I have a lot of names at my church.  Pastor, Kristin, the “Left Reverend” (an attempt to make fun of the ‘right reverend’ title that is surprisingly apt when applied to me), “Little Momma” (I don’t know what that means except that I have a toddler?), Reverend Whitesides, and, my personal favorite, “Rev”–this one from a lot of the older men.  I LOVE THAT!

So I have a lot of names.  And I wear a lot of hats.  I am the associate pastor.  Which means I do a little of everything.  I am THE pastor if our senior pastor is away, which he will be for three months next year while on sabbatical, and I preach, teach, lead, organize, visit, counsel, etc. on a regular basis when he isn’t gone.  I am also the Youth Pastor.  Which means I organize our youth ministry leaders and volunteers, our teachers, and our youth council.  I teach on Wednesday nights for youth group.  I write curriculum.  I handle all the planning, calendaring, and communication for the youth ministry.  I have coffee and lunch and conversations on facebook and through textmessaging with teenagers almost daily.  And I basically go on every event/trip that the youth take, including week long trips in the summer.

The beauty of my job is that there is a lot of room for creativity.  Four years ago I created the first ever intergenerational mission trip our church had taken.  I researched, planned, recruited, scouted the site, led the training sessions, and led the trip.  From that first year our relationship with that town has blossomed.  We take regular trips there every summer and we are doing a reverse mission trip this year as well for the teenagers in that community.  Now I am hard at work thinking about and talking about young adult ministries that our church can work on.  So that is exciting and new.  I can also create curriculum and lead the youth ministry in the ways I feel led.  For instance, in the past few weeks we have gone to the Holocaust Museum and talked about the Christians’ appropriate stance and response to hatred and violence.

I love my job.

I am also a wife and mom.  Kristin, Sweetie, Mommy, Mama.
At five everyday I pick my child up from daycare and go home to make dinner.  On Wednesday nights we go to church and he eats what I packed him in the high chair at the “youth table” before terrorizing the senior adults with the plastic animals that lie in a  bin in the corner of the fellowship hall.  For the first couple years of his life, my son accompanied me on youth trips and mission trips.  He came to a girl’s spa night and tried to swim in one of the foot spas. He is a church baby through and through.  Thoroughly spoiled and thoroughly loved.

My husband takes care of our son on weekends when I have funerals.  He gets him ready on Sunday mornings to head out the door.  He picks him up from Wednesday nights at church so that he can be in bed before I get home from the deacon’s meeting.  We make it work.

I think a lot about balance.  What it means for me-for my family-to do all of these things.  Sometimes I feel like I do none of them very well.  But when I think about giving up any one of my “names” or my “hats” I feel sick.  All of these puzzle pieces, as often as I struggle to fit them together, are part of who I am.

The word vocation, as many people know, comes from the Latin word vocare which means “to call.”  In my life I truly believe that I have been called to do all of this.  Whatever “this” may be on any given day.

As my husband has said, we have just made it through some sort of insane snowpocalypse here in Wchester.  What started with a storm that dumped about 3 feet of snow on us ended yesterday with another half foot or so and crazy winds that created snow drifts even higher than before.

I have never much beat around the bush about it: I do not like snow.  My mother, who is a native Ohioan, can’t understand my antipathy towards the white stuff, remembering fondly, I suppose, days of yore when she frolicked and sledded and generally enjoyed being cold.  I, on the other hand, have never lived as far north as I do now.  And, though people had been threatening me with stories of bad winter weather, for the first five years or so of living up here, it had all been pretty mild.  I could deal with it.  Well, that has all come to a bitter end with drift upon drift of the foul stuff piling up on our cars, our sidewalks, our roads…

Now, I know that I should begin looking at the positives.  Isaac and I, each night, have begun to talk about what we are thankful for as we say a modified version of evening prayers.  I list things and he will throw out other ideas as he nurses….”CAT!”  etc.

We have recently been talking about how thankful we are that we have a safe, warm place to live and food to eat and a way to cook that food on these cold days and nights.

But, despite my groaning, I am learning to be thankful for more than that.

