How did I get here . . .

Today I was cleaning my kitchen and playing an old favorite, "The Police" on my handy under-the-counter CD player as I worked. Just as, "Message in a Bottle," comes on I look down and my 18-month-old is rocking out. Then we're holding hands as he dances on my feet. We're giggling and dancing and then the thought pops in my head, "how did I end up in this kitchen dancing with this gem of a little boy?" I mean I didn't see anything like this when I was making my life plans 10 years ago or so. The plans . . .maybe teach, maybe be a missionary, maybe get married if I really wanted to . . . And now here I am a mommy of two boys, playing "my" music in the kitchen when I think they're napping. This is my reality . . . my boys, my husband, the responsibilities of my home . . . But listening to old music and then having my little one toddle into the scene just made me pause and think, "how did I get from there to here?"

Weirdest dream ever!

Seriously . . . I had this dream for real!!! I came across it recently in the pages of an old journal. I wrote everything down I could remember immediately after I woke up.

Nov. 21, 2000

Weird dream . . .

I was in college again or something. A few of us in the class were given these small binders. We just knew somehow they were the instructions for our next "secret mission." I was part of some secret federal project. My instructions were written in the margins of a magazine article. Also, a songbook was opened before me. The words to the song, "The Prayer," were written in Latin but it all somehow made sense to me. My mission would involve me going to an island off of Africa called "Anne Hoi," or something like that. I could expect it to be very cold, but also very hot before I left. I would be there for 2 days and I could invite someone to go with me. I considered inviting my brother and telling my parents I had been involved in this project. I couldn't read the specific instructions about what I'd be doing because the writing was messy. I got up from my table to do something and I saw the professor closing my binder and gathering up my notes that I had been jotting down about my mission at hand. "Oh no," I thought, "I'm dead now. I left all this top secret stuff out for anyone to see. What is she (the prof.) going to do to me now?" She asked to see me out in the hall. We tried to find an empty to talk in. When we found somewhere to talk, she lectured me about the confidentiality of this project. . . blah, blah blah. Also, she gave me further instructions about what I'd be doing. I was to attend this court hearing at a university and try to interupt the precedings with questions. The whole issue was with what languages they were teaching at the university. Some students were on trial for trying to learn English, I think, which was not approved by the university. She said the freedom of the students depended on me. As she was talking, I was actually there (in Anne Hoi) doing my job. The students spoke mostly French. And it was hot the whole time I was there. Then everything just skipped to my coming home. I came home by bus . . . school bus. I was wearing kind of an old-fashioned nurses uniform, with a big nurses hat with a red cross on it. I had a whole bunch of poodles on leashes. This was part of my "cover-up." The dogs had come from the "French-speaking" island I had been to. I got back to my university and met Tammy (Melchien). She was to help me with the poodles. (Oh yeah, if anyone were to ask about the poodles, I was to say that the bald one had a cat embryo implanted into it.) Tammy and I went to a bus stop. An ambulance, not a bus, came to get us. Tammy disappeared through a door to the front. But the opening was too small for me. The ambulance was seriously crowded with college students. I saw Josh across the way and he asked me where I had been and why I was wearing a nurses uniform. He didn't even notice the 8-10 poodles on leashes around me. Just then I awoke to hear Aidan playing in the next room.

This is so amazingly weird, but I really did dream it!

Poems I like . . .

Oh I hear there's been another literary invitation sent out! Great! Here are three (0r four)poems I enjoy an have enjoyed for some time.

1.) "God's World," by Edna St. Vincent Millay. Sometimes I like to sit in the wind, listen to trees rustle in the breeze and think of this poem. Here's a quick quote, "O World, I cannot hold thee close enough! Thy winds, thy wide grey skies!" It's great to feel passion every now and then for the world God created.

2.) "Stop All the Clocks . . .," by W.H. Auden. I like the drama of the grief played out in this poem. I dunno why. A quote, "He was my north, my south, my east, my west. My working week, my Sunday rest. My noon, my midnight, my talk, my song . . ." I like to hear a sad little Irish man reciting this poem in my mind.

3.) "Disillusionment of Ten O' Clock," by Wallace Stevens. I remember teaching this poem to lippy high school kids ten years ago and actually having them love it and get it. Stevens was big on using one's imagination. Having young children, so am I. Here's a quote from a Stevens' essay titled, "Imagination as Value, " " . . .imagination is the power that enables us to perceive the normal in the abnormal, the opposite of chaos in chaos. It does this every day in arts and letters." --Wallace Stevens

4.) Finally, a classic and a favorite, read to me nearly every night at bedtime when I was a little girl, "Wynken, Blynken and Nod," by Eugene Field. I can still picture in my head what I thought Wynken Blynken, and Nod looked like in their wooden-shoe fishing boat.

