| January 31 2008 | ||
| Untitled
No more blogging from Cindy. And what she writes to go out on!
My laptop screen has died, and my computer time has suddenly become drastically limited. But maybe that's not such a bad thing. |
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| Posted by Sora at 6 : 50 pm | Leave a note {1} | ||
| January 25 2008 | ||
| IS HE ELECTABLE? DOES IT MATTER?
As I write, there have been votes cast in only 7 states primaries or caucuses -- that means there are 43 states still to go. Isn't it a little early to decide that a candidate "can't win"? Do the voters of Iowa, New Hampshire, Michigan, Nevada, Wyoming, South Carolina, and Louisiana get to decide for the whole nation? If there was a clear "front-runner" coming out of these early states it might be suggestive of a national trend... but there isn't. RON PAUL has come in ahead of EVERY OTHER CANDIDATE in AT LEAST ONE STATE. Someone who was canvassing for Ron Paul in South Carolina the week before the primary reported that almost 1/3 of the people he talked to said they liked Ron Paul's positions and what he had to say... but they weren't going to vote for him because "he couldn't win". If this percentage held true throughout the State, and if all those people had voted their conscience, Ron Paul would have won South Carolina. When "blind" telephone polls have been taken, where the biography, history and positions of a candidate are given but not their name, Ron Paul wins them by an overwhelming majority. If everyone says Ron Paul can't win, and then doesn't vote for him because he can't win, it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. If the media keeps saying Ron Paul can't win, and people keep believing them and voting for the candidates who are approved by the talking heads on the television set, then the media has taken over our representative republic. But IF people vote their conscience, then, YES, RON PAUL CAN STILL WIN THE NOMINATION. There is a science fiction story which mentions in an offhand way a world in which the people are ruled by lizards. It includes the following conversation: "The people hate the lizards and the lizards rule the people." If you disagree with Ron Paul's strict constitutionalism or his economic theories or don't like his character or his voting record or his plans for the country, or just really like Mitt Romney's hair, by all means vote for someone else. But if you LIKE HIM BEST OF THE CANDIDATES WHO ARE RUNNING, and vote for someone else because they are more "electable", then you have just played into the hands of the media. The real vote that "doesn't count" is a compromise vote for the "less evil" lizard. |
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| Posted by Sora at 3 : 22 pm | Leave a note {3} | ||
| January 22 2008 | ||
| THE REPUBLICAN PRIMARIES GET EVEN MORE INTERESTING
Quite the day. Norma McCorvey endorsed Ron Paul. Fred Thompson dropped out. The Huckster and the Ghoul are out of money. Meanwhile, Ron took in 1.85 million in donations yesterday and reports from the ground suggest that his delegate support in Nevada will be much higher than the straw poll percentages predict. His grassroots organization in Louisiana is also highly optimistic about taking the majority of delegates at the caucus this evening. And he now has more than 10,000 volunteers around the nation canvassing their own voting precincts. Volunteers who just got some really good talking points for potential voters who are worried about Ron's electability. I'll be voting for Ron Paul in November even if I have to write his name on the ballot. But I just got several new reasons to hope that I might not have to. |
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| Posted by Sora at 3 : 25 pm | Leave a note {0} | ||
| December 14 2007 | ||
| A SISYPHUS MORNING
I stayed up too late last night making truffles on a deadline, and now I'm reaping the consequences. I woke up much too late. Isaiah was yelling from his crib. Hosanna was screaming to be nursed. Both of them badly needed a new diaper. ZZ and Naomi were asking for breakfast. The kitchen table was covered in chocolate drips from the truffle marathon that I didn't clean up before I went to bed. All the clothes that fit me were buried in the seven loads of clean laundry that I didn't get around to folding yesterday. And everything I did get done yesterday -- with the sole exception of the truffles, which will all be eaten within the next two weeks anyway -- needs to be done again today: cleaning the kitchen, washing dishes, washing toddlers, feeding baby, feeding everyone else, tidying the house, vacuuming, homeschooling ZZ, speech therapy homework with Naomi, changing diapers, posting to my birth blog. Well, I can try to do it cheerfully and hope no one knocks on my door before nap-time. By the time nap-time rolls around I'm usually on top of most of it and feeling less Sisyphus-like, even though I know the house I've beaten into submission will erupt into messy chaos again as soon as the kids get home from school and Isaiah gets up from his nap. Where no oxen are, etc. The baby is finished nursing, so it's time to go push that rock up the hill again. |
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| Posted by Sora at 9 : 42 am | Leave a note {2} | ||
| December 05 2007 | ||
| A STICKY SITUATION
Because last night was Mars Hill's Christmas program, which ran fairly late into the evening, school did not start until 10:00 a.m. today. This made for a nice leisurely morning for Matt and the older kids. When I came downstairs with Isaiah (almost 2) and Hosanna (1 month) Matt was in the kitchen doing some clean-up left over from last night's rush, had made breakfast, and appeared to have everything well under control. This was welcome, since my usual morning routine for the past couple of weeks has involved giving cold cereal to the three preschoolers while the baby hangs off my arm screaming, making sure there is nothing left out on the table that Isaiah could make a disaster with, and then sitting downon the couch and nursing / burping / changing for about two hours straigh before taking on any other household tasks. The baby has a bad cold and right after she wakes up is a very fussy time. By the middle of the morning she settles down in thesling and I can get things done. So today I'm sitting on the couch with the pathetic stuffed up baby. By and by, Matt heads out to shovel the driveway and then calls the older kids to leave for school. Unbeknownst to me, the three of them have left (on the kitchen table within easy toddler reach) a pot half full of oatmeal, an almost full gallon of milk, an almost full squeeze bottle of honey, and an almost full 1-lb package of brown sugar. Those of you with toddlers probably can guess what kind of mess I found when I got to the kitchen. My husband, though a wonderful man in many ways, is in denial about toddlers. Living with a constant succession of them has not helped. When he hears about some new outrageous escapade from the current 2-year-old, his most usual response is, "He needs to NOT DO THAT!" It should have occurred to me that pre-emptive prevention of toddler messes is not an automatic part of his breakfast routine, but it didn't, and so the first I knew about the whole thing was when Isaiah came into the living room carrying the (almost empty) squeeze bottle of honey, and covered from head to toe in brown sugar. |
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| Posted by Sora at 12 : 49 pm | Leave a note {15} | ||
| November 30 2007 | ||
| PREDICTIONS
DHM at the Common Room posted on this article from 1901 predicting what life would be life a century later. Some of the predictions are spot-on, others are (from our current perspective) laughable. Did you know that by the year 2000, mankind was to have eliminated rats, mice, mosquitos, and flies! Someone clearly didn't get the memo. We were also supposed to have managed to breed blue, black, and green roses by now. |
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| Posted by Sora at 11 : 47 am | Leave a note {2} | ||
| November 03 2007 | ||
| WHAT I'VE BEEN UP TO (other than gestating)
As someone with a vested interest in continued access to homebirth midwives in Ohio, I have found myself (as of sometime in October) the chair of the PR committee of a recently formed grassroots consumer organization intended to push for a change in Ohio's legislation. I have discovered in working for Ohio Families for Safe Birth, or OFSB, that I have a lot more useable time than I thought I did... at least, a lot more useable computer time (one does a fair bit of sitting around at this point in pregnancy...) Ohio has no laws regulating direct-entry midwifery and for many years has been considered a state where midwifery is not explicitly legal, but generally tolerated. Many midwives like being in an unregulated state, with no licensure board looking over their protocols, and the general belief has been that as long as they don't cross the invisible "practicing medicine" line or have a bad outcome, they're pretty safe. This is changing. Last month, a local midwife's home was raided and her equipment and files seized. Because charges have not been filed yet, I can't give more details, but one of the items specifically named on the search warrant was names, addresses and information about other unlicensed midwives. This is not an isolated incident, but part of a coordinated effort to eliminate independent midwives in all unregulated states. My main project for OFSB has been overseeing the design, and writing or adapting almost all of the content, for the new webpage (someone who actually knows what they're doing did the actual coding.) It is finally ready: the Ohio Families for Safe Birth website, and I am quite proud of it. As part of our ongoing PR strategy, I have also set up an OFSB blog, which I (and perhaps some other people as well) will be posting to, hopefully daily. You can get to it directly at safebirthohio.org/blog/. I set the blog up all by myself, because the real web designer was busy fixing a horrible glitch in the style sheet that only showed up in Windows XP IE browsers. It was surprisingly straightforward. We may have to stop paying Upsaid for something I actually know how to do myself now. |
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| Posted by Sora at 2 : 27 pm | Leave a note {3} | ||
| October 28 2007 | ||
| RESURRECTION!
Matt's mom and dad offered to send my birthday money a month early so we could use it to replace our broken camera. We pulled out the old camera to make sure there were no pictures left on the memory card that we hadn't downloaded... and under threat of replacement, the ancient and decrepit machine (held together with a rubber band) spontaneously started working again! So, for benefit of grandparents and anyone else who doesn't see enough of these clowns, here are the kids at the park this afternoon. 
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| Posted by Sora at 5 : 48 pm | Leave a note {2} | ||
| October 03 2007 | ||
| APPLESAUCE ECONOMICS
This past weekend I split a bushel of apples from a local fruit grower with my neighbor. We got a bushel of Cortland "seconds" (meaning perfectly good apples that are not pretty enough to charge full price for) for $26, or about $.60/lb. This is about as cheap as I've found apples anywhere this fall, though I have sad memories of paying $.19/lb at the fruiteries in Montreal ten years ago (I wonder if produce -- and rent, for that matter -- is still so cheap there? Montreal was definitely the least expensive place I've ever lived.) Cortlands are fantastic sauce apples; they make a delicious, rosy-colored applesauce that needs no extra sugar. I put around half of my half-bushel -- 12 lbs or so, peeled and cored -- into the crockpot yesterday and it cooked down to maybe 3 quarts of sauce -- this is a very rough guess, since my kids ate almost half of it straight out of the crockpot, and will probably polish off the rest today or tomorrow. This works out to about $2 a quart for homemade sauce, which is more than twice as expensive than buying a jar of applesauce at Aldi. On the other hand, I never buy grocery store applesauce, at Aldi or anywhere else, because it is hard to find unsweetened and it always tastes bland and insipid. As far as I know, there is no commercial product comparable to the sauce I made yesterday and if there was I'm sure it would be a lot more than $2 a quart. Still, at that price and the way my children guzzle it, I'm definitely not making enough to last through the winter. Last year I put more than 30 quarts of applesauce in the freezer from our trees on Texada. It was all from the Early Transparent, so the sauce was not fantastic; it needed a little extra sweetening and was greatly improved by being mixed 6:1 with crabapple sauce. But it was still better than grocery store applesauce, and we had homemade organic applesauce every week all winter long. Besides which, we fed at least as many apples to the cow as I made into sauce -- and the deer got a lot of the windfalls. The other 6 apple trees on the property didn't bear well last year, but after pruning my parents report they are much, much more productive this year. I sure wish I could take a few bushels off their hands! Moral of the story: to save money on applesauce with a large family, buy property on which someone else planted an orchard twenty years ago. |
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| Posted by Sora at 12 : 18 pm | Leave a note {3} | ||
| September 25 2007 | ||
| APALLING BILLBOARDS
Inspired by Cindy. I've been meaning to get a picture of this one and then blog it for a very long time, but I don't get to that part of town often and our camera's broken right now. Talia and I were driving through a Cincinnati neighborhood one day when she gasped in horror and said, "Mom! LOOK at that billboard!" It read: [NAME OMITTED] COMMUNITY CHURCH
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| Posted by Sora at 1 : 08 pm | Leave a note {8} | ||
| September 24 2007 | ||
| BEARING BURDENS
Many of my readers are of the opinion that tax-funded programs are not the ideal way, or the Christian way, to meet social needs. There are disagreements, of course, over history (did the state take over what were once family and church functions, or did families and churches drop the ball causing the state to fill a needed gap?), hermeneutics (are legitimate state functions strictly defined by the Bible, or may Christian nations allow for tax-funded state oversight of services -- highway systems? public libraries? - that are never mentioned or considered in Scripture?), and of course solutions (how can or should the present system be changed or abolished, and what should replace it?). Then there are more fundamental disagreements about which services should be available to anyone who needs them, and which should be reserved for those able (and willing?) to pay. The Bible clearly tells us to clothe the naked and feed the hungry, but has much less to say about needs that most modern western Christians take for granted: is everyone, regardless of their life choices, work ethic, and circumstances (which may be entirely outside their control), entitled to a home that is "up to code", for instance? To schooling for their children? Health care? Dental care? Is our primary duty to our immediate neighbors -- those in our communities whose needs may be greater, or resources smaller, than the average? Or, given that food and clothing are available in excessive abundance to even the poorest in the affluent west, should we be placing a higher priority on meeting the urgent needs for food and clothing elsewhere in the world? Here at home, are individual Christians who see problems with the current system required by conscience to abstain from participating in it? To what extent? Does it make a difference if participation in a particular program is required by law? (For instance, enrollment in provincial socialized health care programs in Canada is not voluntary, nor is public education in Germany.) What obligation does the covenant community have to create alternative systems for its members? For churches with limited resources (that would probably be all of them), what needs should be prioritized? For individual Christians, does there come a point at which personal affluence or luxury may no longer be ethically enjoyed? Are we (implicitly) saying "depart in peace, be warmed and filled" to anonymous brothers and sisters when we choose to spend money on optional luxuries instead of relieving those in need? Have at it, gentle readers. |
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| Posted by Sora at 6 : 08 pm | Leave a note {6} | ||
| SPEAKING OF CHILDREN'S PERSONALITY DIFFERENCES
The same todder of whom it is truly said, "If you can't see him, he's into mischief", the toddler who empties every shelf, basket, container, and drawer that he can get at, the toddler who was so intent on reaching my vitamins that he pushed a chair up to the kitchen counter, climbed up onto the counter, and opened the cupboard in order to reach them... is also the toddler who used the potty sucessfully after lunch and gleefully handed out chocolate chips to his older siblings (for anyone who doesn't use this "share-the-wealth" variation of "potty rewards", it is a sure-fire way to add enthusiastic members to the potty cheer-leading team). He then went upstairs all by himself as soon as I said it was nap-time, and cheerfully waved "Night-night, mama!" from his crib with nary a whimper of protest. It's certainly a good thing that he's such an easy napper, because boy does he wear me out when he's awake. |
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| Posted by Sora at 1 : 02 pm | Leave a note {2} | ||
| September 21 2007 | ||
| POTTY TRAINING?
However much you might want to put it off until you are no longer lugging the world record holder for in-utero highland dancing with you every time you get up and down off the bathroom floor, you know it's time when your toddler starts yelling, "AH BOOOOOOOP! AH BOOOOOOOP, MOMMY!" ...even before his diaper needs changing. The fact that he's trying to climb onto the toilet while he says it is an even bigger give-away. The potty his older sister used was left behind in our Texada-move downsizing, so I stopped by Wal-mart last week to pick up a new one. I decided that the little portable cushioned seats that snap onto the toilet made the most sense and least mess, given that the child already wants to sit on the big potty like everyone else in the family. We also needed some new training pants, as Daddy for some reason objects to little boys in pink. When did department stores stop carrying terrycloth training pants? I was not interested in toddler sized undies without extra absorbency, and I was not interested in disposable Pull-ups, but those were the only choices locally available to me. We brought home the potty seat and I got on Amazon to find old fashioned cloth training pants. Isaiah tried out the potty a few times while we waited for the training pants to arrive in the mail, but I wasn't getting serious about the whole affair while he was still wearing diapers, and after a few days, his favorite thing to do with the potty seat was to parade around the house with it around his neck like a gigantic ruff. The training pants finally came, but they came on the afternoon of a very busy day on which we weren't home much, followed by another very busy day on which we weren't home much, so it wasn't until this morning that I put a pair (very masculine grey) on the small bottom and set myself to take him to the potty every half-hour or so. Except. The potty seat has disappeared from the bathroom. This is a large, ovoid object almost a foot long. It ought to be pretty easy to find. Our house isn't that big. It isn't that messy. There are only so many places for small mischievous boys to stash their favorite neck ruffs. But the hours tick by, and the potty seat remains elusive. We've looked under every piece of furniture, in every cupboard, I've even offered chocolate chips to the child who can find it for me. No luck. The grey training pants are still dry, but time is running out. If you were an errant toddler with a penchant for stashing necessary items in obscure places, where would you have hidden it? |
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| Posted by Sora at 10 : 50 am | Leave a note {12} | ||
| September 20 2007 | ||
| NURSING TODDLERS AND PARENTING STYLES
Nancy Wilson wrote a post about early parenting styles in which she said that the words "demand feeding" make her "think of a spoiled child who is still nursing at age three when he should be learning his ABC’s and sitting at the table with a cup." In the comments, she clarified that she doesn't necessarily equate "nursing at three" with "spoiled." I don't think there's any problem with a child is nursing at age three, but if he is doing so when he should be doing other things, that is a problem. The one child I was still nursing at age three was exceptionally charming, well-mannered, and polite (definitely not spoiled, and not nearly as demanding as some siblings who weaned early in their second year.) I believe there are plenty of children who are both not spoiled and still nursing while learning ABCs and running around in sneakers. But generally no one outside of the immediate family has any idea that this well-behaved child is still nursing (because really, it is none of their business). The child is no longer an infant who cannot wait to be fed and may only nurse at bedtime, just before naptime, quietly behind closed doors at home. It is very easy for mothers who have well-intentioned ideas about breastfeeding, nurturing, and "attachment parenting" to fall into the trap of offering the breast to an older baby or toddler as a lazy way of not meeting the child's real needs. Mother is reading a book or an email and doesn't want to get up to go to the kitchen for a snack or a sippy cup, read a board book for the seventeenth time, or play a game with the demanding toddler. Nursing is the least bothersome way to keep the child quiet / happy / out of trouble. The problem is not that the child is still breastfeeding, the problem is the mother's attitude toward her child's needs. These children become the "obnoxious older nurslings" who will be seen tugging and whining in public and giving extended breastfeeding a bad name. Some of my children have happily weaned when they were a little over a year old. One was still nursing at three. Some of my children have been happy to sleep through the night in a crib and be laid down awake for naps. (They are, alas, the ones who will never fall asleep on a lap in church no matter how badly they need too.) One literally needed to be touching me in order to sleep for almost the first year of his life (but he was so well-behaved and easy to take anywhere; as long as I held him or had him in a carrier, I could go places I would never dream of taking some of my rowdier "sleep-through-the-nighters".) I have found that the mothers I know with the most "experience" are the ones who are least adamant about a one-size-fits-all parenting style. Children, even in the same family, are born with different personalities. What worked for baby number one might not do the trick for baby number six. Wise parenting requires flexibility and a willingness to set aside commitment to any particular "method" in favor of "what is working for this particular family at this point in time". |
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| Posted by Sora at 12 : 42 pm | Leave a note {6} | ||
| August 25 2007 | ||
| PRAY FOR BABY NOAH
The Estes family runs Hands and Hearts, one of the three homeschooling mail-order companies that carries the CD I made when ZZ was a baby. So though I've never met them, I've had some correspondence with Kate over the years and their family was on our prayer list during Kate's most recent, unusually difficult pregnancy. Their baby, Noah, has had ongoing medical issues and his parents have faced this and other challenges with faith, praise and thanksgiving to God. Little Noah is a charming and beautiful baby who just had his first birthday. Yesterday, he had a lengthy and complicated surgery to try to correct some intestinal problems. It will be at least 10 days before Noah's surgeon can tell whether the surgery was sucessful. Please pray for Noah and his family this week -- that Noah's recovery would exceed expectations, that he would be free from pain, that his father would be released from an out-of-town work obligation to be home with the other 6 children while Kate is in the hospital with Noah, and that God's peace and blessing would rest upon all of them. You can visit Noah's blog at this link. |
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| Posted by Sora at 9 : 42 am | Leave a note {0} | ||
| August 22 2007 | ||
| GRUMBLE
I usually try not to grumble on my blog, but I'm going to make an exception for my daughter's pantyhose. A little background: it is the first day of school at Mars Hill Academy today. Aedan is attending full time as a fifth grader. Talia is home-schooling part time, taking a couple of classes with the eighth-graders, one high school class (Greek 3) with her father and is also doing her latin with him at school even though it is not an official Mars Hill class (he's reading Ovid with her twice a week during two of his otherwise free class periods.) Talia's schedule puts her at school at the beginning of the day every day. Twice a week she will come home midmorning, and be home for the rest of the day; twice a week she'll come home for a few hours in the middle of the day and return to school for the last two class periods of the day; and once a week she'll pack a lunch and some homework since her break will not be long enough to be worth coming home for. Luckily, we now live close enough to Mars Hill that riding a bicycle to school is a very viable option, at least when the weather is good. Matt has been biking to school every day for some time now, and Aedan and Talia will be generally doing the same. But for the first day of school, everyone had unusually heavy loads to carry in, and since I don't need the van today, Matt decided to drive. This is, incidentally, Talia's usual "full day" at school, but since she does not anticipate having homework to do on the first day of class, certainly not enough to fill two 50-minute class periods, she thought it best to bring her bicycle and come home in between her two morning classes and three afternoon ones. Now, the grumble. Mars Hill's uniform requirements are slightly stricter on "essential uniform days" -- Mondays, picture day, field trips... first day of school... Rhetoric school girls are required to wear pantyhose on essential uniform days. The rest of the week they are allowed to wear knee socks, which are in my opinion a much more appropriate option for schoolgirls, but hose it is on essential uniform days. And knee-highs will not work, because though the uniform skirt is, on Talia, a bit below the knee, it is not long enough to guarantee no risk of unsightly gaps. Talia and I spent more than one weary hour looking for pantyhose last week. Target had the right size and shade but they were $10 a pair. (?!?!?!) No way I am paying that much for pantyhose for a 12-year-old when I know perfectly well that even on an adult woman they need to be considered a basically disposable garment. Walmart had cheaper pantyhose. 3 pairs for about $4 in two different brands, or, even better, another rack of single pairs for a dollar. Unfortunately, they had every variety of size and color except the one we needed. Imagine, if you will, this shopping trip. Twelve year old girl, extremely anxious to be perfectly prepared for school. Pregnant mommy, extremely anxious to get all shopping done with and get out of Walmart and home so she can put her feet up. Toddler and preschooler, thankfully contained in the shopping cart. Mid-sized brothers, dragged along for the ride because Daddy's at work and looking to amuse themselves. There were no pantyhose at all in the girl's section of the store, and Talia will only fit into the smallest of ladies' sizes. The right color was easily located in every size but the one we needed. The right size was discovered, with a bit more effort, in every color but the one we needed. (By now twelve-year-old girl and pregnant mommy are both extremely frustrated. Toddler is fussing because he can't reach any of the display racks to empty them. Three-year old is bored and trying to open all items already in the cart with her. Five and ten year old boys have found four empty clear plastic pantyhose "eggshells" and put them on their eyes to make themselves look silly.) With much difficulty, we found a Walmart employee to aid us in her search. After she checked (again) all the racks that we had already checked, she confirmed that we were correct. With literally hundreds of packages of other sizes and colors in stock, Walmart was out of size A nude hose. In the cheap brands, that is. She did find one single package of the $4 a pair variety. Now we have a difference of opinion. Pregnant mommy thinks that we should buy the $1 / pair hose in "suntan". Twelve-year-old girl insists that the uniform guidelines call for "nude" and that she will get in trouble ("on the first day of school") for wearing the wrong shade. Pregnant mommy points out that there is not more than a hair's breadth of difference betweeen "nude" and "suntan" anyway and that if any of the teachers want to call that a uniform infraction her good opinion of this school will be greatly lowered. Twelve-year-old girl insists again that the uniform guidelines don't say "nude or suntan", they just say "nude". Pregnant mommy stews internally about the ridiculousness of putting twelve-year girls in garments that are intended to cover their legs while making it look as if they aren't covering their legs and suggests that twelve-year-old-girl could use her own money to buy the more expensive pair. Twelve-year-old girl suddenly has a change of heart. She is not going to spend $4 of perfectly good money on "a pair of stockings that are probably going to get a run in them the first time I wear them anyway!" Mommy buys two pair of "suntan" and leaves Walmart with a thankful heart, a twelve-year-old who is still sure she's going to get written up for uniform violation on the first day of school, a cranky toddler, a cranky preschooler, and two boys with googly eyes. Fast forward to this morning. When Talia rides her bicycle, she will not, of course, ride in pantyhose and dress shoes. She will carry them in her backpack, wear white socks and running shoes, and change when she gets to school. This morning, however, Matt was driving, so she dressed in her essential uniform, hose, shoes, and all, and put the running shoes and white socks in her backpack to use later in the day. And then went (on her Daddy's instructions) to get her bike out of the shed and put it in the van so she could ride home mid-day. And got a big smear of bicycle grease on her pantyhose before she'd even left the house. |
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| Posted by Sora at 8 : 11 am | Leave a note {11} | ||
| August 07 2007 | ||
| BABY COUCH POTATOES
I found this article's statistics about the typical American baby and toddler's viewing habits rather alarming. I sometimes forget just how media-sheltered my children are. Just before reading the Time article linked above, I had smiled at this post from the DHM at the Common Room. I have had the experience of being in a room full of people who were all talking about a particular television show which I had never seen and had no interest in... one does feel rather out of place. And it is true that my children are woefully ignorant of the current popular cartoon characters and advertising slogans. But is it really fair to call this "cultural illiteracy?" The shows, the celebrities, and the jingles that are the common coin of popular culture today will all be passé in ten years. What loss is there in being ignorant of a "culture" that is utterly devoid of multi-generational continuity? More... (1189 words) |
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| Posted by Sora at 10 : 55 pm | Leave a note {6} | ||
| July 05 2007 | ||
| 10 YEARS AND 500 WATER BALLOONS
We don't do a lot of "kid birthday parties", but we made an exception for Aedan reaching double digits. Which is why he is now out in the yard, gathering the fragments of 500 water balloons. He and his friends had a great time -- water balloon war, top-your-own individual pizzas, treasure hunt, edible rats (yes, they're 10-year-old boys), and lots of junk food. Aedan asked for Baked Alaska for his birthday cake, which I had never made before. It worked just fine, but having once experienced the novelty of steaming hot meringue and ice cream in the middle there's not much reason to do it again... meringue is better on pie than on ice cream, and there are other cakes that are tastier and hold up better at room temperature. We had the party a day late because we knew many of his friends would have prior family plans for the 4th. Aedan was not impressed that we made him wait the extra day to open his presents. We did not get any pictures, because Aedan had, unbeknownst to us, taken the spare set of camera batteries for his snap circuits set and when the festivities began we discovered the camera was out of power. That sort of thing has been happening a lot lately... which is one reason we haven't put up any new pictures of the house. So, happy birthday to Aedan (a day late). He was born two weeks before his due date, after a 3 hour, painless labor. I'd love to have another one like that, but I'm not counting on it.  |
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| Posted by Sora at 8 : 21 pm | Leave a note {2} | ||
| May 31 2007 | ||
| PROGRESS
We close on the house tomorrow and plan to move our stuff in that evening. After a fairly pleasant trip across the country, the weather here is hot, humid and smoggy. Matt and Talia both have nasty head colds, and I have been having problems with shortness of breath even while resting, probably due to the poor air quality in combination with pregnancy. Our biggest concern right now is that the HVAC company that is supposed to install air conditioning in our new house ASAP once we have possession of it is not returning our calls. This is not a good thing. The van, however, should have working air conditioning later today or tomorrow morning. |
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| Posted by Sora at 11 : 09 am | Leave a note {5} | ||
| May 23 2007 | ||
| GUESS WE DIDN'T REALLY NEED TO WORRY
about getting the air conditioner fixed.  |
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| Posted by Sora at 10 : 01 am | Leave a note {2} | ||
| May 16 2007 | ||
| TRAVELING
It has been very hard to get excited about the upcoming drive across the country. Now, we are excited about our new house and old friends. But when we drove west, we were seeing everything for the first time. With every day we drove, the landscape got more interesting. I spent weeks planning our stops. And we had a really great time. This time, we'll be covering the same ground again. We've already seen all the sights. We can't really alter our route significantly without going many hundreds of miles out of our way, which does not make sense from the perspective of either time or gas prices. Last week Matt took the van to Powell River for some repairs. All winter the fan had been operating only on the highest (and noisiest) setting. We'd been putting up with it, but we knew we'd be running the air conditioning a fair bit during the long drive and didn't want to have to have it on "high" every time -- the fan is so loud on high that you can't even carry on a conversation comfortably. The new fan switch had to be special ordered, and so the van went in again yesterday. Yesterday evening, we discovered that though the fan now worked on all four settings, the switch that directs the air to windshield, face, or feet was behaving most capriciously... and the air conditioning wasn't working at all. So Matt took the van in again this morning. He spent the whole day in Powell River instead of packing. And learned, three days before we leave, that the air conditioner isn't working because the compresser needs to be replaced, and that it is back-ordered, and will take 2-4 weeks to get here. Now I'm really not excited about this drive. |
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| Posted by Sora at 6 : 54 pm | Leave a note {2} | ||
| May 08 2007 | ||
| THE SANDBANKS
We've been trying to spend as much time as possible enjoying this island before we leave in 10 days. Some of the best places are a little hard to get to; this means that you generally have them all to yourself. To get to the sandbanks, you need to park at the end of Oak St. in Gillies Bay and walk along an old logging road. After about a mile, you turn off onto a steep, narrow path through the woods. We leave our stroller here; backpacks are useful if you need to cart diapers, marshmallows and graham crackers and matches, jackets, water bottles, etc. More... (1189 words) |
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| Posted by Sora at 10 : 58 pm | Leave a note {2} | ||
| April 23 2007 | ||
| HOUSE
I had a sucessful, if somewhat exhausting trip. Because the weekend bus schedule does not allow one to leave the Vancouver airport and arrive in Powell River in time to catch the last ferry to Texada, I took a KD Air flight back to the island on Saturday. That was quite an experience -- the plane had 8 seats, including the two in the cockpit, and the views were amazing. We have a contract on this house in downtown Mason, less than three miles from the new Mars Hill school building. It's a 1908 house in an older neighborhood. Don't be fooled by the "2 bedroom" designation in the listing; the house is over 2100 square feet and we won't have any difficulty fitting everyone (we'll probably make two smaller bedrooms out of 1/3 of the 24x24 family room). We still have some details to work out with the seller regarding issues that came up on the inspection, and we need to install air conditioning, but we couldn't be happier with the location or the general condition of the house. |
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| Posted by Sora at 3 : 41 pm | Leave a note {11} | ||
| April 17 2007 | ||
| BABIES AND BAGGAGE
For the first time in -- let's see -- 12 years -- I am flying somewhere without bringing any children with me.* And so, for the first time in 12 years, I don't have any checked baggage. And my one carry-on bag plus laptop case are light enough to lug around miles of airport in relative comfort. I love my one-year-old dearly, and I will be glad to see him again at the end of the week and be smothered in his open-mouthed, toothy kisses. But I did not miss him today, not at all. Not during the six hour bus ride, not on the three ferries, and not during the five hour wait at the Vancouver airport for my first flight. And I definitely won't miss him on the red-eye to Chicago. I don't think any of the other passengers will be sorry he's not there either. *Okay, technically I am bringing one with me. I meant born children. The kind that require lugging of assorted paraphenalia, and frequently are not only unable to lug it themselves, but also need to be carried. |
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| Posted by Sora at 12 : 09 am | Leave a note {2} | ||
| April 16 2007 | ||
| WORTH SEEING
The Portland airport has free WIFI, and so, while it is still fresh in my mind, I can tell you all about a view that is well worth the noisy bumpy ride from Vancouver to Portland in a Dash-8 (one of those little planes that tend to give the impression that they're going to fall apart in midair) to see. If it is a day like today, most of the Pacific Northwest is "overcast". This means that when you reach cruising altitude, you appear to be gliding above a hilly landscape composed entirely of loose white polyester batting. Every now and then a ragged opening below reveals forest or water or streaked brown-and-white mountainside, but for the most part the tops of the clouds are all that you can see for many hundreds of miles. Then, ahead, the snow-covered crest of Mt. Rainer appears, alone, breaking through the clouds. The lowering sun gleams off the snow and throws the blue-grey shadows into sharp relief. The ethereal landscape from which it emerges makes you feel as if you are approaching somewhere other-worldly -- Mt. Olympus, perhaps. A golden city crowning the summit would not seem out of place. I didn't have a camera with me, but -- thank you Google -- this guy did. His last photo gives the best impression of the peak above the clouds, but the sun was due west of the peak and just barely above the clouds when I was looking out my window, and the mountain was a thing of shining splendor. |
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| Posted by Sora at 11 : 56 pm | Leave a note {1} | ||
| April 14 2007 | ||
THAT POETRY FORM QUIZ EVERYONE'S DOING LATELY
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| Posted by Sora at 8 : 12 pm | Leave a note {0} | ||
| WELL, WELL...
Look who's back. |
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| Posted by Sora at 2 : 17 pm | Leave a note {1} | ||
| April 10 2007 | ||
| HEARING, THEY DO NOT HEAR
Rick Saenz and Mental Multivitamin both linked this Washington Post article, Pearls Before Breakfast, which answers the intriguing question: if one of the world's best violinists performs some of the world's greatest music on one of the world's best violins outside a DC metro station during morning rush hour, will anyone stop and listen to him? This paragraph was particularly telling: There was no ethnic or demographic pattern to distinguish the people who stayed to watch Bell, or the ones who gave money, from that vast majority who hurried on past, unheeding. Whites, blacks and Asians, young and old, men and women, were represented in all three groups. But the behavior of one demographic remained absolutely consistent. Every single time a child walked past, he or she tried to stop and watch. And every single time, a parent scooted the kid away. |
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| Posted by Sora at 3 : 00 pm | Leave a note {6} | ||
| April 04 2007 | ||
| SCATTERED THOUGHTS
Carmon was kind enough to mention me in her list of "thinking bloggers". Since clearly not much thought can be provoked by a blog that has had no new content in a month, I am now compelled to post something. More than anywhere else I've lived, Texada Island makes me acutely aware of the seasons. I've mentioned before how much more noticeable day length changes are at this latitude (the farthest north I've ever lived) and at this time of year the sudden and dramatic return of daylight is delightfully combined with a sudden and dramatic return of sunlight as the winter rains (and clouds and fog) have given way to mostly sunny afternoons. We've been walking every day, and spending as much time as possible at the beach. The fruit trees all around the house (6 apple, 2 pear, 5 plum, 5 cherry, 2 crabapple) are covered in buds (except one of the plums, which is already blossoming.) I am trying to enjoy their beauty and not dwell on the fact that we won't be around to pick any of the fruit this year. I am confident that our return to Cincinnati is the right move for us at this time, but I do wish we could bring the plum trees with us! Matt has delegated me to do the househunting solo. Really solo. I'll be headed for Cincinnati to look for a place for us in less than two weeks. Air travel into the US from another country now requires a passport, and Isaiah, who is 15 months old, hasn't got one, so I won't even be bringing the baby along with me. I'm not sure what I'm going to do for a week with no husband or children. (Besides find us a place to live, of course.) We would really like to find a place with 5 acres or more (the better to plant some plum trees, and have another cow eventually.) Unfortunately, it appears that our budget will require a compromise between land and proximity to the school, at least initially. We hope that by buying less house than we can afford as close to the school as possible now, we'll be able to buy bare land within a half hour drive in the next few years and re-inact the "Texada lifestyle" -- well, as much as is possible in a place a full 10 degrees of latitude further south, with no beach, no mountains, and no ferry. Building our own house and having a cow and chickens, a garden and an orchard should be attainable. I'm probably going to shut down the baking business completely in the next two weeks (before going househunting), the better to focus on packing and moving when I get back. Some of my regular customers, aware of this, have been stocking their freezers. I made 6 dozen bagels this morning. One of these loyal bagel fans works for the ferry. Some months ago, her family started adding my ginger scones to their regular order, every single week. She told me that on a particularly rough day at work (January weather can be nasty in the strait), the high winds and rough waves had upset her stomach. The ginger scones had been the only thing she could keep down. Ginger scones are very tasty, but I'm not sure I can really market them as a cure for sea-sickness. They don't seem to work for morning sickness. |
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| Posted by Sora at 5 : 07 pm | Leave a note {15} | ||
| March 04 2007 | ||
| LENTEN HYMN
Wilt thou forgive the sin where I begun Which is my sin though it were done before? Wilt thou forgive those sins, through which I run And do run still, though still I do deplore? When thou hast done, thou hast not done, for I have more. Wilt thou forgive that sin by which I've won Others to sin and made my sin their door? Wilt thou forgive that sin which I did shun A year or two, but wallowed in a score? When thou hast done, thou hast not done, for I have more. I have a sin of fear that when I've spun my last thread, I shall perish on the shore. Swear by thyself that at my death thy Son shall shine as He shines now and heretofore: And having done, that thou hast done, I fear no more Words: John Donne (1573-1631) Music: Donne, melody John Hilton (1599-1657) Probably they've sung this at least once in the last couple Sundays in the REC church we attended in Cincinnati. This song is one of the reasons we needed to get a copy of the Anglican Hymnal 1982 after we moved (it isn't in any of our other hymnals.) |
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| Posted by Sora at 11 : 02 pm | Leave a note {4} | ||
| January 25 2007 | ||
| A SWEATER FOR TALIA
Practically the whole time I was working on Matt's sweater, I was getting grief from Talia because I refused to start her sweater until I'd finished his. My original plan had been to design her sweater myself, with a cabled tree on the front. I did some sketching and swatching, enough to realize that charting my own orginal tree was going to take a really big chunk of time that would not be able to be used for knitting. Big chunks of time are pretty hard to come by in these parts. So I consulted with Talia and we decided that the sweater that had originally inspired this idea was good enough, with the overwhelming advantage of being already charted and using an existing pattern. So I made my own Rogue with a tree and it turned out very nicely. At least, Talia hasn't taken it off since I finished it yesterday. 
I don't think any of the pictures I took of Talia's sweater came out as well as the pictures of Matt's which I posted, but in person, the sweater is quite as charming and was just as fun to knit. The only thing that gave me pause was grafting the hood, and only until I realized, after minutely studying close-ups of other people's Rogue hood-grafts on the net, that no, I wasn't doing anything wrong, grafted cables in pattern just were half a stitch off and this would be almost un-noticeable after I finished. I wish some of the online guides to grafting had bothered to mention this minor detail. I was a month late for Christmas, but I excuse myself for this because in between starting Talia's sweater in November and finishing it in January, I gave up quite a few of my knitting hours to a present for my dad, which was affectionately refered to during production as "socks for Hagrid." |
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| Posted by Sora at 1 : 40 am | Leave a note {14} | ||
| January 12 2007 | ||
| ALONG THE BRINY BEACH
It has been sunny and very cold for the last few days. Clear skies are a bit of a rarity around here at this time of year, so we try to take full advantage of them. It is dark early, which means stargazing on the way too and from the milking shed after supper -- in the summer it is warm and almost always clear but it doesn't get dark until very late. The night sky over Texada is incredible. There are no electric lights to speak of and the heavens declare the glory more fully and with less competition than anywhere else I've ever been. This afternoon we went walking on the nature trail at Shelter Point park. We've been intending to bring the camera along on one of these walks for a long time now, today we finally managed it. More... (1189 words) |
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| Posted by Sora at 10 : 53 pm | Leave a note {1} | ||
| January 07 2007 | ||
| MODERNITY AND THE EVANESCENSE OF TIME
I wanted to write a really cogent, well-considered blog post that would draw together our rejection of the Malthusian "world of limited resources" mentality while recognizing that time is, in this life, our most drastically "limited" resource. We each have only 60 minutes in each of 24 hours in each of a number of days that will certainly come to an end that we cannot prevent or control. And at some point after childhood, one realizes that one's mortality means the inability to do, to learn, to accomplish all that is good and worthwhile. What we choose to do also determines what we choose not to do. I wanted to tie this in with thoughts about the modern-industrial paradigm that has applied its relentless efficiency to the mass-production, systematizing, and marketing of nearly every area of life. We have chosen to use many of our precious limited hours in creating for ourselves things that, in this modern time, are nearly always purchased ready-made off the assembly line. I spent hundreds of hours last year knitting a sweater instead of buying my husband a $24.99 Walmart special. I just ate a slice of rye bread made with a starter which took me three weeks to develop and requires regular attention and feeding, and a dough aged for 24 hours before being baked in a wood-fired outdoor oven that took a month to build, which needs to be fired for several hours before baking. I spread my bread with butter I made this morning from cream skimmed off the milk my husband brought in in a stainless steel pail yesterday morning. And so on and so forth. Perhaps the most important areas in which we have chosen to return to the slow, careful, creative efforts of the individual or family rather than the quick, cheap, identical "product" of a "system" are those involving our children: their births, early care, education, and general upbringing. We do these things because we believe that the areas in which we have chosen to focus our attention are areas in which an immeasurably superior result can be achieved by the investment of individual time and care, because we value those results more than the things that store-bought bread and butter or Wal-mart sweaters or institutional child care would free us to do or enjoy. Alas, I do not feel like I will ever have the time to write what I really want to on this subject. So I will leave my rough thoughts for others to run with, and end with this quote that Matt found me, from the 14th-century English mystic devotional classic, "The Cloud of Unknowing" (link to be added): Be very careful how you spend your time. There is nothing more precious. In the twinkling of an eye, heaven may be won or lost. God shows that time is precious, for He never gives two moments of time side by side, but always in succession. To do otherwise, He would have to alter the whole course of creation. Time is made for man, not man for time. And God, who orders nature, fitted time in with the nature of man, and man's natural impulses occur one at a time. Man will have no excuse before God at the day of judgment when he gives account of how he spent his time. He cannot say, "Thou dost give two times at once, when I have but one impulse at the same moment." |
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| Posted by Sora at 2 : 23 am | Leave a note {22} | ||
| November 29 2006 | ||
| AND WE FORGOT THE CAMERA
We went to Sechelt over the weekend to visit the paedocommunionist Reformed church closest to us. We were just there two weeks ago, but wanted to seize the opportunity to go again while the cow is dry; after she freshens it will be hard to get away. Going to Sechelt involves taking a ferry to Powell River, driving for about half an hour, taking another ferry to the lower part of the Sunshine Coast and then driving for another hour and a half or so along an incredibly scenic bit of coastal highway, with lots of steep grades and sharp curves. Because the ferries aren't terribly well coordinated it takes quite a bit longer than you'd think if you just looked at a map. The visits are always worth it, though. One couple in the church very kindly puts their guest cottage at our disposal so that we don't need to make the drive twice in one day, and the fellowship as well as the worship service always make us wish that we could be there every week. We had intended to come back Sunday night but snow and poor road conditions made us think again. The weekend we'd chosen turned out to provide very unusual weather for these parts: heavy snow followed by record cold. (Remember those steep grades and sharp curves, that it gets dark at 4:30 p.m., and that we have no snow tires, no 4-wheel drive, and 5 kids in the van...) We decided to stay an extra night and go home Monday morning, when we could make the drive in daylight and, hopefully, the snow would have cleared up. Our attempt to leave on Monday was thwarted: the snow had continued heavily, the highway had taken priority and the minor streets had not been cleared at all, and our van could not make it up the unplowed hill to get to the highway. It was left by the side of the road while we retreated to the guest cottage for another night. This was not a terribly hardship, more of an inconvenience. Matt doesn't start work at the quarry for another week, so he wasn't missing it; we had good neighbors to come over and feed our cow, and our patient host, having carted us home from our crippled bus in his 4wd truck, fed and cared for us in an exemplary manner, cooking us some excellent meals and playing cards with our kids. Today the streets had been plowed, and though the highway itself wasn't as clear as we might have hoped, we made it safely back the the ferry and home. The sun even came out, making the crossing from Earl's Cove to Saltery Bay between hills of snow-covered fir the most beautiful we've ever seen. No camera, alas. We arrived home to a rare snow-covered vista, a contented cow, and a very cold house with frozen water pipes. The woodstove is making everything warm and cozy now, everyone had hot chocolate, and the kids thought melting snow for washing and flushes was great fun. A thawing of the line is in order tomorrow, however: the laundry beckons. |
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| Posted by Sora at 1 : 19 am | Leave a note {3} | ||
| November 09 2006 | ||
| IN WHICH I BRIEFLY PRETEND THIS IS A KNITTING BLOG
Way back in January, I started knitting a sweater for Matt. I got a fair bit done while Isaiah was still small enough that I could nurse and knit at the same time. Then he got big and squirmy... and we put our house on the market... and moved... and got a cow... and started a bakery... etc etc. Suffice it to say I did very little knitting between April and October. Every time we were in the car and Matt was driving I knit a row or two, but this didn't happen often. Then the weather got cold and dark, and we started spending evenings reading aloud around the woodstove. I finished the back of the sweater last week (the front had been done since... oh... March at least?) and put on a burst of speed with the sleeves and collar and today: 
It's all done. 
It is supposed to be his Christmas present but he's not letting me keep it from him that long. The design is "St Enda" from Alice Starmore's Aran Knitting. The wool is Wensleydale from Mrs. Butler's stash. |
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| Posted by Sora at 10 : 28 pm | Leave a note {16} | ||
| November 04 2006 | ||
ALL DONE (EXCEPT THE DISHES...)
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| Posted by Sora at 3 : 11 pm | Leave a note {2} | ||
| OVEN WARMING
Well, it stopped raining shortly after noon, giving us time to set up our outdoor area around the oven (with tarps over the tables!) and get the fire going. It started raining again shortly after 6:00 PM -- minutes after the last people had left. (Our open house was from 4:00 - 6:00.) I made 19 pizzas, and could have made more if they had been wanted. I didn't get an accurate headcount of how many people showed up -- I was busy making pizzas! -- but there was a steady stream for the two hours, three people bought whole pizzas to take home in addition to eating our free by-the-slice on site. Talia sold soft drinks. She has become very salesmanlike since her first lemonade-selling endeavor during our moving sale from Cincinnati, during which she was somewhat shy and reserved. After a summer of helping during the farmer's market, she knows how to meet a customer's eye and let them know what she has to offer! Both Talia and Aedan were extremely helpful, prepping ingredients, doing clean-up, answering the telephone, and taking care of younger children. I was very proud of them. The hit of the evening was the white pizza -- tweaked with less cheese and lots of fresh garlic and oregano. I made at least five of them, topped variously with olives, mushrooms (several of these, my personal favorite), sausage. Everyone loved them and several commented that they would not have ordered the white pizza just from the description but now that they had tasted it they would be back for more! We need to get a light for the fence/gate so that people will be able to see our sign in the dark -- it is dark by 5:00 now. We have lights for the oven area, but they can't be easily seen from the road nor do they light people's way from their car to their pizza. It started raining so promptly when our event was over that it was impossible not to think that the rain had been deliberately withheld from our area of Texada for those few hours just for our sole benefit. :-) I have four baking times each week: two mornings for breads and bagels, and two evenings (Monday and Friday) for pizza. Friday night and Saturday morning are the crunch times, because they are the two baking days that are back to back. After cleaning up from the pizza, I had 6 different batches of dough to make and proof overnight. Then we were up at 5:00; Matt is firing the oven again, and I have to make 4 sourdough boules, 6 loaves of rye, 6 loaves of whole wheat, 3 loaves of potato cheese, 3 loaves of sunflower-raisin, 2 dozen white bagels, 2 dozen whole wheat bagels, and 2 dozen scones before lunch time. |
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| Posted by Sora at 9 : 00 am | Leave a note {3} | ||
| November 03 2006 | ||
| RAIN ON THE JUST AND THE UNJUST
Tomorrow afternoon is supposed to be the big grand opening oven warming publicity event that will make everyone on Texada Island want to buy my pizza. The response to our ad has been very good. I have enough dough made for 30 pizzas, though I'm not sure I can actually make that many in two hours (we'll see, I guess...) What I don't have yet is any roof over my oven area. Why, oh why could we not have moved faster and been ready to do this last month, before daylight savings time and before the rainy season hit. For it is raining now, it is raining hard, and the weather forecasts do not give me any hope that it will let up even for a few hours tomorrow afternoon so that I can give away pizza without being drenched. |
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| Posted by Sora at 3 : 00 am | Leave a note {0} | ||
| October 21 2006 | ||
| THE RIGHT TOOL FOR THE JOB
While I was in "the big city" last week (hey, Ruth, couldn't you have found my blog a few days earlier?) I picked up two pizza peels at a restaurant supply store. Yesterday I tried them out, making half a dozen 12-inch pizzas. The new peels worked beautifully. The whole process was greatly improved compared to our previous test runs with a makeshift homemade peel (which did not permit the maneuvering of anything larger than an 8-inch individual pizza.) The brick oven also worked beautifully, baking each pizza to perfection in just 3 minutes. Lots of fun to watch. This morning after another 3 hours of firing I'm baking sourdough breads and bagels for bakery customers. The farmer's market is over for the year, and I am baking to order; hoping to offer pizza for sale once a week very soon but haven't advertised it yet. I'm still definitely in the learning phase with the retained heat, wood-fired baking, but so far the results have been mostly excellent, I've always been able to fill my orders with high-quality product, and we eat the mistakes. |
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| Posted by Sora at 12 : 46 pm | Leave a note {1} | ||
| October 16 2006 | ||
| QUIET
I came down to Victoria with the baby on Saturday, after baking 4 dozen bagels and 8 loaves of sourdough bread. Two ferries and 4 hours later, I discovered that the city bus in Comox will not work to get one from ferry terminal to train station on the weekend (I had known that was true on Sunday, but hoped to avoid a taxi by going on Saturday... nope.) When we got to the train station, I discovered that the train to Victoria had left an hour and a half before I got there... I had been looking at the Sunday train schedule, which is two hours later than the rest of the week. Luckily my taxi had not left, the bus station was nearby, and I made the bus with 10 minutes to spare. I have done some needed clothes shopping for the kids -- one of my least favorite activities, but Victoria has good second-hand stores and the boys especially are growing out of everything. I'm stocking up on all the groceries that are cheaper or just unavailable up on Texada. Tomorrow morning early, I will drive my parents' truck -- with a trailer full of plants being moved from my mom's Victoria garden -- back up the island, hopefully to be home by late afternoon. My parents, meanwhile, will be sailing their boat to its new winter berth in Powell River. They'll probably get to Texada a day or two after I do. In the meantime, things are awfully quiet around here. Isaiah is teething and a little fussier than usual, but there's only one of him. |
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| Posted by Sora at 3 : 53 pm | Leave a note {1} | ||
| September 09 2006 | ||
| DIFFERENT THERMOMETERS
I just came in from working in the garden in the pleasant cool of the evening (in short sleeves) to find that Matt (in long sleeves) has a roaring fire in the woodstove. I have seated myself at the other end of the house and opened several windows. |
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| Posted by Sora at 10 : 57 pm | Leave a note {1} | ||
| September 05 2006 | ||
| WILD TEXADA YEAST
About a week ago, I started a sourdough starter from scratch. The kids have been watching me feed it every day, some with interest, others with skepticism. (Talia is particularly suspicious of "unusual" foods.) Yesterday morning I judged that the starter was mature enough to try out and I mixed up a first experimental dough. Nothing in it but my one-week-old flour-and-water starter, more flour and water, and salt. (I had used rye flour initially, then fed the starter with whole wheat; the bread dough included whole wheat, unbleached white, and rye flour.) The dough rose slowly all day. I punched it down before we left to spend a few hours at a lake in the afternoon and was pleased with how much it had expanded when we returned at 5:30. I shaped it into a boule and let it rise again in a colander lined with a floured towel (for lack of a proper banneton). It went in the oven around 8:00. 
I'm afraid we didn't let it cool very long. Zek'l's assessment: "This bread isn't sour! It's yummy!" It was fantastic, possibly the best bread I've ever made. Mellow and flavorful, with a particularly delicious crust (despite not having been baked in the brick oven, which isn't finished yet... I can't wait to taste the bread from the new oven.) We spread fresh home-made butter on it and savored every bite. Even Talia declared it excellent. I will, however, have to make much bigger batches to be able to make any assessment of its keeping qualities. |
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| Posted by Sora at 12 : 19 pm | Leave a note {6} | ||
| August 31 2006 | ||
| DON'T CRY OVER SPILLED...
no, it wasn't the milk. There is a cupboard above my deep freezer which my mom had almost filled with empty canning jars before I got here. When we moved in, I put my cookbooks on one shelf, since it is conveniently close to the kitchen. And over the last few weeks, I'd been gradually replacing empty jars with full ones. Yesterday, I proudly observed that I now had 12 750 ml jars of blackberry syrup and 21 500 ml jars of crabapple jelly stored away. (I am not finished processing crabapples yet, but the blackberries are almost done, and I wish I'd picked more a week or two ago when they were at their peak; my family can easily go through a jar of blackberry syrup in the course of two pancake breakfasts.) Just before bedtime, we sat in the living room doing family worship. Matt was reading from Proverbs. All of a sudden we heard a tremendous crash over near the woodstove. For a moment I thought the skylight had fallen in. Then the sickening realization dawned. My jam cupboard had left the wall and landed ungracefully face downwards on top of the deep freezer. Imagine, if you will, dear reader, the resulting mess of broken glass, dripping syrup and oozing jelly. Imagine, if you will, the hours of work and the blackberr-picking scratches, all wasted. The lid of my deep freezer now sports a pale purple stain, and several cookbooks appear to have been dipped in ink. Amazingly, many of the jars, both full and empty, were intact, but we lost 4 jars of blackberries and 4 of crabapple jelly. Enough survived that it is a bit of a challenge to find another place to put them all. |
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| Posted by Sora at 9 : 28 am | Leave a note {6} | ||
| July 22 2006 | ||
| NOT SWEATING?
