A Lesson for Advent

This weekend we surprised Kathleen and Madeline with a special advent gift -- a Playmobile nativity set. The girls were delighted with it! Mama and Daddy were pretty excited, too. As we opened the set, we were able to talk about each of the characters -- Mary, Joseph, the shepherds, the angels, the wisemen, and, of course, the baby Jesus. We talked about the whole Christmas story, which is just what we had hoped would happen.

Actually, we had a lot of time to talk. The set is amazingly detailed and has more pieces than we'd care to count. We painstakingly matched the characters to their accessories (thank goodness they came with directions!) and then arranged them in the little paper stable that came with the set.


I left Kathleen with the completely assembled toy while I took Madeline upstairs for her morning nap. Once I'd gotten Madeline settled (a process that takes only a few minutes), I returned downstairs to find a bit of a disaster. It looked as though the figures had been decapitated!

Feeling a little concerned (is that a normal response to a new toy?) and a bit irritated (it really had taken a while to assemble), I tried to remind myself that Kathleen isn't yet three. So what if she took it apart? How else would a toddler play with a nativity?

"Wow," I said, "What happened to everyone?"

"Everyone gived their crown to baby Jesus and his mommy," she explained.

I gasped. And then I saw. Everything -- every cloak, every hat, every accessory (including, ahem, everyone's hair) was, indeed, arrayed before the infant King.


Who'd have thought the one giving the Advent lessons would be our toddler?

[They] fall down before him who sits on the throne,
and worship him who lives for ever and ever.
They lay their crowns before the throne and say:
You are worthy, our Lord and God,
to receive glory and honor and power,
for you created all things,
and by your will they were created
and have their being.
Rev. 4:10-11

Happy Thanksgiving

We've had a wonderful Thanksgiving Day, brimming with things for which we are thankful.

• Our little circus is all together. That hasn't always been the case for us, and we know it isn't for many of the military families we know and love. We're thankful for them and for their service.
  
  
• A house full of family! We were joined by aunts and uncles and a sweet, sweet little cousin.
  

• Nan and Grandpa came and stayed over last night, which meant Mama and Daddy not only received help in preparing the turkey, but also got a Thanksgiving Eve night out!

• Everyone pitched in to help -- aunts and uncles and grandparents all brought side dishes. (And a ham, too, actually!) Daddy and the girls helped out in the kitchen before they'd even gotten dressed. (I should probably add frozen dinner rolls to the list of things I'm grateful for...)
  
  
  

• An abundance of food. It will be thanksgiving dinner every day for at least a week at our house!
  

• A cool, crisp evening walk -- a family tradition -- after dinner, before dessert. Kathleen was particularly thankful for her indulgent aunts and uncles, who raced with her and even gave her a little swing.

• And, of course, we're thankful for friends and family far and wide. We are thankful for you!
  

Happy Thanksgiving!

Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God, the LORD is one.
Love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength. These commandments that I give you today are to be upon your hearts. Impress them on your children. Talk about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up. Tie them as symbols on your hands and bind them on your foreheads. Write them on the doorframes of your houses and on your gates. Deuteronomy 6:4-9

It's been a rough couple of weeks for our little circus. Nothing catastrophic -- just a long series of annoyances and aggravations. It started with daylight savings time. First Madeline, who normally wakes a little before five, was waking a little before four. And then somehow, when Madeline's sleeping got a bit sorted out, Kathleen wound up miserably over-tired and started skipping her naps, even though she desperately needed them. Since no one was getting the sleep they needed, everyone got sick, and we've been dealing with runny noses and fevers and general unhappiness since then. The long days of studying for Daddy and the long nights with unhappy babes have been peppered with other headaches, too: being rear-ended at a shop (no one got hurt, though, and there really wasn't much damage), a cell phone dropped in the bath tub (which made a miraculous recovery), the death of yet another camera, countless broken dishes, spilled anything and everything (carrot soup, coffee, what hasn't stained our carpet this month?), an un-fixable steam cleaner, shot records lost just before the doctor's appointment... the trivial list could go on and on.

