Livia sat at the dining table for well over two hours, carving her little pumpkin.

If Pumpkin Carving were a class, the progress report would read:
Design: A+
Completion: A+
Use of Time: A+
Study Habits: A+

And at the bottom a note would say: Livia works well in class. She pays attention and uses tools (even sharp saws!) correctly. She asks for help when she needs to, then gets right back to work with remarkable focus. I enjoy having Livia in my Pumpkin Carving class. She is a delight.

Everyone says strong-willed kids make great adults, that their strong wills serve them well in the future. So today, as my child made Livia’s Last Stand prior to walking in the school door, I’m trying to envision what her future will look like. Will there be that After School Special moment on the empty football field where some druggie offers 15 year old Livia a joint and she, in all her strong-willedness, just says no? Will she be a future Condoleeza or Hillary and stand eye-to-eye with a communist general, declaring, again in her strong-willedness, that for the sake of her country she will not back down? Will she, in that future world that fundamentalist Christians like to imagine, declare that she will not denounce her faith in Christ before a judge and jury of her peers? People, one of these scenarios had better play out or else I’m telling you that this strong-willed kid stuff is for the birds!

There are some stinky, dirty, slinky cats that live near Livia’s school. In the beginning of the school year I broke my “no petting cats without collars” rule and let Livia caress and hug and do her Cat Whisperer thing with these felines. I had met their owners and had seen how all the school kids adore the cats and against my better judgment I opened the door to a routine that would eventually torture me.

However, because I am a 33 year old woman and thereby wiser than my child, I started to avoid the sidewalks by the cat house and thus avoided the time required for cat coaxing and cat petting prior to the school day. So guess who forgot to be wise this morning? And guess who made her Last Stand on the corner of the cat house?

Scene: School bell rings, school children enter the building. One adorably-dressed little girl is stubbornly standing on the corner. One woman, looking like she’s rolled out of bed and is wearing the same clothes for three days straight, seeks to regain control.

Bus driver looks on from his perch inside the yellow bus. Para-educators nearby offer small smiles as the duo eventually walks past. Well, the walking is questionable. It is stop-and-go there for awhile; stubborn child demanding to pet cats while haggard mom says no repeatedly. A little arguing takes place. Stubborn child refuses her mother’s hand. Stubborn child eventually has to go to the office for a tardy slip. Mother’s eyes start to do the crazy dance, and the hand-off, an apologetic one to teacher in the classroom door, takes place.

Control. Where was it and who had it?

Though I felt like I lost the battle this morning, I actually won it. No one died on the corner by the cat house. No one yelled, no one pulled, no one cried (though I kind of felt like it after our war of wills was complete). My strong-willed first grader not only did not get to pet the [smelly] cats this morning, she will have to earn the opportunity to do so again.

Oh my friends, parenthood is far more challenging than I ever imagined. It offers up the most ridiculous moments and challenges. I write so I won’t forget these absurd times—and so I can remind Livia to stay strong when she’s dealing with her own strong-willed child someday. We’re going to laugh about this, right? Right?

This morning I took a friend’s son to school while his mom and big sister attended an orthodontist’s appointment. I hadn’t spent time with this kiddo at all recently and I marveled at how much he’s matured in the last year. Only in third grade, he’s already sounding so smart and knowledgeable—and both Livia and I enjoyed having him with us in the normally hairy before-school hours. Turns out he was just the motivation we needed to look like cool, calm, collected normal people this morning.

In the hustle and bustle of life—of school and work and extracurricular activities and foster care training and, oh yeah, trying to sell a house—I wonder if I’ve forgotten something very important: my friends’ kids.

I was once a part of a group of women that got it right. They loved each other’s kids incredibly. By example they showed me how to love someone else’s children. We had a long-running Bible study/accountability group; it lasted for almost a decade. If you walked into a room of these ladies, they’d always reach for your baby. And what an amazing blessing that was to me, to have someone who would love my child when I was really tired of dealing with teething and drool and poop, etc. Because we studied the bible and held each other accountable to God’s call in our lives (or at least we tried to), we knew each other really well. Which meant we knew each other’s kids well. Talk to a mom and you’ll eventually learn about her children! I was the godmother to one friend’s children and, in pre-Liv days, bought a pack-n-play just so another friend’s babies could sleep or nap over at my house. We celebrated each birthday with excitement. We threw each other baby showers when a new arrival was expected. Or, in my case, they threw me a baby shower once we had adopted and brought Livia home. I could go on and on, but the point remains that these gals taught me how to care for each other’s children.

Life does get to moving at a fast pace—that’s not just an excuse. I live in different circles from many friends these days; I have an elementary school kid while they still have little ones at home. Still, I think it just means we have to work harder to make time for one another, to make time to get to know each other’s kids. Maybe it requires a bit more creativity, a little less “me time” and a little more reaching out.

