Date Archives → August 2007

come to an end.

An early morning alarm (5 am, to be exact), and pre-dawn trip to the airport, a tight squeeze at the terminal… and she is gone.

All I could think when I got home was how thankful I was that Jameson fell back asleep for an hour — and so did I.

But when I’d gotten up, showered, and Ryan left for work? Then all I could think is, I don’t want to be here alone. I want her back.

Now, though, the baby is napping, and I have washed the bathroom (when the whole house needs help, I always start there), cleaned the kitchen, worked on organizing our inbox system, and scrounged up a bit of a bouquet from my garden. Ah. I feel better. (If you’re like me, you know there’s not much that a few hours of hard productive work can’t fix!)

Lore’s visit made me remember, once again, how blessed I am by the two girls (who aren’t related by blood) I call best friends. There were plenty of years when all I wanted was a kindred spirit sort, but they’re hard to come by. On purpose, my mom would tell me. Keep your standards high. Keep watch over your heart, and that means keeping watch over who are your close friends. Invest in your family, invest in your relationship with the Lord. If He doesn’t give you a best friend, then embrace a season where He is your best friend. Better to be lonely than to be brought down by a compromising relationship.

I guess a girl with so many sisters should feel that she has best friends enough, and I did — and then I got two more.

Two girls whose hearts are tender to the Lord in a way that softens my own fallow ground. Girls who serve the Church with abandon, who gladly give up sleep, hobbies, money, and personal space if it means one more person feels the love of Jesus through them. Girls who are hungry, oh so hungry, for more of the Lord, whose lives clearly say, “Show me Your way!” The grace, mercy, love, and zeal for righteousness that they consistently display is for me iron that sharpens.

And oh, how deeply grateful I am. How many can point to not just one, but two people and say, “These are my friends. They’re like Jesus.”

And besides all that, it nice to know that I’ll have at least two people outside my family who will happily look at more pictures of Jameson.

thoughts

I realize that Jameson’s first day of school is hardly around the corner, but I find myself thinking about his education, and the crafting of this little arrow in general, quite often. I’m looking at my own childhood in a new light, from the perspective of a new mother. (Amazingly enough, my mom was that new mother when I started school!)

These two posts, written this week by seasoned home school moms, encouraged and challenged me. The bottom line I came away with was this reminder: You can’t do it all. You can’t have it all.

And those are very needed reminders as mothers navigate their way through a culture obsessed with education and well-rounded children (read: kids who play every sport and every instrument, travel with the speech and debate team, and are class president.) Add to that the surging popularity of home education and the plethora of curricula now available, and you could end up with a mom driven by completely wrong priorities — or at least pressured by expectations imposed by everyone but the Lord.

Home education, when done as unto the Lord, requires the same level of walking by the Spirit as every other aspect of our lives. It requires the same dying to self, the same willingness to eat this day’s bread, and the same cultivated contentment with whatever talent He entrusted me with. And four years away from the first textbook, I can already feel the squeeze that puts on me, as a mother who is full of ideals, hopes, and dreams for my kids, my family.

What about His dream? His will?

Even choosing a math program becomes an opportunity to seek first the Kingdom of heaven. (And isn’t that exciting, in the end, to know that such a lowly decision can become a sanctified offering? Isn’t it exciting that He is really that much a part of our lives? That the very Kingdom of Heaven is brought to earth in our schooling decisions? Wow!)

this moment.

:: Lore is sitting on the hardwood of my living room floor, with a sweet smelling babe nestled in her lap. He wanted to read, and she is happy to oblige. And I — I am happy to watch. It’s been too nice to have someone here to love my baby with me, all day long. Yes, we’ve done lots of loving-on-the-babe.

:: Jameson is all curly-q and blue eyes these days. His mama has not clipped a single strand of his quirky hair. I’m skittish, I’ll admit. Skittish, and a bit attached to the baby that hair represents. Perhaps when we next meet up with his auntie, she can trim it in such a way that he still looks like a baby.

:: Jameson is also all baby powder and sweet shampoo. His patio and garden hose escapades make bath time a necessary part of most days… at least once!

:: We have one day left together. We haven’t really talked about what we must do. Except bake artichokes, because I’ve never done it, and she says I will really love them.

:: She commented tonight that we’ve done awfully well — two weeks together, and not a moment of being bored. Lots of moments of doing nothing, but never bored. I guess we were both ready for a few weeks of shared silence.

:: Not that we haven’t talked. You will be amazed to know, however, that only one night have we stayed up talking — and even that was nothing compared to the late-night conversations we used to have. You know. The ones where you barely have time to go to bed before the next morning? Those are much more rare now that we’re mature and, well, old fogies.

:: There’s the aroma of fresh-baked cookies wafting through the house. Yum. There are the sounds of a clarinet spilling from a neighbor’s window. Beautiful. There’s soft lamplight all through the house. Peaceful.

:: There’s a friend who has, yes, been a friend for two weeks. I’ve been encouraged and exhorted and hugged and laughed with. I’ve had every one of my ideas greeted with enthusiasm and sparkling blue eyes, and hands and imagination ready to help. We’ve sewn and cooked and rearranged — and done the other stuff of daily grind that is much more fun when there’s a baby giggling in the other room because my friend is playing games with him.

:: Yes, he giggles, and I know: I’m blessed. In this moment, I am blessed.

Visiting

Just popping my head in to say that I’m still here.

After a quick overnight visit from our favorite Dr. Wilson, I changed the sheets once again for our next guest, my friend.

Yay. Lore’s here!

We’ve been keeping busy, even if it’s just busy with oo-ing and ah-ing over Jameson, sipping coffee (because, you know, she drinks coffee now!), and enjoying company in the kitchen. But we’ve done more than that. We’ve walked around town, had dinner in the park, window shopped in downtown Palo Alto (with lots of drooling here), bought some fabric and such, went to Carmel-by-the-Sea (I like to use the full name; it’s just too much fun not to!), Big Sur, Monterey, church on Sunday, and — phew! — stayed home yesterday!

Yes, we stayed home, and I plugged away at crib bedding while Lore managed to procure apples from the tree in our backyard and baked an apple pie just because I mentioned I would love to have some. We made dinner and rearranged the living room furniture, pulled rocks and dirt out of Jameson’s mouth, and sat on the patio. It was a lovely day.

It’s awfully fun to have someone here who is almost as smitten as I am with Jameson. The feeling, it would seem, is mutual. She chases him around the house on her hands and knees, and he giggles harder than his little tummy can handle. And when she stops, he does his best to egg her on. Oh, it’s too cute and too fun. What a sweet little boy I have. What a nice friend, too.

We’ve got a long day in San Francisco in the back of our minds. I emailed a stranger whose blog I found — after realizing she was from San Fran, and that she’s creative and fun and into nooks and crannies of the city, I thought maybe she’d be able to direct us to some spots we’d truly enjoy. And guess what? An hour later, she wrote back with the longest list of places she loves and why. And oooo, I can’t wait to see them all!

So, that and hopefully sewing, and, well, I don’t want to talk about the visit ending. Not quite yet. I’m still in the middle of it. No need to rush to the goodbyes. Not today.

p.s.

Oh, and another item of mischief:

My baby monitor went missing a couple days ago. A quick search under furniture did not reveal anything. Huh. Where on earth could it have gone in this tiny house?

Oh, if only Jameson could talk. He could’ve told me that I’d easily find it in the dryer, in with the load of towels.