Lab Summer

Have you ever had the chance to work with someone, or be part of something that you had once only imagined or discussed in a sociology class, or wrote about theoretically on a college essay?  Something that brings together art and poverty and children in a rich and meaningful process.  Something that fills their day with substance while granting them a way to find their particular voice.  And on top of this, have it be your very own kids that are the ones benefitting, the ones being listened to, the ones being asked their point of view.

For us, Spells Writing Lab has been this.

Last week, was Wild West Week and the boys were part of making a silent western film "The Legendary Bandits."  It involved the Parent Trap trick where the four bandits fought against four sheriffs that looked oddly similar.  Also, my favorite, the slow motion hero walk. Benicio was the betrayer who shot a sheriff.  I love that they worked with 2 other kids, 3 counselors, and made something greater than the sum of the parts.

This week is Travel Guide Week and they are traveling to Philly tourist-spots and reviewing them.  Like critical travel-writers, they are discussing subway station smells, rating the Independence Hall tour,  comparing milkshakes, and grading the difficulty of the mini-golf at Franklin Park.

Also, there are no grades.  Nobody asking why Manny's in fourth at age 11.  And nobody assigning letter grades for their effort.  The director said to me today, "The group-energy flagged by 3 but it picked up again when the brainstorm board was filling up."  I love hearing about the group, the team.  And I think that's how they see themselves.

When I was writing personal mission statements for college, I could not have imagined something this creative, set up where it is in North Philly, doing what it does, serving whom it serves.  Micah 6:8 all the way.  So brave.

Things That Moved Me Today

-the mosaic-tiled park across from the Spells Writing Lab
-kids in it learning self defense
-watching Benicio's fleet-feet while he played a hot-potato game
-the two angels that God sent us to help me while getting lost all around N. Philly
-remembering it's my Grandfather's death anniversary and how he loved the Hymn of St. Francis, thinking of him sing that key change, "Oh Master, grant that I may never seek. . .
-friends' news of pregnancy that strikes me today as something utterly brilliant that God designed

To Manny on his Eleventh.

The mix I made you had the 8 songs you asked for.  Besides the songs themselves, what I want to remember is how you made that list back in May.  This was more important than the guest list or any other thing for that matter.  Your short term memory gaps gave you a doozy of a time in math.  But it's also what makes you incredibly forgiving.  Forgiving of the girls crankiness, your brother's ribbing, and my impatience.  It's funny right-- those things that trip us up and frustrate us can be come little doors to great things, maybe the best things.  

Like tap.  I love being in tap class with you.  I am sweating and trying to remember if a shuffle has 2 beats or 3.  You are Gene Kelly in the mirror, making music with your buffalo and your flap-ball-change.  When the teacher asks me to remember 3 moves, I am praying I remember and trying not to slip.  When the teacher asks you to remember 6 moves, you perform all of them in an 18 move-succession loop!  You are fleet and effortless.  I will treasure these rare hours with you in the classroom.

You spent 8 hours of your birthday in the pool.  Egg drops, belly flops, splash ball battles.  Your four grandparents orbited you.  Sitting by the pool watching your breath-holding and handstands.  Sitting under the tree watching you relay. Mema making and serving food.  Pepop playing with Millie.  Big Dad and Nanay interviewing Nazeer.  It has taken me this long to figure out for your birthday--- tiny guest list, big simple fun.  

It has taken me this long too, to realize that the way I want to spend your birthday is with you.  Not just around you, doing stuff.  I really like playing with you in the pool, eating with you in the shade.  Hearing you remember a line from a Prelutsky poem or make a mash-up of two songs-- these observations are how you connect points in the world.  How you are part of it.  What  a rare and precious being you are!  Thank you for not being an odd sum of my parts and Dad's parts-- you are so much more than this.  You are not just the product of this birth method or parenting philosophy.  You are a set-apart vessel in your own right.  You have your own story that God is working on with you.  I am so excited for you.  I can see His work in you-- with your speediness to forgive, the ways you serve your siblings, the ways you are humble to our teaching, and the openness you have in your worship.  