Older folks say these growing up years go pretty fast. I want to soak up this precious time, for me and my friends, before it shoots right past me.

Me: Livia is making me CRAZY!
Jeremy: Well, sometimes *you* make people crazy.

Can’t argue with him there.

As delightful as dark rainy mornings are, they are not my favorite when it comes to getting Livia ready for school. We’re a family of sleeper-inners. All summer long we would sleep until 9am and then we’d slowly get up and get moving. Alas, the public school system doesn’t care to start their day when the sloth-like Tredways walk through the door. They have a start time and an end time that must be respected.

Motivating my seven-year-old to complete her morning tasks and walk into first grade on time is a challenge. It’s a challenge that I often screw up entirely. I have a love/hate relationship with timeliness where each minute I seem to get more wound-up about being late. I become something of a pressure cooker and then I explode with statements like the one above. And truly, no one looks crazier than me when I’m yelling, “Livia is making me CRAZY!” Oh yeah? Well, you’re looking like a nut yourself, mama.

This morning I watched my child walk ever so slowly down the hall to meet her teacher at the door to her classroom. (She’s the same kid at home, at school and everywhere after all.) As I opened my umbrella and walked back out into the rain, I felt like weeping over my sin. I really wish I hadn’t hollered at Liv this morning. I really wish I was more creative in my approach toward her. I really wish I had handled myself with more self-control. But deep down, I *really* wish I didn’t have to apologize for my behavior, that I could be perfect on my own.

I am being drawn to Christ.

I am not drawing myself to Him.

I wish (again with the wishing) that I could approach God on my own terms. Pop open the Bible when my heart is happy and content, when I’ve delivered a skipping first-grader to school on a sun-shiny day, when I feel like I have it all together. But that would be a total lie. In my weakness I see my need for forgiveness. And the need looks something like a mountain, looming large and impossible before me. It makes me grieve because I so much want to be good without a Savior. With the utmost stubbornness, I want to do it myself. But I fall time and time again. I can’t be good all the time, or even some of the time.

The Gospel pulls my eyes away from myself and towards Jesus. The mountain of need, the giant mess of sin in my heart, becomes absolute forgiveness in Christ. His record of perfection, claimed over me and for me. It’s not something I’ve done, not something I’ve earned, but it’s given to me freely.

And can it be that I should gain

An interest in the Savior’s blood?

Died He for me, who caused His pain—

For me, who Him to death pursued?

Amazing love! How can it be,

That Thou, my God, shouldst die for me?


Forgiveness, such a sweet word. As a mother, a wife, a daughter, a sister, a friend, an artist, I need forgiveness. I crave grace moment by moment to be a better person, to lift my head up and make sense of the day that stretches before me.

The sun is coming out just a little bit. May God give me grace to be more patient, more joyful, more creative and more gentle when I pick up Livia from school this afternoon. I want to try again, by the strength of Christ, to be the woman God has called me to be.

**The lyrics to Charles Wesley’s And Can It Be? are so so good.

I highly recommend Superhero help for all your common household chores. Recycling becomes RECYCLING! when a Superhero is involved.

From the first moment you held her in your arms to the way you play tickle-wrestle, from the sweet baby cuddles to the sweet big girl cuddles, from the soda parties to the lava games to the yard work by daddy’s side, you are the best daddy to Livia Raine.

I love parenting alongside you. Today is just another day where I tell God how grateful I am for Jeremy Tredway.

Happy Father’s Day to the men in our lives! To Jeremy, to my dad David Lawton, my father-in-law Bill Tredway and my brother Adam Lawton. We are so grateful for you!

It’s a dark and rainy morning and my newborn photo shoot is officially on a rain delay. Mumford is blaring over the speakers while I catch up on email, Facebook, online life as it is. The dog rests behind me, ears flattened a bit—I don’t think he appreciates Roll Away Your Stone as much as I do. I’m finally finally finally easing back into a normal existence after having elbow surgery five weeks ago. Being down and out for that long was both depressing and enlightening. Apparently I’m not much of a patient patient. Back to Mumford & Sons. They played in Council Bluffs two days ago and I. wasn’t. there. Can’t tell you how unfair that seemed. I heard that show sold out in minutes. Ah well, good for them.

Jeremy, Liv and I planted some vincas and impatiens and begonias and lobelias the other day. We’ve got more work to do, but we made a good start using some amazing dirt from our compost pile. Livia loves planting. It wasn’t until later that day when she was contentedly watching tv and I was finishing the potting that I realized, Wow, planting by myself is much easier than doing it with her around! Always, a mama needs to slow down to adjust for younger fingers on a task. As silly as it sounds, I think sometimes we expect Liv to act like an adult. But it takes a long time to nurture this little soul–what a job we’ve been given to train up this child.

