Micah

So today we had a great discussion, me and Micah, on the way to preschool.

"Mama - I hot." (It is about 40 degrees outside and the car isn't warmed up yet. I'm shivering.)

"Micah - don't you mean you are cold?"

"No mama - I hot."

"Well, mommy is cold."

"Yeah. I hot too."

Reason #879 for not trying to reason with a 2 year old! They can't tell the difference between hot and cold.

I was impressed with our little back-and-forth! Normally, I say something and he says, "No - don't want it." We are making progress...

Slowly!

$20

So today, I learned something new again. Go figure. I learned that you can't trust a 6 year old with $20. Last night, Katie told me that they had a book fair at school and that her class was going to get to go to it today and she wanted to buy a book. Well, you hate for your kid to be the only one without a book, so I go to the ATM. I only can get a $20 bill so Katie and I work out a deal - she gets ONE book and brings the rest of the money back to me.

Right. Who's the idiot? I showed up at school later in the day and her teacher meets me first - "Oh Katie is so sweet - you should see the book she chose for her brother!" (I am just knowing that her ONE book was not chosen for her brother.)

She sees me and comes running. "Mom - you should see all the stuff I got at the book fair and I STILL got money back." She has 2 books for herself and one for her brother.

It was sweet of her to think of her brother so it's not like I can scold her for that. And one of the books she picked is a board book so that "brother can share it". It was about Barbie the fairy, but none the less...

Anyway, I finally get around to asking for the rest of the money. Not much point in that.

I got a whopping $0.77.

Rick laughed. He said she comes by her money management skills honestly! That's the truth!

Penguins, by Katie

We just got a new printer that has a scanner so I had to scan and post this picture that Katie drew at school. They are studying winter animals and the number 4 so this is how she chose to illustrate it! Cute cute cute! This one made it onto the fridge!

Epiphanies

It seems like every year for the past few, I have had a major epiphany about myself. Maybe it's a sign of aging (!) or perhaps I'm in a slower phase of life right now and have a little more time (while folding the endless laundry or building lego towers) to contemplate things. Whatever the reason, my first resounding thought for 2008 occurred last week.

I think one of the first times I felt one of these "themes for the year" or "major lessons" occurring was in 2005, our first full year here in SC. I can vividly recall it - it was revealed to me, by God I have decided, that my first impressions (of which I had a lot, that year) cannot be trusted and are usually wrong. I was just so amazed after we had been here several months to discover that the initial conclusions I had so quickly drawn during our visit here and during the first few months we lived here, were shattered with time, and things were not as I had assumed they would be. It wasn't that things were worse, actually they were probably better than I had thought, but largely they were just different. I remember this specifically being true with regards to relationships, both the new ones and the surviving long-distance ones. So anyway, throughout the year, that epiphany resounded within me and has become part of who I am. Maybe I am less likely to jump to quick assumptions about how things will be, or maybe I've become a bit more patient with myself and more open to see how things develop. Either way, it was good to learn that about myself.

I'll spare you such a lengthy explanation of other year's thoughts. This year, though, I am still in the exploratory phase of this new insight. I have decided that this year I will be allowing other people to tell me no! Sounds arrogant, I know! It's not really as simple as that sounds. All I can say to explain is that in the past, I have tried to be pursuasive with someone when I felt like their reasons for saying no were unfounded, like they didn't know what they were missing or how things would really be if they went along with my plan! This assumption is based on some pretty arrogant thoughts - such as, I know what is better for someone than they know themselves and that others are incapable of making a good decision, so I need to badger them into making a better one which invariably agrees with me! What has made me like this, I wonder.

Anyway, the real question is what this will look like in the "new me". One big difference I notice in mature, Godly women is that they tend to talk a lot less than me. I think that will have something to do with this new insight. I think that there is still a place for encouraging others, but I think I will have to be analyzing my motives much more closely before determining if what I am "encouraging" someone towards is at all self-motivated. I don't think I have been mean-hearted in the past with what I have tried to convince folks to do or not to do. But arrogant, perhaps, in thinking I knew better what they ought to do. It is somewhat painful to put that word on myself!

However, if the shoe fits... Transformation is a necessary part of "the walk" and it could be a lot more painful than just having to admit to something like arrogance, so at this point I will just be thankful for a gentle lesson this year and try to keep this thought at the front of my mind until it becomes part of me! May God bless you with new revelations about what he wants to transform within you in this new year!

Good Book

Okay - so I'm getting why women should have their children while they are still young! Pregnancy in my 30's is more difficult than in my 20's. But I guess a good byproduct of feeling like such a slug right now is that I've had a good excuse to read more (like I really needed that!)

I found another gem - "We Are All The Same" by Jim Wooten. It's no Saturday afternoon read - it's actually quite intense, but very moving in a way we all need to be moved. It's biographical, though retold in a great story, about an AIDS orphan in South Africa and the white woman who changed his life and those of countless others by deciding that there had to be more to her life than what she had found thus far. Unfortunately, she doesn't reach any spiritual epiphanies in this period of her life but she does reach some very God-like conclusions and develops a passion for compassion towards those on the margins of society.

Having grown up in the 80's and 90's, I heard words like 'apartheid' and names like 'Mandela' and 'Desmond Tutu', but not until this book have they all come together to make real the suffering and desperation of millions of people that were created in the image of God and that are loved by him as fully and completely as my own children are. I recommend this book for the shear reality of it - the day to day, face by face reality of life for millions in Africa.

You might need to chew on this one a bit!

New Year, New Kiddo

So in case you haven't heard, there is yet another Castleman on the way. #3 is due in July and Katie said that the Lord spoke to her and told her that this one will be a baby sister. We'll just go with that. My only prayer (besides that it's healthy) is that it will be laid back and quiet! This house is rowdy enough, which of course begs the question, why we are doing this again. We'll let you know if we figure that out.

Anyway, I just wanted everyone to be in the loop since it seems like there is always someone that doesn't hear until late. We have known for a couple months but we wanted to wait to tell the kids until Christmas, so we've been trying to keep it on the down-low. Micah announced to everyone at church this week - "I a big brudder", which was cute.

I guess that's all for today! Happy New Year!