Everyday Memories....

I've noticed that it's sometimes hard for me to remember the little, everyday things that are full of joy and profound meaning - unless I write them down! We've had a gratitude-full and wonder-filled holiday season, starting with seeing family in MI for T-day, and now recently finishing with seeing all kinds of friends and fam around the city and then throughout MN for Xmas and New Yrs. I feel full of bright memories and meaningful moments; a few that I want to be sure to remember include:

- watching Eva tap dance her little heart out with her new shoes, fluffy skirt, (loud) recorder and (hipster) skull cap with the VerHage fam
- opening up our "Petersen Baby May 2012" cookie at Opart Thai
- Eva reading her fave books to herself, and to us, this season (Sergio, Party in Kalamazoo, B-Bears, The Skin You Live In, various Bible stories, etc.)
- Eva playing by the tree like I always did, just to stay close to it
- everyday - but such deeply good - friend time, like making cookies with Danielsons, caroling with Edstroms/crew, dinner with Marxs, soup with Nordlunds, museum with Leah, backyard fire with Bassetts, coffee with Al, late night chats with JR, etc.
- visits to Field and Shedd and Children's Museum in Mpls with Eva, and watching her run to each section with open-hearted joy
- having Bonnie in town for fun and on the run fried rice!
- lunch with mom and talking with dad in Rochester
- best peanut-butter choc blossom cookie batch - ever - a la Mom!
- seeing animated lights with J and K in Mpls
- New Yrs party fun with mustaches, karaoke, and good friends
- SS Advent series with various music, space to listen, and hearing tender/wise thoughts from others
- Eva getting into the season by dressing up as Santa Lucia, playing her first part in a play as a little angel in the church Christmas story, and attending Santa Lucia at the Swedish museum - insisting that we walk with the mile-long parade of candles and lights together!
- watching Eva play fox and goose through snow trails with Gramps, and get out old Barbies and use homemade playdough with Grammy  
- Little Town of Bethlehem at NPCC = unreal!
- Eva's preschool "concert" at her "PBS school" under the arched stained glass windows and twinkling Christmas lights
- seeing Eva delight in carefully crafting paintings, picture frames, sticker pages, etc. as gifts for others; and picking out a sweater that she loved to give to her dad  
- long lunch with Molly and Eric, enjoying so much in common and so much to learn from each other
- playing with Joey (and Jeanne and Paul!), in their sunny, warm and beautiful home
- brunch with Satte and playing in the freezing cold car with Eva ("Now Sarah, you and mom are the girls and I will be the mom that drives us to the museum exhibit," says my three year old!)
- getting jeans that fit and discovering body sugar scrub for dry skin!
- Christmas Day night darts with Bo and Megs, Josh ("Have I seen you since Thailand?"), and having a Bruce sighting :)
- date night with Peter at Zzest, great long car drive conversations, and laughing a lot
- Blue Nativity night, with "The baby Jesus was just light, mom!" and "Why didn't the camel try to eat me?"
- Eva playing baby Jesus with me as Mary and Peter as the manger
- night out for just our family of three, shopping at Red Balloon, getting hot cider at Cafe Latte, and skipping up the sidewalks while singing in the frosty night air
- reading the Christmas story over and over and over to an eager listener/questioner at her bedtime
- drives and chats in the minivan while on the way to Owatonna, the airport, and around town with my fave Seattle family members
- walking around my home town and seeing the old/familiar and the new/surprising with equal delight
- Eva asking, "Mom, does God love monsters too?" 
- driving while watching E dance to the music in the back seat, singing her heart out, along with "Do You Hear What I Hear?" - and then knowing she will always crescendo to a loud finish, with her arms flung wide open, "He will bring, us, goodness, and LIIIIIIIIIIGHT!!!"

