Drunk Camel

Matthew always turns into a camel just before bed. A camel about to set out on a long journey. Across a desert. A parched camel. This is why he still wears Pull Ups to bed.

Tonight he chugged a bunch of water and then still wanted to drink from the faucet when I brushed his teeth. After several long slurps from the running water, I turned it off. "I want more!" He told me.

"Dude," I said, "you've had enough. You're going to flood your diaper."

"Yeah, Matthew," his brother chimed in. "You're going to get drunk."

"What?" I asked.

"He's gonna get drunk."

Stifling my laughter I questioned, "Drunk? How?"

"By drinking too much water," Garrett told me like I was an idiot.

"Honey, you get drunk from drinking alcohol and Matthew hasn't had any of that." Because that's all I need, my five-year-old running around telling people that his little brother got drunk.

Still I Judge Success By How I'm Dressing

I've been thinking a great deal about success.

I graduated from high school with a 3.98 GPA. In college I earned a 3.2 and while that's certainly not something to write home about, I managed to earn it while working part time and participating in a gaggle of theatrical productions--typically behind the scenes which I promise you was usually a lot more work.

I thought I would do something important. And by important, I thought that I would be something big. I wanted to see my name in lights. I wanted, at the very least, to see my name on the chalk board on the first day of school and not because I was still the student who couldn't shut up.

Advanced Placement.

Academic honors.

That is what I was used to and that is what I assumed would always define me.

I'd get married. We'd have two incomes. I'd own a home I didn't lose and we'd have a retirement plan that didn't involve one of us working until the age of 92. Academic success would lead to career success which would lead to financial success.

But compared to what? Compared to my neighbors* who own two homes, drive sports cars, employ a gardener, have a recreational vehicle, regularly check their nice retirement account and wear an expensive wardrobe? Compared to someone in Uganda or Honduras or Haiti who works ten times harder than me just to feed her family? Is she less successful than my neighbor?

Success is the achievement of something desired, planned or attempted. It is also the gaining of fame or prosperity. And I wonder, when did my working definition become the latter? When did success become about earthly prosperity? When did I start comparing myself to everyone around me and why do I struggle so greatly with maintaining a heavenly perspective?

I get turned around
And I mistake my happiness for blessing
I'm blessed as the poor
Still I judge success by how I'm dressing


I don't want to judge success by the clothes I wear or the car I own. I want to "Do what the Lord commands and follow His teachings...Then you will be a success no matter what you do or where you go." 1 Kings 2:3 CEV.

Success is the achievement of something desired, planned or attempted. I just need to remember that the only success that truly matters will be granted or denied at the gates of heaven. May my Master reply, "Well done, good and faithful servant." (Matt. 25:21) and not, "Depart from me. I never knew you." (Matt. 7:23) My Lord does not ask me to be famous or to prosper financially.

He simply asks that I live for Him.

So keep 'em coming these lines on the road
And keep me responsible be it a light or heavy load
And keep me guessing with these blessings in disguise
And I'll walk with grace my feet and faith my eyes.**




*Not my actual neighbors. Just a compilation of people I know. From around. From TV. Whatever.
**Lyrics= Faith My Eyes by Caedmon's Call

Dry v. Wet

Matthew is completely potty trained during the day. Nighttime, however, is a coin flip. He's been dry five out of the last six mornings. He also had really good days when he woke up dry. The morning that he woke up wet was his worst day. Is this a coincidence?

I hope I don't even need to say that we never get upset with him when he wakes up wet. But, when he wakes up dry, we say a lot of "hooray" and "I'm so proud of you." Could this be making him have fantastic days? Do I just need to be a one woman cheer squad where my son is concerned?

"Good morning! I'm so glad you woke up today. Good job, you!"

Because I'll do it. I totally will.

I'll even invest in pompoms.

The Birds and the Bees: Or, in this case, only the bees

I know adults who are full on terrified of bees. I'm talking a "Run around the backyard, screaming like a toddler, throwing their own children at the insect in order to protect themselves" kind of terrified. And I get it. Sometimes it's legit. My brother's allergic to bees and one time, at Sea World, one of them flew up under his sunglasses and stung his face while we were all on a ride. Dude looked like Jabba the Hutt for a week.

                                         

He was all kinds of swollen, is what I'm saying. But when you're not allergic to bees and you run around howling like a crazy person or throw other people in front of you to be the sacrificial stinging victim, it's a bit ridiculous.

I've been stung more times than I can remember, let alone count. And, yes, it hurts. It does. I'm not gonna pretend that a bee sting feels like getting licked by a puppy. But, really, we ought to be feeling more sorry for the bee. "I'm feeling threatened. I know! I'll use my defense mechanism. I'll sting this unsuspecting (or in some cases highly suspecting as he was just prancing around the yard like a buffoon batting me away with his fist) individual to protect myself since he is, well, 500 times bigger than me. And then I'll DIE."

