Run down on the nanny family

I have been nannying for some time now and I basically love it.  It's a great fit for me and I am settling into routines and life with this most excellent family.  I have also gotten the go-ahead to post pictures of the kiddos, who I will affectionately refer to by letters and potentially their age.  I considered doing this in real life but it is more awkward in the spoken vernacular than in the written word.  (And yes, I just wanted a reason to use the word vernacular).

Here they are, summarized for you:

L7: Oldest child, female.  Has a memory sharper than a shark's tooth.  Enjoys reading, biking, talking, asking questions, playing violin (usually), and fairy-related items.  It was from her that I learned you need to be 14 years old before you can be a tooth a fairy. 

N6: Moved from youngest to second-oldest 18 months ago - a big adjustment.  Loves all things Lego and transportation and has ongoing "vroommmm" sounds exuding from his mouth during said activities.  Another avid reader.  An active little boy, he bikes, runs, and swings with vigor.  Plays cello and thinks it's awesome when I play piano with him on "Old MacDonald." 

A17m: 17-month old girl. Most expressive faces I've ever seen. I love them all, especially when the nose is scrunched.



Swinging is a favorite activity!

 
 A17m enjoys: doing anything her siblings are doing, "reading" through books by flipping a couple of pages and grabbing a new one (though she will listen to "The Very Hungry Caterpillar"), approaching "Babababa" (babies) while they're on their tummies and patting them (similar to burping them), and being silly.  She has super-cute babbles and we are working on getting more words.  She is smart but also screams when everything isn't going her way.  Ah, the life of a toddler.   

Peek-a-boo!

K in the swing. 

 S5m and K5m: I am working on noticing the differences between this identical duo, as to not always lump them as one entity, "The Twins."  So far, here's what I've got:

K is chubbier of the twins, probably by a pound and a half or so.  Think that's not much?  Imagine being 10% heavier than someone exactly your size and who has the same genetic make-up of you.  He enjoys kicking his legs with great enthusiasm while on the changing table and has gigantic eyes.  He also has a distinct "Prelude to a Cry" song in his vocal repertoire, which somewhat resembles a raccoon noises or small animal yelps.  This means: "I am not crying yet but if you don't get me some food soon, I will give you full-blown shrieks and tears." 

S5m enjoys being held more than K and has a leaner torso and face.  He is more likely to scrunch up into hungry face and cry if something is wrong or if he wants to be cuddled.  He recently added rap noises to his repertoire of sounds, which are these spitty lip bubble things where air comes out of his mouth without actually opening it.  He also has a great smile and seems to enjoy looking around at all that's going on.  He was a little behind brother K in raising his head but with much training, S is also able to raise his head and look around while lying on his belly.  (K does this with slightly greater ease).

S observing the world (and the photographer)

K with his huge eyes on the left, S on the right.  This picture also demonstrates the passion these boys have for sucking on their fingers. 

This is my new life.  Though I still get nostalgic (read: a little sad) when I think about the 200 or so kids I left behind in Fargo I think I am doing moderately well at embracing my new job, with my new kids.  Working with only 5 kids is a huge change from so many, obviously. While I think that I so darn extroverted and working with large groups is a special niche for me, working with merely 5 kids is a different kind of good thing for me.   I have a separate blog post rolling around in my mind, discussing the various things I have learned thus far from my new job, but suffice it to say for now, I'm learning new things.


Learning new things is always a good thing!  Have you learned something new today?

Picture This

When I decided to start a blog, I figured I would have enough to write about all the time.  After all, I am constantly thinking things ("things" having a broad definition of both realistic and nonsensical things, and some things actually being various melodic lines).   My husband and I usually play the "What are you thinking about game?" and I always win, in that I usually have three to five answers to the question.  Please note that I have never considered this question a competition until this very instant, which is unfortunate, because Ryan's response 93% of the time is "nothing" which means I would practically be an undefeated champion and feel great about myself. 

This is all to say that I am finding it harder than expected to determine what to share and how to share it.  I would love to share some great stories from nannying but I want to be very respectful of the family I am nannying for and am still trying to discern how much would be appropriate to post online.  I am really hoping I can post pictures of the kiddos at some point because they are beautiful!

Here's the main point of this entry: Telling you about my weekend.  It was fairly eventful. 

1. Happy Birthday, dear Ryan!

My husband finally turned the age I was when we got married.  We celebrated with his parents in a most excellent low-key evening filled with a walk through the Botanical gardens in Chicago-area, a trip to an ethnic grocery store, presents, homemade soup and bread, and this black bottom raspberry pie.  It was a new recipe and tasted as good as it looks.  Here was the inside:

2. I ran the Chicago half marathon.  It went really well!  My time was a little slower (2:08 vs. 2:00) than when I ran it in Fargo in 2008, but unlike Fargo, I didn't feel like vomitting and was able to walk after I crossed the finish line.  There are pros and cons to both situations.   