Before Upsaid's comment sytem became impregnable, Samantha expressed envy of the cool coastal climate I am currently enjoying. It is true that last week we all needed jackets at the beach. It is true that we have next to no humidity, pleasant ocean breezes, and that even on the hottest days here, it is very pleasant and comfortable in the shade. Yesterday, however, it hit 90. The house we're living in has a lovely passive solar design, with many, many south facing windows and skylights. It does not, of course, have air conditioning (few, if any, houses do around here; there are only a few days each year when you'd even want it.) It does not have so much as an attic fan (no attic). At the moment, most of the screens are missing, making it difficult to leave the windows open in the cool of the evening without getting mosquito bitten (daytime is usually not a problem, but we have some bugs at dusk). It is not possible to cover the windows during the day right now, because all of the curtains are down while Matt paints the living room. I intended to spend all day yesterday baking things to sell today at the expanded, Sandcastle Weekend farmer's market. I had intended to make rolled, cut out, sandcastle shaped cookies -- about 400 of them, in 4 different flavors. I had mixed up dough for that many. The kind of cookie dough you chill in the fridge before rolling and cutting out. The kind of cookie dough that is generally made at Christmastime, rather than July. I couldn't bear to turn the oven on during the day. I waited until it got dark to start baking, and continued, dripping sweat, until midnight. I discovered that making rolled, cut out cookies in a 90+ is almost impossible, even when you chill your dough, chill your cookie sheets, chilll your cookie sheets with the dough on them after rolling it out and before removing the dough around the cutouts, etc... It was taking me half an hour to make 4-6 cookies. I changed my game plan and invented a refridgerator-cookie with a scallop-shell impression on top, which worked... kind of. I stopped at midnight because the baby wouldn't go to sleep without me, and I was sweatier and more exhausted than I remember being in a very long time. I got up again before 5:00 to bake some more. |
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| Posted by Sora at 10 : 39 am | Leave a note {4} | ||
| July 19 2006 | ||
| FRESH PASTA
The pasta attachment for my Bosch, which was back-ordered when I got all my other goodies a week and a half ago, arrived today. I didn't have any durum wheat, so I decided to just use unbleached white flour for my first experiments. Isaiah complicated things by waking up in desperate need of his mommy as soon as I had started kneading the dough, but other than that, things went smoothly. I tried out all the different disks in turn, making shells, macaroni, penne, and thick and thin spaghetti, and then fed the shapes I'd made back through the machine to make 1/2 inch wide flat ribbon noodles for dinner. This was a lot of fun and the kids loved watching the machine spit out the different shapes, though I suppose I'll regret it when it comes time to wash all the disks. While the water boiled, I made a quick sauce by sauteing a clove of minced garlic in two tablespoons of butter, adding basil, salt and pepper, and two diced fresh tomatoes with their juice, and letting it all simmer for the 3 minutes it took the noodles to cook. It was a hit. Our dinner wasn't a complete locavore triumph: the eggs as well as the flour for the pasta were from the store because we'd eaten all our homegrown eggs for lunch; the tomatoes, butter, and avocado and apple for the salad were likewise produced off the island. But all the salad greens were home-grown, and once we have tomatoes in our garden and a cow this would be a menu that could be almost 100% homegrown. (I'm not planning to grow wheat, or make my own sea salt at this point... though I have thought about trying the fresh-sea-water method of making tofu.) Because the new toy is an attachment to the Bosch's meat grinder and not a pasta machine proper, it does not roll out sheets of dough such as one would use for lasagna noodles or any stuffed pasta; that could be done by hand with a rolling pin I suppose but I doubt I'll be trying it soon. I can make a lot of different shapes very quickly and easily with what I have. What I will be trying is whole-grain pasta (as soon as I get some durum wheat), spinach pasta (as soon as my spinach gets big enough... hmmm... maybe I should use nettles...), and rainbow striped pasta (beet, carrot, spinach, and plain dough all in the feed tube together!). |
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| Posted by Sora at 9 : 02 pm | Leave a note {2} | ||
| July 16 2006 | ||
| BAKING FOR THE MARKET
Several hours today were spent getting ready for market tomorrow. I sold out of bread last week, so I'm making more this time: 6 loaves of potato cheddar and 4 or 5 of cinnamon-raisin (6 turned out to be a little too much dough to comfortably knead in the Bosch). The potato cheddar dough is made and in the fridge ready to bake tomorrow, as is the dough for the bagels, which were also popular last time. I made another batch of granola, and some single-serving sized cheesecake tarts - something I didn't have last week. Other new offerings will be focaccia with fresh oregano and parmesan, and chocolate almond biscotti (which I made yesterday). I also made another sandcastle cake, for display only: next weekend is Texada's "Sandcastle Weekend" and I'm hoping to drum up some pre-orders for cakes. Matt also made me a sandcastle cookie cutter. Wasn't that clever of him? I had to test it out, of course, but I only made a few cookies today as I won't be selling them until next week. 
Tomorrow morning: mix dough for the raisin bread, bake the potato cheese bread, shape, boil and bake the bagels, mix dough for focaccia, bake the raisin bread, bake the focaccia, make a fruit topping for the cheesecakes, put labels on everything, make another sign (that part is Matt's job), and load everything into the van by 11:45. I didn't spend all day baking; though: there was time to spend an hour on the beach, read a bunch of books to the kids, pick greens from the garden for salad (and kill a few evil slugs), hang laundry on the line and take it down again, laugh at Isaiah's antics, and spend too much time on the computer reading the family cow message board. Things that were not priorities today: making my bed (I left Isaiah asleep in it when I got up and never went back upstairs all day; Matt brought the baby down when he started fussing) cleaning anything (except the kitchen... I did wash an awful lot of dishes), cooking real meals (we ate leftovers for dinner and fried eggs with toast for lunch; Matt made breakfast), and putting away the laundry (hey, at least it got washed and folded.) |
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| Posted by Sora at 1 : 22 am | Leave a note {7} | ||
| May 20 2006 | ||
| SEPARATING THE KIDS FROM THE GOATS
We are on our way home from a going-away party held for us by one of the Mars Hill families, the Howards. A delightful time was had by all. The Howards have goats and all of my kids except Isaiah spent a large part of the afternoon in the pen with the goats. Talia got to try her hand at milking and Talia, Naomi, and Ezekiel all helped bottle-feed the two baby goats (Aedan would have done so as well, but he had hurt his hand falling off a gate in the goat pen and was temporarily out of commission.) 
Matt was not terribly interested in the goats. He played hard all afternoon: basketball, cornhole, more basketball, football, and more basketball with his students. Talia has wanted a goat for some time. I am much more interested in a cow (I want a mini-Jersey) and maybe some sheep. After today she is more determined than ever that she wants a goat. My mom's roses had better watch out.  |
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| Posted by Sora at 9 : 16 pm | Leave a note {1} | ||
| May 15 2006 | ||
| DILIGENT HANDS WILL RULE
With two weeks of school left, Aedan has been running out of steam. He asked last night if he could just be homeschooled for the rest of the year, and failing that, if he could just stay home today (Monday). I told him that if he was at home, I'd make him work, but that didn't faze him. I can't blame him, really; he does not get enough sleep and has to get up at 6:00 a.m. every day to drive to school with Matt. By the time the rest of the family is up Matt and Aedan are usually gone. Anyway, at 6:00 a.m. he managed to look blear-eyed and miserable enough (he has had a cold for what seems like almost the entire school year) that Matt let him go back to bed and take a "sick day". Aedan enjoyed his extra sleep and was chipper and cheerful during our later morning breakfast and family worship. And, true to my word, I made him work. He wasn't able to do any of his schoolwork until Matt brought it home, and I think he'd been hoping to spend most of the day playing, but except for an hour or so lunch break I kept him busy in the house and out in the yard all day. He was waxing downright poetic at lunch. "It's a strange thing," he announced, "but when I'm lazy, I'm unhappy for no reason, and when I'm diligent, I'm happy for no reason." I raised my eyebrows. "Well, actually, there is a reason," he admitted. "I don't think I've ever been as diligent as I was this morning. And I've never deserved my broccoli soup more!" Yes, son, God made you to work, and the satisfaction of a job well done is a pleasure to be savored. As is the rest and good food afterward. We had a good talk about his tendency to find "lions in the streets" and "hedges of thorns" in his work too. I was glad to see him identifying the poor fruits of sluggardly behavior of his own accord. It is good to see him growing in wisdom as well as stature. |
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| Posted by Sora at 8 : 14 pm | Leave a note {4} | ||
| April 23 2006 | ||
MY CHILDREN
The sense of ownership in general is always to be encouraged. The humans are always putting up claims to ownership which sound equally funny in Heaven and in Hell, and we must keep them doing so. Much of the modern resistance to chastity comes from men's belief that they "own" their bodies -- those vast and perilous estates, pulsating with the energy that made the worlds, in which they find themselves without their consent and from which they are ejected at the pleasure of Another! The great lie of our culture's assumptions about childbearing, contraception, and abortion is that we as parents or potential parents are as God, determining good and evil, with the power of life or death. But the lie does not stop with the illusion of a decision to grant or not to grant life to a child. Some time ago, I found myself pondering the question of why it was so much easier for me to be patient with the sins of other people's children than with my own -- even when the parents were not present and would likely never know how patient or impatient I had been with the child they had temporarily entrusted to my care. When alone with them, relatively minor and temporal annoyances from my own flesh and blood might betray me into loss of temper, but much worse behavior was dealt with calmly, patiently, and irreproachably if the child in question were not my own. There are many causes one might bring to bear on such a question, but what flashed through my mind was the sudden and life-changing insight that my loss of temper over my children's sins was symptomatic of great self-deception. That these were, in fact, not my children, and that the Father who had entrusted them to me was entirely and constantly aware of the quality of my care for them. |
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| Posted by Sora at 9 : 59 pm | Leave a note {4} | ||
| April 13 2006 | ||
| A MONKEYWRENCH IN THE WORKS
For a small seder (say, 12-15 people) I make a chocolate-nut-whipped-cream torte for which I am indebted to Rachel, my roommate back at the time of my first independent seder. It has no flour, only ground nuts, cocoa, sugar, and egg whites, and is incredibly delicious. I plan to reinvent it next year with Splenda and sugar-free dark-chocolate ganache for my mother, who no longer eats sugar. For a large seder, I make crustless cheesecake in huge quantities. I've made 10 pounds of cheesecake at a time so often now that I have it down to a smooth, seamless routine. Cream cheese and sugar in the food processor. Eggs, one at a time, through the feed tube. Scrape down the sides. Vanilla, lemon juice, pulse twice. Sour cream, blend until smooth. Pour into pan, repeat. So I'm sailing along, one 5-lb cheesecake baking in its hot water bath (keeps the edges from getting dry) the next one in process. Cream cheese and sugar in the food processor. Eggs, one at a time, through the feed tube... Half an eggshell into the feed tube... with the food processor running... Of course, I had exactly enough cream cheese on hand for the amount of cheesecake I was planning to make and no margin for error, or for itty bitty ground up bits of eggshell in the food processor. So I had to pack up the babies and truck down to the store for more. It's a good thing Aldi's only 5 minutes away. |
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| Posted by Sora at 12 : 51 pm | Leave a note {2} | ||
| PESACH
I was never a terribly observant Jew. My family observed the Jewish holidays when I was a kid, but we didn't keep kosher (we were vegetarians, so there wouldn't have been much point anyway) or go to synagogue. I don't think we ever got rid of all the chametz for all 8 days of Passover (correct me if I'm wrong about this, mom) and once we even had a big pot of mussels (from friends who had a mussel farm, when we lived in Nova Scotia) as part of our seder meal. After I left home, I sometimes wound up at my mother's or grandmother's at Passover time and sometimes I didn't and I really didn't think much about it. But the first year after I had become a Christian, I looked at my mother's Haggadah and remembered all those childhood seders and thought to myself, "This is amazing! It's so incredibly obviously all about Jesus!" That year I hosted my first seder, for 12 people from the house group I was in at my church (and my roommates) and wrote and printed a Haggadah for us to use (which I keep meaning to revise and haven't gotten around to yet, though I've given away so many copies since then that I only have 2 or 3 left of the 50 I printed that year). Every year since, I've organized at least one and sometimes more than one seder meal for anywhere from 8 to 50 people. The past three years I've taken charge of our REC church's seder, which is held on Maundy Thursday regardless of what the Hebrew calendar says (usually not too far off, but last year pretty amusing) and uses a Haggadah published by the REC which is, in my opinion, a little too heavy on the New Testament additions to the service. Lucky for me, I'm married to a Gentile who thinks that not even the Sabbath is an abiding ordinance, so keeping kosher and getting the house ready for Passover is not a concern at all. And I am now so far from being observant that, dashing out to the store for a few last minute things this morning, I picked up doughnuts for my kids' breakfast. Not quite as bad as last year. Last year, I forgot the charoset (for 50 people, remember) at home and had to pick up nuts and apples and borrow a food processor to make more in a hurry at church. So I came home to huge quantities of charoset -- and made up a charoset coffeecake, flour, baking powder, and all. It wasn't kosher for Passover, but it was pretty tasty. |
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| Posted by Sora at 12 : 40 pm | Leave a note {3} | ||
| April 04 2006 | ||
| TOO BAD WE'RE LEAVING TOO SOON TO DO THIS
I always thought it would be neat to get Jamie Soles to comegive a concert in Cincinnati, where he has a growing following among Mars Hill Academy families. Maybe one of them will pick up the idea and run with it. |
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| Posted by Sora at 1 : 20 pm | Leave a note {0} | ||
| April 01 2006 | ||
| OOPS
Probably most bloggers compose posts in their heads as they go about other tasks. The "top five" things I'll miss and not miss was mostly composed in the van, picking up books from the library drive-up window, thinking, "I'm going to miss this library", and then thinking about the other things I would and wouldn't miss about Cincinnati. At the time, I had composed in my head a very lengthy tribute to my inlaws, who have been living within driving distance for the last year. They have been generous with babysitting and hardly a weekend has gone by that we have not enjoyed at least one meal that I didn't have to cook or clean up from (what a blessing) and a rousing game of 6-hand euchre. They are very definitely going to be missed, by all their grandchildren as well as by Matt and myself. However, when I sat down to write the post on the computer hours after composing it in my head, I could only think of FOUR of the original five. For whatever unknown reason, Grandpa Mike and Grandma Claudia had dropped into the memory hole at that moment, and I added a lame "Aldi" at the end of the list to make it a top five. It was not my original intention to leave them off, and I am very sorry that I did it. |
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| Posted by Sora at 1 : 41 pm | Leave a note {1} | ||
| March 31 2006 | ||
| TOP FIVE
Things I'll miss when we leave Cincinnati: 1. Our church. Though we don't agree on every little point of doctrine or practice with the Reformed Episcopal church, we have loved and been loved by our local parish over the three years we have been here and it has been a great blessing to us to be part of a joyful, warm-hearted, and faithful congregation. 2. The Mars Hill Academy community. They welcomed us with open arms, and some of the other faculty families have become very good friends. Aedan (and Talia) and Matt will miss their friends, teachers, students, and colleagues respectively. 3. The Hamilton County Public Library. They have a very comprehensive collection, (lots of classic children's books on tape and CD, which the middle kids especially have enjoyed). They also have an easy to use website, and best of all, holds placed online can be picked up at the drive up window of our local branch without taking everybody out of their carseats. 4. The Cincinnati Zoo. We didn't renew our family membership this year, because we're leaving in June, so I already miss it! 5. Having an Aldi less than 5 minutes away. Things I won't miss when we leave: 1. Hot, muggy summers. 2. Traffic. 3. Smog. 4. Our neighborhood of almost-identical 1940s "little boxes made of ticky-tacky" in little rows on little lawns. 5. Having to pack everyone in the van and drive for 15 minutes in order to take a walk. |
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| Posted by Sora at 12 : 22 pm | Leave a note {1} | ||
| March 28 2006 | ||
| FAST CARS
Every now and then, maybe once or twice a year, my husband spends several consecutive evenings on the net finding lots of pictures of fancy sports cars. He puts them on his desktop and makes slideshows in iPhoto with them. He's doing it now. Our sons enjoy watching him do this. I don't share the fascination myself, and find it a rather odd activity to engage in immediately after purchasing a 12-passenger van. |
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| Posted by Sora at 9 : 18 pm | Leave a note {2} | ||
| WORDS FOR GENERATION
This quote arrived in our email inbox recently from Matt Beatty, former Mars Hill headmaster, who thought my Matt would find it useful for his worldview class. I found it quite interesting as well. "Consider the views of life and the world reflected in the following different expressions to describe the process of generating new life. Ancient Israel, impressed with the phenomenon of transmission of life from father to son, used a word we translate as 'begetting' or 'siring.' The Greeks, impressed with the springing forth of new life in the cyclical processes of generation and decay, called it genesis, from a root meaning "to come into being." ... The premodern Christian English-speaking world, impressed with the world as given by a Creator, used the term 'pro-creation.' We, impressed with the machine and the gross national product (our own work of creation), employ a metaphor of the factory, 're-production.'" |
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| Posted by Sora at 8 : 49 pm | Leave a note {0} | ||
| March 22 2006 | ||
| THE PROOF OF THE PUDDING
All the hours, days, and weeks of decluttering and getting rid of stuff was so very worth it. Selling the house quickly was one benefit, of course, though there the lack of clutter must share the glory with Matt's remodeling work and God's merciful hand. But the unexpected advantage was the ability to emerge from several weeks of prolonged illness that struck down even the mama to a relatively tidy house. |
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| Posted by Sora at 2 : 20 pm | Leave a note {0} | ||
| February 28 2006 | ||
| A DAY OF NEAR MISSES
Not only did I manage to break an $800 piece of our van and get my arms covered with little glass cuts, but we also had our first shopping cart accident. Isaiah's rear facing car seat is very close to the rear windshield, since our van has a shorter than usual cargo area. When the windshield shattered, there was glass all over the bags of mulch in the cargo area but, much to my relief, none on the baby. Half an hour later, I had dropped Talia at violin and was picking up groceries near by. The baby, asleep in his car seat, was in the back of the shopping cart and Naomi sitting in the child seat in front of the shopping cart. I took Naomi out to put her in the van, and, while my back was turned, Zek'l tried to climb onto the cart from the side. One wheel was over the curb and he managed to pull the shopping cart over on top of himself, groceries, carseat, and all. Car seats work, I tell you. Zek'l had a bad bump and a cut lip, but Isaiah had not a scratch, although the crash to the parking lot did wake him up. |
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| Posted by Sora at 7 : 30 pm | Leave a note {6} | ||
| February 08 2006 | ||
| FUNNY SONGS
I got my guitar out tonight for the first time in several months. Talia signed me up to do Mom of Constant Laundry at a church talent show this Friday, and I need to practice. I got to run through it once, then ZZ requested his favorites ("Freight Train" and "Casey Jones") and then Isaiah needed me. I'm hoping he'll be asleep in a few minutes, then I'll be able to let Matt or Talia hold him and practice a few more times. My fingers are a bit rusty for public performance right now. I'd really like to play more, especially with my older kids. I'd also like to record some of my other songs for the amusement of my blog readers, if nothing else... I've been meaning to do at least a rough Garage Band version of Destructo-Baby since I wrote it... 16 months ago. Realistically, its not going to happen this month either. |
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| Posted by Sora at 9 : 17 pm | Leave a note {1} | ||
| February 02 2006 | ||
| MY BABY HATES KNITTING
I accept that I'm not going to be one of those knitters who finds hours and hours a day to work on their current project(s), not with 5 kids and a house going on the market in a month. But I thought that it wasn't unreasonable to knit for, say, half an hour to an hour after going to bed, when house projects are done for the day and all the kids are asleep. Isaiah had other ideas last night. Now, I can knit while I'm nursing, but I'm not talented enough to knit while a baby is lying on my chest sucking on my pinky finger, and certainly not while giving him a tour of the house because he's decided the darkened room isn't providing enough intellectual stimulation. I have, however, more lasting power and stamina than a 5 week old baby. I know he must fall asleep eventually, with enough pacing and sucking, while I have no such restrictions, especially on a Wednesday night when there's no chance anyone will point out the lateness of the hour to me because Matt is getting up at 5:00 a.m. for men's bible study and has gone to sleep as early as possible. So prime knitting time and then some -- about 9:00 to midnight -- was used in keeping Isaiah happy and then the child finally fell asleep on my chest and let me gingerly remove the pinky finger and put my hand to other uses. He even, after a few minutes, consented to move from on-my-chest to the-bed-immediately-next-to-me without waking up. I still didn't suspect any hidden baby agenda at this point, didn't think the previous few hours fussiness was a careful plan to prevent me from knitting. Then my cable needle disappeared. Since I was knitting by booklight, I couldn't locate it, but my knitting box was handy, so I pulled out another one. When the second one also went AWOL I gave up. I was getting pretty tired anyway. I peeled the sleeping baby off my nightgown and went to brush my teeth. And there was the (second) cable needle, tucked under the baby's chin. How he managed to snatch it from my work and hide it while feigning sleep, I'm not sure. He's clearly more clever and devious than he first appeared. The first cable needle hasn't turned up yet, but I bet I find it up his sleeve when I change his sleeper. |
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| Posted by Sora at 9 : 19 am | Leave a note {2} | ||
| January 21 2006 | ||
| I HAVE NOT DROPPED OFF THE FACE OF THE EARTH
This morning I said to my sister, "I really need to update..." "Your blog?" she filled in. "I was going to say I really need to update Quicken." "You also need to update your blog." "Our Quicken accounts are more important." "Maybe to you." Well, I still haven't updated Quicken, but here I am posting something to my blog before yet another week goes by. My sister, who we have not seen for a year and a half, came to visit last Monday. She is footloose and fancy-free right now, being at that unattached-early-twenties stage, having left a good job that she had gotten burned out on, and not yet having run out of money to the point that she would need to find another one. So when she leaves us she will be taking our 85-year-old grandmother on a road trip and then heading to Peru for a month or so before returning the the west coast to find another job. We had a great long list of fun things we wanted to do and good food we wanted to make while she was here. Sadly, I woke up in the middle of the night Wednesday with a terribly painful ear infection. Then I discovered a hitherto unknown allergy to penicillin. So Tama spent all day Thursday and Friday taking care of my preschoolers while I lay in bed nursing, napping, and alternating doses of ibuprophen and acetominophen every couple of hours. And she's leaving tomorrow morning. Well, it won't be another year before we see her again, since we're heading west ourselves in another six months or so. And we're making our favorite soba noodle salad tonight, the one I never make because my kids and husband don't like it. Tama also brought her harpsicle, and Talia and Aedan have been having fun picking out songs on it. Plus I taught Tama to knit, and she seems to have caught the bug nicely. So it wasn't a completely wasted visit. She is making a pair of wristwarmers as her first project. In other knitting news, Talia actually finished the baby hat that was her second semester knitting project. Because Talia is a very, very tight knitter and the hat had stranded color patterns, it turned out too small for Isaiah but just right for Naomi's newest doll. Talia next started working on a Tomten jacket for Isaiah. I made up a 7-stitch-repeat slip-stitch color pattern for her so that she could use up all the odd pieces of wool that I have left from a big bagful that Deb gave me years ago, most of which have long since been turned into hats and socks and mittens. The slip-stitch color pattern was much more successful for Talia than the fair-isle knitting had been, and she got a good start on it. Then she started a needlepoint project and got distracted by it, and hasn't worked on the Tomten jacket for over a week. Honestly, I'm not sure that there is really enough wool left for the baby jacket; needlepoint might be a better bet for all the odd ends that are left. (As for me, I got another free wool bonanza last week, from Mrs. Butlerthis time, almost a kilo of undyed Wensleydale yarn that she is never going to use, so I have started a Starmore Aran sweater for Matt. With the new baby and moving, I probably won't get it done until June or July, but nights get chilly enough for sweaters even in the summer in coastal B.C., so I won't have to save it for Christmas. And if I do finish faster than I thought I would, I bought some wool to make a sweater for Talia when I was at the yarn store getting a cable needle. It was 50% off, and Talia had been so disappointed that I was making a sweater for Matt instead of her.) Isaiah is getting very wide-eyed and cute at four weeks old. I finally got a new sling after using the same one for four kids and it arrived today. It is good to have a spare for when one needs washing, not to mention having a sling with no stains or fading for wearing out in public. |
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| Posted by Sora at 4 : 44 pm | Leave a note {6} | ||
| January 13 2006 | ||
| EARLY TO RISE
I had a very good morning today. I was up an hour before the baby woke up, and an hour and a half before the two year old woke up. This gave me an incredible head start. I know that eventually they'll figure out what I'm doing and start waking up earlier, but I am still fantasizing about getting that first hour of the morning to myself every day. The first half hour, I spent watching my Pilates on the Ball exercise DVD. (I followed along for somewhat less than ten minutes of it -- one minute at a time. There's only so much one's abs can handle at not-quite-three-weeks postpartum.) Then I got to read my Bible, have a protein shake, and check email before Isaiah woke up. When Matt went back to work after Christmas break, he and Aedan started getting up early again but the rest of us stayed on vacation time. The younger kids were in the habit of sleeping late, and it was just too easy for me to stay snuggled up in bed with the baby until 8:30 or 9:00 or sometimes even later, if Naomi and Zek'l slept that long -- especially after a week of everyone being sick and having very interrupted nights because of it. And then of course it would take me until noon to get everyone dressed and fed, the kitchen clean, and the laundry on, and Talia (who is no longer sick, so should really not be sleeping so late) would be very behind on her schoolwork, and I'd just be putting out fires for the rest of the day. Much more pleasant to prevent them. |
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| Posted by Sora at 10 : 10 pm | Leave a note {0} | ||
| January 06 2006 | ||
| A SISYPHUS WEEK
Not much new to say, or time to say it. The first week back homeschooling Talia and with Matt and Aedan back at work / school all four of the "big kids" are sick, some sicker than others. Aedan had to stay home yesterday but is back at school today, Zek'l has been completely deflated all week, and the girls are just crankier than usual. The very clever baby is nursing non-stop all day long to keep his immunity up, which doesn't leave me very much hands-free time for laundry and cooking and cleaning and generally keeping the house in order. The four-year-old lying pitifully in bed mourning his sore throat, begging to have stories read, and needing to be plyed with fluids competes with the two-year-old who just missed the potty and got the bathroom rug, the ten year old who didn't bother reading her algebra lesson and is now convinced that (4 1/2)x - 1 1/3 = 17/12 is impossible to solve, the three loads of unfolded laundry, the breakfast dishes, the Christmas tree shedding needles all over the living room floor, the baby who still wants to nurse, and the perennial question of what shall we eat. With great effort I manage to get to the end of each day without leaving myself extra work for tomorrow, but then I get up in the morning to find that tomorrow has more than enough work for itself. |
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| Posted by Sora at 1 : 10 pm | Leave a note {6} | ||
| December 23 2005 | ||
| I'VE NEVER BEEN THIS PREGNANT
Well, this baby is officially the record-breaker. Due tomorrow and I'm still pregnant. I think the last few weeks have just been too busy and hectic for me to have time to go into labor, and I really don't see that changing until after the weekend. Both our vehicles broke down on Monday while we were at Matt's parents' house, about half an hour out of town. (We had driven out separately at different times, usually we would have just had the van there.) We didn't want to risk limping them back on the highway so we took them to local mechanics -- big mistake. The van wasn't done until yesterday afternoon and as far as we know the other car still isn't fixed. We were able to borrow Matt's dad's car until the van was fixed, because his brother was in town visiting and they had an extra vehicle around. But we don't all fit in a regular car, so our four-year-old basically moved in with the grandparents for three days. My parents arrived to visit yesterday morning, and until we get our second car back we can't all go anywhere together. I guess Murphy had the last laugh. (The good news is that the basement was indeed all fixed and put back together before the cars died.) |
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| Posted by Sora at 3 : 44 pm | Leave a note {3} | ||
| December 12 2005 | ||
| TESTING MURPHY'S LAW
Our baby is due Christmas eve -- less than two weeks now. Three of my previous four have come 2-5 days before their due date, but one was two weeks early. We are planning a home waterbirth in our recently refinished basement family room -- the only room in the house big enough to comfortably hold the rented tub. As of last week we had everything all ready for me to go into labor at any time. At some point over the weekend, our sump pump started having some problems. We were not warned of any failure by the battery back-up system that we had paid an extra $600 for, because the sump pump still, technically, worked. It continued to pump the water that accumulated from the perimeter drain system. But instead of pumping it into the discharge pipe and thence outside, it pumped it onto the workshop floor, and thence under the wall and under the carpet of our family room. The waterproofers are coming to fix the sump pump tomorrow. They do not appear to have any intention of assuming liability for the carpet. Our homeowners insurance very clearly and specifically excludes coverage for water damage in a situation like this. My job today was to find out what the folks listed under "water damage" in the yellow pages recommended for such a situation. The prescription: pull up the carpet, dry out the carpet and the pad with heavy-duty industrial strength fans (which would take about 3 days), apply mold-inhibiting disinfectant, and replace the carpet. The estimate: somewhere around $500. That was the low estimate. The guys who take credit cards charge more. Anyway, it is $500 more than we had any plans of putting into this basement. So Matt came home from work armed with a heavy-duty industrial strength fan borrowed from a colleague who used to own a carpet cleaning business and spent about two hours moving furniture and pulling up carpet. The fan is now doing its work. I sure hope we can get the carpet to look the way the original installer did. We've never pulled carpet up before for any purpose other than throwing it out. Anyway, the basement - our favorite spacious, warm, cozy, firelit living space -- is uninhabitable for at least the next 2 or 3 days. That baby had better hold off until at least next weekend. |
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| Posted by Sora at 6 : 43 pm | Leave a note {2} | ||
| December 09 2005 | ||
| MIXED MARRIAGE
There is no great untold story behind the fact that I don't eat meat. My parents grew up in the 50s and 60s with fairly the fairly typical meat-eating diet of the time, but by the time they met and married in the mid-70s they had both become vegetarian, prompted by the growing trend toward natural foods and books like "Diet for a Small Planet". It is sometimes hard to convince people who have always eaten meat that it really is an acquired taste. I never acquired it, nor did I feel I was missing out on anything during my childhood. I did get some teasing in school lunch-rooms, but it had more to do with the "weird" food I was eating (tofu and alfalfa sprouts on pita bread) than with the meat I wasn't eating; peanut butter sandwiches wouldn't have raised any eyebrows but they don't taste as good as tofu and sprouts. Birthday parties and summer camps were a hassle but I don't have many unpleasant memories of making do with empty hot dog buns. It wasn't until I moved to the midwest a few years ago that I really experienced vegetarianism as a social inconvenience. Everywhere else I had lived as a adult, you might be among the minority as a vegetarian, but not to the point that well-meaning and friendly people would be genuinely at a loss about what to serve if they invited you over for dinner. When Matt and I got married, a lot of people thought that the fact that I was a vegetarian and he was not would be a really big problem. For the most part, it has been a non-issue. I cook what I like and Matt likes what I cook. I sometimes bake some chicken or something to make him happy, especially now that he has trained two of our children to voraciously devour meat with him; most of the time he eats meat at other people's houses or for his work lunches. Now that the novelty of being married (and, I expect, of actually having someone else do the cooking and grocery shopping) has worn off he asks me to buy meat much more often than he did the first year or two. Talia and Aedan were 5 and 3 and it was pretty much too late for Matt to do anything about converting them when he married me. As other babies have come along and started eating table food, he has been pretty diligent about offering them meat regularly, and has discovered that enthusiastic one-year-old meat-eaters will become even more enthusiastic two- and three- and four-year-old meat-eaters. So the vegetarian / carnivore split in the house is now 50-50, but the older kids and I are resigned to being increasingly outnumbered as the years go on. The issue of cooking smells and first trimester is, I think, completely unrelated to vegetarianism. There are things I like to eat that I don't want to smell in first trimester. Yogurt, for instance. |
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| Posted by Sora at 9 : 33 am | Leave a note {5} | ||
| December 05 2005 | ||
| SEVEN SEVENS
Jo wants Matt and I to be good blogging lemmings and do what everyone else is doing. She wants it so badly that she listed us first of the "seven" people she tagged. We wonder which of these questions she is so curious about. Probably not the books and movies, which anyone who reads our blogs regularly likely has a good idea about. The things we can't do, perhaps; since we don't tend to present our failings and inadequacies on our blog. Well, here they are: 1.) Seven things I hope to see or do before I die: Learn to sight-read music well. Be able to sing all 150 Psalms from memory. Make many more beautiful, lasting things. Quilts for all my daughters for wedding presents. Hand-embroidered baby dresses for baptisms. Hand-knit matching sweaters for my whole family. Become a midwife. (But not while I still have my own babies and small children.) Write at least one book. Write and record more music. Build our own house on land (lots of land) in a place we want to live the rest of our lives. Build a hall (with a huge fireplace and a restaurant-style kitchen) on our land for family gatherings (birthdays, anniversaries, etc.) because we have so many children and grandchildren that we can't all fit around a table in a normal-sized house. See my children's children raising Godly families. 2.) Seven things I cannot do: Cartwheels. Knowingly eat meat (though I have no objection to others doing so.) Sing harmony (unless I've learned the alto part by ear to the point that I know it as well as the melody, which doesn't count.) Anything outdoors if it is above about 85 degrees and remotely humid. Make myself go to bed at a reasonable hour when I'm immersed in a book. Turn my husband into an agrarian. Control my tongue. 3.) Seven Things That Attract Me To My Husband: His sense of humor. I can't imagine trying to spend a lifetime with someone who didn't laugh at the same things. His understanding of what it means to be under authority. I first noticed this in the attitude toward his parents and pastors portrayed in the very first letters and phone calls we exchanged when he was courting me. Respect for authority is not something I was accustomed to seeing among young men in their twenties. It stood out. It seemed to me at the time -- and I have not had occasion to change my mind since -- that a wholehearted willingness to be under authority was an excellent qualification for being put in a position of authority over me and my children. His desire to know and obey God. I do not know anyone who studies and seeks to understand God's Word the way my husband does. Rather than try to cleverly exegete his way out of duties or requirements that are inconvenient or unappealing to him, he obeys and assumes that if there is a problem it is not with God's commands, but with his attitude. Rather than becoming complacent in his understanding, he is constantly praying for and seeking greater insight into scripture. And he is committed to teaching our children, both to see the overarching connecting themes of Scripture and to be able to master the details by reading it for themselves in the original languages. His desire for children. There are admittedly times that we both grumble about certain specific frustrations, drudgeries and difficulties involved in the bearing and raising of children. But apart from these brief and passing grumbles over things like bodily fluids and first trimester, he has never shown anything but joy and delight in the children God has given us and at the prospect of more, nor has he changed his prayer, before we were married, that God would grant us children "many, and often, and soon." His power over my body. We were very blessed to enter our marriage with the understanding that (within the limits God has set and under the authority He has reserved for Himself), we were each entirely giving up ownership and authority of our bodies to the other. The rewards of faithfully following this principle are better than we ever could have imagined. My power over his body. I love the fact that he treated his body as belonging to me before he even knew who I was. I love having the ability to make him deliriously happy in ways that no one else ever has or can. I love the ongoing discovery that God designed marriage to just get better and better over time. His love and appreciation for me, shown in more ways than I could possibly list. 4.) Seven Things I Say Most Often: What are you doing? (To one or the other of the kids.) What are you supposed to be doing? (Most often, but not always, to Aedan.) Watcha thinking? (To Matt, and sometimes to Talia.) Say, "Yes, Mommy." (To ZZ or Naomi.) Where's Naomi? (Many times a day, when she wants to play peek-a-boo.) In a minute. I need to switch the laundry first. I love you. 5.) Seven Books or Series that I Love The Hobbit and the Lord of the Rings. My parents read the Hobbit to me the first time when I was four. I read the Lord of the Rings the first time when I was six. I have re-read both every year or two since then, including reading The Lord of the Rings aloud twice in the last five years and expect to read it aloud again in two years or so when ZZ is old enough to listen to it. A. A. Milne's Pooh books, which are the first longer-than-picture books I read to each child when they get to be two or three years old. I don't expect to get tired of them, no matter how many three year olds I read them to over the years. I haven't gotten tired of reading Laura Ingalls Wilder aloud to each four-year-old in turn, either. And I wouldn't want to miss reading all of Robert McCloskey's books to any of my children. Or Russell and Lilian Hoban's. Or Brinton Turkle's Obadiah books. And lest anyone think I have no interest in anything but children's literature, I love just about all the books on my husband's list too. 6.) Seven movies I would watch over and over again if I had the time There aren't seven. There isn't even one. I'd probably have trouble coming up with seven movies I would want to watch twice. I have watched the Lord of the Rings movies 3 or 4 times each, but I don't think that qualifies as "over and over again", especially since those viewings were spread out over a 4 year period. 7.) Seven People I Want to Join In and Do This Meme Also: Mrs Butler, because she badly needs to post something new. Listen, Mrs. B, you have plenty of thoughts and opinions. If you're going to pay for space on Upsaid, you should write something new at least every month or two. Anyone else who hasn't already been tagged and wants to. I'm sure these questions will continue to spread through the blogging world without me twisting anyone's arms. |
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| Posted by Sora at 5 : 42 pm | Leave a note {8} | ||
| December 03 2005 | ||
| EARLY RISING
Naomi and I share a birthday in the next few days. She will be turning 2. I will be nearing the end of my 20s. We are celebrating with friends after church on Sunday, but last night we went over to Grandpa and Grandma's house and Naomi got to open her birthday presents from them. By far the favorite present was a board book full of photographs of babies. She took it to bed with her last night. She brought it along when she moved from her bed to our bed about 3:00 or 4:00 in the morning. And after trying unsucessfully to rouse me to read it to her a little before 5:00 a.m, she trotted upstairs to Talia's room and woke her up. "I wanna reada book-book!" Talia, barely awake and wondering what on earth Naomi was up to at such an hour, mumbled, "Shouldn't you be in bed?" Whereupon Naomi turned around and went back downstairs, sobbing bitterly. But by the time she had reached the downstairs hall, she had regained her pluck and headed to Daddy's side of the big bed. She probably asked him to read the book, but he sleeps without his hearing aids in. So, (according to Daddy's report) she then began to whack him with the book. Like any red-blooded male abruptly awakened, he seized the offending article (book, not toddler) and flung it across the room, then rolled over and went back to sleep. This caused more problems then it solved, for now Naomi could not find her book. It was not long before she had Mommy properly awake, and was mournfully explaining her problem: "I wanna BABY BOOK!" I had been somewhat aware that she had the book with her when she had climbed into my bed some hours earlier, so I started looking for it in the bed. Then Talia, who had not been able to get back to sleep, came downstairs and told me that Naomi had brought the book up to her room. There was no getting back to sleep for either of us at this point. And certainly not for Naomi, who was dashing about, dancing, jumping, and helpfully looking for her book in all the wrong places with apparently boundless energy. We looked for the book upstairs. We looked for the book in the kitchen and living room, on the chance that Naomi had stopped there with it after visiting Talia's room. Eventually Daddy was awakened by our search, put his hearing aid in, and told us where to look (and then went back to sleep again.) Getting up at 5:00 was not such a bad thing after all. While the menfolk slept, Talia worked on her play and Naomi and I mixed the dough for tomorrow's homemade bagels and let it rise, made our birthday cake, read the "BABY book" a few times, started some laundry, and (around 7:30, when the boys were getting up) made oatmeal for everyone. I got a very good start on what I needed to do today, and will be far less pressed later on than if I had slept until 8:00. I do, however, plan to give Naomi an unaccustomed morning nap within the next two hours. And to take one myself. |
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| Posted by Sora at 8 : 18 am | Leave a note {5} | ||
| November 18 2005 | ||
| THE AMAZING RECUPERATIVE POWERS OF TODDLERS
I am getting rather frustrated with my immune system. I don't seem to fight off the viruses Aedan brings home from school, at 35 weeks pregnant my energy level is not exactly high to begin with, and getting sick completely wipes me out. This is particularly annoying because what I want to be doing is scrubbing and organizing my house from top to bottom like a good nesting mama. I did the fridge and freezer yesterday and had my eye on the laundry room today. It was not to be. We had all recovered from our recent flu -- which, naturally, laid me low for longer than anyone else in the family -- in time to drive 7 hours round-trip to Matt's grandfather's 80th birthday celebration last Saturday. No sooner did Aedan go back to school than he brought home a nasty-sounding cough. No one else had succumbed yet and my hopes were high when, yesterday, Naomi got up from her nap sounding like Darth Vader. Last night she had full-blown croup. When I wasn't sitting in the bathroom with her running the shower until the hot water heater was completely depleted, she was sleeping on top of me. This morning she got up at 7:00 a.m. full of energy and spunk, and the raspiness and stridor was nearly gone within half an hour of her getting up. I on the other hand slept until 11:00 (leaving Naomi and ZZ to be fed breakfast and supervised by Talia) and have been lying around, completely sapped of energy, sipping herbal tea and nursing my new very sore throat. As I was typing, the UPS man arrived with our 11-pound block of Callebaut for this year's truffles. Naomi was too young to really know what it was last year. Not so this time. She is very impressed with the biggest chocolate bar she has ever seen, and she knows exactly what it is for, or thinks she does. She appears convinced that she could eat the whole thing herself if I would only let her. |
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| Posted by Sora at 1 : 54 pm | Leave a note {6} | ||
| November 06 2005 | ||
| SHAMELESS BID FOR SYMPATHY
If you read my husband's blog you already know that 3 out of 4 of our children spent the better part of last night with a miserable stomach flu. What he didn't mention -- probably because I didn't require any bucket-holding or laundry-managing -- was that I got it too, around 2:00 a.m., and spent the next six or eight hours feeling very miserable indeed. While the 2 and 4 year olds both bounced back remarkably this morning well for having vomited an average of 6 times between 11:00 p.m. and 3:00 a.m. the night before, I have spent the entire day in bed while the house goes to ruin. On the bright side, I'm not throwing up any more, and Matt was home to take care of things. But I really, really need to recover, at least to normal third-trimester operating level, because Matt will need to go to work tomorrow -- unless he gets sick too -- and either alternative requires me to be functional. |
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| Posted by Sora at 10 : 03 pm | Leave a note {4} | ||
| October 30 2005 | ||
| A FANTASY
In our next house, the back door will not open directly onto the kitchen. (No, and the kitchen floor will not be an expanse of pure white linoleum, either!) In our next house, I will have a Mudroom, interposing its protective presence between the kitchen and the great outdoors. An Expansive and Capacious Mudroom, with shelves for myriad shoes and sandals and wellington boots; with hooks at various child-heights for coats and jackets; with cubbyholes for hats and scarves. Yes, while we are dreaming, with enough space for a stacking front-loading washer and dryer (right off the kitchen!) and a chest freezer. Not to mention a toilet cublicle, shower stall, and drinking fountain. And I will find a library supply company from which to order the sort of alarm system one finds at library exits, and the magnetic tattle-tape which libraries slip into the spines of their books. And I will install the alarm system in the doorway between the kitchen and the Mudroom, and put tattletape in the soles of everyone's shoes. |
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| Posted by Sora at 1 : 41 pm | Leave a note {5} | ||
| October 29 2005 | ||
| BEING POOR AND SMART
I don't know why it took me so long to find the Common Room blog, since it is obviously read and linked by many of the people I read on a regular basis, but I only started reading it a few weeks ago, when Cindy of Dominion Family mentioned that she was getting all her Huricane Katrina news there. I've been reading it daily for the last few weeks and have just added it to my sidebar. Anyway, this is the post I had to mention, because The Headmistress' comments are so very close to my thoughts when I first came across the "Being Poor" list at Jo's Boys.. I didn't make any comment at the time, because I felt like I had not "been poor" enough to fairly critique the list. I was a single mother on welfare for a couple of years, yes, but I was in Canada, and the Canadian government's provision to single mothers on welfare, at that time at least, was generous enough that I never felt particularly poor. After all, I was able to stay home with my babies instead of going out to work while someone else took care of them. We had a roof over our heads, plenty to eat and wear, heat, transportation (city bus, my feet), always had enough to pay the bills, and there was even money left over to save up for things like the bicycle trailer that I bought to transport my kids with greater comfort, speed, and convenience. The government's provision was not so very generous that stupid choices would not lead to a feeling of deprivation -- I knew plenty of people who would get their checks, eat their meals out for a week, buy new clothes or some electronic toy, go to the movies, and then would feel deprived until the next check came because they had had not had enough for the electric bill and had been standing in line at the food bank at the end of the month. But the provision was generous enough that the choices that had to be made were never particularly painful for me. The money was reliable and more than adequate for my needs. Likewise, I'm sure many people would manage to feel "poor" living as we did for the first few years of our marriage, with two and then three children, on Matt's grad school stipend (which plenty of single students did not consider "adequate") plus his part-time work and seasonal gifts from generous relatives. We were happy and comfortable. Ironically, the financial choices we have had to make in the last year or two -- with my husband earning twice what we lived on while he was in graduate school, and three times what I lived on as a single mother -- have been more painful than the ones I had to make back in those days of "poverty". As the income has grown, the family's needs and desires have grown to match it. We want to be able to have stringed instruments and music lessons for our children, the homebirth midwife who is not covered by our health insurance, a newly remodeled and waterproofed basement, his and hers Apple laptops, a vacation trip to Canada every summer, all at the same time... and still have enough in reserve for the unexpected car repairs, the orthodontist, the flat-rate no-deductions municipal income tax, the new shoes and school clothes for the rapidly growing children, the sudden jump in the cost of Matt's commute to work, etc. etc. Our income is adequate for our needs, but not for all of our wants, all at the same time; choices need to be made and they are much bigger choices than the 10-cent vs. the 12-cent ramen. An attitude of immediate gratification and entitlement will tend to lead to stupid choices no matter what your resources, but there's a lot more rope to hang yourself with when you are no longer "poor": we get a minimum of 4 new credit card offers by mail and/or phone every week. Never had those as a single mom on welfare, and I don't remember nearly so many of them as a grad student family. I do not doubt that there are many people who are truly deprived of real and basic needs without having made stupid choices, and I know I have never been one of them and cannot claim to know what being "poor" in that sense feels like. But there are also many, many people, especially in Canada and the U.S., who consider themselves poor and deprived and will continue poor and deprived, not because of circumstances beyond their control but because of their own attitude and choices. This is something that we need to recognize and teach our children, because one or two stupid choices can bury you for years, can frequently bury you to the point that a change in attitude and choices will not enable you to dig your way out without outside help. We want our children to learn this lesson from outside examples rather than personal experience; we want to be in a position to help them out if they do, as error-prone humans, need to learn the hard way. We want at all costs to avoid having them become the sort of people who will expect and demand the helping hand up, only to turn around and bury themselves again. |
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| Posted by Sora at 11 : 26 pm | Leave a note {2} | ||
| October 26 2005 | ||
| GROCERY MONEY
This is the US Department of Agriculture's analysis of what families are spending for food prepared at home. They have four levels of spending, "thrifty", "low-cost", "moderate-cost", and "liberal." I recall that Amy Dacyzyn of Tightwad Gazette fame poked a bit of fun at these figures, saying that she'd been worried when her grocery spending didn't meet the "thrifty" figures -- until she realized that she was looking at the weekly food budget, not the monthly. But the USDA analysis does permit comparisons based on a breakdown of family members by age and sex, necessary if you want a fair comparison between, say, the grocery expenses of a family with two toddlers and those of a family with 4 or 5 strapping teenage boys. When I think I'm being pretty "liberal" at the grocery -- buying luxury items like frozen cherries, granola bars, and phyllo pastry, having lots of company over, etc -- our monthly expenditures come in around the level of the "thrifty" plan ($673/month for our family -- I've been over that figure twice in the last 12 months, but never by more than $5 -- and that includes Christmas season purchases of 12-pound blocks of Belgian chocolate, etc. Also, though I try to remember list these things separately in Quicken, purchases of consumable household items like toilet paper, soap, toothpaste, disposable diapers, etc. are frequently on the same receipt with the groceries and artificially inflate the monthly total). When I'm not feeling flush I can comfortably feed us for much, much less -- between $450 and $500 a month without anyone complaining or feeling deprived. If I needed to, I could probably cut that figure down to $300 or less without sacrificing nutrition -- but not without my family complaining about the disappearance of empty calorie snacks and the rationing of cheese and fruit. I can't even begin to imagine how I would spend the amounts listed in the "liberal" plan... buy pre-packaged individual frozen organic dinners for everyone every night of the week? So is the USDA way off in their calculations, or is my "sub-thrifty" category really that unusual? |
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| Posted by Sora at 9 : 07 pm | Leave a note {10} | ||
| TRAINING A FOOD SNOB
Matt has been accusing me for years of training the kids -- Talia, particularly, the others don't seem to respond quite as well to the "training' -- to be food snobs. The most egregious example of this, to his mind, was pancake syrup. Before I married Matt, I only bought real maple syrup, used sparingly like the liquid gold it is. Now, I haven't bought real maple syrup in years -- it costs a small fortune in Ohio, and if I did bring myself to spend seven dollars on a little bitty 6 ounce bottle, our family has grown to the point that it would be gone after one pancake or waffle breakfast. Talia and I eat our pancakes and waffles plain, or with fruit-only jam or apple butter or homemade strawberry sauce, while Matt and the other kids douse theirs liberally with 99-cents-for-24-ounces artificially-colored-and-flavored corn syrup (my taste buds cringe just thinking about it. Ick.) Talia at 6 used to call this stuff "imaginary syrup" to distinguish it from the real syrup that, at the time, I was still buying... it was a little more affordable in upstate New York. I buy "imaginary syrup" now, but there are still some lines I will never, never cross. Allowing Velveeta or Wonderbread to enter my kitchen, for instance, or taking my kids to McDonalds. My husband shakes his head and is thankful that I have only been successful in passing on my food-snobbish ways to one of our 5 so far. But I think that this summer I have managed to get through to him, just a little bit. He recognized, all by himself without me pointing it out, that the strawberries from our garden made shipped-from-California-grocery-store-berries taste like plastic. And he could not help but notice the incredible flavor of still-warm-from-the-sun tomatoes in our salads all summer long. It is late October. The weather has turned cold and rainy. The golden days of sun-warmed tomatoes are at an end. This morning, Talia said to me sadly (paraphrased, not her exact words): "Mommy, that tomato I put on my grilled cheese sandwich yesterday -- it just wasn't that good. It wasn't just that it was cold. It didn't seem to have any flavor." A sad disappointment after going out into the cold and the rain to fetch a fresh tomato from the garden. "Yes," I said. "It's below 40 degrees at night now. That's like putting our garden in the refridgerator. It spoils the flavor. The tomatoes will be more like grocery store tomatoes now I'm afraid... and pretty soon we'll have a frost and that will be the end of the garden tomatoes entirely." "I'd almost forgotten what grocery store tomatoes taste like," Talia said. "Well... I guess I'll just make my sandwich without tomato today. I never want to eat a grocery store tomato again." |
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| Posted by Sora at 12 : 08 pm | Leave a note {5} | ||
| October 20 2005 | ||
| THE ABSENT-MINDED PROFESSOR STRIKES AGAIN
Yesterday evening I had an errand to run without any car-seat-age children along, and as Matt had parked behind the van in the driveway, I took his car, which I usually avoid. I was amused to see two bags of small, individually wrapped Aldi chocolates on the front passenger seat. The day before yesterday, my dear husband had helpfully run to Aldi after work to pick up a gallon of milk. Apparently, he had intended the chocolate to remain out of sight and thus avoid putting temptation before his wife or children. So he left it in the car. For twenty-four hours. On an 82 degree day. |
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| Posted by Sora at 3 : 16 pm | Leave a note {4} | ||
| October 10 2005 | ||
| SOCKS
(Yeah, I know. Nothing for weeks and then I post about odd socks. If you want heavier intellectual content, you can head over to my husband's blog. I bet I get comments on socks, though.) 
