Heaven

Chuck and I just got back from Heaven.  Long story.  It was actually under the guise of him going to a conference in San Diego and me tagging along, but really, it was heaven.  This was the first time we've been away together in almost three years.  The first time we've flown on a plane together in over 10 years.  Everyone asks how our time was.  How do you describe heaven?  I can only answer that question with adjectives....peaceful, beautiful, sunny, warm, relaxing.  It was a time full of love, no responsibility, no plans, just fun, adoration, sun, having each other's full attention, getting up late, exploring nature, laying by the pool, reading, being overwhelmed with joy and happiness.  It felt more like a honeymoon than a vacation/work-conference.  Here is a very small sampling of pictures that will hopefully tell a better story than my mere words can.

Of the many animals we saw, this little guy 

on Seal Beach cracked me up the most.

These two seagulls were hilarious.  The one bird 

stood on top of the other for at least 10 minutes.

This seagull allowed us close enough 

to her nest to get this amazing picture.

This pelican claimed the sink that the fishermen 

were washing their fresh catches in.  

Just one of the many picture perfect days at the beach.

The architecture in Balboa Park is phenomenal.  

I took at least 20 pictures of buildings, 

but spared you since I'm only posting this one.

Chuck sitting amongst the roots of the 

giant Banyan Tree in Balboa Park.

One of my all time favorites:  The Carlsbad Flower Fields.

50 acres of these beautiful flowers.  I couldn't stop smiling. 

Just one of the multitude of Ranunculus that are grown on this farm.

Another happy picture.

The massive Eucalyptus trees lining the

streets of Carlsbad.

The sounds the waves made as they crashed

off the cliffs were so powerful.  It filled me with awe.

One of my favorite places in the world, La Jolla Cove.

Me and sunsets....we go way back.

Our lazy day at the La Jolla Shores beach.

Chuck deciding whether or not to brave

the freezing cold water.  He did and even 

ended up swimming close to a seal (not the NAVY kind)

Unfortunately, I didn't catch that on camera.

The view from Mt. Soledad, the highest point in La Jolla.

Hairy flowers.

Dr. Seuss looking flowers.  We realized that Dr. Seuss

must have gotten his inspiration from all the flora around 

his home in La Jolla cuz there are many crazy looking 

trees and flowers all over the place.

Chuck surprised me with a dinner cruise.  We sailed around

San Diego Harbor eating a scrumptious dinner and of 

course watching the sunset from the top of the boat. So romantic!

The bridge to Coronado.

The pool at the hotel.

Our last sunset....taken at Dog Beach of all places.  

It was the closest beach to where we were at.  

And of course, these luscious Palm Trees that

remind you that you're not in Minnesota anymore.

 

Talking In Gavinese

Gavin LOVES math.  It's right up there with Minecraft and looking cool.  He doesn't only love math, he thinks in mathematical variables and formulas and terminology all the time.  He only thinks in logical, sequential order. He sees math patterns all around him without even trying.  I'm so lucky to get glimpses inside that brain of his.  I love that he still loves to share his math thoughts with me...even if I have trouble interpreting what they mean sometimes.

The other day I heard him in the kitchen excitedly sharing one such math thought with Bennett.

Gavin:  "So, I created a matrix on my calculator of all the perfect squares from 1 - 20.  I'm surprised you're allowed to use the calculator I have for tests cuz of all the matrices you can create."

Bennett: "What's a matrix?"

Gavin: "It's a set of numbers I create and then assign a certain value to.  My perfect squares is Matrix G on my calculator."

Bennett: "Oh.  Why?"

Gavin:  "In case I ever need them."

The next day the boys are standing next to one another preparing their pizzas for pizza night.  Gavin sneezes very loudly.

Bennett:  "Thanks for sneezing on my dinner."

Gavin:  "I didn't sneeze at your food Bennett, I sneezed away from your food.  My sneeze is a vector, not a scalar quantity."

Bennett:  "Huh???"

Gavin:  "A vector is a quantity that has both magnitude and direction while a scalar only has magnitude."

Let me interpret for you:  He's saying that even though he sneezed and it appeared to be all over Bennett's pizza, it in fact wasn't because Gavin controlled the direction of his sneeze away from Bennett's food thereby being as polite as possible even though he didn't cover his mouth like we've taught him since he was 2 years old.

And lastly, just this morning, Gavin wanted to let me know what's been on his mind lately.

Gavin:  "Mom, I want to tell you about a math thought I had."

Me:  "ok"

Gavin:  "I had the numbers 9 and 12 stuck in my head the past last night.  Did you know they add up to 21 and if you took the factors of both of 9 and 12, you would find that 3 is in both of them.

