You are currently browsing the monthly archive for October, 2007.
Our power just came back on after what seemed a rather inconvenient hour and a half off. Please bear in mind that it’s after midnight now. That means my precious children, whom I had washed and scrubbed and fed and tucked in at 9pm — and kept hearing them flip-flopping about in their beds — were up at 10pm when the nightlights, the hall light, the bathroom light all went out.
My first, very Godly thought, FABULOUS.
I didn’t know how long this would last; frankly, we’re blessed that this is the first time the power’s ever gone out on us in the four plus years D’s been full time on the road. We’ve never done this kind of thing by ourselves, so it felt more than a little scary when it happened. I am afraid of the dark. There, I said it. I feel better. Sorta. I am also painfully afraid of being alone (which presents inherent problems given our situation) so I’d been just *awake* until around 3:30am Saturday morning already and *needed* to get to sleep tonight. A power outage does NOTHING to relax me.
However, as He is… always doing? constantly there for? continually surprising?… well, as He IS, there is much more to this story He need widen my narrowed vision to receive.
I had the angels sit on LittleMan’s bed while I found a couple of candles, called to report the outage (which by all appearances had blackened our street), and showed LittleBit how to move the cursor on my laptop so the screen would stay lit for them. Since the worst case was power out all night (and I am a control freak who would jump at every noise if we were locked up together in a bedroom wondering who or what lay down the stairs or hall), I moved all the candles into our living room/breakfast/kitchen area and had the angels join me there. We made a home in the middle of the floor, twin mattress and fifteen blankets dragged in to make a big lump where Legos should be.
As I tucked them in again, we talked about the sheer *goodness* of God — yes, the power is out, but there’s a full moon so we can see EVERYTHING in our yard and a lot of the floor under east windows. A week ago we pulled out candles to enhance the open window freshness of fall; had we been prompted last week, there’s no way I could have found them tonight. And there were PLENTY of candles! We’d just caught a sale on them last night so we bought an extra, but we never lit it; in fact, we had so many as I gathered them in the living room that we had several as backups. The tiny oil lamp D brought home from Israel two years ago was enough to light my kitchen comfortably and remind us of His Word as light to our feet and path. We thanked God that I had cleaned out my purse (I could put a period here) and left the battery power cell phone charger on our counter, so it was handy. We thanked Him for clean sheets this evening and sweet rest and perfect — stunningly perfect — provision.
Discussion finished, formal prayer commenced: I prayed my thanks again and LittleBit prayed for her brother in Africa to “get lots of money we send so he can have a home with his family.” We smooched and said goodnight and lay waiting for sleep.
As I stare up at the ceiling from the couch, I survey what I can without moving much, mainly our pot rack. I remember thinking that my friends who had a pot rack were RICH when I was little. It just seemed so *extravagant* to have so many kitchen things you either needed to hang them for more room or you had a matching set you could comfortably display. And now, here I am, staring at my pot rack that I wanted so badly and think literally nothing of now.
And I’m hearing the sighs and little mattress moves of wriggly bodies finally slowing. Wriggling that I spend much of my day trying to stop, contain, or redirect, now welcome and sweet and memorable.
We were nearly out when the hall light flickered. We sat up, poised for — something. Instead, the phone rang. D got my text message and talked to anxious little ones (and big one, too). As we finished with him, the lights ignited all around us. We were safe and grateful. The pot rack faded back into the wall and wriggling commenced again, though completely drown out by giggles.
Much to Little Bit’s dismay, we did not spend the night in the middle of the living room. D promised her that we’d camp in the living room when it got good and chilly and we could fall asleep in front of the fire after roasting marshmallows. That helped. LittleMan was so tired he went straight to bed and chuckled into his pillow.
And as I kissed them and prayed over them for the third time in two hours, I just felt *different* — like maybe I’m not missing so much, maybe they really are getting what they need, maybe we really are “normal” in some fashion. And definitely because God showed Himself so strong for us — preparing candles a week ago, providing a full moon, placing a phone charger. Amazing. Such tiny details, such consummate attention.
There’s more to this lesson, and I want to write it, but I have to go to sleep now. I am exhausted. Blown away and blessed, and gratefully.
LORD, You know the rest of this lesson. You are completely familiar with the lessons that will spring off this one in the future. Ah…. you are SOOOOOOO good!
Thank You for perfect provision. Thank You for a special grace over our children where inconvenient circumstances prompt our daughter to pray for those with no homes at all. I am humbled by her heart — Your heart — and her love of Scripture!
LORD, tonight we all need to sleep. Please be with us, please cause us to sleep and be rested when we enter the church! I love you! AMEN.
There are *some* things about which I don’t mind my children ratting on each other: if one of them deliberately, maliciously hurts the other (or Lord, please no — someone else), or if the behavior will result in a co-pay and stitches. However, as of late, my five year old has decided it is *her* job to provide a running narrative of her brother’s activity. It is obvious by her tone that this more than mere commentary; she’s perfected the art of tattling.