I know I can really crowd and constrict you but know that it's in love that I do it.  I am trying to remember that God has you so i don't have to squeeze so much.  

O Love that will not let me go,
I rest my weary soul in thee;
I give thee back the life I owe,
That in thine ocean depths its flow
May richer, fuller be.

-- lyric from George Matheson 1882

I hope you can relax and rest your soul in God, Manny. You are very much held in love.

Back to Languid Normal

These hot days have felt like we're moving in slow motion.  We have tried to create a normalcy to our days, a rhythm--restful but not boring.  Neighborhood soccer camp in the morning.  Chores after lunch.  A movie in the afternoon.  Make dinner.

We spent two hours at the museum making crafts yesterday.  It was tomb-quiet.  This uber-patient museum intern helped us make pom poms in all sizes, doll pillows, yarn flowers and we sat in the cool for what seemed like all day.

The four kids spend so much face time with one another.  There has been a new intensity to their bickering.  For the boys, an enhanced rowdiness, more potent shoves.  For the girls, grudges held long and cooly.  I have been reading about the Prodigal Son with them.  How there are two sons who have gone astray in the story.  One had to repent of his immorality.  The other, of his morality.  One of running away.  The other, of his turning away.  The focus should really be on the Father, with open arms, anticipation, his insistence on relationship with his sons, his acceptance.  Trying to walk in that openness, keeping the emphasis on their relationships with each other, not on being right all the time.  It's tricky.

*internship* part 1

We've never discussed why but when I was a freshman in college, my brother bought me a book.  One of the first passages I underlined was this,

Paul (the Apostle) did not change his message according to what others might think.  Only people-lovers are able to confront.  Only people-lovers are not controlled by other people.

While reading this book, it slowly occurred to me that I was built for more than my social life.  I was not simply the sum of my reputation among friends, the clothing I wore, the things I read.  I was hand-made by God and made with His purposes and plan in mind.  I didn't belong to myself but I was a soul in the care and flock of God.  Reading this book was truly a turning point for me.

A passage I double-highlighted says,

According to Ephesians, what do we really need?  We need to be a corporate body, smitten with the glory of God, committed to the unity of the church, deluged by his love, and faithful as we walk together in obedience to him, even in our suffering.  We need to need other people less and love other people more.

A co-dependent, a compliment-junky, a hoarder of comments and criticisms, I was a hot mess.  In many ways, I think I still am these things.  I'm wired this way, you might say.  But these words really reached out to me and pointed me to Biblical truth that had been there all along.

Throughout college and into our marriage, and even as we started parenting, I have devoured the books by this author and others from P&R press.  This particular author has written  about addiction, anxiety and depression.  When our church plant dissolved, our hipster honeymoon ended and I found myself thinking about the counseling program where this author teaches.

Two years ago, I took my first class with this author.  I still feel the smitten star-struckness that I had when I  go to a book signing or when I sat by Mr. Rogers in Sunday School.  However, we started writing weekly responses for class.  And through his comments on my papers and through class itself, I found the dialogue to be very equalizing.  My sister reminds me, "Grad school is an iterative process."  And foundational to our theology, is an insistence on humility, a wisdom about being broken human messes.  So therefore, this teacher/author/counselor insists on being human and I have come to see him as a co-struggler, another pilgrim on the same wild journey.

So then, when the internship came up, it was a chance to counsel with real counselors.  To learn under these wiser folks.  To be taught exactly how to do what they do and how to hold out the same light for others.  You can imagine my joy and excitement when I was accepted into the intern class of 2012-2013.  To say I'm excited is a massive understatement.

If You Don't Know Your Amenities, You Don't Have Any

My siblings and I are in the process of planning our vacation.  Usually, our parents choose a location and date of their timeshare.  And we six (plus our families), try to make it there for some portion of the week and roll up ready to be fed, and ready to be taken care of.

