What Matters Most

We sat with the boys today and brainstormed highlights from the year. Here are some of our responses.

• Mom was pregnant
• Our Spring Break Seattle Trip
• Going up the Space Needle
• Betsey’s trip to Nashville for a conference
• Eric finishing the Coeur d’Alene half marathon
• Spending time at the cabin with the Broyles
• Henry and a friend starting the Weeder Dog business
• Hosting mostly Moes for Thanksgiving
• Lots of Lego Building
• Date Nights
• and of course, having a baby.

Betsey is excited about work at Hamblen Presbyterian. She has some new ideas about how to meet needs of mothers in the congregation, and it’s fun to see these ideas materialize.

Eric had lots of work this year including playing the national anthem at a citywide school band event, performing the Messiah, and being part of broadway’s touring production of South Pacific. I still want to be a regular member in a group, but enjoy the variety I get to play.

Henry loves to play the piano. Right now, he has learned several Christmas tunes, and even figured out a couple by ear. Owen is the most loyal and willing friend you can have. He is so creative in his play.  They both smother their sister with plenty of love.

We love to read your highlights from the year and get your Christmas cards. We are inspired by couples having 50 and 60 year anniversaries. We see friends living through challenges. We also are reminded of the places and experiences that drew us together, and are so thankful for your presence in our lives. As we reflect on life and where we’ve been, what matters most? The relationships God has given us.

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Who’s Your Daddy?

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Last Sunday night, our kids participated in our church’s annual “Christmas Pageant from Scratch.” This year, Owen chose to be a sheep, Henry chose to be a shepherd, and Zoey, poor pastor’s kid that she is, was the baby Jesus. Our neighbor Summer, who has babysat Zoey before, was Mary — so Zoey was in very good hands.

As Summer held Zoey outside the sanctuary doors, I noticed Zoey was sucking on one of her favorite pacifiers which was bright green. I was thinking that it didn’t go with the swaddling clothes too well until I looked again at the slogan printed on it: “My Dad Rules.” I left it in.

Will There Be Drama on Sunday?

I’ve been thinking about baptism more than I normally do lately. Zoey will be baptized on Sunday — so it’s personal right now — but also, a couple of weeks ago I taught a confirmation class on baptism, and last night I taught an adult class on the sacraments. I’ve gotten into debates about adult versus infant baptism (I see benefits to both) and sprinkling versus dunking (I personally like the idea of dunking). But still, there is so much about baptism that remains a mystery to me. Why do we go through this ritual, whether we ourselves are baptized or we have our children baptized?

The most compelling wording I’ve heard lately is that baptism is a dramatization of God’s activity in our lives. I like that. It is easy to get caught up in the thinking that there is something magical about the moment of a person’s baptism. But if you think of baptism — either of a child or an adult — as a dramatization of God’s work among us, it becomes less about the moment and the individual and more about the power and determination of God to claim us. As Eric and I and the congregation make promises to nurture Zoey in faith, as I splash water over Zoey’s head, we are actors in God’s larger drama of covenant and salvation and liberation that began before and continues beyond our family.

So if you’re in town, come and step into the drama with us: 10:30 a.m. at Hamblen Park Presbyterian!

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Spotting a Burning Bush From a Rocking Chair

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It has always felt like a gamble having a child and being a working woman. While on maternity leave, I worry that when I return I won’t be able to concentrate enough to do the bare minimum of teaching and writing, relating with people and leading worship — let alone develop anything new.

But each time I’ve gotten back into my regular schedule, I find that I can concentrate, that I can continue reading and writing and relating, and that some of my best ideas and energy for ministry are borne during this time.

It hit me at 4 a.m. as I was nursing Zoey in the rocking chair, while all I could hear were the faint snores of the boys in the next room, that it is precisely because I am a nursing mother that new ideas and fresh energy visit me on a regular basis. Before I had a new baby, my daily life was a blur of non-stop activity. You would never find me rocking back and forth in a rocking chair staring at a wall, thinking about life and love and the future; now you could find me doing that six times a day.

These quieter moments are the occasions when God speaks to me most clearly: when I am pulling weeds, washing windows, taking a shower, nursing a baby, driving through the Palouse to a Presbytery meeting. Times when my spirit is still and God’s not fighting to get a word in edgewise. I recently led a Bible Study on the call of Moses and noticed for the first time that Moses was in the middle of doing something really mundane (shepherding sheep) when he spotted the burning bush. He was alone and his mind was wide open — like me at 4 a.m.

As much as I look forward to the night when Zoey doesn’t cry at 4:00, I’m afraid of losing my most creative, generative half-hour of the day. When, if not then, will my sermons and lessons (and blog posts!) take on form and meaning? When will God call me to do something I had never thought about before, if I’m not sitting in rapt attention in that rocking chair?

I’d guess that Moses felt the same way about the burning bush. If he’d had the choice, he may have kept returning to that spot in the wilderness, wanting to relive the sense of clarity he had that first time. But life soon became a blur for him; there was a Pharaoh to undo, a nation to guide, another wilderness to cross. And even in the blur, God kept speaking to him.

For now, I’m thankful for my burning bush sightings from my rocking chair. I’ll hang on to them for as long as I can before the blur sets in again. When this rocking chair is gone (or when the feeding is gone), I’ll try to rest, and breathe, and pray.

On the Eve of My Return

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Tomorrow I return to work. And I am mostly excited. I love what I do — it’s a calling, not just a job to pay the bills. And I know how rare it is that someone can say that and mean it.

