8

Reflecting...

It's been quite a year.  It's been a very eye-opening year.  I think December hits hard, too.  You know, I was listening to the first sermon we heard at Mars Hill (first day of advent), and thinking about that a lot.  There was a line in there about how December can be a particularly tough month... that orchestrating get-togethers, juggling vacation time, wrapping up your year... that all of that can so seriously detract from the beautiful and amazing miracle we get to experience every year.  And that maybe Jesus's response would be something like, "Oh good job.  That's just what I had in mind."  And it's completely true.  Sometimes the biggest thing we dare to hope for is to get through this week.

Example: yesterday.  Yes, a lot has happened.  Yes, there are many things that made this Christmas different from Christmases past (but aren't there always?).  Christmas, for my mom, is a time to decorate and pull out all the stops and splurge and buy buy buy and wrap and listen to Christmas music and watch "A Christmas Story" three thousand times and pull out the fancy glasses and little gadgets and put out all the little trinkets that, to her, embody Christmas.  And then everyone gets together at her house and sits down, at some point, to one meal comprised of foods that no one actually particularly wants to eat at any time of year, but seems to be "what people eat on holidays."  Then everyone migrates to the living room and open things that provide a distraction from having to full-on interact with one another, and there's some movie (probably "A Christmas Story") on in the background, despite that the radio may still be on, crying out songs about reindeer and santa claus.  And then after some amount of time deemed appropriate, but without any apparent indicators, everyone scatters and heads out.
So in we walk, with our idea of Christmas.  Christmas, for us, is a time of actively searching out the distractions that try to blur out the gift of Grace, and to remove them.  If anything, advent, for us, is a more minimalist time in which we try to actively anticipate beauty and truth.  And then, when Christmas arrives, we want to spend time with family, share a meal, and just share in each other's company.  We want to slow down and catch up and let togetherness and love just talk for themselves.  We want to sit together and talk together and play silly board games together and take advantage of the time that we have no work/school/meetings/etc obligations, and just be.

Tension.

And of course, everyone thinks that their idea is the right one.  Otherwise we would change, progress, even.

So I've been trying to really focus on the things we do, and more importantly, the reasons we do them.  And I've come to the conclusion that, past a certain point, it doesn't really matter what we do, so much as why we do these things.  We can be together and sing songs about the birth of Jesus and drop some coins in the little bucket next to the guy standing outside ringing a bell, and do all this because it makes us look like good people.  Or, we can do none of that, get takeout food, and play cards with the in-laws, because we think Jesus would want us to celebrate love.
Which is more compelling?  Why do we spend so much time thinking about what we should do, instead of about where our hearts need to be?  God doesn't want our best acts if our hearts aren't in it.  He doesn't need us to write a check for an offering, or to feed the poor, or to donate to charities; He can do all that in an instant by Himself.  You think God's short on cash?  Or on food?  Or on clothes?  If we do these things to show His love, then we're talking.  If we buy a meal for someone who could use it because, well, it's not that expensive, and they're right on our way home, and there's a sale on turkey, and it's really not a big deal, then what good are we doing?  What if, instead, we showed someone who has an abundance of earthly wealth, the love of God?  Which one means more?

Back to this week.

Yesterday went far better than I would've dared to hope for.  I'll even say that it was the best get-together we've ever had with my mom.  But it was because of the things that happened (or didn't happen).  It still doesn't feel right.

I've come to seriously yearn for the kind of fellowship that actually brings growth.  We have some friends who have (somewhat) recently moved to Seattle.  I think we will end up, at some point in the next handful of years, moving across the country to wherever they happen to be.  We have some friends that live a few hours north of us, that I'd love to live closer to as well.  And they're coming to visit on Thursday, which I'm so very excited about.  And Julie has some friends that I've not met, but whose blog I've read a couple times.  It may seem crazy, but I'd go move near them, too.  It's hard, with kids.  I know it's much more difficult to un-learn things, and I know there are things they'll seriously need to un-learn if we can't surround ourselves with the right sorts of people.  I know God is working on us right now, and preparing us for big changes.  It feels like the calm before the storm, but not in a negative way.  But there's a big part of me that's having a lot of difficulty waiting for the storm.

