Nipped

Dear Ava,

Last night at dinner, on eve of your third birthday, I looked at you and was struck with disbelief yet again. I leaned over and asked your Daddy, "Can you believe she's ours?" Like so many other things in my life, you seem too good to be true.

"I know," he replied. "If she wasn't ours, I'd be jealous."

That pretty much sums it up, my dear. We are completely smitten with, impressed by, and in love with you. So indulge me for a few minutes as I tell you a few of the reasons why.

You are beautiful. Your Daddy often confesses to me that he is intimidated by your beauty. Your smile, those dimples, big hazel eyes and curly red locks ("orange!" you insist) captivate us. And your beauty is more than just outward. Despite your occasional rebelliousness, you are most often delightful to be around. I can see even now how God will use and redeem your spirit. I pray that He will every day, entrusting you to the only one who can accomplish it.

You are charming. Your outgoing, pleasant nature draws people in, Love. We cannot go to the grocery store without making new friends. In fact, most of the friends we have are our friends because you introduced us. Multiple people have told us that you make them want to have children.

You are dramatic. You often surprise people when you announce: "This is my concerned face." You can pull almost any emotion out at the drop of a hat. Sad. Mad. Hurt. IRATE. It's really quite difficult not to be amused by your flair for the dramatic; I fear I don't do a very good job. I need to remind myself that it won't be cute for long. I'll have to work on my poker face. Can't have you turning into a diva.

You are funny. You say countless funny things every day. Like today, when you told me that sunshine hurts your feelings. Or yesterday, when we had a talk about authority and you told me that God put you in charge. Oh, and "God said sit right there, Mom." Or we told you that disobedience wasn't funny and you looked at your Daddy with a straight face and asked if poop was funny. Again, I have to work on the poker face.

You are smart. Lately, you've been reciting books to yourself. I'll come into a room to hear you reading yourself "A Treasury of Curious George" or "The Mixed up chameleon" verbatim. It's such a pleasure to hear your small voice speaking in paragraphs. Your drawing skills are improving too. Until just recently, it was hard to get you to draw anything. Suddenly you are drawing people with arms and legs and facial expressions. I think you were storing it up until you could make it look like you wanted. So you're a bit of a perfectionist. You come by that honestly.

You are mine. You are so, so enjoyable, my love. You shower me with affection, make me laugh, make me proud. But the biggest, most important reason that I love you is that you are mine. God gave you to me. Nothing you could ever do could shake the fierce, unconditional love I have for you. It is my earnest and daily prayer that my love for you would mirror of a more perfect, gracious Love than I could ever muster. Ultimately, I pray that you would rest in God's love for you--that He would draw you up into Himself and into joy. I love you so much, little one. Happy birthday.

Mama

Three.

Today you are you! That is truer than true!
There is no one alive who is you-er than you!
Shout loud, "I am lucky to be what I am!
Thank goodness I'm not just a clam or a ham
Or a dusty old jar of sour gooseberry jam!
I am what I am! That's a great thing to be!
If I say so myself, HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO ME!"
~Dr. Seuss, Happy Birthday to You

Tidbits

Last night, we put Ava to bed sometime around 7:30. As always, we gave her a sippy cup of milk, read to her, sang to her, prayed with her, cuddled with her. For the next 5 hours, silence. Then, piercing the darkness at 12:45 a.m, Ava's groggy voice: "Mom! I'm finished with my milk! I'm finished with my milk!"

That was important for me to know.

***

Ava has a really terrible fake cry which she uses to get attention. Last week, she was whining and complaining and pretending to cry. Growing a little impatient, I gently said, "Ava, stop." She looked up at me with her big green eyes and asked, "My crying doesn't work?"

***

This last one is not for the faint of stomach, but too funny not to share. You have been warned:

We have, unfortunately, had to correct Ava about picking her nose an awful lot lately. I try to reason with her, but she insists boogers are not gross. Well, I caught her the other day, and said, "Ava, don't!" As I did, she put the booger in her mouth. "Oh, Ava, that's gross," I said. "It's in my teeth," she replied. "I'll brush it later."

