Good Friday

This weekend we jumped through a lot of hoops to get to a wedding.  We packed the car up, headed down to Durham, NC, dumped a couple of our kids off at my brother-in-law and wife's house (thank you J and K!!) and whisked our one very precious special needs daughter off to a wedding in Wilmington.

I'll be honest.  It's hard to watch a wedding with a special needs child.  
She wiggles, crawls away, spits, eats the dirt, eats the table cloth, eats the centerpieces, cries, climbs up strangers' legs, thrashes backwards, flails wildly, stims constantly, shrieks, poops her pants often and bites randomly.  And she's getting stronger by the second (praise God?).   

And then there are those rare moments where she is completely 
precious and happy. The easy part.

This wedding though, was unlike one I've ever been to before.  Not because of the light mist, the most perfect venue, or the stunning bride in fairy-tale white, not because of the loyal Navy community present, or the gorgeous big white tent, or the delectable food,  but because of the mere fact that I had NEVER in my life seen so many wheelchairs at a wedding.

Yes, I said wheelchairs. Look:

You see, the focus was clear for this couple.
And someone might as well have been screaming it from the rooftops:

ALL PEOPLE ARE VALUED AND HAVE SOMETHING TO OFFER,
DESIGNED BY GOD, AND WELCOME HERE!!!
(AND BY THE WAY, WE MIGHT, JUST MIGHT HAVE SOMETHING TO LEARN FROM THEM).


Come by horse, by car, by plane, by spaceship, by buggy, by stroller, by crutch,
by wheelchair.
WE LOVE YOU!
Scream, holler, hoot, cry, wail, fart, drool.
STILL COME!

So we came.  Along with several other families who may have been shunned or shushed or shut out at other important ceremonies.

During the ceremony.

Doing a very good job not ripping the tablecloth off.

And that night, as I watched this bride dance with my daughter for a solid 15 minutes, my eyes welled and spilled because at that very moment, I realized she loved Iva June for who she was.  I was not bribing, begging, bartering or making apologies for her.  I was not paying her to care for her.   She was not a relative or even a long-time friend.

She was doing this because she actually wanted to.  She seemed overjoyed to be holding her, swaying with her and letting her know that she was, indeed, important amongst 300 wedding guests.

And not only did she dance with my daughter, but she took several others out of their wheelchairs and danced with them as well.

What bride has an hour to do that?

This one.

June dancing with her new "attendant"

And that is how you raise a daughter.  Thank you, to this woman's parents.  I know your own journey and heartache has made your family also very unique.  Well, I want you to know, it has come full-circle.  And this may be just a very small part of the WHY in all those years of hard moments and shed tears. Thank you.  Thank you. Thank you.

The littlest helper

We had rice tonight. Again.  Which always seems to be on the menu with this gluten free diet.  Every time I steam rice and eat with my three kids under 6, I make myself promise we will not do it again for at least 3 weeks.  The end result is hardly in the mouth, but MOSTLY on everyone's bare feet, mashed into butt cracks and stuck to hair and under chins and chairs.
And definitely MOSTLY NOT on the plates.

You have one of two options at this point.
Clean by picking up each piece individually, basically with tweezers
OR wait til dry and, in the morning, sweep up.

Truly, I have no idea how people do it with chopsticks, but at the end of dinner, this is what the table and floor looks like:

Don't EVER get a table with deep rustic grooves in it, NO matter how cool it looks.

Fortunately, I have a little helper who is always willing to clean up the mess.  I put her right to work. 

 

So this entry really isn't about rice, it's about my little helper.

My babiest girl is turning two years old in two days.   

And about 1000 days ago, she was given a very BIG assignment, an assignment only the God of the Universe could have given to the 

littlest helper.  

And OH, she has risen to the occasion.

She is JOY. 

She is Unbridled PASSION. 

She is teacher.

She inspires, encourages, plays with, and enthusiastically loves her older sister in a very BIG way.  

And with her screaming demands, come bold streaks of courage where she takes June's hand and leads her through the steps of life.

And this littlest sister pushes her BIG sister to do more, to be more.

To come out, to dig deep in her soul and smother her with kindness.

And...to just plain smother her.


To wrestle with her birth order number.
To find a brave new place where I haven't gone,
and triumphantly stay there for a while.

Happy Birthday my littlest Charlotte Rose-Marie!