A Gift for the Season

Sometimes gifts are boxes all wrapped up in shiny paper and bejeweled with ribbon.  

But sometimes gifts look different.  Very different.  Sometimes they look like an unidentifiable black spot that grows on your skin.  The finishing touch isn't a pretty ribbon but a concerned mother. 

Right, Brother of Mine? 

The "thing" was noticed a while ago.  But what mother is going to take one look at a tiny but unusual black spot on her strapping six-foot-three son who is swamped in work and convince him in a minute to get it checked out by a doctor?  Not our mama. At least not when we're working with this Brother of Mine.  

So it was forgotten.  At least until Mom saw it a month later.  "This thing is growing, Son.   You really should get it checked out."

"I can't right now." His words were decisive.  He wasn't buying into her concern.  "We are in our busiest season at work and there is no way I'm taking off for this.  You worry too much."

But isn't concern for her child part of a mother's job description?  Especially this mother.  She buried a sister, a best friend, and a father-in-law all to cancer and she wasn't going to let a suspicious looking spot on her son slide by unchecked.

So when it was seen again this past week, she gasped.  It was an audible gasp, but an involuntary one. Catching her breath she said, "Okay! This thing has grown substantially.  Now you have no choice.  You will be going in to the doctor.  I'll even pay for the appointment if that is what it takes, but you need to get this checked out."

No amount of protesting or pinning valid excuses to the moment were going to buy him an escape route this time.  Eventually his moaning and groaning gave way to a reluctant, "Okay, then.  Friday is the only possible day it will work for me this week."

The doctor was no fool.  He had met tall young men before sent to him by a concerned mother and he read the undertones of this visit.  

"Actually, young man," the doctor said, "your mother is right.  This needs to be removed.  However, the spot you came in for doesn't look as dangerous as this one."

His finger traced a neighboring spot.  "This one I'm very concerned about and it needs to come off today."

Mothers are too kind to say "I told you so" but ours would have had full rights.  Yet in the following days, her concern swallowed those rightfully spoken words and exchanged them for prayers.  Family and friends joined in.  

Then came the dreaded phone call.  "The spot removed was cancer and we need to see you in our office tomorrow morning." 

Cancer?  Life and death flashed through his mind.  Her mind.  Surely this wasn't happening.

The appointment turned out to be encouraging.  "It is melanoma in situ, which means it is contained."  The doctor looked at my brother.  "In a year, you would have been in serious trouble."  

But which spot was the cancerous one?  No, it wasn't the black unidentifiable one that Mom had gasped over.  That one was just a decoy God used to get a young man to a doctor.   The cancerous spot was the one the doctor noticed.  

Gifts come in all shapes and sizes.  This time the gift was The Spot that God Grew.  It was all wrapped up in a mother's concern and tied in love's golden thread. 

Merry Christmas, Brother of Mine.  How about a miracle for a present?

My heart is full.

I blame it on the time of year.

I celebrate a birthday, Thanksgiving, a wedding anniversary, and Christmas 

all within two months time.  It is just too much.  

Too much happiness.  

     Too much love.  

                                         Too much of everything good.

So because we're still in that season, 

my heart is full.

I suppose as I age I'll be in great danger of my heart exploding

 into a zillion happy pieces during this time of year.  

As it is I think it comes pretty close.

I was given piles of birthday presents.

Ten, I think.

I didn't even know there were ten people

who would not only remember my birthday, 

but who would want to give me a present.

But there were.

And then there was Thanksgiving with its

turkey, dressing, and all the traditional aromas that go along with it:

Sage. Pumpkin. Spice.

Thanks.  Family time.

Sitting at a little table for two of a charming coffee shop,

sipping seasonal lattes,

talking and laughing,

dreaming...

"Happy Anniversary," he told me, grinning.  

We toasted with our cardboard and paper cups full of Chai.

"Here's to many more wonderful years."

We chose the Loft at the cabin where we were gifted two nights.

It was my zany idea to skip the luxurious Master Bedroom with its perks 

and to opt for the Loft with the Skylight,

but he seconded the suggestion immediately.

Stars would have twinkled through the Skylight

had they not been hidden somewhere behind the clouds.

Instead, rain danced on the skylight, our little Window to Heaven.

It played there for most of our two days and two nights

but we thought that it only

added to the charm of the dream-like Loft.

Rain also danced on the cabana roof 

where steam most likely was boiling out of the slat at the top.  

We reveled in the Hot Tub Room with all that 

curling steam and deliciously hot water.

Hours to soak up the luxury.

The children loved it.

Yes, the children.

I know.  I said I have some zany ideas.

But the children sleep so much and so well.

