How'd church go?

One of the littles asked in the back of the silver fox as we drove home in the dark.
"Oh, it was so good!" Molls little voice piped up, "i was the prettiest girl in my class!"
& you know what? i let her have that one.
Most of her life, being the 4th girl in a big family, she's the one with the unbrushed hair & the mismatched outfit with a pass me down skirt 3 sizes too big.
& she did look darn cute...

who would i have been?

Who would i have been - had you not come...
with your thick brown hair & hazel eyes always lookin' for me...
finding me...
holding me in your sight.


i'd be different.


My house would look different - if we two were not knitted together - at times one seeming indistinguishable from the other - my life would look different, my thoughts would look different... even my wardrobe and my words have been affected by the melting pot of marriage.
i imagine us - over these years - one saving the other.
Arms reaching out - sometimes mine - sometimes yours... rescuing the weaker from certain disaster. One extending grace even when the other was clearly in the wrong. Rebuking shame - inviting love to roam freely here.


Who would you have been, then - had i not come...
challenging you with my passion and encouraging you to be willing to stand alone...


You'd be different.


& i've got your back - just like i know you've got mine - fiercely holding onto the good things that i know to be true of you - and doing my best to act with grace when you fall.
God gave us to each other - sometimes allowing one to salvage the beauty of the other that might had been quashed... had we not come.

humour me...

"Kiss me..." i begged, "Hold me in your arms."
"i'm getting too old for this." You grunted, and for just a moment, i thought you weren't gonna.
& then you turned, and i was wrapped, engulfed, smothered, in your arms.
And then, the day...
You had your coffee in a to go cup... i knew as i crept out of bed - after being up no less than 4 times in the night - that i would only have ten precious minutes before you opened the door, climbed in the van and drove to the airport... i could have stayed in bed, but you didn't want to be alone for those early morning minutes - & so i humoured you, my crackling morning voice offering a friendlier good morning... and good bye.
Let's never get too old to humour each other, k?

impassioned pleas... & no nonsense replies

i found a note written by Mollen... my daughter.
The letters were large, and penned in red. i could read the emotion in her tiny diva heart as i read her tragic note:
Deer Peyton,
I hav to move. It is my onle coes (choice). Do you car? Do you hav a ansr?
Followed by a box marked "yes" and a box marked "no" with the saddest sad face ever in between them.
Peyton... neil's daughter, had responded.
The Yes was checked and the No was x'd, and underneath in tidy blue ink were the words, "don't be stuped".
the end

angry juice

i was having a nasty Tuesday morning...
The day was only hours old and i had already seen two children cry over their school work, i had refereed too many fights to count, and i was trying to organize the house after an impromptu night away at my sister's house.
Finally, it was Ephraim's nap time. i folded his tiny body in my arms to carry him upstairs to get him ready for his snooze.
But he was angry. He kept flailing his body away from mine and crying out as he smacked me with his chubby little starfish hands.
We peeked into Cai's room to say g'night as we usually do if she's working up there when he goes down for a nap.
i smiled at her, "Ah, Ro - i'm having a hard day - i've lost my patience way too many times already & it's only morning..."
She smiled back, "Maybe when you nurse Ephraim when you're mad, it just feeds him angry juice 'cause he seems pretty mad too..."
& i think she's onto something.
Mothers have this inestimable impact on the mood and the atmosphere in the house. When we give in & like a child, allow ourselves to be tossed and turned - swept away by the tempers and exasperation that surround us - we're not doing our job...
i know we're not perfect... but i see us as a kind of a greenhouse... sheltering from the inclement weather and protecting tiny buds so that they are fit to bear fruit.
i smooched Cai - and whisked my tiny boy away to my room. It was tidy - a haven - and i shut the door. i crowed over my little one as i changed his diaper and wrapped him in his sleep sack. He spat out his soother in anticipation as i took him in my arms, and fed him...
happy juice.