Me:  "uh-huh"

Gavin:  "The factors of 9 are 3 and 3, the factors of 12 are 3 and 4.  If you add 3 + 4 it is 7 and then multiply that by the common factor of 3 you get 21."

Me:  "cool"

Gavin:  "That works for any pair of numbers that share a common factor."

Me:  "I love learning new things every day.  Thanks for being my teacher today, Honey."

Technology and Kids

I fear I must be old.  Officially.  I can honestly better understand now when old people say, "Things used to be better back in my day.  We got along just fine without (fill in the blank)."  Not only do I understand why old people say that, I ACTUALLY caught myself saying it too!  Yes, I confess.  It's hard getting older in this fast paced, technologically advanced era where kids are more tech savvy than adults in many cases.  What type of world are we passing on to them?

If I was being honest, I would say there are some days I begrudge technology and other days I embrace it.  It's like an oxymoron, you can't live with it, you can't live without it.  As a parent I struggle with knowing the limits to set for my children in regard to technology.  There are no precedents to go by.

What age should a child get his/her own cell phone?  This question hit close to home when Chloe's friend received an iPhone for her 10th birthday.  I was aghast, "What kid needs an iPhone when they're 10?".  Chloe however, had a different take on it. She tells us, "I'm the only kid in all off 4th grade who doesn't have a phone."  She's different because of our choices.  I responded with, "And you're probably the only kid whose mom stays at home.  Do you want me to go to work so you can have a cell phone?   What would you do with it anyways?"   Come to think about it, she's never known a time when people didn't have cell phones.  Since she's been born, we've always had one.  We haven't had a land-line in ages.  Cell phones are perfectly 'normal' to her.   But from our perspective, we've only had one for 10 years.  When we were kids/teens, it was a big deal to have a phone line in your own room.  Mostly, you just talked on the phone attached to the wall in the kitchen in front of everybody.  My kids can't even fathom that concept.

Time and age give us a completely different perspective on technology.  I can't imagine how hard it must be for our grandparents' generation to accept the lightning fast changes in technology they've witnessed in their 80+ years of life on this earth.  I'd be hesitant to trust it too given the life experiences they've lived through.  My grandma didn't even like the answering machine...that little bit of technological wonder came out in the 80's!  My grandfather would go unplug anything in the house that was plugged into a wall socket every single night.  Electronic devices (such as a toaster) didn't stand a chance in his house.

Gavin (at 15) just bought his first smartphone.  He has been the only kid since 7th or 8th grade who did not have one.  He never complained.  He laughed about it and we joked about it as a family, but it was never a big deal to him.  He kept the same phone we gave him at the end of 5th grade for 4 years. That's ancient in the tech world.  I asked him if waiting this long made this new phone purchase that much sweeter.  He said he couldn't agree more.  He appreciated it in a way that people appreciate something they've waited a long time to get.  Reminds me of the old saying: Anything worth having is worth the wait.

Here's where my critical attitude towards technology and the entitled attitude that most in our culture have toward it takes a turn towards the good.  Last night, Bennett, Chloe and I were messing around with Garageband on their iPads.  I was a little ticked off at the beginning saying things like, "Wouldn't it be better to actually know how to play these real instruments?" all the while thinking to myself, where has music appreciation gone to these days?  But as Chloe was navigating her way around and making up some pretty cool music that combined several different types of instruments, I suddenly realized the awesome opportunity we had to experiment with it all.  There's no way I would have been able to give my kids the chance to mess around with many different types of drums, keyboards, winds, guitars - ever.  We were appreciating music together after all - what do you know.  We were learning different styles of music on a garageband app on the ipad of all places.  Maybe this could be fun afterall.

I then asked them if they had a karaoke app that we could sing into on their ipad.  They couldn't find that, but we did find a voice recorder.  Sweet.  And Chloe found the music and words to "O Say Can You See" on her ipad.  So we used Chloe's ipad for the music and Bennett's to do the voice recording and we sang some pretty rockin versions of that song.  The best part was, we could change our voices to sound like chipmunks.  I can't even tell you the giggle fest that ensued.  We laughed our butts off listening to ourselves sing "O Say Can You See" like chipmunks (that version was 10 times better than our real voices - trust me!).  I asked the kids if they could somehow get that recording to me so I could insert it here - but none of us were tech savvy enough to figure that one out (and Gavin was elsewhere or he would have done it).  But it doesn't take tech smarts to push the 'chipmunk' button and provide crying-rolling-on-the-floor-holding-your-stomach-laugher.

