A Guest Appearance

Thanks for the inviting me to be a guest on your blog, Greta. Happy
to be here. Where do I clip this microphone? Tea? Can I get some tea
with this big wedge of cake? Ok, what do you want to know? Right.
Yeah. Sure, I'll talk about that - but hand me some more of that cake
first...

It's always a joy watching how our children develop their language
skills – seeing them work hard at watching, learning, and then having
a crack at putting associated sounds into practice. The joy they
experience when they get it bang on, resulting in the turning of
smiling heads and cheers of 'hurray!' from their close family
members... ah good times. good times.

What's even more of a joy is when they don't quite hit the target,
but are convinced that they have. This takes a little longer to
'correct' since, as far as they're concerned, it's a done deal.
They've already moved on to the next challenge. And not that we want
to correct, cos it's so darn cute.

For example:
Swiper the Fox is a very naughty character from Dora the Explorer
who's always trying to swipe Dora's stuff. Sometimes he gets his
loot, but most of the time he's rumbled by Dora and her best friend
Boots who see the fox with just enough time to chant thrice 'Swiper
no swiping', which results in the foiling of Swiper's horrid plans.
Swiper's response to this outcome is always the same, he clicks his
fingers and yells 'Oh ma-a-a-a-a-n!'.

For the past couple of weeks, when we pray at the dinner table to
thank God for the day we've had, and for the food we're about to
enjoy, we all hold hands to pray. Cerys loves the bit where Greta or
I say '... in Jesus' name' since that's her cue to yell 'AMEN!'
Addien, of course, joins in unison with a hearty lung-filled 'Oh ma-a-
a-a-a-a-a-a-a-n!'

VERY good times!

Tim

What I Do

If I were to tell about my day it would go something like this:

I woke up this morning with Cerys shouting "MOMMY! I NEED A WEE WEE!" at the top of her lungs. I struggled to get my belly out of bed and went to get her and Addien up. I do love that part of the day when they're so happy to see me, and I to see them. Cerys peed, I helped her get her pajamas back on, and then we went down for breakfast. I made milk, got juice, toast and cereal and settled the girls down for their food and quickly make something for myself as well. We said goodbye to Tim as he cycled off to work, and then we went upstairs to get dressed. I changed a diaper, helped Cerys choose her clothes, tickled Addien as I got her dressed, played peekaboo, watched Cerys do her chalking on her blackboard and admired the "sun" that she drew. Then we went downstairs and headed to playschool where I dropped Cerys off and then headed to the grocery store with Addien. I did the shopping while trying to keep Addien entertained in the trolley. When we got home I got the groceries and Addien in the house and raced upstairs to empty my bladder, which has been pushed upon until it is apparently the size of a pea. I quickly checked my e-mail since Addien was quiet downstairs, but to my dismay found that she has found the carton of eggs and broken two of them and was sitting in a puddle of egg with some nice yolk dripping out of her mouth. Hoping that she wouldn't get salmonella, I picked her up and put her in her second outfit of the day just in time to head out to get Cerys from playschool. Upon arrival back home I made lunch, finished putting away the dishes and cleaned the kitchen then put the girls up for their naps. Somewhere in there I changed another diaper and put Addien in her third outfit of the day since her bib didn't catch the spray of tomato seeds from her lunch. I balanced the checkbook, did some laundry, ate a couple of cookies, read my Bible, checked my e-mail again, talked to my sister Anna and snoozed on the couch until Cerys decided it was time for her to get up. Then we watched some children's tv, I did some ironing, got dinner ready and got Addien up from her nap around 4. We had a snack, did some puzzles, sang some songs, hung up the laundry, tidied up the toys, greeted Daddy at the door around 6, ate dinner, gave the girls a bath, put them to bed around 7:30 and then collapsed after doing my third lot of dishes of the day.

Not the most captivating of stories, I admit, but it's what I do. And most days I really love it. I can't imagine doing anything else. Sure, it would be nice to have a tidy little list that I could cross off and get a real sense of satisfaction for jobs well done, but I'd miss this messy little life of endless runny noses, dirty diapers, copious demands for drinks and songs, and children clinging to my legs at the most inopportune times. I have to remind myself of that on days like today when I think I can't cope with one more monotonous, unnoticed task. I love my life. I really do.

A Cake Decorating Feat

I am so proud of the birthday cake Anna and I made for Cerys, I just had to post it. Cerys really liked the movie "March of the Penguins" and this cute little show out here called Pingu that's all about a little penguin. So she chose a penguin cake. Check it out.

Happy Birthday, Baby Girl

My baby turned three today. Happy birthday, Cerys Anna.

