Let Us Not Keep Silent

I have so much that I could say about watching others suffer and trying our best to share in their sufferings. How I know the Lord more nearly, how I trust him more dearly, how I love others better because they have opened their hearts to help me see him in the midst of their pain. I've been thinking about it anew as a beloved family in our church begins a path filled with the unknown but that has already been marked with suffering. And I've been thinking about it as I read this blog, written by a friend of a friend, the mom of a precious three-year-old girl whose body is wracked by cancer. From the first time I read her blog, I have been a faithful reader and pray-er; try to read for yourself and not marvel at God's grace in this mom's heart and the beautiful way that she expresses herself in words.

Today, I read this, and I think it is a good word that needs to be read much more widely than her blog:

Many of you have expressed concern that you do not know what to say or fear that you may or have said something wrong.  Here’s the deal – this is a time of wrestling – for all of us – there is no neatly packaged set of words that can change this reality or take away the pain of it.  I am not expecting such from you and you should not expect that from yourself.  The point of words are two-fold:  to be an expression of love and care, and to sort through what all of this means and is.  Wrestle with your words.  Do not give up because it is hard or because they seem insufficient.  They are, on one hand, utterly insufficient!  Again, words will not take away this reality or the pain of it.  Yet words have power!  Words make something more real!  Remember Christ is called The Word!  God is clearly all about words.  And while the book of James makes it clear, we can bring about great harm with our words, please do not keep silent for fear of your words being imperfect.  This reality with Allistaire is forcing us all to pull out all the big questions of life – they are out in the open for us to examine, to attempt to name and describe and understand.  Let us not fear our insufficiencies so much that we remain quiet and shove the questions back into the recesses.  I speak and I write because I want to explore this land of reality I am in.  I head this direction and then see no, it is not quite right or it is lacking in some way or overemphasizes or underemphasizes something of import.  But I must strike out if I am going to have a shot at learning this place in which I dwell.  Do not fear being trite when conveying God’s word to me – God’s word is mystery and wonder and gigantic truth, too big for any of us to scale, but say it, name it, declare it and know that we both see that we are touching mystery.  Ann Voskamp talks in her book, “1,000 Gifts,” about how when God had Adam name the animals, there was a way in which the naming was about taking possession, about taking hold.  We use words to hook into realities that we might better take them into ourselves and consider their many facets, dimension upon dimension.  Our words can never be enough to conquer and dominate these enormous realities, and yet, why deprive ourselves?  Let us begin, as we grapple, to more and more take hold of that which God has given us and convey love to one another at the same time!

 Read her blog and pray for this beautiful family. And do you know someone else who is suffering? (If you do not, consider opening your heart to love more people, because this earthly path is characterized by such.) Let us not keep silent. If you do not know what to say, express your love and desire to pray; and then DO pray, and as you pray, grapple with how the already-not yet of a triumphant Savior and a bondage-to-decay world. She says it better than I can, so I will not attempt to improve upon what has already been said ... just, let us not keep silent.

Rock Me, Momma

When you become a parent, all bets are off as to what kind of person you will become. If you were cool before, will you remain cool or will you let go and be a total nutcase for the sake of your kids?

I was not cool before, so I had no such pretense to shed in the "after."

And yet, I still surprise myself.

To wit, I was not a "1:00 in the afternoon dance party in the living room" type of girl. In fact, I was not a "dance party" type of girl at any time of day or in any place. HH (he says he prefers to be called this online; as a reminder, it means "Handsome Husband," and we can all be reminded of this fact now that he has shed his barbaric winter facial parka, but I digress...) and I barely danced at our own wedding. And yet, I find myself dancing like a lunatic at one in the afternoon with a chicken-dancing, harmonica-playing little boy and a giggling little girl.

In losing myself, I find even more of me.

And, as is my wont, I began to reflect on how this aspect of my experience as a parent has been shaped by the One who designed parenthood. Joy and delight in our beloved little ones, to be sure. But is there a divine equivalent to dancing in your living room? (A ridiculous dance, I must reiterate.) The elephant's trunk springs to mind. Why else, other than just silly fun, do we have puffer fish and the blue-footed booby mating dance and monkeys and hummingbirds and butterflies and even little boys who hear a great song and spontaneously start dancing?

I want to be this type of parent. When you think of God in this way, don't you want more of him, too?

This, by the way, is the song to which we were rockin' out ("rock-n-ROLL" says T). HH and a group performed this at a church talent show two years ago, but it's shown up in my FB feed several times in the last few days. A warning to all instrument-playing cabin-goers this summer: this song will be a frequent request. Practice up.


(This is HH & co's version of the song; the song starts at 1:30)

My Brother's Keeper

Sometimes, I think it's helpful to see myself as my brother's keeper when out and about in the world at large.

