Constant Change

“When we say things like "people don't change" it drives scientists crazy, because change is literally the only constant in all of science. Energy. Matter. It's always changing, morphing, merging, growing, dying. It's the way people try not to change that's unnatural. The way we cling to what things were instead of letting things be what they are. The way we cling to old memories instead of forming new ones. The way we insist on believing, despite every scientific indication, that anything in this lifetime is permanent. Change is constant. How we experience change? That's up to us….If we open our fingers, loosen our grips, go with it, it can feel like pure adrenaline.” –Meredith Grey Shepherd

Don’t laugh, but I got this quote from an episode of the television show, “Grey’s Anatomy.” I realize that’s it not exactly a reputable source. I probably should have quoted an educational program by National Geographic or a documentary that was aired on The History Channel or something to that affect. But then this blog post is a far cry from a master’s thesis, so I trust I’ll get away with it. I fell in love with “Grey’s Anatomy” right after James deployed in January and I watched three or four episodes a day in those first couple of months. I just couldn’t get enough. Mock me if you will, but for a TV show it makes some powerful points about human behavior. It may just be a fictional weekday medical drama centered on a cast of eccentric surgeons, but the talented writers behind the script know that people in all walks of life can relate to the challenges that their characters face. In the episode I quoted here, the challenge was change.

It doesn’t take a Ph.D. to realize that “change is constant.”  No one is more fully equipped to confirm this scientific truth than parents. Mothers and fathers witness monumental change on an almost daily basis. We bring our babies into this world as tiny, innocent, helpless beings who can fit in the palm of our hands. Then almost overnight they are smiling and cooing and filling our hearts with more joy than we knew existed. Soon thereafter they are sitting up and flinging fists full of food across the dining room and trying our patience more than we knew was possible. Next they are crawling up the stairs and falling into the coffee table and climbing over the baby gates and causing us more worry than we think we can take. Change after change after change. Our children change. And we change. People always change. One day they are babies and we’re scratching our heads as to how to get them to sleep and the next day they are five-year-olds and we’re wondering where the bus stops.

 Change is the only constant in all of parenting. How we experience that change is up to us. I love my babies but I wouldn’t want them to stay babies forever. Whenever I find myself getting caught up on how much I miss certain things- like the way my belly would bump when they kicked me during pregnancies, or the sweet little sounds they made when they slept as newborns, or how their faces lit up when we played peek-a-boo in their infancies- I find that the important thing to remember is that for each thing I miss, there followed something equally as exciting.  

Sure, it would be easy for me to feel sad that Josie is now a kindergartener and cry, “She grew up too fast!” But I’d rather be happy. This has been an exciting week for me. Josie is changing right before my eyes and I am so proud to watch my little girl become an independent young lady. Her change is also changing me- I am adjusting to being the mom of a school aged child and I obviously have a lot of things to learn. But I’m not scared and I’m not sad.

The big yellow bus is taking our whole family on a journey and there are many new adventures along the road. Yes, I will look back fondly at those memories of my children as babies, but ultimately I will face forward with eagerness. I embrace the change.

“If we open our fingers, loosen our grips, go with it, it can feel like pure adrenaline.” – Meredith Grey Shepherd, “Grey’s Anatomy,” Season 7: Episode 1.

Children of God

Proverbs 22:6 “Train up a child in the way he should go; even when he is old he will not depart from it.”

 God is so good. His works and wonders never cease to amaze me. We left the house last night to attend a concert and dinner at church and I walked out the door with simple expectations of a nice time of fellowship, but by the time we’d made it home I was filled with awe at the presence of the Holy Spirit.

You can find our family at church almost every Sunday. Our kids know the drill. Babies go to the nursery, kids go to their classrooms and adults go to the sanctuary. I’m thankful for this separation so that I can actually enjoy my weekly chance to connect with God without the stress of being a mom, but this also means that I’m not usually privy to the ways my kids are being imprinted. So I found a great deal of satisfaction in my opportunity to sit beside my kids at church on Sunday night.

We arrived early and chose a row of chairs close to the stage. James sat on one end and I sat on the other, so that the kids were trapped between us. I could look down the row and see each little face.

When the music first started their postures straightened, their ears perked, and their eyes widened. As the second song began Josie pointed to one of the musicians and shouted, “I want that one!” Apparently she’d chosen him as her own. Throughout the concert she described him to me in detail, just to make sure it was clear which one she was talking about, and she continually insisted that he was her favorite. Jamie was as good as a two-year-old boy can be when he’s asked to sit still for an extended period of time. He enjoyed putting a dollar in the offering plate when it came around. Even Johnny, who had been all wiggles at first, sat still in my lap and gazed attentively at the quartet as they sung, save for the few times he glanced over my shoulder to admire the little 18 month old girl named Lily who was sitting in the next row. And when there was a short intermission Johnny asked for more music by pointing at the stage then clapping his hands and saying, “mah, mah!” He did this several times. Near the end of the concert the kids were restless so I took them over to a nearby field to play in the grass and an elderly church member approached us and handed out lollipops to the kids. It was all adorably cute to watch.