And as petty as the above list is, it can seem all-consuming when you're in the midst of it. And so, these past few weeks, the challenge for me has been to remember what is real, what is true, what is greater than the mundane of details of days that don't go well.

God is sovereign.
God is good.
God is faithful.
God is gracious beyond measure, even to me.

Even when all the petty annoyances seem to indicate the contrary.

And so, these past weeks I've tried to do as God commanded his people in Deuteronomy -- to set His truth and His word before me. I've tried to keep his truths in my heart, to talk about them with the girls. I've tried to remember that He and His love are greater than my circumstances.

And in doing this, I've found myself looking at my own life differently. Not always, not perfectly, but more often I find myself, even in the midst of the chaos and the headaches, seeing His graciousness to me. I've found gratitude, where normally there's only griping. I've found myself grateful in our very messy, less-than-perfect days. Grateful for:

::: The chaotic jumble of toys -- not a condemnation of my housekeeping, but evidence of an afternoon well-played.
::: The miracle of a sick child consoled only in her mama's arms. (You've made me think, Paula, that we'd be surrounded by miracles if we only had the eyes to see them. )
::: The never-thawed supper meat -- an excuse for a treat dinner of blueberry pancakes. Sweet bites and sweet smiles from happy girls.
::: The sweet, unprompted words on a harried, hectic, less-than-patient day -- "You're such good mama, Mama."

And so, I remember. Again.

God is sovereign.
God is good.
God is faithful.
God is gracious beyond measure, even to me.

Even to me.

Christmas is coming...

Each morning this week when I've gone to get Kathleen from her bed, she has asked, "Is it Christmas yet?" She doesn't really know what Christmas is, obviously. She knows it's Baby Jesus' birthday, but I'm pretty sure that's not what's behind her eagerness for Christmas. She's a bit more excited about the Christmas tree advent calendar (she's been asking for it since, well, since we put it away in January) and the nutcrackers and other decorations she has seen in stores. Oh, and there's the small matter of a Christmas tree. She's looking forward to that, too.

Jim and I have talked a lot about what we want the girls to understand about Christmas. We're trying to be careful to buy and make the girls' gifts, and mostly to keep the giving small, so that Christmas doesn't turn into a big display of toddler greediness. We're also working (mostly with Kathleen, though Madeline understands more than we'd realize) on an Operation Christmas Child box for Samaritan's Purse, so the girls will see that Christmas should be about giving. What we really want, though, is for the girls to understand about the real gift of Christmas -- of who He is and what He did and how He has changed everything forever.

It's probably more than we can hope to get across to a couple toddlers, but we'll try anyway.

We'd heard of Advent Conspiracy before, and I'd visited their website, but I hadn't seen this video before today. (I found it on a favorite blog -- Holy Experience.) I wanted to share it with you. I think it does a great job of getting at what we're hoping to do with Christmas. Maybe it's what you want, too?

Good, Old-Fashioned Fun

Sometimes the unplanned activity proves to be as much fun as the planned! (Maybe even more?!)

The quilt off the bed in Madeline's room, draped between the bed and the crib... Some extra quilts, blankets, and pillows... Some extra friends (of the stuffed and wooden varieties)...

An afternoon of fun!

Crafty Fall Fun

We don't get a lot of fall leaves in California. We can occasionally find a red maple or a few other signs of autumn, but our milder weather means we generally don't get the brilliant colors you'd see in other parts of the country. Since the girls and I can't go outside to gather scarlet, brown, gold, and orange leaves, I decided Kathleen and I would just make some -- at least some "stained glass" versions.

Like most projects with a toddler, this one required a fair amount a preparation. Last night I grated crayons. I stood in the kitchen to do that, using a box grater and some broken crayons from our "colors." Jim and some classmates were working on a problem set as I did it; I'm fairly sure they think I'm crazy. (But I do feed them when they come over to work, so at least there's that going for me.) The crayon grating was a bit tedious. It felt like it took forever to get a decent pile of wax shavings in red, orange, yellow, and brown. (If you're thinking about doing this, though, just know that you don't need nearly as much as you'd think!) I left the grated crayons in disposable cups and set about cutting out the black construction paper frames for our stained glass. I cut a half a dozen leaf-shaped frames. We were ready!

