Family – Page 2 – sethlewis.ie

A Personal Update (With A Book Update, Too)

I woke up the other day thinking about the list of normal things I was going to do that day, which is not unusual. But it struck me that I’ve been waking up like that for years and years, and the list of normal things I’ve thought about has changed dramatically. For example, recently I’ve been taking our oldest child out to practice driving. This is normal now, but it wasn’t a year ago, and it’s a sign that our family is entering another new and different kind of normal. Next year our youngest will join her brothers in secondary school and our normal will change again.

The Daily Dance Of Family Life

The electric kettle clicks off. I give some of the water to Jessica for the breakfast porridge and take the rest to warm the flasks for hot lunches for the children. I need a little more, so I fill the kettle again. The children are in the kitchen now, wearing their uniforms and queueing at the refrigerator to pack fruits and vegetables into their lunch boxes. I fill everyone’s water bottles then switch to unloading the dishwasher, working around Jessica who is now preparing breakfast fruit and the children who are laying the table and getting the juice out of the refrigerator (which has hardly closed). As the five of us step around each other and pause and dive in and out of cabinets and counter space to do our various morning jobs, someone observes that our movements around the kitchen are like a dance. We laugh, but it’s true.

A Wide Place

As the youngest of four children, I was always the last to experience the privileges that came with growing up. I remember one year waiting impatiently for my birthday—the day I would finally be allowed to have my very own pocketknife. I wanted it right away. I wanted to carve sticks and notch arrows like my older brother could. But my parents were very strict: I had to be old enough, and I also had to be trained through Scouts in how to use knives properly and safely. I knew that my pocketknife privileges would be revoked the first time I failed to abide by the safety rules I learned. I didn’t fully understand why my parents were so serious about these regulations until my neighbour cut his thumb with a pocketknife badly enough to need stitches. After that, I saw the wisdom of my parent’s rules more clearly. Their strictness was protecting me and freeing me to enjoy the benefits of my pocketknife without being hurt by it. I saw that their commands were actually an expression of their love for me.

A Personal Update

It’s been almost a year since I shared a personal update on the blog, and life has been moving along. It’s never boring!

Our children recently turned seventeen, fifteen, and twelve, and Jessica and I celebrated our twentieth wedding anniversary this year as well. I feel like our family has moved decisively into a new stage of life—a middle stage, I suppose—and I have to say that I honestly love it. I have loved the other stages, too, each in their own way, each with their own challenges and joys. I think the stage we’re in now is my favourite so far, though. It has its own unique challenges, but I do love seeing our children grow and mature, and being able to relate to them on a grown-up level. I also love the stability and depth of a romance with two decades of shared life experience under it. We still disagree and argue, of course, but we’re a little better at it, I think, and quicker to forgive.

The Picture Books We Couldn’t Part With

Our children are not really children anymore. It’s been a long time since we read picture book stories to them. But if you look at our bookcases at home, you’ll see that our family still has picture books. We didn’t save most of them—bookcase space is too precious for that—but there are also some picture books that are too precious to part with. Books that were read too many times, that became too much a part of us and our family history together to think of letting go. We had a conversation over dinner recently about the picture books we all remember and love the most, and I thought some of you might like to hear what we came up with. This list represents many hours of read-aloud story times in the Lewis home, times that continue to live on as treasured memories for all of us. So if you have little ones at home, or nephews or nieces or grandchildren or friends with smallies, you might enjoy these, as well. Here’s our list:

Tree House (a poem)

Tomorrow, my wife Jessica and I celebrate twenty years of marriage. Two decades sounds like a lot to me, but—doesn’t everyone say this?—it seems like it’s gone quickly. When we first got married, I wrote a poem for Jessica about how our love was in Spring, and I didn’t know what seasons would come, but with God’s help we would keep growing through them all. Twenty years—and many different seasons—later we’ve made our home in this growing love. That’s what this poem is about:

Normal Life

The Monday after Easter Sunday is a bank holiday in Ireland, so I slept in. That may not seem very remarkable to you, but I remember when it was impossible. I remember when our children were small, and always woke up at the crack of dawn with bright eyes and boundless energy, ready for me to be the bad guy they could fight or the jungle gym they could climb or the narrator for their books. I remember before those mornings, back to the seemingly endless nights when they fit easily in my arms and I walked countless miles back and forth in their little bedrooms and put them down so gently and carefully and their eyes popped open and we started walking all over again. It didn’t seem possible at the time, but those endless nights ended. Sleeping through the whole night is normal for me now, and when a bank holiday comes, I can stay in bed even longer if I want to. When did that happen?

Tea And The Sous-Chef (two poems)

It was my wife Jessica’s birthday yesterday, and these two poems are in honour of her and the many ordinary moments we share together.

Tea

Do you want a cuppa tea?
She said to me
And I said yes—
Because
I always want a tea
If she is drinking it
With me

The Sous-Chef

Jessica works magic
With the chicken
On the hob
While I stand by
And peel the spuds
Because that is a job
That requires little magic
But I like to be
Nearby
In proximity to her
I think that any job will do—
Being with her is the magic,
So now you can call me Sous

How I’m Voting In The Constitutional Referendum (And Why)

On the 8th of March, the citizens of Ireland will be asked to make two changes to our constitution by referendum. Because of the importance of these decisions, I’d like to use this week’s post to discuss them. The first change would be to the constitutional definition of the family, adding “other durable relationships” alongside marriage in Article 41. The Article with the proposed change would read this way (updated wording in bold):

Article 41.1.1° “The State recognises the Family, whether founded on marriage or on other durable relationships, as the natural primary and fundamental unit group of Society, and as a moral institution possessing inalienable and imprescriptible rights, antecedent and superior to all positive law.”

Top Books Of 2023

I’d like to finish the year out by sharing the six best books I read this year, and some recommendations from my family as well. These are not books that came out this year—some of them are old, but I read them this year and enjoyed them. You might, too.