In Celebration of Dads

In celebration of men who - by biology, adoption, or circumstance - choose to love bravely and find themselves Fathers . . .


A few things we like about Dad:


Peanut:
I love playing with him
We play Tic-Tac-Toe
I like eating with my Daddy
He makes crepes with yogurt inside
I like his sunglasses
He likes to go bear hunting, remember the Bear Hunt book?
We put on our bathing suits on the trampoline and he sprays us with the water hose


Mister:
I love that my Daddy is strong
I love that he lets me have more of his cookie that he ate
The other thing I like about Daddy is that he holds the slide while we slide
I love about Daddy is that he found a great place to drive the remote control car
I love about Daddy that he helps me build a Lego car



Sis:
I love you because you are the best Dad in the world
I love it when you take us to the Skate Park
It was super fun when you took us to the pool
I love you a lot because you are always rubbing my back
You make the best crepes ever
I like it when you read Little House on the Prairie

Public Schooling

Can you read this fine piece of 1st grade writing? (double click on the image to make it bigger)

I am sure you knew that it says: "ABC! ABC! ABC! Whow! I like my ABC. I am going to say forever ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ. How I say my ABC. Next time will you say to."

That's what I thought too. But not on the first read.

Be Still or How I Heard My Heartbeat in My Ear

This morning was Day 4 for me of working through a prayer journal that my mom gave me for Mother’s Day even though I am not her mother. Mother’s Day was not four days ago, which proves, as if it needed proving, that spending time in prayer does not come easy for me. The book, Writing to God: 40 Days of Praying With My Pen, by Rachel Hackenberg, suggested this morning that I read Psalm 46 and then set a timer for ten minutes to truly be still and know that God is God. Since it is Day 4, and like any good student, I am still eager to complete the lessons with A+ effort, I set my watch, folded my legs to appear more yoga-like, and closed my eyed.

And nearly panicked.

Ten minutes of holding still and knowing that God is God suddenly seemed impossible. What if he wasn’t going to speak to me? What if he was and I didn’t like what he said? What if my mind wandered?

It did.

I tried to take deep breaths and relax, but was totally consumed by the sound of my heartbeat in my ear, which I think was I could hear because it is so plugged up. Then I thought about post-nasal drip. And whether or not I would get a chance to exercise today. And whether or not I would wash my hair. And whether or not I would let it drip dry. My thoughts roamed slowly around in depressingly unspiritual loops. Yoga pants versus jeans. Post-nasal drip. The pattern of my bedspread. A small thought about knowing that God is God. Breathing. Stiffness in my neck. Weeds. Wind. Post-nasal drip. Wondering how much time was left. Hair washing, again. The time I wore my yoga pants inside out and backwards half a day without noticing and swore then and there to go back to the land of zippers, buttons and self-respect.

The timer went off and I picked up my journal. And wrote this: “Sorry, God. I feel like I just wasted your time.” But that is just the thing. Thinking that I wasted God’s time is hubris. It means I still think that time is mine to waste – that I own it, even in its misuse. I did not waste God’s time, because Big-T Time is not mine. It belongs to God. Thinking about the “unproductiveness” of my roaming mind, is still thinking about Me, is still a rating of my performance, which is a convoluted form of conceit and time-ownership. Ten minutes of quiet, thinking about God being God, is not about Me. And that, I think, may be the whole point, at least today.

I do want to learn to clear my mind. I do want to learn to pray and hold still and think about things other than washing my hair. But even if I do learn how to hold still, how to be in the presence of God without talking, I will never own time. Because I am not God. And somehow that feels comforting.

Morning Light

I came around the corner to find Peanut sitting at the kitchen table eating her breakfast with her eyes pinched shut. “Your baby is missing, Mama.” She announced. She was so sure of the total darkness registering in her brain, despite the sunlight filling the window, backlighting her bedhead and transforming the plastic gaudy flower tablecloth into a sheet of glowing white. Her face was scrunched so that the whole of it seems to be folding into itself at the eye sockets, pulling her mouth into a happy grimace showing her baby teeth.

Kind of like this:

This hasn’t been my best parenting week. There are a few choice moments of me responding very, very, very badly to the tiresome quirks of the oldest I would rather forget forever. Like Peanut, I would like to scrunch my face and announce my disappearance. Truthfully.

This morning a timely word came with all the promise of a little silver box with silky matching ribbon. It came by way of A Year With Dietrich Bonhoeffer which I picked up earlier this week at the local used books store. This morning, Mr. Bonhoeffer pointed me towards Proverbs 4:18: “The path of the righteous is like the light of dawn, which shines brighter and brighter till full day.” I whispered a little thanks for the reminder that my best days, my closest likeness to the character of Christ, are yet to come. The moments when I most closely resemble the love, patience, and wisdom of God are not lost somewhere in my past. I haven’t missed it. I haven’t squandered all of himself that he longs to give. He calls me to new mercies every morning, to a discipline of prayer, a closeness to his Word. And like the morning, my life holds promise for more light, more warmth, more movement toward the heart of God.

