Carrots

"Want me to wash TWO carrots," Jack lopes into the kitchen, "in case you want one on our date?" Smudgy fingers, he holds up two tail ends of carrots, soil smirched on knees and elbows, smutched across his forehead. Carrot harvest.

"Sure."

He scrubs the little nubs with an old vegetable brush. He swipes them dry, holds them up. "Look, it looks like a cross." He palms them, shoves the orange jewels down to the bottom of his pocket. Then we leave, and the pocket swallows his whole hand while he digs them out.

"Here ya, go Mom." He rubs a piece of lint off the tangerine root.

I crunch the coral sugar root, candy down my throat. "Mmm. I can't believe how good these are. Thanks, Jack."

We sail off. "What I did," he says, "is I sneaked some coupons for ice cream in my wallet in case we might want some."

I smile. We gaze out our respective windows, me the windshield, he the backseat window. "Oh. Thanks." Matter-of-fact, we let he moment unroll as if these things didn't need a lot of fuss.

"Mommy, how much are the drinks at Starbucks?"

"A lot." I prop my arms over the steering wheel, marvel at the quiet between each sentence, at the simple cadence of conversation.

"How much?" I can feel the arch of his eyebrows behind me.

"Some of them four dollars," I say.

"Oh," he nods, "I've got seven dollars. And forty cents. And a couple of pennies."

We let that rest as if the matter were settled. Seven dollars. Forty cents. A couple of pennies. Enough.

And so it is, the boy heart rises to be like his father and provide.

Gratitude:

3672. "Lets have a drawing contest and see who can draw the best bee's nest," Jack tolls.

3673. "You peed in them? Again? Your pants? Go. get. them. I want to see the pee." I frown and watch Myra trot down the hall. "When you say that," Jane shakes her head, "what scares me is that she runs to her room, not the washer."

3674. "Mom, I need to show you something in here that I think is poopy," Lucy calls from the bedroom.

3675. "I like Joe's toes," Myra says and squeezes a baby toe.

3676. "How 'bout every Saturday is Organization Day," Jane offers.

3677. Myra wipes her face with the kitchen rag. "Ma," she says, "I'm, getting the boogers out a my eye."

3678. We eat heirloom tomato salad, fresh mozzarella, and blackberry pie at Mom's. We sip coffee and pray for her trip to Kenya, the crusade, the people.

3679. Almond chocolate bark.

3680. Our children learn the first question you ask when you meet a new kid: Is you mom home so my mom can meet her?

3681. We continue to study Revelation: the title deed of the earth, the scroll, the Lamb as He had been slain, Ruth, Boaz, the kinsman redeemer. "This is sort of weird," Janie says, "how it all fits together piece to piece to piece."

3682. "I don't really like clothes," Lucy confesses. "I just like going naked."

3683. Jane interrupts homework. "Mommy, would you turn Pandora on 'cause Jack's singing is -- annoying. Unfortunately his singing is not as good as the people on Pandora."

3684. "I got faster at math," she says. "Yesterday I could only do one of these problems in one breath. Now I can do one and a half."

3685. "This one's my dagger," Myra says and stabs the air with a teal blue 19 gauge knitting needle.

3686. "Joey kind a poops like animals," Jack nods, "'cause he poops wherever he is." He pokes Joe's baby belly. "But when he's older he won't."

3687. "Our family does not want crumbs on the floor," I punctuate with a frown. Lucy widens her eyes. "But the Devil does?" she says. "My clean up my mess," Myra adds.

3688. A neighbor brings over hand-me-down shoes for Myra.

3689. Pizza pie, a rainbow of salads, peach pie, laughter to make your cheeks ache.

3690. Finally, we completely organize all the kids' drawers. "Thank-you that we have enough clothes that we could even make a mess," Jane prays. "I know that in some countries that would not be possible."

3691. The kids reflect on Shakespeare's Twelfth Night. "I think you shouldn't dress up like a boy," Jane says. "You shouldn't fight if you don't know what end of a sword you are using," Lucy adds. "I think you shouldn't steal stuff unless you ask," Jack says.

3692. "I was gonna sword fight with knotting needles with Jack," Jane confesses, "and thought, I probably should be working."

3693. We have our Thursday Writer's Workshop. "The word combination that you want to be a sentence isn't a sentence because it doesn't have a verb," Jane says.

3694. We circle up for the vice-presidential debate.

3695. "I understood very little," Jane comments on the debate, "but I could tell just by the way he was talking, he is very confident."

