7 Quick Takes Friday: The Bella and Sophie Edition

Since Ben has been taking over the blog of late, I thought I'd balance it out by highlighting the cuteness of Bella and Sophie.




1. Not the Mama!

When Bella and Sophie play Bella is always the baby and Sophie is the mama.

It always throws me when when Bella calls out, "Mama!" Then, when I respond, she says, "No, I was talking to Phia."




2. And Gina!

Bella is really getting into counting people. "How many people are in the kitchen?" she asks.

"Bella, Mama, Ben...." I list, holding up a finger as I say each name, "That's one, two, three."

"How many people are in the house?" she continues.

"Mama, Daddy, Bella, Ben, Sophie, and Tree," I count, holding up six fingers.

"And Gina." Bella adds, insistently, holding up an extra finger. I know better than to argue. Gina is Bella's imaginary daughter. Or as Bella says, Gina's my little girl.She showed up around the time Ben was born and is the only consistent member of Bella's imaginary coterie.

"And you can add Gina," I concede.

"How many is that?"

"One, two, three, four, five, six. And seven if you count Gina." I refuse to just count Gina without adding the caveat. It's hard enough to teach numbers without adding in imaginary friends to the mix. Speaking of which, if you are counting imaginary friends, do you use imaginary numbers?




3. But there wasn't a lamp post in there?

Today Bella and Sophie discovered the front coat closet. Oh they knew it was there before, but today they discovered they can sit on the ledge and close the doors (the bottom of the closet is built up about 18 inches and the water shut off is hidden inside). Tonight they were playing that it was their castle. Sophie was sitting inside the closet, opening and shutting the doors and Bella was bringing her books and play food. Sophie's fingers were crushed three times in the doors and I had to kiss them; but still they refused to stop playing in the closet.




4. Daddy's Girl

One of the sweetest parts of my day is watching Dom get Bella up for her midnight potty run right before he turns in for the night. He usually has to carry her because she's such a sound sleeper. She's so beautiful when she's asleep. A perfect little face perched on his shoulder. These days it seems she's all long legs dangling from his arms. She whimpers as he sets her on the toilet and continues to fuss a little till she's on her way back to her bed. Sometimes she dashes back to her bed and dives in.

What is it about this scene that is so darling? A father taking a few minutes at the time of the day when he's most tired to care for his little girl's needs so she doesn't wet herself in the night.

Sleepy girl + tender Daddy = melting Mama.




5. Me too!

Out of the blue the other day, Bella announced: "I just have to say.... I love hugs and kisses."




6. The Piper at the Gates of Sleep

I've been reading The Wind in the Willows to Sophie at nap time. Recently she's gotten so that if I try to sing her to sleep she just sings along. It's tricky to find something to read that is interesting enough to keep her from fidgeting but that will soothe her to sleep rather than keep her awake and hanging on.

Oh I'd forgotten how good it is. Not quite as good as Pooh; but very, very good. Several times I've kept reading aloud long after I was certain she was asleep. Just because it is so good.




7. "No! Benny!"

The other day Tree walked out the front door to get something from her car. She was holding Ben at the time and as she left she tossed over her shoulder: "I'm stealing the baby!" She's always joking about stealing this or that.

But as she leaves Bella screams, "Benny!" and begins sobbing. Poor thing really thought her auntie was absconding with her baby brother. But I laughed as my eldest child began her meltdown. Mean mommy me. It was too funny not to laugh.


Visit Jennifer at Conversion Diary for more quick takes.


Photos: Bella brushes Sophie's hair. (I was quite taken with Bella's technique. Note the hand that smooths the hair above the brush. So cute.)

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The Learning Curve of Breastfeeding

Since we've been talking about nursing here this week, it seems like an appropriate time to dust this piece off that's been waiting a couple of weeks for me to finish it.

I don't remember how I ended up there; but recently I found myself at a site dedicated to promoting breastfeeding and from my quick survey it looks pretty good. I landed on this article about anticipating difficulties and realizing that there will be a learning curve.

There's a lot of good advice here and I wish I'd had read this before I had Bella. Although I took a class beforehand and was 100% committed to breastfeeding, I was still unprepared. Had I not been so committed, I'd probably have given up. I had almost six weeks of cracked, bleeding nipples and very serious pain before Bella and I finally figured out how to make it work. During that time I was plagued with all sorts of self-doubt. I felt like a failure and I was terrified that I was letting my sweet baby go hungry.

Here's what the article had to say on the subject of breastfeeding pain:

Learning Doesn’t Mean Hurting.

We have heard droves of women repeat the myth that the first two weeks of breastfeeding are painful no matter what. This is not true! Sore nipples and pain are not an inevitable part of learning how to breastfeed!! Rather, sore nipples and pain are almost always a sign of a poor latch – and a poor latch is usually both avoidable and correctible! Letting a lazy latch continue is tempting to a new mother who has struggled to get the baby on the boob for 10 minutes and is not being given proper guidance, but it is a lose-lose situation: a shallow latch usually means that your baby isn’t able to get as much milk – which also puts you’re your milk supply at risk (the more they take, the more you make and vice-versa), solidifies your baby’s lousy latching habits making it a harder habit to break them of, and causes pain and soreness. So what is normal? Yes, your delicate, newbie nursing breasts may feel uncomfortable as they adjust to the unexpected sensations of baby breastfeeding (not quite like the titilation—pun intended—that got you knocked-up in the first place!) but that feeling should dissipate as the feed continues, and should be non-existent (or near non-existent) once your milk supply is established (a couple of weeks) and you near the end of the learning curve. If you feel true pain – pain that lingers beyond the first few moments of a feeding and you would rate as a 4 or more on a scale of 1-10, take your baby off the breast – carefully– and re-latch him/her. (Note: you don’t ever want to pull your nipple out of your baby’s mouth—ouch!—but, rather insert your pinky in the corner of your baby’s mouth and pull back toward his/her ear until you hear the seal of the latch break.) Better yet: make sure you see the hospital LC, or if she isn’t available or providing enough help, call an outside LC (see our section “Your A-Team”). Please take this advice seriously, it doesn’t take long (24 hours or less) to go from a little sore, to a lot sore, to “I can’t take it anymore!” –which is exactly what has undone a vast number of well-intentioned moms. Don’t let this be you! Sore nipples are usually a simple problem that can be fixed. Not attending to them is like letting a major leak in your pipes go unrepaired; eventually the damage can destroy the foundation of your house.

Here's the thing, though. I knew all that. I knew it wasn't supposed to hurt. I knew her latch was wrong. And yet I was still helpless to fix the problem.

I laughed when I got to the line suggesting that you see a lactation consultant if you experience pain. I'd like to see an article address the problem I faced. It wasn't that there was no lactation consultant to help me fix Bella's poor latch at the hospital where I gave birth; but rather that there were too many experts giving me direction and advice. Every single nurse who came into my room tried to correct my hold and Bella's latch. Additionally, I saw at least three lactation consultants. Every single one of them gave me different, contradictory advice so that I was overwhelmed and paralyzed. Not only that I was wracked with guilt.

When we got home I was still having pain. At our first pediatrician appointment he referred me to their in-house lactation consultant. She was nice, helpful, showed me how to do it and I got Bella latched on great with no pain. But the problem was that like anything physical getting a hold and latch correct takes a lot of time. You need to develop the correct technique and also need the muscle memory so that you can repeat the correct technique every time you do it. One or two appointments with a lactation consultant in the office where I wasn't all that comfortable and not really replicating the situation I was in at home were not enough to correct the problem.

Again, by that point I'd been shown so many holds, so many tricks and techniques by so many people, all of whom acted as if their method was the only correct one, that I just couldn't remember and replicate the successful latch I'd achieved at the office at home on my own.

A huge part of the problem, frankly was the nurses. They meant well, I know. But it was so overwhelming to have a new nurse every time the shift changed who had her own take on the problem. If only they could refrain from having opinions and dispensing advice and leave it to the expert lactation consultant.

There was one nurse who when I was crying with frustration offered to take Bella to the nursery so I could calm down. I'm sure she meant well; but all I could hear was someone treating me like a child, criticizing my mothering decision, telling me it was too hard and I should give up. Had I been less sleep-deprived, less exhausted, less frustrated, had I not been recovering from c-section and experiencing major pain, then her advice might have helped.

The same nurse, sensing she'd upset me later came in and wanted to talk it over. I'd just got Bella to sleep and was hoping to catch a few winks myself. This well-meaning but ill-timed woman kept me talking so long that Bella woke up before I had a chance to sleep. Aaargh!

And this was at a hospital that was committed, or so they said, to making sure mothers were able to breastfeed. They did respect my desire to nurse Bella. They didn't offer a bottle or formula when things got tough. They did have a lactation consultant on staff. But somehow they were missing a key piece of the puzzle. It felt like the consultant wasn't available enough. She needed to be there for every feeding until mom and baby feel like they can fly on their own. And if hospitals really want to support nursing, every effort should be made to ensure the consultants are giving consistent advice and that the nurses do not act as impromptu lactation consultants.

Still, Bella and I did go on to have a very successful nursing relationship. She nursed until she was 17 months at which time I was pregnant with Sophie and Bella 's weaning was very gentle and easy.

Lucky for me the first time was the hardest. When Sophie was born she latched right on with no problem from the first second I held her in my arms. She nursed like a pro and I felt so comfortable with it from the start. The only problem there was that I had hemorrhaged after the c-section and it took forever for my milk to come in and she got a bit dehydrated and then had to be put on an IV for hydration. I had to schlep up to the Special Care Nursery on a different floor from my room every couple of hours to nurse her. Sitting in the rocking chair, trying to nurse her in a crowded room with lots of strangers around, unable to put up my hugely swollen feet. It was not ideal. Still, she nursed until she was 16 months old.

I remember while I sat there nursing Sophie there was a baby who was 28 weeks old in an incubator across the room. One day as I sat there nursing I heard the mother refusing to nurse her baby because she was concerned that she'd had some kind of painkiller (i think it might have been cough syrup with codeine) before giving birth and one of the doctors had told her it could be passed on to the baby through her milk. Despite that they were urging her to pump milk to be given to her baby. I didn't say anything to her, it wasn't my place; but I was taking extra strength painkillers after my c-section, having been on morphine for the first day. I knew that my milk, even with some codeine in it was much better for my baby girl than formula. The doctors thought it was safe and that was good enough for me. But how sad that they couldn't convince that young mother to do likewise.

