Taste and see that the Lord is good: blessed is the man who takes refuge in him. Psalm 34:8
This picture was taken by Mom yesterday at Jacob’s graduation party.
It is a photo of our dear dad and his five offspring. Isaac is the youngest in the green shirt, he was married a year ago to a wonderful girl and is Dad’s pride and joy. I (Shanda) am in the green blouse and am his firstborn and possibly the favorite. Next is David with the awesome beard, and Dad’s first son. Dave is Dad’s steady and true right hand man and they can get each other laughing so hard. Amanda is the third born, his little dimpled blond daughter with the happy personality. She is also possibly the favorite. Nathan is Dad’s fearless athlete, throwing himself into every sport, and life itself. He is the Dad of two awesome kids, including a son named for our father. GREGORY. We love you, Dad!
Happy Father’s Day!
Be on your guard, stand firm in the faith; be men of courage; be strong. 1 Corinthians 16:13
I am this sentimental about all seven of my babies, mark my words, but as this is the Week of Jacob, he is constantly on my mind.
I spent hours and hours at the end of our first hand-me-down couch with my first born baby. I remember those hours like they were yesterday. Most of the time he had my undivided attention, but sometimes I would watch TV as I held him. Other times I would read a book. There was very often a cat snuggled with us. We were cuddled under a quilt made by my husband’s grandmother and I would put a glass of water up on the top of the couch. All day long, whenever it was time to eat, we were there, no hurries, no worries. In the evenings my husband sat with us, too.
He was born the very last day of 1996 and we had one solitary year together before his beautiful baby brother joined us. Everything our baby did was amazing to us, my husband and I were both so proud. As he said recently, every parent thinks their child is someone extra special and it is the same for us. What a cherished gift children are and worthy to be given everything they need to grow and learn.
My friends and I used to remind each other now and then about how quickly our children would grow and leave us. Those crazy days when we had a bunch of little ones, healthy, busy, impossible to predict, we were exhausted trying to keep up. “Soon they will be gone” was our mantra to get us through those days but we said it with a laugh because it still seemed so far off.
We had plenty of time.
Last night at 5:30, the family–all 10 of us–were dressed up and in the vehicle, driving to the little league field to drop off Caleb for a game, and then heading for the Holy Trinity Lutheran Church in town for the Senior Baccalaureate Service of Evening Prayer.
I sat on the end so I could lean over into the aisle…all the better to see our boy. Although their handsome Dad did his best to keep them in their seats, by the last hymn my two youngest were hanging off my back. Sarah’s soft hands holding my arm, Seth twirling my pony tail.
Our Jacob was one of the students selected to read Scripture.
“And this is my prayer: that your love may abound more and more in knowledge and depth of insight, so that you may be able to discern what is best and may be pure and blameless until the day of Christ, filled with the fruit of righteousness that comes through Jesus Christ-to the glory and praise of God.” Philippians 1:9-11
The service had a special meaning for me personally because I have chosen the word “light” as my word of the year and it was the theme of the service. In fact, as we opened with Versicles, the whole room was saying these words together:
Jesus Christ is the light of the world,
The light no darkness can overcome.
Stay with us, Lord, for it is evening,
And the day is almost over.
For with you is the fountain of life,
And in your light we see light.
It touched me to the depths of my soul. Thank you, Jesus.
Do you remember that part in the movie “Anne of Avonlea” when Diana is about to get married and Mrs Barry is carrying on because she’s “losing her firstborn forever”. Aunt Josephine, in her typical bluntly comforting way quickly says, “Don’t get all sentimental, you still have Minnie May”…..that’s what I think of when I see this picture of me and my Minnie-Sarah.
After the service we all went downstairs for refreshments. Seth, the one who is just victoriously finishing up Kindergarten, had two buttered rolls, bypassed the pasta and salad, and then ate four cupcakes. The people of the church were all so kind and thoughtful, and happy to serve the community and class of 2015 in this way.
“You’ve been a blessing from the start,
I love you, my son, with all my heart.”
So thankful for these wonderful, priceless moments!
There is something about watering a garden with buckets of water from the pond (because the hose doesn’t work) throughout a dry spring to make a woman deep down grateful to wake up to a fresh morning of drenching rain. If I close my eyes, I can almost see the water trickling down-down-down into the dry earth. I can almost imagine the rate of growth on the next sunny day in our small vegetable patch. How satisfying it is to be a part of all that is happening outside.
Meanwhile, inside the house this morning I have been busy cleaning and thought I would take a break to type up a little blog post. This will start a week of my oldest son Jacob as the main subject of this little corner of the internet.
