Nicole K. Twedt

Being Brave When Life Is Hard

Christmas 2012

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Originally from December, 2012

Dear Family and Friends,

The English major in me savors the task of writing our family Christmas letter.  If it were a word, I would say my “dorkiness” shines bright, brighter even than the white twinkle lights strung upon our tree, when I admit to you that I think of this very letter for a good part of the year.  I ponder what is truly newsworthy, what is humorous or sacred, or at least good enough to write about.  Then I spend endless hours plotting and crafting it all together.   But “quiet, Mommy’s writing!” isn’t flying well around here these days with an almost 6-year-old, an almost 4-year-old and a 17-month-old in the house.  So I’m giving myself permission this year to skip out on one of my favorite of favorite Christmas traditions.  Please know that wonderful things have happened to us this year.  Everyone is healthy and well.  It’s just that we are busy living life and enjoying this special season and each other.  We are truly blessed by the Lord and His faithfulness.

Who am I kidding?  I left the above paragraph alone for all of 2 days.  But really, since I took time to explain why I didn’t write, I might as well add a few details and turn this little note into the real deal.  Lauren is napping and Steven is “resting” so now is as good as any.

After 8 years in our neighborhood, Greg and I finished our backyard and set up a play area for the kids.  Truthfully, I didn’t do a thing.  GREG and a small work crew finished the yard and GREG and Grandpa Dave put together the awesome play structure.  I kept Emily, Steven and Lauren out of the yard and kept the dirt out of the house.

Besides working on the yard, Greg went paint-balling for the very first time resulting in a new hobby.  For some reason darting through the woods, while being shot at by fast and furious balls of paint, is fun for my husband.  I really don’t get paint-balling, especially the camouflage part.  Or the pain factor.  But my husband loves it and I love him and his hobby provides an opportunity to bond with his brother, Jeff, and our nephew, Brad, as they shoot each other in the great outdoors.  Guys are so different from girls!

Speaking of girls, just after last Christmas our eldest, Emily, turned five.  My parents have a tradition in our family: When you turn five you get to go to Disneyland.  We like this tradition.  Mostly because Greg and I, along with Steven and Lauren, were able to tag along when it was Emily’s turn to go to The Happiest Place On Earth in May.  We take back everything we ever said about “Disney Freaks,” you know, those families who return to Disneyland time and time again and buy things like lanyards and pins and Disney apparel.  We freely admit that Disneyland really is the happiest place, and we may or may not have returned with lanyards, pins, t-shirts, stuffed animals and even a Disney family decal for the back of the van.  Emily prefers the hotel swimming pool to Disneyland any day.  The little fish taught herself to swim underwater and surprised us by sliding down the big kid water slide her first day out.

This has nothing to do with our trip but our resident kindergartner no longer cares for the nickname Mimi.  She also wants you to know that physical education is her favorite school subject.  This morning on the way to Mrs. Lee’s AM kindergarten, Emily pointed out her handsome PE teacher.  Let’s just say I can see why PE is a favorite.

We have another little one in school this year.  We were blessed to find a preschool for Steven that is literally 5 minutes from our home.  We are so thankful to God…and Tonya, the mom-friend from ballet who told me about the new preschool.  I love how God puts people in our life at just the right moment.  I also love that our son’s teacher totally gets him.  After all, she is the mother of 8-year-old twin boys.  The bad news is Steven still “turns into a dog.”  Now he even has names for his alter egos: Buster, Chocolate Chip Mint and Woof Woof.  “Where’s Woof Woof going today?” Steven constantly asks.   “I don’t know about Woof Woof but Steven is going to preschool” is my usual response.  Goodness child, this is getting old.  However, just last week I was encouraged by some of my girlfriends to embrace Steven’s inner dog and now we are using it to our advantage.  Heard around our home: “Be a good little doggy and pick up all of the dog bones (toys) in your dog house (room).”  Never in a million years did we think we’d parent like this.  But really, how else do we train a kid who thinks he’s a dog? Obedience school?  Clearly we need something.  Just yesterday I caught our naughty little puppy dog under his beloved train table, naked, sneaking the last of daddy’s Christmas sugar cookies.