3696. "Mom, "Lucy croons, "can I pick Joe up into my arms and hold him up and when I feel like I'm gonna drop him, put him back on the ground?"

3697. "I love you bigger than the sky," I tell Myra. "I love you bigger than a mouse," she replies, "really big one mouse."

3698. Jack explains the fall of man, "Like this is half of the lie: Your eyes will be opened and you will be like God. Your eyes will be opened but not like God."

3699. "You already spilled two times" I tell Myra. "One, two. Two times." Her face lights up, "Hold my horses, mom?"

3700. Lucy slaps our hefty dinner table. "If everybody helped," she says, "we probably could tip this table over."

3701. "Hey Jack," I overhear in the kitchen, "can you help me with the milk? Thanks. That was a test. You got an A+ on it."

3702. Burgers and Canasta with Pete and Rosie.

3703. "Hey Momma, wanna get up? I made you eggs," Jane greets me this morning.

3704. "Sorry. Forgive me pinch you?" Myra says to Lucy.

3705. I finish grades for progress reports.

3706. My mother safely lands in Nairobi, Kenya with the Spring of Hope team. Now en route to Adiedo, I pray of the coming seminar and crusade.

3707. I reflect on God's provision through my husband and swell with gratitude for his hard work.

3708. I ruminate on the obvious: There is enough time in each day for the things Jesus wants me to do. I just have to determine what those are.

Lu

"Do you think there is a spoon inside of you that stirs everything you eat?" Lucy asks. Tall in the booster seat, her wide-set eyes blink-blink in the rearview mirror.

"No, I think your stomach just sort of squishes it all together." I press on the break. We ease like a sigh up to the corner. I squint into the sun, the heavy air orange with dust particulate. I swing wide; we zip off.

"I want to marry someone from Africa," she announces. She stares out the passenger window. Her eyes follow oncoming traffic, a blue four-door, a yellow jeep, another white suburban.

"Why is that?"

""Cause, I know they are not in our family." We pass under a grid of power lines, enormous gray turrets laced together over wheat fields now stubble. "And maybe one of them is named Craig. And maybe I will change my name to Bethany. And then there will be two Craig and Bethanys." She nods her head, wrinkles her chin and forehead in tandem. "Yeah."

I watch her mimic the grown-up tilt of her head. "You're sweet, Lucy."

The wheat fields pendulate by, snarled yellow, radiant brown, more golden stubble, then blooming soil.

"Why does it look like we are lost?" she chirps. "I better eat a piece of chocolate. I don't think I can finish all this chocolate."

She chatters. We glide along. Broad strokes of turns swoop like wings. Silence idles and purrs.

"Do you think there is little bones in your lips?" she says.

"No. Do you?"

"Yeah," she nods, does that dip of chin, "'cause God put bones all over our body." Blink-blink, those wide-set eyes.

Open fields wind into the trellis grid of shops and stores, street lights, a symphony of traffic. I clatter over a curb and park mostly straight.

"Come on." I lug her door open, the wind a gambol across our faces, tendrils of hair blown every direction at once.

"I know how to make a baby," she blurts while I unbuckle her seatbelt. "You have to take a little of the mommy and a little of the daddy." She slides onto the footboard, hops down. "So if the daddy is dead, you can't have another baby."

"Here, let's hold hands." And then we skip, hand in hand, tra-la-la, the snap of the wind rosy on our cheeks: to the baby store.

I unwrap each baby. She vacillates dollies from hand to hand, pats their back sides, squeezes their heads, flops them over her shoulder.

"Ooo, this one is really cute. I like this one."

I reassemble the packaging. We pay for baby, climb in the car.

"Do you think her name should be Violet?" her voice soft like a kiss. "How 'bout we call her Lu, little baby Lu." As we trace the roads home, I memorize the soft unfolding of her voice. "It's Lu Anna. And her very last name is Little Baby."

Lu Anna Little Baby. Silence settles, a down comforter of a hush tucked up under our chins.

She buckles her baby into Joey's carseat, and we rest, love tucked up under our chins.

Gratitude:

3637. Rosie blogs about our photo shoot.

3638. Furnace fixed.

3639. Chimney swept.

3640.We continue reading Corrie ten Boom and stumble across: How should a Christian act when evil was in power? "Just keep persevering," Jane says. "If I die, I die. And if I don't die, I don't die," Jack says. "That's so true," Janie adds, "the only safe place is to be where God wants you."

3641. "The people who built the tower of Babel," Janie says, "were trying to say: I'm gonna disobey You and still get to live with You."