Like the other day at Costco.

I was cruising through the store, kid-free, knowing exactly what I needed and exactly where it was. As I powered up the bread aisle, I overheard a pleasant-looking 70-something gentleman asking another shopper."...gluten free bread? I've been up and down this aisle for 30 minutes now, but she told me I wasn't allowed to come home without it." Though he was smiling, there was a slightly-panicky note in his voice, like, "I don't really like shopping at Costco on a Friday morning with half the state of Wyoming, but I might never get out of here!"

Since gf bread was on my list, I leaned over to interject myself into the conversation of which I was not an invited member (this is where my "brother's keeper" mentality overrides my "mind your own business" mode). "It's on the end cap, up there on the left."

This man, if you could have seen the look on his face, you'd still be giggling, too. It was like he'd been given a real-life "get out of jail free" card. Sometimes people don't like it much when we inject ourselves into their lives. But, sometimes, I get to be a "brother's keeper" and it makes both of our days.

Happy Hour

It is Saturday morning and I am sitting in a clean kitchen, which is remarkable on any day but especially today considering the fact that at 6:30 last night, almost every surface of the kitchen and dining room was covered with dirty dishes. I didn't count, but I think we fed around 20 people dinner and drinks last night (Titus told me that there were six kids, and if you don't count three babies, I think he was right). The mess is part of our weekly rhythm, it's our Friday evening Happy Hour.

It started on a bit of a whim; I think I mentioned something like it to JR and before I knew it, he had issued an invitation on Facebook. A few people showed up for fresh chips, homemade salsa and margaritas. I had a pot of soup on the stove for us and one other family, and we fed it to all the stragglers. We did it again the next week, only I planned on soup for everybody. We have been doing it for several months now, with no plans to stop.

I really can't tell you how much I like that this has become a part of our lives. But I'm going to try, or at least tell you why.

First, I like that it plays perfectly to part of our vision for our family to be hospitable and to share from the abundance of what God has given us. I may not work outside the home, but I can consider it part of my job to buy chip and margarita supplies every week, to tidy up the house and make a pot of soup on Fridays. I love that it plays perfectly, too, into the complementarity that JR and I have in our marriage. He told somebody recently that Happy Hour wouldn't happen without him because he does most of the work, and he expected some backlash from me, but it's absolutely true. He is on his feet cooking chips, making drinks and generally hosting people sometimes for 4 or 5 hours. And when the dust settles, he is usually the one doing most of the cleanup. If it were just me, it would be a burden and it would have been a one-or-two-time event. He is gifted in this area of hosting and joyfully serving, and I love to see him shine (while pouring me a drink).

I like that Happy Hour fits well into ours and our friends' lifestyles. Once you have kids, you're not quite as free to meet friends for a drink after work; there's the issue of what to do with your kids if you're going somewhere not kid-friendly, and even if you can bring your kids, you can't really enjoy just hanging out because, um, public environments with two year olds? You're playing offense and defense; you never let your guard down; you're entertaining and doing damage control; you're training and disciplining and threatening and begging and bribing and wishing that you hadn't just spent $5 on that grilled cheese that your son said he wanted and now won't touch. At our house? Feed your kid chips for dinner and check on him every now and then to make sure he's getting along with the other kids and not totally destroying Tito's room. Period. Need a refill on that margarita? Is your husband out of town and you need a little adult interaction and a place to take a breath from the kids? Have another drink!

For our part, we talk to Tito about what a privilege it is to get to share his toys with his friends. We talk about how neat it is that he has so many friends (we're still working on the "plays well with others" bit) and that he gets to see them and have fun with them. He sees new ways to play with his toys (like shining his nightlight turtle into the toilet with all the lights turned off: yellow stars in the potty water!). He starts talking about daddy making chips and his friends coming over on Friday mornings, and yesterday he spent several hours watching for his friends out the front window.

I like that Happy Hour provides a place for people to connect, meeting new people and deepening existing relationships. There's no pressure, no agenda, no timeline. It's different every week. We keep saying that one of these weeks, nobody's going to show up, but it hasn't happened yet. Our house usually feels closer to the verge of overflowing.

I like that Happy Hour is counter-cultural in many ways. We discover this when we put out an open invitation and people still feel like they need a personal invite (we are happy to affirm the open invite to people personally). We discover this when people are uncertain about a format or agenda. We discover this when we invite people we don't know very well and they get weirded out by being invited to a relative stranger's home. We human beings have a deep, innate longing for connection and community, but we American humans have lost the art of finding community in homes that are protected by privacy fences and garage doors that close before we are even out of our cars. Hip kids are rediscovering community in bars and coffee shops, but that doesn't do much for those of us with kids (see above). Despite the strange looks, we will keep inviting people because we have neat friends and we want to share them with you.