I had thought we'd wait to do our project until late morning or even the afternoon, but Kathleen had other ideas. She noticed the cups right away and, once I'd explained what they were for, couldn't wait to get started. And so, as soon as we'd finished breakfast, we started crafts.

I gave Kathleen one of Madeline's baby spoons to scoop the shavings. She set right to work, arranging the colors on pieces of waxed paper.

She was a little tentative at first, but by the end Kathleen was scooping with abandon!

Once Kathleen had the shavings arranged to her liking, she'd hand the waxed paper off to me. I'd lay a warm iron on top of our waxed paper sandwich, melting the crayon shavings inside. Kathleen loved standing next to me, watching the colors spread and change. We don't have any pictures of that, although I wish we did. I just don't have enough hands to use an iron and fend off two inquisitive little girls and use a camera!

When we finished the ironing, Kathleen used a glue stick to prepare the construction paper frame.

After I trimmed up the waxed paper, Kathleen set it inside the frame and pressed it shut. Instant fall color...

What fun!

Time with a book

Madeline takes a break with a book -- the toddler version of quiet time, I suppose. She was reading "The Story of Jesus."

Anyone care to guess what we ate for lunch?

Grilled cheese (a lovely whole wheat bread and nice, thick slices of Colby Jack cheese), green peas, and -- you guessed it -- frozen blueberries!

Conversations with Kathleen: On the Election

It's almost bedtime for Kathleen. Madeline's already asleep, but Kathleen's waiting up to see Daddy when he comes home from school. She's all bathed and dressed in her new fuzzy jammies. We're snuggling under a blanket on the couch. We know Daddy will be home any minute. The television's on in the background, which is unusual. We don't usually watch television in the evening (at least, not until the girls are asleep!), so Kathleen notices it.

"Can I watch some little girl tv, please, Mama?" she asks. (She calls "her" television shows "little girl tv," probably because I so often say, "Oh, no, that's not good for little girls," as I turn off the television.)

I explain that no, we're not going to watch one of her shows, because it's election night. We talked about how, because we're very, very fortunate, we live in a country where everyone can go to vote, and the people who vote choose the next president. And we talk about how the country is so big ("See the map, sweetheart?") that we have to wait to see how everyone voted to know who the president will be.

"What do you think, Kathleen?" I ask, "Who will be the next president?"

"Umm..." she says, squirming to look me in the face, "NOT ME!"

No, sweetheart, definitely not.

Conversations with Kathleen: On Literacy

It's early afternoon and the girls and I are up in the master bedroom. I'm dusting, putting away clean laundry, tidying up. The girls are watching Veggie Tales "Silly Songs." Watching television isn't my first choice for their entertainment, but it's light years ahead of what they'd choose -- wreaking havoc in my bedroom, or theirs. Madeline has recently discovered how to pry the tops off the Rubbermaid containers that house my fabric stash, and she loves to drag the fabrics and notions out of my closet, through my bedroom, and into the hallway. Kathleen, being stronger, can open actual drawers, which is equally problematic. In the interest of actually making some progress at housekeeping, I let them watch a bit of the video while I work.

Larry the cucumber is currently singing an ode to Barbara Manatee, who is apparently a soap opera star. Larry is absolutely devoted to this manatee -- he's watching her on television and dancing about with a small Barbara Manatee toy as he sings, "Barbara Manatee, you are the one for me. Sent from up above, you are the one I love..." In the midst of his singing, Bob the tomato comes crashing into the room.

"Larry... what are you doing?"

"Um... Just watching some TV," Larry stammers.

"Well, maybe you should just read a book."

I seize on the opportunity to talk about reading instead of watching television. "Kathleen," I begin, "What do you think? Is Bob right? Should Larry read a book instead of watching so much television?"

Kathleen doesn't turn her gaze from the television, but answers, nonetheless, "No. Larry can't read a book!"

"What?" I ask, "Why can't Larry read a book? Books are great!"

"Mama," she says, with a withering look, "Larry is a cucumber. Cucumbers can't read."

Oh. Right.