1m2aSandbox

Newton’s First Law of Motion states
that an object in motion tends to stay in motion.


Apparently, he’s met my daughter Cora.


I’m telling you, I cannot stop this child. It was bad enough
that she started crawling and pulling herself up so early, but then
came the cruising around, looking for something else to hold onto
to keep her moving forward. And now, she’s fashioned herself
a home-made walker.

With apologies to poet Browning - The
lark’s on the wing; the snail’s on the thorn;
Maddie’s in her kitchen, and all’s right with the
world.


Our kitchen remodeling is finally finished; I started unpacking my
kitchen boxes bit by bit last week as projects were completed and
space opened up. As ecstatic as I am to be back in a kitchen that
is more sophisticated than a microwave and a hot plate,
there’s someone even more excited about it: Maddie.

So we visited another new church on
Sunday, this one a small new mission church currently meeting in an
elementary school auditorium. We sat in the back as we always do so
we can sneak out with a baby if need be, and boy is it a good thing
we did.


We were perhaps fifteen minutes into the service and had reached
the point at which the entire congregation reads a psalm together.
This Sunday it was the famous 23rd Psalm, “The Lord Is My
Shepherd”. We were a few short steps away from the sermon,
which is usually my cue to take Maddie to the nursery. Both girls
had been in a good mood all morning, and I was thinking that this
two-kid thing was getting easier.


Maybe two lines into the psalm I heard Brian, who was holding Cora,
say next to me, “Are you KIDDING me?” Being reasonably
certain this was not even a loose interpretation of scripture, I
looked over at him in time to catch a sight I’ll never forget
– Cora, sitting facing him on his lap, smiling happily at him
as a veritable fountain of pee streams onto Brian’s lap and
trickles merrily to the floor.


Apparently we were going to head to the nursery a little early.

God bless Texas.


I forgot when we moved back here that we were returning to the land
of competitive gymnastics; our area’s fostered several
Olympic gymnasts over the past decade or so, and there are four
huge training facilities within perhaps five miles of us.


What does this have to do with me and a bored two-year-old? I have
two words for you –


Open. Gym.

Since moving to Texas we’ve been
“church shopping” on Sundays – going to a
different church every week as we try to find our new parish home.
We’re enjoying seeing the different types of churches out
there, but it also means Maddie is in a new environment every week.
How’s she handling it?


It’s a bit mixed.

Our new playground has some features
Maddie hasn’t encountered before, and one is a covered spiral
slide. Madeleine’s been eyeing it since we moved here; she
loves going down the regular slide, and with the spiral slide being
the tallest of the five slides on our playground here, I think she
considers it the Mount Everest of the playground – to be
trained for and conquered.


The first couple of weeks Maddie eyed the slide but wouldn’t
go near it, deeming it too high and too fast. About two weeks ago,
though, her longing looks drew her ever nearer, until she was
staring wistfully into its open mouth. I could see she wished she
had the courage to go down but simply couldn’t talk herself
into it.


And then Elmo came to the park.

Cora’s finally settled on a lovey,
and unfortunately, it’s me.


Or, to be more precise, my hair.