3rd & Bird creativity

This week I have decided to embark on a little art project. Can I draw? No, not really. Can I paint? Erm...no. Luckily the target audience for my little masterpiece is a very forgiving, not overly discerning thirteen-month old!

During Noah's bathtime the past two nights I have been happily sitting on the landing listening to him squealing with delight and splashing Daddy whilst I merrily draw and paint. Or attempt to ;)

I'm making slow progress, as I need black and white paint to complete Mr. Beakman! :)

What I'm actually painting is the MDF board we had to use to block the gaps in our banisters upstairs about 6 or 7 months ago!! Trying to spruce it up with a little help from those colourful 3rd&Bird characters is keeping me entertained and Noah fascinated ;)

Perks

For all the challenges (and struggles, at times) associated with living in gibby, one of the big positives (or perks) is that our postcode falls right in the middle of a Flying Start area. What a fantastic organisation! So much support and so many services available to families with children under the age of four in communities considered deprived. We are so fortunate and have met some really lovely people through Flying Start. Our health visitor deserves a whole blog post all to herself. As does "Play Jane" as I refer to her. And this is hers!

Jane comes to play most weeks, always bringing with her some random new toy or game or messy substance for Noah to have an amazing time with. Favourites over the months have included cooked spaghetti, tea leaves, a massive tin-foil first aid blanket, squidgy, lighting-up balls.... the list goes on.

I don't know which was the most bizarre, they're all pretty crazy! Today's fun was water play. The pictures say it all.

The number of times these visits have brightened up a challenging or just generally quiet day and turned it on its head is quite amazing :) It's one of those grace notes in the symphony that is life here. A real blessing.

On this day last year....

It was snowing!!

And he was so dinky!!

Habakkuk: An inspiration.

"Even though the fig trees have no blossoms and there are no grapes on the vines.....yet I will rejoice in the Lord. I will be joyful in the God of my salvation. The Sovereign Lord is my strength! He will make me as surefooted as a deer and bring me safely over the mountains." ~ Habakkuk 3:17-19

That's all :)

Dance dance dance

Love this!

Domesticated baby!

Not sure where he gets it from but this boy just loves cleaning/sweeping/wiping/washing (machines!!) Long may that continue ;) Except perhaps the washing machine obsession because that's the only one that has the potential to shrink things that should never have been put into it in the first place. The less said the better! ;)

Community

“The person who loves their dream of community will destroy community (even if their intentions are ever so earnest) but the person who loves those around them will create community”. Dietrich Bonhoeffer.

My goodness me is that a challenging statement for us right now. 

In some respects we have never felt so much a part of a real community as we do living in Gibby. We know our neighbours -and almost the whole street - by name and they know us. Various people come to us at different times, needing help jump-starting their car, needing to come in cos they're locked out til mum comes home (that was this week's entertainment!!), needing help with the electricity or flooded bathroom (another classic), etc etc. We could equally go to these same people and ask for help if we needed it. That is pretty great in this day and age - particularly so given that our street is, according to the PCSO I spoke to last week, the current no-go area as far as many are concerned and certainly a known hot spot for crime and antisocial behaviour. ASBO central apparently!

That's where the challenge lies. Despite all that beautiful aforementioned neighbourly spirit, I find living here frightening at times. The unpredictability of the kids especially means there's rarely a dull moment and that's putting it mildly. Living here has always been about living out our faith as best we can in the knowledge that Jesus loves this community and its people enough to die for them and we're called to love them like he does. Part of our feeble attempts at expressing that love (which I need to dig very deep for all too often!) is having dreams for how different a place and a culture this could be if Jesus' light were to really break in. And those dreams are good but I do not want to be one of those people who focus on the dreams and inadvertently make things worse - or, heaven forbid "destroy community." 

The answer, according to Bonhoeffer is simple: love those around you. Not your ideas, dreams or hopes. Just the people. The seemingly unlovable and almost certainly the unloved. Funny, I'm pretty sure that's exactly the simple message Jesus had too. Just like his other teachings, it ain't easy (!) but I think it's worth it :)

Leave of absence......

(tentatively) over!

Alright, own up! Who sped up time and made these past six months fly by so fast? I'm sure absolutely nobody has missed me in the blogging world (and will therefore not even read this post!) so I'm not worried about that but I would truly like to resume my very own little commentary on everything and nothing for my own sake. I'm not sure how or when I think I'm going to manage to do this but it's worth a shot.

To sum up the six months since I last visited my blog would be utterly impossible so I won't even bother to try. Suffice it to say, the adventure continues: both the parenting rollercoaster and life in gibby.

Hopefully tomorrow, some specifics ("I love the specifics....the specifics are the best part!" ~ A little F.R.I.E.N.D.S quote for you there!)

I shall leave you with a random picture.

My boys both doing something they love