Top Ten Inventions for Babies and Their Parents

Posted on October 16, 2012 by jphilo

Grandparenthood makes a person go a little baby crazy. A mind consumed with baby thoughts. Sentences reduced to baby talk. Conversation reduced to discussions about what baby gifts to purchase for Christmas. And today, a top ten list of the greatest baby inventions of all time.

10. The microwave. The man of steel’s mom gave us an Amana Radar Range (that’s what microwaves were called in the olden days when our firstborn came along) for a baby present. It was a godsend for thawing frozen breast milk and/or heating bottles.

9. The baby gates. Our second born would have been in the emergency room constantly without a baby gate to keep the stairs off limits to her.

8. Cardboard boxes, wooden spoons, and pan lids. The best baby toys ever.

7. The snaps. Can you imagine how long it took to fasten teeny-tiny baby buttons before snaps came along?

6. The wheel. We should all be eternally grateful to the prehistoric inventor who got the wheel rolling. How would parents calm fussy babies if they couldn’t take them for rides in strollers or cars?

5. The baby swing. How did parents get through the first three months of a baby’s life without one?

4. The car seat. How many lives have they saved?

3. The modern breast pump. The pump pictured above–yes the one that resembles an instrument of torture–belonged to my grandmother. (Are you writhing in pain yet?) One look at that thing and every woman who uses a modern breast pump will write a letter of thanks to its manufacturer.

2. Diaper pins. My head hurts when I try to picture how moms kept diapers on their babies before these over-sized safety pins came along.

1. Rubber pants. When my sister and I used disposable diapers on our boys, Mom scoffed and called us namby-pambies. Until my sister replied, “So did your mom call you a namby-pamby because you used rubber pants because they weren’t around when you were a baby?” My admiration for Grandma increased tenfold that day, and my gratitude for the invention of rubber pants is undying.

How about you? What’s your favorite invention for babies and their parents? Leave a comment.

In a Dry and Thirsty Land

Posted on August 3, 2012 by jphilo

O God, Thou art my God; I shall seek Thee earnestly;
My soul thirsts for Thee, my flesh yearns for Thee,
In a dry and weary land where there is no water.
Psalm 63:1

The drought of 2012 is a doozy, no doubt about it. The hot, dry weather has our family reminiscing about other droughts we’ve endured. Mom remembers how hot their old farmhouse near Pipestone, Minnesota was during the summer of 1936. “The upstairs was so hot,” she says, “we dragged our blankets and pillows outside to sleep in the yard.” Then she adds, “The next drought came in 1956. The summer I was pregnant with you.” She nods in my direction. “I was miserable until you put in an appearance in July.”

I pretty much know how miserable Mom was because our daughter Anne was also born in late July during the drought of 1988. Anne, of course, doesn’t remember that toasty, dry summer but our son Allen, who was six that year, does. “The grass was brown and crispy,” he says, “and the yellow jackets built hives in the cracks in the ground.”

And now Allen’s wife knows how miserable Mom and I were during the droughts of ’56 and ’88. Only more so because she’s pregnant during the worst drought since ’36 and isn’t due until September. Please, keep her in your prayers!

Our family tradition of anticipating new life during drought years has warped my perception of them. When reading biblical accounts of droughts, or when listening to current weather reports I see circumstances, both past and present, as pregnant with opportunity. God used ancient droughts to bring his wandering people back to him. Men and women who trusted him in times of need became part of the Christ’s lineage. Over and over, God blessed bone-dry believers with the promise of a future Messiah, and the faithful clung to that hope.

This rain-starved summer, as every other drought year in my lifetime and yours, is an opportunity for us to cling to faith as our spiritual forefathers did. We can pray for people to turn to God as their illusion of human control evaporates in a cloudless sky. We can trust God to prove himself faithful in the midst of spiritual and physical want. We can share Christ’s living water with lost and parched wanderers and expect God to bring forth new life in many.

When we trust God in lean times, we are like the psalmist David, who sought God earnestly in the desert. Like David, we look beyond the burned fields and wilting trees and see God in his sanctuary, watering our souls with his completed promises and grace. We learn to be satisfied in him as we’ve never been satisfied before. When we gaze upon the God who waters our lives through the saving grace of a baby in a manger, our Father assures us that his fountain of life never runs dry.

The Small Things

Posted on April 2, 2012 by jphilo

For who has despised the day of small things?
Zechariah 4:10a

As a young child, I day dreamed about becoming big things kind of girl. I had big plans for a career as either a television star or a princess. Therefore, I focused on the big things like dramatic poses and tiaras rather than little things like learning to tie my shoes. Or telling time. Or making letters like b and d point the right way. Or memorizing math facts. Eventually, my parents and teachers made life miserable until I learned convinced me to pay attention to little things.

But I remained a big things kind of girl at heart for many years. Even after I became a Christian and started reading the Bible. I preferred the big, showy stories – Moses parting the Red Sea, Daniel in the lion’s den, and Jesus feeding the five thousand – to hidden, quiet events like Moses in the bull rushes, Ruth gleaning grain, or the long drudgery of rebuilding the temple in Zechariah’s day.

I remained a sucker for bright lights and big things until two babies entered our home six years apart. When they arrived, life became a river of small things. Tiny fingernails to clip. Itty bitty diapers. Minuscule onesies. Little bodies asleep in my arms. The first tiny hints of toothless smiles.

Slowly, my attitude about material things began to change. The arrivals of these little people made the sacrifices – buying a minivan, sleepless nights, spit up stains ruining expensive clothes, fun money diverted for college savings accounts and day care providers – worthwhile.

My spiritual attitude began changing, too. When I bathed our babies, I imagined Mary bathing her son. Wiping his nose. Drying his tears. Hugging his small body, holding him close, caring for her little boy. I imagined Jesus, God’s Son, beginning his life as the smallest and most inconsequential of small things. A baby born in a barn. Yet that baby grew up to do big things. He lived a perfect life. He healed hurting people. He fed the five thousand. He died on a cross, rose from the dead, and ascended into heaven. All to reconcile small and petty sinners to the eternal, omnipotent God.

My children are grown. I haven’t bathed a baby in years. But as the shadow of the cross grows large in the days before Easter, my thoughts turn to the babe in the manger. The hope of a fallen world contained in a small package. The baby who guides sinners to the foot of the cross.

My God works through small things. He uses the weak things of the world to shame the things which are strong. He uses small things like us to demonstrate our need for the great gift of His Son. At the foot of the cross, kneeling before the manger, I am finally content with small things.

Down the Gravel Road www.jolenephilo.com

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Top Ten Inventions for Babies and Their Parents