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!

Dear Zeke,

Your twentieth month was about as full as they come.  We started off with a week of VBS.  Your first VBS that wasn’t strictly nursery.  Since mommy was on duty, you ate dinner each night with your buddy George.  Which he loved as much as you.  And then you spent time with your church friends while mommy led over thirty youth in their very own VBS.  Needless to say, we were exhausted every night!

The week after VBS we left for our annual youth mission trip in North Carolina.  This year we didn’t have aunt Katie with us to keep you occupied and happy.  But we did find a serviceable substitute in your daddy!  You had a great time hanging out with the youth, and you even had a friend close to your own age.  As more and more women are becoming pastors, more and more little kids are making their presence known at events like Passport.  It was great.  Your daddy pulled double duty in the morning watching both of you so that the women folk could do their ministry thing.  Then it was off to naptime and then QT with momma during the free time.  Then back to daddy for the evening and up all night with the trains passing by your window with mommy.  Sigh.  It was a long week.  Lots of juggling.  But very, very good to be together!

Because your mommy didn’t think she had enough to do, she decided that it would be good to sign you up for swim lessons starting the week we returned from camp.  Unfortunately, after your first lesson, momma came down with a wicked sinus infection that put us out of commission for the next lesson or two.  But you still had a great time.  You, of course, did not much like being held in the pool, prefering, I suppose, drowning on your own to any help afforded by me.  But we made it through and you absolutely LOVED going under water and swimming to mommy and jumping off the side.  We had a good time at our lessons and you got a strangely worded (Parks and Rec people need to work on their certificate writing skills), yet treasured forever certificate to show for it!

It was a  good month.  A long month, but good.

I love you sweetheart,

Mommy

Dear Zeke,

Your nineteenth month started with a wedding.  After your momma had one of the worst illnesses in recorded history, an ear infection that basically made her want to stop living because of the aches and pains and chills and fever and vomiting and migraine and OH.MY.GAH.  It was horrible.  After all that we decided to make a trip to Reading, PA up and back in one day to go to one of momma’s college roomate’s weddings.  Though it was a little insane, it ended up being a lot of fun. We weren’t sure it would turn out that way though.  When we arrived it was raining.  For the outdoor wedding.  I ducked into the ladies’ room to nurse you and then your promptly threw up everything you had recently consumed on my silk dress and your outfit.  Which we then realized was your ONLY outfit other than green striped pj’s we intended to change you into to had home that night.  So you spent the better part of the wedding and reception in your raincoat. And mom smelled bad and had weird purple spots on her dress.  Oh well!

We were then able to meet little miss abby, momma’s other roomate’s daughter.  And boy were you smitten!  Abby this, abby that.  You wanted to dance with her. You wanted to play with her.  She wanted you to leave her alone.  It was hilariously cute!

After we made it through the wedding and reception we bundled you into the car and finally made it home.  Living with a pastor as a mommy is not easy.  You have to leave all your Saturday festivities early so that you can be home in time for church on Sunday.  You can commiserate with your daddy someday.

After we got back from the wedding you were out of school for a week and spent your time at Camp Lewis with the roosters, horses, dog, and cat and bunny.  And of course Jacob.  Who you love and follow around like a puppy.  You had a great time spending all day outdoors and taking long walks with Miss Nancy and Sarah and Rebecca and Jacob.  It was a good way to fill the week off of school and a blessing for your working momma as well!

At church you had the pleasure of sitting in on the beginning of a girl’s spa night with the youth.  You especially loved the foot baths, which you attempted to use as your own personal jacuzzi, much to the delight of the girls and the horror of your mommy.  You are such a hambone!  It is hard to keep up.

From there we tried to once again get back into our school routine.  You still have struggled to adjust to the new place and the new faces.  It will happen though.  Even though it is hard for me to see that right now.

Your nineteenth month ended with a party, just as it had begun.  We went to Staunton to be with Mark and Chandra on Mark’s 30th birthday cookout.  It was so great!  You loved playing wiffle ball (which meant you chased down the balls and tried to hand them to the batter…) and you loved Mark…who you called Maahk and Chandra, as always.  It was a great time and a good way to roll into the next month of life with you!

I love you little man!

Mommy

Dear Zeke,

It has been a full month for us, full of firsts and transitions.

At the beginning of May you delighted us with your love for parades.  Delighted us because we were able to see the Apple Blossom festivities through your eyes, rather than our “oh my God, we hate parades” jaded adult eyes.  Suddenly the myriad tractors and bands and animals seemed wonderful and exciting.  You were totally jazzed for the firefighter’s parade.  The entire time.  You danced to bands, watched elephants march past, were thrilled by the tractors and fire engines, and basically loved the entire experience.  For the first time since we have lived here, I enjoyed Apple Blossom.  Thanks, little man!

After the craziness of the beginning of May, we moved slowly toward our week of vacation, the days dragging by slower and slower.  Finally, it was your last week at school at our church preschool.  They had a big picnic at HRR and we had a less than fun time chasing you down as you tried to steal other kids’ balls and bikes and generally were frustrated by everything.  We were sad to say goodbye to SLC.  Sad to say goodbye to your teachers and your friends.  But that night, we were NOT sad to say goodbye to the picnic as we pulled out of the parking lot…the first people of over 400 people there to leave.