This is how I deal with the sock problem at my house. (If you are asking yourself "What sock problem?" than either a. you have no children at home or b. you live in the tropics and everyone wears sandals all year round.) The sock basket lives next to the dryer. Throughout the day, loads of laundry are folded and sorted into individual family member's baskets as they come out of the dryer. At the end of the day, any odd socks left in the dryer go into the basket. Every six months or so, when the sock basket is almost overflowing and people are complaining that they can't find a clean pair of socks, the basket is carried upstairs and dumped onto the bed. Children are roped, willingly or unwillingly depending on their age, into the Great Sock Sorting Game. This time, we got a whopping 51 pairs. Only one of the pairs were mine, but I've been wearing sandals all summer. Some pairs were of a size that no one has worn since long before the last sock sorting. That's because as socks turn up in odd corners, under beds, etc. they go into the laundry and thence to the odd sock basket, sometimes months or years after their mate has been placed there. This is why I only throw out odd socks after a move. When all the furniture is out of the house, I can be pretty sure that there are no socks left in unanticipated hiding places either. The odd sock basket is still about 1/3 full right now, after the Great Sock Sort, but that's okay. Some of those socks will finally be mated again the next time we move, and for the meantime, they can languish in sock purgatory. |
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| Posted by Sora at 2 : 27 pm | Leave a note {14} | ||
| August 27 2005 | ||
| PREPARE FOR A LIFETIME OF CRITICISM
Matt felt the baby kicking for what I think was the first time this morning. I wasn't sure he had, though, because he didn't say anything. After a few more fairly strong baby movements right under his hand, I asked if he'd felt that. "Oh, yeah, I did." "Why didn't you say anything?" Shrug. "They weren't very impressive kicks." Auspicious first words to a child. You'd better get the flashcards out now, baby. Daddu isn't going to get any easier to impress. |
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| Posted by Sora at 7 : 52 am | Leave a note {2} | ||
| August 10 2005 | ||
| THE NEGLIGENT BLOGGER
Lately it is just too easy to be a Negligent Blogger. And when I bring up my blog to see whether anyone has commented on a weeks-old post, or to putter around the sidebar links and see whether any less Negligent Blogger has posted anything new, the date at the top of the page accuses me, much like the overgrown front garden beds. I can readily excuse myself for being a Negligent Gardener in August. But blogging more than once a week, I remind myself, does not require weeding and watering at 90-degrees. So what have I been doing instead of coming up with witty or inspiring tales to regale the two or three people who still check to see if I've written anything new? Well, today I cleaned and organized my laundry room. It feels very good to have that done. And I built a very awesome Brio track, using every piece we own, which somehow managed to survive the depradations of Destructo Baby until she went to bed and remains intact for Zek'l's enjoyment tomorrow. And I even located the "missing" battery charger (it was under a pile of miscellaneous papers on Matt's bedside table) which means I will be able to take pictures of my children tomorrow and email them to farway grandparents, which is something else I have been Negligent about lately. |
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| Posted by Sora at 10 : 26 pm | Leave a note {1} | ||
| July 22 2005 | ||
| TAGGED
Jo has tagged me for the blog equivalent of some kind of slumber party ice-breaker game. And sorry if I made anyone miserable by failing to hide my spoilers in the comments or something... but really, people, unless you hide in your closet (with NO laptop) until you finish the book, you are going to see spoilers. 1.) Where were you ten years ago? July of 1995 I was 18... living in Ottawa, Ontario with a crazy roomate who was very into the occult and liked to pretend she was a vampire... having moved from Toronto less than a year previously, and about to end up in Montreal before the end of the year. I had just dropped out of my women's studies major at Carleton University and was less than a week away from being in labor with Talia. I had 6 earrings, half my head shaved, and wore broomstick skirts and hand-embroidered peasant blouses with Doc Martens. I was about to discover that I wasn't god. 2.) Five Years Ago? July of 2000. I was 23... just married... and about to leave Victoria, B.C. with my two small children to move to Ithaca, NY where Matt was half-way through his PhD. My hair had grown back. I wore long skirts and dresses and Birkenstock sandals, but no headcoverings yet. was almost 3 years post-conversion but had only been baptized a year and a half earlier. I was not readily recognizable as the same person I had been 5 years previously. 3.) One Year Ago? 2004. In the house we're in now, with the same husband and same 4 kids we've got now. Considerably heavier than I had been 4 years and several pregnancies previously, but otherwise looking pretty much the same, with the addition of headcoverings. 4.) Yesterday? Hanging out with the kids at my in-law's house, away from the construction-zone mess, while my husband and father-in-law finished the stonework for our new fireplace. 5.) Today? Folding laundry in my newly dry, painted, carpeted, fireplaced basement. 6.) 5 Snacks I Enjoy any kind of fresh fruit leftovers of whatever I made for dinner yesterday (a good snack should require no prep work!) cold pizza homemade cookies cinnamon-raisin-walnut bread (or any other homemade bread) fresh out of the oven 7.) 5 Bands I know most of the lyrics to their songs Uh... no. I do know the lyrics to probably thousands of songs. Ranked in order, I'd say I know more folk songs than anything else, followed by hymns and psalms, then children's music. But I can't really remember the last time I listened to a "band" ... and mercifully, I have forgotten most of the lyrics I had memorized ten years ago. 8.) Things I would do with a million dollars Build a hobbit hole which we would then operate as a bed-and-breakfast, and invest the rest to generate passive income which would free my husband from the drudgery of teaching so that he could complete as many PhDs as his heart desires. 9.) 5 Bad Habits I Have hiding stashes of chocolate (got that one from my mother, but Talia has just produced evidence that my husband does it too) staying up too late reading (or, occassionally, blogging) losing patience with my children wasting time on the internet sending kids on errands when I have no good reason not to get up and do it myself 10.) 5 Places I would Run Away To Vancouver Island... but only if I could take my family with me anywhere else with a similar climate 11.) 5 Things I would NEVER WEAR a suit and tie stiletto heels shorts anything with writing on it the typical modern bathing costume 12.) 5 Things I like Doing reading aloud to husband and/or children playing games with husband and children gardening cooking/baking making things 13.) 5 Biggest Joys newborn babies smiley, sociable but not yet crawling babies delighted to finally be independently mobile babies toddlers older children 14.) 5 Famous People I would like to meet ...shrug... 15.) 5 movies I like ...not sure I can come up with 5... I tend to be pretty critical of even the very few movies that I have any interest in seeing. I liked LOTR and the Harry Potter movies well enough to allow the DVDs to become a part of our household collection (we play them on our laptops... very, very occassionally... no television. We also have a copy of Brannagh's Much Ado About Nothing. There, that's 5. It is also all the DVDs we own, except for some yoga and pilates workouts. 16. 5 Favorite Toys My lovely little, light, extremely portable 12-inch ibook. (You can keep your gigundous 17-incher, honey. Who would want to lug that thing around?) My Bosh Universal Kitchen machine. My grain mill. Naomi. A pinochle deck and 5 family members. If you haven't done this one and want to be tagged, just leave a note in the comments, okay? I'm too lazy, or maybe just insufficiently nosy, to chase any of you down and say "you're it." |
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| Posted by Sora at 3 : 22 pm | Leave a note {7} | ||
| BASEMENT'S ALMOST DONE!
"Why are those guys here, Mommy?" "To put carpet in our basement, ZZ." "Why?" "So you and N'omi can run around and play down there." "And play Brio down there?" (His very large collection of Brio has been in a closet all week, because I got tired of having it all over my living room.) "Yes. In fact, as soon as they have finished putting the carpet in, we can take your Brio downstairs and you can play with it." "That is a VERY GOOD PLAN, Mommy. I am PLANNING that plan!" In tones of horror, watching rolls being carried past the window: "Is THAT the carpet, Mommy?" "No, Talia. That is the padding that goes under the carpet." "Phew! That stuff is HIDEOUS." |
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| Posted by Sora at 9 : 49 am | Leave a note {0} | ||
| July 17 2005 | ||
| FRONTIFRACTUM!
I got up this morning feeling dizzy and weak, with a miserable headache, and stayed home to nap in the (unusually) quiet house while Matt took the four kids to church. He is convinced that I am feeling the aftereffects of staying up almost all night reading two nights ago. I am not so ready to put the blame there -- I did get a nap yesterday and a good 8 hours of sleep last night -- but he told everybody at church that Harry Potter put a curse on me. |
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| Posted by Sora at 1 : 08 pm | Leave a note {3} | ||
| June 29 2005 | ||
| FIREPLACE
When we bought our house almost two years ago, the biggest disappointment for my husband was that we had settled for a house without a fireplace. We both still sometimes think about the house we didn't buy -- the 90-year old house with no bathtub, no air conditioning, washer and dryer in the cellar accessible only by going outside and through the cellar doors, in need of a new roof and (to make it really workable for us) an addition.That house had two fireplaces, and 14-foot ceilings, and a huge yard, and a greenhouse. But it really wasn't practical for us to do what that house needed at that time, so we bought this one instead: a 1940's-era "little box" exactly like all the other houses in the neighborhood. The basement had been finished some time in the 70's -- ugly fake wood paneling, dry bar with not only fake wood panelling but fake leather padding as well. Some time after the basement was finished (we hope it was sometime after!) the basement developed several leaks that none of the previous owners bothered to do anything about. So when we decided this was the summer to do something about the basement, waterproofing was the first order of business. We went with the cheapest quote, and got what we paid for. As soon as there was a torrential rain, the basement leaked again -- not where it had before, but in two new places where the waterproofers had done a sloppy job with their concrete and had not left a gap for water entering by the wall to reach the interior drain system under the floor. They came and fixed the problem. Two days ago we had another torrential rain. Leak number one, under the laundry sink, is no longer a problem. Leak number two, in the back corner of the workshop, is still alive and kicking. Ironically, because of the grade of the floor, the water coming in the workshop flows right past the sump pump before going out into the future family room and current construction zone. The waterproofing company will be making their third (and hopefully last) visit tomorrow. Meanwhile, Matt has been very busy in the basement since school let out. He and his dad dismantled the dry bar -- a three day project. It may have looked cheap, but that thing was built to withstand a tank. The older kids helped Matt paint -- the basement already looks brighter just with primer on the fake wood panelling, and will look even better when the paint job is finished. We had a gas line run to the soon-to-be location of the fireplace, and Matt spent another three days building a box which will become the hearth - recycling many of the two-by-fours retreived from the old bar. The fireplace is coming today. There is still painting to do -- walls and ceiling tiles -- and Matt has to build another frame around the fireplace, and install the stonework. Probably we're going to have to delay the carpet installation again (it was due to come next week) until we're sure the leaks are completely resolved. But the completed project is in sight now. I can go down into the basement and easily picture how it is going to look when it is done. |
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| Posted by Sora at 9 : 54 am | Leave a note {1} | ||
| June 23 2005 | ||
| HURRAY!
Valerie got her house! A very happy ending to a long and often frustrating saga. |
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| Posted by Sora at 9 : 48 am | Leave a note {0} | ||
| CAMERA TROUBLES
A few weeks ago we began to have trouble with our camera batteries. I bought a new package of rechargeable batteries, thinking the batteries were now so old they would no longer take a charge. Turned out the problem was actually our battery recharger. So I just got a new charger, the batteries are in it, the little green light is blinking just the way it should, and in a few hours, D.V., I will be able to take pictures again. And there will be great (or at least moderate) rejoicing. |
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| Posted by Sora at 9 : 45 am | Leave a note {0} | ||
| June 15 2005 | ||
| PLEASE DIRECT ME TO THE MAGIC PILL
that will make my two sons stop bickering. Why is it that on some days they will play sweetly together for hours and on other days they are at each other's throats from the time they get up? Today, of course, had to be a bickering day. I knew it would be when woke up with an earache (in addition to the usual pregnancy nausea.) My ear hurts when I yawn, when I swallow, when I talk above a whisper, and, of course, when my children shout. Matt is teaching intensive Latin this week, so we have two houseguests. They are lovely ladies from a new, little classical school in Illinois. Matt cooks everybody breakfast and then they all go off to school and he spends the next 7 or 8 hours trying to cram half of Wheelock's into their heads in the space of 6 days and all very good. All I really need to do is cook dinner, which I would be doing anyway. But being a prideful house despot, I am unwilling to let things (clutter, vacuuming, dishes) slide when we have houseguests the way I otherwise would when i'm feeling this crummy. The older kids did some cleaning for me in the morning, and I packed a lunch and took everyone to the water park so that they couldn't mess up the house. But of course it was One of Those Days, so someone else's hapless child had a bloody nose at the water park 5 minutes before we arrived, which dire emergency necessitated shutting down the park for over an hour for "sanitizing." We waited it out, sweltering, at the playground, and the kids all had a very good time when the water park finally reopened. I didn't hear any bickering at the water park, for the entire 20 minutes we were there before the kids got too cold. Of course, it is One of Those Days, so now one had remembered to bring towels. Still, a respite from the bickering. But now we are home. I tried to put Naomi down for a nap when we got home, but it is One of Those Days. So, she had sabotaged her nap with 15 minutes of sleep in the car on the way back from the park, and she had a dirty diaper within 5 minutes of being put in her crib (which is a legitimate excuse for not going to sleep, but still annoying.) Then Grandma showed up at the door, out shopping, with a new pair of sandals and matching hat for Naomi the Shoe Queen, and a replacement Bertie the Bus and Harold the Helicopter figurines for ZZ (both had been broken and mailed back to the manufacturer for replacement.) Grandma also wanted to take my right arm shopping with her. So here I am, with an earache, a wakeful toddler, no helpful ten-year-old, and two boys playing with Brio and bickering. Can anyone tell me where to get that magic pill? |
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| Posted by Sora at 3 : 12 pm | Leave a note {4} | ||
| June 08 2005 | ||
| WILL ANYONE FALL FOR THIS ONE?
I just got a spoof email purporting to report a suspension of my Paypal account and offering me several links to fake "Paypal" websites to give them all my banking and credit card information in order to fix the "problem." Nothing new there. These emails come quite regularly, as anyone with a Paypal account surely is aware. The funny part was that this email -- in an attempt to look really, truly authentic, perhaps? -- contained the following advice, on a sidebar: Protect Your Account Info Were the spoofers just shooting themselves in the foot? Or did they think that, in some kind of reverse psychology effect, the warning on the sidebar would cause me to think that the email must have really come from Paypal, and so I would then click on their fake link and fail to notice that it had directed me to "ourbestwaytomakeitdotnet" instead of the real Paypal website? |
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| Posted by Sora at 11 : 33 pm | Leave a note {3} | ||
| June 07 2005 | ||
| STRAWBERRIES
We're getting a couple of pints of strawberries every day or two. Thus far, we've had no problem eating all we picked. But since we're going to my inlaws for dinner, I didn't think we needed to eat the ones Talia picked for me today, and I thought I'd freeze them. I had taken all the stems off and set the berries on waxed paper on a cookie sheet (to flash freeze so they wouldn't stick together in the freezer bag) when Matt came into the kitchen. "Are you making chocolate-covered strawberries?" "Well, no. Actually, I was going to freeze these." Talia said, "You should make chocolate covered strawberries instead. That is a much better idea." "I don't even have any chocolate in the house." Matt and Talia volunteered to go out right away and get some. Hence, chocolate covered strawberries. Perhaps, a picture and my strawberry shortcake recipe later in the day, when I am not rushing out the door. |
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| Posted by Sora at 12 : 58 pm | Leave a note {3} | ||
| June 02 2005 | ||
| WAITING WITH BATED BREATH...
To see the results of the Scripps Howard National spelling bee today. I can't watch the live coverage, being TV-free, but I've been checking the round results on the bee website every now and then throughout the day. Mars Hill's prize speller, Matthew Giese, is still holding strong through round 6. Competitors are down from 270-something at the first round yesterday, to 20-something going into round 7. Matthew's dad is Talia's 5th grade teacher, his younger brother is in Talia's class, and we wish their family didn't live waaay on the other side of the city, because we have a great time with them (but not nearly often enough.) And for those partisans who will be disappointed if a homeschooler doesn't win the bee this year, the Giese homeschooled all three of their boys until Tim took the job at Mars Hill, and have continued to homeschool the youngest up until this year. (Next year, both parents will be teaching at MHA.) |
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| Posted by Sora at 1 : 18 pm | Leave a note {7} | ||
| May 27 2005 | ||
5 YEARS AGO TODAY
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| Posted by Sora at 8 : 26 am | Leave a note {17} | ||
| May 24 2005 | ||
| A RED-SWEATER DAY
We picked the first ripe strawberries from the garden today. A dozen strawberries doesn't go very far among six people, but we expect to get many, many more in the weeks to come. Naomi got more than her fair share, as Daddy gave her one of his because she wanted it so badly and was so cute. Naomi's clothes and cheeks and chin got plenty, too. |
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| Posted by Sora at 6 : 38 pm | Leave a note {1} | ||
| May 23 2005 | ||
| SANDBOX SYNDROME
"The kitchen floor is suffering from sandbox syndrome," my husband observed last night. He had offered to keep the kids out from under my feet all morning on Saturday so that I could cross some items off my list. They all went down the street to the park until Naomi was ready for a nap, and on returning home to put her down, Matt decided to get the sandbox out for the older three kids so that he could get some work done too. When we moved in to this house in August of 2003, we put the ubiquitous turtle-shaped sandbox on the large deck and filled it with two or three bags of play sand. By the end of October, there was almost NO sand left in the sandbox and I had Matt tuck the empty turtle away in the back of the garage, along with all the sandbox toys. The sandbox remained in the garage through the winter. It remained in the garage during the spring, summer and fall of 2004. But aparently it does not quite take two years for the memories of incessant crunching sand beneath bare feet all over the house to fade from a man's memory, and we had an unused bag of play sand stowed in the garage... So out the sandbox came on Saturday, to the delight of the children. Three year old boys do not understand the concept of going out to the sandbox to play, remaining there until done, and then brushing all sand off before re-entering the house. Three year old boys want someone to come out and watch them. They want to bring their sand-encrusted power shovels in to the living room. They need to come inside for a drink, to use the potty, to see what Mommy is doing now, and for a hundred other less tangible reasons, and then they want to go out to the sandbox again, and because they are tall and strong enough to operate the doorknob independently but not old and wise enough to brush themselves off and wipe their feet, much sand comes in with them. I think the sand will all be gone (or at least, gone from the sandbox) by the end of June, and at that point the turtle will probably become an on-the-deck wading pool for Zek'l and Naomi. In the meantime, I vacuumed up sand on the kitchen floor yet again this morning. I think Zek'l went in and out between the sandbox and the kitchen no less than twenty-seven times while I was vaccuming and doing the breakfast dishes. |
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| Posted by Sora at 10 : 57 am | Leave a note {1} | ||
| May 18 2005 | ||
| PICNIC
I usually pack supper as a picnic at least once a week at this time of year. The usual destination when we were in Ithaca was Cornell plantations. In Cincinnati, we usually go to Winton Woods, but everyone has been gettting a little tired of it and ready for somewhere new. Thanks to Mrs. Butler's mention of (and directions to) Glenwood Gardens yesterday, we just discovered (and got a season pass for) a newly developed children's garden. Zek'l and Naomi did not want to leave yesterday. Today we'll go back with the whole family and a picnic supper (to be eaten in the shade elsewhere in the park, which also has walking trails and wetlands). Today's menu: Submarine sandwiches on fresh-baked homemade whole wheat buns Banana-chocolate chip mini-muffins Homemade vanilla pudding layered with fresh ripe mango Raspberry iced tea |
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| Posted by Sora at 2 : 04 pm | Leave a note {2} | ||
| May 17 2005 | ||
| A MATTER OF PERSPECTIVE
In the past week, I have: kept the house reasonably clean and tidy kept up with the laundry fed everyone home-made nutritious food several times daily read an average of 40 picture books a day to Zek'l and Naomi gotten up one or more times in the middle of the night with one or both of the younger two children on 5 nights out of the least 7 reconciled the checking and credit card accounts and written up the monthly financial report for my husband gotten a free oil change for the van (because I had to wait 3 hours with 2 small children, instead of the hour to 90 minutes that had been originally promised) directed and inspected a deep-cleaning and organizing of my oldest daughter's bedroom I have not: started, much less finished, sewing the nursing dress for the doll I finished almost ten days ago, which I would really like to have done and mailed by the end of the week weeded the front garden, even though the weather has been mild and pleasant and I have noticed every day that the weeds are many and growing ever larger sorted through the children's clothes, even though I have had to look under / move aside / send back to be changed something that is too-small or out-of-season on at least one child almost every day ironed or mended any of the clothes that need ironing or mending put the bulk dry grains and beans and the sewing supplies and ironing board that were moved into the guest room during the basement waterproofing back downstairs to the laundry room and pantry where they belong done any work on history or literature lesson plans for Talia's next school year When I was pregnant for the first time, that "have dones" list would have impressed me greatly, since my first trimester responsibilities at the time consisted of feeding myself and sleeping about 14 hours a day. At the moment, however, the weight of needfulness of the undone list makes me feel like pregancy has made me utterly useless and unproductive. |
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| Posted by Sora at 2 : 02 pm | Leave a note {7} | ||
| May 14 2005 | ||
| STAGNANT BLOG
I've been so terrible about posting new things, that even my own husband doesn't check my blog. Its not that I lack ideas. Many fine and bloggable thoughts have passed through my mind the last few weeks. But between first trimester fatigue and first trimester nausea, the general list of Things That Need Doing appears somewhat more whelming than usual these days. And sitting down to actually write is very, very low on the priority list. |
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| Posted by Sora at 8 : 33 am | Leave a note {5} | ||
| May 04 2005 | ||
| NO MORE LEAKY BASEMENT
We knew about the leaky basement when we bought the house. But we were on a tight deadline, it was by far the nicest of the houses in our price range that we had seen (and many of the others had had basement problems too). So we really didn't worry about it much. I do remember Matt standing in the basement asking the previous owner (who has since acquired the nickname "Mr. Dursely" when our conversations make reference to him), "So tell me more about this leak." And he shrugged his shoulders and said, "Oh, it's really no big deal. We just move this rug out of the way when we get a heavy rain. I've thought about getting a sump pump, but I guess I just never got around to it. Look, would I have all this stuff down here if it were a real problem?" It's true, he had a lot of "stuff" in the basement, including stereo equipment and one of the largest TVs I've ever seen (the largest of the *5* TVs I counted -- the "Durselys" actually had more TVs than family members!) Well, we "just got around to" getting a sump pump. See, the leak in the basement was a bit more of a big deal to us than it was for the "Durselys". And with 4 going on 5 children, we really need that finished basement space. We wanted to update and brighten the 1970's era downstairs family room -- ugly dry bar, ugly fake-wood paneling, ugly brown linoleum floor tile -- but it really didn't make sense to do anything else until the water problem was solved. So I started to educate myself about basement waterproofing, and began to see why the "Dursleys" had never gotten around to it. I got estimates for the work, ranging from $5000 - $12 000. (We went with the $5000 people.) We booked the day for the waterproofers to start. Then we spent an entire weekend boxing and moving several thousand books out of the basement, to shelves we'd found places for upstairs or to the attic. Then we spent 3 more weekends clearing everything else out of the basement, including a great deal of junk left behind by previous residents. In the workshop I found a box of the pink and black wall tile from the main floor bathroom. It was wrapped in very yellowed newspapers from 1957. Everything that couldn't be moved to the garage or attic (couches, bookshelves, two desks) was heaped together in the middle of the floor and covered with drop cloths. The waterproofers came yesterday. They spent several hours in the basement with jackhammers, making a trench in the cement floor all the way around the perimeter of the basement. They laid drainage tile and pea gravel in the trench and covered it with fresh cement. They put a sump pump in the corner of the workshop. I wrote them a very big check. Their red dump truck pulled out of the driveway an hour ago. The corner of the workshop was the only possible location for the sump pump because it is at the only corner of the house where the pumped water can be sent outside and will flow away from the house and down to the street. But the electrical outlets in the workshop are not close enough to the sump pump to plug it in, or to plug in the recharger for the battery back-up, so we are going to need to have some wiring done too. We can move things like the workshop bench and the washer and dryer back over the cemented trench by this weekend. We can't put carpet over it until mid-June, because there will be condensation for several weeks as the cement "breathes" and cures and the system settles in. In the meantime, we plan to tear out the dry bar, paint the ugly fake-wood panelling white, and choose some nice baseboards and a carpet color. We're also planning on a direct-vent gas fireplace. We are all very exited about the anticipated tranformation of the basement. |
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| Posted by Sora at 1 : 43 pm | Leave a note {2} | ||
| April 28 2005 | ||
| NAOMI 1, MOMMY 0
Naomi, aka DestructoBaby, is a notoriously messy and fiercely independent eater. So I was particularly careful when I gave her her breakfast oatmeal this morning. A protective cloth was spread beneath her high chair. Her sleeves were rolled up to the shoulders, and her dress was covered very completely with an apron that I had made for Talia when Talia was about three. Naomi was hungry, and although she soon abandoned her spoon for her more efficient hands, she was clearly aiming for her mouth and not her hair and quickly polished off her bowl. I was ready with a washcloth for her face and hands, and down to the floor she went, no adverse signs of breakfast upon her person, and headed off to the living room to play. Meanwhile, her older brother sat dreamily over his half-finished bowl, occassionally spooning up another bite. I wiped up the high chair tray, finished the dishes. I took the overflowing kitchen garbage out to the trash bins outside. Was gone under a minute. When I returned, the kitchen was empty. But the tell-tale signs were there for a discerning maternal eye to see. The apron Zek'l had worn lay discarded on the floor. A few puddles of milk and oatmeal on his placemat... but his bright red plastic bowl was conspicuous in its absense. "Zek'l!?" I called, trying to conceal the note of rising panic in my voice. "What did you do with your bowl?" He poked his head in from the living room. "I put it in the sink, Mommy." Hope rises again. Oh, let it be so, let it be so! Maybe I just missed seeing it the first time I looked. Somehow... missed seeing a bright red bowl... in an empty sink... No. The bowl in the sink is wishful thinking, on his part as well as mine. Into the living room to see the worst. There she sits, smack in the middle of the carpet, happily helping herself from her brother's half-full bowl of oatmeal. His spoon is beside her on the carpet. There are small mounds of oatmeal all around her. She looks up with a big smile, and offers me the bowl. |
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| Posted by Sora at 9 : 41 am | Leave a note {5} | ||
MY SON APOLLO
All that pita baking paid off. The second grade moms had put together a spectacular Greek lunch, which, of course, few if any of the second graders appreciated. Since I had brought my contribution in just before lunch and was hanging around to see the kid's play after lunch, I got to chomp on the large platter of underappreciated spanakopita... as well as confirming yet again that my son has the biggest grin in the second grade. |
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| Posted by Sora at 8 : 37 am | Leave a note {3} | ||
| April 26 2005 | ||
| REJOICE WITH ME!
That which was lost has been found. Matt spent about an hour after dinner looking for the digital camera and finally found it in the duffle bag he'd taken on his field trip. Talia took some pictures of my new scarves: 
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| Posted by Sora at 8 : 02 pm | Leave a note {6} | ||
| MISSING
I am going crazy trying to figure out where we put the digital camera. I took batteries out of it to recharge, wanting to take a picture of the robin's nest in our crab apple tree. The robin had just finished building and the buds were not quite open at that point. I discovered that the ancient batteries would not take a charge any more. A few days ago, I finally got around to buying new batteries and charging them up. Now the robin has been hunkered down on her eggs for well over a week, the crab apple tree has been gloriously covered with blooms and is now somewhat sad and tattered looking, shedding petals all over the garden. I have missed dozens of potentially great pictures and I can't find the camera anywhere! |
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| Posted by Sora at 12 : 30 pm | Leave a note {0} | ||
| BEST HEADCOVERING SITE I'VE FOUND
I just got three new headscarves from Tznius.com. They are beautiful, the shipping was cheap, the shipping was very fast. My only complaint is that they are temporarily sold out of several of the scarves that I otherwise would have been tempted to buy. |
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| Posted by Sora at 12 : 24 pm | Leave a note {7} | ||
| BAKING
Tomorrow Aedan's second grade class is having a Greek party (they've been studying ancient Greece) and so I am busy making homemade pita bread (my contribution to the Greek lunch). I'm making 3 dozen pitas so that there will be a few for my family as well as for the second greaders. 1 dozen whole wheat and 2 dozen white. Zek'l has eaten two whole ones already. They are turning out wonderfully -- Bread Bible recipe, of course -- but I am reminded of why I usually just feed my family on my basic, and speedy, whole wheat bread. Homemade pitas, matzohs, bagels, and so on are delicious, but they are so much more labor intensive than regular old bread, and they get eaten so fast that I would probably spend ten times as long baking as my family would spend eating. |
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| Posted by Sora at 12 : 21 pm | Leave a note {1} | ||
| April 16 2005 | ||
| ZOO
Yesterday was sunny and beautiful, Matt took off, very early and in "my" van to take his antiquities class on an overnight fieldtrip to Tennessee (to visit the Parthenon in Nashville), and Talia and Aedan had no school. I thought it would be a good day for the zoo, and suggested as much to the older children in order to provide a little extra motivation to them in getting their rooms clean. It took us almost two hours to get everyone fed, house cleaned up, lunch packed, sunscreen on, diapers changed, etc. etc. so that we could get out the door. And another 20 minutes to clear the trash out of Matt's car, install the carseats, and fit the lunch, the diaper bag, and the double stroller in the already somewhat crowded trunk. By this time, it was clear that Naomi would have done well to have had a morning nap an hour before departure time, but I had not anticipated taking so long, and so no nap had been imposed. We pressed on. Apparently, a very large percentage of Cincinnati's population had also determined that it was a good day for the zoo. I prefer the zoo on weekday mornings when school is in session, but there we were, and we tromped around, covering most of the ground and managing to avoid the worst of the crowds. The larger and more exotic animals were not terribly active, or maybe we've just seen them too many times to be impressed by them. The most exciting sight of the day was 15 turtles of various sizes lined up and sunning themselves in a row on a log in the duck pond. The turtles were sitting just as still as the Komodo dragons, but they got more of a reaction from the kids. |
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| Posted by Sora at 7 : 59 am | Leave a note {5} | ||
| April 13 2005 | ||
| UNDER CONSTRUCTION
Two robins are building a nest in the crab-apple tree right outside our bedroom window. |
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| Posted by Sora at 1 : 28 pm | Leave a note {1} | ||
| April 09 2005 | ||
| LONG DAY
After getting home from the spelling bee yesterday I had about an hour of down time and then Matt and I went to Mars Hill Academy's fundraising auction. No, we didn't buy anything, though if I had had a spare several hundred dollars sitting around I would have been tempted to bid on the Wind in the Willows quilt made by Talia's class. Naomi was not very happy to have me come home and then leave again, but the kids report that she calmed down shortly after we left and went on to have a cheerful evening. Matt and I left the auction "early" (10:00ish... I hate to think how long it took those who had to pay for merchandise to get out of there) because we were both exhausted and I was feeling increasingly sick. I had gone through an entire box of kleenex at the spelling bee (actually had to buy another box when I got gas on the way home!) and another half box at the auction, and just wanted to be in bed. Well, Naomi decided about 2:00 a.m. that she was sick too, and has been attached like a barnacle ever since. The nice thing about having a nursing toddlers is that when they get sick you can make them feel better without drugs or much effort, and you know that all those endless hours of nursing are giving them a real immune system boost to fight off the bug. The not so nice thing about having a nursing toddler is that, well, they want to nurse for literally hours on end when they get sick! N'omi is falling asleep numming right now and in a few minutes I will put her in her crib and go to bed myself. We'll see how long she stays there... I'm thinking I'll just let Matt and the older kids go to church tomorrow, and keep the sick baby home. Inconveniently, we're supposed to be teaching Talia and Aedan's class during the church school hour before the worship service. So, the spelling bee. At the last minute, we decided to let Aedan take the day off school and come along to watch. The drive to Columbus is extremely boring and tiring. Luckily, though I was succumbing to the evil cold that has had one or another member of our family in its clutches for what seems like decades now, Talia was feeling much better. The school / church facility was huge... the spelling bee was in an auditorium that sat 5000 people. We walked in and Talia, who had confessed to some butterflies, said, "I feel sick." (The butterflies lasted until the first word of the practice round, at which point she regained her composure and confidence.) There were just under 30 students with assorted parents, siblings, and hangers-on, winners of district bees throughout Ohio, Kentucky, and West Virginia. Talia had to draw a number when she registered to determine the order that the students would spell. She got 28 -- arguably the best position to be in, since if you make it to the point that there are, say, 5 competitors left, and 3 are eliminated in one round, the last to be eliminated is the only one of the three who goes home with a trophy. The practice round used words from the 5th grade "easy" list, and then the sucessive rounds progressed through 5th grade average, 5th grade difficult, then jumped to 6th grade difficult for 2 rounds, then 7th, etc. The other competitor from Mars Hill, a 7th grade boy who had won 1st place in the district bee, had the misfortune of getting a 5th grade word he had not studied and getting eliminated in round 2 -- a real disappointment for him and his family. Talia correctly spelled elude, howitzer, circadian, prolocutor, sassafras, and promissory. By Round 5 there were only 12 competitors left of the original 28. In round 7, another speller was eliminated and then Talia mispelled "fallibility" (with an "a" instead of an "i", thinking of fallacious) and was out, coming in at 11th place. As is so often the case, there were no words in the next 5 or 6 rounds that she would have had any trouble with, but such is life. In Round 15 they went off-list and knocked the number of competitors from 5 down to 2 -- the top 6 spellers had evidently studied their lists extremely well. Though it was rather exhausting, we were all glad to have gone. Talia did well enough to be proud of herself but not well enough to advance to the national finals, which will be in Washington D.C. next month. This was, in some ways, a great relief -- she was ready to stop studying spelling words and I was not ready to take a trip to D.C. in May! We haven't decided yet whether or not to pursue a spelling bee next year -- either ACSI again, if we can do it as homeschoolers, or Scripps Howard, which is considerably more competitive and has a much bigger word list. Since both bees are open for students up to 8th grade, Talia has quite a few more years in which to participate if she wants to, but this year may have been as much as she cares for. I'm going to take my coughing, hacking, congested self to bed now. Have a blessed Lord's Day, everybody, and stay healthy. |
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| Posted by Sora at 9 : 57 pm | Leave a note {3} | ||
| April 07 2005 | ||
| SPELLING BEE TOMORROW
Talia and I are going to Columbus for the regional ACSI bee tomorrow. Please pray that she will be healthy and at her best tomorrow... she has been suffering from a head cold all week and if she is feeling grumpy and under the weather, an intense and competitive event will not be at all fun. She does not have particularly high expectations, but then, she did not expect to do well going in to the district bee either, and we both were pleasantly surprised. This one will undoubtedly be more challenging, of course, since her competition includes 7th and 8th graders, some of whom have been doing this quite seriously for a few years already. |
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| Posted by Sora at 3 : 23 pm | Leave a note {2} | ||
| April 05 2005 | ||
| INTERVIEW QUESTIONS FROM KRISTEN
Kristen has kindly helped me come up with something to post today. 1. You are a women of many talents (musical, sewing, knitting, cooking...). What talent do you wish you could add to your repitoire? I've always envied people with perfect pitch and those who can sing harmony without apparent effort (it is a long, slow process for me to learn a new alto part). I've also beeen known to wish that I were more of a natural linguist. I lag very far behind my husband and daughter when it comes to languages other than English, and those languages (Latin, Hebrew) that I have put some beginning effort into in the past -- or even those (French) that I've had a modicum of proficiency in in the past -- fly out of my head incredibly quickly during any period of disuse. And, I don't know if this can really be called a "talent" but while we're dreaming, one of those lightning-fast metabolisms that lets my husband eat junk food late at night and stay skinny would be nice, too. :-) 2. If you were given $100 you HAD to spend on yourself, what would you buy? This answer would vary from day to day and week to week. Today, I could easily and happily spend it all on ferns and shade-loving shrubs and perennials for the new garden bed I'm putting in the back yard. 3. As someone I consider pretty crunchy, what is one natural living habit you wish the whole world would practice and why? Asking the whole world to bow to my personal preferences might be a bit much-- though I do ask my husband never to cook bacon in my kitchen. I guess I could wish that more American cities were better designed for cyclists and stroller-pushing pedestrians. When I lived in Victoria, pushing or pedalling everywhere with the kids in their Chariot kept me fit. Since then, walking for exercise is a "special event" and an end unto itself, rather than part of the fabric of daily living. It often involves driving somewhere else first! It would be nice to be able to walk to the grocery store or the library with my kids, but it just hasn't been possible anywhere I've lived since. 4. As a former Jew, what do you think of the Messianic Judaism movement? I have some eschatological differences with it, and think it is a bit too focused on the modern nation of Israel (I have been told that I had a duty as a Christian Jew to move to Israel to help bring about some particular end-times scenario... no thanks. The whole earth is the Lord's, and I like where I live.) But a Messianic Jew is likely much better equipped to open the eyes of an unbelieving Jews to the light of Christ than, say, a Baptist is... and I have no problems with that! 5. Based on location alone (not considering people, churches or jobs), where was your favorite place that you have lived and why? Definitely Vancouver Island (Victoria). Mountains. Ocean. Mild summers. (Oh, I hate hot muggy summers.) Mild winters. A gardener's paradise. Of course, I'd like to move a few people, churches, and jobs there from other places. And lower the ridiculous real estate prices a bit... or else mysteriously discover that someone bought me a few acres of land on the island the year I was born. *BONUS* As the maker of these wonderful dolls which are terrific for modelling birthing, breastfeeding and babywearing, have you ever considered a referral discount for those who convince others to buy dolls with persistent advertising and links? ;o) LOL! Sure, Kristen. I'll give you 10% off for every order that mentions "I heard about your dolls from Kristen Stewart". |
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| Posted by Sora at 9 : 49 am | Leave a note {7} | ||
| March 25 2005 | ||
| MURDERING WORDS
I have nothing to say about Terri Schiavo's judicially decreed murder that others have not already said. All that is new here is the international spotlight shining on the case; that and the fact that the Governor of Florida, Congress, and the President of the United States together cannot undo a death sentence by one District Court judge. The so-called "right to die" became a duty to die some time ago, without the spotlight. Doug Wilson commented several days ago on the murder of words in the Terri Schiavo case; specifically, the language of "allowing" death as if Terri Schiavo were already in the process of dying before her court-ordered dehydration began. Today, Wittenberg Gate has an excellent post on Dying with Dignity and Peace. There is a Righteous Judge, who took Death on Himself and conquered it forever. He has promised to vindicate the opressed innocent and punish the wicked. What is happening in our nations courtrooms and hospitals and hospices today is not the end of the story. |
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| Posted by Sora at 2 : 01 pm | Leave a note {3} | ||
| February 25 2005 | ||
| THANKFUL
2:30 -- 3 year old has a bad dream and gets in my bed, where he spends the rest of the night pressed right up against me, even when I try to get a bit more space 5:30ish -- husband brings 1 year old in and leaves her with me, so that she can, as usual, nurse and nurse and nurse and nurse and nurse... while 3 year old continues to smother / cuddle on the other side and I try to continue to doze despite being uncomfortably squished between my two dear children 7:00ish -- 9 year old comes in, "MOOOOMMMMY! We have to leave in 5 MINUTES and you HAVEN'T BRUSHED MY HAIR YET!" (9 year old's hair has never been cut, and is so long and thick that she cannot brush and braid it herself yet) 7:15ish -- Matt and the kids have left for school in a hurry... and the kids have left their cereal bowls on the table. 1 year old pulls a placemat off the table, spilling milk and breaking yet another one of my pretty bowls Between 7:20 and 9:00: 3 year old poops on the floor, not 15 feet from a perfectly good toilet, having been sent upstairs to get clothes from his dresser after removing his pajamas and pull-up 1 year old scatters all her toys and books across the living room floor I discover that 7 year old has forgotten his gym clothes 3 year old knocks over a bin of wheatberries, spilling several pounds of wheat all over the kitchen floor I discover that Matt didn't have to commit to driving kids to a basketball game after school after all, if we had only checked phone messages before bed last night the stick-on velcro comes off one hand of the doll that was otherwise all finished and ready to mail today, and in trying to glue it back on, I ruin the entire arm and now have to sew a new doll arm before I can put the doll in the mail I spend too much time on the computer instead of reading my Bible because I'm feeling glum and disconsolate the orange-chocolate cookies in the cupboard are calling to me in my glum and disconsolate state and I am valiantly resisting them 10:45 The baby has nursed again and gone down for her nap, the kitchen and living room are clean again, bread dough is rising, I have NOT eaten any sugar and I am NOT going to, the sun has come out, I have finished reading 2nd chronicles and am about to do my yoga while the baby naps. So... can I come up with more things to be thankful about than to complain about this morning? I am thankful that the sun is shining. I am thankful for God's Word and my ability to read it. I am thankful that God kept me from losing my temper with the kids on a stressful morning. I am thankful that the 1 year old didn't wake up to nurse until after 5:00 a.m. today. I am thankful that I am about to be exercising instead of eating orange-chocolate cookies. I am thankful that I have a 3 year old who tells me he loves me 15 times a day. I am thankful that I can have a reasonable expectation that he will no longer be pooping on the floor (or in his underpants) a year from now. I am thankful for the independence, helpfulness, and general competence of those two of my children who no longer poop on the floor or get into my bed at 2:30 in the morning. I am thankful for my king-sized bed which has room for small people to snuggle in without disturbing Daddy's sleep. I am thankful that a year is not as interminable as it was when I was 3 -- or 7 -- or 9. I am thankful that my husband who loves me (though he doesn't tell me so 15 times a day). I am thankful that my busy DestructoBaby is so sweet and adorable and affectionate. I am thankful that I didn't have to drive the kids to school this morning, nor will I have to drive them to the basketball game this afternoon. I am thankful that my dear husband and children will be home all day tomorrow. |
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| Posted by Sora at 11 : 16 am | Leave a note {2} | ||
| CATEGORIES
More observant readers may have noticed that I have started using Upsaid's (sorta new) categories feature. This allows you to, for instance, click on "Tongue Meditations" at the bottom of today's post, and get a page with all of the tongue meditations ever posted on it. And I can now create a link to every recipe ever posted on my blog (and I'll eventually get around to putting such links in my sidebar.) So far I have only categorized tongue meditations, and recipes. Because many recipes were posted last year in tongue meditation entries (because of the "what comes out of and what goes into the mouth" theme), I am waiting until I re-post the particular tongue entry and then changing the original category and title so that it will show up under recipes instead. Eventually I intend to retrospectively categorize the archives more thoroughly. Some ideas are grouping "grandparents" posts (cute kid stories / pictures), homeschooling posts, pregnancy/birth/childbearing-related posts, etc. Any other categories you'd like to see me use? |
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| Posted by Sora at 8 : 14 am | Leave a note {4} | ||
| February 24 2005 | ||
| SAMANTHA'S INTERVIEW QUESTIONS
I realize that I have posted nothing except last year's tongue meditations for a very long time. It seems like my Lenten Bible reading is more difficult to accomplish this year. Not that this makes sense -- after all, I had twice as many children at home all day last year -- but there it is. I have been struggling to keep up with the reading, and haven't had much time for writing. So I thought I'd take 5 minutes for 5 of Samantha's blog interview questions for a change of pace. - Which subjects have you studied in the most depth throughout your life? I have been a terrible dabbler, so while there are many subjects in which I have had some interest or involvement, there are very few that I consider myself to have much depth of knowledge in. Probably the top three are midwifery and related areas (the care of the pregnant, birthing, postpartum, breastfeeding mama and baby), home and family management, and theology. - Coffee or Tea? Water. - If you were given $100,000 today, what would you do with it? Assuming that this hypothetical $100, 000 was somehow tax-free so that I could actually do as I pleased with it... international adoption. Practically, we could probably only get 2 or 3 children at a time, every few years, so a large portion of the money would be invested to fund later adoptions. And I guess I'd have to use part of it for a larger vehicle. - Do you make your own pizza? Yes, always, and I have a fantastic crust recipe. My husband prefers pepperoni, my kids like cheese and pineapple, and my own pizza gets onions, mushrooms, bell peppers, zuchinni, and -- when I have it -- pesto instead of or in addition to the tomato sauce. - If you could distill your philosophy of life down to one paragraph, what would you say? Make plans and get things done... and try to remember that being Christlike is more important than getting things done. |
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| Posted by Sora at 11 : 56 am | Leave a note {4} | ||
| February 22 2005 | ||
| SMOTHERED
Quoth my husband, while helpfully taking my picture: "When you were urging me to embrace Quiverfull thinking, you never thought about the dangers of being embraced by a full quiver, did you?"  |
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| Posted by Sora at 7 : 32 pm | Leave a note {1} | ||
| February 12 2005 | ||
| SPELLING BEE
Talia and I just got back from the district ASCI spelling bee. She placed 3rd in the 5th-8th grade finals, so she'll be going on to the regional competition in Columbus in two weeks. Not too shabby for a nine-year-old. The 2nd and 1st place winners for the district were 7th and 8th graders (Mars Hill's 7th grade representative won the district meet.) As if to prove her omnipotence, Talia is looking over my shoulder and correcting all my typos as I blog. |
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| Posted by Sora at 1 : 26 pm | Leave a note {1} | ||
| February 08 2005 | ||
| I JUST REALIZED
Passover this year is going to be nearly a month after Easter. This will feel exceedingly strange. |
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| Posted by Sora at 10 : 05 pm | Leave a note {0} | ||
| MORE THOUGHTS ON HAVING MY OWN COMPUTER
I think what I like best about having my own laptop is that it has become, effectively, the only thing in the house that I am able to keep completely tidy and organized all the time. We have a handful of kids, more than a handful of stuff, and somehow no one else in the family is as obsessive as I am about putting things away in appropriate places. Talia and Aedan tease me by saying, "But MOMMY, you know we're clutterblind!" Every room in the house is used by people other than me, but not my laptop. Every file on the hard-drive is near-compulsively organized into an appropriate folder. Things I won't use and incoming email I don't need are all ruthlessly deleted throughout the day. Financial records are kept up-to-date. Everything is in order. There is NOTHING on my desktop except my hard drive and whatever open application I happen to be using at the time. When I put my computer to sleep at the end of the day, I close or hide the applications and my desktop background picture -- John Howe's painting "Bilbo's Front Hall" -- is revealed in all its glory, uncluttered with miscellaneous files. It's a good feeling. |
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| Posted by Sora at 10 : 26 am | Leave a note {4} | ||
| February 02 2005 | ||
| HOW MY LAPTOP SPENT IT'S DAY
Yesterday evening, Matt looked over at me and said, "I bet none of the people who, 25 or 30 years ago, predicted how computers would be used in the future, would ever have imagined a housewife sitting in her kitchen, using her 12-inch portable computer to request a children's book from the public library." After a pause, he added, "After all, housewives and kitchens are two of the things that the hopeful social engineers always think will be eradicated in the next 30 years." Of course, I could do my job perfectly adequately without a fancy laptop, as housewives and mothers have done for generations. It is not nearly as indispensable to the quality of our home life as my washing machine or vaccum cleaner or even my grain mill. So... is it just an expensive toy, or worse, a distraction from what should really be my top priorities? I thought it might be interesting and informative to keep a running list of how I used my ibook today: 5:30 a.m. checked email checked a few blogs read some comics on the web looked up the website for the Hamilton County auditor and found the phone number to change our property tax billing address (we recently refinanced and are now managing our own escrow account) ordered some books from amazon.com entered the purchase in Quicken looked up how to become a certified child passenger safety technician (it requires a 4-day, 8-hour-a-day class, so it's probably not something I'll be able to do anytime soon) 7:00 a.m. played a yoga dvd 8:00 a.m. checked a recipe 8:45 played bible CD (Alexander Scourby, KJV) while cleaning up the kitchen (didn't work as well as I'd have liked -- the maximum volume for the ibook speakers is inadequate for these particular cds, and plugging in external speakers would be too much trouble and impede portability. perhaps I should get an actual designated cd player for the kitchen) 8:53 switched to Jamie Soles, which is audible 9:15 emailed my husband to tell him I had taken care of the property tax checked email again and deleted a whole bunch 9:20 replied to a blog comment 9:30 changed iTunes again, to play home-recorded children's stories for ZZ at his request 10:30 checked email again to see if Matt had written back yet (he had) read a MOMYS digest that had just come in posted a blog (see below) about a great sale on nursing dresses 11:00 bought a nursing top and entered the purchase in Quicken (I do not actually make this many online purchases every day! Or even every month!) 11:15 moved the computer to the bedroom so ZZ could listen to his stories again on my bed while I folded laundry 4:30 checked email again updated Quicken with entries for the check I deposited and the groceries I bought on the way home from watching Aedan's speech competition at MHA made a graph of our January expenses, which showed an incredibly huge expenditure under "computer" realized that I'd never entered the refund from the Apple store for my first ibook, and opened Safari to check the date and amount on our bank's website while waiting for the bank page to load, opened iChat to see if anyone is online grumbled about the huge fwded email, the first of 19 messages in the queue, that was taking 7 MINUTES to download on our dial-up connection and was slowing down my connection to the bank's webpage, and which I was just going to delete as soon as it finished downloading put the Apple refund in Quicken 7:40 Used the calculator on the computer to check Talia's math homework (when I use the one in my purse it sometimes doesn't find it's way back there.) checked email one last time and decide to save the 3 new MOMYS digests for tomorrow posted this blog and put the computer to bed. |
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| Posted by Sora at 7 : 52 pm | Leave a note {4} | ||
| TEENY TINY NURSING MOTHERS TAKE NOTE
No, I'm not talking about my nursing dolls. Milk'n'Wild Honey, a B.C. nursing clothing company, is closing and all their remaining stock is 70% off. These are beautiful, high quality nursing dresses and tops in my favorite clothing colors. Unfortunately, they only seem to have smaller sizes left inany of the dresses, including the one I like best -- the "Galiano". But any smaller nursing moms out there, this is a really great opportunity to get some nursing dresses for less than it would cost you to sew them yourself. |
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| Posted by Sora at 10 : 47 am | Leave a note {1} | ||
| January 25 2005 | ||
| CRUCIFYING THE FLESH
This morning I spent some time visiting with a woman from our church who I really ought to make more time to see. Her oldest and youngest children are about the same ages as mine (11 and 1) but she has twice as many as I do, so there are generally two or three of them wanting her attention at any given time. Which makes for pretty amusing conversations, as we kept going back and forth between meeting children's needs and the conversation we wanted to be having (about miscarriage and trusting God -- this woman had also lost a baby a few months ago, her first miscarriage after 8 healthy babies.) There are many things our two families do things differently, and most of these are "matters indifferent". But in two areas I have been very impressed with this family, and think I would do well to learn from them. The first is the way in which the parents function as a team. Matt and I don't always do this very well, and sometimes we are absolutely at cross purposes. Hopefully this will improve with time -- this other couple has been married almost three times as long as we have -- but it is certainly something we need to actively strive for, in perception and attitude as well as actions. The second is the way in which both parents appear to have completely and wholeheartedly accepted the fact that they need to lay down their own desires and work very hard, and sacrificially, all the time, in order to raise their children in a godly manner. This is not something I have fully mastered yet. I want to be able to write an email, sew, read, make music, do my own thing, without being interrupted by a needy child. I don't want to wash poop off a 3-year-old's bum for the second time in one day. Too often, instead of taking the opportunity to crucify the flesh and love my family, I resent the intrusions that small children inevitably bring to whatever my own thing happens to be at the moment. Thus far, the personalities of my older children, and the spacing of my children, really have allowed me to do an awful lot of what I wanted to do (if not always exactly when I wanted to do it) without noticeably compromising my mothering. But this has caused me to act as if I deserve or have an innate right to that time to fulfill my own desires, and I have allowed myself to fall into sin when my children's needs conflict with them. |
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| Posted by Sora at 9 : 29 pm | Leave a note {13} | ||
| January 24 2005 | ||
| DIDN'T QUITE WORK AS PLANNED...
So we're sitting on the bed having quality time with our his and hers laptops. But it's almost 9:30, and I'm ready to turn off mine and actually talk to my husband. Soooo, I glance over and see that he is being instant messaged by a couple of his students. Hmmm. I open iChat, and my little face icon pops up on my husband's screen with a word balloon reading, "OK, honey! It's time to TURN OFF THE COMPUTER and SNUGGLE." He laughs. He tells his instant messaging students he needs to get off the computer now. He quits iChat. But does he actually shut the laptop. Nooooooo, he does not. And now I can't even send him nagging instant messages. |
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| Posted by Sora at 10 : 12 pm | Leave a note {4} | ||
| January 19 2005 | ||
| TREASURE HUNT
Packing the kid's lunches for tomorrow, I found myself frustrated. At the beginning of the school year I had at least 8 half-cup sized plastic containers with lids -- a very handy size for school lunch items. Tonight, however, I could put my hands on only two containers without lids, excepting one set in the dishwasher and another in the fridge with Naomi's leftover yogurt in it. My cupboard full of plastic containers and lids, you see, is beloved of two busy one-year-olds who raid it at least twice a week, and little half-cup-container sized lids disappear very easily. The usual places -- under the coffeetable, couch, and bureau in the living room -- yielded many uninteresting finds; mostly shapes from the shape-sorter toy. No lids. One turned up in the living room toy bin. Then inspiration struck and I realized that under the stove -- a mere two feet away from the plastic container cupboard -- was the likeliest place in the world in which to find a missing lid. So I pulled the pots and pans drawer out completely, and found:
No half-cup-container sized lid. I was eventually reduced to hand-washing the one in the dishwasher so that I could finish packing the kids' lunches. |
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| Posted by Sora at 7 : 01 pm | Leave a note {2} | ||
| January 18 2005 | ||
| ANOTHER PLUG FOR VALERIE'S NEW BLOG
Two wonderfully encouraging, uplifting, inspiring, and challenging posts yesterday. |
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| Posted by Sora at 8 : 22 am | Leave a note {2} | ||
| January 17 2005 | ||
| HANDIWORK
Here is what I have made in the last two days: 
Zek'l's birthday is actually tomorrow, but we had his cake yesterday for logistical reasons. Anyone want to guess what his favorite color is right now? Despite the juvenile appearance, it was actually a delicious rich chocolate cake with Chambord-flavored buttercream, intended to appeal to adult tastes (as long as said adults shut their eyes before they took a bite.) Anyway, it's been devoured now and lives on only in the photos. Hopefully Talia's new cloak will last a little longer. |
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| Posted by Sora at 8 : 44 pm | Leave a note {11} | ||
| January 13 2005 | ||
AS A FLOWER OF THE FIELD
Thursday morning, a week ago, Matt left for Boston and -- some hours later -- I got a positive home pregnancy test. Friday I told Matt about the baby. I also took the second HPT just to make sure, because the first one was somewhat faint. The second one was also rather faint, but unmistakably positive. Saturday we told grandparents. My not-quite-3-year-old was asking me several times a day, "Mommy, is there still a little baby inside you?" And on receiving a positive reply, he always added, "But I do like little babies." Sunday Matt came home. We were all very exited. Monday Matt told the happy news at work and on his blog. At this point I was about 6 weeks pregnant, so the baby was about 4 weeks old. Monday night I had what feel like very early Braxton Hicks contractions. They were not uncomfortable, like the cramping I have experienced during my three previous miscarriages, so I didn't think pay much attention to them. Tuesday morning, in the midst of the early morning getting-the-kids-ready-for-school rush, I started bleeding. NO! How miserably unfair. We just told everyone the good news! We had not even had a week to be excited about the baby. I know in theory that bleedng in early pregnancy is not always conclusive, I know many people who have had healthy children despite it... but that has not been my experience over the course of my now-8 pregnancies. It did not even really occur to me to ask for prayer for the baby; to try to get an ultrasound and check for a heartbeat -- all things we did when we had our first miscarriage, and our second. After the first few minutes of tearful denial I had no doubt that we had lost this baby. (Matt was more hopeful, or less willing to draw immediate conclusions, but as the days pass, the evidence continues to be against him.) We have lost this baby, but God has not. He is the author of all life and numbers our days. Not even 30 days of this life for this little one, but still this child is heir to great and wonderful promises. "In a way," Matt said last night, "God is showing more mercy to this baby than to those He preserves. What better way to die than completely surrounded by Mommy, never experiencing any of the effects of sin." "And never experiencing any of life's temporal joys," I objected. "But those are just a foretaste of heaven," he responded. "It is better to be with the Lord." We decided many years ago that our uncertainty about length of days was all the more reason to announce each pregnancy as soon as we knew about it, and celebrate each life for as long as it was given. We believe these brief lives are worth celebrating. God is advancing His kingdom through them. When we offer our bodies as living sacrifices to God, we are seeking His glory, not our own selfish ends. When we offer our childbearing to God, we may desire and delight in the children He grants us, but they are not wages for our obedience. God does not owe us children, and He does not wrong us when He withholds them. We cannot understand why God is granting conception and birth to others who will abort or abuse their precious little ones, when we so long to cherish and nurture another baby. But we are not required to understand, simply to trust. His purposes are higher than ours, and He has promised that He will work all things together for the good of those who love Him. So we seek to glorify God in our grief, and we take comfort in His precious promises. Valerie Jacobsen has a marvelous little essay on taking an eternal perspective on children. She writes, "Our children are conceived in us microscopic but eternal, fragile but indestructible." The Canons of Dordt declare: Since we must make judgments about God's will from his Word, which testifies that the children of believers are holy, not by nature but by virtue of the gracious covenant in which they together with their parents are included, godly parents ought not to doubt the election and salvation of their children whom God calls out of this life in infancy. Our children who live to grow up will certainly cause us frustration and grief at times. Some may live to turn from God, causing us great fear and heartache. Yet the difficulties and sorrows of raising a child -- though these continue for 20, 50, or even 90 years -- are small indeed compared to the eternal joys and delights that they will know at the resurrection, if in God's grace they persevere. How much greater the contrast between the brief pain and sadness we have had at this little one's short life and early passing, and the victorious life that is to come! |
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| Posted by Sora at 11 : 07 am | Leave a note {19} | ||
| BUSY LITTLE GIRL
My iBook arrived yesterday like a consolation prize, so now after many months I have a computer at home during the day again. After getting dressed this morning, Naomi ran to the shelf where the children's shoes are kept and brought me one of her little white Mary Janes. She handed it to me and squealed. "Where's the other shoe?" I asked. She ran back to the shelf, grabbed the second shoe, ran back, thrust the shoe onto my lap and threw herself on the floor, extending her little feet toward me. As soon as the white shoes were on, she got up, ran back to the shoe shelf, picked up her little red Mary Janes, ran back, gave me the shoes, and sat down on the floor again. She waited patiently for me to take of the white ones and put the red ones on her feet. Then she carried the white shoes back to the shoe shelf and carefully replaced them. Some days she repeats the performance again with her Pooh Bear boots or her bunny slippers, which she is also very fond of. Today she brought me the Paddington Bear book, handed it to me, squealed, and sat down on the floor. She only let me read the first four pages before she took the book out of my hands, in order to hold it herself, point to the pictures, and "read". I went to the kitchen and started loading breakfast dishes into the dishwasher. Naomi followed and carefully put the Paddington book into the dishwasher in the row of plates. |
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| Posted by Sora at 8 : 53 am | Leave a note {2} | ||
| January 11 2005 | ||
| BLOGS COME AND GO
Valerie Jacobsen started an Upsaid blog just before they stopped offering free service. Her first blog only lasted two days, much to my disappointment. Now she's back, on her own server. Yay! With regret, I removed Kolbi's link from my sidebar. She is missed. We hope that if she ever starts another, more anonymous blog somewhere else, she will let us know where to find it. |
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| Posted by Sora at 11 : 32 pm | Leave a note {1} | ||
| January 10 2005 | ||
| STRANGEST PREGNANCY SYMPTOM EVER?