Taranchula

While visiting the Entomology Museum, the youngest asked, "Can I hold it?"

Confusing Cause and Effect

Peanut is experimenting with language and the ways she gets it “wrong” are always funny, sometimes profound. Cause and effect is convoluted, as in “Its my birthday because I am having a cupcake” or “We are at church because I ate a donut.” But maybe she’s right and we do go to church because there are donuts. Maybe frosting and sprinkles does turn a normal days into an elaborate celebration.

Last week she kept telling me, over and over, that she was so exciting: “I am so exciting we are going to the park,” “I am so exciting we are having lunch,” “I am so exciting to go to Sis’s school.” I didn’t correct her. She is so exciting.

Her lips have been chapped, so she keeps asking me for Gasoline.

She wants to visit the Space Noodle.

Finding the right word for the right time and using it well is tricky business. Sometimes we don't know that it doesn’t quite work until after we have already said it. And sometime we know the words that are lining up in our minds are wrong, mean, hurtful, unproductive – but we say them anyway. Like yesterday when I very, very loudly told Peanut that I could-not-would-not listen to anymore crying. I might as well have been yelling about how I wasn’t going to give her any more Band-Aids without stopping to investigate why it was that she kept skinning her knee.

Yesterday my words were all wrong. I kept confusing cause and effect and spent all my energy mopping up the toxic verbal mess I was making. I yelled a lot. Then apologized. Then yelled some more. Today needs to be better, and so I ask for the grace to choose my words wisely. Lord, when I am talking to the babies, please give me words of peace, wisdom, and above all, grace. Because words matter.

“Gracious words are a honeycomb, sweet to the soul and healing to the bones.” Proverbs 16:24

In Your Eyes

I was gone overnight this weekend, getting home after bedtime the second evening. It wasn’t a long trip. The first grader did the math and reminded me as I was doling out good-byes and kisses, “You are only going to be gone for 30 hours.” And I was only gone for 30 hours. But Mister, sweet old soul that he is, missed me anyway and came down to my bed early in the morning, cupping his hands around my face and telling me so. I had only been asleep for four hours, but had the presence of mind to tuck, deep into my heart, his sweet little voice and gentle hands. I know these tender days of little-boy-ness are numbered.

But while they last he and I like to have staring contests to see who will smile first. The other day, as we were staring and fake-frowning, Mister leaned in an extra inch. “Hey, I can see myself in your eye.” Its true. When we stop moving and really look at each other, we see a little bit of ourselves. I really like the me I see when I look into my little boy’s eye. In the glow of his rich brown eyes I seem smart, fun, strong, and present. And I think he likes the him he sees in me. Mister reminds me, when we crawls into my lap – heavy and all elbows – of my own need for connection, recognition, reflection in the eyes of those I love.

By some combination of personality flaw and the endless mountain of laundry forever waiting to be washed or folder or put away, I move too fast, yell too much, waste my passion and attention in tasks with eyes averted. And the tasks do need to be done. It’s not okay to send my children back to school in yesterday’s shirt, sleeve cuffs starched by snot. Neither is it okay to leave the lunch box I found under a pile of jackets growing yogurt cultures until June. But maybe there is a chance I can do, do, do while still making eye contact, still bending in stillness long enough to see the me I want to be in his eyes.

I love Psalm 131. It reminds me that I unnecessarily put extra rocks in my pack. It also reminds me of the peace I can bring to my heart and home when I remember to slow down.

Psalm 131:1-2 “Lord, I have given up my pride and turned away from my arrogance. I am not concerned with great matters or with subjects too difficult for me. Instead, I am content and at peace. As a child lies quietly in its mother's arms, so my heart is quiet within me.”

Control, Power, Secrets and Lies: Tales of a 1st Grade Chef

Sis is a gift-giver. She loves to make things, grow things, wrap things and give them away. It’s beautiful to watch. Just this morning, she met me with two homemade pin cushions (in case I ever learn to sew) and a color-penciled mandala.

We have some mint in our yard that has somehow survived my neglect and is growing again. And since the weather turned towards Summer, Sis has been harvesting the little crop and making Mint Water for us. I love her industrious spirit and leave her alone in the kitchen to create. Her siblings love the amount of sugar she puts in, and drink tall glasses of the stuff with their dinner, offering amply praise. Grandpa and Grandma were here last weekend and were thus treated to this seasonal show of hospitality. They graciously drank and made over the little Miss as she poured them second glassfuls through a strainer, catching the mint leaves and stirring them back into the pitcher.

