Time Capsule

I hope 50 years from now, my kids and grandkids (God willing!) will be able to read this blog - not just this post in particular, but the blog in its entirety.  I want them to be able to know who I am now, the way I thought about things.  I want them to know who their Daddy is, and details about their own childhood that otherwise seem to get lost in the endless file system of Memories.  I look back and wonder what my parents were like when I was little... what were my grandparents like... I hope the future VRoosters can look back on this and say, "ooooooh! that's where I got that..." and smile.

These days we are helping Zaya try to stop sucking her thumb.  It's going ok, so far.  She's great about it during the day and is actually trying, from what I can tell, to practice self control.  For her 19 months, she is quite mature in her understanding.  It is naps and nights that are a problem.  She did OK with socks taped onto her hands the first night, but after 2 nights with little sleep and lots of crying, I gave in and removed the socks.  Normally, I am quite definitive about discipline, but Robbie and I both feel it is imperative to be affirming and reinforce the positive at this point - as opposed to punishing her for sucking her thumb, something that she has always used to self-soothe, and has always been OK.  So, progress is slow there.  Zaya loves to sing and makes up nonsense songs alllllllll the time, and she's already good at staying in key.  She jabbers and says lots of words I don't understand, but I am sure she will suddenly start speaking English one day ;D  She LOVES tomatoes - I have yet to find her limit - she will eat them until they are gone and ask for more.  It doesn't matter if they are big or little; beefsteak, roma or grape; with ranch or plain; cold or room temp; she will eat them ALL.  She's also a big fan of multigrain cheerios and tortilla chips.  She's showing all the signs of being ready to potty train, but I am holding off, waiting for her to cut her last four teeth (canines) since that has proven to be a major gastrointestinal ordeal in the past, if you know what I mean.  If she hasn't cut them (or started to) in two months, I will rethink my position!) She can count to ten, but you can hardly understand her.  Zaya just learned how to jump with both feet off the ground at the same time.  She's not content to sit around, reading books.  She wants to be active all the time.  I notice in her the spiritual gift of Joy :D She has a sense of humor that reminds me very much of my younger brother Evan at this age.  She can always make me laugh out loud, and is quick to get over anything that might be sad.

Today Eva spent over two hours coloring (with colored pencils, in a coloring book).  She cares less now about staying in the lines than she used to - she can, but lately she prefers to color fast, all one direction, in blocks of color.  I like that she's experimenting.  Eva has her berserk times of crazy wild scrabbley take-downs, like any kid of 3.5yrs, but for the most part is laid back.  She is content to color, play in a sand box, play with small figures, or look at books (and has been since she acquired the ability to sit).  Eva loves to make up songs about how "everybody loves everybody." Her songs are sappy and terribly out of key, so of course, I think they are fabulous ;D  She can count to thirty reliably, further when she really tries.  She knows her alphabet and each letter's sound; she's learning to spell a few 3 letter words.  She can write her first name and is working on the rest.  She talks a lot about who she's going to marry someday, so I am ALREADY praying against boy-craziness (pllllleeeeeeeeease God!) I am noticing the way that our culture trains girls to be boy crazy, even at her age.  I am noticing the little things that I say that could be swaying her thoughts in that direction, so young.  I am working to build up in her (and Zay) a sense of peace and contentment with the season of life they are in NOW, and not be trained up to always focus on what's next.  I have a caution in my spirit about her tendency to be sedentary - she prefers to play calmly and quietly, which is easy to appreciate :D don't get me wrong, BUT, I want her to be more active.  She would sit in front of the TV all day, if allowed, and I intend to allow less and less TV time.  I am very aware of a spiritual gift of Compassion in Eva - her tenderness and emotional understanding seem to surpass her years.  Also, she shows this in her prayers - before we eat she'll almost always ask to pray and she will cover the ENTIRE family (extended - I mean everyone) praying for them "to be healfy."  She also prays every single night that her dear friend Calista will be potty trained so the can go to preschool (at church) together.

