Sibling relationships – and 80 percent of Americans have at least one – outlast marriages, survive the death of parents, resurface after quarrels that would sink any friendship. They flourish in a thousand incarnations of closeness and distance, warmth, loyalty and distrust.
– Erica E. Goode

Will saves some of his best smiles for Josh.  And some of the tell-tale wiggles that are baby-bliss, for his brother.  From the first day, Josh has invested in his brother richly.  He hops downstairs every morning, and plunks himself in front of Will’s seat, and pops the baby’s bottle in his mouth without my asking or suggesting.  All the while chanting: “Hey bub-bub.  Hey little guy”.  And Will is thoroughly impressed, gummy grin contagiously warming the room, and communicating utmost appreciation.

Josh is my responsible middle.  My slow-and-steady, my logical and practical.  He is my quick-to-learn and my eager-to-please.  I do not know what I would do without my oldest son.  While the girls are daily evolving emotionally, Josh is steadily the same.

I discuss when I can, the importance of the role Josh will play in Will’s life.  I remind him of the impressionability of younger siblings.  I outline the utter gravity of the decisions he will make through the years, and of how they will influence Will- for better or for worse.

My prayers for these boys are many. I pray for:

*their salvation

*their understanding of and passion for God

*their career choices

*their marriages and future families

*their relationships to one another and their sisters.

And then I pray that they would enjoy one another immensely.  That stretching out ahead of them would be years of shared memories.  And that the truest friendship they ever know- the kind that lasts for life and through anything and everything, would be found in one another.

Three weeks ago, Justin, Grace, Pat and I were able to catch up for a double-date.  Though the original plan was to hike, weather prevented outdoor activity, and we met up for coffee and dessert at Greenlife in the North Shore, instead.  There is nowhere like Greenlife for all things gourmet.

And then we trolled some antique shops.  Justin suggested off-hand, that we should go check out Architectural Exchange, a store dedicated to recycling old bits and pieces of historical buildings.

It was absolutely freezing in the warehouse.  We were bundled up and shivering uncontrollably.  But we walked further and further back in the store, admiring all the somewhat useless things: bits of pottery, iron letters,chipped-up moldings.  I of course, wanted to buy any number of these neat little nothings.  They had such charm.  No intrinsic value to any of them, but I am sure  broad imagination could lead to good use.

Way in the back, there was a huge stack of $5 windows from torn-down buildings.  I love grey.  And this window was perfectly grey.  Needed a long bath and scrubbing.  But it worked out! 

Anyone passing through Chattanooga should definitely make a pit-stop at Exchange.  A little bit of money buys a lot of interest.

I am calling this The Year of the Bubble.

The Year of the Bubble may or may not revolve around this person.

This person lives in my home, and greets the day with hurling her blanket down the stairs to me and saying: “Good morning Mama, I waked up.”

She also prefers to parade the neighborhood in the natural, leaving the constraints of clothing to those with smaller minds and imaginations.

And she can be most easily and daily found, hiding in the pantry.

The pantry affords a certain level of protection from punishment, I suppose.  Food is comforting, and Emma knows all about food.  But still those hollow-core doors just cannot muffle the sounds of crunching and munching as she drowns her willful troubles in crackers and granola bars.

And, when she is NOT in the pantry, she can be found almost anywhere she should not be.  Like, the car….with bubble foam.

Or, the bathtub, with the jets and one gallon of bubble bath.

See Emma, it’s like this: I am no match for your quick-witted moves with the bath salts.

But you are no match for my superior intellect, which inevitably and always leads me on a colorful, slick trail back home to…

YOU.

Dear sweet baby Will-

I apologize in advance for the manner in which you are treated.

I promise, you are very loved.  But I cannot watch over you every minute.

And so, sometimes when I do necessary things like:

…cook

…or go to the bathroom….

you are opportunistically seized by the kids and exploited.

There are strong cords of love binding you four, and that is sure.  But what is fun to them is perhaps, not the thrill of a life-time to you.

We love you, little guy.  And hope that you always….

…enjoy the ride.

Certain is it that there is no kind of affection so purely angelic as of a father to a daughter.  In love to our wives there is desire; to our sons, ambition; but to our daughters there is something which there are no words to express. 