A Song that Taught Me this Week

God in my living
There in my breathing
God in my waking
God in my sleeping
God in my resting
There in my working
God in my thinking
God in my speaking

Be my everything
Be my everything
Be my everything
Be my everything

God in my hoping
There in my dreaming
God in my watching
God in my waiting
God in my laughing
There in my weeping
God in my hurting
God in my healing

Christ in me
Christ in me
Christ in me, the hope of Glory
You are everything

Christ in me
Christ in me
Christ in me, the hope of Glory
Be my everything

Grammy

My grandmother died last month. It's taken me a while to figure out how I feel about her passing. She was my mom's mom, affectionately known by me and my sisters as "Grammy". I cried a little when I got the phone call from my mom, but I struggled to understand how I was feeling. I think I felt more like I should be sad rather than actually feeling sad. I felt bad for my mom because it's hard to lose your mother regardless of your relationship with her. And I felt lonely since I was so far away from my grieving family. But I didn't really feel sad for myself.

The thing is, my grandmother wasn't a very nice woman. I won't go into detail because it's not my story to tell, but she was not nice to my mom, and my mom was scared of her well into adulthood. I was scared of her as a little girl, and so were my sisters. As we got older and she got older, she softened a little, but by that time she was in a nursing home and we didn't get to see much of her. She loved to call people "dummy" after they had walked away from her, and the care staff at her home had documented abuse from her throughout her stay. She didn't have any friends because she didn't like anybody. She complained to my mom about having to live in a home, but she refused to do any of the exercises that her physical therapist prescribed for her after hip surgery, so she was confined to a wheelchair for the last decade by her own choice. Her favorite saying was "If you don't have anything nice to say, don't say anything at all" which was a mantra she did not feel applied to her.

Towards the end, she grew more and more meek. She suffered from severe dementia, and sometimes didn't even recognize my mom. She would ask for Charlie, her second husband who died almost 10 years ago, and Frank, my grandfather who died before I was born. She was convinced that she was 100 years old, and she was tired of living. My mom saw her for the last time three days before she died, and my mom asked her if she knew how much my mom loved her. She replied "a bushel and a peck" which is what she used to tell my mom as a little girl. I'm thankful my mom has that sweet scene as one of her last memories of her mom.

I wish that I had more nice things to say about her, but she didn't give me much to work with. I wonder how she felt in the end, looking back on her life. She had no friends, not a single person other than her immediate family who wanted to spend time with her. What a sad ending to 83 years.

But still, I loved my Grammy. And I hope she is resting in peace now.

Miss Daisy hits the road

Since getting my driving license I have been out and about entirely too much. All of a sudden my new found freedom has seen me traveling to Milton Keynes for unnecessary shopping trips, learning to use my automatic cooker so I can go visit a friend while dinner is in the oven, running around town delivering Creative Memories products instead of just sticking them in the post, and generally doing way too much just because I can. This has left my house in a state of disorder which has not been seen since Battison Street. Tim commented yesterday that it's amazing how I did without a car just fine for two and a half years, and now when he says he might want to drive to work today, I reply that I need the car.

It was a lot easier to walk and be concerned about the effect of carbon emissions on the environment when I didn't have the opportunity to drive short distances. It's a much bigger challenge to choose to leave the house ten minutes earlier in the morning to walk to play school and still get Cerys there on time than it was to leave on time when I didn't have a choice.

And while I had gotten used to feeling a bit lonely during the week and spending most of my time with just me and the girls, which did wonders for the state of my house, now I feel the need to zoom off for an afternoon visit on most afternoons.

Once the excitement wears off I'm sure I will be able to find a balance of good housekeeping and fun activities. But perhaps we'll leave that until after Anna goes home because I've got all sorts of fun things planned for her!

No Longer Miss Daisy

I passed my driving test today. Yeah!

My babies

Cerys started at her new playschool yesterday. I remember my mom taking my picture on my first day of school when I was five. Cerys is only almost three! But she's only going two mornings a week, and she really loved it yesterday. We got there early so I could take her picture without being seen, but some other parents got there early too, and so I had to overcome my embarrassment to snap a shot for posterity.


I snapped this shot Saturday morning. Addien is such a little ham!

A Prayer

Almighty God,

My friend Wendy has just been told that she has a tumor the size of a soccer ball on her right ovary. She's 28, and she's never been married. She'd like to get married one day and have kids. But she's got this tumor, and on Monday a team of surgeons is going to cut her open and remove the tumor, and if it's cancerous, they're going to remove her entire reproductive system. She's asked me, and a lot of other people, to pray. But the thing is, I don't really have the faith to pray. You and I both know that you could heal her, but you're the only one who knows if you will heal her. And unfortunately my experience of late tells me that though you could, and though you may even want to, you probably won't, and so I don't really feel like praying for her just to be disappointed. I'm sure this is the wrong attitude, but I'm also sure that you'll give grace and bring me around to the right one all in good time. So for tonight, here is my prayer: Lord, I believe, help my unbelief, and save Wendy from the pain of a hysterectomy and from any future need for cancer treatment, and please do it despite the fact that I don't really think you will. Amen.