With Ben it was even easier. There had been only a one week gap from the Sophie weaned herself to the day he was born. The lactation consultant at the hospital kept coming by to ask me how things were going and had my milk come in yet. I tried to explain that he was my third baby and I'd nursed his older sisters well past their first birthdays and that in fact my milk already was in before he was born. Then I had some nurse try to tell me that because of that, Ben was not going to get the colostrum he needed. Save me from ignorant and well-meaning nurses!

I feel like now I've mostly got the nursing thing down. I am confident in my ability to feed my children. And yet even with a grand total of almost 44 months of breastfeeding, I can still be thrown for a loop by a baby who refuses the breast.

Wow, this started off as a focused response and sort of ended up with my rambling on about all things nursing. But it's my blog so I think I'll just let it stand. Anyone else want to share more nursing stories?

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Picture Book: Monarch Butterfly of Aster Way

This one came as a birthday present for Bella, courtesy of my parents, who chose it from our Amazon wish list. (Thanks, Mom and Dad!)

I'm sure this grabbed my eye because I'd just finished reading The Dangerous World of Butterflies. It's one in the Smithsonian's Backyard series of books published by the Smithsonian Institution. I'd never heard of this series before we got this book; but I suspect we're going to be getting better acquainted.

The story follows a monarch butterfly from the time she emerges from her chrysalis in a backyard on Aster Way (in an undisclosed every town USA). She migrates south and west, with a stop at the butterfly garden in Washington DC until she reaches Mexico. There she winters with other monarchs in the oyamel trees. In the spring she mates and flies north, laying eggs, until she dies. The book notes the caterpillars who emerge from the eggs to eat milkweed, make a chrysalis and migrate farther north until several generations later a great-great-great granddaughter will migrate back to Mexico.

I liked that this book is accurate in all the scientific details and uses the correct words while at the same time spinning them into an entertaining and easy to read story. It makes the butterfly an interesting character without anthropomorphizing it. And did I mention it's a joy to read the smooth prose? Unlike so many children's books that are clunky and awkward with sentences that don't flow right with words that are poorly chosen so that I dread the physical act of reading, this one just feels good in my mouth.

The illustrations are beautiful and full of rich, naturalistic details. The kinds of pictures you can spend hours looking at, which is great because that's exactly what Bella does.

This week we also acquired a second book in the series, Chipmunk at Hollow Tree Lane that follows a little chipmunk as she gathers seeds and nuts and stores them in her nest for the winter. Also beautiful with all the same features that made me like the monarch book. These are a good introduction to nature study, helping children to be interested in the wildlife in their own backyards.

It did take Bella a little while to warm up to these books; but after a couple of readings she was hooked and has requested them several times. At first she was a little disinterested probably in part because they came among so many new books and because there is a less drama than in Little Red Riding Hood or Goldilocks and the Three Bears. Still, I think I'd have been turned off if they'd tried to ramp up the drama.

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Nursing Strike: Settlement Reached?

My plan did work. I woke at 5:30 this morning and got Ben out of bed, still asleep. He latched on easily and nursed in his sleep for a good 45 minutes before the girls got up and really woke him. When he did wake at around his usual time, he was in a very good mood, smiling and laughing and chattering at me.

At 8:30 or so I gave him some Tylenol and changed his diaper and played with him for a bit until he decided he was tired. I gave him his blankie and zipped him into his sleep sack, his usual nap cues. Then I banished the girls to their bedroom and we sat down and he actually did nurse to sleep!!!!!

He was very tentative about latching on and seemed to be even more relieved than I was when it went smoothly. I wonder if part of the problem hasn't been that with the teething pain he's been wanting to bite on stuff and I've yelped a few times as he's nipped me. I didn't think there was a connection because he had kept nursing after those incidents; but maybe he was a bit gun shy after all and the pain was making him want to bite so bad he didn't trust himself or me.

We'll see how his afternoon nap goes; but it looks like Ben's back on track again.

Thanks again for all the advice and encouragement and prayers and sympathy. I'm hoping we're over the hump and it'll be smooth sailing now. At least as smooth as anything is when you have three wee small ones.

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The Nursing Strike, Crossing the Picket Lines

So after much emotional upheaval about Ben's refusal to nurse this morning, I expressed a little milk and got him to drink a few ounces from a glass. Not the taste then. He was mad at me for expressing it but wouldn't nurse, just screamed.



I finally gave up and left him with my sister and took the girls to the grocery store. Nursing strike or no groceries must be purchased. The break helped me calm down. I played beautiful chant in the car. Many old ladies swooned over the girls. And it was almost two hours of a break from having let down reflex because of a screaming baby who wouldn't actually drink the milk.



When we got home I found that Tree had fed him some apples and cheese and then he'd finally slept a bit in her arms. He woke as we came in and I was able to get the little sleepyhead to latch on and nurse for a good while. But I couldn't get him to go back to sleep after that. Nap time came and went and he wouldn't sleep or nurse even after I gave him some Tylenol. By three pm he'd been screaming pretty much nonstop for a couple of hours. I called the pediatrician who said to bring him in.




His ears, chest and throat were all fine. But when she opened his mouth to look in his throat, her little light spotted swollen gums I hadn't noticed before. I feel like such a rookie mom: he's cutting his back teeth! What a relief. I was sure some pain meds would bring back his desire to nurse.



Oh yeah and while we were waiting for the doctor, Ben decided to make the hand sign for milk, which is our signal for nursing. Um, bad timing, kiddo. There was no way I was going to wrestle with trying to nurse a fussy baby with several strange men walking in and out of the office. No way that was going to happen modestly! So we're home and we'll let the Tylenol do it's stuff and the Orajel.



So yeah I hadn't thought it could be teeth because he just finished getting six of his front teeth. I thought that was pretty bad. Unfortunately the molars are hurting him much, much worse. He won't nurse even with the Tylenol and Orajel.

We're both miserable. Him because of the teeth me because I can't help him. Oh and because of engorgement which is really not helped by hours and hours of screaming baby.



He ate a bit of dinner but still no nursing. I expressed a bit more milk and he drank it and was furious when it was gone. But still he wouldn't nurse. Just screamed and screamed through dinner.



He finally passed out in my arms while I was singing the girls to sleep. I was crying so that I could hardly get past the second verse of the song. Poor unhappy baby, poor helpless me.

Now I can't bring myself to put him down in his bed. I held him for a while then stuck his face next to my breast with a bit of expressed milk rubbed on his lips. Sure enough after about half an hour he woke just enough to latch on. Oh blessed relief! I got him to empty one side and now he's on the other. It's been more than an hour so he's mainly comfort sucking now.



I'll try to pick him up a bit before his usual morning wake up to see if he won't nurse again while half asleep. At least for now I've assured my milk supply won't vanish.

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Too Soon!

In the past week or so Ben has been refusing to nurse more and more often. I sit down at one of his usual times and he starts to scream at me as if affronted by the very suggestion. For a few days it seemed to focus more on the right side than on the left. He'd nurse on the left and then when I moved him to the other side he'd latch and release, latch and release as if very unhappy.

So I thought maybe it was a flow issue or some kind of preference. I started nursing him on the right side first and that seemed to resolve it. He was content to nurse for about his usual length of time so long as we started first on the right and then moved on the left.



But then there have been times like last night at bedtime he just flat out didn't want to nurse at all., even though it was a time he's always nursed. And yet he wouldn't settle down for bed either. He screamed and reached for the door as soon as we went into the office where he sleeps. Finally, in desperation I offered him some cheese and raisins and water. He gobbled them up, still refused to nurse, but eventually did let me tuck him into his bed.


Then this morning when he first woke up I sat down to nurse him as usual. He screamed and screamed, tears streaming from his eyes. I got up and changed his diaper, walked with him from room to room, nothing calmed him until he saw the water Sophie was drinking. I gave him some water and he drank half the cup and then he grabbed an English muffin and devoured it.




I'm kind of heartbroken. I'm really not ready for him to be weaning. Not even a little bit. I know technically introducing solid foods is the start of weaning, he's already been replacing milk calories and satisfaction with food.


Is that what this is, though? Is he making a decision to wean faster than I am comfortable with? Or should I be looking for some undiagnosed problem? Or is it possible this is just a temporary decision that food is more interesting and he'll later go back to nursing as much as he was previously?



In the past couple of weeks he also become more.... well, I don't know if articulate is exactly the word I'm looking for. He's added a few new sounds and gestures but it's more like he's become better at defining in his own mind what it is that he wants. Instead of being vaguely upset and waiting to see if what I offer will satisfy that incoherent need it's more like he's formed an idea of what he wants and is unhappy until I can figure it out. So nursing isn't what he wants and he won't accept it as a substitute when what he's really got his heart set on water and solid foods.



I'm sure that doesn't mean that he's done with nursing completely; but it does seem like we've gone to some new, different stage. And I don't think I quite like it. He is definitely the most decisive and strong-willed of my children. He knows his own mind and won't settle for anything else.

And no, I haven't changed anything in my diet or habits that I can think of that might explain his disinterest.



I usually am frustrated by unsolicited advice; but this time I'm not just complaining or thinking out loud. I'm outright asking: Any of you more experienced or more knowledgeable moms out there have any ideas about what might be going on?



Photos: Ben eating beets.

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Ballerina

Finally the mystery is solved! We've been wondering for a long time now why Sophie (and Bella too) would say "ballerina" when she put something on her head: a book, a pillow, a basket. Later as her vocabulary grew a bit more sophisticated she would elaborate to, "Like a ballerina."

Then the other day Dom was putting up the umbrella over the table in the backyard and Sophie exclaimed, "Like a ballerina!" We were both stumped. Why was she connecting ballerinas with umbrellas? Had she seen a book with a ballerina holding an umbrella?

