tribute to kindergarten

School is out! Summer is in!

Annike flourished throughout this year of Kindergarten. It is shocking to think that a year ago she did not want to go anywhere without her blanket. She did not know many of her lower case letters, or any math. She has learned so much over the past year that she even initiated writing and illustrating her own "books" that she liked to take in to read to her class. Ha!

Throughout the year our budding zoologist incorporated her love of animals into any activity possible. While her classmates were painting rainbows, Annike painted sea otters diving for urchins in a kelp forest. During a popsicle stick building craft, most of the kids made a boat while Annike constructed a lizard. At least she has a clear understanding of what she likes!

Mostly, we are pleased about who she is becoming as a person and a friend, with a growing awareness of others. A few comments we have heard about her recently include that she is a cheerleader, truly rooting for her friends... that she is not competitive with the other girls, giving them sincere compliments... and her teacher says that somehow she manages to stay out of the drama that sometimes arises between girls in the classroom setting. That means more to us as her parents than any academic accomplishment.

That being said, here are a few of my favorites from the last few months. Some completed at school, some completed at home. All of them inspired by her love of learning and love of animals. I will let them speak for themselves.

Below, our tribute to kindergarten:

Kelp forest 

"Look at the elephant. He is picking up water with his trunk."

"I love all my stuffed animals."
Notice green blankee is drawn on the far left.

"The flamingo is pink and he's drinking."

Forest scene

Probably close to 20 of these books have been created over the year. All animal-themed.

Savannah Book with inside pages

Sea Life book with inside pages

Notes like these are beginning to appear around the house.

Invitation to a "pardee" (party) where we will dance and pretend to be fish.
Can't wait.

Poor baby Karsten. She loves him too.

Left for me on a post-it.

Another season, gone with the wind. Thank you, kinder years, for all that you have given our daughter. A fresh breeze blowing into a girl who will be a life long learner.

Good-bye Kindergarten. Hello 1st grade!


Aside: There have been issues with people trying to make comments on this blog. I believe I have fixed the problem. If you don't have a google account, you can leave a comment in the "anonymous" category and be sure to include your name. Thanks!

what makes it vacation

Vacation with three little ones has been whittled down to its simplest form. No sleeping in, no fancy restaurant dinners, no expensive or involved events, no schedule to follow. Just swimming and family time. We eat P.B.J.s and mac and cheese out of the condo kitchen, take naps when we need them, and all the in-between time find us swimming in the pool or at the beach.

It is special because we are together. It is restful because we have low expectations for accomplishing anything outside of being together. It is vacation because Daddy is around ALL the time, thus greatly increasing the adult to child ratio.

Here are a few highlights from our recent trip to Kauai...

Thanks to a 3-hour time change, we made it to the beach for a lot of beautiful sunrises. Thanks to the balmy weather and deserted beach, clothing was optional (for the kids, at least.)

Our kids become better friends every time we take a trip together. It is a beautiful thing to witness and makes my heart feel full.

Annike learned to swim and snorkel on this trip. She can name every fish she saw. We were so proud of her bravery in the ocean.

Daddy enjoyed catching lizards, and Sommer enjoyed holding them.

This little guy discovered that his new favorite food is sand. If you look closely, you will see the sand goatee in the majority of his photos.

Happy Mother's Day to me!  How did I get so lucky to have these three precious kids making me cards, drawing me pictures, giving me back scratches, and whining for me to feed them on Mother's Day?

Vacations are a priceless time of memory making. We never forget how much we love each other, but it is good to be reminded how much we LIKE each other.

celebrate music

Today's post is just a little celebration of life! Annike's first piano recital was this past Saturday, and I have never been more proud of someone who played 30 seconds of "Skip to my Loo".

I joined her up on stage for the duet part, and as a confidence booster. Though the last time I played piano in front of someone may have been in the first grade. Violin is my instrument.

We want to have children who play musical instruments and have a musical skill they can use for the rest of their lives. A year ago we started Annike on the violin. I soon discovered that children resist doing things that are only Mom's idea. Both lessons and practice met with so much resistance that I gave up and let her choose something else.

I couldn't seem to find any, but my mother has quite a few pictures of me playing violin just like this - in my underwear. She comes by it honestly.

Now that I am a mother myself, I can better appreciate what a HUGE undertaking it was for my mother to get all three of her children (myself, my brother, and my sister) to play a stringed instrument from the time we were around 5, until we left the house at 18ish. When we left, each one of us had mastered our chosen instrument well enough to have it for life. We recently came across this picture of me at one of my own recitals around the age of 10.

I well remember having a bad attitude about practicing and playing in general. What child would rather do work than play outside? As I encourage Annike to pursue her musical talents, I try to remember that even though I did not always want to do it, I have never held it against my own mother for encouraging and enabling me to play. Even at a young age I understood what a great gift she was giving me. As it turns out, that gift paid a majority of my way through college, and has the potential for side jobs and fun for me for the rest of my life.

