We were all made for something

A local handicraft store, its English name being Hearts and Hands, recently started carrying some books for English-speaking children. I picked up a children's dictionary the other day, and it is fabulous. Beautiful illustrations and descriptions of everything from the solar system to the nervous system to the inside of a car engine.

This afternoon, as the boys were leafing through it for the umteenth time, we noticed the Weaver bird, or Weaver finch. Male Weavers twist strips of leaves around a twig, then they make the roof and the entrance.

Amazing.

It got me thinking about creation. This bird could never measure flour for a cake, or plant an orchard, or lace a pair of sneakers. But we could never make this nest, especially without an opposable thumb or a tube of glue.

Horses are walking the day they are born. It takes us 14 months. Great White Shark mothers give birth to their young and swim away, leaving the newborns completely on their own. My dad did my taxes until I was 21.

Crazy creation. I guess we were all made for something.

Thrice blessed!

Brave is starting to become a little guy. Now it feels like we really have three kids, as opposed to two kids and one bundle attached to mommy all day long. Brave is, as they say, "all boy." Not that the other boys are only partial boys or something dumb like that. It is just that Brave can be heard literally growling from his high chair, attacking his food like a wild animal, and laughing his raspy and dimpled laugh all the while. He is barely crawling but attempts to crawl up the steps to our landing in an effort to follow the big boys across the house. He eats McDonald's hamburgers already, at 9 months old, with only four teeth (which is mostly because he is the third child and caution has been officially thrown to the wind) and he fights like a rabid alligator on the changing table.

Apart from his "boyish" qualities, he has a fabulous sense of humor. He will laugh genuinely at something that he finds funny, not just when someone pokes his ribs or pops up from behind a chair. He is cuddly, too, though not quite the cuddle bug Zion has always been. He is built just like Bright was, thick-chested with little biceps. He eats like two babies put together, and already has a taste for the spicy local food (particularly the fried red beans).

So, with Bright going around the house pretending he is Bear Grylls, pointing out the wild life in the living room and warning us that the lizard under the coffee table is "very territorial" - and with Zion running around completely naked from the waste down because that is the only way he will consistently use the toilet - and with our new little personality dragging himself after the others - our family has become quite full indeed. Pure joy dances from Daniel's face to mine as we watch our little brood. We are truly blessed.

This was the first time bathing the three of them together (last night). There were cuter pictures, but this was the only one I figured the boys would approve of when they are teenagers.Bright as a turtle.Brave in his mode of transportation.Zion hiding.

In Good Company

For anyone who has ever had the thought, 'Kayla is sure roughing it over there in East Asia,' let me clarify. Though some (ok, many) things are much tougher here, there are some things about my life that I wouldn't trade for the world.

Most worthy of noting would be our living arrangement. We live in an apartment complex with quite a heap of other foreigners who speak English, and all of the moms stay at home like me and homeschool their kiddos. So, twice (count it, twice) every single day we bring our kids outside for an hour of romping in the landscaped courtyard under the ever-shining Spring City sun. We don't exclude the East Asian kids, but they are away at school from 7 a.m. to 6 p.m. (even the kindergarteners) so it ends up being just us foreigners most of the time. Today, however, Brave wiggled and giggled with two other babies, both East Asian, while a beautiful, brown-skinned grandma gave them some strange pitted fruits to gobble on (they eat lots and lots and LOTS of fruit in this country).

One of our sweetest little neighbors is Sydney, our freckle-faced, 9-year-old companion, who comes ringing our bell nearly every day in late morning. If the boys are not yet ready to go outside, she will come up and help me with dishes or sweep my floor or serenade us on the keyboard with a very good "Smoke on the Water." The boys are in love, I'm pretty sure. The sad thing is - and I haven't had the heart to break it to them yet - Sydney and her family are going back to The States, perhaps for good. There you have the bitter to accompany the sweet. People that do what we are doing are always coming and going.

For now, however, we are in good company.

When Mason met Dixon

When Tim Brown married us in the Spring of 2002, he entertained our wedding guests at Dimnent Chapel when he said something like, "...here we have an Arkansas Razorback who came up here and picked one of our Tulips."

For those of you who have never been to my hometown, the fee for picking a Tulip is around $100 (per Tulip). We are very protective of our Tulips. They are part of who we are as a Dutch-immigrant-founded-and-populated town on the southern swoop of Lake Michigan's east coast. Yes, we have a coast. Laugh until you see it, people. Daniel did.

Speaking of southern swoops, I am starting to notice my own "southern swoop," acquired over the past 8 years of living in the South and with Southerners. One might say that I am now a Tulip/Razorback hybrid, or a flower in pig's clothing, or pork on a stem, or some combination of the above.I didn't realize how Southern I had become until recently, when a Northern family moved here (from the capital city of this country, but originally they are from the Dairy State). They are a tad more...abrupt...than the folks I have become accustomed to, and they use their upper sinus cavity much more frequently. They say things like "yer guys'es" when all of the rest of us say "ya'll." They say "I think I'll go with," leaving off the "you" on the end. I used to do these things and sound this way, years ago, I'm sure, but after three years in Arkansas, three years in Kentucky, and almost two years here, I have fallen out of practice. Most our friends in this city are either from East Asia, North Carolina, or Europe. Don't let the "North" in North Carolina fool you, it is a very Southern state. Even though I live in Asia, I am still surrounded by sweet-tea-drinkin', BBQ chowin' Southerners. We all teach our kids to say "yes mam" and "no sir," and never call an adult by their first name unless preceded by "Ms" or "Mr."