Three-Year Old Theology: Re-Mastering Basics

Eva continues to have some serious interest in talking through Bible stories and theological concepts with me, much to my delight. :) Her recent questions involve understanding what Christmas is all about, and why Jesus was born a baby and then later on died, and where Jesus went when he went back into heaven after His resurrection. I can never tell exactly how much she is understanding, but at random times she will ask me a specific question about a detail that surprises me with what she must be digesting from our conversations. It is fascinating to watch her little mind connect the dots, and I realize that because of her I am being pushed to both simplify and deepen my own theology when explaining these eternal concepts to her.

I've recently decided that three-year old theology just might be a favorite topic of mine! It makes enough sense at this age to include details, names, places, and to string together the main pieces of the OT narratives with the NT life of Jesus into one big story that talks about God. But it still has to stay simple, be woven together, and stay focused on the main point. And I keep being amazed that Eva basically asks all of the same questions about faith and God that most adults do, just without any pretense, baggage or cleaned-up words. She just wonders aloud about the usual suspects when it comes to faith - like why Jesus died, why she can't see Him now, why kings in the OT were bad, why God got mad at people in that city, how God made oceans, why there are more church then just hers, what pastors do, and how Jesus is God and also was a baby. It's basically her mind trying to wrap around the key concepts of trust, prayer, faith, the trinity, theodicy, sin, the church, death and the resurrection. Which we as adults are all still trying to wrap our minds around most days, I think.

But much deeper than having fun telling her the stories, and more important than smiling when she wants to pretend she is baby Moses in the river, I am keenly aware that telling her about Jesus needs to be backed up with actions and experience. Maybe it is the Pietist in me, but I already know that Eva doesn't need to memorize the Sunday School answers or recite back names and dates. She doesn't even need to just be able to explain how Jesus died and rose again at Easter, key as that knowledge is. I want her to be amazed by it all, to feel the potency of a God who was born under a bright star as a baby and loves her, HER. I want her to know that she can talk to God any time, ask questions about her faith, and to see connections between her everyday world and the stories about faith. I want her to feel loved and comfortable in church, knowing she is welcome and treasured and that God meets her there. I want her to feel safe and valued by this big strong God, and also recognize the mystery and majesty of this one true and Great King. I want her to see her dad and me pray, ask for forgiveness, handle relationships with patience and grace, work through
discipline and relationships and life with the joy of the Lord and the strength that the Bible promises.

And here is where I am challenged and so encouraged by three-year old theology. I know that this theology needs to be consistent, focused on the main things, and not just a head game. I know that she is watching and soaking up life every minute, and that I don't always actually practice a relationship with God or to the world like I tell her about. And in a unique way, I am more driven to re-master the basics of my faith because of this new young audience member, more driven than I have ever been to write a brilliant paper or to appear to have leadership and maturity for my professional or personal life. This is my daughter's story of faith that is being written. Thankfully it is not all up to me to be perfect, to know it all, or even to shape her faith. It is up to me to remember these basics, to have help along the way from others, to model and practice the ups and downs of the life of faith and let her learn from and with me, and to try to access that childlike faith and joy that I see in her eyes when we read the stories. What a gift that the same God that I've known for thirty years is reminding me, through this sweet little girl and her wide-eyed interest, that it is really still about the same stuff it has always been. I can rest and also give over much of the other stuff, in my own faith and in my mothering, I have realized. Unless its the basic practices and connection to the story of Jesus that I want to make sure Eva sees acted out and explained, unless its really the big stuff, the most basic stuff really, I can let go of the clutter.  


Peter and I watched the enigmatic movie, "Tree of Life," tonight. It is an unusual movie in many ways, and the pacing and plot are very, well, un-plot like and different than a usual Hollywood production. But its a deeply theological story that opens with a quote from Job ("Where were you when I created the heavens and the earth?"), and that threads whispers from characters asking questions of God throughout the movie. It artistically opens up categories like the meaning of life, suffering, control, faith, goodness, beauty, nature, grace, love, family, brotherhood, marriage, and childhood in very unique ways. I enjoyed a lot of it, and it got me thinking; Tree of Life, in its own way, is trying to answer these same, three-rear old theological realities that are so hard to grasp. Why does God seem to let bad things happen? Are we in control of our lives, or is God? Are we rewarded for being fair, just, and hard-working, or is life capricious? Do goodness and love and grace really win out in the end? Why do we do what we don't want to do? Are we alone, does God listen to us for real - and how do we know? How do we get back to the innocence of childhood? How do our families and their implied patterns and explicit tensions shape our lives? How do we recover from grief, pain and loss?