I like that Happy Hour isn't OUR Happy Hour. It may be at our house, but it belongs to everybody who comes, who have made it part of their life's rhythm, too. To those whose kids start talking about chips and Tito's room at 10 am on Fridays. To those who stop by for one drink on their way home from work and to those who stay past my bedtime. To those who just walk in our front door and to those who help themselves to whatever they need in our house and to those who are brave enough to venture in on their own for the first time. To those who are our old friends, to those who are our new friends, to those who share our vision and to those who just want to have fun.

We put out a tip jar to help pay for the liquor, and so far, we haven't had to use our own money for the alcohol beyond the first bottle. This says that people want this to keep happening, and we are happy to oblige. It is a happy couple of hours indeed.

Homemade Salsa
(adapted from Pioneer Woman's Restaurant Style Salsa)

1 can diced tomatoes
1 can Rotel tomatoes with chiles (use "mild" for mild salsa; use "original" for medium heat and "hot" for spicy salsa)
juice of 1/2 lime (I buy limes at Costco and freeze the juice in ice cube trays; don't bother defrosting, just pop one cube into the food processor)
1/8 yellow or white onion, roughly chopped
1 clove garlic
1/8 c cilantro (can be fresh or freeze your leftover cilantro), or more to taste
pinch of sugar
pinch of cumin
pinch of salt

Blend in food processor or blender until desired consistency; I do it to be pretty smooth. Keeps in the fridge around 1 week, if you have any leftover.

JR & Molly's Margaritas

Combine in blender:
1 can frozen limeade concentrate
3/4 can (use the limeade can) tequila (more or less to taste)
1 shot triple sec

Fill blender the rest of the way with ice and blend until smooth. Makes about 6 servings.

JR's Homemade Tortilla Chips

Heat about 1 1/2 inches of oil in the bottom of a large pot (heat until a drop of water splatters, but be careful because hot oil hurts your skin and stains your clothes!).

Cut corn tortillas into wedges (8 wedges per tortilla; you can easily cut them in  3 or 4 inch stacks with a big knife). Sprinkle tortilla wedges evenly into the hot oil, in one layer. Cook until the wedges are light brown and crispy. Using large tongs, remove onto a paper-towel-lined bowl, to absorb some of the grease. Sprinkle with salt while still hot. For an eager crowd, you will need about a 6" stack of corn tortillas (and two batches of salsa); I buy the tortillas at Walmart for about $3/package.

For last night's Chipotle Chicken soup recipe, check out my soup blog.

The Eye of the Beholder

This is a post with more questions than answers. And it's long. Sorry 'bout that; if I weren't writing it, I'd probably be too lazy to read it.

I've been thinking a lot about beauty lately, prompted by the Dove Real Beauty commercial that's been going around for the last week. The commercial is brilliantly done; it's actually a really interesting study in psychology, and it certainly struck a chord with women everywhere. On the other hand, I saw this blog post making quite a push-back on the ad, mostly because the ad still reinforces the shallow emphasis on physical beauty ("Did you hear that, ladies? How beautiful you are affects everything—from your personal relationships to your career. It could not be more critical to your happiness!...you are so, so much more than beautiful").

[The other part of the post that was interesting and one that I totally missed is that it reinforced a narrow perception of beauty, "I don’t know if anyone else is picking up on this, but it kinda seems to be enforcing our very narrow cultural perception of “beauty”: young, light-skinned, thin. No real diversity celebrated in race, age, or body shape. So you’re beautiful… if you’re thin, don’t have noticeable wrinkles or scars, and have blue eyes." It's a worthwhile read if you have the time.]

Like the author of the above blog post, the commercial made me a little uncomfortable, but for a different reason. For me, I wanted to know how to address the issue of physical beauty with my little girl from a biblical perspective, rather than an ineffective "No, really, you ARE pretty; I don't care if the little girls at recess said you are ugly, I think you're pretty and that's what counts." It's something I've been thinking about for a while and haven't come to a definitive answer, probably because there isn't a definitive answer other than the typical totally-right-and-absolutely-helpful-but-hard-to-feel-satisfied-about-because-it's-all-about-living-by-faith, God-centered answer.

