Life Lately

Life lately has been pretty ordinary, but in a good, routine, comforting kind of way.  Right when the darkness seems to really get to you and the winter is dragging on, March gets light and sunny and heats up the days just a wee bit.  It's still cold, with temps in the negative wind chills most days, but the sun doesn't set until about 9pm, and it's clear and sunny a lot of the time.  March brings some hope that indeed the winter will end, even if it's not for another few months.

Zeke is no longer walking; he is running.  Everywhere.  By noon everyday, it looks like a bomb went off in our house.  That is not even including the toys.  Who needs those when you have spoons, tupperware pieces, pillows, photo albums, and recipe books to destroy?  My typical OCD with cleanliness and organization is all but lost, and I am okay with that.  I learned very quickly that it takes far too much energy and time to try to keep things neat.  I now understand the chronic "messy household" look that used to escape me, but Aaron on the flip-side has cleaned up messes more than ever in the past few months.  We have met halfway with household cleaning and its timeliness, and that has kept sanity--for both of us.  Not unbearably messy but not obsessively neat.

In the midst of everyday tasks, we play with Zeke and watch him play on his own and read lots and lots of books.  In the past few weeks he has really taken to books.  A few months ago he could only sit for two pages.  Now he will bring the same book to us three times in a row and sit through the whole thing.  Then he'll take it by himself and flip through the pages again.

Papa Kim came a few weeks ago, and in the middle of winter there was not much to do besides play with Zeke all day long, so he was not short on attention during that week.

We gave up Facebook for Lent, which has been a good thing for us.  Aaron always comments that Lent is about taking something on rather than giving something up.  I agree, but I also think our culture is notorious for taking so much on in this worldly life that we struggle to take on anything more, even spiritually, hence the giving something up.  Facebook is one of these time and mind consumers.  I love the way Facebook allows us to stay in touch with and keep up on family and friends' lives even when we are worlds apart, but it can start to take up time and energy, at least for me, that just isn't worth it.  A few minutes here and there does not seem like much, but it adds up quickly to take significant time out of a day or week.  This time has definitely allowed us to reflect more on our own lives, instead of trying to keep up on everyone else's.  It has been a reset to some valued family spiritual disciplines, and that's where the taking something on part comes in for us.

We have not had many pictures lately; just some everyday play time photo ops.