The Eclectic Dabbler

If you have been to our new house, you know that the kitchen is not it’s biggest selling point. However, I love the window directly above our kitchen sink! I spend a lot of time there, and being able to catch a vision beyond the dirty dishes always uplifts me!

The neighbors behind us have several trees (which is really amazing on our city block here in a Philadelphia rowhome!), and they have several bird feeders in their yard. So there are always birds, primarily sparrows, for me to watch as I do dishes. We have a pool on our little patio in the back, which is currently winterized, but still provides a “bath” for the birds and water for them to drink.

So why do I mention the sparrows?

It has been a week for reflection. Daniel’s company laid off 50 people on Thursday; thankfully he was not one of them. The company announced they will no longer be matching 401k contributions, and no one will be getting raises this year. Additionally, Daniel is losing a week of vacation pay that he was promised. While these changes are not positive, we are thankful that he still has a job.

In the past 2-1/2 years, he has lost his job twice, so seeing his company going downhill is again a little unnerving. I’m a CPA. I’m a planner. I like to see on paper how God is going to provide for our family financially. But over the past few years, God in His wisdom has not allowed me to see or know our financial future.

So again, you ask, why do I mention the sparrows?

Luke 12:6-7 says, “Are not five sparrows sold for two cents? Yet not one of them is forgotten before God! Indeed, the very hairs of your head are all numbered. Do not fear; you are more valuable than many sparrows.”

Not one of them is forgotten before God. I see His provision for the sparrows–food, water, baths . . . in the middle of a bitterly cold winter!  You are more valuable than many sparrows. Do not fear!

As I look out my kitchen window, I ask God to give me faith to trust Him for what I cannot see. And I thank Him for the sparrows–a visible reminder that He remembers and values me! I have no need to fear.

Last night Mara was in one of her wild-and-crazy moods and bonked Micah in the back of the head. Of course, being tired and cranky, he began crying hysterically as if mortally wounded. I don’t think Mara was being malicious, but she was definitely not being kind.
It was a chance to introduce Ephesians 4:32. So after an apology to Micah, a brother-sister hug, and a tissue for the little boy’s tears, Mara and I memorized the first few words of the verse together: “Be kind to one another. Ephesians 4:32.”
When Daniel came home, I asked Mara to tell Daddy the verse we learned today.
“Be KIND to Micah!” she quoted confidently. . . well, at least she got the idea.
And this morning, when explaining it to Daniel’s mother, Mara said, “‘Be kind to Micah’ — in Mommy’s BIBLE!”
Daniel’s mother laughed and said, “She learned the passage and its application.”

Mara and I had a delightful day together. Days like today remind that I wouldn’t trade the privilege of staying at home with my children for anything. She was so much fun!

In the morning I was putting Christmas decorations away, and since she loves to wear hats, she paraded around for awhile wearing the Santa hat. I had to take a picture!

We tried on an outfit Grandma “Bubben” had given her when we visited back in October, and it fits now! So she was super-excited to wear a new purple outfit with her “perkle” shoes. She says, “Call Gamma?” whenever she thinks something merits telling Grandma. So we did. Then I took pictures to show Grandma (Mara in the outfit she gave her), and Mara insists that Mommy get in the picture too. I felt completely unprepared to be photographed, but who can resist when their 2-year-old daughter asks Mommy to come in the picture with her?

Then we tried on a dress that I got for her on eBay last summer. I got it in the hopes of getting a Christmas portrait or a portrait of the two kids together–which never materialized–so she’s never even tried on the dress. When she put it on, I wished all the more that I had taken them for portraits, because she looked adorable in the dress! So we had a little photo session of our own!

Before Daniel came home, I was working in the kitchen, and Mara came in with a cup and a spoon. “Mara make soup,” she said. “RED soup!”

“Red soup?” I repeated. “Is it chili?”

Mara nodded. “BEANS in it,” she said.

“Daddy like it!” she smiled in anticipation.

“Are you making soup for Daddy?”

Mara nodded again, her blue eyes twinkling. And if that wasn’t enough to make Mommy’s heart melt, she said, “Dressed up! before Daddy comes home!”

“You want to get dressed up?”

“Pink dress!” she exclaimed. “Tights!” Wow, she has this whole thing planned out!