New rule? For every one thing LittleBit tattles, she has to tell me *three* good things about her beloved brother.
Three.
Do you know how long it can take for one surreptitiously prattling kindergartner to think of THREE nice things to say about the target of her criticism?
Yep. About that long.
Nobody wants to raise a TV-bound couch potato, but there are times when you just *need a minute* — and when your little ones could use some indoor fun. So we’ve found several online game sites that provide ample entertainment and a decent helping of education as well (so as to ease the nagging mother-guilt but free me to sew on a button or start another pot of coffee)
Starfall — Designed to help children learn to read, Starfall features phonics and alphabet games.
Highlights Kids — The kids’ site for Highlights Magazine, there’s plenty of fun as well as writing prompts, printable pages, and word games.
KidZone — You’ll need to help your child get started with most of this site’s games, but worth that effort because it’s primarily an educational resource your child will be getting more out of the activities.
Practice Math Test — Doesn’t sound fun, huh? Well, mine are K4 and K5 so they think getting problems right is just a kick! I haven’t explored much on this site, so I can only recommend this particular page.
PBS Kids — All your favorite characters (and their obligatory stuck-in-brain musical accompaniments) in one spot!
Veggie Tales – All *my* favorite characters (and their widely more enjoyable stuck-in-brain musical accompaniments)
Hermie — Max Lucado’s lovable critter and friends
*There is a nagging place in the back of my brain saying that I’ve posted all this before; If it’s WFMW-ja-vous, that’s fine; if I’m really repeating myself, I am very sorry… but somehow not completely surprised.
So, I figured since I’d stayed up working half the night I’d treat myself to some online silliness before going to bed. I pulled up the celebrity lookalike thing and then went to find a picture of myself to use.
Except… there was a problem…
THERE ARE NO PICTURES OF ME
I looked all through my hard drive and the best I could do was the family Christmas picture from last year (in which my mouth looks pinched because I am warning my children through gritted teeth not to move). Any others are side shots of us doing something (and there are only 3 of those) so I can’t use them.
I know I exist. I had to make breakfast this morning.
This is craziness, I tell you. I guess I could use my drivers license picture, although it was taken 5 years ago while I was pregnant. Very celebrity-accurate I’m sure.
Anyway, I’m going to bed. Tomorrow maybe I can have a cape for being “Mommy Imperceptible.”
First of all, MANY thanks to the ladies who were kind enough to help me battle last week’s dilemma! We haven’t been home long enough to try out each of the suggestions, but I’m excited that within the next 48 hours, I will have a SOLUTION! 
I can’t take credit for this; a friend-in-law (you know, the spouse of hubby’s friend) taught me this and it’s been PRICELESS!
To teach her daughter to spell her name, she used the Bingo song: “K-E-L-L-Y, K-E-L-L-Y, K-E-L-L-Y and Kelly is her name-o”
We quickly learned that this was useful for *many* spelling situations!
“B-I-B-L-E… and Bible is God’s Word!”
“C-O-O-K-I-E… and cookie is our snack-o” (that’s my personal fav)
“D-A-D-D-Y… and daddy is his name-o”
“P-A-S-T-O-R… and pastor is his name-o”
“S-T-U-D-Y… and study is our game-o”
“T-A-B-L-E… and table is it’s name-o”
“M-O-M-M-Y… and tired is her name-o” (oh wait… whoops…)
Now, as a proper English major, I realize that the syllabication is off on some of these; I also realize that as a proper adult I never thought I’d be Yankovic-ing nursery rhymes to
supplement my homeschooling. Whaddya gonna do? Hand me a latte and let’s move on because it definitely works for me.
Head on over to Shannon’s and tell us what works for you!
We’re just home from Carolina! And we had the BEST time!
It was just LittleBit, LittleMan and me with my favorite Aunt and Uncle and it was a BLAST! We did a corn maze, shot tennis balls over a big pond (my daughter has shockingly good aim), watched at least 5 different kinds of birds eat breakfast just as we sat down to do so, played with a wooly-worm, sat on tractors, picked up leaves. It was FANTASTIC!
The best part was homeschooling on my Aunt & Uncle’s porch. It’s HUGE! We got to sit basically outside and just relax our way through addition for two solid days. It was GREAT! It was also easier to take breaks (because outside was “right there”) and it just didn’t feel like school. I love that!
