Body by Mom

6 months old and (at least up to the point this picture was taken) every bit of nutrition he's received from the moment he was conceived came from Mommy. Pretty awesome privilege.

Plus, that's a good 16 pounds worth of calories I've gotten to eat without having them stay on my body!

I look in the faces of my children and I know that God is good.

There are few things I've found greater pleasure in than being a mother. I loved feeling the little pitter-patter of a little one growing inside me while I was pregnant. I love snuggling a sleeping baby in my arms. I love seeing them smile or hearing them giggle in their sleep. Even with my fussy ones, I felt pleasure at the fact that I had the skill to soothe them when no one else could. I got called to the nursery week after week because they cried inconsolably, but when they saw me, they smiled. I never had that kind of power before I became a mother.

I love the fact that I know our children better than anyone else in the world. Daddy certainly knows them well. And Grandma knows them well. But I know them in a special way from having carried them and nursed them and been their mommy. It's a special bond like no other.

I'm sure I've laughed more since I became a mother than I ever did in the years before that. It started when I was expecting J with giggle fits - sometimes at inappropriate times - which I blamed on hormones. It's continued with laughing at their goofy antics and silly jokes and cute expressions, and seeing their joy at discovering the world and the people around them.

I love lying next to them and having "Mommy time" before bed each night. We talk about the things we did that day. They ask questions about things they didn't understand. They tell me about their hopes and dreams. (Like J wants to be the Cash Cab driver when he grows up and H would like to visit Costa Rica someday - although she's not sure why.) I love hearing them sing and listening to their prayers.

I love watching them grow up into little people, seeing their personalities unfold, and being in the position to influence that process. It's a sobering responsibility, but one I wouldn't trade for anything.

When I think about what a wonderful design the family is and how much pleasure I've gotten from being a part of one, I can't help but know that God is good. All the joy is His design. It's marred by the effects of sin, to be sure, but I firmly believe the family is the most wonderful institution in our society. I suppose there's no reason we couldn't have been made to reproduce like plants or amoeba. We could be like animals that care for their young until they can walk and eat, then send them on their way. But God loves us enough to have designed a much better way - one that reflects His relationship with us. One that allows us to glimpse the depth of the sacrifice that He made for us when He gave His only Son for us. One that gives us a chance to experience a pleasure like no other - the pleasure of being part of a family.

It's all because God is good.

I did not know that in Kindergarten

I don't have a lot of memories from kindergarten. I remember one day being reprimanded for coloring something orange when it was supposed to be brown. I used the burnt sienna crayon. It looked brown to me before I started coloring with it. It looked orange on the paper.

I remember one day when one of the elementary school kids came to read to us. The teacher told him to slow down showing the pictures because our eyes didn't move as fast as his did. I thought that sounded strange.

There was another day when one of the kids came in counting. He carpooled with Julie Race. She said he started counting when he got in the car and hadn't stopped yet.

That's it. That's about all I can remember from kindergarten. I can't say for sure what I learned, but I'm certain it is not what J is learning in kindergarten. Humor me while I act the part of proud mama and brag about him for a few minutes.

J's amazed me many times. He's always been a sponge when it comes to knowledge. I was concerned when he was around 3 that he would be bored in kindergarten. He already knew colors and shapes and letters and how to count to 20 and knew lots of body parts. We're not talking elbow and nose. We're talking pancreas, colon, brain, lungs, kidney...

Well, we put him in a montessori school last year for preschool. He thrived. He finished preschool reading like a champ. There were words he didn't know the meaning of, but he could basically read anything.

This year he's continuing to shine. We went to his open house last week. He showed us his writing journal. It contains mini research papers he's written. He picks a topic from one of the continents, looks it up in the encyclopedia, then writes a report about it. One such report included the sentence "The scorpion is an invertebrate." In kindergarten! I'm certain I didn't know that until I took invertebrate zoology my sophomore year in college. He doesn't know it's weird to be able to do that at his age. He just thinks it's fun to look up something he finds interesting.

