I know I share A LOT of Calvinisms around here. He is such a precocious kid with a habit of rattling off very grown-up phrases. The truth is, I only record a tiny portion of the hilarious, bizarre, and surprising things he says.

Hobbes' memorable moments are more-involved and don't translate well into blog posts. But he can be just as funny and charming as his brother, often even more so. His imaginative play has reached a new level lately, and he tells the most complex, interesting stories or sets up these incredible scenarios for us to play out on our adventures. I have yet to figure out how to blog about these.

Since he gets so much less press than Calvin, I had to record these funny stories from the weekend.

We spent the 4th of July at my husband's relatives' house. It was a backyard cookout complete with a pool. There were drinks set up in those little pitchers with spouts at the bottom. Hobbes came up and mentioned that he was thirsty. My mother-in-law went to get him a drink. I was busy with the baby, and didn't notice what he was doing. I knew there was tea in one pitcher and that the other contained margaritas. When I turned around, Hobbes was holding a glass full of yellow liquid.

Hobbes looked up with a big smile and said, "Mmm! I REALLY like this lemonade!" Poor guy, he was a bit bewildered when we all laughed and then threw out his "lemonade" and made him get tea. (No, it was not tea from Long Island.)

Today, on the way home from church, I asked Hobbes what his story was about in children's church today.

"There were bad guys and a good guy. And the good guy was Jesus. But Jesus didn't have any weapons."

At this point, Calvin interrupts, "That's because God doesn't need to use weapons."

"God doesn't need any weapons, Mommy."

There you have it. If only I could use words well enough to convey Hobbes' sweet, adorable, quirkiness and his adorable misarticulations, you would have many, many more stories of this amazing middle child. For now, those will have to do.

Labels: Hobbes, mothering, teaching the faith

For more 7 Quick Takes, visit Jen's blog.

1. Too much to do. I am just overwhelmed these days. There seems to be no way to get everything done that needs to get done in order for us to do anything more than just make it through the day. And you can say all you want about taking it one day at a time, but we do eventually have to get on a plane and move overseas. Insurance bills do need to be straightened out. Some friendships do need to be maintained. Possessions do need to be purged. The dirt and dust under the furniture? That can stick around a while.

2. Too much stuff. I alluded to this in the first one. I have never been so aware of how much stuff we have. I look at everything in our house and ask whether to toss it, give it away, store it, or take it to Asia. I know we still have a year or so, but if I don't start now, it will never get done. Really, compared to most of America, we have very little. It all fits into a 1180 square foot home with small closets and no attic or basement storage space. But when you are moving around the world, it suddenly seems like a lot!

3. Too much cuteness. That is what I think about my kids when I am not thinking about how rotten they can be. Linus knocks my socks off every morning with his smile, Calvin is blowing me away with his new feats of daring and his Lego inventions, and Hobbes' creative mind and imaginative play are in full swing these days.

4. Not too much food. Not for Linus. I finally broke down and made him some homemade baby food last night. Chicken, carrots, and apples. He was getting less than enthusiastic about most of the overly pureed baby foods. He would basically only eat the meat and veggie combos, so I made some of my own. He LOVED the texture. If he could only sit up and would get some teeth...then he would eat anything.

5. Never too many blueberries or peaches or muffins. I found this recipe on the Stoneyfield Farms yogurt container and have used it for strawberry, peach, and blueberry muffins. Yum!

6. Definitely not too many Legos, at least my boys don't think so. My mother-in-law saved the Legos from all four of her kids, so my husband and I estimate there are between 5 and 100 thousand of them. It's kind of hard to tell with Legos. Anyway, we decided it was time to introduce the boys to something greater than Duplos. They are in heaven. They played three solid hours without fighting at my in-laws' yesterday.

7. Absolutely never too much water in the summer. The pool. Didn't I mention that we go there a lot. Thought so. And we are off for a family vacation at the beach later this month. Yeah for water!

Labels: kid stories, Linus, my life, recipes, seven quick takes

That's right, folks. I will probably be around here a little bit this summer, but it is officially hotter than...well, hot, anyway. Our house has bad A/C and very little shade. The only solution? The pool. Every day.

And I am trying to get myself, my family, and my stuff into some sort of emotional and physical order before we start this last year of preparing to move overseas.

I may be around, but not much. I'm still reading your blogs, though! Keep me in your readers if you like me enough to keep me around. I'll be back.