And then soon after we were flipping through a book and she pointed to a picture of an umbrella: "Ballerina!" It clicked. She thought the word for umbrella was ballerina! To test my theory I pulled out another book with a picture of an umbrella, "What is this, Sophie?" I asked. "Ballerina," she replied. Aha! I suppose the words do sound a little bit alike to a two year-old.

I gently corrected her that it was indeed an umbrella. And that was that. Now I understand why they parade around with books on their heads chanting, "Ballerina, ballerina, ballerina."

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Saint Philip Neri

He was born in Florence in 1515. At the age of eighteen he went to Rome, and earned his living as a tutor. He undertook much-needed charitable work among the young men of the city, and started a brotherhood to help the sick poor and pilgrims.

He was advised that he could do more good as a priest, and was ordained in 1551. He built an oratory over the church of San Girolamo, where he invented services, consisting of spiritual readings and hymns, which were the origin of the oratorio (tradition is a good thing; but innovation also has its place). He continued to serve the young men of Rome, rich and poor alike, with religious discussions and by organising charitable enterprises. He had a particular care for the young students at the English College in Rome, studying for a missionary life and probable martyrdom in England.

He inspired other clergy to emulate him, and formed them into the Congregation of the Oratory. Oratorian foundations still flourish in many countries today. He died in Rome in 1595.

St Philip Neri was an enemy of solemnity and conventionality. When some of his more pompous penitents made their confession to him (he was famous as a confessor) he imposed salutary and deflating penances on them, such as walking through the streets of Rome carrying his cat (he was very fond of cats). When a novice showed signs of excessive seriousness, Philip stood on his head in front of him, to make him laugh. When people looked up to him too much, he did something ridiculous so that they should not respect someone who was no wiser – and no less sinful – than they were. In every case there was an excellent point to his pranks: to combat pride, or melancholy, or hero-worship.

Laughter is not much heard in churches: perhaps that is to be expected... but outside church, Christians should laugh more than anyone else – laugh from sheer joy, that God bothered to make us, and that he continues to love us despite the idiots we are. Everyone is a sinner, but Christians are sinners redeemed – an undeserved rescue that we make even less deserved by everything we do. It is too serious a matter to be serious about: all we can reasonably do is rejoice.

Very many of the saints, not just St Philip, have an abiding terror of being looked up to. For they know their imperfections better than anyone else, and being revered by other people is doubly bad. It is bad for the others, who should be revering God instead, and for themselves, because they might be tempted to believe their own image and believe themselves to be worthy.

We are not saints yet, but we, too, should beware. Uprightness and virtue do have their rewards, in self-respect and in respect from others, and it is easy to find ourselves aiming for the result rather than the cause. Let us aim for joy, rather than respectability. Let us make fools of ourselves from time to time, and thus see ourselves, for a moment, as the all-wise God sees us.

from Universalis

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A Fun Day

What strange bird is perched in my peach tree?


Tonight at bedtime Bella declared that today was "a fun day". When I asked her why, she answered that it was because we went for a walk.





Kind of sad that we do it so infrequently it makes for a banner day. I'm working on getting us out more often.





While we were out I noticed our roses were blooming. I decided to cut a few to put in front of our Mary icon. One of my resolutions for this year was to cut more roses to bring them inside where we can enjoy them.





While I was snipping roses, the kids were busy exploring. Suddenly I heard a voice behind me: "I'm pretending I'm a bird."





I looked back to see Bella perched in our peach tree.





While I was sweeping the dining room during Ben's morning nap (See, going for a walk energized me and I had a huge cleaning binge. My living room is now gorgeously clean.) I noticed a white spider on the dining room curtains. You can't really tell from the photo but he really blends in with the crinkle pattern of the fabric and can't be seen from more than a couple of feet away.





The smell of the roses filled the dining room. Every time I walked through it caught me unawares yet again. So sweet. A breath of a prayer.





I'd have said it was a peaceful day. One where work and leisure achieved a healthful balance. I didn't lose my patience or my temper. I remembered to laugh and to pray. A rose-scented day.

But "fun" works too.

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Dwelling in the Possibilities of a “Win-Win”

from the Anchoress. I love the way she frames this:

Our society loves time-travel stories. We love to tease the notion that one change in the time-continuum can have drastic and far-reaching consequences, even for peripheral characters, and for generations. A quantum slip, and the whole world may be forever altered.

But we never wonder (and indeed, some will hate me for daring to do so, here): what happens, within that continuum, when a woman who perhaps, in God’s plan, was supposed to die, instead chooses to kill the baby and remain alive?

If we believe that God has indeed has loved us into being, and for a purpose, what happens when the purpose is thwarted? Suddenly everyone in the mother’s world, even those on the periphery, may see their lives tilted away from the original “plan” God had for them. Perhaps lessons that need learning go unlearned. Perhaps a gadget that needs inventing in order to feed millions in the third world must be invented later. Perhaps a child meant to grow up formed by the knowledge that her own mother loved her so much that she risked death for her is not born at all, and a love that needs manifesting and expressing, goes undiscovered, and unshared.

If God is love, that last might be reason enough to choose life over abortion, even when the struggle is most heartfully sincere, the possibilities are complicated and frightening, and the illusion of control seems so tantalizingly near and clear.

Read the whole article here: Dwelling in the Possibilities of a "Win-Win"

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Booknotes: What's Going on in There? How the Brain and Mind Develop in the First Five Years of Life

I've got this book out from the library now and am only in the first chapter. I'll probably be checking it out a few more times. This is fascinating stuff.

The author, Lise Eliot is a mother and neuroscientist. The book opens with her in her laboratory conducting an experiment on a neuron while trying to nurse her nine-week old baby. An experiment which baby Julia ruins when, distracted by the light of the computer screen, she pulls off the breast and kicks her foot into the delicate micromanipulator.

It gets technical and I kind of skim over some of the details; but it's readable. The science is punctuated by personal stories. Her explanation of fetal brain development begins with a hypothetical couple, Jessica and Dave and tracks their son, Jack's growth from the moment of his conception. Personalizing the example makes it so much easier to follow.

A few things that have stood out as I read. (I really wish I owned this book so I could underline and write marginalia. It's that kind of book. A poor second is typing up notes here.)

Eliot says:

My bias is thus that of a biologist: the conviction that we cannot understand children's minds until we understand the structure and physiology of their brains. But biology also offers another hope, a way of finally resolving the age-old nature/nurture debate. From the first cell division, brain development is a delicate dance between genes and environment, and it is only by understanding each of these subtle interactions that we can grasp, for each fascinating facet of the mind, the degree to which heredity and experience make us who we are.

I like the idea of biology resolving the nature/nurture debate. I'm looking forward to watching how that develops.
This number just jumped at me: "At its peak, some 15,000 synapses are produced on every cortical neuron, which corresponds to a rate of 1.8 million new synapses per second between two months of gestation and two years after birth!" I look at Ben with new admiration thinking of all those synapses being created as I watch him crawl across the floor.

...laboratory rats that have been reared in an "enriched" environment-- in a large cage containing several litters and a wide variety of "toys" to see, smell, and manipulate-- have larger brains, with a notably thicker cerebral cortex, than those raised in an "impoverished" environment-- isolated in a small empty cage, without any social stimulation and a bare minimum of sensory experience. The reason their cerebral cortex is bigger, researchers have found, is that their neurons are larger, with bigger cell bodies, more dendritic branches, more spines, and more synapses than those in the brains of impoverished rats. In other words, the extra sensory and social stimulation actually enhances the connectivity of the enriched rats' brains, a difference that probably explains why they are also smarter-- they learn their way around a baited maze significantly faster-- than their impoverished laboratory mates.

It is no great stretch to see the implication of these experiments for human development: A young child's environment directly and permanently influences the structure and eventual function of his or her brain. Everything a child sees, touches, hears, feels, tastes, thinks, and so on translates into electrical activity in just a subset of his or her synapses, tipping the balance for long-term survival in their favor. On the other hand, synapses that are rarely activated-- whether because of languages never heard, music never made, sports never played, mountains never seen, love never felt-- will wither and die. Lacking adequate electrical activity, they lose the race, and the circuits they were trying to establish- for flawless Russian, perfect pitch, an exquisite backhand, a deep reverence for nature, healthy self-esteem-- never come to be.

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Compromising My Parenting Ideals

Naps. That's where I failed to hold the line.

The plan was that even when Bella got to the point where she was ready to give up her nap, she'd still have an hour or so of quiet time while Sophie and Ben napped. I think having a restful time to sit and read or otherwise quietly amuse herself would be good. I've read about homeschooling families who insist on quiet time through high school even. I wanted to be that family. I need a little peace and quiet in the afternoons. Sometimes I even need a little nap myself.



But expediency has trumped idealism. By the time I've got Sophie settled and Ben settled, I have little energy left to fight with a fractious 4 year-old who desperately wants to be playing outside. Especially when I'm exhausted and want to curl up for a little quiet nap myself.



Recently I've really been struggling to get to bed at a reasonable hour. By the time nap time rolls around all I want to do is curl up and sleep. So after half an hour of Bella's trying really hard to be quiet but failing because she starts to read her book out loud to herself or she forgets she's supposed to be lying down and wanders off in search of a a drink or she just has one question, mommy, I banish her outside and tell her not to come back until Ben and Sophie wake up.



A few times I've been collected enough to put her outside with her quilt so she can shack up in her play house. Yesterday afternoon she actually fell asleep outside on a blanket spread out on the grass. So sweet!



It's not that skipping her nap works really well. Lately Bella's been very cranky in the evenings, a result, I'm sure of no nap. But when I don't get Sophie and Ben down until late, then it become really too late for Bela to nap without being up all night.

Perhaps once she's past this stage I'll try again with required quiet time. I'm not quite ready to hang up that ideal. But for now, I'm giving in and letting go.

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What Is It?

Does anyone know what this guy is? This is the second time we've turned one up while weeding the garden. Inquiring minds want to know and I have no idea how to look up what I'm assuming is an immature member of the family insecta.

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Lost

Either you get it or you don't. If you don't, please refrain from being crude and snide. I liked it, you didn't. Let's agree to disagree.

