Dear Zeke,

This was a fun month.  We celebrated Palm Sunday with Grammy and Grandpa and Easter with Aunt Katie, followed by a short visit from your Nana the next weekend.  Though your introverted parents are exhausted from hosting so many lovely guests, you were thrilled to have all the attention.

On Palm Sunday you dressed in your cute green and white checked shirt (color planned to match the palms, thank you very much) and your new green crocs.  You were styling during our church-wide Easter egg hunt.  The preschoolers hunt for eggs on the playground so that they aren’t knocked out of the way by the bigger kids.  My hope was that this year you would look for eggs rather than being more interested in the gravelly pebbles.  Though you didn’t collect pebbles, you also found the eggs incredibly uninteresting, choosing instead to go play on the playground equipment.  There is little you like more than a good slide.  Kinley was upset that you might be climbing the ladder at one point to get an egg that was just out of her reach.  We asked if you could hand her the egg.  You gladly tossed her the egg and then went down the slide again, happy to forgo the whole egg-related competition for some sliding and climbing.  I ended up picking up a few eggs for you and then re-hid a couple for some boys who arrived late.  You didn’t care a whit.

Easter was, as always, a busy affair, as was the entirety of Holy Week.  On Thursday your aunt Katie arrived and kept you while mommy was at the Maundy Thursday service.  Miss Mattie kept you while mommy was preaching at the community Good Friday service.  (You went to McDonald’s, demanded a red dragon toy, and pleasantly ordered her about for a couple of hours.)  On Saturday we dyed Easter eggs for the first time.  You LOVED it!  After they dried we added some stickers.  It was a lot of fun.
On Easter morning I had to leave by about 6 to lead the sunrise service at the retreat center, so you and daddy were on your own.  You looked adorable in your green and brown shirt and your brown chucks as well as your very first tie!  You waffled between being proud of and being annoyed by it.  So cute.  After the marathon of services, your aunt Katie, mommy, daddy and you went home to see what candy might have been left for you.  We didn’t talk much about the Easter bunny, though you had heard about it plenty from kids at school.  When asked what Easter was about, you told me that “Jesus died.”  Not quite.  But you got the general idea.  When asked who Jesus died for, you would yell “ALL OF US!” and then go on to enumerate those you thought were particularly gifted by the resurrection: “Mommy, Daddy, Isaac, Caleb, YOU AND YOU AND YOU!  And bears.  And eggs.”  We got a little off track.  But the general idea was still intact.  When I tried to interest you in the actual resurrection, you decided to go do something else.  Ah well.

You received far too many gifts from all the loving people at church and from your grandparents.  Then we headed to Miss Mattie and Papa John’s for Easter dinner.  Then you napped in the car with daddy so that mommy and aunt Katie could go to a movie.  We ended the day at the Lewis’.  Which made it near about perfect. 

The weekend following Easter Nana came up and brought you a new big boy  bed.  You were ambivalent and wary.  You did not want the crib to be taken down, though you hadn’t slept in it in ages.  You cried when daddy was taking it apart, telling me that it was “Falling apart” over and over.  We had some quiet time talking about how it is hard to grow up sometimes because it brings changes that are scary even as they are exciting.  After we rearranged your room and set up the new bed, we bought some fire truck sheets and a pirate quilt.  You still were not convinced.  The past few nights have involved a good bit of coaching and cajoling you to sleep and you aren’t staying asleep through the night yet in the new bed, but it is getting easier.  Change is hard sweet one.  But it isn’t all bad.

We have fun with you everyday.  You tell stories about alligators and sharks.  You play outside in the castle and we go to parks and playgrounds.  You run around full speed wherever you are going, sometimes scaring us to death.  And you are, as ever, our sweet, crazy boy.

love,

momma

Dear Zeke,

Boy, time flies when you are having…fun.  Actually, time just flies.  Remember that as your days and weeks and months become shorter and shorter as you grow older and older.  But also remember how your days stretched out in front of you like rolling hills and valleys, out to the horizon when you were this young.  Each day is an adventure for you, with its ups and downs.  I love seeing how you greet each new day with boundless energy and try to hold onto the last dregs of it each evening, savoring it all until you finally let go enough to let sleep overtake you.

Each morning you bang out of your room into ours and demand “ola” [read:granola] and then proceed to dodge clothes and shoes and coat until the very last minute before we need to leave for school.

