Which title is supposed to be a clever pun for my made-in-May update.

I am sitting at the kitchen table to write this while the children take their afternoon naps. My hair is loose down my back–a pleasantly relaxed feeling for someone who usually wears it up. I am wrapped in two sweaters and a blanket despite the fact that it is a beautiful sunny day outside and seventy degrees. Isn’t that ridiculous? Ivan would certainly think so. He often pokes good-natured fun at my mostly chilly body temperature. Or is purely disposition? I like feeling cozy.

Regardless, Ivan is the opposite. He’s always hot. He kicks off everything but the sheet in bed, while I take my warm fuzzy underneath the sheet, so I will be cozy. One foot under the fuzzy, one foot poked out to touch Ivan without making him hot. We like that small friendly touch when we sleep–still there and communing, but space, too, on each side.

And there, that is everything you didn’t need to know about our sleeping arrangements.

I talk about these things because it is easier than talking about the big things. Like will I ever figure out how to make my back stop aching? And how do two different people in a marriage learn to communicate and love each other well? How does one navigate being a one person (yourself) while being a two person (yourself in an intimate married relationship) while also being a birth person (a mom who carries in her body her entire life-long the tiny fibrous roots of her offspring)?And what is the proper balance between honest but negative talk about people and institutions versus seeing and appreciating the good in both people and institutions? Which is also honest…but is dwelling mostly on the good glossing over legitimate concerns or creating a false life? And is it ever okay, according to New Testament teaching, for someone to divorce their partner and marry another? And if one decides it’s always wrong–since Jesus said to do so is to commit adultery–what does repentance from divorce and remarriage look like? Does it look like separation from your second partner, or does it look like staying faithful to the commitment where you now find yourself? And is close communion possible or desirable between church members who feel differently on this issue–or other doctrinal issues? And will I ever feel completely at home and completely natural in a church and community so far and so different from the place I grew up? And where does a person ever find time to think around here?

Instead of these big things, I write about small things. They are easier. The sun shines on the pine tree outside the window. The wind moves its branches, speaking in that mysterious, adventurous wind languages that lets us know it has visited far-away places and seen far-away things. A chickadee hops spraddle-footed; a sparrow alights with blurred wings. My heart opens and drinks–each small thing a miracle.

Who is to say that a foot touch in bed is not, after all, the really big thing? It is these tiny things that make up a life. Each tiny impression creates a reality–a feeling of well-being, a feeling of harm. From these realities we spin our existence.

Teddy cries. I will get him, read him a story and then–if he allows me–I will add pictures to this post.

We were in Iowa to visit Grandma Dorothy recently. She is still a good grandma.

And this daddy is a good daddy. He got Teddy to sleep on the plane when I was at my wit’s end as to what to do with him. (And yes, there was puke and scream-crying involved.)

We also visited my family and were honored to be present at my nephew Onyxy’s adoption. His parents were asked some big questions, like: “Can you provide for all this child’s physical, mental, and emotional needs?” “Do you fully understand all the implications of this adoption?”

Maybe many of us as parents think about questions such as these, worry about them…but we’re not forced to put them in black and white and say yes to them. And who could say yes honestly? Who of us can fully meet our child’s every need or completely wrap our minds around what caring for this child will bring us? I didn’t cry, listening, but I felt like it.

Here is the group of us in the courthouse gathered to support Benny, Tricia, Onyx, and the rest of their sweet little family in the center.

The May world is beautiful.

Teddy is my little boot boy, and I am loving being outside more than I ever have in my life, seeing him enjoy it.

Don’t you love the big sisterly pose below? She’s turning his face to the camera for the picture. ;)

Here’s a photo of Teddy by a window.

And a throwback of Annalise by a window when she was close to the same age Teddy is now. It was too cute; I just had to share it. :)

In closing, an excerpt from the family journal:

May 3, 2025

The other day when I was changing him, Teddy grabbed his balled up dirty diaper and threw it. “Ball!” he said.

The post May I Say Hello? appeared first on Lucinda J Kinsinger.