I started watching Lost in the fall of 2005, several episodes into the second season. I had given up tv for Lent a year or two previously and had never really gone back. So Dom had his shows that he watched and I usually sat in the other room and read. Newlywed bliss. Then I got pregnant and started feeling really sick. Evenings were the worst. I found myself drifting in and plopping down next to Dom, not really caring about the shows but wanting company in my misery. And something about Lost caught me. We bought the dvds of the first season and I got caught up.

Caught up. These were stories that pulled me in. Made me think. They were something to ponder and talk about, theorize about. So many mysteries and questions. So many good characters.

Characters. Seriously, what other show could introduce an Iraqi Republican guard torturer and make him a beloved character? What does it mean to be a good guy or a bad guy? Is there ever so clear a distinction in life? Most of us are nether saints nor villains. There are good choices and bad choices and that somehow our choices shape who we are. But there is always a hope for redemption. Our bad choices need not condemn us.

Mysteries. So many things to think about and explore. And every answer seemed to generate a dozen new questions. Is there any way they could have wrapped it up in a neat package? Going into this final episode I had no idea how they could possibly resolve this story to my satisfaction. There were too many loose ends. Untidy.

In the end they left so much unanswered and unexplained. Yet to me (and to Dom) it didn't matter. The ending was emotionally satisfying not intellectually satisfying. In a larger sense, though, I think that was intellectually satisfying because life itself is not a neat package. And because the mysteries were a means to an end, not an end in themselves. In the end what was shown to matter was love.

This is deeply satisfying because it affirms what I know to be true in life. All the the mysteries and intellectual inquiries, all the dogmas and doctrines, they exist to serve Love. St Thomas Aquinas indicated as much when he declared near the end of his life that all he had written seemed like straw compared to what he had seen.

It's not that the mysteries weren't important or that puzzling over them was a waste of time; but that their time had come and gone and now they are seen in their proper perspective. I was always convinced that the characters were what was truly important about the show. The mysteries were vehicles for storytelling, curiosities along the way, satisfying because we need something to chew on while we travel to keep us going forward.

What I saw in the end was redemption through love. I saw that brokenness can be healed by stepping out in faith, by a free gift of self, and by connections to other people.

Over and over again in this final episode was played out the same moment: that moment of recognition when the scales fall off their eyes and suddenly two people see each other with the eyes of love. The couples: Jin and Sun. Sawyer and Juliet. Sayid and Shannon. Charlie and Claire. But also Locke seeing Jack and knowing him, loving him. We see that to make this happen, this revelation, is worth much pain and effort. Desmond goes to jail to claim Kate and Sayid. Boone allows himself to be beat up to give that gift to Shannon and Sayid.

And there were reconciliation and healing: Ben and Locke: forgiveness, redemption. Jack and his father, finally reunited, reconciled. Ben and Hurley... Ben finally receiving the recognition and responsibility he craved.

Not everyone will be satisfied, I'm sure. But I was I always had faith that the end was planned from the beginning,that they were nit just making it up as they went along. I was right.

Amy Welborn caught this most pertinent reference last night: "Remain true to yourself, but move ever upward toward greater consciousness and greater love! At the summit you will find yourselves united with all those who, from every direction, have made the same ascent. For everything that rises must converge" - Teilhard de Chardin

The last line is the title of the Flannery O'Connor story collection that Jacob was seen reading last season.


Dorian Speed had some good thoughts here.

Amy has more thoughts here

And Melissa Wiley here.

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Birds, Birds, Birds

Bella's version of Song of the Swallows:

"Birds, birds, birds. I like all the birds.

Birds, birds, birds. I like to see birds.

Birds, birds, birds, I wish I could see birds.

Birds, birds, birds, I wish I could see birds.

Birds, birds, birds, I wish I could see birds.

Birds, birds, birds, I wish I could see birds.

Birds, birds, birds, I like to see birds.

Birds, birds, birds, see all the birds."

Each line is said on a different page. As if she was reading that page.

There's a poetic quality to the repetition of the refrain with a slight change in the verse on each page.

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Washing Dishes

No matter how many times we scold and admonish, the play dishes keep ending up in the sandbox. And then when they get all gritty, it's time to wash the dishes.



I had Montessori visions of teaching Bella the right way to put soapy water in one bin and clean water in another. We got a clean dish rag and a drying towel. Bella was game. She likes order and following directions (mostly, sometimes).



But Sophie has other ideas. She plops the dirty dishes into the rinse water. She pours soapy water into the rinse water. She grabs the clean, dried dishes and puts them back into the dirty water. Bella screams and slaps. Mama has to step in to referee. That's why Bella isn't in all of the pictures. She's putting the clean dishes away in her room. A useful diversion.



Ben doesn't play by the rules either. He splashes and splashes. Bella doesn't like it. I catch him tossing the dishrag onto the grass. (Fortunately she didn't see that.) He sticks his hand into the soapy water and starts to slurp it off. Mama runs for the sippy cup before he drinks too much dirty, soapy water.



Bella asked why they couldn't wash them in the play kitchen sink. I pointed to the pools of water and asked if she wanted her carpet to be soaked.



Sophie dumped out the pan of soapy water, making a mud puddle under the back door step. Ben's feet were black when I took him in to change his diaper. His shirt was soaked. So were the girls' dresses. New outfits all around.



Eventually the dishes did get cleaned and put back into the play kitchen.



And they all had fun. Splashing in the sun. Three brown heads bent over two white washtubs.

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Laughing Ben

My sister took this on Saturday. She was reading a board book to Ben and he was just giggling.

His laughter is so infectious!

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Pictures from Bella's Birthday

On Wednesday night we had a power outage and so I wasn't able to get these up as I'd planned.




Even though we had lemon cake last week for Sophie's baptism day, Bella wanted more lemon cake. I talked her into doing cupcakes. What little girls doesn't like cupcakes? We skipped frosting and no one seemed to miss it.




Of course, Bella had to lick the bowl. Mmmm....




Auntie Tree, who couldn't be with us for the evening's festivities, gave her some really neat little cards with a series of pictures meant to prompt story telling. Fairies and princesses, bears, raccoon, squirrels. Beautiful little drawings.

Unfortunately, even with such lovely prompts I'm still a terrible story teller.




For weeks now Bella has been begging for a hula hoop. I dropped a hint in Auntie Tree's ear so that she could fulfill a little girl's fondest dream. She's not quite sure what to do with it; but she was very thrilled.




Grandma B. sent a lovely edible arrangement that came with a balloon and a bear.




And so we had a delicious fruit snack before naps.




Ben was especially fond of the strawberries.




Pineapple flowers are delicious.




Sophie concurs.




We went out to dinner at Bella's favorite restaurant, a cute little pho place that she calls "the lo mein restaurant" because she loves their chicken lo mein. (She also adores their avocado shakes, you can see her cradling the dregs of her shake as she blows out her candles.) Sadly, we forgot to take pictures at dinner.




Bella proclaimed it "A very fun day!"

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The Dangerous World of Butterflies Part II

"What is your next book going to be about?"

Without fail when I read to audiences in bookstores, when I'm interviewed on radio and TV about my work, even when I'm introduced in a purely social setting a an author, that question comes up. It's as predictable as migrating Monarchs.

The first lines grabbed me. The rest of the introduction almost lost me. Lauffer answers the question at a book reading with a one-liner to break up the tension and get a laugh: "That's why my next book is going to be about butterflies and flowers."

I was expecting a story about butterflies, not about veterans disaffected with the Iraq war. I almost put the book down; but I'm glad I continued because it is a fascinating read.

Peter Lauffer is not a butterfly aficionado, he's not a part of that dangerous world. He's a journalist seeking a story. That isn't bad but it does set this book off from a book like Of a Feather which is a book about birding written by a birder. Dangerous World is not an insider's book but an outsider's book and that definitely affects the way the story takes shape. More, it affects what kind of story it tells. It's not that Lauffer doesn't care about butterflies; but he's more interested in the stories of the people who are obsessed with butterflies. The butterflies are a framework, a pretext around which to build a book.

It makes for a good book. Plenty of drama and many interesting personalities. I learned a lot about butterflies too. But there are many tangents which get a bit far afield from what I was expecting. Sometimes butterflies themselves take a backseat to other elements of the story.

I was a bit annoyed about the chapter where Lauffer goes head to head with the creationist. It's not that I agree with creationism; but the way Lauffer framed the encounter it seemed as if he were equating belief in God to belief in creationsim and he came off as rather dismissive of all people of faith. It felt more as if he was setting up a straw man to knock down an idea than really engaging in an open-ended discussion. That said, he was at least respectful of the man as a person and enjoyed his company even while dismissing his faith.

One not of caution: that this is not really a kid-friendly book. It touches on mature subject matter and quotes people who use some coarse language. Parental discretion is definitely advised.

The Dangerous World of Butterflies: Part I

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An Invitation to a Pilgrimage: Managing Abundance and Choice

Nowadays, most of us clothe our households not by making clothes but by purchasing them. This does not necessarily make the job easier. In households where money is scarce, it can be a real scramble, come winter, to see that every member of the household has a warm coat and boots. In households where money is plentiful, at least in relative terms, the challenges are often related more to managing abundance and choice. We may have more clothes than we know what to do with, as our bulging closets testify, and yet we may be tempted to come home with still more.

Where does this temptation come from? Why do people shop for clothes when they are pressed for room for the clothes they already have? Shopping for clothing, as for other things, has in many instances come to resemble a kind of dazzling buffet party in which you wander through beautifully designed and brilliantly lit halls, feasting your eyes on the displays, fingering things, musing about what you might wear them with, and then, inevitably, purchasing things-- because the only way to feel that you belong at this party is to keep on buying.

As Christians, we need an invitation to a different party. Perhaps we need an invitation to a different kind of event altogether. Not to a party at which the only requirement is that we come dressed in all our finery and prepared to acquire more of it, but to a pilgrimage. A pilgrimage is not an event it is a journey. Clothes appropriate to a journey are not primarily for decoration or display. They are for comfort, for protection, for equipping. If you embark on a journey in clothing that is inappropriate or if you lug along things you don't need, it will be hard either to get where you are going or to flourish along the way.

from Keeping House: The Litany of Everyday Life
by Margaret Kim Peterson

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The Life of Significant Soil

For most of us, this is the aim
Never here to be realised;
Who are only undefeated
Because we have gone on trying;
We, content at the last
If our temporal reversion nourish
(Not too far from the yew-tree)
The life of significant soil.