The kids are up.  That's it for now.

7

Tristan has bounced back.  It's been a rough couple days, but he seems back to his old self again.  And Zoe is coming to visit tomorrow and staying until Sunday, which should be really nice.  I know she loves the kids, and they (or, at least, Tristan) are all about her as well, which is great.  And the added bonus is a lack of quite a bit more stress that seemed imminent.  Thank God for small favors.

Lucy is crawling now.  Crazy.  She's so fast, too.  She just seems to have figured it out and taken off.  And she's trying to stand up off the ground.  She's got it figured out.  She climbed a step today, which is potentially pretty scary.  We'll see.  Tristan loves that he has a whole new Lucy to play with.  Now it's all sorts of interesting.

I'm having a pretty hard time focusing, though.  I think that's it for now.

6

The kids have been sick for a little over a week now.  Man, that's difficult.  I want to just be able to help them, but there's so little I can do.  Lucy, on top of that, has cut two teeth (her first two), and is quite close to two more, so her mouth has been a mess, too.  Poor girl.  I think about what it's like when you cut your gum, and how it just stings and aches.  I'm glad we do this first teeth thing when we're too young to remember it.  And then Tristan is just so tired.  He falls over and stumbles and consequently hits his head on everything.  One corner of his forehead is currently green from healing bruises, but he does well with it. I just can't wait for them to get better.

On Sunday, Julie went to visit Ashley and Sunil.  I think it did her a lot of good to have a kid-less day, too. And it was really nice for me to be able to spend that time with the kids.  It's a shame they were sick, because that does make things more touchy.  Smaller things seem to turn into bigger things more easily, and that can be rough.  But they did great, and there was nothing (except bedtime) that was terribly difficult. 

I have my last final tomorrow morning, and it's for the class that I'm least concerned about.  I do plan to run practice problems during naptime (which just started), and then while Julie is at orchestra tonight, so hopefully that will be sufficient.  It's not a class that I'm having much difficulty with, but I still do want to be prepared. 

Some time ago, we bought an old desktop computer from GRCC, and the other day, we bought a flat monitor to go with it.  They have these online sales where they get rid of stuff that's been updated, so it's a really good price.  And we just got the computer set up today, with the monitor on Tristan's desk.  He loves it.  He likes that the mouse lights up blue, and I think he's just mostly excited to play Word World and Curious George and Super Why games, but that's good, too.  They're simple games that are pretty educational, so what more does it need to be?

I think Lucy just got up, which means naptime has been cut short.  I know Julie could use the sleep, and she'll have a pretty late night tonight.  Hopefully the kids do well with bedtime and then sleep very soundly until Julie gets home.  I'll need to use the time better, that's all.  Well, that's it for now.

5

It's been a little while now, it feels like.  Between homework and an exam (and a final tomorrow), let alone the rest of life, I just haven't gotten around to this.  But here we go.

Julie is playing a concert tonight in GR, which means I am home alone with the kids for a handful of hours.  And this is a nice time, too.  It's a chance to spend one-on-one time with the kids, and while it may seem silly, I do love to do that.  The difficulty was that both kids are sick, have some sort of eye infections, and neither (apparently) wanted to sleep when bedtime rolled around.  Well, maybe that's not entirely true.  Both kids wanted to sleep, but they alternated being upset, which kept both of them up.  And then Lucy pooped.  So it goes, though.  We just had a few minutes of all sitting together in Tristan's bed and asking God for patience and strength and for two big helpings of sleep.  He delivered on all three, and nearly instantly.  It was honestly no more than fifteen minutes from that point until both kids were full-on asleep.  I know they both had a big day, with going to the doctor's and then playing at the mall and being sick and such.  Poor kids have been absolute troopers.  I'm so very proud of both of them.

