Invitations

I've been working hard lately on developing my spiritual ears. It's a work in progress, of course, but I had two small experiences happen this weekend that indicate I might be getting better :)

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Experience #1
The kids and I were playing in the backyard this afternoon and our new neighbor was outside with her dog. We don't know this neighbor very well, but we're friends with her yippy, high-energy pup, Henry. We like Henry. I suddenly had the idea to invite this neighbor and Henry to come play with us in our backyard. And I actually said it out loud before stopping myself :) We had a genuinely good visit. Henry may be yappy, but he's not jumpy or nippy. He likes to chase anything that runs, and the kids love to run. Anyway, to most other people, this would not seem like a spiritual experience. But for me (the person who fears spontaneity, and new people, and dogs) it took a spiritual prompting and an immediate action on my part to make this happen.

Experience #2
In our church, women are prayerfully assigned a partner to go visit a few other prayerfully selected women in the congregation. It's a kind of ministry and watch care called "visiting teaching." For introverts like me, it's pretty much the opposite of a "natural and comfortable" interaction, but I try to see this as following Christ's example of ministry, and that gives me courage. Anyway, there is one woman I have been asked to watch over who hasn't come to church in years. She struggles with severe depression and anxiety and a host of other chronic health problems, but she loves God and genuinely wants to get involved again. I usually touch base with her every month and offer rides to church and various activities that she rarely attends.

April was a really crazy month for me and I realized on May 5th that I had completely forgotten about this woman all month. As I thought about calling her, the distinct impression came to mind that I should invite her to a special church meeting the next night. She hasn't been to church regularly in years. Why would she go to an EXTRA meeting on a Saturday night? I decided, though, that this was a spiritual matter and I should listen up. I called her and invited her to the meeting. She said the missionaries had invited her to the meeting earlier that week and she had wanted to go, but forgot about it. She was especially depressed that day, barely able to get her shoes on and leave the apartment, but decided that she needed to go to this meeting tonight. She accepted the invitation! We attended the meeting together and she told me at the end that she felt so much better for having gone.

Stories like this one get told in church meetings all the time. I never thought it would happen to me, though, because I never thought I would genuinely love someone who wasn't already a close friend or family member.

That is the miracle here. I thought I would have to be a different/fake person to reach out to people in this way. It's seemed so unlike me. I've actually tried making invitations like these in the different/fake Susan way. Not good. It turns out in this case that I still got to be me. 100% me. I was just a "me" that loved this person now. My actual heart has changed towards this woman. The invitation wasn't fake or forced or extended out of a sense of duty. I have very little in common with this person. We wouldn't be friends under most circumstances. And yet...something has changed in my heart so that now I can follow a spiritual whisper like that one in a normal and natural way.

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Neither of these experiences were things I would have done on my own. That's why I'm recording them here as moments when I have used my "spiritual ears" to obey a spiritual prompting to act.

Potty Training

I kinda started potty training Matthew today. He's totally and completely ready for this step, but I'm dragging my feet for several dumb reasons. Anyway, it's going really, really well for the first day. Except one thing. None of his siblings ever flush the toilet. So, we're always having to flush the toilet before he uses it and after he uses it. He loves it. And he thinks it's the potty protocol wherever we go. Ugh.

First Harvest!

According to my 2017 Garden Super Plan, the radishes should be ready to harvest today. I popped out there tonight and pulled two of those little pretties out of the ground. They were about the size of green peas. Made me laugh. I took them in to the kids, even though it was past bedtime, and Alice put one right up to her nose and inhaled deeply, "Ooo. That smells good," she said. They begged to eat them.

I never say no when my kids ask for vegetables. Even if they've already brushed their teeth :)

So, I gave those bitty radishes a little rinse and the kids ate everything. Leaves and all. Robert ate one entirely by himself. Robert! The same guy who doesn't like to try anything new or mixed or flavorful or chunky or stringy or spicy or...you get the idea. He ate it all and liked it! This, ladies and gentleman, is pure garden magic. Sometimes garden food can bypass Robert's dinner plate issues. And since the radish sprouts were obviously young, they were still tender and sweet, and only the tiniest bit spicy. They did smell delicious. It's crazy. Not all produce is tastier from the garden, but these radishes tonight certainly were.

