Raisins, Crazy Kids and Puddle Pictures

Well, the raisin bread, delicious as it was and as much of it as I ate, seems to have done nothing for my weight gain, seeing as I actually lost a bit this week, so now we are trying oatmeal raisin cookies (can you tell I'm on a bit of a raisin kick lately?). Of course, it's possible that I don't even have a week left to gain anymore... not that I'm getting my hopes up. If the last two doctor's appointments are any indication, I'll probably end up going past my due date. Oh well... I'm not quite so anxious to have an early delivery this time around... I've got a crazy 19 month old to keep me plenty occupied. And she really has been crazy lately... She's really starting to babble (the kind where they string a whole bunch of sounds together with an intonation that suggests that you really should be able to understand them, but really you only catch one recognizable word, if that!) and now she wanders (or runs, depending on her energy level) around the house saying things only she can understand and then stopping to do a little dance... or shutting her eyes really tight, stretching out her arms and making odd little movements with her fingers with a weird grin on her face... or running into walls... or carting full Juicy Juice containers around the house and leaving them in the middle of the living room (while saying apuldidi "apple juice", which, if she's excited, comes out apuldididididididi). Yeah, she's a little bundle of energy... I'm starting to wonder if she hasn't stolen all of ours, seeing as Nathan's been sick this week and slept most of today, and I'm pretty tired myself...

On another note, I took my daily walk this morning in the park behind our house, which has been a construction zone the past few months, and for the first time in a long while, was able to do so without having to circumvent at least one truck or large hole in the ground... they just poured the final layer of asphalt on Wednesday, so it's still jet-black and smooth and last night's rain was sitting in shallow little puddles all over it... the sun was coming out just as I starting walking and reflecting off all those little pools of water... It's been quite sometime (maybe even since we lived in Toronto) since I've been walking on a surface smooth enough to give a decent reflection (if you ever saw the old path around Shelby Park, "smooth" was about the last word you'd use to describe it). I was remembering how I used to love to watch the ground when walking after a rain shower because I loved seeing all the "puddle pictures". And at this time of year, when the leaves are starting to change, I particularly enjoy looking at all the reds and oranges and yellows reflecting off the pavement. Today's puddle pictures were particularly beautiful because the colours of the leaves against a bright blue sky contrasted starkly with the black of the newly poured asphalt, and they brought Psalm 19 to mind: "The heavens declare the glory of God, the sky above (as well as the one in the puddles) proclaims his handiwork..." May we be reminded of our great Creator when we observe His incredible handiwork in all the minute details of the world we live in...

Unfortunately, after a few laps of enjoying the puddles, the guys who had previously been spreading grass seed decided it was time to spread straw over the seeds, and the park rapidly began to smell like a barnyard... At which point, after a few minutes of griping to myself, it occurred to me that such a smell was the same which adorned our Saviour's first bed... "though he was in the form of God, [he] did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but made himself nothing, taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men..." (Philippians 2:5-10). May we be reminded of the depth to which our great Creator stooped to save us when we experience the filth and stench of the world we live in... And in both cases, be it beauty or ugliness that points us to Him, let us lift our hearts to praise our Creator, Sustainer and Deliverer...