The Perks of Being Aged

There are days when I realize that I am 30 (riding the cusp of 31), and begin to feel a little panicky.  Am I old?  Is the best part of my life over?  I'll be 46 when Eden graduates from high school.  Fifty-nine when she marries (This may seem like poor math skills, but that's because you're forgetting that Eden isn't allowed to date. EVER.).  I mean, a couple of weeks ago I helped some teenage boys pick out an avocado and later heard them tell their girlfriends that "A pretty lady helped us get a good one."  Lady.  Not girl, not chick.  Lady.  At least I was pretty. But good-bye youth, this is middle age! And so a crisis begins.  The remedy:



NO, watching this ridiculous (and addicting) soap doesn't make me feel young and hip; it gives me something to look forward to.  After all, what can compare to catty old women sitting around dressed to the nines and speaking their minds? 



I'll never have that many diamonds, but I still see a whole lot of awesome in my future. Bring it, age!     

A Budding (Pudding) Picasso

With the busyness of the holidays behind us, Eden and I are almost caught up on all of the washing and cleaning and putting away in our queue.  At last, there is time for more play.  So today we made pudding paint and set about a glorious work. Unfortunately the battery for our real camera was dead, but these shots still capture a bit of our fun. 

 

First, Eden cautiously rearranged the cups several times.

 

 

 

Then she got down to business in a serious way... 

 



 

 

 

finally discovering the pure joy of creation!

Absolute perfection.

Time

I've been thinking a lot lately about God's timing.  About how and why we sometimes end up waiting the longest for the things we want most.  See, I believe in a God who gives us what we want if it's at all possible for Him to do.  But wait just a second, you say. He's God.  Isn't everything possible for Him?  Yes.  And no.  Stick with me for a minute more.

A few days ago Eden and I made chocolate chip cookies together.  It went like this:
  
I creamed the butter. 
Eden whined. 
I added the sugar. 
Eden whined.
I blended in the eggs and vanilla. 
Eden whined. 

She needed that cookie dough.  I finally found myself saying, "Look, Kid, I know what you want, and I want to give it to you.  But right now,  I'm ignoring you. The dough isn't ready, and you will have to be patient."

I nearly stuck my hand in the mixer, it hit me so hard.  God's no salmonella-fearing meany head who just doesn't want to give us the blessings we seek.  Sometimes what we want simply isn't ready yet. I mean, have you ever tried to eat cookie dough before it's complete?  Not so delicious. God loves us enough to give us the good stuff.

He also loves us enough to give us the stuff that's good for us.  I thought of that too with my sweet little Edie Girl. I don't know what challenges lurk in her future (lucky them...I'm handy with a baseball bat), but I do know that they will require significantly more patience than waiting on cookie dough.  Although it was what Eden wanted most in that moment, greater wants will come.  Thank goodness she gets these small chances to practice patience before the big ones just bowl her over.  Me too.  Stretching our abilities is good.

We're supposed to be good too.  Do you know that Kris and I actually met briefly several years before we started dating?  My thoughts on the encounter:  Cute!  Too bad he doesn't have a personality.  Those of you who know Kris are now choking with laughter at my stupidity. The man is a riot.  But you know (and here's the hard pill to swallow)  I just wasn't ready for him yet. It took three years of begging, pleading, and sifting through the dating sewage dump to incrementally become the woman ready to marry the man. For me it's no great stretch to imagine that whole time the voice of a loving Heavenly Father saying, "Look, Kid, I know what you want, and I want to give it to you.  But right now, I'm ignoring you.  You aren't ready for it yet.  Get to work and be patient!"

God loves us.  And he is all-powerful.  But I believe it is contrary to His nature to give us what we want if it isn't good, good for us, or commensurate with our own goodness.  I'm beginning to think that God's timing isn't merely something to wait on while rolling my eyes and tapping my foot and glancing at my watch to remind Him that I have places to be.  Time is the space He gives us to make these things happen.  And if given, then a gift.  So it turns out I need to work on gratitude too, not just patience. 

Hopefully, I've got time for that. 

18 (Months That Is)

Today Eden is halfway to two.  I know in the grand scheme that's not very old, but it kind of has me panicking that all you people were right and they really do grow up too fast.  This is why it is important to take a deep breath and remember that the more things change, the more they stay the same.  For example, Eden still makes this face:

 

True there is a solid set of teeth in it now, but I recognize her impish declaration of independence from way back.  

 

Of course Eden has developed a lot of new skills too.  Here she is about to throw her famous heater for Hunter (it hits him as often as not, but I think he appreciates the sentiment and recognizes that with a little cultivation, he'll have a fabulous fetch partner).  

 

Eden is also really good at stacking blocks.  She's even better at sitting in their container while I "row" her "boat" around the living room.  But her best trick is toting said container around and using it as a step stool to reach the piano, climb on the computer desk, and scale the kitchen table.