And then Lucy cut two teeth yesterday!  Her bottom two front teeth have poked their razor-sharp heads through, and she is so interested in chewing anything that she can with them (including anyone's fingers that may stray too close to her mouth).  Good for her, though, because I know she's been working on them for quite some time.  It was the same with Tristan, too.  He went through all the motions of tooth-cutting (excessive drooling, head cold, fatigue), but then no teeth for quite some time.  Then he suddenly one day started pushing teeth out two at a time.  I kind of think that's what Lucy's doing, too.  But she's becoming more and more interested in the food that everyone else is eating, so it may be the right time for it.

I think we're all anticipating break just a little bit.  There's been a definite shift in the dynamic in the last week or two, and maybe we're all just sliding into break mode.  It'll be so nice being able to be home more with Julie and the kids.  It's pretty hard leaving for school every day, but, for grad school, I am getting probably much more time with my beautiful family than I should be able to, so there are no complaints by any means.  And this next semester, it looks like I have Wednesdays (mostly) off, which is excellent.  That should divide up the week pretty well.

I should get back to studying.  I wanted to take a short break and post something quick, which I've pretty much accomplished, I think.  Maybe I'll post more later tonight, but either way, here's something, at least.

4

Winter seems to have hit.  Today calls for 8 inches of snow.  Welcome to Kalamazoo.  I've been hearing that this seems to hit some kind of "sweet spot" for how the jet stream travels, and that we just get brutal amounts of snow, even compared to Grand Rapids.  And if the rain is any indication (which it should be), then that seems probable.  So bring on the winter.  It's true, though, that seeing winter through the eyes of two small children changes your perspective.  Not that I dislike winter in general (I don't particularly like scraping off the windshield, but it's hardly worth getting upset over), but to see our boy so excited to go out in the snow was quite wonderful last year.  And this will be Lucy's first winter, which she may actually be old enough to enjoy (Tristan was really an infant during his first winter).

You spend so much of your free time at school trying to bust out homework and get as far as you can on problem sets so you can have more free time at home.  And then you turn in your homework, and until you get a new set, there's this strange conundrum of what to do with the extra time between classes and labs.  It's that day today.  And there's not likely to be another homework assignment in this class, which makes it even more strange.  A funny thing, school is...

When I get home today, Julie and the kids won't be there.  She's playing a gig in GR tonight, and her mom is watching the kids...  It's nice, and I'm glad she gets to do it, because I know how much she enjoys the chance to just jam out and do something like this.  And I'm very excited for her.  But I'm not sure what it'll be like coming home to an empty house.  I've just gotten so used to their smiling faces at home that I don't remember what this is like.  And it'll be nice to just sit and be for a while, but I already miss all three of them something fierce.  Julie, though, was so thoughtful that she even left me dinner so I wouldn't have to mess with that.  She's perfect.

Class is about to start, so that's it for now.

3

Yesterday was Julie's birthday.  It seems so different, doing birthdays as a bona fide adult.  The expectations are just different.  I remember being so excited about birthdays, not because something was going to happen or anything, but just because somewhere in my head, it was my own day.  I'm not sure when that fades away...  Probably college did it.  But I think it was already gone by high school for me.  Either way, now I forget when my birthday is coming, and I have to sometimes think to remember when it actually is.  Luckily it's an easy number to remember.  I don't have that trouble remembering Julie's, though (or the kids' for that matter).  And I think I view that as a very good thing.

Julie's birthday really was a parenting day.  The day before had been a good, but very long day without naps for the kids.  And somehow Tristan managed to stay awake until 11.  Now granted, we were driving back from Southfield, so there wasn't a lot to be done about it, but normally he falls asleep on later-night car rides, especially when they're that long.  Then the day of was another napless day for the kids, and it started rather early.  It wasn't, by any means, a bad day, but I was hoping to do something more special for her.  She does so much for us...  Funny how much more difficult grace is to give than to accept.  And they say we're so good at receiving...  Apparently only at receiving things that don't matter. We really do have a hard time with such beauty.