No fatigue to speak of. No nausea to speak of. ** Just a sudden, obsessive desire to design and sew dolls that give birth. Matt said, "I should have known when you started making those dolls!" Amusingly, the EDD is Matt's 30th birthday. Talia says, "I hope you don't actually have this baby on Daddy's birthday... so that we can get two birthday cakes in one month." She assumes that we wouldn't have two birthday cakes on the same day, as we have not done so (yet) for Naomi's and my shared birthday. **Addendum: This may not have been a good sign. As of today (Tuesday) things are not looking so promising for this pregnancy. It has pleased God to bless us with eight children. Four we are thankfully, prayerfully, and laboriously raising in the nurture and admonition of the Lord. Three have been mercifully taken directly from the womb to His glorious prescence. We are not sure about this one yet, but we are thankful to God for giving us this baby, even if only for a short time. |
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| Posted by Sora at 5 : 02 pm | Leave a note {12} | ||
| STILL NO COMPUTER
My iBook was waiting for me when I got home Saturday, but, alas, it had to be sent back to Apple and a new one purchased. The first was an Apple refurbished model that was advertised as having a combo drive (would play both CDs and DVDs). Turned out to only have a CD-R/W drive. Since it was Apple's fault (Matt called to specifically ask about the drive before the computer shipped) they are waiving the 10% open-box fee on the return, but I have to wait another week for my computer. On the plus side, for the one day that I had it, it was a very cute little thing. Matt's 17-inch Powerbook looks absolutely monstrous next to it. |
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| Posted by Sora at 4 : 57 pm | Leave a note {5} | ||
| January 05 2005 | ||
NAOMI (IN THE BABY BACKPACK, AT THE ZOO)
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| Posted by Sora at 9 : 06 pm | Leave a note {2} | ||
| December 17 2004 | ||
| TALIA'S CHRISTMAS SONNET
Well, Talia's Christmas sonnet came home in the school newsletter yesterday, courtesy of her English teacher. So now I'm allowed to put it on my blog, too. She did me one better and added a second sonnet two later in order to fill her page. Messiah by Talia Colvin 'Twas in a stable, dirty and bare That Jesus Christ was born. Dung and straw were everywhere, Of glories, it was shorn. Among the ox and ass and mice He had for a cradle a feeding bin. For our God, would this suffice? Born to save us from our sin! Magi followed the shining star, T'ward the stable to worship him. Certain shepherds suddenly saw Angels singing praise and hymn. Come ye faithful, come and sing Praises to our newborn King! Twas on a hill, dirty and bare, That Christ was crucified. A crown of thorns was on his hair While on the cross he died. Among the robbers, lifted high, Upon the cursed tree, Beneath the mournful, darkened sky, Christ died instead of me. The Son of God, without a flaw Descended into dark and gloom. His disciples suddenly saw Angels beside the empty tomb! Come ye faithful, come and sing, Praises to our risen King! |
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| Posted by Sora at 5 : 48 pm | Leave a note {6} | ||
| December 14 2004 | ||
| MY BIIIIIIRRRTHDAY PRESENT!
It arrived today. (From my mother via Amazon, precious. We did no vile deeds to obtain it.) We are not, however, going to try to stay up and watch all of it tonight, because we're not that foolish. At least, we don't think we are. |
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| Posted by Sora at 6 : 37 pm | Leave a note {2} | ||
| December 05 2004 | ||
| THANK YOU, DANA!
I don't remember if you've ever left a comment or not. But that was a very cute virtual birthday card you sent! Thank you. |
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| Posted by Sora at 8 : 32 pm | Leave a note {2} | ||
| December 02 2004 | ||
| CHRISTMAS SONNET
Talia came home from school today and told me that she was starting another creative writing assignment. It was to be a one-page, Christmas-themed story or fable -- but she had finagled her way into being allowed to write a Christmas-themed poem. And she declared that she wanted to make it a sonnet. So we reviewed the possible variations of rhyme structure, talked about thematic structure, and I dug up a few examples of both English and Italian-style sonnets to read with her so she could see the concepts in action, and she set to work. And came up with a result that I, being her mother, of course think is charming and Very Good For a Nine Year Old. But -- and regular readers of this blog will expect this -- you don't get to see Talia's sonnet. She went to bed before I thought to ask her permission, and probably I wouldn't have gotten it had I thought to ask before she went to bed -- if only because she considers it still a first draft and subject to revision. She has made it abundantly clear to me that my blog is not to become a forum for embarrassing her in front of the entire internet. But, dear readers, I will not send you away sonnet-less. For it occurred to me as Talia and I were doing our preliminary overview before she commenced her writing, that it would be a fun and amusing exercise to write a Christmas sonnet myself. Besides, having come part of the way with her, I wanted to continue to keep her company. So we wrote together ("Don't look at mine until it's finished, and I won't look at yours!") At last I got my sonnet to the point where I was satisfied with it, and showed it to Talia (who liked it) and to Matt, who is a critic at heart. First he objected to the presumptions of my image. "I know, dear," I replied. "There is no Biblical reason to think that Mary and Joseph were turned away from door after door, but it is a longstanding image from our collective Christmas mythos, and an evocative one, and so I used it." My defense was sufficient for him, and he acquiesed and withdrew his first complaint. But then he told me that the last two lines were terrible. And, alas, he had good reasons for saying so. He didn't like the rhyme, calling it hackneyed and over-used. He didn't like the change from immediate imagery to doxological generalizations in the final couplet. So I threw out the last two lines and came up with a couplet that did what I'd been trying to do beforehand, but with more of a "smack-you-in-the-face" quality to it. And here, dear readers, is my edited Christmas sonnet: Nativity Alone, unwelcome, stumbling door to door, Seeking a refuge from the night and cold. So weary now it seems they cannot hold Up heads or take one heavy footstep more They stumble in, collapse upon the floor Upon the muck and straw within the shed The cattle's breath to warm their humble bed For they are strangers here, and they are poor. But no rest find they in this place tonight. The chilly miles trudged from Nazareth Have stirred her womb -- a sharp intake of breath -- Her lips are clenched, she strains with all her might -- And on the straw between her bloodied thighs The King of Glory blinks His newborn eyes. |
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| Posted by Sora at 11 : 41 pm | Leave a note {11} | ||
| November 30 2004 | ||
| VERY TINY BABY DOLLS
This is a useful web site to know about. Original three dimensional, life size, portraits of real babies born from 3 weeks gestation to full term. |
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| Posted by Sora at 8 : 17 pm | Leave a note {3} | ||
| IT'S NOT FAIR
This morning, Zek'l came up to me as I was folding laundry and said something about a birthday. "Do you know who is having a birthday on Sunday?" I asked him. "Do YOU know who is having a birthday, Mommy?" "Yes, I do. Do you know, ZZ?" "No, I don't know." "Naomi is having a birthday." Big grin. "And, Mommy is having a birthday too." Nod. "AND, Pippin [Talia's budgie] is having a birthday on Sunday too!" "And I am having a birthday on Sunday too!" "No, ZZ. You are not having a birthday on Sunday. Your birthday is in January." Long pause. Then: "You meanie, Mommy." |
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| Posted by Sora at 7 : 48 pm | Leave a note {3} | ||
| FOOD, GLORIOUS FOOD...
I am trying to decide what to make for Our Birthday on Sunday. White chocolate cheesecake? Or grasshopper pie? Or a chocolate raspberry bombe? Or more than one dessert (we will be having an extra dozen people eating...) Non-dessert is going to all be finger food because we don't have enough table room for everyone. I will probably make a tray of assorted little sandwiches (cut in fancy shapes of course) because there will be a fair number of children present. I'm also thinking of: mini summer rolls stuffed with lettuce, green onion, shredded carrots, and cilantro with peanut and cilantro dipping sauces vegetarian sushi with avocado and carrot spinach dip in a bread bowl (the pugliese from RLB's Bread Bible) homemade matzoh (also from the Bread Bible) Both the Bread Bible recipes I have made once before and they are time-consuming, but unbelievably yummy. I have everything I need to make the sushi and the salad rolls on hand. I even have an unopened jar of pickled ginger that I bought 6 months ago in anticipation of making sushi sometime soon because I really really wanted some... and, well, I haven't done it. Mostly because my family doesn't like sushi. They love summer rolls. But I only want to make two of the four because other people will be bringing food too. Which two? Cast your vote. Maybe that will help me figure out what I really want to eat on my birthday. |
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| Posted by Sora at 7 : 28 pm | Leave a note {8} | ||
| November 29 2004 | ||
| CELEBRATING TRADITIONS
Oh, I am so glad I'm in a sub-set of the Reformed Tradition that knows how to celebrate. I'm talking about joy. About feasting on wholesome homemade bread and sweet wine WITH my babies and my big kids and my darling husband and a whole beloved church full of beautiful communing children and earnest, warmhearted saints every single Sunday. Bountiful, my-cup-runneth-over, heart-bursting celebration of the goodness of God. The WEDDING SUPPER! The VICTORY FEAST! We're living it! And now it is Advent. JOY! Everything is done consciously, to remind us, not just our isolated intellects but all of our visceral physical interconnected embodied selves, that we are celebrating our glorious Gospel. Our church is adorned. Our house is adorned. The sights, the sounds, the smells, the tastes that are unique to this season overwhelm our senses. Good Christian men, REJOICE! Gaude, gaude! Immanuel nascetur pro te, Israel! We consciously choose how to feed our senses now, perhaps, more than at any other season. Our family's Advent and Christmas traditions have not, for the most part, been handed down. They are adopted traditions, carefully chosen. To us, the parents, to whom a year, two years, four years, is but a little moment, they still seem tenuous and insecure. But our children remember! "This is how we do it," they say. Zek'l did not like it when we turned out all the lights at the beginning of family worship yesterday evening. "It's DAAAARK!" he protested. "Sshh, ZZ. It's supposed to be dark," his older brother and sister whispered. "We're remembering how the world waited for Jesus." Then Daddy lit the first Advent candle and we listened to one track of Handel's Messiah "The pee-o-ple that walked in da-a-ar-arkness, that walked in darkness, that walked in darkness, the pee-o-ple that walked in darkness have seen a great Light!" On Christmas Eve, Matt and the kids will choose the tree and bring it home. We will have a lessons and carols service at church. Mommy and Daddy will decorate the tree after the kids are in bed, and they will see it "trimmed" for the first time Christmas morning. We will feast on Christmas pudding and Daddy will make homemade eggnog and accidentally drop whole nutmegs into it and we'll all laugh about it. All this, we have done once before. Two years ago, we were in a tiny apartment and had no tree. We had no church with a Christmas Eve service. Yet I heard Talia describing with absolute certainty the sequence of events -- this is how we do it -- and longing for the day when she will be counted among the "big people" who get to stay up and decorate the tree on Christmas Eve after church! For our children, the immediate NOW is much bigger than it is for us. But, God willing, we will do these things for many more years. These traditions will take on permanence for Mommy and Daddy too. What are you feasting your eyes on? What herald trumpets meet your ears? Matt and I ventured to a shopping mall over the weekend. A rare event, but I had a gift card from a friend that I was anxious to turn into some new apparel, and wanted to get clothes my husband liked. Of course, the entire population of Cincinnati, like the rest of America, was out at the shopping malls this past weekend, swarming the sales in a frenzied consumer orgy to the accompaniment of the greatest possible sensory overload. The sensory onslaught of the shopping mall took us both by surprise, because we were unaccustomed to it. We felt as if we were caught up in a herd of buffalo about to plunge over a cliff. It is like the reaction I have to the coming attractions on the rare ocassions that we see a movie in the theatre -- images and sounds that feel like a physical attack. I understand the repugnance that makes some Christians seek to distance themselves from What America Does at This Time of Year. I remember a time when my perception of "Christmas" was what the secular world has to offer and I viewed it with distaste. We've plummetted over the edge of the cliff and there is no longer anything celebratory, anything glorious, even anything tasteful in much of what it being served up at this time of year. But while we shun and shield our eyes and ears and hearts from topless models with Santa hats and inflatable reindeer with light-up red noses and Christless "holiday" music and gluttony and covetousness and Yes, Virginia... ... we have something real, and glorious, and great, and wonderous, to celebrate. And we will CELEBRATE. |
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| Posted by Sora at 11 : 44 pm | Leave a note {5} | ||
| November 24 2004 | ||
| HOMESCHOOLING AND CHILD ABUSE
Homeschooling Revolution linked to this WND article, a response to the Akron Beacon Journal's 5 part series on homeschooling, specifically their conclusion that "an unknown number of parents take advantage of the lack of home-school regulation to hide abuse and neglect of their children." The HSLDA response to the articles is here. The WND article included these useful statistics for those who might find themselves discussing the subject: According to the [Child Maltreatment 2002] report, 166 children between the ages of 5 and 17 were victims of lethal child abuse, which is less than one-fifth of the 836 children who died in school-related transportation accidents! |
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| Posted by Sora at 11 : 53 pm | Leave a note {6} | ||
| ROCK OF AGES
Jon Barlow blogged about the Chanukah song, "Rock of Ages." A traumatic only-Jewish-kid-in-small-town-Nova-Scotia-public-school memory. Almost, but not quite, as bad as being hastily excused to the library when the Gideons passed out New Testaments (yes, in public school; we said the Lord's Prayer and sang God Save the Queen every morning too.) Second grade, maybe? My teacher, who, I am sure, has never had a Jewish kid in her class before, has, perhaps, never met a Jew before, asks me to tell the class about Chanukah. I am self-conscious and determined to maintain my dignity in front of a homogenous classroom in which I am, even before any question of religion is entertained, already radically other -- the one who reads Tolkein, has no television, brown-bags tofu and alfalfa sprouts on pita instead of lunch meat and Cheese Whiz on Wonderbread. My recourse is to take pride in my otherness and to attempt to magnify it, to make it desirable, or at least to lift it above the level of mockery, in the eyes of my peers. So I tell the class about Chanukah. No, we don't have a Christmas tree. Yes, we get presents for eight days in a row. I mention dreidls, menorahs, and Chanukah songs. Asked to sing one for the class, I pick Rock of Ages because it seems less childish to me, more serious and sophisticated, than "One little, two little, three little candles", "Dreidl, dreidl, dreidl," or "Oh Chanukah, oh Chanukah, come light the menorah." I announce the title. The teacher says brightly, "Oh! Is that the same Rock of Ages that we sing in church?" At seven, I have never been in a Christian church. I have never heard, "Rock of ages, cleft for me, let me hide myself in thee..." But I am completely non-plussed by the question. I have no way to know whether or not our Jewish Chanukah song may in fact be the hymn my teacher is talking about, may in fact be well known and heard every Sunday morning by every member of my class, and I blush to my eyebrows and want only to sink into the floor and disappear. How, how, could she have imagined that Jewish families memorializing the miracle of the Maccabees would have sung "Let the water and the blood, from thy riven side which flowed, be of sin the double cure?" Both "Rocks of Ages" are marvelous songs. I appreciate the lyrics and find more in them with every passing year. But I can never sing, or be reminded of, either song without briefly recalling my seven-year-old shame. |
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| Posted by Sora at 11 : 34 pm | Leave a note {6} | ||
| November 19 2004 | ||
| FORMATIVE INFLUENCES
I love the way my daughter talks. (No, not the one whose conversation is limited to "Ba-ba-ba-BA!") Her vocabulary and turn of phrase reflect her greatest linguistic influences: carefully chosen literature, years of listening to the KJV Bible and the memorization of the complete Heidelberg catechism. She just doesn't sound like most nine-year-olds. Unfortunately, I can't help cracking a smile -- sometimes even a laugh -- every time she comes out with a charming, correct, and perhaps slightly anachronistic phrasing. So she becomes increasingly self-conscious about her Talia-isms, and embarrassed at the idea of my propagating them. She said something hilarious tonight, and as soon as I started laughing she clapped her hand over her mouth and said, "Oh no! Now you're going to spread that all over the country!" before I even so much as mentioned that the incident had been blogworthy. Of course, she is quite in earnest, and of course, that being the case, I can't tell you what she said. And of course, not having blogged it, I will have completely forgotten the incident within a day or two. Sigh. She'll probably be 18 or 20 before she learns how to laugh at herself, and by that time her speeches won't be nearly as endearing. |
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| Posted by Sora at 9 : 09 pm | Leave a note {2} | ||
| November 18 2004 | ||
| NOT JUST PLUM PUDDING FOR CHRISTMAS
Today, my parents got tickets to come and visit us over the Christmas break. (Yay!) Also today, THIS arrived in the mail: 
Total coincidence, of course. |
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| Posted by Sora at 8 : 16 pm | Leave a note {3} | ||
| November 17 2004 | ||
CLOTHES, WITH THE BABY IN THEM THIS TIME
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| Posted by Sora at 5 : 24 pm | Leave a note {5} | ||
| November 14 2004 | ||
| PURPLE PANTS, RED SHOES, AND POLICE CARS
I am home from church with two coughing, sniffling toddlers and Matt's computer all to myself for a change. The kitchen is full of the smell of mango chutney. I finished Naomi's sweater and "gnome hat" two weeks ago, but we immediately forgot the hat at Matt's parents house. Then we decided to return our new camera which I never figured out how to use happily, and buy instead the same model we used happily for 4 years and then broke (isn't ebay wonderful?) We were without a camera again for a week or so, but the new "old" camera arrived yesterday and we are very happy with it. All of which to say that I have no pictures yet of Naomi in the whole outfit, even though she's been wearing it two or three days a week and getting comments everywhere she goes. But here are the clothes, sans baby: 
Matt's mom got Naomi some red patent-leather shoes at a consignment store. Unlike Alfie's little sister, Annie Rose, Naomi can walk in them quite well, albeit in a bow-legged, cloth-diaper-wearing-toddler waddle, and she toddles all over the place in them getting into all kinds of mischief. Being unfamiliar with Hans Christian Anderson's cautionary tale of The Red Shoes, she will probably wear the shoes to church next Sunday. 
ZZ's favorite game these days has been making his various vehicles have accidents and break down. Then the police car has to come, and the tow truck tows the wrecked van, car, or cement mixer to the mechanic's for repairs. I'm not sure what's going to happen when the police car and the tow truck crash into each other:  |
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| Posted by Sora at 11 : 15 am | Leave a note {7} | ||
| November 08 2004 | ||
| MISTAKEN IMPRESSION
The Mars Hill Academy community is pretty ardently anti-Kerry, so I was rather surprised when Matt said that he'd seen a pro-Kerry bumper sticker on one of the carpool vehicles while he had dismissal duty. Talia quickly corrected him. "No, Daddy! That bumper sticker said Kerry for President of France and Germany." Yet another reminder to read the fine print. |
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| Posted by Sora at 10 : 57 pm | Leave a note {2} | ||
| November 06 2004 | ||
| AMUSING QUOTES FROM THIS PAST WEEK
The cube is all boxed up ready to ship to the lucky ebay winner, and the powerbook goes to school with Matt every morning and (frequently) is needed by him for lesson planning and grading in the evening. So my computer time this past week has been very limited. Which has not been a terrible misfortune, after all. But I have not been so very content and productive without internet access that I have decided to make it a permanent arrangement; Matt still plans to get me a little ibook of my own after he sells the cube. ----------------------------- Ezekiel has taken to accusing people of breaking the 8th commandment whenever they do something he doesn't like. As in, "No, ZZ, you may not have another container of yogurt." "You feef, Mommy!" It appears that Aedan calls his little brother a thief (not without reason) whenever he absconds with one of Aedan's new Lego masterpieces. ZZ has picked up on the word and is using it on every possible occassion. (Though he is learning that calling Mommy a "feef" is not acceptable.) Weekend mornings we sleep as late as we can -- sometimes until 7:00 or even (gasp!) 8:00 a.m. I heard Zek'l open our bedroom door before I opened my eyes (I knew it was ZZ because Talia and Aedan knock first!) I kept them shut and hoped he would go away. A very grumpy, sleepy, two-year-old voice met my ears. "Mooooooommmmy! Aedan says I'm NAKED." (Said as if this were a terrible insult.) I opened my eyes. There he stood in the doorway, and, indeed, the red fuzzy footed pajamas and the diaper had been removed at some earlier time. "Well, ZZ, Aedan is right. You are naked." Big pout. "Aedan's a FEEF." -------------------------- Some time ago I let it be known that I was tired of being asked what was for dessert (usually by Talia) and that henceforth, dessert would be served only on weekends. Talia, budding young lawyer that she is, twisted my words and interpreted my rule as follows: dessert must, without fail, be served every weekend. Since then, every weekend we have listened to Talia's eloquent speeches in favor of dessert; in favor of a definition of the weekend that includes not only Saturday and Sunday but Friday as well; in favor of weekend desserts at lunchtime as well as supper, etc. etc. During one of these conversations, Matt, in an effort to demonstrate that my words were to be obeyed and not argued with, instructed me to make (or at least state) another rule. "Ok," I said, trying to turn a phrase with as few loopholes to catch my own feet in as possible, "Children may not eat food out of the kitchen." Talia groaned and put her head in her hands. "We'll never eat again! ALL the food in this house comes out of the kitchen." "Talia, I did not say children may not eat food originating in the kitchen. I said children may not eat food outside of the kitchen." Whereupon Aedan demonstrated that he, too, has a promising legal future. In a horrified voice, he asked, "So you aren't going to let us take lunches to school any more, Mommy?" 
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| Posted by Sora at 11 : 59 pm | Leave a note {6} | ||
| October 31 2004 | ||
| HAPPY BIRTHDAY
It is my mother's birthday today. It was also little baby Charlie's birth day. I was honored to be allowed to help his mommy and daddy as he made his appearance in a beautiful (and rapid) waterbirth early this morning, arriving almost an hour before the midwife. |
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| Posted by Sora at 10 : 26 pm | Leave a note {1} | ||
| October 29 2004 | ||
| TALIA'S WRITING
I haven't posted any of Talia's compositions here for quite a while. This is partly because she is doing less writing at Mars Hill than she did at home (she had only one composition to do during the first quarter of school; I usually aimed for at least one a week.) This is her first school composition; it was a creative writing assignment that was to be related to their history studies. Astute readers will probably recognize some influence from Karen Cushman's juvenile historical fiction. September 30, Anno Domini 1432 This is the journal of Maria da'Cucina. My mother is a cook for the ingenious Filippo Brunelleschi who is building the immense "Cupolone" for our cathedral. Her kitchen is about one hundred feet up from the ground! Every day I climb with her to the walls of the Duomo. I must pluck chickens, chop vegatables, and give repast to the workers at midday. It is impossible to keep my mind on my tasks when the builders are doing such interesting work just twenty feet away. October 1 As I served the men pasta at noon today, I saw that one of them had doused himself with water to cool off. It seems to me a clever idea. I shall try it some time. It is very hot up here! October 2 Today, as I was preparing the loaves of bread, I saw the workers hauling stones with hoists from the ox carts, which came from the quarries. Unfortunately, as I was watching the men, the bread I was baking burned. Now I am forbidden to watch them and constrained to the kitchens. October 3 It irks me to be restricted to this hot kitchen all day and not even able to get a glimpse of the work. Though I am famished, I am not able to eat until the queue of workers has had their fill. I wish that they had never torn down the old cathedral. Oct 4th At noon today as I was serving Giovanni the foreman, I peppered him with questions about the work. I kept him for nearly half an hour, and finally to his horror Fillipo Brunelleschi, noticing he was gone, himself came looking for him. As they hurried away I heard Giovanni say, "But the kitchen maid kept asking questions." What have I done? Everyone knows that it infuriates Brunelleschi when the work is unnecessarily delayed. What an oaf I am! October 5 This has been a wonderful day! This morning, Brunelleschi came up to the kitchens... looking for me! I thought he had come to confront me about prattling to Giovanni. Instead, he came to answer my questions! He took me out onto the dome and we looked down at the city. All of Florence was laid out below us. I saw the Arno River and the hills of Tuscany. Brunelleschi told me how he had won the competition to build the cathedral's dome. One of his competitors suggested filling the cathedral with dirt to support the dome, but only Brunelleschi knew how to build the dome without any supports. Brunelleschi also told me about Giotto, who had designed not only the bell tower which stands by the cathedral, but also this cathedral itself. Giotto died almost one hundred years ago, but here we are now standing on his cathedral! I am filled with wonder when I think that someday, when we, who are working on the dome, are all dead, the people of Florence will still tell of Brunelleschi and how he built this dome. |
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| Posted by Sora at 8 : 27 am | Leave a note {9} | ||
| October 25 2004 | ||
| COVENANT COMMUNITY
Matt and I are reading the last Barsetshire novel (having decided Small House at Allington was not worth reading aloud together after I pre-read it myself and summarized the plot for Matt). The main character in Last Chronicle of Barset is Mr. Crawley, a brilliant, pious, and impoverished clergyman whose life has been a series of trials and whose chief sin is a pride that prevents him from accepting the help that his friends and fellow churchmen seek to offer him. I couldn't help but think of Mr. Crawley yesterday. We had left church and were inching our way down Route 75 when steam started coming out from under the hood of our van. Matt pulled over to the shoulder -- thankfully, this was a section of 75 in which the far lane was blocked off by pylons making the shoulder doubly-wide, rather than a section in which there was no available shoulder at all (Route 75 has been under construction for as long as we've lived here). We opened the hood, observed green coolant sprayed everywhere, and decided that the van could not be driven home. (This was the extent of our combined diagnostic skills.) Two police cars came up the shoulder behind us (separately) within the first ten minutes we were there, however, both were headed for an accident further up the highway and only stopped long enough to determine that we were not the droids they were looking for. Shortly after that, a good Samaritan pulled over and offered Matt a lift home to get the other car. Matt went off, scheming about ways to fit all of us in the Cirrus. I waited at the van with the kids. Then the Butlers came along behind us (having stayed longer at church than we had). I was glad to see them, not least because they were supposed to come to our house for lunch after giving a ride home to an eldery member of the congregation, and we evidently were not going to be there to act as hosts. Mr. Butlers was anxious to help us but his car was quite full. We decided that he would drop off his first passenger at her own home, leave his wife and baby at our house (I gave him my key) and then return to help transport Colvins (we really DON'T all fit in the Cirrus.) The Butlers left, and we waited. After a while, who should pull up but ANOTHER family from church. Donna and Kevin had left sooner than we after church, but had gone to a nearby restaurant for lunch and were now heading home down 75. Could they help at all? They had not been there 5 minutes when Matt arrived with the Cirrus. Using their cell phone (we don't have one) we caught Mr. Butler at our house before he started back to get us and told him to stay put. The older two kids went in Donna and Kevin's car, we moved the smaller kids' car seats to the Cirrus, put the keys of the van in the glove compartment for the towing company, and headed for home. The coordination of the whole thing really couldn't have been better. God took care of us and put His people in all the right places at exactly the right times. And unlike Mr. Crawley, we were very glad to thankfully accept the help offered to us. |
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| Posted by Sora at 10 : 17 am | Leave a note {4} | ||
| October 23 2004 | ||
| NEONATAL RESUSCITATION AND HOMEBIRTH
I spent the day in Lexington, taking Karen Strange's neonatal resuscitation class (the link is to a web page for the same class, scheduled in Seattle next spring.) Of 15 participants, 3 had 7 or more children. 2 were Mennonite midwives. Three were quintessential prairie muffins -- a mother and her 26-year-old twin daughters, who had become midwives after one of the daughters became interested in birth in her teens. They all attend births together, and they came to the class in the loveliest and obviously home-sewn matching calico blouses and long khaki jumpers. Anyway, I had a marvellous time, learned VERY THOROUGHLY how to do CPR on a newborn infant, and came back with lots of new information, and a renewed appreciation for the midwifery model of care. I am so glad I did not take a "straight" AHA/AAP course from the "normal" hospital perspective. Here are some choice tidbits: Recent studies have suggested that babies can be successfully resuscitated with room air (21% oxygen). This supports the concept that ventilation is more important than high oxygen concentrations. However, the current recommendation is for 100% oxygen when it is available. Compare: Asphyxia causes oxidative stress in the perinatal period, and resusciation with 100% oxygen causes hyperoxemia and increased oxidative stress. Because there are no advantages to resuscitation with 100% oxygen, room air may be preferred under certain circumstances for the resuscitation of asphyxiated newborns. The cord clamp, like the endotracheal tube, is not a part of human anatomy. It is a dangerous surgical instrument with very limited indications for use. A clamp placed on the pulsating cord of a newborn that cannot breathe has the same effect as a clamp placed on the throat of a child that is crying - complete asphyxiation. Facts concerning how frequently neonatal resuscitation is needed are difficult to isolate, though opinions are not so rare. The fact that a baby received resuscitative measures at birth does not mean that the baby required such measures to ensure its survival. An interesting feature of the study discussed above is the fall in the [endotracheal] intubation rate (from 7% to 1.5%) during the second period when, because of a change in policy, fewer deliveries were attended by a paediatrician. Prior to today I would probably have held to the usual "term baby" cut-off for "risking out" of home birth -- that is, I would have gone to the hospital if I ever went into labor before 36 weeks or so. After all, even "birth guru" Henci Goer has laid down the dictum: "No competent homebirth attendant knowingly attends a preterm labor at home." However, after today's overwhelming amount of scientific evidence on the iatrogenic effects of the hospital interventions which are standard care for preterm babies (the AHA/AAP standards, for instance, require positive pressure ventilation with 100% oxygen and recommend intubating ALL preterm babies whether they need it or not) I have rethought things. I don't expect to ever have a premature baby, but if I do, I will birth at home, provide assisted ventilation with room air as needed and kangaroo care. All things considered, I believe that would provide all but the most extremely preterm baby a much better chance of survival, and of survival without long-term damage from the physiologic insult of hospital procedures which are either of questionable value or have been proven to be counterproductive in case-controlled studies. (Incidentally, one of the women at the class today was a mother of soon-to-be 8 children. She had had 5 homebirths and was planning a 6th, but had "prudently" gone to the hospital for her twins, a decision she now greatly regrets. She successfully fought the nurses to be able birthing two breech babies naturally in the labor and delivery room. While she was busy with the delivery of baby "B", a nurse performed a completely unnecessary endotracheal intubation on a perfectly healthy baby "A" -- and punctured his lung.) |
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| Posted by Sora at 11 : 34 pm | Leave a note {10} | ||
| October 19 2004 | ||
| KNITTING
The days grow shorter, the nights grow colder, and wool and knitting needles seem suddenly seasonable. 
I finished a pair of leggings for Naomi this morning. The color is very bad on these photographs because of the flash, they are really much prettier than this. The yard is lovely hand-died wool passed on to me by Deb when I lived in Ithaca, and the pattern is from Elizabeth Zimmermann's Knitter's Almanac. I actually started these last spring. I knitted the deep purple top (with clever short-row shaping on the backside the better to fit over a be-diapered bottom) and then went half-way down one leg in alternating dark and light Fair Isle patterns when I realized that I was not going to have enough of the deep purple left to make the other leg match, much less to get a deep purple accent in a coordinating sweater or hat. So I ripped out the leg, decided to just do stripes, and then let them languish in my knitting box over the long, hot summer. I pulled them out again when we went to see Matt's parents over the weekend and finished the legs, in alternating pink and light purple stripes of decreasing width. I had orginally (back in the spring) intended to make striped tights with purple feet, but Naomi is walking and I was afraid she would slip too much in the tights, and that the wool would be too thick for them to fit under her shoes, so I did a ribbed purple cuff instead. Then I spent all my spare moments today finishing in the loose ends. This is not an onerous task when one has only a few loose ends to tuck in at the very end of a knitting project, but it is not nearly as fun as making stitches and is very tiresome if you are faced with endless loose ends when you'd much rather be casting on the coordinating sweater or hat. I had changed colors thirteen times on each leg for a grand miserable total of 52 ends that needed to be invisibly worked in on the inside. I found myself fantasizing about those magic sock yarns that make a pattern without you ever changing yarns. I realized in hindsight that I should have just carried the yarn and twisted it every round (to avoid big loops inside the legs) -- but I didn't think of that until I was working on the 46th yarn end, and then it was too late. (When I took the pictures, I had a twisted cord through the eyelet loops at the waist; later I decided that I didn't like it and made a 3-stitch stocking-stitch cord on two sock needles instead. So the hat definitely needs to wait until tomorrow.) |
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| Posted by Sora at 10 : 28 pm | Leave a note {3} | ||
| October 17 2004 | ||
| HISTORIC ENTRY
Writing an email tonight, I was reminded of a blog entry I wrote two years ago, Sanctifying Ordinary Work. It was good to reread, but it did not inspire me to go wash my kitchen floor in the quiet evening -- much as it needs to be washed -- probably because my husband no longer works late nights. |
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| Posted by Sora at 9 : 58 pm | Leave a note {4} | ||
| October 16 2004 | ||
| ON WASHING BABY'S FACES
This is Naomi writing. I've hijacked my mommy's blog so that I can warn everybody about what a terrible, fiendish woman she really is -- and maybe someone out there will rescue me! Every day -- sometimes three, four times in the day -- she tries to murder me. Since I've had this head cold the attempts are escalating; I think there were 7 yesterday! I'll be quietly minding my own business and suddenly Mommy comes along, out of the blue, and tries to smother me with a wet washcloth! I scream and kick and struggle for all I'm worth, valiantly fighting her off, and after a few seconds -- believe me, it seems like hours -- she gives up, and acts like everything is normal again. But the next time I have something to eat, or even so much as sneeze, there she is again, with ANOTHER WASHCLOTH! It's a terrible life, I tell you. I've started screaming when I even see a washcloth -- I hoped that someone would hear me and help me, but no, even when Daddy or Talia is in the room they just stand there and watch as Mommy tries to take my life. I'm hoping that public exposure will put an end to this wickedness -- if not, my days may be numbered. |
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| Posted by Sora at 8 : 23 am | Leave a note {8} | ||
| October 14 2004 | ||
| LOGIC PUZZLES, or WHAT I DID TODAY
For Reformation Day, the grammar school will spend 2 hours doing fun and educational activities. The time is divided into 6 20 minute segments. There are too many students this year for each class to go around to each activity as a single group as there would not be time for all the children to have a turn on certain activities. So the classes will be split in half, making 10 groups of 8-10 students each in grades 1 - 5. No group may repeat any activity more than once, and all groups must have an assigned activity for every time slot. The 6th graders will perform a puppet show for the younger students. Because it is a sit down activity, it can accomodate 2 groups at once. The 6th grade will not do any of the other activities, however, they need one 20 minutes segment for their snack time. The kitchen (snack time) can accomodate two groups at once. All of the groups must get a snack time. Story time can accomodate two or, if necessary, three groups at once. The first and second graders cannot do Calvin's Travels Putt-putt (too difficult for them.) The fifth graders should not do the Black Plague Rat Toss or the Try to Put out Latimer's Light with a water gun activities (too babyish for them). The Gutenberg Press can accomodate only one group at a time. The first and second graders will not do Gutenberg Press, but all of the 3d - 5th graders will. The Calvin the Sick Leader Obstacle Course can be done by any age group, but it will only accomodate one group at a time. I did have to cheat a little to solve the puzzle: while the 6th grade is getting their snack, I have assigned the 5th grade to do "Calvin Quiz Bowl" with Matt, who has no teaching responsibilities that period. |
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| Posted by Sora at 3 : 24 pm | Leave a note {5} | ||
| October 13 2004 | ||
| EQUAL TIME
For my other daughter:  |
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| Posted by Sora at 9 : 28 pm | Leave a note {3} | ||
| October 09 2004 | ||
| PLUGGING THINGS IN WHERE THEY FIT
Matt just came into the bedroom and caught Zek'l intently bending over his computer, which was sitting on the bed. "No, ZZ! You may not plug anything into the laptop." A pause, as Matt looked more closely at what Zek'l was attempting to fit into the various little ports on the side of the powerbook. "Especially not the breastpump." Some try to get blood from a stone. Ezekiel tries to get milk from a computer. |
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| Posted by Sora at 7 : 53 pm | Leave a note {3} | ||
| October 07 2004 | ||
| THE POWER OF THE INTERNET
Astonishing, the effect of a few well-chosen words! After my "Alas, no pictures" post, we got an email from Matt's dad declaring that it was not right that grandparents should be punished because we broke our camera, and instructing us to buy a new one post haste, at his expense. (Our old camera, incidentally, came from my parents. And indeed, grandparents are a large part of the reason that a camera is a necessity around here.) So Matt came home with a camera today. I have hardly had my hands on it yet. But video footage of Naomi toddling across the room, grabbing something off a chair, and making silly faces has already been taken and set to ridiculous music. Beneficent Grandparents, know that your gift is being put to good use. |
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| Posted by Sora at 6 : 50 pm | Leave a note {3} | ||
| October 05 2004 | ||
| NAOMI AND THE GARDEN -- ALAS, NO PICTURES
My baby is 10 months old today. And she is walking! This is the family record so far -- Zek'l took a few steps at 10.5 months, if you set him on his feet and held out your arms and urged him to "walk to mommy", but Naomi stands up all by herself and toddles across the room. Too cute. No pictures, alas. The weather is beautiful this week. Cool and sunny. I finally dug up the rest of the sod between the path and the front garden bed so that I can expand the bed. As Barb promised, it is like cement. I should have used a pickaxe instead of a shovel. But it is done. Naomi was content to sit in her stroller and watch me dig and ZZ drive around on his ride-on toys. Very kind of her not to fuss in the stroller; when she's loose she wants to eat the dirt. The climbing rose, Polka, which I planted last August is still growing tremendously. I've wrapped it all around the front porch railings, and the Jackmanii clematis has grown into it. Alas, no pictures. I haven't had many flowers this season, but it should be a mass of blooms next summer. And some of the cuttings I took from my mother's garden have rooted. Graham Thomas didn't make it, but Westerland and Penny Lane did -- in fact, one of my 3 rooted Penny Lane cuttings HAS A BLOOM ON IT! There is something almost miraculous in taking a 6-inch pencil-thick piece of rosewood, sticking it in the dirt, and having a blossom on it 6 weeks later. Brings to mind Aaron's staff. Aedan planted hot Portugal peppers in his garden bed. They have produced a bumper crop -- I have easily 5 lbs of hot peppers to deal with between his plants, and a couple of jalapenos that I planted along with my bell peppers -- and they are HOT! I think I'm going to try my hand at a fermented pepper-mash / Tabasco style hot sauce. Anyone out there done this before? Any pointers? The evil squirrels dug up all the lettuce I planted when we got back from Victoria. Only three plants survived. Those three plants are now big enough that, if the entire four-square-foot area that I had planted had been left alone, I would have been able to start cutting for salads last week and continued until we get a heavy frost. Makes me want to take a few lessons from Deb. Well, maybe Barb would be a likelier bet, as living closer. |
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| Posted by Sora at 1 : 19 pm | Leave a note {4} | ||
| September 29 2004 | ||
| OH BOTHER!
It has just come to my attention that the email link from the bottom of each of my blog entries is to our old, Cornell email address. We have not checked this address in months and months and months, as we got a new email when we moved to Cincinnati and the Cornell address got ridiculous quanitites of spam. I apologize profusely if you've tried to email me and been baffled. |
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| Posted by Sora at 10 : 09 pm | Leave a note {0} | ||
| THE BANK THAT GIVES AWAY MONEY
I just made $35 in about 10 minutes, sitting painlessly on my living room couch. How, you ask? I opened an ING Direct orange savings account for Naomi, who wasn't born yet when the rest of us opened our accounts a few years back. We learned about this online bank from Valerie Jacobsen, who with now ten children has done very well from ING. Here's how it works. When you refer a new customer to ING and they open an account, the bank gives you $10. They give the new customer $25. The account must be linked to your regular checking account, and the opening deposit can be as little as $1 (that is the amount we used to open all 6 of our accounts). You can get the referal bonus by opening a joint account with your minor child as the "primary" account holder and "new customer" (the child must have a SSN, but he or she can -- indeed, must -- use your same checking account, as can spouses who open separate orange savings accounts linked to the same checking account). The $25 new customer bonus must be left in the account for 30 days, after that, if you wish, you can transfer it to your checking account and use it for whatever you like. Since, however, the ING orange savings accounts earn a pretty competitive interest, we've just left ours in, in fact, Matt and I now use ING as our main "liquid" savings and have put Talia and Aedan's modest "college funds" (a gift from my grandmother when they were born) in their ING accounts, where they are steadily growing at a rate of several dollars a month. Moving money between the checking account and ING -- in either direction -- is easy and painless and has never taken more than 3 business days the many times we've done it. Many of my readers may already know about this offer and be using it, but if you haven't heard about it yet and are interested in learning more, email me! How much money could you make today? $25 for you... $10 + $25 for your spouse... $10 + $25 for your first child... $10 +25 for your second child... do the math! And then send me an email at mac47[at]fuse[dot]net, and I'll answer your questions and / or make you a referral link. |
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| Posted by Sora at 8 : 46 pm | Leave a note {0} | ||
| September 26 2004 | ||
| MATT'S BLOG
For anyone wondering what's going on with Matt's blog, he has decided that it would be best to restrict his readership for a season. If you want to continue reading, email him at mac47[at]fuse[dot]net for the password. |
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| Posted by Sora at 10 : 45 pm | Leave a note {0} | ||
| September 25 2004 | ||
| MOM OF CONSTANT LAUNDRY
Matt mentioned the other day that I had "discovered" Garage Band. I think he had hoped I'd find it suitable for recording the second children's album that I am working on (I don't think it will be, in part because I don't really *want* to learn how to be my own sound engineer.) It does just fine for demo-quality recording though, even without a good quality microphone. So for the entertainment of my readers, I offer a very silly song I wrote the other day that I thought others might find amusing. Lyrics are below. Warning, the file is quite large. Mp3 of Mom of Constant Laundry (4.5M) (Right-click and select "download file" or "save file as".) I am a mom of constant laundry I do laundry every day. I have to wash my family's clothing Without thanks and without pay. (She does laundry without thanks and without pay.) I do believe that the laundry doubled When my first child was born. Since that day I've had three others And the laundry pile has grown. (Yes with every child the laundry pile has grown.) I tell you truly that my husband Leaves laundry on the floor. And it seems there's always kleenex In the pockets of his shorts. (He leaves kleenex in the pockets of his shorts.) I find socks wedged in couches And under the seat in the car. No, my kids won't put 'em in the hamper They just leave them whereever they are. (Yes they take them off and leave them where they are.) I do my laundry early in the morning I do laundry late at night. They dirty clothes as fast as I can wash 'em No there ain't no end in sight. (It just seems as if there ain't no end in sight.) Yet this world of constant laundry Come a time, will be no more Oooh, those robes stay white and spotless Forever upon that golden shore. (There'll be no more laundry on that golden shore.) (Oh, and if you are not familiar with the original lyrics, here is one version. Suffice it to say that I have not taken the free "how to play bluegrass guitar" lessons. Not yet, anyway. I'm too busy doing laundry. :-) A reader advised me to register a copyright on this song ASAP. Well, I don't have the spare change to do that right now and I'm not sure that the registration would really make that big a difference if -- as seems VERY unlikley -- some dishonest shuckster out there stole my lyrics and made a lot of money with them. But I know that it has been known to happen, so thanks for the warning, and I WILL add: Lyrics and recording copyright 2004 Sora Colvin. Permission is granted to make 1 - 6 copies for personal use or to freely share with others. All other rights, including the right to re-record or re-publish, are reserved. |
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| Posted by Sora at 10 : 42 pm | Leave a note {51} | ||
| September 24 2004 | ||
| ULTRASOUNDS
Deb blogged about the increased popularily of "non-medical" prenatal ultrasounds offered as an "emotional bonding experience" to expectant moms. She is knowledgably concerned about the potential health risk to the baby. One of these places recently opened near the school where Matt works. It bills itself as a "pregnancy spa and imaging center" and is called "Becoming Mom". In my cynicism, I tend to think that the warnings about these places from the medical establishment are based less on a genuine concern for potential health risks, as a concern for business competition. After all, women getting conventional obstetric care are offered repeated ultrasounds for no legitimate medical reason. Ten years ago you could still go through obstetric care without getting an ultrasound unless there were some indication, however tenuous (such as a question about dates, or suspicion of twins). Now multiple routine ultrasounds are de rigeur and the first question asked to a pregnant belly is, "Is it a boy or a girl?" or the less presumptuous alternative "Do you know what you're having?" Doppler (non-imaging) ultrasound exposure occurs at every prenatal visit and often for hours at a time during labor. The doctors are certainly not treating ultrasound as if it were potentially risky for the baby. Then there is the growing trend for crisis pregnancy centers to offer 3-D ultrasounds. Proponents claim that the "emotional bonding experience" of seeing the baby is effective in getting "abortion-minded clients" to rethink their decision. Certainly no one can argue that ultrasound is as risky to the baby as abortion. The new ultrasound technology -- that makes ever younger babies look more like babies -- may cause individual women to change their minds and allow their babies to live. But it is not going to change the presuppositions of our abortion culture. Julia Black, the British film-maker whose brutally honest "My Foetus" made headlines last spring, is still pro-choice and says she does not regret her abortion. Pictures of preborn babies smiling, claims pro-abortion writer Ellie Lee, do not prove that the unborn baby is a person. Lee also argues that it is wrong to make a distinction between early (1st trimester) and late abortions. She is right. The distinction is illegitimate. If a "right" to not be pregnant can be claimed the day after conception, it can be claimed at any time during the pregnancy. But God is the author of life, and has granted us no such rights. On Lee's presuppositions, the bottom line is that a pregnant woman is in the place of God. At 4 weeks, 12 weeks, or 26 weeks, all that matters is whether or not she desires to continue the pregnancy. What the baby looks like is immaterial. It may be more comfortable to everyone if the baby still bears a moderate resemblance to a lima bean, but while cuteness may make the whole situation more regretable, it certainly does not entitle the baby to "personhood". When I became pregnant with Talia at the age of 18, this was the only basis on which I was asked to consider the situation. Well-meaning but misguided friends wanted to be sure that I "knew that I didn't have to have this baby." My doctor, even on being assured that I intended to continue the pregnancy, reminded me that I still had almost two months in which to change my mind without having to incur the greater inconvenience and discomfort of a late abortion. Thank God, I never doubted for an instant that nothing would please me more than having my own darling baby. But at that time I did not question the presuppositions. I would have this baby because it pleased me. It was right and fitting that I should be God. Then I actually had the baby, and it was brought home to me in an earth-shattering and unmistakable way that God existed and was not me. In my subsequent 6 pregnancies, I have had 2 ultrasounds. Since I did take the potential risks of non-indicated ultrasound seriously, and had a very high bar for what I considered "medically indicated", both ultrasounds were to confirm fetal death. So my personal association of emotional experiences with ultrasound technology is not one of bonding with a bump in the belly made to look like an actual little thumb-sucking person, but with hoping and praying that it was not so and then seeing the unarguable reality of a completely motionless little form on the computer screen, and going home to wait to birth and bury a child who could fit on the palm of your hand. By the third miscarriage I was ready to just wait. The ultrasound was not going to change anything. Technology has made us very impatient. Once upon a time, pregnancy books advised women to call their doctor "after you miss two cycles." Now we can buy test strips that will give us two pink lines before we've even missed one. I will confess, during the first two years of our marriage (before Zek'l was born) I bought those strips in bulk and used them fanatically. But knowing I was pregnant 10 days after conception didn't really change anything. The test would just be an "objective" confirmation of what I was already suspecting anyway. Did another few weeks, or even months, really make a difference? Once upon a time, a baby was born and mother and father could hear, see, hold, kiss, smell, bathe, nurse, dress, and be awakened night after night. Now we can have an emotional experience with an image on a screen, learning the sex and naming the baby months before birth. But has it effected any change in our ideas about our babies and ourselves, in how we will live and think and parent and stand before God? |
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| Posted by Sora at 1 : 02 pm | Leave a note {6} | ||
| September 21 2004 | ||
| CLEANUP
I was having trouble locating a friend's email address tonight and remembered that she had left notes on my blog guestbook (about 2 years ago!). Sure enough, found what I needed. Seems like it's been almost that long since I had looked at my blog guestbook. Thanks for the kind notes, those who've left them. And while I was there, I deleted all the ads for online gambling sites and cheap perscription drugs over the internet. |
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| Posted by Sora at 10 : 57 pm | Leave a note {0} | ||
| MOSTLY ABOUT MUSIC
Last week was good, but busy. It was one of those weeks that is packed with extra church events (all of which required me to cook something) and I spent way too much time driving to and from Mason. (Well, once was not for church, but because Aedan forgot his backpack). Naomi has 2 teeth and is working on 4 more. She and ZZ both have colds. Consequently, they follow me everywhere I go, asking to be picked up. This is inconvenient when I am attempting to, for instance, putting away four loads of folded laundry. Mrs. Butler was here this morning (she comes Tuesday and Thursday to watch the kiddos for 45 minutes while I go to Curves, so that my workout does not inflict itself on our weekday evenings) and she helped me through the first page of a sight-singing book for grownups. When Talia and Aedan were homeschooling, she gave them music lessons... now I get them, heh heh. We're going to try to go through a page every time she's here. I'm also thinking of getting the violin out again. I took lessons from Talia's teacher for almost a year, before Zek'l was born. Then I had a baby and didn't find time to practice for long enough that my fingers forgot everything. But we're rescheduling Talia's violin lessons so that they will no longer be before evening prayer, and I think that with the occassional half-hour from her teacher I can catch up with Aedan (if not with Talia!) within a couple of months. And if I do that, Talia's teacher (who is really a violist) says she'll get us some beginner string quartet music to work on, which I think would be just fantastic for the kids. |
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| Posted by Sora at 11 : 52 am | Leave a note {2} | ||
| September 15 2004 | ||
| FOOD POSTPARTUM
I am going to be my friend Mrs. B's doula when she has her second baby in November -- the first labor support I will have done since I was pregnant with Aedan (he was not a very leavable baby, and then when he was old enough that I might have thought about pursuing birth-related work seriously again, I got married). And it will be the first homebirth I've been to -- where I was not giving birth -- since I was two years old. I am excited. Anyway, Mrs. B and I were talking about her previous birth and she brought up -- again -- how AWFUL the hospital food was, and how a friend had brought her the chicken she was craving right after the baby was born and how WONDERFUL that was -- and I realized that I can remember the first food I ate after each of my children was born. Which is rather remarkable if you think about it, since I don't think I could tell you exactly what I ate yesterday or the day before, or even on my last birthday. Well, actually, I can, because I was giving birth on my last birthday, but I couldn't tell you what I ate the birthday before that. I came up with a theory that women retain a lasting memory of the first food they eat after giving birth. We already know that labor and birth experiences -- barring twilight sleep or general anesthesia -- are a time of heightened awareness and make lasting memories. Little old ladies who can hardly remember anything else can describe their labors and births in great detail. Penny Simkin has argued that this is a good reason to try, as far as we are able, to ensure that the birth experience is remembered as a positive and "empowering" one, rather than something akin to torture and rape (strong words, but not too strong for some of the birth stories I've heard, and I have been witness to some really appalling treatment of laboring women by hospital staff.) I have always been ravenous within an hour or so postpartum, and I don't think that that is an unusual experience -- labor is hard work, and you usually don't eat much. Add the heightened sensory perception of a newly postpartum woman, the lasting importance of the whole experience, and what you eat right after birth is no insignificant matter. So, if I am correct in my theory, that would be a good reason to pay particular attention to the first food served to a postpartum woman, in order that she will not, forever after, be associating the AWFUL hospital food with the birth of her child. These foods should be chosen carefully, in consultation with the mother's preferences, and prepared in such a way as to delight the senses. We might even beget traditions, associating food with birthings the way we do with other celebrations (Passover, Christmas, and birthdays immediately come to mind.) We might, for instance, serve the food mama ate as part of the child's birthday celebration each year. So, ladies? Am I right? What did you eat first after your babies were born? Was it good? After Talia was born I ordered a pizza. Not just any pizza, Georgie's Pizza. This independent pizza place -- in Ottawa, Ontario -- still looms in my mind as the best pizza anywhere, though it has been eight years since I've tasted any. My little brother loved it so much that when he was 10 or 11 he asked for, and recieved, a Georgie's Pizza t-shirt for his birthday, just like the employees wore. We loved it so much that when my dad would go back to Ottawa on business trips, after we'd moved, he would smuggle a par-baked Georgie's pizza back with him in his carryon bag. After Aedan was born I had noodles with butter, garlic, and parmesan. Humble but tasty, and it was the middle of the night, and he was two weeks early. After Zek'l was born the first thing I ate was cornbread, with raisins in it, baked by Deb Miller while I was in labor. It was delicious. After Naomi was born I had birthday cake. |
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| Posted by Sora at 12 : 57 pm | Leave a note {14} | ||
| September 13 2004 | ||
| INTERESTING ARTCLE
on the causes and effects of the radical experiments in family relationships made by the western world in the last few generations. The End of Courtship. Link from Ladies Against Feminism. |
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| Posted by Sora at 11 : 10 am | Leave a note {3} | ||
| September 10 2004 | ||
| MORNING PRAYER
We've started using the REC Book of Common Prayer's forms for morning and evening family worship. They are brief, but meaty, and I have been greatly blessed by them. ...since it is of thy mercy, O gracious Father, that another day is added to our lives; We here dedicate both our souls and our bodies to thee and thy service, in a sober, righteous, and godly life: in which resolution, do thou, O merciful God, confirm and strengthen us; that as we grow in age, we may grow in grace, and in the knowledge of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. Amen. |
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| Posted by Sora at 6 : 29 pm | Leave a note {8} | ||
| SO MANY MISSED (PHOTO) OPPORTUNITIES
I really wish I hadn't broken our camera. |
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| Posted by Sora at 7 : 51 am | Leave a note {1} | ||
| September 04 2004 | ||
| SOBERING WORDS
Last weekend (yeah, I've taken a little while to get around to blogging) these words jumped out at me from Doug Jones' essay "Nurturing Fat Souls" in Angels in the Architecture. Moderns tend to believe that "teenage" rebellion is something created ex nihilo, completely at odds with parental values. But watch closely. Such rebellion is just more imitation of the parents' own more subtle rebellion. Hot-tempered parents nurture hot-tempered children. Pessimistic, negative parents mold pessimistic, negative children. Apathetic parents give us... and so on. As painful as it may be to hear, rebellion is almost always the parents' own personalities reflecting themselves. This is really something I've been struggling with the last few weeks. Matt and I have a lot of the same sin tendencies -- we are both apt to be perfectionist, overly achievement-oriented, critical, and harsh. To be honest, this was one of the most important factors for me in deciding to send Aedan to school this year. Homeschooling him was bringing out the worst in me. My ideals for our homeschool were wonderful but the reality was often very ugly. I wanted to be the kind of homeschooling mother who was sweet-tempered, patient, and soft-spoken with her children regardless of what tomfoolery they were getting up to, how long they took to do their math lesson, and how many times they made their toddler brother scream in the space of half an hour. But instead of showing the fruits of the spirit, my homeschooling day -- especially with my active, artistic, distractable 7 year old boy -- was too often characterized by frustrated tongue-lashings, misery, impatience, and bitter words. I came to the point where I really felt that he'd be better off spending the day in Mrs. S's 2nd grade classroom. At least she wouldn't be shouting at him. Well, he is thriving at Mars Hill. He loves school. I have heard nothing but good reports about his behavior, his attentiveness, etc. etc. WHY couldn't he act like that at home??? I guess I knew that the environment of Mars Hill would make it easier for him to be focused and attentive but it is frustrating to realize how much better the classroom is working for him, and that I was so unable to provide the learning environment he needed at home. I have found it incredibly more easy to be patient with Zek'l now that I am not dealing with (a)the older kids' school and (b)Zek'l and Aedan's squabbling during the day. But, surprise surprise, sending the kids to school has not solved all our sin problems. I still have to work at being loving, patient, kind, encouraging, etc. instead of harsh and critical with Aedan and Talia when they are home. Adjusting to the school schedule, and especially homework in the evenings, has provided ample opportunity for all of us to sin with our tongues. I still have to work at being joyful, peaceful, and thankful. It is very easy for me to slip into the mindset that, now that I only have two children at home during the day, I should be more productive -- and in truth, I do have more potential time to write, sew, garden, do good works outside of my immediate family, and so on. But there's no excuse for my getting irritable and discontented when a day goes by in which I haven't been able to manage anything beyond the teething baby, the toddler who wants to sit on my lap and be read to, the laundry, the dinner, and going over the older kids' homework. I know what I need to inculcate these habits of speech and attitude that I want to cultivate in myself ("for the kids' sake") -- more prayer, more time focused on God's Word, less desire to be "right" and more desire to be Christlike. If this school year sees me write a novel, record a new children's album, garden every day, and make matching outfits for the whole family, but I neglect the weightier matters of my spiritual demeanor towards God and my family, then I will have squandered the time I have been given. |
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| Posted by Sora at 10 : 06 pm | Leave a note {7} | ||
| August 29 2004 | ||
| WORDS
A very short blog post from Carmon turned into a lengthy comments debate about the propriety of particular words. I quite enjoyed this Susan Wise Bauer article mentioned by Kolbi. I do cringe when I hear genuine profanity, because it pains me to hear the holy and sacred profaned; obscenity bothers me and I scrupulously avoid it myself but an "f---" or even a "m--f--" does not raise my hackles as much as a "G---" or a "J--C---". I try to avoid, and don't care to have my children use, words that are merely uncouth or vulgar, but not because they are in the same category as the abovementioned. And while I agree that the particular word that caused all the cafuffle is not terribly polite, and I wouldn't want my children using it to express their dislike of a book, I don't consider it obscene, and it is certainly not profane. Valerie's etymological research confirmed my understanding of the term's origins, and I think that any "other" connotations are indeed another example of a (more or less) innocent word being hijacked for off-colour purposes. On that note, two amusing incidents. First, my friend Mrs. Butler was reading Virginia Lee Burton's Maybelle the Cable Car aloud to Zek'l the other day. (Book written in 1939, btw.) Maybelle is a San Francisco Cable car who reminisces about the "good old times, the gay old times, the merry old times" before the 1906 fire. Mrs. Butler -- whose husband is a valiant resister of word hijacking and apt to proclaim that he has "a very gay marriage" --read this passage as, "The merry old times when you could still say "gay" in San Francisco." [Disclaimer: any comments about gay marriage will be deleted. This blog is about words, not marriage, which, like language, is defined by God, not men.] Second: my poor daughter is undergoing severe hardship. I never taught her cursive while we were homeschooling, instead, I taught her to touchtype. She is now in a 5th-grade class with children at least a year older than herself who all learned cursive in the second grade. She is valiantly attempting to catch up, but for the first several days of school was "drawing" her cursive letters because she had never been taught to shape them properly. Yesterday, Saturday, was the first opportunity I had to sit down with her and teach her cursive (yes, I should have done it over the summer, but it never occurred to me until she came home the second day of school having borrowed her seatmate's grammar notes because she couldn't write quickly enough in class.) So there I am showing her how to shape and join each letter, and giving her words to practice the letters she has the most difficulty with, and I have just written "fig" and "fickle" and "fete" and I'm looking for another word with both "f" and "g" in it. And Talia innocently suggests, "faggot" and when I look slightly taken aback, continues, "You know, mommy. Like a faggot of wood." Her only exposure to the word is in older British literature (from those gay old times) and she honestly was unaware that the term is now somewhat offensive. Sadly, I was forced to make her aware of the fact, as delicately as possible, lest she let it slip in company that might be unaware that the word has an innocent meaning. |
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| Posted by Sora at 9 : 44 am | Leave a note {11} | ||
| August 27 2004 | ||
| VACCINE ARTICLE
Development of the rubella vaccine actually involved not one, but 28 abortions. Twenty-seven abortions were performed to isolate the virus and one abortion (WI-38) to culture the vaccine. The vaccine's strain is called RA 27/3 (R=Rubella, A=Abortus, 27=27th fetus tested, 3=3rd tissue explanted). Rubella, or "German measles," is usually a harmless childhood disease. Ironically, rubella is most dangerous for preborn infants, who have a 20 to 25 percent chance of contracting congenital rubella syndrome if their mothers catch rubella during the first trimester. Scientists at the Wistar Institute took advantage of the 1964-65 rubella epidemic to legally acquire fetal tissue from at least 27 so-called therapeutic abortions conducted on women at risk for rubella. Since the live virus was not detected until the 27th abortion, the preceding 26 abortions were apparently performed on perfectly healthy babies. By contrast, Japanese researchers obtained a live virus by swabbing the throat of an infected child. Link from Tim. In Ohio, a simple form like this one (downloadable PDF) satisfies the state laws regarding vaccinations and school (including private school) attendance. |
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| Posted by Sora at 10 : 28 pm | Leave a note {0} | ||
| PROGRESS?
