by jphilo | Feb 10, 2012 | Family
We’re off to cheese head country this afternoon to visit our son and new daughter, so time is short. Therefore, today’s post is recycled from February 12, 2010 when we were busy planning two weddings. With Valentine’s Day around the corner, both kids nearing their second wedding anniversaries, and my time crunch due to visiting one couple, this seemed like the perfect post.
Mindful – Recycled
I take so many things in life for granted: a warm home, a loving husband, more food than I need, education and job skills, freedom to travel, vacations, a functioning government, friends who stand by me, and the ability to pay our bills each month. These privileges are so commonplace I treat them as my due.
But each time my children call, I’m reminded of a double privilege my husband and I hope we never take for granted. We count their calls as blessings, their voices full of confidence in our love for them, eager to talk about the events of the past week and dreams for the future. The blessing multiplies when they ask for our advice, consider our words seriously, and heed what we say.
I never dreamed of such relationships with my adult children after growing up in the sixties watching the hippies and flower children denigrate and scoff the “establishment.” A bit young to participate in the rebellion, a bit of the ‘60s attitude still managed to rub off on me. My parents’ advice was considered suspect until after our son was born, and we needed all the help we could get to survive his first five years.
So we never expected our children would value our advice before they became parents. During Allen’s monastery years, we lost our easy relationship with him and believed it was gone forever. But God has blessed our family with restoration though we deserve this blessing no more than any other family. When I talk to our children, I am overwhelmed by the sweetness of God’s grace and acutely aware of families broken by strife, crippled by rebellion. I hold back the tears until after the good-byes and I love yous.
Then I let them flow as I pray, “Please God, make me mindful of your blessings. Don’t let me ever take them for granted.”
by jphilo | Nov 16, 2011 | Recipes
My kids love homemade applesauce. Maybe it’s because Grandma Dorothy used to tell them the applesauce she made had smiles in it. All they had to do, she said, was taste it and they would start to smile. She was right. It worked every time.
During the fall and winter, our grocery store often sells their culled apples for $.99 or $1.99 for a four to five pound bag. I snatch up those bargains, bring them home, and make applesauce. Here’s the recipe – very easy, but it takes some time!
Crock Pot Applesauce
12 – 15 medium apples 1 cup water
¼ – ½ cup sugar (to taste) 1 – 2 teaspoons cinnamon
Scrub apples with vegetable brush. Quarter each apple (do not peel or core) and put them in the crock pot. Add water. Cook for 8 – 10 hours, stirring occasionally, until apples are soft and mushy. Place colander over a large mixing bowl. Ladle cooked apples into a colander and press them through. When finished, stir sugar and cinnamon (to taste) into sauce. If sauce is thick, add a little water. Serve warm or cold. Store in the refrigerator for a week or freeze some to enjoy later.
If you prefer chunky applesauce, peel, core and slice the apples before putting them in the crock pot. Once the apples are soft, don’t run them through the colander. Just add sugar and cinnamon, and you’re done.
by jphilo | Aug 16, 2011 | Family
This post from August 11, 2009 shows how life can change in two years. Our son and his fiance are now married. They are busy with their present jobs and contemplating new employment opportunities they hadn’t expected. Our daughter, who still lived with us two summers ago, moved to Ohio this week, where her husband will start grad school.
Two years later, we’re all too busy and too scattered for a family visit to the Iowa State Fair this year. But two things remains the same: the good relationships we have with our children and their spouses make these the best days, and the butter cow is as tacky as ever.
These Are the Best Days – Recycled
Our son called last night to say he and his fiance are coming this weekend. They want to go the State Fair Saturday. “We’d like you and Dad to come, too,” he said. After our call ended, I went upstairs and asked Anne if she wanted to come, too. “Yeah,” she said. “I’d love to.”
When I went to bed, something James Herriot said in one of the books in his All Things Wise and Wonderful series came to mind. He was talking about the days when his children were eight and ten, the age when they were old enough to be good company on his veterinary rounds and young enough to still believe he was smart. “I didn’t know it at the time,” he said in his book, “but those were the best years of all.”
For a long time I looked upon our years of parenting our kids through middle childhood in the same way, especially when Allen was away from us and struggling. But now that he is whole and in our lives again, along with the wonderful young woman he will marry, and now that Anne’s on the brink of independence and values every little scrap of wisdom we share with her, I think an even better time has come.
