BEARDED LADY

A Bearded Lady came for my grandson Yusei's Birthday Celebration in 2023?! Well, to tell you the truth, I'd taken a photo of the family in the kitchen and drew a picture of it. (Last picture of post.)

But I'd stayed up the night before making preparations for the day so got real sleepy while doing the sketch, and I found I couldn't concentrate. Instead of drawing simple shadows under the nose and chin, I ended up giving myself a moustache and beard!

Actually, my favorite picture of Yusei is when he was several months old and still in his baby crib. He'd been having a crying fit when nothing his mother did seemed to settle him down. Exasperated, she'd dumped him in the crib and gone out to the kitchen. I took off my glasses and quietly scolded him in English about how much God, his parents, his grandparents loved him anyway. Yusei, of course, doesn't understand English, much less speak Japanese yet, but he seemed to listen, amazed, and even smiled. Unbeknownst to me, my daughter got the whole thing on video behind me.

Today is Yusei's 4th birthday. My prayer is that he wouldn't do as I did working himself silly with efforts to make life succeed, but one day find a Heavenly Father to call His own so that he too would know a smile that could never be taken away from him.

THAT "TIDBIT"...

When my daughter gave me my first grandchild, Kinya and I were asked to go over to help out about three times a week.

The background? I wanted to draw a flower garden but didn't know how so just cut out the sketch of the baby and plopped it on my Bible cover. Well, of course I felt prayers he would find life in the Word.

I found that picture of "Pearly" and took just the pink gladiolas she pointed to with her tail. And I gave it to the young parents, congratulating them for their new arrival. They told me the picture was perfect, since they wouldn't have to worry about pollen and insects as if I'd given living plants.

Not only that. Naoki, my son-in-law, liked the flowers so much, he right away double-stick-taped them to the baby's crib musical mobile motor, and it fit just right.

I could almost hear Pearly saying with approval, "Looks purrrfect!"

I'd started serious drawing in May, and that was June, just one month later. I'm sure Naoki had no idea what a big encouragment he'd been.

KANGAROO SLEDDING

Go, go, go! My daughter sent videos of her two-year-old on a pink sled sliding down an artificial grass hill. At the bottom, he lifts his finger up in the air.: one more time! Again? Doesn't it make him a tiny bit squeamish? No; not with Mommy or Daddy sitting behind him and holding the rope. In fact, they're so big, they're all around the little feller who fits plop in their tummy like a kangaroo's pocket.

Maybe I should call Yusei "Joey" from now on--that' what they call baby kangaroos.

SKETCHING BY NOVEMBER TREE

"He likes to draw pictures too;" my daughter told me about my grandson Yusei. "just give him paper, crayons, and leave him at the table. He's happy." she said. I could tell he was in his own little world when he got started drawing. I sat down next to him and started sketching him, and he didn't even notice. See him concentrating, the way he sticks out his tongue?

Oh--why's the Christmas tree up already? Since the biggest Japanese holiday is New Year's, many figure the tree-and-Santa Holiday is the western counterpart, a winter festivity. So wouldn't November just be one of the early months of the season?

Pray Yusei would learn of Him Who died on a TREE meant to be remembered every month of the year.

WORKS OF FIRE

My daughter sent me videos of her 2-yr-old son enjoying a fireworks display. It showed him at smiling at the sky, but in one thoughtful frame also showing another thought, as he whispers, "kowai" (scary). He must've been referring to the repeated bangs he heard. That's a lot of power.

During Sunday's after-worship fellowship, we talked about how some things are like fire. We can use and thank God for them, but they can lead to scary things, like explosions, violence, hurt if used wrongfully. Pray that Yusei see God gave him a mind to be used, not to create blasts to melt bones, but able to make beautiful blooms in the night sky ("FlowerFire" is the Japanese word for fireworks).

Doesn't seem to matter, but it Satisfies

Remember my drawing of the Bearded Lady? ("Drowsy Drawing", June 5 post) I'd stayed up all night to compose a poster for my grandchild, so that's what resulted when I was too sleepy the next day (yes, that's me!). I was able to look at that drawing again today and touched it up a little.

Actually, I don't really like this picture very much. But I knew I needed to correct it, couldn't just wish it away. For some strange reason, I think I'm glad I did it, even if it's not great art by any means.

I guess some things we need to do, even if it doesn't seem "to be that important." If God wants us to do it, we simply do--and for some strange reason, we can know satisfaction then.

SO THEY CAME HERE INSTEAD

I just adore my daughter's little boy. I hear that happens to most grandparents. So when she called last week and invited me and my husband over to their home to celebrate his two-year birthday, I of course was delighted.

Only one problem. Because of a side effect of the medicine Zonisamide I'm taking for epilepsy, I have to stay out of the summer heat. Well, when my daughter invited me to go down to her place--it takes about an hour by streetcar, and the forecast was for a hot day. Heartbroken, I told her I couldn't go. I'd prayed God would bring down temperatures so I could attend a women's church activity, but it had gone up instead. What was God doing?

But several minutes later, my daughter called saying her husband had suggested that if I couldn't go down to their place, maybe they could bring their son up to Iwatsuki!

I decided to make a "Happy Birthday" poster for my grandson, pasting on it pictures drawn the past two years.

We had cake here; then I showed them a shortcut to the park. Naoki worried the sun might be too hot for me, but it was cool with a nice breeze too--last week's rise in temperature seems to have been to make sure leading was very clear for me, for the church ladies, for my daughter and for her husband!

God's answers are always so much wiser than our prayers, aren't they?

SLUGS AND SMILES

"A caterpillar? Yuck!" or, "A leech? You can't be serious!"

If I wanted to post pictures of just creeping creatures, maybe viewers would wrinkle their faces in disbelief. But surely, readers would be more forgiving of a toddler peering at a Slug on a wall, wouldn't they? (Especially if that toddler happened to be my grandson Yusei, the most adorable toddler in the universe, right? J) This was drawn from a video my daughter sent me yesterday.

Somehow even a Slug doesn't look so bad when your heart is smiling.

HOW ADORABLE!

"When my sister comes, it will be too warm for the mallards; they're winter birds so will surely begin their migration home...but it's still not warm enough for the insects and pretty butterflies," I thought. "Rats." I wanted to show them to her so bad.

But wait. The spot-billed mallards WAITED around to say hello, PLUS the yellow butterflies came last week! When we went to the park, an orange carp swam up and stayed for awhile; a kawasemi perched on the end of a branch in full sight; an egret tiptoed up to where we were; GBH's circled in the sky; turtles were visible all over the place!

But do you think THAT interested my sister? Actually, they were fantastic, but to tell you the truth, they were completely eclipsed a few hours earlier. We'd made a visit to my daughter and visited my grandson Yusei. It was my sister Joyce's first time seeing him...you'd understand she found him irresistably adorable.

Can you believe that's the way our Heavenly Father sees us too--"just adorable"! He can't help but love us!