they know us - at least, we're familiar -
and they like us!
and i think they get that we like them too.

God bless you, girls! 

not the answer / the answer

First, check out this article.

Reading it, I was appalled at the solutions proposed.
Money is not the answer!
Yes, it's part of the answer.
Counselling is part of the answer.
Clean drinking water must certainly be part of the answer.
But none of these are the answer.

Like any sunday-school jerk, I know the right answer.
Always, always, the right answer is Jesus.

But not in a platitudinous here-eat-my-religion way.
In a real-live heart-and-hands sort of way.  Jesus.

Jesus, who left his glory and beauty and radiance and came to sin-soaked planet earth to rescue all of us who don't even know how to cry out for help.

Jesus, who reached out his own hands to touch everyone who came to him in need, to heal them and forgive them and bless them.

Jesus, who was accused of eating with sinners.  (Thank God!  He pressed that accusation to his heart as a badge of joy.  Eat with sinners?  He did, and does, and will forever.)

Jesus, who came and put flesh and bones on theology and stood on this ground with those beautiful feet.

His hands?  His feet?
That's what we're called to be, right?

I think communities like this need Jesus.  In the forgiven, grateful flesh of the church.  And He tells us to, doesn't he - the challenge rings out in Matthew 25:31-40 -

 (v40) Truly, I say to you, as much as you did it to one of the least of these my brothers, you did it to me.

I think, christians, we need to stop playing church.  Take the money set aside for the next sunday-school barbecue and send a willing person - family - group to live in Neskantaga.  To live and help and listen and care and eat and drink and bless and worship there, in Jesus' name.

No amount of mental-health counselling is going to fill the kind of gaps in a woman that committed love can fill.  No amount of emergency-response-coordinating will take a despairing addict and give him a reason to live.  No Health Canada response will heal a community where 10% of the population attempts suicide in a month.

Oh Jesus-people.  We need to have fewer words of excuse and be filled with the Word of life.  We need less bread in our grocery cart and more Living Bread in our actions. 

Pray for Casey Moonias.  Pray for Neskantaga.  Pray for our own couch-potato Christianity and the courage to say yes.

In Jesus' name.