Azalea, Forsythia & Daffodil

We have Azalea clouds in our back yard. 

We (had) forsythia bursting in sunshiney goodness.

But the daffodils had come out second 

(the crocuses were pre-blog and first, appearing in early February)

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What Parenting Is...

This last week I opened my freebie copy of Richmond.com's newspaper to find the headline

"Do's & Don'ts for Parents Taking Kids to Restaurants and Theaters"

Clunky title aside, I began to peruse the list, skipping the introduction. It didn't take long before, appalled, I turned back to the front page, the question on my lips, "Who wrote this?" 

"But my generation is different. We waited to have kids, we chose to have kids, many of us aggressively tried and paid a lot of money to have the kids we so desperately wanted and waited so very long to have (disclosure: When I say we, I mean them. I don’t have any kids)."   -Karri Peifer 

This disclosure was a neatly tucked blip in the midst of "in my day!" rants and somewhat scattered reporting on what the masses think and feel about this issue.  I showed Seth some of the more ridiculous parts of the article which he full-out laughed at,  along with other, less humorous, excerpts: the author tells a rather unsettling tale of her mother... "When I was growing up, it was perfectly acceptable to have adults-only nights, and I have vivid memories of my mother shoving me out of her living room Tupperware party by placing her foot directly on my adorable little face – the one that kept creeping around the corner again and again when told to GO AWAY." (Is this for real?)

My purpose of writing isn't to review this article. Sure, there are some good points: "find out if the restaurant is kid-friendly", but then there are some bad points: "don't allow your child to eat the sandwich you packed for them- order something from the menu, blah blah blah" which in no way meshes appropriately with the other point "don't let your kids have a melt down in the restaurant"-- maybe they're hungry and want their sandwich that you're not allowed to give them because it's a restaurant? In the midst of the condescension there are threats: shape up Richmond or we're going to start slapping "No Kid" bans on various restaurants. And don't forget: "...in doing it wrong, they’re spoiling Richmond experiences for childless Richmonders, and the ones with well-behaved children."

My point is: there's a huge push in our culture to Parent the Parent. Sometimes it's subtle and presented in a book with a sleeping baby on the cover, "The No Cry Sleep Solution" (a deceiving title). Sometimes it's more blatant: "These are the RULES, Richmond Parents, and if you break them the consequences are severe! You disappoint everyone and risk ruining a good time for all of your peers." 

("Perfect parents are the people who don't have any children." -Unknown)

There are parenting ideologies, and methods, and self help books, and infant psychology books, and Today show specials, and Rachael Ray telling us breastfeeding in public is gross and that our kids are picky eaters because we made them that way. There's the media telling us to keep our kids close at all possible moments and not to go out alone, then there are the "Yes Moms" who let their child do anything under the sun so they can express themselves and experience life to the fullest. There are spankers and nonspankers, time-outers and nontime-outers.  There are "baby wise" parents and there are "attachment parents". Nap schedulers and those who are considered "more chill". There are "cry-it-outers" and "baby-wearers", there's "free range parenting" and "helicopter parents".  All of these flavors of parenting are quick to tell you you're doing it Wrong (because we all know being Wrong is the worst thing possible). The judgment is severe, it disconnects people from each other. She doesn't do it my way. Her kids are still nursing. I can't buh-lieve that 8 year old still has a binky. She lets her kids go barefoot. 

When you follow someone else's way you're going to be insecure.  

When I was in the hospital after having Jet, the nurse came in to fill out the breast feeding form.

"How long did he nurse on each side?" she queried.

"Twenty-five minutes on the right and he's nearly done on the left, I think it's been 20 minutes."

"Don't you remember I told you no longer than 20 minutes per side?" 

From this brief interaction came a host of questions: Am I doing it wrong? What does it mean if he nurses too long on one side? Will he ever wean? What if he doesn't wean? What if I start regulating this, will he stop entirely? 

An hour later my midwife walked in. After ogling and squishing my brand new baby (her job rocks), she asked if I had any questions.

"The nurse said I shouldn't feed him any longer than 20 minutes per side? I didn't realize there were rules about it."

My midwife, a mother of five and the most chilled out, pleasant person I've ever met simply laughed. 

"You can just feed the baby when he's hungry. Look at the baby, not the clock."

What a profound thought! I don't have to listen to the Voices of the Experts. I don't have to read the parenting books and follow the Steps to Perfect Parenting. I'm not going to have the Happiest Baby on the Block just because I read and followed that method. All I have to do is listen to my child. What is he saying he needs? 