1.  I am thankful for the joy that the snow has brought Isaac.  He absolutely loves going out in the foreign white world.  He is hemmed in on all sides by the walls of the path his father painstakingly created from the backyard to the front.  It has been such a novel experience to have him have to stay put within confines that are rigidly set.  But because the snow is taller than he is, he does just that, choosing instead to pick up large chunks of it and throw them or try to eat as much snow as he can before his cheeks go numb from the cold.  When the wind isn’t blowing, he seems to like the snow just fine.

2.  I am thankful for my husband’s ability to shovel the daylights out of some heavy, wet snow, creating the afore mentioned paths for Isaac and I to walk on, and also digging out our cars so that I wouldn’t go completely insane from cabin fever.

3.  I am thankful for the opportunity to get to know my neighbors.  Sandy shoveled out our next-door neighbors car and sidewalks.  She brought us brownies to thank us.  (Actually, let me clarify.  This is our no-bones-about-it-crazy-neighbor.  I will save the stories for another time.  In reality Sandy dug out her sidewalks.  She then brought us brownies and a thank-you note that also included the request to dig out her car ‘in case of emergency.’  Four days later I am pretty sure she has not gone anywhere.)  Barring our crazy neighbor though, we have also met neighbors down our little road who seem perfectly sane as we all converged on the sidewalk to shovel together.  We talked about our kids, the snow, snow gear, where we worked.  Our dogs and children gleefully jumped through the snow together, reveling in the first blue sky in days.  It was really nice.  Later, when a truck got stuck that blocked the whole entrance to our neighborhood, I pulled up to try to come home.  A guy I had met that sunny day ran up to me to fill me in.  They were all out putting chains on the man’s tires.  Yesterday, Sandy pulled over to try to get someone’s car unstuck.  As he worked a van full of men pulled up  beside us and three men piled out, one with a cowboy hat on no less, grabbed a shovel, and happily pushed the car on the road together.  Then we all got in our cars and went on our way.  Snow has a way to bring us together.  It shakes us out of our cars and work-bound routines, forcing us to slow down and talk to each other, help each other.  That has been good.

4.  I have really enjoyed the way the snow has made me slow down and spend time at home this past week.  I have baked animal crackers with Isaac and played long, strung-out imagination games with him and Sandy.  We have read books together and Sandy and I cooked together for the first time in recent memory.  I am a type A person.  I like to plan my days and my weeks.  But when something like this happens I am forced to slow down and open my eyes a little bit.  Try to enjoy the present moment without worrying about the next few days.  That has been painful in some ways.  But good for me.

So maybe snow isn’t all that bad.  It has some benefits, though I must say that if I don’t see snow like this for another five years, I won’t be sorry.

Dear Zeke,

So…you’re two!  And almost a month…because when you turned two we were smack dab in the middle of Advent, then Christmas came.   Then New Year’s…and then Epiphany…oh, who am I kidding.  Our lives never slow down.  The fact that you just turned two is another reminder of that truth.

Before you turned two we had a wonderful Thanksgiving with your Grammy and Grandpa in Hopewell.  We spent time with Wade and Mark and Uncle Tony.  Your Grammy gave you baths and put you to bed each night and Mema’s.  We went to a veritable family reunion over at some of your Daddy’s cousin’s house for Thanksgiving dinner…it was a busy time.

In related news, your daddy herniated a disc in his back.  Or a disc in his back became herniated.  I  shouldn’t make it sound like your daddy did anything intentional that made that happen.  But almost immediately after running the marathon he basically had to give up running for a few months.  This has not been easy.  He was in a great deal of pain, depressed because he couldn’t run, upset because he couldn’t bend down to pick you up, bummed out in general…it wasn’t much fun for any of us.

The other night on the way home from daycare I said something offhanded about my back hurting.  You said, “No, Mommy.  Back no hurt.  Daddy’s back hurt.”  So now I am officially not allowed to have back pain.  That is solely a daddy thing.

The general sturm und drang of herniated disc, early morning P.T. appointments, steroids and anti-inflammatories, and a neurosurgeon appt, all added up to a sort of “eh” Advent season here in the Whitesides home.

Added to that mix, you decided to sort of stop sleeping again for a while.  Just as a final hurrah before entering year two full blast, I suppose.

