Adventures in Parenting

This week we are getting a little taste of heaven. That foretaste is the joy of reunions.

Each day, we are drinking in the joy of renewed relationships. We have the privilege of reconnecting with old friends, hearing each others' stories, and simply enjoying being together - and for this I am deeply grateful.

I'll begin now with Sunday, and then highlight the next few days as I have time.

Sunday, April 1; Palm Sunday
I love Palm Sunday. Why? On it, we process around the block in worship with palm branches in hand.


It is a needed reminder to me that our worship is - and should be - public, and that our worship is the proclamation of Jesus as King. It has everything to do with our neighbors and our neighborhoods, and it is fitting that it should be spoken (as it was on the stoop of our church with the gospel reading) and sung (by all of us as we processed around the block) in public. People stare; and well they should. We are singing to one that virtually all the world recognizes as crucified. But we worship Him now as the risen, reigning and returning King.

One of the joys of this Palm Sunday was reunions with the girls friends. Elisabeth was delighted to see Malaya and Serena.

and Kavita, Aradhna, and Elie


We lingered after the service to reconnect with many old friends. (In Jeff Burkett's words, "We shut the place down again!") Then it was off to a sushi lunch with the Burketts and Gabourys.

After our fill of fish, Jeff and I put Levi and Katherine in the running strollers and took off to run the loop of Central Park together. The kids chattered for the first half before falling asleep, and Jeff and I kept on talking right through the end of our run - which was a personal best time for Jeff (and that with a kid in a stroller!).

Dinner was yet another reunion, this time with friends from medical school, Kris and Annemarie, and Kevin and Iona.

Elisabeth and Norah have been friends since their moms began residency together nearly seven years ago. Four more children have been added to our families since then - and now Annemarie is expecting twins. Dinner wasn't dull this time with 6 kids and 6 adults around the table. I anticipate that next time will be even more lively!

When we move to Virginia, we planned ahead to return to NYC for Holy Week - our favorite week of the year. So last night we packed our bags. This morning we packed into the van (an embarrassing amount of stuff for 9 days . . .) and arrived this afternoon in NYC!

This is a season of remembering, in three ways.

First, it is the week dedicated to remembering Jesus' passion, from His entrance to Jerusalem on Palm Sunday, to His death and resurrection. Second, it is for us a season of remembering God's goodness to us in this city over the last eleven years. Third, these are days (I trust) that we will want to remember in the future.

Today was a reminder of the third. Driving in through the Holland Tunnel was like returning home. The streets are familiar. And in such a large city, even the people are familiar. In the process of parking the car, we saw the parents of two of Elisabeth's kindergarten and first grade classmates. (And by God's grace, I found a spot that I won't have to move the van until Tuesday morning!)

When we unpacked on 74th Street (thanks Strabbings for letting us crash in your home, and Burketts for being the welcoming party!) and headed north on foot, we were in for more surprises. As we walked past the American Museum of Natural History, we found ourselves alongside Elisabeth's classmate Hannah, out with her brother and dad. We chatted and caught up as we walked north on Columbus. We parted ways and crossed the street - only to meet one of Rebecca's Neonatal ICU attendings from her time as a resident. Again, we did the quick catch-up conversation, continued north and crossed the street. At this intersection we bumped into Leo, Rebecca's clinic preceptor from residency, out with his two boys for a walk! They walked us all the way to our dinner destination on 87th Street, again catching up and finding out that Leo and Rebecca would be at the same conference in Boston in a month's time.

In the course of our first evening back on the Upper West Side, we walked past Fairway, Citarella, Magnolia, LeVain, Cilantro, and others (yes, grocery stories, bakeries and restaurants are meaningful landmarks!), but what makes it a neighborhood is the people. Our delight was in seeing old friends and renewing old ties.

Indeed that was our dinner with the Lovcis this evening. The girls played, giggled, and even put on a dance that they choreographed while we enjoyed good food, good friends, and wonderful fellowship. We recalled old times. (Marc claims that it was our weekly runs around Central Park with our youngest girls in the strollers that prepared him for a Boston Marathon qualifying 3:15 time - and we're going to run again together this week.) And we looked forward to times together this week and beyond.

As I remember our first half-day back in the city, I'm deeply thankful for the people we have come to love, and I look forward to the friendships that will be renewed and the memories that will be made this week.

Recently Katherine took something from Elisabeth. I asked Katherine, "Is that yours?""Yes," she replied.
Knowing she had just taken it from her sister, to whom it belonged, I asked "Why do you think it is yours?"
"Because I want it."
That is two year old logic par excellence.

This morning I was reading Genesis 18 and found a grammatical structure I had never noticed before: 

"For I have chosen him, that he may command his children and his household after him to keep the way of the LORD by doing righteousness and justice, so that the LORD may bring to Abraham what he has promised him.” 

The word "THAT" leaped off the page at me. The LORD chose Abraham for the purpose of the obedience of his children. Abraham was chosen for the sake of others - and those others are his children and the member of his household. 

