The Toddler Diet

Next week Selah Grace will be 15 months old. What do you feed a toddler? The gates to a world of food are opening. It would be easy to get uptight and want only all-organic brain food to go down her pipes, but that isn't the reality in the house of Leboffe. Here is a list (no lies) of what our little one ate yesterday. It's my understanding that other toddlers eat like this. I'll just keep telling myself that anyway.

Breakfast:
milk
oatmeal
1/2 banana
3 LARGE bites banana peel
"No, no baby. We don't eat the peel. That's icky, huh?"

Morning Snack:
grape juice
purple crayon tip
2 in. of cardboard book binding
"No, no baby. We don't eat the book. Let's read the book. Come, let's get the crayon chunks off your teeth. That's icky, huh?"

Lunch:
milk
2 cubes mozzerella cheese
3 peas
1 slice wheat bread
grocery list
"You couldn't possibly be bothered with any more peas? How'd you get that list? Open up, let me get it. We don't eat lists. Thank you!"

Afternoon Snack:
milk
blueberries
petrified piece of cookie/cracker? excavated from under the couch
mom's mango popsicle
"Wow. Wherever did you find that bit of biscuit? In the future, we don't eat unidentified objects off the floor."

Dinner:
milk
rice
lentils
2 bites asparagus
3 lbs watermelon
"That's a lot of melon my child! Let's save some for tomorrow. Great eating today. We'll do it all again tomorrow!"

Big Saves

It was easy for us to see God's "big saves" while we were living in Malawi because it was so evident at every turn that we needed God's help. Some of the monumental ways God pulled through for us included: being healthy and safe while in Africa, never having to pay customs or duty on bags and packages, healing Nate's malaria, getting 80% of our post-malaria hospital bill forgiven, being sent on an incredible safari for the price of an $8 bar tab, a healthy pregnancy, friends from Johannesburg who let us use their home and car while we waited for Selah Grace to be born, not to mention the financial support that came in every month.
Now that we're living back in San Diego life feels a little more "ordinary" and its been a lot easier for God to do things that are hard for me to recognize. I don't like that. Things are going well for us and we are feeling more self-sufficient in our lives here, which if I'm speaking honestly, the control-freak inside of me likes. But I'm saddened to realize that I'm not as aware of the Spirit's workings in my life and therefore not as grateful.
Finding the Divine in the mundane. This is my new task.
Here is my new list of God's handiwork from this past year in San Diego: health for our family, buying a house, being given a car, helping to start a marrieds community group, making new friends, Nate finding a job, Nate finding a soccer team, and me getting to not have a job outside the home.
Yesterday as I was thinking about all this and driving, I got pulled over by a cop for the first time in my life! (Well, for the first time in the US.) I had apparently breezed through a stop sign while I was so focused in my discussion with Nate. But the cop was super congenial and didn't give me a ticket even though our proof of insurance card was expired. I think God is scaffolding my new effort to see the big saves so my efforts to be more aware and more grateful were ushered in with bright flashing lights. From now on I've got to keep my eyes open...and pay more attention to those stop signs.

A Favorite Poem

God's Grandeur by Hopkins
The world is charged with the grandeur of God. It will flame out, like shining from shook foil;
It gathers to a greatness, like the ooze of oil. Crushed. Why do men then now not reck his rod?
Generations have trod, have trod, have trod; And all is seared with trade; bleared, smeared with toil;
And wears man's smudge and shares man's smell: the soil
Is bare now, nor can foot feel, being shod.

And for all this, nature is never spent;
There lives the dearest freshness deep down things;
And though the last lights off the black West went
Oh, morning, at the brown brink eastward, springs-
Because the Holy Ghost over the bent
World broods with warm breast and with ah! bright wings.

Playing in the Great Outdoors!

Parents' pride. We just can't get over how gorgeous she is.

Walking in the woods with my Daddy!

Playing games with Great Pa. And yes, that is a stuffed possum in Selah's lap. An unlikely stuffed animal, but she loves it fiercely. Can you guess what kind of stuffed animal Pa has in his lap?

Skipping rocks by the creek.

Vacation

We've just returned from a week of vacation with the extended family and are now feeling like we might need a vacation in order to recover from being on vacation. Instead we're trying to tackle the post-vacation homecoming of empty refrigerator and mountains of dirty clothes in hopes that today we'll eat more than the graham crackers and fruit punch Crystal Light we had yesterday and even have a clean pair of underwear to put on.

We had a great time up north. The family rented a house up in the woods about two hours north of San Francisco in a little mountain town on the coast. The objective of the week was to just hang out, see each other, visit with Nate's grandparents, and to let them get to know their third great-grandkid, Selah.

Master of the Bin!

I have this bin. Metal, about 6in. by 12in. I paid 50 cents for it from the "as is" section at Ikea. When I bought it I had big dreams for this little bin. I wanted it to be the bin where I could put all the important mail aka all the stuff I felt like Nate The Husband needed to see. The sorting started off strong, like all good will-powered resolutions do. And then...it seemed like the important mail kept building up. After a few weeks I asked the man if he had seen and taken care of such and such in the mail: it was in the bin. "What bin?" he asks. Oops. My bad communication. We recommunicated and truly meant to start using it for what it was intended.
And then...things came in the mail that I wasn't sure what to do with. In the bin? Receipts that we might need for returns later; in the bin. Papers stacked in piles on the kitchen counter; in the bin. People coming over and the counter covered in papers? Throw it in the bin! The bin an eye-sore in the kitchen? Put it on top of the refridgerator, toward the back!
I can't tell you how many months the top of the fridge became home to the pile of "important" papers. It was a good many while I lived my life too short to see it up there. When I did see it I shuddered. "Too much work" to go through that right now. "I'm scared to find out." This weekend I conquered my fears and got the shiny metallic bin down. I found: one very old electricity bill, zoo pass coupons, about 50 offers from real companies and real scammer companies offering to lower our monthly mortgage, health insurance survey, USD graduate school forms, Albertsons card, zip-lock of change, income tax requests, tax readjustments, tax confirmations, OU physician bills, march of dimes address labels, a teaching credential, and about 30 pounds of expired coupons and grocery store fliers.
It feels good to be master of the bin again. And although it still has a number of envelopes and forms that we really MUST deal with and/or find a home for, I consider it a victory!