3642. "The Tower of Bable was probably a ziggurat," I tell her. "A cigarette?" she says.

3643. "Do they milk horses?" Jack wants to know. "Have you ever sawn a horse with horns?"

3644. "What's your baby's name?" I ask Myra. "Myra's Baby," she says.

3645. "Mommy, I smack a spider," she says, fly swatter sidled up to her cheek.

3646. "I wish I could smell this verse and taste it," Jane says. "That would mean that I could memorize it faster."

3647. "What is that?" Jack comments on my chicken dinner. "What it is," Jane says, "is something from the hands of Mommy that is really good."

3648. "God is REAL in our dreams," Lucy tells me. "One person is always REAL, and it is God."

3649. "You gotta love people even if you don't like them," she adds.

3650. We read the story of Jonah and the children add commentary: God never gives up. He can do anything. He's stronger than anything. He loves all people.

3651. We ask what they noticed about Jonah: He disobeys. He wants to do things that are easy.

3652. "I want to be a mom like you," Lu says.

3653. I ask Lu about her bad dreams and how she hasn't come and got me in the middle of the night for a while. "Yeah," she says, "'cause I know that God loves us. And I know he is taking care of us."

3654. "I found a little green thing that I think is a worm egg," Jack says. "And I put it in a bucket and put worms in it so that if it pops out they can nurse it."

3655. "I don't know that they nurse when they pop out of the egg," Jane questions, "but maybe."

3656. Myra bounds up and kisses my leg.

3657. Jane explains her journal. "Jesus cares about the churches. I didn't know that. I thought he was just like, huh. But He's like you're doing a good job. Try to do better."

3658. The kids unroll pillows and blankets, snacks and puzzles to watch the presidential debate. Myra climbs on my lap to kiss Joey.

3659. I ask Myra her baby's name again. "Mine," she says.

3660. Lucy falls off the step stool. Jack rushes over to hug her.

3661. I check on Joe and find baby Lu propped on his belly.

3662. "I hope God lets Great-Grammie stay alive until she's one-thousand," Lucy says.

3663. "Mommy, I like your mouf," Myra says. "I like your cheeks. I like this one cheek." She traces my face when I tuck her in.

3664. Groceries. Trader Joes, Costco, even little extras like coconut oil, fancy cheese and dark chocolate.

3665. Another gallery opening. I show the kids how great paintings will move your eye over the whole canvas through the use of color, shape, and pattern. They laugh and point out the path.

3666. Craig saves the day as Myra *almost* makes it to the galley bathroom in time. A dear friend tells me her replacement outfit is adorable.

3667. I stop to consider: in one week my momma will be in Kenya. I feel the weight of this.

3668. We trounce to the farm with cousins and siblings. Bbq burgers, homemade buns, cranberry salad, potstickers, garden bounty, family encircles the farm table. The laughter sounds like a bubbling brook.

3669. The children fold up all their clothes and trade in for winter duds.

3670. A quote from T. Keller, "True joy is not found by controlling your environment but by controlling your allegiances."

3671. And A.W. Tozer, "The only thing you need to be ashamed of is sin."

Mighty

"Jane come here, I caught a grasshopper," Jack bellows down the lane.

Jane, feet jammed into Lucy's black flip-flops, toes curled over the front, heel off the back, breaks into a run.

"It sounds like popcorn when it hops," he whoops and holds an old cookie bucket above his head. "It sounds like popcorn!"

Jane lopes up to the clear pail. Puffing for breath, she leans her face down, peers around an old cookie label. Eye to eye with the hopper, "Wow."

"I might draw it when I get home." he says.

We nod, trot home.

Mighty, he names the grasshopper Mighty and gives him a fresh handful of grass every morning. The little pail migrates from table to coffee table, kitchen counter, bedroom dresser.

"Mom, I think grasshoppers have only one big jumping leg," he announces as I nestle onto the old black couch and gather Joe up to nurse.

"Here, let me see." I hold the old cookie bucket above my head. Huh, Mighty's only got one back leg.

"Mom, wanna hold my grasshopper?" he blusters. "It's actually kind of fun having a grasshopper." He plops a rust-red footstool next to the couch. Elbows on his knees, he raises his eyebrows, "Mighty was the only name I really wanted." He nods, tilts his head.

"Is he mighty?" I say.

"Yeah, like I am mighty." He flexes his arms for me, then taps the lid. "I made three little breathing holes for him. I just used a pencil." He holds the bucket up to his face. "He's actually kind of fun to hold," he offers again.

