Well. We are one week and two days into summer vacation. My family has survived the insanity of Vacation Bible School at our local church last week. Its a 300 kid, 200 worker fest of crazy fun for five nights in a row the week after school gets out. This means that we take the end of school year push and double down.
As a direct result, my car looks a lot like a goodwill donation bin. Clothing changes and wadded up end of year school projects and fast food bags and inexplicably one Minnie Mouse pink sandle have taken up permanent residence. And that’s just the front seat. My if “I had a million dollars drop from the sky” dream is a self cleaning car. Or a budget to hire a butler to stand in my garage awaiting my return home to remind me to TAKE THE CRUD IN THE HOUSE! Probably I could program alarms on my phone and I could have Siri tell me to clean up. But let’s be honest. I’d ignore her. Or be out of phone battery. I like to create new things. Its fun. I like to paint and write and think of new projects. Cleaning out my car is…..wait for it…..summer kid word…..boring. Its boring right up until its a massive crisis and then its sorta fun. Like a treasure hunt. I also get great satisfaction in taking it from complete mess to clean. But the daily taking my junk into the house and putting it away does not hit my radar. No adventure in that. My ten-year-old has been taking piano since she was two. Seriously. We were those parents. My theory was that early piano led to good brain development and impressive reading and math skills. I did not factor in the misery of piano practice. While the big sister does in fact read like a speed train we have decided to let little sister wait until she’s five to start piano. It may also be the second child factor. Really its that I can’t hack dealing with two sessions of piano practice a day. Another piano parent friend of ours told me that he makes his kids take piano just to learn how to tunnel through the drudgery of practice. It builds character. I love the word drudgery. Piano is fun AFTER you pracitice. When you know the songs and you can play to relax and think and entertain and worship. Drilling through scales not so much. But I think my friend may be right. It builds character. And those drills are what lead to the beauty. Or the adventure. Clearly I need more practice.
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My three year old is taking swimming lessons at the local YMCA. I love this pool. All kinds of people. All levels of skill. The past two Saturday mornings I’ve hauled out of bed earlier than I like on Saturdays and my girls and I have gone down to the Y.
The little one is learning how to blow bubbles in the water and alligator crawl across the pool. She’s holding onto floating barbells and kicking on the side of the pool. She keeps giving strange looks to the one little boy who is crying on the sideline. The little miss is easy to read. Hope his parents aren’t watching. She’s not subtle. Her big sister is swimming laps over in the lap pool. She had to take a test to qualify to swim in the deep water. She was nervous. She passed. Down and back. Kick. Straight. Down and back. This week I sat on the sideline in one of those plastic stackable chairs. The chair had a crack along the back. Whenever I leaned back I fell slowly back through the chair. I would try for good posture sitting. I’d forget. Fall back though the back of the chair. Disconcerting. My baby was kicking and splashing. My big one was tunneling through laps. Down and Back. I was watching both of them and surprising myself repeatedly with the strange bendable plastic chair. Good way to spend 30 minutes on a Saturday morning. Made me think. Swimming lessons are fun. Splashing around in the shallow end certainly gets us used to the water. Get the feel for things. Safe and secure. Lots of eyes watching. Minimal risk. Lap swimming in the deep water lanes is harder. Better at building muscle though. Still plenty of life guards. Some of you know that I’m working on a new venture. I’m launching a new blog called Quirky Faith. I’ve got a new website, email subscription software, photo shoot and a PO Box all lined up. I’ve got some guest bloggers and some give aways. I’m calendered up. Right this very second I feel like I’ve graduated from the kiddie pool and swum past the lap pool. I feel like I’m standing on the cliff above the ocean like one of those deep water ocean divers. Peering down 100 feet to deep water. Wondering what is under the water and what is out past the horizon. The ocean is deep. Mark Batterson says that if your dream doesn’t scare you it isn’t big enough. I’m terrified. And very excited. Scarecited. www.QuirkyFaith.com launches on July 1st. Twenty Days. Swim Baby. |
About MeI love Jesus. I think my two daughters can change the world. I think you can too. Past Posts
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