T.S. Eliot "The Dry Salvages"

On Saturday after we came home from the farmer's market we spent some time working in the garden. I set out the seedlings we'd started a few weeks ago and also a few plants we'd bought at the farmer's market. Tomatoes, hot peppers, rosemary.




Dom dug a new bed next to the house where I plan to plant some sunflowers under our bedroom window. I lined it with a bunch of rocks that the previous owners had thrown against the fences.



In the comments to my post about Reasonable Parenting Goals Megan from SortaCrunchy left a comment that got me thinking about parenting and gardening:

I've been surprised but completely understand how the issue of semantics comes up. I absolutely have always thought of a goal as something I am capable of accomplishing in my own power. Therefore, it makes complete sense to me to surrender what I've always thought of my "goal" in parenting to the gentle and powerful wooing of our Savior.

Can I make it my goal to live out the gospel on a daily basis? Well, I can make that my goal, but honestly I find I cannot do even that apart from His power at work within me.

I'm finding more and more that the one thing I can do is wake up each morning and surrender my heart, mind, soul, and strength to Him. I can speak the truth of His Word in our home and nurture a soil ready to receive the truth of the gospel. I can pray, pray, pray over my children, and then I can choose to trust that He will show up in ways that are irresistible to my girls and believe that the work of the Cross is more than enough.

I love what she says about surrendering "to the gentle and powerful wooing of our Savior." I have such a hard time surrendering. Fortunately he is a patient suitor.



I also find the image of nurturing soil ready to receive the gospel to be very helpful. My experience of gardening has been very much like my experience of parenting. I'm sort of shocked that my pitiful little efforts yield such amazing fruits. It helps me to recognize God's amazing grace working in my life and is reassuring to me. I don't have to do all that much, just plant the seeds, make sure they have adequate water and light, pull the weeds as I see them, and then somehow, mysteriously, sit back and enjoy the sweetness of the gifts that God nurtures in my own backyard.



"He will show up in ways that are irresistible"... So true. Right now I have a very sweet 10 month old boy who, when I point to the crucifix and whisper the name Jesus in his ear, grins and giggles and whispers back "Jeesh". I am awed daily at the look in his eyes as he gazes at Jesus. I can only hope to have such love for my God grow in my heart, which is a stony bed and choked full of weeds.



I say the name of Jesus and point to the crucifix. A seed is planted.



Ben reaches, smiles, and attempts a sound. The seed germinates.



I repeat his sound back at him, hear in the baby babble not a meaningless sound but a first attempt at a prayer. I affirm that prayer. The seed is watered.



Every time we repeat this little ritual the roots reach deeper for life-giving water, the leaves spread further to gather in more life-giving light.



But what is truly amazing to me is not how Ben's love for God is nourished by this ritual but how mine is. The love-light in Ben's eyes, the dimpled baby hand reaching for the cross, the soft sound of the holy name, a first word on those beloved lips... these are love letters to me. They feed my soul, nourish my love of God.



I plant a tiny, dry seed-- a little thing that I didn't make; God made it and I received it as a gift. I plant the seed and I receive for that pitiful effort of a few minutes an amazing reward: Green leaves poking up through dark soil! Life! And if I nurture this life who knows what fruits in could bear.



Planting the seeds of love and devotion is so easy at this age. It takes so little effort on my part to introduce them to God. My children are already little flower beds full of rich soil and are just waiting for me to drop in a few seeds and needing just a little light and water to sprout these amazing shoots of love for God. All I have to do is whisper his name, sing a hymn of praise, say a prayer, show them an image, sprinkle a bit of holy water on their hands, take them to Mass, and tell them God loves them. And then they shine and his love for me pours forth from them. I cannot believe the fruits with which he feeds me that are grown in the hearts of these little people, these children he has blessed me with.



As I set out my plants in the garden beds this Saturday I was full of hope. I hope that in a few months we will have abundant vines laden with flowers and then those flowers will be pollinated and that one day we will enjoy the fruits of our harvest. And yet I know too well that these plants may all wither and die before they ever flower. Those seeds Bella and I poked into the dirt may never even sprout. We may see no harvest.



Gardening is such a gamble. Why all this effort when we may be disappointed? For me the only reasonable goal in gardening is surrender. I will do my best to follow instructions, to tend my plants the way they need to be tended; but I am at the mercy of the sun and the rain and the bugs and the marauding toddlers. Maybe this year we will fail. And if that happens I only hope that I can see in that failure is God's more perfect will for us.



If I had my way my children would never be hurt, would never know failure or frustration or struggle. They would never sin. And yet that is not God's way. God lets his children go free. He lets us be hurt. He lets us fail. He lets us be frustrated. He lets us struggle. He lets us sin. I have a long way to go before I can trust him to be a better parent than I am.



And so daily I pray:

O God the Father of mankind, who hast given me these my children, and committed them to my charge to bring them up for Thee, and to prepare them for eternal life: help me with Thy heavenly grace, that I may be able to fulfill this most sacred duty and stewardship.

Teach me both, what to give and what to withhold; when to reprove and when to forbear; make me to be gentle, yet firm; considerate and watchful; and deliver me equally from the weakness of indulgence, and the excess of severity; and grant that, both by word and by example, I may be careful to lead them in the ways of wisdom and true piety.

Pour Thy grace into their hearts, and strengthen and multiply in them the gifts of Thy Holy Spirit, that they may daily grow in grace and in knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ; and so, faithfully serving Thee here, may come to rejoice in Thy presence hereafter.

Amen.

While I'm thinking along these lines, I still need to blog my review of this beautiful picture book on gardening and prayer: The Monk Who Grew Prayer

(discovered via evlogia)

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Happy Birthday, Isabella!!!

Holding Bella for the first time.


Dear Isabella,

Four years ago today I got to hold you for the very first time. It was the most awesome thing. I'm still at a loss for words to express what that moment means to me.

Today I thank God once again for giving you to me. For making me a mom.



God bless you and keep you, my darling girl.

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Saturday Excursion to the Farmer's Market

Today was the first day of the Hingham farmer's market. Actually it was the second week; but last weekend was cold and rainy. Though one of the vendors says he was there all day last Saturday, we did not venture forth.



Bella and Joe sit while we are waiting for coffee.


We went with my sister and her boyfriend, Joe, who lives in New York. The girls love him and we think he's pretty nice too.





No produce yet, of course, this early in the season. A few farmers selling tomato plants and herb plants. Otherwise mostly other vendors, selling prepared food and jewelry and various and sundries.





It was a lovely day with blue skies and warm sun and a delicious breeze.



Ben is unhappy because I took the camera away.


We ate plenty of free samples. And bought a lot too. It's tempting to overbuy the first weekend because it's been so long since we were last there and we've had all winter to anticipate those almond cookies and that salsa and those fresh off the boat lobsters. We didn't do well resisting temptation. Just swore we'd do better next time.



Bella decided she was chilly and so grabbed Ben's blanket from the stroller.



Tree entertains Ben by placing a coffee cup lid on his head.



Bella chooses her lobster for dinner. You can see our friendly neighborhood lobsterman in the background. That's his wife holding the bag.


We had a nice picnic lunch with our favorite smoked fish spread and black bean hummus and some rosemary crostini. Washed down with excellent coffee.



Ben eats a rosemary crostini.



Mmm... rosemary crostini with smoked bluefish spread.



Bella eats a rosemary crostini.





The girls ran around on the grass.








And then went down to the beach to throw stones and sand in the water.














We bought grass-fed beef steaks and fresh caught lobsters for dinner.




I found a nice grapefruit-scented body butter made with honey and beeswax by some nice beekeeprs who also sold us some raw honey.






Ben and Sophie fell asleep on the way home.

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Reasonable Parenting Goals

I can't remember anymore where I saw the link to this piece. [Oh, it was the lovely Kate Wicker!] It's got me thinking quite a bit this week: Proclaiming Our Purpose in Parenting

A recent conversation with my sister (who parents in complete opposition to me) had her saying this:

"We have the same goals for our children, but we have very different ways of trying to accomplish that goal. We are very concerned that your methods will not get you the result you want."

I said, "I would gently suggest that our goal may not actually be the same, and, as such, you may not be able to judge our methods by what you think the goal is."

She went on to say this:

"Don't we both have the same goal of ending up with kids who love God and serve Him?"

I would say that is absolutely NOT my goal, nor is it a reasonable goal for any believing parent to have.

[bold is in the original]

At first that bolded statement shocked me. As I read on I found that I agreed 100%. Before you think I've lost my mind, click through and read the whole argument.


Update:
I posted some follow-up thoughts here: The Life of Significant Soil

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7 11 Quick Takes

I started to write a quick takes post last week but only got five of them and then got distracted and never posted them. I thought I'd round up some from this week and post them all together. (As usual I'm transcribing and expanding those Twitter comments that I think were worth preserving.) So naturally this week I have far too many. It's either feast or famine. You can stop reading at 7 if you want; but they are all pretty short.)





--1--

I love it when Bella sings. Especially when she makes up her own songs. One of her recent songs is this sweet ditty: "Dance, child, dance. Dance, child, dance. Whenever the seem looks nice and clean. Dance, child, dance. " (I've got a short video which I need to upload of her singing it.)

When I asked her if she'd heard that song or made it up, she told me she'd made it up. But a minute later she corrected herself: My friend posted it on her blog.




--2--

Recently as we were getting ready to go I addressed the girls, "Let's go. Both of you."

Sophie smiled and responded, "Both of us!"

And I was so floored by her grasp of grammar that I repeated it again just to hear her repeat it again: "Both of you."

"Both of us."




--3--




The other day I heard Bella repeating this phrase: "the jingling and the tinkling of the bells." Se kept repeating it, almost chanting it. I looked over and saw that she had this anthology of Winter Poems . It was open to a selection from "The Bells" by Edgar Allen Poe. The line she was repeating was the final line in the selection.

