Jesus, a WWII soldier and a Nightclub Dancer...

Sounds like the beginning of a really bad joke, right?

So as I've mentioned before, we have a production company run from our home. The "oops factor" of blogging five months late is that some of the details have leaked from my mind (which, by the way, was the whole point of creating the blog in the first place).

Therefore, I have absolutely no idea of the plot from this year's Christmas play. The only detail I fully remember was that Elvis was mentioned. Or perhaps that was the previous year.

The costumes seem to me now a bit bizarre. As a matter of fact, I cannot believe my mother EVER allowed me on a public stage in some of these dance costumes recycled from my younger years.








I would challenge you to see if you could create a plausible storyline to go with the pictures above. They say if you constantly challenge your mind, it keeps it young. I'm just here to help.

Christmas Blessings (Yes, in May!)

Now that it's late May and I can't step outside to get the mail without longing for snow and holly and radios galore playing Winter Wonderland, I believe I'll post pictures from Christmas.

This was the Christmas I will remember as Zacki's first (not that I can post those pictures here...Grrrr!) and the Christmas of the Paper Products.

At the top of Mouser's wish list: a blue desk (I'm pretty sure Santa had trouble with that one. I'm guessing he had to scour secondhand shops, sand, paint and replace knobs. But just guessing here). Here's the rest: paper towels, tape, and envelopes. There were even days leading up to the Big Day with the query, "Mama, do you think I'm gonna get those paper towels?" To answer the obvious question, she likes to draw on them (with markers! Ask me about the absorption level of a PT sometime) and then cut them into one thousand tiny little white pieces. It brings her sheer delight.

This year she learned to write her name. God bless her. We gave her about the longest name we could think of. It takes her quite a while. She's a bit of a perfectionist. I really should've just taught her to write Mouse instead.

So the new ability to write her name and mine and Birch's- which right now looks like "Dabby" (love it!)- has spurned in her a desire to set up her own Office Depot.


Santa really did outdo himself. I bet he fell in love with it the moment he spied it. The best part is the back panel that lifts and reveals secret cubbies. It's the perfect treasure trove. I can only imagine at the changing delights of her heart that will collect here as she grows.



Juliana remains the Queen of Technology. I now feel like one of those old people who refuse to get a computer and other such "new-fangled inventions". This year she added a Kindle to her collection of electronic things she has that I do not.

Holt's wish list looked like the inventory log from the Lego store. Piggybacked onto his birthday, Christmas is the tail end of the present mother lode for him.


And for the second year in a row, Walter had been featured in the East Tennessee Border Collie Rescue calendar. He made an appearance this year as (drum roll here...) Mr. March. That is either one good looking dog or one unbelievably talented photographer. Or maybe they didn't get all that many submissions. I'll let you decide.

My favorite part (as always) was watching my kids delight in giving to us and each other. I love that they are as excited by that as they are in unwrapping their own treasures.

This was the year of the White Christmas. Afternoon brought much anticipated snow. It was enough to sled for a while, but not too much to cancel our trip to Tennessee the next morning. And this Christmas brought the new Jones tradition of a steaming crock pot of Birch's famous chili for lunch. It felt exactly right with the snow!

So now as I sit here in the air-conditioning absentmindedly scratching mosquito bites, it brings me joy that due to my blog slackerness, Jingle Bell season is only a mere half year away. Praying that the next one finds us together, healthy, with ALL family members around the tree. I'm hoping I have to worry about little hands breaking ornaments and wondering how in the world to keep all the presents wrapped until Christmas morning.

But I'll miss my kids at this age: Holt's absolute immersion into fantasy worlds, Juliana's feet firmly planted, one foot in childhood and the other not, Mouser always carrying a marker, a pen or pair of scissors, Zacki with a thumb red and wrinkled from all the love he gives it. And our house full. The delights of my heart! Christmas blessings all year long!

Beautiful

I forget- a lot- that I'm not in this alone.

