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.