Okay, so maybe these little poems are no "Wasteland-s" or other great epics. (I do like some of those, too.) But these are the ones that came to mind when I think of my favorites.

Books I like . . .

So, this is in response to Johnny's book tag thing. Enjoy.

1.) Total # of books owned: combined marital book collection . . .app. 300. (most of Josh's are just weird books like old physics textbooks and stuff like that. Why? I don't know.)

2.) The last book I bought: The Oxford Pocket Russian/English Dictionary (in preparation for our upcoming trip to Ukraine)

3.) Last book I read: either Jane Eyre, by one of them Bronte girls, or Without Reservations: Travels of an Independent Woman, by Alice Steinbach. (I think I was reading them at the same time.)

4.) 5 books that mean a lot to me: (I too will leave the Bible off my list, though I am quite fond of it.)
-Desiring God, by John Piper
-C.S. Lewis Had a Wife, by William J. Petersen
-Traveling Mercies, by Anne LaMott
-Big tie for C.S. Lewis stuff, (Narnia, Surprised by Joy, Screwtape, etc.)
-The Man Who Was Thursday, by G.K. Chesterton

5.) Tag 5 other people and have them respond on their blog. I'm not sure I can tag anyone because I don't know too many other people who read my blog . . .I can name a few more authors I like to read and could tag if they were not dead . . .actually how about if I just name some dead people that I really have enjoyed reading about . . .like Rich Mullins, for example. I love that man. And Keith Green. If I even think about him I want to be a better person. Sting . . .he's not dead but I read his autobiography recently called "Broken Music." It was quite good. I love that man too. Oh yeah, St. Augustine. He's dead and I really enjoyed reading, "The Confessions." Wait, have I brought on some sort of bad luck now or something for not tagging actual live people?

Welcome to Potemkin Village . . .

While reading today, I came across the expression, "Potemkin Village." Apparently the phrase refers back to a Russian army officer in 1700's, Grigori Aleksandrovich Potemkin. He had apparently taken a liking to Catherine The Great. Wanting to impress Catherine during one of her visits to Ukraine in 1778, Potemkin ordered that "fake," temporary, yet splendid looking villages be built along the path Catherine would take to reach her destination. What lined Catherine's path appeared to be rich and beautiful, yet it hid the actual poverty that stood behind the fake houses. I know when Josh and I are walking the village streets in Ukraine in less than a month (whoa, it really is approaching fast) there won't be any "Potemkin Villages." We'll see the tiny village we'll be staying in for what it really is. I hope we're able to make real connections with people we meet, especially our host family. Though the poor, Ukrainians we will come to know as friends may think that we are rich Americans who have so much, I hope they see inside us and know that the thing we have with the highest value is the love of God.

That kid can't break a rule to save his life . . .

Josh and I have both discovered Aidan has adopted a "thing" about not breaking a rule that has been posted in writing. While enjoying an afternoon at Fox Ridge Park, Josh asked Aidan if he'd like to sit in the front seat (and not in his usual car seat in the back of the van) while they make the 100 yard trek up to the bathrooms. Aidan, with complete disdain for Josh, tells him no. Josh asks why. Aidan replies, "The air bag, Dad," pointing violently at the bright yellow warning posted on the sun visor above the passenger seat. To paraphrase . . .it says something about if that air bag were to pop open while a kiddo is sitting in the front seat . . . well, not so good really. So he happily crawls in to his car seat in the back, missing the chance to see all the "goings on" up in the front. He gave me the same song and dance a few weeks ago when I gave him the chance of a lifetime to sit on my lap and "steer" the van as we pulled it three feet from the driveway into the garage. All this from a kid who is more than obsessed with cars and how they work, etc. Okay, so he's a rule keeper. I guess you could end up with worse . . .

Hey, I need those hands . . .

So I spent the entire day trying to figure out how to go through life without using my hands. In a strange turn of events this week, it seems I'm suffering from a little tendinitis and carpal tunnel in both of my arms, wrists, and hands. At the doctor this morning I was gifted with these lovely arm braces that have set my arms into a state of rigamortis. How am I able to type, you ask? Very slowly. I asked my 41/2-yr.-old if I looked like a robot in my gray arm braces. He looked at me thoroughly unimpressed, rolled his eyes and said no. I think I look a little like wolverine from X-men. So I'm just hoping I get use of my hands back before I start my new job on May 16th. Funny thing about the doctor this morning . . . our family doctor has left the area so we've just been seeing whoever's available until we pick a new family doc. I saw a "Dr. Wu," this morning, Dr. Stan Wu to be exact. What's funny about this is that in college I dated a guy who played in a band called, "Dr. Wu - Rock and Soul Revue." Ha! Doesn't the past always come back in some way or the other? I can say, though, Dr. Stan Wu exuded neither rock nor soul, but pleasant bedside manner.

