of toothy grins

Jun 302010
 

IMG_3751 Dear Mary Katey,

If I’d have known how well you would sleep in the crib with bumper pads, I’d have bought a toddler bed for your sister long ago.  The adorable crib you were using had solid ends, and so we couldn’t tie our bumper pads in it.  Consequently, since you like to sleep horizontally in the crib, you were always waking yourself up by bumping your head on the slats.  We knew it wouldn’t work for you when you got older, anyway, being too antique to stand up to the kind of bouncing your sister does.

So when cousin Hannah passed on her toddler bed to your big sister Ruth, you got Ruth’s crib—complete with the bumper pads she hadn’t been using in ages.  Suddenly, you were sleeping 5, 6, even 7 hours at a stretch.  I had forgotten one could feel that rested.  Like I said, I’d have bought your sister a toddler bed—all that sleep I didn’t know I was missing!

When you’re well-rested, Mommy’s well-rested, and Daddy’s well-rested (your sister sleeps through almost anything).  But when you’re well-rested, you’re the happiest little pumpkin ever.  And so smiley.  Even if it is a crooked smile.

We laugh at you, because your teeth are never in the middle of your smile.  You move your jaw cock-eyed when you smile.  But it’s cute.  And so you.

Continue reading »

Women and Ginger

Jun 292010
 

Ginger “What is it with women and ginger?” my husband wanted to know.

He’d been to town, and returned with our favorite treat: Haagen-Dazs!

We love it when those little 14 oz. containers go on sale.  They still cost more than Dryers or Tillamook.  But they are so creamy and rich you only need a few bites—so they’re really cheaper, in our estimation.

Besides, since it’s just the two of us, we don’t even bother to dish it up into bowls.  We grab two spoons and our flavor of the evening and enjoy the lusciousness together, propped up in bed.  If only Ruth knew…!

"Baby Ice Cream"(Actually, one time she did get a special treat, thanks to a coupon: “baby ice cream” she called it.  And oh how she loved it!  She tried to share it with her baby sister, but Mary wasn’t so sure about iced cream!)

But to return to women and ginger.  My dear husband, knowing my affinity for all things ginger (from cookies to Christmas to salsa), had snatched up the latest Haagen-Dazs flavor he saw at the grocery store: Ginger!

Our perennial favorite is Dark Chocolate.  So I wasn’t sure about Ginger ice cream.  I’d had Sees Glaced Ginger chocolate candy before, and they were a bit too strong.

But in true Haagen-Dazs style, the Ginger “Five” was smooth and creamy, not too sweet, with just the perfect amount of ginger tang.

And of course, it was most delicious alternating bites of Ginger Haagen-Dazs with Dark Chocolate.  (My hubby preferred to mix his bites of Dark Chocolate with his personal Cherry Vanilla—but I don’t believe cherry and ice cream go together!)

In line at the grocery store, the ladies behind my husband Merritt noticed his ginger ice cream and asked, “Oh, have you tried that before?!  It’s delicious.  It only has five ingredients!  It tastes so good.”

He could only laugh and say his wife liked ginger.

What is it with women and ginger?

I don’t know.  But whatever it is, it’s similar to women and chocolate.  Dark chocolate.

Summer in Bloom

Jun 262010
 

Bringing Up Girls

Jun 252010
 

I’ve listened to his voice over the airwaves for hundreds of hours.  I was homeschooled because of one of his radio broadcasts.  But when I sat down to read his latest book, I realized I’d never read any one of his more than thirty books from cover to cover.

Bringing Up GirlsOf course, I still haven’t.  Because Bringing Up Girls is the sort of book one wants to read slowly and digest thoroughly.  Especially when one has two little girls in the house!

Dr. Dobson writes just like he talks.  You can almost hear his calm, reassuring voice coming through the pages.  First encouraging an overwhelmed mom, next inspiring a dad who doesn’t know how to raise a little girl.

Like his radio program of yester-year, the beauty of Dr. Dobson’s book lies not only in what he, the father of but one girl, has to contribute (because we all know how different two little girls can be!), but upon what he draws from others.  Interviews with girls and their parents.  Radio broadcast transcripts and selections from books and columns.  Q&A about puberty and adolescence.  Chapters titled “Why Daddies Matter” and “Girls and Their Mothers.”

