Januaries

We've spent most of the week adjusting to routine again: school, work, housework. Somehow it's never easy after vacation to plunge back into the banal that makes up most of our lives. We managed to enjoy the week anyway: my parents stopped by on their way back to Arizona full of stories of rocks and good food they'd eaten. We got outside to ride bikes and enjoy unseasonably warm weather (in the 50s), even while the people on the East Coast stayed inside to avoid the polar freeze. (Somehow I don't manage to feel as guilty about that as I should).

I don't have a lot to say today, but since this is my weekly effort to record our family's life, record I shall. If it weren't for that purpose, I think I would have bagged this blog long ago, since almost no one reads it anymore. Not that I'm complaining! This isn't why I write it. I write so that we can remember, ten, twenty, thirties years down the road, what it was like to have small children and a house that's never quite clean and a to-do list that may take years to complete.

I wanted to share a story from a couple of weeks ago, on the power of prayer and a child's faith. The day of Andrew's birthday party, he came to me when I picked him up for school, quite upset that one of his friends couldn't come because his mom had to work. Could we, he asked, give his friend a ride?

Of course we could. Andrew ran off to tell his friend so, and it wasn't until Andrew got back that my brain clicked in: where did his friend live? Andrew didn't know--"somewhere in the Cove, in a cul-de-sac?"--but I assumed I'd be able to find it in the phone book.

Only I couldn't. I couldn't find it online either. I called the boy's cousin (I knew the mom slightly) and got a phone number, but no one answered. I was starting to feel frantic--the party was going to start in half an hour and I kept picturing this poor kid waiting with his swim trunks for us to come.

I saw Andrew creep away to say a prayer and my heart sank. As an adult, you know that sometimes prayers don't get answered: sometimes God can't (or won't) do something about sheer human stupidity (like getting the address before the kid left school). I tried to tell Andrew that the prayer might not work.

"Couldn't we just drive around and see if we find his house?"

Um. No.

An idea--a far-fetched one, true, but an idea--flashed into my head. I went downstairs to the computer again and searched for the boy's mom on Facebook. I wasn't friends with her, but I sent her a message, hoping she'd see it in the fifteen minutes before we needed to leave. I didn't really think it would work, but it was the only other thing I could think of.

When I darted down to check the computer one last time before we left, I couldn't believe it. There it was, the message from his mom with their address. (As it turned out, she was planning on bringing her son, only a little late because she had to get off work first. But she was willing to let us pick him up earlier).

Andrew's prayer reminds me that sometimes I need to have more faith--even when things seem impossible.

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On a totally unrelated note, Oliver shocked both Dan and I the other day. I gave Oliver some food on his tray and asked, "Do you like that?" He said, "I like that." At least, that's what Dan and I both heard, clear as day. Quite possibly it was just him mimicking the sounds of my words, but it gives me hope that someday this child will be as verbal as his siblings.

On second thought, maybe I don't mind if this process takes a while.

* * *
Dan took Evelyn to see Frozen yesterday (her second time; she'd gone once before with me). She loves it so much. She's been listening to the soundtrack repeatedly since we got it earlier this week, and Dan said she sang through most of the songs. She's been drawing princesses with sparkly ice dresses and throwing her heart into the story. She makes me laugh.