Well, this year, it's different.  We have chosen a beach house rental and a date.  We have done this by semi-consensus and paid our way with the sweat of our own backs.  I am planning to milk every drop of this vacation.  How far is the beach?  What's the weather?  What is the surface of the tennis courts?  It's wild.  I have never cared this much about my enjoyment, about yielding a fun quotient from a vacation.  We are planning meals and bedding, trying to pack light but well.  I can see why people read up on destinations.  Why they look for snacks that are not melty but not chips.

I know that there will be Foosball.  Maybe DSM IV Charades.  Probably some kind of Bible quiz.  When not pocketing the mini-soaps, I'll probably be trying to show up early for Bingo in the Clubhouse, probably rooting too loudly for my brother, who will inevitably take part in the Ping Pong tournament.  It will be immensely fun and our kids will be sufficiently horrified and embarrassed.  However, they will remember hilariously, if not fondly, the way we vacationed as an extended family.

Co-in Oppin

Have you ever had seasons so full of transition that you feel as if you are made of paper, thin, delicate and porous--feeling as though you could take flight with the slightest breeze?  This is how I have been feeling this week-- We are graduating our nursery school.  We have co-oped there since Manny was 3.

When I say "we," I really mean that.  Co-oping "heavy" means that you are basically there once a week.  You wear an apron, you cut fruit, you mix paint, you sweep up.  What's more-- you help the children.  You read them stories.  You push them on swings.  You hold them in your lap.  You wipe their noses.   You become part of the school in a very deep way.  Children call you "Manny's Mom" or "Hey, Clara's Mom."  You begin to respond to this because, it is, in fact, true.

We found the school because Geoff's favorite animation teacher sent her son here.  She sent a photo of this beaming three year old on his birthday.  Just over his shoulder, you could see twinkle lights wrapped around what looked like a loft.  You could see the huge windows and warm wooded floors.  And children's artwork hung from floor up to the ceiling, salon style.  We were newlyweds when I saw that but I thought-- Ok, when the time comes,  I will look for a cooperative nursery school just like that one.

After teaching at The Hollow Reed School in Boston, I learned how magical early-childhood learning is.  It precedes all other formal schooling.  It's before the big push for literacy.  The madness of the conveyer-belt to Swarthmore.  It's before kids get diagnosed with bunches of letters and dosed with meds.  I learned how very young children draw their own conclusions.  They have soulful processes, intricate ethics, and their skin is still vibrational and beautiful.  They are all that they will become and you can see it.  They have no shame or judgement yet so their connectivity is palpable.  It's as the Quakers describe-- that of God in me reaching out for that of God in you. 

But then Manny was that age, we moved back to PA.  And even though I had worked with that age, kids were now threats to my kid.  Specifically, I thought, boys were flesh-eating miscreants who thought nothing of clonking huge metal trucks over the heads of younger, unsuspecting boys like mine. A sensitive boy who felt badly for stray cats.  Who saved pennies for the poor at age 3. Suddenly, I thought that my kid would be one of those turtles who WOULD NOT SURVIVE the night dash to safety.  It was going to take a lot for me to love children collectively again, to re-locate those treasures I had found before.  That's when we found our way to CNS.

It was there that I found that this parenting journey MUST be in community. I will never forget going into early labor while Phoenix's Dad was putting baby frogs into the aquarium and taught us about it.  I sat in the corner on a pile of rug squares sweating and tired.  Clara was born at 10:30 that night.  Also, how many families cooked for us right after the birth!  Also nursing Clara in front of the fire with Nora's Mom.  Also the annual chick-hatching.  How attached you get to those little eggs and then when you have to say goodbye to them when the farmer returns.  Also listening to all the little kid-justifications for stick play or gun play.  How many times have I been told they are "blasters" or "that I am firing protection messages?"  Also, I have the recordings of Tom with the kids in the Ira Glass style, these babyish voices articulating the job chart and the Otter Song. Or the Thanksgiving Feast when the parents serve a sit-down meal to a huge table that sits only 9 inches off the ground.  Us bending over the kids with scoops of cranberries, baby slices of turkey.  All that work is so elemental.  I can say that I have baked with so many kids.  I have opened so many little lunch containers.

