Category: Musings on Life and Beauty

Occasionally I find it amusing to look at our home from the perspective of each child and come up with a humorous job description for each of them.  Some would be to incite rebellion, others to restore peace, some to serve others, others to create obstacle courses for us to navigate around the house, some to surprise us, others to keep the pressure on patience levels at all times.

My 17 month old’s job could be loosely termed as keeping us on our toes.  She’s also programmed to leave a trail wherever she goes by opening cupboards, emptying drawers, taking trash out of the trash can, filling the toilet with toilet paper or simply emptying a new roll of toilet paper on the floor.   It’s like she’s playing Hansel and Gretel except there’s no need to retrace her steps.  She only wants to press forward to climb another ladder and see what she can find up top.  Her first successful climb to the counter top was while I was taking a shower.  Gratefully Dad was nearby.   Now she visits her crib while I shower.


I snapped a few pictures of her doing her job with a smile on her face.  In fact she was so excited about it that every picture is somewhat blurry.  She couldn’t stop bouncing up and down with pride.


Her newest trick is this:  she reaches up over her head to feel around on the kitchen table for a dish the big kids might have left behind.   She then slides it to the edge and with one hand pulls it down to a chair.  Doesn’t matter how large or heavy it is.  If it turns out that there’s food on it, she helps herself.  Occasionally she carries it to another room in the house before digging in.  The other day I found her in the middle of the family room with a bowl of oatmeal.  She’s amazingly quiet about the whole process.  She’s pulled it off once or twice when I was just a few feet away doing something and I didn’t hear a thing.  Gratefully she has yet to break a dish or hurt herself, and slowly the kids are figuring out that I’m serious about clearing the table.


Really I love this stage.  I don’t mind having my clean dishes strewn across the floor.  I keep them down there for a reason.  At least she can’t hurt herself with the contents of the drawer, and it helps her do her job.

This morning she chose to add “alarm clock” to her list of family duties.  She woke up screaming at 3:30.  That was, of course, after her brother was up crying at 2:30, who was up after his sister woke up at 12:30…

I got her, changed her diaper, and lay her in our bed between us.  For the next hour she lay, wide awake, pulling the covers up to her chin and saying “bankie”, then kicking them off herself while saying it again about every 45 seconds.  By 4:30 we declared the night worthless and got up.  I got her dressed, fed her breakfast, and watched her run around the house celebrating as if she’d just pulled of the smoothest coup in history.

Maybe she did.

The thing is, I really don’t mind being up at 4:30.  If I’m alone.  Up at 4:30 with a baby is no good.  All the things you plan to do at 4:30 don’t work with a toddler as company.

So here we are in a mostly quiet house with a 17 month old partying like it’s New Year’s Eve.

Like I said, her job is to keep us on our toes.  And, apparently, to keep us awake.

I wonder how long it will be until nap time.

I hope you slept last night, and also hope your day is great!
Hopeful Homemaker edited to add:  By 5 am the three year old was up as well, followed by my ten year old son at 5:15.  Extended hours parenting today seems to be the trend.  They don’t even have school today!  Grrrr.

We got a phone call Saturday afternoon from the Ski Patrol of a nearby ski resort.


Our oldest son had gone snowboarding with two of his buddies for the day.   On the last run he caught an edge and wiped out,  hitting his head and knocking himself out momentarily.

His friends weren’t with him at the moment; they were waiting for him at the bottom.  It had been a great day, all of them working on cool tricks and techniques.

A couple of people noticed him laying face down in the snow.  They stopped to help, rousing him, asking him questions and determining that he was pretty scrambled (unable to remember his name, etc.).  They got him up and helped him down the mountain and to the Ski Patrol, who called us.

The diagnosis:  a concussion.

Worried as we were, I had to laugh.  Naturally.  Naturally he would do something like this.

He’s still wearing is wrist brace to protect the wrist he broke four days before Christmas.  It’s been nine months since his surgery .  You could say that he’s had quite a year, but it wouldn’t be true.  He’s always been like this.  More than 90% of our emergencies involve him.  I used to wonder when it would slow down or even end, but that was foolish.

He is who he is.  Rough water is what he swims in.   It’s just his style.  My job is to worry less, trust more, breathe instead of holding my breath.

Some of us experience the Lord’s protection by avoiding most accidents, injuries, etc.   Others experience the Lord’s protection by sustaining injury but averting disaster.  His life plan seems to be the latter.

We spent Saturday night waking him up periodically to ask questions, getting scrambled answers, looking at each other in the dark, wondering if it was sleep or the concussion, wondering if he needed further medical attention.  The body that looks so enormous to me lately didn’t look as big all curled up on the couch trying to make sense of the simple question, “What is your name?”

True to form, by Sunday night it was apparent that although he had a massive headache, he was himself.  No serious damage.  Once more, injury but not disaster.

And we are thankful.  Thankful he was wearing a helmet.  Thankful for two strangers whom we’ll never get to thank for stopping on a cold mountain to check on a motionless body.  Thankful for two friends who sat with him until their ride home arrived.  Thankful for Ski Patrol personnel who watched him until he left.  Thankful for a friend’s mother who drove him home.  Thankful for a doctor who answered his phone on a Saturday night to give us further instruction.  Thankful for a God who heard our prayers and protected him.  Thankful to a God who is healing him.

Thankful for a son who is introducing me to a life approach that I would have been perfectly content NOT to experience.  Thankful for the treasure trove of stories he’s collecting to tell his children someday(far more exciting than mine, I’m sure).    Thankful that he’s stretching us, even if sometimes the stretching leaves gaping holes.  Thankful for the greatness of his heart and depth of his feeling, even when it is communicated poorly.  Thankful for all the learning that raising your first teenager brings.  Thankful that he puts up with us rookies.

And you move on to the next adventure.
Life is good.

Hopeful Homemaker