Thank you, Mom! Though I can't return the favor, I can pass on the legacy of implementing, studying, and celebrating music in our family.

i saw the light

It is tradition on Easter for our entire church to come together for one service at the Civic Center in heart of downtown Santa Cruz. In the heart of a city full of people that seem unreachable, desperate, unwholesome, and dark. Yet, even in the heart of this city, there is Light.

As the band started up on this reverent Resurrection Sunday, I glanced around the room at the thousands of believers surrounding me, singing "This Little Light of Mine." Tears welled in my eyes as I had the distinct sense that I was a tiny part of something so much bigger than myself. Sometimes tears are the only language of the spirit within us. When our mind can't find the words, our heart can.

It happened, too, about a month ago. It was one of those Sunday mornings when I had been wondering why we had bothered coming to church because we arrived late with three cranky kids and I spent most of the service shushing them and passing out snacks or crayons. At the end of the service was an extended period of singing and I was finally able to engage. Despite my familial chaos, in those last minutes of church God laid a heavy burden on me for the lady sitting next to our family, listening but not singing. I felt an urgency to meet her before she rolled out with the masses. We connected instantly as if she had been my friend for a long time. As it turns out, it was her first experience in church ever. The next week I saw her again, we prayed together, and I had the privilege of giving her her first Bible. I will remember that moment my whole life.

I don't think for a minute that the experience had anything to do with me. God had been working in this woman's life for a LONG time and I happened to cross her path at one particular place in her spiritual journey. I was so wrapped up in my own garbage I don't think I would have noticed this gal if the Spirit of God hadn't laid it heavily upon my heart. Both Sundays meeting with her left me humbled with the realization that life is so much bigger than me and my little myopic life. I can't help but wonder if all of that garbage with my cranky kids was an effort to distract me from being a part of the bigger picture.

On a cross, two thousand years ago, a man died leaving his family and friends distraught in their loss. The picture was small and personal, affecting a crowd in a city in a land far away. Then the resurrection. A tragic event suddenly became so much bigger than the emotions of the people involved. It affected all people across all generations for the rest of time. The bigger story changed the world.

We are a part of that bigger story and the Light that changed the world.

Happy Easter from my family to yours!

firstfruits

"Bring the best of the firstfruits of your soil to the house of the LORD your God..."  

Exodus 23:19

There was a lightly attended morning convocation service I enjoyed during college if I had time between classes. One Friday morning, a guest speaker whose name I do not recall and whose face I would not recognize, shared a challenging story about his own journey with God because of a commitment he made to read his Bible every day for a year. The idea was to read anything, short or lengthy, so long as the Bible was opened and the date was recorded in a journal as a form of accountability.

It seemed a simple enough commitment, with a rewarding enough outcome, that I took up the challenge. I didn't exactly get all 365 dates of that year in my journal, but it was the first time in my life I had engaged in regular Bible reading and quiet times with God, and it was life-changing.

I consider that decision to be one of the dramatic turning points in my testimony, transforming me almost overnight into a woman pursuing solid food instead of milk (Hebrews 5:12-14). The commitment also turned me into a journaler, though I am sure no one who reads this blog will be surprised to learn I process my thoughts by writing them! I continued in this pattern of setting aside quiet time, with my Bible and journal in hand, on a mostly-daily basis for many years.

Then I had kids.

The change was gradual at first. However, recently it has become obvious that the main obstacle between my Bible and me is that there is no such thing as QUIET TIME. Quiet now means that the volume in the house is such that I can hear the thoughts in my own head because the little voices are talking to each other instead of me. Time is what I use to cook dinner or empty the dishwasher or move toys from the living room back into the bedroom. Awakening early ends up awakening the others in the house early as well. Actual quiet time is a rare enough occasion that when it occurs I become immediately anxious about how to fill it... should I finish the project I started 3 weeks ago? should I sweep up the crumbs left from dinner last Wednesday? should I take a nap? return a phone call? pay bills? check my email?...
Should I read my Bible?

It is a daily battle for me to find time for anything that doesn't involve six small, enthusiastic, but not-so-helpful hands, let alone quiet time that belongs to me and God alone. Yet, it is God who first invented the idea of motherhood. He put this love and desire for children deep within me. He designed the whole of mankind to prosper through the affection and nurture of a mother. He endorses and embraces my role as mother. He intimately knows each busy, noisy, detail of my day, and still longs to meet me somewhere, anywhere, on a daily basis.

He is not asking too much. Even in my busiest seasons He has never asked me to give Him something I don't have. He asks only for the firstfruits of what I do have. In this case, He is asking for the firstfruits of my time.

"Bring the best of the firstfruits of your soil to the house of the LORD your God..." 

Exodus 23:19

Literally, the firstfruits are the first and best harvest of a crop. The ancients were asked to give to the Lord the first and the best of what they had grown to survive, trusting that He would ultimately provide all they needed.

Time has always felt like something I need to survive. I cling to it tightly, selfishly, with anxious ownership over how I want to distribute it. There has been, and always will be, something more pressing to do than reading my Bible during any free or quiet time. In my moments of struggle with what to do, how to divide, where to give, I try to remember that the time was never mine to begin with. It is a gift from God.