At one point in the movie near the end, a central child character realizes that the anger and frustration that he's been struggling with has lifted. He apologizes to his brother who he hurt, he comforts another sibling, makes overtures toward his stern father, and somehow the cloud is lifted. The voice-over at this point is poignant; his childlike voice says, "I didn't know how to name You then. But I see it was You. Always. You were calling me."

I could have said that exact same thing about my understanding of God at five years old, and at fifteen, and again when I was twenty-five. And next year, when I turn thirty-five, I can still testify that I continue to circle through this reality of not always recognizing where God is, and wondering if I am heard, if I am seen, if I am enough - and then it comes to me. I find the words, it becomes clear - the truth of God always being with me, and always calling me, becomes real and experienced in my own story once again.      

Adjusting to Preschool

You probably know that Eva started attending preschool this fall; maybe we told you about it, or you saw pictures we've posted. But it's likely that if you ever talk to Eva in person, on the phone, while skyping, etc., she will randomly tell you, several times, "Did you know, I go to school now!" (Insert her hands flapping in excitement, here.)

We ended up starting her at a Montessori school this fall for three half-days each week, after visiting and trying to find space for her at various preschools in our neighborhood. Overall, we feel happy with this choice for her and have seen her learning and growing a lot - she's expanding her knowledge, growing in pre-reading skills, making new friends, often excited to tell us about her day, has bonded with certain teachers, etc. But in addition to the great things about having this new experience and structure for our fall, starting preschool has also been hard. We've had difficult mornings getting her out the door, including one or two days when she really did not want to go to school. Early on we had one painful morning where both Eva and I cried when I left her at school; while I felt bad about that the whole day, Eva seemed to not even remember it by the time I picked her up, thankfully, and was excited to attend the next day (yes, that response and recovery from her was a big relief for me!)

From what I hear from other parents, the adjustment after starting your child in day care or preschool for the first time always brings some bumps in the road. I am trying to figure out during this new season what is normal, or fairly understandable adjustment stresses, for Eva and for us and what things we could maybe work to improve or change or pay attention to more carefully. As my mom always said, in my opinion the goal for young children attending a school is mainly to learn to love it and to love learning, not ingest a bunch of knowledge or be able to produce or excel. I also know a lot of the learning at three years old is social, and Eva is learning what it feels like to not have mom or dad there to interpret and present the world in a certain way. She is learning to follow directions with new accuracy, and per the Montessori system, is getting really good at putting away toys, rolling up her rug in a "happy" shape, and spouts new words, names of continents, letter sounds, and drawing skills all the time.

The hardest thing for me to assess at this stage is Eva's emotional health and how we could, or if we should, try to intentionally address how attending school has impacted that area of her life. My suspicion is that Eva is more sensitive than the average kid; she notices the tones, facial expressions, emotional reactions, language, and body language of her classmates and teachers with great detail, and they each can have a profound affect on her. She routinely reports hearing mad voices, or seeing sad kids, at school and is saddened by that from time to time. However, much of this is very normal for Eva and happens everywhere, including at church, with other friends, family members, with strangers, etc. For example, she sometimes thinks the check out lady at the grocery store is "mad" if she is in a hurry and doesn't smile directly at us; she often thinks that animals in a book illustration are sad if they have small eyes or straight mouth drawn. So I know my daughter enough to know that thinking people are mad or sad at school doesn't mean that they necessarily are. However, there may be (and probably are) various negative/neutral emotions at school that do impact Eva. Whether or not the people she is around feel a certain way or not, whatever feeling Eva interprets can stress her out and create some worry or other reactions in her. What to do here?  I know that this is part of life, part of growing up and entering a space outside of our home, and indeed is probably a healthy and needed part of seeing various feelings and reactions and learning alongside others how to cope with those. But seeing her reaction to emotions in her world creates one of those pulls for me as a mom. I feel a bit stuck and I wonder, do I jump in here? Do I protect? Do I watch and wait and pray? Do I do all of the above in various ways? I don't want to carefully craft every environment she is in or over-control social spaces just to spare her feelings, nor do I want her to be afraid or sad, or start to avoid school or lose her love of learning.