“This is lovely, Sis.”
“So refreshing.”
“What a good cook you are!”
“Can I have the recipe?”

At first Sis was flattered, and asked me in a very official voice if I could text Grandma the recipe for Mint Water once she had time to write it down. I agreed. But later in the afternoon, after Sis had been playing over in her mind the tapes of gratitude from her throng of parched and withered customers, she had a change of heart.

“I am not going to give Grandma the recipe after all,” she announced. “I am going to keep it a secret.”

I called Grandma to break the bad news and mulled over in my mind the situation that was unfolding. Children have such little real power over the daily lives, and my daughter had stumbled – by way of her impulse to give – into a bit of control and the distinct opportunity to withhold.

This afternoon, while honoring the living room with a much-overdue cleaning, I came across the recipe. It had been a few days since I had heard anything from Sis on the matter of her secret recipe, and I wondered if the sweetness of power and control had ebbed. Grandpa and Grandma had gone, taking with them the pomp and shining glory of the multigenerational audience. The siblings had stopped begging for a fix. I figured maybe the show was over and tested the waters with a casual passing word: “Sis, I found your recipe for Mint Water under the couch. Do you just want me to put in the recipe box?”

She was quick, unflinching. “You can if you want. I don’t mind that you found that old recipe. I have changed it. There is a new ingredient. It’s still a secret.

Rainbow Brain

I did not know, until a few minutes ago, that butterflies take swim lessons. And they always wear goggles.

A few days ago Peanut came upon her brother and his friends stretching a rubbery, pink, textured ball over their heads, yelling, "Look at me! My brain is showing! I have a pink brain." Without stopping she turned her head over her shoulder and said, "I have a rainbow brain." They put down the ball and went to do something else, totally one-uped by the baby sis.

Rainbow brain. I think she was telling the truth.

I'm Sorry That Happened to You

My Grandma Jeanne turned ninety this Spring. I didn’t think I could manage the mid-semester trip but my mom made it clear that the only cousin not coming was having a baby, something I was not willing to do. So we went. And I am so glad we did. The family all met in the redwood grove where we had mixed my grandpa’s ashes into the soil some 24 years ago. The grove, a favorite picnicking spot before his unexpected death, has become sacred. My sister chose to spend her sixteenth birthday there. That day my grandma shared some of her toasting cider with the soil and laughed from her belly, a hard-earned moment of joy, eight years into widowhood.

Grandma Jeanne lives with my parent’s, has Alzheimer’s, has to be reminded every night that there is a bed for her. At some point she announced that she wanted a family reunion so it was arranged, bringing four extended families from four different states together to celebrate her ninety years. When we got to the grove, Grandma Jeanne asked from the backseat, “Why are we here?”

Its hard to know, at any moment, what she knows. Sometimes she cries with frustration about wanting to go home. Sometimes that home is in Iowa. Sometimes she means she wants to go to heaven. Sometimes she packs a bag and walks out the door without a plan or jacket. But in the grove she seemed satisfied. Quiet. Peaceful. Full. Even if she did not know our names, she seemed happy to be with us.

My aunt gathered everyone around and said a few words of honor. When she acknowledged that my grandma had been abandoned by her parents before she could tie her shoes, living with aunts, grandparents and friends until she was married, my grandma tipped her chin up, closed her eyes and let a little tear roll down her cheek.

My aunt praised her for her bravery, her fortitude, her quiet reliance on Jesus. My aunt thanked her for giving her children something altogether other than what she had been given. We sang into the damp, green stillness, mixing the chords of a favorite hymn with tears and smiling. I bit my lip and took pictures.

A friend of mine recently welcomed some foster children into her home. She says they talk about things that kids should not have to know about. They speak, without flinching, about things I can’t imagine. She says it’s hard to hear. She says it breaks her heart. And she told me what she tells them when they share with her: “I am sorry that happened to you. That must have been scary. You didn’t deserve that.”

I keep thinking about those simple sentences. No false pretense of understanding. No Band-Aid. No clichés or empty promises. Just a few words that say, “I hear you. I see you. You have worth.” Simple, beautiful sentences that speak the heart of a God who tells us that he has engraved our names into the palm of his hand. I know he knows the names of children whose homes are not places of safety. I know he knows the names of children whose parents pack up and drive away. He cries when they cry and listens when they pray. And sometimes he sees them all the way to ninety, to be sung over by three generations of grateful hearts in a grove of redwoods.

“Can a mother forget her nursing child? Can she feel no love for the child she has borne? But even if that were possible, I would not forget you! See, I have written your name on the palms of my hands.” Isaiah 49:15-16