Parenting strategy at the end of a tricky week: Sit down in the soft green grass of one of the most beautiful places on earth and create challenges that involve your children sprinting to a timer and doing their own occupational therapy. 👏Everybody👏Wins👏

Just when you start to think you’ve done it all… you take your son in a crop top Spider-Man suit to see ostrich organs in jars! Another adventure in the books! I love watching the boys learn and explore. Let it be known that Benjamin very brave and sat on an ostrich, and he intends to never do that ever again. But the ostrich burger got two thumbs up! 👍👍

We’ve got a formula. We go to the best places at the worst times. It was cold and windy at Green Point Park this morning. We all had wet bottoms from the slide, and I bought Benjamin TWO steamed milks to keep him sitting still long enough to get dry. We’ve found our way to win in a big, busy city when one of us can’t do crowds. We had the park to ourselves, and the kids felt like kings - with milk moustaches instead of crowns!

A morning at Anna Beulah Farm with the little guys was a beautiful breath of fresh air. We all needed the car ride, peace and donkeys!

Spring is blooming in South Africa! It’s the perfect time of the year to put all fives senses to work in God’s glorious creation. You can’t help but encounter the Creator in the midst of it. I relished in watching and cheering the littlest Ladds on as they did exactly what they were meant to do - found the perfect walking sticks, dug in the dirt, studied footprints and tracks, threw rocks that were way too big, climbed, jumped, balanced, and rolled.

Earlier this week, I asked Wyatt if he wanted to run to the soccer field like his “baba” (Benjamin). He kept his pudgy little hand gripped firmly on mine and told me, “No, Mama. Baba’s five. I’m two. Hold my hand.” And that was the most sensible thing I’ve heard all week.

Time is our most precious commodity. It’s the only thing we don’t get back or earn on a success ladder. It’s in the very human concept of time that God creates space for the rhythm of relationships.

You’ll never believe this. We saved Two Oceans Aquarium last night. And it didn’t even know it needed saving. We held down the floors with mighty muscles, uncovered evidence of the Joker in the eel tank, secured a yellow submarine, and climbed unspeakable heights to summit Superhero Tower. It wasn’t easy, but somebody had to do it.

And then we ate crackers and muffins and took bubble baths. Top night! 🎩

We had an extraordinary experience this week at soccer camp. It was Benjamin's most unsheltered, "mainstream" kind of experience with boys of all different ages. It was an awkward, yet completely natural, hokey-pokey kind of experience. We were all the way in, all the way out, and then we did a lot of playing right beside them.

The kids were feeling artistic on this oh-so-rainy Cape Town day, so I took a chance and took them for a walk through a “grown up art museum”. My aim was simply a change of scenery and perhaps an opportunity expose Benjamin to the idea that anything can be art.

Some of my favorite Benjamin quotes were…

Which Toy Story character did Chris dress up as?

Everything was AWESOME on Sunday at Southpoint Church. It’s school holidays in South Africa, and lots of folks go out of town. Instead of lowering expectations and planning for low attendance, Chris decided to go big - larger than life! We kicked off a four week series, “At the Movies”. Chris will walk us through the major movie elements using clips from popular movies and apply it to spiritual principles. We started off with heroes using The Lego Movie. We all dressed up like our favorite Lego heroes. One of our master builder church elders (an architect by profession) made a larger than life Lego costume with moving arms.

Want to see how many things we can do in a day during school holiday? I present to you: Monday. Today’s video features Benjamin’s current favorite song- playing on repeat until Wyatt has his fill and starts shouting “MUSIC OFF!” 😂 I’m getting a bajillion steps a day, drinking all the caffeine, eating gummy vitamins while I give them to my kids, and making the most of a fleeting season of life. Behind the scenes, Benjamin’s song is extra relevant. We’re excavating for joy when we need to, and going out to seek it till we find it…

Yesterday, I was part of a "hike" with a pair of five-year old best friends. They had a map, binoculars, super hero figurines, and the electrifying energy of friendship in the wild. Their hearts were set for adventure. They would seek it until they found it. In fact, everything was an adventure because they were looking for one. The same paths they've walked since they could walk played out like a symphony in their spirits - the songs of the Cape frogs, the moss-covered climbing rocks, the slippery bridge and twisty trees, and the cold waterfall foaming into the perfect rock-throwing target.

Benjamin is all about soldiers. He’s got his own “soldier table” at home where he lines up miniature soldier figures over and over again. (Usually in rugby formations, telling me I have to cheer for Lifa’s team!) The Friends of the South African Air Force Museum is right down the road from our house. It is operated by a group of passionate volunteers every Saturday morning. Naturally, we call it “The Soldier Museum”.

Yesterday the boys and I went to the V&A Waterfront to check out @logoshope_southafrica It’s the world’s largest floating book fair! Even more importantly,it’s a huge vessel with a huge mission. We were awed by this mighty missional tool to take literature, education and the Word of God all over the world. It was extra special to watch a young man take time to walk Lifa through an interactive experience of The Prodigal Son and show him new ways to spread the Gospel.

The little Ladd brothers are in the “love so hard it hurts” era of brotherhood. Love and war are synonymous these days. We’re only two days in to Cape Town’s rainy weather, and I already carted these darling knuckleheads to a play place to save my sanity! I have to admit that, while we slipped into those grippy socks, I was still at battle internally with myself - feeling like I should steward our finances better, be able to manage them better, and school holidays haven’t even started yet.

Wednesday was a public holiday, a bonus "play day" for my kids. I received bad news from family in the US on Tuesday morning that left me unsure how I'd get through Wednesday. I was frazzled, exhausted and didn't know what I'd do wtih a two-year old and a child whose disability requires my unwavering attention to support his nervous system.

I try not to be “play place people”. I’m not into paying for playing or the litany of unknowns to help Benjamin navigate through. But on this rainy public holiday, with my mind and heart preoccupied with family issues in America, we opened up that play place and stayed until the crowds came. (Less than an hour!)

Somebody prayed for us today. I witnessed the proof through supernaturally joy-filled boys playing their ever-loving hearts out. It was a different kind of play. It was light... it almost made light.