Your birthday party was lovely.  We had an alligator theme, decorated with all of your personal alligators from “the collection.”  We had an alligator decorated cake and had fun with Nana and Papa, Aunt Katie, the Lewis’, Your Buddy George and Miss Peggy, and Nanny Marley and her family.  It was a low key, drop in for half an hour type of event.  Which was really perfect for you.  You opened the gifts I had specifically requested that no one buy you and then stayed with Nana and Katie while Mommy and Daddy went to Megan’s surprise birthday party that night.  You fell asleep in Nana’s lap before the second book was finished at bedtime. Sometimes you tell us that it is your birthday again.  I think you are angling for cake.  But maybe you are just remembering a really good day.

After that, we sort of puttered through a week until Christmas, doing our normal church activities.  We had a big snowstorm the weekend we had hoped to celebrate Christmas with Grammy and Grandpa, Uncle Tony and Uncle Rusty.  Because Rusty had flown in that day from California, he decided twenty or so inches of snow was not going to stop him.  So they made a SIX HOUR trip from Richmond to come see us.  We waited with bated breath to see if they would make it, taking breaks to go sled riding.  And then celebrated with a big dinner and gifts.

After that, Christmas actually seemed a bit anticlimatic!  We spent the couple hours between Christmas Eve services at the Robertson’s again this year.  Which was wonderful.  Then we put some carrots out for the reindeer, talked about baby Jesus.  As we told the story and got to the wise men, you began singing Twinkle, Twinkle.  Which was just about the cutest thing ever.  We began singing along and you quickly stopped and said, “No Mommy!  No Daddy!  No singing!  Isaac singing!”  And then continued with the song as we muffled the laughter at your outburst.

On Christmas day we headed down to Papa and Nana’s house.  Aunt Katie was already there and Gramps.  We got there, ate, and proceeded to open gifts for next few hours.  We never realized that you would play with every single thing you received, trying on a new shirt, and reading each book.  It was a fun time.  The most amazing part was that you weren’t really “into” the gifts.  You loved handing gifts out to people.  And when asked to open a gift, most of the time you would.  But it was about being with family for you.  And for all of us.  It was nice.

Mommy thought she would get a day off the Sunday after Christmas, something very rare for an associate pastor.  But she ended up doing all the readings and leading a lessons and carols type service at papa’s church so that he could sing in the choir.  It ended up being just exactly right.

We left you with Papa and Nana and Aunt Katie for a few nights after Christmas and came home on our own.  Strange.  It was the first time we had ever spent nights away from you together.  But it was a nice and needed break.  We were thankful that you were so happy at your grandparents’ house that you didn’t seem to much mind our absence.  In fact, as we were getting ready to leave to go home we were giving you kisses and you said to daddy, “ok.  you go now.”  And we did.

The past few weeks since Christmas have been full of fun things.  A visit from Mark and Chandra.  A trip to the Dulles Air and Space Museum with John and Rebecca.  A trip to the Natural History Museum (including a metro (”train”) ride!!) with mommy and daddy.  I have said it before, and I will say it again.  Your favorite part of the Air and Space Museum was the ice cream cone.  And your favorite part of the Natural History Museum was the whale-shaped sugar cookie.  So it seems we have found a theme.  We had a great few days.  You were really wonderful on both those trips.  And we hated to go back to work and take you back to daycare.

You are just so much fun these days.  You can tell us everything you are thinking.  That the scale in the bathroom looks like a lillypad.  That the moon looks like a mouth wide open.  You tell us about your day at school when we are eating dinner.  And you tell us you love us.  That is pretty great.  Of course, the other night when we got home, you also told our front door you loved it and gave it a hug.  So you are either a very loving or very indiscriminate little boy. I think probably the former.

I can’t even begin to write down all the cool things you do these days.  You talk.  You dance.  You say, “Mommy and Daddy watch this!” and then make a funny noise or drink the milk from your cereal bowl or jump up and down or just make a funny face.  It is awesome.

I was talking to a friend the other day who was romantically remembering when her girls were infants.  I said, “Bah!  Isaac was cool when he was little.  But now…NOW he is FUN!”  Even though it is hard to watch you grow up, hard to adapt to the changes: the climbing out of the crib, the sometimes messy desire to drink from cups with no lids, the potty training, it is also about the best thing ever.  I’ll take you how you are.  However you are.  And just enjoy it all!

