Jodilightful!

Over the weekend, the girls were talking to Trevor about their future goals and aspirations.  Romilly wants to be a doctor (not bad at all), and Pippa wants to be a fairy (how does she even know about fairies???).  Trevor wondered aloud why neither of them wanted to pursue our chosen career paths (his, research chemistry, and mine, teaching science, once upon a time), then he wondered…

Daddy: Pippa, do you know what Daddy does?  What does Daddy do?

Pippa: (quite confidently, and without skipping a beat) Yes.  Daddy makes coffee.

Daddy: And what does Mommy do?

Pippa: (hesitating, should I be offended or did she just not know where to begin?) Mommy makes lunch.

Well, true enough.   I just wonder why we wasted all those years and all that money on a college education.  For the record, she used to be able to tell us that “Daddy makes medicine,” but I guess we need to keep practicing that one if we want it to stick.  Otherwise we may have Starbucks beating down our door if the rumors get out that he’s actually an accomplished barista.

I’m always a little hesitant to speak too highly of my favorite internet addictions, because they are just that, and I never want to be responsible for sucking someone else into the timewasting world of online fascinations.  With that in mind, at least a  couple of these will be of beneficial quality rather than just entertainment.  Not to mention, if you read my blog, then it’s a fair bet you already have a pretty rich internet life anyway.

1. iVillage.  I stumbled onto iVillage through a baby name messageboard there when I was expecting Romilly, and discovered a whole world of new moms and moms-to-be there.  What an incredible source of encouragement, advice, and increasingly friendship the women I have ‘met’ on these ‘boards’ have been to me since then.

2. Girl talk.  I have referred you to this blog about biblical womanhood several times before, but I really can’t say enough about it.  Carolyn Mahaney, wife of pastor CJ Mahaney, writes this blog  with her three grown daughters, Nicole Whitacre, Kristin Chesemore and Janelle Bradshaw.  Their combined wisdom is a constant source of encouragement and conviction to me.   God bless you, ladies!

3. The Baby Name Wizard.  Anyone who knows me (and probably a few people who don’t) knows that I have had a lifelong love of baby names.  Having my own babies to name has only intensified this love. When it comes to names, the Baby Name Wizard, Laura Wattenberg, wrote the book.  I was given my first copy of her book when I was pregnant with Romilly, but passed that one on to a friend in Scotland (who named her first daughter Lois and is now, I’m certain, coming up with an equally distinctive and surprising choice for her second child).  I think the copy I have now is my dear friend Megan’s, on loan from when we were deliberating over Bea’s name.  (I will get my own copy again, Meg, but the new edition is coming out soon, so maybe we should both just wait for that!)

But, oh yes, the website.  The website is not (much to my pleasant surprise) a rehashing of the book in a slightly different format.  It offers a fascinating blog (with such discussions that follow in the comments that it really ought to have a messageboard to go with it!) as well as the NameVoyager, a tool for tracing the popularity of a name or group of names through history.  And though it is not hosted on her website, it is worth mentioning Laura Wattenberg’s other internet project Nymbler.  This allows you to put in some favorite names or names of your own children, then it offers other names you may like based on your taste.  It is spookily accurate and fun for the whole family whether there is a real baby to name or not (trust me on that!)

4. IMDb.  How did we ever live without the Internet Movie Database? Life must have been so full of the frustration of watching a TV show, recognizing one of the actors playing a small one-time role, and never ever figuring out what other show or movie he was from.  I can’t imagine.  We have even missed having a laptop computer because it means we now have to pause what we’re watching (or wait until a commercial break) to find out who someone is.  But what it is even better for than finding out what an actor has previously been in, is when one of us (let’s just say me) immediately thinks we know who an actor is and can have the satisfaction of proving it.  Like the time I immediately recognized Ellen Greene, who played the mousy almost-elderly mother of serial killer Sylar in the show Heroes and who appeared in about two scenes total, as the blond bombshell Audrey (I) from 1986 movie musical Little Shop of Horrors, which I had seen only once about 20 years ago.  It was a fine moment, and we’ve had many like it thanks to IMDb.

5. FlyLady.  I can’t say I agree with everything on this website, but nothing else has ever motivated me to change my messy, disorderly ways like FlyLady has.  She offers a babystep appoach to taking contral of your home and ultimately many other aspects of your life as well.  Each day I get way too many several e-mails reminding me to change over my dishwasher first thing in the morning, to swish and swipe my bathroom, to set a timer and declutter a room for just 15 minutes a day, and to shine my kitchen sink before bed.  And it really does work.  If I do it.  If, if, if.