Most bees are just buzzing around, trying to make an honest living. Collecting pollen. Being half of the dynamic duo better known as The Birds and the Bees. Most of them just want to be left alone.

They don't need you flapping your arms defensively at them. In fact, a bee once explained to me that they are actually more likely to sting you in such a case. Go figure.

They don't need you sacrificing your firstborn. Or your husband. Or a total stranger. So stop throwing other people in front of them. Or hiding behind someone else. It's only necessary if you're carrying Epinephrine and would have to spend a significant portion of your life looking like a cross between a toad and the Cheshire Cat*.

For the record, my brother, who is allergic to bees, doesn't throw other people in front of him when he sees one. I'm glad. Because I love my future, as of yet unborn, neices and/or nephews. I don't want them being thrown at the bees. And I've heard that human beings being chucked in their general direction actually does make them feel threatened. Go figure.

My children are afraid of bees. But they're five and three and are also afraid of thunder and the fact that gremlins might live in our closets. Matthew calls them butterflies and runs screaming whenever he sees one. "Ahhh! It's a butterfly! Help! Help me, Mommy! Save me from the scary butterfly!" His fear is not based in any sense of reality because he's never been stung. I don't even know that he's ever had it explained to him that bees are capable of stinging.

Garrett has been stung three times. I think. And he's a total drama llama like his mama so his bee stings have been akin to being told he's dying and has one day to live. He is receiving this news while simultaneously being eaten alive by army ants, struck by lightning, and force fed mashed potatoes.

But again. He's five. He's never once actually died from a bee sting and, despite a bit of swelling, does not have to carry around an Epipen. Still, he's starting to become a rational human being and now, when he sees a bee, he just calmly turns on his heels and walks back into the house.

So let's stop giving the bees such a hard time. They're just trying to carry pollen from one place to another. They really do like to mind their own business. And, unless they're a swarm of hundreds, they can really do very little damage.

But don't even get me started on wasps. Wasps are demonic and must be killed.

*That is how Roger Ebert once described Jabba the Hutt.

Week 16: Our Planet, Earth

It seemed a broad subject to me. One could take a picture of anything, really. Mountains, clouds, dirt, waterfall, landfill. You name it.

I was working out in my garden on Saturday. A ghetto garden. Seriously. A white trash garden. An old kiddie pool filled with dirt. An old tub filled with dirt. We're going to look like a bad episode of Hoarders. But anyway.

Bees were buzzing all around. It is the Beehive State after all. 

So I grabbed the camera.

And I captured this.

Love

He didn't really nap yesterday.

So today it was needed. You could hear it in his whines, see it in the glassy film over his eyes. But he didn't want it.

I offered to climb into bed with him.

It was dark.

The fan was on.

He threw a leg over one of mine and cuddled into my body.

I traced a finger over the bridge of his nose, around one eye, across his forehead, around the other eye. I gently moved it down his cheek, across his lower lip, and up to his forehead again. Repeat.

We stayed that way for a long time. My fingers stopped tracing his face. I nearly fell asleep. He let out a loud sigh and was, otherwise, perfectly still. His eyes didn't flutter.

I watched him sleep.

Then I whispered, "I love you."

His little mouth barely moved as he replied, "I wuv you."

Somewhat startled to find that he wasn't sleeping I smiled and said softly, "Are you still awake?" There was no response. "Matthew, are you sleeping?" Nothing. "Can you open your eyes?" Not a sound. I stayed for several more minutes and he never moved a muscle, never blinked, never made a peep.

"Okay, then." I turned to get off his bed. "I love you."

"I wuv you," he whispered again.

I'm convinced that he was somehow subconsciously responding to me. And my heart is happy.

Two Years

Dear Matthew,

Happy Adoption Day, Baby. I can't believe it's been two full years since we stood in the judge's chambers and made everything official. Two years of loving you and hugging you and holding you without worrying that it was all going to end.

Whenever I'm downtown--which in Salt Lake is actually uptown and I sometimes can't get over the confusion in my own mind--and I drive past the courthouse, I want to pull over, get out of the car, and do some kind of jig. But I don't think you can park directly in front of the courthouse so I'd have to drive around until I found a place, lug you and your brother out of the car, and traipse up the steps and, well, I just feel like by the time I went through all that the moment would have passed.

But I think of that day. I think of meeting our Utah lawyer for the first time, nearly fourteen months after you were born, because everything was all tied up in California until then. I think of how surreal it all felt and how it probably took more than a year for me to stop looking over my shoulder for court orders and legal documents and anything at all that would undo our family.