Pursuing God and Biblical wisdom has come to look different than it did during my childless days. It is not as quiet. It is not as focused. Yet, it can still be a regular pursuit. Perhaps pursuing Him involves a greater sacrifice of time than ever before. But the reward is sweet. He asks for the firstfruits of my time, promising that as I give it to Him, so will He provide for me in all the ways I need.

mother's lament

On the final day of 2013, back in December, I was getting ready in the bedroom when I heard Annike call for me, "Momma, come here!"

"Look," she said, as she held her hand open for me. Then she promptly went back to watching t.v. Completely disinterested in my reaction.

In her hand was the tiniest tooth. Her first one. I remember when she was 7 months old and it first popped through her gums. Now, lost forever.

"Noooooo!" I cried. "Does it hurt? You can't grow up yet! How do you feel?"  But she was zoned out in t.v.-land again, unreachable. She had moved on. I had not.

I spent the afternoon feeling melancholic and she spent the afternoon calling people to tell them the good news.

Today, 3 months later, she lost her second tooth. It came out while wrestling on the trampoline with Daddy (go figure). After all the hullabaloo losing the first tooth, she had a better grasp on the significance this time around. And it needs to be noted that this time around, the tooth fairy can't come a day late because she needs to go to the bank. Annike might only be forgiving about that kind of thing once.

I can't believe my baby is growing up so fast. Pretty soon her whole mouth will be full of big teeth. She will have braces, and say all of her words correctly, and lose her faint lisp. And she will have to wear clothes.

Besides being a right of passage in the Kindergarten class, losing teeth is just part of getting older. As my mother always said, getting older is better than the alternative. Too true. I just lament the passing of time, and wonder if I cherished the moments enough.

"Generations come and generations go, but the earth remains forever... What has been will be again, what has been done will be done again; there is nothing new under the sun."  

Ecclesiastes 1:4,9

(Just for the record, since starting school she wears clothes a lot more than she used to. Losing teeth must have sent her into celebration mode which generally does involve less clothing.)

they grow up so fast

I know it sounds cliche, but I really can't believe my baby is already 6 months old!?!!

Six months marks the point half way through baby-hood. Sigh. Seriously, how did this happen?

Karsten has officially entered into my very favorite baby stage: the happy sitting stage. He is content sitting in one place as long as he is snacking on something like a ball of socks or a crinkly bag, and as long as he can see me. He smiles at anyone who gives him attention. He stares at me with eyes full of adoration. He is a simply delectable ball of chubbiness. What is not to love?

Up until a week ago, when I handed him a teething cracker as a form of entertainment and tried to shove some sweet potatoes in with a spoon, I have grown this chunky 17-pound baby up entirely through my body's own nourishment. No wonder I am always starving.

This third time around with a baby in the house I realize how much I have grown as a person over the past five and a half years, since I first entered the world of parenthood with little Annike. So tiny, and yet somehow she managed to occupy so much of my time. Every minute that had previously belonged to me was suddenly devoted to mundane and repetitive things like changing diapers and sheets and doing laundry and making ridiculous facial expressions for entertainment. I couldn't go anywhere without consulting my infant's schedule and every errand included a helpless child on my hip.

Life felt so slow when I first made that transition into staying home full time with my baby. How many times did some well-intentioned older person tell me to "treasure up each moment because it goes by so fast"? I wanted to punch them in the face. That season felt anything but fast to me. I was physically exhausted from jumping into a baby's rhythm of waking all night long. I was mentally exhausted from processing all that had changed in my life. Someone had ripped the rug out from underneath all I understood about myself, forcing me to redefine my entire identity.

I remember that season so clearly. Yet, here I sit now with three of these little buggers. Life must be so much harder now than it was then... but I am not struggling in nearly the same way. There are more piles of laundry to do and diapers to change and overall chaos in the house than ever before. Instead, life is going by quickly. So quickly. Too quickly. Those well-intentioned people were right.

This third time around I am treasuring up each moment I can catch. In a different way, I understand that this does not last forever, and may not even last through tomorrow. Sometimes that is a very good thing. Sometimes it is woefully sad.

I keep thinking about how sure I was to bottle train my first baby right away because the thought of never being able to leave her for an entire year of breastfeeding put the fear of bottle-training in me. This third baby has not even seen a bottle, because, well, I don't have time to mess with extra things like that. And, reality tells me there isn't anywhere I can leave him because even my husband doesn't want to watch three kids yet. Mostly, I haven't given him a bottle because I know this year already feels so short. Plus, if I get to go some somewhere with only one child, it is almost like being on vacation anyway. Boy have things changed.

The thing that has changed the most over these past years is not the number of children I have or the diminishing number of minutes I have to myself or the average number of decibels in my home. It is my attitude. This chubby cheeky child with his two chinny-chins is growing up too fast. I don't want a lack of perspective to make me miss it.