A lot of parenting is questioning in-the-moment. No book will tell you what your child is telling you. 

My newborn will not stop crying: what could be wrong? What does he need?

My kids are acting out: what does that mean? What are they telling me? Is he over tired? Is he sick? Does he need more discipline, or have I been too harsh on him? Am I giving him the attention he needs or am I distracted? Am I following through with consequences? 

My baby is waking up in the middle of the night: what is he telling me? Does he need to know I'm there for him? Does he need another blanket? Is he thirsty? Did his arm fall asleep while he was laying like that? Maybe he had a bad dream?

My youngest hates other children playing with his toys: what does he need to over come that? Time? Security? Maybe the issue is with my older child and your child snatching things out of his hands? 

There's no one answer for any of this. There are no "Do's and Don'ts" for parenting- not real, in the moment, present, active parenting. The best parents I know have never given me a real answer to my questions or problems. They simply list options to try and questions to ask yourself. The most liberating statement you can make as a parent is "I don't know" because once you don't know, you're free to discover. 

Leviathan raged all of yesterday. Why? I didn't know. I didn't assume though ("He's just trying to manipulate me"). Nope.  Let's look at him. Let's ponder him. Let's consider him. Let's discover him. What's up, Leviathan? What do you need? "Why is this boy crying" isn't going to be answered by googling. 

Parenting is a relationship; there is no "parent" without a "child". And what does a relationship take? Love, respect, communication, endurance, patience, open-mindedness, trust, expectations, humor, security, hard work. None of these are learned from a book. They are learned by living.

***

What are These Flowers?

Does anyone know what these flowers are?

They're not fragrant.

They're tall (5 feet or more) yet incredibly delicate.

They're tiny, but not *so* tiny (the buds are larger than baby's breath).

It looks like there are some other ones coming up, but in a soft pink. 

They bloomed in mid-March.

I hope you weren't looking down here for an answer. 

This is a genuine question.

I have no idea what these flowers are!

*** 

The Root of Bitterness

Today I stepped into my clunky garden boots and out my backdoor with no idea what lay waiting.

The first stop: the monkey grass around the azaleas around the oak trees (around the backyard). Four out of six oak trees in our backyard feature this landscape set up, plus one stump. I grabbed the garden rake and made vain attempts to cleanse the monkey grass of it's twigs, acorns and dead leaves, but my rake kept snagging. Ground cover? I grumbled and started pulling. Ground cover is not my favorite: I'd prefer clover and moss everywhere, if I could.

This mysterious "ground cover" was extremely strong and awfully tough. I followed where it led me, and noticed how it wrapped and wound serpentine up my azaleas. The ground cover was a jumbo azalea-suffocating vine. Ack!

Step Two of my landscaping maintenance was going to be Trimming Back the Azaleas, but I couldn't even get through Step One- Cleanse Monkey Grass with this evil snake vine in the way. I pulled out the clippers and began snipping. 

It didn't take more than a moment to realize I needed a plan of attack. The leaves of the vine were nearly indistinguishable from the azalea. Untangling the two species was simply not an option- the vine had grown with and into the white blossomed azalea, undetected all this time (though I have a hunch that this vine is a fast grower).  I realized I needed to get to the base of the vine (where ever *that* may be) and chop it out. And there is no way I could find the base without following and pruning the vine. 

With the boys playing cars under the pavilion, and me having a task requiring very little brain activity, I allowed myself some good musing time. I love musing. I imagined I was saving this azalea's life from the death clutch of the vine. And it's life would not merely be spared- I had big plans to make restore this bud-covered bush and help it meet it's fullest potential.

Then I started pondering what the vines were in my life...

what bad habit, nasty character trait, addiction, streak of sinfulness is growing up undetected in my life? 

And am I willing to let it be clipped off and ripped out by the roots?

Am I willing to go through the complete pruning in the process?
Do I pretend the root isn't there and just take out the nasty parts everyone can see? The vine will surely come back.
Do I justify its presence (that's just the way gardens are), deluding myself?
Or do I insist that it's someone elses' job (the previous owners let it grow, not me!), blaming others to take the responsibility out of my hands?
Am I afraid of what I'll find down that close to the dirt (thorns, all manners of decay, bugs bugs BUGS, potential poison ivy, bees nests and snakes)?

