It seems like every Spring gets kicked off around here when we start seeing tiny eggshells on the ground under the trees. It is Mackenzie’s favorite time. She loves to talk about the baby birds that hatch and wonders just why we never see them when the evidence of their existence is so clear.

It is all kinds of crazy windy around these parts lately. The kids have had a bit of a challenge staying up on their bikes and the tree tops are being twisted in every imaginable direction. This has presented these young baby birds with certain peril.

While falling from a tree might seem like a pretty bad thing in the life of a baby bird, the real danger is in the location of the fall. I would imagine that if a dear sweet baby bird fell from his nest in the middle of the forest, his Mama bird would immediately swoop down and rescue him.

If that same baby bird falls from its nest in the tree in our apartment parking lot, his complications greatly intensify. First, you have the asphalt. If he survives the fall, he has to navigate his way off the hot, black asphalt and onto the strips of green grass. Now, if his Mama bird is there, he has a pretty good chance of survival. Sadly, we had two little birds who recently met a different fate.

They were discovered by some very helpful neighborhood kids. Being the helpful youngsters that they are, these kids swooped the baby birds up in their grimy, human smelling hands. By the time these kids were at my door, these poor birds were so loaded with human scent that I knew there would be no returning them to their Mama.

They appeared to be older baby birds, like maybe the human equivalent of a teenager, so I had some amount of hope that they could be somehow make it in the real world. And so began my day and half long vigil with Ned and Violet.

I had high hopes for Violet. She seemed more sturdy. She could fly/jump further than Ned. When I massaged her neck to get her to open her mouth*, she took in the mushy bread I offered. Ned though, Ned seemed a bit more in need of a Mama bird.

I wore rubber gloves in hopes that maybe time would wash away the scent of those kids. We kept the birds outside and watched while about six or so blue jays gathered around and squawked at the baby birds. This crew of birds kept a constant surveillance over the babies, but wouldn’t go anywhere near them. It really was one of the sadder things I think I have ever seen.

Violet continued taking bits of mushy bread, but only if I put it directly in her mouth. My audience of about eight children all cheered when Violet took her first bite. They cheered and I bit my lip.

Somehow, I just knew that little Violet’s lack of fear of me would prove to be a bad thing if she is to make it out there where she needs to have a higher sense of concern for who comes up to her. Even as the children hopped excitedly around and cheered for Violet, I suspected that Violet would not be long for this world on account of her early on specie confusion.

Ned started out doing the same fly/jump bit as Violet, but his inability to take in food or water didn’t take long to deplete his energy. We finally gave up on his ability to be released back to his home and made a cozy bed for him to find some shred of comfort. It really was a sad sight.

Ned had a lovely service out by the AC unit. We brought in a “priest” from two cul de sacs down and she did a lovely eulogy. Each of the children had a say about how much joy Ned had brought to our little parking lot play ground in his very brief life and we buried him.

While we held Ned’s very somber service, our dear Violet did something amazing. She picked up a bug all on her own and ate it. I looked into her eyes, and she looked right back into mine. I swear to you she was communicating with me. “Let me go, Miss Amy. Let me go.”

And so I did. I scooped her up in my apron, lifted up one of the loose fence boards and sent her on her merry way into the high grass of the creek behind the parking lot. We watched her as far as we could. She really does look like she could make it. Except for her whole “no fear of humans” thing.

I give her two days.

This is Ned. As common as blue jays are, it really was something to see one so close up. I took about ten or twelve pictures of Ned and Violet and they never flinched.

This is Violet. You might notice that she is perched on a bike tire. Before we sent her on her way, she got to where she could fly and perch anywhere under three feet tall.

Good-bye, Ned and Violet. May there be no parking lots full of curious children in bird Heaven.

*How did I know to massage the neck? I don’t know. It just made sense. I blame too much children’s programming.

The reason our place is the neighborhood kid hang out place, I believe, is because ours is the only household in the area with a parent available at all times. (Special thanks to Eric for making that possible. Seriously.) Kids need a grown up ever ready to intervene and even they know that.

Most of these kids leave their bikes in front of our apartment, which wouldn’t be a problem except that they don’t line the bikes up properly in the bike rack and we wind up with two to three parking spots taken up by bikes.

This is a bother to other tenants, obviously, and they complain, obviously. I am the only responsible adult commonly witnessed giving all these kids marching orders and the notices about the errant bikes wind up slipped between my door and frame.

Our apartment’s assistant manager is a mousy, frustrated, anxious little woman (To be fair,I’m sure her mother would describe her as “smiley and precious”).