Ryan's brother also ran the race.  We ran together until mile 4, when he gave me to "go ahead" to keep a faster pace than him.  That meant I was on the look out for a new running buddy and, after striking up one-sentence conversations with several people and striking out, I eventually found a nice lady named Jennifer who was 37 years old and also ditched her running buddy and was looking for a new friend.  We ran from mile 7 or so til the end and encouraged each other greatly.

Here are the proud finishers, in a picture with a proud and somewhat sneaky husband, taken by a most helpful girlfriend of David:

3.

I rested on Monday (I was a little sore still) and was back to work today and will continue to work part-time this week.  So far, so good! 

Thanks for reading and I hope to post more connection-related materials soon :)

The wonderful thing about jobs is that jobs are a wonderful thing!

I have a job!

I am a nanny for an amazing Christian family that lives fairly close to me.  The mom is staying home as well.  Wouldn't you, if you had a 7 year old, a 6 year old, a 17 month old and (surprise!) 5 month old twins?

I've had a few days of work and love it.  The kids are playful and polite.  The babies are super cute.  The parents are solid people with good values and are organized.  These are all great things in a work environment. 

Am I teaching?  Well, yes, in the sense that every day you're alive is a lesson.  And yes, in that these kids are homeschooled and I'm helping out with that.  And yes, these kids take music lessons and I will assist there as well.   

But in the sense of I'll be salaried to work 40 hours a week and see hundreds of kids each day and will actually put in a lot more time and be stressed out as well: no. 

(Are there some teachers out there who actually only put in 40 hours a week or don't ever get stressed by your job?  Who are you and what is your secret?)   

It has been a quite the journey to arrive at a place where I am okay with this kind of set-up in my life right now, saying a temporary farwell to a music classroom.  But where I encountered closed door after slammed-shut door trying to get into the schools in this area, I found doors swinging opening with me barely tapping on them as I started pursuing and being pursued by this family.  I feel confident that I will be satisfied with my job.  Additionally, I will be full time and creating relationships and swamping recipes with a good cook.  Most importantly, though, I will be working, which is wonderful in itself.  I have enjoyed slower days in our apartment (mostly) and being home when Ryan is home and baking bread even more often than normal and all that... but working is healthy for so many reasons and on so many levels.  I am looking forward to being more involved with my work and trying something new. 

I have a job! 

Singleness, Nonsense, and King David

This is another post that I actually wrote a few weeks ago.  I had good intentions to write something else in between the Israelite post and this one...and then had a week in which nothing seemed blog-worthy.  So, here you go, another post on a similar topic.  I hope you still enjoy it.  And, my job situation has changed since I wrote this.  Another post will be about that topic soon!

This post is for Amanda, Danielle, Kimmy, Laura, and Sarah

I am 26 years old and I have five close friends who are still single at this point in their lives, this mid-twenties season.  With the exception of one, none of them have had a serious relationship.  The one who did have that was shaken and torn and ripped apart inside when the wonderful guy she was dating turned into a full-blown deceiver, breaking it off unexpectedly in the midst of something seemingly great they had. 

I’ve never understood why some women date a lot and why others don’t.  What I really mean is: why are my five beautiful friends still single?  Why am I not?  I got asked out a grand total of two times in my college career, and then didn’t date at all until a year and a half after graduating, when my then-close guy friend, now-husband finally convinced me we should date.  Welcome to one of the best decisions of my life.  What makes some people able to date and find their spouse, and others left searching and not asked out for so long?

My friends are beautiful, inside and out.  I could go on and on about their great conversation skills, their compassion, their desire to grow with the Lord.  They are funny, they are smart, and they have a zest for life.  Not only would they make excellent marriage partners, I have full assurance they will make excellent mothers someday.  They’re still single.  Sometimes okay with that, sometimes struggling.

My accountability partner Laura and I were talking yesterday and our conversation ended up veering slightly towards people of the opposite sex.  She ended up saying something to the effect of, “What is it about me?  Why have I never been able to do this, to date, to be in a relationship?”  In essence, she was asking, “What is wrong with me?”