Now, full-disclosure: I would say that I've probably struggled with body-image and the like less than your average woman. I've always been thin without paying much attention to what I eat or how much I exercise (although an affinity for healthy cooking and a generally active lifestyle don't hurt). I've never considered myself beautiful, but apart from a too-large nose and a tremendous multiplying of chins when I grin, looking ridiculous when I laugh and rarely feeling photogenic, I wouldn't consider myself unattractive. I have gone through periods in my life when I have spent more time than other times thinking about my looks (hello, visiting New York and other places full of women who spend considerably more time and money on their clothes, hair and make-up ... oh, and hello, post-baby body), and so I can only imagine how all-consuming of a struggle this can be for women whose nature and nurture nudge them further in this direction.

All that to say, I'm not even pretending to be an expert here. Just somebody trying to think through this at a deeper level and wondering, above all, how I help my little girl to grow up being impacted as little as possible by the outer and inner voices that tell her, "You must be beautiful, and you are not."

On the other hand, I am a bit of an expert, because I have a heart that struggles with a couple of issues that I think can maybe be traced to the root of this same struggle. Bear with me while I think out loud a bit, but there are three words that I think about a lot, that are all intertwined, and that I think can help me think through the daunting challenge of raising a little girl who isn't obsessed with her looks. Those three words are pride, contentment and identity.


How does pride relate to beauty? There's the obvious bit, that we can be proud when we believe we are beautiful. (Statistics say that only 4% of women worldwide believe they are beautiful; what are those women like, I wonder?) But what about the flip side. Is it pride that makes us obsessed with beauty when we feel that we are not beautiful enough? Why is it important for us to be beautiful? How do we determine that we are beautiful? Isn't a lot of is based on our comparison to others? If I don't feel beautiful (however defined), how does that impact my interactions with others? With God? (I once heard it said that modesty is humility in dress; a good point to ponder on another occasion.)

Contentment. "I have learned to be content whatever the circumstances, whether feeling beautiful or ugly, whether measuring up to the physical standards of beauty and the women around me or not, whether well-dressed or in shoddy, out-of-fashion, or ill-fitting clothes." Contentment with our looks acknowledges the sovereign hand of our Creator in all of our circumstances, including our looks. He numbered the hairs on our head ... don't you think he designed the other aspects of how you would look as well? What would high school be like for a girl who knows she's not in the Top Ten prettiest girls in the class, but who is content with how God made her? What opportunities to love and serve others (not to mention avoiding anguish and petty jealousies). I think true contentment brings you to a place where your lack of beauty isn't just something that you're okay with; it's something that you don't really think about because your heart is so full and content.

In talking about pride and contentment, which are areas where a Christian is clearly called to obedience, I don't want to sound too harsh, because I know how painful this topic can be and is for many people. Body-image, self-perception... that's why the Dove commercial is so powerful. We all long to be beautiful and when our inner voices are telling us otherwise, we long for other voices to affirm us, to tell us, "No, you really are beautiful."

BUT, what does being told that we are beautiful do for us? I think it's something a little bit different for each person. Does beauty mean that I'm somehow better than other people? Does it increase my likelihood of being accepted into a certain group or by a spouse? Does it make me feel like I have something to contribute to the world, to my family, to my friends, to God? I don't think we can get past the self-esteem stumbling block until we examine the "why."

Because quoting 1 Peter 3:3-4 (however true) isn't going to do anything for my little girl until we answer those questions. It's kind of like throwing Romans 8:28 at someone who is suffering (again, true, but not necessarily helpful under certain circumstances).

Which leads to the final word, identity. I could go on and on here, but the gist of my thoughts can be summarized (much better than I could write them) in this most excellent of essays by Andre Seu. Key quote: "Now when your lover leaves you, and you have a strong sense of your value in Christ, it hurts a lot. When your lover leaves you and you have a shaky sense of your value in Christ, you suffer identity destruction." I think you could substitute a lot of things for "lover," like "Beauty." So that, "When you do not feel beautiful and you have a strong sense of your value in Christ, it hurts. When you do not feel beautiful and you have a shaky sense of your value in Christ, you suffer identity destruction." Go forth and ponder.

Okay, once we have deconstructed this obsession with beauty, let us reconstruct, because our God is a God of beauty, is he not? Let us acknowledge his love of creating, his love of beauty, the proclamation once he had created that it was very good. That God created sunsets and beautiful animals and colors and (yes) the beauty of women for his own joy and satisfaction. Let's celebrate beauty an expression of God's joy in his creation and of his image in us that appreciates beauty. Let's celebrate how we reflect our Creator when we ourselves make or enhance beauty, through sculpture or painting or photography or (yes) an appropriately-directed enjoyment of make-up and doing our hair and clothes. We do honor to our Creator when we rejoice in the beauty of what he has made.

