Saturday, March 27, 2010

It's sleeping.

Tonight: So, Scott's at work and I'm trying to get Betsy to finish her toast by bribing her with canned peaches. (Um, very, very gross ones. In case you wondered.) She tells me she's "done eating toast," and, before I can even ask, she's followed up with, "It's all gone." She starts rapid-firing the "It's-all-gone" phrase, then becomes abruptly silent as I approach her chair.

I guess she still hasn't figured out the dropping-it-on-the-floor trick, because when I go to her chair, there's a huge slab of upside-down toast sitting smack-dab in the middle of her tray.

"You do too have toast! It's right here!" I tell her, turning it right-side up.
"It's sleeping." she replies.

Monday, March 15, 2010

15 minutes

As I am wont to remind you, this blog really is here for memory. Remembering what this moment in time was like, many trips-round-the-sun later, when it's all hazy with that rosy glow things get after a few years.

Not that things are terribly negative, mind you, but it's the haze that bugs me. I want to remember with clarity, precision. I want to remember so vividly that I feel I could slip back into that old skin and be perfectly at home.

What is there to remember?

  • Betsy accidentally locking herself in the bathroom, whining, and declaring, "It's annoying!"
  • Same forthright daughter announcing, "It's boring!" half way through every car trip -- and sometimes before she's even buckled in!
  • This delicate, sensitive life inside me, gliding and kicking in her own distinct way, preparing all of us for her arrival
  • How delightful this spring has been. I thought it would never come.
  • The waves of (job-related) hopelessness -- the way they wash in, crash ashore, and then recede. What it feels like to try to put your hope back together afterward, wondering if the actual truth, the truth-of-the-truth lies more in the pessimistic waves or the stories you tell yourself after a good night's rest, and knowing it's best to just not think about it.
  • Can't control economy. Can't control Home Depot (current job). Can't control professors. Can control our reactions. That's all.
  • Betsy telling us "I'm tiny, too!" when we talk about the upcoming baby sister. This could get interesting.
  • Feeling out of place in our student ward, but equally misplaced in our quirky little family ward. Where on earth do I belong? Please, Lord, just let me belong somewhere. In some aspect of my life.
  • The way your spouse becomes your total salvation, your total joy and consolation in circumstances like these, how you cling together as never before
  • The knowledge that apparently, the world can fall apart. But your marriage won't. Somehow it almost feels worth it, just to know that so assuredly.
  • Leaving things on the Lord's plate simply because mine is too full
  • Incessant anxiety about if I've done everything I should to grow a healthy baby, and how she already perceives this world to be, and if she forgives me for being the stressball I am, because I know it wreaks havoc on her sometimes
  • Knowing answers will come, but not for many more months perhaps. Knowing you and your spouse might not see quite eye-to-eye until the Lord finally gives his input on important decisions that aren't to be made for a while yet
  • Wondering what it means when everything lines up perfect, perfect, perfect, perfect... and then the world sends you free-falling. Did we misread the signs? How does 1+1+1+1=0?
  • Betsy getting so big she often insists on "reading" books to herself now, and how it thrills and devastates me all in the same breath
  • The continual name hunt, searching for a perfect fit for our tiny "baby sissah"
  • Betsy singing so many new, fun songs to herself! She had the first verse of "Five Little Monkeys" down pat after just a night with Aunt Michele!
  • Sending Betsy to timeout on an almost-daily basis, but always going in to find her pointing to Jesus. Then she talks with me about him, ending with, "I happy."


On second thought, I'm not sure I'd want to slip back into this little pocket of time, years from now. It kinda bites sometimes. But I'd happily slip back in for select moments -- moments of pure tenderness with my spouse, and thrilling two-year-old bliss with the sweetest wonder-toddler I know.