The radishes are the first official fruits of my own garden planting this year, but the first delicious item of the season grown on our property was definitely the honeysuckle. Earlier this week, James was dinking around in the backyard and noticed the honeysuckle had begun to bloom. His face lit up and he screamed, "Honeysuckle!" Matthew, of course, did the same thing, having NO IDEA what James was excited about, and followed him as fast as his little legs could carry him to the honeysuckle bush. James is finally old/experienced enough to know how to pick a good honeysuckle flower. He can even snip the end off just so and squeeze the nectar right onto his tongue. The best part, though, was watching Matthew stand perfectly still with his head cocked up and his eyes squinched shut and his tongue sticking waaaaaaaaaaaay out while James carefully squeezed one of those precious drops onto his tongue for him. See? James does have a thoughtful, caring, empathetic, generous streak to him. Wish I could whip my phone out faster to take a picture. Sheesh.

Those moments are fleeting, however. Only hours later, he and Matthew gleefully stomped down every single one of my hosta bushes in the backyard, shredding leaves and scattering them merrily as they went. It was terrific fun! And the consequences were just as immediate and severe. I still can't think about it without seeing red. I believe the hostas will survive, but they will be in rough shape the rest of the season. Grrrrrrrr.

Blah

Feeling totally uninspired, unmotivated, and blah today. The last week, really. I have a PILE of projects and chores to do, but I don't really feel like doing any of them. I keep starting new ones, too, thinking this blah comes from boredom with the same old routine *sigh*

All to no avail. It's official: I'm in a funk.

I tried chocolating myself out of it.

I tried exercising myself out of it.

I tried sleeping myself out of it.

I tried "staying up late"-ing myself out of it.

I tried cleaning/organizing myself out of it.

I tried "finish projects"-ing myself out of it

I tried "being outside"-ing myself out of it.

I tried "connecting with friends"-ing myself out of it.

And now I'm trying to blog myself out of it.

It's kinda cool to see I have so many activities that help me feel better. It's kinda disconcerting that none of them seem to be helping this time around :(

What is this funk all about?!

I think it's the farm. I'm a little frustrated that I can't get out and work on the garden when it's convenient for me. I'm dependent on good weather, dryish soil, and a cooperative posse of kids excited to come with me and help (or entertain themselves). Which, come to think of it, will never happen all at once, and will never be convenient for me.

So, maybe I should accept the reality that gardening this year will never be convenient for me.

That does make me feel a little better.

I see the lists of non-gardening things I could/should be doing and think, "I don't want to do that. Or that. Especially not that. What I want to do is the one thing that can't be done right now because of weather or darkness or preschool pickup," so I just wait around for the perfect moment to get out and farm again. I'm getting other stuff done, but it's not making me happy. It's not the satisfaction I crave.

Maybe I should also try to remember what's satisfying about my non-gardening activities. Or at least trick myself into forgetting how much satisfaction this gardening stuff brings ;) I am hopelessly addicted.

What do you know? I'm starting to feel a little less funky. I still don't want to finish the laundry, but here I go. Won't it be satisfying when it's all folded and put away for another week? Yes, yes, very satisfying (*sigh* don't think about the giant sunflowers I want to plant, or the green beans, or those beautiful little artisan tomatoes with the pale stripes that make my heart skip a beat *nnnnnnngh* *straining a smile* laundry...can...be...beautiful...too)

Just look at all that clean laundry!

Robert's Magic Birthday

Robert turned 7 on the 7th, which constitutes a "magic" birthday in our household. That means he got three wishes in addition to all the other birthday perks and privileges. Robert's three wishes were:

1. A big Nerf dart gun
2. $11.00
3. A friend party

Pretty reasonable, I think. He may regret these choices later on ;)

The gun was easy. I let him pick it out.

