Honk if You Know How to Ride

Last summer One of my Sons learned to ride his bike without training wheels. It was a glorious day for him. Many accolades were given and he proudly joined his sister and the million other kids forming the ranks of two-wheeled riders. His Twin, however, did not.

Though his brother sped past without the clunky-ness of 4 wheels, the other brother was perfectly content to take the slower road and keep the safety of having 4 wheels on the ground at all times.

One day this spring, one of those training wheels fell off. After a few attempts to reinstall it the wheel was still abdicating it's helpfulness on a regular basis. At that point, I told him he would just have to learn to ride his bike with the help of just one training wheel. (And to encourage the skill, I mentioned that when both boys knew how to ride without training wheels, they could have horns for their bikes.) :)

A few sniffles and whines and then he handled himself and learned to ride with just the help of the one extra wheel. It was a peculiar sight. He would actually ride down the sidewalk leaning to the left side so his training wheel stayed on the ground at all times.

Yesterday, for reasons unknown to all of mankind, I decided to let the kids ride their bikes on our walk. One Son kept lagging behind because it's kind of hard to ride when you're leaning to the left all the time. He was absolutely relying on that training wheel, instead of even trying to ride on just two wheels.

After a frustrating time of walking his bike, riding his bike, and simply melting down in tears, I took the extra wheel off. If a training wheel was gonna cause so much trouble, the kid would have to learn to do without it.

Thus began the protesting attempts to ride without that third wheel. The problem was he kept leaning to the left! He had trained his body to lean to the left while pedaling to use the training wheel. But now the very thing that had kept him from falling before was causing his detriment! To ride sitting straight up and down seemed impossible for him!

I didn't know what to try to help him. Actually, I had mentally already put this on his Daddy's list of things to do: Teach Son how to ride bike. An extenuating detail was that we were 20 minutes from home. It looked like it was going to be a long, exhausting 20 minutes for both him and me.

Until, on attempt 863 of trying it, my Son was able to ride for an entire 4 feet. 4 feet!!!!! Without me holding onto the seat of his bike. And he was almost, sort of, sitting up right. Then I was able to apply the parenting skill that comes easiest for me: Encouragement. YOU DID IT, SON!!!!!! YOU RODE YOUR BIKE ALL BY YOURSELF!!!!!! WOOOOO HOOOOO!!! YES!!! LET'S DO IT AGAIN!

And, my friends, he turned a corner. (Not a literal corner, cuz we're still just working on going straight.) And I was able to get out of my mean mommy funk that had built during the agonizing process of trying to get the kid to STOP LEANING!! THERE IS NO WHEEL THERE!!

So many life lessons in this one. Even as it was happening, I knew I'd blog it.

I'll break 'em down for you:

1. We build barriers in our lives to protect ourselves (training wheel)
2. We rely so heavily on those barriers, we actually prevent true joy (don't take training wheel off)
3. Someday, someone, somehow that barrier will need to be gone (Mommy decided today)
4. We still rely on it instead of living differently (Stop leaning to the left or you'll keep falling)
5. We get a taste, a small glimpse, of life that looks different (4 feet)
6. If you get encouraged life will seriously change for you (WOOOO HOOO!! You CAN do this!!!!)
7. JOY!!! Sense of accomplishment!!



Last night, Mark took them to buy some bike horns.

Am I Coming or Going?

Deep thoughts by Jody:

Whenever you leave a place you're actually going to another place.

If I leave tomorrow, but don't arrive until the day after tomorrow which day is the first day?

Packing for a trip where you're going to see a bunch of people who last saw you 18 months ago when you were over 7 months pregnant with your 4th child and weighed 30 more pounds is easy. Anything looks better than that!

Claire and I have both already shed tears just thinking about the day that we'll have to come home from the trip that hasn't yet started.


The Details:
The 4 kids and I are embarking upon an expedition to spend some time in Texas. Mark will remain here in farm country because it looks like they might actually get to plant some corn this year after all. We'll miss him tremendously and it was with great trepidation that I desired to go if it meant going without him. (A person being able to desire something and have great trepidation about it at the same time is a feat reserved only for women.)

So for all of my fellow believers in the miraculous power of prayer, this is your call to action!

Goodbye!!! I'm leaving!

and

Hello!!! I'm Coming!

If you live in the Dallas area, and would like to catch a glimpse of us we'll be at Finch Park in McKinney from 4-7 PM on the 16th. Sort of like an open-house-bring-your-own-picnic kind of gig. I'll be the pasty Yankee trying to keep track of 4 kids at the biggest park in town all the while keeping one eye open for fire ants.

(Wow. Is that fodder for stalkers, or what?)

Did you ever do this?

