A Place...

I've been thinking about place a lot lately. Is there a place, or a type of land on which you are meant to live? Are some people just "mountain folk"? Do others really wish the beach was their every day rather than a special treat? I live in the swamp lands and I never expected to. I live near a river and my neighbors all have boats. It is wonderful and beautiful, but somehow it doesn't feel like the land I would have chosen. There is nothing wrong with life here; it is just not where I thought we would end up. In our almost thirteen years of marriage, we have always moved every 3-4 years: medical school, residency, a job. Now we have been in W'burg for almost six years and it feels like it should be time to move....but it's not. It's not time to take inventory and throw things away as you box things up. It's not time to trust there are new relationships you need to delve into. It's not time to talk about values and make decisions based on what we think we want to care about. But I kind of miss all of those web-clearing thoughts. I am not a fan of transition, but I know that I have cupboards that need a reason to be emptied and cleared, patterns that need to be reevaluated. I realize I am in cruise-control with my friendships, my shopping habits, the ideas I am exposing myself to simply because there is not the new. How do you lay down roots in a place but also rethink the normal, the day to day? Does the new come in small slow doses? Do you get stagnant in a place? What if you are in the land that feels like home to you: does it make a difference? I think I need to find a new way to motivate myself to clean house.

Family Fun

Last night, our children played their first practical joke. I went to put John Mac in bed and there was a huge mound under his comforter....of balls. We cleared them all away only to find another ball hidden by his big brother and sister in his pillowcase. At first, in my solo-parent-doing-the-bedtime-routine-fatigue, I was frustrated. Then I stopped. I recognized the "first" in the moment and knew it was one of many to come. Life is getting more fun around here.

Family has been more and more fun lately too. The more my children know our relatives, the better playing with cousins and aunts and grandparents grows. Here is a picture of Uncle Andy playing the human bongos on Henry and Caroline, quite a hit....

And here are the three big kids romping around the bed with Cousin Dory. Give the almost two year old only child big props for how well she plays with four cousins that are all excited to see her!
And finally, Cousin Dory got to share in the bathtime routine. She was all smiles and glad for the company in our "girl bath".
So glad we were able to share some family fun time. Our closest relatives are one hour away and that has helped us never take the gift of family time for granted!

Field of Dreams

Yesterday as we were out driving we passed a small house with a large piece of land beside it. My son Henry said, "Mommy, you would really like to be in that field". I answered him with the imagination of a four year old boy: "oh yes, Henry, that would be such a really fun field to run around in". Henry surprised me and answered me in mommy terms...."No Mommy, you would love to grow vegetables there."

Our home is in the woods. When a bad storm comes, I lay in bed picturing the tall pines swaying over my head. It is beautiful and lovely, but it is no place to grow a vegetable garden. I have slowly convinced myself of this truth by trying and failing three years in a row. But I never thought that Henry knew I cared about a vegetable garden. I thought this slow realization of my desire, grown largely by failed attempts, was hidden in the ground of me. Somehow my four year old has picked up on a value of mine without any conscious communication. What else is hidden in the ground of me that he can see? What things do I hold close that I am teaching him to value?

Old Friends

This week we spent time with an old friend from college years. He was in the area to speak at the college and we had planned on meeting for lunch. It had been 7 years and three children (four for us...) since we had last seen him. The snow began to fall fast wednesday morning and our plans for a lunch out turned into a desperate pantry search that left me with soup and grilled cheese. For over an hour with beautiful snow in the background windows we caught up on life while the kids played in a back room. Our conversation covered mutual friends, vocational lives, theology, kid stories, politics....years and miles of landscape covered quickly with moments where we would pause and alight on a significant spot. Later that afternoon I was cleaning the hardened bottoms of overcooked soup pots with a glow of goodness. All those places, all those years of intersection and an old friend is still willing to share your pantry pittance. What was so good about time together? Why is it so freeing to be known by a friend? I asked my husband later, and he responded, "Jesus". He said that more than anything we have shared over the years, we share a common faith; a common picture of our fallen state and our need for mercy, and a common future bought by Christ. And that is what makes grilled cheese on a snowy day so special.

Fairies, Part Two

A good friend of ours, (an adult mind you) she told Caroline and Henry that their original fairy house failed because fairies have reported rules about the way their houses are made. Apparently there are to be no man-made products used in the fairy house. My children were so encouraged to find a reason they had not yet caught a fairy. So, as soon as the most recent snowstorm passed (do we really live in Virginia?), Caroline quickly made another house. Can you appreciate the red berries, small leaves and branches at the bottom of this tree? You would live there if you were a fairy, right?

Here is the real fairy in our home these days. Quickly darting throughout the house, always with an impish grin. Here she is shrugging off the dress up clothes her older siblings are trying to share with her. Happy days here with Hannah.

Pharoah Henry

I did not have the heart to write most of this week. When there is nothing good to say, it is even worse to see it in written word than to hear it constantly echoing through your heart. Most of the week was made up of "no good, very bad days" (that phrase is taken from a picture book I read as a child, Alexander and the Horrible, Terrible, No Good, Very Bad Day). Everyone seemed to be at their worst and even sweet Baby Hannah was teething. The snowy roads, icy weather and school closings had all made us anxious for fresh air and sunshine. John Mac seemed to constantly be bumping into, running into, falling off of....It was a long week. You can imagine our surprise then when the imaginative play of our children this morning consisted largely of Bible Stories. Brandon heard Henry shouting unusual orders and found this:

Pharaoh Henry sitting in his throne shouting orders.

Caroline and John Mac played the Israelites having to clean windows.

This was followed by an interesting rendition of the story of Jesus raising Lazarus from the dead. Henry played Jesus and even Hannah was included and she and Caroline played Mary and Martha. John Mac played the role of Lazarus. The tomb was actually the bathroom, but here's a shot of him still in graveclothes.

He looks quite well doesn't he? After a week where I was certain my children had not remembered, or I had clearly not taught a single good truth.....it was encouraging to see that something is captivating their minds. May it all slowly, by His grace, trickle down to their hearts.

Snow Adventures

If you live in the South, good snow rarely happens. Even a little bit of snow will shut down a southern town and it is a like a surprise vacation, or stay-cation really: a holiday, a huge hurrah, a treat. When we lived in Philadelphia, I was so disappointed to actually live somewhere where good snows really happened (and often!) and yet, people went to work and school like normal. No holiday whatsoever. This week in W'burg we got a good northern snow with a good southern response....So far, we are three days of stay-cation and school is out again tomorrow! Here's a few pictures of our stay-cation:

We decided the kids should have their first try at sledding. Unfortunately, these pictures were in the few tearless moments of our first few try at sledding. Apparently deep snow in rainboots (who needs snowboots around here?) is quite chilling to little feet....At one point in our adventures, which included a drive and hike to a good hill....all of our children except baby Hannah were crying.

We did recover quickly though. Pretty soon Caroline was sledding with the big girls and later she and the boys had covered all of the snowy ground in our front yard. Caroline and John Mac even created their own snow fort.

We had some kind friends down the street come by to help make a snowgirl and throw a few snowballs with the boys.
And how do you like my face after a snowball is thrown my way? Chalk it up to too many wet boots and clothes in my foyer. Otherwise, it's all been fun.