water under the bridge

With six months elapsed since my last post, I hardly know where to pick up the story.  Most of the fall semester went unchronicled, and here we are nearly halfway through the spring semester of the elder lad's first grade year and younger lad's preschool year.

While this grieves me, I own that I've never been very good at maintaining a journal of any sort for the long haul.  This latest silence can be attributed to several factors, among them a lamentable lack of whatever motivation and ability I had to see the process from thought to written post to completion.  Part of this was owing to external factors (such as an overwhelming amount of the stuff of lowbrow humor to contend with as well as having nary a few moments in which I had both the use of both my hands *and* cognitive function to devote to navel gazing), but a lot of it had to do with me auguring into a git 'er done mode, staying on top of domestic affairs more consistently and not allowing myself to dilly dally at the glowing screen as much.

Highlights of the past six months include

• the elder lad's involvement in Cub Scouts as a Tiger Cub.  He seems to really revel in the challenge of it, and we recognize the potential for his growing in virtue by participating in Scouts.  For inspiration and encouragement he can look to several Scouts in the family.  I'm still trying to figure out the quickest and best way to get those patches and badges on his uniform...
• the transformation of the younger lad to a school boy, one who charges around the school playground playing superhero, rocks his snow boots (aka "moon boots") like nobody's business, and shows an ever-growing capacity for tenderness toward his sisters -- sometimes... 
• celebrating birthday number three for the elder lass (which still sounds weird to me, but neither of these girlies is "wee" anymore, so some other distinction is necessary), who still loves to read and now is showing quite an interest in ballet.  She's about the age her mother was when said mama began taking ballet lessons... 
• an entertaining and enchanting display of the younger lass's (now 19 months old) charm, wit, sweetness -- and chutzpah, as she has no qualms about letting us know exactly what she thinks and how she feels...

Along with these highlights and several poignant opportunities for keeping things in perspective has come a greater awareness of the beauty that lies in accepting and fulfilling some aspects of this vocation of wife and mother that aren't anything anyone would call glamorous (see aforementioned reference to that which the Honeywagon ferries away) -- if I choose to look at it that way -- and more gratitude than ever for all the many blessings with which we've been showered.

I wouldn't call the past six months the most prayerful of my existence, although I hope to offer the work that has gone on during this time -- and continues -- as such. 

As for all the soundbytes and family birthdays and books we've read together, at this moment they seem to be water under the bridge.  Perhaps I'll be able to reclaim some of them.  I still struggle mightily with "brain fog", so we'll see what cuts through the haze.

For everything there is a season.  This one in our family life continues to be very full of minute-to-minute changes in climate and conditions, and that takes a lot of stamina -- not to mention prayers.  Please continue to keep us in yours.