I am also feeling sad, of course, that my maternity leave is coming to an end. I was just starting to get the hang of being the mom of a newborn again! Perhaps through the pictures I’ve shown on this blog I’ve made the last three months look like familial bliss — but maternity leave does not equal vacation. You see, I didn’t bother taking pictures the week I had pinkeye and still had to nurse in the middle of the night. There are no home movies of me blubbering about my milk supply or Eric bouncing around the house with a screaming baby strapped on his front while the rest of us tried to eat dinner. Believe me — I will not be returning to work with a tan.

But I have so much to be thankful for tonight. I am thankful for my co-workers who put in extra hours to make my time at home possible. I am thankful for the atmosphere at Hamblen Park Presbyterian — an atmosphere of laughter and generosity and authenticity. We are family there, and I know there will be grace as I transition back into work. I am thankful for Eric, who is an excellent dad; Zoey will be so blessed to be cared for by him during the days. I am thankful for our parents who are hands-on grandparents who delight in all our children. And of course, I am thankful for a gorgeous, smiley, growing baby with sassy brown hair.

On the eve of my return to work, dear Zoey, I feel a mix of emotions. But I sure hope that someday you will know the joy of being a mother AND of having a career that you love.

A First Time for Everything

One of the gifts we received for Zoey is a “Baby’s First Year” calendar. It came with a sheet of stickers like “First doctor visit,” “Rolls over – Back to Front,” “Eats solid food,” “First Laugh” that we are to stick on different dates. Owen is Sticker Boy in our family, so I thought that upkeep of this calendar would be the perfect way to involve him. Sticking stickers on a calendar – it sounds simple, right?

But it’s not. Owen peeled off “Rolls over – Back to Front,” and reminded me that Zoey rolled over on the bath rug when she was seven days old. He was right — but it was flukey; her left shoulder had been propped up by a towel, creating a bit of an incline, sending her, startled, onto her tummy. So can that count as her first time rolling from back to front? I’m not sure.

Then he peeled off, “Laughs out loud.” “Remember that one time she was on the changing table and she was smiling really big, and a laugh came out?” he said.

“It could have been a laugh,” I said, “but I think she may have just sucked in too much air.” I made him save the sticker for another time.

It seems that firsts are tricky to keep track of. Sure, there are some firsts like “Doctor visit” and “First Fourth of July” that are cut-and-dried — I let Owen go ahead and stick those on — but so many of the others are unclear. Does a rollover with the aid of a towel count as real? When is a gulp of air combined with a smile authentically considered a laugh? If she slept for eight hours straight on July 8, but hasn’t done it again since, can we really say she started sleeping through the night on July 8? I remember that when Henry learned to walk, it was two independent steps one day, four steps the second day, and nine or ten wobbly, energetic steps across the room the following day. Would I put the sticker down on day one, two, or three?

Eric’s brother is a new dad, and he was concerned recently that his daughter’s first rollover happened at daycare. Working parents everywhere share the worry that their child will experience a first without them witnessing it. But I say that the big firsts of life are hard to pin down. Most of the time they go by without fanfare or videotape: the first time I had feelings for the opposite sex; the first time I spoke in public without nerves getting the best of me; the first time I felt compassion for another human being. I know that I am capable of these things now, but who knows when the stickers should have gone on my calendar?

Eventually, Owen and I will have to choose dates – and they may be arbitrary – for many of Zoey’s firsts. That’s what you have to do with stickers. But for me, more important than witnessing the firsts is seeing Zoey’s gradual maturity into someone who is kind, compassionate, and faithful, someone who is confident and truthful and resilient — who can also execute a mean rollover from back to front.

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Pictured: Zoey’s first dip/first pee in Coeur d’Alene Lake, Zoey’s first time wearing a dress to church, Zoey’s first smile for a camera on Henry’s lap

Of Course it Doesn’t Matter, But Aren’t You Curious?

Our first foray into pet ownership involved a one-eyed cat named Chloe. She cost a lot those first few months, including an hour and a half drive to pick her up, a couple of eye infections, a bout with ringworm that involved daily bathing. We kept telling ourselves she was worth every penny, but after the 20th vet visit, I wondered exactly how many pennies we were talking.

Betsey encouraged me not to, but I added up our veterinary bills. Two months of cat had cost us nearly $500. It turned out that that $500 was an investment in a great pet who brought many years of napping companionship for me.

With each of our kids I’ve wanted to know what the hospital delivery cost, even though we pay a fraction of it. What does a normal baby delivery run? Zoey is completely healthy, and that is priceless. She is, of course, infinitely more valuable than our cat Chloe, but is anyone with me in wanting to know the bottom line?

I tried to find what Henry’s first few days in the hospital cost, and although I remember it being around $20,000, I couldn’t find proof of that when I looked. That included 2 nights in the hospital overlooking beautiful downtown Trenton, NJ. Or maybe just the dumpster in the back parking lot. Owen’s birth was much less at $9,741 – and that was with a view of the Rocky Mountains. That also included a 2-night stay.

Zoey is a little complicated because we went to the hospital two times with false labor. The first time we stayed all night and were admitted. $3090. Gorgeous view of downtown Spokane at night. The second time, we were smarter and didn’t get past triage. $245. The actual delivery – $13,341. Zoey came in the early afternoon, and we stayed just one night.

Betsey’s mom remembers she paid something like $80 out-of-pocket for Betsey’s birth. A bargain for one as cute as Betsey! The stork bringing each of our kids cost us about $2,000 after insurance. That’s still an amazing deal. That news might be birth control for some, but let me assure you, we got some gems.

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