You'll note that her hair is long enough that I have to style it these days.  It usually looks cute for about five minutes, before she has either rubbed some sort of food in it or pulled it out of place.  I can barely get my own hair to look decent, so the next few years are going to be challenging.
 

Here Eden demonstrates the proper maneuver for assuming the position at bum change or attire time. One doesn't simply lie down, one spins into it!

I could go on and on about this girl.  Tell you about how she shouts AMEN at each and every pause in a prayer, steals my purse and waves goodbye as she drags it along, hugs Hunter, squeals with delight each time daddy comes home, etc.  But no one cares that much about the minutia of someone else's kid.  I've (no doubt) already said too much.  Can I help it that I'm in love? And aren't we all fools in love?  I rest my case with no apology.   

A Tale of Two Novembers

I'll refrain from getting too Dickensian on you; this post will not be overly long.  The bottom line is that on Thursday we played at the park in 70 degree weather:

Today?  Not so much.

 Here's to a (hopefully) very wet and very cold winter!

Fine

At least we elected a President who truly understands my struggling middle-class lifestyle.  I mean, the last time I was chillin' with Jay-Z and Beyoncé, shooting hoops with former members of the Bulls, I was all like, "You rich people shouldn't make so much money, AND you need to pay more taxes," and they were all like, "Yeah."

So at least there's that.

Recent Reads (Nonfiction Binge)

If you're looking for a new page-turner to burn through next weekend, skip this post. 

Occasionally I like those books too, but for the most part what entertains me is what provokes me to thought.  Hence my latest batch of books.  I don't know exactly why, but right now I am consumed with a need to understand poverty and figure out what to do about it. I guess it's because a lot of the people I'm currently serving in my church work are in or near poverty.  And because I'm the daughter of two extremely hardworking people who didn't have two pennies to rub together when I was a kid.  And also because the poverty rate in the first city I served in as a missionary was over 30%.  When you see a mother and a son physically fight over a plate of food, it does something to you.

These first three books are the beginning of my personal study of poverty.  They provided confirmation for a lot of what I'd already observed, but they also added some valuable new insights. 

 

Closing the Food Gap: Resetting the Table in the Land of Plenty, by Mark Winne
I picked this up totally by impulse off of a display our library had up in September.  It's a fascinating look at the different causes of and attempted solutions for hunger and food insecurity in America.  Winne's main conclusion is that it is the federal government's job to end hunger and that a massive influx of money directed at the problem is the key.    


Our Daily Bread: The Essential Norman Borlaug, by Noel Vietmeyer
I got this one as a free download to my Kindle, courtesy of a heads-up from Sierra. I have to confess that I didn't even know who Norm Borlaug was.  Seriously?  How did I not know about this man whose pioneering work in cross-pollinating wheat more than quadrupled the yield capacity of a single acre, saving the lives of hundreds of millions who stood on starvation's door?  He won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1970.  Remarkable man. There are other works available about him, and the author of this one is occasionally too shmultzy, but the story speaks for itself.  I also found Borlaug's personal journey from abject poverty to educated, middle-class prosperity compelling.  He worked his butt off to get where he did, and certainly possessed incredible drive, but it wasn't without some public assistance.  A pattern?      

The Working Poor: Invisible in America, by David K. Shipler
If you've never spent much time around poverty, this book is a fantastic introduction to the myriad of problems confronting those whose daily lives are less certain than the weather.  Every real person whose story Shipler tells reminds me sharply of someone I have known.  Very stirring.  But although he lays the problems out with grand precision, I don't feel like he gave as much emphasis on solutions as I was hoping for.  I thought the chapter on Skill and Will made some really salient points, but it still fell short.  The premise of this book is that it rejects both the "Republican Myth" (the poor are just lazy, stupid people taking advantage of the system) and also the "Democrat's Anti-Myth" (the poor are all just noble and virtuous souls who fall on hard times through absolutely no fault of their own).  I found Shipler's claim on that front to be mostly lip service.  He does acknowledge bad decisions made by the people he interviewed, but seems to mostly see those decisions as inevitable (i.e. people do drugs because there isn't another choice).  And also, he never really addresses what to do about abuses against the system (which really do occur in some cases).  Anyway, if you are interested in the subject, this is definitely worthy food for thought.   

And now, because not even I can be boring enough to read nonfiction all of the time, two fiction selections: 

Northanger Abbey, by Jane Austen
This is one of the fastest, lightest, perhaps most overtly humorous of Austen's novels.  I've read all of her novels before, but this was a first time rereading this one.  Worth it.

Mansfield Park, by Jane Austen
My least favorite Austen.  I thought that when I first read them all, and twelve years hasn't improved my opinion of it.  I find the heroine to be somewhat weak and the center of the story drags.  But still, it's Austen.  Worth one read, but only if you've already read the others and still need a fix.