So there you have them, in no particular order, and they might even be different tomorrow if you asked me again.  Check out what his Top 5 are, too.  Some of them might surprise you!

Thanks to Megan for suggesting this topic idea for us (and for your copy of Wizard.  I will give it back, I promise.)

dis·ap·pear  [dis-uh-peer]

- verb used without object

1. To forget to do do something one said one would do.

2. To make a silly, silly mistake.

Examples:

“Mommy, you didn’t get me juice… you disappeared!”

(When handed her sister’s sippy cup by accident, giggling) “Daddy, you disappeared!”

*  *  *

Apparently there are two main types of language aquirers among small children, and the differences between the two manifest as soon as they begin (or don’t begin) to say words.  Some children will listen and observe until they are absolutely certain they understand a word, and then attempt to say it.  This was Pippa, who finally worked up the nerve to utter “Mama” for the first meaningful time at 17 months old upon leaving me to stay with a friend while I went to stay with newborn Romilly in the hospital.

Other children will cheerfully spout out whatever nonsense their little minds dream up and hope that some of what comes out of their mouths will be understood and appreciated by those around them.  This is our Romilly.  She had 50 words (some more questionable than others, granted) by 18 months and now, at almost two and a half, keeps us in stitches with enormous words and grown-up idioms that she thinks she knows the meanings of.  She never answers a question with yes or no, preferring responses like “Umm, I sink I’m are” or “I don’t yuv to do dat”.  She “disappears” (see definition 2) quite often in her word choice, and we hope she doesn’t stop doing it anytime soon!

For more Wordless Wednesday, click here.

When God wants to teach me something, He usually isn’t subtle.  I often go through a week or two when I feel bombarded by sermons and verses and conversations with friends that are all pointing me toward the same need for change in my heart.  At some point, I finally raise my hands and just say, “Okay, Lord, I get it!”

For the past couple weeks, the Girltalkers have been doing a series on serving the Lord through homemaking.  This was not a new concept to me, and at first I found myself only skimming their posts and thinking I already knew everything they had to say.  You see, the early posts in the series were primarily aimed at persuading me that being a full-time wife/mother/homemaker is a high calling and worthy of even the most talented and educated woman (that’s me, of course)’s fullest attention, and I already knew that.  I have always known that this was the life I wanted, and, I believed and hoped, the life God wanted for me.  No problem.

But then they went on to draw the only logical conclusion: that if homemaking is such a high and worthy calling, I should be doing it to the absolute best of my ability and energy, and using every talent God has given me to serve my husband and children and to make my home a warm and wonderful place to be.  Oh.

I already knew (and you probably did too, if you’ve been reading for long) that domesticity has never been my best subject, but it had never really occurred to me that simply *being* in my home and *enjoying* my family were not necessarily fulfilling God’s high purposes for my life.

After God dropped me the same hint in a few other contexts, I was discussing it with my dear friend Jen last week.  Jen is a dear Christian and a single woman who has spent the last third of her life serving her father and siblings through a time of need with all the zeal and passion that I ought to have for my own home.  I have so much to learn from her in this area.  As I was sharing what God had been laying on my heart, I lamented, “I just wish I had more of a desire to keep my home nice.”

She responded, very wisely and very lovingly, that “If we pray for a desire, God can give it to us!”  She offered to come over sometime and help me clean/organize, but more than that, she’s offered me accountability.  Five days after our conversation, she called me from her vacation to see if I had followed through on the things we had talked about (I hadn’t.  Sigh.)  I believe that God is going to change me in this department whether I like it or not!

This verse came to my mind yesterday as I was reflecting on this:

Psalm 37:4
Delight yourself in the Lord,and he will give you the desires of your heart.

I do not believe this verse means that if I seek the Lord He will give me whatever I want, at least not in the most obvious sense.  Rather, I believe as we diligently seek after Him and His will, He will bend our hearts to desire the good things He wants for our lives.  With that promise in mind, I will be praying that God will give me a true desire to wholeheartedly serve Him and my family by improving my domestically-challenged ways, and that with His help I will be able to work out the details of that in my home.

In the meantime, what are your routines for keeping your home running smoothly?  Does it come naturally to you or have you had to work on it?  I need all the help I can get!

One day of driving everyone crazy with the camera + one day of montage making = This.  Enjoy!

A Day in Our Life 7/16/08

(Alternate title: A Cheater’s Way to Blog About a Birthday Party)

For more Wordless Wednesday, click here.