Mondays are hard. That's so cliche I hate to write it. But my Mondays twist my guts up and make it hard to breathe. Those are the afternoons the transporter peels my baby's fingers off of my shirt and buckles him into her car. His cries that translate, "why are you letting her do this?" are momentarily muffled as he tries to find comfort in his thumb. It works for a few seconds. I can hear him long after he's gone.

This Monday has been like every other since the courts reinstated his biological mother's overnight visits this past January.

But this morning started with a sweet time with Holt. He's my early riser, always up even before the baby. After I got up with Z and fed and changed him, Holt brought me The Chronicles of Narnia. I've been reading it to him out loud. We started last summer and then took a break at his request. We began again recently and are towards the end of the third book, The Horse and his Boy.

There is richness in so much of what C.S. Lewis writes, that it's hard to pick just a few, but this morning I was so moved that I had to stop and put it down. His words led to one of those "moments" you have as a parent that comes along once in a rare while.

Aslan (symbolizing both God and Jesus- Yes, I had to attempt to discuss the Trinity with Holt this morning before caffeine) had just revealed himself to Shasta. He explained how He had been working in Shasta's life all along.

I was the lion who forced you to join with Aravis. I was the cat who comforted you among the houses of the dead. I was the lion who drove the jackals from you while you slept. I was the lion who gave the horses the new strength of fear for the last mile so that you should reach King Lune in time. And I was the lion you do not remember who pushed the boat in which you lay,a child near death, so that it came to shore where a man sat, wakeful at midnight, to receive you.

I spoke about the words I often pray with him at bedtime- that Holt would hear and understand God's plan for his life and that he would know that in nowhere but the center of God's will would he find happiness.

I talked about how God had been at work in Shasta's life from the time he was a tiny baby, adrift at sea with his father and how now Shasta could see all the times and places in his life that Aslan/ God had interceded.

We finished our chapter and I felt this buoyant feeling of having one of those teaching opportunities with Holt. It was all the richer that we were the only ones up (other than Z) and snuggled on the couch for some treasured time together.

Later this morning I received a text that Z's transporter would be late and not would not pick him up til 6. 6 is what I braced myself for. I always immediately do the math. Exactly 24 hours away from home.

The afternoon passed. I gave him a bath. I packed his bag. I sang his special song over and over. I sing it a lot on Monday afternoon. I sing it immediately when he comes home on Tuesday. I have this mental picture of us losing him and thirty years from now him hearing this song. I just know, I really do, that somewhere in his heart, this song will strike something in him.

I have to take Juliana to Marietta, so I load all the kids up in the car. As I'm getting in, I get a call. She's early and she needs Z now. She's in my driveway in literally 35 seconds.

I unbuckle Z, stare into his sweet confused little face, and carry him to her car. The rest is a repeat of every Monday. Same bat time. Same bat channel.

I take Juliana and drop her off.

I'm driving home and I've settled into Sad. I'm just sitting there. Why, God? Why can't he be legally free like my friend's baby? Why wouldn't You want him to grow up Here?

And I think I'm a bit like Shasta. I don't think I really expected Him to answer:

"Who are you?" Shasta said, scarcely above a whisper.
"One who has waited long for you to speak....Tell me your sorrows."

And as I'm sitting there settled into Sad, Beautiful by Mercy Me begins to play on my radio. And I hear this-

Before you ever took a breath
Long before the world began
Of all the wonders He possessed
There was one more precious
Of all the earth and skies above
You're the one he madly loves enough to die
You're beautiful
You're beautiful
In His eyes

God has (because I'm thick) sent me the same message twice in the same day. He loves Z madly enough to die and He has been at work in his life before it ever even began. He was there when Z was awash in an ocean of drugs. He was there at his birth. He was there when the caseworker was deciding which family to call. He IS there with him every Monday as he leaves home. He is there in the car. He is there in his crib. He is there in the night when he wakes and longs for home. He is there.