It's a quarter to nine now, and I think Tristan is actually down for the night.  We're (re-)working on solo bedtime, but it's a rough learning curve.  He seems to have done very well adapting to the new place and all, which is a huge blessing, but bedtime appears to be a bit problematic.  He's learning, though, and that can be difficult for anyone, especially when that anyone is two years old.

Lucy, on the other hand, does not seem to be having any kind of trouble with bedtime.  I think it was the right time to move for her; she wasn't quite old enough for it to be a bigger change than everyday life already was.  She's just as happy as can be.  In the meantime, she has started eating baby food!  It's a very exciting thing for me, because I get a chance to feed her too now.  She does such a good job with it, too.  She's extremely cooperative and it's plain to see she loves it.  And she eats so much!  Unreal.  She doesn't seem to enjoy it as much with Julie, but I think that's just because she knows that Momma's still got the good stuff.  And who wants green beans/peas/carrots/sweet potatoes/squash, when there's milk to be had?  A very logical girl, that one.
She's getting so big.  I mean, she's always been big.  Maybe one day she'll slip down onto the top of the growth charts... But she really is big.  She's very healthy and just super sturdy in her sitting, though she has to be to avoid being bulldozed by big brother.  She's learning a couple signs, too.  She may even already have a handle on "eat" and "milk", which is amazing.  And she loves to "talk".  She says a lot of "dada-dada"s, which is so heartwarming.  And she loves to chompa-chomp and wap-wap-wap.  She's very silly.  She and Tristan get along so well, too.  They sit and face each other, and they kind of have a small stare-down, until one of the two makes the other laugh.  Then it's on.  Then the one's goal becomes making the other laugh, and they keep it up for good long periods of time.  Julie has a video up online of the kids laughing at each other.  We watch it every night before bed.

Then there's school.  I completely get how people bury themselves in grad school.  But it seems like it's a choice, to a point, too.  I mean, grad school in its totality is a choice, but you can choose to let it take over your life, or not to.  And I think a lot of people assume it will, and so they let it.  But it is coming along well.  I'm doing just fine in my classes, labs are going well, and I think I've found my groove.  Now it's just keeping it up for a while.  And it does look like I'll have a research assistantship, which is great, too.  It's at least a guaranteed position for summers and such, which is a nice stability to have.

God's being very big right now.  Sometimes it seems like He's working a lot backstage, pulling the ropes and managing things in a less visible way.  But right now, it feels like He's standing front and center, making Himself very visible all the time.  And it's beautiful.  I've been getting glimpses of God in everything lately, and in everyone.  I know they're there always, but it's just been very apparent for the last month or so, and it's very refreshing.  While I do appreciate all He does for us and all the ways He shows his love, and while I do love to say "thank you" for these things, it's quite something to get that big "you're welcome" right back.  Unbelievable.

I'm not sure how much longer I'll be able to string together thoughts with any kind of cohesiveness, so I'll quit while I'm ahead.  And Julie just got home from grocery shopping, so now we can spend some time together.

2

Thanksgiving!

We just got home from Julie's parents' place, where we went for dinner and family time.  Even though we do see them every week, it still is really nice to be able to spend Thanksgiving with family.  And today, Dale was there, too, which is always good.  He's an odd duck, as some might say, but he's great.

Now I'm just waiting for Tristan to go to sleep.  He's upstairs, likely trying to decide if it's worth it to really try to stay up late.  He's really tired, though, and that has to win out before too long.  Today, we hung glow-in-the-dark stars up in his room.  He seemed to like it enough at the time, but when we got back home tonight and went into his room and turned off the lights, he just sat down and said, "whoa."  Pretty funny guy, that boy.  His second-best pal, Hippo, had some reconstructive surgery performed on his arm today (small tear repaired), but he seems to be recovering well.  He just has to get adequate rest and stay off his feet a little while.