But the thing that struck me most powerfully was not the obvious cuteness on the surface, but it was what was happening deeper down inside. I was watching the Holy Spirit work in my children’s lives. There weren’t any doves descending from heaven and resting on their shoulders. No, but in a thousand subtle ways they were receiving Jesus’ message of love and grace. They were watching strong men use their gifts for God. They were hearing the name of Jesus being lifted up in praise. They were surrounded by fellow believers and feeling the love of a church family. They were saying prayers and giving offering. And, if nothing else, they were learning that church is a great place to meet cute boys and future girlfriends!

For now they are simply little by-standers. They’re still too young to fully understand the complex reasons behind the gathering and the singing and the praying. But someday very soon, before we even know it, they will be asking the tough questions and making the big decisions. I hope that they will carry positive feelings from experiences like this one around with them, somewhere back in their subconsciouses, and use those to help them find the right answers and make the right choices. It is my belief, my desire, and my most solemn prayer that through constant contact with the Holy Spirit my children will grow with the knowledge of Christ. I am proudly raising my children as children of God. This is the only thing in the wide world of parenting about which I can say I am absolutely sure I am doing right.

Somewhere Between The Seasons

Autumn is in the air! I can smell it, feel it, and taste it. It tastes like juicy hot dogs straight off the grill. It feels like a crisp breeze whisping by and rustling the leaves in the trees. It smells like oiled leather on a well-worn football. My senses are tingling, alerting me to the arrival of fall- my most favorite season of all.  But just because I’m eager for the start of autumn doesn’t mean that I’m quite ready to say good bye to summer. Especially since this summer has been particularly impactful to us and we hate to see it go. That’s why we’re happy to be living somewhere in the in-between.

We started the week off with a trip to the beach. Maybe it was because others knew that summer was drawing to a close, or maybe it was because they were still recovering from Hurricane Irene, but the beach was practically empty. There was plenty of space to stretch out and enjoy ourselves. Josie put her newly acquired body board to good use and taught herself how to body surf. Once she’d got the knack of it, she refused to quit. She rode wave after wave after wave with a huge smile on her face, even if she had just gulped down a mouthful of seawater.

The boys were entertained solely by a couple of large holes in the sand.

They climbed in and out and splashed in the pools of water at the bottom.

I just love to see them all so happy. There’s a special glow to everyone lately, now that the whole family is together.

Later that same day we threw our own little tailgate party in the back yard, in full fall fashion. It started off with a game of tackle football. Now, as you know, football is a very important part of this family’s makeup. God knows we watch the game enough. Josie knows that her favorite team is the blue one and she can cheer, “Go Colts!” at the appropriate times. We’ve played toss inside the house every so often and Jamie recognizes a “bubal” when he sees one.  But this was really the first time that we actually played. The kids are just now getting old enough to grasp the concept of rules and teams and have the motor skills to throw and catch. Ours was an unconventional game, to be sure, and it mostly consisted of Josie running around in circles grasping the football in her arms,

occasionally passing it off to Mommy who would pass it back when she saw Daddy barreling down, while Jamie chased close behind trying to pull her down into the mud,

and Johnny standing in the middle with his little arms waving eagerly and his voice screeching loudly, which in baby talk meant, “I’m open! Pass me the ball!”

It is already an unforgettable memory that I wanted to be sure to commemorate here for posterity. Once the game was over and the grill was smoking we sat down on the porch and ate some hot dogs and bratwursts.

And then to complete the night we all roasted some ooey-gooey s’mores.

Well, Johnny didn’t actually roast them but he did wander around the patio begging bites off of everyone else and ended up with a very funny Hitler-esque marshmallow mustache.

Later in the week I bought a slip n’ slide on clearance for $4. Gotta love end of the season sales! I figured that it would be worth the money even if we only got one weekends’ use out of it. But by the time we got home from the store and I saw the sky filled with menacing grey clouds, I was having second thoughts. I took a poll and the kids agreed unanimously (Johnny voted via proxy) that we’d ignore the weather. There was slipping and sliding galore and no one cared that according to conventional wisdom the temperatures weren’t quite summery enough. Josie sang a rousing rendition of Pink’s So What and the slide became her rock star stage.

This was brought on by the temporary tattoo she’d gotten from a vending machine earlier in the day and was now wearing proudly on her forearm. Jamie was reluctant to participate at first, on a strike because I insisted he had to at least wear a diaper so the neighbors wouldn’t be subjected to his nudity while we played, but he came around once I brought out the pink inner tube.

Johnny got thrown down the slide on his belly once and then picked up the inflatable board and tried doing it all by himself, which left me extremely impressed by his level of comprehension.

After about an hour though the shivers were starting to set in and it was obvious that we had to call it quits. So we headed inside for dinner and made some piping hot alphabet soup. (We’re trying to make sure those canned foods we bought for the hurricane don’t go to waste.) Mmmm!

So here we are, somewhere between summer and fall and loving the variety it has to offer. We’re not quite ready to be done with all the fun we’ve been having the past few months but we are excited to embrace the coming adventures of a new season. By now I'm sure you've figure out that you are meant to read that sentence both literally and figuratively. It adequately prefaces our upcoming venture, which is to send Josie off to kindergarten. She starts on Tuesday, so stay tuned for the full story….