She tiptoes up the stairs, fearful I might hear her (not a reader of my blog, she doesn’t know I have the hearing of a hawk). With the finesse of a ninja - or something, she gently - so gently - slides her white legal envelope through, just above the door knob and dead bolt. Then she quickly, but oh so quietly, trots down the stairs and into her waiting golf cart. Her faces scrunches into a wince at the high pitched squeal of the back up alarm and her eyes dart up the stairs, worried that she has alerted me to her covert operation.

Twice now I have let her have her anonymity. I have graciously watched her do her thing without opening my door wide and scaring her to bits. Twice. I think that puts me in the “giver” category.

Now, I can only give so much. I am, after all, just one person.

A few days ago I left the front door open to enjoy fresh air and cool breezes (the two week Spring of Texas lore). I’m in the kitchen when I hear the unmistakable sound of her one inch heels clacking on my stairs. I know it’s her. I can almost smell her terror at the sight of the open door. I take a moment to consider what to do. Do I let her toss it through the doorway and run? Or do I go ahead and do the awkward verbal tango that I know will come of an attempt to argue the charges?

Drying my hands on my apron, I waltz to the door and decide that it’s time to tango.  I wear an apron. And sometimes I waltz, and or tango, in my apron.

“Is this about the bikes again?” I ask as she hands me the note. I can see the paper shaking slightly in her hand as she gathers her thoughts and dabs at a bead of sweat on her upper lip.

“Umm, yeah. It seems as though some of the neighbors are complaining about all your bikes,” she punctuates her charge by adjusting her thick rimmed glasses and scrunching her nose a bit.

“Actually, you’re preaching to the choir on this one,” I say, trying to loosen her up and convey that we are a team, me and the mousy apartment manager, “We only have the one bike and the two scooters,” I continue, gesturing at the one scooter parked on the rack and Ian on his bike while Kenzie scooted past our sight, “and to the best of my knowledge, they are always either being used or put away on the bike rack.”

“Well, the complaints are about more than one bike. These kids really need to put their bikes away.”

“I agree. And the kids that I am responsible for do put their bikes away. These other nine bikes do not, in fact, belong to me”

“See, the problem is,” she scrunches her nose and readjusts her glasses, “people have to park here and when there are bikes every where, people can’t park here.”

I have a million snarky replies barking at the end of their leash on this one, but I ignore the barks and behave as best I can.

“Tell me about it, just last night I had to move two bikes to get to a spot. These kids are ridiculous. Maybe it would help if their parents got notices as well?”

“Yeeeah, you have to understand that the problem here is that the bikes do not get placed in the bike racks like they should. I’m going to have to ask you to make sure that all of your bikes are put away properly,” she says as she tugs at the bottom of her smart little suit jacket for authoritative emphasis.

Just how special does this lady think I am? Does she really think I am mother to this veritable patchwork quilt of about ten children? She can’t have misunderstood when I told her which children were mine. Has she just decided that I’ve collected all these kids in one tiny apartment like I’m some sort of Angelina Jolie on a really tight budget?

As I am making a movement to turn to go in, Jay Jay pulls up on his bike and drops it right in a parking spot. He actually looks both of us in the eye and walks away.

“See that little boy? You really need to tell him to put that bike up,” she admonishes me.

Admonishes me. Me! Admonished!

“I’ll tell him, but perhaps you’ve noticed that Jay Jay is not my kid.”

“Yes, but someone really needs to tell him what to do with his bike,” she says.

barking, barking, barking. The meter is running on my emotional energy and this lady has no clue how loose my grip is becoming on that leash.

“Hey, Jay Jay! How you gonna just pull up here and leave your bike right there? Put it up. I’m not about to be getting any more notices about your bike,” I tell him, and simultaneously admonish her.

He puts his bike away and she thanks me for my crowd control efforts but, “What are we going to do about all these other bikes?”

“I don’t know what we are going to do. I’ll keep getting on these kids about it, but I really think you’ll have to, I don’t know, put notices on their doors or something. Maybe somehow convey to their parents that they need to take care of their bikes,” I turn to go in and she tries one last time to get me to understand the root of the problem.

“It’s just not fair to people who have cars. This is where cars park and all these kids can’t be leaving their bikes in the parking spaces.”

“I hear you. I really do. These bikes are a problem. Can you believe this weather?”

She heaves a sigh and realizes that she hasn’t gotten through to me about all the bikes being in the way, agrees with me about the stunning weather, hops in her golf cart and putters off to do anything but put notices on the doors of the bike owners.

The second part of this story is about how I actually fixed the problem by really and truly throwing away one of the kid’s bikes. Put the fear of old lady Peterson in them, I did.