By the way, I adore this book. It's a great selection and it's illustrated by the wonderful Trina Schart Hyman. It's too bad she hasn't done similar anthologies for the other seasons.


--4--

I asked, "Bella can you please put your quesadilla in a bag."

Bella responded: "A sandwich bag? Or a quesadilla bag?"

Sometimes she's too clever by half!






--5--

For some reason we've had a hard time settling on what to have the girls call Dom's mother. All the grandchildren call his dad "Nanu"; and most of them seem to call his mother "Grandma". Which we usually do to; but then we also call my mom "Grandma" and are afraid that might be a bit confusing. So sometimes, rarely, Dom refers to his mom as "Nana," which is what he called his own grandmother. Evidently it is so rare the girls don't remember it.

The other night as we were saying prayers he was tired and added, "God bless Nana." to the usual litany. For some reason this struck Sophie as hilarious. She started repeating it, "God bless Na-na! Bwahahahaha! God bless Na-na!" Soon Bella joined in. Both girls were laughing so hard and Dom and I caught it and we were laughing to as we tried to finish our bedtime prayers. Every night thereafter they've done the same. After God bless Mama and Dada and Benny, suddenly one or the other bursts out with, "God bless Nana!" and everyone laughs and laughs and laughs.





--6--

O Mother Goose, how I love you! My girls constantly speak in snippets of rhyme. Sophie especially often will spout bits and tags of poems as if they were normal conversation. If I'm not paying close attention, I'll miss it.

The other day Bella was walking out the back door with a purse slung over her shoulder. "I'm going to St. Ives. Bye!" she announced.

Then yesterday Sophie was sitting in my lap and suddenly declared, "Leave them alone and they'll come home." When I repeated the whole rhyme from the beginning she beamed at me, pleased to have been understood.


--7--

"I used to eat turkey with cereal, "Bella says, "I put some Cheerios and Puffins in a bowl with some milk and then I put some turkey on top."

She's echoing me. The day before I'd told her that I used to eat Cheerios with bananas on top. I had a turkey in the oven for dinner. I suppose in her mind turkey is no stranger on top of cereal than bananas.





--8--

I'm pretty sure that Ben is saying "water" now and "cheese". And "Dada" and "Jesus" and "Bella". Still no "mama," though. When I ask him to say "mama" he just stares at me. And then he says "Dada." Stinker.


--9--

The girls are having pretend snack. They kneel down at the coffee table to say "Bless us, O Lord" before they eat.

I love how Bella becomes obviously self conscious in her singing or praying as soon as I give her my direct attention. When she sees me looking at her as they pray, she sort of pauses and squirms. I just realized what it is that's happening. When she realizes she's got an audience, suddenly it ceases to be play and becomes performance: look at me doing something cute.





--10--

Bella and Sophie are biting their pita bread into shapes. Bella: "It looks like an old man's shoe."

Sophie is going through this phase right now where everything looks like something else. It's a strange sort of fascination.


--11--

Bella's sneaky method of getting the dolly from Sophie: "I think she wants me. She just needs some milk. " And then Sophie hands the dolly over for Bella to nurse her. Poor Sophie. Why does she always fall for it?


Visit Jennifer at Conversion Diary for more quick takes.

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I Hate Mopping Too

Browsing through bearing's archives, I found this old post: Towels are the new mops:

I hate mopping the floor. Hate, hate, hate it. So every time I have to do it, I spend the whole time fuming, scrubbing furiously, and thinking about ways I might make the chore faster, easier, less frequent, less odious, or (ideally) obsolete. So I never seem to do it the same way twice.

Some of my experimental mopping methods, like the one described in this post, are more fun than others. But after exhausting a dozen different ideas, ranging from schemes where I mop a tiny section of my floor every day to gadgets like the Swiffer WetJet, I think I've come to the following conclusion:

The best way to clean a floor is on hands and knees.

Oh I so agree with everything she says. In the past couple of years I've gravitated more and more to simply washing the floor on my hands and knees rather than using a mop and bucket. But I must confess I've felt slightly guilty for doing it that way. It somehow felt wrong. it's nice to have confirmation from an engineer that it actually makes the most sense. Bearing's got a few pointers that will help me in the future. I'd never thought to actually have two towels, one to wash and one to dry. Can't believe I missed it; but then I'm not an engineer.

And I can tell you, I was inspired to put it into practice: my dining room floor got washed last night. And it looks so nice!

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The Penderwicks on Gardam Street

It's rare that a sequel outshines the original; but sometimes it does happen. I'm not saying it's necessarily a better book or that everyone will prefer it. It's just that while I liked The Penderwicks well enough, The Penderwicks on Gardam Street won my heart.

Perhaps it was the surprise cameo appearance of Miss Marianne Dashwood. Or maybe it was Iantha herself, the brilliant next door neighbor with her little boy, baby Ben. I suspect it wouldn't have had quite the same effect on my younger self who hadn't read Jane Austen and didn't have a particular affection for small boys named Ben.

The Penderwick family is endearing. I love the Latin-spouting father and the bevy of four spunky girls, even though none of the girls is exactly me. I'm probably most drawn to the eldest, Rosalind, simply because I am also an eldest and I know the weight of that responsibility. I love that they are all close, that they look after each other and care for their father and none of them are bratty though they are wonderfully fallible with endearing foibles.

I do look forward to reading more of their adventures. I was rather disappointed when I was browsing on Amazon at first I thought I'd spotted an exciting third book in the series and then I realized that Die Penderwicks was probably not an adventure where the Penderwick girls meet their archnemisis; but a German translation. Ah well. Ms Birdsall, if your eyes should happen to glance this way, I think Jane might have some fun with a little story called Die, Penderwicks!... Or, maybe not.

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The Dangerous World of Butterflies

"A true tale of beauty and obsession, smugglers and scientists, and nature's most enigmatic creature," proclaims the back of the dust jacket. Nature's most enigmatic creature: that's a little hyperbolic, I thought. But then there was this description of metamorphosis:

Rachel Diaz-Bastin is a scientist. She accepts my use of magic as an explanation for metamorphosis, but prefers something closer to her discipline. "It' so science fiction. The caterpillar increases its size twenty-seven thousand times and then decides that it's time to harden its skin and make a chrysalis. It has a little bit of silk that it can spin, almost like a spider silk. The silk is very strong and the larva attaches itself to the underside of a leaf or a twig and hangs upside-down." Lucky for me, since Diaz-Bastin often tours children through the butterfly house, she's perfected a simple and straight-forward explanation of the incredible transformation. "The skin on the outside of the caterpillar hardens. This is the final molt. Caterpillars have a hard, tough exoskeleton. They must shed their skin just like a snake in order to grow. This is the final shed of their skin. As adult butterflies they don't grow anymore." Inside the hard chrysalis the transformation is in progress. "All of their body parts, every cell, liquefies." It is, as she said before, science fiction. "This is weird stuff. All of their cells differentiate and begin forming the adult butterfly. It's basically this big butterfly soup inside."

Were you to cut open the chrysalis at this stage, you would find nothing resembling a caterpilar and nothing resembling a butterfly: only liquid.

I always knew the transformation from caterpillar to butterfly was marvelous. A little worm becomes this gorgeous thing with wings. But I had no idea that it became liquid first. Maybe the butterfly is nature's most enigmatic creature after all.




And then there was this marvelous little bit of information about migrating Monarchs:

In the spring the warming weather rouses the Monarchs. They mate as they head back north, an activity that quickly kills off the male. But unlike the direct trip south, the journey north takes a few generations. The Monarchs that made the long trip south and spent the winter in Mexico only make it as far as Texas and Louisiana. The gravid (egg bearing) females stay alive long enough to find a suitable locale for their eggs, whatever milkweed they can find-- this being the plant food that both nourishes their larvae, and fills the caterpillars and the butterflies they eventually become with the poison that makes them unpalatable for the most potential predators. This next generation ecloses in short order and continues the trek north toward the Great Lakes where they lay their eggs. Soon their offspring head toward the East Coast, and it is their progeny who make the long haul-- as far as three thousand miles-- back to Mexico. This is an annual event: it takes four or five short-lived generations for the broods to make it north, and then, before winter sets in, the Mexico-bound generation-- which lives several months-- makes the epic journey south.

How do these butterflies-- great grandchildren of the Monarchs who flew to Mexico the year before-- know where to go and how to get there? That is still a fascinating and delightful mystery; theories include a role played by the position of the sun and another by the Earth's magnetic force. The excellent eyesight of the Monarch is a navigational factor, the visual cues interpreted by the butterfly's pinhead-sized brain. Favorable winds and air currents help make for a successful trip, along with plenty of luck. Those are the theories of how they fix their route. How they know-- generations separated from the ancestors who last were in Mexico-- where their destinations are located remains a phenomenal mystery.

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"We too are already in heaven with him"

No one has ever ascended into heaven except the one who descended from heaven

Today our Lord Jesus Christ ascended into heaven; let our hearts ascend with him. Listen to the words of the Apostle: If you have risen with Christ, set your hearts on the things that are above where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God; seek the things that are above, not the things that are on earth. For just as he remained with us even after his ascension, so we too are already in heaven with him, even though what is promised us has not yet been fulfilled in our bodies.

Christ is now exalted above the heavens, but he still suffers on earth all the pain that we, the members of his body, have to bear. He showed this when he cried out from above: Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me? and when he said: I was hungry and you gave me food.

Why do we on earth not strive to find rest with him in heaven even now, through the faith, hope and love that unites us to him? While in heaven he is also with us; and we while on earth are with him. He is here with us by his divinity, his power and his love. We cannot be in heaven, as he is on earth, by divinity, but in him, we can be there by love.

He did not leave heaven when he came down to us; nor did he withdraw from us when he went up again into heaven. The fact that he was in heaven even while he was on earth is borne out by his own statement: No one has ever ascended into heaven except the one who descended from heaven, the Son of Man, who is in heaven.

These words are explained by our oneness with Christ, for he is our head and we are his body. No one ascended into heaven except Christ because we also are Christ: he is the Son of Man by his union with us, and we by our union with him are the sons of God. So the Apostle says: Just as the human body, which has many members, is a unity, because all the different members make one body, so is it also with Christ. He too has many members, but one body.

