Father's Day Tribute

In conservative Christian circles, I'm seeing a backlash to the extreme feminist movement. There's a lot of talk these days about men stepping up and being the leaders of their families. (This is usually in the context of women getting back in the home and submitting to their husbands.) And I do understand where they are coming from. I do believe that extreme feminism has emasculated many men and some Christians are extremely passionate about getting us back to traditional roles. And they do have some good points. Unfortunately, I see many men missing the point of Biblical leadership and using their Biblical role of leader as an excuse to be the 'boss' who barks orders at his family all day and expects everyone to do things his way all the time. Jesus Christ had a very simple definition of leadership: Service. The King of Kings came to serve, not to be served.

It's in this context that I'd like to pay tribute to my Dad this Father's Day. You see, my Dad modeled servant leadership superbly. My Dad is a man of few words and big actions. His love language is acts of service. His spiritual gift is serving. And I know no one who does it better than he does. My Dad never led family devotions or preached to us. I guess I should clarify that he never preached with words, but he preached the Gospel daily with his actions. My Dad led his family as Christ leads us - by serving us.

My Dad is an engineer (and really really smart), and really handy as well. Those are great traits for a life of service. A repairman never entered our house because my Dad could fix anything. Our cars never went to the mechanic because my Dad could always fix them. And he always just took care of things. As a child I didn't really give it much thought. I took it for granted that Dad could fix anything. When something broke, I would just hand it to him and say, "will you fix this?" And he would say, "yeah, leave it on the steps so I'll see it." The next day it would be good as new sitting on the steps for me to have back. There were very few words exchanged and no thanks required. As an adult, I have reflected on what a good illustration this is for how we should relate to God. God says we should receive the kingdom like a little child. I believe we make the Gospel too complicated sometimes. Maybe it's as simple as saying, "God, here's my broken heart, will you fix this?" and God saying, "sure, just leave it out where I can see it." And like magic it gets fixed. That's what a good and loving Father does. When I look back, I realize that every time my Dad changed the oil in my car, or fixed my broken toys, he was saying "I love you." Furthermore, he was modeling for me the way my Heavenly Father delights in fixing my own brokenness.

I had the coolest toys growing up. Store bought toys just weren't good enough for Daddy's girls. Sure I had a Fisher-Price phone like every other kid. But my Dad bought a pair of old office phones and wired them to really work. Playing telephone with my sister meant we could go to different rooms and really call each other, and then really hear and talk to each other through the phones. (The phones have since been passed on to Keziah who already enjoyed playing with them with her cousin.)

The plastic toy kitchens that every young girl has were nothing compared to my toy kitchen. My Dad built us a kitchen out of wood that is at least twice the size of those other play kitchens. It had plenty of cabinet space, a real-looking stove with a glass door, and a real metal sink. And did I mention that the faucet really worked? Yeah he put a pump-faucet on the sink so you could hide a bowl of water under the sink and actually pump water out of the faucet. It put those store-bought play kitchens to shame. When my sister and I got into competitive gymnastics, my Dad built us a balance beam to practice on in the basement and a bar that he concreted in the ground in our yard. A lot of the furniture in my childhood home was built by my Dad. He built a bookshelf and toy box for Keziah before she was born. My Dad delights in making stuff for us. It's a gift of his time, a gift of his talents, and another way to say, "I love you." Furthermore, he was modeling for me the way my Heavenly Father delights in giving me good gifts, gifts far better than anything the 'world' could give me.

You've probably heard it said that little girls grow up and marry their fathers. While not always true, it is true for me. My dad had a huge influence on the man I married. Before I met Michael Paul, I had a three page list of everything I wanted in a husband. Not being able to change the oil in a car was a deal breaker for me. I knew I could never be happy with someone who didn't measure up to my Dad. When Michael Paul and I were engaged and my parents had gotten to know him, my mom pulled me aside and said, "you know you're marrying your father, right?" I smiled real big and said, "uh huh!" She returned a knowing smile that wore 25 years of the ups and downs of marriage and replied, "just wanted to make sure you know what you're getting into!" I hope my Dad takes it as a very high compliment that I wanted to spend my life with someone just like him.

