up and down

I wish I would have had the camera with me this morning. The park, Sam's outfit....

The Trosky park has monkey bars, an ancient merry-go-round that has been painted at least a half dozen times, the tall swings with rubber tire seats and one teeter-totter and one modern plastic "safe" slide. It's an old-school park for the most part with all the old fun park toys that have been removed from most parks because a few kids fell off . I realized I needed to get the the post office there (hours on weekdays 7:30 - 10:30 a.m) quick before it closed. Usually unless a major snowfall or rain prevents us, we have to stop at the park before we make the 1-2/3 mile trip home. Then sometime between several runs on the slide and turns on the merry-go-round, we have to check what's in the fence at the place that borders the park. I think whoever lives there must be in the foster care program for farm animals. There is something different every time. Today there were two donkeys. Anyway, then it's back to the park.

Sam and Priya are close in weight so the teeter-totter worked perfect. My memories of the teeter-totter are that I was always at least 15 or 20 pounds too heavy for whoever was on the other side, so hopefully this fixture of the park will be a good memory for my children. Sam with his red stocking hat (like the kind the bad guys on movies wear), overalls that are too narrow at the bottom to go over his blue rubber chore boots so one leg is unsnapped half-way up his leg and the other is stuffed inside the boot, is sitting on one side of the teeter-totter saying, "Up". Before I can coach him with "down", he says it: "down" clear as a bell. I did a double take to make sure some neighbor kid hadn't hopped up there when my back was turned.

But not being one to be real daring, within a few seconds, the next word out of his mouth was "off".

Really the only different between the state of the house four years ago and the state of the house now is the speed at which things move.

I used to get out a project and work on it, leave it a few days or weeks and it would still be there to remind me that I needed to finish it. Now if I get out a project and leave, it is still there to remind me but the pieces of the project are scattered anyway from under the chair and couches to a different floor of the house to stashed away in some passel of various items Priya or Sam has packed up. The really important projects I don't want fingerprints, spilled milk and scissors marks on, I put up in. Then I forget about them.

I do give Priya and Sam them credit for creativity, however. Since their toys have been in seclusion for the past two weeks, they really don't seem to miss them. They weren't important enough for them to pick up and put away and the point is further proven by the fact that I've heard almost no complaints about them being missing.They get out the pans and Tupperware containers regardless of where their toys are. Unfortunately the items stored in the kitchen don't stay in the kitchen when they play with them. For instance, one day all the potatoes and onions were filed neatly in some sort of pan in the toy room the other day. Today, all the picnic utensils from the camping container in the porch are laid out on a tablecloth from the kitchen on a plant stand that usually sits by the window in the toy room.

It makes cleanup interesting to say the least...

good gifts

I still say that spending any amount of time with kids gives great insight into how God must relate to us:

At dinner, Sam wasn't interested in finishing his soup so it went in the fridge to be finished at supper. He wasn't interested in it at supper either, but the rest of us were eating hot dogs off the grill and ice cream bars. I so very much wanted to give him a hot dog - he helped Mark grill them and usually loves to eat them. If I disregarded the soup though, more full of good stuff than a hotdog and certainly more than the peanut butter ice cream bar, he would be filling up on more worthless calories than nutrients his body needs.

I wonder if God ever grieves when I resist doing the thing that is good for me and miss out on the "treats" that God has waiting and would so love to hand me.

done?

Think of how many things a person could accomplish if, when a task to be done came to mind, thinking through the steps to get it finished would get it done. All the thank-yous I have ever needed to write would be done much before the paper, pen and stamp were all rounded up. Used plates would be clean in the dish drainer and chunks of food would never lie on the floor for hours (or days). Bills would always be paid on time.

In reality, the steps to getting a thank-you note out are much more convoluted: find a suitable note (or put that on the list to get next time I'm in a store that sells them - add two weeks to the process) find a pen (while I'm searching I'm often distracted by something that seems more immediate); think of something intelligent and thoughtful to adequately express my gratitute (usually I just settle for remembering what I given and think of how it was useful); find a stamp and get it to the mailbox. It is possible for this to be a two or three month process.

More than likely it just boils down to the fact that I err in two areas: I procrastination and am easily distracted and absent-minded. (okay that was three)

William Law wrote this:

"The greatest saint in the world is not he who prays most or fasts most; it is not he who gives most alms, or is most eminent for temperance, chastity or justice. It is he who is most thankful to God, and who has a heart always ready to praise God. This is the perfection of all virtues. Joy in God and thankfulness to God is the highest perfection of a divine and holy life."

Hmm...I guess that it is maybe hardest to keep a thankful heart, rather than keep a well-checked off list of good qualities.

A dignified job?

Spending significant time with little children makes me realize that being dignified is not in the job description...that's maybe not the right word so I'll just go on. They take no regard of what I, their caretaker, am wearing, or doing or who I am talking to. No place or moment or phone call are sacred to toddlers.

How dignified it sounds to say: I'm a graphic designer or I'm a cosmotologist or even I'm a school principal. I'll bet nobody immediately associates incessant whining, and stuck-on food with those professions. I wonder if they ever have to excuse themselves and hang up in the middle of a good conversation because the background noise has hit a peak. I'll bet their relatives and friends don't get tired of them talking about dirty diapers and frustrating child sleeping habits. And I'm quite sure they would never have to change their shirt because human body fluids look really nasty to the average observer.

And most importantly, why aren't those who raise other people's children those 8 or 10 hours each day, while their parents make money, paid wages equal to those of a nurse? As I see it from the last 3 years of my own childcare, daycare providers, unless they just pop on Nickelodeon for the day and pop in several rounds of PopTarts, carry out a very similar job description except that a nurse generally deals in only ailing persons, which may have its advantages, prognosis-wise.

However, getting a up close and personal perspective in human nature....now you won't find a profession that offers that quite as clearly as raising kids. In fact, most of the world's woes come into focus with High-Definition clarity: crime in just about any part of the world or the mistreatent of any group. You name the problem, chances are it's rooted in childish behavior that was cute at 3 but isn't cute at 30 or 50. And honestly, human nature is just about as undignified as anything can be.

purple...not just for anyone

Tonight Priya looked at her new purple Snoopy toothbrush and noted, "Sam could use a purple toothbrush." (I read somewhere that you should open a new toothbrush after you've been sick and having recently had a cold, it seemed appropriate today.)

I told her, "Well, yes but Sam's is yellow."

She said, "But purple isn't okay for shirts for boys. Only for middle-aged men."

There you have it, IF you were looking for some fashion sense. And I can honestly say that I cannot recall discussing what shades of color are okay for what age bracket you are in.