Enough with my Thursday ramblings. I’m off to conquer a few piles of laundry.

Livia, sweetly reading a book on the artist Matisse to our dog Shiloh:
Sometimes I like art. [page turn]
Sometimes I like little villages. [page turn]
Sometimes I like naked men. [page turn]

Mommy:
Um, what? [pause] Show me that page. [checks out the sexless nude figures] Ahhhh. Now, read it to me again… [busily types, mutters under breath] so I can share it with the world wide web…

Today we finally got around to joining our library’s summer reading program. One of the activities a child can do for credit is read to a pet. So tonight Livia picked up some books on famous artists, sat down with Shiloh nearby, and began to read aloud in words a simpleton like the dog could understand. After she saw me recording our previous conversation, she asked me to write down the book in it’s entirety. Here is the book on Matisse, according to Livia, thoroughly enjoyed by Shiloh.

**************

I like this antique picture.
Oooh, this one’s pretty. I like this village, too.
I like this picture of naked men, too. Playing music. (Un-propriate!)
Sometimes I like to look at this picture of fish.
Sometimes I like to look at these men again, which is swirling around and is an old painting, too.
I like this old antique house.
Sometimes I like to have feasts with all sorts of kind of food, even fish, and the fish are dead. And also it’s an old painting.
I also like this bowl of fruit painting. It’s nice.
And I like this picture of a lady playing a piano and boys playing checkers.
And I like this picture of a lady sleeping in a pretty dress.
The end.

I love that, after we told you that you may not ask to hang out with our neighbor friend (a male approximately 22 years old), that you later sobbed to me, “It’s just that I’m so attracted to him!”

I love that you bring me flowers multiple times a day and that you delight in giving them to me.

I love that you asked if my throat hurt tonight—because if it did, you would only ask for one song. But since it felt okay, you requested two.

I love that, when I guessed the next plot point on tonight’s tv show, you turned to me with amazement and asked in awe, “How did you know that?” I felt like a genius in those few seconds.

I love that you call your daddy a genius and that you didn’t listen to me that one time I tried to tell you otherwise. Without fully meaning to, I was being a jerk. But you forgot what I said and you still call him a genius. And I’m starting to believe you’re right. He is a genius, our genius, and we love him to death.

I love that you wanted to see what I bought at the mall today. And that you oohed and ahhed and commented on the absolute cuteness of each article of clothing, even though one was a pretty basic white shirt. I think you noticed the subtle details that made it so cute in the first place.

I love that you slept in longer than me and your dad this morning and that, when I came to wake you up, you stretched out, long and lean, then curled up tight again and went back to sleep again. For a moment I could imagine teenage Livia doing that very thing. But then you stuck your fingers in your mouth, and that darned bad habit was briefly welcomed because it broke my vision of the future, a vision that had you getting big way too fast.

Oh Livia Raine, our lives would be so boring, so mundane, so colorless without you. We thank God for creating you because you have filled our hearts with more love than we thought possible. You, dear sweet kiddo, are amazing. And you are loved.

Tomorrow is Livia’s golden birthday—seven on May 7th! We baked, frosted and decorated funfetti cupcakes to deliver to her kindergarten classroom today. Based on the hovering, exclaiming crowd of children surrounding Liv this morning, I’d say the cupcakes will be a success. Oh my goodness, the cuteness I encounter every morning in the kindergarten wing kills me. Those kids are adorable.

Yesterday, amidst a small group discussion about finding contentment in Christ—no matter where you are in life—the topic of blog competition/comparison was brought up. It’s so easy to look at people’s websites and imagine each one tells the entirety of that blogger’s life. You begin to wonder why your life doesn’t seem as wonderful as theirs. Just so you’re never tempted to think that of me, I’ve got evidence of the mess of cupcake-making with my child.

Here’s the end result: a charming cupcake.

Let’s dig a little deeper and imagine what went into making that cupcake. It’s the end of the day and the birthday girl is dead-set on baking with mommy. Mommy wants a drink and a recliner. Alas, the duo whips up a boxed mix, cools the little cakes, then tints a batch of frosting. The tint, notorious for staining *everything* it touches, does that just. Opened by six-year-old fingers, it stains the countertop, her fingers and face, and her clothes. Mommy tries to be cool, takes a few deep breaths and hands her daughter the sprinkles. A few quick swipes of frosting and it’s sprinkle time. Incidentally, sprinkles are the pinnacle of awesomeness to a six-year-old and she proceeds to POUR the little beads all over the counter. Whoops, she says, didn’t know it was open! Replay the last few sentences 24 times and you have a good picture of the final moments of our night.

There might have been more sprinkles on the counter and floor than on the cupcakes.

Jeremy still feels them under his toes this morning.

Finally, the scene of the crime. My kitchen looks just like this right now, 14 hours later. Minus the cupcakes, which are being admired in an elementary school near you.