LittleBit and LittleMan got to attend a tiny church for the first time in their lives. We worshiped with fewer than 20 other sweet believers this morning at the most adorable little country church. During the visitor introduction, my daughter told the entire congregation, “My Daddy’s name is D and he works for the band and he’s on the road and so we pray for him and we love him and you should pray for them too. You could come to a concert…” I quickly asked her to thank them for letting us worship while the primarily grandparent crowd applauded. Now, my Aunt called the pastor a couple of days ago to tell him our children would be there, so he called them (meaning, only mine… they were literally the only children there) come up for a children’s sermon. He gave them little plastic dolphins (which turned out to be whistles I learned on the drive back to Georgia) and asked them what would happen if someone didn’t show up to make their part or paint their part at the dolphin factory. LittleMan emphatically said, “OH! You know what else?!?! LIGHTHOUSES! If there’s no LIGHTHOUSE then the ships and the dolphins will all get wrecked and the storms will come and BLAST them!!!!” The pastor looked at him, forced back a grin and said, “Yeah, buddy, I wasn’t exactly going with the lighthouse angle this time, I was going for the how-they-make-the-dolphin thing.” LittleMan raised his eyebrows and cocked his head, “Yeah, well lighthouses are IMPORTANT.” And then he dropped his glance and let the pastor go on.
At the end of the service, the congregation stood in a circle and took turns praying. Now, if you have/ever had a 4 or 5 year old in church, you might agree that said little ones waiting through 18 adults taking turns praying personally might make you nervous. Made me nervous, too.
LittleBit stood between Favorite Uncle and me, LittleMan stood between me and Favorite Aunt. After the first couple of people, LittleMan sat down on the edge of the altar, but didn’t let go of our hands. The two of them prayed silently, waited quietly as each person in the circle thanked God for the gift of their many blessings, asked forgiveness for their sins, and prayed over the members of their tiny community of faith. It was a beautiful, beautiful thing that my children were able to hear the prayers of the faithful, these veteran saints, and were still enough to hopefully soak in some of the grace that is the gift of fellowship. After the prayer, LittleBit proceeded to talk to anyone who’d listen for a minute (there were several takers) and LittleMan darted into the fellowship hall and charmed the church hostess into a pickle, some bread, a fruit cup, and enough grape juice to give him a vibrant mustache. Hey, they have my priorities — people and food. Fortunately for them, neither seems to have both. They had a grand time, and really I think it was a GREAT experience for them; we go to a rather L-A-R-G-E Evangelical church, so the tiny warmth and tradition of a more liturgical body was unique for them — everyone standing and verbally responding to the pastor as he read. I learned today that wherever my children are, wherever they go, there will be other believers who speak into their lives, pray over them, delight them with the warmth of their pouring out love for Christ, or enrich them in simple fellowship. I won’t always be there when it happens. But today, I had the privilege of being witness, and I thank my God for these sweet people and their pastor who saw fit to include my children in their worship — loud whispers, prayer solicitations and all — and speak and pray over them the Word of Life.
LORD, Jesus,
Master, Friend…
I don’t know how many times I’ll get to see the kind of blessing — the kind of Old Testament “preparing a table” fellowship — that I saw today, but THANK YOU!!!! LORD, You know every voice You’ve prepared to speak to my children; every leader, every encourager, every exhortation, every Truth-speaker who will bless them with Your Words of Life. Holy God, I won’t get to hear all of them, *haven’t* gotten to hear all of them: nursery workers praying over fluttering eyelashes, Sunday School teachers sharing the account of David and Goliath, Awana leaders leading Scripture recitation. But I got to hear these today, LORD. And I heard what You said about them, and I hear You.
LORD, truly, Your sheep hear YOUR voice — thank You for the gift of that picture! — and I pray that as LittleBit and LittleMan walk out their daily relationship with You they will hear Your voice clearly behind them saying, “This is The Way, walk ye in it” and that they will “test the spirits” to be sure those speaking into them line up with what You have already said. LORD, when they’re on the plains of Africa, when they’re on a plane bound for elsewhere, when they’re on a campus hours away, when they’re down the street at the neighbor’s house, I might not get to hear the words spoken over, to, or about my children. Jesus, I pray that they would be only YOUR Words and that You would use them to build up my Angels and strengthen them beyond measure as they grow in wisdom and favor. Especially those voices they hear regularly… especially mine… O LORD, I need You! Thank You for my blessings! Amen.
UPDATE: We got SO many great ideas for getting the smell out of our dishwasher — be sure to check out the comments! — and what worked best for us was running it empty with vinegar and a *generous* sprinkling of baking soda, then hand cleaning with vinegar solution (especially down where the door hinges are and across the base of the tub in front of the door.
Again, we are so grateful to everyone who answered and hope you’ll find a good solution to your dishwasher dismay!
Our dishwasher cleans VERY WELL, but I’ve noticed that it has a funky odor. Like, all the time. I’ve tried running it empty to see if it just needed a cleaning cycle of its own, but that didn’t seem to help. It annoys me because while I know the dishes are clean, I’m HIGHLY sensitive to smell, and that just doesn’t “smell clean” to me.
My husband travels a lot (hence the blog name) so I’m not fond of the idea of having him pull it out and pull it apart when he might have to leave it in shambles for a few days while he’s gone. Can anyone tell me what would work for me?
Head over to Shannon’s to ask your own question or find others to answer!
Others' thoughts