She doesn’t actually own a pink dress, but she has a brown dress with pink flowers, which she calls her “pink dress.” I set aside dinner preparations to take her upstairs and get “dressed up” for Daddy! My heart was so touched by her excitment to see Daddy and her desire to do something special for him! It kind of made me want to get dressed up for Daddy too!!

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My second Mara story is not nearly so . . . romantic . . . and needs three preliminary explanations:

* First, when Mara says “Bee-ya?” she means “What’s that?” She has done this for probably 8 months or so by now. We have no idea why. We have just noticed that whenever she doesn’t know what something is or wants to know what something is, she points to it and asks “Bee-ya?”
* Second, she calls nasal congestion “buggers.” (At this point, you are legitimately concerned about where this post is going!)
* Third and finally, she will randomly attach unrelated timeframes to her sentences. For instance, she might say, “Daddy work Friday.” It’s not Friday. It hasn’t been for three days. We aren’t talking about Friday. But she’ll just throw a timeframe out there that she’s heard before. She also references “last year” all the time. Not quite sure why. She just does.

Okay, so here’s the story: I pulled some hamburgers out of the freezer to grill for dinner.

Mara says, “Bee-ya? Bee-ya?”

“Hamburgers!” I said. “We’re going to have them for dinner.”

A look of understanding flashed across her face, as she said, “Mara–hamburgers in her nose last year!”

Wow. I couldn’t help it–I was dying laughing!

Mara loves the Curious George book where he makes “lather and more lather and MORE lather!” And she’s always asking for bubbles (in the kitchen sink or in her bath), so I thought she would LOVE a bubble bath. Tonight was her first one! And I’m learning that maybe she likes to live these things out vicariously through others in books, rather than experience their uncertainties in real life.

I started filling the tub and then went in her room to take off her clothes and change her diaper. When we came back, the entire tub was covered with bubbles! and instead of being super-excited as I had anticipated, she seemed troubled as I set her in the tub. “Where water go?” she asked. Then she swooshed the bubbles aside with her hand, and seeing the water still underneath, she said delightfully, “BOO, water!” It was really cute!

Then she was disturbed about the effect the bubbles were having on the toys. “Guck eyes!” she said sadly as she held up the duck (whose eyes were covered with bubbles).

“Well, help him out!” I said. “Rinse the bubbles off!” After that, she got so excited and she must have spent 45 minutes playing in the tub.

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Today Mara had a PB&J sandwich for lunch (her favorite). She pointed at it and said, “Sandwich! Sandwich in Mara’s book.”

“Yes, you’re right! There is a sandwich in your book,” I agreed. In “Wings on Things,” there are two children eating sandwiches for a picnic lunch, while bees swarm around them.

Then she said emphatically: “Bees–in our house!”

“Bees?” I repeated. “In our house?”

“Yeah,” she insisted.

“Where are the bees?” I asked, still not convinced.

She pursed her lips and squinted, looking off to the side. Then suddenly her eyes lit up and she said, “GONE!”

I replied, “Well, they must be gone, because I certainly don’t see any bees in our house!”

At the time, it was pretty funny.

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A friend from church came over for awhile this afternoon, and Mara of course wanted to entertain her. Mara put her Hello Kitty stickers up on the wall by the stairs and pointed at three of them. “M-O-B. Mara,” she stated.

This is always how she spells her name. I told Daniel, She thinks she’s part of the mob.

No matter how many times I say, “Mara. M-A-R-A.” She still repeats: “Mawa. M-O-B. Mawa.”

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We had tortilla chips at dinner and Mara was munching on one beforehand. I was at the kitchen sink, and could see her reflection in the window pane.

She was headed straight to Micah in his walker, holding out the tortilla for her little brother.

I said firmly, “NO, Mara! Micah is not old enough for chips!”

So she looked at Micah and said, “No chips, Micah! No soup, Micah. ONLY Mara.”

She had tried to give Micah her sippy cup of milk earlier in the day, and I told her that Micah couldn’t have that kind of milk until after he turned one. So now, that’s what she tells him. “SOUP, Micah! Atter ber-day ONE!”

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Little Micah, on the other hand, just kept eating! Today he ate a Gerber 1st Foods container of Peaches with oatmeal for breakfast; 2 ice cubes of peas with oatmeal for lunch; and 2 ice cubes each of sweet potatoes and bananas, as well as more oatmeal for dinner! And then he lowered his head down and began knawing on the high chair tray, as if I had fed him nothing all day! . . . He still looked ravenous, but I really couldn’t see feeding him more at that point!