My Dad with Julie and me making great family memories on our sailboat:

The proud Grandaddy with his first grandchild:

Happy Father's Day!

Cooling Off

It is blistering hot today. But we found a way to cool off. I finally got to use my kiddie pool. We actually bought this little pool to use as a birthing pool. Unfortunately, it did not get used because my active labor was so fast (read that story here). Today Keziah finally got to enjoy the pool she was supposed to be born in! Ahhhhhh good times.

Mother's Day Tribute

(Here's what I wanted to write for Mother's Day but just now found the time to sit down and type it out. Better late then never, huh?)

This is one of my mom's favorite pictures of my sister and me:

I love this picture too. You've probably noticed what is so funny about this picture. Why on earth is my sister wearing a sweat suit while I am wearing this tiny short set? What was the weather like that day that we would have on such drastically different attire? That is what I asked my mom when I saw this picture for the first time as a teenager. Her response: with a shrug she simply stated, "I always just let you wear what you wanted to wear."

My mom is gifted with the ability to 'not sweat the small stuff'. She is super laid back. It was wonderful to grow up with this kind of mom. It made my childhood full of freedom! Now don't get me wrong, -she wasn't neglectful. We wore coats when it was cold. And she was careful about us being modest. But she didn't worry about us matching our clothes, or wearing perfectly coordinated outfits to school everyday. She didn't force us to wear what she thought was cute. I was allowed to be uniquely me. From my 'preppy' stage in middle school to my 'grunge' stage in high school, I explored who I wanted to be. And mom never criticized, never made suggestions, and always told me I was beautiful.

She never forced me to eat (or even 'try') food I did not like. Whether it was food, music, movies, or even theology, I was allowed my own opinion on the matter. She often asked, "what do you think about that?" and then she listened. And I mean she really listened. She never tried to change my opinion on something even if it was different than hers. I do have many memories of her saying things like, "I love how your mind works" and "That is a really interesting point of view. You are so neat." It was a perfect formula for raising a daughter who was confident, knew who she was, and was full of self-esteem.

I am so thankful for this quality in my mom. I am thankful to have had that model. Because, honestly, it is not my personality to be laid back like her. I tend to be more of a control freak. I can easily see how I will be tempted to force Keziah to wear what I think is cute, to be interested in the things I think are cool, to try to convince her to see the world the way I see it. But she is not me. She is uniquely Keziah. And I want to give her the freedom to grow up into herself, not me.

A few weeks ago I had to take Keziah shoe shopping. She had outgrown all her hand-me-down shoes and she absolutely refuses to wear the cute sandals my mom bought for her. So I took her with me because I was not about to spend money on shoes she would end up refusing to wear. But in my mind, I knew exactly what I wanted. A brown shoe that was sandal enough to be casual yet dressy enough to be worn with Sunday dresses. Brown would match all her clothes, and I've always hated the multi-color, gaudy, cartoon-themed kids shoes. We went to Target and to my delight, they had exactly what I was looking for. A brown mary-jane style shoe that could be dressy, yet looked like a sandal and could still be worn with casual clothes. I grabbed them and proceeded to put them on Keziah's feet. A huge tantrum was quickly brooding and I could see she was not happy about them. I tried to make a big deal about how cute and cool they were. But she wasn't taking the bate.

And then I thought of my mom, and all the times we went about looking like ragamuffin children because we were allowed the freedom to choose our clothes, and how much I appreciated that. So I got Keziah out of the cart and said, go pick out some shoes. She walked down the aisle a couple of times, and then her eyes got wide, her mouth gaped open, "ooooooooooh" she said, as she approached a pair of pink glitter slippers. She grabbed them off the shelf, marched over and gave them to me, then plopped down on the floor for me to put them on her. After exchanging them for her size, I put them on her. And as she walked back and forth admiring her pretty feet with a huge smile on her face, I had to smile. She was so happy. So confident. I could tell she felt beautiful. I hated the shoes. I immediately thought about the fact that they wont match any of her outfits. But I thought of my mom, my wonderful childhood, my freedom to have opinions and a style of my own. I bought her the shoes.