These days of sharing life with our adult children are the best by far. They’ve been rendered more precious by having been denied them for seven long years, so precious, in fact, that I don’t have to wait until the future to realize what a treasure they are. I recognize now, today, what a treasure it is to have my children with me.
No matter how hot it is Saturday, no matter how much my feet hurt, no matter how tacky the butter cow may be, I will be truly grateful all day long.
So, what’s changed in your life and what’s stayed the same in the last two years? What’s the tackiest thing you’ve seen at the Iowa State Fair? Leave a comment, so we can compare notes.
by jphilo | Jul 26, 2011 | Family
A quick look through July posts from the past few years, and this week’s recycled post was a no brainer. Two years ago this week, Allen called with big news that delighted us all. He and the love of his life were engaged. Our delight (and theirs) has only increased in the past two years. Abbey and Allen complement one another beautifully, and she is a blessing to our family.
Big News – Recycled
On Sunday, the last full day of our vacation, an email with the subject line “ET Phone Home” landed in my inbox. The cryptic message from my sister said, “You and Hiram need to call Allen (HE IS FINE), no need for angst.”
Immediately, I knew our son had one of two things to tell us. Either his beloved truck Rumblefish had died, or he and Abbey were engaged. I was pretty sure it was the second because he’d told me he was saving for a ring. A few minutes later, he confirmed my hunch. He’d surprised Abbey on Thursday evening with the question and the ring. She cried and said yes.
Allen and Abbey took us to supper after our flight from Spokane to Minneapolis Monday. The wedding details haven’t been fleshed out, but they’re tossing about a tentative date of April 10, 2010. The word “happy” does not adequately describe either their delight with one another or the fun we had talking about wedding plans.
Those of you who’ve been following Allen’s story know he was in a monastery for over five years, preparing to take final vows as a monk, and that he left at the end of last November to be treated for post-traumatic stress disorder. So you may be thinking, “Hmm, this seems like a pretty fast 180 degree turn.” On the surface, that’s exactly what it looks like. But if you look back six or seven years, to the days before Allen entered the monastery, you’ll see Abbey in the picture. She and Allen first met after their junior year of high school, and they clicked immediately.
But the full story is theirs to tell, not mine. I’ll just say that for me it illustrates how God uses His mercy, grace, healing and restoration to meet the deepest needs of our hearts and set all things right. So welcome to the family, Abbey. You are a joy beyond anything we could have imagined or conceived.
by jphilo | May 20, 2011 | Family
Yesterday morning, I had a vivid just-before-waking dream. Our son, about three years old, snuggled in bed between Hiram and me.
He grinned when we called him the peanut butter in our family sandwich, giggled and squirmed when we tickled him. Along with his giggles, I heard the wheezy, asthmatic sound of his breathing – a condition called tracheomalacia which went along with his esophageal birth defect (EA/TEF) – something the doctors assured us he would outgrow as the cartilage around his bronchial tubes hardened.
I woke, disoriented and twenty-six years older than in my dream. I left our bed, where my husband, but no son, lay sleeping. I stumbled through our house, not the one we shared with our toddler son. I couldn’t shake the dream. It lingered all day long. The odd sound of our son’s breathing and the sweetness of his small, high voice and delighted giggles echoed in my memory. All day, I missed our child, ached for his small body crowding in between us, longed for his little boy, sweaty smell. More than once, tears came to my eyes as the realization that those years and those sounds, even the wheezy ones caused incessant worry, were gone forever.
Because the doctors were right. Our son outgrew the tracheomalacia around the time he started kindergarten. He left his wheezy gurgles behind, along with his fascination with dinosaur bones, his adoration for Mr. Rodgers and the Land of Make Believe, and his love of Legos. (Well, strike that last one. He still groves over Legos now and then.)
In a few days, our boy turns twenty-nine, and I rejoice in the man he has become. His face is whiskered, his step confident, his laugh deep, his voice resonant, his breathing quiet. He is a good man – loving, thoughtful, creative, and caring.
But he will never be three again,
never jump into bed between us again,
beg to be tickled again,
delight to be the peanut butter in our family sandwich again,
giggle with his wheezy gurgle again.
So this day, in the wake of a most vivid and lovely dream,
I am grieving for days that can never be again.
I am missing our little boy.
I am learning what it means to be a mom.
