"I spy"s and crocodile eyes

How are we already midway through August?! Summer days have a way of lingering in their given twenty-four hours, but racing ahead as they're collected into weeks and months.

Yesterday was Ransom's 5th month of life outside my body. Again, time can sprint ahead when we do not pay attention...

Around these parts, we've been trying to pay attention to that slippery thing we know is time. There is a time for walks, for chores, for baths and laughs. There is a time for the baby to rest while mum takes care of all those other things she cares for. And there is a time to wake...

"Wake up, sleeper, rise from the dead, and Christ will shine on you." Ephesians 5:14

When I hear my little bird stirring in his nest--he coos and cackles-- he's often so loud I can hear him from any room in the house. I let him sing a bit on his own before I go to him. The first thing I do is draw the curtains and open the windows wide to let the light shine on his face. He usually sneezes right away and then a huge sleepy smile is had across his entire face. You know the kind. The kind where eyes and ears and forehead and chin are all involved...that kind of full-face-smile.

I reach down and kiss him awake and go on about whatever I was doing before...allowing him a gentle transition from sleep to wakefullness--a consideration he often gives me. Most mornings, he gives me a gentle transition...cooing contentedly in his crib while I gather myself to start the day. And then, when he's ready, I can look from the hallway into his room and see crocodile eyes peering just over the top of his bed. Again, he'll do a full-face smile but all I can make out from my vantage point are those cute little forehead wrinkles and smiling crocodile eyes.

Next, we start to play a game. You're never too young or too old to play a game. Our latest favorite has been "I spy". It seemed only natural to play "I spy" being that Ransom's crocodile eyes are always moving to and fro, soaking in his world.

We will settle down in a chair to read, again with windows open wide, inviting outside to come in. Right now, I can create and control what "outside" comes into my home. We do not have TV, but we still have laptops and iphones; lately, I've not kept global events outside of our home because they need to come inside...from Israel to Iraq to India to Ukraine. In the same way that one is never too young or too old to play a game, one is never too young or too old to pray. If Ransom has memories of this early time in his life, I hope he remembers the prayers lifted up; lifted high and out-loud and often accompanied with tears flowing from crocodile eyes.

There are many things that I believe we should leave outside of the home, but some things, even hard things, sad things, uncertain things, should be invited inside, through open windows.

In the Old Testament, windows were often analogous with eyes when describing the body. We are instructed to remember Him in our youth...

Remember him before your legs--the guards of your house--start to tremble; and before your shoulders--the strong men--stoop. Remember him before your teeth--your few remaining servants--stop grinding; and before your eyes--the women looking through the windows--see dimly. Ecclesiastes 12:3

So in my house, the young and the old, with crocodile eyes, will sit with open windows to the desperate matters in this life and with the hope of Christs' light shining upon us all. We will close our windows to those things that seek to rob time...instead we will read together, play games together, and pray together...

Because time has a way of getting away from us.

the view from my open window