Another "work" he showed us at his open house was the stamp game. The best I can explain it is that it's the montessori version of an abacus. Instead of beads, they have little tiles or "stamps." Thus the name. He uses it to do 4 digit addition and subtraction. Not just adding 4 numbers up. Adding up numbers in the thousands. I could not do that in kindergarten.

Today he surprised us again. He came home talking about Belize and the Dominican Republic and a bunch of other countries I hadn't heard mentioned anytime recently. He learned all the continents last year. Now he's working on a more detailed map of North America. If you'd asked me yesterday to name the countries in North America, I would have told you Canada, USA, and Mexico. If pressed, I guess I would have said that Central America is part of North America, but couldn't have gone much beyond that. J can name a whole lot more than I can. In fact, B and I had to go look up the countries in North America to see if he was right. He was. Greenland? Yup. Cuba? Yup. Haiti? Yup. They're all North America. I did not know that in kindergarten. Shoot, I didn't know that earlier today!





My mom always told me she learned a lot more as I was going through school than when she did. I'm looking forward to the same experience. In fact, it's already started!

How many surgeons does it take to change a light switch?

The answer is one - but it might take her all day.

My dad had been working on a few projects around our house which he never got a chance to complete. My wonderful cousin Keith, an electrician, came over last month and finished them up for us. One of those projects was installing lights under the kitchen cabinets. He installed a switch to go with them, but it was white. The rest of the switches in our kitchen are off-white.

"No problem," Keith says, "It's really easy to change those. Just go get the right color switch and you can screw it right in."

Sure.

Yesterday I finally got around to going to Lowe's (taking J to a Build and Grow workshop) and picked up an off-white switch while we were there.

I'm no electrician, but I did know that I should turn the power to the switch off first. It took me a good 15-20 trips up and down the stairs to figure out which circuit breaker did that. The box is not labeled very well. Turns out the one marked "garage" turns off the power to my pantry and several kitchen outlets. Go figure.

With the power successfully cut, I removed the existing switch. Easy enough. As I tried to put the new one in, I realized I'd uncoiled 2 of the wires a little too much and I needed the needle nose pliers to get them wrapped around the screws right. Several trips out to the garage, digging through the tool box repeatedly, and a phone call to B later, I found them in the basement guest room. A logical place to store random tools.

Finally, I had the new one in place. I ran back downstairs to turn the power back on, ran back upstairs and flipped the switch - no lights.

Hmmm...

Back downstairs to cut the power again. Back upstairs to tighten up the connections. They seemed secure.

Back downstairs to turn on the power. Back upstairs to turn on the switch. Still no lights.

Could I have bought a bad switch?

Back downstairs to cut the power. Back upstairs to put the old switch back in and see if it worked. Decided to take a break to read the instructions on the box. Found the English version. Didn't understand much of it - except the last part about this should only be installed by a licensed electrician.

Well, I did have permission from a licensed electrician at least.

Went back to work on the switch. As I was studying it I recalled something I'd just read about the grounding wire being either green or bare. I noticed then that the only bare wire was not connected to the grounding screw, but one of the screws on the other side. The wires were pretty stiff, and when I'd removed the old switch, 2 of them crossed, making it look like they belonged on opposite sides.

Big groan.

I reinstalled the new switch, this time with the wires in the right spot. Back downstairs to turn on the power. Back upstairs to turn on the switch. Viola! Light!

Pleased to have that done with, I screwed on the new switchplate cover. As I stepped back to admire my work, I realized - much to my dismay - that the switches were not the same color. Apparently there are 2 different shades of off-white. This was not obvious to me in Lowe's. I had gone from a switch that was too light to one that was too dark. Couldn't have noticed that 2 hours ago, could I?!