I don’t mean to write more about Steven than the other two.  They are loved the same.  It’s just that at the present Steven’s antics provide the most writing material.

As for Lauren, our pretty pumpkin is extremely laid back as far as Twedt babies go.  She’s a joyful child and we can’t imagine life without her.  We wouldn’t want to.  Never having a sister, we are both touched by Emily and Lauren’s bond, especially since more than a few years separate them.  Some of our littlest girl’s favorite things include carrying random toys around the house in shopping bags and other plastic containers, singing E-I-E-I-O, and studying picture books upside down while sitting in her miniature rocking chair that was mine as a child.  Mostly, though, Lauren is fond of her morning and bedtime bottle, which I’m embarrassed to say we are still doing.

As for me, I stepped down from some of my favorite things, such as MOPS and the Thursday Morning Bible Study at church. This has nothing to do with not wanting to be part of them and everything to do with our new school schedules up north and not being able to be in two places at once.  But some of my dearest of dear friends are plowing through Beth Moore’s study of Daniel with me and I joined a book club over the summer. Once again my inner nerd shines bright.  I’m stinking excited about my book club, something I always wanted to do.  For years I’ve been telling myself that I’d join in a heartbeat if I ever had to drop something from my busy schedule.  Another new thing is that after nearly 6 years away from the classroom I’m back!  Well, sort of…once a week I get to help in Emily’s kindergarten.  I’ve only volunteered 4 or 5 times, but I’m already hooked.  I simply come alive when teaching, or in this case, just helping out at school.  I liken myself to Eric Liddell from Chariots of Fire.  I feel His pleasure knowing I’m doing what He created me for.

So much for not writing a family Christmas letter this year.  I just couldn’t help myself.  The melancholy introvert in me just loves to write.  I always have.  The one thing I struggle with, however, dating back even to WWU, is that I have a tendency to fall short in the end of a paper and forget to leave the reader hanging on my words.  My professors searched for the punch but it was never there.  After spending every ounce of all that was in me on the body of an essay, short story or research paper I was DONE.  Things are different now.  I’m ending abruptly this time around because Lauren’s cries have announced the end of her nap, Steven is standing in his doorway asking “How many more minutes?” and Emily wants her computer time.  So Merry Christmas to all!  May God bless you and keep you.  May His face shine radiant upon you and may you know how very much He loves you this Christmas season and always.

Love,

Greg, Nicole, Emily, Steven and Lauren Twedt

Christmas 2013

by //

Originally from December, 2013

What We Learned in 2013…

12 random, wacky, insightful, but mostly plain stupid, Twedtisms.  One for each month of the year in no particular order.