We could divide our days into fourteen hours of anniversary dating

and ten hours of family vacation.

The cabin was huge.  

The children slept on a different floor than we did.

We wouldn't even know they were there

unless they were hungry.

Which they were at seven every morning.

And at two in the afternoon when we thought they'd be napping.

Okay, so our days weren't the 14:10 ratio we expected.

But family vacation is worth something, too.

Our days were too soon gone

and too full of love.

So my heart hurts today.

It aches because John had to go back to work
and I to normal life

and the children needed a mother

not a starry-eyed dreamer

who is living off of coffee and sweet memories.

But Christmas is coming and I can't see my heart getting better anytime soon.

Because it melts into a puddle over seasonal sweet things

like volunteers who ring bells in the frigid cold

all to give gifts to the poor

and the college that forfeited its rightful income earned by parking violations

and had the violators pay in canned goods instead

so they could give to the poor.

Christmas. 
A time of giving and cheer,
Celebration and joy
and gratitude and loving
and peace and happiness.
All because of Christ.

As I said, my heart is full.

Maybe it is the season.
And I love it.

The Annual Family Photo Session? Check.

It isn't even December, folks, and I have two neat piles on my desk, one of family pictures, and one of envelopes.  I think this means I won't need to have my annual minor panic attack when I realize that the Christmas countdown is on and we haven't a single family picture to send out to all our friends and family. 

Last year (like most years before it) I wasn't so fortunate.  "It is cold now," I lamented to John in mid-December. "We missed our golden opportunity again."

We were down to three familiar Family Photo Options with which we are faced annually:
1) Take pictures outside in the cold with our noses glowing red as though we were distant relatives of Rudolph the Reindeer. (Been there done that --and ended up with black and white photos to try to mask our red noses.  I need to ask my mom how many generations back Rudolph is in our genealogy.)
2) Take an indoor picture.  Unfortunately, been there, done that, too, in spite of my love for outdoor pics.
or, 3 and my personal favorite) Go on Pinterest. Find a lovely and creative family photo with children about our children's ages and send that picture out with a note saying, "No, this isn't us. But this is a much better photo than we could come up with on our own..."

Well, this year we were fast heading towards the Pinterest Family Photo Option had not my photographer sister saved the day by saying:  "Hey, I saw a lovely place in Denver for family pictures.  And I saw a neat pose that would be adorable with your family.  I'll take your pictures for you..."

Perfect.  

So we watched the weather until it changed from cold and colder to a mini heat wave when the thermometer actually pushed the fifties on a Sunday afternoon.  We grabbed the moment (thanks, Dawn) and got the pictures taken.  Fortunately, our actual photography sessions go pretty well (provided we aren't freezing into position when we do it) and are little stress when they actually take place. 

This means we have our pictures printed and waiting on the family update to be completed.  That is a sequence I'm entirely unfamiliar with and hardly know how to handle. 

Applause, please.
 

Hey, I caught you doing good!

He might only be four, but he's learning it can be fun to do something nice for other people.  Recently he's gotten into "doing a blessing" for me.  At least once a day I'll hear, "Look, Mom! I'm doing a blessing for you. Am I your blessing boy?"

And he'll be wiping up some water he spilled or he'll sneak quietly up beside me and toss a pair of socks in my lap after noticing I have "no socks and cold feet".  A blessing boy indeed.  

I'm glad, then, that I was reminded recently about The Blessing Book idea.  "Catch your children doing something good and record it in your family's Blessing Book," Paul Lloyd said during our Saturday morning parenting classes. "Pull out the book on birthdays and read to the birthday child all the ways they were a blessing that year."  

I absolutely love the idea.  Hopefully I can remember to keep this up for the next twenty years until my children are grown and recording blessings of their own offspring.  What a neat collection and what a great way to fill a child with positive feedback and praise!

Some of my favorite kiddie quotes:

1. "Mom, can I break out our windows?  I'm a fireman."  My sister looked down at her son to see him standing there with a hatchet.  Hey, at least he asked first!

2. And speaking of axes:  "Mom, why do doctors use axes to check reflexes?"  We got him a doctor's kit, taught him the basic uses of the instruments, but apparently need to work on terminology next.

3. It was a mini astronomy lesson, thanks to a child's encyclopedia and a page full of planets.
"This is Earth," I told him. "This is where we live."
"Oh." He eyeballed the remainder of the prettily colored planets.
"Which planet does Grandpa Hoover live on?"

I love little people's speech.  Their description for life's issues are priceless:

4.  "My nose is all tangled up."  Yeah, mine gets that way too during a really bad head cold like he had.

