Taking away

Hope has developed definite opinions on what she likes--especially hair brushes, remotes, phones, and anything that remotely resembles a phone (all of the previous objects she holds up to her ear and says "allo?")

Sometimes she chooses an object that isn't safe or that we don't want her to have. But rather than just take it away from her, we try to offer her something else before taking it away. It's a win-win, fewer tears approach to toddler life.

We don't do that with Henry and Harmony. They're old enough to understand that some things aren't for them. Sometimes we give them something else later; sometimes they're on their own.

I realized the other day that I guess we're not toddlers anymore. Every other time we've felt called to leave a church, we've waited until we've had somewhere to go. Even when we moved back from Ithaca, God provided the next church before we left.

That's definitely not what happened this time. We've been church-less for approximately a year, with no good options in sight.

I guess that means that we're no longer toddler Christians...