Not Yet: The Faith of a Toddler

"Now faith is confidence in what we hope for and assurance about what we do not see." - Hebrews 11:1

In the vein of one my heroes of blogging, Maeve's Momma, I wanted to take some time to record some of the awesome things our little boy is saying as he's learning to talk.

"Not yet, Mama, not yet."

One of my favorite is "No yay, Mama, no yay."

Amos has a unique personality for a toddler. He's a lot more interested in understanding his world than controlling it. (His little sister is another matter entirely!) He seems to really appreciate it when I list the sequence of events for the day.

"First breakfast, then get dressed, then go to Mama gym, then store, then library, then home, then lunch, then nap."

"Otay, Mama," he'll say.

If I get the steps out of order, he'll say, "No yay, Mama, no yay." Not yet, Mama. We can't get dressed before breakfast!

I've realized that that one little phrase, "Not yet" is magic. He will accept almost anything in the moment with the promise that he will get what he wants in the future.

When we're watching tv, I tell him, Mama show now, Amos show later. "Otay, Mama. Amos show, no yay."

When he wants to eat a cookie, I tell him, the food on his plate first, cookie later. "Otay, Mama. Dee-dee, no yay."

I try to be really careful to follow through on those promises. It's way too easy to take advantage of his acceptance in the moment and then hope he forgets later. In the words of Mary Poppins, I try not to make "pie crust promises: easily made, easily broken."

His faith in the future, though, is a sight to behold. He has no idea when "not yet" will come--in an hour or in two days or two months--and yet he willingly accepts that answer to so many of his requests.

"Baba zoom zoom, door?" (This translates to "Are Grandma and Grandpa coming in the car and about to come in the door?")

"They are coming in their car to see you, but not for a long time."

"Oh, no yay, no yay."

His faith is an incredible example. He trusts me so completely that when I say something will happen, he just accepts it and waits. Often, when the appointed time arrives, he is right beside me ready to receive what I've promised him. As soon as the "mama show" ends, he is right beside me saying, "Amos show now?" As soon as he eats his food, he is ready for his cookie. As soon as he sees that I'm done eating breakfast, he is ready to move on to the next activity. I often think that he's forgotten what he was waiting for and just occupied himself with something else, but no, he's just waiting patiently.

As Christians, we believe that God has promised us so many good things. But we are not nearly so patient in our waiting. Sometimes we wonder if God has forgotten us. Or we get tired of waiting on God and just start doing our own thing. Or we try to force the outcome that we want without God's help. It's pretty embarrassing when my toddler is better at waiting than I am, when his faith in the future is more unwavering than my own!

The other half of the theological statement of "not yet" is "already." "Not yet" have all things been made right, but "already" has Christ defeated sin and death. "Not yet" has all of creation been made new but "already" God has demonstrated his love for us.

Looking out the window at the library

The "already" is an important part of Amos's "not yet." He has already experienced the fulfillment of lots of promises. He already knows that he is loved and cared for. He already knows that his life is full of good things. His "already" is the foundation of his faith in the "not yet."

We have a similar foundation. Time and time again, we have received the fulfillment of God's promises to us. We've experienced his love, mercy, peace, and forgiveness. We've witnessed broken relationships and broken bodies healed. We've "already" seen God keep his promises and respond to our requests.

May we say with the faith of a child when we are faced with a broken and hurting world, "Not yet, not yet," and wait patiently for the day when all will be made new, when pain and sorrow will be no more, when we shall see our Father face to face. "Not yet, not yet."

A few other random things Amos says

These are completely unrelated to the above. I just want to record these because they crack me up.

All of Amos's favorite things are blue. We have no idea why this is. It started when we were painting our interior doors blue. Amos was fascinated by this process and latched onto the idea of "blue." But when we painted the screen doors green, he still called them blue no matter how many times we corrected him. He's starting to learn his colors, but he still has his "blue water" (which is actually yellow), his "blue blanket" (which is actually blue), and "blue Bob and Larry" (his favorite VeggieTales episode).

Things that are not quite as good as blue are yellow. This morning he asked to watch "yellow Mary Poppins," which is apparently The Sound of Music. He also has "yellow toys" and "yellow water." I have no idea where this system of ranking came from, but he is remarkably consistent!

"Oush" = ouch (that is super cute!)

I've tried to teach him to say Eva. That goes like this:

M; "Say Eeeee"
A: "Eeee"
M: "Say 'vaaaa'"
A: "Vaaaa"
M: "Eeee-vaaa."
A: "No! Baby!"

He loves to proclaim that he is awake in the morning. When I walk into his room in the morning (after he's been yelling "Mama" for five minutes), he rubs his eyes and says, "Mama! A-vay!" with such surprise that I think he is surprised every morning by the mystery of transitioning from sleeping to being awake.

He also loves to tell stories. They go something like this:

"Mama, baby, baba. Zoom zoom zoom. Vaaaaa! Sssssss. Ooooh. A bee-bo. A bee-bo. Mama, baby. Zoom zoom."

I think most of his stories consist of various combinations of people in his life riding in a car together and then getting attacked by a monster. They have lots of sound affects and go from a calm tone to lots of hand gestures and loud noises, but for the most part, I have no idea what he's talking about.