Well over a year ago, in December 2023, I began a blog post like this:

“Many of the best gifts in my life have been unexpected, and Theodore Jonas Kinsinger, born November 7, 2023, was no exception. He weighed in at 4 lbs 3 oz, was 16 inches long, and arrived almost 8 weeks before my December 31st due date. He is a gift beyond measure, but nothing like my carefully laid plans and deadlines anticipated. You haven’t heard from me on this blog because in the three weeks following his birth…”

And there the written part of post ends, followed by a string of pictures I uploaded that day and never put words to.

Today I will finish that post. And I will attempt to explain a little bit why I didn’t finish it earlier.

Ivan and I recently tried to name a major event for every year since our marriage (“the year Annalise was born, the year your dad died” etc) and the description we came up with for 2024 was “the year we were tired all the time.” Crazy what one little gastro-intestinally challenged baby can do to you. Besides the stress of caring for Teddy, we were also working through difficult decisions and emotions–decisions and emotions that have not been completely resolved yet, and so I won’t talk about them.

But I will talk about Teddy, my bright-eyed, giggly, wiggly, amazing little boy. Before he was born, I was scared to parent a boy. I mean, how does one know how a boy THINKS? How does one relate to a boy?

Strangely, my apprehension vanished the minute I held Teddy in my arms, and just between you and me (and minus the gastrointestinal challenges), boys just might be easier to parent then girls. So far, our second born seems far less dramatically inclined than our first.

I came this close (picture two fingers held a centimeter apart) to giving up blogging during tired twenty twenty-four. But something in me wasn’t quite ready to. Maybe I need to blog. Maybe it is one way of processing. Maybe it is one way of being somebody, of being heard. Maybe it is one way of forging a connection with a foggy puddle of readers, mostly nameless and faceless in my mind, but people that in some way care about what I have to say, because they read my stuff. Maybe it is one way of maintaining that elusive thing a writer needs–a platform.

And so I never entirely gave up the idea of blogging…sometime. I’d even narrowed down my start-up time to within the next couple of weeks, when I opened an email a couple mornings ago from a reader who sounded rather frustrated. If you have decided that you need to let it go indefinitely, she wrote, it would be nice if you would at least put a short note to that effect on the blog so the people who keep coming to see if you have a new post would know to just let it go also.

Yes, it would. And I am sorry, people who keep coming to see if I have a new post. I had no idea you’d remained faithful. This is due to the fact that the only blog posts I ever check are the ones that pop conveniently into my inbox (and even then I read them less than half the time because, well, I just don’t have time). Bless you for coming back, a whole year later.

Here’s Teddy, the day he was born.

His birth felt miraculous to us. My contractions came so hard and fast there was no way to stop them, but the doctor gave me magnesium and steroids via IV: steroids to strengthen his lungs and magnesium to slow my contractions and protect his little brain. The steroids would need 6 hours to be fully effective, the doctor said, and there was no way we were going to get that…but maybe the magnesium would buy us a couple.

By God’s grace, my labor stretched out seven hours, enough time for Teddy’s little lungs to fully absorb the steroids. When he was born, he needed only minimum oxygen help, which is unusual for a boy. He was transported to Ruby Children’s Hospital in Morgantown, about an hour away.

I got to hold him for the first time the following day, after I was discharged from our local hospital.

One of the most exciting moments of my life was when he got to try drinking from a bottle for the very first time.

We were so impatient for him to master sucking and swallowing so we could take him home! That and growing older, because we were told he wasn’t allowed to leave the hospital before thirty-five weeks.

Such scrawny little bird legs my baby had! Actually, I worried tremendously about his below average weight his entire first year and only recently calmed down a bit and relaxed (since the worst of his gastrointestinal difficulties seem to be over and he’s settled into a heartier feeding routine).

Another exciting step was exchanging his incubator for a bassinet.

And FINALLY, finally when he proved that he could actually and surely eat all by himself, having his feeding tube removed.