A New Year

I don't know Ryan and Holly, except from what I've heard from my friend Mike, but they asked a great question, and I hope they don't mind me stealing it.

Three words to describe 2006:

Growth
Longing
Hope

Three words I think or hope will describe 2007:

Peace
Fruitfulness
Passion

The scan

We had our second ultrasound yesterday, the one where we get to find out if we're having a boy or a girl and where the experienced technician looks for any problems with the baby. I had to pee like you wouldn't believe, and was planning to do so as soon as we walked in, but to our surprise the technician was there waiting for us and ushered us right in. I said, "If this is going to take longer than about five minutes I'm not going to be able to hold it," and she said "Let's just have a look." So I lay on the table and forgot about my bladder as I watched this little babe curled up in my belly. I choked back a sob and let the tears roll down my face as she showed us a four-chambered heart beating away. It was a mixture of relief, as the anxiety I didn't quite realize was sitting under the surface melted away, and of joy, and of deep sadness as my thoughts drifted to Will and what my friends must have been feeling as they watched their baby's two-chambered heart struggling away. And then, as if reading my thoughts, she focused in on the face and said, "There's the lip, you can see it's perfectly formed, there's no cleft." And she showed us two legs curled up to the chest, and two arms, one of which was scratching the head, and a head and belly that were all perfectly formed. I lay there feeling so undeserving of such a precious gift, and so thankful, and so sad.

As we walked out to the car Tim said to me, "Why is it that in order to experience the greatest of joy you have to open yourself up to the most horrific pain?" I think it's because we live in a world where God is present, but He's not in charge. At the moment Satan or the devil, or evil, or human nature, or whatever you want to call it, is the ruler of this world. But when God comes and takes charge, life will be so dramatically different, we won't know what pain is. I find that so hard to imagine. But it's what I hope for.

As for Hattrick...if you want to know whether it's a boy or girl, you'll have to ask me. I don't think I'm ready to post that info for the world to see.

Another conversation with Cerys

This conversation actually happened about a week and a half ago, so it's very old news, but I've been wanting to post it since then, and I have a morning to myself while the girls are at Costco with their daddy, so here goes.

Tim: Cerys, have you noticed that Mommy's belly is getting big?
Cerys: (Nods)
Greta: Do you remember the last time Mommy's belly got big?
Cerys: (Nods)
Tim: What was in there last time her belly got big?
Cerys: Um, toast?

The real meaning of Christmas

This is the story of a boy who had a Christmas wish.
His dad wanted him to be the happiest boy at Christmas time.
And to make him the happiest boy, he knew exactly what to do.
He reached up high and got hold of the Christmas wish.
And took it to a place where Christmas wishes come true.
(Scalextric GT Racers Set £99.99)
Don't Christmas shop for it. Argos it.


Click here to view this ad from Argos, a UK store that has EVERYTHING. You go in and it's pretty much just a big room with catalogs scattered around the edges. You go look in the catalog, write down the number of what you want, take it to the teller where you pay and then go wait for someone to call you up to collect what you've just purchased. I don't know that we have anything like that in the US.

This ad makes me want to spit. Not that I'm surprised at the materialism of Christmas. That's what Christmas is about, right? It's just the blatant statement that toys make kids happy. That getting everything they want makes kids happy. Haven't they seen A Christmas Story? You'll shoot your eye out!

I won't go into a long speech about the evils of Christmas just now. Another day, perhaps. For now I'll just leave you to enjoy this lovely ad.

Oops

I totally missed it. I somehow thought it was today, but no, it was last Sunday. A very happy, though belated, first anniversary to Mr. and Mrs. What should have been a wedding gift, and then was to become a first anniversary gift, and is now just embarrassingly late, should arrive this week. :) With much love, to one of the greatest men Tim and I know, and to his wife, whom we long to know better!

All by Myself

Tonight I am feeling incredibly sad, as my husband is leaving me and the girls for a week to go do business in California. My lovely father hired Tim's company to do the marketing for Gelato Paradiso. So Tim and his partner are off to the States to get the grand tour of the stores and come up with a brilliant marketing plan that will get them ready for franchising. Which leaves me to be mom and dad for the next eight days. With a chest infection and out-of-control hormones, I'm feeling completely ill-prepared for the challenge. Not to mention the fact that I'm green with envy that Tim will be in California visiting MY family. I want to go too! Boo hoo.

