Flourishing is reading two different blogs by two unique women and marveling at how the same gene pool created such diversity.
The first blog I read is penned by the world traveler in our family, our younger daughter, Annemarie. Since she was a tot, I have had to keep my eye on her as she trolled around the neighborhood. By the time she was three, the neighbor on the next street informed me that Annemarie had paid a visit to 54th Street on her own.
As her fourth birthday approached, I told my husband, “We have to move. This house does not have windows where I need them to keep my eye on Annemarie.”
Little did I know, no house would have windows where I needed them to keep my eye on Annemarie.
Let’s see, she has already spent a January in South Africa, a semester in Europe, a winter in Beaver Creek, Colorado and just celebrated her 26th birthday in New Zealand on a year’s holiday/work permit. Her life metaphor is “I am the bright gracious smile that travels around the world…”
Today she muses about sheep and birds on the west coast of the southern island in NZ. Our once play-it-safe daughter writes “For the rest of my life I want to be careless in the care of God.” I am amazed at the transformation that surfaces each time I read a new post. The girl that wrenched herself away from the family at the Kona International Airport and typed her first post through tears in Fiji is now soaring into new heights of exuberance. In just a few days she will leave her “paddock” of Fox Glacier and explore further in New Zealand. You can get an insider view of NZ at www.bananorak.blogspot.com.
The second blog is written by our older daughter, Suzanne, a wife and mother of one little boy with her second on the way. Suzanne is our homebody, and always has been. As a little girl, her ideal day was sitting on the couch tucked under mommy’s arm reading a book. Today she and her family live less than five minutes away in the same zip code in which she has lived her whole life, except for the six weeks she spent one summer in Wyoming helping a cousin’s family at their RV park. Suzanne writes about finding the perfect macaroni and cheese recipe that reminds her of Grandmother Huber’s classic standby. Suzanne is practical and she and her husband are burrowers. They were both basement dwellers in their parents’ homes until the day they got married when they moved up into their “treehouse.” Suzanne’s favorite way to travel is via the World Wide Web where she is currently trolling for a favorite new macaroni recipe. Maybe you can suggest your favorite mac and cheese dish at www.viewtreehouse.blogspot.com.
So today I sit in the quiet of my house looking out at putty-colored winter skies wishing for some of Grandmother Huber’s favorite comfort food. I sit and marvel at how two sisters are flourishing in their own distinct ways. I sit and thank God for diversity. Having two children cut from the same cloth would not be pleasant. It would be so cookie cutter.
Thank God, when it comes to children, He does not send parents a tissue-wrapped cookie cutter with a hand-written note reading, “Get to work!”
~Flourishing Mom of two Distinctive Daughters!