The Christmas Story According to Joshua and Hannah

Joshua:
"I bring good news for all the people. Today in the town of David a Savior has been born outside; he is Christ the Lord outside!"

"We're celebrating with cake!"

Hannah:
"Beebee! BeeBee, DeeDee!"

We're glad that they understand, in their own unique ways, what the holiday is all about. Praise the Lord for sending us His Son, the greatest gift and symbol of His love to all of mankind!

Memoirs of a Parent

You wake to the sound of thumping from the other room. Perhaps if you ignore it long enough it will stop? But it doesn't and you realize, several minutes into your "alarm" that it's probably disturbing the downstairs neighbors. Even you can feel the floor vibrating from every kick of the tiny little legs. You get up. It's Saturday morning...6:45am.

Two bright eyes and a big smile greet you as you walk into the room. You notice a suspiciously droopy diaper and hope for the best as you approach the eager little one, whose arms are held up in anticipation of a big hug. You get a few steps closer and notice some all too familiar markings on the sheets. Yes, the droopy diaper is in fact filled with number twos and the bed has the prints to prove it. Still you're hopeful, optimistic, really just praying that this is the full extent of the morning's adventures.

You start cleaning up little person #2 when her big brother rouses. Your attention is momentarily drawn away from the first mess of the day. Little person #1 has not only matched his younger sister's droopy, leaky, poop print greeting but has trumped it by adding a blood nose which has followed suit with the poop and spread itself all over pillows, sheets, soft toys, the list could go on.

Now you're starting to wonder if the morning is in fact hopeless. This thought is followed by a stubbed toe (that would be yours), a fall out of the tub (that would be your daughter deciding to climb out in the two seconds your eyes are not directly on her). You leave your spouse to bathe the little guys while you take out the mountain of trash which includes the nuclear waste from the morning. On your way out the door you think to yourself that this would make a great blog post. Your next tought is of the extreme views of parenthood of which you read and hear - the very bad and ugly, pregnancy-preventative sort of horrors vs. the angelic, heavenly, only-in-the-New-Jerusalem perfection that leaves you wondering where you've missed the boat of parenting bliss.

And then you realize that you've locked yourself out of the apartment.

There's time to reflect on the events of the last 15 minutes while you listen to the kids laugh and splash through the closed front door. Once they discover you're outside, you are greeted by two naked kids running toward you calling, "Hi!" And you see the other side of the parenting coin.

Yes, there are the days when Little One throws a tantrum over getting into pajamas while Little Two is quietly squatting in the corner doing an amount of business...she didn't have a diaper on yet. There are the moments when you think that you must have woken up in someone else's life with someone else's kid because you knew (before you're first little one entered the big wide world) that you would never be one of "those" parents. But then, there are just as many and more, depending on how you look at life, moments where you are taken aback by the immense joy that two little hands and feet and a belly laugh can bring to a life.

There's the contagious energy. The funny things they say - "Silly tofu!" and "No dao fu fighting!". The laughter and giggles, soft chubby hugs and wet, sloppy kisses. Big eyes looking up into yours. Little ones reading on the couch with their beloved Daddy. Small footsteps running down the hall to find you, and then a small one climbing into your lap, grabbing your pen, and writing their own notes for this blog post.

When it comes down to it, being a parent is like living a bipolar life. You do live the pregnancy-preventative moments right next to the only-in-the-New-Jerusalem moments. And by God's grace you do it all over again hour after hour, day after day, and year after year until you're older and wiser and missing a few thousand hours of sleep. You find yourself saying to the young couple at church, "Enjoy your baby and toddler while it lasts. It just goes by too quickly." And hopefully that advice is coming from experience and not regret.

And perhaps, after reading a post like this you wonder the point of it. Well, perhaps the parent writing this post just needed a reminder of the realities - the good, the bad, the ugly, and everything in between that can't even be described - of life taking care of someone who is under three feet tall and requires more of you than you ever thought possible to give. And when you're reminded of it all, it's a bit easier to keep perspective when dinner ended up all over the wall, you're tired, hungry, want to exercise, and only have about two hours left in the day clean, eat, maybe have a conversation that doesn't start out with, "Don't pee in the bathtub or on your sister." and do the dishes, pick up the toys, did I leave anything out? Basically, what this parent is getting at is that writing a post like this is therapeutic. Somehow it just helps, especially knowing that you, the reader, may very well be able to relate in more than theoretical terms. Perhaps it's been therapeutic for you as well, and that would be good.

So, enjoy your abundant life, be it full of kids or grown ups, work, play, whatever the Lord has for you now. I'm enjoying mine...messes and all.

Pizza

The little ones helped me make pizza tonight. This marked Hannah's first time to assist in the kitchen. Here are a few photos of the exciting event, which actually proved to be far less of a mess than I anticipated.

It goes without saying (but I'll say it anyway) that Joshua and Hannah's favorite part was eating the ingredients as they went. Joshua was snacking on dough while he was supposedly rolling his pizza out. He even put little pieces onto Hannah's baking sheet saying, "So that Hannah can have some to eat dough." :) Hannah, however, joined in once she saw the pieces of meat in the sauce and they both went to town as I started sprinkling cheese on their pizzas.

It ended, happily, with two sauce and cheese covered faces and a couple of mutilated pizzas. :) It was a very fun evening project!