Out of compassion for us he descended from heaven, and although he ascended alone, we also ascend, because we are in him by grace. Thus, no one but Christ descended and no one but Christ ascended; not because there is no distinction between the head and the body, but because the body as a unity cannot be separated from the head.

From a sermon by Saint Augustine

from today's Office of Readings

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Of a Feather: A Brief History of American Birding

I don't really consider myself a birder. Though I suppose by the loose definitions that some employ I might count as such. My Grandmother Carter used to save the stale heels of bread and give them to me to put outside for the birds. I suppose what interest I have was sparked by her. I like having a bird feeder in my backyard. I like to know the names of the birds I see there and elsewhere. But I have no real desire to go track down new species or to spend hours and hours wandering through a swampy wetlands or a dense forest just for the purpose of watching birds. I'm curious about my immediate surroundings but wouldn't go far out of my way to pursue a bird.

Still, this was a book I thoroughly enjoyed. Definitely a living book. Scott Weidensaul is passionate about the material, an avid birder himself and has firsthand knowledge of most of the contemporary characters. His historical research was probably my favorite part, though. This is the sort of science reading I enjoy most, full of colorful characters and interesting anecdotes.

Oh I wish I hadn't taken this book back to the library yet. There were a few things I wanted to quote from it. I have found myself citing it in conversations with Dom; but of course I can't think of anything interesting now that I'm sitting down to write about it. So much for writing a rave review. But don't attribute my lackluster book report as a fault of the book. Just a distracted mommy writer whose reach exceeds her grasp when it comes to checking books out from the library.

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Sophie's Baptism Day

We started with Mass. The girls were eager as they hurried through breakfast and got dressed. I was a little afraid, going by myself with all three kids. Ben was already cranky and rubbing his eyes before we left. I warned the girls that he might not let us stay. But it worked.





We met a nice elderly man in the parking lot who took pity on me and offered to carry Sophie. I thanked him and declined but he scooped her up anyway. For his pains he received an earful of shrill Sophie-scream... delayed by her famous long intake so he thought he was all clear. He was good humored but chagrined as he put her back down, muttering something about humility.





We sat front and center. Every eye in the church would be drawn to any antics. Then again, my children's eyes would be drawn to the altar. A gamble with a long walk of shame if we had to retreat. Everyone was good, though. Not perfect, mind you. Ben dropped his blanket just before the consecration and Bella dashed out of the pew to get it as everyone knelt. Then Sophie fell off the pew just before the elevation of the chalice. But she didn't scream. I scooped her up and managed to hold both her and Ben. Quite a balancing act.





After Mass was over we walked the circumference of the church, examining the new Stations of the Cross. A few elderly people who had stayed to pray gave me benevolent smiles as I conducted a rudimentary catechism with Bella. One young man met my glance and smiled slightly. I smiled back, glad we weren't being a nuisance to anyone. We looked at all the statues, took our time as we can't really do this on Sundays. Sophie excitedly pointed to the photograph of Pope Benedict in the vestibule and to the statues of Mary and Jesus and to all the flowers.





When we finally made our way to the car we were met there by the young man who had smiled at me. He pulled his little red car up next to my minivan and got out holding a black picture frame. "I wanted to let you get to your car since your hands are full," he explained as he handed it to me, turning it to reveal a smiling Padre Pio holding a crucifix. "I had an extra. Do you know who it is?"

"Oh yes. Saint Padre Pio! Wow! Thank you so much!" He introduced himself and I introduced all the kids. He held his hand out to Ben and smiled, called him "Bro". And then he left. I didn't have time to think to ask him why. Why me? Why Padre Pio? But maybe it's better that way. A little bit of grace.





I put Padre Pio on the driver's seat and then we carried some boxes of envelopes (for the diocesan appeal) to the parish office. Dom had asked me to drop them off. The sweet lady in the office asked if we wanted to see Father so I said yes. I asked him if he could give Sophie a special blessing on her day. Both girls were tongue-tied around him, probably in part because of the lollipops she gave them while we were waiting for Father to finish his phone call.

As we left the office, the girls headed toward the grotto to see Mary still crowned with Sunday's wreath. Then they chased starlings across the lawn until I called them back to the car.





At home I put Ben down for his nap and then the girls and I baked a lemon cake. (From a box. I'm ambitious but not crazy.)

Then they licked the beaters clean. (What do you do when there are more kids than beaters? I don't recall.)





Poor Sophie kept wondering when she was going to eat the cake. I can't count how many times I explained that we had to wait until after dinner so that daddy could have some too. After dinner was so long to wait. While I was cooking dinner, she gouged a couple of holes in the unfrosted cake. Silly me for leaving it where she could get at it.





In the end I took pity on the poor hungry girl and let her have a bit more of the cake before dinner when I was trimming it. After all, it was her day. And dinner was running a bit late.





After dinner we let Sophie open her presents. (Presents!!!)





She got a little statue of her patron, St. Therese.





And a little triptych of the Holy Family. Oh she loved opening and shutting it!





And a book of saints stories. Which Ben promptly appropriated for himself. Bella also made a grab for it. She seems to think all books belong to her.





We lit her baptismal candle and -- at Bella's prompting -- sang Regina Caeli. And then a round of "Happy Baptism Day to you." Then Sophie almost singed her hair trying to blow out the candle. Bella had to do the actual blowing.





And finally we ate cake. Bella declared that it was a fun day. And I think Sophie thought so too. I'm pretty pleased with the way this family tradition is shaping up.

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The Holy Spirit renews us in baptism

On this day, two years ago, Sophia Therese was baptized and received new life in Christ.

The Holy Spirit renews us in baptism through his godhead, which he shares with the Father and the Son. Finding us in a state of deformity, the Spirit restores our original beauty and fills us with his grace, leaving no room for anything unworthy of our love. The Spirit frees us from sin and death, and changes us from the earthly men we were, men of dust and ashes, into spiritual men, sharers in the divine glory, sons and heirs of God the Father who bear a likeness to the Son and are his co-heirs and brothers, destined to reign with him and to share his glory. In place of earth the Spirit reopens heaven to us and gladly admits us into paradise, giving us even now greater honour than the angels, and by the holy waters of baptism extinguishing the unquenchable fires of hell.

We men are conceived twice: to the human body we owe our first conception, to the divine Spirit, our second. John says: To all who received him, who believed in his name, he gave power to become children of God. These were born not by human generation, not by the desire of the flesh, not by the will of man, but of God. All who believed in Christ, he says, received power to become children of God, that is, of the Holy Spirit, and to gain kinship with God. To show that their parent was God the Holy Spirit, he adds these words of Christ: I give you this solemn warning, that without being born of water and the Spirit, no one can enter the kingdom of God.

Visibly, through the ministry of priests, the font gives symbolic birth to our visible bodies. Invisibly, through the ministry of angels, the Spirit of God, whom even the mind’s eye cannot see, baptises into himself both our souls and bodies, giving them a new birth.

Speaking quite literally, and also in harmony with the words of water and the Spirit, John the Baptist says of Christ: He will baptise you with the Holy Spirit and with fire. Since we are only vessels of clay, we must first be cleansed in water and then hardened by spiritual fire – for God is a consuming fire. We need the Holy Spirit to perfect and renew us, for spiritual fire can cleanse us, and spiritual water can recast us as in a furnace and make us into new men.

From the treatise On the Trinity by Didymus of Alexandria*

I will pour out water on the thirsty soil, streams on the dry ground, I will pour out my spirit on your descendants, and they shall grow like poplars by running streams, alleluia.

The water that I shall give will turn into a spring, welling up to eternal life, and they shall grow like poplars by running streams, alleluia.



*This is from yesterday's Office of Readings. Perfectly timely.

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A Few Thoughts on Motherhood

First, this morning I offered my Mass for all women for whom Mother's Day is a cross. For women whose hearts are full of the longing to be a mother but whose wombs and arms are empty. For mothers whose children have preceded them to eternal life. For mothers who have children in heaven that they have not yet met face to face. For mothers whose children are far away. For mothers whose children are estranged. For mothers whose children are ill or in danger.

Also this is a good time to pause to remember that even those women who have not been blessed with biological motherhood are still called to spiritual motherhood. It is our vocation as women to love, to nurture, to cherish and protect, educate and guide and heal. Even if you do not have children, I am sure that you are in some other way answering God's call to mother.


Then today is also another opportunity for us to honor Mary, who is mother to us all.

This morning our parish's first communicants placed a crown on a statue of Mary after Mass. As Father explained, we honor Mary as the our perfect Mother whose example leads us always to her Divine Son.

When we returned home the girls and I cut some of our azaleas and placed them in front of some of our images of our Blessed Mother. Can I tell you how happy it makes Bella to make these little devotions? (On that note, check out Leila's inspirational exhortation about how to begin to live the liturgical year with children. here now with no fancy curriculum and no materials beyond the weeds growing in your yard.)

Today I remember the God is so good for giving His mother to all of us. No matter what our circumstances are, we all have the opportunity today to honor the mother of Our Lord who is our mother too.


Last but not least, I rejoice and give thanks for my own motherhood. I thank God for giving me my vocation of motherhood, for gifting me four precious souls, three of whom I've had the honor of nurturing and teaching and watching to grow. I thank Him for Isabella, Francis, Sophia, and Benedict, the most beautiful flowers in my garden.

Updated

Erin said what I wanted to say here but articulated it better and much more fully.

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MWF Introvert Seeking BFF or The Grass Is Always Greener

In the past four years I've written extensively about the challenges of being an introvert and a stay-at-home mom, about the longing for friendship, and about the ways that the internet has been a blessing and a curse to me as I struggle to find my way in this world:

Stay at Home Moms and the Internet
When Bloggers Meet
Thoughts on Going to the Library
Introverted Parents of Extroverted Children
More Parenting Perspectives
Friendship, the Internet, Mothering
Further Thoughts on Facebook, Twitter, etc.
Storytime
Mom's Day Out Marian Bible Study Group
Meeting Ladybird at the Supermarket

You'd think by now, I'd have talked myself out about the topic. But no, I find I still have something new to say.


