Growing up

As I was praying with the boys on our way to school this morning, I was a little overwhelmed by how they are becoming young men already.

Brendon and I are interacting at a different level than ever before. We're having more "grown up" conversations about life. His sense of humor jumps back and forth between elementary boy "body" humor and more sophisticated teasing and thoughts. Often, we'll sit in my big chair on lay on his bed at night and just talk. If I close my eyes, it's sometimes easy to forget that he's only nine. Of course, then he tackles me in the hall and makes some sci-fi sound effect and his age comes rushing back. :-)

Ian is feeling the pain of his pre-school childhood slipping away. He absolutely LOVES school, but daily reminds us how he misses just playing with his toys. He's moved from toddler to elementary boy. His art teacher caught me this morning to tell me how impressed she is with his maturity. She said, the normal kindergartners take several months to learn to pay attention and manage themselves, but he has been instantly attentive and produces great art already. Guess he is brighter than the average boy...ha!

I love these two dearly. And I pray daily that they would thoroughly enjoy their childhood...that it would be filled with life-long warm memories. I also look forward to watching them grow-up, however quickly that may be, and pray that they mature into passionate followers of the God who died for them.

Warning - Gross boy content

I apologize for the rather gross content of this post, but it made us laugh so hard, we just HAD to record it.

Ian and Brendon spent the night with my mom (Esther) recently. While there, Ian had the urge to go to the bathroom. After a little while, the expected yell came from the bathroom, "Done going pooooottttyyy!" (A little background...Ian has not yet learned how to wipe himself. When he yells, "Done going potty!" he means, "come and clean me up please!").

My mom went in and proceeded to wipe Ian's little bottom. She did it just once and declared he was ready.

Ian looked at her questioningly, "Are you sure I'm clean?"
Mom responded, "Yes, you are."
"But it was only once."
"I know, but you're clean, you can pull your pants up."

She began to help him pull his pants up when she heard, "Yep, you're right, I'm clean!"

She looked up to see Ian holding his finger in front of his face...examining it for any signn of "uncleanness."

We'll leave the rest to your imagination.

That's our boy...

Interesting

Life is interesting...I mean REALLY interesting. Nothing has quite been what I thought it might be and just when I think I've got a good system going, we enter a new phase with new rules and it all starts over. Not that I'm complaining...okay, I'm complaining, but not in an intense, whiny way :). I get bored easily and it keeps things, well, interesting. Now if I can just learn to enjoy change...

Some recent interesting things that are happening:
-Both boys are in school 6 hours a day which means I have more uninterrupted time to work on things
-Ironically, people I've tried to set up play dates with for the past couple of years are all of the sudden free, so I'm spending more time with people.
-Though some rather bizzare circumstances, I find myself co-leading worship for this year's northern zone ladies' retreat. It's rather last minute since it starts in about a month, so we've been scrambling to get stuff set.
-Recently, I agreed to work with vocals for The River Church, which means I'm running partial rehearsals (which I haven't done since Ian was about a year old) again and directing the choir when we have special services where we use a choir. This is what my college training was about, so it's nice to dust it off and use it again, though I find I've let myself grow a bit rusty in a few areas, which leads me to the next thing to incorporate in my days...
-I've realized it's been a while since I've had an intentional system for exercising and strengthening my voice. I've recently started practicing my vocal exercises again and look forward to gaining some of the flexibility I feel I've lost.
-I'm continuing my daily exercise routine, which is quite invigorating, but takes time.
-In the meantime, I need to make sure I get the boys' Halloween costumes made. This year there are three to make since I offered to make one for my nephew too. He saw the ones I made for e-bay last year and my sister said he was so impressed and really wanted one. I was wishing I had known so I could have done one for him last year, but determined to make one this year.

So...my October is pretty well booked up. I'm wondering what the Christmas holidays will bring...

Honesty

One of the things I've noticed among different leaders lately is a sort of passive less-than-honest manipulation.

Sometimes I've been guilty of it.

We see an individual and assess their gifts, talents, skills, etc and "place" them in our mind. Or, we watch them in action and determine that he/she needs to be "placed" differently than they are.

But, instead of talking about it openly, or, perhaps investing in them to grow them into where we thought they don't fit, we begin to offer passive suggestions and comments. We slowly push them where WE think they should be.

I've done this, and am not proud of it. 

The more I understand my role as a leader in the church (which is another discussion altogether - the current view of what leadership is and isn't), the more I realize that my primary job is listening for the direction of the Holy Spirit and then, openly and honestly, acting on His direction.

Is subtlety sometimes necessary? Yes, but only at His direction. We are to apt to be manipulative and I've rarely, if ever, seen that work.