Love,

Mommy

Dear Zeke,

Wow.  In one short month you will be two years old.  TWO!  That is just so crazy for me to think about.  It seems like we have known you much longer than two years in many ways.  But since you, like any good human being, continue to grow and change, we still have lots to learn about each other.

This past month we had a lot of fun.  You are loving ’school’…loving your friends there.  They threw a “harvest party” for you guys the day before what the rest of the universe calls “halloween”  (sorry, sometimes the attempt to keep it “Christian” without knowing the historical background to things makes me laugh…)  You still like to tell me about how you dressed up as a lion and said “RAWR!”…that colin was elmo, abby was a bumblebee, caleb was a giraffe, faith was a fairy princess, and that jeremiah and baby zeke were just themselves.  I was lucky enough to stumble on your costume (handmade, btw!!) at our local hospice thrift shop…four bucks.  I was so excited about that find.  It was incredibly cute and I wasn’t stressed about whether you were going to wear it or not since I hadn’t plunked down big money on it.

You had so much fun trick-or-treating!  We went to see lots of your favorite people…so that helped: Your Buddy George and Miss Peggy, Grandma Mary at the Winchester House (who had not remembered it was Halloween, but loved seeing you anyways), Lori and the animals at her house, Rick and Lindsay, and Miss Mattie and Papa John along with doggie Montana.  You had exactly one and a half lollipops and half a mini-twix bar and thought you could conquer the world.  You had all the signs of being high.  Strange laughter when nothing was discernably funny, an unfounded belief in your own abilities (you tried to scale the outside of your crib and then laughed when you fell down..), running around in circles for no reason.  It was hilarious and a bit scary. 

After a couple of weeks of being the only ministerial staff person in our office ending with a youth group lock-in, I decided to take a few days off.  I cooked fun meals for dinner and organized some spaces in our house that had not been touched since you were born close to 2 years ago.  It was a good way for me to decompress and try to rebalance a bit after placing most of my energy on church stuff instead of the house stuff for a few weeks.  There were a few days this past month when we weren’t together much…the lock-in of course and then the youth hiking trip which lasted all day.  But for the most part, we had lots of good time together.

Your daddy has also been busy, working late nights and then going to a conference in Williamsburg.  He also managed to hurt his back right before he was to run a marathon, which royally bummed him out.

But, your daddy being your daddy, he ended up running it anyways after consulting with a doctor and a couple of PT friends.  And he shaved half an hour off his last time.  SOOOO….that was a lot of hand-wringing and heartache for nothing! 

Speaking of the marathon, boy what a way to celebrate the beginning of this new month with you!  You spent five hours outside watching people run.  Trying to run with them.  Clapping your clapper things and cheering.  And then falling asleep at lunch after it was all over.  It was a long weekend, but full of good things.  We caught up with baby Abby…your long lost love from Jackie’s wedding, and her parents, baby Jonah and his parents, your daddy’s college roomate, and of course Dan, Megan, Grammy, girl Sandy, Tony, and Grandpa.

It was a great weekend!  You were such a trooper.  And we love being with you.

Love,

Momma

So we are beginning a new endeavor in our community called WATTS-Winchester Area Temporary Thermal Shelter.  It is a way for us to offer housing on the coldest nights of the year to those who are not eligible or who cannot get into the other shelters in town.  Most of the time people are turned down from those because they have addiction problems.  Or because they have been arrested on child molestation charges.  Or other reasons that we don’t need to enumerate.

Basing our new work on the work done in Richmond by Caritas and in Harrisonburg by HARTS and other groups, we will have local churches host the homeless for one week, Monday through Monday from 7 pm to 7 am.  We will provide dinner and breakfast and cots.  Westminster-Canterbury will be providing laundry service.  And we will have volunteers that stay overnight each night.

Increasingly, during these “tough economic times,” we have been meeting people who are homeless who need assistance.  There are literally tent cities of homeless at the edges of town.  There are people who are sleeping in tents and in cars every night.

This is one thing we can do to help.

I am so thankful for this opportunity.  For the planning committee who has been working on this for over two years now to get it off the ground.  I am proud of the people of our church who are ready and willing to practice this type of hospitality.