What did my kids get from the whole deal?  Manny got to see how parents work on behalf of their kids.  We do humble monk's work but see the virtue in it and pour so much love into it.  Benicio got a ninja training field, kid-sized and all his own.  I can still see him in his orange Rocket Dog jeans running from the boat over the blacktop, dipping down and mounting the suspension bridge.  His whole first year, he thought the metal circle sculpture was a letter "B" for him.  Clara, this is where she got adored.  She was in the sling her first few months.  However, the sling was worn not just by me, but other mother's while they cut apples in the kitchen.  And later, Clara was the passed- around live doll.  She was jostled and carried, even had a crib made for her out of the large-scale wood blocks.  And Calliope-- I still have the meal-signup Lisa made when she was born.  On handmade paper, she lettered, "SHE IS FINALLY HERE."  After being born two weeks late, we all waited for the fourth Beatty kid.  What she got from CNS was the most academically-rich and creatively-intensive experience of any of the others.  She went from suspicious and shy in the sandbox to explorative at the rice table to inseparable from Una to arranging dress ups for kids in the younger class.

Tomorrow, Calliope will graduate.  She will process down the aisle with two daisies.  One for every year she has been a student here.  I just want to be present for the transition, the quiet ending to such  a long and rich chapter.

best bios

Trying to master the art of writing the perfect bio.  Don't like the ones where they say, "She makes her life in the Catskills with her husband, children and goats." Or when they say "She likes hiking outdoors, listening to music, and eating cupcakes with friends."  Sometimes it seems to me to sound pretentious like, "I hope Santa can find us in Cabo!"

But I can't very well say, She loves to smell her children and can only read for twenty minutes at at time because of her severe ADD.  Or she hates to repeat outfits and loves Step Aerobics.  She has overdue fines on her library cards and has fantasies about doing Kung Fu on meter maids.  Empty storefronts in small towns make her cry and she has a complex about not cooking Asian food for her family.

My favorite ones are quirky and yet substantial.  They make me want to have a conversation with the person.  I want to strike the right chord.

Grades & Feedback

Mother's Day Grades (as written by them):

Things Mom Is Good At:
1.school work at her school
2.cooking
3.swimming
Things Mom Needs to Work On:
1.yelling
2.being mad at us
3. less computer time
4.less phone time
--by Manny

Things that your good at:
1.cooking
2.playing with us
3.cleaning up
4.letting us do things
5. being a mother!
Things you need to work on:
1.your teasing
2.um, I think that's all
Things I need to work on:
1. saying "What"
2.teasing
3.being content
4.not listening
5.trying to get more than I have.
--by Benicio


Things your good at:
1.cooking
2.gardening
3.being a good MOMMY!
Things you need to work on:
1. tone of voice
That is all I can think of!
--by Clara

Things Mom's Good At
1.cooking
2.drawing
3.doing pushups
4.climbing
5.fighting Kung Fu
Things Mom needs to Work On:
2. making ice cream
--by Calliope

Days Go By

At home, I am on a personal, one-on-one crusade against what my Mom would describe as "the house's bad breath." I have swept a dog's worth of fur off the floor and finally washed Bella Noche's bedding and then removed a dog's worth of fur from the lint dryer.  Awesome, I know.  I  again culled our books for the sale at the Strawberry Festival.  This is something that always takes longer than I plan.  It's like meeting with old friends-- Taro Gomi, Patricia Polacco, Robert McCloskey.

At the gym-- I said goodbye to a sweet group of Mormon mamas.  And already a new crop has shown up.  Fresh-faced, all-American, in some stage of pregnancy.  Pregnant, and yes, doing Cardio Step with an easy, delighted expression.