Ten years ago, I could not find a homebirth midwife in Ottawa, Ontario. Four were fully booked for my due date (before I was 5 weeks pregnant); one was taking her vacation at that time. Midwifery had just been legalized and funded under Ontario's provincial health care plan, and the demand was enormous. Women were signing up with the midwife before they got pregnant. Those (like me) who didn't have that foresight were out of luck. Now, Ontario is busy funding more midwives to try to keep up with the demand as more doctors get out of the birthing business and demand for midwives increases. Of course, the Ontario midwives still only meet "57 per cent" of the demand. Meaning that for every 5 women who call a midwife, 2 are turned away. Still, it's gotta be better than Cincinnati. |
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| Posted by Sora at 10 : 10 pm | Leave a note {3} | ||
| August 24 2004 | ||
| MY JOB HAS BEEN RESTRUCTURED
Talia and Aedan had their first day of school today. They appeared to have enjoyed it, coming home in high spirits. I am no longer a homeschooling mother, at least, not for this year (we may bring Talia, at least, home again next year). I have most of the day to focus on toddler, baby, house -- all things that tended to get pushed to the back burner by homeschooling. I anticipate gardening, sewing, writing, reading without the constant knowledge that I am negecting several somethings that are equally important. My first day -- from 7 to 4 -- wass fairly peaceful and productive, with just Naomi and Zek'l at home. The morning and evening, at least this first morning and evening, have been stressful. We really need to get figure out how to fit everything we need to into those precious peak hours. After all, the kids didn't even have homework yet -- all they did today was organize their binders and go over school rules -- and we still didn't manage to do family worship, or read bedtime stories. Aedan was supposed to do his cello practice while I was doing my workout and I came home to find him playing chess on the computer instead. I'm trying to think of things I can move from the peak hours into the middle of my day but all I've come up with so far is getting duplicate lunch boxes so that I can pack their lunches for the next day before they get home. Oh, or moving closer to the school so that I could drop and pick them up at 8 and 3 -- buying an extra 2 hours! -- or at least so Matt and kids would be able to leave later and get home earlier. But that isn't happening this year. Supper and clean-up, going over homework with them, music practice, excercise (Matt needs to be home with babies while I go), family worship, bedtime stories, bathing, laying out clothes for the next day, TALKING to my kids, and any free time they get, all has to fit between 4 and 8. Also, Matt was accustomed (last year) to get up at 5 and do lesson prep until 7, when he'd hop in the car all by himself and drive to work, listening to a sermon on the way. Once there, he had another 45 minutes or so to get ready for class. Now he gets the kids up at 6, catechizes them, and does Latin or Greek with them at school before their classes start. And he's going to need to be listening -- or at least reminding them -- to review memory work in the car on the way in and the way home. We could use a few more hours for his day. |
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| Posted by Sora at 9 : 45 pm | Leave a note {4} | ||
| PARENTS WHO REALLY QUALIFY
for the "you have your hands full" comment: Two sets of twins in less than a year. |
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| Posted by Sora at 8 : 44 am | Leave a note {4} | ||
| August 18 2004 | ||
| SAFELY HOME
Safely, but not particularly comfortably. We were up at 4:45 a.m. (Pacific time) to catch the Coho and drive to Seattle. (That part was fairly comfortable.) Our flight to Chicago was delayed several hours because of weather conditions there. Luckily our connecting flight to Dayton was also delayed several hours (since the next one wasn't until this morning.) Unluckily that meant we left Chicago at 11:15 p/m/ (local time). We got home at 3:15 this morning. Matt went to work at 7:00 (ouch!). 19+ hours traveling, at least 7 of which were layovers in crowded airports with a very active 2.5 year old toddler and 8 month old baby. I think it might actually be easier to drive, and no more expensive. Maybe we'll try it next year and find out. My garden is a pitiful mess of enormous weeds waving their defiant ripening seadheads at me. And the sunflowers -- 8 feet tall with 14-inch seedheads -- have been picked completely clean by birds while we were gone. The kids will be disappointed, especially Aedan, who planted them. Still waiting to see how late the kids sleep this morning! |
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| Posted by Sora at 10 : 12 am | Leave a note {2} | ||
| August 15 2004 | ||
| ALMOST OVER
On Friday we picniced at Dallas Rd. with Brianna and her husband. The kids played on the beach while we paired off and talked -- the men, reportedly, about theology. We went back to their apartment for dessert, much appreciated by our kiddos: ambrosia salad and 6-minute chocolate cake. Sadly, we took no pictures, because earlier in the day I had dropped our digital camera and cracked the case in such a way that the batteries no longer make contact properly even with the rubber band around the camera. Alas. On Saturday we went to Sidney for fish and chips and so the kids could visit Mineral World. Zek'l and Aedan filled and emptied their scratch patch bags several times. Talia took an excruciatingly long time to fill hers, searching for absolutely the most perfect stones to bring home. Matt went back to the Haunted Bookshop and found to his dismay that someone else had bought the latin Alice that he had considered on our previous visit and decided to come back for. He did manage to buy a few other things. Matt reported that two people sitting in front of us in church this morning had been sitting behind us on the double-decker bus back from Sidney last week and remembered the conversation he and I had had on that bus, about writing Christian fantasy. (This tidbit apparently gathered either while I was changing the baby's diaper, or talking to someone else on the other side of the room.) Providence has grown considerably since I was there during their start-up four and more years ago. Having since steeped myself in psalms, hymns, liturgy, and weekly communion, the service felt rather uncomfortably like a Sunday morning concert. Nuff said. A friend of mine, who briefly shared a house with me when Talia and Aedan were one and three, is coming over for dinner shortly. She left Victoria to move onto her sailboat and attend Seattle Midwifery school; now is back in B.C. as a registered midwife. Looking forward to talking with her. I processed and packaged seeds from my mother's garden this afternoon: hollyhocks, foxgloves, delphiniums (in several colors), cosmos, several varieties of poppy, columbine, verbena, nicotiana, rose campion, love-in-a-mist. I cannot, of course, take plants across the border, even if it were practical to carry them on an airplane. I am trying to decide whether I am motivated enough to try to take any rose cuttings back with me. Do I really have the wherewithal to nurse them along when I get home. Probably I'll do it, if my mother throws in a few spoonfuls of rooting hormone into the bargain. She does have so many lovely roses. Tomorrow will be our last day here. I'm not sure yet how we'll be spending it. Packing, for at least an hour or two, I imagine. We take an early morning ferry to Port Angeles on Tuesday and will, if all goes well, arrive back in Dayton some time around midnight (ugh.) |
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| Posted by Sora at 7 : 53 pm | Leave a note {1} | ||
| August 12 2004 | ||
| A BIG LUMP OF ORANGE FUN THAT YOU HAVE ON THE WATER
This is what Aedan calls my parents' inflatable kayaks. 
We've gone to Thetis Lake twice this week. The older two kids think that those kayaks are just about the greatest things ever invented. Naomi enjoys them too, sitting in between mommy's legs in her little PFD and paddling around (she usually falls asleep.) I didn't get a picture of her in the kayak with me, though, so here she is in her swimsuit: 
In addition to kayaking, the older two kids have also learned to rollerblade and play mah jong. The time here is going very fast (as it always does when you're having fun.) We're probably going to pass on a camping overnight to Salt Spring Island so that we can see more people in the brief time we're here -- I have several old friends I still want to connect with, or spend more time visiting before I go. We'll meet Brianna and her husband on Friday. We have almost a whole week left, but it feels much too brief. |
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| Posted by Sora at 1 : 34 am | Leave a note {6} | ||
COUSINS
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| Posted by Sora at 1 : 22 am | Leave a note {0} | ||
| August 07 2004 | ||
| NEVER A DULL MOMENT
We spent some time sitting on the beach by the Esquimalt lagoon today, and then went to the gardens at Royal Roads. As we were heading back toward the parking lot, along the very narrow footpath by the bank of the pond in the Japanese gardens, Talia, Aedan, and Zek'l were lagging behind the grownups and cousin Rowan. Matt was at the end of the line of adults, carrying Naomi. All of a sudden we heard Aedan scream "ZZ!" and turned around to see Zek'l's sunhat on the surface of the mucky pondwater. Matt covered the half-dozen yards back to where the kids were in about five seconds, leapt in the arm-pit deep water and pulled Zek'l out, still holding Naomi in his other hand. The photo at the bottom of the Japanese gardens page shows just about the exact spot he fell in. |
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| Posted by Sora at 9 : 11 pm | Leave a note {6} | ||
| KISSING COUSINS
We had a deja vu photo op when my brother and his family came down from Texada Island today. Naomi with my 3-month old nephew Jasper, this evening: 
Zek'l with Jasper's big sister Rowan, two years ago: 
 |
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| Posted by Sora at 1 : 54 am | Leave a note {3} | ||
| August 04 2004 | ||
| I'M NOT SURE HOW WE'LL EVER GO BACK
after having high-speed internet for Matt's laptop at my parent's house for the next couple of weeks. It makes it awfully easy to blog when I'm still barely awake; I'm nursing Naomi and the computer is right here at the side of the bed, so... We got up at 4:00 a.m. EST yesterday and were at the Dayton airport by 5:30 a.m. We landed in Seattle at 10:00 a.m. (Pacific time). My dad had taken the Port Angeles ferry early that morning and got to the airport by 11:30; we drove up to the Tsawassen ferry, emailing my mom from my dad's Blackberry with our estimated time of arrival, and were there by 2:20. We had had some vain hopes that the holiday weekend traffic which had commanded 4-sailing waits was over and that we would get on the 3:00 ferry... or at least the 4:00 ferry... but no, we had to wait for the 5:00 ferry and weren't back at my parents' house in Victoria until almost 7:30 (remember this is 10:30 EST) We ate a late dinner, bathed the four filthy kids, let the four very overtired and overexited kids open some presents from their grandparents, put the kids to bed, played a hand of bridge with my mom and sister (yes, we were crazy), bathed ourselves. When I got out of the bath Matt was IMing on the laptop with Tim Gallant. I'm surprised he had any head for theology at that point at all, but I guess he got a second wind. I'm not sure which time zone my Upsaid entry date stamp from last night represents. (Guess I'll find out when I post this one.) It felt good to be chilly out on the deck of the ferry. I've been not-hot outdoors a few times in the evening in the last few weeks, but I can't remember when I've been chilly. I also didn't realize how good it would be to see the west-coast landscape and smell the ocean smell. We don't have mountains, ocean, or coniferous forests in Ohio. And we don't have gardens like this either. Ok, the date stamp for Upsaid is showing up as 9-something and the computer, still set to eastern time, says 10-something, so... I don't want to think about how long I'd been up when I blogged last night. |
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| Posted by Sora at 10 : 07 am | Leave a note {3} | ||
| WE ARE NOW IN VICTORIA
and I don't know when I have ever been so tired. |
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| Posted by Sora at 1 : 29 am | Leave a note {0} | ||
| July 30 2004 | ||
| MY BABY IS NINE
In an effort to restrain myself and spare those with dial-up connections, I will not post lots of pictures on the blog this time. Here is Talia as a baby and a toddler. This is Talia with me when she was about four and a half. And at six. And here she is today: 
Talia was born when I was 18, selfish, self-centered, and convinced I could be my own God. God used her to completely turn my life around. I am who I am today in large part because I am Talia's mother. She is my right-hand-girl, a wonderful big sister, accomplished in so many ways, but most of all sweet and earnest in her desire to do right and serve the Lord. I know the next nine years with her will be a delight. |
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| Posted by Sora at 10 : 53 am | Leave a note {9} | ||
| July 29 2004 | ||
| WAITING TO SEE THE RESULTS OF THIS ONE...
Here is a newspaper article about some Pennsylvania homeschoolers who have filed a lawsuit claiming that the state homeschooling regulations substantially burden their religious beliefs. (Link from The Homeschooling Revolution.) I will be very interested to see what kind of precedent is set here. This is the kind of case that Matt and I were always half-way tempted to get into ourselves, just because it would be so very clear that the issues involved had nothing to do with whether the children were being adequately educated, and everything to do with the extent of state power and control over "its" children. We did not comply with New York's ridiculous and oppressive homeschooling regulations while we lived there, and were certainly prepared to go to court about it if we'd ever been challenged, but thought that grad school was not the best time to go looking for a fight. You can access the article with newspaperlogin@yahoo.com, password 123456 |
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| Posted by Sora at 10 : 46 am | Leave a note {2} | ||
| LATIN IN A WEEK
Matt's Wheelock in a Week course is past the half-way mark now. He serves breakfast at 7:30 and then teaches Latin until about 5:00, with a one hour break for lunch. As of yesterday, he had taken his eight students from classical christian schools all over the country through the end of chapter 21 (Wheelock's has 40 chapters). But this is not good enough, since they are only doing half a day of class on Saturday, the last day of the course. So today, they will break for an hour and a half from 4:30 to 6:00 and then do three more hours of Latin in the evening! I am planning to go to Mars Hill to have dinner with him (after picking up Talia and Aedan from the airport, hurray!) just so that I actually see my husband today. His students are working very hard. Last night, most of them came to dinner at Trinity REC -- we have a meal before evening prayer on Wednesdays, for which I was responsible yesterday. (I discovered in my zeal that 4 pounds of dry chickpeas makes more than 320 falafels, and that this is far more than I needed to feed the church, even with Matt's latin students there too.) Anyway, they all showed up, having diligently studied latin from 7:30 to 5:00 already, and when they saw that it would be several minutes before dinner was served they slipped into a Sunday school room and cracked open their latin books again! That is one dedicated group of teacher / students! In their honor, I thought I'd post a few British schoolboy rhymes (these are all taken from I Saw Esau: The Schoolchild's Pocket Book.) Latin is a dead tongue, Dead as dead can be. First it killed the Romans, Now it's killing me. Moods and Tenses Bother my senses; Adverbs, Pronouns, Make me roar. Irregular Verbs, My sleep disturb, They are a regular bore. And a little translation excercise for any budding "Latin" scholars out there, designed to drive any real Latinists crazy (I think Matt has posted these ones on his blog, a year or more ago, so if you saw the answer then don't give it away now!): Brutus adsum jam forte, Caesar aderat. Brutus sic in omnibus, Caesar sic inat. Is ab ile heres ergo, Fortibus es in ero. Nobile themis trux, Se vatacinum - pes an dux. |
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| Posted by Sora at 10 : 25 am | Leave a note {2} | ||
| July 28 2004 | ||
| HEH
Way back in May, Jon Barlow posted a link to an "engagement stories" contest on the P & R Publishing website. Since we already had the story of our arranged courtship and Matt's Alice-in-Wonderland proposal written out, I spent two or three minutes doing some minor editing for clarity, added a new ending (a lot has happened in the four years since we wrote the story out for our wedding program) and sent it off. Lo and behold, we've won a gift basket for the "most creative" engagement story. |
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| Posted by Sora at 10 : 48 pm | Leave a note {3} | ||
| July 25 2004 | ||
| A BETTER THOUGHT TO GO TO BED ON
Cheryl muses: As a young person I used to think that young love was the best love in the world. The love of middle aged people was ridiculous to my youthful eyes. Now I know that things can only get better as you grow older, especially if you can work through stuff. Makes me think that the best is yet to come, even as I fall into physical decay. |
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| Posted by Sora at 12 : 06 am | Leave a note {0} | ||
| July 24 2004 | ||
| THE HANDS THAT LEAVE A SOUR TASTE IN YOUR MOUTH
We played bridge with Matt's parents tonight. It is the first time we've played bridge in a very long time, as six-hand euchre is the usual Colvin game of choice (assuming six players are available). Since leaving Ithaca, where we used to joke about the "Presbyterian Church-and-Bridge-Club", we mostly play only when we're visiting my parents or vice versa. (Matt says, "We need to really think about our game before we go to Victoria. Got to be prepared before we go out and face the foe.") Anyway, Matt had been soundly beaten by his dad in both tennis and ping pong before we sat down for cards after dinner. So he was determined that he was going to "win SOMETHING tonight." In the first hand they made a game bid. In the second hand we bid and made a small slam (well, Matt bid and I played); a very satisfying small slam that was makeable only if a particular ace was in the correct opponent's hand. Then we made a 2 spades bid. Then we took them down on a 4 spades bid. Then I got dealt a 17-point hand with a six-card heart suit (AK10xxx), which I opened. Matt responded with two diamonds. Opponents passed. And like an idiot I rebid my six-card heart suit instead of jump-shifting into one of my 2- or 3-card suits to indicate my strength, and found myself passed out at 2 hearts and playing a ducks-in-a-barrel grand slam hand. It took all the joy out of winning the rubber. |
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| Posted by Sora at 11 : 57 pm | Leave a note {2} | ||
| July 23 2004 | ||
| REDECORATING
In a comment on this post, Cindy wrote: You have made a big, big mistake. You should have painted over the wallpaper. Now you will spend the next month ripping off wallpaper and Matt will never, ever paint again. I started to reply in the comments but then decided that they were so far down the page no one would notice. By mutual agreement, when we paint, Matt does all the prep work and the cutting in while I keep children far, far, away. (When he is not feeling cranky about painting, he does a very detail-oriented, professional-looking, perfectionist kind of job.) Then I do the roller work while children are sleeping. We made a sort of exception for the wallpaper, if you count its removal as "prep work" -- he steamed and I scraped. We rented a wallpaper steamer and stayed up until 2:00 a.m. on Wednesday night removing wallpaper. Then Matt spent most of the day on Thursday, aside from a couple hours of Latin tutoring, sanding and spackling and spraying little remaining stubborn bits of wallpaper with vinegar and using Goo-gone on the places where the previous owners of the house had left many, many pieces of adhesive-backed VELCRO stuck on the walls. I don't think we made a mistake in removing the wallpaper. I think both of us would have been really unhappy with the results if we'd just painted over it. I begin to think we might have made a mistake in our choice of paint color. I say this having just rolled on the first coat, over the tinted primer. Having now seen this first coat in all its glory, I am expecting to do, not one more, but two, three, or maybe even a dozen before we get to the color we both loved. I am definitely sticking to pastels and off-whites after this. |
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| Posted by Sora at 11 : 02 pm | Leave a note {6} | ||
| FOR THE ARCHIVES
Spring Roll Recipe (This filling is from The Vegetarian Table - Thailand) 1/2 ounce bean thread vermicelli, soaked for 10 minutes and drained 3 ounces very firm tofu, cut into short, fine strips 2 scallions, cut into 1 inch piences and shredded 1/4 cup finely shredded bamboo shoots 1/4 cup finely shredded carrot, blanched and drained 1/4 cup chopped straw mushrooms 1/4 cup roasted peanuts, finely chopped 1 large, mild fresh red chili, shredded 1 Tbs soy sauce 1/4 tsp freshly ground white pepper 1 Tbs grated fresh ginger 2 Tbs chopped cilantro about 24 spring roll wrappers about 3 cups of oil for deep frying spring rolls, three or four at a time, in your wok sweet Thai chili sauce for dipping (Take a few scallions, cut off the roots and the green part so that you have a 2 to 3 inch white piece. Starting about 1/4 inch from the root end, cut in half toward the green end, rotate, cut again, until you have one end finely shredded but all pieces still joined at the root end. Put them in a bowl of ice water until they curl into beautiful scallion "flowers" to decorate your platter with.) I made these yesterday, along with a cucumber/peanut salad, a whopping big wokful of veggie pad thai, and a coconut milk rice pudding with butterscotch sauce. I spent an awful lot of time chopping and frying, but it was sooo good. |
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| Posted by Sora at 11 : 18 am | Leave a note {3} | ||
| July 22 2004 | ||
| RESCUED!
I'm sitting down here nursing the baby and skimming through blogs and MOMYS digests when all of a sudden I hear a frightful clatter on the stairs. My husband is racing down them as noisily as he can. He bursts around the corner, crying out: "FEAR NOT, fair maiden! I will rescue you from the vile clutches of that fearful machine!" Hmmm. Might be time to get off the computer? |
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| Posted by Sora at 10 : 33 pm | Leave a note {5} | ||
| July 21 2004 | ||
| HALF THE KIDS, TWICE THE TIME
Jeni thinks that I should be blogging more since I only have half my kids at home and it is too hot to garden. But I have been working steadily down my indoor to-do list, which never really included blogging. Painting the hall (which included ripping up the carpet before painting the molding) stretched over four days. By the end of it, Matt was pretty grouchy about painting. Luckily for me, the pink gingham-patterned wallpaper in our bedroom was more obnoxious to him than the prospect of another painting job. So he agreed to try to get our bedroom done too -- while the kids are still away, and before he starts teaching his all-day-every-day Latin for teachers next week. We both liked a deep burgundy for the lower half of the wall up to a chair rail. While the paint mixing lady at Home Depot explained about tinted primers and multiple coats, I could see my husband reassessing his ability to live with pink gingham wallpaper... or at least rethinking the advantages of plain white walls that look okay with just one coat of paint. But we have already started steaming off the wallpaper, so there is no turning back, and he didn't suggest that we choose an easier color. If the painting has mostly been Matt's project, with some help from me, the purging and organizing of possessions is definitely my project. (Yesterday, as Matt was looking for a pen: "Wow, honey, did you reorganize this drawer?" Who did he think did it, Zek'l? "No, dear, some little elves came in and did it while we slept.") By the time Talia and Aedan return, every thing in this house will have a well-defined, well-confined place. And then I'll send them off to school so they can't mess it up. Mwahahahaha. Actually, I don't mind their projects and their clutter -- much. But joking aside, I'm feeling pretty good about the prospects for the fall. If there's anything the last week has shown me, it is that my house is much cleaner and my babies get much more attention when their older siblings aren't around all the time. |
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| Posted by Sora at 9 : 01 am | Leave a note {4} | ||
| July 13 2004 | ||
| PUBLIC ADMISSION OF DEFEAT
I give up. I can't do it. I have made a half-hearted attempt every day this week. This morning -- while it was still shady and (relatively) cool I went outside long enough to pick a 3 pound zuchinni and a couple of cucumbers. I've managed to keep the pots on the deck watered. But I have not been able to stay out long enough to do any real work. It is so muggy that just stepping out the door is painful. Every square inch of skin screams to return to the air conditioned house. I have the remains of an enormous summer squash plant which, last week, was covering at least 8 square feet of garden space, and has since succumbed to some kind of rot or bug or something, quietly composting in the middle of useful raised bed space that cries out to be planted with carrots, beets and parsnips for the fall and the extra dill and parsley and cilantro that I have in pots. I have squares of bolted lettuce, three foot high flowers gaily waving in the breeze, begging to be pulled out so their space can be re-used. I have calendula and roses that are ugly with spent blooms and need dead-heading. I have DOZENS of perrennials from the plant exchange that are STILL sitting in pots on the deck, waiting to be set out in the front garden beds. I have weeds, oh, do I have weeds. I can't do it. The spirit is willing -- in theory, until it gets as far as the back door -- but the flesh is weak. I cannot garden in Ohio in July. I give up. Waah. I want to move back to Victoria. |
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| Posted by Sora at 9 : 19 am | Leave a note {10} | ||
| July 12 2004 | ||
| OUR NEWLY SPACIOUS HOUSE
Last Thursday we took Talia and Aedan to the airport and sent them on their way to visit their biological father in Guelph for three weeks. Everything went smoothly (though I spent longer at the airport than they did on the plane!) and they are, by all reports, having a fine time. Shortly after they return at the end of the month, we will all be going to Victoria to visit my parents. This was supposed to be a comfort to Zek'l, who felt it very deeply when he heard that Talia and Aedan would be embarking on an adventure and he would be left behind. Talia told him over and over in the car that, "We're going on the airplane today, ZZ, but you will get to go on an airplane in August." As we were finally driving away from the airport almost 4 hours after our arrival, Zek'l looked at me and wailed, "BUT MOMMY! I didn't get on an airplane to August!" It is very different, having just the babies home. A foretaste of what life in the fall will be like, I suppose -- minus the frantic before-and-after-school mornings and evenings. Matt's mother remarked yesterday, "You two must feel like newlyweds, with only two kids." Umm, yeah. Most newlyweds have "only two kids," right? But between naptime and bedtime and less cooking, less laundry, and less (well, no) Lego, many good things are being accomplished in our suddenly spacious house. The carpet in the downstairs hallway that I have quietly detested for a year is gone, hurray! The walls are freshly painted. Much organizing and purging of unneccesary stuff is on the agenda. Probably I won't be blogging overmuch, though. |
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| Posted by Sora at 12 : 40 pm | Leave a note {2} | ||
| July 04 2004 | ||
| HAPPY BIRTHDAY AEDAN
My 4th of July baby turned 7 today. 
He was born at 1:09 in the morning after an almost painless, less than 2-hour labor; a 6 lb 12 ounce little peanut. He was, like Naomi, a very "mommy-centric" baby -- would only sleep when he was in my arms or lying next to me until well over a year old. My own mother wouldn't babysit him because he just was not happy without me. 
Today he plays the cello, throws a baseball, builds the most incredible things out of Lego, reads Harry Potter, recites the creed and all the liturgical responses in church, cheerfully helps me with all manner of household tasks, asks for peas and broccoli in his birthday macaroni-and-cheese, sleeps over at his grandparents' house after watching the fireworks, and, without the slightest apprehension, anticipates getting on an airplane in four days to spend three weeks in Canada without me. When did he get so big? 
It is astonishing how brief babyhood is. Though I am surprised when I look at my tall and capable son, and I like to reminisce over his adorable toddler pictures, I do not wish he could have stayed a baby. It is a joy to see him learning and growing. I look forward to the young man he will become. A wise son brings joy (Proverbs 10:1). Lord, help us guide our sons and daughters in wisdom. Cause them to embrace our godly instruction and cherish it; keep them from being embittered by our faults and failings. May Aedan glorify your Name all his life. |
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| Posted by Sora at 11 : 36 pm | Leave a note {5} | ||
| July 03 2004 | ||
| FEAST!
Those who have not given up on checking my blog for new content will have observed that I have not been posting much lately. The reason -- and I'm sure you'll all agree it is a good reason -- is that almost every spare moment in the last week that has not been taken up with laundry or lactating has been spent preparing for today's medieval feast. There were 6 of us, counting Naomi (who wasn't really eating) and 9 guests (including another baby). Everyone came in some kind of costume -- some of our costumes were better than others. Here are the ones I made for my crew: 
Most of the children had bows and arrows and one of the grownups even brought a sword. 
We hit a slight snag early in the day. We'd moved all the furniture in the living room around so that we could fit the kitchen table plus a folding table in there, to seat everybody. We had strewn dried rushes and strewing herbs over the floor. All was in readiness... and then it became clear that the air conditioning was not working. On a very hot day. When we were all wearing long-sleeved costumes, multiple layers with velvet and felt and fur. We moved all the tables, chairs, food, etc. -- including the rushes and strewing herbs -- into the basement. And called the very un-medieval air conditioning repair man. 
The dimly lit basement was probably more castle-like anyway. You can see the trenchers -- flat bread used instead of plates -- in this picture. We ate with our fingers except for the soup and dessert. This was the menu and plan for the day -- with pictures of the more impressive food-art, like the bread sculptures and the marzipan subtleties at the end of each course. I made about 3 pounds of homemade marzipan for these. Some of the recipes were duds -- the rhyschewys and the torta from red chickpeas were nothing to write home about. But the rapes and pastersnakes (turnips and parsnips) made one of the best soups I have ever tasted -- with ground almonds, cream, egg yolks and lemon juice. And the spinach torte and "strawberries and snow" -- both made by our guests, the Giese family -- were delicious. Rapes and Pastersnakes in Potage Bread Sculpture: 
Mushroom Pastie Subtletie: 
Games (Matt made a neat game board for the Game of the Goose) Roast Duck Spinach Tarte Beets (I didn't get a picture of this -- they were yellow and chiogga (white and red spiral-striped) beeets from the garden -- beautiful!) Bread Sculpture: 
Torta from Red Chickpeas Subtletie: 
Music 
Shrympes with Vinegar Sallet of all Kinds of Herbes and Flowers (forgot to take a picture of this too -- it was so pretty! Mixed lettuces and herbs from the garden with nasturtiums, scarlet runner bean flowers, dwarf marigold, borage, johnny jump ups, calendula petals, and rose blossoms artistically arranged, and hard-boiled egg halves around the outside.) Bread with Pine Nuts and Currants Subtletie 
Archery Tournament (we had a contest for distance and one for accurary -- shooting through a hoop target -- with the kids' homemade bows and stick arrows. Prizes were two real arrows that we found in the house when we moved in.) Rhyschewys Strawberries in Snow Sugared Almonds Subtletie  (Talia made this one)
The kids also designed shields for themselves, which Matt helped them make out of plywood: 
They put their crests, in felt, on flags hanging from a golden trumpet (made out of a wrapping paper tube and gold paper) and heralded in each dish with much fanfare and excitement. Drinks were wine, grape juice ("fake wine") for the kids, and honey mead which I started fermenting about 6 weeks ago -- it was good enough to make again! The eating -- interspersed with entertainment -- lasted about 6 hours. There was much joking after about "going home to eat supper". Everyone had a splendid time... I would have had a somewhat less stressful time -- and maybe even had time to blog a bit last week -- if Naomi would sleep more, or at least sleep in her crib... but everything did get done -- sometimes to the sound of fussing -- and it was most festive and delicious. And the air conditioning works again. |
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| Posted by Sora at 8 : 57 pm | Leave a note {8} | ||
| June 30 2004 | ||
| THE WINNER
of the "items most likely to cause my husband to break the tenth commandment" award. I wonder how much it would cost to get one of these made. |
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| Posted by Sora at 9 : 55 am | Leave a note {4} | ||
| June 23 2004 | ||
| BUSY WEEK
Talia and Aedan started string camp on Monday. Every day this week from 9:00 to noon (with a half-hour cookie break). An hour of orchestra, half-an hour of chamber music, snack, half an hour of sectionals, and another half-hour of orchestra. I wonder if they will voluntarily spend more than 15 minutes a day practicing after this week? The kids have also started swimming lessons, in the evenings. Matt and I will miss the final concert for string camp, because we are leaving today for the ACCS conference in Atlanta, where Matt will be telling the classical Christian schooling world how they should be teaching Latin. It looks to be a good talk (I hope Naomi lets me listen to it.) My favorite part is when he accuses the latin primers of being anti-trinitarian on the basis of being all memorization and no reading -- separated parts without their natural created context (only he says it much better, and in more words, than that). Maybe he'll blog that part when we get back. Oh, and I expect to enjoy some of the other sessions too, though I wish we weren't quite so broke going to the book display. Matt's parents, who recently moved to Indiana, about half-an-hour away from us, will be staying with the three older kids and ferrying them too and from camp and lessons. And ferrying us to and from the airport, too. What a blessing! (Of course, they will get to hear the end-of-camp concert.) Now to finish whipping my house into shape before I leave, laundry, packing, pumping, whoopee. Pumping? Yes, for the last two days I have been attempting, with the aid of a piston-powered piece of machinery that my sons find fascinating ("Could I please have a bit of privacy, you clowns?") to convince my body that Naomi has suddenly become twins, one of whom is not very good at nursing, and to produce milk accordingly. The recipient of this beneficence is a sweet little 10-month-old charmer who has a ridiculous number of food allergies. His mama is 20 weeks along with little brother or sister and no longer has the milk he needs. When she told me they were resorting -- at $22 a can! -- to some foully artificial, seaweed-smelling substance supposed to substitute for human milk for those babies who can tolerate neither dairy nor soy, I offered a more palatable alternative. After all, I'm lactating anyway, right? I have new sympathy for mothers who, for whatever reason, have to pump their milk regularly. I had actually never used a pump before (despite nursing 4 children for a combined total of 7 years so far). It is not as effective as a baby, and not nearly as cuddly. But it appears to be doing the job, and hopefully in a few days when I've managed to con the alveoli into the twins theory, I won't have to use it quite so often to get the same results. Anyway, it was very sad to see that dear bouncy baby looking all sick and scrawny, and everyone involved (except one skeptical doctor, who with the usual body-fluids squeamishness recommended the evil seaweed formula on the grounds that I, the milk donor, might have some frightful DISEASE) is hopeful that this will turn things around for him. |
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| Posted by Sora at 7 : 28 am | Leave a note {12} | ||
| June 16 2004 | ||
| YUMMM
Deb's blog inspired me to make summer rolls today for lunch. Filling (for me and Matt) was cilantro, lettuce, and Thai basil (from the garden), brown rice, finely julienned raw carrots and yellow peppers, slices of avocado. Matt picked his cilantro out. Filling for Aedan was brown rice, lettuce, carrots and yellow peppers. Talia had brown rice, lettuce, and carrots. Zek'l had brown rice and carrots. He picked these out of the rice paper wrapper and rejected it. Would have been a good time for a gourmet-minded friend or two to pop in for lunch. Zek'l was also hanging around looking hungry while I was making the sauces and chopping the veggies. Aedan walked through the kitchen, made a grab for the counter hoping for parsley -- "EWWW! Is that CILANTRO?!" Zek'l: " Mommy! Can I have some cilantwo?" Tastes. Spits. "I don't need to eat this, Mommy. It's just yucky." The small (5-inch round) rice paper wrappers are just the right size for small fingers. My dipping sauce recipes are in the comments on Deb's blog. |
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| Posted by Sora at 1 : 48 pm | Leave a note {2} | ||
| June 14 2004 | ||
| TWO QUOTES
Yesterday: Talia: "Mommy, isn't playing peekaboo with babies just training them to be like ostriches?" This morning: Zek'l: (watching me fold laundry) I need to wear THAT shirt. Mommy: You want to put on the yellow dinosaur shirt, do you? Is that your favorite shirt? Zek'l: (trying to take off his shirt) I need to wear it 'cause we're going to Grandpa Mike and Grandma Claudee's house today. Mommy: Yes, they gave you that shirt , didn't they. And you like it very much. Zek'l: You MUST put it on me. |
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| Posted by Sora at 9 : 24 am | Leave a note {1} | ||
| June 13 2004 | ||
LAST ONE FOR TODAY
I finished knitting my shawl. (Started in April.) |
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| Posted by Sora at 9 : 50 pm | Leave a note {4} | ||
| "GUESS WHO IS USING THE POTTY?"
I asked my mother on the phone. (No, it isn't Zek'l. I only wish.) 
Now, up until three days ago I was very, VERY skeptical of infant potty training. I had, of course, heard about mothers in third world countries without benefit of diapers. I figured they probably got soiled by their babies a lot. I had heard about mothers, in my grandmother's generation, strapping their 8-month-old babies onto the potty seat and leaving them their until they "performed". I figured that was a pretty hit-or-miss way to go about things, or at best, "training the mother". And while I breastfeed on cue and spend most of my day holding or slinging my pre-crawling babies, I figured I was much too busy to notice every little sign that might mean the baby needed to go and rush off to the potty. But Naomi has always been more than typically bothered by wet and soiled diapers. And on Friday, when I took off her cloth diaper to change her after a nap, it was dry. So I said, "Why not?" and sat her on Zek'l's potty, saying, "Naomi, can you pee-pee on the potty for Mama?" She looked at me and immediately peed. Coincidence, I thought. After all, she just woke up and was dry. But 45 minutes later, I thought I might try her again and see what she did. Zek'l was interested in what was going on at this time. "Mommy, baby's poopin'!" And she was. Just as soon as I sat her down on that potty, she got a concentrated look on her face and -- wow, was that easier than changing a messy diaper! She pottied about 6 times that day. By the third or fourth one, I was convinced that I was not being "trained" to "catch" her. When I sat her on the potty, she was visibly trying to use it, and she would give me a big smile when she was finished. The only time she didn't produce anything when I sat her on the potty was when I had been too late and she had just wet her diaper. I do not intend to stop using diapers. But the idea that we train our babies not to mind being wet or soiled until it is convenient to us to change them -- and then have to retrain them at 2 or 3 years old -- makes much more sense to me now. Naomi clearly knew what she was doing and was able, if not to "hold it" or give me a clear and understanble sign that she needed to go, to try to use the potty every single time I gave her the opportunity. I hope that by letting Naomi continue to use the potty at least a couple times a day until she can get to it independently, I will be able to avoid the difficulties we've had with Zek'l (who will pee on the potty if we tell him to, but who still just doesn't care about wetting and soiling his pants -- even now, after watching his baby sister using his potty for the last three days.) |
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| Posted by Sora at 9 : 46 pm | Leave a note {13} | ||
WHAT IS BLOOMING THIS WEEK
(Miniature roses and baby's breath in a "classical" pot.) I'm playing blog catch-up since I've been doing instead of writing for the last several days. Jackmanii clematis is blooming -- 12 flowers, pretty respectable for first year planted. Deep rich purple. Blue moon has grown another 3 or 4 feet and is getting ready to bloom again! Sweet peas are blooming. Bachelor's buttons and poppies are blooming. The burgudy daylilies I planted last year are blooming, as are the wretched ubiquitous Stella D'oros that came with the house, that are in at least 4 other yards on this street and in front of every restaurant and on every median strip in the city. At least they'll be bright and colorful all summer long. Maybe I'll like them better when I've dug them up, gotten rid of three-quarters of them, and spread the rest around in a mixed perrenial bed. They look so dull all in a clump. Polka rose has put out a few more flowers. The roses that came with the house are putting out new leaves and buds, getting ready for a late June flush. We have borage, nasturtiums, and scarlet runner bean blossoms in our salads now. The patch of greens that I planted earliest is starting to bolt. Time to plant some more -- in a shady spot. The lettuce planted later will, I hope, continue to happily cut-and-come again for two or three weeks yet. The kids ate the first two ripe strawberries from the garden today! And a few that were not so ripe. The cucumbers and tomatoes are blooming. Including a volunteer tomato right in front of the compost bin. The weeds are blooming and going to seed in the back yard near the compost heap faster than I can hew them down. And the zuchinni and summer squash are just outdoing themselves. This picture was taken May 22: 
This picture was taken today (20 days later) -- you can't even see the boards of the raised bed anymore. I've been getting 3 or 4 squash a week from each plant. 
It is such a shame that my husband and kids refuse to like zuchinni. |
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| Posted by Sora at 9 : 20 pm | Leave a note {1} | ||
| PLANT SWAP
An enterprising and energetic soul at the Ohio Valley Garden Forum organized a plant swap for Cincinnati. (Columbus has, apparently, done one for years, but I did not feel ambitious enough to go to that one.) I felt a little inadequate (stuff-to-swap-wise-- given that this is my first season with this garden) but after some thought I came up with a pretty respectable showing: 4 BIG pots of variegated hosta (I dug up just one of the 6 big clumps that came with the house and divided it; I plan to move the other five and give a bunch more away early next spring) 6 smaller pots of lily of the valley 5 sturdy cherry tomato plants I grew from seed and didn't have room to plant out, both hard-if-not-impossible-to-find-at-garden-center heirloom varieties: Isis Candy and Yellow Pear. (No one picked these up at first; I think I should have been more clear in the labels about the varieties. They were happily taken home by others when I gave a more-than-just-the-name description). 2 Sugar Baby watermelon plants that I grew from seed and did not have room for 1 of the 4 clumps of peony that i got from my next-door neighbor when she moved -- she had been in the house since 1946 and the peony had been there almost that long 2 borage plants (I really only needed one in the garden) 4 pots of the moss pink creeping phlox that came with the house I was up very early on Saturday morning labeling, loading the van, packing lunch for the kids etc. Matt had arranged to spend the day helping Mark Butler do noisy work on his house, so Lara Butler and baby William were going to meet us at the plant swap and come home with us after. It was threatening rain and I was a little nervous that Lara and kids would have a miserable time. Thankfully, the rain held off until after we had set up, had lunch, swapped plants, given out door prizes, and loaded everything back into the car -- the loading and unloading involved multiple trips with a very loaded double stroller from the parking lot to the picnic shelter about 300 yards away. It was pouring when we got home. This is what I came home with: 
a baby BANANA tree (which will live in a pot on the sunny deck next to my fig tree and come inside for the winter) a red canna (which will go in the front yard with the sunflowers, and may or may not be dug up in the fall -- not winter hardy here) several varieties of irises, both dwarf and full-sized mexican evening primrose, which I have seen and admired in several gardens around here a sierra nevada oriental lily dianthus coreopsis liatris cleome sedum bee balm Irish Eyesrudbeckia hollyhocks black-eyed susans a primrose a chenille plant catnip feverfew lemon balm "chocolate" mint firecracker loosestrife two jalapeno pepper plants a kalanchoe -- looked up this one because i hadn't heard of it but no one else seemed to want it and it looked cute. This did indeed all fit in the van, because most people had brought small plants in little tiny pots, unlike my gigantic hostas. Nothing has been planted yet. I've got a bit of work to do. :-) My hope is to get another big truckload of compost this fall and expand the front yard flower beds to about a third of the yard. They will be planted, english cottage garden style, with lots of perrenials and roses and a few other flowering shrubs. I also want to, in about October or November, mow down all the weeds in the back section of the yard where I just can't keep up with all the thistles, put down lots of cardboard (with no cracks this time!) and lots of compost on top, and start a shade garden. |
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| Posted by Sora at 9 : 05 pm | Leave a note {2} | ||
| June 08 2004 | ||
| IF ONLY IT COULD ALWAYS BE LIKE THIS
The kids just finished lunch and are sitting on the shady porch eating popsicles. I'm making grilled tofu and veggie skewers for dinner tonight, provided Matt picks up some charcoal on his way home. (He'll probably remember, since it will mean he and ZZ get hot dogs.) The tofu is being pressed in the sink right now. Then it will be cubed and marinated with yellow squash and zuchinni from my garden, mushrooms, and vidalia onions in a mixture of lime juice, brown sugar, garlic, and tamari. I'm also going to make a foil package of potatos with butter and fresh herbs from the garden, and a big garden salad. And maybe key lime pie for dessert. (Yes, limes are still cheap. 10 for a dollar this week! I love it!) Lara, it's too bad you're not back yet, you guys could come eat with us. Amidst the virulent decision making (or at least debate) going on this weekend, the kids and I were busy getting ready for the medieval feast we're planning for next Wednesday. Our menu is chosen. We made four costumes over the weekend -- two servant's tunics, a jester's outfit, and some fancy fur-trimmed duds for Sir Aedan; I still have to make a gown for Lady Talia. Zek'l was wearing his jester's suit around the house this morning, jingling all the way. Aedan was getting ready to do cello practice when the jingling jester knocked his cello over. The bridge cracked. Aedan was devastated. But it meant we all got to pile into the car and drive over to The Baroque Violin Shop, which is always a neat place to visit. It was even better than usual today. They were not busy, so they offered to make a new bridge while we waited. Talia and Aedan were allowed to go upstairs to the workship and not only watch, but help smooth a piece of wood for a violin body, while Zek'l and Naomi and I sat outside in the shade (safer place for Zek'l than in the shop!) and he tortured cicadas. I wish homeschooling was all feasts and field trips. |
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| Posted by Sora at 12 : 43 pm | Leave a note {3} | ||
| WHAT A DAY!