The kids kept thanking me the rest of the night for 'singing' with them.  They gave me notes telling me how happy they were.  They said 'thank you' over and over again.  We made the most wonderful memory with the technology I was wanting to fight.  It's not worth it.  We need to embrace it and teach our children the boundaries that we feel are good and right for our family.  We need to learn to trust them with this technology instead of always feel like it's hurting them.   We need to empower them to make the right choices with it when there are so many wrong choices available to them.  We need to not live in fear of it or it will cause our children to live it fear of it.  We need to be more balanced in our thinking because, like it or not, this is the world our children will inherit and I don't want them to look at us like old curmudgeons who aren't teachable about the things that are prevalent in their world.

Horses and People

I just love days when a light bulb goes off and I get an epiphany.  They don't come all that often, so it tickles me on days when I can actually remember them and even relate it in a way that makes sense to another human being. Normally, my epiphanies only make sense to me - kinda like a dream.  It makes perfect sense until you start telling someone else about it and then you sound a little crazy.

I was in the middle of teaching a student today.  He is such a sweet, young Hispanic man.  He's a bull-rider and farmer.  He speaks, reads and understands English well, he just can't write it - unless he's copying something already written for him.  This baffled me.  There was no 'rule-book' for figuring out his situation.  I was asked to help him write better.  Where do you start?

I came to the understanding that he knew the name of the letters in the alphabet, just not the sounds they made.  He doesn't have all the tools he needs for writing since writing is made up of the sounds of letters.  The words he reads, he's memorized by seeing so often.  Many immigrants learn to read in order to survive, so that didn't surprise me.  I'm just surprised by how many words he's memorized.

As I was praying for wisdom in how to help this young man, I was reminded about when I began teaching Gavin math.   He was 5.  I had a curriculum with the exact words to say for each lesson.  How hard can it be to teach Kindergarten math, right?!  The problem was that the curriculum didn't take into consideration Gavin's brain.  He would interrupt my teaching monologue with brazen questions or observations saying, "you can also do it this way" or "why, mom, why?".  It was maddening.  I ended up ditching the daily teaching monologue and just asking Gavin questions.  Often times, I would be the one who would learn something new.  The kid just sees math on a completely different plane.  He literally sees the patterns math makes all around him and does an excellent job explaining the hows and whys of it.  My brain does not.  I needed  the monologue - not him.

Then it dawned on me.  Raising children and teaching people (be it kids or adults) is very much like riding a horse.  When you ride a horse (you've never ridden before), you can't just get on it and start making it do what you want or teach it new things.  You have to learn about the horse first, get to know the horse and his nuances. Once you take the time to learn the horse, he can trust you more and you can have a better ride.  Only then can you teach the horse what it is you want to teach it.

Sounds alot like my situation with Gavin.  It didn't take but a few weeks for me to realize that my little teacher's manual was of no use.  He was having none of my daily teacher reading from the book.  He wanted to do math in a completely different way.  He had  to do math in the way that made perfect sense to him.  I backed off and let him lead.  Math became way more fun.  I loved his excitement about it.  When I made him do it my way, neither of us were excited.  But once I learned to understand his style, we both grew in math by leaps and bounds.

The same holds true for adult students.  The most wonderful thing about adult students is that they want to learn.  They choose to take time out of their busy, work-filled day to come and learn English so they can better their lives in their new country.  My student and I finally figured out how to work on exactly what he needs, but it took me listening to him first.  I had to learn about him first before I could do anything to help him.  Now he trusts me to help him.  I like that.

Like I said, I just love epiphany days!

Chilaxin

As I was busy making dinner the other evening, I found my people doing what they do best....chilaxin with a good book.  I just like that they were doing it together and no one was in a headlock being dangled over the side of the sofa.  These moments of peace and stillness are beautiful to me.

Awestruck

Greeted each morning anew

My eyes behold the wondrous hues

I stand and I stare and I consider with awe

My heart is so open, my feelings so raw

The beauty bestowed on one and all.

The sky is on fire, the celestial sphere aglow

The backdrop of heaven, it's glory does show

The spectrum of colors scream loud and bold

Never taken for granted, never growing old

The story of love forever retold.

If only we could hear the heavens sing

This would look like the sound the angels bring

In worship and honor and pure delight

With God at the center shining so bright

Calming our hearts and making everything right.

Lessons from Little House

Can I just say I LOVE this show!  I don't care if that's the popular opinion or not.  I grew up on it, learned from it and continue to value the life lessons gained from it.  Whether you feel it was accurate of the timeframe, horribly idealistic, true or not, I bet we could still find some common ground of appreciation.