After all the time I had invested in this project, I was not about to let it go unfinished. I cut the power once again and removed the switch. By this time H and D were up from their naps. I packed them up and back to Lowe's we went. I couldn't figure out why the garage door wouldn't close as I was pulling out of the driveway. Oh, yeah. That circuit breaker I'd turned off was marked "garage" for a reason.

Now wise to the nuances of light switch colors, I picked up the "almond" color switch. Which, for some reason costs about a dollar more than the buff colored switch.

With no further ado, I got the right one installed. Having installed and removed the switch a half dozen times that day, I was pretty good at it by then.

A well-timed blessing

Our littlest member of the Jones family is four months old already. I'm overwhelmed at what a blessing he's been in our lives in such a short time. The Lord knew back in August 2008 when he placed little D inside me that I would need some joy in my life come May of 2009. His timing was perfect.

My Dad died suddenly and unexpectedly just 9 days before D's due date, two weeks before he was born. I was very close to my Dad and was crushed by his loss. It hasn't been easy adjusting to him being gone, but having little D in our lives has certainly helped.

Sweet little D has been such a balm to my sore soul, and to my Mom's. As the Lord was knitting him together in my womb, He wove in extra measures of grace and happiness. He knew we'd need that in our lives right now. I've never seen a baby who smiles as much or as easily as D does. It's impossible not to smile back at him, however I'm feeling.



I'm sorry that my Dad never got to meet this grandson. I know he would have really enjoyed him. Papa loved all of his grandchildren dearly, and enjoyed them all immensely. But I think he and D could have had a special bond. The two of them are a lot a like. D is so much more mellow and even-tempered than his older siblings, much like his Papa. I'm hard pressed to think of a time in my Dad's life when he ever lost his cool. Certainly there were times when he was provoked, but he always kept himself under control. Little D's like that - he just rolls with the punches. (Sometimes fairly literally!)



I see other bits of my Dad in D's little personality already. Nothing pleased my Dad more than doing things for others - D seems to be the same way. I always feel a sense of pride when someone comes up to talk to him. I know that without fail, he's going to give them the brightest smile they've ever seen, and they'll go away with a smile on their face as well.

There's definitely a sadness in my heart over my loss. But there's a sweetness at the same time. Babies are often referred to as a "bundle of joy." Few live up to that label as well as this little guy. We love you, D!

J's preparing to be a Russian President for Halloween.

Why doesn't she just leave him?

You frequently hear that question asked about women who are victims of domestic abuse. If it were really that simple, she would.

Today there was a tragically vivid example of how it's not that easy. Patricia Williams was shot to death by her husband in the parking lot of the Canton Public Library in Michigan. You can read about it here.

The woman was a Detroit police officer for 15 years. She was without a doubt far better equipped to defend herself against violence than the average woman is. And yet, she was murdered by her husband in broad daylight in a public place. It's not that easy to get away from an abusive spouse.

Why didn't she go to the police for help? Well, she had. Repeatedly. As recently as last weekend, she had reported her husband's abuse to police, yet he remained in her home and he remained armed. Why didn't her calls for help result in any protection for her?

Not only had she gone to the police, she was en route to the police when this happened. According to reports, she had left home and was on her way to the Canton police department to report another assault. Somehow he intercepted her before she made it there and murdered her.

It's not that easy to leave. Statistics show that a third of women who are murdered in the U.S. are killed by their partners. In Michigan another woman is murdered by her husband or boyfriend every 5 days.

Unfortunately, too many women who in violent situations seem to have limited choices: stay and endure the abuse, try to leave and risk having the abuse escalate, or defend herself and be labeled a criminal. There are, unfortunately, many women in our prisons for defending themselves against husbands or boyfriends who were trying to kill them. They didn't end up like Patricia Williams, but they're not much better off. This needs to stop! Our society should start treating domestic violence like the crime that it is, support the women and children who are victimized by it, and give them a viable way of escaping the violence. Then, maybe, tragedies like today's will be less common.