So as parents, I think Peter and I are learning this fall too - learning more about our girl and ourselves and how to parent and teach well. I went in and observed her classroom today and had SUCH a great time seeing her proud and obeying directions and showing off for her mom. :) She introduced me to her friends and the teachers emphatically and with arms flapping, "This is my MOM! Her name is LIZ!"  I teared up more than once as her obvious pride for me visiting shown through, as she marched and traced letters and sang songs, while looking over at me every thirty seconds with a smile and watching for my approval. Seeing her do all these things with ease that I didn't teach her, noticing the obvious fruits of being in this learning environment, she seemed both so old and yet so little and vulnerable to me today.

This parenting a little person thing is hard! She is only three and I already think all the time about how to guide her feelings, her relationships, her learning, her sense of being attached and safe and unconditionally supported. And when to not guide or craft, and when to choose to let her feel or fail or learn something hard, because that may be what she needs at times, too. I am still learning how to understand and discern what this little girl most needs from me and Peter - so btw, any great books or tactics you've heard of for this age group or dealing with these issues, please let me know. Taking the step of sending her to a well-run and safe school - even if people sometimes feel mad or sad there - has felt like a great choice for us this fall. But it's also hard some days, and so I am holding onto good mornings like today when I got to see my girl smile, dance, trace letters and sing. I am holding onto seeing her pride and pure love of learning in action. And I am feeling so blessed today that I got to enjoy her little self blossoming in this new environment, too. I suppose parents have to adjust to preschool, too. :)      

     

 

Bible Readings and Re-readings

Classic Eva expression, 3 1/2 yrs old

Eva's really into hearing stories from her picture Bible lately (thank you Mary Miller for the baptismal gift!) It's fascinating  to try to think about what theology a three-year old gets, needs or absorbs - but of course I do it anyway. She understands many things recently about God - God is strong, powerful, made everything, gets mad at bad kings and bad people, used good kings and Queen Esther to help other people, saved baby Moses, beat Goliath, and crashed down the walls at Jericho. These are her fave OT stories lately - and she seems to ingest the meat of the story and repeats kernels of their truth to me at random times, integrating story parts and cause and effect with surprising comprehension.

When it comes to the NT, she is not as into it yet - which makes sense to me, since there are less intriguing stories and more parables there that she just hears as slightly disjointed stories. :) She does talk about how Jesus can calm wind and waves, can heal people, helps the blind and lame, loves children, was baptized, was a baby that many people were excited to see be born, and told people to build their houses on rocks. She now asks if our home is on a rock, "Even though we can't see any rocks under my bed;" she will jump up and down in her bed and say "Yep, I feel a rock momma, we are on solid rock." So no metaphor comprehension yet. :)

She also has asked me to baptize her in the tub several times, likes to pretend she is baby Moses and baby Jesus, and is asking about praying for various worries, illnesses, and fears.

My favorite story of her appropriating scripture happened a couple nights ago, when we had just read - again - the story of Jesus healing the lame man whose friends lowered him down through the roof. She loves this one, and we sing a little song with it, and she knows the story almost word for word.  After we read this one she said, "Mom, my legs are lame, I ran too fast today; can you pray for them?"  So I prayed, smiling the whole time, holding her little knees - and as I prayed for God to protect my little girl's legs and health and strength, it struck me that she really probably thinks that this is what Jesus did - what he does now. If your legs are tired, broken, or hurt, you pray and then they are fixed. Faith like a child, right? :) I was reminded of the grace of simple faith and truth, and also realized that I could probably pray for my daughter's legs more often. Even as I grinned at her interpretation of "lame," I think she is getting the love and strength and life-changing power of this story. What good news we get to retell!