Amidst all my questions, I was studying the vine, trying to figure out how it worked. The vine was subtle- initially I could hardly distinguish it from the azalea branches, lest I forget how subtle sin can be in my life. It also had multiple, interconnected root sources, lest I forget how convoluted life can become. It was strong: while the ground cover was very stringy and plantlike, this vine was not messing around. It took my all to get some of those roots out.

See to it that no one comes short of the grace of God; that no root of bitterness springing up causes trouble, and by it many be defiled.

Hebrews 12:15

Following the vine = sin, and azalea = me analogy, I'm reminded that it's God who does the work. He's the Gardener who sees the superficial errors in us (hmm, nasty looking dead leaves all over the ground) and knows the real reason those errors aren't corrected is because we're suffocating from the big stuff (whoa, this jumbo-vine has about 8 different root sources!).  He's willing cut us back, clean us up, and liberate us from living a half-life-existence that will eventually be extinguished when the vine overtakes us.  God is working in our lives to make us beautiful. 

Here's what I dug up in one afternoon. It's the size of the azalea but denser.

And there's more to be done. There always is. :)

***

Tulips

Taste and See...

Yesterday our family experienced epic moments of simplicity.

I'm reading a book called "This Beautiful Mess" in which the author (Rick McKinnley) speaks of the paradox of the Now & Not Yet-ness of the Kingdom of God. His message heavily rests in ways we experience the Kingdom now- in this lifetime, while the Kingdom is Not Yet. (Jesus said "the Kingdom of God is within you.") The way we interact with this message affects how we interact with our world and the people in it.

So today, on our scenic route home from meeting, I pondered and bantered with Seth over the various ways God allows us to experience Him and feel Him and know he exists. 

Here are our musings. Not all are true for everyone. We're all unique.

We can experience God through the natural world; through rivers and woods, through mountains and hiking trails, through star gazing on summer nights, or catching fireflies with our children. We can experience him while we fish, or boat, or run by the seashore. We can see his beauty and his intricate, perfect composition of the cosmos by peeking through telescopes. God is in nature.

We can experience God through our family; through the love a parent is struck with when first meeting their new son or daughter. "Wow. God loves me like that," were some of my first parental musings. It's a staggering love and so deep and powerful it's impossible for me to describe it fully. God is in family.

We can experience God through relationships; through close friends, familiar strangers and old acquaintances, the barista who works the Sunday morning shift at the coffee house, the woman who held the door open for you when your hands were full of babies, diaper bags and groceries, through the people in our church and our next door neighbor, the voice on the other end of your business call. God is in people.

We can experience God through meditation; through careful consideration and reflection on our life. Through questioning and rationalizing. We can wonder and pause. God is in our thoughts.

We can experience God through play; through long rambling walks or quick runs, through marathons and living room dance parties, through amateur sports or the yoga class at the gym. During afternoons in your friend's pool, or kicking the ball around for the dog, chasing birds on the beach, creating towers of blocks for the sole purpose of crashing them to the floor again. God is in play.

We can experience God through creativity;  through crafts, arts & craftsmanship. While piecing together a quilt or crocheting squares for a blanket. While we create works of pottery, or build playgrounds in our backyard or reviving an old car, or while making impressionistic paintings of the scene before our eyes. If we write poetry, tell stories or act out dramas from long ago, God is in creativity.

We can experience God through children; through their laughter and persistence, through their unquenchable desire to know, whenever they accept and love regardless, their complete innocence and blindness to our social rules, the way that they seem to default back to happiness and playfulness and immediately forgive wrong-doings in others. God is in children.

We can experience God through music; he moves us with melodies and tunes. Music inspires emotions within us and speaks when words fail. Music gives simple words new life and truer meaning. It brings us together despite all flavors of differences. God is in music.

We can experience God through care-taking; through service to others (organized and unstructured alike), through keeping chickens, putting the cat in at night, through work with the local soup kitchen or     cleaning Chapel floors. Anytime we help or assist another person or living being, whether directly, in a hands-on approach, or by ensuring our kitchen table is cleaned for their use. God is in caring.

We can experience God through learning; when we read historical accounts from eras now past, when we study biology and earth sciences, learning about lava rocks and geography, through various cultures and while striving to understand the perfection of mathematics. God is in learning. 

