Today finds me at a peak heretofore unvisited in my short life. I stand on the top of a mountain in Appalachia, figuratively and literally, and see the sunstroked horizon of my future with this family. It grows warmer every day, and I can literally count on one hand the number of days left at my job until I get to enjoy week after week at home, following my blindingly busy wife as she creates project after fantastic project and trying my best to contribute to her incredible instincts. Like the home-brewed beer I've begun bottling, this imminent future is the product of much hard work but is also so close I can taste it.
Our children continue to challenge and amaze me. Jack is the work-in-progress story of the year. Some switch seemed to click when he turned three (as Ted warned me it would), and this child we've taught to think and speak for himself is, well, thinking and speaking for himself, and it's a daily test of patience and love. He is a bundle of instincts, many of them selfish and unthinking, and we now turn to the task of helping mold him into a person who is considerate of others first. Check in with us in fifteen years and see how we did. In the meantime, his pouting and whininess is interspersed with moments of joy, with cuddling, conversation, inventive playtime (I didn't know cars had so much to say to each other), and lots of fun errand-running with Mom and Dad. And he has an unconditional admirer in Julia.
Speaking of whom, Julia is emerging as a rather dominant personality. She has so many silly little tricks and games, copying me when I give her a "don't mess with me" look, grabbing Jack's cup when he's not looking and then laughing hysterically as she runs away, and picking a different stuffed animal every day to shower with affection. She's up past ten words now--look, hi, hello, all done, you're welcome, Mom, Dad, Jack, and so on. She's adorable and I thank God for her.
I was thinking of our family in terms of evolution earlier today. Evolution presupposes that a chaotic amalgam of elements combined in the precisely correct amounts and created the beginnings of life, life that continues to flourish and change today. And my life feels like that sometimes. But in a more deeply reassuring manner, it more often feels like an orchestrated movement in which I am only one player, caught up in a beautiful symphony in which I can only play my part and trust in the creative genius of the conductor. Because He's doing a great job.
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