Joy to Spare

In nine days Daddy will receive a kidney transplant, and my world will change drastically. Although I should be leaping for joy, I am terrified. God wants to lead us out of Egypt, but I, foolishly, like Israel, prefer slavery to the unknown. A similar drastic and terrifying change happened three years ago, though I didn't know it was coming then. Daddy's kidneys failed, and our carefree (as much as you can call life with a six-week-old carefree) existence failed as well. Now I had a newborn to care for and a very sick husband whom I could no longer serve the tasty, healthy meals I had just become good at preparing, but only white bread/rice, bland meat, lettuce, candy, and mayonnaise. Then there were his 5 or 6 twice-daily prescription medications. How were we going to pay for this? We figured out the diet well enough, and the vast majority of the meds were covered by insurance. After a year, we started daily home dialysis, and he felt much healthier. He was even able to eat a ...

For a couple weeks I have been reading to Big Bro from The House at Pooh Corner. It baffles me that he is interested in it, because A.A. Milne's writing is much more complex than the kinds of things we expect three-year-olds to follow. One of the first stories I read to him was the one in which Pooh invents the game of Poohsticks. They drop sticks off one side of the bridge, then go over to see whose floats out the other side first. One time, the sticks don't come, but then out floats Eeyore who had fallen into the water much farther up the river. A simple plot, but it's not written as straightforwardly (is that a word?) as that. Afterwards, Big Bro acted out the game of Poohsticks just as it happened in the story: he dropped his stick off one side of the bridge, went over to the other side, and I asked if it had come out the other side, and he said, "Yes, but it's Eeyore!" I always knew there would be a time when his comprehension astounded me. This is the fi...

A conversation between Daddy and Big Bro from a couple months ago that one of us had written down. Big Bro: What are we doing tomorrow, Daddy? Daddy: I'm going to work tomorrow. Big Bro: Do I have to go to work? Daddy: Well, one day you'll have to go to work. Big Bro: Why do you have to go to work? Daddy: Because I'm a man, and that's what a man does, go to work. And sometimes mommies go to work. We're lucky, our mommy stays home. When you grow up to be a man you'll work. Big Bro: I have a face and tummy and legs. I am a man. Daddy: I'll teach you how to be a man. Isn't that interesting? What is a man? Do you become a real man when you have a man's face, legs, and tummy (and beard and when you're tall and turn eighteen)? Or does a boy have to learn how to become a man? I believe it's the latter. The book Raising a Modern Day Knight has a lot to say about this. I highly recommend it.

For a while, things were going smoothly, or as smoothly as things can go for a mother of toddler and preschool boys. But as children grow, ways of thinking and doing things must change. Both boys have made transitions recently which have rocked my little world. Big Bro's developments: - He has finally called us on our increasingly lax discipline - by way of doing nothing we tell him to, and everything we tell him not to. - He likes to rough house with his brother. Boys will be boys, but how to teach what is fun and what is too rough? Little Bro's developments: - He has learned that doing something naughty gains him attention. Time-outs are a fun game, where he walks out of time-out laughing, and mom/dad puts him back. Nonstop. For 2 minutes. Many times a day. - He can now climb onto chairs - and up to Brother's toys. Brother is less than thrilled. So, I am anxiously awaiting a couple Dobson books on discipline I ordered. But what I really want is Supernanny. No, not really....