I smile. Craig ambles into the living room. "What do you have to say for yourself?" he jaunts.

"Are you talking about Mighty?" Jack twists sideways on the stool. "Looks like Mighty's eating. I'll set him down." Little boy settles Mighty on a stack of books atop the coffee table, "He can still eat when I'm holding him," Jack adds, "but," he shrugs and pops up off the stool, bends down face to face with Mighty. "He's trying to climb the wall. He usually gets up a little way and then he falls."

We furrow our brows and watch little Mighty.

Nod and shrug, shrug and nod, Jack fills the night with commentary. Mostly I gaze at his blue eyes. Matter-of-fact and blinking in time with each detail, I watch him memorize the little hopper.

Memory. We memorize what we love.

Gratitude:

3552. Jane helps me make lunch. "I hear them out there," she nods to Jack, Lu, and Myra out on the back lawn, "and I think, 'Oh, no, now what mischief are they into?'"

3553. Lucy canters inside. "Wanna know what that SHOT noise out there was?" she says and holds up a ziploc bag. "I popped this bag."

3554. My cousin comes to dinner. We make egg salad sandwiches together, sip coffee, and visit the night away in long strings of conversation. Craig and I tell her our love story and sigh at how it's still so good.

3555. Lucy scuffs out to wave at Craig, grass fragments already snarled in her pigtails.

3556. Salad and prayer and the hot afternoon sun, we linger around Mom's kitchen table.

3557. Dear friends and I wade another few chapters deeper in Revelation. We marvel at how it ripples all through the rest of the Bible.

3558. We forget Myra's blankie at Dad and Mom's. When we drive back, Dad fires it through the open window like a rocket. The children chortle.

3559. Myra squishes my face between her hands, kisses the top of my nose. "Mom, I love you hair," she says.

3560. Myra peels an orange herself and carries it dripping out to wave at Craig.

3561. Jack rambles around the house, his giraffe pillow-pet on a leash at his side.

3562. "Jesus, thank-you Daddy funny. Amen," Myra prays.

3563. I stir flour into bread. "Did you put the EAST in," Jack asks.

3564. We take an afternoon walk, "Stop, stop," Myra insists. "My bawtum stuck." She tries to explain and rearranges her unders.

3565. Egg salad, cucumber salad, green leaf cranberry salad, basil tomatoes, and little smokies, Dad and Mom join us for dinner.

3566. Jane props a baby doll in her lap while she eats breakfast.

3567. She writes a paragraph on how she loves her toy pony so much that the pony seems REAL.

3568. Burgers, brownies, tag, hide-n-seek, and miles of conversation, friends come for dinner.

3569. "Guess who is my favorite," Lucy says as we clean up lunch. "Jesus?" I say. "God," she answers, "'Cause he made Jesus alive again, so I think he is the strongest."

3570. Jane finishes her schoolwork before the whole day has wasted away. "I finally realized: there's no way around it," she says, "you have to do your schoolwork. Playing hooky doesn't really work."

3571. We take a trip to the county fair with dear friends, a whole troop of kids between us. We land home the middle of the afternoon and nap. Oh bliss.

3572. We read more Tales of the Kingdom. I try to explain how Jesus gives us each different gifts, special things we are good at. "I know what mine is," Janie says, "READING." I explain that Jesus's gifts are much bigger and sweeter even than reading and at the same time marvel at what a gift it is to be so rich in reading.

3573. Mom and I pray for revival in this land starting the only place revivals can start: our own hearts.

3574. Craig and the kids pick two buckets of yellow plums on the farm.

3575. We harvest sweet corn and carrots from the garden.

3576. I start Pursuit of God by A.W. Tozer.

3577. An answer to prayer: I find an earring I lost pressed into the rug by my bed.

3578. Craig's mom sends home a hand knitted blue blanket for Joey.

3579. A fresh pack of moleskin journals, black this time.

3580. Myra keeps calling Jack's grasshopper, Froggy.

3581. I hear a quote by C. Missler. "The secret to a happy life is to learn to delight in duty... Work is a form of prayer."

3582. Lucy lingers in the kitchen as I spread peanut butter for sandwiches. "You're nice," she blurts.

3583. She runs her fingers over my shoulders as she skips in from outside.

3584. I force myself to slow down and look into the eyes of each of our children, memorize that infinitesimal pause before they speak.

3585. I remember again how much I enjoy them. We dillydally and lallygag, saunter and dawdle, let gladness grow up between us. Mighty. We memorize it.