We can experience God through gardening; being connected to the earth and our food, through the realization that life springs from death, through the patterns of sowing, growing and harvesting, through a reliance on the weather and the natural world: the sunshine, the rain, the bugs, the birds, the earthworms, the dirt. God is in the garden.

God has given all of us unique, quirky, independent individuals, countless moments of epic simplicity, to experience Him, to see His beauty, plan, and love for us. Living a life for God and allowing all of our senses to be aware of Him is living a full life. 

"Oh, taste and see that the LORD is good."

Psalm 34:8a

[Jesus] came that [we] may have life, and have it abundantly.

John 10:10b

What's a Weed?

The big field in our backyard is bursting with beauty and completely color drenched with blues, purples, yellows, whites and of course green! Bees of all kinds are zooming around, pollinating here, bumble-beein' there. 

All these gorgeous life-attracting flower are considered (by many) as weeds.

weed/wēd/

Noun:	A wild plant growing where it is not wanted and in competition with cultivated plants.

Based on the above definition, I can call an overgrown rosebush a weed, if it's not wanted an in competition with my cared-floor flora. And based on the above definition, the backfield weeds get to stay and now have the elevated status of "Wildflowers" because,

1) They are wanted! They're fresh and pretty! 

2) I wouldn't say they're necessarily in competition with cultivated plants. They're not in my garden, though I plan to keep them out. They're in my back-field. Doing their life-attracting thing. 

We do plan to cut them down. Their height is getting a tad ridiculous.  They can grow till they over grow. Then they'll get a haircut. But honestly, Seth and I like the wildflowers. So, in the mean time, I'll enjoy the beauty of the weed. :) 

Update: Seth cut the wildflowers not even an hour after my posting this.

Now the whole yard smells like onions. 

I love Virginia. 

:)

Day by Day

The boys are resting right now after their big morning of outdoor activity. Going out with them reminds me of how simple and fun life is. Leviathan ran here, there, everywhere and nowhere in a very adorable toddler sort of way, while Jet asked a million questions in a very adorable pre-schooler sort of way.

I found a variety of chores while they wandered and explored. I water the seeds after an embarrassing struggle with the hose (the hose won, I used a watering can), picked up some bits of trash around the yard. Then I set my kale out to harden off before planting (grow, kale, grow!) and stretched my arms out every time the breeze picked up. I guess that last one's not a chore, just a weird thing I like to do.

The morning's soundtrack included birds chirping and singing, honeybees buZZing around the peach tree's blossoms, chickens squawking -not the most relaxing of noises-, Jet's chattering and Leviathan's few but consistent words. And one other sound... a constant meow. Out came the cat to explore with us!

Well, not with us. Just near us until he found something better to do- like chase a brown leaf blowing towards the ditch and then unsuccessfully hunt a bird. Since he was down by the road and I keep the kids towards the back yard as much as possible, I let the jungle-cat do his thing and led the kids to the tire swing.

The day stretched into the afternoon. We popped inside for an epic lunch: peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, and then back out to see if we could locate the missing kitty. 

"Jet, where's Ringo?"

"I don't know. I think the chickens ATE him!"

I have no real reason for writing this today other than to express how much I love these little moments and these kinds of days. Part of my ponderings while I putzed around the yard was how little of our life we actually remember. The day-to-day routines and the choresy parts and the time when Ringo the Cat went *missing* for nearly an hour when he was actually under the shed probably napping. Remember when Leviathan threw rocks for 20 minutes and called everything "blue" regardless of it's color? Remember when Jet insisted that the chickens ate the cat (morbid, but yet adorable), and smiled so sweetly when he asked if I was married to Daddy?

Truth is, I wouldn't. I'd remember big moments, wedding days, family vacations, and birthday parties. But this part of life that I love so much, this part that takes up the bulk of my time, it just slips past me and it's gone.

As for man, his days are like grass; 

As a flower of the field, so he flourishes. 

When the wind has passed over it, it is no more, 

And its place acknowledges it no longer. 

But the lovingkindness of the LORD is 

from everlasting to everlasting on those who fear Him,

And His righteousness to children’s children, 

To those who keep His covenant 

And remember His precepts to do them. 

Psalm 103:15-17

This seems a bittersweet end to a lovely day. It's not meant to be. I try to be in the moment, in the day, experiencing it as it comes to me. I want to hold this time with my sons close to my heart, but not obsess over it and let it paralyze me from embracing tomorrow. I'm blessed in so many ways and I hope I'm forever aware of God's goodness to me, day by day. 

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