And because He treasures Z and loves him in ways I can't understand, I don't have to sit in Sad. I don't have to linger in Fear. Because He also loves me madly enough to die and has been at work in my life before it ever began also. Because the sun doesn't rise without His nod. Because the balance of the universe depends on His hands. Because.

So tonight I will miss him. I will do the math until he's home. But today God sent me a good word twice. The words of Aslan pronounce, I tell no one any story but his own. And I'm listening.

Well, it's finally happened. I've been wondering when it would.

Holt prays pretty much the same prayer most every night. Don't most of us? I've been wondering, waiting, and hoping it would change. Tonight it did.

He used to pray some variation of, "And God, I know the baby's dead, but if You could just give us another one, that would be very helpful."

And tonight...

"And God, I know the baby's dead, but if You could just give us another one, especially if it's Z, I would be very thankful."

And my prayer is that his will be answered.

Amen.

Hostess with the Leastest

When you only get "the works" birthday party every other year, it gives you a long time to plan. Holt had been looking forward to his "Bounce and Beans" party for close to two years.

We invited his entire Scout troop and Sam's sisters (and Holt's too!). For me, this might have been the Greatest Birthday Party Ever. Here's why: Other than Sam's family and my brother and Lora, I didn't know any of these people at all. Nary a one.

Let me point out that Scouts is the One Thing I don't have to keep up with (other than the shirts and patches and belts I tend to lose). I do want to know his friends and be involved in his life, I just haven't yet had opportunity to enmesh with the Scout pack. It's a fairly new phenomenon in our lives.

Here are the details of my involvement:

I ordered a cake.
I picked up said cake.
I called my brother and told him to show up.
I bought candles and ice cream.
I wrote out invitations.
I took pictures.
I bought Holt thank you notes.

Here are all the things I didn't do:

I didn't clean my house.
I didn't hostess. (Really. I didn't even try to meet and greet at the party. It was all 8 year old boys and dads.)
I didn't write down a gift list.
I didn't ensure the good time of all. (Again, don't know 'em.).
I didn't assemble goody bags. (Party foul! I know!)

Holt and a bunch of boys I couldn't name with a cheat sheet had a bouncing good time. There were pileups a plenty, eight year old boy style. I really thought there would be a broken bone involved before the goody bags were distri- Oh, wait. Never mind.




I went. I watched my boy turn eight. I enjoyed him, just him. I got to just soak in his pleasure without worrying about all the social niceties that parties usually entail. For once, I just stood back and watched Birch work his magic. There's something to be said for parties you throw for people you don't know.

I think this party will serve as a precedent for future celebrations. This was one birthday I didn't miss because I wasn't chatting up the room. Enjoy more. Stress less.

Happy Birthday, Holt. It was the least I could do.

Every other year my kids get a "bells and whistles" birthday party. This was Holt's year. But since we couldn't reserve Holt's venue of choice until the week after his actual birthday and that is a long time to wait when you're 8 years old and there's wrapped gifts hanging out in the kitchen, we had a little family lunch at Fuddruckers on the 12th, his actual birthday.

His "ta-da!" present from us this year was a new bike that we gave to him the month prior so he could enjoy it during the blessed temperatures of fall. We took his gifts from his grandparents and his sisters.

We crowded into the Elvis Presley booth (our fav), gorged upon burgers, fries, and a mixture of carbonated drinks (the "Suicide" drink of my youth prevails still).


I love birthday memories like these, just us and no fuss. And were it not for this day 8 years ago, I would never have played with legos or bakugans, I wouldn't be able to talk like Yoda, and I wouldn't appreciate the humor of a good toot joke.


Eight years from the day we thought we'd lose him in the delivery room, he was sandwiched between his sisters, laughing hysterically over his new stuffed opossum. God has blessed me rich.

Breaking the Rules

I'm not allowed to post pictures of our Baby Z in a public online site. BUT...this is one of my favorites, and I dare you to find any distinguishing features, minus that sweet pink baby mouth.

This boy loves his thumb. This mama loves that boy.