Tonight I spent a very enjoyable 1 1/2 hours with Natalie, an adorable 18-month old little girl, at our covenant group.  It was my week to do childcare and so we hung out in the dining room.  She was really calm so I was chatting with Chris and Katie.  Towards the end of our time together, Natalie, being tired, laid down on the floor beside me and started stroking my hair. We had a good 20 minutes of resting together, and mutual hair/head stroking.  I needed to be calm and rest and evidently so did she.  The Lord is good to provide us with those moments when we need them!  The same thing happened to me last spring.  I had nursery at the early service.  In the midst of finishing up school and wedding craziness, I did not have it in me to be entertaining a bunch of toddlers.  So instead, I took the one infant, Zoe, into the other room and she gave me 15 blessed minutes of rest in which I lay on my back and she sat on my stomach.  She sat there calmly, with one little toy, while I simply rested (and made faces at her every once in a while).  I think the Lord knew I needed her to force me to sit quietly for that bit of time.  I know babies/children are an immense amount of work, but right now, I am remembering the blessed moments that they give us too.

Today, my students and I read a story, which included a section on Picasso.  He said that all children are artists because they see the world with new eyes.  And that our challenge in remaining artists is that when we grow old, we start to see the world like everyone else.  I think that’s why we need kids in our lives – to keep us seeing anew.

And speaking of babies, we had Nikki’s baby shower on Sunday.  (Nikki is Nik’s brother’s wife.)  At the end, one of Tina’s Greek friends says to me, “Tell Andreas hello for me!”  I didn’t bother to remind her that Andreas was my brother-in-law, not my husband.  I just say, “OK!”, smiled big, and let it go.  Well, later, we discovered that she had written, “To Nik and Nikki” on her card.  So she evidently has her couples mixed up.  She was one of the people who we weren’t able to invite to the wedding (which was a bit of a problem).  So she clearly knows that it was Nik who got married in June.  Which would have made Nikki 4 1/2 months pregnant at the wedding!  So I guess she thinks it was a shotgun wedding!

Enough baby talk for now.  No, I’m not pregnant.  I was just talking to Chris and Katie tonight about “tiny one’s” arrival and thinking about babies.  Love to you all!