Little Bites

Piper Finnian is notorious for a lot of reasons around these parts.

Standing anywhere she can gather a crowd and announcing, "Everybody! Dance!"

Agreeing with all who may perchance comment about her cuteness. "I cooot!"

Wrapping grown men around her finger by announcing how much she loves them. Men such as Kevin Keigley, Nathan Heffington, Walter Howard, Jody Deming, Jamal Quattlebaum and Greg Boone.

Singing "How He Loves" at the top of her lungs.

Finding the half-eaten bag of M&Ms reserved for potty training and eating the remainder of the entire bag before being caught.

Recognizing songs by Michael Jackson and Ben Harper without any prompting.

Waiting until naptime every day to drop a toxic poop in her diaper.

And eating tiny bites of fruit and returning the fruit to its original container without my knowledge.

Such as apples in a wooden bowl on the kitchen table. (Tiny Piper bites through the whole bowl full.)

And this row of semi-eaten carrots, neatly lined up across the counter.

(I love this picture of the four of us. It makes us look as if we are just extras in Jody's life. And that's funny to me.)

I guess I owe a big fat thank you to my older brother Danny.

Thanks, man.

Back in the day (the "day" being the years he spent driving Douglas and I back and forth to school in the silver hatchback Tercel covered in skateboarding stickers), Danny introduced me to what is arguably one of the greatest rock bands ever formed. A little Irish group named U2.

This was early on. As in, I still own several U2 cassette tapes. (Remember those?)

Fast forward to the present.

This week Kevin and I, along with our good pals Mandy and Jody, made a bit of a pilgrimage to Atlanta to see that now-internationally known band do their thing.

It was a real Look Up Lodge gathering - Nate, Lanier and Walter attended as well. Jane saw them the week before. And so did Walter. Yes, that means he went twice. Within the same week.

It was no small undertaking to make this happen, actually. Well, there really is no longer any small undertaking if it involves our family.

Aunt E and Oma graciously functioned as the grown ups in our absence. (More on that tomorrow!) And Nate and Jenn Rector kindly took care of the little Otto while we were at the actual show. (It requires a great deal of manpower to harness these Keigley kids.)

Actually, the whole adventure would have had a very different ending if Jody had not jokingly asked before we buckled our seat belts in the driveway, "Did you remember the tickets?" I think he probably expected a chuckle or a "good one Jody". Nope. He got a crazed Lacey leaping out of the car and bolting back to the house to procure the precious paper slips from their resting place on the top shelf of the bookcase.

Anyway.

The concert was . . . incredible. Crazy loud, reminding me of my advanced years. But Bono is amazing and The Edge is . . . . you know, The Edge. He's ridiculously good.

These guys have had such a long and successful career - it's astounding. They have been a band for almost more years than I have been breathing. I mean, these guys are someone's dad! (I wonder what my life would have been like if Carl Eibert had chosen rock and roll over dairy cows. Was that ever an option Dad?)

Everything about the experience was fun. The car ride. The beef jerky. The Mexican restaurant in Lilburn (or wherever we were) where I tried my first chimichanga. (A word spellcheck does not recognize.) The fact that it was just cold enough to justify wearing my new boots. Sitting in the backseat of the XTerra with my husband. Seeing Nate and Jenn Rector in their cute house with their quirky dog taking care of our youngest boy. Driving by the entrance of Mandy and Jody's first home. Bono singing "Amazing Grace". Me singing along too loudly to "Sunday Bloody Sunday". The whole thing.

(Oh, I guess that's not entirely true. I was not keen on paying $30 to park on a gravel pile in Atalanta.)

This post has no real point.

We had a great time.

And I wanted to talk about it.

I guess that's the point.

Divine

We all have long days and lonely moments and scary dreams and busy lives and self-absorbed episodes and exhausting schedules, right?

And we sometimes feel as if we give and give and give and these people (in my case, very short people) to whom we are giving and giving and giving just never seem to notice anything except their desire to take more.

But then sometimes we get to experience these little moments where we are lifted from our circumstances. We are pulled up, supported, loved in some unexpected, extraordinary in its simplicity kind of moment.

God uses people to meet these unspoken needs so often. And I just love that people say "yes" to His every day ideas. I just love the people that He uses.

Being the sole everything at this house while Kevin is in Israel is hard. It is. Not impossible - but not my favorite either.

Oh, I am learning plenty. About waiting on God. About being still. About not being afraid. About God and the manner in which He is choosing to craft my story. About relying on one God for my comfort and not one Man.

But the days have grown long. I know my voice has grown sharp and my responses have grown snappy. I stay up too late at night rearranging the living room furniture into eight varying options and pushing all together too heavy bookshelves across our bedroom.

So when our friend Nate called me one day and told me to clear my schedule (ha!) for the next night, I was certainly intrigued. He instructed me not to plan anything, not even to prepare a meal for the kids. At this point, I didn't care what the plans were - no meal planning or preparation is a gift all in itself.

The next day Jane and Walter and Nate appeared at the house with a meal in hand for the kids. Babysitting had been arranged with sweet Riley and I was whisked away in Walter's black chariot.

The evening was lovely. And totally unexpected. And completely taken care of. In every way. Jane did all the thinking so I didn't have to. The dinner was delicious. After the meal we walked around downtown Greenville and searched for the hidden mice on Main Street. (I found a few without help, okay.) Then we had dessert at Coffee Underground. Adult conversation abounded. (I might have been out of my element after so much alone time with the kids, but I think my sentences mostly made sense.)

I am pretty sure that those three Saints in Civilian Clothing had no idea how important, and actually divine, that evening was for me. And I don't mean "divine" as in how you describe a piece of your grandma's pecan pie. I mean "divine" as in ordained by God. If that sounds too heavy for a Tuesday night out then you haven't been where I have been this week.

Honestly, it was so humbling to think that my friends chose to think about me, to plan an evening for me when they could have been doing anything else in their lives. That's amazing.

God is so good to provide laughter when nothing seems funny and joy when we want to mourn and friends when we feel alone. I think the problem is we forget to look for these things in the people around us. We forget to trust that God knows our hearts. And He loves us. More and better than anyone else.

Shuffle

I love the random juxtaposition of the songs that flow from my iPod when it is on the shuffle setting.

I'll be floating along to the sounds of "Three Little Birds" by Bob Marley and then suffer whiplash when Amy Ray shouts on about Johnny Rotten. The Cure's "Pictures of You" takes me back to the old days and then the Carpenters' "Close to You" comes on to remind me of the even older days.

I mean, really - where else but my iPod shuffle world can Dan Tyminski follow the Grateful Dead?

I like to imagine all of these musicians lined up in some sort of concert hall, waiting for their big moment in the spotlight. (A concert hall tiny enough to fit inside my little yellow Nano. It's my imagination - okay?)

Jack Johnson is leaning against the wall when Johnny Cash and his pal Nelly Furtado amble on over to check out his sounds. In another corner, especially if the gang goes in alphabetical order, Paul McCartney and Pearl Jam are tuning their instruments together. And don't forget Natalie Merchant. I think she and Chris LeDoux might be romantically involved.

It's an equal opportunity iPod. It doesn't matter if you have only one song or sixty four songs - everyone has a chance to be in on the shuffle. Bono will happily provide an encore for the Hawpatch Mountain Boys. There is no ego here. Nathan Heffington can open for R.E.M. It's all good.