  1. Bangs were so last year for 7-year-old Emily and me.  Emily wants bangs again but mama loves the money saved every 6 weeks.  That’s almost 10 lattes between the two of us!  I love bangs on people like Lindsey, but we are never looking back.  Here’s to a winter with hats and to many, many more grande soy lattes than ever before.
  2. Toddlers are fun.  Not that we didn’t embrace toddlerhood fully the first two times, right?   Spunky Lauren throws tantrums with the best of them, but her outbursts are of the mellower variety for a two-and-a-half year-old.  We have it good and know it.
  3. We love technology.  Greg bought me new hearing aids early in February as a late Christmas present and my life changed.  What can I say, I’m Bluetooth compatible.
  4. We hate technology.  Mobile phones break when your toddler and young children (and you) drop them.  And when your phone breaks, hypothetically speaking, there goes your contacts, your calendar, your life… I was the only parent at the pediatrician’s office with a full sized calendar to secure a follow-up appointment.  We’re counting on my new iPhone lasting a wee bit longer than the one it replaced.
  5. Having a beginner reader in the house is awesome.  She would argue that having a little mathematician in the house is better.  We delight in the fact that Emily loves math just as much as I hate it.  She’s more like daddy in the area of logic and reasoning and for that we’re grateful.
  6. A particular parenting style embraced by us in the past is for the birds not the Twedts (pun intended).  We’re not exactly hippy parents, but we’ve been known to co-sleep on occasion, we wore 2 of our 3 babies, and we’re once again taking a child-led approach to potty training.  Did I mention our love/hate relationship with cloth diapering?  Boundaries are clear as well as follow-through but in the new regime, instead of going cold turkey and weaning her, Lauren gets a new pacifier every time she chews through an old one in an effort to ease teething pain.   We may or may not have purchased pacifiers by the bulk from Amazon.   I know, I know…
  7. Twedt children love in different ways.  Lauren loves everything and everyone.  Emily is pining for the same boy since infancy with no end in sight.  Her love is slow and steady like Grandpa Richard and Grandma’s, who celebrated their 50th wedding anniversary in June.   5-year-old Steven’s love is sporadic, impulsive but freely given.  This fall Steven announced his intention to wed twins Ashlyn and Emily from preschool.  Yes, both of them.  I promise he’s never watched Sister Wives with us but he clearly believes love should be multiplied not divided.  He also has his eyes on grownup Lauren from next door and Mrs. Mueller the crossing guard at the elementary school.  Grandpa Dave jokes that Steven’s vision can’t be all bad.
  8. Young adult lit is delightful.  I enjoyed The Fault in Our Stars by John Green, Jellicoe Road by Melina Marcetta, and Marcus Zusak’s The Book Thief for book club.  Caution Beck tribe: The Fault in Our Stars is about the big C-word and it’s pretty hopeless.  We all know there’s only one way to end a book about cancer.  But Green captures the teenage female spirit magnificently and it’s worth it in the end, I promise.   As for Greg, he really enjoys when I get sucked into a book.  For then he can watch series like Swamp Logging on Netflix without a peep from me.  Greg’s love for Swamp Logging is yet another reason our family could never really be “crunchy” or “green.”  It’s my fault, too.  The more natural I try to be, the more unnatural things I do to my hair and the more I adore paper towels.
  9. We’re not as young as we used to be. In the month of November alone, Greg and I were both injured doing activities we love.  Not romantic injuries like broken bones or concussions, but really stupid injuries like a sprained index finger from playing with the kids at Pump It Up (Nicole) and a sprained thumb from paintball (Greg).
  10. Miracles are happening.  To hear Dr. P. say in October that Steven’s optic nerve is “More normal than ever,” and that we are “witnessing a miracle” is beyond exciting.  He still needs plenty of prayer and much is unknown regarding his eye structure and vision.  Yet we’re thankful for the good work continuing in our sweet boy’s eyes.   We keep on praying and trusting Jesus until the day Steven’s healing is complete.
  11. Faith of the mustard seed variety.  The unexpected happened this spring when our tiniest tiny was suspected of having the same type of hearing loss originating in the same ear at the same age as mine.  How we wrestled with this one.  Our fears were confirmed in May.  Lauren was diagnosed with a high-frequency hearing loss in her right ear not present at birth.  Since the pediatric audiologist was unable to complete testing due to the sleepiness of our little one, she ordered us back in July, three days after Lauren’s second birthday.  Until then we could only guess where Lauren’s hearing fell on the mild to moderate hearing loss spectrum.  We prayed and prayed, but our prayers were the half-hearted kind.   Frankly, I didn’t believe God would heal Lauren’s hearing loss because He hadn’t healed mine.   On this side of heaven we will never know why some prayers are answered and others aren’t, at least in the way we anticipate. But He knows our wildest hopes and deepest hurts, for us in the area of hearing loss and deafness.  He knows our fragile faith, tiny as the mustard seed, almost too delicate and afraid to voice.  He held these in His tender hands and said Yes.  On July 16, Tympanometry for both ears showed perfect curves where once there was none in the right, indicating normal middle ear function, followed by a perfect Audiologic Evaluation for both ears.  Repeat tests in October yielded similar results.  Thank you Jesus, thank you.  And thank you those who came around us during our season of darkness.  Your faith encouraged us and your prayers reached the throne room of heaven.  Amen and Amen.
  12. Naughty is the new nice.  Okay, this isn’t new but it’s appropriate.  We’re seven years into this gig called parenting and Greg and I are amazed that pushovers like us are able to have strong-willed children.  We have, however, come to accept that parenting strong-willed children is our lot in life, along with breaking picky eating habits.  We always suspected this, of course, but we desperately hoped to pass the torch to someone else.   Only by the grace of God, and our dumb luck, were we able to help our oldest overcome her eating issues.   Now the middle one, formerly our hearty eater, is backsliding and the youngest prefers baby food.  Also, I hate to say it, but we are going on year 2-1/2 of the puppy dog phase with Steven, a.k.a. A Puppy Dog Named Buster.  And now we have a little kitty in Lauren.  Did I mention the nose picking?  Greg and I long for the day when we are able to drive to the store and back without someone barking or meowing or eating their boogers from the back of the van.  Perhaps we should give parenting classes a second shot.  Nah.