Back to the Dove commercial: maybe its value is in the eye of the viewer. On the one hand, it can be an instrument of common grace, encouraging a woman to appreciate the sovereign hand of an expert Creator, who crafted her hair and eyes and nose and chin and mouth exactly like he wanted them to be; denigrate the creation and you denigrate the Creator. On the other hand, it could be an instrument of evil, reinforcing a cultural fascination with the external and a culturally-conditioned view of beauty that taps into our sinful self-centeredness, an already inward focus that is a bottomless pit of "me, me, me," and definitions of shallow beauty (however expansive) continue to draw our eyes down from the Creator and onto ourselves.

So, it's up to the viewer if the commercial helps or harms.

You know the saying that "beauty is in the eye of the beholder." Dove is telling us that we need to trust other beholders because we have a damaged perception of self. But they miss that the ultimate solution can only be in the ultimate Beholder.  Let him tell us what and how to behold, and then rest in the way that he beholds us.

PS - This needs to be a conversation, between ourselves (women to women, women and men and parents to daughters and sons), and between ourselves and God. Chime in wherever you fit!

He Predicted Food Bloggers in 1967

One of my very favorite books is Robert Farrar Capon's The Supper of the Lamb. I think I've raved about it elsewhere on this blog, so I won't belabor the point now. I pull it out every few months to reference a quote or remind myself of one of his points, and after pulling it out a few days ago, I've decided that I need to re-read the book in its entirety for the first time in a few years.

I hadn't made it past page 3 (although there are two must-read prefaces before the page-counting begins) when I found a new quotable. As an avid reader of food blogs, I couldn't help but feel like these few paragraphs perfectly capture the reason people become food bloggers and those of us who love to celebrate good food but are too lazy to take the pretty pictures (mine never make it off the camera let alone through photoshop) read them.

On discussing his qualifications for writing a book about cooking:

First, I am an amateur. If that strikes you as disappointing, consider how much in error you are, and how the error is entirely of your own devising. At its root lies an objection to cookbooks written by non-professionals (an objection, by the way, which I consider perfectly valid, and congratulate you upon). It does not, however, apply here. Amateur and nonprofessional are not synonyms. The world may or may not need another cookbook, but it needs all the lovers - amateurs - it can get. It is a gorgeous old place, full of clownish graces and beautiful drolleries, and it has enough textures, tastes and smells to keep us intrigued for more time than we have. Unfortunately, however, our response to its loveliness is not always delight: It is, far more often than it should be, boredom. And that is not only odd, it is tragic; for boredom is not neutral - it is the fertilizing principle of unloveliness.

In such a situation, the amateur - the lover, the man who thinks heedlessness is a sin and boredom a heresy - is just the man you need. More than that, whether you think you need him or not, he is a man who is bound by his love, to speak. If he loves Wisdom or the Arts, so much the better for him and for all of us. But if he loves only the way meat browns or onions peel, if he delights simply in the curds of his cheese or the color of his wine, he is, by every one of those enthusiasms, commanded to speak. A silent lover is one who doesn't know his job.

If you feel like it, read on ... but I realize that this quote is lengthy and I myself might not be prone to reading the whole thing in the electronic/blog/short-form in which it is being presented. I will bold my favorite sentences from here on...

Therefore, the man who said "beauty is in the eye of the beholder" was on the right track, even if he seemed a bit weak on the objectivity of beauty. He may well have been a solipsist who doubted the reality of everything outside himself, or one of those skeptics who thinks that no valid judgments are possible - that no knife can in reality be pronounced sharp, nor any custard done to perfection. It doesn't matter. Like Caiaphas, he spoke better than he knew. The real world which he doubts is indeed the mother of loveliness, the womb and matrix in which it is conceived and nurtured; but the loving eye which he celebrates is the father of it. The graces of the world are the looks of a woman in love; without the woman they could not be there at all; but without her lover, they would not quicken into loveliness.

There, then, is the role of the amateur: to look the world back to grace. There, too, is the necessity of his work: His tribe must be in short supply; his job has gone begging. The world looks as if it has been left in the custody of a pack of trolls. Indeed, the whole distinction between art and trash, between food and garbage, depends on the presence or absence of the loving eye. Turn a statue over to a boor, and his boredom will break it to bits - witness the ruined monuments of antiquity. On the other hand, turn a shack over to a lover; for all its poverty, its lights and shadows warm a little, and its numbed surfaces prickle with feeling.

Or, conclusively, peel an orange. Do it lovingly - in perfect quarters like little boats, or in staggered exfoliations like a flat map of the round world, or in one long spiral, as my grandfather used to do. Nothing is more likely to become garbage than orange rind; but for as long as anyone looks at it in delight, it stands a million triumphant miles from the trash heap.