5.  And ever feel just really miserable?  Like, inside and out?  My son has and summed it up by saying, "I'm hot, cold, and tired."

Communicating with a child

My son was listening to music the other day and asked, "Why are they singing about one box of kitty fur?"  They weren't.  While I realize that songs can be easy to misunderstand, "one box of kitty fur" wasn't particularly close to the original ("I've never seen the many thrills and sights unfurled.") 

With that in mind, it is no wonder I need to repeat myself sometimes.  Twice.  It usually works best to simplify things with one or two basic commands to make things unmistakably clear. Sound familiar?

Very. 

Because I'm a child myself and that is how my Father deals with me.  Only He never grows weary of repeating things when I'm not getting it.  Life's complexities can be too hard to wrap my mind around, so He simplifies things.  Like this week when He gave me two basic things to focus on: Pray in every situation, and Jesus is the answer to everything.

Pray, because He's Jesus

When the children are into each other and I don't know how to handle it He says, 

"Pray, I am Wisdom."

When my heart is restless or I'm uptight about something He says, 

"Pray.  I am Peace."

When I am tempted to be discouraged, He says, 

"Pray.  I am both Hope and Joy."

In the middle of a temptation to sin He says, 

"Pray. I am Power to overcome."

And if I fail to pray and fall into wrong attitudes and sin, He says, 

"Pray.  I am Forgiveness."

"Pray.  Because I'm Jesus."

I need a Parent Who can clearly communicate with me. He knows how to eliminate conversations like we had at the table a few weeks ago:

"Do you think the noise I made sounds like a bear?"

"I don't know.  I didn't hear you."

"Oh.  I said, 'Do you think the noise I made sounds like a bear?"

"And I said I didn't hear you."

"Oh.  DO YOU THINK THE NOISE I MADE SOUNDS LIKE A BEAR??!!"

The parents are laughing.  "I meant that I didn't hear the bear noise."

"Oh."

Communication.  I'll get it right someday because I can pray.  He is both the perfect Communicator and Teacher. 

God knew how much I love a child's imagination.

Even before I was a mom, I'd laugh until I ached over other people's children and their incurable imaginations.

God knew that and providentially gave me a child with an imagination as big as the sky.
And I absolutely love it.

I knew my son had a world-class imagination

when he was still an only child and brought an airplane to me with a scowl on his face.  In his limited speech he told me, 

"Tyler grab! Tyler grab a airplane.  I say NO!"

Oh boy.

So we had sibling rivalry with an only child and his imaginary friend.

It happened three times in a row. 

The airplane got put on the counter "until you boys can play sweetly with each other."

It got better and better from there.  

Storybook pages come to life in  my living room.

Yesterday it was a yardstick with a shirt on it slung over his shoulder.

The shirt was hay, the yardstick his pitchfork, and he was Old John Skipton going to feed Bonny, the horse, with James Herriot.

My shopping cart has been a trash truck or a cable car for years.

So has our bed.

But there's more.  More so precious it hurts. 

So imaginative I hug myself and write cute things he's doing on my ever growing list of things that bring me joy. I kiss his cheeks -crumpets, his dad calls them- and tell him how special he is to me.

And I take pictures, trying to impress these golden days in my memory forever.

Lots of pictures.  He loves looking at them, too.

One day when he's grown past the stage of falling out of a wash basket boat with diving gear on, we'll look at the pictures together and laugh until our sides ache. 

My Son's Imagination...

One day he's a diver, complete with an oxygen mask and tank on his back, goggles, and an underwater camera (yes, he thrashes his way across the floor, photographing sharks and whales and things).

Diving is more fun with a friend.  

(By the way, he wanted to take his frog and get-up out into the grass. I nixed the idea because it was wet outside and I didn't want to have a wet, muddy frog in my house afterwards.  In retrospect, I probably saved our house when I told him no as I can imagine our very proper landlord coming over with an eviction notice had he seen this apparatus thrashing its way across the front lawn.) 

They stayed inside and went boating instead.

He makes a great astronaut standing on the moon with his space helmet and oxygen tanks.  "I'm climbing into my honeymoon," he said, "and am going to the planet."

His original spacesuit. This one was limiting in that he couldn't see where he was going and had to walk really slow. 

One day he got to use a real hose to help his dad wash off a real "firetruck".  A real hose that sprays real water sure beat my vacuum attachment which generally is pressed into service as a fire hose!   And, no, I still don't know how he manages to keep his oxygen mask sucked on so well.

A pilot like Daddy.  Only Daddy's briefcase is black and this little guy's is blue.  

Logic will take you from A to B. Imagination will take you everywhere. -Albert Einstein