I remember reading that toddlers have a "language explosion" somewhere around 18 months. Amos is lagging a little behind, but he is eagerly trying to make up for the all the time he's missed!

Heading out into the world!

Tuesday Thoughts: The Most Important Job in the World

"Being a mom is the most important job in the world." - Every Christian Mom Website

"Children are a reason to get up in the morning." - Robin Simon

In some ways, this post could be a follow up to my last one on happiness. I'm still mulling over Jennifer Senior's excellent book, All Joy and No Fun, an examination of modern-day parenting from a variety of disciplines.

This post also comes out of something I'm kind of tired of hearing. "Your first job is to be a mom." Or, "Being a mom is the most important thing you can do with your life." Or, "Nothing is more important than taking care of those children!"

To all (5) of you faithful readers, you may already be prepared to disagree with me, but give me a chance. Wait until the end before you slam down your laptop or jab your finger at the "home" button in anger at the outrageous words you are about to read!

Earning their keep!

In her book, Jennifer Senior chronicles the history of American views of childhood, specifically highlighting the change that happened when child labor was outlawed, mostly in the early 1900s. At that point, children stopped working to help support their families, and instead the focus shifted more towards their education. Not to say that children didn't go to school before that or that they stopped working after that point, but that marked the beginning of a new era for children. Children started putting their time and energy into doing work that did not directly benefit their families. Of course, one could argue that a good education would benefit their families in the long run, but they were no longer contributing labor or income to the family in the present. As Viviana Zelizer put it, over time, children became "economically worthless but emotionally priceless." Furthermore, parents moved from seeing children as their "employees" to seeing them as their "employers." Parents (more specifically moms) became their children's chauffeurs, cooks, maids, secretaries, and social planners. There is a mentality that says, "I will do whatever I can, no matter what it costs me, if it is what is best for my child."

I mean, I get that. My kids are great. They're super cute. I want to do everything I can to give them all the advantages I can as they grow up and learn how to live in a hard world.

But the problem is that I'm not so sure what is truly advantageous to my kids. Is it best if they know that my world revolves around them? Around their growth and development, care and consideration?

Who wouldn't want to do everything in
 the world for this sweet kid?

I was talking to a good friend last week who shared that her daughter left home at 17 to attend college. She struggled to find a place all through her high school years, and both mother and daughter finally just decided it was time to move on. She said, "At a time when parents are holding on more tightly than ever to their kids, I was sending mine out into the world. It was a little scary!"

I've worked at a few different educational institutions, and I've encountered overprotective parents of kids from age 14 to age 35. We moms are taking our job seriously!

As my friend and I talked, we were both worried about our kids. If we treat them the same as all their friends' parents, we worry that they will grow up with some of the same character traits that people sometimes criticize in young people: an ever-increasing sense of entitlement, a lack of work ethic, etc. (Old people always criticize young people. There's nothing new in that!) But, on the other hand, if we treat them differently, we worry that they will be outcasts, the weird kid, etc.

I was discouraged about the prospects for my children's futures, but then I encountered these words from Psalm 106:35-37:

"They mingled with the nations
   and adopted their customs.
They worshiped their idols,
   which became a snare to them.
They sacrificed their sons
   and their daughters to demons."

That's when it hit me. By obsessing over good parenting and bad parenting and how to give my kids the best advantages, I was worshiping the idols of our culture, and at risk of sacrificing them to the demons of popular culture that will ultimately destroy them.

The most important job I have is, in fact, not being a mom; it is being a faithful follower of God!

Honestly, I can't emphasize that enough. Especially to those of you who are moms, I wish we could all sit down together and talk about what that means. For like hours. Or at least for the amount of time that I've spent reading articles on Facebook, Pinterest, Twitter, etc. about how to be a good parent. What can I say? I'm a good student; I want to learn from the experts!

But all too often, the "experts" have mingled with the nations and adopted their customs. The experts have accepted a paradigm for raising children that accepts that the care of our children is absolutely the most important thing we can do. But it's not!*

Well, I'm still trying to figure out what it really means to be a godly mom, raising godly kids, but I want to end by thanking my mom. To this day, my mom still quite often gives up video games for Lent. That probably encapsulates her pretty well. Most moms never played video games. Or gave them up when parenting became their most important job. But I still remembering my mom playing The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy "text adventure game" (which according to Wikipedia was released in 1984 for the Commodore 64 and Apple II) and staying up way too late to try to save poor Arthur Dent. She probably sees that as a useless waste of time, but as a kid, I saw that moms could do cool stuff, like beat video games. Moms didn't just have to cook and clean all the time.

I don't always know what it means to be a good mom, but I am relieved to know that ignoring my kids while I write a sermon or even while I sit and play a video game might not be the worst thing I can do for them. And my kids might be the weird kids whose mom doesn't pack a bento box for their lunch or shell out cash for an endless number of fundraisers. But I'd much rather they be the weird kids than to sacrifice them to the demons of popular culture.

Happily playing on her own

*If you really want a perspective that flies in the face of popular culture check out the text of the martyr Perpetua who was nursing a baby boy. Her family begged her to recant her faith so that her life might be saved for the sake of her child, but she refused even then!