That, you know, is why the world exists at all. It remains outside the cosmic garbage can of nothingness, not because it is such a solemn necessity that nobody can get rid of it, but because it is the orange peel hung on God's chandelier, the wishbone in His kitchen closet. He likes it; therefore, it stays. The whole marvelous collection of stones, skins, feathers, and string exists because at least one lover has never quite taken His eye off it, because the Dominus vivificans has his delight with the sons of men.

The Supper of the Lamb, p 3-5

You Gotta Have Faith

I had my last women's Bible Study this morning at church; the final meeting of a ten-week study in Nehemiah. I got about two-thirds of the lesson done this week; better than some weeks, not as good as other weeks, but I probably missed a few key verses at the end and I definitely missed out on the "mediate on these truths" section.

Yet I went every week, even when all the blanks remained blank, because I am trusting God that going is better than not, that I'm hearing his Word and having some of the benefits of study rubbing off on me from the other ladies at the table.

So much of this phase of life feels like walking in faith. Faith that going to church every Sunday is "worth it," even when one parent is in the foyer with a busy, too-snotty-nosed kids for the nursery, and the other is downstairs with an eating or sleeping babe.

Faith that my marriage is going to be okay despite the stresses that I feel childbearing and childrearing is having on it.

Faith that God will watch over my kids and lead them to himself.

Faith that when I lay my kids down at night, they will wake up in the morning. And faith that even if they don't, everything will be okay.

You consider these possibilities like never before when your heart is bound up in others like never before. Your body and your soul are taking a beating, and this erodes away at your faith in yourself (a good thing but unsettling nonetheless).

And so you take a second look at faith and realize that you need someone to "lead me to the rock that is higher than I." Faith leads me there, and a hand stronger than mine keeps me there. There's so much lack of visible evidence right now that my efforts are worth it, but faith is "conviction of things not seen." I know that my Redeemer lives, and "he who did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all, how will he not also with him graciously give us all things?"

Oh ye of little faith: "If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father who is in heaven give good things to those who ask him!" (Matthew 7:11)

My Pancakes

I've been making these healthy, wheat-free (could be gluten-free, but I use regular rolled oats) pancakes about once a week for the past few weeks. They're easy to throw together, affordable (as opposed to some gf pancake mixes), wholesome and filling. Titus loves any pancakes and JR keeps commenting that these are really good - crispy on the outside with a light and flavorful filling.

I've created this recipe by making a bit of a hybrid between this recipe from the Nourishing Gourmet and my basic Better Homes and Gardens cookbook pancake recipe (online here). You might experiment a bit to find what works best for you; I find that this recipe is pretty forgiving and play around quite a bit with ingredients since I'm not too concerned with consistent results.

Wheat-Free Blender Pancakes

Ingredients
1 c grains or nuts (This is where I'm talking about experimenting. I generally use at least 1/4 c rolled oats, and any combination of 1/4 c -- to make a total of 1 c -- of shredded coconut, unroasted almonds or pecans, flax seed, millet, quinoa (rinsed but uncooked). Today I did 1/4 c oats, 1/4 c ground flax seed and 1/2 c whole almonds)
1 c milk + splash of apple cider vinegar (This is to simulate buttermilk; alternatively, you could use a couple tablespoons of plain yogurt plus enough milk to make a total of one cup)
1 egg
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon baking soda
splash of vanilla (optional)
1/4 teaspoon salt
handful of spinach (optional)
approx 1 Tablespoon maple syrup (I just pour a little dollop in without measuring)

Directions:
Combine everything in blender and blend until smooth. Pour the batter into a bowl and let it rest for a few minutes (it will thicken considerably and be very hard to get out of the bottom of the blender, so this is why I pour it into a bowl). Add a little more milk if the batter seems too thick. In the meantime, heat a griddle to medium heat and grease with coconut oil. Cook your pancakes to desired consistency and serve with butter and maple syrup.

This recipe makes enough for T to eat his fill and for me and the hubs to get just enough -- we could probably eat more if it were there, but it's not, so we supplement with other food and coffee.

Lord, Give Me Joy

This just passed through my mind: "Lord, give me joy in parenting my two year old today."

The joy is there, I just have to look past myself, my tiredness, my desire for an elusive day (even an hour) off, my desire for my house to stay clean.

We spent the last 10 days housesitting, so T has missed his toys. ALL of his toys. So by 9:30 in the morning, he has already played with all of his toys, which equates to dumping them all on the living room and kitchen floor. I can't walk two feet without stepping on a toy, over a dog, or bumping into a little boy who has to show me all of the toys that he's missed, while asking me to sing "Old McDonald." While juggling a cranky, teething babe. It's just so easy to get irritated.

If I let myself go down that path, though, I'll be digging myself deeper into a pit that I'll be stuck in all day. I know this from past experience.

