the beach: day 4

4:53pm-- rain

the beach: day 3

5:13pm-- new girlfriends

the beach: day 2

12:45pm-- family time

the beach: day 1

12:35 pm-- first look at the ocean

This time tomorrow . . .

This time tomorrow, we'll be here . . .

Feel free to be jealous. :-)

Not Me! Monday

Welcome to Not Me! Monday! This blog carnival was created by MckMama. Head on over to her blog to see what everyone else has not been doing!

Today, we definitely did not take Lyndon to the doctor just because Adrian was not satisfied with the questions I asked her last time about a rash he had. We are definitely not that paranoid. And there is no way that said rash cleared up completely in the last few days, making today's appointment completely unnecessary. There's also no way we took him anyway.

And while we were there, we most definitely did not bombard the doctor with questions about Lyndon's recent sleep problems. We are definitely not that sleep-deprived. We also are not freaking out about this, dosing our child up with every infant medication we own, trying every tactic in the book to get our previously great sleeping almost 5 month-old to just go back to sleep. We were not desperate when we arrived at the doctor's office this morning. Nope. Not us. We are competent parents who always know what's going on. And the diagnosis? It most certainly wasn't . . .

teething. That's it. The end. Do your best, and see you in a month for his next check-up!

What about you? Anything embarrassing that you most certainly did not do this week?

Growing Up

Earlier today, I put Lyndon down on his back on his activity mat in the living room. I then headed to the kitchen to grab some lunch and returned about 2 minutes later. This is what I found:

Now, our little guy has rolled over a few times before, but it's taken significantly longer than 2 minutes and has only happened when he's angry. Eventually, he arches his back so far and kicks his legs so hard that he just flips himself.

The fact is, he can now do it effortlessly in a minute or two.

Oh, and soon after I sat down with my lunch, he found his pacifier on the mat and nonchalantly popped it into his mouth. I'm not sure I'm ready for this.

the baby shower that almost wasn't

So, I was getting ready for a baby shower on Saturday, one that some friends and I had been planning for weeks, and the host's husband called my husband. He asked him to "come look at something". Adrian came back and reported that the host's house had a gas leak and was therefore unsafe. With about an hour until the shower, it was moved to our house, and, as you can see from the pictures, was still a success. Special thanks go to my wonderful husband, who helped me whirlwind clean the downstairs.

The guest of honor and our almost-host. As you can see, babies come in droves around here. (Note the 4 month-old playing on the floor behind them.)

All in all, it was a lovely day celebrating with our friends. I'm so excited to meet their little girl!

Virtually Accountable-- Legalism

This week's life lesson: Legalism hurts people.

First of all, how to become a legalist (thanks, Mark Driscoll):

1. Make rules outside the Bible.
2. Push yourself to try and keep your rules.
3. Castigate yourself when you don't keep your rules.
4. Become proud when you do keep your rules.
5. Appoint yourself as judge over other people.
6. Get angry with people who break your rules or have different rules.
7. "Beat" the losers.

Basically, legalism is confusing our status as accepted children of God in Christ (justification) with the step-by-step process of holiness that we get to participate in because of our salvation (sanctification). It's living as if God will accept or reject us based on our own holiness. It prompts people to make some strange rules and do some strange things when they succeed or fail at keeping them.

Jesus ran into legalists all the time. Most of them were called Pharisees. In the passage I read the other day, from John 12, they are planning to put him to death. Mary (of Mary, Martha, and Lazarus) anoints Jesus' feet with very expensive ointment, a beautiful gesture of love and devotion that must have brought tears to Jesus' eyes as he contemplated the path ahead of him, leading down to his death. Enter Judas. Yes, Judas Iscariot, the traitor, the one who betrays Jesus to his death two pages later. Judas, in all his legalistic wisdom, says, "Why was this ointment not sold for three hundred denarii and given to the poor?" Can you imagine being Mary and hearing this comment? You have just decided to pour out your most valuable possession (probably your only valuable possession) to express your gratefulness to the man who forgave your sins and raised your brother from the dead, and one of the religious people sneers at you for "wasting" your treasure? How heartbreaking.

But that's what legalism does. Those trapped in it have two choices: pride or despair. They despair when they can't keep their own rules and become proud when they can. They look down their noses at others who don't share their rules, considering them less "holy" than themselves.

If you couldn't tell, I've been burned by legalism this week. I've ended up feeling like a terrible parent because my standards aren't the same as someone else's. And I've spent the last few days brooding on this slight, trying to decide how to respond, what to think, how to feel about it. I don't have any answers yet. I know I need to be forgiving and loving, as I can't just cut this person out of my life, but this is not the first time that their legalism has hurt me. Granted, it only hurts because of my own tendency to live as a legalist, my own subtle leaning towards despair at my inability to live perfectly. So what do I do about it?

As best as I can tell, Jesus reserves his most scathing comments for the legalists, telling them, essentially, to shut up and stop imposing their rules on other people. But that can't be my response to this situation, can it? I'm not like Jesus in this story; I'm like Mary-- being sneered at for doing my best-- and Mary doesn't defend herself. The fight is between Jesus and Judas, not Judas and Mary, even though Mary probably felt like a casualty. In the end, the fight always belongs to Jesus, and it is not my responsibility to prove the legalists wrong. If I see an opportunity to offer biblical correction, I will take it, as this person professes to be a Christian, which makes it my responsibility to help him/her. But I must not be motivated by hurt, anger, or bitterness, and, until I can eradicate those feelings from my dealings with this person, maybe it would be better to keep my mouth shut.

On a related (but slightly random) tangent, I wonder how Jesus' loyal disciples felt about Judas once they realized that he had betrayed Jesus. Temptation to bitterness, anyone?

The Past Week

The past week and a half has been quite hectic around here. Lyndon had a dr. appointment, Adrian had an all-day (and evening) field trip, and we were house-sitting for some friends. Also, our (3rd!) anniversary came and went, and my parents stayed with us for a few days so we could go out on a date. Add in the fact that we've been attempting to fix Lyndon's nap problem (that he won't take them) for a few weeks now, and you have one very crazy week. Hence the slacking on the blogging. But a Virtually Accountable post is in the works, and until then, I will attempt to placate you with Lyndon's first summer experience...

 

his first dip in the pool with daddy

He did much better than I expected, but that face pretty much sums up how he felt about the pool. He did like it when he saw other kids swimming around and jumping in. That prompted a few attempted swan dives, although I don't think he understood that if he dove into the water, he would get wet.