Bringing Up Girls: practical advice and encouragement for those shaping the next generation of women is a solemn reminder that we are doing just that: shaping the next generation.  It’s a bit of a long and daunting read for a busy young mom.  But I’m looking on it more as a reference than a read-through kind of book.

From what I’ve read so far, it has a bit less of the practical and more of the psychological (as another reviewer insightfully outlines here).  But for this mommy that sometimes gets too caught up in the practical, it brings a balance to my bookshelf.

Ask me in 20 years, when my girls are planning their weddings, what book was most helpful and influential in raising my girls.  For now, I’m not going to stick just to Bringing Up Girls, but I do plan to make it a permanent part of my parenting shelf.

Thanks to Tyndale House Publishers for the complimentary review copy of Bringing Up Girls!

The Red “Babboon”

Jun 242010
 

IMG_3342 Dear Ruth Ann,

On Saturday, you went to your very first parade.  You were in awe of the fire trucks and sirens.  You adored the little cars.  You were mesmerized by the horses.

But what made your day was the red “babboon.”  You’ve been talking for months about how you wanted a balloon for your birthday party.  And we’d been promising one for that far away November birthday.  But this Saturday in June, sitting on the sidewalk of Main Street, a whole bouquet of red balloons came walking toward you.  And oh how excited you were!

We tied it to your wrist, so it wouldn’t fly away.  You hardly let it out of your sight for the rest of your day.  (I even tied it to the rail of your toddler bed while you fell asleep.  Don’t tell your grandmothers!)  You were so very excited to have a balloon just like Pooh.

You loved the candy, too.  At first you just watched it fall and only went to get some when told.  But soon, you were jumping up as soon as the candy was thrown, balloon on your wrist, toting your little bag (courtesy of Les Schwab Tires), filling it with more candy than you’ve ever seen in your life.

IMG_3361And then, to top it all off, you got a flag!  Can life get any better than flag-waving and balloon-holding?  You didn’t think so!

But your parents knew the inevitable life-span of a “red babboon.”  So we reminded you of the story of Eeyore’s birthday.  The red balloon that was to be Eeyore’s gift from Piglet got tripped over and popped.  It became a “small damp rag” that went in the empty honey pot from Pooh.

And then there was the balloon Pooh used to trick the bees.  That was a blue balloon.  And the first time since your fascination with wanting your own balloon that you paid attention to that video at Aunt Katie’s, you had burst into tears when Christopher Robin shot Pooh’s balloon down.

So we talked about it over and again, the facts of the life of all babboons.  You spoke with excitement about the fact that sometime your babboon would pop and become a small damp rag.  You were okay with it.

Until it happened.

Your red babboon had an amazing life-span: from Saturday morning until Monday night!  Uncle Mason, Aunt Mouse, and cousin Abbie were over for dinner.  You were playing with your babboon.  We all noticed its gradual shrinking.  And finally, so did you.

I reminded you that it was on its way to becoming a small damp rag.  That didn’t help.  You dissolved into tears.

But because of the way they’d inflated it, your daddy knew he could blow it up again.  He offered to fix it, and you were thrilled.

We all watched, breathless, as your red babboon got bigger and bigger and bigger…

Continue reading »

Hallmark Cards & Love Letters

Jun 232010
 

Box of Letters Dearest Pen Pal,

The lady who owns our local Hallmark teases you because she doesn’t see you as much now that we are married.  But I tell her it’s because I get to see you now that we are married.  Our communication isn’t limited to the pen and ink you filled each blank space of every Hallmark card.  We don’t have to wait until someone is off the phone line so we can talk on the phone.  We get to talk at breakfast, at lunch, at dinner, and until we fall asleep at night.

You and I have often talked about how glad we are that you didn’t have a cell phone, you didn’t have email—our courtship was conducted without FaceBook or texting.  (Except, of course, for that one cryptic “I love you” I sent to your work address disguised as a UPS tracking email.)

As a result, we have boxes and boxes of love letters.  Envelope after envelope emblazoned with Love stamps and Hallmark emblem.  And all your creative return addresses.  With x’s and o’s to be found somewhere in the card.

A friend recently asked you, “Did you really write Gretchen every single night?”

To his incredulous queries you simply explained: “You make time for what’s important to you.”