I make myself sick . . .

I mean, i really make myself ill sometimes. I have a horrible tendency to second guess every decision I ever make. I found myself locked in the bathroom this morning vomiting repeatedly while my two little boys banged on the bathroom door asking for apple juice. And I really think the problem was just an overload of worry I've been swallowing lately because of all the big things that have been happening in my life. For one, I've second guessed the school we're sending Aidan to next year. It's a primary school on campus, lots of research going on there, and they call the teacher by his first name. A school for little smarty kids. A great opportunity for our boy, but I heard an overdressed, overweight evangelist on tv today use the expression that not every open door is a "God door." I don't usually take spiritual advice from flashy evangelists, but I can say that phrase has only added to my repetoire of worry. Lots of worry has surrounded my decision to go to work part-time. I have loved being home for the last 5 years with my kiddos, and I wasn't necessarily planning to go back to work just yet. It's just that a job that seemed perfect for me has come my way and they want me and I said yes even before all the details of childcare, etc were established. I guess there's a few other smaller things swirling around too that have me a little ill at ease. I tell myself that I'm trusting God with my life. I pray and I wait. And then I end up camped on the bathroom floor waiting for a little more worry to come up so I can flush it down the toilet. Isn't there a way to avoid all this?

My boy . . .

What a kid. I don't even know where all this personality that pours out of him comes from, but I know I am crazy about this kid. He's almost 5, but he's so smart and funny, and so conversational. He can totally, and quite often, catch me off guard with his humor and genuinally make me laugh. And I love to laugh, I survive off laughing most of the time. So to be blessed with a child that can make me laugh is just such a gift. His hair is orange and generally mussed. His cheeks are often red, for no good reason. When he smiles, it involves every pore, crevice, and freckle on his face. Aidan already loves God and somehow knows things about Him that has taken me all of my 31 years to understand. He constantly refers to Jesus as his "boss" and he gives glory to God in situations where it did not occur to me to thank our Father. Aidan is creative in everything he does. He comes up with the best ideas when we are playing or when he is writing stories or drawing pictures. I love how Aidan, no matter the importance of the event or situation, operates with this amazingly innocent excitement. Having a friend over to play, going outside to water a new plant we have planted, cleaning up so the house so it will be clean for Dad's arrival home from work . . . it all just excites him so much. And the way this kid loves the people in his life . . .He loves his granparents so much. He loves his Dad like crazy and can hardly wait each afternoon for him to walk through the front door. He even loves his drooly little brother who steals toys and only makes strange squawking sounds. My Aidan, my first-born boy, he is such a dear, dear gift to me. I try to tell him everyday that he was given to me as a gift from God. Because that's what he is. He is not just a decision that Josh and I made. Or anything I have a right to have because I am a woman with a working reproductive system. He is a gift from God.

How to not marry a jerk . . .

So this really was the topic of our sermon at church today. It was predominantly geared toward singles and those in the courting stage, but it was so good. As Randy was taking us through the steps to avoid marrying a jerk . . . I looked over at my husband, with his fresh hair cut, wearing a shirt I love on him, and I couldn't help but think, "I made it! I DIDN'T marry a jerk." He is such a great friend, and husband, and dad. We went out with two other couples from church this weekend (our age, same age kids as us) and they asked us to tell "our story" . . . how we met, how we got engaged, what attracted us to each other. There's something so great about going back a decade and talking about what it was like meeting and getting to know "the boy" who would eventually become my husband and the father of my babies. It's just fun to be married. It's fun to be in love and to be such good, good friends. It's amazing to have the fortress and and the secret safe garden of a marriage . . . a place that is only ours. Many times when we're around other couples, they will start telling stories about each other. You know, embarrasing stories. But we are cautious about opening the garden gates to others. Well, there was this time that Josh told our entire, new small group that I was reading, "Bridget Jones Diary." I told him not to tell anyone, thinking that book was a little pedestrian for someone with an English degree. I've since read up on lots of Hemingway, Greene, Chesterton, and an occasional Bronte girl. But other than that, he keeps my secrets and I keep his. So, to the poor singletons waiting . . . keep watch and wait with "vigilant patience."