Share your vegetables!

Our church is having Vacation Bible School this week.? It's "Bethlehem Village" from Group.? Each day the kids bring home a daily challenge? with four or five suggestions of how they can live out the Bible point for the day.? One of them today was, "Tell a friend about Bethlehem Village."? Brandon is reading now, so we let him read them.?

His version was, "Tell a friend about Bethlehem vegetables."

Scared

Part of being a mom is taking care of the mundaneness of life - make meals, wipe faces, go to doctor's appointments. Usually none of these things causes a second thought...until a heart murmur is mentioned.

Tell me: If it's normal then why are we talking about it? If it's normal, then why are we scheduling an echocardiogram? If it's normal, why am I so scared that there's the slightest, tiniest, minutest chance that I won't have my baby girl I've loved since she was conceived four years ago with me forever? That there's a possibility that she won't grow up to graduate school, or get married, or have children of her own?

Am I overreacting - I'm pretty sure I am. Do I care?

Not when it comes to my babies.

Man, these things are expensive!

It's estimated that the cost for raising a child to age 18 is approximately $160,000+.? This doesn't include college tuition.

...or the extra $10,000 you'll spend replacing countless bottles and tubes of soap, shampoo, toothpaste, and anything else they can get their grubby little hands on in the name of "my hands were sticky!"

Beautiful

I found this on People Magazine's website.

"I know that I have a real woman's figure," says Kate Winslet, 29. "It's nice that it's acknowledged and appreciated, that I refuse to conform. I don't starve myself." What makes the mother of two to Mia, 4, and Joe, 1, feel beautiful? "The happiness I feel in having a family has brought me a real beauty."

CREDIT: JASON BELL / CAMERA PRESS / RETNA
Published WEDNESDAY APR 27, 2005 10:00AM EST

Artist Savant

Brandon was getting in trouble for coloring on his door with markers when he broke in with, "But, Dad, I need to tell you something!"? Exasperated, Michael asked, "What?"

"The markers said 'washable!'"

Mom

This has been a trying week on several levels, and?I'm sure a lot of lessons will present themselves as I look back on it.? But even if I learned nothing else, I learned that? - really, deep inside, nomatter what - I am a mom.? I really am truly a mom.? I am Brandon's mom, and Sarah's mom, and Bethy's mom.? Regardless of anything else that's going on, nomatter how bleak life may seem, nomatter how great it may be - I am their mom.

And I'm a good mom.? Why?? Because I love my kids.? Man, do I love those guys.? I'd go down into the pits of hell and stitch the devil's forked tongue together if it meant keeping my kids safe.? I'm braver because I'm their mom.? I'm more aware, observant.? I have strength in my motherhood that I'd have never known otherwise.? I'm passionate about my kids.? Nomatter how frustrated I am with Brandon, nothing in this world could make me stop loving him.? And as aggravated as I get with Sarah and her being bossy, it doesn't matter.? At the end of the day, I'm lost without my kids being in their beds, sleeping with their little cheeks all rosy and sweaty-sweet.? And I'm not completely sure that anything in this whole wide world can top the pride and unutterable joy and completeness I feel when Bethy looks up at me with that trusting, infatuated-with-Mama look after a good nursing.

And it doesn't mean a hill o' beans that I write or design websites or graphics or that I'm funny sometimes or that I sing or anything else under God's blue sky.?

It means everything that I'm somebody's mom.

The Empty Space

Brandon and Sarah?went to stay with friends Wednesday night.? I miss them terribly.? They've never been away from me for this long.? I miss their little voices calling me Mommy.? I miss their voices, period.? I miss little hands and wet kisses and messy faces.? I miss being a mom.

In the movie, Stuart Little talks about an empty space inside....

Now I know exactly what he was talking about.

Fun Words

Bungee is a fun word.? Brandon could say it over and over and over and think it's a blast the whole time.? It really is a fun word to say.? Your mouth makes an automatic smile when you say it.? The first syllable rhymes with fun, so it must be fun.

Go ahead.? Say it.? Out loud.? Repeat it at least half a dozen times.

?

See, it is fun!