~Joseph Addison

I am one of 5 siblings.   A family of seven, divided up into two sons and three daughters.  The boys are first in line: Andrew, then Tim.  And the girls all along at the end: myself, Susanna and Grace.  My Mom actually only wanted three children, and with my birth she thought child-bearing was through.  (She swears I was an easy child, but this ending re-producing post- Maryanne makes me wonder).

God’s hands are etched all over our family, because while my sisters and I used to fight over anything we could possibly dream up, now we are a fairly water-tight unit.   No one can convey truth to me like these women, no one can make me laugh like them, and certainly nobody has the same courage to sift away my dirt.  

I cannot imagine life had my mother had her way: I would be the lone ranger, set to emotionalize life away in the void of male understanding about such things:). 

God was merciful.

My sister Grace, is our youngest.  The proverbial baby of the family.  She is COMPLETELY the baby.  She is the one who still wants us all to be in our jammies together Christmas morning.  She is the one who hunts and gathers photos together, to make sure memories live on.  She is the one who checks on everyone’s feelings all the time: the nurtured baby.

Grace has recently become a Mom.  And she is a young Mom.  Only 23.  She has fallen in the last two years into the cycle of figuring marriage out, sacrificing for a husband AND a baby.  And learning to conserve money, so that Justin’s life is as stress-free as possible, scaling back into a single income.

Recently, she posted to her blog- which I will not share, because she is WAY private- about how she has been making her home “work”, on a firm budget.  Kudos to you Gracie, for pulling it all together.  Grace inherited Justin’s home when they married.  It is a “family” home, having been part of his life for quite some time.  And is relatively small by North-American standards.  The configuration of an older home can be problematic at times, given smaller and more closed-off spaces.  But, Grace has made her space so sweet and welcoming, and when she posted these photos, I was not only inspired, but proud.

 The unforgiveable sin, is that she found these tables on a thrift-store venture without me, but that is all water under the bridge now.

 Cute what can be done, on a shoestring.

I shall now have one mouth the more to fill,

and two feet the more to shoe;

more disturbed nights, more laborious days, and less leisure for visiting, reading, music, and drawing.

Well! this is one side of the story, to be sure, but I look at the other.

Here is a sweet, fragrant mouth to kiss; here are two more feet to make music with their pattering about my nursery.

Here is a soul to train for God, and the body in which it dwells is worthy all it will cost, since it is the abode of a kingly tenant.

I may see less of friends, but I have gained one dearer than them all, to whom, while I minister in Chist’s name, I make a willing sacrifice of what little leisure for my own recreation my other darlings had left me.

Yes, my precious baby, you are welcome to your mother’s heart, welcome to her time, her strength, her health, her tenderest cares, to her life-long prayers!

Oh, how rich I am, how truly, how wondrously blest!

- Elizabeth Prentiss-

My profound apologies to men for this post, but avert your eyes and go ahead an click to a more manly-site.  BBC News is one.  Maybe something about politics…anything but here.

My story begins the other evening.  And the other evening the ironing had to be done.  I tend to avoid the ironing in lieu of almost anything.  Really, any excuse will do.  Consequently, I iron about once a month.   When I do, it is with a vengeance so that I can avoid the task for another month.  I have a pretty fixed clothing-rule for myself that if it requires ironing, I would rather not have it.  In other words, wrinkle-free Dockers for men are really transformative.  As are jersery knits.  But those ruffly, cute blouses I see everywhere right now, just scream high-maintenance!   Too iron-y.

So, there the pile sat, beckoning.  And I looked it right in the face and decided it was not for me.  No ironing, there you will sit.  Until I can get to you.  And that may not be for some time because really, what have you ever done for me?

I had admired so long the ever-popular posy flower on Etsy.  An Etsy-cliche if ever I saw one.  But they ARE cute!

So, I listened to the hot iron steaming and hissing and accusing, and set to work.

(Fold a swatch of fabric in layers.  Six to eight layers.  Draw a circle.  Cut out circle until there are eight or so.  Lay in a “staggered” pattern on the floor.  Thread a needle.  Twist circles into a flowery pattern, and start sewing.  Gather fabric as you sew, so the “flower” forms.  Cover a button.  Thread it through the center of the flower).