Well, that makes it all better.

Dear Timothy,

You turn one today.

This year has seemed long in some ways—lots of adjustments, fitful sleep, figuring out how to be two people’s everything. But my how it has flown. The days are long and the years are short, as they say.

It always amazes me the difference a years’ time makes for a little one. You have gone from a tiny, blinking, crying, sleeping, pooping newborn to a smiling, giggling, crawling, playing little boy. Your personality is certainly in full bloom.

To describe you at a year is a touch difficult. If you were a girl I might describe you as dramatic or feisty, but neither of those adjectives seem boyish enough for you. Let’s just say that you are a rascal. Your impish grin, your mischievous chuckle, your playful spirit all testify. You do things to make us laugh and even play practical jokes. Honest.

Take your current refusal to say “Mama.” I have made peace with the fact that you said “Dada” first. Thing is, I know that you can say Mama. I plead with you: “Say Mamama.” You reply, “MaDADADA.” I repeat: “Say, “Mama.” You chuckle. I entreat: “Say Mama.” You smile and shake your head no. Joker. You’re teasing me, I know it.

Even so, if I know anything about you, it’s that you love me. When I appear again after a few minutes absence, you squeal, crawl to me, and demand to be held. When I pick you up, you giggle and shriek and your whole body flails and rocks and bounces. You bury your head in my neck and pat me on the back as if I’ve just told you a good joke. You grin at me, plant a big, sloppy kiss on my mouth, then grin at me again. It is good to be loved like that.

You love a lot of things, little one. You enjoy life more than anyone else I have met (with the possible exception of your Daddy). You love your Daddy, your sister, playing with toys, unloading baskets, putting things in your mouth, eating, climbing, baths, and exploring. Your mobility provides lots of opportunities to explore your surroundings. Though you are not the least bit interested in walking, you find plenty of ways to amuse yourself. You open cabinets, try to climb in the bathtub, climb into the rocking chair and rock yourself back and forth. You even love to dance. When the music starts, you get to your knees and bounce up and down to the beat. You throw your hands to the air and wave them around. Your daddy says that you have developed an air of confidence in the last few weeks. I think you have realized how much you can do and just how darn much fun it is.

I pray, my dear Tim-Tim, that you would keep that unhindered joy in life. This broken world has remnants of glory in it. Your beautiful little soul is one of them. I pray that the brokenness you undoubtedly will encounter will not squelch the joy you find in its beauty. I pray ultimately that you would find Jesus, the source of all joy and beauty. And I pray that I would be faithful to love you toward Him, to show you what his love is like, and remind you daily of His beauty and His love.

Happy Birthday, Tim-Tim!

All my love,

Mama

One.

If we didn't have birthdays, you wouldn't be you.
If you'd never been born, well then what would you do?
If you'd never been born, well then what would you be?
You might be a fish! Or a toad in a tree!
You might be a doorknob! Or three baked potatoes!
You might be a bag full of hard green tomatoes!
Or worse than than all that...Why you might be a WASN'T.
A Wasn't has no fun at all. No, he doesn't.
A Wasn't just isn't. He just isn't present.
But you.. You are YOU! And now isn't that pleasant!

~Dr. Seuss; Happy Birthday to You!

Giving Oneself Over

"To parent, to truly love anyone, is to give oneself over. I’d like to think that this “dying to self,” as my Protestant friends call it, will yield wisdom, a peace-filled spirit. So far that’s not been my experience. So I consider instead the likelihood that without these little ones demanding to consume me, I would consume myself, and be far worse for it.

Still there is the parent’s vulnerability, that we are consumed day after day, utterly beset in the flesh yet too often utterly bereft of flesh. I can spend a full day immersed with my sons, and cook for them and feed them and tend their wounds and wrestle them into bed, all of this culminating in a physical state where even the slightest peep from a pint-sized miscreant seeking a sip of water makes a vein in my head begin to thump ominously.