And I have the boxes of envelopes filled with Hallmark cards and love letters to prove it.  You wrote me from your post at the store, from your grandmother’s house, even a hasty note or two scrawled in the tractor—but most often, it was the letters you wrote late at night, after a long day of work on the farm, when you should have been sleeping but were taking time to write to me instead.  (Sometimes, you even wrote me after you’d been talking to me on the phone.  Somehow, we never ran out of things to say.  And there was always time for one more “I love you.”)

No, I didn’t get a letter every day.  With our mail service, it was never possible to get a letter on a Tuesday—unless Monday was a holiday.  There was only ever one exception, and I welcomed that Tuesday letter with all the delight of the unexpected.

Just like the way I welcomed the card you mailed to me last Valentine’s Day.  There’s nothing like finding a letter addressed in the dearest handwriting to the “best wife in the world lives at…”—mailed to one’s very own mailbox, with a new love stamp I hadn’t even seen yet! (And that particular return address, “Lover’s Lane 143,” showed how well you know me…and my childhood affection for both Anne of Green Gables and Mr. Rodger’s Neighborhood.)

You know how I love getting mail.  And you know how important the written word is to me.  Which is why you still take time to put your love to paper.  (Even though you live it out in a hundred different ways every day of our life together.)

Like the card you tucked in my purse two nights ago, to be found and read when I was on my way to Town the next morning.  Telling me to have fun and get some coffee.  And reminding me to hurry home to you.

It was a Hallmark card, of course.  Proving that the lady at Hallmark sees you more often than she pretends.  Proving that you live up to the advice you give others: you take time for the little things, you make a point to invest in your marriage in all the ways that mean the most to the one you’re married to.  Proving to me, yet again, that there’s nothing better than being married to my best friend and pen pal.

I love you, Merritt.  Thank you for loving me so very well.

Always,
your pen pal
xoxoxoxoxoxo

holy experienceNot that the postal theme of this blog is any indication or anything, but I adore everything to do with love letters.  This Love Letter themed Walk with Him Wednesday might be one of which I read every single post…

Father’s Day emotions

Jun 212010
 

One of my first thoughts yesterday morning was of her.  She came to our church with her best friend when I was young.  One Father’s Day, we heard the ambulance sirens before we’d even left church.  A few days later, I was in the church nursery during her dad’s funeral.  And every Father’s Day, I wonder where she is, and pray for her.

But that is just the beginning of the mixed emotions.  As I scurry around the house trying to quietly put breakfast on the table while my children and their daddy are still asleep, my heart aches for another friend.  Not only is the daddy of her little boys fighting for our country in a far away land this Father’s Day.  But her own dad turned his back on his family and everything he raised them to believe.  Making this holiday one she doesn’t even want to think about right now.

I call my dad, who is headed out on a run with my little brother.  I’d waited until my girls were up, because I knew that talking to them would be the best way to make his day (other than being there, of course, which doesn’t really work with a farmer’s schedule in June).  His “card” from Ru didn’t quite make it to the mailbox on time, because her drawing of the moose she saw got a bit elaborate.  But I can hear his smile through the phone as the girls chatter away.  I tell him I love him and to have fun running.

I think of my cousins.  Two whose dad (cousin to my own daddy) is finally without pain, after a long battle with cancer.  And the dozen and a half I married into, whose dad was taken Home on a snowy day four Januarys ago.

The daddy of my own two girls snuggles next to me on the couch for a movie, some tapioca pudding, and hot chocolate.  Then I watch him as he mows the lawn, surveying meanwhile the hay fields he must needs cut as soon as the weather clears.

“You have the bestest daddy ever,” I tell my girls.

“My Daddy is amazing,” Ru agrees, having heard the phrase from my lips so many times.

Mother’s Day brings with it one set of emotions.  Father’s Day another.  The one, babies, aching wombs, empty arms.  The other, absence or silence, strength or lack of character.

My childhood is filled with so many happy memories, like the snapshots in the Country song “When Daddy Let Me Drive.” My respect and appreciation for my dad has only grown through the years.

And then I married a man whom I knew would make a good daddy.  And oh how he has!  Our girls adore him.  And watching him with them only makes me fall more in love with the man my daughters call “Daddy.”

But as I thank God for these men He has put in my life, I ache for those who have “more pain than joy” this weekend.  I don’t know what to say.  I can only pray that they will feel the love of our God Who is Father to the fatherless.  And that somehow, someday, they will be able to make new memories to celebrate this weekend.

 Older Entries