So, just a little verbal processing to bump me into the path of gratitude rather than ingratitude and irritability.

I can try being grateful for a delightful kid, for a healthy (minus the cold) baby, for a nice home that was clean when we got home, despite our only time at home in the last week being a house full of people eating and drinking for our Friday evening Happy Hour (thanks to a husband who cleaned everything while I was getting dressed for a wedding).

I have much for which to be grateful on this horizontal plane, but I think I need to go a little further on this day. I need soul-nourishment that comes from the outside.

When JR left for the week on Sunday afternoon, I determined that I would make life easier by making a pot of soup and eating it for the rest of the week. I threw in every veggie I could find in the house, plus a couple of protein sources, some rice and some spices and figured that it would keep me sane and healthy and satisfied, if a little bored (throw in some cheese and bread from the freezer and voila! boredom cured), for the week.

We also celebrated the Lord's Supper on Sunday morning at church. A little piece of bread and a little sip of wine and this is grace, tangible grace, to tide me over until next week, to proclaim the Lord's death until he comes again. I need to keep tasting these crumbs on my tongue this morning, to make joy start seeping out despite the clothes that my son just decided looked better strewn all over the floor than folded in a basket. (Update: and the 50+ cars that he just dumped out ... maybe this is the time to decide that he has too many cars?)

Lord, give me joy today. A pot of soup and a small piece of bread: my body and soul are well-fed this week.

Dear Lili - Half a Year and a Day

To my Sweet Lili-Pea,

Yesterday you turned six months old. I am fulfilling every cliché by asking this, but, truly, where did the time go? Yesterday you were the littlest baby in the nursing-moms room at church; now you’re the huge one surrounded by tiny little beans.

If I had to use one phrase to describe you, it would be “spunky and sweet.” You’ve been a little more challenging and demanding than your brother was – you cried more as a newborn, you don’t eat as well as he did, and you’ve been a lot more into knowing what’s going on in your world earlier than he was. It will be so interesting to see what sort of person this means you will become. You don’t often like to snuggle because this means that you’re missing what’s going on around you. Ideally, you’re not only facing out, but you’re also being held in a way that means you can kick your legs and wiggle and look around.

You adore a couple of things. Paper, for one: you really like to crinkle it and put it in your mouth. Your silicon teething ring and the metal end of the leash that should be clipping it to your shirt: you hold the ribbon and dangle the metal clip into your mouth like a little fishing lure. You love the dogs, and especially your Grandpa Jim & Grandma Kitty’s dog, Bailey. You smile and laugh when she licks your hands and your face, as long as she’s not too aggressive about it (I wouldn’t normally let her spend so much time in your face except that you seem to like it so much). You get a big grin on your face when I carry you upstairs in the morning or after a nap and there’s a giant black dog face waiting at the top of the stairs for you.

And, you love your brother. As your parents, we love that you are so smitten with your brother. Your first laughs were at daddy, but ever since then, your best and most frequent laughs have been at your brother. We went through a phase where we let him jump on his bed while we were trying to put him to bed because it made you laugh and laugh and laugh. A sweet, belly-to-throat laugh that might be mistaken for the beginning of a cry if it weren’t for the delight evident in your smile and your eyes.

You are vocal. You get louder and louder the more sleepy you get, so we can hear you escalating (but not usually crying) as you fall asleep in your crib or in your carseat. And every time you discover a new noise, you practice it over and over. Yesterday, it was “bah, bah, bah, bah.” When you’re not going through a phrase of discovering a new sound with your voice, you enjoy playing with your tongue. Some days it’s just sticking out a tiny bit, sometimes it’s sticking out and wiggling, and today, you’re sticking your tongue out almost as far as it will go. Don’t worry; I’ve got video of the sweet little tongue wiggle, so we can show it at your high school graduation party.

You also started growing your first tooth the other day, so your six-month-birthday present (arriving tomorrow) will be an amber teething necklace; I’m hoping it will help some of the crankiness that we’ve been dealing with. I wish the crankiness meant that you were more snuggly than normal, because it would be sweet to be able to cuddle you and comfort you. But no, you are still happiest sitting up, seeing what’s going on around you and grabbing at everything within reach. You got to have your first trip through Costco out of your carseat today (riding in the cart with Tito, propped up a bit by a blanket), and wow, you liked Costco so much more like that (and I can also fit our food in the cart again!). Congratulations on your tooth, Sweet Pea, and please don’t bite me because I can’t wean you yet, given your indifference to solid foods.

While I type this, you are lying on your back on the couch, chewing on an “Indestructable” book and babbling “bah, bah, bah, bah.” I look up from my typing to take a sip of coffee and see you and think, “I love her. My little girl.”

