the one in which my perfectly designed gift number two is used by God to refine me

our landlord came by today to pick up this month's rent. I wondered if he would notice the recently added "toasty orange" wall in our living room.
he didn't.
it may have been because of Josu (stationed in my bedroom "until the man leaves") screaming "I need go poo-poo!" over and over and over again.
yeah. I'm thinking that was it.
he just looked compassionately at me and said, "the transition from two to three kids is rough, isn't it?"

smooch. squeeze. sniff.

I sent Joshua off early this morning - - with a smooch and a butt cheek squeeze (you know, the squeeze that communicates "I'm sorry for being such a grouch last night" ?- - I'm pretty sure it did the trick)
he's headed to Hungary for nine days for a church planting conference. I have a list of things to do while he is gone:
1. tame the craziness in the boys room
2. tame the craziness in our room
(that's a short list you say? ha! you haven't seen the craziness! it's in the same family as this craziness - -
which has, since this picture was taken, been put back into order, thank you very much)
besides, whenever Joshua goes away I tend to get this insane notion that I'll be able to get more stuff done than usual, and then he actually leaves and I realize:
1. he helps me a ton with the kids and house, and when he's not around, I don't have more time and energy, I have less time and energy!
and
2. really cool people (like our Christian community, and my friend Ana) know that I will be home without Joshua and so they make a huge effort to get together with me so that I don't get lonely. so I really don't have time to get stuff done; it's awesome. I love it. but I just have to keep the list short, you know?

perfectly designed gifts

Look at him! isn't he cute? God carefully crafted and designed him; and then gave him to us for us to raise him!

and our Josu!
and this wee lassie!
God is good.

Last night, on the News

Bob (as we'll call him): "well, as you know, Spain is the only European country that allows even its 'respectable' newspapers to include adds for prostitution! Isn't that right, Sue?"
Sue (as we'll call her): "that's right Bob!"
Bob: "not only are there pages and pages of these adds in our newspapers, but often, these adds are accompanied by scandalous, explicit photographs!"
Sue (wagging her head appropriately at this outrageous national shame): "that's right, Bob, in fact we are going to show you some of those very images right here, right now . . . "

aaaaaand that's when my good husband changed the channel.
it's good to know, though, that public tv is doing its part to put an end to such inappropriate images in other mediums of public media. tremendously noble. really.

No, there are no pictures for this post. that wouldn't be right now, would it?

do remember that thing about Rachel? well, she did it again, look what she brought me back from a junk shop in England:
Once, when Joshua was trying to snuggle with me, one of the earrings almost poked his eye out; and another time, when we woke up in the morning, there was a little earring shaped hickey on Joshua's shoulder right where I had laid my head on him. And every time I take my sweater off, it gets caught on the little hook on the back of the earring, and I have to roll on the ground for several minutes to try and wrestle it off. well, all of that and I'm still keeping them! I like them that much!

by the way, Rachel, I do wish that you would come back from that little trip you are taking. Two weeks is way too long for you to be gone from us. Sure, it's nice that Selma can sleep in your room (and we don't have to deny ourselves our late night snacks or our mid-morning second breakfasts like we normally have to when her crib is set up in the kitchen) but it's not really worth it to us. and seriously, how often do you clean that bathroom between your bedroom and the boy's bedroom so that it doesn't smell like an elementary school boy's bathroom all the time? like, five times a day?

p.s. mostly, I miss you, but I also miss the 70% Belgian chocolate that you keep stashed in our kitchen cabinet! come home soon!

compliments. kind of. the mystery solved.

ha! you'll never guess what just happened to me!
we were having a bit of an afternoon stroll around the park, when a kindly older gentleman struck up a conversation with Selma; and we chatted it up about redheads
me: "yeah, I have three of them, can you believe it?"
kindly older gentleman: "in the pueblo that I grew up in, there was a whole family of redheads!"
me: "that must have been one good looking family"
. . . and the conversation continued on for a bit like that . . . and then he said it - - "and they don't have freckles!"
so I did my part - - "well, I have freckles, so you never know . . ."
and then he said - - "noooooo . . . you don't have freckles . . . you may have some zits, but you don't have freckles . . ."

well now, that explains it all.
and I'm taking it as a compliment.
on a completely unrelated note, I'm off to wash my face.
a picture of Selma, looking far into her future when people will think that all her freckles are just zits

compliments. kind of.

