Secrets

"Sweetheart come here, what did He tell you today?"

In the morning my children trundle breakfast bowls into the dishwasher and race to the black couch. They pass Bibles from lap to lap until everyone has the one with their favorite pictures. When they read it's a jumble. Jack sings Zachaeus, Lulie shouts, "Dat bad," and pounds her favorite picture of Goliath. Jane shushes them both between stories. Sometimes they lull into quiet whispers.

Then they find secret places to pray.

Jack crawls under the wardrobe. Janie squeezes into a small shelf on a nightstand. Lulie toddles down the hallway.




Later they tell me about prayer.

"He told me when I think about something I wanna do that's bad not to do it," Jane says. "I said, 'Will you help me?' and He said, 'YES.'"

Jack squeezes my hand. "I said, 'Thank-you for dying for me SO MUCH,'" he whispers, "and He said, 'I love to die for you SO MUCH.'"

I find Lulie down the hall calling, "I love you, God. I love you, GOD."




And we call in the day with secrets of love.

I love you, God.


***


Thankfulness:

4. baby rolling in my belly

5. ribs numb, spread wide to encircle the child

6. husband who makes breakfast oatmeal

7. twenty minutes of bare feet before I pull on maternity support hose, again

8. maternity support hose

9. my doctor, the who came middle of the night to deliver Lulu

10. a still moment before children pad down the hallway into the morning

Sorrrryyyy, Momma

Anyone else had a few days like this?


"You can't hide from God things," Jack negotiates a mouthful of oatmeal, "Yeah, because He knows what you have done." With a pause and a swallow, "He sees it INSIDE you."

Morning light shines across our table as the boy shovels in more gruel. Inside of me. I probably look all scribbled green. Green and no guile. I suppose like Lulie I'm pigtails and green tummy to God. And sorrrryyyy. Most days I still can't believe he forgives me over and over and OVER for all my faults. For not being perfect. I'm not perfect. I sigh.

The morning settles around us in breakfast bowls and puddles of milk. And as grace swoops down, I breathe in the slow moments. Children chatter, one helps Lulie scoop bites. Even as I sigh, I long to obey this God. He forgives me.

Follow Me

"Momma, you can say, 'Follow me,'" Jack says, "because I will follow you all the days of your life." He tilts his head, grins. Follow me. My boy leans on one elbow and crunches another bite of cereal. I swallow more coffee.




Later, I watch them trounce through damp morning grass and clamor up rocks. They pull dandelions, squish spiders, trowel their fingers in the stream. They follow each other. One plops a pine cone in the water, and all three lay tummy down on the bridge, watch it float by. Another finds a dead bee, all fuzz and wings, well, one wing anyway. We save it to show Daddy.

Without meaning to they step into the day, all wet grass and muddy trails, tilting their heads like their mother and grinning like their father.

"Everyone when he is fully trained will be like his teacher."
~Luke 6:40

Follow me. Sort of takes my breath away.

Poor Baby

Poor baby. Croup blossomed into a drippy soggy wheezing cold. Cough. Fever. Lethargic eyes half open. She laid on the couch for four days until we hauled in to the doctor. Something just didn't seem right.

As it turns out, the human ear can hold an ENORMOUS amount of wax. After a five minute excavation per ear we uncovered double ear infections. (And I mean EXCAVATION. I was seriously FLOORED. One piece was a half inch long!)

In any case, praise the LORD for Motrin and antibiotics. Lulie's like a brand-new girl.


*** Oh, and THANK-YOU for all your name suggestions! I have a feeling we will be taking our list to the hospital, so seriously, keep 'em coming. :)

Croup

Croup stinks. After two LONG nights I think we're finally over the worst of it.

And just to make my sweet mother smile, you'll be glad to know that Lulu successfully used and flushed all the rest of our Kleenex. To her credit she is now holding the box saying, "Bad, bad, BAD. Dat naughty." This is after wetting down her head with the cold air humidifier. Think she's feeling better?

Ok. Another day.
:)

Breech Baby

No-make-up-me and sweet baby. 35 wks.





Doc says she's breech. My ribs agree.





So pretty please, little miss, do me a somersault.