Lately, in the upheaval that inevitably follows a ten-day vacation chased by a week of 10 o’clock bedtimes thanks to attending our church’s VBS program, I have been wondering if I would ever see my sweet, calm, role model of an eldest child again.  Last week was fraught with whining, silliness, disobedience and where-did-I-go-wrong? moments.  I was crying out to the Lord to make up for my weakness and work in Pippa’s heart.  This morning I saw a glimmer of hope that my sweet girl is on her way back.

At 7:45 this morning, I awoke to the usual sound of stirrings and goings-on in the girls’ room, so I went to greet them and start our day as I always do.  My efforts to open the door to their room were met with resistance.  At first I thought maybe Romilly  (who only recently has freedom to get out of bed since we converted her crib a little over a week ago) was sitting against the door.  I pushed again, thinking she might have felt the pressure of my first attempt and gotten up. Instead, the push back was even stronger, and I heard this:

“No, Ro-Ro, Daddy says we’re not allowed to open the door!”  (We’ve always had the rule that the Pippa has to knock and wait for us rather that leaving the bedroom on her own, since their door is right at the top of the steps and we have worried about middle of the night tumbles in the dark if she was in the habit of coming and going as she pleased.)

My sweet big girl, thinking it was her little sister and not I who was trying to open the door, was physically barricading the door to try to stop her sister from leaving the bedroom without permission and incurring the requisite discipline. How it blessed my heart to see this protectiveness and desire to model obedience to her sister!  (Believe me, it isn’t that way all the time.)  I can only thank God for answering my prayers and instilling character in her that we, as parents, never could on our own.

Some of you have perhaps noticed that one of my *only* regular blog features has been MIA for a good few weeks now.  We haven’t abandoned it, we’ve just got sort of… stuck.  I can blame some of that on our recent vacation, but certainly not all of it.  A bigger part of the problem is that by them time we both have a minute to blog on Saturday, we want a quick and snappy topic (beards and first jobs spring to mind) but then we wrestle with taking this easy-way-out until it’s too late to blog at all.  Sigh.  As for yesterday, I will blame Beatrix’s birthday party (our last guests left at about 10 pm!)

Hopefully next week will see a return to form for us, but that would be greatly helped by any topic suggestions you want to throw my way.  We got a couple good ideas last time I asked, so I thought I might try it again.

In the meantime, I know that what you are really missing is my husband’s dry wit and clever charm, so may I suggest you hop over and get your fix anyway?  He is currently in the middle of a blow-by-blow account of our vacation that I am totally loving.  I’m sure you will, too.  Click here for his vacation category, then follow the links to the full entries.  (By the way, to read it in order, start from the bottom of the list, but you knew that).

On the 7 1/2-hour drive to Ohio (and back) I was forced to go against my usual grain and (gasp!) change the CD in the van.  It’s a good thing that Trevor pushes me to make these big moves once in a while, or else I would never discover new songs like this one that has really spoken to my heart.  We were mostly chatting over the music on our drive, so it wasn’t until yesterday that I got to really listen to my new CD.

It’s not too often that a song moves and convicts me so deeply that I can’t sing along for being too choked with tears.  This song had that effect (note to self: maybe it’s not a suitable driving CD after all.)  I believe it speaks of an encounter with a dying unbelieving friend, but the more I let the words wash over me and resonate in my soul, the more I know that it applies to every single encounter I have in the mission field that is my day-to-day life.  I pray that it moves me to overcome my fear and “speak the words of life” and that it may do the same for you, too.

Father, hear my prayer
I need the perfect words
Words that he will hear
And know they’re straight from You
I don’t know what to say
I only know it hurts

To see my only friend slowly fade away

So maybe this time
I’ll speak the words of life
With Your fire in my eyes
But that old familiar fear
is tearing at my words
What am I so afraid of?
‘Cause here I go again
Talking ’bout the rain
And mulling over things
that won’t live past today
And as I dance around the truth
Time is not his friend
This might be my last chance
to tell him that You love Him

But here I go again
Here I go again

Lord, You love him so
You gave Your only Son
If he will just believe
He will never die
But how then will he know
What he has never heard?
Lord he has never seen mirrored in my life

But here I go again
Here I go, here I go

This might be my last chance
To tell him that You love him
This might be my last chance
To tell him that You love him

You love him, You love him
What am I so afraid
What am I so afraid
What am I so afraid of?
How then will he know
What he has never heard?