it is not unusual for us to be stopped by random strangers who dote on our redheads; it happens all the time. we don't mind - - it's fun, really. almost everyone has a story to share about a redhead in their family, or a redhead that they once knew or dated . . . we like the stories!

and not all the time, but often, I'll have someone nod approvingly and say something like "and your redheads have beautiful white skin - - they aren't the freckled kind"
and I - - my children's very freckled mama, smile and nod and say something like "well, my freckles really didn't start coming in till I was about five, and if they do get freckles, we really won't mind too much!"

what I like about you. #1 in a series of about a billion

on the days when I'm all tired and worn out from the ever-so-important duties of keeping this home a well oiled machine, you pull out the Chocolate Crunch cereal (the crunch cereal that has been sitting in the shelf for about six months and is all chewy and stuck together and that you recently swore to never eat again because of its general disgustingness)and are like - - "no really babe, don't fix me dinner; I really want to eat crunch cereal"
sigh.

we were walking down to the pasteleria this afternoon to buy milk when Malachai (who recently started taking some classes in Euskera - - the Basque language) told me "did you know that burdea means 'animal buns' in Euskera?"

me: "really? that's kind of a weird thing to learn to say in Euskera"

Malachai: "I know mama, the thing is that the Basques say really crazy things"

me: "oh"
(really, what else could I say? well, other than - - "come on now, son, a little respect please . . ." )

a day in the life of us living a day with Dawn

Our super cool friend Dawn was here visiting last week. While she was here we took a little jaunt up to France (you can do that when you live in northern Spain) where we did fun things like walk on a French beach (averting our eyes from the occasional French nudie), eat French crepes, check French mail slots for French bad guys,
and peer into French shops and wonder about the moral implications of spending ungodly amounts of money on French children's fashion.
p.s. how hard do you think it would be to draft up a pattern for that little jacket?

go ahead and touch, but please don't pull

Selma found her earrings today; let's hope she doesn't rip those little suckers out of her lobes.
Sometimes she makes this face and then it gets stuck there. really.

portrait of a scratcher

uh, what's that, Josu? what do you want me to do? why are you scratching your head? pointing at the camera?
scratch, point. scratch, point.
oh. you want me to take a picture of you scratching your head. of course - - it makes perfect sense that you would want that. alright, go ahead and stand there and scratch.
well now, that turned out nicely.

oh, and Yesterday we found out from Malachai that his English teacher speaks "half English, half gibberish" . . . . interesting . . . .

off to school, my boys! be educated!

people worry. often, people worry about their own kids. Sometimes people worry about other people's kids. I think that in our neighborhood a lot of people worry about my kids; they worry that since they don't go to preschool at age two, that they will be permanently scarred - - unable to socialize or fit into group activities or learn how to share.

we heard good news from Josu's teacher today as she delightedly told us that she was surprised at how well Josu had done on his first day of school; especially since he had never been to preschool!

good job little man; good job!

purposeful re-integration - - the ugly side of it.

well, two days back now, and I'm working hard to jump right back into life - - I'm excited about meeting up with friends and contacts here in my neighborhood; I'm looking forward to seeing what "strangers" might be willing to greet or be greeted after our summer's absence (it happens - - have you ever noticed? someone who you see on a regular basis, but who you're not quite on greeting terms with, is more ready to say hello or to respond to a hello after you haven't seen each other for a while; it's true! try it! try it! try it!)

So I was thinking about all this purposeful re-integration this morning, and as I was in my local coffee shop, I ran into a girl that I might consider a casual aquaintence. our friendly interaction went a bit like this:

me:"heeeeeeyy! how are you? where is your little boy this morning?"

her:"oh, he's not with me this morning. . . . he's with his mumble mumble

(I couldn't quite catch this last bit- - it's kind of loud in the pasteleria and I'm still clouded with jet lag; I assume that the gist of what she is saying is that she left her boy back home with her husband so that she could calmly read the newspaper and drink her coffee - - a common treat for many of the moms with small children that I know)

me: (with a warm, genuine smile) "ooohh that is so nice!"

her: "uhhh, I'm divorced. that's why I said he was with his 'son of a **** father' - - the one who cheated on me when I was still pregnant . . . ."

oh shoot. oh shoot. oh shoot oh shoot oh shoot!

so, as calmly and carefully as I could, I communicated my most heartfelt apologies - - both for her suffering was well as for the complete idiot I had been to her. and she was gracious, but obviously pained.