And enjoy.  It will not make your ironing disappear, but it will provide gratification for the moment.

p.s.It is now five days later.  My ironing is still not done.

I stumbled upon this very common scene in our home the other day: Pat, smothered in kids.  Climbing all over him.  There he was in the middle of them, Bible in lap, trying to corral all the eager energy into eager listening.

My husband is tired after work.  Really tired.  I know this because when he walks in the door I can see it in his face.  And when he calls on the way home from work, most times I can hear it in his voice.  So, I increasingly admire him for spending this time with the kids.

But, oh goodness, this family devotion thing is different than we thought.  I thought we would sit totally still and quiet and thoughtful in our family worship.

But, then that is when I everything through while in college, determining how perfectly and victoriously I would live my life.  But life being what it is, we had kids and realized none of our perfect theories were working for us.  Not even one.  Parenting was so easy before children!  And the theory most laughably ridiculous: the one about how we would just magically good-parent the kids into sitting still.  Oh, innocence, bless you.

We do need to teach our kids systematically about how God works and who He is.  They are forming their world-views for life.  But the reality is, most times this is how evenings sound:

“And then God spoke to Moses.. Emma, come back.  Josh, stop jumping up and down…You shall have have no other gods before me.  Anna and Emma, stop fighting.  Anna and Josh, you need to be separated.  Guys, be careful of the baby!!”

It’s not perfect.  But it’s where we are at.  We persevere.  And we trust.

Because we know that words ring true from all ages up until now: that “we WILL reap a harvest if we do not give up”.

I am glad my children lack nothing.  It makes me so happy as a parent to know that I can supply them with every good thing: nutritionally, materially, spiritually.  They are, without argument:

PRIVILEGED.

But they have no awareness of this fact.  They live in that place suspended between middle-grown kids and babies, that place where there is an awareness that sometimes they do not get the things they would like, but a naivete, because in the end their needs are always met.  When they tell me: “Mom, I’m hungry”, I sometimes think to myself “No, you do not know hunger.  You know that you would like a snack, but you do not know hunger.  Not real hunger”.

When they grumble about our daily devotions as a family, I remind them that there are scores of people around the world- other kids like them- who would DIE to have the freedom and access to “just” a Bible.  And there are plenty of people jailed up or running afraid because they cannot freely worship.

And when they say that “it’s not fair”, I increasingly remind them:  “You are right.  It is not fair”.  But since the dawn of time, life has not been fair, and so proceed gratefully.  Because nothing is going to change for you.  And on a global scale, “unfair” is not a claim we can make.

They are unintentionally, bubble-kids.  So privileged they lack context for any other way.  What is hunger?  What is thirst?  What is need?  What is fear?  What is freedom?  All these things are concepts without tangibility.  They see what they can, but then no more because their eyes are blinded by vast….wealth and the comfort it provides.

I recently finished reading Revolution in World Missions.  Written by the founder of Gospel for Asia, it presents information so challenging and simultaneously heart-breaking, it would take hours to write about, and I lack the time.  But here is the catch:

WHAT WILL WE DO?

My family and I.  Not what “can we do?”, because that is easily non-committal.  But what “will we do”?

A New Year’s resolution still in progress is to seek out ministry opportunities that the kids can participate in.  To watch them become hands and feet.  To teach them to give and to care.  And not for any self-righteous sense of gaining society’s label of “good person”, but because the Bible clearly states a truth for them: “To whom much is given, much is expected”.

They have so much.  Their lives are full of beautiful sunrises and sunsets, figuratively and literally.  But my job as parent is not to make sure that they always feel warmth and light, but to ensure that they can be uncomfortable and be perhaps jarred out of child-apathy.

So, in order to put wings to this resolution, I intend to write in one week about which opportunity we are committing to.  My accountability will be this site.  And this post.

It is not intrinsically “bad” to be privileged.  It is what anyone would wish for, and God has created us to work and aspire.   But it is a reality that many simply go without from birth to death without.  And so my question to myself remains: What WILL we do?