The Dangers of Walking in Someone Else's Shoes

Anyone who has followed this blog for any length of time knows that I am fascinated with educational theory and praxis. I started reading homeschooling blogs a little more than four years ago both because they satisfy my intellectual curiosity and because I don't really know any homeschoolers and thus I have a hard time imagining what my future life as a homeschooler will be like.

There is a peril in that, however, for it leads to me imagining myself in the lives of all these virtual strangers on the internet. I only see the parts of their homeschooling lives that they choose to portray and that can lead to my envying that idealized version of other women that doesn't really exist. And it can be all too easy to focus on what they have that I lack while I blind myself to the goods that I already possess.


A Daily Cup of Tea... but is it my cup?

I've been following this series of posts about what bearing calls co-schooling, an interesting arrangement that bearing has with two friends and their families in which they do homeschooling together in a regular, reciprocal arrangement. The most recent post in this series details a daily ritual that cements the friendship bearing has with her friend Hannah.

Ever since our firsts were babies, Hannah's home has been a place where I can count on a comfortable chair and a cup of strong, hot tea, moments after walking in the door.

I hope she would write that my house is a place where she can count on a bar stool, a counter, and a cup of hot, strong, and not-too-stewed black coffee!

When those first littles were little, we hashed out all manner of plans and philosophies over those steaming cups. For a long time, she would bake bread with the children while I worked on my doctoral thesis at the kitchen table. For a while, we made dinner together and packed it home to our respective families. Sometimes we did housework together. Sometimes we both goofed off, kicking off our shoes and ambling into the grassy back yard to watch our kids play in the sun. Often we found ourselves taking simultaneous breaks to sit and nurse a baby, a good excuse to put feet up and have a chat about whatever was going on. Always there was the cup of tea in the morning and the cup of tea in the late afternoon.

As I read it I began to long for that kind of a friendship. I began to wish desperately for someone with whom I could share that simple ritual of a daily chat over a hot cup of tea or coffee. And I suddenly felt the lack of a friend with whom I could share not only the vision and ideals of homeschooling but also the daily, nitty-gritty responsibilities of directing and implementing the education of our children.

Of course I'm an introvert so the simple fact is that it would have to be a very special friend indeed who would charge me up instead of draining me dry. The chances of finding a friend like that who also lives nearby and also wants to homeschool and also.... Well, you get the idea. I'm not even sure if this is really something I want or need. I just know it makes a pleasant picture in my head.


I Am the Mom in the White Minivan

As a follow up to the cup of tea post, bearing linked to this pair of blog entries by another Catholic mom, Rebecca at Shoved to Them, writing about her neighbor, the mom in the white minivan. Now. Follow that link. Go read those two posts. I'll wait.... To make it easier I'll link them here: Part I: That Darn White Minivan Part II: What Happened Next

It's a bit eerie. I so saw myself in the new neighbor, the mom with the white minivan. For one thing, I drive a white minivan. Also, I am the new kid on my block. We've only lived in our house for a year and a half and here in New England at least that means that when I run into my neighbors at the library they introduce themselves and exclaim, "Aren't you the new people, living in the X's house? I recognized your white van."

Yep. We're the new people. We have nodding acquaintance with our closest neighbors and that's about it. Half the blame lies with me, of course. I'm a shy introvert. I'm the woman living the life of quiet desperation, wishing that someone would break the ice and be my friend and yet at the same time terrified that I might have to enter into a conversation with a stranger.

How nice it would be to have a neighbor knock at my door and remove all hesitation by informing me that I'm going to be having lunch at her house tomorrow.


Found: My Best Friend

Like I said, the danger in wanting what someone else has is that it can blind you to what you already have. As I pondered my desire to have a neighbor magically show up at my door, swoop into my life, and become my best friend, I grew more and more morose. Why can't that happen to me?

I started to frame a prayer. Dear God, please send me a best friend. And then like a slap upside the head, I realize. Wait, he already did. I glance at my sister's bedroom door and feel like a fool. My best friend in the whole wide world lives not next door or down the street, but under my very roof.

Sure, the grass could be greener. I don't see her enough. We don't sit down for long chats nearly as often as I'd like. Her irregular schedule at Starbucks means we haven't been able to develop anything like a regular routine. No daily cups of coffee (ironically). No morning and evening rituals. Twice in the past year we've tried to no avail to begin a read aloud together, a custom we both remember with great fondness from our youth. I really wanted to share one of my favorite series with her. I really wanted to study the Theology of the Body with her. However, at this time in our lives we just don't have the ability to follow through on plans like those.

Still, she's had my back in some pretty difficult times. I can't count the number of times she's picked up some crucial ingredients on her way home from work. And when I was coping with pregnancy and with recovery from my c-section, she regularly did my weekly grocery run for me. She plays with the kids when they are cranky and I need them out from underfoot while I'm cooking dinner. She babysits. She sits with me while I eat lunch. She lets me stand at her bedroom door at midnight just to tell her about the book I'm reading or the cute thing Sophie did that day. She loves my kids almost as much as I do. She's friends with Dom. Who am I to complain?

Nevertheless, it can't last forever. Recently she's begun dating this wonderful guy. It looks like it might be going somewhere. My dad's starting to joke about needing to save up some money for a wedding. Who know what the future holds? Maybe someday soon I will be the mom in the white minivan waiting for a knock on the door. I trust that God will provide me with the friendships I need to sustain me. They just might not come in the way I expect them. Mine will probably not look like anyone else's story.

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The Wonderful World of the Library

Melissa Wiley is having a lovely discussion about books in her comments today. Specifically about favorite books. The ones you reread until they were about to fall apart.

I've more usually been a book devourer rather than a savorer. I gobble them up and retain very little. So my list is rather short.

There is, however, one book that immediately pops to mind and that is A Little Princess by Frances Hodgson Burnett. I still have my childhood copy of it and it is very well loved. Sara was another me. I loved her madly. More, I think I was her. Although I never lost my family and all my posessions, still I was often lonely and shunned by my classmates so I identified with Sara's plight.

Second to that is The Secret Garden. A beautiful and much read book; though Mary never captured my heart like Sara did.

I loved Narnia and I am so glad that my parents bought me the series in hardcover because my childhood copies are still in excellent condition (though the dust jackets are long, long gone.) and I can still reread them in the books that I've always read. I just can't imagine reading another copy. Oh and because they are old enough that The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe is listed as the first book and not The Magician's Nephew.

Then there was Madeleine L'Engle. I only had the time trilogy, A Wrinkle in Time, A Wind in the Door, and A Swiftly Tilting Planet. Meg was another other me. I loved her then and I still love her.

Anne of Green Gables and I didn't meet until I was in high school but we became bosom buddies immediately. As did Emily of New Moon and I. They are now books I reread and love to tatters.

And then there was that beautiful edition of Louisa May Alcott. A big red cloth-bound book with golden embossed letters that contained a treasure trove: Little Women, Good Wives, and Little Men all together. I remember the first time I read this one. I discovered it one day sitting on my shelf and I remember running to my mom asking where it came from because I was sure I'd never seen it before. She said she didn't know or she was under the impression I'd always had it. In any case I formed the secret belief that the fairies had delivered it. That volume was magical to me. Oh the joys and tears and loves that were contained within those covers. Now it is faded to a very dusty red and the binding is broken; but it still hold pride of place on my shelves.

The other books I still own and treasure are my complete Brothers Grimm and Hans Christian Andersen and Sherlock Holmes. Big fat hardcover books that I perhaps loved as much for their weight and completeness as for the hours I spent wandering through their worlds.

Oh but I am getting off track. What I wanted to write about here was a memory that was jarred when Melissa mentioned Oz in the comments:

I keep thinking about the Oz books. It has been many years since I revisited them, but as a child I probably reread that series more than any other. My dad helped me collect them all from used bookstores and thrift shops. We still have most of those books, and I think all of my reading daughters have gone through an intense Oz phase at one time or another.

They didn’t lure me back after college and into motherhood, the way other books have. But they were hugely important to the elementary school me and probably warrant a place of honor on my Maudly list.

Like I said, this one sent me back to a specific memory, like opening a box and smelling a smell. Suddenly I was at the library, the big public library building in downtown Austin, not the local branch where we usually went. I know I went there a few times with my dad. (Perhaps when he was researching something or other before opening the bookstore?)

In any case, I remember going with him and what a treat it was. I remember the children's section with a little reading area. There was this castle covered in carpet where one could climb up into a tower and curl up with a book.

That was where I read all the OZ books. I remember finding the place on the shelf and returning to it again and again as I made my way through the entire series. Oh and I believe that's where I encountered Half Magic and The Egypt Game.

These aren't books I read again and again and again because they were rare jewels only available from that library. But somehow they seared themselves on my memory all the more for that rarity.

One thing I love about being a mom is that I look forward to sharing these and other new favorites with my girls, losing myself once again in their worlds.

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Golden Evening

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Prayers

I am offering up today for my friend the philosopher mom, who is due to be induced today.

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Sudden Infant Death

[I wrote this last year and hesitated to post it at the time. But on re-reading it I've decided to go ahead and put it out there. ]

God did not make death,
nor does he rejoice in the destruction of the living....

For God formed man to be imperishable;
the image of his own nature he made him.
But by the envy of the devil, death entered the world,
and they who are in his possession experience it.

Wisdom 1:13; 2:23-24.

No one scorns the haiku for being shorter than War and Peace
Nor scolds the daffodil for being briefer than a redwood
But this little life cut off so young
We mourn and cry "too soon too soon".

Surely the Author knows when to end each tale

And yet
Jesus wept

So should we all
For in the beginning death was not

And though there is a plan perhaps for even this little sparrow's fall
Still we cry
For we know that a sparrow was meant to fly.


9/1/2009

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Mama, You Have Oatmeal in Your Hair

Sophie and Bella amused themselves brushing my hair after I'd brushed and braided theirs after their bath. Ouch!

As she tugged and tangled it, she announced to me that I had oatmeal in my hair. (She pronounces it eeo.) Bella added that I had peaches in my hair.

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