I can reach a point of overstimulation known only to air-traffic controllers and the combat-traumatized.

And yet I find myself longing for touch. It’s a curious state, to be overstimulated and isolated, overcrowded and lonely, and yet I think many parents have felt it. It’s an argument for partnership in parenting, but it’s an argument from the flesh, rather than doctrine or propriety.

We parents need refuge in one another, to shore ourselves up for another day of pouring ourselves out. We all of us need refuge not just for our spirits, but for our flesh."

~Tony Woodlief

Read the whole thing here.

P.S.

Did I mention that the last month has been a thoughtful one?

To Love is to Risk

"Jesus followers join churches because they want to be like Jesus and will risk loving others deeply. Don't ever deny the pain of this risk and naively think that truly living in community as the church with sinners is easy. Church squabbles do injure innocent people. Church leaders to disappoint when they don't live up the their calling. Other believers do betray trust and cause disillusionment. Every Christian both suffers these pains and causes others to suffer them. To love is to risk and grow through pain, and those who want to love well choose to suffer pain rather than self protect by abandoning the church." ~Mark Driscoll, Doctrine.

To love is to risk. Each of us comes to relationship with our own sinfulness, history, and hurt. To enter into relationship with other broken people is to risk (if not to guarantee) pain.

I believe that we all have both a fear of being known and a yearning for it. God said that it was not good for man to be alone. We were created for relationship with God, with our spouses, with other people. We all hunger for community and acceptance. But I am convinced that however much we want and need it, true community is rare.

True community is more than hanging out, sharing a meal, talking about the week, or discussing the Bible. It is more than occupying the same space. True community requires vulnerability.

It is difficult to be vulnerable with those truly dark places in our hearts. We allow people to come only so far, but no further. We are afraid that if others truly knew us, they would reject us. True community requires faith that others will be gracious with what they find in those broken places. It cannot exist without grace. Only grace gives the freedom to truly be known by another.

Being known is good for us. Our sin surfaces in deep community. We have a tendency to minimize our sin and deceive ourselves in regard to it. Jeremiah tells us that the heart is "deceitful above all things, and desperately sick." Other people often see us more clearly than we see ourselves. Conflict and confrontation in close relationship draws out the sin that we either fail to see or fail to repent of. This confrontation, while painful, refines us. It also allows other people to show us grace, driving the gospel deeper. If imperfect people can bear with one another in love in spite of sin and weakness, how much more a loving and perfect God? That another has loved us in our unloveliness helps us believe that God can and does.

These blessings, however, are unavailable to us if we do not allow ourselves to be known. To love and be loved. That's scary because people are sinners. True community gets messy. But if we guard against the hurt, and don't allow people in, we lose an opportunity to be love and be loved in a way that helps us believe the gospel. In the end, I believe the blessing is worth the risk.

I choose community. Even when it hurts.

Love in the Chaos

The keys are in the ignition in the on position, and the battery's dead. Again. The microwave door is always open. The house is a mess, the smoke alarm is going off, the kids are screaming, and the iPhone's in the toilet.

The chaotic nature of my brain exacerbates the chaotic nature of this season. I'm just not good at this. There are too many moving parts. I was absent minded before children, but since becoming a mother, trying to maintain some sense of order is impossible. I'm going to lose my mind.

And in those quieter moments, I am pensive. I fear what other people think about me. I worry, over-think, wonder if I'm beyond grace. I am high maintenance.

But when I'm exasperating, he doesn't yell. He doesn't get angry. He is patient and gracious and wonderful. He chooses to chuckle. Not a condescending kind of chuckle. More like an "I love this woman even though she's crazy" kind of chuckle. He delights in me and tells me that I'm beautiful. When I'm having another "dark night of the soul," he patiently reminds me that God loves me not because I get everything done (I don't), not because my kids behave (they don't), not because I earn it (I can't), but because of Jesus. He cherishes me in my imperfection. His love reminds me of how Jesus loves me. It helps me believe that Jesus loves me.

I love him. And I love the God that gave him to me.