Yes, this is Jacob’s week, with so many blessings unfolding for him. It really all began on Friday when he went to the store to do this:
Yes indeedy, he gave gifts to his sweetheart to mark their anniversary. One year ago he and Emily started their relationship, and such a sweet couple they make. In fact, they are currently both on the couch watching “International House Hunters” right now. 🙂
Their anniversary was Friday and we planned a beach day for Saturday. Rich was gone last week on business so I was a bit on the *worn to a frazzle* side. He would not have minded making it a family day but I asked him if we could leave six of the children home and just take Jacob and Emily. It was a most brilliant idea…the whole day from start to finish was wonderful.
(I just had to leave and come back from the school. Ethan and Grace are now home after a morning of finals).
We went to Panera for breakfast. Everyone was happy and goofy, including my husband. It was nice to see him relaxed and enjoying a day off from work. After breakfast we continued to the shore. We arrived at about 8:30 in the morning.
That’s Jacob and Emily making a sandcastle together.
I sat in the beach chair for a while reading magazines. It was such a treat to relax and not have to worry about children wandering off or getting pulled into the ocean.
The finished sandcastle.
Rich and I went on a walk down the beach. The water was cold but the weather was lovely, warm with a cool breeze. The sun didn’t start blazing down on us until later on.
They showed us their bucket of sandy crabby creatures when we returned.
We dozed in the sunshine….again, I was so grateful to just melt into the towel, knowing that there was no one that needed to be watched.
We took a foursome selfie before we left the beach for lunch.
So thankful to have kids who enjoy being with us!
Buttery lobster roll!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Salt potatoes and an ice cold Pepsi (a rare treat)! Wonderful lunch. We were all good and famished and enjoyed every bite.
Then we headed into Madison, CT, just a few miles down the road, to our next stop.
R.J. Julia Booksellers…a wonderful bookstore.
There were signed celebrity photographs all over the walls. I bought a paperback, a magnet for the fridge, and some yummy chocolate.
I stopped to admire these beautifully leafed geraniums.
We drove on home because the kids had to be back by 3:30 for further adventures. But just before our outing was officially over, we stopped at Carvels for some cones. I had the Reeses soft serve. Yum!
Our day, which is a highly recommended itinerary if you get the chance to visit the CT shore. 🙂
(Panera, for breakfast)
Hammonasset Beach State Park
Joe and Lenny’s Fish Tale, for lunch
R.J. Julia Booksellers
(Carvel)
I ask myself this hypothetical question often, “What would the Wise Woman do?” and I asked it this morning after dropping a child off at school for a final exam. I would have to return to the school after 2 hours to pick him back up.
I like to pretend that the wise woman is my Mom, my Grandma, or my dearest friend. What would they tell me to do when faced with a certain decision? Somehow it makes it easier to find the right thing to do when imagining what they would do.
I felt depleted physically and run down mentally, from days of rushed activity. So I asked myself.
What would the wise woman do with two hours?
She would drive into town for a favorite drink and an apple juice for the preschooler, find a quiet table near the window and sit for as long as she wanted.
She would write a list of thankfulness with a pen on a paper napkin.
She would say “yes” to walking to the empty park nearby.
She would lay back in the grass under a bright blue sky and let the hot sunshine melt away that sinus headache and listen to the birds and her little daughter singing as she played.
She would loiter everywhere she walked…slowly…taking everything in.
Sh would really taste that iced chai tea, down to the last drop.
That’s what the wise woman told me to do. And that’s what I did. Thank you, wise woman!
I took Sarah to the doctors this morning and she has exactly what Seth and David had. It’s this weird cold that fills their heads up with mucus, I know that sounds gross but honestly….when I gave David mucus relief pills it would run out his eyes and nose! Sarah has pink eye from it. They are swimming in fluid, it’s so odd. It’s like the cold from “the bad place”…Evil Cold. LOL Sarah had fluid in her ears, one was infected, her left lung had bronchitis, she coughs like a bad muffler (?), pink eye, and sinus infection..her nose does not run, it goes right down the back of her throat.
I went to Target to get her meds and cans and cans of chicken soup and Ramen noodles. I never buy those ramen noodles anymore because they are basically empty calories but you would have thought I bought home shrimp and steak the way six of my kids immediately made themselves a pot of noodles after school. Makes me kinda wonder why I slave in the kitchen…….(not really)…I want my kids to eat healthy, and we do…but Dr. said lots of chicken noodle soup so that’s what they’re getting. Along with decongestant, antibiotics (for those that need them), saline spray up the nose (each with their own labelled bottle). Lysol, etc, bleach, fumigator.
When we got home she fell asleep in my bed. I had to wake her up an hour later to go get Jacob and Ethan. Seth had a “thing” at school today at 2. I wrote a note telling the teacher I couldn’t go but when Seth realized it he said with big troubled eyes, “You have to go!” So I ripped up the note and I got Jacob from school early (his last class didn’t matter) so he could watch Sick Sister Sarah. Ethan is sick so I picked him up early along with Jacob.