The rest of you feel free to say a little prayer. :)

Holding My Baby

I get up. A living room floor littered with games and pre-breakfast fun greets me. I pour oats and flax and berries, start the microwave, call for my children. The two little ones sweep Chutes and Ladders into the Candy Land box and knock a deck of cards out of the cabinet.

Little black baby doll in tow, Jane bounds into the kitchen. "Hey Momma," she hugs her baby, "can I keep holding my baby before I clean up, and while I clean up, and after I clean up?" She smiles at baby. "Because the simple things really matter," she says.

Simple things.

"Sure." I smile too. The baby in my belly kicks. I reach for a coffee cup, "Sure, honey." She's already out directing traffic.

Simple things.

What are your simple things?

The Palace

"Come into my palace," she says. And the remnants of a garden transform like Cinderella's pumpkin. "Come on, you guys." Old tomato stakes turn into javelin. Gray sunflower skeletons rise into the walls of a palace. They stomp and scuffle through dirt, raise clouds of dust. "It's the best part," she says, the dust. Lulie scoops up piles earth, puffs them down into her lap. Scoop, scoop, more dust.

From far off I hear Jane call, "Momma, you're highly favored!"

Later, freshly scrubbed, my children fall into bed. I tuck them in like fresh laundry, smell their sweet skin. As I turn to pull shut the door Jack calls, "Sleep good, my angel!" And I tip-toe down the hall, all my world a palace.

The Beating Game

{A Tutorial on How to Win}


"'I beat you," Janie chirps. "I won." All blue eyes and grin, she reaches for the leftover olives.

"Nuh uh," Jack garbles. Burrito bulges in his cheeks. "I turned OFF the beating game," he says and opens his eyes real wide.

"So." Jane mimics the eyes, "I still beat you."

"I turned OFF the beating game."

"So."

"Well, you finished first anyway," I say. "You didn't tell him you were racing, honey." I reach for her plate and sidle it into the dishwasher.

Jane momentarily interrupts the stand-off, "Well Momma, that's the only way I think I can win."

Haha, anyone else remember any handy tricks to winning?

Mordecai

"Here, just reach out your golden septor when you want someone to come." Jane grabs an old pink hanger out of Jack's hands, and points it at Lulie, "See, like this. You can come now Lulie." Lucy grins and barrels up onto the hearth, a pile of royal pillows and blankies.

"I wanna be Queen Esther," Jack says.

"You can't."

"I wanna be Esther!"

After a spell of yelling and haranguing on the pink hanger Jane settles the matter, "You can't. It's like how I can have babies and you can't."

"Because she's a girl and you're a boy," I call from the kitchen.

Jane raises her eyebrows, "It's like that. It doesn't really make sense."

"Oh, ok." Jack plays Mordecai.

Prospectin'

Jane and Jack prospect the yard. An old sprinkler joint from the repair bin, last year's gooseberry netting, cardboard, branches, leaves, a hand trowel, the occasional marble or bead or smooth stone, they gather treasure.




Lulie knows the game. Dirt and all.




I squeeze into a child-sized picnic seat and warm my face in the sun. "I'm exhausted."

"Hey Momma," Janie looks up, "ask God, if you want to be tough." I watch her eyes, smooth lakes of blue. "Have you asked Him?"

Oh. Nope. I was just gonna suffer through. Silly me.

Jack

"Watch out," Jack calls, "there's a berry strong person coming up the stairs."

Goggles on, baby bottle and hack saw in tow, he pokes his head in the kitchen, "We're playing DOCTOR." He raises both eyebrows, "I'm the DOCTOR." Still for only a moment, he rounds the corner off to work. No doubt Jane or Lulie awaits his miracle cure.

Between peanut butter sandwiches, floors to sweep, dishes and laundry and piles of story books, the day lilts by. Jack asks if we can call the new baby Babe-the-Blue-Ox. He offers to lend Lulie his toothbrush.

When I tuck him into bed I lean down eye to eye with this boy. He brushes stray hairs from my face, presses my cheeks between small hands. I watch those blue eyes. "Who are you gonna be someday, Jack?"

He smooths my hair, pauses. "I'm gonna be like Daddy someday."

Of course, Daddy. I see it there guileless and unflappable.