Secrets

"You could pray that I don't have any bad dreams any more." Lucy lulls. She sits in the backseat, seatbelt squared across her torso.

I click the key off and rest my wrists on the steering wheel. "That's a great idea, Lucy." I fumble for a rumpled brown journal

"Wanna hear about one of the best dreams that I've had," she lilts.

"Yeah." I pop the cap off my pen. Scribble about her bad dreams.

"That Jesus is holding me in his arms," she says. Her words sway. My breath matches time to the rhythm. "He just holded me in his arms all night," she says, "and protected me." I hold still, feel His arms there with us, trace the glasslike surface of her dream.

"He does that," I blurt, the words like pebbles in my mouth.

"He can hear you even if you pray quietly." She looks out the window. A pyrex dish of chocolate chips  lies empty at her knee. Smudges on her forehead and eyelid match chocolate blots in the bowl. "One time I prayed quietly to myself when Jack was praying at night," she carries on.

I nod. Secrets float by like dandelion umbrellas. We let them drift and glide. They hang in the air like a breath of wind. "Jesus always hears us," I breathe. We share the words, then grab hands and skip into the bookshop for the rest of our date.





Gratitude:

3520. "Mommy," Myra chirps from the jog stroller shoehorned in next to baby brother, "I kiss Joe."

3521. We load up the whole herd of bikes and take a family bike ride at the park.

3522. The night gets hectic and Lucy walks around with a stethoscope in her ears.

3523. New earrings, silver arc, blue green dew drop suspended midair.

3524. Splitting headache ebbs and vanishes.

3525. I delve into Revelation with two friends. We let the awe of it wash over us.

3526. Tuesday at Mom's, coconut curry chicken, prayer, friendship, the sweetness of letting my guard flutter down like a discarded scarf.

3527. "Myra pooped in the big one potty," Myra trumpets from the bathroom. "I wipe self!" she says.

3528. I come across an old chip of terra cotta, the words worth it scrawled over the front.

3529. Joey squirms under Myra's hug.

3530. "There's slobber on you." Jane pats my shoulder.

3531. The circus of us rolls to motion as we prepare brats and salad and set the table for dinner.

3532. The children practice using checklists and set the hearth with folders and books for school.

3533. "The plum is kind of soft," Lucy confesses at plum picking, "because I had it in my pocket. Aw Mom, I squished a plum in my pocket." Jane squints, frowns and adds, "Mom, there's a squished plum in Lucy's pocket that she can't get out."

3534. "One of our best presidents," Jane says as we drive home from the farm, "is the guy that died the year I was born." I think back. "Ronald Reagan?" I say. "Yeah. He had a lot of money but was respectful and tried to use it for good."

3535. "A good thing to do," Janie tells me, "is to be respectful and try to get into authority and then guide people to Jesus."

3536. We pick more blackberries and yellow plums on the farm.

3537. We feast on stew and corn on the cob, fresh chopped cucumbers and peppers, fist-sized tomatoes, and blackberry crisp.

3538. We play tag in the car coming home from blackberry picking. I join in just to thumb my nose at a sour attitude inside of me.

3539. Craig does reconstructive surgery when Lu busts a lamp over our bed.


3540. We watch a documentary on butterflies. "Do caterpillars really turn into butterflies for REALS?" Lucy wants to know. I nod. "For REALS?" she squeals again. "Yeah!"

3541. As the movie wraps up, Jane adds matter-of-fact, "They must not believe in God 'cause they're not saying anything about him," as if God's design were obvious.

3542. After an enthusiastic conclusion to plum picking, Craig makes a discovery, "We have established that I should not have salad and plums for a meal."

3543. Craig takes Jane on a date during naps. Jack nuzzles up to my elbow. "We could play a game if you want," he says. And then offers, "Want me to make you a palm tree?"

3545. Craig brings home heavy whipping cream for ice cream. "I like that kind of milk," Lucy says.

3546. "Me and Thad and Jack like boogers," she confesses when I scold Myra for eating them.

3547. I unwrap and put away a whole set of glass serving dishes with snap on lids. They clank into perfect stacks and leave the cupboard as quickly as they are put away.

3548. I replay the spun out frustrations of the week for my mom to listen, and she tells me true: persevere, keep on, do not give up, press ahead. So I do.

3549. Tales of the Kingdom.

3550. A whole Sunday evening to linger with my dear, dear cousin encircling each other in prayer and love and dinner and a stroll in the garden. Perfection.

3551. That bedrock peace that strings one day to the next.