5 generations

The blessing of celebrating my grandmother's 101st birthday yesterday, and taking 5 generation photos with her today is a gift that we cherish with overwhelming gratitude.

Seeing her 14th great great grandchild gave her immense joy and a short reprieve from some of the challenges that plague her at this stage of her life.

She even remembered to check out his ears, as she has always done with every single baby introduced to her through the years, and Grandmom gave her seal of approval to Luka's set.

Almost birthday buddies

I always write a post when it is my child's birthday. It might just be "Happy Birthday!" and a picture or two. It might be more, but I'm really not into sap or sentimentality. It might be in the morning and it might need to wait until the end of the day for me to find the time. I even have to admit to not getting around to it until the next day once or twice or maybe more.

Mariana's 24th birthday was on Saturday and I had a post all ready to go. Until somebody messed up that post by deciding to wait another 24 hours to appear.

When I first got the call on Friday morning that it was time to head east for a delivery, I thought that I had mistakenly set my phone to a school day wake up. But when I rolled over to turn off the alarm, I realized that it was Mariana and Jake calling, not an alarm. When I arrived, we talked about the possibility of a Birthday Buddy for Mariana, assuming that this first baby would take a long time to arrive, and giving him two days to make the journey.

Well, we were right about "a long time" but we were so wrong about the day! Mariana and Jake soldiered through at home and then at the birthing center. It was a joy to watch the two of them in this miraculous process of bringing my grandson into this world. Mariana was so in tune with her body, Jake was so in tune with her, and I assisted as needed. I think we made a great team!

As Friday turned into Saturday and Saturday turned into Sunday, it was difficult to watch their discouragement and exhaustion, but they hung in there. We had some tense moments when it looked like they might be sent to the hospital, but God intervened each time and allowed them the birth they had desired (minus the length!).

At 11:34PM last night, I wondered if we were going to see another day arrive before the little guy, but he finally took that eviction notice seriously, and entered this world at 11:47PM on 5-22-22. His mom forevermore can tell him that he owes her some pretty awesome birthday gifts to make up for the one where he refused to cooperate.

Mariana Christine, you gave me great joy the day you were born, and another kind of joy the day (okay, three days) you and Jake allowed me to join you in this most miraculous of journeys.

Luka Joseph, you are so welcome and loved already. You have great parents, an army of extended family members, and an awesome cloud of witnesses to love you, to shepherd you, to teach you about your Savior, and to watch you grow in favor with God and man. Thank you for the joy and honor of witnessing your three-day journey, and celebrating this day with the three of you.

Team Baby Kurtz

Go Team!

Welcome Charlie

In my classroom, we start the day with devotions, prayer requests and praises. We get a lot of requests to pray for pets. "It's my dog's birthday," or "My cat is sick," or even, "My pet has to be put to sleep." During my prayer time, then, I often say something like, "God, thank you that you care about everything that we care about, including our pets."

And then God reminded me that those aren't actually words, they're true.

HopeAnne and I thought another dog would be nice. We went to a "speed dating" thingie at a pet store. We were allowed to choose 6 dogs, all of which we'd have 10 minutes with, one at a time. We fell in love with one little guy, although he was a puppy and I really didn't want a puppy.

Understandably, we had to have a meet-and-greet with our dog before we could take Leo home. Things didn't go well from the get-go. Lucy isn't a fan of the car so she was nervous as soon as we started. We had to drive 30 minutes to get there. The parking lot was full of cards which spooked her. It was cold and they made us wait outside a good 10 minutes before they were ready for us. Lucy wasn't having it. She wouldn't even look at Leo. We were all freezing and not happy. They let us go inside and Lucy still wasn't interested. If Leo approached, she'd snarl. Not a good first impression. Since we knew that she has done well with other dogs at the sitters', we didn't know what had happened. We went home, defeated.

HopeAnne was not happy. I continued praying that the right dog would come along and that Lucy would be civil the next time. We had some pretty specific requests: Not a puppy, less than 40 pounds, and not too long-haired. I applied to every rescue I could find. And waited. I finally got a call from an SPCA 30 minutes in the opposite direction from the pet shop. Would we be interested in foster-to-adopt with a little guy, presumed to be around 7, that had been found as a stray?

I explained again the situation with the last meet-and-greet. She asked, "They didn't give you any other options? A lot of dogs would be stressed in that situation. You really should do this at your own home, over a long period of time." That's what I said about the first fiasco!

And this time it worked. Lucy and Charlie (in keeping with the Peanuts theme started by Linus in 2010) get along like a charm.

And yes, God does care about the things that we care about. Even our pets.

As my son-in-law once said, "You always have to be rescuing something, don't you?"

So welcome to the family, Charlie Chalupa King (so named in keeping with the Peanuts theme but with an option for Victor to call him Chewy (short for Chalupa, of course) since he was very upset that we didn't go with any of his many Star Wars suggestions. I think he called him Chewy for all of one day, but at least we are all happy now.

Trust

Victor is known for his questions. 2,461 questions every single day. He can ask more questions in a minute than the number of breaths most people take in that same amount of time. These questions can range from needing more information about an everyday object that we can see but he can't, to your opinion on some random Star Wars trivia, to personal and private information that one would never tell another soul, let alone a 9 year old with no sense of personal boundaries.

So I should not have been surprised when Victor's out-of-the-blue question while we were running errands the other day was, "Mom, do you have anything that you need to work on?" 

I guess he thought he was the only one with issues.

I used to tell my kids that we all have issues and some of us have a full subscription, but since no one has magazine subscriptions anymore, the younger half of the King crowd just looks at me blankly when I say that.

I told him that yes, I have plenty of issues that I need to work on. I should have known the next question.

"Like what?"

To his credit, he seemed genuinely surprised that I would have issues. I must be doing something right if there is at least a part of him that thinks I don't have any room for improvement. During a good moment, of course. Any other time, I'm the worst human being around.

So I listed a few things that I thought would be safe in his head, knowing that these statements could easily be spouted off to random strangers when I least expect it, and when he is upset that I didn't allow him to do something he wanted to do.

And then I said, "And I need to trust God more."

Again, he was shocked. He responded, "But I thought you are very good at that."

"I'm honored that you think I'm doing a good job in that department, and it is true that I've come a long way from panic attacks and oppressive anxiety. However, Buddy, this is a lifelong journey of learning to trust God for everything, the little things and the big ones."

I refrained from adding, "And I'm pretty sure you are God's gift to me, to teach me that which I lack in the area of trust."

Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge Him and He will make your paths straight. Proverbs 3:5-6