Chuck and I spent a long time last night talking about how much this show impacted us as kids and even now well into adulthood.  Having grown up without a positive male role-model, Pa became his surrogate Dad.  He said that everything he learned about being a Dad and husband came from Pa's example.  We could even list our favorite episodes, remembering the plot clearly.  I always appreciated Ma's quiet strength.  She did hard things, gracefully.  Although, I also remember fearing I would one day wake up blind, just like Mary did.  I walked around with my eyes closed for months, practicing - just in case that dreadful day ever rolled around.

Here is the list of things I've gleaned from Little House:

1.   Pa (and Ma) always put his family first, even above his own desires.

2.   Pa had an extremely hard work ethic.

3.   Pa adored his wife and always took the time to show her he appreciated and loved her.

4.   Ma respected Pa, even when she disagreed with one of his decisions.

5.   Ma never felt sorry for herself and did anything she could do to help the family.

6.   Ma was soft spoken, well educated, graceful toward others and devoted to her family.

7.   Pa genuinely enjoyed his children, playing with them, laughing with them, teaching them.

8.   They taught their children the value of hard work - everyone chipped in.

9.   They gave their children freedom to make their own choices and learn from them.

10. They disciplined their children out of love, not fear.

11. Their community was an integral part of their lives, they learned how to live with hard people.

12. Bad things happen. You learn from it and move on.  Don't wallow in self-pity.

13. Life's not fair, make the most of it.

14. They weren't afraid to tackle on hot-topic issues such as race, immigration, and politics.

15. They taught their children how to love others they didn't like and how to appreciate each other.

16. Every single episode had a moral to the story.  It wasn't entertainment for entertainment's sake.

17. They lived within their means.

18. They were comfortable in their own skin.

19. They didn't seek after riches.

20. They put emphasis on relationships as being more important than money.

21. They always sought God for guidance.



If you have any other's to add, I'd love to hear your input!

The Crazy Ones

I know this is from an old Apple ad, but it is worth repeating.

Love Does

I borrowed my title from this wonderful book.  But this story isn't about this book.  Clear as mud, right? This is a beautiful book and very inspiring.  Bennett can't seem to get it out of his head and is in the process of reading it for the second time all on his own accord.  But my story is about how one person in our family has been practicing 'doing love' and how beautiful it looks.

A while back at dinnertime we were all discussing what our love languages are.  Not that we haven't talked about it in the past, but we could tell it needed resurrecting.  Even though a child is the same person as they grow, their emphasis on their love language of preference sometimes changes.  And it's always helpful to encourage your kids to show their siblings love and teach them what that looks like since most of the time it doesn't come natural for them.  Self-preservation and fighting come naturally.

We were especially direct about this with Gavin.  We realized he has only 3 short years left living in this house with us under our daily guidance.  That time will pass in the blink of an eye.  We wanted to make sure he left an indelible mark in the lives of his siblings...that they wouldn't loose relationship just because he's not here 24 hours a day anymore.  That takes being intentional.

Love is not easy, nor does it come naturally for many people.  Gavin, in particular, operates much better if he knows the formula for something.  Once he learned the 'formula' of everyone's love language, it seemed much easier for him to make the formula function.

Ever since our conversation, Gavin has been the first to jump at a chance to show love.  If you know Gavin,  you know this is way outside his comfort zone and what he's normally like.  He doesn't often show emotion.  So this opportunity 'do' love in a 'known quantity' was huge to him.

For example, every night before I take my bath, I wash my tub.  Every. Single. Night.  But guess who asks me every night, "Mom, are you about to take your bath?  Can I go wash your tub for you?"  Or if Chuck gets up do it instead, Gavin races to be the first one because he knows how much it means to me (obviously, acts of service is my love language).   The other day at breakfast I mentioned that I planned on stripping my bed sheets to wash them and before I knew it, he was up in my room stripping my bed and taking my sheets to the washing machine.

And lately, he has actually offered to do the dishes on the night Chloe is scheduled to do them if there are a huge stack of them.  This in particular has shocked me.  He never deviates from the schedule (and yes, we have a schedule of whose turn it is to do the dishes each night).  Never.  Fair is fair.  But twice he has, out of his own volition with not so much as a nudge or look on our part, said, "I'll do the dishes for Chloe tonight."

Stunned.  That is me.  He really took our discussion to heart and I have seen a huge change in his love choices.  It's beautiful and true and I know, very hard for him.  But I see Jesus in him.  Where we are weak, He is strong.  This is the perfect example of that.