Everyone but me is still in school.  Geoff in his summer class.  He's watercoloring, drawing from nature, even screen printing.  It sort of takes me back to U Arts in the late nineties.  It used to be  him sitting intently drawing a shirt draped over a chair, with Bjork in the background while his noodles simmered on his hot plate.  Now, he is on the front porch, watercoloring the Crepe Myrtle branches in the front yard.  He is accompanied by Benicio, who is certain he can get college credit for his watercolor interpretation even though he is nine.  And also Calliope, who is mixing her paint with sidewalk chalk dust and grinding it into rocks.  And then Manny on his scooter, sailing by quoting the Last Airbender.

The kids have one more full week.  The boys actually have final exams.  They are such good sports about them.  It's still new for them-- having such structured and explicit expectations before them.  We're all about love of learning not grades, yes?  Clara and Calliope are savoring last days at each of their schools.

 Goodbye May, hello June.

Forgive Me, It Was Finals

Oh, hi there. I was either in the library, at Shop Rite, or at one of the kids' schools. Or en route to these places in our minivan, listening to worship music or npr. Now it is officially my summer and here's what I've been up to: -not so much read as devoured Anne Lamott's new book -enjoyed a Jennifer Weiner book with Canis Lupus at my side -vacuumed the pantry. Ahh, yes it was very juicy. -got uninterrupted face time with friends -organized kid books Grades have not come in for the Spring Semester. They have not announced the CCEF interns. I am enjoying the settled feeling after the work is over. It's like when you make pancake batter, it has to rest for a sec while all the ingredients are suspended and sliding down the sides of the mixing bowl. Things are settling and coalescing. No verdict has come down, labeling my effort with some grade. Or accepting my application. It's just me and my sense of accomplishment. And for that as my pump teacher would say, "give myself a big ol' hug." I learned a lot last semester about ways of looking at Scripture. Instead of a big scrapbook of morality tales, it is a seamless redemptive narrative. It is a living text that proves that God is loving and longs to surprise us. Also-- how to look at relationships. To quote a friend, "Sleeping with a blanket that is ten inches too short for you." This is how I looked at everything. My eyes went right to the flaw, the shortfall. I am learning how to rest in God's strength, God's purpose. My favorite comment I got from EW, "You are growing. You are becoming more okay with weakness." This was my third class with him and I was thrilled for a comparative comment. And this comment reveals how high I hold expectations. Something that's not so fun for me, nor Geoff, nor our kids-- anyone really. Favorite comment I got from my advisor, "You need a better attitude" (regarding standardized testing about Bible or Confessional). Sorry, but I don't think I will ever be in favor of standardizing tests.

What They Were Trying to Do

It's been a while since I talked about the Great Church Plant Death of 2009. And really, it doesn't come up much. I am happy to be where we are in the raggedy yet robust fold at St. Vincent's. And I know that God's redemptive plan was in effect the whole time.

Attending the seminary I do, I thought it would be more of an issue. The seminary is the same denomination as our church was. This means that the folk who started our church are similar to the folk who go to my seminary. What I mean is: I was nervous that I was going to cross paths with wealthy southerners in hipster clothes who got high off of quoting Calvin and misinterpreting Luther. Who liked to hear their own voices being perfect and righteous and right. A desire to be glossy and edgy on social media but in person, incredibly uptight and angry. With a perplexing naiveté about the city and a disturbing view of poverty. Who had an affectation that meant to be funny and snarky but kind of ended up being sarcastic and mean.

Writing this, I realize that I am these things. And here I am on social media blogging about it, for heaven's sake! Maybe this was part of the problem. Oh dear. But as I grow to love God and God's words to us, I can see what our old church was trying to do. Among too many things that they were after, some of their goals were: to have a community of self-suspicious and humble people. To have a very organic conversation wherein you could share Jesus and His love. To interpret Scripture in layman's, unchurched terms. I get this now. I get how this goal is good and real and virtuous and that God was in it.

notes from today's work

I spent the day in the library and these are some of the treasures I found.



Everything, and I mean everything, is absurd. No matter what you do, you have ultimately nothing to show for it. You live and then you die. The only thing you have is the portion God gives you. And this is how God has set things up.

