March 31

Traveling with the kiddos used to be a giant ball of suck. Between stopping for diaper changes and screaming fits and endless not-so-harmonious choruses of "I need to stretch my legs", short trips often morphed into stressful chores. Fortunately, we're (mostly) past that phase, so our little road trip to kick off Spring Break this afternoon wasn't bad at all.

We had one potty break (which also featured the stretching seen here), one food break, one gas break, one squabbling session that involved BearBear being used as a weapon, lots of reading and listening to music, and a lot of peace.

I sometimes miss the baby and toddler phase, but those calm, mostly peaceful trips are priceless.

March 30

I had to take a quick trip to Costco between pick-ups this afternoon. Fortunately, Brady went along with the chore like a true pro, so we stopped at the food court on the way out for a quick hot dog.

I'm blessed with remarkably patient, (usually) good-natured kids, so it was a pleasure to just sit with him while we ate.

Just a little mundane moment, but nearly all of life is lived in those mundane moments, so we may as well enjoy them.

March 29

I didn't sign up to volunteer at the Little Boys' Fun Run at school today, but I showed up to watch them circle the field. (And I even jogged a few laps with Brady. My knees will probably hate me in the morning.) As I returned some silly bands to the set-up table, the PTA president asked if I wanted to take a shirt and be an official volunteer. Each grade level was assigned a different color so theoretically, I should've gone with green (to match Isaac and the third graders) or purple (for Brady and the kindergartners). But I didn't. I went with blue, the color for fifth grade.

To this day, I still struggle to decide whether to say Logan would be in fourth or fifth grade. The reality is that he'd be in fourth if he'd lived, since he fell a year behind while he was in treatment. But if he'd never gotten sick in the first place, he'd most definitely be in fifth. So something in my mind clicked when I chose blue. In a way, it's like I was representing him, even though he never got to be a student there at all. And that one small thing did a great thing for my heart.

March 28

I'm not sure why, but this afternoon, Abby spontaneously decided to write a story about Bear Bear. (You know, Brady's beloved teddy bear, with whom she's been ever so slightly obsessed for several years.) When she finished writing, she read it in Bear Bear's voice. It was completely demented, but totally hilarious.

I'm not surprised that she adores musical theater because she's quite funny. She has a real gift for physical comedy... well, for comedy in general. When she's not being sassy or talking back to me (or disliking me for looking at her through the wrong eye or breathing too much... she is 12, after all), she helps to lighten my mood quite a lot. And that's a huge blessing.

March 27

This little patch of white flowers caught my eye as I walked to retrieve Brady from school, and I made a mental note to stop and take a photo on our way back through. I liked the symbolism of the tiny heads reaching upward toward Heaven and toward God. And I still do. But I'm using this image for an entirely different reason.

As I steadied my phone to snap the shot, Brady came racing into the frame and dropped to the ground. Initially, I was annoyed that he was slowing down the process, but then he turned to me, his arm outstretched and a smile on his face. And this became my new image for the day.

Some of you know this, but there's a big photo of Logan as a toddler in my dining room. It features him smiling and offering me a tiny flower with an outstretched arm. It's one of my favorites photos of all time, and Brady quite unwittingly recreated it when I least expected it.

Be open to surprising moments that mess up your plans, because sometimes they're the biggest, boldest blessings of all. (And God's plans are better than yours anyway.)

March 26

At church this morning, the worship leader talked briefly about living with joy and what that means. Joy, she stated, isn't, as it's usually defined, an overwhelming sense of happiness. Instead, it's a sense of inner contentment that arises from knowing that no matter what life throws at you, God is ultimately in control.

These guys so often exemplify joy --both contentment and happiness-- in the way they live. It's in how they interact with one another, in how they play together, and in how they love each other (and everyone else).

I could learn quite a lot about life by watching them, methinks, and that's a good thing indeed.

March 25

Something unexpected happened this morning: Isaac pitched the last two innings of his team's baseball game.

It was a notable event because he had --literally-- never pitched from the mound before. Not during practice and definitely not during a game. Just never.

I freaked out a little bit when I saw that 1 next to his name on the lineup card pre-game; after all, pitching can be hard when you've had a lot of practice, so I held my breath when his toe touched the rubber for the first time. But you know something? He did fine! He struck out a few batters and seemed to keep his cool the entire time. They wound up finishing in a 9-9 tie, but they should be super proud of themselves because they were playing a team that has, so far, fared much better than they have during games.

And a bonus: he also, at long last, collected his first hit and an RBI. I was glad to be wearing my sunglasses despite the clouds because I almost cried. He hasn't historically been particularly comfortable at the plate, but he took the coach's comments to heart and it worked.

So yeah. After several tough games, a good hit, a successful pair of innings on the mound, and a high-scoring tie all taste pretty sweet --and definitively blessing-like-- tonight.