I am proud of both heritages in our family. I am proud to be a Northerner who is sincere and simple, and I am proud to be a grafted-in Southerner who is honorable and kind. I grew up, oddly enough, listening to Hank Williams Jr. and Alabama, and now I can claim some stake in the lyrics of those songs, and so can my kids (excluding Hank Jr.'s smoking and drinking lyrics, of course). I will be even more proud next year when our family becomes tri-cultural (after the adoption of our daughter). What fun to break down the walls that divide people, while celebrating the beautiful things on either side of the wall.

I thought you might like another engagement picture. :)

Bread and Jam for Frances

Sometime around 1984, there was a little girl in southwest Michigan who had not yet learned to read. She was sitting with this book, Bread and Jam for Frances, the audio version running in her cassette player, and she listened to this story over and over and over.

That little girl was me, and this was my favorite book.

When asked what she had in her school lunch box, Frances, a badger-looking character, and the first "foodie" I ever met, replied:

"I have a thermos bottle with cream of tomato soup," she said.
"And a lobster-salad sandwich on thin slices of white bread. I have
celery, carrot sticks, and black olives,
and a little cardboard shaker of salt for the celery.
And two plums and a tiny basket of cherries.
And vanilla pudding with chocolate sprinkles
and a spoon to eat it with."

What you may not realize, unless you have read the book, is that Frances was not always a foodie. She started out a very picky eater, willing only to eat bread and jam. Her parents devised a clever plan to get her to WANT to eat a variety of foods, and it worked.

It worked on me, too. Looking back, I really think this book was the reason I was the only kid at my parents' table who asked for salad, and second helpings of vegetables, and shared seafood pasta with my Dad for lunch when the rest of the family was eating peanut butter.

Wikipedia tells us that the word, foodie, "was coined in 1981 by Paul Levy and Ann Barr, who used it in the title of their 1984 book The Official Foodie Handbook." Wiki also says that "foodies differ from gourmets in that gourmets are epicures of refined taste who may or may not be professionals in the food industry, whereas foodies are amateurs who simply love food for consumption, study, preparation, and news."

What does being a foodie mean to me? It means I talk about food, eat food, compulsively collect recipes, browse kitchen stores, and always order something new at the restaurant. This morning for breakfast, while Daniel and the boys ate English muffins, I sat with a pair of chopsticks, eating leftover pork and peppers with rice. To me, it's a no-brainer. If I have a chance to eat, and there is a tastier option, I'm going to choose it.

So the other day, when the boys and I found "Bread and Jam for Frances" at our local international library (or rather, a single lady's book collection in her private apartment that she has opened up to foreigners to check out for three weeks at a time at 7 books for $1), I was thrilled! I was going to get to share this piece of my childhood with my own kids. I carried it home carefully, not wanting to open it until we were nestled into our couch at home.

Since then, which was late last week, we have enjoyed veal cutlets, string beans, and cup custard many times during story time (not actually consuming these foods, of course, though I would love to). Maybe my boys will be bitten by the good-food bug, too.

Regardless, I am glad to have Frances around again. The picture below, by the way, is me in my mom's kitchen, circa 1990.

Seeds of change

I am trying to take Proverbs 31 to heart and get my tired behind out of bed before the sun comes up (spurred on by "Creative Counterpart" by Linda Dillow, a must-read for wives).

This morning, after transplanting my above-mentioned behind from my warm bed to the cool office (sans my usual cup of hot strawberry tea with milk and sugar because we ran out of drinking water last night) I read the following verse:

"I tell you the truth, unless a kernel of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains a single seed. But if it dies, it produces many seeds." (John 12:24)

The Son of Man said this just before his famous death, referring, of course, to himself as the kernel of wheat. All of us who believe are the many seeds resulting from the death of the original kernel.

This verse also applies to martyrdom (remember the movie End of the Spear), but it pertains to me, too. I believe in the message of John 3:16, therefore I am going to Heaven. However, what good is that to anyone but myself? As a single seed, unwilling to fall, unwilling to yield to change, I shall remain a single seed.

I say "NO!" I am not satisfied with that. And so I pray:

FELL ME.
DESTROY MY SHELL.
BREAK ME OPEN.
BREAK ME DOWN.
FROM WHAT IS LEFT OF ME, GROW FOR YOURSELF A FIELD OF BELIEVERS AS FAR AS THE EYE CAN SEE.

Beautiful Rhythm

She's here! Lou (Liz Sharda) gave birth to a breathtaking baby girl (breathtaking in many ways, including large, as she weighed 10 lbs 3 oz at birth and measured 23 inches long).

Liz and Brian named their daughter Cadence Bella. Cadence, meaning rhythm, and Bella, meaning beautiful.

I'm so proud of you, Lou. I CAN NOT WAIT to get my hands on that little (or not so little) bundle of sweetness! She has been given a mother like no other. May you be blessed by each other all the days of your lives.