kids say the darndest things.

Babysitting is therapeutic. Some things they say that brighten my world.

The Sahid girls...Abby (6) and Audrey ("free")
Abby (after we put paper flowers all over their dining room chandelier): "it looks soooo festive...it looks so festive...it looks SO festive...it's very festive" and finally the clincher "it's like the FESTIVAL came through town!"

Abby: "Andrea...guess what I am going to do...next... YEAR?!"
Me: "wow. that's a ways a way! What?"
Abby: "I'm going to help with the...mom...heart...CONFERENCE, passing out chocolates."
Me: "that is sooo exciting!"
Abby: *after endless giggles* "I KNOW! When mom told me that, I just felt SO big."

Audrey): "Andwea, if I get scawed can I cawl you?"
Me: "Yes, Audrey, you know you can always call me. But you have no reason to be scared, alright? So think happy things and just go to sleep..."
Audrey: "But what about Mr. Nigh?" *an alleged horse hater in an American girl doll book*, at this point she's totally milking it.
Me: "Sweetheart, he's not real, and he only hurts horses...not little girls..."
Abby (fully displaying that she is her older more "inquisitive" sister): "Actually he ca..."
Me: "Be quiet, abby."

Audrey: while videoing me tell a crazy story with their dolls
Me: "And they were running in the forest in the rain and Elizabeth fell down a hill *Ahhh*. Felicity runs to her rescue...'oh elizabeth it will be alright, the magic wood pecker will get us home soon...'"
Audrey: "I cant hold my hands stwaight anymore with the camewa. I'm tiwed."

My cousin Camila (6)
Me: "I'm thinking of something I like..."
Camila: "ME!!"

Camila: "When I grow up I want to ride a horse without a saddle into the middle of a beautiful garden. I want to bring some instruments in with me and play them in the garden."
Erica and I: "Who are you, child?!"

My little Coulombe munchins...Thompson (6) Owen (4) Calvin (2)
Thompson: I found her crying in bed after she broke the "special" hanging vase in the bathroom:
Me: "Why is it special Thompson?"
Thompson: "It's...ittt's.. the vaa*se *gasp* wee...hold our floooooowweers in!!!!!! ahhh...*gulp*"
Me externally: "Oh honey, mom loves you more than the vase and it will be alright...it was an accident."
Me internally, busting a gut: "yes, Thompson, that one was way more important than the 'vases' you don't hold flowers in."

Owen after picking me a flower: "Andarina, put it in youwr haiwr."
Me: "thank you, honey."
Owen: "Whoa. Its so beaoutiful...like a wedding."

Owen in his knight helmet and sword): "Andarina, youwr haiwr is so pwetty"
Me: "Aww...that's such a knightly thing to say."
Owen: "and you're eyes...and you're face."
Me internally: "can you just be mine?"

While playing Narnia in my back yard...we were in the sea and I was susan, owen was peter, and calvin was edmund
Me: "Ahhhh...Peter help me I'm falling."
Owen: "SUUUUUUUUUUSSSSAAAAAAAAN!! I'm COMING!"

Upon discovering a heart shaped chicken nugget at Wendys
Me: "I 'heart' you."
Owen: "I heawrt you."
Me: "I heart you."
Owen: "Well I HEAWRT YOOOOU!!!"
Me: "I heart you more."
Owen: *stumped at my grammer shift and struggling for a comback*
Me again: "I heart you most."
Owen: *finally locating the words* "Well I heart you one BILLION BADAGILLION!"

Jake (3)
Jake: "When you're downstaiwrs can you heawr me?"
Me: "Yes I can...goodnight I love you."
Jake: "I love you too..."
*half way down the stairs* "Cawn you heawr me?"
Me: "yes"
*all the way down the stairs*: "CAWN YOU HEAWR ME?"
Me: "YES I CAN!"

Thomas (7)
He wasn't feeling well
Me: "What's wrong Thomas?"
Thomas: "MY BONES ARE REALLY GROOOOOOOWING!!!"


Yeah...amazing. I love their ability to say what they're feeling without any worry or self consciousness. I love that when they're feeling big they just pop out and say "I feel big," and when they have a particular aesthetic interest in my curly hair one day, the tell me so honestly and freely, and I love that they are concerned with the shape of chicken nuggets. It's just wonderful, and the more I'm around them the more I want my soul to return to some of these pure ways...those aware, noticing, free, trusting ways. What darling parents they have to foster such innocence and to raise them in God honoring homes!

sibling pride.