I remember how Janie called out this morning, "Look, I'm dressed," and raised both shoulders. And as I stare now at my boy I still hear his remark, "Mmm. You're pretty, Jane."

Yes, like Daddy.

Good Guys

"Momma," Janie tilts a mess of curls to one side, "do you know for sure we're gonna turn out to be good guys?"

Good guys. She pictures Daddy and me. I pause, reach for another slice of bread, spread out peanut butter to the corners. I remember how I lugged Lulie out of the pantry a week ago, peeled back her pretty eyelid frantic to find a tiny contact lens, how I combed the house with a flashlight and my bad eyes. I looked and looked and sobbed, shouted for everyone to get their jammies on already. The invisible lens takes a month to replace. I can still feel the sinus headache I had when we left for the doctor the next day.

And even so, Lulie passed the vision test, with the wrong contact. Passed.

I wonder if I passed my test. Of faith.

Children learn foremost by passive observation. Ken Ortiz's words ring in my ears, take my breath away.

Jane

Just like her father, she reminds me to brush away the worries of the day.

In the Blankets

"How did you get writing on your neck?" Daddy asks Jane.

"Oh, it's probably because I had a pen under my pillow last night, and it wouldn't write on my arm."






The days page by and we play. Blankets and forts.






"Hey, I have cowboy underwear on, and I'm wearing a cowboy hat!" Jack strides in. Sweats and a dress tie complete the look.

Later, I notice a red waistband, "Your unders are on backwards the tag's in front."

"I'll fix 'em tomorrow," he says and faces the day with a smile.





Lulie's only lost a couple of contacts. One was tucked up in her eyelid above the iris. Apparently, she sports quite an acreage up there. At least it wasn't dried and crunchy when we found it. :) Speaking of crunchy, any of you contact people ever re-hydrated a dried up contact and used it? It looks fine.






And every day the children smile, laugh, test the boundaries, and rebound with ease. Resilient. I take note. Days pass like tides washing in and out. I'm more tired and worry less.






Miracles.

"Miracles are a retelling in small letters of the very same story which is written across the whole world in letters too large for some of us to see." - C.S. Lewis

The Management

"I don't know where it came from," she says, "but I put it on my face like make-up." Glitter, it's good for almost anything.

In other news, dilating drops smell like violets AND so do my hands. You'd think I'd be a pro after a modest 47 drops of various sorts in the last five days, haha. I also placed and removed Lulie's new contact lens four times today. Yay! It's clumsy but hey, we're doin' it! :) Since I'm on a roll as amateur med student I also super-glued my left index finger after a bad encounter with the bread knife. Worked GREAT.

{sigh}

Another good day.

These Days...

"Look, I'm dressed," Jane announces.

Jack looks up from a huge floor puzzle, "Hmm. You're pretty, Jane."

She smiles. Half across the room, I feel pretty too.






It's dinner. "Toots are not appropriate dinner conversation, Jack," I say. "Jack?"

Janie raises her eyebrows, "You just whisper, 'Excuse me.'" She smears mayo onto her bread, glances at him.

Jack's all mirth. Sitting up on one knee he leans on an elbow, "Well," he pauses, "I said, 'Excuse me,' in my heart."






"Jane, Janie," Jack calls, "wanna play Jesus-dying-on-the-cross, where I'm Jesus?"

"Yeah, come on!"

Before I know it, they haul off to Pilate, Herod, a cross, resurrection, miracles at my elbow.

Daddy

Daddy makes everything all better.

A Little Glob of Love

It's a tumult in the bathroom. Pudgy feet pad down the hallway, and Lulie rounds the corner. Someone said, "Toothpaste," and Lucy's on a dead-run. Half-pajama-clad, she's shouting, "Me! Me!" In the bathroom Jack's usually on the counter dispensing water. Janie polices various toothpaste tubes; miscellaneous clothes scatter the floor. A squashed toilet paper roll is discarded in the corner.

Jane grins at Lulie, "Oh, you're coming in joy," she says. And in a moment of Biblical theater she exclaims, "Your faith has made you well. Here let's put more yummies on." Lulie's toothbrush is only partly saturated in spit, but she beams as Jane plops a generous blob of paste right on top.

Simple Pleasures

Take it slow. The moments pass so quickly.