We went to The Olive Garden to celebrate and you cried almost the entire time. But you'd been very well behaved at the courthouse that morning so we really couldn't complain. Garrett seemed to heave an audible sigh of relief and will still, from time to time, say, "The judge said Matthew could stay."

The judge said Matthew could stay.


It was really a bunch of parents finally reaching an agreement. A bunch of paperwork decreeing this or that. A total of five lawyers and two judges. But on that day, two years ago, a judge did, indeed, say that you could stay.

And my soul glorifies the Lord.

Happy Adoption Day! I love you.

-Mommy

Week 15: In Flight

When this week's theme was posted, I thought I'd see tons of helicopters and airplanes. I guess that growing up in the home of a helicopter pilot just naturally makes my mind go to aviation places. But when the pictures started rolling in, they were mostly of birds. And by birds I mean actual feathered birds, not helicopters.

We live pretty close to a regional airport so I parked on the side of the road and just started snapping shots of helicopters and planes landing and taking off. The weather was perfect--super cloudy--so I didn't have to contend with glares or weird shadows.

This was my favorite picture of the bunch. I love that both the helicopter and the flag are flying.

Stupid Things People Say

It was only yesterday that I was made aware of this tweet from the Catholic League.

"Lesbian Dem Hilary Rosen tells Ann Romney she never worked a day in her life. Unlike Rosen, who had to adopt kids, Ann raised 5 of her own."

And. Just. Wow. There's so much there I don't even know quite where to start. Or end. Or even, really, what to say in the middle.

My husband had this response.

" What you may have intended as a tweet against Rosen is HIGHLY insulting to those of us who have adopted children into our families.  They are not any less loved or cared for because they do not share our DNA.  My stay at home wife works hard and with no less devotion concerning our adopted son than she does in regard to our biological one.  Your statements were offensive, shallow, and ill-conceived . . . unless of course you believe that your adoption into God's family (Romans 8:15/Galatians 4:5) renders you a second class citizen in comparison to the physical descendants of Abraham."


The two sentence tweet is such an absurd non sequitur it's ridiculous. It seems to say that Ann certainly has worked because she raised five children. And I'll be the very first person to say, "Heck yes raising kids is hard work!" But the clause at the beginning of the second sentence then implies that because Rosen has adopted her children, she doesn't have to work to raise them.

I'm too busy rolling my eyes around in their sockets to be overly offended. The ignorance knows no bounds.

Since the Catholic church takes a stance against birth control and abortion, you'd think this tweeter would be in support of adoption, not making disparaging remarks against anyone who's made the choice to build their family in such a way.

Apparently not. Apparently, the person who wrote this tweet only finds biological families valid. I guess he took a Sharpie to his Bible and blotted out the command to care for orphans and widows.

1 Peter 5:14

Obviously parts of the Bible were written within a framework of historical context. Nevertheless, let's bring some of those incredible customs back.

I'm reviving 1 Peter 5:14.

"Greet one another with a kiss of love..."

Can you even imagine the mayhem in church on Sunday mornings when I start doing this?

My husband is not on board with the plan.

I cannot imagine why.

A Tale of Two Stuffed Animals

His name is Monkey.

He is Matthew's favorite stuffed friend.

Caterpillar or Puppy will do in a pinch.

But Monkey's where it's at.

He went missing about three weeks ago.

Strangely, Matthew never said anything. So, obviously, we didn't point out the fact that we couldn't find him. We simply handed him Puppy or Caterpillar and proceeded to scour the house looking for Monkey. I didn't remember taking him anywhere.

When I found him a few days ago, zipped inside a Penguin backpack from Sea World, I was elated.

Turns out when your littlest boy's favorite sleepytime friend goes missing, it really upsets Mommy.

I took the newly discovered Monkey and handed him to Matthew.

He grabbed him with both hands, pulled him into a tight hug, grinned and said, "YOU FOUND MY MONKEY!" So apparently he had noticed that he was missing. He began kissing Monkey's well-loved face. "Thank you!"

And then he proceeded to carry him around for the rest of day, never releasing him from his toddler vice grip.

His name is Elephant. Or Ele (Ella).

He is Garrett's favorite stuffed friend.

Nothing else will do in a pinch.

He has a duck he named Jesus when he was a toddler. That's not pronounced Hay-sue-s, by the way. For a time they were both his favorites and he carried them everywhere. But then it just became all about Elephant.

He's never been missing for longer than a day.

Heaven help us all if he does. You'll hear a scream and know if came from somewhere in the Salt Lake area. It will reverberate over mountain ranges and seas. And the world will know.

Elephant is every bit as important to Garrett as his real live family members, I'm sure of it.

I found them side by side on the floor today. A tale of two stuffed animals.

And I had to take their picture.