Tonight my brother came back beaming (or more like wilting) from his first day of debate tournament, at Concordia. He subtly told us that his presentation was hailed as the best one his partner had ever seen. YAY! He looked so cute.

And presently I am sitting up as merely one of the pillars of moral support for Erica as she waits for her 2:00 am ride to the airport, for her Torrey trip to Rome. I am so proud of her. Days of reading, preparing, shopping, packing, are finally paying off. She's fluttering around like a fretting butterfly, with jitters and a bout of anxiety. But we're all here, some of us drooping slightly on couches, for comic relief, to fill any gaps in her wardrobe with part of my own, and to simply enjoy the process of traveling anticipation. She will have so many adventures I can not wait to hear all about. Arrivederci Kiki!

looking down.

i. can't. wait.

My favorite book.

oh darling plump soul.

The other night Katherine and I cozied up and watched Anne of Green Gables. As the long adventurous movie progressed, Anne's love for life, beauty, people, imagination, adventures, and home, embellished in a glorious tapestry. You found yourself loving her dearly...but why? It is often a question that I have asked myself. Who are we? I know I was made in the image of God, but does my soul "change" over time, and become "different" mes? Perhaps what makes up at least part of our quantifiable measurable "soul" are those things/beings that we love. They are somehow inwoven in us, forming our personhood and giving grounds for others to love us in return. We were designed to love. It seems quite natural to conclude that what we love makes us who we are, to some extent. Part of why you loved Anne is because she invested herself into so many wonderful things and through her you had a different picture of the world. She "drank" in the flowers, appreciated every sun-kissed blossom, valued people and their stories, and relished the moon. The more of God's creation you love, the more of it "plumpens" your soul, so to speak. Not only do you love her capacity to love, but the goodness and beauty she poured into her soul.

simple wisdom.

I have so much swarming in my brain after my holidays and I will debrief when I collect my thoughts. In the meantime, I'm posting some old drafts of movie thoughts I never got around to posting.

Although Forrest Gump somehow, unknowingly, slips through the floor boards of my memory when asked my favorite movies, it is truly remarkable. The ability for Forrest to cling to the loyalties he established and carry out "the next task" with diligent fervor and simple obedience plucked at the strings of my heart. His ability to love others more than himself and so easily neglect self awareness, even when put in dire situations, convicts me. His "capacity," although smaller than someone with more intellectual capabilities, was full...and it was not burdened with a sense of fear.

Although being simple and mentally slow is considered a medical impediment (as it rightly is), I wonder if it is not a glimpse of what we should all be like, to a degree...glimpses of Adam and Eve before the knowledge of "good" and "evil." One Sunday, my pastor stated that it wasn't that the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil was in itself bad (after all God possessed this knowledge and awareness), it was just too great a burden for humans in their capacities to bear in a manner they could, on their own, handle with wisdom and freedom. (Whether or not the fruit had anything to do with the actual sin or whether it was merely a medium through which their sin was expressed is a discussion for another day.) Forrest, and others like him, was not burdened with enough discernment to fear...he just lived. Each day was a blessing and each task was carried out with intriguing fervor. Although it is a movie, and in real life many frustrations would've arisen (he is still a fallen human), there is such a freeness to his limitations. To take an example from real life, a couple Sundays ago this simple boy ran up on stage during worship and raised his hands in adamant praise and he remained there for the duration of the worship. My first instinct was to feel embarrassed for him, and then I felt shame that I would ever be concerned with such things as a person's opinion of me worshiping my Creator...shame. The very thing Adam and Eve felt when their eyes were opened to their capacity for evil. Shame is how humans interact with each other and often with God.

So yes, God has given us minds for discernment, to enjoy the enlightenment they are able to unveil, and to glorify Him to the best of our abilities (we are called to love Him with our mind..it is a beautiful gift that has lead to many discoveries about the truth of the world that have, in turn, given us more reasons to glorify God. But sometimes I feel like we are not simple enough in our attitudes...we are too weighted down and concerned, bearing a burden we were never meant to bear in our own strength.