I hope it is the beginning of some new things.

About a mile from our church is a migrant camp.  In the fall, around harvest time, it fills up with men from Jamaica and elsewhere who come to pick apples.  There aren’t as many now as there once were.  The orchards are being cut down to make room for the sprawling McMansions of those doctors or bedroom community-ers who commute away from our little town into the ridiculous suburban sprawl of NOVA and DC to work at jobs that make sure that they barely ever see the insides of those homes.

And a few miles away there are other men who rarely see the insides of their homes.  Because they are scraping a living together here in apple country a couple months a year.  Every year our church collects toiletries and fills us sacks to take to each of the men.  We collect coats and long-sleeved shirts and hats so that these guys from Jamaica will have something warm to wear when it becomes, suddenly, unseasonably cold for one or two weeks.

For the past few years Anthony and Daniel have come, when they have been in town, to our church services.  They sit at the front and are welcomed.  They sing our admittedly boring-at-times hymns and listen to our sermons.

Last year they told me they liked the camp fine.  It was the food that was the worst.  It had no flavor.  I rummaged through my cupboard when I got home and found bottles of seasoning salts and took them the bottles the next week.

Last year a hurricane hit in Jamaica and ripped the roof off of Anthony’s house while he was here working.  Daniel’s family was also affected.  They came and asked for help and we sent them home with enough money to fix the houses and the roofs.

And still…it all feels ridiculous.  The system is so broken.  The balance is so off.  Imagine preaching about the rich young ruler to a predominantly wealthy congregation while two migrant workers sit on the front row and a man who got out of prison yesterday sits in the back.  Imagine having a camp like that down the road and only being able to offer toothbrushes, a hat, some spices, and money.  Imagine all the things that still need to happen.  All that is being left undone and unsaid.

The nurse who used to work there came to church the other day.  She told me she had been fired because she had gotten too close to the workers.  Had cared too much.  She told me it was a blessing in disguise.  Because now she could just go and talk with them.  Eat with them.  Now she wasn’t breaking any rules when she saw them as people who she could love and care about.

Ministry is hard.  It is hard to keep it all in check.  To not just throw up your hands and say, “WHAT IS GOING ON IN THIS WORLD OF OURS?!?!?!”  To not just walk away feeling like anything you do is less than what it takes to make things better.

But then again…they come back every year.  And they come to church and worship with us.  A few weeks ago, Anthony asked me how about our pastor’s wife.  “I haven’t seen her in a few weeks.  Is she ok?”  I told him about her surgery.  How she was doing better.  “I will be praying,” he said.

So will I.

Yesterday morning, as I was giving you sunflower seeds at breakfast, you began counting.  And counting.  And counting.  You got up to fourteen.  Which is ridiculously cool and your daddy and I sat there with our mouths hanging open wondering what the heck just happened!  I didn’t want to forget that this happened.  And because this blog has basically just turned into a glorified baby book, I decided to write it here.  So cool!

You also are picking out letters.  You have got A, B, C, D, G, H, I, K, M, N, O, P, R, S,  and T pretty much down.  Still working on discerning the difference between E and F and some others.

You have also begun retelling some of your books.  A book about opposites seems to be your favorite as you point out wet and dry and heavy, etc.  You like to call low and high up and down…we still need to work on rhyming and scantion.  But we’ll get there!

Haim Ginott says that you should not praise a child without being specific about what you think he/she has done well.  So I have tried to get more specific about what we think is good.  So good job counting.  Good job picking out letters.  Good job “reading”…you’re so much fun!

Dear Zeke,

You turned 22 months old on October 13.  Perhaps you are wondering why I am so late in writing you this letter.  But you should know by now that your momma is just no good at keeping up with these things!

One of the major things that happened this month is that you spent your first night at home without me all night.  You and your dad had a great time together while I took a group of middle school girls on a trip to Baltimore for a theologically questionable girl’s conference.  (Sometimes, you will learn someday, you inherit “traditions” when you take a job.  “Traditions” are notoriously hard to break…and must be done with skill and good timing.  I have managed to break most all the traditions I had major problems with in the youth ministry at our church long ago.  But for some reason the Revolve Tour WILL.NOT.DIE.  Though it sometimes makes me want to.)  Back on topic.  Sorry.  Anyways, you spent a lovely weekend with your dad, for whom you slept through the night, ate a muffin at Panera for breakfast, and generally had a good ol’ time.  So that was good and assuaged the mommy guilt a bit for me.