These past few months have been full of ups and downs as usual.  You spent a lot of time with daddy at the end of January while mommy was at the youth winter retreat and then at Duke for meetings.  You had a good time, as always with him, exhausting him completely by the time mommy returned.

We had fun at a basketball game at George Mason at the end of January with all the youth.  You were given a chick-fil-a stuffed cow with its own parachute as promoters rushed to the rafters to drop them on the fans.  You clapped for the team, but mainly wanted to run around the outer parts of the arena.  We had more snow than we knew what to do with over the past few months and the beginning of February was no exception.  We were able to shovel out enough to go watch the Saints win the Super Bowl over at Dan and Megan’s.  And you stayed up the whole time, loving the energy of all! the! people!  Our little extrovert.  Someday we will figure you out!

We had lots of fun until Ash Wednesday when mommy fell down a flight of stairs, spraining her wrist and giving herself a concussion.  I told folks that I knew Ash Wednesday was a day of remembering that we are fallible and breakable, only dust, but that I didn’t need that kind of reminder.  After a trip to the ER, a splint, and a heavy dose of Tylenol 3, I spent the rest of the week sort of alternating between floating on meds and hurting.  Lucky for you, Katie and Nana and Papa all spent time at our house, spoiling you rotten and helping your mommy and daddy out with the basic necessities of each day.  You did not like that mommy had a “boo boo” one bit, and especially disliked my inability to pick you up and put you down in the crib.

So…perhaps in response?…you have taken to sleeping by yourself on the futon where I can lay beside you until you fall asleep, where you can pick at your daddy until you drift off, or where you sometimes even fall asleep all on your own.  You are showing us each day that you are more and more ready to be a big boy.  You use the potty all on your own each morning and night and sometimes in between.  You are asking to wear “pull ups” during the day, despite the fact that we have never really mentioned them.  You are sleeping on the futon and will be getting a twin bed in a couple of weeks.  Life is, as always, speeding along.

And boy are you telling us all about it.  We have long and complicated narratives going on each day.  You told me yesterday that at school you played with “playdoughandsandandbucketsandshovelsandthisbottleofredwaterandoutside,” pointing to each thing as we left to get in the car.

This past weekend the Lewis family gave you a hand-me-down play castle.  You absolutely love it and it has spurred another feast of imaginative play.  On Saturday I was a giant storming the castle gates, you were a giant, we had a picnic in the castle, you were on the lookout for monsters, we sailed on a boat next to the castle.  There were sharks in the water.  Then we acted out our bedtime routine.  Your sock monkeys were babies.  I was a baby.  You had to change my diaper and take me to church.  You had to pick me up from the nursery and then I was instructed to ask to go back to church.  Instead you drove me home and made me go to bed.  Your daddy and I couldn’t stop laughing.

I love this age.  You are so full of interesting ideas and games and imagination.  You still love animals and they have starring roles in most of our games.  Sharks and alligators seem to be the most popular.

The other day you found an orangutan from Nana and Gramps’ house in Ohio that you had stolen over a year ago when we were up there visiting.  You told me, “I like dis monkey.”  I told you it was an orangutan.  Then you proceeded to call it an orannnnutann for the rest of the morning, named it Tyson, and made me read it a book.

You are a lovely, lovely boy.

love,

mommy

I have made a sort of promise to myself to take a walk most everyday at some point.  Today I needed that walk to clear my head and reframe.

This morning Apple Blossom tickets went on sale.  I am not sure what sin my parents committed or I committed that AB ticket sales would fall on Holy Week this year.  But they did.  And so, in addition to writing a Good Friday sermon and an Easter sermon, I also had to take on the role of money-changer in the temple and sell tickets to parades for a youth fundraiser.

After the clock struck three, the tickets were officially off-limits for the day, so I decided to try to get some fresh air and move on to the next thing on the agenda: sermon prep.  I had been playing with ideas for Good Friday all morning between selling parking passes and front row seats, but was having a hard time getting my hooks into anything worth pursuing.  And if I did, I didn’t have time to pursue the thoughts for long before the phone rang, alerting me to the presence of more ticket purchasers downstairs.

So, the clock struck three and I took a walk.

I decided to make my way down to our local coffee shop on the walking mall and then head back to the church.  On my way down, I noticed for the first time in five years of living and serving in Wchester, the Pilgrim’s Chapel at the Episcopal church down the street.  I think I knew that it existed.  I probably have noticed it before, to be honest.  But today it clicked that it actually existed and could be somewhere I could go.  After procuring my small cup of coffee, I made my way back towards the office.  Again, my eye was drawn to the chapel, so, in a weird, jerky motion I grabbed the handle to the door and tore inside.