Then it was time for vacation!  We headed down to South Carolina to see mommy’s grandmother who is now 94 and daddy’s mama lou who is almost 90.  First stop, Nana’s.  Or…as you began calling her almost immediately, “Nanny.”  I told her that she could add one more name to the list of things her loved ones call her: Mer, Nana, Grandma, Mother, Miss Lib, Elizabeth…and now Nanny.  You loved Nanny’s walker so much, pushing it all around the house and refusing to return it to her unless we forced you to.

But when we outside all of that was forgotten.  Because we were on a farm.  Which meant cows (”MOOOO!”) and donkeys (”HEEE!”) and tractors (”TRACK-TORE!”) and roosters (”ERRERRRERRRR”!!!)  You were living large, tromping around in all that red clay with your boots and your hat and your john deere t-shirt.  We went swimming in the pool, you went to see the creek with your poppa.  And then, to top it off, we went to the zoo!  It was a trip full of animals.  You couldn’t have enjoyed it more.

On the way back to Martinsville, we went to visit Mama Lou.  You immediately broke one of her figurines.  And she immediately could have cared less.  You were your own, irrepressible self…and everyone loved you just the way you were.

You were such a good traveler as we rode with Papa for most of the trip.  And then we were able to go spend a few days in Martinsville with Papa, Nonny, and Gramps.  So it was a good time.

When we returned home, you began your first week at a full-time daycare.  It has been a rough transition.  Not one that any of us have enjoyed.  And though we have worked through all sorts of complicated equations trying to figure out how we could move or quit jobs or work part time to keep you with us more, we have finally realized that this is just the next necessary step as we pursue our vocations and also our role as your parents.  We will work to make it work for all of us as much as possible.  And hope and pray for the best for you.

You have not enjoyed it though.  No…not one bit.

Here’s hoping things get better soon and that your mother figures out an antidote for guilt.

Love,

Kristin

Dear Zeke,

I bet you didn’t think I would actually do this during your seventeenth month. And, if you were judging my failure to blog on any sort of accurate timeline in previous months, that supposition is warranted. But! But! I am only three days late today! Hooray!

You are seventeen months now. And you believe yourself to be fully grown. You want to drink from a cup without a lid, resulting in very wet shirts and floors and socks and faces. You want to use the potty on your own…so I bought you a little potty seat that you pull out, put on the toilet seat, I lift you to sit on, you sit for a while and then get down, remove the seat, shut the lid and flush. All of this is only a prelude to doing what you actually came to the bathroom to do, however: wash your hands. Oh my little obsessive compulsive darling. You LOVE to wash your hands, preferably with soap. You love to play in the sink and splash and get your hair wet. You love the little step stool from your great-grandparents’ house with the elephant that you place just so as you step up. You love every bit of it. If you aren’t in the bathroom, the kitchen sink will suffice. You just want your hands in that water. All. The. Time.

I bought you a pool the other day at Target for four bucks. A small inflatable pool. And for the past two days you have splashed happily in that and then come inside, dried off, and then asked to wash your hands. Sigh.

You are just a very independent, strong willed little man. Some things do not change. You would rather walk around than sit in a high chair. You would rather feed yourself food on your fork than be fed. If we are dipping bread in olive oil, you would like to do the same. You want to be fully grown so that you can do it all on your own by your own rules…just like your mommy and daddy.

Some new words you are adding to your repertoire seemingly daily: hat, waffle, bubble, balloon, pool, potty, wet (sounds like hot), hippo. You asked for a waffle for dinner last night. And though that seems small it was just a sign of the ways you can communicate your desires and wishes all the more each day.

And you LOVE saying truck now. It sounds like duck. Which sort of sounds like clock. But we are learning to differentiate. In all three words you stress the final hard K sound. Sometimes to the point that it sounds like Ach, which puts us in mind of Scottish lairds or Hebrew school. It’s cute.

Yesterday you were taking a nap and I realized that I was excited about you waking up so we could spend time together. It may seem like mommies should always feel that way. But you are a lot of work and I crave the breaks that your one nap a day affords. But when I have those moments of clarity when I can see fully the fun, interactive, amazing little kid you are, it makes me thankful for all the time we have together and excited to see what you will do next. Even if it means you have to wake up from your nap!

Yesterday after we got out of the pool and got you dried off and you were able to briefly wash your hands (of course) you got dressed. And grabbing the little duckie bathrobe I had put you in earlier, you swung the hood (aka HAT) onto your head and walked around for the better part of the afternoon pretending to be a duck. You ate your goldfish and drank your milk as a duck. You played with your trucks and puzzles as a duck. You just loved that.  And I did too.

Can’t wait to see what you do next!

Love,

Mommy

On this second of my Mother’s Days you:

-decided not to take a nap

-ran a fever of indeterminate cause

-ate almost nothing and demanded to nurse only to stop almost immediately after latching on about a million times

-finally gave up the fight about an hour earlier than normal and went to bed before your daddy and I even ate dinner

Which caused me to:

-go to the ATM, CVS, and Wendy’s wearing my pj’s, my glasses, and flip flops to get cash, buy children’s motrin, and our supper because I was too beat to cook.

The romance of motherhood is, sometimes, almost overwhelming.

However, on this second of all my mother’s day, you also:

-were almost unceasingly happy about everything

-gave me numerous sloppy and loud, smacking kisses

-laughed and laughed when your daddy ran you around the backyard

-decided to be amazingly sweet to other children, laughing and smiling, hugging them, holding their hands, and giving them kisses…repeatedly…when we were having fun at the Robertsons’ house after lunch

-hugged my neck and your daddy’s neck simultaneously and gave us both kisses

-made me feel so lucky, happy, and blessed to be your mommy.