You have hit a lovely age where you can verbalize most all your thoughts/emotions/interests, etc.  You know when mommy is ’sad’ or when you are ‘happy’ or when the characters in some picture book or another are ’scared’ or ‘angry’…you tell me you are ’scared’ sometimes and crawl into my lap for hugs.  Which is very sweet.  You also do this awesome thing where, when I am sad or overwhelmed, you cup my face in your hands and stare into my eyes and give me kisses and tell me to ‘be happy.’  The other day when I was not feeling well, you demanded from the back seat, “No!  BE HAPPY, tistin.” ((God.  I sound like a complete drag.  I am not always sick/sad/depressed/overwhelmed.  Despite how this story makes it sound.  Back to the topic at hand.  Again.))

Which brings me to my next point.  Seriously, dude.  You have got to stop calling me tistin.  It is very adorable and you are quite proud of knowing my real name, but just as I have made the case that calling me “MOM” as your aunt katie likes to call me in your presence is not something that should happen until you are an annoying teenager, calling me by my first name is not something that should ever happen.  Ever.  Because I want to be your mommy.  Period.  Or mama.  But those should be the only options on the table.  You now also like to sometimes call your daddy “saddy”  which is also cute.  But equally troubling.  In that you are trying to individuate much too quickly for your mommy’s heart to take.

You are now creating pretty much entire sentences.  You like to say, “Daddy bath, sweaty, running.” Or “I want it!”  or “Zip coat now” or “BE HAPPY, Tistin!”  sigh.  Growing up too fast.

A few gems from this past month or so.  The other day you clearly had pooped.  And I told you we must change your diaper.  And that it was gross to be sitting in your own poop.  You stopped running back and forth from throwing all your stuffed animals from the toy box into the crib, looked directly at me, puzzled, and said, “Stand up, poop.”  Clearly, mother, it is fine to stand up in my own filth.  I just won’t sit down.

Another fantastic moment the other night was when you began pretending to cry, laying face down in your crib.  Then you would jump up and say, “Happy, now!” and then point to the bed and say, “Cry, there.”  Then do it all over again.  I told you that the crib wasn’t a sad place and that maybe you could laugh instead of cry.  So you laid back down, face first, and fake laughed.  It was hilarious.  You crack me up!

You have become very enamored with houseguests of late.  When Mark and Chandra visited you were smitten.  And you still talk about them.  You remember going to the pumpkin patch with them, so each time we pass the pumpkin on our front step you say, “Pumpin.  mahk.  shannra.”  It is very cute.  You also had a great time with your Uncle Tony recently, giving him kisses and hugs whether he liked it or not. 

We have begun to see what it will be like to live with a toddler for the next few years as your assertion of will has become much stronger.  You have literally screamed and cried when we have had to remove your pajamas and wet overnight diaper to dress you in the morning because you love your jammies so much.  You will grab your diaper and try to hold it on. “ONNNN  ONNNN!!!!’ and then when we put the clean one on you (we being the operative word, because neither of us can wrangle you on our own when you are like this) you will shove at it and say just as vehemently “OOOFFFFF  OFFFF!!!!”  I know it is hard to have so little control over some things in life.  But we do let you pick out your clothes, pick out your bowls and plates and utensils, pick out your cup and your drink, decide what to eat for breakfast, which car to drive sometimes, etc. etc.  You are in control of the things that we can let you control.  So you’ll just have to trust that we are going to do the right thing in every other event.

And we will try our best to do just that.  We love you, you know!
love,

Mommy.  Or Momma.  Not Tistin.

So I know I haven’t been on this blog much lately.  That is, in many ways, because I have been trying to turn over a few new leaves in my day to day life.

At the beginning of the summer I began making spastic forays into the world of running.  Living with a marathoner makes it difficult to remain happy in your sloth-like existence, try as I might.  This is the woman who failed (yes, you read that correctly) the mile physical fitness test in high school. FAILED it.  Granted, that is what happens when you decide you want to walk and talk through most of it.   But still.  I never failed anything.  Except for the mile.

