Races and Places

This is William's favorite trick right now: to crawl into small baskets, small baby doll cribs and sit a while. He is especially fond of the small basket full of books in his room; a cozy place to read.

Last week I ran a half-marathon. The first chance I have had to run a race in seven years! (YIKES.) My kids were so excited when they learned I was running a "race". I think visions of sprinting and wearing medals were stuck in their heads. I slowly explained the reality of long distance running, running in your thirties, and the vast abyss that lies between the normal runner and the professional runner who actually wins. After a lot of patient listening, my six year old son asked with great concern, "Will there be anyone slower than you?". I appreciated his concern...it is a concern of my own. I was just trying to finish the race, but I assured him that there would be a few behind me. My kids were with cousins the morning of the race and so they asked me about it afterwards. Sure enough, the first words out of my six year old's mouth:"Were there people behind you Momma?". I proudly answered yes.

A Generous Heart

God makes us each different. To me, that is one of the greatest joys of being a parent...watching each child grow and develop with their own unique personalities. Right now, one year old William loves crawling into baskets and sitting in them. Our first child to take such pleasure in baskets. It's a little thing, but I know it's a small hint of the ways he will be different than the four before him. The picture above is from underneath our Christmas tree. Caroline has begged me to take her to the store, purchased gifts for each sibling with her own money, wrapped them and made cards for each person. They are all under the tree now. The other kids have not even thought of buying a gift for someone. Just Caroline. She loves to give. God made her different and this time of year it is fun to watch how much joy she has in giving gifts.

Today William took 7 steps! He was holding an empty starbuck's cup with a top and in his excitement of putting the top on (he loves taking tops on and off), he took seven steps. He was very surefooted for a first time walker. It made me think he has probably had the capability for a while but been uncertain that he wants the independence of walking. He wasn't even aware he was doing it at the moment. I will be curious to see if he suddenly takes off with walking.

Extended Family

The memories that I have of "fun play" when I was young...chase or tag, running so fast your chest hurt, laughing so hard you thought you couldn't stop...are all with cousins. None from school; none from church. All from trips to the beach or the farm to be with lots of cousins. Now I am sure there were other contributing factors: parents were around, it was often vacation, good food, etc. But there is something good about people that know and love you, something wonderful in belonging regardless. These are a few pictures from our time with Brandon's family over Thanksgiving. Our sofa line-up is growing. Here's hoping it will contribute to lots of good memories for them.

"My Kiawah"

I need to write down a recent Henry story. In the picture above you'll notice he is missing both front teeth. He lost his first front tooth, and then his second front tooth seemed to dawdle. It was horribly loose for such long time and it bothered him, but not enough to pull it out himself. Well, we recently had several couples and their children over for dinner. It was a play-fest with 13 children running around after eating lots. We all enjoyed the evening and as we left from tucking Henry into bed...we heard this deafening scream. He had realized that his tooth was gone. He had lost his tooth somewhere in the course of the fun of the evening, had no idea where his tooth was...and was worried that he would not be visited by the tooth fairy. Needless to say, we took out a paper and pen and wrote the tooth fairy a detailed explanation of our evening. She was understanding, of course, although Henry is still disappointed that she did not leave him the $100 he requested. Some of us are born with ambition, aren't we?
Another memory from today....John Mac loves the beach. He has recently been talking about it often, and he keeps asking me, "When will we go back to Our Kiawah?". This gives me an inner-smile, in that we have only been able to pay for our family to go to "Our Kiawah" once. Most of the times we have been were the gift of a generous family benefactor. Anyway, today he was once again talking about Kiawah and how he wanted to go and stay in our "poor house" at Kiawah. I said, "Why is it a poor house, John Mac? I thought you liked where we stayed." He explained to me that it's a "poor house" because "no one lives there". Imagine that....all those lonely rental homes at Kiawah with no one to live there permanently? I think John Mac has a solution for us all.