Thank the Lord for fall weather that feels like refreshment. We underestimate the positive effects of four season climates where predictability and change keep our stagnant selves from becoming too unimpressed with our surroundings. Another day of sitting down, as is my habit, and typing something here that feels so bland and insignificant but still continues to keep me anchored in a place of wonder and thankfulness.

“Have I ever told you that I don’t like your driving, Mom?”, my son said to me on the way to shop for a suit. He hadn’t ever told me this, and I wanted to know what about it he didn’t like. “Are you sure you’re ready for this? All my critiques?”, he asked. Even the way he said it made me love him more for his sensitivity and openness. “Yeah”, I said, cautiously proceeding with open ears. I’m tailing this van ahead of us. I don’t use my turn signals (??) I drive too close to the shoulder, I brake too last minute.

I feel like I can never relax when you’re driving. I think he sensed that he had reached the heart point of feeling some pain, because then he said, “Well, anyway…”, and that was the end of that part of the conversation. I was grateful he had told me. The not breaking soon enough had always been an issue. The others I wouldn’t say I was aware of. I pulled into the turn lane to be ready to turn right onto the road toward Kohls.

“See?”, he told me, “you didn’t use your turn signal there.” But I had a perfectly reasonable reason. I merged into the turn lane as soon as the lane opened up to the right. There would be no one behind me to signal to, and we moved on. And I could not resist this unjust accusation with the reminder that the one who does not use turn signals is dad.

How he tries to switch lanes and gets mad at the people who are not getting over. You have to use your turn signal, I’ve told him. To communicate with the drivers your intentions to move. “Really??”, my son said, “I’ve never seen him do that”. It’s his one driving flaw, I said just to clarify, and we moved on. On the way home from shopping I was messing with my phone and looked up just in time to see a man on the shoulder who I, Lord, have great mercy, did not hit and kill.

We left Nebraska after church. I’ve been blessed enough to see Lila three times in almost three weeks, and according to our schedule now, it’s going to be at least another three weeks before I get to see her. I really hope they move back close so I can help to take care of her. I can’t imagine how these families do it where they are multiple states away from their grandparents or parents. I would watch Lila every day and raise my children all over again. I’m making wild and outrageous claims.

So I’m supposed to go back to normal life now knowing this person is in my heart. The equilibrium of my life has been irreversibly altered and I do not imagine this a bad thing. If I could speak any more boldly, it would be to say that this motherhood endeavor has made me forever unselfish. If I had stayed out I was, what an absolute pity that would’ve been. But I was given the gift of being turned inside out.

Deep breaths…So we left Nebraska after church and made it home a little before 7. We stopped by Hannibal again and walked around campus for a little bit with Miles. I stayed behind them more so that I wouldn’t be intruding. Dad and the boys were ordering pizza and saved me two pieces for when we were home. Josh had been up in the early morning and written me a letter which was nice. To think how we could’ve missed out on all of this, and yet how we didn’t. I would not redo anything.

Today was a good day. Elianna and I woke up and went to breakfast and eventually went out into the streets to exercise. It felt good to have that feel good feeling. After that we met Laura at the apartment where Ethan was getting ready to go to a get together at one of his teammates apartments. Since they didn’t have a meet they had decided to get together with several teammates and make pancakes. Elianna and I got to work on the meal prepping while Laura folded clothes.

It was a nice time of hanging out while also being productive. Eventually we got to a stopping point where Lila was pretty settled and we could pause with the food making. We took Lila out for another outing and got lunch, browsed two town square stores, and then went back to Walmart after the girls had been inspired to make Ethan an ice cream cake to celebrate his birthday early. I had already brought him a card to put money in.

Lila slept the whole time. I forgot to mention that the pump goal was accomplished and Laura tried it out that morning and I got to give her first bottle, which she took. She peed through her carseat so we took that apart to wash that. I remembered that I usually put some kind of cloth diaper in the seat to absorb those sorts of things. Ethan was at work for a little while before he came back home. We had a really nice evening of visiting and having supper and ice cream cake. It was a tiring day.

My daughter told me that when we were with Miles and Graham it was like I just clicked and went back in time twenty years to become college kid like the rest of them. I had felt that myself in the moment, like these are just my friends and I’m talking to them like I would any other friend or person. I told her I was just being myself. It’s easier when we are all the same ages and place range. I feel the same way sometimes with Elianna and Laura, like these are just my girlfriends for a day.

And one of your friends has a baby so we are all playing house. We went to Walmart for Lila’s first grocery trip today. For all the times I have buckled a baby into a carseat, there was still that sense of “I better let mom have a look at this”, in the way that mom has the bond that is wired for protection and looking for threats. With what for me would’ve been “good enough”, there were position and strap adjustments that needed to be made. It doesn’t take long and they are growing out of it.