Robbie and I are leading our first life group - a small group from our church that gets together to form deeper relationships with each other and spur each other on in Christ.  We decided to focus our conversations on marriage and outreach.  We are reading the book, "For Me and My House" by Tom Harmon together- a quick but powerful read.  Our first service project is scheduled for Nov 13th - we're  buying, preparing & serving a meal to local college students - called Feed the Future.  I am really excited to get to know the families that God brought into our small group! We've only had two meeting so far, but I'm already loving them :D  Robbie and I have also decided to home-school Eva for her first year of school - and make the decision to continue home-schooling anew each year for each child.  That was a tough decision for me.  I had a wonderful public school experience, and Robbie feels... well... robbed... by his home-school experience.  Hopefully our opposing pasts will help us (me) to really give Eva an awesome home-school adventure.  I am grateful for some very excellent examples to follow, and some very negative ones to learn from.  We also day dream about a lot of fix-it/ remodel-it/ improve-it projects around the house and yard... not to mention dreams of improving our fitness... but that's usually followed by us raiding the girls candy stash from Halloween.  Ratted myself out in the time capsule! ha!

Robbie, on his own, is hoping to find a new job, but not really looking or working toward it - he's just really discontent.  I pray that he finds contentment in God and finds a job that is not quite so physically straining.  He serves his butt off for the teens at Agapé, our home church.  When he's not working or serving the teens he can be found throwing small VanderRoest daughters in the air; passed out on the floor from exhaustion with small VanderRoest daughters on his back; or watching a movie/playing video games.  You can't imagine how little time he actually spends playing video games... they're low on the list of priorities, but still, a favorite thing.  He worked SO hard to reorganize our basement and finally got it DONE.  (When we first moved in to this house, we didn't know the basement leaked, put our rec room in the basment, along with a nice orange 3" shag carpet... then we got a TON of rain, a moldy basement, a bunch of stuff shoved out of the way to move out the nasty moldy shag carpet, new glass block windows, old septic hole sealed, coal chute converted to a window... but by that time, the process of drying & cleaning and moving everything out of the way had made such an unfathomable mess!!!! yeah.  It's all clean now.  He even bought the paint to repaint the floor!) Robbie is capable of anything, I'm pretty sure.  He's a mentor, he's the guy you call when you need ANYthing.  That's my man.

I, on my own, am devouring my Bible backwards.  I started in Revelation, read that through, then turned to Jude, then 3 John... I am now in Psalms - 103 to be exact :D For the first time, I am appreciating Psalms.  I always found them whiny before - and found myself disgusted with some of the things the writers were saying to God - Now, more mature in my faith, I find it a lot more understandable, and am encouraged to find it in the Bible - that God knows us so intimately. :D  I edify myself further with Bible studies on the radio by Chuck Swindoll, David Jeremiah and James MacDonald.  Another favorite radio program is Focus on the Family - which encourages me daily as a wife and mother... and woman of God.  I am so excited by what I read and hear - its sad really how little of it I allow to spur me into action.  I am very tired of my self-indulgence on Facebook in particular, and am trying to practice more self control in that area.  I am trying to balance the ideal of Super Mom with the Proverbs 31 woman and with what God made me to be.  I don't want more on my plate than what He has for me.  I've taken over a year off from the worship team now  :o(  I love singing on the worship team - such a fun and ever-changing bunch of friends to make great music with.  *sigh*  But, I wasn't focused on God in my heart of hearts.  I was prideful about my self-perceived skillz.  I am still trying to figure out how to focus on singing clearly and well to help lead others into worship, actually worshipping myself and allowing myself that vulnerability in front of the congregation and balancing that with healthy gratitude for my own skills and those of my fellow musicians.  I think constantly about wanting to have more kids, and am very much interested in fostering or adopting one day when our kids are a bit older.  Other than that, my mind swirls constantly with creative projects I'll someday tackle and a DEEP desire to somehow bring income into our tight budget by utilizing some of the talents God gave me.

That's us, these days, in a nutshell.