So I began a couch to 5k plan at the beginning of the summer and am now successfully running 2.5 miles or so on a regular basis.  It is amazing to know that I can train my body to do something that I never thought it could do.  And though it isn’t anything compared to what my husband does on a daily basis…it is a lot for me!  I couldnt’ have done it without him cheering me on, either.  It feels good.  And it is good for my spirit.  There is not much of a feedback loop in ministry.  And the same can be said for parenthood.  So a good portion of my pats on the back happen when I make a good dinner or get the house cleaned.  I needed something more than that.  With running I accomplish a goal every time I go out there.  And I am doing something just for me.  Which is also a perk.

The other new thing I am doing is something I am almost ashamed to admit.  I am reading the Bible all the way through in a year.  I think that some people assume that I would already be doing that?  As a pastor?  I know I have read most of the Bible already.  But I realized that I was not feeding my own spiritual life very well in recent months and, in an effort to kick start that part of me again, I decided to be intentional about reading the Bible every day.  It has already made an impact.  I am already thinking about new things.  I am once again being seduced by the poetry of Isaiah and the psalms.  And falling in love with scripture all over again.  Take this little ditty from Isaiah, for instance, “I will rise up against them, says the LORD of hosts, and will cut off from Babylon name and remnant, offspring and posterity, says the LORD.  And I will make it a possession of the hedgehog and pools of water, and I will sweep it with the broom of destruction, says the LORD of hosts.”  That, my friends, is awesome and terrifying.  And a wonderful use of the word hedgehog.  In a new way I am living with scripture…in a way not tied to lesson plans or sermon writing or worship.  But personally and on my own.  Which, after you think about all the wonderful elements of communal faith so frequently and so intensely, can sometimes get eclipsed and overlooked.

So there you go.  My meager excuse for failing as a blogger as of late.  But life is good.  Busy and full and good.  There’s your update, friends!  :)  Thanks for not giving up on me!

Dear Zeke,

To celebrate the beginning of your twenty-first month, you decided to learn how to dive.  This is not unusual.  You are just crazy!  So when Marley showed you how she dived, it was not all that surprising that you ended up also falling head-first into your daddy’s arms again and again, cackling as you emerged from the water.  You love the pool and water of any kind.  That has not changed, and the swim lessons only reinforced that love for you, which was great!

This month, life slowed down.  At least a little bit.  You did spend a few days in Durham with mommy when I went for some meetings at Duke.  You really enjoyed that, since it meant time with Papa, Nana, and aunt Katie and great-grandpa.  They spoil you rotten.  What’s not to love? 

Aunt Katie even came up to spend Labor Day weekend with us, which was an unexpected and wonderful surprise!  You adore her and love everything she does.  And I think the feeling is mutual.  We had a great weekend of cooking and eating and watching movies together (when you were in bed) and going to the park and getting italian ice.  It was good.

These days you repeat every word you hear.  Your vocabulary has exploded to the point that it isn’t worth recording new words because there are numerous additions each day.  You have begun forming sentences.  (To the girl at school: “Abby bite Isaac.  No, no, Abby, no bite.”  To a boy at school: “Hey Colin (pronounced dahlin) [those are] Isaac’s shoes!”  Said emphatically.)

You know most of your colors and can identify them correctly each time: red, orange, yellow, blue, green, brown, black, white, purple, pink.  And recently you have added grey to the mix.

We continue to be delighted and blown away by you.  You tell us stories now.  About dark nights and moons.  About mice who make you laugh and dogs that like to climb trees.  About sheep and alligators and your friends at school.  Basically, we just have to sit back and love every moment.  Because you are a miracle and a wonder to us.  Our beautiful little man.  Our wonderful baby boy.

You still want to do everything on your own.  But when you run into trouble, you ask for “hep.”  You give the best hugs and kisses in the history of human existence.  And you are…wait for it…sleeping.  through.  the.  night.

I hope that in writing that I haven’t jinxed it.  But whatever road blocks we will face in the days ahead, whatever minor tantrums and crying fits you throw at us, I can say unequivocally that I love being your mommy.  I love being a parent.  I love you!