I needed that reminder that covenant election and calling is for the good of others - and especially of my household.

When your child makes something for you for Christmas, it is special. When they're two, it might be a few scribbles on a piece of paper. It isn't something that you're going to hang on your wall for the next ten years, but it it is special because they made it.
Over the past few years, we've been blessed by friends giving gifts that they have made. My sister-in-law Haley is a gifted seamstress and can make just about anything from fabric - and she makes things that we all love! My wife's gift is food. She makes homemade granola that is as good or better than anything I can find at Whole Foods. My father-in-law's medium was painting. Over the years, we received beautiful paintings from him that have become family treasures.

This year we received two Advent gifts that renewed my love for God, and reinspired me with the breadth of possibility in Advent gift giving. Our friend Carey Wallace gave us an Advent poem that gave us a glimpse inside the faith that says, "Be it to me as you have said." Our friend and pastor, Greg Thompson, gave us a song. He wrote and recorded an original track and shared it with us - AND our non-Christian friends and neighbors.

In reflecting on Greg's song, it struck me that this is "love as art" and "art as love." Greg is bearing the image of God, who created good things for the enjoyment of his beloved image-bearers. At the same time, and in the same action, Greg is bearing witness as well as bearing God's image - and not only to those who already embrace this story, but to those who need to hear and see its beauty.

This Advent, I bless God for our many friends, who through the work of their hands, have blessed us, reflected God, and borne witness to His 

Recently I have renewed an old tradition of saying a blessing over Elisabeth at bedtime. Following John Piper's example with his daughter Talitha, I use amodified version of Numbers 6.

The Lord God bless you and keep you
The Lord make his face to shine upon you
The Lord lift up his countenance upon you and give you peace . . . and someday a godly husband.

Almost every night, Elisabeth responds with a smile, "You too, except for the husband bit."

On our trip to Texas, we let the girls chew gum on the plane to help with ear pressure. Katherine didn't quite get it.
She tried the first time and swallowed the gum. We explained that it isn't for eating. ("Then why put it your mouth?!")

She also mistook the name of the stuff she swallowed. For the rest of the trip, she requested "chewing makeup." We didn't give her any more because of her propensity to swallow it, which only increased the requests for "chewing makeup."

Maybe on our next flight . . .

Today we had the joy of having lunch with our friends the Salvatierras - both the NYC Salvatierras and the C'ville Salvatierras. We picked up lunch at Bodo's and headed to Washington Park to enjoy the beautiful afternoon with bagel sandwiches where the kids could run and play.
We ate together at the picnic tables under the shelter, and when the kids had eaten sufficient (or desire to run and play overcame hunger), they ran to climb and play on the adjacent playground while the grown-ups finished eating. Rebecca said something about keeping an eye on Katherine, and we turned our gaze to the playground. 


And so we all saw Katherine, attempting to step from the platform (which is a little over six feet high) to the ladder-like climbing structure on the right. She missed or slipped and fell clear to the ground below, landing flat, face down. It was awful to watch. 

We sprinted to her. I didn't want to pick her up for fear that she could have a back or neck injury. But as I got there, she was getting herself up on hands and knees, and so I picked her up. She had a mouthful of mulch and a split lip, and wasn't yet breathing. The force of the fall had clearly, literally "knocked the wind out of her." 

Soon she recovered her breath and started crying. She was able to move both arms and both legs, and didn't have any visible cuts. (Even the split on her lip was small by comparison to some of the split lips she's had just from tripping on the sidewalk in the past.) So we held her and rocked her, and tried to get as much of the mulch out of her mouth as we could while she cried. 

We expected that she would be pretty shaken by such a fall, even if she wasn't seriously hurt. But after 20 minutes she was still crying and breathing unevenly. (We couldn't tell if it was because she had pain from something like a broken rib, or if it was just the shuddering breathing that many children have after they've been sobbing for a while.) So we hopped in the car to head for the ER.

On Friday, Katherine and I had gone to Mainly Music, a toddlers' music time at our church. There we had seen our friend Chris Stokes, an ER resident, with his daughter Nora. Chris told me that he was working this weekend, so I knew he would be in the ER. As we walked into the hospital, I decided not to try to call him since he would probably be busy with other patients. However, Chris saw Katherine's name appear on the board and came to do the physical exam. To our great relief, Katherine didn't show any signs of any serious injury, and Chris and the ER attending agreed that she didn't even need to have an x-ray. From when we walked in the door to when we were discharged was probably only about 30 minutes.

Just a few days before Thanksgiving, we have MANY things to be thankful for:

1. A flat landing that distributed the force of the fall.
2. Soft, loose mulch.
3. Seeing her fall so that we knew what had happened, and could respond immediately.
4. A pediatrician (Rebecca) and nurse (Laura) as first responders, who were there in seconds.
5. Chris seeing Katherine's name AND not being tied up with other patients so he could see her.
6. No serious injuries! (Nor even need for an x-ray!)
7. A speedy, easy experience in the ER. 

In Laura's words, "Thank you Jesus!"