Labels: announcements, my life

I used to pick these every summer, making daisy chains or crowns, putting bouquets in my room. I drove by thousands before I finally stopped today and picked a bunch. Lovely. My favorite flower.

we'll be right back.

Lots of traveling around these parts lately. We just returned from a week in Colorado doing some training for our sending agency in preparation for Asia. Lots to write about and process.

But the boys and I are off in an hour or so to see my family in the mountains and visit my Grandma and pick blueberries. I may be off yet again next week, but that is yet to be determined. So it could be quiet around here for a while. In the meantime, a Calvin story:

We have recently made a summer schedule and posted it in our kitchen. The boys helped me to make the schedule and cut out pictures to glue on it. The biggest change is that we made getting dressed and putting pajamas away the first thing of the day, before breakfast and playtime. When I went to wake Calvin up yesterday morning, he was naked in his bed, pajamas in a pile at the end of the top bunk. When I asked him why he had slept without his pajamas, his answer was simply, "That way I can hurry and get dressed and have more time to do things." This boy is very busy doing things lately. He wakes up with a head full of exciting plans and the energy to carry them out, all day. Thank God for the pool! We'd go crazy in the heat if we were stuck in this little house.

Labels: Calvinisms, family, my life

Back in another life, or maybe just before I had baby Linus, I read A Mother's Rule of Life and began attempting to adopt some of Holly Pierlot's ideas to my life. I am not much of a schedule person and scheduling every minute of my day and every activity or chore I could possibly think of was a bit much for me. I started out trying to make my rule look like Pierlot's, and I just couldn't hack it. If I ever tried Fly Lady, I am sure I would fail miserably. Then Advent and Christmas and a new baby came along and even the meager attempts I made to get us organized were replaced with constant feedings and little sleep and complete chaos.

Somewhere in there, I read Kathleen Norris' Quotidian Mysteries and decided there really was something to this idea of living a life of organized faithfulness in the daily things in order to know God better and to honor Him. If God created us as humans with the need to eat and wash and tend the earth, then those must be places where He meets us in our truest humanity. And when our humanity is out of whack, when we are facing spiritual depression, those places are the hardest to be faithful.

As I have struggled with post partum depression, I have seen that the first things to go when I am depressed are the daily things, sweeping the floors, putting away laundry, and emptying the dishwasher. I hate emptying the dishwasher more than any other daily task, and when I am depressed, it is truly a spiritual battle to get up and empty the dishes, even with my kids helping. If I don't, the dirty dishes pile up, I lose my desire to be in the kitchen preparing meals, other chores weigh on me, and before I know it, the house is a mess and my kids and I are grumpy and impatient. It all hinges on that dishwasher.

(I should insert here that I know that serious depression is a whole different matter. Many people need to worry about getting better and not about unloading the dishwasher. But my depression is often a form of spiritual acedia that may be heightened by hormonal or chemical imbalance but is not beyond my ability to manage.)

I don't think I realized when I started this journey of homemaking and motherhood just how much it would refine my soul. In my undergrad years, I was certain I was called to big things, to pioneering mission work in some remote corner of Asia, to really difficult, big sacrifices. I saw that path as the way to spiritual maturity and growth. Martyrdom is the way to go when you are young and single and zealous, I suppose. Who has time for the dishes?

But now I am called to daily faithfulness in the smallest tasks, like putting books back on the shelf and wiping the table after a meal. I spend my days in doing one mindless job after another only to turn around and find that it needs to be done again. There is not one, great sacrifice of life and family. No, I am learning the value of the small, quotidian sacrifices, though I still have a long way to go. You see, the dishwasher is full of clean dishes even as I write this.

When I planned to go to Asia as a young woman, I was ready for the sacrifice of leaving family and all thing familiar. I was excited to live only on faith in a rugged place. I am still going to Asia, still hoping and praying that God will somehow use me to build His kingdom. But I am so much more aware that it will be through little things, through daily faithfulness to the most ordinary of tasks. That quiet life, that slow steady pace. I am far from finding the rhythm, but I am seeking it. I suppose I should start by getting off this computer and unloading those dishes.

Labels: meditations, mothering, my life

Though Obama's administration is doing something, mountains are still being destroyed. Listen to this woman's story. Then go and do something. Please.

Appalachia is one of America's most beautiful places, and it is being blown up and dumped on people's homes and in their drinking water. They may be poor, and they may not talk like you. But they are strong, beautiful, intelligent people with a love for land that you may have never known. I know it, because it is my land too, and they are my people. Please help us.

Labels: Appalachia, current events, exploring the issues, making a difference