So at some point before I had to try, to push my mind back into things and switched back over to grandma. Grandmas are supposed to be homey and aged and grown up. So my mind formulated a menu and list of meals to prepare and leave with them for the rest of the week. Grandmas also buy things and help support their less financially established children. I reminded Laura, “I am a mom. I have to do this” and paid the money to restock the gatorade mix, detergents, diapers, eggs, etc…

Elianna and I are stopped in Chillicothe for the evening. We left around 3:30 and drove to Hannibal to eat supper with Miles. His brother was also in town and so he joined us as well. It was actually very fun and we sat and talked and ate our food. We went to a place called Tropical Smoothie.

I didn’t want to try and make it into St. Joseph. That would’ve been another hour and fifteen minutes which I did not have the patience for. I was ready to stretch out and be off the road and get to bed at a decent time.

To pass the time we talked and listened to music. She wants to go to Panera in the morning for breakfast. Dad and the boys and Zorro returned from the bike trail where the boys had run another 6 miles. I feel as though I could fall asleep fairly quickly so hopefully that will be the case tonight.

Tonight we checked in with the new parents. It wasn’t a good night for Laura or the baby to be on camera so we didn’t see them this time. The baby had been on an hour and a half nursing streak since supper time. The meet that I was coming out this weekend to see was cancelled today due to an abundance of rain in the area. So that was disappointing because they only have so many meets. The coach was going to try to get another one but it would be next week and in South Dakota again.

But it least it was a Friday when he would normally be gone and wouldn’t be taking up a Saturday and another day away from Lila and Laura. Elianna and I are still planning to go and I am hoping we will be able to be of service in any way they will let us. One of my best case scenario goals is to get Laura experimenting with and using her breast pump. But at the very least letting her nap or work on homework while we stay with Lila and do some housework. They have their hands very full.

I wish there was more we could do from here. They talk about deaths changing your priorities and it’s definitely true with births as well. Lately I’ve just wanted to sit on the couch with my youngest son just to be in his presence. Or hang out in the same room as everyone else when they’re watching tv. It doesn’t have to be profound. I have this strange urge to drive to Nebraska every weekend so that they can get this school year done. Somehow things will get done and this new time will pass as well.

(Great Plains Athletic Conference)

Yesterday one of the boys inhaled a bug during cross country practice. He said he was running by a bean field. The bug flew up his nose right as he was breathing in. For a while he could feel it moving around until it finally died. For two miles he ran trying to blow it out or somehow move it to swallow it. He came home and ate supper and was trying to blow the bug out of his nose. He tried flushing it with nasal spray and spraying water up his nose at the kitchen sink. The bug was not coming out.

He said he wanted to sleep on it and see if it somehow came out in the night. This morning the bug was still bothering him and now he was sneezing every few minutes and blowing his nose to clear it up almost constantly. So I took him to the local urgent care hoping they would be able to do something. The doctor came in and then left and then returned with his gadgets. He tried to pry his nose open and look up there with a light and with some special goggles. He couldn’t see anything.

My son was very uncomfortable at this point. I told him if the tongs and probes were too much it was okay to say that. The doctor didn’t feel comfortable trying to do anything more and sent us to the urgent care plus. He said they would have more equipment there to possibly numb things. So we drove over to the other urgent care and they took us back to a room. The entire place looked like an abandoned ER. It was the same format and setup. We waited for a while until the doctor came in.

She looked up his nose and said that basically there was nothing they could do for him there. She explained the anatomy of the nasal cavity and told us to go to the drug store to get a neti-pot. They didn’t have any there. She explained how to use it and I tried to ask some questions just to give myself some reassurance that this hadn’t been a total waste of our time. We walked out with my son still blowing and sneezing. He was more disappointed then. I told him I was just happy he was alive.

We talked about whether or not he wanted to just get his car from the doctor’s office and just go on to school or if he wanted to try and see if the neti-pot helped. I felt like we at least should try. So we found the neti-pot at Walgreens and just went with the purified water because I could not find any water distilled. Way back in the day I had read some frightening thing about neti-pots which is why I hadn’t gone to get one the first time. We brought it home and filled it with water and the salt packet.

He used about half of the water and then blew his nose. I had been starting to lose hope when I did not see any bug remains draining out with the water. But when he blew his nose an intact grasshopper about an inch long flew out onto the bathroom sink. We both stood there in shock, wide-eyed in disbelief and amazement. I couldn’t believe the bug was that big. He almost instantly felt better and the draining and sneezing in that moment ceased. My other son came to see the bug.

And then we showed Dad who was on his way walking down to the kitchen. He was impressed as well. Somewhere in the ER I had prayed for God to help this bug out, so I thanked him again that he had answered this way. Eventually my son went back to school and I sat down with the other one to review what he’d done for the morning. We went over his math problems and then over his reading. He told me what he’d read and it intrigued me so much that I read the 2-page short story aloud.

