These pictures arrived in my inbox a few weeks ago, sent by my aunt from Germany with love.  Snapshots from our trip there as newlyweds.  A dream come true. My heart aches with longing when I look at these.  Why do I feel at strangely at home in this beautiful place?  Dear Germany, we’ll see each other again, I just know we will.  In God’s time.

She wakes up looking for seahorse.  I find it and give it to her.  She then asks for turtle, and dolphin, and the rest of the pocket ocean friends.  Our day has officially begun. 

I turn off the computer while she gives the little creatures their marching orders for the day.  We then go down and eat brunch because it was too late for breakfast and a bit too early for lunch.  I try to cram for tomorrow’s exam while she plays with the dollhouse and reads some books.  Then it was time for Nemo. And we watch it for the first time… with the pocket ocean friends, that is.

I give her a bath and prayed she would nap so I could cram some more. But it was Jessie of Woody’s roundup gang who fell asleep – tired and smothered with wet kisses after their laughing contest.  Soon it was time for some chocolate chip cookies.

And I almost forgot that today is octopus’s birthday!  We make a cake out of nanay’s fist and stick a pencil in the middle for a candle.  After the 47th Happy Birthday song we blow out the candle and show octopus his present.  He didn’t mind at all that we opened it for him — and, gasp, it was a handful of erasers that pretended to be candies which we pretended to eat and afterwards our hands smelled really really good.

After an early dinner she makes calamansi juice (lemonade), stirring and stirring and sipping a spoonfull at a time.  And tatay was home at the fourteenth spoonfull.

This wonder of a three year old has been slipping through my fingers all the time. 

But today,  she didn’t. 

Because  I turned off the computer. 

And I will turn it off again tomorrow.

And the day after tomorrow.

Until she’s fourty-four. Or until she’s married and doesn’t live here anymore.  Whichever comes first.

“Publish His glorious deeds among the nations.

Tell everyone about the amazing things He does.”

- Psalm 96:3, NLT

i love how this version says publish.

and how the internet makes the nations and everyone possible.

our memory is too short for the amazing things and His glorious deeds,

so may we be faithful to record that we may publish

among the nations and tell everyone.

We started our family birthday tradition on my daughter’s third birthday.

The celebrant woke up to balloons…

lots of tickling and cuddling…

Psalm 139 was read and we reflected on how fearfully and wonderfully God made this little girl as we told her birth story

and thanked God for her and prayed for her

the birthday cake was then eaten, presents opened

then we went to the celebrants’ destination of choice:  Manila Ocean Park

(perfect for the current nemo phase)

“hello stingray, you wanna be my friend?”

What is your family birthday tradition?

Something amazing happened yesterday.

Sometime after eating her PB and J sandwich, my three year old daughter asks me for a tissue.

“What are you going to do with it, baby?”

She doesn’t answer, but heads off to where the paper towel is and gets one for herself.  I watched in amazement as she walks to her sandwich droppings and picks them up with the paper towel.  I commended her for a job well done and held out my hand so she could hand the paper towel to me.  But she walks straight to the trash and throws the paper towel herself.  Bravo!

What’s even more amazing is that I never, ever, taught her how to do this.

But she has seen me do it a million times.

You’ve heard it before:  Children don’t always do what you say, but they will always do what you do. (Something to that effect).

Wow.  It just happened right before my eyes. And the implications are making my head spin.

I ought to BE and DO what I hope my daughter to BE and DO.

So help me, God.

I am excited.

A clean sheet of paper.

A fresh start.

So many things to share, and I can’t wait to begin.

But when I think of all that I want to write and all that I hope for this blog to be…

I am doubtful.

This rubbish, who would read?

What difference who would it make?

This offering, who would take?

Then I am reminded…

God knows what to do with our offerings.

So I leave this at His feet.

And write.