At our request (okay, pleading with a few tears) we were allowed to go home two days early, which happened to be the day after Thanksgiving in 2023. My parents were there to escort us.

Home at last.

With this bright-eyed little munchkin.

Who grew into this joyful toddler.

In retrospect, the two and a half weeks Teddy spent in the hospital wasn’t that long. I know people whose babies were in the NICU much longer. But to us, every day felt excruciating. The daily hour-long drive to the hospital. The fact that our little family was always split in two, since Annalise wasn’t allowed into the NICU. The fact that I wanted to care for both my babies, and couldn’t. Annalise started acting out specifically for me over that time, because she couldn’t understand why I left her.

It was two and a half weeks in the hospital, but much longer until our family felt anything like normal again.

If you call this normal, that is. It must be admitted, Teddy’s mama is a VERY messy baker.

We thank God for our Teddy.

The post Welcoming Theodore appeared first on Lucinda J Kinsinger.

For me, the easiest way to give an update is to share photos. Below are a few of my favorites from summer 2023.

First, here’s Ivan and Annalise and me atop Backbone Mountain overlooking Pleasant Valley. In real life, you can pick out our farm in the valley below, but I doubt it’s identifiable in the photo. This photo was taken in July, and another thing that’s not easily identifiable in the photo is the fact that I was four months pregnant. In next year’s family picture, there will be four of us.

This summer I spent a lot of time driving back and forth to a chiropractor about an hour from our house, trying to fix a recurring back problem. (Still working on that.) Annalise often came with me, and we’d stop at a playground for twenty minutes or so, an-easy-to-offer pleasure that in her mind made the trip well worth it. In fact, usually when I ask her what she wants to tell God thank you for, she says, “Swings and slides.” Here she is crawling through a tunnel at one of the parks, her eyes like stars.

Picnics have created several more fun moments this summer, whether on a Sunday afternoon or in the field while Ivan was haying.

This impromptu tea party made Annalise so happy! Little girls don’t care if the cupboards are cluttered and Gatorade serves as tea. Tea parties are always the best.

Annalise and I took a trip to visit my parents and siblings this summer. And would you believe it, caught Grandpa Ted and Grandma Rose taking selfies on the bridge.

If you’ve read Anything But Simple, you might remember that Dad planted over a thousand apple trees going into “retirement.” Well, those trees produced bountifully this year, and my parents were kept busy picking for weeks. Just a couple of days ago, Mom said on the family chat that they’d finally picked the last apple of the season. For those of you who live near Sheldon, Wisconsin, they still have plenty left for sale!

Here’s a picture of Annalise with a dear Wisconsin friend. What I love about this picture–besides the fact that it features two of my favorite people–is the contrast between their hair and skin.

And below is one of my brothers with his little son. It makes me proud and happy to see him be a daddy, and rock it. This is the brother I wrote about in my very first post, many moons ago. I remember how scared and nervous and terrified I was to think of people actually reading that post. I was overjoyed when friends and acquaintances made positive comments about it.

Blogging has done a lot for me. It got me used to writing for an audience.

We enjoyed a Kinsinger family reunion this summer. Ultimate frisbee below.

We hiked with friends during the early changing of the leaves. They’ve far matured in their autumn colors by now.

And we’re only ten weeks from baby’s due date. Amazing! I am still chugging along full steam ahead–albeit with lots of puffing and groaning and naps now and then–trying to get creative writing curriculum at a good resting spot before baby arrives. I’ve pulled out some wee clothes–they’re so very tiny, aren’t they?–but have yet to get them into drawers or the baby room ready.

I think I’m glad God gives us nine months to prepare. I seem to need every week of mine–but no way would I want it to be longer.

In case any of you missed it, another momentous even occurred recently when Rosanna in the Middle–a children’s book based on my mom’s childhood–came out. You can read more details in last week’s blog post.

And that’s it for this update! Next week I’d like to share a guest post from a writer whose newsletter I recently subscribed to. She writes about boundaries, a subject near to my heart because I’ve had such a struggle with knowing what good boundaries are and how to set them.