-Pete Enns on Qohlelet’s theology from Ecclesiastes


“Remember, the battle is good. When it feels like a battle, that’s a sign that something is right. Every disciple of Christ is in a battle, one that demands spiritual strength and ongoing vigilance. This is where the language of disease is weak.”

-Ed Welch on fighting sin and addiction


“We are not drops in the ocean. Rather we are the ocean, in drops.”
-Anne Lamott quoting someone else

Take It to the Water

Lately, I have been perplexed about parenting grade-school kids. Specifically, my two third grade boys. There is a new pin-prickiness-- Manny said, "Homework would be easier for me if you didn't yell at me the whole time." This, after I (I thought) spent a half hour walking him through his fraction page, brushing away his eraser crumbs, and generally helping him. There is a new ham handedness--Both boys are knocking things off the counter (like our Venus Fly Trap named Elijah). And at dinner Manny dropped his fork and said, "Ack, I'm so clumsy!" There is a new physical-energy--Daily the living room rug is curled up and shoved under the sofa because they are wrestling with the dog. I mean grabbing by the back legs and swinging her. I suppose it borders on the obscene/animal rights violation borderline. They are no longer the little boys in Rocket Dog jeans that I used to scoop up and lay across my lap to sniff a neck or check a diaper.

Freud would say that they are now in the latent stage. All their Oedipal longings have dissolved into fascination with Lego and torturously complicated book plots. There problems have taken on a Gordian quality: Will I ever get taller? It's the worst when my teacher yells at us for the entire day. I got in trouble again for saying, "Everyone makes mistakes." Will you give me $5 for doing a magic show? Not too long ago, everything could be solved by a good chase around the yard and a crazy-tickling. Or even better, when they asked simply, "Mom, would you just lay with me?"

So yesterday, we went to the Y. And much was made right. It gives me street cred to loan them my triathlon goggles. The 3 of us took to the deep end where there were splash meter contests. Mutual admiration for deep dives. Did you know that Manny can touch the bottom with both hands? Benicio and I were in awe. Also, there was racing. (Let it be known that I totally smoked them.) Like full-length lap races. Ahem. But also, we played this game where we try to tap the other's navel. This involves lots of rolls and big splashy phonix-like ascents above the surface and then laser-like shots for the belly.

But my very favorite was to watch them underwater. Seeing them weightless and blinking and looking at me under water was, how can I describe---breathtaking. I liked looking at the perfect undisturbed water and then waiting until Benicio dived in. He shattered the surface into millions of bubbles and then his form, head-down and kicking was besides being natal, completely riveting. His sinewy arms and still spindly legs pushed at the water. Catching my glance as he resurfaced, he gave me an excellent thumbs up, bubbles streaming up from his smile.

from hibernation central

Right now, there is a game going on upstairs. It is about hibernating. It's an iteration of another game they used to play called Huffy, Puffy, Sleepover. They are wearing long dresses and Calliope is packing things like shoes and money. But this time, it involves packing baskets up. I also see some Fiddler on the Roof influence, where they are bundled up like they are fleeing a gulag.

We saw a squirrel in labor today. That might be part of the influence too. Ask Clara to describe it to you. We heard all this squealing way up in a tree. And there was this enormous bulge from this mama squirrel. It was like she was pacing in labor.

Anyway, just a little scene from here on a windy, spring afternoon.

Dancing for 8 Years

CF: When I grow up, I'm going to have 2 boys and 2 girls. The girls are both going to be named Calliope. And the boys are both going to be named Charlie.

Me: How are you going to know who is who?

CF: The one will have Bakugan, that's how I'll know.

Me: Oh, ok. And what will the other one have?

CF: A mohawk, silly.

Also, she had packed some bags to go hibernating. We asked her to show us what she had packed.

-In this container, I have a little bit of yogurt, of course a spoon for it. Also, this box has some provolone in it. I have some extra shoes, too. For hibernating.

Me: What's in that backpack?

-Oh, that? Just some maracas.

Another conversation she had with Geoff today.

CF: Dad, was I born before or after you got married to Mom?

