My Faith and Joy… and Boys!

I recently saw a good deal on kids’ shoes at Costco (because Jim and I tend to buy 75% of everything we own there!), and after taking some time choosing the right sizes and colors, I tossed four pairs into my cart. I smiled to myself at the time, imagining how excited the kids would be with their new shoes. When the time came for the surprise gift, most of the kids were elated.  But one of the kids was unimpressed, declining even to try them on. The child didn’t like the style, the color, or anything else about the shoes. The child shrugged and walked away from the gift.

I’ve thought about this incident a lot, because it plays out frequently…when I spend a lot of time on a meal and the kids literally spit it out…when I work hard on planning an outing that then ultimately is greeted with a less-than-enthusiastic response.  But the thing is, it’s also a familiar situation because it’s something I vividly remember doing to MY mom.  I remember receiving her gifts half-heartedly as a child.  I can see now that I just didn’t appreciate all the love and energy that went into them. 

My mom’s efforts and gifts often went unnoticed.   All those shoes she bought. All those nights of tears and prayers.  All the planning and preparation even for my own wedding that I just didn’t fully comprehend.  Behind the scenes sacrifices. Unappreciated, but not unneeded. It’s the nature of childhood to not see past the end of your own little nose.  But now that I’m grown, I’m floored by the daily sacrifices my mom laid down to build the foundation of my childhood. Brick by brick she lovingly made my lunches, bought my clothes, made those doctor appointments, brought me to soccer practices and games, wrapped those presents and wrote those cards, set up all those countless educational experiences and lessons and trips…everything I took for granted and didn’t fully comprehend or value. She did them anyway, with love, and with no expectation of reward. I wish I could go back in time and bonk myself on the head to get me to tell her a hearty thank you. But since I can’t, I’ll do it now: thank you, Mom. For your daily devotion to the behind the scenes work.  For forgiving my shortsightenedness and immaturity, for developing my dreams.  For your faithfulness and devotion to your family.  I’m so thankful for your patient and loving example, and I hope I can do half as well with my kids – even when they don’t want new shoes.   I love you, Mom.  And for the record – now I think you’re the best shopper around!  

I took all four kids on a bike ride around the neighborhood while I walked behind.  They left me in the dust!

Our friend Tim came back for another science lesson – the kids were so excited!  As usual, Tim came  equipped with awesome experiments, this time designed to help the kids see how soap works (I never really understood it before he explained it to us; he’s a great teacher).  The kids have so much fun they don’t even realize they’re learning!

We received a new foster placement tonight – a beautiful two-week old baby girl.  The kids are over the moon!  Please pray for sweet dreams for everyone!

Jimmy is five years old today.  FIVE YEARS OLD!  In so many ways, Jimmy has always seemed ahead of his years (a friend of ours has commented, “He was never a baby!”), but yet I still find it so hard to wrap my head around my firstborn son being FIVE YEARS OLD.  He is a constant source of delight, amusement, exasperation, and wonder to his dad and me.  As I recently wrote, he’s just like a puppy dog…I think a good description of him is that he’s a mix between a puppy, Dennis the Menace, a repairman, a BMX racer, and a Southern gentleman.  He’s eager and rambunctious, a whirlwind of creative destruction, mechanically-inclined, lives life at full-speed ahead, and he’s polite and loves to serve others. 

Here’s a snapshot of his routine/likes/dislikes now that he’s five:

He’s an early riser, stumbling out of bed to the bathroom at 6:30 a.m. and it’s a bit of a struggle to get him to return to his bed until his “allowed” wake-up time of 7:00.  He doesn’t like breakfast very much, but once he gets his appetite going, watch out!  He’ll eat just about anything.  He frequently chooses fruits, vegetables, nuts, and other healthy options, but he still has quite a sweet tooth.  He’s very complimentary of the chef when he particularly enjoys a meal.  He pretty much only drinks water, sometimes a bit of milk.  He loves to roughhouse, and he doesn’t understand why other people aren’t super receptive of him barreling into them, playfully smacking them on the back, grabbing their legs…and his siblings’ cries of protest typically do little to deter him.  He happily watches whatever TV show his family chooses, whether it’s a Disney movie or a juvenile cartoon or House Hunters.  He loves to be read to, and he’s getting very close to sounding out words himself.  He knows all his uppercase and lowercase letters, letter sounds, and more or less numbers up to 20.  He appears to be good at math so far, already doing basic addition and subtraction.  He doesn’t like to draw, color, write, or do anything that involves holding a pencil or crayon.  He loves to cook with me in the kitchen, especially when I let him use the sharp knife for vegetable preparation or the stand mixer.  He’s doing very well at preschool two mornings a week, and his teachers say he’s very polite and well-behaved.  He frequently plays with his friend Clinton, but other than that his playmates are his siblings, and he adores being with them.  He doesn’t enjoy playing by himself, but he’s getting better at it when necessary (like when the girls are at school and Danny is napping).  He’s an agile athlete and excellent on his bike.  We got him his first “trick” bike for his birthday, and I know it’s only a matter of time before he’s airborne on the thing!  He’s obsessed with batteries right now, and loves to replace batteries in random objects throughout the house to make sure they’re in working order.  When he goes to bed around 8pm, he’s asleep within minutes.  He plays hard and sleeps hard!  

One of Jim’s and my favorite character traits of Jimmy’s is his enthusiasm; Jimmy absolutely loves life and it shows.  Whether you’re running errands with him, or reading with him, or bike riding with him, or just chatting with him, he’s excited and bubbly, probably a little bit wild, and just plain fun. 

I took a bunch of pictures today of him because he was positively glowing with birthday excitement, but since I’m having trouble loading them right now, stay tuned in the next few days for some more Jimmy!