~ Your Momma

"Big, Huge, Giant..." and other words

[Fair warning: this is a purely "mom" post, not one for deep thinking.]

You know you're a mom when your day started out right because your son did a "big, huge, giant poop" (his words, but I don't disagree) in the potty. We've been potty training this week. I hesitated to use those words because that milestone seems so formidable, but I decided on Monday to see how things would go if we just always wore underwear at home. After a week of only a handful of accidents, I think it's fair to say that we're definitely potty training and now I'm not sure how I feel about my little boy shedding one of his last remnants of babyhood. I mean, I will be very glad to not be scraping large quantities of poop off of his behind and out of his diaper (I cloth diaper, so there is incentive for both of us to use the potty); but there's just something so grown-up about Elmo and Lightning McQueen underwear instead of a diap.

[By the way, this has been way easier than I imagined-- hope I don't jinx myself or whatever the Christian equivalent is by saying this. If you are interested in some of the reasons that I think this has been easy, I'm glad to chat with you, but I won't bore my general readership with the details beyond this hint: lots of naked time for the last year. Or, maybe he's just a super easy kid and E won't be potty trained until she's 11.]

So that's that. If I haven't scared you off, here's a less potty-minded list for you, mostly for me, to remember some of my favorite things that I hear around the house on a regular basis.

1. "Big, huge, giant" and "little tiny." I'm pretty sure this started with the potty, but it's spread to other things. So, for example, Callie is "Little tiny doggie" and Migo is a "big, huge, giant dog." Still, it's predominantly a potty term, starting with "big, huge, giant" ... but I couldn't let him get away with calling three drips of urine "big, huge, giant," and so "little, tiny pee" was born. Sorry to bring it up again; that's a huge chunk of our life around here.

2. "POP WHEELIE." Daddy must have taught T how to pop wheelies because this sure didn't come from me. We left off last fall with T absolutely loving his balance bike; his feet finally hit the ground well enough for him to push himself and cruise over piles of dirt and up and down gently sloped driveways. Now that spring is darting in and out, we've managed to take a few outings on T's bike again; I push E in the stroller and T will bike for as far as 1.5 miles. And at least every 50 yards, he will stop, pull up the handlebars and shout, "POP WHEELIE." As though he didn't give enough evidence that he loves being alive. It warms my heart every time.

3. "Hug." JR's aunt and uncle gave T a Hug book when E was born. It took me a little while to warm up to it because there's pretty much only one word in the whole book ("hug"), but it tells the story of a little monkey who's lost his mom and goes around watching other baby animals getting hugs from their mommas. In a sweet way, he gets more and more dejected until his mom bursts on the scene (enter words #2 and 3 in the book, "BOBO" and "MOMMY" as they rush to embrace). I love the book now because every time we read it, T is really affectionate and has to give me lots of hugs, complete with narration.

4. "Titi do." He calls himself "Titi" and insists on doing lots of things for himself.

5. "Puker." Tito is growing up in a generation that will never have experienced dial-up Internet, pay phones, 35mm film, and the age when touch-screens on computers were things of science fiction. He is baffled at how we control the laptop computer that I keep on our kitchen counter. To him, it's not a super-interesting piece of equipment compared to the "Hi-Pahd," except for one thing: it is where he occasionally watches old-school Donald Duck while eating breakfast. And so, I regularly hear him ask for (and occasionally I say "yes") "Wa' Dah' Duck on puker" ("Watch Donald Duck on the Computer"). I love it: the puker.

6. "Titi love..." This phase started in Costco a few weeks ago: the boy loudly proclaimed his undying love for everything I put in the cart. "Tito love chicken!" "Titi love milk!" "Tito love yogurt!" "Titi love spinach!" It now happens with nearly everything he sees while we're driving down the street ("Titi love airplanes!" "Titi love motorcycles!" "Titi love water!") and, well, nearly everything we do. What can I say? He's got a heart (and a belly) full of love.

7. "High falutin' root-tootin' son-of-a-gun from ol' Wyoming." When we visited Wyoming in February, we went to the Brown & Gold store for some new apparel for the kids, in honor of Gra-JIM. T made out like a bandit, with a brown & gold mini basketball and a t-shirt; he quickly learned that the emblem on both was "Cowboy Joe." I thought it would be cute to teach him the lyrics to "Ragtime Cowboy Joe" to surprise Grandpa Jim when he wore his t-shirt; I quickly decided that it's a pretty apt description of Grandpa Jim as well as Cowboy Joe. Fortunately, T thinks it's as fun to say as I think it is cute to make him say it.

I'm sure there's more, but that's all I can think of for now and probably all you have the stomach for, if you're still reading. If I remember more, I'll just add them to his book.