This weekend, the tiny don...

...went to the zoo and saw sea lions do tricks!
...wore a bowtie in honor of Auntie Kelly's birthday!
...invited friends over for a game of Telefunque!
...discovered how exhausting it is to have such fun.

Como se dice beso frances en arabe?

I suppose it's no big secret that I have been hoping and hoping and hoping that Matt will want to move us to Morocco. One of the crazy things about being married is apparently you have decide these things together. (Ha ha.) It'll be at least a year before we go (if we go, which it looks like we won't right now, but you never know) and so in the meantime, I figured I might as well try to learn either French or Moroccan Arabic. French is of course the easier to learn, in that it's similar to Spanish and I could find people who speak it. But Arabic!!! Oh my!!! So I found a few websites that teach you the language (not the Moroccan dialect, which apparently also has a mix of Berber, French, and German words and sounds in it) and did my first lesson today. Do you want to know what I learned?
.
This how you write the letter name of the short "U" which is pronounced "damma": ضَمّة
This is how it will look on its own: ُ
This is how it looks with the "S" sound, making the syllable "su": سُ
This is how you elongate it into a long "ooo" sound: و
This is what "su" with a long U sound looks: سُو
This is how you spell "suq" (long u), which means "market." سُوق
This is how you spell "markets", pronounced aswaq (long a on the second syllable): أسْواق
(One must keep in mind thatسُوق is instead written سوق, since it is normal to think as ا،ي،و as elongation letters.)
.
I learned I better stick with French.

surely i have gone too far.

another post? my goodness. i have crossed the line.

Stilts!

Can you believe they make stilts for babies? We thought it was just the weirdest thing.

Allowed in.

Matt and I have been praying for the areas affected by the recent natural disasters (China and Myanmar), that God would use this heartwrenching tragedy for good. We couldn't even conceive of how He could do that, but today we read this news: The government of Myanmar has allowed the Believers Church (a blanket term for the church throughout India and neighboring countries) to come in and provide aid. The part that touched me the most was this:
.
"Could you please allow us to pick up the pitiful children who have lost their parents in the cyclone," he pleaded. "They have no families and are completely alone." Yohannan said permission had been granted and that the children will be cared for.
.
I am so very glad that the church is being allowed in to care for people and show Christ's love. (If you follow the link there are ways to donate to GFA, the organization that plants Believers Churches in the 10/40 window. You can also donate to World Vision, which is another Christian organization working in the area.) At the same time, I am continuing to pray that God would allow US churches to directly make in impact in these regions. The world considers the US to be a "Christian nation," and so they watch very carefully what we do. I hope that we are given the opportunity to be His hands and feet.

On a much lighter note...

...look what Fyo is up to!

Democrats fall in love; Republicans fall in line.

This has been extremely politics/current events free since the birth of my kiddo, which is a misrepresentation of how I feel. If I cared about things before, it has doubled now that I have someone in this world who will be affected by my votes. So I will take a slight break from showing off pictures of my son to type up a few thoughts.
.
I am tired of being a single-issue voter. I hate it. I hate obediently throwing my weight behind a candidate because of one single topic (which technically the president doesn't even have much say over.) I considered not taking into account abortion this election, playing a little game of Supreme Court Justice Roulette (they all seem to be in fine health), betting on the odds that this won't be the term where things change. I was even swayed by Obama's speeches on abortion, how he said that we need to focus on being proactive and work together to make abortion less likely to happen. As I thought about it I came to the conclusion that the blue politicans are really the ones who do more in terms of prevention. I almost had myself convinced. Then I read a recent post by a friend that made it black and white again, much more so than I wanted it to be.
.
As complex as this issue is, what disgusts me most is when politicans support this because of feminism. I will hear out an argument about what the government's place is in legislating morality. I will hear out an argument about how it prevents back-alley abortions. The one I can't stand is the outdated view that ending abortion is an attack on women. If feminists truly cared about women, they would be in an uproar about the recent finding that female babies are being aborted in India because women want sons. India's prime minister recently said "No nation, no society, no community can hold its head high and claim to be part of the civilized world if it condones the practice of discriminating against one half of humanity represented by women." He went on to call the practice "inhuman, uncivilized and reprehensible" -- and so far the feminists' response has been silence.
.
I wish they would choose a side. Stand for women or stand for a party, but don't pretend that it's the same thing.

oh my!

and look at the gift lucas gave me for mother's day! they don't come cuter or nicer than him.

oh it's such a perfect day

one of the best things about being a mom is getting to set all kinds of precedents that your kid just takes for granted as the way it is. for example, when fyo does his business outside, we always say "hooRAY! hooRAY!" (a long ooooo sound, mind you, not a her-ay sound) in hopes that someday lucas will cheer for fyo instead of just saying "good boy." obviously there are more important precedents to be set, but these little ones are terribly fun. anyway, today i say hooRAY! because i got to spend mother's day with my mom and soon with my mother-in-law and a very wonderful first for me: with my son. i did not drink sangria in the park and am not just hanging on but other than those small bits i think lou reed and pavarotti really tell it like it is.

Things Lucas appears to have learned

from Fy:

*to unravel toilet paper, leaving festive streamers behind

*to cross his hands and feet

*to make noise during prayer (I think they're saying amen.)

*to smile with his tongue sticking out

*to gaze at people while they eat

*to (drumroll please).... click to find out!