Did you ever climb up on your Mommy and Daddy's bed with a gaggle of cousins and eat popcorn out of plastic popcorn tubs and watch Horton Hears a Who?

Did you?

Ever?

It's really fun.

Especially because of the plastic popcorn tubs.

That'll Preach

Today I saw a farmer kneeling in his field. On his knees, the bill of his seed corn hat pointed to the ground, shoulders hunched, eyes downcast. The perfect picture of the fervent stature of prayer.

Only his hands were moving. Digging. Testing the soil. Is it dry enough to plant? Is it today, Lord? After waiting over a month can we start the work you've created us to do? Waiting and waiting through storm after storm. Rain. More rain. The ground is saturated, fields turned to lakes. Creeks grown to raging rivers.

Lost were the warm sunny days of Spring. Forsaken in clouds and damp, chilly mornings. You've been sending rain. Rain. Can't plant in the rain. Can't even begin to start. Without the planting there is no harvest. Without the time for sowing, the reeping would be futile.

The farmer was testing the soil. Checking in with creation, if not the Creator, indeed, to see if the time is ripe. I can assure you he's tested it before. And if the forecast for the next week is accurate, he'll test the soil again. After the rain that is to come. He'll once again press his bare hands into the soil and check for moisture. Hoping for dryness. He'll carry a shovel. Push and pull large divets out of the ground to see how it acts. How it reacts.

The farmer then reacts to what he sees. Could be with gratitude. A wide grin to his farm hands, saying, "Let's roll" with a nod of his head. Could be anger and frustration. Why?! What if?! When?! God?!

What if while the farmer is down there on his knees checking the future of his crop, his livelihood, he checks his heart? What if before he rises he praises God for life, acknowleges the supremacy of the Creator and praises Him for seedtime and harvest? What if the solitary farmer was able to put to words an attitute of heart that says, "You, alone, are God. I trust you with this. My life."

What if we did that? What if we copied his stature upon our own test in life? What if we knelt, if we lowered our heads, and humbled our shoulders and dug our fingers into the very thing that seems to be the problem? To force ourselves to look it in the face and then be willing to say to our Creator, "You, alone, are God. I trust you with this. My life."

I saw a farmer kneeling in his field today. And since that moment I haven't been able to get the picture out of my mind. Though I was driving past in my shiny minivan at 40 mph, I could literally feel the man's longing. Oh, to see dirt instead of mud! There is some deep truth God is revealing to me. It takes time to see the whole picture.

This too-much-rain thing is a really big deal here in the land of cornfields. I think God is doing something. And I don't think it's just for the farmers to realize.

Redneck Reality: This is What We Do For Fun

Once upon a time there was a charming beautiful baby Girl who was born in the Big City. She had want for nothing. Her mother and father adored every pore and freckle of her wrinkly body. They showered her with clothes, a room all to herself, and lots of cute toys with lights and sounds. As the years went by the clothes arrived in larger sizes, the room was redecorated from nursery to Big Girl room and the gifts progressed from Fisher Price to American Girl to Books.

The little trio of a family ventured through life adding a few additional siblings along the way. Until one day the parents decided they should move to the Land of Their Youth. It was a far away Land where people had no inclination to shop at Ross, because, indeed, they had never heard the name Ross outside the context of "Friends". (The inhabitants are to pitied with fervency upon this declaration. Thank you.) A land filled not with the sure tell signs of extensive retail establishment or inundated with suburban sprawl. It was a Land of . . . . . . .land. Bordered by other. . . land . . . with a scattering of houses built close together every now and then between stretches of . . . land.

The Girl and family enjoyed the less frantic pace of life and seemed to merge into this Land of Youth quite easily. Of course, the Girl was provided with toys and games to fill her bedroom and engage her mind on the bi-annual occasions of birthdays & Christmas. However, one day the mother of the beautiful baby Girl turned beautiful 7 year old Girl, realized all the toys were simply extraneous entrapments and unnecessary in their new locale. Because upon wandering out of doors to check on the children while visiting relatives she happened upon this sight:
Apparently, children would rather do this, than any other thing here in the Land of Their Youth.


The mother didn't know what those things are.

Looks as though they held something explosive at one time or another. She was hoping they were empty. But was too busy looking at her daughter's bare feet in a cattle pasture to think of asking.
The newly barefoot Girl and her older, wiser cousin dressed in the required uniform for play (ie, camo), briefly broke sport to examine the cow patty that was too dense for rolling over.




All spectators quickly learned that the position on the left is often precluded by the position on the right.






And that, my dear friends, is a brief, yet quite telling example of life for the Big City born baby turned Country Girl.



Thank you, Uncle T, for providing such fun, imaginative, indestructible, post?-explosive devices for our children to use for their pure, uncivilized delight. How can a mother thank you?