A friend from Hoyleton recently had her 70th birthday. I had not remembered this was happening or send any messages to acknowledge it. She sent me pictures of her and her husband with their grandkids. We both were traveling and had a little more down time to engage beyond whether or not there had been any baby news. Looking back, I wanted to know which decade milestone stood out to her as the most significant or impactful. She reported back that it was definitely this one.

She’d slipped past the others without much reflection. But now there was the awareness that she had much less time. It was very strange to hear or think of an event happening 20 or 30 years from now and realize that she likely will not be around for it. I tried to put my mind where hers was because I had a difficulty comprehending. What would one have already heard was going to happen in 20 or 30 years? The only thing I could think of was the 2044 next U.S. solar eclipse in Montana.

But that was only 18 years away I told her. The thought has not escaped me that will all these births, weddings, and baptisms, that it only stands certain that at some point there are also funerals. At the baptism we had two great-grandmothers. Laura’s mom’s mother and my mother-in-law. When we were starting to have children all of them were the grandparents and the great grandparents were still alive. They were next in line to pass on, if everything progressed without a death out of order.

Boys, we’re all going to die someday, I sat on the couch and told them as I reflected and shed the tears. They were present in the moment but there was one who could not resist quoting a line from some Avengers movie, “We’re all gonna die!!” Every so often I do remind them that we need to stay on the serious topic a little bit longer. I feel the shortening of time in the morning wakeup without sun, in the homeschool day that I was not present for due to other responsibilities on my time.

We never reconnected after the airport conversation. “Talk soon” was the last thing she said. Even today it slipped my mind to get a card sent. Why I have not driven down there more times since we left…has it even been a handful? I remember when my “old” friend turned 70 and that was ten years ago. I’d racked my brain for anyone else I could think to tell about the baby and still had forgotten her. It was only a minor lapse though. It doesn’t take long and the memories of care are there again.

Lila had her baptism this morning. It was actually a really beautiful service. The church in Seward has a lot of people and good acoustics in their sanctuary. The hymns are played and sung with zest and it seems whenever we attend there is choir in the balcony leading the people in four part harmonies. It was emotional to see my son up in the front holding his child. It was one of those moments that I did feel a part of but there was that expanding realization that this is so much bigger than me now.

The pastor had an excellent sermon on forgiveness. He pretty much nailed every nuance and caveat to the extent that any human speaker would be able to do so. I also realized something about forgiveness that I do not recall every truly understanding or thinking about before. The biggest thing is that forgiveness is not possible and is something that on our own we are unable to do. I had heard/somewhat understood this in terms of the doctrine that we cannot pay the debt of our sins.

So Jesus had to step in and actually pay the debt for us. Jesus on the cross cancels the debt we owe in our accounts and then transfers the debt to himself and then actually pays it. This is something we are not able to do and therefore we need God’s mercy. But forgiveness is equally something we are not able to do. I typically thought of it as something that is expected of us since God has forgiven us. It is part of the arrangement. It was this incredibly difficult thing but something we still had to do.

He never actually said we were unable to do it. He told his own parable that kind of highlighted the absurdity and cost of forgiveness in a way that almost made you feel like there would be every perfectly justifiable reason why this certain person would not want to bother forgiving. When we repent and believe the Gospel I hear the voice of Jesus saying “your sins are forgiven”. That same voice passes through us and is spoken out to others like God saying to them “your sins are forgiven.”

So just like we cannot pay the debt of our own sins, we also are not able to cancel the debt of another. There are far too many for us to pay for and far too many for us to cancel. It is something only God can do and also does when he dies on the cross for us. “Your sins are forgiven” is heard and spoken as the incredible truth that it is. It’s like it fills me with a giddiness and makes me want to just keep on saying it. We had a lunch afterward for Lila and the family and friends who were there.

This morning we left the house around 8am to leave for Nebraska. I had not slept well in the night and had left to go out into the living room for a while and then eventually to another to try and get some sleep before the 6am alarm. Some nights I just cannot get back to sleep. So Josh let me sleep until 7 figuring I’d have wanted to have the extra time for the sleep since the night had been rough. I had compassion and did not get annoyed since I’d been counting on him to wake me up at 6.

It’s so ridiculous those things. We had a good trip in the van. We tend to stop about three times now on average. It’s helpful and needed to stretch the legs. We grabbed some gas station food to keep on moving so we could get there. The lady at the local motel recognizes me now. She gave us our room code and we unpacked and the boys grabbed their running things before we headed over to the apartment. The uncles had their turns holding Lila and getting to meet her.

The boys left to run ten miles. I was thankful they were getting it done before suppertime. The weather had that beautiful fall coolness to it today which made it very nice for running. We spent some time with Laura and the baby and rested quietly while she was feeding. I love how their apartment has the fullness of kids now, where baby things are scattered everywhere. We met up with Laura’s parents and siblings and spouses for a very nice family dinner out to eat. It still looks like her.