So. After blogging, making pizza dough and banana bread, doing three loads of laundry, watering the garden, nursing the baby, feeding everyone breakfast, changing the chiropracter appointment, brushing Talia's hair, and packing a lunch (while Matt read greek new testament, studied Hebrew for about an hour, changed Zek'l, and catechized the older two kids), we got out of the house about 9:00 a.m. He had a bunch of exams still to grade and report cards to fill out at school. We got there about an hour before either of the teachers who were doing Talia and Aedan's placement testing showed up. I had brought some books and pattern blocks for the kids to play with but Aedan and Zek'l, predictably, started bickering (Zek'l couldn't resist driving his truck over Aedan's patterns) so I spent most of that hour -- and the two following, while the kids were tested -- doing Structured Things With Zek'l To Keep Him Out of Trouble. You would think that a kid couldn't get in much trouble in an essentially empty church / school building where everything has been packed away for the summer, right? HA! So Aedan finishes up and the second grade teacher confirms that the test results were pretty much what I expected -- he is right on track, but may need to catch up on the areas we haven't focused on (math facts drill!). We talk about second grade. I like her. I like how she describes her classroom. I really like the idea of Aedan marching in place behind a desk, reciting his memory work with a bunch of other 7 year olds instead of bouncing of the living room walls, poking his brother, and needing the catchism question repeated 5 times while the baby starts to cry, the breakfast dishes still haven't been done, and my stress level gets higher and higher. Of course, the school is doing Westminster Shorter and we would still do Heidelberg at home, so I'd still have to catechize him (well, unless Matt starts doing his catechism permanently, which is a good idea ANYWAY.) But the scenario (me trying to keep Aedan on track with his work -- he takes a lot of keeping on track -- while getting increasingly annoyed that he isn't moving faster so that I can get other urgent things done) is repeated for all his other subjects too. Then Talia's finished, and she is STARVING and can we please eat lunch RIGHT NOW, and Matt and I are trying to talk to one of the teachers and we stop looking at Zek'l for 30 seconds and he pulls the fire alarm. Is it right, I ask, for such a thing to be so low on the wall that a two year old can even reach it? (Granted, he is a very tall two year old.) He was suitably impressed by the irrevocable magnitude of the results of his actions, especially when a police car showed up (we were able to let the fire department know it was a false alarm before they sent the trucks out) to reset the alarm. Zek'l has already been very interested in police cars for some time now. "Mommy, i pull dat and a p'leece car came," he told me every time we passed the alarm (right by the school door) for the rest of the day. Crisis over. We eat our packed lunch. Now it turns out that the headmaster is not going to be in to do our family interview in the afternoon as planned. We reschedule it for Friday. But we have two hours before we can go to the chiropracter (10 minutes from school) and Matt is trying to finish his grades so that he doesn't have to go back in tomorrow. I take the kids outside to play and drive Naomi and Zek'l around the parking lot until they fall asleep. Matt does not get his grades finished. Oh well. If we'd had the family interview as planned, he would certainly have been coming in to school again; at least he cut two hours off of tomorrow's grading. We head for the chiropracter's office and then fight our way through the traffic on I-75. Drop off Matt, Talia, and Zek'l; grab Aedan's cello and cello book, and get in the car again to take him to his lesson. When I get home at ten to six, with baby, cello, Aedan, and groceries, Matt comes out the door and tells me, "I've been having second thoughts again." So while I pat out pizza dough he tells me, again, how much more effective than CCS home schooling ought to be able to be in terms of academic achievment for our children. And I try to explain, again, that while I will try my best to do whatever he decides to do, the education he wants for his children is one that has historically been available only to the independently wealthy because it requires a full-time, dedicated tutor. And that it is impossible for him to be the full-time, dedicated tutor and earn a living at the same time, and very very difficult for me to be the full-time dedicated tutor and do all the other very worthwhile things that we want me to be doing, like having babies, and nursing them, and giving our toddlers and preschoolers the kind of early childhood education that helped make the older kids what they are now, and making a home environment that is orderly and peaceful and nurturing and God-honoring for the whole family. Why is it so hard to admit that we are not superhuman and can't do everything? Something has to give. For some families, it is the house -- focus on the people and only do the bare minimum with the "things"... but my bare minimum to stay sane seems to take too long to still be able to do school the wayMatt and I want to, and not have the toddlers fall between the cracks! Some families have financial resources to hire a private tutor or housekeeping help. Some have very very helpful teens. For some the decision is "have no more children than we can educate to our standards." Others choose curricula that take a bare minimum of teacher time and involvement. For a variety of reasons, none of these are options for us, BUT God has given us free tuition at a school that is doing *almost* exactly what I'd be doing anyway. I asked the kids, after meeting their teachers and talking about what school would be like next year, what they would prefer if it were up to them. (They know it isn't up to them, but also that we want to consider their opinions in making a decision.) Talia basically said, "You decide, I don't know." Aedan -- who two days ago was vehemently against the idea -- bounced up and down and said, "Go to Mars Hill!" So. Will we send either, neither, or both? What will Daddy decide? And will Zek'l pull more fire alarms and see more "p'leece cars"? Tune in next time, as the drama continues this week in the Colvin household. |
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| Posted by Sora at 7 : 56 am | Leave a note {5} | ||
| June 07 2004 | ||
| CONSIDERING
Would you send your children to a classical christian school, if you didn't have to pay for it and didn't have to transport them? Can of worms question, I know. There are classically homeschooling moms out there -- I've talked to some -- who would say, "In a minute! In fact, I'd pay tuition and drive them there, if I only HAD one within 100 miles of me!" and there are others who would say, "Never! They can't have them, they're MINE! How could you even consider sending your children AWAY?" But we are considering it. Considering. We have not made up our minds yet, but we have gone so far, at the last possible moment (classes they would be going into are almost full) to go in to Mars Hill this morning for placement testing and family interview. I love my kids. I love teaching my kids. If I had to drive them to school, I wouldn't think twice about it (that would just make my life harder, not easier!) But Matt goes to Mars Hill every day. If we had to pay tuition, I wouldn't think twice about it (there are so many other things we could spend the money on.) But tuition is free for full time teachers. If we didn't know and respect the teachers, and the culture of the school, we wouldn't even think about it... But. I spend so much time feeling like Bilbo Baggins -- butter spread over too much bread. If only there were three of me. One to homeschool, one to cuddle and nurture the baby, read to the toddler, and take the little ones for Charlotte Mason nature walks every day. And one to manage the housekeeping, gardening, cooking, cleaning, and all the little projects I want to get to -- organizing closets, sewing matching outfits for me and my daughters, writing songs and recording a new album, writing books! If only there were three of me, I wouldn't even think about sending my kids to school. But. I think I manage to juggle everything -- barely. Except those "extra projects" that are pushed to the back burner indefinitely. And the toddler who sometimes seems to do more preschool activities with his older sister than with me. And the weeks that can pass when we don't manage anything but the "survival schooling" -- catechism, music and math, oh my! I remember life with just two kids, both under 5, and it seems, in my memory, as if my house was clean every night when I went to bed, we spent hours reading and playing outdoors and doing fun things together, and I had time for all my personal projects while they napped. I know I can't have it all at once. Something has to be given up. It just seems so easy for the "something" to be the older kids academics. Free classical christian school. Doing almost exactly what I'd be doing anyway. 7:30 - 4:00 every day for just me, the house, and the babies. But. Aedan will be only 7. Do I really want to send a 7 year old away for more than 8 hours a day. He can be so spacey, and such a clown. Will he be constantly getting into trouble at Mars Hill? What about Talia's Latin (she's a good two years ahead of the Mars Hill fifth graders in Latin... the fifth graders are already a year older than she is.) What about the gym uniforms? (My daughter is not wearing shorts.) What about SOCIALIZATION? Do I really want my kids socialized into a peer group -- even such a self-consciously Christian, disciplined, and downright NICE peer group? Will there be conflict between "school culture" and our "family culture"? Will Zek'l and Naomi and Talia and Aedan just miss each other too much? Am I being selfish? And -- Matt's concern -- will I be doing them a disservice academically? He thinks that because of the efficient nature of homeschooling, we should be able to be head-and-shoulders above a classroom school. And Talia is indeed a year ahead now. Maybe in two more years she'd be two years ahead, and so on... but I am not convinced that I am really doing so much better with academics than the Mars Hill teachers, who may have 15 or 20 students instead of 2 but do, after all, have 8 hours of dedicated time with no poopy diapers, laundry, or toddler disasters to interrupt them. Plus the lesson planning time they put in! I do my lesson planning thirty seconds before I sit down with the kids -- "Okay, where are we today? Hmm. Lets see what books we have downstairs... no, I don't like Picturesque Tale of Progress's coverage of the Council of Nicea, lets take a look at Schaff... hey, come back here, kids, we really are doing history right now!" We have not decided what to do yet. But we are considering putting our kids in school next year. Considering. |
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| Posted by Sora at 8 : 35 am | Leave a note {15} | ||
| May 28 2004 | ||
| 4 YEARS AND COUNTING
Chickens, that is. We're still counting chickens. Yesterday was our fourth anniversary. I made Matt a photo collage card with photographs showing various things we'd talked about, planned, and looked forward to before we were married peaking out of broken eggshells. It was quite uplifting to see how many of our courtship "chickens" have already "hatched." On the back were several "lift-the-flap" eggs with cracks in them, representing the new plans and goals and hopes we have for the future. One of my mother's two famous lines from The Year of the Matchmaker is, "Sora makes plans and gets things done." (This was said as a warning, to Matt when he came to meet me for the first time. Her other famous line is, "I can't imagine you submitting to anybody!" -- said to me, upon reading the introductory letter to the application to Schlissel's matchmaking service.) So what do I get from Matt for our fourth anniversary but a sonnet praising, not my dutiful wifeliness or my comely features, but my goal-orientedness -- and the opening words were, "Your mother warned me when I married you..." Too hilarious! It's a good thing he appreciates it, I guess, since it is a rather dominant characteristic of mine. We had a lovely evening, taking the kids out for Pad Thai and then putting Naomi to bed in the crib for the first part of the night (taking no chances!) and re-reading our "describe your ideal spouse" wish lists from the matchmaker's applications. I think I got everything I asked for. (Matt says he got things he wouldn't have even known to ask for, but then, I had a rather longer wish-list than he did.) I guess that to say we have the world's most wonderful marriage, most wonderful children, most wonderful family, and most wonderful life is asking for rebuttal -- kind of like boasting, "My baby's cuter than your baby." So I'll just say that we are very, very happy. |
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| Posted by Sora at 1 : 47 pm | Leave a note {9} | ||
| May 24 2004 | ||
| MISCELLANY
I wrote letters to my grandparents last night instead of blogging, and Matt posted the picture I had taken of Naomi with my roses before I got a chance to do it. So I am left with this picture, which isn't quite as cute: 
CICADA by Talia A cicada's pursuit's Not to play on a lute Nor to sing to a small guitar But to chirp, then chirp-chirp To chirp, and chirp-chirp, To mate, and then chirp-chirp some more! The cicadas are thick in our backyard this week. Matt amused the kids by hitting the catalpa tree with a rake and then ducking as clouds --many thousands -- of cicadas emerged and swarmed around him. They are LOUD. We have had salad greens and sugar snap peas from the garden all week. The sugar snap peas are not as happy in Cincinnati as I had hoped. I think they don't like the heat. But the squashes do -- I now have baby zuchinnis! For some reason, my husband is not very excited about the baby zuchinnis. The bushes I inherited have produced an abundance of roses. Enough to have vases full in every room and not miss any from the bushes. I did have a disappointment, though; a rose I rescued from an overgrowth of weeds and brambles in a far corner of the yard and moved into a likelier place. I found a metal tag on it when I dug it up naming it Blue Girl. But it is blooming now -- a somewhat gangly bush with dark red, semi-double, mildly scented blossoms. Blue Girl had apparently died of neglect before I found the bush, and what I have is the somewhat black-spot prone root stock, Dr. Huey. I've noticed quite a number of these around the neighborhood... The roses I planted myself last summer have only come out with two or three blooms apiece, but they are all scented roses (isn't that what roses are for?) and they are very beautiful. This is Polka, a climber that isn't really climbing yet: 
The clematis are climbing, at a rate of about 2 or 3 inches a day. So is the trumpet vine, but not quite as quickly. Neither is blooming yet. My mother has new garden pictures up. She is frequently reminding me that if I still lived on the island, she could give me all the plants I'd ever need. Not to mention that I wouldn't have to get up at 6:00 a.m. to be able to bear being outdoors. The cicadas aren't too big a deal (unless, like Matt, you take noisy lawnmowers and weedwhackers out into the yard... they are attracted to the noise). It is, however, beastly hot and humid. I make a brief tour of the garden in the evening, but to do any real work I have to get up early and be finished by, say 8:00 a.m. On Saturday I snuck out, leaving Matt and Naomi asleep. As I was putting on two pairs of gloves (to pull thistles) a small boy in pajamas and diaper quietly let himself out the back door and announced, "I need my watering can, Mama." Helpful child. The kids are planning a medieval feast for next month, after Matt's school is out: complete with costumes (several for each child, to let them change from herald to jester to serving wench to knight in short order), medieval games, and authentic period recipes eaten off bread trenchers with no forks. I wish I had more freezer space so that I could do some of the pastry and bread sculptures my kids are expecting me to come up with a little more in advance. And I hope that some of the many edible flowers in my garden come through for us by mid-June. Talia is also insistant that there must be marzipan "subtleties" between each course. I am insistant that these be no bigger than chessmen. We also tried our hand at honey mead. The kids decided that it tasted very good before I added the yeast, thank you very much, so most of it went into the freezer and only a very small portion is busily fermenting. I hope it turns out drinkable. The week after the feast, the kids go to string camp. Matt and I will miss their concert at the end of the week because we'll be in Atlanta at the ACCS conference. Then Talia and Aedan will spend much of July (while Matt teaches Latin here) in Ontario visiting their biological father, and when they get back we're all going to Victoria for two weeks. The summer is fast upon us and looking very full. |
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| Posted by Sora at 10 : 35 am | Leave a note {4} | ||
| May 19 2004 | ||
| SO WHY DIDN'T THE BABY WAKE UP?
Late this morning, I nursed Naomi to sleep in the big bed and left her there for her nap (something that has lately been a somewhat chancy proposition -- while she had chicken pox she wanted to be held all the time and would wake up if left alone.) Made lunch for the big kids. Started to make pink lemonade for them. Pink Lemonade: 1 cup of freshly squeezed lemon juice 3/4 cup sugar 4 cups water 1/2 cup frozen strawberries Whisk first two ingredients together. Add half the water and the strawberries. Blend (I use a hand-blender). Whisk in the rest of the water. Serve over ice. As I sqeezed the lemons, I realized that the bucket I use to collect kitchen scraps for compost was getting pretty full. I asked Talia to take it out to the compost. Aedan asked if he could use the hand blender to mix in the strawberries. I said yes. Talia, balancing an overloaded bucket and trying to squeeze between the table and high chair to get to the back door, dropped the compost all over the floor. I told to her stop fussing, clean it up and be more careful. Aedan started mixing lemonade. Zek'l pulled a chair over to the counter, climbed up, and grabbed the whisk to try to mix the lemonade too. The phone rang. I told Aedan the lemonade was fine and to put the hand blended in the sink and answered the phone. Zek'l knocked the entire pitcher of lemonade off the counter, all over himself, his chair, and the floor. Trying to get down, he slipped in lemonade and bumped his head. So what I want to know is, why did Naomi not wake up until after we had cleaned the whole kitchen floor, had lunch, washed the lunch dishes, and made a new batch of lemonade? Shouldn't the wails of "I'm awake, pick me up and nurse me NOW!" have begun as soon as the lemonade hit the floor? |
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| Posted by Sora at 1 : 27 pm | Leave a note {6} | ||
| "ART APPRECIATION"
These pictures are just too hilarious! |
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| Posted by Sora at 9 : 17 am | Leave a note {0} | ||
| May 15 2004 | ||
REGALIA
Matt is not going back to Cornell to "walk," but he still bought the doctoral robe with the enormous sleeves, the ridiculous hood, and the puffy velvet cap with the gold tassel. He will, at the very least, wear them to Mars Hill's yearly graduation ceremonies (and as Mars Hill will reimburse him the cost of gown rental, if he continues to teach there for, say, the next 10 years his employer will have paid for the outfit.) The ostentatious costume arrived this week. It included a little set of instructions on how to properly wear the academic hood in order to (I am not making this up) "enhance the overall prestigious look." But I guess when you put 6 years of hard labor toward the right to wear such garments, it is understandable to feel proud of them. Tonight I found him grading papers with the puffy hat on. He tells the kids it's his "thinking cap" and reminds them that knowledge puffs up (which is really the only explanation for the sleeves on that gown.) |
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| Posted by Sora at 8 : 41 pm | Leave a note {7} | ||
| May 14 2004 | ||
| TOO GOOD NOT TO PASS ON
Deb reports some very interesting news. Oh, I can see it now! Husband: "Dear, do you really think you should be eating all that chocolate? Remember, you wanted to try to gain a little less weight this time than you did with the last pregnancy." Wife (in a noble, self-sacrificial tone): "I know, darling. But you don't want us to have an unhappy baby, do you?" Just one little problem with this scenario... I couldn't quit swear to daily chocolate during my last pregnancy, but I'm sure I ate my share. Maybe even more than my share. And Naomi was, well, a downright fussy newborn. Of course, the study did do the followup 6 months after birth -- and Naomi is very sweet and smiley now -- could it be...? |
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| Posted by Sora at 2 : 14 pm | Leave a note {1} | ||
| May 11 2004 | ||
| REPORTED OVERHEARD
Zek'l and Aedan were aparently arguing over a piece of cheese, in the kitchen a few minutes ago. Aedan: "It's MY CHEESE, Zek'l!" Zek'l:"It a MY OWN PWECIOUS piece a cheese. GIVE IT TO ME!" Yes, the literary allusions even trickle down to the two-year-old. Yesterday he was walking around the living room saying to himself, "Alas! Alas!" We never learned what the grievance was, however. |
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| Posted by Sora at 10 : 45 am | Leave a note {8} | ||
| May 08 2004 | ||
| BIRDS AND FLOWERS
Talia and I were just reading about Deb and children's latest nature walk. Talia was most impressed. I don't think we've seen that many different species of wildlife all spring. (Granted, we do live in a somewhat more "developed" area...) We have had goldfinches visiting our thistle seed feeder the last two days, which always causes great excitement for the kids. There was a pair of house finches coming several times a day a few weeks ago, but they are visiting less frequently now and the goldfinches generate more interest from the kids, as they are so much brighter and prettier. The young robins in the nest on the telephone pole right in front of our house have flown. (As Talia reported, "A robin in juvenal plumage fluttered right onto our porch railing today, mommy!") The robins, indeed, are so common that Zek'l asks four or five times a day, "Is DAT a robin, mommy? Is DAT a robin?" (A question that is about as necessary as "Are you HOME, mommy?" when I walk in the door from running an errand; he knows perfectly well what a robin looks like.) Yesterday evening I went to the Cincinnati Zoo (and Botanical Gardens) plant sale. I think perhaps I have been misleading myself for years when I have told myself that I do not consider shopping a recreational activity. While I would come up with just about any excuse to avoid "going to the mall," I enjoy library booksales, a good wool store... and plant sales. Yes, there are good mail-order nurseries and seed catalogues, but they do not allow for the immediate gratification of buying a plant on impulse, taking it home and finding a place to put it... somewhere. Alas, there is not enough money for everything that struck my fancy, nor is there room in the yard to put it all if there were. I got little pots of sage and thyme (two herbs I hadn't already started from seed -- they are going, with parsley, but without rosemary, in a strawberry pot on the deck). A "dear little saxifrage" (quote from Talia at age 4 or so.) Yarrow. A geranium (for a pot on the deck.) A Crimson Star columbine. Columbines have become one of my very favorite flowers. I think this may have started when there were some lovely ones in a vase by the bed, in the suite we stayed in in Tofino on our honeymoon (and more in the garden just out the window.) I don't remember ever paying any particular attention to columbines before that. Someday I'd like to get some seeds from here and grow some really unusual columbines... but not until I have a garden that I know will be a bit more permanent. A trumpet vine. Everything is planted now except the trumpet vine. I have a place that I could put it now... but it is the place where I plan to put grape vines and a pergola for the deck, should we indeed live in this house long enough to justify building a pergola and planting grape vines. So I'm going to put it on the opposite side of the deck, but because that is one of the low spots in the yard I want to make a smallish (2x2 feet?) raised bed for it, or maybe a largish bottomless pot, so it doesn't end up drowning in a puddle. I got up early (though not quite as early as I planned, thanks to Naomi) this morning to work in the garden before the heat of the day. Up until 8:30 it is quite cool and pleasant. By 10:00 a.m. it was much too hot. The weather website says its only been in the mid80s here but my thermometer, on the deck in full sun, read 110 an hour ago (suppertime... we ate in the basement!). Gardening early in the morning and in the evening when the sun is gone will be the only way to do it. In a few more weeks, instead of Matt getting up at 5:00 and leaving me in bed with the baby, I'll be able to get up and leave him in bed with the baby... I hope. She wasn't too keen on the plan this morning. Seemed to think that she needed more than just any warm body to keep her asleep, and that dadddy was missing some specialized equipment. |
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| Posted by Sora at 6 : 42 pm | Leave a note {4} | ||
| May 06 2004 | ||
| CLEANING HOUSE
Every few weeks, I start to notice the warning signs. My older two children begin to fight over pencils. I know that it can't be put off much longer. And then, one day, they come to me with the news that not one pencil can be found with which to do their assigned schoolwork. The moment has arrived. It is time to clean behind the living room couch and under the couch cushions. Such was the case this morning. An average "catch" was retrieved: 9 useable pencils of varying lengths, 4 pencil crayons, 2 pens, and 2 twist-up crayons (one a mere empty shell). A toy airplane. A pair of Zek'l's socks. At least a dozen small pieces of Lego, including an owl from the Harry Potter lego collection. 7 very dusty jellybeans. A board book. Many small scraps of paper, mostly "price tags" from yesterday's teach-Aedan-how-to-make-change-from-a-dollar play store. The One Ring (from the LOTR trivial pursuit game). And far too much dust, grit, sand, birdseed, etc. I fight a constant battle with the living room. The front door opens directly into it. I want it to be a serene and welcoming haven, orderly, uncluttered, even beautiful. But the fact is that we live in it, that is, that four small children, one homeschooling mommy, and a bird spend the greater part of every day doing things in the living room. The room gets generally tidied several times a day, generally vacuumed at least 5 times a week, I go on a decluttering binge once or twice a week, and the clean-out-the-couch routine happens no less than once a month. But there are certainly moments -- when the older kids have books and papers sprawled all over the couch and coffee table and floor, the toddler has brought about 3 dozen toy cars down to the living room, and I am folding laundry and trying to keep the baby amused and supervise schoolwork and keep Zek'l from coloring on the walls all at the same time -- when the meter reader rings the doorbell and I cringe. We will pass over the hallway, which I very much want to paint and remove the ugly carpet (there is hardwood floor underneath... but we want to paint before we pull the carpet up, and we haven't found the time yet.) .And then there's the main floor bathroom. Two months ago I bought new bathmats for it. The walls are pink tile -- not what I would have picked, but changing them is not likely to happen, so I bought pink bathmats to match. Pale pink bathmats. For the first month I thought that it was one of the worst mistakes I had ever made. Now I've changed my mind. The previous bathmat was navy blue and I can't remember washing it very often at all. The new pink ones get washed about twice a week because I can't stand to look at how grungy they've become. But I've decided that this is a beneficent effect, since my children's feet weren't any cleaner when they were stepping on the old one. Now, if I could just cultivate the same attitude toward the white linoleum in the kitchen... |
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| Posted by Sora at 10 : 18 am | Leave a note {9} | ||
| PUBLIC SERVICE ANNOUNCEMENT
A chronology of the Lord Peter novels and short stories may be found here. |
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| Posted by Sora at 7 : 18 am | Leave a note {3} | ||
| May 04 2004 | ||
| TRANSLATING BABYESE?
Matt was up first this morning and gone to work before anyone else woke up. I was next. I left Naomi sleeping in the big bed and went downstairs to put on laundry and check email. Fifteen minutes later, when I came upstairs, everyone but Aedan was up. Talia told me that she'd come downstairs to find Zek'l sitting on the big bed, earnestly instructing his baby sister: "If you want to talk to Nana, Baby N'omi, you got to CALL Nana on da TEYEFONE." Naomi was apparently quite entranced at this little lecture. But then, she's thrilled with anyone who pays attention to her. Talia arrived in time to keep Zek'l from actually demonstrating how to "call Nana on da teyefone." He would not have been likely to suceed in such a venture, of course, but since it was only 4:30 a.m. in Nana's time zone, it was just as well that he not even make the attempt. |
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| Posted by Sora at 4 : 23 pm | Leave a note {2} | ||
| May 02 2004 | ||
| "IT DIDN'T FEEL LIKE SUNDAY"
Talia and Aedan aren't quite at the point where I feel completely confident that they are no longer contagious, and of course, Zek'l and Naomi must be assumed to be potentially capable of breaking out in red spots at any moment. So no church today. We read quite a bit. I made cookies, whole wheat bread, and dough for potato rolls for tomorrow. Matt baked the whole chicken that he bought on impulse in September. I thought it was going to stay in the freezer forever! Zek'l says, "I DO yike chicken, Mommy." I did a bunch of mending and started (but did not finish) hemming a dress for Talia. It was raining again so no opportunity to work in the garden today. The Blue Moon clematis is only a foot high but has two blooms. 
Won't it be lovely when it's climbing all over the porch railing? I wonder if its bloom time will overlap at all with the roses. The rose bushes have lots of buds now, but none near opening yet. The kids keep asking me how long I'll continue to pick the blossoms off the (day-neutral) strawberry plants. (For the rest of May is my plan, but they may talk me down before that.) Naomi is getting very big and very grabby. She is also a very talkative baby. She is sitting in my lap gabbling away right now. But she still has no hair.  
We are going to Victoria in August -- from the 3d to the 17th. (Note the dates, gentle Victorian readers.) We didn't get to go last summer. No one but my mom has seen Naomi yet, and my brother just had a baby boy (haven't heard that he's been named yet) whom we will get to meet for the first time. Two years ago, when we were last there, Zek'l and my brother's daughter Rowan were babies, and most amusing babies they were.  
Of course, as everyone knows, two years olds are even more amusing. |
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| Posted by Sora at 8 : 56 pm | Leave a note {4} | ||
| (contradictory) SMALL PLEASURES
A tiny but ever so fragrant vase of lilies-of-the-valley and grape hyacinths on the sink in the bathroom. A line of toy cars and trucks carefully placed across the bathroom doorsill. Decluttering all the surfaces in the living room that collect stacks of books, toys, papers, books, odds and ends, books, etc. and looking around at a clean, tidy and clutter-free room. Bringing new stacks of books up from the basement "library" to the living room to read with and to my children. A clean shiny sink... a clean, newly washed kitchen floor. Cooking yummy things. Looking around my newly tidied bedroom, bed neatly made, bedside tables clear of clutter, floor clean, etc. Watching my entire family (with various paraphenalia, toys, shoes, baby blankets, etc) pile onto "the big bed" to read stories. |
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| Posted by Sora at 8 : 13 pm | Leave a note {1} | ||
| April 25 2004 | ||
| THE CHICKEN POX BOX
Aedan came downstairs this morning with his face covered in spots. "There must have been a mosquito in my room last night, Mommy." "That's one gorged mosquito," I replied. Turned out the spots were all over his trunk, back, legs, and arms as well. That was some mosquito. I don't know if Talia has had chicken pox or not. I know she was exposed when she was two (twice in a two week period when two families we knew got chicken pox at the same time). She was still nursing, and if she got them, she had such a mild case that I would be forever in doubt: I counted only 6 spots and was never sure if they were really chicken pox or not. This morning she had a few spots on her neck that she insisted were mosquito bites and begged to go to church, but I thought it wiser to keep her home with Aedan. Zek'l, of course, will be sure to get them too -- but possibly not until two weeks from now when Aedan is well enough to be out and about again. Naomi and I went to church (someone had to go, because I had just baked the communion bread) and Matt stayed home with the three big kids. Easter Sunday, when young James and his mother were not at church because of chicken pox, I had toyed with the idea of arranging to visit him while he was still contagious in order to have my boys exposed, but couldn't find the time. I asked James' father if he could send us the pox by email, but he demurred, saying that he had a Mac. (So do we.) Today, James' mother apologized (he broke out in spots after being at church almost daily during Holy Week, so I expect we won't be the only ones to get "spotted") and told me what she'd done when her older three boys had chicken pox seven years ago. Each boy had been given a shoebox with a new toy, game, or activity in it for the worst days of the chickenpox. Years later, the "chicken pox boxes" was what they remembered about being sick and itchy. I modified the idea a little: we covered a large, cardboard box with white paper and Aedan painted red spots all over it. When I was out getting more cotton balls and calamine lotion this afternoon I stocked up on small and inexpensive things designed to delight a small itchy and feverish boy. I'll let him pull something out to play with once a day until he's better, at which point it will likely be ZZ's turn. Aedan was thrilled to pull a 99 cent slinky out of the box after I'd stocked it. "And all the little girls cried, boo hoo, we want to have our appendix out too!" |
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| Posted by Sora at 8 : 26 pm | Leave a note {7} | ||
| April 22 2004 | ||
| DOES ANYONE ELSE READ 1 COR 6 AND THINK OF BIRTH CONTROL?
I can well believe that my busy husband is regretting his recent decision to blog about quiverfull theology. I am always amazed at the reaction it provokes! People who are older than we, or have more children, or both, concur that, though a couple may begin their marriage with the purest and most fruitful intentions, dogmatic as only young zealots can be, the time will come when it behooves them to moderate their position and consider the wisdom of birth control. How can we be so bold as to refute outright the voice of experience? And then there are those who bring before us the most deserving "exception" that they can find -- whaddaya think of that, huh? Surely birth control is morally justified in this case. I wrote an answer to one specific "hard case" over a year ago and have not yet gotten around to putting it on the QuiverFAQ, but it is in my blog archives. It pretty much covers my thoughts on exceptions. I might add a bit about looking at the difficulties God gives us for our sanctification as blessings that give us the opportunity to become more Christlike. I can well imagine that if we were considering the prospect today, we would not willingly become the self-appointed internet defenders of what Matt sometimes calls the "hyper-Quiverfull" position. We were more zealous and less busy four years ago. Internet theology and debates with people we didn't know seemed a more worthwhile use of our time then than they do now. But here we are, and though there may be a few wordings we would change slightly (that QuiverFAQ badly needs some minor editing, some additions, and a facelift that we have not found the time to give it) we still stand by and believe what we have proclaimed to the world. Oh, if only we could tone it down a little. Yes, children are blessings, yes, the church needs a better attitude, but don't condemn all the good Christian families who choose to limit their blessings. Allow for some exceptions! Does not the vehemence of the reaction suggest that someone needs to be saying these things? Do those who protest so vigorously not, perhaps, do so in part because their consciences are pricked? I am convinced, based on my understanding of God's Word, bolstered by the consensus of the saints through the ages, that the practice of birth control is a sin and a perversion and a defiling of the marriage bed. Here I stand. If we fail to use the word "sin" because of the weight of man's opinions -- it is after all such a "common Christian activity" -- we are complicit in the destruction of our brothers for whom Christ died, complicit in their continued justification of their own ungodly practices. If we are silent because our opinion is unpopular we are denying our brothers and sisters an opportunity to repent and be forgiven. If you warn the sinner and he does not turn from his evil ways, his blood is on his own head, but if you do not warn him and he dies in his sin, you are responsible for his death! But you are convinced that we're completely wrong on this issue. Very well. Christ is your judge, not Matt and Sora Colvin. We are not your elders. We have no authority over you. We don't know what you do in the privacy of your bedroom. We wouldn't dream of asking you such a personal question. We don't go around berating people we know who use birth control or looking to pick a fight about it. If someone asks our opinion, we give it, trying to do so in a way that will "give grace to the one who hears" -- but we are not looking for opportunities to make hyperquiver proselytes. We're busy serving God in our other work. We know we're not going to change your mind, and we're not losing sleep about it. We're in no position to do any more than say our piece and be done with it. We'll still appreciate our areas of agreement, enjoy your wit and words on other subjects, pray for you, and gladly come to the table with you. And I'm disabling comments on this entry. ;-) Surely you, too, could be using your time in a better way than arguing with us over this issue. |
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| Posted by Sora at 12 : 01 pm | Leave a note {0} | ||
| April 21 2004 | ||
| HE GOT THE JOKE
Driving Matt to work, discussing different arguments for and against our "Quiverfull theology." I commented, "[this particular line of reasoning] has it's limits, of course, but it was introduced in a particular context and I think it is appropriate to use in an age when barrenness is exalted, birth control is assumed, and people simply don't pursue children as blessings." To which Matt replied, "I frequently pursue children. Zek'l, come back here!" Zek'l, sitting behind Matt, laughed his ridiculous toddler laugh. "Heh-heh-heh. Daddy say, Zek'l, come back here!" Parents burst out laughing. Talia, sitting behind Zek'l and unable to hear all the conversation up in the front of the van, asks: "What's ZZ doing?" Zek'l explains: "I'm sitting in my carseat, Tay, and Daddy say, Zek'l, come back here. Heh-heh-heh." |
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| Posted by Sora at 1 : 41 pm | Leave a note {1} | ||
| April 20 2004 | ||
| MUSIC NOTES
I just ordered the second Suzuki cello book for Aedan. His teacher is a "traditional method" rather than a Suzuki teacher and started him with a different book which he is still using concurrently; after a month or two I convinced the teacher to have Aedan learn the Suzuki pieces as well so that he and Talia could play together. Aedan has gotten through book one in just under 7 months (not counting the first month of lessons from the other book), which I considered a fairly impressive accomplishment for a boy who occassionally seems to be doing more fooling around than serious practicing. His teacher must be fairly impressed too, because he chose Aedan out of all his students for a $50 scholarship toward a summer strings camp at the Wyoming Fine Arts Center (where Aedan's lessons are held). We are going to send Talia to the strings camp too, the same week. They are looking forward to playing in ensembles and "orchestra" with other young musicians and I hope it will be a good boost to their music. While getting the book for Aedan I had to order a second copy of the suzuki violin CD to go with book 3 -- Talia managed to completely and thoroughly lose the one I bought her in August. ("My teacher asks me at every lesson whether I've found my CD yet," she reports mournfully.) Today began a new routine which will likely continue for several days a week until the school year is over: getting everyone up at six and into the car by seven to drop Matt off at work. This is so that I can keep the getting chiropractic adjustments I need (the office hours and the times I have the car available don't match up well.) There are perks -- today I took the kids to the zoo after dropping Matt at work and before going home. To redeem the extra time spent in the car I am embarking on a music education regimen. The aim is to have kids who can recognize and identify styles and periods of classical music as well as individual pieces. I had Matt ask Tim Giese, who is the "music man" at Mars Hill, to make me a list of the top 50 pieces that a musically literate person should know. But we're starting tomorrow with good old Peter and the Wolf, which Talia remembers listening to before but Aedan (and of course ZZ) does not. We will be relying heavily on the library, I expect, because our own CD collection contains lots of Baroque music and not much else. I look forward to hearing Aedan (who is always humming something) humming something other than Suzuki pieces. |
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| Posted by Sora at 9 : 29 pm | Leave a note {10} | ||
| April 19 2004 | ||
| ADD TO THE LIST OF THINGS I CAN'T DO...
Riding a unicycle and playing slide trombone at the same time. (Actually, I wouldn't even attempt to ride a unicycle, even without an instrument, and I probably couldn't get the trombone to do more than squawk... but you can't tell from the picture whether he's playing well.) Picture linked from the Homeschooling Revolution. |
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| Posted by Sora at 9 : 56 pm | Leave a note {3} | ||
| April 16 2004 | ||
| I'LL STICK TO THE SALAD, THANKS...
Everyone's anticipating the emergence of the cicadas next month... some with dread, no doubt, but others, it seems, are licking their lips. A few days ago while working out I noted a woman wearing a T-shirt with a red-eyed cartoon bug and the snappy caption: "CICADAS -- your low-carb alternative." At the zoo yesterday to admire the blooms we noted that the insect house had two displays on "insect eaters" -- one featuring human consumption of insects, with several snazzy-looking cookbooks. If Naomi wasn't fussing right now I'd go find an amazon link. And today my mother emailed me this amusing Washington Post article (login necessary but newspaperlogin@yahoo.com, password 123456 will work). |
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| Posted by Sora at 9 : 19 pm | Leave a note {5} | ||
| April 11 2004 | ||
| CHRIST IS RISEN.
Christ is risen indeed. BIBLE Well, I managed to read everything between "In the beginning, God..." and "The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you all, Amen." during Lent. I think I'll try to do it again next year. The question is now, what schedule of reading to follow for the rest of the year. My current inclination is to go through the New Interpreter's Bible and see how many pearls I can find hidden in the dung. |
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| Posted by Sora at 7 : 57 am | Leave a note {6} | ||
| April 10 2004 | ||
| ON COMING IN FROM THE GARDEN
I was wrong. The sugar snap peas are up -- and the sweet peas don't have that much of a head start on them. The Jackmanii clematis I planted last summer has three little shoots up. The Blue Moon (which flowers earlier) is a good 8 inches high. The crab apple is covered with rosy buds. Some red tulips (which I did not plant) have opened. A couple of grape hyacinths which I didn't plant, either. Another variety of daffodils, very tiny flowers with peachy-orange centers that in some cases are almost a salmon pink. A mysterious ground cover next to one rose bush is now flowering; I need to take pictures and try to identify it. The day lilies and hosta which came with the house badly need to be divided. There are violets all over the back yard. Talia picked many to sugar for the cheesecake we had at the seder (mmm...) ...I will pick more this week to freeze in ice cubes for pretty summer drinks. The raspberries are putting out new shoots. These are everbearing, so we'll get a fall crop this first year, two crops next year. And we'll have "strawbs" this year too.. but no blueberries or blackberries until next summer. The weeds are going nuts. Maple seedlings everywhere. Thistles and dandelions are coming back in the flowerbeds -- not as bad as last fall, because I was pretty diligent about not letting them go to seed after we moved in, but the beds were dreadfully overgrown when we got here. I am so glad I only have to worry about weeds in the flower beds right now and not also in the vegetable garden, which was made with trucked-in weed-free compost. I need to plant up some herb and flower pots for the deck. So glad Matt will be off work next week. |
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| Posted by Sora at 1 : 10 pm | Leave a note {3} | ||
| SALAD SPINNER
My new Zyliss Salad Spinner arrived last week. I make salad once or twice a day and am very finicky about fresh, clean, crisp greens. (Yes, dear husband, I am a food snob.) Matt bought me an OXO salad spinner (the only one available at the local Wegmans) when my previous Zyliss was lost in a move. I am not providing a link to it because no one should be tempted to buy one. It has a push mechanism in the lid and spins in only one direction. I was disappointed from the beginning. The OXO spinner's action is inferior to the Zyliss, which spins in two directions and gets the greens much drier in less time. Also, the construction of the lid allows water to collect between two "layers" where it is impossible to wash properly or to dry, allowing mildew to grow. After two years of almost daily use, the push-down mechanism in the lid became completely inoperable and I had to discard the lid as useless. (I'm keeping the inner basket to plant summer bulbs in to make them easier to lift and store in the fall.) I looked around several stores after the salad spinner broke; the only replacement I could find was the same wretched OXO model for $24.95 and I sure wasn't going to get that one again. I was delighted to discover, when I checked Amazon, that the Zyliss was half the price. I bought a couple of knitting books to get up to the free shipping limit. Salad spinners can't be sent media mail, so it arrived within just a few days. It was difficult to be without a salad spinner for the two weeks or so between the old one's demise, the discovery that no better product was available locally, and the arrival of the new one, but I am happily spinning again. And in just a few weeks I should be spinning the first greens from my garden. Beets and chard are up. Sweet peas are up (but not, alas, the sugar snap peas, which I planted a week later.) Talia's first radishes will be ready to pull before the end of April. |
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| Posted by Sora at 10 : 48 am | Leave a note {3} | ||
| April 08 2004 | ||
| SPRING CLEANING
Thank you, Cheryl, for making me laugh today. Another project for this year will hopefully be the completion of the installation of the upstairs bathroom sink. A considerable number of our children have lived all their lives without benefit of a bathroom sink. The house we are currently living in was built by my husband thirteen years ago. That means that children numbered 6 - 11 have learned to brush their teeth, and wash their hands and face in the bath tub. They feel strange using bathroom sinks when in other people's homes. I managed to persuade my husband to install the sink in the downstairs' bath before Garnet's birth so that the midwife would have a place to wash her hands besides the toilet bowl. Then when I was expecting Elodie, I managed to make it known that I would remain pregnant and miserable until the bathroom sink for our ensuite was installed. It was installed in record time. However, producing a baby every couple of years is entirely too drastic a method of getting the house finished. I am hoping that the thought of having 10 people, who are visiting us this summer for the wedding/receptions, jockeying for position at our ensuite door so they can brush their teeth will be enough to do to do the trick this time. I'll let you know if I was right. |
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| Posted by Sora at 7 : 58 am | Leave a note {4} | ||
| April 02 2004 | ||
| IN OTHER NEWS
For those who think that what goes into my mouth is too boring, a plug for my friend Deb's blog. Kolbi, what's become of you? Why aren't you blogging? It has been cold (but not freezing) and rainy all week but my lettuces are up anyway. My strawberry plants are putting out leaves and the rose bushes and crab apple have also been leafing out. Magnolias and forsythia are blooming in other people's yards. An evil rabbit is biting off the leaves and buds from some of the bulbs in my front yard. If I were Deb, I'd shoot it and make soup. As it is, I just find myself singing to Naomi about little rabbitskins to wrap baby bunting in, but it is all a vain threat. I'm trying my hand at lace knitting with this shawl. When I'm finished, I want to make this one next (the shoalwater, at the top of the left side of the page). Naomi has discovered her hands. Consequently, it is dangerous to knit with her on my lap. She has already grabbed and pulled the left needle out of all the stitches more than once. I've had several different people ask in the last two weeks when I'm going to do another children's album. Naomi must be gettting older and more cheerful, because I'm actually thinking about it. |
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| Posted by Sora at 8 : 54 am | Leave a note {5} | ||
| March 30 2004 | ||
| "WORDS MEAN WHAT I WANT THEM TO MEAN..."
Forced abortion at a clinic with the name "Aware Women Center for Choice." |
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| Posted by Sora at 12 : 45 pm | Leave a note {7} | ||
| March 29 2004 | ||
| FROM CARMON'S BLOG
Before television: The average American, however, remains a baby all his life. He is unable even to rattle his own rattle. He has to have somebody else amuse him all the time. Leave him alone for five minutes, and he has to turn on his radio. It seems to make very little difference to him what the radio gives forth. All he wants is that some kind of physical impact shall be made on his eardrums -- and incidentally on everybody else's eardrums -- just to keep him from having one moment to himself. Turn off his radio even for a moment and the appalling emptiness of his life is at once revealed. The rest of the quote (from J. Gresham Machen) is here. |
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| Posted by Sora at 8 : 22 am | Leave a note {0} | ||
| March 26 2004 | ||
| SHE'S GONNA BE ONE TIRED MUFFIN...
As I write, Carmon is just hitting her stride on her 24-hour blogathon. I wouldn't want to be her round about two a.m. But there's more interesting reading over at Buried Treasure today than one usually gets here in a month, so go check it out! |
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| Posted by Sora at 6 : 48 pm | Leave a note {0} | ||
| March 25 2004 | ||
| MORE GARDEN NOTES
Nursing Naomi and waiting for Matt to come home from work so I can go excercise. We spent almost the whole day outside; kids working very hard. Naomi was a gem and napped for two hours by herself in the big bed. She's only done that once before in her life -- yesterday. I hope it is the beginning of a new pattern. Previously she's only slept in arms or the sling. Pruned the roses. Moved the rose bush that we found way back in the far back yard buried in weeds last fall. As I was moving it I discovered a little metal ID tag near the base. Now that I know her name, I will go back and prune Blue Girl more severely. I didn't see any flowers on this one at all last year because we didn't find it until some time after we'd deadheaded all the other roses to get a last fall bloom. Another rose in a nutty place (hidden behind the deck where no one could see it) which I was hoping might be a climber (so I could train it up the deck rather than move it) turns out to be Bonica. Will probably move that one too. Alas, no tags on the two roses out in the front yard, but I'm now wondering if the one behind the crabapple tree is also a hybrid tea. If it is, it wants more pruning than I gave it. Everything is planted except the blueberries, which are waiting for Matt to get home with a bale of peat moss. Talia has established a little "tree nursery" in the back for the 10 free flowering trees we got from the National Arbor Day foundation which are too little to put in permanent locations. The mock orange we ordered will hopefully be big enough to screen the compost bins in another year or two. When I told Zek'l I was planting strawberries, he looked doubtfully at the bundle of sandy roots in front of me and said, "That not strawb. Strawb... in the microwave!" My daffodils did bloom today. I may end up with more disappointments, but I am not going to wait until May to plant things. Well, maybe the heirloom tomatoes and the melons and peppers that I'm coddling indoors. But Cincinnati is zone 6 (almost all of the rest of Ohio is zone 5 -- indeed, I've heard you can "see the line between zone 5 and zone 6 when you drive up 1-75 to Dayton") and our average last frost date is supposed to be next week. Besides, we were here (house-hunting) in May last year and it was too beastly hot to want to be out planting. And there's those cicadas coming. We actually uncovered (and destroyed) a few cicada grubs while digging holes for trees today. Ugly things. I don't think I'll be nearly as eager to be in tha garden in May. |
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| Posted by Sora at 4 : 21 pm | Leave a note {0} | ||
| March 24 2004 | ||
| I THINK I'LL BE IN THE GARDEN TOMORROW...
We got back from church tonight to find a very large package on the porch. (It would come the day I was out all afternoon and evening. Luckily the front porch is shaded in the afternoons.) 6 blueberry bushes, 5 raspberries, a blackberry; 25 strawberry plants, and a fig tree. I had originally ordered two grape vines and two dwarf fruit trees too. Then I learned about THE CICADA INVASION. Periodical cicadas damage trees above and below ground. The most obvious damage is that caused by egg laying in small twigs. This damage causes twigs to split, wither, and die, causing a symptom called "flagging." Flagging is especially serious on young plants (four years or younger) because more of the branches are of the preferred size for oviposition, 1/4 to 1/2 inch in diameter. Some of the more favored trees for oviposition include maple, oak, hickory, beech, ash, dogwood, hawthorn, magnolia, willow, apple, peach, cherry and pear. Flowers, vines and shrubs include: Rose of Sharon, rose, raspberry, grape, black-eyed Susan, hollies, spirea, rhododendron, viburnum, junipers, and arborvitae. More than 270 species of plants have been noted as hosts for egg laying female cicadas. I will attempt to protect my berry bushes with netting. But I decided it was just too much of a risk to plant the (considerably more expensive) fruit trees and grape vines this year and hope they wouldn't be damaged. Hopefully the trees and grape vines will go in next spring. This next week is supposed to be cloudy with temps in the 50s to 70s so it couldn't get much better for planting out my new acquisitions. We had hard freezes last week and I lost some parsley and leek seedlings that I had foolishly planted out on a warm day without checking the forecast (how was I to know it would go from 75 to 25 in less than 12 hours?) I have a lot of other seeds I want to plant in my beautiful new raised beds; as soon as the plants that just came in the mail are safely in the ground (or in their pots; some -- the fig and blueberries particularly -- are destined for pots on the deck) I'm going to get to work on that. We planted carrots, beets, and lettuces the same day I put out the parsley and leek seedlings; the freeze should have been only a minor setback for them. Peas are next. My crocuses have been blooming their little hearts out for the past two weeks. Daffodils are ready to pop any day now. Saw forsythia at the zoo today so it must be time to prune the roses. |
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| Posted by Sora at 9 : 04 pm | Leave a note {5} | ||
| March 23 2004 | ||
| WELL...
Upsaid has kindly returned my blog, but has decided to stop offering free blog hosting. I don't think my husband is going to pay for this when he could spend many hours figuring out how to host our blogs himself, so look for an address change sometime in the next thirty days. |
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| Posted by Sora at 7 : 42 am | Leave a note {0} | ||
| March 18 2004 | ||
| OH, GOODY!
Valerie Jacobsen has started a blog! |
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| Posted by Sora at 7 : 40 am | Leave a note {0} | ||
| March 05 2004 | ||
| BE THANKFUL IT'S FRIDAY?
Half my face is frozen because I just got a filling replaced. Aedan just threw up on his carpet and has been put to bed. Matt (who has been under the weather for the last two days) is on his way to Home Depot to get a drain auger. Our laundry sink (into which the washer drains) has backed up beyond all the abilities of his well-practiced plunger. This problem manifested itself after I'd washed a load of diapers this morning (for which I am very grateful) but before the rest of the day's laundry had been done. I am not enjoying the "break" from folding laundry. If this isn't resolved soon. Zek'l -- who runs through several pairs of pants a day right now -- will be out of clothes. Fun start to the weekend, eh? |
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| Posted by Sora at 7 : 57 pm | Leave a note {1} | ||
| February 25 2004 | ||
| ZEK'LISMS
The potty training goes boldly forward. Zek'l has been out of diapers at home and in the daytime for two weeks now and is pretty good at keeping his pants dry. Alas, as this anecdote on Matt's blog indicates, he seems to have no clue about "number two". Every day I hose him down in the shower and every day he earnestly promises me, "I NOT poop in my pants ANYMORE, Mama." So this morning he comes downstair in his pajamas (still diaper-clad from the night) and says cheerfully, as he reaches the bottom of the steps, "I NOT poop in my unnerpants, Mama." I get all excited -- "Zek'l! Do you need to go poop on your potty?" He clarifies. "I not poop in my unnerpants. I poop IN MY DIAP'." And off we went to the tub for the daily hosing. Another ongoing issue has been appropriate surfaces to decorate. He has a drawer full of paper that he is allowed to use. He knows that this, and this alone, is permitted outlet for his artistic urges. Alas, the inner artist occasionally strikes -- books, walls, table, older children's schoolwork. When this happens, the offender is punished and then made to recite a lengthy litany of where he may and may not draw. "Do you draw on the table, Zek'l?" "I NOT draw on da table." "Do you draw on the walls?" "I NOT draw on da walls." "Where are you allowed to draw, Zek'l?" "ON DA PAPE!" About twenty minutes after he had been chastized for drawing on Talia's spelling notebook while her back was turned, Zek'l was coloring (on "pape"). He looked up at his baby sister, innocently nursing, and said softly to himself, as if considering the wisdom of such an action, "I not draw on da baby. Okay." On an earlier occasion he proudly held up a completed scribble to me with the declaration, "Dis my math book, Mama." Who needs a television when you have a two year old? |
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| Posted by Sora at 4 : 53 pm | Leave a note {2} | ||
| February 11 2004 | ||
| MAKING PLANS AND GETTING THINGS DONE
Matt was warned, by my mother, very early on, that I "make plans and get things done." This is definitely a - we'll call it a personality feature of mine. It gives me great satsifaction to make plans and get things done. Of course, home managing involves spending a lot of time doing things -- laundry, dishes, clutter-management, nursing, cooking, potty-training -- that need to be done again almost as soon as you've finished the task the first time, or even before you've finished the first time. To avoid job frustration, it is important to plan and complete something that will stay done on a fairly regular basis. Last night Matt told me that he felt a need to "produce something" this summer (when he will not be busy with lessons plans, grading, and teaching from dawn until dusk). By "produce something" he meant, "write a book." I suggested that he ought to consider gardening instead. I have gardening on the brain lately, and my garden-to-be is slowly moving from the "making plans" stage to the "getting things done" stage. Alas, my plans are a little bigger than my abilities at the moment, so I am trying to build up some enthusiasm in the master of the garden. He did not, however, feel that gardening would provide the same satisfation as more intellectual pursuits. "But God made man to be a gardener," I protested. "That was in Eden," Matt replied. "Getting kicked out of God's garden doesn't excuse you from making your own garden." He tried another tactic, proposing that there will be no gardening in the new creation. Gardens, yes, but no gardening. Just as childbearing is a pre-fall mandate that is only for this age, so, he claimed, will the perfect gardens of the eternal sabbath need no tending. An interesting thought. I'm not sure whether I agree with him or not. But even if he's right, he's not enjoying the gardens of the new Jerusalem yet, and we have to make one out of our boggy, weedy corner of Cincinnati. At the moment, the ground in the back is so wet that I'm thinking we'll have to do something drastic (french drains and a dry well?) before I can put in all the beds. I am, optimistically, starting seeds: there's always pots on the deck and the 20 square foot bed in the sunny and well-drained strip on the south side of the garage. But the big plans still hang in the air waiting to come to reality. And to drive away the doldrums of the never ending laundry, I've finished a few smaller and less time-consuming projects: a hat and mittens for Zek'l. (This is still something of a feat, since Naomi spends a good deal of her waking time either fussing or sucking on one of my fingers. I have not yet figured out how to knit while a baby is sucking on one of my fingers. Since many other essential tasks -- like folding laundry and typing -- also need to be done while Naomi is sleeping in the sling rather than awake and sucking on my finger, I can usually only knit when, like today, the baby happens to be asleep in the sling while I'm catechizing older kids before the day's first load of laundry is out of the dryer.) Actually, my friend Lara Butler is responsible for the hat and mittens. For several weeks now, she's been coming over with her baby to give Talia and Aedan voice and sight-singing lessons once a week. In exchange, I am giving her company and moral support for finishing knitting projects that she started many years ago and never got around to sewing up. Her little son will be sporting a very fine homemade sweater (that was intended for a much older cousin) thanks to this arrangement, but I think I get the better deal. Not only do my kids learn to read music, but I have enjoyable company, a change of routine once a week, and I had to start knitting something to keep Lara company. 
Here, Zek'l is modeling his new hat (finished this morning while Naomi slept) and his mittens (finished a two weeks ago when we got enough snow that he really needed homemade real-wool mittens.) 
He is eating chocolate because he just peed on his potty (YAAY!). 
In the background, Talia is holding Naomi so that I can take the picture, and showing Aedan how to whistle through the hole where the tooth used to be. Shortly after the picture was taken, the tooth (that fell out earlier this morning) became a really lost tooth, much to his distress. "Oh no!" he exclaimed. "The Tooth Fairy must have found it abd taken it when I put it down." (In our house, kids save their own baby teeth in little boxes, eliminating the middle man.) The kids are supposed to be doing math and spelling, but got distracted when Zek'l used his potty and handed out chocolate to everyone in celebration. Shortly after the picture was taken, I called them back to task, but I think Aedan's music stand (which should NOT have been in the picture, as it is supposed to be put away after he does his daily cello practice) is still out in the living room. The chocolate handed out, incidentally, is from ALDI's new Choceur line european chocolate bars. The enormous $1.69 milk chocolate bars were bad enough, but these new ones -- especially the coffee-flavored dark chocolate with white chocolate -- are just dangerous. Sticking to a diet is obviously not one of this week's accomplishments. The sacrifices we mothers make to help our children learn new skills! |
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| Posted by Sora at 1 : 02 pm | Leave a note {14} | ||
| January 29 2004 | ||
| MORE ON ETERNITY
A comment on Carmon's blog reminded me of this excellent article by Valerie Jacobsen. It is worth rereading every time the temporal inconveniences and frustrations tempt us to think that these precious children "just aren't worth the trouble." |
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| Posted by Sora at 9 : 07 am | Leave a note {1} | ||
| January 27 2004 | ||
| INTO ETERNITY
Well, I guess most of you are consistant enough readers of my blog that you weren't fooled. I had, of course, been alerted (by Carmon's blog and Doug Phillips' -- scroll down to entries on the 25th and 22d) to someone-who-should-know-better spouting nonsense of a sort that is all too prevalent among those who claim to take God's Word as their only rule of faith and life. Being a mother is often thankless, repetitive, and even frustrating. Add in the sacrifices necessary to stay home and raise your children yourself, the hard work and challenges of teaching them yourself, and the physical hardships of childbearing. And for many of us, there is also isolation in our calling. So many women have abandoned it, ours may well be the only occupied house in our neighborhood during work and school hours. Why would anyone choose to do this? (Obviously we must be being oppressed by our overbearing wild-eyed patriarchalist husbands, to whom we are merely doormat-like baby machines.) Or perhaps we are dedicated to doing God's work, selflessly and with our whole hearts. What is it that is so threatening about a homeschooling, quiverfull mother that Christian men feel the need to insult and degrade her? So, (off the top of my head while I catechize Talia and nurse Naomi), a few reasons why there is no better use for our time and talents than bearing and raising children for the Lord. Christ has redeemed us unto obedience. See Heidelberg Catechism Lord's Day 32and 33. God has commanded us to be fruitful and fill the earth. (Genesis 1:28, Genesis 9:7) Refusing to do so is disobedience. Exegeting our way out of the command is just clever disobedience. God has commanded us to raise our children for him. What more important work would justify leaving our children in the care of hired servants in order to free us for other pursuits? Our children, faithfully born, reared, loved, disciplined, and taught, will impact this unbelieving culture (even if God preserves them from ever becoming "avante garde teens"). But more important, the children born to us in this age (and even, thanks be to God, those we conceive but are not blessed to bear and raise) will praise God through eternity at the resurrection. There will be no more marriage and childbearing after the resurrection. These children we are bearing and raising now are it. (Talk about laying up treasure in heaven.) We are to offer our bodies as living sacrifices holy and pleasing to God. Pregnancy is uncomfortable. Having a nursing baby is inconvenient. Giving birth hurts. But it is our noble and sacrificial calling. And the rewards will be great. |
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| Posted by Sora at 9 : 05 am | Leave a note {2} | ||
| January 26 2004 | ||
| BUT I WILL SHOW YOU A MORE EXCELLENT WAY...