I do want to say how grateful I am for Julie.  I'm not sure where she went to get this, but she seems to have been endowed with some sort of superhuman Momma-ing ability.  It's incredible to see.  I'm not sure where this all came from, if she was carrying it around with her all her life and only needed it once we had kids, or if it just manifested itself sometime during her first pregnancy, but either way, it's a good thing.

We have the two most amazing kids in the world.  There's no way to argue otherwise.  Even right now, when Tristan is struggling to go to sleep, he's amazing.  Lucy isn't doing much struggling.  She's actually doing no struggling at all.  That girl is just figuring out the finer points to how her body works, but she's a very quick learner.  They're both quite a bit too smart for my good, but I think I'll have to try to keep up.

Mars Hill is wonderful.  It honestly feels like there are entire series in which the messages were specifically written for me, for what I need to hear, for what I'm thinking about, struggling with, or needing a new perspective on.  And now we very recently learned that Rob is leaving, but it doesn't seem to be affecting things adversely.  It's a very strong community, but I thought there'd be a bit more tension.  God has really stepped into this place and this community and held everyone together by reminding us that it's Him we're trying to see.

I'm not thinking well at the moment; I feel like my thoughts are very scattered.  Maybe I'll pick this back up in a little bit, but I'll end this post for now.

1

This is the beginning.

Here are a few things I should write down.  Understand that I'm mostly talking to myself, so this may not always be sequential or obviously coherent, but it's how this runs through my head.

We've been living in our new place for just over two weeks now, and I think we are pretty much done with the "our new place" period, and have started the "our place" period.  While change is a very exciting thing, it's also nice to be out of a transition period.  Really, the last 8 months or so have been a transition period.  And in a way, the last three and a half years have been.  I went from being a single college student to married with two kids, and now working on a PhD.  Amazing how quickly it all happened, too, though I wouldn't want it any other way.  God's been moving our lives in very visible ways in the last few years, for which I'm very thankful.  It's strange to see what have certainly been the best and most important handful of years of my life, summarized in a couple dozen words...

Julie is incredible.  I don't think there's anyone else out there that can manage raising two kids, taking care of her husband, and really encapsulating the term "homemaker" with so much love.  She has really made a world of difference in my life.

Tristan is such a beautiful boy.  He's unbelievably smart, and is so eager to learn... While he may rebel from time to time (as 2-year-olds are wont to do), his goal in these rebellions seems to always be to spend more time with Momma and Papa and Lucy.  He's such a lover with an obviously big heart and a glimmer in his eye.  And he sure does love his sister.

Lucy is perfect.  She is filled to capacity with love and smiles (and capacity's pretty substantial; she's a big girl), and always wants to share both.  She's getting so close to crawling now, and you can tell how much she just wants to get up and follow big brother around.  She's super smart, too.  Her body is definitely trying to grow into her brain.  And what a personality!  It's so apparent how much she knows about what's going on around her, and how much she wants to participate in shaping her world.

At the moment, I'm putting Tristan to sleep.  The poor guy is so interested in what goes on after he's in bed.  He just doesn't want to miss anything.  Even if he's falling over because he's so tired.  We're very blessed to have such an inquisitive boy, and I hope I never do anything to curb that enthusiasm.  He so badly wants to know everything:  "What's this?  Where are we going?  What does this do?  How does this work?"  The next question, of course, is "Why?", but it hasn't entirely come up yet.  I have no doubt it will soon, though.  I think that may prove to be a real challenge, especially because Julie and I both majored in science, meaning we can actually answer quite a few "why" questions... And again, I don't want to discourage him from asking them, so I may find my hands full soon.  And I'm looking forward to it.

He (Tristan) is also very excited about reading the Bible before bedtime, which is wonderful.  We lay together in his bed and read a couple chapters each night, and he loves it.  It's funny, too, because he throws in little thinking sounds here and there, and seems to know the appropriate times for an enthusiastic "mmmhmmm".  Sometimes he even tosses in an "amen!".  It's not a far cry from "You ain't lyin'!" (referencing Shane Hipps).

There's so much more to say, but it can wait until tomorrow.  I'll update more then.