I will keep an eye out for this girl, and I will be praying for a clear way to communicate love and care to her. pray with me, if you think of it.

the joy of knowing that you're not the hot stuff you once thought you were

I realized something the other day.

I realized that sometimes, I think that we're some the best parents we know. (do I sicken you? keep reading, keep reading, my friend!)

so these past couple of months we have been traveling around, and have been invited into the homes and lives of so many wonderful families; and all of a sudden we're not the best anymore; there are people out there that are doing such an outstanding, bang-up job of parenting that it puts me to shame.

oh, it's fantastic!

isn't the church wonderful that way? I really am convinced that that is part of God's purpose in the Church - - that as we see other Christians living faithfully, we realize that we're not that great after all. yes. I like the church. I don't mind not being the best, and I'm excited about being better.

"I woke up this morning and decided that I want to follow Jesus - - wherever he leads, because he is so mighty; AND I want to be baptized"

it's what he announced all day long to us, to Josu, to our cashier at the grocery store, to the little lady serving us lunch at the Chinese restaurant (who kept saying, "oh sure, whatever you want; whatever you say . . . "), to any friend or family or any remotely friendly looking person who we happened to run across

and I've been thinking about it, and I feel:
OVERJOYED: to think about my boy now, and eternally, enjoying and serving the God who made him.

GLAD: that he was so confident about it all (previous to this, he would tell us that he was trying to follow Jesus) and that it came out of the blue (well, kind of, I guess - - we are always talking about following Jesus - - I mean, it's who we are and what we're all about, right? ) and that he was so insistent and excited about it all day long.

CAUTIOUS: about ever allowing Malachai to assume that because today he decided to follow Jesus, and that today he obeyed in baptism, that it's "over and taken care of"; I want to be careful to communicate that while true discipleship begins with a choice to follow, it is a lifetime of faithfulness and perseverance that God calls him to.

BLESSED: to have a church family who was willing to drop all previous plans for the evening and to join us in a heartbeat for Malachai's baptism, to genuinely rejoice with us, to insist on celebrating the Lords Table together (even when they know that the way we most enjoy celebrating the Lord's Table is as an entire meal!) and then go out to ice cream with us!

A TEENY BIT DISAPPOINTED: that we aren't in Spain, and that Malachai wasn't able to share his share his exuberance with our friends and neighbors there.

. . . and I'll wait, and I'll watch, and I'll keep loving and teaching . . .

a cakestand, a suitcase, and free flowers

I got a cake stand for my birthday . . . isn't it pretty? Rachel has an uncanny ability to get you the gift you've been longing for for years - - and she usually ups it a notch too - - choosing, for example, a cake stand ten times classier than the one you yourself had imagined:
Malachai and I went to the trastero ( our 10x10 storage room down in the garage) yesterday to pull out one more suitcase, and on our way we saw these geraniums that one of our neighbors had thrown down onto the sidewalk - - cleaning out the shabby ones, I guess. They weren't too shabby for us, though (we're easy to please); we picked them right up and stuck them on on our table. We don't need them to last too long anyways;
just a couple of days . . .
Tuesday we drive to Madrid to fly to Dallas

you know how on the Iron chef, when the panel of judges taste the contestant's culinary creations, and the princess of Japan says things like "oooooohhhh! this is so exquisite - - like a rainbow exploding into a million dazzling pieces in my mouth!"
and then you (the show viewer) just kind of snort and snicker, and roll your eyes that anyone could possibly talk that way about
food . . .

well, it happened to me.
yep, here - - all night long Joshua and I were saying absurd things like - - "this is so good, I feel like I am going to cry!" and "the combination of textures is unexpected and masterfully juxtaposed" and "the flavor is so deep and complex, and yet so clean!" . . .

Really - - the food was that good.
the best part, though, was Joshua - - and me - - and Joshua and me married for NINE YEARS!
it gets better every year, baby.

something you need to know . . .

if you want to be a two year old with any social standing whatsoever in our local park, it is necessary - - absolutely necessary to own one of these little plastic motorcycles (called motos); everyone who is anyone has one.
if your parents don't want to dish out the fifty bucks to buy you your own moto, make sure that you know someone who does own one (in this plaza it tends to be the lovely little Jaquelyn); stand next to it, eying it wistfully and reaching out a longing hand towards it until the mother of the moto-blessed friend pushes it towards you and urges you to get on and do a little loop.

because teeth should be celebrated:

this post is dedicated to Selma.

and her new teeth.