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Monday, January 27, 2014

Please join us in prayer

that a certain ministry in a certain country would find a certain paper that they ought to have in their possession. Also that, if not, we can find a manageable backup plan in time for said ministry's 31 January deadline (can you even DO 2nd-day-air to this country?  On to the FedEx site...)

Thursday, January 16, 2014

Early Morning Blessings

Short-sleep frazzle-face shambles out.
I put pencil down and close the book,
enfold a tiny person in my arms,
as back to bed she goes.
Smiles swapped, grins given,
no more study for now,
we will off to the grocer,
just the morning, the infant, and me.
Apples, oranges, spinach,
and so much more, one-handed,
careful not to bump or drop
the produce or the person
cuddled elbow-close and
open-eyed amazed, the big wide world
has piñatas on the rafters!
Back home, clear morning light slants and brightens
the world we have enjoyed together.
And he watches me make breakfast
for his brother and his mother and for me,
selfless, I suppose; he cannot yet eat omlets,
delicious though they are;
so working, I sing God's songs
to my morning son, and he smiles,
more reward than I deserve,
O gracious Father,
thank you.

Wednesday, January 8, 2014

A New Year's Experiment

We have started 2014 off with the first serious attempt at getting a routine in our house.  Papa gets up at 6am so he can drink tea and study (or go teach his M-W 7:30am class which starts next week).  Mama and boys get up around 8am, and if Papa is still home, he has breakfast ready around 8:15-8:30am.  Dinner is around 6pm, (it had been slipping later and later since Baby G. came), and we start bedtime around 8:30pm (which means lights-out closer to 9:15pm, as we do our family worship at night).  This means everybody is rested adequately (except poor Mama who is up feeding Baby G. a couple times per night - but this, too, shall pass).

This is a sea change in our house.  I've never been good at routines, so we are very curious to see how this one plays out.  However, it was adopted for a few good reasons (and not the bad one that wants us to feel in control of every minute - we've learned (and will learn) how laughable that idea is).

1) We were feeling stretched but not really doing that much (though with a newborn, which does count) - this is a cue for organization

2) Eating late was not healthy, and made it hard to get to sleep at a reasonable hour (which cascades to the next day, etc.)

3) Our older son is like a combination of me and one of Mama's brothers - he's particular, likes predictability, and gets upset when reality does not match the vision in his head.  So we want to cultivate a vision of a "normal" day and then meet it pretty regularly.  Christmas nearly ruined him - our schedule was whacked out beyond recognition, between visits to family, illness, church services on TUESDAY! 

So we began our experiment on Monday, and so far, so good.  We almost got in trouble Monday night, when we tried to do both laundry (coin op, requires some planning and effort) and Costco.  We got to bed half an hour later than we wanted to, but seemed to recover yesterday, and agreed that we should only do one thing after dinner.  Yesterday that was a trip to Home Depot for more renovation supplies, today that's Papa off on diaconal work.

As a rather damning side note, Tater gleefully declared "Costco says 'cost-cost-cost'".  How true...