I quickly jumped in and told her nothing was wrong with her.  (I decided it was okay to take artistic liberty and leave out the parts about sin in our lives and the total depravity of man, how no one is righteous, not even one).  I told her she was beautiful, compassionate, easy to talk to, and fun to be around.  I told her this isn’t an issue about her; this is clearly an issue about God.  God’s timing is not our timing.  God must have something planned for her that means she isn’t dating right now.  Maybe the right person isn’t in her life right now.  Maybe she has to do something still for His kingdom as a single woman.  There is something going on that is above us, making a situation that we want to be solvable elusive to our feeble minds.

In 1^st Samuel, I am reading the story of David and soaking it up.  I’m at the part where David is involved in royal matters, but he’s not king yet, by any means.  I get the impression he is an older teen or a twenty-something himself, as he doesn’t become king until he’s 30.  David is still young and not quite experienced, but he’s fresh and strong and stealing the hearts of everyone in the kingdom, especially those who are female and unmarried, being ruddy and handsome and all.  The author of Samuel notes often that “the LORD was with David,” giving young Dave extra power and success.  However, right now, he has fled the kingdom, because Saul, the king, is trying to kill him.  Literally kill him, like with a spear.

Chapter 20 starts off like this: “David fled from Naioth at Ramah and went to Jonathan, Saul’s son, and asked, “What have I done?  What is my crime?  How have I wronged your father, that he is trying to take my life?” 

I imagine David frustrated, tired from running, sweaty and maybe trying to hold back some angry tears as he talks to his best friend Jonathan.  I can hear some undertones in the dialog: God, I have been doing everything right!   I am doing my best to serve Saul, I am respecting him as Your appointed king.  I am serving the kingdom by taking care of those pesky Philistines.  I am making music and singing to You and loving You… and this is what I get?  This is my reward for a pure heart, a pure life, for a pursuit of righteousness?  A death warrant from the very man I am trying to serve?

This is a conversation that I have with God, too, changing a detail or two when it comes to slaughtering Philistines.  My conversation sounds a little more like this:

“God, why don’t I have a job?  You gave me a wonderful job back in Fargo, and I gained great experiences and served You and my students there.  Why don’t I have a job in Chicago?  I am a good teacher.  You have been with me.  I am still praying to You, crying out to You, reading my Bible every day and doing what I think is right.  What gives?”

When I just wrote that, I realize it comes across as pretty selfish and arrogant.  While that’s true to some extent, the condition of my heart is really more in pleading mode than demanding mode.  I have to imagine David was there, too.  This is legitimate!  There are legitimate things going on in my life that don’t make sense.

Have you ever felt like you’ve only been doing the right thing, that the Lord was with you, that you were pursuing good things, and yet, nothing adds up? 

Are you pursuing the Lord and godliness, and don’t understand why you’re still single?

Are you an excellent and qualified worker without a job?

Are you a hard worker, without that promotion?

The examples go on and on.

Though there are sometimes concrete explanations for these kinds of things, I believe that we have to return to the fact that God is sovereign and in control of every aspect of our lives. As frustrating as it can be, I sometimes have to truly take to heart that God has plans going on all around us, and we are often not involved in them until they are actually happening.  He is much more complex than a simple formula of our righteous.  (Furthermore, isn’t the real reward in knowing Him, rather than getting what we feel we deserve as an earthly reward/consequence?  More food for thought).

I also believe that these times where things don’t add up are prime opportunities for faith-building.  If our actions always resulted in a consequence that made sense, our need for God would greatly diminish.  Our God, essentially, would diminish.  That is not the kind of religion I want to pursue, that of a diminishing need for God.  I cannot do this on my own. 

Finally, I believe that God refines us in these times that don’t make sense.  I can speak from the front-lines of experience here.  I want a job and feel very qualified for the 18+ jobs I have applied for this summer.  But I don’t have one right now.  And I am learning more and more every day about what it literally means to trust God.  I have also been stripped of some pride and been humbled.  These are all things God uses to make me into His child.  Sometimes, I think He could care less if I had a job.  He wants me to be holy, He wants me to grow in faith.

David certainly grew in faith.  If you read the psalms, David is a man of a wide array of emotions.  I have to think that during this time when he was near the smell of death, God was preparing David for better things.  God was teaching David about compassion and not abusing power.  God was giving David a full-blown experience of emotions that David could then write down and we could call the Psalms and read through thousands of years later and experience comfort.  And, if you get to 2^nd Samuel (where I am now, actually, and it’s beautiful, minus chapter 11), you can see how great of a king David was, and how that was very much a result of the awful things he went through prior to obtaining the crown that, at the time, did not add up. 

David was refined.  Frustrated and angry, but finally refined. 

God’s plans do not always make sense to us, but He always intends for us to grow, should we accept His plans, even if they don’t make sense to us.