So that got me thinking....am I showing him love in the way he needs/wants it?  Come to find out, he's a chip off the 'ol the block.  His love language is also acts of service (and quality time).  So lately I've been ironing his shirts for him (an activity that will never get done otherwise because of his extreme disdain for ironing).  Apparently, this little act means the world to him.  And he feels my love even more than if I were to give him a bear hug (which worked well when he was 5, but not so much at 15).

This won't be the last time we have this conversation with the kids.  It's always a good reminder to love intentionally.  If we can practice on those closest to us, then it will be easier and come more naturally to love those around us that we don't know or even to love our enemies, one of the hardest challenges of all.

Right Of Passage

Today was a big day for our first born.  He went to the DMV to take the written test for his driver's permit.  He did not allow me to bring my big, bulky camera to document this momentous occasion.  He may think it's a big day for him - but rather, it's a big day for us, his parents.  Our baby is now going to be allowed to be out on these big, scary roads with other drivers...oh  my goodness, how can this be?! It was literally just yesterday that he was 1...I honestly don't see how he woke up the next day and morphed into a 15 year old young man.  Really, I don't.  Is this another one of his superhero tricks that he was forever pulling on me as a child?  It must be.

However, unbeknownst to the unsuspecting subject, I snuck in, snapped a poor quality photo with my camera phone as he was getting his official picture taken and snuck back out.  I got the 'thumbs up' through the window that he passed the written exam.  He only took like 35 online practice tests.  He was ready....even though he was slightly hyperventilating and moaning on our way in.  He kept repeating the phrase "oh no".  To make matters worse, as soon as we walk up to the counter to talk to the agent he asks Gavin in all seriousness, "Who was the only President not to get married?"  Gavin is taken back, not expecting this line of questioning and not at all sure if the guy was joking or not (he didn't look it).  He told him, with a half smirk, "I thought you were here to take a test?"  That elicited a smile and hopefully took the edge off his nerves a little.

We celebrated by (me) driving home (he's still mastering the high school parking lot) and having tea and cookies.  The perfect way to celebrate anything if you ask me.

Teenage Speak

I know it's been a while since I was a teenager.  I swore I would NEVER forget what it felt like.  And then I had 3 kids, got a little distracted from the whole teenage thing and yes, I eventually forgot.  But now, thanks to Gavin, we are fully immersed in teenagehood again.  And it's bringing back lots of memories.  Some things don't change over time:

The teenage eye roll (meaning, whatever)

The teenage head shake (meaning, you have no clue, do you mom)

The teenage shrug (meaning, I'm noncommittal about that mom)

The teenage grunt (meaning, yes, no, or i don't know)

Even though several things have remained constant, it seems that teenage verbiage is bound to change generation to generation.  It's just the way things are.  I remember actually making fun of how our parents used to talk as teenagers or any generation before us for that matter.  We were the definition of cool.  We were the bomb.  So it shouldn't come as any surprise to me that I'm being made fun of now.

In my day we were all Valley Girl speak, like, totally man.  Like, where'd you get those rad Z Cavaricci jeans?  Like, oh my gosh, they are way cool!

The word "like" still infiltrates much of today's teenspeak.  It is one of those 'cool' words no matter what the generation.  However, I was recently introduced to what is now considered 'hip', 'groovy', 'rad', whatever your 'cool' word is.  Here is a convo (short for conversation) Gavin and I had the other day:

Gavin walking over to the trash can:  "...that trash, though"

Me: "Are you saying something?"

Gavin, still at the trash can getting ready to empty it: "ya.....that trash though"

Me: "Um.  I don't know what that means."

Gavin: "Mom.  It means, the trash stinks."

Me: "Then say that.  In my world we say sentences that include both a subject and a predicate.  Are they not teaching that in schools these days?  I simply can't talk without one of those things in my narrative."

Gavin: condescending smirk and combined eye roll (meaning I just don't get it)

He even makes fun of me when I try to talk all teenagery.  I summon the voice of Crush from "Finding Nemo", you know, the calm, California cool turtle who's all like, "Dude...that's far out."  I'll start trying to talk like a cool teenager and I'll lower my voice and be like, "Dude...like, what's all that about?"  Which only serves to elicit more eye rolling and head shaking and condescending smirks. He finally broke down and told me, "Mom, whenever you try to talk like a teenager, you do it all wrong. Nobody talks like that.  Ever.  Don't do it.  It's just funny."

So, just for all you other non-teenager types out there who want the low down on how to talk cool, here's the key: less is more (and try to drop the predicate or subject from your sentence to really impress them).

....that blog though.

Amen