Days of Our Lives

Being that we were friends first, our marriage is built on the foundation of teasing one another. Thankfully, we do indeed have Christ as the cornerstone. This morning I was giving my husband a little bit of a hard time--in jest. He wrapped his arms around me as I stood at the kitchen sink.

T: You're being snide.
Me: No, I'm not.
T: You're being bratty?
Me: No. I'm being me. (pause) You chose me.
T: I did.
Me: You waited all that time and then you chose me. (Said as though I thought he'd made a colossal mistake.)
T: I did. And you chose me.
Me: Yeah. But I didn't wait a long time. (pause) I married my rebound guy.

Just another day in our lives.

************************************************
In other news, last night we used a gift card and went to Red Lobster. My oldest son loves Red Lobster. I mean...he loves it. If I was still in elementary school I'd say that he loves it so much he should marry it. And he'd probably say, "Okay!" and buy it a ring. He asks all the time if we can go there and, well, no. We can't. That's not practical. We can really only afford to go there about twice a year. With gift cards. He was thrilled when we sprung it on him.

He ordered popcorn shrimp off the kid's menu.

Troy and I ordered a platter to share. Our plate came with three legs of snow crab, eight battered shrimp and a heap of broccoli. We divided it all in half. Except you can't really divide three crab legs equally. So I took the two smaller ones and gave Troy the bigger one and the chunk of body that they're attached to.

I declared that it is good that we are no longer bound by levitical law and can enjoy crustaceans.

And then Garrett proceeded to want nothing but my snow crab.

His plate of popcorn shrimp and fries went virtually untouched as he pillaged my crab. A quick hand darting over to snatch a piece. Big eyes pleading with me for more. When I told him to stop taking it off my plate, he simply stared at it longingly. When I gave him a bite, he savored it as though it was surely his last meal.

Troy sent bites of his toward Matthew's mouth. My youngest also gobbled it down gratefully.

I put half a leg next to my plate where Garrett couldn't see it. When he'd finished his meal I asked him if he was full. "Yes," he replied.

"Is there anything you'd want more of, if we had it?"

"Only that delicious crab."

I pulled it from behind the plate and handed it to him. His eyes lit up proving to me that if Santa brought him nothing but snow crab next Christmas he'd be happy.

When we left, Garrett asked the hostess, "Would it be possible for me to see one of the lobsters?" The hostess reached into the tank and pulled one out for him to see. Matthew shrieked and ran behind his daddy.

"It's gonna get me!" He screamed.

Garrett touched the lobster and watched it curl and uncurl its tail.

"This is the Red Lobster I'm going to work at when I'm a teenager," my oldest son declared. And, well, if they provide a discount on snow crab legs I'm certain that he will.

Week 14: Softness

Our dear friends were here with us in the Salt Lake valley for the first year and a half of our ministry. Just after Matthew was born, they moved to the Cache valley. We see them as often as we can which is never often enough.

Last Thursday I made the drive up and met them at a working farm that was hosting an event called Baby Animal Days. The boys were able to hold baby chicks, ducks, bunnies, and turtles. They pet baby goats, lambs, and calves. They also had the opportunity to see a colt, cats, chickens, and even baby bears.

This week's theme was softness and I had my choice of several pictures that I'd taken that day. Matthew was leery of actually holding the animals but Garrett would have gladly lived in this moment for the rest of his life.

Peas Can We?

Very few things in the world are actually cuter than Matthew's voice. This is why I am going to have to stop taking him with me to the grocery store. Today, while Garrett was at school, The Little Buddy and I went to Winco.

"Mommy," he said, "can we get dat peas?"

"What?"

"Dat. Scoot me cwoser. I show you."

My second mistake, the first being that I took him with me at all, was to actually obey him and maneuver the cart over to the shelves.

He pointed. "Dat." Then he stared deep into my eyes with his own melting pools of chocolate. "I want it. Peas can we?"

And it's that voice. That completely irresistible voice just made the Peach Mango individual applesauces jump into our cart.

I'm powerless to stop it.

Rhythm

I am shamelessly in love with Amy Grant.

That has nothing to do with what I'm about to say but I just need you to know that whatever snarky comment you're making under your breath is simply not phasing me.

So the other day I was listening to her version of I Can Only Imagine found on her Legacy...Hymns & Faith album.

I've listened to that song so many times by so many different artists.

Surrounded by your glory, what will my heart feel?
Will I dance for you, Jesus, or in awe of you be still?
Will I stand in your presence or to my knees will I fall?
Will I sing, Hallelujah, will I be able to speak at all?
I can only imagine.


Suddenly, on this particular day, it hit me.

I think Jesus would really want me to be still.

Because, you know what? If I tried dancing, it would be neither glorifying nor God honoring. And I really don't want our Savior's first words to me to be, "Please stop."