aidan

i know that there are quite a few people out there who would make very passionate cases for their own children, but i would have to say that, hands down, my nephew is the cutest kid on the planet. granted, the 'terrible twos' behavior has already started (even though his birthday isn't until december 23rd) and my sister likens him to a gremlin. he's just so cute and cuddly, but when he's in a bad mood, things get ugly fast.
he doesn't seem to have any fear and will gladly climb on, jump off of, or slide down anything in his path. he's super-independent and wants to do everything himself and make sure he helps us with everything. and he's super-smart. he already has a huge vocabulary, and we estimate that he learns about 5 new words a day. he is fascinated by anything with an engine and can correctly identify boats, motorcycles, trucks, tractors, dumptrucks, fire engines, airplanes, and cars. only things sound more like 'chuck' and 'duchuck'. but we get the idea. last weekend we were all amazed to realize that he knows all of our names. his sister abigail is 'dabadow', and my name is 'ezah'. he loves the fact that he can say 'ezah!', and that i will respond to him. so he just says it over and over for no reason. it will get annoying soon, but for now i think it's cute.

my grandmother

i'd like you to meet my grandmother, born Billie Maxine Fitzjohn on october 19th, 1927. this was her high school senior picture. i get my dark hair from her.
i am leaving on thursday morning with my mother, sister, niece and nephew to visit my grandmother and celebrate her 80th birthday. which means i get to spend the weekend in missouri.
i've always had a difficult time with knowing what to think or feel about my grandmother. she's the only grandparent i've ever known, and i don't even really know her. she has always had a neverending supply of love, time and energy for the people she ministered to in africa, but never seemed to be able to do the same for her own family. even when she came home from the mission field, she settled down far away from her own children. i've always wished i had the grandmother who taught me how to bake and sew and knit and told stories and did all the 'grandma' type things. and i sort of resent that she wasn't that grandma. and then i feel bad about myself for resenting her.
and then she sends me books by pat robertson. and it reminds me that she doesn't know me at all.
sometimes i wonder if it would have been easier to have never had any grandparents, rather than to have to daily mourn the loss of someone who is still alive.

update

i've had a number of people comment to me both via the internet and in person about my last post, so i feel like i should post an update.

like i said before, i believe that everyone has an inner critic. i believe that said critic is not biological, but comes from years of environmental conditioning. (i am not including those who have genuine biologically induced psychological problems.) my inner critic comes from a lifetime of conditioning from two parents (whom i love and respect immensely) who both came from highly dysfunctional, even sometimes abusive childhoods, and somehow came out the other end mostly normal, but with their own baggage. which includes a tendency to be highly critical of themselves and those around them. i have spent the past decade of my life working very hard on my various shortcomings and believe that i have made a lot of progress. but when you are 31 and still living with those people who are the external source of those critical voices, progress becomes much more difficult. i think i just got to the point where the persistence of the critical voices, combined with the fact that i have no resources to move away from my parents just became overwhelming.

so here's the update.

even though i know i shouldn't be, i am always astounded by the fact that God has his own way of reaching out and showing each and every one of us - individually - how much he loves and cares for us. within just a few days, i read a blog by aaron ivey, a person i've never met or spoken to, that seemed to be written just for me. and i just finished listening to a podcast of a sermon called 'both sides of the cup' by rob bell, in which his benediction prayer spoke to my heart.

needless to say, the inner critic is still there and still saying the same things, and i am still as frustrated as ever that i am stuck in my current situation. but i have been given some gentle reminders that God is bigger than my problems, and that he loves me just the way i am.