Images used by permission; ©Nathan Munsey 2012.
Tag: aveline alenka
WRITING & WORDS :: Do not put that potato chip in the outlet, and other toddler tales.
Aveline pokes the imperfections in the sidewalk as she walks. Every.single.one.
Well, walks are really more like runs. Runs-and-pokes. So, the more accurate way to say it is that she sprints, screeches to halt, and spins around at lightning speed to inspect the little pokable hole.
All this happens with a lot of squealing, and a steady stream of Aveline-words, many of which start with “z” and sound very French.
After a rain, it’s even more exciting. There are dozens of dime-sized (and smaller!) dimples in the sidewalk, each filled with warm rainwater, each just the right size for a one-year-old index finger.
Walks take a long, long time.
I like this growing-up thing that she’s doing. I like it a lot. I can make her a sunbutter and jelly sandwich, cut it in half, and hand it to her. She can eat goldfish–well, goldsharks–while we run errands. And when I change her clothes, she stands up and holds on to my arms, points her tiny toes, and tries to stick her feet into the leg of her pants. They usually end up in the wrong leg, but still. She tries.
These are good, growing-up changes.
Even when she tries to put a potato chip in the outlet.
Even when she suspects we are about to leave the house, and frantically empties two whole dresser drawers in search of her shoes.
Even when she licks the sidewalk.
Even when she, concerned about the state of her diaper, yells “dirty, dirty, dirty” loudly in the grocery store.
(The other words in) her little vocabulary delight me. Dance. Songs! Socks. Seeee?? Puppy. Seeeeeee? Poppity. See?
And every time she says “seeee?” in her girlish voice, I get a little peek of what the the world looks like through her eyes.
She’s helping me experience childhood again. She’s helping me see that there is something to squeal about in ant-sized puddles, in the extra jelly on the side of her sandwich, in the way the wind lifts up and tosses back her hair.
Thank you Lord, for helping me to see your beautiful world like a child again.
LIFE IN PHOTOS :: Pretty Young Thing
Sometimes my wild child really surprises me. Her energy is boundless — she’s always climbing (and falling off of) something — but then she suddenly pauses, and inside that moment, she is one hundred percent girl.
WRITING & WORDS :: This Early Light [my guest post on the Grace-Filled Blog]
I’m guest blogging on the Grace-Filled Blog today, while Erin takes some time off with her family to welcome her new baby boy. Congratulations!
“…The coffee has begun to mix with the air. She turns to run away, and the sun falls through the smudged windowpane and dances across the back of her head…” [continue reading]
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LIFE IN PHOTOS :: When all else fails…
…haul the baby and the playpen (not at the same time) down the flight of stairs and outside.
WRITING & WORDS :: Life eats up words, sometimes.
Words toss and tumble around in my head, and as I pick up Cheerios off the floor and tell the curious toddler to please stop banging her sippy cup on the furniture, I mentally line up the words and phrases.
But then, when it is finally still and quiet, I look at the clock and wonder where all the minutes have gone. I sit down to write, and discover I cannot remember any of the words my mind wrote hours before.
And then I realize it’s okay, because the words have been eaten up by life. Beautiful, vibrant, loud, wonderful life.
[Image taken on a rare cold day earlier this year.]
LIFE IN PHOTOS :: JOY.
WRITING & WORDS :: Toward the sunrise // Toward the setting of the sun
The sky keeps changing. The morning’s quiet clouds, marching steadily along for hours, finally collapse under the weight of the gathered rain and spill out over the sidewalk and leaves, over the roofs and birds, over the highways and signs, and over our shoulders.
Aveline laughs.
I sigh and pull the tripod and camera back inside, closing the green front door behind us.
Aveline’s face falls. She looks up at me, tugging at my jeans. “Outside? Outside? Outside?” I love the way she pronounces the ou in “out”. She has a Californian accent that makes me proud and buoys hope in my soul.
On Sunday morning, Josiah read Joshua 1 aloud, “Every place on which the sole of your foot treads, I have given it to you, just as I spoke to Moses. From the wilderness and this Lebanon, even as far as the great river, the river Euphrates, all the land of the Hittites, and as far as the Great Sea toward the setting of the sun will be your territory.”
I love that Great Sea toward the setting of the sun. I love how my Lord tells me, “only be strong and courageous.”. Four times in this chapter, “be strong and courageous.” I love how He gives me the strength I need to be strong.
The sound of the rain against the windows stops, and we go back outside to walk on this green, Eastern land God’s given us now, “beyond Jordan, toward the sunrise.”
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