Until then, Luci

The post Favorite Photos from My Summer appeared first on Lucinda J Kinsinger.

“How about you, you, you?

You can come too, too, too,

We’re going to the zoo, zoo, zoo.”

Lyrics by Tom Paxton

That’s a song I remember from a children’s tape we used to have…anyone remember cassette tapes? Little rectangular boxes with a set of toothy holes you could stick your finger through and twirl, and long strings of miniature tape that would unravel and gnarl in curly hoops on the inside of your cassette player. Yes, cassette tapes were fun.

And without any sarcasm, zoos are more fun.

When my parents came to visit over Memorial Day, we all experienced Hovatter’s Zoo in Kingwood, West Virginia, for the first time. Annalise experienced a zoo for the first time.

Hovatter’s was perfect: relaxed and child friendly. Because visitors are allowed to feed the animals with food purchased at the zoo, the animals are quite tame and interested in the visitors. Giraffes bend long necks over their bars to lick up carrots, and parakeets land on shoulders and fingers to peck up seeds. I have a feeling we will be returning to this zoo many times.

And now, without more ado, pictures.

That chimp, by the way. A sign on his cage read something like: DO NOT TEASE CHIMPS. THEY WILL THROW POOP. YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED.

I did not tease the chimps, I promise. I was just standing there innocently with Annalise in my arms when he scooped up some brown stuff and hurled it, quicker than it took for me to realize what was happening. I screamed. A small brown splatter landed on my leg. No further damages, thank God.

He was out of poop when Mom stopped by to visit, but he waved his arms and ran at her, like the silly bully at the end of the movie who can’t hurt anyone anymore but keeps blustering anyway.

Dad and Ivan stood in front of his cage and blew raspberries and teased him freely, with no consequences.

We think he didn’t like our dresses.

Ah, well. Not everyone does.

At the end of the day, we took the golf carts over the road and across the fields to Saffiticker’s, to buy ice cream.

It was a wonderful day.

The post We’re going to the Zoo, Zoo, Zoo… appeared first on Lucinda J Kinsinger.

Over Easter weekend Ivan, Annalise, and I, along with Ivan’s cousin Raymond, took a short trip to Holland to fulfill one of Ivan’s dreams–to see the tulips in bloom.

First, we flew into Paris and spent one Friday evening there.

We did a quick walk through a small section of the Louvre–that vast art museum that used to be one of the palaces of Louis XIV. King Louis established France as a world power whose sophistication was emulated by the English, but his decadence and love of glory have made him representative of the self-serving aristocracy whom the French peasants turned against in bloody revolt eighty years later.

We also visited the Eiffel Tower. Sadly, since so much of our evening was spent getting lost and figuring out how to go places in a big city in a foreign language, we did NOT have time to climb the tower. We took a quick peek and pictures only.

From Paris, we took the train to the Netherlands, where we saw tulips.

And daffodils.

And canals and hyacinths.

We also toured a few windmills.

And tried Dutch snacks, courtesy of my friend Inger, who showed us around the Hague, the Netherland’s capital city. Trust me, the caramel-filled Dutch waffles you see us eating below were much, much better than the little foil-wrapped Dutch waffles they feed you on United flights. Another winner was Dutch pancakes–savory or sweet, for breakfast, lunch, or supper. Inger sent me a recipe, so if you come to my house, I’ll treat you sometime.

I found it interesting that Europeans have no germophobic American compunctions against unwrapped foods–although they do have eco-friendly European compunctions against overuse of plastic. The Hague’s outdoor market held piles of unwrapped breads and pastries.

Before we flew out Tuesday morning, we visited Floral Holland in Amsterdam, the world-famous flower auction where upwards of 30 million flowers and plants are sold a day.

Annalise did impressively well on the trip at catching her naps where she could take them. By Monday and Tuesday, loss of sleep had made her rather grumpy, but on the whole, she did well.

We returned exhausted. But now Ivan has seen a little more of Europe, and I can say I’ve been there.

The post Holland 2023 appeared first on Lucinda J Kinsinger.