Friday, August 12, 2011

This Boy, This Girl


I really love being a Mama.
Yes,
they break me,
they mold me,
they train me,
they bless me,
they make me laugh,
they make me brave,
they don't quite get the concept of the slip and slide,
and so,
they bring this Mama back to those childhood days,
in mid-summer heat,
those days when the only care I had in the world was that feeling of goosebumps enveloping my golden skin, as the breeze blew oh-so lightly across my soaking wet world.

Yep, that's me down there on that slip and slide... Yes, in my clothes...
And FULL, of that kinda joy in my heart that can't help but make it's way up to my face.
How lucky am I that I'm 32 and spending my moments with four amazing treasures, splashing in the hose, laughing until our belly's hurt...


These kids... Man, these kids...


My Hal,

She has the kindest heart.

She loves deep.

She's sensitive.

When she's around family, she's a ham. She makes up funny voices when she talks and laughs at her own jokes. :)

But she's shy and to herself when she's around peers.

She needs a lot of hugs and verbal affirmation and I am more than happy to lavish those things on her.

God's grown her and my relationship the most this year out of all the treasures. He's been so kind in showing me very specific ways in which I can love on her and encourage her heart. I'm so thankful and find myself falling more and more in love with her each day. I LOVE THIS GIRL!


I just plain don't understand how he's grown up so fast.

He's all boy but with a sensitive heart as well. He works hard around our little farm. He asks me a lot of questions... most, I don;t know the answer to. :)

I hate to jump the gun but I'm thinking this young lad is going to be an incredible man someday. He's so much like his Papa, and quite frankly his Papa's an incredible man.

What it is about Siah that I love so much is that he keeps me growing, he keeps me learning. His curious spirit ignites mine and I have discovered so much about life and the world and Christ from his inquisitiveness.

He's brave and adventurous and all my life those would be the last words that I would have used to describe myself... but his encouraging words and example have pulled me way out of my comfort zone and some days have even made me feel like the coolest mom in the world. I've killed a lot of mice this summer with my machete and my Siah stands in the kitchen and watches with a hawk's eye and when the mouse head is detached from the body and on the floor, my Siah claps and cheers and boasts to his friends that his Mama is a mouse-chopper! It's hilarious and life-changing for this Mama. :) Weird, I know... I never thought that chopping mice would be one of the things that draws this Mama and son a wee-bit closer. I LOVE THIS BOY!

My Jeddy,
He's loves him some Mama!!!

He's joyful, but a cry-er.... if that's possible. :)

He doesn't say all that much these days.

He ca sign for "more" and says bye and waves, but that's about it.

He's all boy and tumbles without tears.

He makes me smile so big I can hardly contain myself.

Just looking at him sometimes can change my whole demeanor.

Can't wait to see what this little guy is gonna be like.
I LOVE THIS BOY!


And My Reesie...

Well, she's her own breed of pure loveliness. She's best described through stories. So the latest goes like this:

She's devouring a ripe juicy peach at the kitchen table. She's new to the "eating the whole piece of fruit" thing, as opposed to the usual cut up pieces that Mama puts on her lunch plate. She gets down to the pit of the peach and looks at us awkwardly, then looks back at the peach,

"Mama, I think there's poop in my peach! See!"

She holds it up and points to the seed.

She's just a big ball of three-year-old-hoot!

She's the gal that sits at the dinner table and inquires of her Papa,

"So Pops, how was work today?"

She's THREE! "So Pops, how was work today"???

Seriously??
****************
TOday she made me smile huge...

We're all crowded around The Sweet Spot (I'll post about that soon) in our home... And I'm explaining to all of them something about sin. And two out of the three look at me like they are at least semi getting it, and then I look at Reesie who seems to me like she's in LaLa-land. So I ask her if she's been listening and if she can tell me just what it is that I've been talking about.

And that girl looks at me with her little Reesie-tude and says it,

"That sin stuff Mama, (she puts her hand up on her chin and kinda tilts her head to the side like she's thinking about something really deep) well, it's just so so sad." (then she sticks her lower lip out and makes this pouty face and crosses her arms.)

I look at her and smile huge cuz I'm thinking, what in the world? And that little stinker starts laughing her little head off. Was she trying to be funny?? Gosh, I don't even know. But at least she was listening... so much so that she had a very dramatized emotional response to my attempt to catch her in her dawdling. :)
SHE"S THREE! "That sin stuff is just so so sad"???
Where does she come up with this stuff.

She's my super spunk and she's in my life to help lighten me up and laugh a little more. She's in my life to remind me to spend time on the important issues of the heart, and laugh off the small the things that quite frankly, just don't matter.

She walks around the farm in her Papa's flip flops with her Papa's hammer, with the best facial expressions and a lovely smile. She's growing tall and thinning out and her little personality (or not so little :) is alive and well. I LOVE THIS GIRL!

I'm in love...
It's not to say that I'm not in reality...
Somedays there's so much whining going on under this roof that I find myself just joining in, just because I can't think of what else I might do in the moment.
Somedays, I simply feel done. Done with the laundry, done with the dishes, done with the eating, eating, eating, followed by the clean up, clean up, clean up...

But then I remember what You said Lord,

"Put your hope in God, who richly provides us with EVERYTHING for our enjoyment!"
(1 Timothy 6:17)


"The LORD works out EVERYTHING to its proper end..." (Proverbs 16:4)

I don't always do things right, but you work all things out for Your good.
These treasures are here for my enjoyment... And I can chill-lax a wee bit and know that You love them way more than I ever could. I don't know how that's possible but I know that it's true.
So enjoy them I do!