After much thought (albeit many times interrupted thought -- the day has, naturally, included diapers, catechizing, nursing, yelling at kids to pick up their messes, laundry, dishes, reading stories, diapers, supervising music practice, diapers, vacuuming, laundry, cleaning up spilled milk, nursing, yelling at kids to pick up their messes, cleaning up backed-up toilet, supervising kids school, cooking, diapers, dishes, laundry, nursing...) I've come to the conclusion that Carmon has the right idea. This Prairie Muffin, baby machine lifestyle is passe. It is a waste of my God-given talents. So, I'm going to quit too. My husband and kids may try to convince me that they'd be terribly devastated if I did this, but I won't be fooled. After all, if what I do around here was so important and worthwhile, they'd be clamoring to help, or at least clamoring with appreciation, right? It's tempting to be a hermit for a while, even though I can't pretend that to do so would be remotely "culturally relevant." But I'm sure the spiritual insights I will gain in hours of quiet introspection will make up for the lack of impact on the culture. Besides, when I publish my memoirs they will influence thousands of people. I will find a small cottage on a few acres on Vancouver Island (the climate there suits me particularly well) and support myself by writing books and market gardening. It will be quiet and peaceful and close to nature. My home will stay neat and clean -- the only messes I'll need to clean up are the ones I make myself, thank you very much. I'll be able to start projects and actually finish them on the same day. I'll have time for knitting, and sewing, and writing, and music, and reading, and study, and thinking without interruption. I will cook myself gourmet meals from my own home-grown produce. I'll never again have to eat some quick-and-easy starchy, fattening food because it's what the kids like and I didn't have time to cook two separate meals. Working out in the fresh air and eating well, I will quickly lose the excess pounds gained over five pregnancies in the last four years. I will be able to wear beautiful clothes again, the kind of dresses that you can't nurse in. And I'll only have to do two loads of laundry a week because the only clothes I'll have to launder will be my own. I'll be able to take long, uninterrupted hot baths every night. No more aching back and swollen feet from pregnancy after pregnancy. No more babies who scream all day and want to be held constantly. No more cranky toddlers. No more kids who don't listen. And, of course, unencumbered by children, I'll be free to use my currently wasted talents to further Christ's kingdom and serve the church. Though I doubt very much that I'll bother. Why live for Christ when I can live to please myself? Addendum: When told of my plans, Matt announced that if I can quit, so can he. Free of the need to support a family, he will go back to the unencumbered, grad school lifestyle, learn Hebrew, and become a New Testament scholar like N.T. Wright. This, of course, will be a much better use of his talents too. We're not sure what to do with the kids yet. Probably we'll sell them on ebay. |
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| Posted by Sora at 2 : 48 pm | Leave a note {10} | ||
| January 20 2004 | ||
| MORE GARDEN THOUGHTS
I have high hopes of transforming the yard completely this year, using my mother's revolutionary methods. She specializes in roses, and I'm planning to grow more fruits and vegetables, but the "buy a truckload of compost and build raised beds with it" method should work well either way. When we moved in to our house with its bare and boring yard, Matt said, "I want you to make this look as much like your mother's garden as possible." Then he added, "But I don't want to spend any money on it, and I don't want to have to do any of the work." (Thankfully, he did realize that he couldn't have it both ways and has not only granted me a generous establishing-the-garden budget, but is also now prepared to help dig holes, build things, move compost, etc.) |
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| Posted by Sora at 9 : 37 am | Leave a note {3} | ||
| January 17 2004 | ||
| CEDAR
Naomi is doing her nightly grumble on my lap. She doesn't want to nurse. She doesn't want to suck on my finger. She doesn't want to be burped. She doesn't want her diaper changed. She just kicks and squirms and yells until her contorted little face turns purple. Poor, miserable little sinner. We'd feel much sorrier for her if she were consolable. Today my wonderful husband took most of his Saturday to drive to Corydon, Indiana and fill the back of the van with rough-cut cedar boards, custom cut to the dimensions of the raised beds I plan to build in the backyard by a guy with a sawmill who I found on one of the gardenweb.com forums. The finished product will look kind of like these ...but I only paid $1.25/board foot. So all this lovely cedar is now stacked in the garage, waiting to be put together into garden beds. The wood is beautiful. Rich rosy color and such a delightful aroma. My wonderful husband brought me home a potted miniature rose bush too, but I was much more excited about the cedar. Naomi has fallen asleep while I typed. She is quite adorable when she's asleep. |
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| Posted by Sora at 8 : 49 pm | Leave a note {1} | ||
| January 16 2004 | ||
| SHE WHO IS FAITHFUL IN THE LITTLE THINGS...
Yesterday we brought home Talia's Christmas present... a hand-raised baby parakeet who was hatched the day Naomi was born. She or he (can't tell yet) has been dubbed "Pippin" and is adjusting to the new surroundings but still somewhat shy. This may have something to do with the toddler coming in to Talia's room and exitedly shouting: "Bird! Pip! Bird eat! This bird, right here!" Aedan has several times expressed his wish to get a budgie too, and each time been reminded that Talia proved that she was responsible enough to have a bird by doing her morning chores without being asked or reminded consistantly for months before I considered the idea. And so far, Talia appears to have the makings of a responsible bird owner. Incidentally, she is also less than ten questions away from mastering all of the Heidelberg catechism. (We review all the 120 questions she has already learned each week, and she learns one or two new ones weekly depending on the length.) Anyone have any good ideas for recognizing this accomplishment? (Aedan got a calligraphed diploma and a toolchest when he finished the Children's Catechism a little over a year ago. |
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| Posted by Sora at 7 : 53 am | Leave a note {9} | ||
| January 11 2004 | ||
| UP FROM HERE
We just got Jamie Soles new album in yesterday's mail and the kids (and grownups) have been enjoying it. Talia was delighted to find a "Bad Guys part three" -- a reprise of a song on The Way My Story Goes. There's another song that includes the genealogy of Christ from Adam on down which my kiddos will be memorizing soon. But I think my favorite song is the one about the plagues on Egypt (don't have the liner notes in front of me, and don't remember the name) for which John Barach plays blues harmonica. Listening (as we were driving home from church) gave me the strong urge to do another kid's album myself. For one thing, I hate to waste the valuable experience I gained making Kingdom Songs -- if I do another album it will be so much better because of what I learned the first time around. And as my children grow older and more musically adept I will have their talent to tap as well, heh heh. Of course, until Naomi grows out of what we call "the nightly grumble" I am unlikely to find any time for songwriting... |
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| Posted by Sora at 8 : 49 pm | Leave a note {4} | ||
| January 02 2004 | ||
| TO BUSY TO BLOG?
I still haven't found time to write a Christmas blog, which I meant to do a week ago. I haven't even posted an introduction on the MOMYS digest, which I ought to have done the day Naomi was born, given that I've been a wanna-be read-only subscriber without the requisite number of kids for six years now. I don't know how Matt is finding time to exceed Upsaid's daily posting limits. Maybe it has something to do with him sitting in front of the computer, purportedly working on lesson plans, while I run the house. Clarification: Those last two lines were not intended to be taken as anything but a bit of fond teasing of my hard-working husband. He spends a great deal of time and lots of hard work on his lesson plans, and just happens to do this work in a location that makes it easy to take a brief blogging break. Also, while I've been very busy the last few weeks, I've been busy doing good things, things I want to be doing. We had a great Christmas. Most of the balls I'm juggling are still in the air, and the bigger kids are pretty good at picking up the ones I drop. I waited a long time to be able to hold this baby who now never wants to be put down. I just haven't quite managed the balancing act of being able to do all these good things, and also blog about them. But Matt is back to work today and we are back to our schedule, so the days should miraculously develop about 6 extra hours now. |
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| Posted by Sora at 9 : 36 pm | Leave a note {4} | ||
| December 26 2003 | ||
| BAPTISM
How very annoying to have had Upsaid down for several days in which I actually had both things to write about and time to write. Naomi was baptized last Sunday, the fourth Sunday of Advent. Here she is that morning before we left for church, wearing the gown Matt's grandmother bought for his cousin (the only girl in that generation of that family. Zek'l -- almost two years ago -- wore the same baptismal outfit Matt was baptized in). I couldn't find the place in the rubrics in the Form for Baptism in the REC's Book of Church Order that says babies can't be baptized without little white satin booties, but we were safe -- Matt's mom brought two pairs in case the smaller didn't fit (my babies have big feet.)  |
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| Posted by Sora at 12 : 13 pm | Leave a note {3} | ||
| December 19 2003 | ||
| SLING BABIES AND OTHER RANDOM MUSINGS
Naomi is two weeks old today. It was such a treat to be able to spend most of the first week sitting around and snuggling her whie my mom kept the kitchen and bathroom clean and everybody fed. I didn't do much besides nurse, fold laundry, and change diapers. This past week, with my mom gone and Matt at work, I've had to revisit the list of Things One Cannot Do While Holding a Baby: change a stinky toddler diaper discipline a recalcitrant toddler carry a full diaper pail down to the basement laundry room cook dinner clean the bathroom take a shower Granted, this is not nearly as long as the list of Things One CAN Do While Holding a Baby. And I do have three other children who are very eager to hold a baby... two of whom can be allowed to do so unsupervised. Sadly, only the one who needs to be closely watch when it's his turn to "ho'd BABY!" has any interested in holding her when she is fussy. Naomi knows when someone other than Mommy is holding her. She will deign to be held by older siblings, briefly, if she is clean and fed and otherwise comfortable. She will occassionally allow herself to be lulled to sleep on Daddy's chest, sucking urgently on his finger. But most of the time she wants to be within close reach of the Source of Milk, even if she's not particularly intersted in nursing at this particular moment. If I hold her for fifteen or twenty minutes after she falls asleep, she can sometimes be put down and will stay asleep for an hour or two. In this way, she is considerably more cooperative than Aedan was as a baby; no matter how soundly asleep he seemed to be he would wake up within ten minutes of being separated from Mommy's body. My own mother wouldn't babysit him until he was over a year old -- even though we lived in the same city and she saw him almost every day -- because he was so (to use Matt's phrase) Mommycentric. Hanging out with an incosolable baby is not fun. Aedan spent a lot of time in the sling. In fact, my memory would have it that he only got out of it to have his diaper changed and when we went to bed. I was a single mom with an almost two-year-old when he was born, but I was only twenty and it didn't break my back to carry him around all day. There were also not quite so many demands on my time back then. I'm glad I can put Naomi down every now and then without her becoming absolutely miserable, but I still rather wish I didn't need to. The next time I blink she'll be a boisterous toddler, or possibly a capable eight-year-old. Today is Matt's last day of work. The perks of being a teacher: he gets two full weeks off over Christmas. (Other perks of being a teacher -- many, many Christmas goodies -- have been coming home with him over the last several days. Well, not all of them have made it home.) It will be nice to have him home, even if he has a lot of prep to do for next semester. We may be able to get through a Sayers mystery together in two days instead of two weeks. ("Do you want another chapter tonight?" "Snore.") I aim to get us stay-at-homes back on our school schedule as soon as Matt is back at work in January. Talia is looking forward to that, I think; Aedan, less so. Matt's parents will arrive for Christmas tomorrow. We've been waiting for free babysitting to go see Return of the King. I expect I will be very annoyed at Peter Jackson, but that I will still want the extended edition DVD for my next birthday. |
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| Posted by Sora at 12 : 54 pm | Leave a note {5} | ||
| December 06 2003 | ||
| DISADVANTAGES OF HAVING TWO BLOGS
Well, there's no news to tell now since my beloved husband had a birth announcement and photo up on his blog literally before the cord was cut. (Or perhaps this is just the sole disadvantage of homebirth?) I'm such a slowpoke, I didn't get down to the computer (which, pray recall, is in our basement) until Naomi was 16 hours old. Guess I need a laptop. 
So here she is: Naomi Ruhamah. (Ru-HA-mah, Kolbi). I am typing one-handed because she thinks she needs to be nursing all the time she is awake. (In fact, she's been nursing so much she had "transitional" (non-meconium) diapers within 12 hours, which I think must be some kind of record). Despite this, I slept better last night than I have in many months. It feels so good not to be pregnant any more! Talia suggested Naomi's first name and Matt and I both felt it fit her. I suggested Ruhamah after reading Hosea several weeks ago. Naomi means "pleasant" or "delightful" and Ruhamah means "having obtained mercy." God has been very merciful. Despite the most challenging labor I've had so far (those who followed Matt's blog know Naomi was born almost two full days after my water broke) she is in perfect health and I am feeling great. We had a great birth team and lots of help with the kids during the last two days. My mom will be here for a week on Monday (the ONLY day this time of year that she could get a ticket with her free travel voucher) so I'll have her help as soon as Matt needs to be back at work. (We had rather hoped for a speedy labor on a weekend so that he would not need to take time off for the birth itself, but since he had to take two weekdays, at least they were the last two days before the weekend before my mom's arrival.) |
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| Posted by Sora at 11 : 12 am | Leave a note {24} | ||
| November 14 2003 | ||
| TIMING
Last night, as I was struggling to find a comfortable position to prop myself in with the help of at least half a dozen pillows (a king-sized bed is such a blesssing!) Matt reached over and put a hand on my belly. "So," he said casually, "you ready to do this another 8 or 9 times?" "Don't ask me that now!" I groaned. "Ask me in six weeks or so when the answer will actually be relevant." "Do you see, honey?" he said. "Do you see why I don't want you to talk to me about gardening when I get home from work?" For the record, I didn't think the comparison was entirely fair, but it was pretty funny. |
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| Posted by Sora at 11 : 58 am | Leave a note {9} | ||
| WINDY WEATHER
We had very high winds here Wednesday night and Thursday. The kids were late to bed because of evening church on Wednesday, so everyone was still up when the power went out about 9:30 or so. Luckily I had just a few days before moved the big flashlight onto a low shelf in the linen closet with the birth supplies, so Talia, who was brushing her teeth, was able to find it easily. Previously it had been on top of the refridgerator behind a phone book and a large collection of jars and bottles (maple syrup, homemade salad dressing, tamari...) -- out of reach of the kids and probably not even retrievable by a grownup in the dark without disaster. The kids went to bed by flashlight and Matt kept grading with an assortment of candles and an oil lamp that the previous owners left behind when they moved. The next morning when the kids had finished chores and catechism they convinced me to walk down to the baseball field a few blocks away to let them fly their kites. We bundled everyone up in hats and gloves and and I sat on the bleachers while the kids ran around the field. Talia had a frustrating time and couldn't get her kite up -- she hasn't quite got the timing right for when to stop running and play out her string. Aedan was so good at getting his kite up that we had to leave it in the top of a 60-foot tall tree in the adjacent playground (to the apparent amusement of several passing motorists). Matt asked the kids when he got home whether it was better to have sucessfully flown a kite and lost it or not to have flown it but kept it. "To fly it and not lose it," Aedan replied, "which is what I'll do with my next kite." |
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| Posted by Sora at 9 : 32 am | Leave a note {6} | ||
| November 07 2003 | ||
| GARDEN PLANNING BLOG (THE "BEFORE" PICTURES)
I keep trying to get Matt to listen to my ideas about taking dominion over our small spot of ground... but when he gets home from work, he is not very interested in thinking or talking about (what he perceives as) "yard work". (He can't seem to see that the planning part isn't work, it's FUN.) So I am going to use the blog as a place to work through my ideas. Suggestions welcome. Right now, I have our property divided into several "areas" with different challenges and different ideas about what to do with them: 
THE FRONT YARD: is your basic flat, boring suburban lawn, east-facing, about 35 feet by 35 feet. There are two existing 5-foot deep bordered flower beds across the front of the house which came with some very boring and colorless foundation plantings. One is in front of our small front porch; the other has a small weeping red jade crabapple near the north side of the yard (and probably too close to the house when it reaches its mature size, but I'm not going to move it). There are also two rose bushes that I haven't identified yet (one very poorly placed behind the crabapple where it cannot be seen from either the street or the porch, I will move that one in the spring) and some yellow day lilies in front of the crabapple. There was also a young oak tree (about 15 feet tall) in the middle of the yard when we moved in (not visible in the phot). It has been removed (with help from Matt). I have nothing against oak trees, but a postage-stamp sized suburban front lawn is not the proper place for one. The root system would have eventually taken over the entire yard. Transformation plans: Besides getting rid of the oak tree, I have also already planted two clematis (Jackmanii and Blue Moon) and a climbing rose (Polka) to cover the wrought-iron porch railing. Come spring, I'm going to plant two dwarf fruit trees (after much consultation with Talia and Aedan, these two trees will probably be the ones we get). I'm also going to put up two or three hanging baskets (probably fuschia) and fill in the existing flower beds (mostly with annuals at this point, I expect). I can imagine, eventually, putting a low white picket fence around the edge, getting rid of the lawn entirely, and cramming the whole yard full of flowers in a kind of English garden look, but only if we're in this house more than five years. 
THE DECK: is the second main "area". Right off the kitchen door, facing west, the deck is huge for the size of the house -- more than 400 square feet -- and has great potential as an outdoor living area. The main problem is that there is no shade at all, which means that for most of the day, through most of the summer, sitting outside on the deck is just insufferable (the umbrella on the patio table doesn't really help.) So step one is to convince Matt that we need to build a pergola on the south-west corner of the deck, maybe eight by twelve or eight by fifteen feet (with the long side on the south side of the deck -- right side in the photo). There is an existing 1-foot-wide bed along the south edge of the deck, next to the driveway, which is currently home to half-a-dozen hostas which will be relocated to a shady part of the yard. In my ideal garden, the deck pergola would be covered with a Japanese wisteria but I'm considering other vines or a combination as well. In this location -- between deck and driveway -- I am not worried about an invasive vine getting out of control; on the contrary, whatever I plant needs to be a vigorous and quick-growing climber that will be up over the top of the pergola and giving us shade by the time the weather is hot. I understand that wisteria can be slow to establish, and I think a grapevine would also take too long. Hops is a possibility, maybe in combination with something scented (honeysuckle?) and/or ornamental (moon flowers?). I'm also considering akebia or arguta kiwi. The other plan is lots of pots on the deck -- I would love a dwarf lemon tree that could be moved into the living room over the winter, and I am also tempted by the idea of trying a very dwarfing peach or fig tree on the deck, but whether or not I get any of those this year, there will be many containers of herbs, nasturtiums, scented geraniums, etc. grouped around the edges of the deck and in easy reach of the kitchen door. I'm also considering a screen of bamboo along the north side of the deck, (left side in the picture) which won't do much for shade but will help the feeling of being crammed right up to the next-door neighbor's driveway (although Zek'l does enjoy pointing and barking at her dog whenever it is out in the yard.) THE SUNNY PART of the back yard (in front of the deck in the photo above, and in the foreground of the photo below) is designated for a vegetable garden. It is, very unfortunately, hard clay with very poor drainage. There was standing water all over the yard this past, rainy August. So raised beds are not just desireable but very necessary. This is the one yard project that I would really, really like to get done this month, because I plan to use the "lasagna method" to build the beds and want them to have time to "cook" before planting in the spring. Depending on how expensive a truckload of compost turns out to be, how much help I can get from Matt (or whether he permits me to hire some of his strong backed students to move dirt for me), etc, I may start with a very small area (120 square feet or so on the south side of the yard, divided into about 4 raised beds) this year but I would like to eventually have this area of the garden take over the entire sunny middle section of the yard and incorporate more permanent herbs and perrennial cutting garden along with annual flowers, the vegetables, and berry bushes (these last might go in this spring... maybe. I want to get everything that we will need to wait two or three years to eat from into the ground as soon as possible.) 
This is what the rear back yard looked like when we moved in. The south west corner of the back yard is shaded in summer by a huge catalpa tree in the yard behind us and the south east corner is shaded by an equally huge maple in the yard beside ours. The small fir tree in the middle of the picture has already been removed and behind its former location, up against the fence, is the compost bin Matt and the kids built for me. Behind the fence is a tall hedge of rose-of-sharon in the yard behind us (we have many volunteers on our side of the fence too.) Transformation of the rear back yard is probably the least urgent part of the garden plan at the moment, though I would like to, at the least, put an ornamental shrub (probably a mock orange) in front of the less-than-sightly compost bin this spring, so that the compost is not the focal point of the view from the deck. I also want to plant a butterfly bush and some humming-bird and butterfly attracting perennials and vines against the side and beside the corner of the garage. Eventually, the corner of the yard behind the garage will be partly screened by shrubbery, with an arbor inviting you along a pathway to a child-built playhouse in the shade-garden, with ferns, hostas, solomon's seal, bergamot, lenten roses, and foxgloves planted around the playhouse and along the fence (which will be covered with confederate jasmine) and a ground cover of wild blueberries and wintergreen on either side of the path. I just have to figure out how to solve the mosquito problem we had this summer (due, no doubt, to the sodden, boggy, waterlogged clay that left standing water all over the lawn) so that the kids can actually play back there. |
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| Posted by Sora at 5 : 05 pm | Leave a note {13} | ||
| November 04 2003 | ||
| HOME AGAIN
Ok, so we've been home two days now... but I haven't quite bounced back from the drive yet. I do not quite understand why I feel more tired and achy after ten hours of driving in late pregnancy than I have in the past after ten hours of labor (though I suspect it has something to do with still being pregnant at the end of the drive.) Oh well. It was worth it. The kids had a wonderful two days with their Ithaca friends. I got to visit with my Ithaca friends. Our gracious hosts encouraged Matt greatly by letting us trounce them at the bridge table the night we arrived (he took it as a favorable omen) and invited all our old friends to drop in and see us the evening before Matt's exam. We had a tea party with Deb while Matt was defending his thesis. Julie presented me with a set of (gift wrapped) kitchen funnels. We had a scrumptious Reformation Day luncheon at church in Buffalo. We discovered Cracker Barrel's books on tape program and listened to the first two Harry Potter books as we drove, which made the trip go faster for everyone except Zek'l. My mom called today with good news. My dad was also travelling this past weekend (business purposes) and he had the opportunity to give up his seat on an overbooked flight in exchange for the usual incentive: a voucher for a free flight anywhere in the U.S. So my mother is going to come when the baby is born after all! (My parents had come to visit us in August and without the free ticket would not have been able to make the trip from Victoria again in December.) Now to see if we can manage to predict the baby's arrival so that Nana arrives neither too soon to spend most of her visit in the company of the latest grandbaby, nor too late to be really helpful in the first few days after the birth. |
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| Posted by Sora at 9 : 46 pm | Leave a note {4} | ||
| October 27 2003 | ||
| "UH-OH"
Probably the number one word you don't want to hear from the toddler you left happily munching pancakes at the kitchen table ten minutes ago when you went downstairs to put on a load of laundry and thought you'd just check email really quickly while you were down there. He was still sitting sweetly where I'd left him, in his booster seat, his dish before him. His hands were dripping with syrup. His pajamas were dripping with syrup. The table was dripping with syrup, which was puddled on the floor. In the center of the puddle was the lid of the syrup bottle. The syrup bottle, completely empty, was on its side on the table. His bowl (oh, thank you, dear husband, for giving him a bowl and not a plate when you sat him at the table before leaving for work!) was brimful of syrup, with a few small piece of pancake floating on top. Could have been worse, of course. The bottle (though nearly full) was what my older children refer to as "imaginary syrup" ... something that I'm much too food-snobbish to use myself, but the menfolks around here don't seem to mind it, and the 20 oz bottle Zek'l emptied only represented $1.99 of my husbands hard-earned money, rather than (had it been, oh horrors, real maple syrup) a full day's wages. (I bet real maple syrup would have cleaned up more easily than that incredibly viscous, sticky, corn-syrup based glop, though.) And because Zek'l had a bowl and not a plate, I was able to rescue nearly a full cup of syrup and get it back into the bottle (without a funnel, even -- note to self: we really ought to own a funnel). Lesson for the day: Don't leave the syrup on the table when you check email. Or maybe: Children under two cannot be trusted to pour their own syrup. On the bright side, though, eight-year-olds can cook their own pancakes while you're bathing the toddler, when provided with a step-stool so that they can reach the stove. |
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| Posted by Sora at 9 : 06 am | Leave a note {7} | ||
| October 25 2003 | ||
| UPDATE
Six weeks still to go. Since I have never yet still been pregnant on my due date, and since my midwife is willing for us to deliver at home any time after mid-November, I am hoping and praying that this baby will be early. The last couple of weeks before the baby is born are so uncomfortable, and I've been feeling "last couple of weeks"ish for at least a week already. I really don't want to be dragging along like this for another month and a half. Things aren't terrible, but I'm just scraping along and barely keeping on top of the basics. I think things would have completely fallen apart school-wise if it weren't for the MOTH schedule. I may have difficulty dragging myself out of bed when Matt leaves for work each morning, and I may feel like a slug for most of the morning, but by the time lunchtime rolls around, the kids have done math, spelling, music practice, and catechism, the laundry is started, and the house is bearably tidy. Afternoons are for reading, history, science, and outdoor play. I'm still managing to excercise twice a week; I don't usually manage three time because of the combination of Matt's work schedule and the kids' music lessons, but the closest Curves will be expanding their evening hours in November so after the baby is born I should be able to go more often. If I can just get through the next month or so, winter and spring in our new house should be marvellous. I generally feel fantastic after the baby is born and have about three times as much energy as I do during pregnancy. Indeed, I've observed that my "job satisfaction" -- the seasons when I feel like I'm managing my home and children really well, even fitting in the "extras", as opposed to feeling like I never quite succeed in accomplishing everything I need to -- corresponds pretty exactly to whether I'm pregnant or not. Maybe as Talia and Aedan get older and take on more responsibilities this contrast will be less dramatic, but right now the postpartum year looks like the light at the end of the tunnel. (Ask me in six or eight weeks and I will, of course, tell you with complete sincerity that we would be delighted to conceive again immediately, but based on observation of past Providence I usually have about a year between full-term pregnancies.) This past week we "discovered" a marvellous, 2500 acre park about 10 minutes drive from us. If the weather continues to be as delightful as it has been (September and October have pretty much made up for August) we'll be spending as much time there as possible. Matt got off work early on Thursday and we walked one of the hiking trails. Wednesday and Friday I had the car and took the kids to one of the park's playgrounds before picking up Matt from work. We may try another trail there this afternoon. We'll be driving back to Ithaca next weekend so that Matt can defend his dissertation (he could not do so before we moved because two of his advisors were in England for the summer). This will be a nice change of routine and a chance for the kids (and us) to see friends (albeit briefly). The difficult part will be convincing Matt that I really do need a 15 minute break from driving every two or three hours. We'll break up the drive home over two days, stopping in Buffalo on Sunday where Matt will be preaching at Niagara RPC (FORC). Then back to the normal routine, and one week closer to feeling like a Proverbs 31 wife instead of a slug. |
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| Posted by Sora at 11 : 50 am | Leave a note {2} | ||
| October 14 2003 | ||
| A FUNNY
Last night during family worship the topic of lying came up (we were reading 1 Samuel 27). Aedan pointed out that David was lying to Achish. We explained that while lying to the righteous for wicked reasons is sinful, lying to the wicked for righteous reasons is not. We asked the kids for other examples of righteous lying in the Bible. Should Rahab have told the truth when she was hiding the spies: "Oh, yeah, those guys are up on my roof, you can go kill them now." No, of course not! And what about the Hebrew midwives in Exodus, can anyone remember what they said when Pharoah asked why they weren't killing the male babies as commanded? "I know, I know!" cried Talia. "The Hebrew midwives aren't like the Egyptian midwives, they arrive after the baby is born!" |
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| Posted by Sora at 7 : 17 pm | Leave a note {8} | ||
| October 08 2003 | ||
| I CAN'T WAIT...
....to get the tapes from Tim Gallant's debate with Steve Schlissel on paedocommunion. Tim is too modest to say so on his weblog, but we have heard from folks who were present that he kicked Steve's ... ummm... tushie. (We love you, Steve, but you needed your tushie kicked on this one.) And looking at the outline of Steve's anti-PC arguments on Tim's blog I don't see anything I would have had trouble refuting ;-) so I'm sure Tim had excellent answers for him. Matt, you may NOT take the tapes to work with you as soon as we get them! I wish we could have been there. A few weeks ago we were visiting a non-paedocommunionist church on a communion Sunday for the first time in several years. And this particular church was full of small children (who had not been shunted off to Sunday School or nursery but were in the worship service). I never want to be in such a situation again. Although our own children were welcome to partake, my spirit was troubled almost to the point of becoming physically ill and the only thought going through my head was, "This is not the Lord's Supper you eat." My thinking on the issue has come a long way in the last few years -- the last time we were in a non-PC church my concern was mainly about the barring of my own children from the table, and I did not think paedocommunion was an issue to leave a church over. I am now convinced that for the shepherds of a congregation to bar an entire class of baptized Christians who are not under discipline from the Lord's Table is sufficiently disobedient and schismatic that that congregation's "communion celebration" is no longer the Lord's Supper. Anti-paedocommunion is a blatantfailure to discern the Body of Christ -- we, being many, are one because we partake of that one bread. Lord, forgive your churches for wrongly dividing Your body and turn them to repentance and obedience! |
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| Posted by Sora at 12 : 10 pm | Leave a note {9} | ||
| October 07 2003 | ||
| WE BRAVE THE MALL
Thanks to the many suggestions from readers, we now have a pair of church shoes for Talia that are "acceptable" and, if not quite within my definition of "affordable", at least came in under $30 and are in our possession in time for next Sunday. I can't remember the last time we went to a mall, and this was a mall the likes of which you will not find in Ithaca, or even in "urban" centers within an hour or two of Ithaca. I dragged everyone along, though no one, including the girl whose growing feet had necessitated the trip, had any desire to go to the mall. But I didn't want to drive in evening traffic and Matt has the car during school hours. So the protesting family set out after supper last night. Looking at my family, it is very hard to believe that some people consider shopping a form of entertainment. The best part of our outing (even better than finding Talia shoes!) was that there was a maternity wear store right across from the Stride-Rite. I have never before found anything I liked or wanted in one of those places (mall selection is limited when you only wear mid-calf-to-ankle-length skirts and dresses) -- or at least, nothing that I liked and wanted that fit -- and I pretty much resigned myself years ago to sewing most of my own clothes. I have not had time to sew since several months before we moved, and I'm so desperate for new clothes that fit (with less than 8 weeks to wait for baby) that I went in to look anyway. It must be understood that I would never have done this had I come alone with Talia. I am allergic to retail store prices and would have felt too guilty about spending money on clothes for myself without Matt's approval to have even looked if he hadn't come along. Anyway, he wandered away with the kids and was nowhere to be found when, wonder of wonders, there were actually a couple of outfits I wanted to try on. So I told the clerk to keep an eye out for a guy in a tie and beard with three kids and a shopping cart and shoo him into the store if he came back, and he turned up while I was in the dressing room. "What do you think of this one?" (Ankle lenth black-and-white print skirt with red sweater.) "That's fetching. Buy it." "Umm... I have another dress in there I want to try on too." "Go ahead." After I emerge in long grey knit maternity dress: "Yeah, get that one too." "Umm... Don't you want to know how much they cost?" "No." Later, in the car, I asked him, "Do you really like those clothes I got or are you just tired of seeing me in the same two outfits every day?" |
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| Posted by Sora at 12 : 15 pm | Leave a note {7} | ||
| October 05 2003 | ||
| GIRL'S SHOES
Talia is now out of "little girl" shoe sizes and into "big girl" shoe sizes. I have had great difficulty finding appropriate* and affordable** dress shoes in "little girl" sizes but now it appears that "difficult" has become "impossible". Why is this the case? I can walk into any Kmart, Kohl's, or Payless and find the correct sized dress shoes for my sons for about $12 in under 10 minutes. I am about ready to give up and get Talia some appropriate but outrageously expensive shoes by mail order because it is getting much too cold for her to wear sandals to church. The idea of paying $35 plus shipping for a child's pair of shoes is rather galling, but I seem to have little alternative. Perhaps this next baby will be another girl so that at least I can spread the cost of church shoes over more than one child. * By "appropriate" I mean: black, brown, or navy blue leather dress shoes in a simple, modest style (ie plain Mary Janes) that give the impression of having been designed for a young girl rather than for a streetwalker, business woman, or punk rocker; shoes without attention-drawing ornamentation, thick clunky soles, high heels, or design features (such as pointy toes) that will cramp or deform young growing feet. ** By "affordable" I mean under $20 and preferably under $15 for a pair. |
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| Posted by Sora at 4 : 21 pm | Leave a note {12} | ||
| October 03 2003 | ||
| NOTE TO SELF
When you have time, go back and really read Gideon Strauss's 4-part blog about educating his daughters. (1) (2) (3) (4) Think about it. If you really have time (ha!), jot down notes on your thoughts on your blog. |
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| Posted by Sora at 4 : 16 pm | Leave a note {1} | ||
| September 27 2003 | ||
| WHERE TO BEGIN?
Talia got up this morning asking (repeatedly) if we could please check and see if there were any letterboxes we might look for around Cincinnati. The answer: yes, just a few. Enough to give us occasional weekend outings for the next several years. |
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| Posted by Sora at 11 : 08 am | Leave a note {3} | ||
| September 23 2003 | ||
| WHO IS COURTING WHOM?
Last week my friend Lara commented (in a phone conversation) on the recent trend for young couples to say, "We're courting" or even for a young woman to say, "I'm courting so-and-so." Lara -- the only other woman I know whose marriage resulted from an arranged courtship -- did not think this was a correct usage. Courting is active. The woman's role in a courtship is passive. Men court. Women are courted. The man is the subject of the verb. The woman is the object. I've noted before that the word "courtship" has an older and broader history than its modern parent-directed-alternative-to-dating usage might allow. And I certainly appreciate the desire of those who are decidedly not "dating", who are seriously pursuing marriage, but are not yet officially engaged to have some way to describe their relationship to others. Also, I am fully aware of the conversational difficulties posed by awkward constructions like "I am being courted" or "The man who is courting me" -- having used such myself in the not-so-distant past (an email written by my father during this period included the line, "Although there has been neither a proposal nor an acceptance, Sora is planning her wedding to her match-makered Christian young man...") But to the extent that this usage indicates an egalitarian interchangeability of roles -- if the young women who say "I am courting..." or "we are courting..." are actually doing what their words suggest -- it would appear to be establishing a very poor precedent with which to enter marriage. |
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| Posted by Sora at 9 : 24 pm | Leave a note {5} | ||
| OUR SCHEDULE
Is now up on our family web page here. To avoid suspicions that (to quote Talia: "Mommy, you're blogging about your schedule but not following it!") I typed it in during an unavoidable after-lunch interruption of the schedule while Talia and Aedan were on the phone with their biological father. And now that it's up, Zek'l is going down for his nap and the kids and I are off to do geography. |
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| Posted by Sora at 1 : 50 pm | Leave a note {3} | ||
| September 22 2003 | ||
| (GRUMBLE)
Matt is the one with a mentally-draining full-time job that requires him to get up at 6:00 a.m., spend an hour a day driving to and from work, and bring extensive prep work (class planning, grading etc.) home. So why am I the one who can't find time to blog? |
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| Posted by Sora at 9 : 46 pm | Leave a note {1} | ||
| September 20 2003 | ||
| HE'LL BE BACK
Matt almost blogged last night. He actually had the window open and the entry half-written, and then he changed his mind and shut down the computer instead. And this was after staying up until midnight painting trim in the living room. Again: last week he said to me that "There's really no reason for me not to be blogging... my boss reads your blog." And, "No one's happy about the fact that I'm not blogging anymore, except maybe Mark Horne." (To which my reply was, "Sure, honey, Mark's happy about you quitting the way you were happy when he stopped blogging." Matt's comment at the time was, "Now Mark's quit too! Pretty soon the whole darn internet isn't going to be worth reading!") I predict a return of Fragmenta within the next week or two. |
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| Posted by Sora at 10 : 54 am | Leave a note {4} | ||
| September 16 2003 | ||
| SATURDAY
As homeschoolers, with Daddy on an oddball work-at-home dissertation-writing schedule for the last several years, we never really thought much about weekends. Sundays, of course, were different from the rest of the week -- we went to church and Daddy didn't dissertate -- but otherwise Matt was around and we set our own schedule. Now Matt leaves for work with our only car between 7:15 and 7:30 every morning and gets home tired sometime after 4:00. Saturday has taken on a whole new significance. Three or four times last week, Matt mentioned possibly helping me paint the living room on Saturday. I've been loathe to start such a project without him, partly because of the things I can't do myself (move all the furniture) and partly because I don't want the things I can do myself (remove curtains and pictures and wall brackets, tape trim, spackle holes) to get done more than a day or two before the living room actually gets painted. So I was, of course, please that he'd picked a day and had the job in mind without my mentioning it. Then Saturday actually arrived, we got to get up after it was light out and have a leisurely pancake breakfast with the kids, the weather was beautiful (September has been marvellous so far, mild and sunny) and we decided to go to the zoo. It was just too nice to be inside and we had a newly purchased family zoo membership (bought while my parents were visiting) that would make such an excursion delightfully painless. It was a good choice -- none of us, especially the kids, would have had nearly as much fun painting the living room. I do wonder how long my living room will remain neglected, with rollers and paint cans out of the way but still within sight as guilty reminders of tasks not yet done. Maybe it will rain next Saturday. |
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| Posted by Sora at 4 : 12 pm | Leave a note {4} | ||
| REAL LIFE
I recall, about a year ago, my dear husband saying something along the lines of, "I can't wait until I'm finished with this dissertation so that I have time to read the things I want to be reading!" (I made no comment at the time, though I had a sneaking suspicion that he might be overestimating the amount of free reading time he would have available post-grad-school. Anyone who used to read Matt's blog knows that he managed to fit an extraordinary amount of non-dissertation-related reading in, mostly theology, even when he was slogging through 19th-century German scholarship and wished he'd never heard of Heraclitus. And not only did he make time to read theology, he also managed to engage in extensive internet debate and write "blog tomes" about theology.) By the end of last week, reality had caught up with him. The first year of teaching, of course, is more labor-intensive than any future year, and the time-management situation is not helped by the fact that Matt is trying to give the same quality of prep to his Mars Hill Academy ninth-and-tenth grade Antiquities survey that he would if it were upper-level college course. He came home from work, having picked up a stack of books that he'd inter-library-loaned to our local public library branch, set the books down, collapsed on the couch. (Possibly Zek'l handed him a picture book at this point, this often happens when he walks in the door.) "I realize now, honey," he said, "that men with real jobs don't have time for theology." |
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| Posted by Sora at 3 : 47 pm | Leave a note {2} | ||
| September 11 2003 | ||
| "HOUSEWORK BY SOMEONE OTHER THAN ME"
Deb wishfully turned 5 hours of kid chores into 10 in the comments on my last post. I thought I'd share my current schedule of children's chores (hopefully I'll be able to post our whole MOTH schedule later this week.) Talia and Aedan each have a private bedroom in the new house (not a situation we intend to continue indefinitely, but we're a little short on siblings this year). Shortly after we moved in, we instituted morning and evening "room inspections" -- before breakfast, and before family worship in the evening. They usually get a 5 minute warning that room inspection is about to occur. 5 points may be earned on each room inspection. Points are deducted for un-made or sloppily made beds, toys, books, or laundry on the floor, etc. At the end of the week we add up the points for rooms and a total over 50 is rewarded with chocolate (the kids suggested the rewards.) This has worked very well for the month or so that we've been doing it. The twice daily inspections and writing down the points on a chart inside the kitchen closet door takes about two minutes a day, and their bedrooms are always presentable. The same chart is used to record points for daily chores and kitchen chores. Talia wipes the downstairs bathroom with a disposable wipe before breakfast. Aedan empties all the trash bins in the house and takes the kitchen compost out for me daily. They alternate responsibilty (according to a schedule posted on the door of the kitchen closet) for emptying the dishwasher before breakfast and clearing and wiping the table after each meal, or setting the table for each meal and sweeping or vaccuuming and spot-cleaning the kitchen floor after each meal. So they each have a total of three chores per day. I award 5 points for a chore done cheerfully, promptly, and completely, and 2 bonus points if I didn't have to ask / remind the child to do it (ie, I come downstairs in the morning and the bathroom is already wiped or the dishwasher already emptied). Points are deducted for complaining, dawdling, or sloppiness. 100 points earned over the course of the week is rewarded with a trip to Graeter's ice cream parlor for a single-scoop cone. So far, only Talia has earned ice cream, and I certainly felt it was a fitting return for her contributions over the course of the week. In the apartment I had the kids in charge of laundry as well. They can't carry baskets up and down stairs, so I've taken over all the laundry until they grow a bit more. They are also responsible for de-cluttering areas of the house other than their own rooms, as directed and on an as-needed basis. When we start doing the afternoon schedule as well as the morning, I intend to institute an afternoon "dust patrol" and "squeegee patrol" -- the second to take care of our front and back glass doors and mirrored shower door which are covered with small fingerprints on a daily basis. Right now the kids do these cleaning jobs when I ask them to but not on a regular schedule. Zek'l is also in training for both these jobs -- at least, he seems to think that both dusting and squeegeeing are fun and entertaining activities from which he ought not to be excluded. |
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| Posted by Sora at 10 : 11 am | Leave a note {2} | ||
| September 08 2003 | ||
| HEY, I DIDN'T PROMISE TO POST EVERY WEEK
Well, we fell off the "MOTH wagon" last week. But it wasn't totally unexpected. My parents were visiting from Victoria. I had intended to scrap all schoolwork except catechism and music practice and try to keep our morning routine, chores, wake-up time, etc. consistent. Unambitious as that goal might appear, it was unsuccessful. Matt and I stayed up late every night playing bridge with my parents after the kids had gone to bed; my 27-weeks-pregnant body refused to function on 6-7 hours of sleep, and that was that. So we're back to the same place we were two weeks ago, MOTH-wise: doing the morning half of the schedule only while working on getting up on time, getting to bed on time, chores, routines, and attitudes. But we had a fine week with my parents. The kids did lots of arts and crafts with my mom and took their grandparents to the Cincinnati Children's Museum (where Zek'l managed to be the only child to fall face first into the water table) and to the zoo. We went to Home Depot no less than 4 times. We went to a nursery and bought a bunch of plants for the front yard. The front flower beds were cleared of weeds and planted with mums for fall color and clematis, a climbing rose, and some day lilies for next year. I made ambitious landscaping and gardening plans. We fixed numerous small things that needed fixing around the house. We knew that the basement had a minor leaking problem during heavy rains. The seller's disclosure stated that a trickle came in from the northeast corner of the house and went directly to the drain in the middle of the floor, and we had observed just that happening two or three times during the three weeks of daily rain at the beginning of August. In the middle of last week, the basement started flooding from every side and corner. We scrambled to get things off the floor and raise all the bookshelves up on 2x4s. We had frightful visions of having to dig up and replace all the perimeter drains. (A project that would, of course, be covered by neither our home warranty nor our homeowner's insurance.) Then the upstairs bathroom ceiling began to drip as well. The rain stopped. We went to Home Depot and bought a ladder. Lo and behold, the roof of the upstairs dormer -- which is fairly flat, and the only part of the roof that is not visible from anywhere on the ground or on the deck -- was not good-condition shingles (like the rest of the roof) but cracked and ancient roll roofing. And it seems likely that most of the boards underneath are rotten from years of untended leakage and will need to be replaced. Note to self: a home inspector who does not actually go up on the roof is not worth the $250 you're paying him to find out about these things during contract negotiations instead of six weeks after you close. So I spent a lot of the latter part of the week on the phone. I discovered that the roofing contractors are very busy in Cincinnati on a clear sunny day after a month of daily rains. Most of them couldn't even come to give me an estimate until later this week, but the one company that was able to show up and look at the roof the same day figured that replacing the rotten roof boards and re-roofing the 12x27 dormer would run just under $1500. Ouch. We also still need to buy a furnace before the weather gets cold (our home inspector did catch that, thankfully) and the furnace guy Matt got quotes from way back in July, who was too busy to come look at the house before the end of August, was a no-show when we finally did get an appointment with him. So I called a bunch of furnace places too. Hopefully by the end of the week we'll have 3 or 4 quotes apiece for both roof and furnace and can get them taken care of. (The flooding basement is still an open question. We've made a few adjustments we think may help -- like removing the old bird's nest from the downspout on the north-east corner of the house -- and will wait and see what happens next time we get a torrential downpour.) The babbling brook in our basement is all gone now, thanks to 4 days in a row of clear skies (and low humidity, and mild temperatures -- oh bliss!). We've been eating on our deck and leaving the A/C off and the windows open. I'm preparing to build a raised bed on the sunny south side of the yard for a fall/winter vegetable garden and to be ready to plant next spring... as soon as Matt gets me a new wheelbarrow tire. (No, the best efforts of both Matt and his father together -- including finding an inner tube and trying to put it in and inflate it without a tire iron -- have thus far been unsuccessful in making my brand new wheelbarrow operational. And I am not going to try to move 25 cubic yards of topsoil and manure across the yard to my future veggie bed without a working wheelbarrow.) Still on my agenda: painting the living room and downstairs hallway (for some reason, Matt and my parents were much more interested in playing bridge after the kids went to bed than they were in helping me paint.) Tearing up the carpet in the downstairs hallway (but not until after I paint). Tearing up the carpet in the upstairs bath (which, Talia discovered, has tile underneath -- but who knows what I'll need to do to get the carpet adhesive off of it). Building compost bins in the backyard. Putting in the main vegetable garden beds, which is stage one of the long-term landscaping/gardening plan. All while excercising regularly, chasing a busy toddler, keeping the house clean, my family fed, the laundry folded, and giving my older kids a first-rate classical education. Zek'l has found new avenues for mischief in our new house, including flushing rubber ducks down the toilet (luckily, the rubber ducks in question are only about 2 inches long and went all the way down) and turning the dial on the water heater to "vacation mode" (we didn't discover that one for several bewildered hours of chillling showers and frigid dishwashing.) Matt's desk at school is in the first-grade classroom (the upper school teachers don't have permanent rooms of their own, just a desk and a cabinet). This has given him a new perspective on what to expect of a 6 year old and is helping him not to compare Aedan to Talia. Aedan has started cello lessons. Talia has a new violin teacher. One of these days, I'll post some pictures. And our MOTH schedule. And my thoughts about our current church situation, including this past weekend's visit from the bishop. But morning school is done, the laundry is folded, the weather is nice and my garden is calling, so I am going to return to the sunlit lands. |
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| Posted by Sora at 1 : 54 pm | Leave a note {6} | ||
| August 25 2003 | ||
| JUST SO NO ONE WILL THINK I'M QUITTING TOO
I don't think a single day has passed yet without something causing Matt to say, "Argh! I wish I could blog this!" or "I wish I were still blogging!" I haven't managed to convince him that he doesn't have to quit, that he could just blog less frequently (like I do? :-) -- he really wants to go cold turkey. Silly man. I have not picked up the torch very well. I'm hardly ever on the computer. BUT all the kids books are unpacked and on shelves! The basement is almost organized! I finished my new MOTH schedule! The kids and I got up at 6:30 today instead of 9:00! (Matt has to leave for work at 7:30, starting tomorrow, and I want us to have breakfast together before he leaves, but I was really struggling to get the kids and myself out of our late-to-bed late-to-rise summer routine.) Coming soon: before and after pictures of our basement. The before being the picture our realtor took when the previous owners (who I sometimes accidentally refer to as "the Dursleys") were still living here. Sports pennants lined the walls and... well, when we viewed the house the first time the first thing that struck me on entering the living room was, "Wow, that's a really big television!" ...and then we went downstairs and there was an even bigger one in the basement. Now we have a classicist's office, a lovely "homeschool bookroom", and soon we'll have a small playroom area as well. Okay, time to call the kiddos in (they are having a scheduled outdoor recess time right now.) It is not yet 10:00 in the morning. Two loads of laundry are done. Kitchen and living room are clean. Kids have been catechized, done music practice, and had a snack. Someone KICK me if I ever fall off the wagon on this scheduling thing. |
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| Posted by Sora at 9 : 54 am | Leave a note {6} | ||
| August 09 2003 | ||
| MANY SINK DOWN...
