Seriously, the genetics are in full swing with this kid…
It makes this physically-out-of-shape-former-blackbelt’s-heart happy….
I’m fairly confident most of this is my doing…
But this…
that little blip of personality, I am certain came straight from her father.
Anyone else wishing a “Little House on the Prairie” remake was in the works?
For years I’ve listened, and I’ve joined in, when people have talked about the questions they have for God. The list of things they want answered by Him. The hurt and the pain and the brokenness that seem to have no reason, no justification, no purpose in this world. Those are the things that most people – myself included – want explained.
So many of us have a question we’re planning on asking as soon as we get to Heaven. The most important thing to us is putting God on trial and demanding answers. We’re preparing as though what we’re anticipating, what we’re anxiously awaiting, about being in His presence is getting to finally bite a chunk out of that forbidden apple.
What could be sadder than finding ourselves at the feet of Jesus, seeing the face of God, spending eternity without pain or hurt or sin, and our first priority- our biggest desire- is not to praise Him, not to thank Him, not to rejoice in and with Him, but to know what He knows.
We still want more. Faced with blessing upon blessing upon blessing, and some of us are still wanting more. More answers. More understanding. More explanations. More control.
Recently I read Revelation 21:4 again. It says, “He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away.”
I used to imagine that this meant we’d hear our answers. We’d understand and know and this life would finally make sense. He’d explain all the unfairness and He’d wipe away our tears as He told us that our sufferings weren’t without reason. I pictured some sort of chart, something that would show me the chain reactions, the good that came only because of the bad that He allowed and we endured.
But when I reread that verse, something shifted.
What if the tears are gone, the mourning and crying and pain and death are all gone, but there still aren’t any answers? What if coming face-to-face with the Creator is all it takes to not only dry our eyes and soothe our sobs, but to silence our questions and our doubts? What if it really is all about Him? What if it’s such a joyous, wondrous, praise-filled experience simply to be done with this race that we don’t care about the old hurts? What if we don’t need explanations because pain is such a distant memory that we don’t remember why we were hurting?
What if we don’t even desire answers because the questions are wiped away with the tears?
Maybe I’m alone here. But for me, I’d rather not remember sorrow at all than to know the reasons for it.
Ten years ago, I spent Mother’s Day eating lunch with a bunch of strangers.
The Friday before Mother’s Day 2000, I offered to give a guy a ride to Austin. That guy was Matt. I had met him a few weeks prior and had invested most of the time since encouraging him to date my roommate. I thought that a three hour car ride where he couldn’t escape would be the perfect opportunity to tell him more about how perfect she was and what a great couple they’d make.
It’s funny how things don’t work out the way I plan them.
After spending an afternoon together on I-35, I dropped him off at his dad’s office, got back in the car and called home. I left a message for my roommate. It went like this, “Okay, so I need to tell you something. It turns out that Matt is the guy I’m going to marry. I hope that’s okay. Call me.”
Seriously. That’s how fast it happened.
Two days later I was headed back into Austin to pick him up at his grandmother’s house. A jumble of nerves, I was stressed just knocking on the door. In no frame of mind to meet his parents, much less his grandmother, I hoped to politely say hi and leave it at that.
Nope.
He opened the door and invited me in. He said they hadn’t eaten lunch yet and I was welcome to join them. I remember stepping into a living room with my eyes glued to the floor. When I looked up, I saw a crowd. A whole room full of people that I didn’t know. Not only were his grandmother and parents there, but so was the rest of his extended family.
I wasn’t the fiance or the girlfriend. I was barely a friend at that point. But unbeknownst to him, I was already in love. Meeting his entire family was something I hoped to do someday. One, maybe two, people at a time. Instead I met them all, and while it was crazy intimidating at the time, I wouldn’t change it if I could.
Every Mother’s Day, I get to remember and celebrate what it was like to be welcomed to a dinner table.
Ten years ago, they were strangers. Today they’re all family that I dearly, dearly love.
Our little girl turned four today.
Four.
It hasn’t sunk in yet.
Yesterday she told me, “Before you can be a grownup, you have to be all the little numbers first.”
Today she marked one more little number off her list of things to do and be.
While there is this part of me that wants to tuck her into a ball and make her stay tiny forever, the rest of my heart is truly excited to watch her grow.
Matt and I woke her this morning (after we told her to go back to sleep when she asked at 5 am if the sun was up yet) with a blueberry muffin topped with a pink candle and a rousing rendition of “Happy Birthday.”