Thanks, Mom. Because of you, I am a better mom.

My mom, me, and Keziah shortly after she was born

Pigtails!

... One of the 100 reasons I love having a daughter!

Pigtails - April, 2010

Pigtails - May, 2011

Mother's Day Pictures

I really really wanted to write something sentimental for Mother's Day. But Miss Keziah decided she would only take a 30 minute nap and then be cranky the rest of the day. She obviously didn't know it was Mother's Day or I am sure she would have been on her best behavior. So I didn't get around to posting yesterday. But here are some pictures and hopefully I'll get around to writing more about my awesome mom and how awesome it is to be a mom some time in the near future.

First I just had to post last year's Mother's Day photo:

What a difference a year makes! This year:

Last year's outfits were coordinated on accident. This year I made my skirt and her jumper so it was easy to coordinate on purpose. I am totally taking advantage of dressing alike before she's old enough to realize how cheesy I am and refuses to do so!

This year's picture was much harder to take because she was so interested in grabbing the rose. Most of the shots looked like this before we got a good one.

And her reward for being so good during picture taking (despite the very short nap!) was a wagon ride.

Keziah Reading

Today we went to the library. It is always lots of fun and we usually have the place to ourselves. I usually pick a few books to check out for Keziah. But today she seemed particularly interested in this monster-themed counting book. She pulled it off the shelf herself and then carried it around with her at the library. So of course I checked it out for her. Not long after we got home, Michael Paul woke up and Keziah was eager to show him her new book. He was able to sneak the video camera out of the drawer and start recording without her noticing. We've been dying to get video of her reading - because we think it is the cutest thing in the world! But as soon as she sees the camera she stops doing whatever cute thing we are trying to capture and comes running toward the camera (as you'll see at the end of the video when she finally notices Daddy has the camera out). So here is Keziah reading (ok ok it's not really 'reading' but it's the 16 month-old version of reading):

Bath Time Update

So if you are a regular reader here, you might recall my bath time struggles with Keziah. Well I just had to give another update because baths have been so wonderful lately. It was a slow steady progress over the last two months. She eventually ventured to sit down in the tub (as opposed to my lap) and even discovered the joy of splashing. Now we have the much welcomed and better problem of having water all over the floor! Michael Paul hunted down some of his old favorite bath toys on ebay and had a blast playing with his treasured yellow wind up boat and pocket power submarine with Keziah.

To fully show how far we've come, here is what our bath looked like a couple days ago: We went upstairs and I said, "Keziah you want to take a bath?" She runs into the bathroom and tries to take her shirt off. I undress her and turn the water on. She reaches over and sticks her hand underneath and tries to climb into the tub. She has a huge smile on her face. I get out the bath toys and her smile turns into squeals of glee. Michael Paul comes upstairs and I slip out of the bathroom. Michael Paul gives the whole bath and she never cries for me, never needs to nurse, doesn't miss me at all. She whimpers a bit when he rinses the shampoo out of her hair but not much. Meanwhile I get some much needed alone time - catching up on blogs while eating peanut butter and chocolate chips! I go up half an hour later to discover Daddy has filled the tub almost to the brim. It's basically a swimming pool and she is splashing and playing quite happily! I grab her and wrap her in a towel and she whimpers because bath time is over. We brush teeth, read a story, and she falls asleep very quickly! Now if that is not a successful bath time, I don't know what is! We have decided that baths are now Daddy's responsibility. He loves them and it gives them a special bonding time (and me some alone time!) And I am certain she will have no problems swimming this summer!

Maybe when she starts talking better I will ask her if she remembers being so afraid of water and ask her why. It still really boggles my mind and I would love to know if something happened, or she saw something that brought on her intense hydrophobia. Maybe I'll never know, but I sure am glad it has passed!