I am not sure why I felt like I was trespassing.  Maybe it was the big sign alerting me to the alarm system that was posted on the front door.  Maybe it was that I don’t work at that church or attend there.  But, I am pretty sure that the entire point of the chapel is to reach out to people who don’t necessarily go to church there.  How strange for a pastor to feel ill at ease entering a chapel.

I was struck by  my own awkwardness.  It seemed to run parallel to the spiritual awkwardness I seem to be mired in recently.  I am usually a pretty happy, content person.  I know how blessed I am.  But I have felt restless and unmoored for the past few weeks for no discernible reason.  So, just as I awkwardly grabbed the handle to that door, I also awkwardly, reluctantly, finally stared my own need for God full in the face.

I flipped through the first few pages of the Book of Common Prayer, priming the pump, as it were to begin to pray the prayers of my own heart.  And, while they might normally flow easily, I needed that priming today.  I sat silently for a while.  And then, staring at the tile floor, I began to pour it out.  When I could finally lift my eyes up to the wooden cross on the wall, I began asking God for direction.  Is this uneasiness the sign of a new call into a new direction?  Am I sick?  Why do I feel so awful?  So off?  What do you want from me?

I turned to my right and looked at the only stained glass window in the chapel.  It was of Joseph leading a donkey, Mary riding it, holding the infant Christ.  An angel covered them, holding them in the span of wings and body, pointing.  Jesus had already been born.  They weren’t looking for somewhere to give birth to a child.  Mary was looking at the baby.  Joseph was looking at them both.  The angel, hovering, eyes on the family, finger pointing forward.

I don’t have any idea what this feeling means.  And I am still asking for answers.  But I felt better as I ducked out of the chapel today.  The window did not show the road ahead for the family or where the angel was pointing.  But the angel hadn’t left the family behind to lead the way.  The angel hovered, covered them, moved them forward, even when they weren’t ready to look up and out.  That is enough for today.

I am just going to keep trying to walk a little bit each day.  I figure I will find out where I am heading when I am ready to look up.  Until then, I will be grateful for the unexpected chapels I find along the way.

I know I read about it online.  Oh, the irony.

The Sabbath Manifesto, started by a group of techno-savvy, young Jewish artists, seeks to reclaim a bit of what it means to truly observe the sabbath.  The ten principles they outline are these: avoid technology, connect with loved ones, nurture your health, get outside, avoid commerce, light candles, drink wine, eat bread, find silence, give back.

Sandy and I thought it would be a great idea to try this out.  We picked this past Sunday to begin.  Now, it should be noted that this past Sunday may not have been the best model of Sabbath rest.  In addition to two church services, Sunday school and a visiting sister, I also had a large Community United Against Antisemitism and Racism event that lasted four hours in the afternoon.  Day of rest it was not.  BUT, we at least began in our quest to unplug a bit, avoiding television, laptop, and ipod touch.  I had to check my blackberry once to figure out how to get to said event and I called Sandy on the phone to let him know I was on my way home.

One thing the experience proved was that you have to actually plan ahead in order to truly observe the sabbath.  You have to clear your day a bit, figure out where you are headed before you get on the road, and print directions before you log off the computer the day before.  It is hard to connect with family when you are working the whole day and YES, being at church is work for anyone who is in ministry, as is a community event for which you served on the steering committee.

So, I wouldn’t really count our first foray as a success.  We kept technology to a minimum, but the joy of the sabbath was not really grasped.  We gave back…but maybe we gave too much for one day?  We spent little time with loved ones, we drank no wine and ate no bread, we lit no candles.  Sandy and Zeke and Katie were outside, so that was good.  Maybe their sabbath was more faithful than mine.  We avoided commerce-mainly because there was little time to squeeze it in.  And the silence and nurturing of health didn’t happen until we fell asleep at 9 pm after a grueling day.

I love the spirit behind this manifesto.  We are going to try again.  But we will plan a bit better this time, I think.  Pick a day with less going on.  Palm Sunday, anyone?  Maybe not.

So Yay!  I am now serving on the steering committee for CBF’s Current network and got accepted to the Lewis Fellows program at the Lewis Center for Church Leadership at Wesley Seminary!  Yay!  Busy, busy…

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.