She smiled and then immediately stood up to show us how much she has grown and asked, “Do I look four now?”
Yes, yes, she does.
She looks four and talks four and acts four.
(Except for those crazy times when she looks thirteen and talks thirteen and acts thirteen.)
Four years ago she was this tiny little thing and I didn’t know what to do with her.
Now she is tall and huge and I don’t know what I’d do without her.
We’ve always known that a day would come when our child would yell something completely rude and inappropriate at us. We love her, but we don’t kid ourselves. She’s cute, but she’s a sinner through and through.
I always guessed she’d be about 13 before things got heated. I was off by 10 years.
Abby has recently learned to draw an “x” over pictures or words or letters or basically anything else she doesn’t like. Since she rarely has access to a pencil, her only resort for crayons and markers are to simply cross them out.
Well, the other night we were all in our bedroom when Abby asked for something and Matt told her no. Then she started to pout and he told her to go to timeout.
As soon as Matt turned his back on her (big mistake), I saw Abby raise her hand in the air, point that tiny little pointer finger at him, draw an “x” in the air, and yell, “X on you!”
And then she stomped off down the hall muttering “x on this… and x on that… and x, x, x.”
Matt whirled around and stared at me. I barely held myself together until she was safely in her room.
Then I burst out laughing. Crying laughing. Couldn’t catch my breath laughing.
One tiny little three year old girl expressing her absolute disgust with us the only way she knows how, is a very funny thing.
And while maybe we shouldn’t laugh about it, or encourage it, I can’t help but hope that ten years from now the worst thing she’ll say and do is “x” us a few more times.
Judging by her reaction to sending and receiving mail, she’s going to be a lover of words.
I understand her infatuation with pen and paper…
after all, who wouldn’t want a letter from my Granny?
This is what I see most days.
My child is a blur.
She’s fast.
Crazy fast.
And sometimes I worry that if these are the glimpses I catch of her now, what will it be like when she grows up?
Last night we made a late run to the store. Abby saw a bag of cotton candy and asked very sweetly if we could buy it. As she has her daddy wrapped around her finger, and since they apparently share the same sweet tooth, he said yes.
Has she ever had cotton candy before? I don’t think so. But by the packaging she was certain she’d love it.
When we finally made it out of the store, the sun had set. As Abby buckled up in the back seat, Matt opened the bag and tore off a little piece. I watched him pass it back to her with these exact words- “Here you go, Abby.” Nothing more, nothing less.
Something made me turn around in my seat to watch her eat it. When I did, I noticed she had a strange, confused look on her face. Kind of like she hadn’t asked for it, or needed it, or wanted it, but okay- she’d take it.
As soon as the piece passed from Matt’s hand to Abby’s, something went wrong.
I saw her raise the cotton candy to her nose. I thought, “She’s going to smell it first, smart kid.”
Then I saw her actually push the cotton candy against her nostrils. I thought, “Oh no! She’s going to literally inhale it.”
By this time, Matt too had turned around to see what was happening. You couldn’t see her nose through the wad of sugar fluff.
But what happened next was incredible.
As I mentally panicked (but was seemingly frozen and incapable of moving) that she was about to take a deep breath of pink-colored sugar, she pulled a fast one on me.
Instead of breathing in, she breathed out. Hard.
That’s right. She blew her nose into a chunk of cotton candy.
I unfroze. I (in all my worst-parenting glory) may have literally screamed- “What ARE YOU DOING?!” and grabbed the cotton candy from her hand.
As I threw it out the window, Matt was mumbling something to the likes of “What are YOU doing? What was SHE doing? What just happened?!”
Then I burst into laughter, Abby burst into tears, and Matt stared at us in complete shock.
It quickly became clear that Abby hadn’t seen Matt open the bag. Nor had he said anything about “eating” or “candy” when he passed the piece back to her. And thanks to the lack of daylight, pink cotton candy can look an awful lot like a white piece of tissue paper.
Poor baby.
She stopped crying as soon as she realized I wasn’t mad, but honestly, I’m still laughing about it today.
The whole way home she asked me why I thought it was funny and I kept saying, “Have you ever seen a kid blow their nose on a piece of candy? No? Me either.” Turns out that’s hilarious!
Lessons learned: From now on we will make it very clear when we’re handing Abby an edible item. Also, cotton candy dissolves just as quickly when you blow your nose on it as when you put it on your tongue.
Snowberry Life 