Geoff: We were married 8 years before we had you.

CF: So you've been dancing for8 years!

Day 8. Pray for Us, Micro Prayers

Pray in thanks for the small things around us that buoy us as reminders of God. Go to bat for us in prayer, with your face to the sun, thanking God for the tiny things.

An email from a friend from college, whose getting ready to give birth.
The ziploc full of signs of spring on the counter.
Benicio's narrative magic trick which involves hail and a cozy bed.

All these things can fit in one hand, and yet they have the unguent and healing effect of a whole pharmacy.

Praises on Day 7

Praises::

::Both boys made Honor Roll. Manny's top grades: Religion and Handwriting. One could argue, what else matters?

::I overheard from the back seat, "Benic, let's make a low cost, special-effects movie. . . "

::Calliope clonked her nose on the barre at ballet and was able to, in the end, pull it together and go back into class.

::On Ridge Pike, near the turn off for Hart's Ln, there's an old barn with a caving roof. Clara pointed it out to me today and told me her plan. Oh my.

::The morning after Manny's seizure, I am laying in our patchwork bed of towels and quilts, after a night of swiss-cheese sleep, I hear Manny's footsteps. I am in disbelief: It must be Geoff. The night before, Manny had a partial tonic clonic seizure complete with the twitching arm, the river of drool, interspersed with profuse vomiting (Did you know that those with Epilepsy are more prone to seizures when they are sick? Oh, mercy!) from the tummy bug that he had. In the post-ichtal state, after a seizure, all you want the kid to do is sleep and sleep. So, I'm half asleep and thinking this is not Manny coming downstairs. But then I sit bolt upright and there he is. It is not an exaggeration to say that I felt like I was seeing the resurrected Lazarus.

The night before, Manny would not speak. Geoff and I were trying to joke with him about his magic show, about the New York accent he can mimic perfectly. But it was repeatedly to no avail. His eyes were locked to the right. I'm going, "I'm the boss' daughter!" like I'm from Queens, with tears in my eyes trying to get Manny to laugh or respond. So when I see him, resplendent in his school uniform, it is like the sun rising in Scandinavian countries when there had been months of darkness. Or like as my Dad describes the submarine ascending to the surface of the ocean and they had to come out on deck and salute. The horrible night had passed, the sickness had swept through him. And now he was fine. And apparently ready for school.

I don't think I'll ever be able to keep up with the ups and downs. One minute someone's in a seizure, someone's blowing my mind with critical analysis of Macbeth, someone is leaping off a kitchen stool and making her own tea, and someone is climbing into the crate with the dog. And they are all under the age of eleven.

Clinging helplessly to the verse, "He gently leads those who have young."

Enough for 2 Days

Prayer Requests 5+6

-Manny had a seizure last night. (The first one since December.)
-Benicio has a rash that is making him look like Rocky.
-Geoff's pain meds that they would help but not TOO much

A song of ascents.
1 I lift up my eyes to the mountains—
where does my help come from?
2 My help comes from the LORD,
the Maker of heaven and earth.

3 He will not let your foot slip—
he who watches over you will not slumber;
4 indeed, he who watches over Israel
will neither slumber nor sleep.

5 The LORD watches over you—
the LORD is your shade at your right hand;
6 the sun will not harm you by day,
nor the moon by night.

7 The LORD will keep you from all harm—
he will watch over your life;
8 the LORD will watch over your coming and going
both now and forevermore.

Pray for Us. Day 4.

The master's-less jig is up. Geoff got his review back from the deans and he either has to find a new job after next academic year or he has to re-apply for this same one, going up against a nation-wide search. The letter came in the mail just when friends arrived and the dog was trying to make out with each of them. He read the letter while holding ice up to his swollen jowls.

Trying to breathe and not lose my cool, as my dad would say. The implications for this ripple out in my mind, concentric circles of worry, concern, entitlement, fighting for his job, sympathy for him, it's endless.

Pray that we could stay in the game, not numb out. There is a purpose in God's timing. There is something God wants to show us in this. Oh mercy.