The $11.00 was even easier, especially since he put all of it towards something else he was saving for.

The friend party? Well, that was the tough bit. Robert named four friends that he wanted to invite, two of them from school. I had to send a note to his teacher to pass on to his friends' homework folders to ask the friends' parents for their contact information. A little awkward, and time consuming, but one parent got back to me :) If Robert had taken the party invitations to school, he would have had to invite the whole class. That's the school rule.

Hosting parties makes me nervous. Hosting kid parties makes me sweat. Hosting a kid party for five 7-year-old boys makes me want to run and hide. Literally. And I did. Bobby was the adult on-hand at the party. I was out and about running errands for most of it. I feel kinda bad about that, but I don't think Robert cared. He and I worked together beforehand on all the preparations: planning activities, gathering prizes/treats, prepping and sending invitations. And here's kinda how it went:

2:00 Party scheduled to start, free play in front room
2:30 All guests have arrived and they play Pin the Brain on the Zombie
2:35 Play "Shoot the birthday hat off the end of the table"
2:43 Go on a clue-driven treasure hunt, find snack/prize
2:55 Enjoy snack/prize
3:00 Play BINGO with prizes
3:15 Open birthday gifts and BINGO prizes
3:22 Popsicles outside
3:25 Free play until picked up (mostly basketball and Simon Says)

Robert was a loud, fun, crazy kind of kid with his friends around. He was still Robert, but a different one somehow from what I imagined he would be like with his friends. I only see him play with his siblings (mostly Alice). This, however, was a totally new experience for me. His friends are nothing like Alice :) I liked seeing that side of him.

Robert is growing up quietly and solidly, like a hardwood tree. The solid part intrigues me. He's not very whimsical or flighty or spontaneous. He's fun and creative and solid...thinks things through a little. Looks for patterns. And will talk to me all day about those things. He'll also stop talking when he's done explaining something, which I appreciate. He doesn't feel the need to fill the silence.

Robert made a sign for all the marathon runners going by our house this year :)

He's in no rush to grow up.

The other day, Robert was wrestling with Matthew. Wrestling with Matthew is pretty much sitting still or lying down while he crawls all over you with "hiya!" and "grrr!" and "nnnngh!" sounds. It's more fun if you wrestle back, but Matthew doesn't like to get out of control. Robert thought it was SO funny (and fun?) to play this way. He laughed and laughed. He was so skillful with Matthew that Matthew felt he was actually winning! At one point, Matthew had thrown a pillow on Robert's head and sat on it.

Robert is gentle with Matthew in ways he has never been with James. He and James don't always get along, mostly because they assume the other person is out to get them...which (ahem) is often true...but they do have one game they play together and seem to genuinely enjoy: chase and wrestle. How simple is that? When Robert is mad at James, he'll hit him. But when they're playing this specific chase and wrestle game, no one gets hurt. It's physical and loud and rough and all over the house, but no punches. James has started to play it with Matthew with mixed results...more positive than negative, I think. They both have fun with it. James and Matthew's relationship is a subject for another day, though. I love watching them grow together.

Here's a video of Robert and James in a more cooperative moment. They get it going about 20 seconds in (I wish I knew how to edit these videos better):

 

In the gardens by the Japan House during cherry blossom time.

Robert and Alice's relationship has grown, too. They often cooperate and compromise. Sometimes Robert gives up to Alice's wishes because he doesn't want her to throw a fit. Sometimes he gives her control because he loves her and wants her to be happy. Sometimes he'll stand his ground and let her storm off. He will almost always save a special privilege or treat to share with her. He pesters her, they share inside jokes, they respect each other's privacy and personal space. They make really, really good roommates, actually.

Robert's class made ice skaters as part of the Boneyard Arts Festival. Here they are on display at the library. Robert's skater is middle-ish, large, with a red shirt and blue pants and a little triangle hat.