I learned a coffee making tip last summer that I promise you will make good coffee even better. You need to make the coffee with cold water. It’s that simple. I don’t know why it works so well, but for some reason the coffee comes out a bit sharper and the flavor is more defined. Try it next time you make coffee.

That’s not what I came here to tell you though.

So, this morning I wake up with a kid at my door. No biggie. He comes in and gets settled with my kids for breakfast and I walk to the fridge to get the chilled water to get my coffee going. Cold water in the machine, I next open the cabinet to get the cof…

There was no coffee. We’re all out. I stare at the empty spot on the shelf and vaguely recall that a mental note was made to get more, but clearly not followed through on.

I look back at the kids and start to feel a little bit upset. “Just look at them. Eating their toast and drinking their juice. Don’t they even care that I’m having a crisis? They don’t even care. Jerks.”

Back in my bedroom, I tell a sleeping Eric, “Honey? We don’t have any coffeeeeeeee.”

He mumbles something in his pillow and it sounded to me like he was offering to watch the kids while I made the quick half a block stroll to the nearest convenient store to get some. Still in my pjs, I quickly throw on my jogging pants (I DO NOT jog. They were given to me by a jogger), a t-shirt and my trusty Birks and headed off to the store.

The walk there was a bit of a haze. I remember pushing the button to cross the busy intersection, but beyond that I am not certain how it was that I found myself actually pouring the coffee and getting it all mixed up the proper way (LOTS of cream and sugar).

Once I had my first sip of that sweet, sweet, Wag-a-Bag coffee, I came back to reality. I was awake. I was WIDE awake. Wide awake and hanging out at the Wag-a-Bag in stoopid jogging pants and a stained t-shirt. The manager engaged me in a friendly conversation about our mutual need for coffee. I think my disheveled appearance made my desperation obvious.

I paid for my crack coffee and headed out the door, quickly putting my Jackie O. sunglasses on to hide my face before scurrying across the parking lot.

Standing at the street corner and waiting for my signal to cross, I started to notice that I was the only pedestrian in sight. That didn’t strike me as any kind of big deal until I got my signal and started to cross in front of four lanes of heavy morning rush hour traffic.

I was the ONLY pedestrian. The only thing to look at while these motorists passed time waiting for the light to change. I crossed that street with a pretty massive complex. I felt countless eyes burning holes in my ridiculous jogging pants and I was certain that they all noticed the stain on my t-shirt.

I had just made it to the other side when the maintenance man from our apartments saw me and offered me a ride in his sweet golf cart. I accepted, but only because I was desperate to get home and add more creamer to my coffee.

“So, you really needed some coffee, huh Miss Amy?” (The maintenance man has become a dear friend and he calls me Miss Amy.)

“Why do you ask?”

“Well, your shirt’s on backwards and inside out. Looks like you left in a hurry.”

We’re not friends anymore.

I get back upstairs and in my little home, where shirts can be worn however we please as long as they are on, only to find Eric still in bed. He sits up and asks me if we have coffee.

So I poured his down the drain.

Not really. But in my head I did.

Mackenzie often approaches me with questions that appear to have come out of the air, but she has actually been thinking on them for some time. Last week was no exception.

Mom, what is the most important thing we should know about God?”

Wow. That’s a brain twister. There are lots of important things about God that I want her to know, but what is the number one most important thing? My brain buzzed with all the answers I could give her. I could tell her that God loves her and that is most important, but is that the notion I want her walking away with? It sounded a bit self important to me. Back to square one.

What is the most important thing we should know about God?

Wait a minute. Sometimes she asks me these questions and she is being more rhetorical than actually seeking my thoughts. Maybe she has an answer in mind and I can get a pass.

“Mackenzie, what do you think is the most important thing we should know about God?”

“I don’t know, Mom. That’s why I asked you.”

Hello again, square one.

In my head, I am having a conversation with God that is racing at lightening speeds. I love having chats with my kids about God, but I am always concerned that I will paint the wrong picture and leave them with a distorted image of who God is. I want her to know that God loves her, but I don’t want her to think that God is a big mushy Santa-type character who just winks at sin and gives her a lollipop. Conversely, I don’t want her to lay awake nights on end, waiting for God to squish her with His thumb because she is a wicked, evil sinner.

And so, I finally get the one word that I think encompasses the number one, most important thing there is to remember about God.

“Mackenzie, God is sovereign.”

“Huh? What does that word mean?”

Great. Sovereign means sovereign. That’s what it means. How do I tell her what it mea…
And then it came to me.

“It means that God knows what He’s doing and He’s always right.”

Mackenzie has turned that conversation into her mantra. Just this morning, she made me repeat back to her what sovereign means and then she happily skipped away chanting, “God knows what He’s doing and He’s always right.” I think I could use that as my own mantra.