Grosser than Gross

Remember those old jokes? They were popular when I was like 8. The point was to try to gross out your friends, which I don't actually think is funny, but hey, I guess I did when I was 8. The one that I remember is "What's grosser than finding a worm in your apple?" And the answer is "Finding half a worm."

So, I've got a new one, which is the mother of them all, and it just so happens to be true: "What's grosser than changing a poopy diaper?" Answer: "Changing a poopy diaper and then seeing a little opaque worm crawl out of your daughters butt!!!" EWW!

Yes, that's right, Addien has pinworms. And seeing one actually crawl out of her was by far the grossest thing I have ever witnessed. The worst part of it is that everyone in the family is being given a dose of anti-worming medicine, except for me because I'm pregnant. So even though I don't have any symptoms of infection, it's possible that I'll be harboring these little beasts for the next six months, and that really is grosser than gross.

Arghhh!!!

I just spent about 40 minutes writing a post about March of the Penguins. And it's gone. Gone, gone, gone. Arghh!

Waiting for the Sun

The sun is shining brightly here in Bedford today, which is a nice change. That song by The Doors, Waiting for the Sun, is running through my head. Even though it's there outside, metaphorically I still feel like I'm waiting for it. It's been a rough few months. Leaving California in August was so hard. I miss my family too much to bear sometimes. And then shortly after we got home Will died. The grief of that mixed with the worry and the sadness at being too far away from our friends overwhelms me at times. And we moved, which was a good change, but hard work. And on top of that I've been going through progesterone poisoning with this baby. I'm so thankful to be able to get pregnant and have healthy babies, but I can't help not liking the first couple of months of feeling sick all the time. There's a lot of good in my life, and there's a lot of sadness too. Right now I feel like the sadness is winning out over the good, and then I think, "You ungrateful git."

In the new Charlie and the Chocolate Factory film, Violet's mother goes with her to the factory, and she says to her "Eye on the prize, Violet. Eye on the prize." And isn't that really what Paul says to the Corinthians? Keep running the race. So, I'm wondering, What is the prize? What is it that I'm running for. Jesus' triumphant return? The end of my life? The full realization of God's Kingdom? Is the prize supposed to make all the crap that I'm feeling right now just disappear? Should I be so focused on the end that none of the temporal stuff matters? How does that work?

Tim and I were talking the other night about our lives and about the emergent church and about fundamentalism, and it was one of the best talks we've ever had. But it left me feeling like maybe I've never really seen Jesus, not really. Because if I had, if I really believed to the depth of my soul that the Creator of the entire universe, the Word of God, came to the earth in the form of a baby born into a dirty cattle trough, and that He then lived to teach us how to live and then died on the cross in my place, wouldn't my life look a lot different than it does now? Wouldn't I be a lot more focused on carrying on his work and not so focused on making sure my needs and wants are met?

I feel a bit stuck. My life doesn't look the way I want it to. But I feel pretty powerless to change it. I don't really know what to do. I'm just waiting.

The World's Worst Blogger

Yeah, that's me. I was never good at journalling. I'd be pretty consistent for a few weeks and then disappear for months at a time. I hoped I'd be a bit different when it came to my blog, but thus far the pattern has been pretty similar. Granted, this last disappearance was due to moving and my computer being shut up in a box for three weeks. And me throwing up nearly every day for about 6 weeks. But even so, I'm a bit annoyed with myself for being so inconsistent.

So. what's been going on with me? Well, I got pregnant with baby number 3 about 12 weeks ago and have been sick for about 8 weeks now. Very exciting and yet not very fun at the same time. We had the scan, and all seems well. Say hello to Hattrick Davies.

We moved to a village outside of Bedford called Clapham. It's quiet and clean. We have a big back yard and modest front yard, and it's a much brighter, more nicely laid out house. It's taken some getting used to. I miss being able to walk into town and being able to see my friend Abi whenever I feel like it. But I do like the house and the neighborhood, and Tim absolutely loves it.

Addien turned one, and isn't she a beauty?

I read Rees Howells, Intercessor. And I was amazed. This man really seemed to know the voice of God. He compared hearing God's voice to knowing the sound of your mother's voice. And I thought, man I've got a long way to go.

I made my first Creative Memories sale, followed by seven more. I placed an order today for just over 300 pounds, and I managed to make a loss of 4 pounds. Ouch.

And I took my first driving lesson, which I found scary and intimidating. The instructor is lovely, but I realized that I have a long way to go before I can pass my driving test. Roundabouts are still scary, I still have no concept of how close I am to the cars to my left, and learning to switch gears and indicate with my left hand is going to take a while.

So, that's been me for the last month or so. I've been challenged to write more about theology/philosophy/emergent stuff, and so I've been thinking about that. But so far I don't think I have much to say. Check back in a few days.