Greg, Nicole, Emily, Steven & Lauren Twedt

Christmas 2014

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Originally from October, 2014

Today is October 31 and I am writing our family’s Christmas letter.  This is a new record even for me.  Greg would tease me mercilessly if he knew I was at the computer writing about Christmas on Halloween.  But in a little over 24 hours life as we know it will forever change.  Tomorrow we are getting a puppy.

Let me back up a bit.  There has been a striking similarity in the last 3 years between Steven and Skippyjon Jones from the children’s book of the same name by Judy Schachner about a Siamese cat-boy who imagines himself part of the Chihuahua world.  But instead of a cat we had a 5 1/2-year-old man-child whose antics were that of the ways of the canine.  All the growling, all the barking, all the time.  Until last spring…

(Last spring)

Mom: “Steven, you must stop acting like a dog.  Seriously, Buddy, if you ever want a dog you’ve got to stop being a dog.”

Steven:  Silence, golden silence.

And just like that his dog days were over.  Which brings me back to tomorrow.  In the name of positive reinforcement, we will drive an hour-and-a-half north to Ferndale to bring our Havanese puppy home.  Her name is Chloe.  She’s teeny tiny, hypoallergenic, and just about the sweetest non-human creature we have ever met.

Yet the decision to expand our family in the furry way had more to do with almost 8-year-old Emily than Steven. The one who began life as our most determined child (read strong-willed) has blossomed into the most tenderhearted of tender hearts who really just needs a puppy to love and care for.  No one is more excited about Chloe’s homecoming than Emily.

Greg always wanted a lab or some sort of manly man dog.  But with the space we have, and the allergies I have, larger breeds were never an option.

As for me, It’s funny how God keeps at it, always working at my heart.  Last year was about trusting Him through the darkness of Lauren’s hearing loss and rejoicing when He healed her.  This year is all about the dog.  I know, I know, no comparison. Trusting God when something is wrong with your child is more meaningful and takes an abundance of faith and surrendering.  But sometimes the little things in life turn out to be big and scary too.  I dearly want to control everything that comes into my life and my house and fit everything neatly in a box.  Having a puppy does not fit neatly in a box.  It will be a mess, yes it will.  A glorious mess.  And it will be good for me.

As for the Tiniest Tiny, Lauren is thrilled to be getting a puppy as any 3-year-old would be.  Just last night, as I led her to bed, Lauren looked up at me with her big, brown eyes and said in her sweet little voice, “I’m Chloe the dog…pant pant pant pant.”

Here we go again…

Greg, Nicole, Emily, Steven & Lauren Twedt