(And All My) Work Be Praise

My friend Mark ( http://daddyballerina.blogspot.com/ ) has been blogging recently about discovering who his 4-year-old daughter is and is becoming.  It has me thinking a lot (with a fair bit of excitement, I might add) about who and what my sons will be in the near and far future.  At 19 months and 3 1/2 months, they're already so different: Owen insisted on having a light on at night from birth, while Levi has always been satisfied with his little night light. Levi ignored the dangling elephants above his pack-n-play, where Owen studies them, talks to them, kicks vigorously to make them swing. Owen is already a confirmed thumb-sucker.  Levi never found his thumb or even took a pacifier. Levi was bigger at birth, but has grown slowly since.  Owen doubled in size within two months.  At this point, Levi is less than 10 pounds heavier than his "little" brother, and I fully expect them to be the same size before too long. Levi at 4 months Owen, same play ...

My washer and dryer are in the basement.  I like it this way; since I never get around to exercising, I value multiple trips up and down the stairs for the calorie-burning they provide.  The garage is connected to the basement, and when you go up the stairs from the basement, you end up in the kitchen.  The doorknob in the kitchen/basement steps door is quite finicky. (This is all pertinent information for the story, I promise.) Monday afternoon, when it was pouring rain all day and I spent the day in my favorite bright red sweats, I did several loads of laundry.  Typically, Levi either follows me downstairs (he's quite good at stairs), or continues to play at his little table in the kitchen.  This is his table, purchased at a garage sale and then painted by my dad: (It looks blue here, but it's actually purple.  That's not pertinent to the story, but it seemed like a good opportunity to show off the table.  Thanks, Dad!) Lately, however, Levi h...

I  have to confess that I grow weary of pretending like I don't care that Levi's not talking yet.  "15 words by 18 months," the books and magazines tell me (not that I look on purpose), and I vacillate between truly not being concerned, feeling indignant that such expectations even exist, and wanting to cry "because he's behind."   Our pediatrician says he isn't concerned "yet."  He also blames baby sign language for Levi's verbal delays, suggesting that teaching signs forces a toddler to learn two languages at once.  And yet baby signs are touted so highly in so many places!  Who am I to believe?  As every good mother does, of course, I sometimes blame myself: if I had talked to him more in infancy, surely he would be talking himself.  Right? Some sources claim that animal sounds count.  Levi does an elephant and a monkey, neither of which offers any building blocks to actual words.  [I was both tickled and terrified yesterday, w...

In keeping with my "doing what I can with what I have" theme, here are some activities my toddler and I have been doing with random household goods: Navy beans.  Levi moves them from bowl to bowl, scoops them up with measuring cups, hides small objects (like "B" for "beans") in them, runs them through his fingers.  An egg carton, painted with watercolors to distinguish colors, plus some fuzzy pompoms from Michael's.  I didn't get any pictures of him actually playing with this, but he does like to dump them out and then sort by color.  Daddy's shoes.  (Lately, when I say "Daddy's home!" in the afternoons, he goes to get Daddy's slippers out!) Another big hit (of which I have no pictures) was an empty apple juice jug.  We dropped clothespins in and shook them around.  Even after I rescued my clothespins, he carried the empty jug around quite happily. A few weeks ago, when it was too cold to go outside, I spread towel...

I'm told that people will like my blog better if I include lots of pictures of my adorable sons. Back story: two weeks ago I wiped down my kitchen cabinets (yeah, for real, it was on my January to-do list). Last Sunday, I stayed home from church with my sick boys.  Levi found his hat and begged me to put it on (as much as child who doesn't talk can "beg").  Ten minutes later, this is what I found:

And so I've done it: I've created a blog. "She did what she could."  That's Mark 14:8, NIV, about the woman who pours perfume over Jesus' feet.  In searching for a name for this (possibly ill-conceived) blog, I opened up an old diary filled with quotes I collected over the span of a few years, maybe a decade ago, and found the verse scribbled among lines taken from Madeleine L'Engle non-fiction.  I can't imagine what significance it would have had to me, then, probably in college, maintaining my status-quo faith while still enjoying "college life," however tamed-down my version was. I know it what it means now, though, "doing what I can."  It means setting aside my perfectionist tendencies to allow for crumbs under the high chair, too-short pants on my skinny toddler, that mascara smudge under my left eye.  It means grace (given by self, for self) for months-late thank-you cards, hiding the board book I can't stand to read a...