Wednesday, February 15, 2012

LEGACY

The continuance of family has been made so clear to me this week. How life repeats itself and how vital family is. I found myself at the beginning of this week out for coffee with my father and had a wonderful time - the only wonderful type of time you can have with someone who knows you inside out and where you don't have to say everything you're thinking but you want to and it's full of comfort and love. Later this week I found myself sitting across the coffee shop table from my son - with the same wonderful time and the same comfort and love.

I remember my grandfather waiting in the car in the church parking lot after church waiting for my grandmother. I also remember my father waiting in the same church parking lot, napping or praying the car waiting for me to finish my youth event so he could drive me home. And on Tuesday night I waited in the church lobby for my son while he was at a church event having a delightful time! I guess it's my turn to drive and wait and pray and I will do so with joy and ferverent prayers and lots and lots of love that I have from generations of loving parents and grandparents and aunts and uncles. thank you all for such a legacy.

Tuesday, February 7, 2012

IN THE MIDDLE OF THE NIGHT

I’m not sure if this makes me super-mom or super-pathetic-sneaky mom. It might explain; however, the times my children don’t sleep well through the night. I confess: I do things to my children when they are asleep. Yep, it started when my firstborn was a baby. I used to cut his nails when he was asleep. No twitching, no screaming and just like that the task was done. Phew! Actually I still cut my youngest son’s toenails while he sleeps. He absolutely WILL NOT let me cut them and will kick and scream and this is from the designated easy-going child, so, I wait until he is asleep and snip snip snip, all done.

I’ve cut their hair too while they slept. Just the eldest’s though – he’s the twitchy one in that respect, not, like the whole head, but just a few straggly pieces that otherwise would have been a battle from the dark side to accomplish.

I got caught though once. When my children were 4 and 6, they were running along the boardwalk and came home that night with tiny little wooden slivers in the bottoms of their feet that they wouldn’t let me pull out. So, after they were fast asleep, I snuck in and, armed with a little flashlight between my teeth and the tweezers in one hand and an iron grip on their little feet with the other I set about extracting the little itchy slivers. My husband peaked in at one point; started to say something, and then just turned around and walked away. Smart man. A while later when the eldest got another sliver in his foot and when I said we should take it out, his reply was “no, that’s okay, God will take it out while I sleep.” Um, okay. Thanks God for taking the rap on that one!

Ah, my adorable little squiggly kids. I’m sorry for your dreams of someone tickling your toes in the middle of the night but thank you for your patience in allowing all those other unpleasant tasks to take place during the daylight hours – I can’t even imagine how I would wash your hair…