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Well, you know, I've been trying hard to live by God's "rules", and stay close and all that. And as it has always been I reap these incredible dividends. I mean, not having a 2-3 hour nervous breakdown and weeping to Grant every evening for a few days in a row is it's own reward, but BEYOND that...
1. My sister has said that she is feeling called to help me out, in an annoyingly persistant way she can't ignore, and is volunteering to regularly help me clean my house. She's coming over for the first time tomorrow. Anyone who knows us knows this is, like, seriously miraculous in and of itself.
2. Within a few minutes of showing up at the homeschool group today, we were approached by a high school (well, homeschool high school) student in a Napoleon Dynamite shirt who told me she's a babysitter. We talked for about 20 minutes - she goes to church at the Nazarene church on Sundays, Wednesdays and Fridays, and at a gospel type church on Tuesdays and Thursdays. She has a gaggle of little brothers who she helps with all the time and introduced me to individually. She says she uses a helper sometimes for 7-8 kids at once, but for a "smaller family" like ours it's not a big deal. Annie and Aaron answered her questions (those two ignore EVERYONE completely until at least a 2nd meeting or an hour passes...), and Isaac asked to hug her before we left o_O She really believes in hanging out with a whole family so they can all get to know her and vice versa before babysitting, and the icing on the cake is - no, seriously - she doesn't have rates for sitting. She has rich families that load her up with money and poor families who don't pay at all, most people somewhere in between, but she just loves kids and gets community service hours for the free ones.
YES YOU'RE HIRED.
So, yeah. I can deal with all that.
I've discovered an interesting theological point that many of you might not care about. It never occured to me how Jewish people had been strictly eating kosher (meaning, no blood) as part of their covenant with God throughout so much history, and as such it was a shocking crazy thing we don't fully appreciate today, when Jesus said "Drink this, it's my blood, the new covenant poured out for you" at that first communion table. It was one more scandalous thing about Him, like how He performed miracles on Sunday and talked to women like they were just as important as anybody else and said you weren't supposed to retaliate against enemies. Just a point of (possible) interest.
Isaac has been so sweet lately. He's turning into a child. I need to get a picture of him in this dinosaur pajama set he has...he looks like such a KID, in it - not a baby at all. But a chubby, round faced kid :) He says several words with real clarity now - tea, me, eat, home, no, baby, more - he says dozens of words, but it's a new thing for there to be some that even strangers consistently understand. And he enunciates them so distinctly, it's funny how he emphasizes sounds. I think he will always be "a handful" but he is easier to deal with and live around now than he was a couple of weeks ago.
Ananda alphabetized her spelling words today. And had a ponytail that looked really nice with all her little whispy fringes falling around her face. I got Aaron out of the house in shorts and a tshirt (we were having trouble with that again) and he ran over eagerly to join some other little boys at the park playing baseball. He made a supreme effort to calm the hell down at Wild Oats while we were shopping, and ALMOST succeeded :p I think they took their last or nearly last bath together tonight - when I came in to check on them I heard him say "I don't want you to touch my boy parts anymore" and then Annie looked really shifty and weird. I just ignored it and moved on with hair washing, but I think I'll start encouraging the independance and space that comes with solo bathing instead of milking the convenience of shared ones. Her guilty, tense looks made much more of an impression on me than his statement, fwiw. I don't want either of them to experience any kind of loss of blissful innocence or complex, confused boundary feelings just yet, if I can avoid it.
And Jake's face is changing. Again, or still. He has such a "little man" face - I frequently call him "Mr. Baby". He sits up so well with me just holding his hands, or holds his chest up indefinitely when laying on his tummy, to look around. He's having a super affectionate couple of days, wanting lots and lots of holding and happy as heck as long as he's getting it. I don't think I've ever savored co-sleeping this much before...I'm all too aware that he'll be all big and kicking around and climbing on us before I know it. I love this small, warm, sweet time.
1. My sister has said that she is feeling called to help me out, in an annoyingly persistant way she can't ignore, and is volunteering to regularly help me clean my house. She's coming over for the first time tomorrow. Anyone who knows us knows this is, like, seriously miraculous in and of itself.
2. Within a few minutes of showing up at the homeschool group today, we were approached by a high school (well, homeschool high school) student in a Napoleon Dynamite shirt who told me she's a babysitter. We talked for about 20 minutes - she goes to church at the Nazarene church on Sundays, Wednesdays and Fridays, and at a gospel type church on Tuesdays and Thursdays. She has a gaggle of little brothers who she helps with all the time and introduced me to individually. She says she uses a helper sometimes for 7-8 kids at once, but for a "smaller family" like ours it's not a big deal. Annie and Aaron answered her questions (those two ignore EVERYONE completely until at least a 2nd meeting or an hour passes...), and Isaac asked to hug her before we left o_O She really believes in hanging out with a whole family so they can all get to know her and vice versa before babysitting, and the icing on the cake is - no, seriously - she doesn't have rates for sitting. She has rich families that load her up with money and poor families who don't pay at all, most people somewhere in between, but she just loves kids and gets community service hours for the free ones.
YES YOU'RE HIRED.
So, yeah. I can deal with all that.
I've discovered an interesting theological point that many of you might not care about. It never occured to me how Jewish people had been strictly eating kosher (meaning, no blood) as part of their covenant with God throughout so much history, and as such it was a shocking crazy thing we don't fully appreciate today, when Jesus said "Drink this, it's my blood, the new covenant poured out for you" at that first communion table. It was one more scandalous thing about Him, like how He performed miracles on Sunday and talked to women like they were just as important as anybody else and said you weren't supposed to retaliate against enemies. Just a point of (possible) interest.
Isaac has been so sweet lately. He's turning into a child. I need to get a picture of him in this dinosaur pajama set he has...he looks like such a KID, in it - not a baby at all. But a chubby, round faced kid :) He says several words with real clarity now - tea, me, eat, home, no, baby, more - he says dozens of words, but it's a new thing for there to be some that even strangers consistently understand. And he enunciates them so distinctly, it's funny how he emphasizes sounds. I think he will always be "a handful" but he is easier to deal with and live around now than he was a couple of weeks ago.
Ananda alphabetized her spelling words today. And had a ponytail that looked really nice with all her little whispy fringes falling around her face. I got Aaron out of the house in shorts and a tshirt (we were having trouble with that again) and he ran over eagerly to join some other little boys at the park playing baseball. He made a supreme effort to calm the hell down at Wild Oats while we were shopping, and ALMOST succeeded :p I think they took their last or nearly last bath together tonight - when I came in to check on them I heard him say "I don't want you to touch my boy parts anymore" and then Annie looked really shifty and weird. I just ignored it and moved on with hair washing, but I think I'll start encouraging the independance and space that comes with solo bathing instead of milking the convenience of shared ones. Her guilty, tense looks made much more of an impression on me than his statement, fwiw. I don't want either of them to experience any kind of loss of blissful innocence or complex, confused boundary feelings just yet, if I can avoid it.
And Jake's face is changing. Again, or still. He has such a "little man" face - I frequently call him "Mr. Baby". He sits up so well with me just holding his hands, or holds his chest up indefinitely when laying on his tummy, to look around. He's having a super affectionate couple of days, wanting lots and lots of holding and happy as heck as long as he's getting it. I don't think I've ever savored co-sleeping this much before...I'm all too aware that he'll be all big and kicking around and climbing on us before I know it. I love this small, warm, sweet time.
