Lulie's New Tricks

Pouty lip.




Tidy nose. (Also doubles as, "Shhhh.")




Little sack of sugar.

For a Little While

"Herod is dead! HEROD is DEAD." Jack's hollering the morning in with a dramatic re-interpretation of the Christmas story. "He's dead! I killed him." All three-year-old gusto he thunders down the hallway. Our bedroom door rattles. None of this pansy Santa stuff.

Later Jane introduces Lulie to lipstick. It's the sort of affair that ends with jagged pouty lips, big smiles, and freak-out-Mom about the big stain on Lulie's sweater. Janie responds, "Well, at least I'm not killed, Momma."

The afternoon wears on. Jack assembles, dismantles, and reassembles two puzzles. Lulie colors a pictures, eats some green crayon, colors her ear. Jane tries to knit, rolls a tremendous ball of turquoise yarn. In the whirlwind she stops, "Momma, if I drank a bunch of water would I get a big hump on my back?"

After good night kisses, hugs, prayers, lights out, we slip back down the hall. Some nights they tallywagger over closing their door. Tonight no one gripes. Jane whispers, "Jack, do you want to close the door so we can talk to God?"

A quiet pause and, "Ok. For a little while."

Surgery

The Children's Hospital. They have fish everywhere. Murals, sculptures, aquariums, floor tiles. Fish. Every room has fish. Except the testing room. A vision test, a VEP brain test, computers, electrodes, one major breakdown-fit, and a lot of data.

At a time like that don't you just love graphs? I do. Plot the points and trace the curve. There's not a lot of guess work. The bad eye can't keep up. There's really only one answer.

Surgery. In January or February one of the best surgeons in our nation will remove the lens of a tiny eye, Lulie's. He won't replace it. Her eye is too small, still growing. In the months after we will teach a one-and-a-half-year-old to wear a contact lens. She'll patch until she's eight.

And then, perhaps perfect vision.





And after all isn't that what He's offering? Vision. What a gift.

The Good Life

Lulie likes my Bible.

Janie bursts into the sun-room. I'm playing piano. "Your music is so JOYFUL, Momma!" She grins. "It's fine when you don't play. But it is so joy filled when you do."





The table a jumble of color crayons and fat pencils, smudgy paper, Jack stops. "Momma, I love you so much, real bad." He says this every day. Today he adds, "'I love you real bad,' means I love you in the whole world what it means."

As the sun goes down I watch him stare through our back window. "You are the sweetest thing in the world, bud."

He hardly turns. "Yeah," he says, "God think so. That berry good."

Anemic

The doc called. I'm anemic. Boo-hoo. Although I should have guessed. I'm exhausted just looking at a load of laundry. Or dishes. Anything really.

Anyone have advice on iron supplements? A few years ago I took some and ah, well, if you've not taken them, they're a real bummer.