I’m so glad I didn’t miss Seth’s event. The parents had to wait by the main entrance and their child came to them with flowers saying, “thank you for coming”. So Seth did that, it melted my heart, he was so proud and wasn’t sure if he should hold my hand or not. He wanted to, I know, but was a little shy about holding Mom’s hand in front of his friends. He sat me down at a placemat that he made himself and we filled out our food requests for a snack. Did we want fruit? yes. Did we want cheese? yes. Did we want pretzels? yes. Did we want Summer Juice? “What’s summer juice? I asked….”it’s lemonade”. Yes.
The children were all called forward to receive a Kindergarten Certificate and their memory books. Then, the children served their parent(s) the snacks. After we ate, the kids sang us a song.
I had the great joy to sit with a friend who is going through the same thing as I am: a child graduating from 12th grade, and a child ending Kindergarten in the same year. In fact, this woman’s daughter was Jacob’s prom date last year. She’s so friendly and kind, too bad I found out today that she is moving away. But it was fun to chat with her. It was all special and I felt sad to think I almost missed out and caused Seth such a let-down, can you imagine him with no one? thank you Lord. And thank you to the boys for watching Sarah.
I was back home after an hour. Sarah was in my bed again, sleeping. She’s still sleeping as I type. Seth is outside the window riding his scooter, Grace is still at school, Jacob and Ethan are sleeping, and I don’t know what Caleb and David are doing but I have to take them to the fields soon for Little League games. (Dave has been on antibiotics for a week so he’s perking up).
Anyway, Grace and I sang a duet last week at our piano and we recorded it for our FB friends, I thought I would post it here, too, so my bloggy friends can watch, and my parents, too.
“It is easier to sing your worries away than to reason them away. Why not sing in the morning? Think of the birds–they are the first to sing each day, and they have fewer worries than anything else in creation. And don’t forget to sing in the evening, which is what the robins do when they have finished their daily work. Once they have flown their last flight of the day and gathered the last bit of food, they find a treetop from which to sing a song of praise!”
“Oh that we might sing morning and evening, offering up song after song of continual praise throughout our day!”
I’ve been enjoying the gardens this spring, more than I ever have. I think it’s because for the first time in almost 2o years I don’t have any children younger than five years old. Although with Seth in my life it is still questionable whether I should turn my back on him…for the most part the children can be trusted to play while I lose myself in the garden for brief periods of time.
I want to fill the house with vases of lilacs.
This is six year old Seth in the stream, peering into the pipe that allows the water to run under the road near our house. He was looking for snake skin. It is common knowledge to the boys that the local snakes use these pipes to pull dead skins off themselves. He counted six of them but after reaching one, he would not get the rest because he also saw a spider.
This morning Seth had a hard time waking up and getting motivated for a day of Kindergarten. He tried the typical “I don’t feel good” but I wasn’t falling for it. I put together his backpack and was quite pleased that I made him a nice lunch and remembered to put the strawberries in his bag for tomorrow’s event. I hung his bag on the doorknob right where he could grab it on his way to the bus. 20 minutes later the bus came…..and what in the??? no backpack to be found–was I going crazy?….I started running around the kitchen as the bus sat and waited. “WHERE is your backpack?” “I don’t know!” “I’ll bring it to you when I find it!” Seth looked at me in shock when I (GENTLY) pushed him out the door. He couldn’t believe that he had to go to school without it. It took some persuading to get him on the bus.
I found the backpack LOCKED IN THE BATHROOM.
I had to drive it to school.
When he gets home I am going to have to talk to him about problem solving, creative thinking, telling the truth, responsibility, and the fact that the little trust I had in him is now damaged.
Anyway, back to the snakes. After pocketing the one snake skin that he was able to reach from the pipe, and the two of us talking a lot about how a snake takes it’s skin off like that and whether humans also shed skin (hard to explain), we entered the field not far from our house. I was on a quest to see if the wild rose bush was in bloom.
The wild rose bush was neatly clipped off at the end of each branch (deer?) with no buds to be seen on it (so disappointing) but we did find some wild strawberries.
Little ruby treasures.
There was spit everywhere…..inside of the spit there are little spit bugs to be found…
….they look like this.
water reflections in our pond
the daisies are in bloom
There was a nest was nearby and he did his best to keep me away from it by constant chirping.
This morning I have a cold, Sarah is coughing up a storm, and Ethan is home from school feeling wretched. The entire outdoors is in gloomy suspended animation as we wait and wonder if it will rain. A cool breeze blows through now and then, causing the wind chimes to flutter and play it’s notes.
“He satisfies the longing soul, and the hungry soul he fills with good things.” Psalm 107:9
{this moment} ~ A Friday ritual. A single photo – capturing a moment from the week. A simple, special, extraordinary moment. A moment I want to pause, savor and remember.
Good to be Home 