MAKING SENSE OF ANXIETY - A COURSE by GORDON NEUFELD - PART 1 IN A SERIES ON ANXIETY

Merry Christmas from the Karlssons... 2012

We have such a great community of friends. Thank you for being part of that – a part of us. What a wonderful, crazy, diverse year we had. After being inspired to make changes in our lives, Joel and Heidi signed up for the Vancouver Sun run and started to train, only to discover that… we were going to have another baby. While Joel was the only one in the family to the training and the run, 2 or 3 nights each week, the whole family put our toques on, piled into our Apex car and drove down to the Cloverdale Fair grounds and ran and rode around. Heidi did the timing and when she whistled Joel would stop or start depending. The boys had to be coaxed with snacks from time to time. It was pretty cold. In the beginning Zoe just rode in the stroller, but by the end, she insisted on doing the running herself. How fun to go to Vancouver and get lost in the mess of people while Joel completed his first 10 km Sun Run.

This year Adam discovered Beyblades. Joel has what he calls “a circuit” on Saturday mornings, he does with the kids when Heidi needs a rest, which includes MCC and Value Village. He takes the kids and they find some special item that they can’t live without. It was on one of these trips that Adam discovered a package for $2 that included Beyblades. His 7th birthday was supposed to be a Beyblade tournament, until Heidi saw some little boys exhibiting tears over their performance in the Beyblade arena, and the tournament became a free-for-all. Adam loves to watch movies.. bring up Starwars or Narnia and he will have your ear and pump you with questions for as long as you are willing to be around. Adam plays AIA Friday Night basketball and kind of likes it, breakdances to TobyMac whenever he gets a chance, and is really coming along on his reading.

Noah… Noah, Noah, Noah. I could write a book. He loves his cars. He now arranges them according to color, and if a blue car has some silver in it, he tells me it is friends with the silver cars. As I write, Noah and Zoe are downstairs playing drums together, watching a worship music DVD. It’s hard to write about Noah without talking about Zoe. They are like a little old couple. They get along so sweetly, but boy do they explode when one of them feels like being contrary. They have invented their own language that they entertain each other with. They like to travel around the house with back packs, strollers, or grocery carts and “go shopping.” They end up with piles of little things throughout the house where they are not supposed to be, with no idea of where they came from. I try to direct the shopping towards a single type of object like, “Hey, why don’t you just shop for stuffed animals today??!!” Makes my life easier. Noah is learning his numbers and letters. He got a trailer for his bike from my Uncle Larry and my mom for his birthday. Brilliant. He collects bottles and does deliveries with it. He loves people, Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny. He cares for all of our neighbors and watches their every move, announcing them loudly to the family (OUR NEIGHBOR’S CAR ISN’T HOME. THEY’RE NOT THERE. WHERE ARE THEY??).

Zoe is busy. She just crawled up beside me and wants to get involved with this letter. She loves my iPhone. Now she wants to type. We have had to learn to say “no” to her. She is so cute with her big blue eyes and intense sincerity. She loves her little sister Ranen like crazy – helping me with every aspect of her care.. and I mean every aspect. Zoe is very aggressive and passionate. She loves to tackle her brothers. At church she finds older kids and holds on to them and tries to pull them down. We are seriously considering ballet. She regularly puts her dolls and stuffed animals to bed, covering them with blankets, rocking them back and forth, and comforting them with kisses and affectionate words. She is learning to communicate and not just scream or hit when she wants something – a development we thoroughly embrace. And then Ranen. We had a little baby girl on September 3. Her name is Ranen Grace Harper Karlsson. She is so pretty with her big blue eyes, massive amount of dark curly hair and petite features. She smiles and coos and spits up all day long. We think four is a lot of kids. We can’t imagine life without a single one of them. As a family we moved from Surrey to Abbotsford this year. It brings us closer to many of our friends and family, and thankfully some of our favorite people from Surrey also bought a home and are moving to Abbotsford : ). We are so thankful for our time in Surrey and our friends the Robles who we were completely blessed to share a home with for the last few years.

How to say the rest… time becomes more precious as we get older. We look around we see some peoples’ lives taking off in exciting directions while others stay the same old same old, while sadly, others seem to self destruct. We look at ourselves and wonder what we will become and have decided to become more pro-active in the process. It’s like setting a course or planning a trip. As a result Joel practices bass 2 times each week, Heidi goes to the gym and swims each week. Joel cleans his desk and keeps up with his paper trail at work, and Heidi does art with friends on Mondays. Our TV is in the basement and not in the centre of our home. We are deliberately and methodically changing our thoughts about parenting, turning our hearts to our children, to God. Joel will be going to Cambodia on a bike trip with his work. They will be building….. We would like to take our whole family to Bethel Church in Redding. Life is too short to spend it without thinking. We want to face our shortcomings and overcome. We want to confess the things in our hearts and risk for them. The Mayans might have that 2013 and beyond was a mystery, but we are looking forward to deepening friendships, achieving goals, and breathing with more satisfaction as we go through life with intention.