In our old apartment in Ithaca, the computer resided, for a time, in the living room; then we had a designated "office" in the tiny third bedroom until Zek'l proved a small tyrant who would only go to sleep alone in a crib behind a closed door, at which time the computer was squeezed into the already crowded master bedroom. At any of these points, whereever you were in the apartment, the computer was no more than 20 feet away and on the same floor. In our new house (oh luxury!) we have three floors of living space. Master bedroom, Zek'l's tiny bedroom, and bath upstairs. Kid's rooms, living room, kitchen and bath on the main floor. The large, L-shaped family room in the finished basement will someday have beautifully organized office / library / playroom areas, but at the moment, only the "office" section is operable, and the rest is a wasteland of yet-to-be-unpacked boxes. I want to get down and organize it. But it is a constant battle to keep the main floor (which is almost completely unpacked now) clean and tidy. The kitchen has two doors: one to the deck and one to the driveway. The floor is white linoleum. The kids troop in from the sandbox or the muddy yard and sprinkle crumbs on the floor. I still have boxes of odds and ends in the living room that I need to find places for, and their presence seems to be an invitation to my children to put all of their junk in the living room too. And if I ever finish the living room, there is still a fair bit of unpacking to do in the second floor bedrooms. Hence my lack of computer time lately. There is so much that I still need to do upstairs before I will feel "organized" and "fully moved in" that I usually venture down to the basement only with a loaded laundry basket. Matt, on the other hand, got his "office" set up within a day or two of unloading the truck (he seems to see the rest of the house as my domain) and spends a great deal of time visiting the computer in its new cave. Because it is completely isolated from the rest of the house, it seems easier to get caught up in the vortex of internet-time-wasting. Those venturing downstairs on rescue missions have been casualties of this phenomenon as well. Talia has begun to remark, when she sees her Daddy heading for the basement stairs, "Many sink down, but few return to the sunlit lands." Cincinnati in August is muggy. I am very, very thankful for central air conditioning. I was astonished to see my husband putting on a heavy jacket this morning; turns out he was about to head downstairs to work on lesson plans. Many sink down, and they'd better be outfitted for an artic expedition because the cold air sinks down too. Matt bought an electric barbecue starter / heating element that works like a charm. For the first time in three years of marriage to a lifelong, second-generation vegetarian, he is eating his fill of flesh (and without making my kitchen stinky!) When he fired up the grill this afternoon, it had just stopped raining and was actually almost pleasant outside. So we thought we'd break in our new patio furniture by finally having a meal on our spacious deck. Alas, by the time we'd finished grilling all the vegetables I'd prepared and Matt had begun on his meat, the humidity level had risen again to near-unbearable levels. "I've figured out how Cincinnati weather works," Matt told me when I came out to check on the food. "It gets increasingly humid throughout the day, and then we have a brief thundershower, at which point the humidity immediately begins to increase again." We took our delicious out-door-cooked food into the air-conditioned kitchen. I guess we can always enjoy our deck in October. I'm not sure what I'd do if the air conditioner broke in the summer. It might be very difficult to survive such a calamity. (Matt will say it would be a good thing if it broke this summer, because our home warranty will replace it for us. But I'm not sure they could replace it fast enough for me.) I guess I'd just spend all my time in the cool of the basement. That might be the only way that the library / playroom ever gets organized. Assuming that the hypnotic draw of the computer in its lair doesn't draw me in. Many sink down, but few return to the sunlit lands. |
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| Posted by Sora at 9 : 21 pm | Leave a note {7} | ||
| August 04 2003 | ||
| CONFESSIONS OF A PRAIRIE MUFFIN
Carmon defends those of us whose Kingdom work is not "culturally relevant". |
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| Posted by Sora at 9 : 01 am | Leave a note {0} | ||
| August 01 2003 | ||
| WE'VE ARRIVED
We got in Wednesday night, but no internet until just now. All moved in, but not at all organized yet. |
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| Posted by Sora at 4 : 59 pm | Leave a note {4} | ||
| July 26 2003 | ||
| RE-RUNS, PART ONE
Well, I'm sure that no one wants to hear my thoughts on packing and moving right now (I sure wouldn't!) and I haven't much energy for anything but packing and moving right now. So, until we are well settled into our new home, Parah is going to revisit old favorite blog posts. I was reminded of this post from late December of last year recently. Actually, it might be a good one for me to put in a more permanently accessible location on our family web page sometime after we move (and move the page off Cornell's server) since I do not want these thoughts to somehow fly out of my head between Talia's 8th birthday and her 18th. Use the link to see the orginal comments to the post. There was a follow-up in early January which may be found here. I will note (in connection to that follow-up blog post linked above) that "muddling" seems to have worked pretty well for Mike and Kristen. --------------------------------- NOTES TO SELF ON COURTSHIP If you as a parent are not certain whether a particular man is both worthy and suitable to be your daughter’s husband, she should not be giving her heart to him. It seems to me backwards and wrongheaded to allow a daughter to fall in love, and then decide whether or not to allow the young man to “court” her. He has already courted and won her, without your (formal) approval and consent. There remains only for you to act out a meaningless formality, or else to cause big trouble and broken hearts. I am thankful that before I had any contact with Matt, he was “scoped out” by people whom I trusted, who knew me, who knew what I wanted and needed in a husband, who had decades of experience and marriage behind them. I was given to understand that, as far as they could tell, he would be a good man for me to marry. It was understood, of course, that unforseeable conflicts might arise later, but he was “pre-approved” to the best of everyone’s knowledge at the time. I believe that if this “pre-approval” process is done carefully and responsibly, a courtship should rarely need to be halted later. Being madly in love clouds your judgement. It is to be hoped that, had my advisors become doubtful of Matt’s suitability after we had met and fallen in love, I would have listened to them and followed their advice. But it is not the usual way of young people in love to see the possible faults and problems that may become rifts and scars later. To follow such advice at that time would have been, at the least, painful and miserable – the very situation that courtship seeks to avoid. If you as a parent believe your daughter is not ready to be married, or will not become ready in the very near future, she should not be giving her heart to anyone. I am of the opinion that extended courtships and engagements (by which I mean, longer than the young couple wants) should generally be avoided. If the parents find themselves trying to slow down the courtship after it is underway, it probably indicates that they haven’t done their background work properly. If the parent then decides to withdraw approval (after pulling on the reins and saying “Whoah!” for a while), the consequence is that the couple has had more time to form a deep emotional attachment. If a lengthy wait before marriage is unavoidable, it should be characterized either by non-courtship (the young people do not act as if they are courting and are not given the opportunity to think of themselves as a couple until the possibility of marriage is much more imminent) or by formal appoval and commitment (ie. engagement – perhaps even a legal, civil marriage to be followed later by a church ceremony, consummation, and setting up of the new household.) This latter arrangement should only be entered into with great care, with the full agreement of the young people involved, and when a more immediate wedding is genuinely impossible. The emotional strain and temptations involved in being emotionally “married” to someone without being physically married should not be underestimated. Note to self: do not forget after decades of marriage what it was like not to be married yet. If you as a parent do not have your daughter’s complete trust and whole-hearted enthusiasm for courtship, it will not work. There is only so much the parents can do. They are limited, essentially, to laying down wise rules and guidelines for pre-marital behavior. Young people who are committed to chaste and godly pursuit of marriage will welcome and respect such guidelines if they are not overbearing and heavy-handed. Note to self: remember how easy it was to bend rules that were vague and only self-imposed! In general, a young man who has not yet been given permission to court your daughter should not be allowed to do anything with her that you (the mama) would not do with another woman’s husband. A young couple who are courting should clearly understand what is reserved for marriage and should be held accountable to an authority outside themselves. But a daughter who is following these guidelines reluctantly, who is dreaming about folding a man’s laundry and bearing his children while you’re still wondering what you think of him or trying to pretend she’s still a little girl, will not be protected by her parents’ embrace of courtship theories. As a parent, you can guide her behaviour, but you cannot guard her heart. You can only give her the tools to do so herself. To reap the benefits of covenantal protection and authority, a daughter (or wife) must actively submit to it. |
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| Posted by Sora at 4 : 41 pm | Leave a note {5} | ||
| July 20 2003 | ||
RC JR ASKS WHAT IT WOULD TAKE
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| Posted by Sora at 10 : 50 pm | Leave a note {7} | ||
| THIS ONE'S FOR KOLBI
One of my resolutions when I took up blogging was never to use my blog as an outlet for complaining. When I'm feeling undisciplined, short-tempered, fat, sluggish and inadequate, the last thing I want to do is let the whole world know about it. I haven't progressed enough in my sanctification to hide such days from my family yet, but at least they can rebuke me ("Mommy, get off the computer!" or "Honey, go take a walk and come back in a better mood," or "Waaah!"). So, when I don't blog for days or weeks at a time, sometimes it is because I am very busy, sometimes it is because I really have nothing interesting to say, and sometimes it is because I am wallowing in sinful attitudes (brought on, generally, by sinful behaviours) and anything I could think of to say would really be better kept off the internet. But Matt read Kolbi's blog this morning and said, "Sora, you are not being an encouragement to other mothers." So in the best interests of the homeschooling blogging community, it is time to remove myself from a pedestal that someone stuck under my blog when I wasn't looking. Hey, Sora, do you still do that MOTH schedule on your family website? Is that how you get so much done? I haven't followed the MOTH schedule on my website for at least six months. Actually, I haven't followed the MOTH schedule on my refridgerator for at least six months; the one on the fridge is the second or third revision of the one on the website. Every now and then Talia will say to me, "Mommy, are you ever going to get around to changing the MOTH schedule so that it actually shows what we're really doing?" (see, she makes me feel inadequate too.) I'm going to revise the schedule yet again to reflect our changing circumstances and new goals and timetables after we move and unpack. We will probably follow the schedule faithfully for about 2 weeks. Then (in all likelihood) we'll fall off the wagon. If I get sufficiently fed up with our unproductivity, we'll make another attempt at following the schedule. And then I'll have a baby and it will be out the window again. We get much more done when I have the schedule well-adapted to our current needs (which means revising at least twice a year) and actually follow it. But we don't do so terribly badly when we don't follow it... as long as we get up at a decent hour in the morning... which means that I am never sufficiently motivated to keep us on the schedule over the long term. Maybe next year. Ha ha. What are you going to do when Zek'l and Aedan are bundles of testosterony energy and they don't WANT to learn Greek and do Saxon? Zek'l and Aedan are normal, busy, active little boys. My main strategy for coping with boys involves as much productive manual labor as possible (pretty difficult in an apartment). I envision much moving of dirt in Aedan's future now that we have a house with space to garden. In the meantime, when he is bouncing off the walls I usually send him out to run around the building five times or tell him to do push-ups (which he can't really do yet, but maybe by next year that will work) and try to make sure that he doesn't have more than an hour or two of academic work without stopping to do a chore, eat a snack, or run outside to ride his bike for fifteen minutes. For the moment, Aedan loves doing Greek, but I still haven't completely solved the problem of what to do when a child who has proven himself perfectly capable of tossing off two pages of Miquon math in less than ten minutes decides to spend more than six hours daydreaming, losing his pencil, and not completing even one math problem. It is a discipline problem, and one we have not completely solved yet. I also regularly feel guilty because poor little Zek'l does not get to spend many hours a day happily playing outside, but is cooped up in the house while the big kids do school (this, too, I hope will be remedied as we move into a house with a private, fenced back yard, a large deck, and a gated driveway for ride-on toys). What would I DO without the television? I would never get a break from the boys! If you and they are used to using television as a way to get your break, the time to get rid of it is not when you are sick. Make yourself a cup of tea, go to bed, and don't feel guilty about it. Then, when you feel better, if you and James both think the benefits of getting rid of the TV are worthwhile for your family, prepare yourself for at least a week or two of withdrawal, complaining, etc on the part of your boys. But they will get over it and they will find much more creative, productive, Godly, educational etc ways to fill the time that they had previously been using on TV and video games. Make a list of chores to dole out whenever you hear a complaint about boredom, not having anything to do, wanting to watch a video, etc. and the complaints will stop much more quickly (evil chuckle.) I honestly think that not owning TV or video games is one of the single best decisions our family has made, and I think we see the benefits in our kids daily. I wouldn't bring a TV into our house if you paid me to do it. But our family is not your family. Get rid of the TV because you think it would benefit your family, not because you're trying to be like us. SORA, HOW DO YOU GET A BREAK FROM YOUR CHILDREN!???!? AND DON'T EVEN TELL ME THAT YOU DON'T NEED ONE BECAUSE CHILDREN ARE BLESSINGS!!!! IF YOU DON'T HAVE A TV THEN HOW DO YOU GET A BREAK??? HOW? HOW????? In general, if I feel like I need a "break" from my children, I take that as an indication that either their attitude or mine needs fixing. But with the exception of Zek'l, who still has regular spells of bratty behavior when his will is thwarted, I usually enjoy their company greatly. I don't have time to do all of the "extra" things I might like to (but if I stuck to my MOTH schedule and spent less time on the internet, maybe I would). Talia really would be happy to read for hours on end, and Aedan would be happy to play with Lego for hours on end, and because there is no TV for them to turn to, when I'm sick or lazy they end up doing a lot more of that. I often get a "break" in the afternoon: "Mommy and Daddy and Zek'l are going to have a nap now, go play outside"... a tradition which will soon be weekends-only as Matt starts a job with regular hours. :-( And, of course, they go to bed several hours before we do. But right now, I am taking an undesired, court-ordered, two and a half week break from my two older children, who are in Canada getting the full-vacation-mode-once-a-year-father treatment from their biological dad. I miss them a lot. I can't wait to get them back. |
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| Posted by Sora at 10 : 14 pm | Leave a note {6} | ||
| July 19 2003 | ||
| A LITTLE AMUSEMENT FROM AN ABSENT DAUGHTER
Amidst the chaos of boxen that is the present state of our apartment, Matt discovered a notebook which Talia had lately been bringing to church for sermon notetaking. Matt flipped through it, interested to see her notes on his recent sermons (perhaps he'll blog some, they include such delightful lines as: "Christ is not killed for our sins when the Pope breaks a cracker that tastes like paper" (no, Matt did not actually say that from the pulpit), a cartoon of Zimri and Cozbi, fully clothed and not touching each other, with a spear sticking through both their bodies and a word balloon saying, "Ouch!", and another cartoon of three tombstones with the inscriptions: "Korah: Who meddled with the Lord." "Dathan: Who meddled with the Lord." "Abiram: Who meddled with the Lord.") Anyway, he found the following, which neither of us had seen before but I will post in its entirety. I believe it was written within the last month.
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| Posted by Sora at 1 : 54 pm | Leave a note {2} | ||
| July 18 2003 | ||
| PACKING:
Not something I'd ever choose to do for fun. |
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| Posted by Sora at 12 : 42 pm | Leave a note {0} | ||
| July 14 2003 | ||
| HOME AGAIN, HOME AGAIN...
We made the drive to Cincinnati again, to close on the house and attend the Mars Hill Academy school picnic. This was Matt's fourth trip out there and my second. One more to go, with a moving truck next time. Tom Thistleton, the president of the Mars Hill school board, and his family kindly put us up again; their hospitality has certainly made the whole house-hunting process much easier. The closing went smoothly. It remains to be seen how quickly I can take dominion over our boring, postage-stamp sized suburban lot and make it bloom and be fruitful, and how consistantly I can take dominion over the closets. I have lovely fantasies of a home where every object has a well-defined, well-confined place. I continue to indulge these wistful thoughts, even though I know that it would be only a fantasy even if we didn't homeschool, even if we didn't have children who like to collect "things other people would think are junk", and even if we didn't have about twice as many books as we have shelf space for. After leaving the Mars Hill picnic at about 9:00 p.m. yesterday, we drove until midnight, got a hotel room, and then got up at 6:00 a.m. to drive the rest of the way to Buffalo for church. On arriving home at 5:00 p.m. or so, we put Zek'l down for a nap and lay down ourselves... and then had to wake the poor boy up at 9:00 to give him some supper. So it is well after 11:00 and we've just put him to bed again, and Matt and I will get to bed who knows when. You wouldn't think you could get jetlagged driving back and forth from upstate New York to Ohio, but we seem to have managed it. While in the area, we drove up to Dayton to have dinner at Barb's house. It was a delightful evening; Barb's home is beautiful (with a back deck overlooking federally protected wetlands) and her Welsh rarebit was scrumptious. Also present were a former Mars Hill teacher who has since moved to Dayton and attends Barb's church, along with his family; Zek'l had a fun time with their toddler while the adults enjoyed rousing discussion. We are greatly looking forward to being within driving distance of all of them! Talia and Aedan are in Ontario visiting with their biological father and his extended family for the next two weeks. This is the first time my children have been away from me for this long; for the last two years I've gone with them to Victoria for their once-a-year visit and stayed with them at my parents' house for half the week while they visit their dad the other half. They left two days before our trip to Cinci and will be back two days before we move. It is very odd not having them around. I am very glad we only do this once a year. Matt jokes that Ezekiel, like some library reference books, is "not for circulation." Zek'l seems to be enjoying having us all to himself. He's been mostly very well-behaved during many long hours of driving over the last few days. He has also added another word to his vocabulary -- "dog" -- an animal that has fascinated him for months (though he occasionally uses it for other creatures, for instance, cats or cows, having no other name by which to call them; "ball" would certainly not be appropriate). He got to see quite a few dogs while we were away; at Barb's house for dinner, at the Mars Hill picnic, and, to his great delight, at the Thistleton's home where we stayed; they were dogsitting two canines belonging to two different neighbors when we arrived and aquired a puppy during our stay. On seeing a dog Zek'l runs to it (if at all possible), points, squeals, and names it over and over again. "DOG! Dog... dog... dog... dog..." Now that we have a house, it will not surprise me if pets follow in short order; cats are out (to Aedan's disappointment) because Matt is allergic, but Talia has been wanting a parakeet for some time and Matt has always had a soft spot in his heart for guinea pigs. Zek'l is, I think, the only family member who would have any interest in a dog at this time, but he'll have to become much more eloquent before he has any hope of persuading us that this would be a good idea. |
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| Posted by Sora at 12 : 11 am | Leave a note {2} | ||
| July 09 2003 | ||
| NEWS AND TRUTH
There's an interesting post about journalism on Dr. George Grant's blog today. (Scroll down to 7.9.2003, "News and Truth" -- sorry, couldn't find a permalink.) |
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| Posted by Sora at 3 : 45 pm | Leave a note {1} | ||
| QUICKENING
There are few things so incredible and awe-inspiring as the very first "there's-no-way-that's-anything-but-the-baby!" kicks. I've felt the occasional "hmm-I-wonder-if-that-could-possibly-be-the-baby?" flutters for some time now, but these are different. There's such a marvellous certainty about them. I know several women who've felt baby movement earlier -- sometimes much earlier -- but I've never felt those unmistakeable baby movements before the textbook 18 weeks. And this baby has been later that the others in making his? presence known. (I theorize that he? is hiding behind an anterior placenta, which would also help explain the lengthy chase we had when checking for a heartbeat at the last midwife's vist.) It's good to know you're really there, baby. We can't wait to meet you. |
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| Posted by Sora at 3 : 43 pm | Leave a note {4} | ||
| July 08 2003 | ||
| YOUR HIGH SCHOOL BIOLOGY TEXTBOOK WAS WRONG
Flabbergasted scientists discover "there's no safe time for sex". Unless, of course, you want to concieve (gasp!), in which case this is good news. It should also put a crimp in some very bad "Reformed" pro-birth control arguments I've heard, along the lines of, "The very fact that women can only become pregnant during a brief and predictable time period every month implies that God arranged things in this way to allow Man the means to take dominion over fertility." Hopefully this will news will cause many Christian families to throw away their charts and basal thermometers and joyfully get to work populating the Kingdom. |
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| Posted by Sora at 7 : 56 pm | Leave a note {9} | ||
| July 05 2003 | ||
| SOCIAL ATTITUDES JUST AREN'T KEEPING PACE WITH TECHNOLOGY...
A spokesman from the UK's Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority, explaining why they do not consider oocytes harvested from aborted baby girls to be "acceptable for fertility treatment." "After a public consultation, we decided that it would be difficult for any child to come to terms with being created using aborted foetal material because of prevailing social attitudes." (emphasis added) |
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| Posted by Sora at 9 : 21 pm | Leave a note {5} | ||
| FIREWORKS AND THE VALUE OF A DOLLAR
Ithaca being a small town, our "Aedan's birthday fireworks" were not actually on Aedan's birthday, but two days before, on the evening of the 2nd. (It is, apparently, cheaper to put on a fireworks display a day or two before the 4th.) We came early and picnicked near the Ithaca College ballfield and our seats were so close to the display that bits of ash were actually falling on us. In the hours before it got dark enough for fireworks, various vendors strolled amid the crowds hawking neon "glowsticks" for kids to wave around. Matt and I considered these a very poor buy at $2 and refused our children's requests to get some. As it grew darker, however, another vendor appeared with more impressive and varied glow-in-the-dark wear, the kids were appropriately awed by it, and I recalled that I had some of Talia's cash in my purse (she had been shopping for a present for Aedan earlier in the day.) I suggested that if she really wanted one of the silly things she could spend her own money on it. Unfortunately, I had forgotten that I had put Aedan's $10 birthday present on my checkcard along with a handful of other purchases, telling Talia that I would just keep her $10 bill in exchange. So I just handed her the wad of cash in the dark, thinking that her largest bill had been spent and that I was giving her the $7 or $8 she had left. Aedan asked her if he could get something too, paying her back from his cash when he got home. The vendor was about ten feet away from our picnic blanket. They returned with a battery operated multi-colored light-up sword and a battery-operated light-up "fireworks spray" just minutes before the actual show began and had a blissful time waving them about. I thought they'd done pretty well for $3 or $4 -- these sure beat the neon glowsticks. In the car on the way home, I was horrified to discover that they had spent $7 each on these trinkets. Talia has probably learned something about impulse buying and the value of a dollar. I'm not so sure about Aedan. But the toys did not have quite as limited a period of enjoyment as I had expected. Aedan and Zek'l have spent hours happily sitting in the hall closet with the door shut, turning their light-up fireworks toys on and off. |
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| Posted by Sora at 3 : 14 pm | Leave a note {1} | ||
| "BALL... BALL... BALL... BALL..."
Zek'l has for some time been saying, "Uh-oh" at appropriate moments (as when dumping a glass of water on the kitchen floor), saying "No!" at appropriate moments (as when asked if he needs a new diaper), making engine noises when driving small vehicles across the living room floor, and giving a consistent, clearly affirmative "Ah!" when "No!" is innapropriate (as when asked if he would like some ice cream.) But his first real "naming" word is "ball." Zek'l gave Aedan a new soccer ball for his birthday. He picked it out at the store, carried it to the checkout (well, held it as he sat in the front of the cart and periodically tossed it down to the floor, making Talia chase it and bring it back. That is what balls are for, after all.) The ball was removed from his grasp at the checkout to his furious wails of "BALL! BALL!" (accompanied by plaintive gestures) and hidden in a shopping bag to be smuggled into the house. The night before Aedan's birthday, I wrapped it and in the morning when Zek'l came into my room it was perched atop a pile of wrapped presents on my dresser. The wrapping paper did not fool ZeeZee. He saw. He pointed. He begged. "Ball? Ball? Ball?" I leave to your imagination what transpired when Aedan actually unwrapped "his" present. Now Zek'l is sitting on the bed while Matt catechizes Aedan. Matt is wearing a t-shirt with a picture of a basketball on the front. More pointing. "Ball! Ball.. Ball... Ball... Ball... Ball... Ball..." This child needs to learn a few more words. [After writing this entry, I found this comic strip:]  |
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| Posted by Sora at 2 : 58 pm | Leave a note {1} | ||
| July 03 2003 | ||
| LINKS UPDATED
I've removed a few sidebar links to folks who blog infrequently and are also on Matt's list of links (I can check them from his page) and also some who are no longer blogging (leaving Duane's up in hopes that he'll return). I also added a few. I am determined to limit my sidebar links to those blogs that I really do read regularly, and so new links are subjected to several weeks of the will-I-make-a-concerted-effort-to-check-this-blog-for-new-content? test before I link'em. Every now and then, when I'm too tired to do anything more strenuous than surf the net and too stupid to just go to bed, I look at blogs-that-I-don't-read-regularly-but-which-are-linked-to-by-people-I-read-regularly. And when I do this, I am sometimes surprised to discover that people-whose-blogs-I-didn't-know-existed apparently read mine. Now, I'm not going to try to link everyone who links me, and I don't have the time and inclination to read all the blogs that I could read regularly. My sidebar links are the ones that I actually do read regularly. So all you lurking readers out there, listen up! This is not a guaranteed way to make it on to the sidebar links, but I will go and look at your blog if you leave a comment. If, on the other hand, you read me regularly, and link my blog from yours, and never leave a comment, I might never get a chance to discover that I really do want to be reading yours too. |
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| Posted by Sora at 10 : 01 pm | Leave a note {5} | ||
| AEDAN'S BIRTHDAY CAKE
Aedan, wise child, asked for an ice cream cake for his birthday (hurray! I don't have to turn the oven on in this beastly heat!) Then, while we were at the grocery store getting the ice cream today, he fell in love with a grocery-store-bakery cake decorated to look like a honey bee. It was just a mediocre grocery-store-bakery yellow cake with disgusting grocery-store-bakery icing, and two oreo cookies for wings, and it was small, and they wanted $8.00 for it. I persuaded him that I could make a bee cake that was just as good looking or better, and that it could be an ice cream cake (his original desire) of whatever flavor he chose, and that I could do it for less money. 
The ice cream is a half-gallon of Breyer's chocolate rainbow (on sale two for one: total cost, $3) iced with two stripes of yellow-tinted home-made icing (< $1) covered with about 25 cents worth of yellow sprinkles and two stripes of whipped chocolate ganache (<$1) and further decorated with about 25 cents worth of chocolate chips. Total estimated cost, < $5.50. The wings are made of rice paper which I already had on hand. It looks, in my totally unbiased opinion, much, much better than the grocery store bakery cake. I'll wager the $2.50 I saved that it tastes a whole lot better too. |
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| Posted by Sora at 8 : 39 pm | Leave a note {9} | ||
| July 02 2003 | ||
| LUSK ON PAEDOCOMMUNION
Instead of putting forward exegetical arguments, Rich Lusk offers a look at the different pictures of God's character painted by the paedocommunion and anti-paedocommunion positions respectively.
(For the exegetical and historical arguments, see paedcommunion.com.) |
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| Posted by Sora at 3 : 04 pm | Leave a note {1} | ||
| July 01 2003 | ||
| HIDE AND SEEK
My midwife spent about 10 minutes trying to get Baby's heartbeat on her doppler this morning. Jennifer has been through several miscarriages with us and so today did not quite set a record for the longest she's ever spent moving a gooey doppler all over my belly, but the last time we had to look this long for a heartbeat it was because there wasn't one to find. The minutes were not as anxious as they could have been -- within the first few minutes of trying she was pretty sure she could hear and feel Baby moving around trying to dodge the sonic waves -- but since it generally takes less than a minute to find, we were not amused. "You know, baby, if you don't like ultrasound, you're running the wrong way, because we'll just send you straight to the hospital for one." (Matt, I'm sure, was greatly relieved not to have had to pay for an ultrasound today.) |
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| Posted by Sora at 2 : 55 pm | Leave a note {4} | ||
| June 27 2003 | ||
| KEYS OF THE KINGDOM
So after reading Kolbi's foot-in-the-mouth paedocommunion post in which she coined the term "Colvinist" :-) I had to go check out her conversation about Reformed theology and paedocommunion on the Well Trained Mind website. (Can you tell I have too much time on the computer in the evenings when Matt is away?) The part that made Kolbi's blood boil was this, and I can understand, because I had the same reaction reading it:
The poster went on to clarify that hers is a wonderful church in other respects, that they have no intention of leaving it, and that they are teaching their children that while they disagree with the elders' position on the Table, it is important to submit to the governing authorities. Fair enough, and I sympathise with the difficult position this mother is in. HOWEVER, in defending the actions of her elders in the above situation, she wrote (in a later post): The church has been given the "keys" which are baptism and the Lord's Supper. The Church, I believe, has the right to govern these, just as the civil government has the right to the sword. The keys of the kingdom of heaven ARE NOT BAPTISM AND THE LORD'S SUPPER!!! Not according to ANY Reformed confession. Yes, I am shouting! And Kolbi, I'll have you know that the last time we visited a PCA church I gave bread and wine to my one-year-old, just as I would have in any of the paedocommuning congregations that we normally frequent (and we have been very blessed to have always had that option available. It would be very, very, very difficult to be in a position where the only otherwise faithful church in the area was unwilling to have our youngest children (or all of them -- ay yi yi!) partake.) However, despite my husband's whispered admonition, "Honey, we're in a PCA church, follow the PCA's rules!") I have a clear conscience before God and before the Book of Church Order. The BCO, you see, states that, the minister, at the discretion of the Session, before the observance begins, may either invite all those who profess the true religion, and are communicants in good standing in any evangelical church, to participate in the ordinance; OR may invite those who have been approved by the Session, The church we were visiting chose to invite "all those who profess the true religion and are communicants in good standing in any evangelical church." Ezekiel, since his baptism shortly after his birth, has been a member in good standing in Niagara Reformed Presbyterian Church, a congregation of the Federation of Reformed Churches -- which body, thanks be to God, makes no unbiblical distinction between "communicant" and "noncommunicant" members. Zek'l has hence been communing since he could chew bread and sip wine. He has made it abundantly clear on many occasions that he believes the Lord's Supper is for him, and indeed, that it is the raison d'etre of going to church at all. (Though he also enjoys raising his hands to sing the Gloria Patri.) And I guarantee that he will "profess the true religion" with the best of them ...as soon as he learns to talk. |
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| Posted by Sora at 10 : 16 pm | Leave a note {6} | ||
| A LITTLE INTERNET THEOLOGY IS A DANGEROUS THING
I understand that my beloved husband has good reasons for using the internet as his primary means of theological discourse. It's almost a necessity. Men who are thinking about the same things he is, from the same presuppositions, are few and far between and scattered all over the country. You can't just find good theological iron-sharpening on a weeknight in Ithaca. Not unless you consider debating baptists, dispensational pre-mils, and the occasional Mormons to be entertaining (and its usually much more frustrating than enlightening.) So you turn on the computer and presto! you can dialogue with the good brothers in Monroe, Moscow, and Grande Prairie. I completely understand. I do the same thing, really, turning to the internet when I just gotta know that there are other homeschooling, homebirthing, headcovering, dresses-only, wouldn't use birth control to save their life, etc women out there. I don't know any in real life. Matt told me on the phone yesterday that several people at the conference had come up to him and told him that they read his blog and really enjoy it. ("And quite possibly," he added, "there were others who didn't come up to tell me they read my blog, but just shot me dirty looks from the other side of the room while my back was turned.") Yes, it is true: my husband has achieved internet notoriety, at least in the small, Reformed pond on the 'net. And while I am sometimes incredulous that Matt manages to find so much to argue about with men like Rich Lusk, Mark Horne, and John Barach -- men to whom he is probably closer doctrinally than he is to 99.9999% of other professing Christians -- it's also neat to see his critiques of their developing theology being picked up and discussed elsewhere. ("Hey! Wow! Someone else besides the two of us thinks that this is worth thinking about!") But let's keep a bit of perspective, eh? The goal is to better understand, trust in, and obey God's Word. We're not trying to start a movement. However catchy it may sound, let's draw the line at calling ourselves Colvinists. (And Kolbi -- no offense meant and I really enjoyed your paedocommunion post! I gave Matt the same line when he began refering to himself, half in jest, as a "Schlisselite" -- just a bit too much like "I am of Paul" "I am of Cephas" etc to sit comfortably. I even try to avoid using the term "Calvinist" of myself-- though sometimes it's unavoidable -- for the same reason. "We're Reformed, Heidelberg-confessing paedocommunionists" is more informative anyway.) |
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| Posted by Sora at 9 : 33 pm | Leave a note {1} | ||
| June 26 2003 | ||
| THIS MORNING
Matt is away until Saturday, attending the ACCS conference in Cincinnati. Here in Ithaca, this week's hot weather has finally opened the local strawberry season, which was unusually late this year due to the cool, wet spring (I'm not complaining!). Since I am car-less while Matt's away, we arranged to go strawberry picking this morning with our neighbors the Millers. It must have taken great restrain on Talia's part not to wake me and everyone else when she got up at 6:00 a.m. The Millers were to pick us up around 8:30. At 8:00, I let her wake Aedan and Zek'l. Aedan, it was reported, had been "lying on the floor coughing since 6:30." Uh oh. "Is he too sick to go strawberry picking?" "He's not too sick! He says he still wants to go." "Well, tell him if he's planning to pick strawberries he needs to get up and get dressed now." "Mommy! Aedan just threw up!" A quick phone call to the Miller's confirmed that they were still willing to go and to take Talia with them while I stayed home with Aedan and Zek'l. I cleaned up the mess, Talia and Zek'l had breakfast and Talia was duly sunscreened (brief panic when we thought that Matt had driven off to Cincinnati with all the sunscreen in the car, and then I found an old forgotten bottle hidden at the back of the linen closet) and outfitted with a container and some cash. The Millers called back. A Sam's Club glass bottle of balsamic vinegar had broken in their pantry and they would be later than planned. While we were waiting for the Millers to pick Talia up, my mother called from Victoria. "You're up early!" (It was only about 6:00 a.m. there.) "We're leaving today and wanted to say goodbye to the kids and happy birthday to Aedan before we left." On Monday, my mom had had some periodontal work done. With swollen face and in a haze of painkillers, she had returned home to find a message on the answering machine from my dad, asking if she would mind going to Vienna instead of sailing for her vacation. His employer has some work for him to do there and his travel, room and board would be covered. "When?" "As soon as we can get tickets." So they're off for two weeks. "If only I'd found out about this in time to cancel the appointment with the periodontist!" Talia decided that she'd rather wait for the Millers to be ready to leave at their house, where she could play with Rachel and Rebekah. She tucked her money in her sock, put her strawberry container on her head, slung her car seat over her shoulder (love those light-weight Britax booster seats) and headed off down the road. Now Aedan is sleeping on the couch and Zek'l and I are waiting for Talia to return so that we can feed upon strawberries, sugar, and cream. I don't really mind missing out on the picking today. At 10:00 a.m. it is already beastly outside. Given the choice, I'd have been at the U-Pick place when they opened at 8:00 a.m. and been home by 9:00, picking while it was still somewhat cool. Maybe next week, when Matt is back. |
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| Posted by Sora at 10 : 15 am | Leave a note {1} | ||
| June 25 2003 | ||
| CUTE THINGS ZEK'L IS DOING LATELY
The recent exploits of our 17-month-old, for the benefit of grandparents, friends, and interested strangers: Matt makes a habit of blessing each of the kids before bed, often with a passage of Scripture. Last night, Zek'l apparently decided to help bless his siblings and himself. Talia then led him to the room where I was sitting and said, "Zek'l, bless Mommy!" Whereupon he lugged a Bible over to my lap, opened it, placed his chubby little hand on my head and said, "Isss." He then repeated the procedure with his hand on his own head. He will now bless people on request. This morning he put on Aedan's running shoes -- each of which is about as long as Zek'l's leg from heel to knee -- and toddled around the house in them with fair success. It was a comical picture. He's started spontaneously folding his hands during prayer in family worship and before meals. While supper was being set on the table yesterday and before anyone else had taken a seat, Zek'l climbed into Matt's chair and folded his hands (as much as to say, "Hurry up, everyone! Look, I'm ready to say grace so we can eat. What's keeping the rest of you?") It is very cute. (Aedan, when he was about a year older than Z is now, used to sit in a similar manner -- head bowed, eyes closed, hands folded: the perfect picture of a pious toddler -- during corporate prayer in church. On at least one occasion two older teens sitting behind him found this posture of his so distracting that they were unable to refrain from nudging and pointing and had great difficulty suppressing their giggles. Alas, Aedan at six is somewhat more fidgety than he was at two.) Zek'l has also earned the nickname "Oedipus" for recent attempts to assert what he seems to see as his exclusive property rights. For example, one morning Daddy emerged from the den of dissertation to grab a book from the living room shelf, and Mommy, who was sitting on the floor superintending schoolwork, extended her arms toward him and said, "Hug." Zek'l was some eight feet away, but as Daddy turned from the bookshelf to respond to the summons he ran across the room and threw himself into Mommy's arms, ready for an extended cuddle. When Daddy approached he was rudely pushed away. Strangely enough, Zek'l doesn't seem to feel any need to smother Mommy with affection except when Daddy happens to be sitting too close to her. A favorite game this week has been getting the pots and pans -- especially those with lids that fit -- out of the cupboards and "cooking" with them all over the house. The only real food that is within Zek'l's reach is a sack of potatoes on the floor in storage room off the kitchen, so he was primarily "cooking" raw, unpeeled potatoes. Of course, getting his hands on a glass of water that a larger person had mistakenly left within toddler reach and pouring it into one of the pots was even more fun... Zek'l weaned completely while we were in Maryland. It has been many months since he has asked to nurse at any time other than first thing in the morning. In Maryland, he was sharing a room with Talia and Aedan. Talia and Matt's mom are early risers, and when Zek'l woke up Talia would get him out of his crib and Matt's mom would give him breakfast and by the time I was up he would be much too busy to nurse. I've offered a few times since but Zek'l has shown only polite disinterest and seems to have forgotten how to latch on. I suppose at this point in pregnancy, with him nursing so infrequently, that I haven't had much milk to speak of for a while anyway. But it is still a bit sad. It's the first time I've had a baby wean before they were talking and potty trained. Aedan was two and I thought he was too young to be weaning. Talia was three and I was quite happy to let her move on, but then, I'd been tandem nursing for a year at that point. Zek'l is turning into a little boy so quickly. And five long months still to wait before we have a real baby in the house again... |
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| Posted by Sora at 9 : 56 pm | Leave a note {2} | ||
| June 24 2003 | ||
| I'VE BLOGGED!
Matt just looked over (he is sprawled across a king sized bed, covering every inch of the bed that is not already covered with books and papers, thus making it impossible for anyone to use said bed for any purpose other than dissertating, such as, for instance, sleeping) and said incredulously, "Are you blogging?" Give me a break. It's only been a month. |
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| Posted by Sora at 9 : 46 pm | Leave a note {1} | ||
| May 25 2003 | ||
| EZEKIEL AN ECCLESIOCENTRIST?
Last Sunday Matt was too sick to go to church, and I took the kids by myself. A day or two after he was on his feet again, I relapsed. This morning I'm much better, and could probably have dragged myself out, but thought it wiser to stay home and give my body time to really recover. We're driving to Cinci to look for a house later in the week, and camping on the way, and I really need to be 100% again -- or at least 80 - 90% -- before we leave. Zek'l at 16 months takes a fair bit of active parenting to get through a 2 hour church service, and Matt is preaching this morning, so my staying home pretty much eliminated the possibility of Zek'l's attendance. Usually Z is heartbroken when anyone leaves the house without taking him, but this morning he seemed more interested in the fact that Talia and Aedan had each grabbed their own Bible off the shelf before heading out the door, than upset that they'd left him behind. He ran to the shelf and got the small and battered hardcover KJV that we usually let him hold during family worship even though he can't read yet. Then, holding it in one hand, with considerable effort, he managed to get my Bible off the shelf and bring it to me on the couch. He opened "his" Bible and made a brief and solemn pronouncement that included no recognizable words. Then he raised his hands above his head and nodded to me to start singing the Gloria Patri. Then he was done. His ideal worship service appears to be a very short one, heavy on liturgy, and definitely does not include a 40-60 minute sermon. No sacraments at home, of course, but based on observations from many previous Sundays I can safely say that Zek'l thinks the Supper is the whole point of the church service. Could it be that we're raising a small ecclesiocentrist? |
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| Posted by Sora at 9 : 17 am | Leave a note {4} | ||
| May 23 2003 | ||
| Talia's lovely watercolors
Talia has been doing most of her nature study sketches with pencil and pencil crayon (note to self: get Talia a nice set of Berol pencil crayons for her upcoming birthday) but was unable to find her pencil crayons today. I was lying on the couch sick and miserable and in no mood to hunt for pencil crayons, so I suggested that she get out her watercolors and gave her a few pointers (well, really, only one pointer: have a piece of scrap paper handy to blot the brush thoroughlybefore trying to paint the eye of a robin or a forget-me-not. Here are (some of the best) results (she was quite prolific): 
(Note to self: get Talia a good book on watercolor technique -- anyone have any recommendations? -- and maybe some new brushes.) |
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| Posted by Sora at 7 : 05 pm | Leave a note {8} | ||
| May 16 2003 | ||
| BLAHS
You wouldn't know it from the way Matt's been blogging lately, but he's been miserably sick since Sunday. (Well, actually, maybe that explains all the blogging... since he's not up for much else.) My own blogging, needless to say, has been nonexistant this week. First, I figure it's better not to blog than to post something whiny, and second, I haven't been spending much time at the computer since keeping the house, kids, and schooling under control is challenge enough right now. I will be very glad to be past this particular bout of flu (everyone in the family is still at least a bit sick), out of first trimester (need I say more), and safely moved to Cincinnati (ack! only 2 1/2 months left!) |
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| Posted by Sora at 11 : 07 am | Leave a note {0} | ||
| May 09 2003 | ||
| TODAY
The three kids are all sick, in varying degrees. I am too. Life has come to a semi-standstill while we lie around, nap, use tremendous quantities of kleenex, and produce messes too vile to mention on a civilized blog. (Even as I type I hear a groan from Matt, from the kitchen, that indicates that Zek'l is at it again. At least it wasn't on the carpet this time.) It is rather unfair. The day was sunny and sparklingly beautiful -- at least, it appeared so, as much of it as I could see from the bed and the couch -- and we should have been out sketching wildflowers with Deb and Jeni and their girls at Cornell Plantations. But no, Talia and I are lying around being miserable instead. My sister arrived from the west coast yesterday for a week's visit, on her way to Ghana. She took Zek'l -- who is pretty cheerful for a sick kid, even when he's causing his daddy grief -- outside several times. He's still a bit suspicious of her, but the lure of the outdoors is enough to win her his trust, at least for a little while. One of my plans for my sister's visit was to indulge a bit in various foods that I wouldn't normally make for my unappreciative kids and husband. I finally got some of the famous soba noodle salad today, and we're planning on the sticky rice / coconut cream / mango dessert from Deb's blog tomorrow. I have hopes of being able to actually enjoy these treats, given that, so far, my ailment is confining itself to my head rather than my stomach (though the skeptical may question whether that good fortune will last, considering ongoing pregnancy nausea combined with Zek'l's inability to be sick neatly.) Everyone go tell Matt what a very good husband and father he is. I haven't had to clean up after either end of a sick toddler, except when he isn't home, and this has spared me a great deal. It may not be very romantic, but it's very appreciated. |
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| Posted by Sora at 7 : 06 pm | Leave a note {1} | ||
| May 05 2003 | ||
| OBEDIENT AEDAN
Yesterday afternoon, on being asked to do something or other: "Yes, Mommy; yes, mommy; ye-e-e-es mommy!" A pause. "Did you hear that? That was the three-fold yes-mommy." |
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| Posted by Sora at 8 : 58 am | Leave a note {2} | ||
| May 04 2003 | ||
| AWESOME FACTS
Our baby is not yet 2 cm long but he(?) already has little tiny fingers and little tiny eyelids. How cool is that? |
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| Posted by Sora at 10 : 13 pm | Leave a note {5} | ||
| CONTRACEPTION
I can respect the fact that many (most) Christians will not agree with Matt's and my position on birth control. I had a friend over the other day and one of the things she talked about was her worries about whether she could handle more than her current two children. At one point she said, "You're being nice and keeping your opinion to yourself. You don't have to, you know; I might be kind of looking for someone to play devil's advocate." Well, I don't generally feel the need to foist my opinions on people whenever the topic of children comes up; my opinions are on the web for anyone to read who wants to and most people I know already know what I think. But (you knew that was coming, right?) I find the apparent prevalence of hormonal birth control among young married Christian women (reflecting, no doubt, the overwhelmingly widespread choice of hormonal birth control in our culture at large) deeply troubling. Probably a lot of these women are ignorant or have been misled about the risks and mechanisms of the Pill, Norplant, and Depo-Provera (have they come up with any other ones yet?). Any couple considering or currently using the pill ought to read Alcorn's book about its abortifacient nature (other hormonal birth control methods work the same way). The link is from this page from the Quiverfull.com website which also has other useful and interesting reading. |
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| Posted by Sora at 9 : 23 pm | Leave a note {4} | ||
| May 02 2003 | ||
| PRODUCT REVIEW
I've been using Veritas Press's history cards as a "spine" for Talia and Aedan's history study for a while. I find the Teacher's Manuals useless for my purposes and I only rarely use their recommended resources for each event as I usually have my own books that I like better, but the curriculum does help keep us moving along. Also, each set of artsy flashcards comes with a memory song on tape which lists all 32 events in the set, along with many important dates: a handy way to get a timeline into kids' heads. Yesterday we finished reading about the Visigoths, Vandals, and Huns (oh my!) and the last card in the Greece and Rome set is the fall of Rome in 476 A.D. So this morning while the kids were eating their chocolate chip banana bread I popped the tape for Middle Ages, Renaissance, and Reformation into the tape player so we could all start learning the song. As the first notes sounded Aedan started to crack up. By the time the vocals began he was doubled over and laughing uncontrollably. Talia was not quite as overcome with mirth, but she did have this to say: "And I thought the song for the second set of cards was ridiculous!" Oh well. As I said, it's a handy way to get a timeline into kids' heads. And, most important, someone other than me did the work of writing and recorded it. |
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| Posted by Sora at 9 : 09 am | Leave a note {1} | ||
| April 30 2003 | ||
| FUTURE BUNGEE JUMPER
Aedan fell off the top bunk today. This is the first bunk-bed related injury we've had in several years of stacking kids. He walked away with a bruise on one cheekbone and no one to blame but himself: he was trying to descend the ladder with both hands full of orange peel. (Don't ask why he was peeling an orange on the top bunk. Matt speculates that he'd run out of other ways to break the house rules.) "Really, mommy," he said to me at dinner, "It wasn't the orange peel's fault. Because I thought about just throwing the orange peels down before I climbed down the ladder, but I decided not to." He also told me, "Falling off the bunk bed was actually kind of fun. For a very short time, that is, before I landed. It was fun in the air, but not fun on the ground." And, to Talia, "The higher the height, the funner it is in the air!" Good thing there's no easy way for a five year old to get onto the roof of the apartment building. |
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| Posted by Sora at 7 : 07 pm | Leave a note {4} | ||
| April 26 2003 | ||
| AEDAN, LOOKING AT THE COVER ILLUSTRATION OF A BIBLE STORY BOOK
"Mommy, God told Noah to put one window in the ark. This picture has 1... 2... 3... 4... 5... 6... 7... 8... 9... 10... 11... 12... 13... 14... 15... 16 WINDOWS! Whoever made this book must not have read their Bibles." |
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| Posted by Sora at 9 : 06 am | Leave a note {4} | ||
| April 24 2003 | ||
| FOOD BLOG
Wow. It's amazing how many comments people get when they blog about food. So, I've been trying to come up with a food blog. When I was cooking supper tonight, Matt came wandering out of the bedroom where he'd been dissertating, sniffed, and said, suspiciously, "What are you cooking? That smells like it might have some illegal vegetables in it." I find the term "illegal vegetables" somewhat baffling myself. There are a few vegetables that might become "illegal" if they are, for instance, cooked to the point of sogginess. But treated with care and respect, picked and prepared at their freshest and best, I've never met a vegetable I didn't like. I rather suspect, however, that a blog about illegal vegetables would not garner quite as many comments as one about, say, chocolate chip cookies, ginger snaps, or tater tots (speaking of illegal vegetables...) So instead, I'm going to make a list of all the foods that I really think I ought to have eaten more recently. Any husbands reading this can take it as a broad, general hint if they feel like planning spontaneous date nights or bringing home a treat. Masala dosas. Mmmm. Dosas. When I was living in Ottawa, there was a tiny little Indian restaurant a few blocks from my apartment that had the most scrumptious dosas with fantastic chutneys. I don't think I've had any since then, which would make it more than 7 years. We went to an Indian restaurant a couple years ago when I was craving dosas, and they didn't have any dosas, and it turned out to be some of the worst Indian food I'd ever had (which also reinforced Matt's idea that he doesn't like Indian food.) This little hole in the wall in Ottawa had really good mango ice cream too. I wonder if it's still there. Tiramisu. I can't remember the last time I had tiramisu. But it's high time I had some more. Vegetarian sushi. I've had some fairly recently, but more would be good. I could use some pickled ginger right about now. (What is it about pickled ginger? When I was pregnant with Aedan someone gave me a jar of chopped picked ginger (not the sliced sushi kind) and I used to take it out of the fridge just to smell it several times a day.) I wish I could figure out what kind of pickled vegetable that is that I like so much in several commercially prepared vegetarian rolls I've had. Then maybe I could figure out where to buy it and make my own, much more cheaply, at home. Of course, no one but me and Zek'l would eat it. Philistines. Pakora. My friend Sharon Morris used to bring these to our music nights in Victoria, with delicious homemade mango chutney. I don't think I've had any since. More than three years. Sigh. Vegetarian Pad Thai. I'm not linking to a recipe for this one, because I have yet to find a recipe that yields really authentic-tasting results. Most of the Pad Thai recipes I've found substitute readily available ingredients for the traditional ones and they just don't taste right. Even ake-out doesn't taste the same as hot from the restaurant kitchen. I do get Pad Thai almost every time Matt and I go out to eat, though (at least 3 times a year :-) since I like to go out for ethnic vegetarian food I wouldn't normally make at home, and he actually likes Thai food. Watermelon. Really sweet, cold, juicy watermelon on a sweltering hot day. Ok, it snowed yesterday. But I can still look forward to watermelon season. This marvellous salad I make with soba noodles, green onions, and small pieces of fried tofu, with a tahini-ginger based dressing for which I will have to post the recipe sometime for my readers whose tastes run to such things. I make this at least once a summer, but Matt and the kids don't care for it. If they liked it I'd probably make it every week in July and August, especially since our local Tops grocery store has soba noodles almost as cheap as regular spaghetti noodles. At a party once in Montreal, about 6 years ago, I had some really delicious quesadillas made with Brie, thin slices of Asian pear, and cilantro. Wow, they were good. I need an occasion to recreate them sometime. Ditto another dish from the same era: fresh, buttered french bread with watercress and fried mushrooms. Mmmmmmmm..... Rose Levy Beranbaum's raspberry neoclassic buttercream, spooned right out of the mixing bowl. |
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| Posted by Sora at 8 : 20 pm | Leave a note {6} | ||
| TO GOOD NOT TO BLOG
Poor Matt. He'd probably tell this story better than I will, but he says he's not going to blog about it. So here we go. On Thursday mornings, Matt teaches a Latin class at 10:00 a.m. in the public library to a bunch of homeschooled high school students. On Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays, he teaches a Latin class at 10:15 at Cornell to a bunch of Ivy League undergrads. The public library parking lot is inaccessible (they're building a new parking garage, go figure) and so Matt was a few minutes late walking into the library this morning. This tardiness caused him to miss seeing his gaggle of students waiting outside the doors for the library to open. He walked to the study rooms at the back of the library and saw a group of librarians having a meeting in the room he usually uses. The other study room was dark and apparently empty. He stood there, confused for a moment. Where were his students? This could only mean one thing. It must not be Thursday! And that meant... horrors! ...he had a class to teach at Cornell in less than 10 minutes, for which he had not prepared! Leaving the library, Matt passed Suzanne (mother of a Latin student) coming in. "Hi Suzanne. Gretchen will appreciate this: I actually thought it was Thursday!" he said to her. Suzanne did not reply, as her own brain was saying to itself, "What? It's not Thursday? But I thought it was Thursday too! What's going on?" But by then, Matt had jumped into the car and was making a mad dash up the hill to Cornell. Suzanne headed for the back of the library where she found her daughter and the other Latin students hiding in the darkened study room. Their plan, aparently, had been to jump out and yell, "Surprise!" when Matt entered the room... but the darkened and aparently empty study room had completely flummoxed the man, and their little joke had gone awry. Suzanne roundly scolded the mischievous students and phoned me so that I could tell Matt what had happened when he got home. Meanwhile, Matt had reached Cornell and raced to his classroom. He burst in the door to discover... another class in session. Making his apologies and a hasty exit, and now thoroughly confused, he then stopped a passerby on the sidewalk to ask what day it was. Another mad dash down the hill, another search for parking near the library... and he arrived while Suzanne was still on the phone telling me the sorry story. So, a semi-happy ending: the Latin students got their homework despite their devious behavior, and a shortened class period to boot. They kids never thought their trick would work so well. Poor Matt. You'd think he was the one who was pregnant. |
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| Posted by Sora at 7 : 14 pm | Leave a note {13} | ||
| April 22 2003 | ||
DON'TCHA LOVE IT WHEN THE CHOCOLATE BUNNIES GO ON SALE?
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| Posted by Sora at 4 : 54 pm | Leave a note {1} | ||
| April 21 2003 | ||
| FIELD TRIP
Deb arranged for us to take the kids to the Ithaca game farm, where her brother in law works. Every spring they hatch out 135 000 pheasant chicks which get shipped out and sold. When we arrived, this week's batch was hatching: 13 000 pheasant chicks. Each covered tray was pulled out of the incubator and the fluffy chicks were sorted into cardboard boxes -- 120 to a box. The kids got to hold the chicks and play midwife to a few who had not managed to make it all the way out of the egg on their own. Then we toured the barn full of week-old pheasant chicks -- 1000 to a pen -- and the outdoor pens full of egg-laying adults, where the kids gathered a few eggs (and feathers). Unfortunately, I did not bring the camera. It would have been nice to get a picture of the look on Aedan's face as he stood there, holding an eggshell with a wet, bedraggled pheasant chick poking its head out. The little girls made pom-pom chicks two weeks ago but they are not nearly as cute as the live ones. 
I had started to mix up some bread dough in the morning before discovering that Matt had used the last of the whole wheat flour in yesterday's pancakes. Nothing but white flour left. So we had "gnostic bread" for lunch. Now to get some schoolwork in before the Martens and Millers show up in an hour for violin and latin. |
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| Posted by Sora at 1 : 13 pm | Leave a note {3} | ||
| April 19 2003 | ||
| FOLLOW-UP POST ON DAUGHTERS AND COLLEGE
The following is an excerpt from an email dialogue that took place about a year ago, between two Christian fathers in the context of a larger discussion of the issue on an email list. Quotes from Mr. Send'em-to-College are italicized, Mr. Keep'em-home's responses are in plain text. Each child ought to be given an education in keeping with his or her gifts and potential, for the sake of the fullest development as a moral and intellectual human being. It is the duty of us as parents to give that gift, according to our own situation and finances. It is wrong for parents to excuse that duty with indiscriminate, ungrounded scruples about the risks. I am very surprised to see the words "excuse that duty," as if a parent who does not send a very bright child to college is derelict in his duty. Do you really mean to suggest that? It is wrong of a parent to coddle the educationally lazy child, especially with scares about the spiritual hazards of schooling. A child ought not be left to his own appetites for education, because while a few are constitutionally eager to learn, others have to be driven, and all of us need encouragement. False dichotomy city! I have no plans to send my daughter to college, but I'm certainly not leaving her to her own devices. I intend to give her a terrific education in keeping with her gifts and potential. And I intend to do it without abdicating my authority over her until she gets married. Sending her away to college isn't consistent with that aim. Distance learning or attending some classes while living at home might be OK. But the standard American "college experience" is not. We should not fear the college experience for our children as if it were the I very much doubt that anyone here is arguing against college for daughters by saying that "women had better remain uneducated and thus out of temptation's way" -- for that would tell equally against homeschooling at a college level, or against distance learning, or against reading too much ("Put that encyclopedia down, child, or the devil will snare you!"). The problem with college for women isn't about education -- much though the world would like you to think so. Rather, the problem with college for women has to do with authority. More on that in a minute. Not long ago women did not go to college, ever. When do you date coeducational colleges from? Consulting the "Reader's Companion to American History," I find the first women's college in 1837 (Oberlin). Before that, there were no colleges taking women at all, co-ed or not. The next trend is coordinate women's colleges, e.g. the "Seven Sisters" -- single-sex institutions located close to all-male institutions. Then in 1864, we find women attending Swarthmore along with men. By 1900, we have over 100 coed colleges. The coeducational movement, which grew and succeeded long before feminism, We don't have the first co-ed college until 1864. Mary Wollstonecraft wrote her "Vindication of the Rights of Woman" in 1792; the French Revolution, which arguably laid the groundwork for feminism as a species of egalitarianism, is earlier still (1789). It certainly seems to me that collegiate coeducation is the fruit of egalitarianism. Make sure you are talking about collegiate coeducation, not primary schooling. This is a necessary distinction, given that the objection to women going to college is primarily based on problems of authority. I have fewer problems, or only practical problems, with primary coeducation -- a father may certainly delegate his authority over his sons or daughters to a schoolteacher or principal. But we're talking about college, which is, let's face it, a place where America's youth go to be independent. College is a rite of passage into independence -- indeed, in many cases, it is primarily a rite of passage and only secondarily an occasion of formal education. Why is college a rite of passage to independence? Because it removes children from their parents' supervision, and thus, effectively, from their authority as well. In the case of a man, this is not necessarily a problem. A grown man is not under his parents' authority any longer. If he has been trained to have a diligent and upright character, he may well be prepared to get a lot out of college. A daughter, on the other hand, may be as diligent and upright as you please, but Biblically speaking, she still goes from her parents' authority to her husband's authority. If you send her to college, you have effectively abdicated your authority over her. Among other things, this means that you can no longer protect her. stood not for feminist equality, but to make educated women as suitable mates for educated men. Is that not a principle that Christians can endorse? Or must the educated Christian young men have to choose intellectually inferior brides? What is your starting date for the coeducational movement? What is your date for the beginning of the feminist movement? Are you really suggesting that in those dark days when "women did not go to college, ever" educated Christian men were forced to marry "intellectually inferior" women? I'm not inclined to believe that women must have the same amount of formal institutional education in order to be suitable mates for husbands with lots of degrees. My wife is certainly not my "intellectual inferior," even if it's true that I have a few more degrees and about 10 more years of institutional schooling than she does. I met no other woman so well suited for me (intellectually and otherwise) in 10+ years of post-secondary education. The notion that parents who don't send their bright daughter to college are robbing her of the proper development of her gifts and potential leads logically to the Betty Friedan idea that a housewife is robbing herself of the full development of her gifts and potential. Just as feminism illegitimately picks the workplace as the only sphere of measurable worth (cf. Graglia, _Domestic Tranquillity_), so too you appear to be assuming that for a suitably bright daughter, college is the only option for the full development of her intellectual gifts. That's just not true. And surely you are not arguing for college as a place for women to "get their Mrs. degree"? That sounds like a good way for women to meet their future husbands away from the authority of their fathers. It also encourages them to be receptive to romantic attention from young men in college, most of whom are not yet in any position to support a wife and children. |
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| Posted by Sora at 9 : 12 pm | Leave a note {11} | ||
| April 17 2003 | ||
| BIBLICAL AESTHETICS?
Can a question of aesthetic judgement be rightly described as (either) Biblical or un-Biblical? Ever? Always? On occasion? |
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| Posted by Sora at 9 : 40 pm | Leave a note {2} | ||
| WOMEN'S ROLE(s) AND COLLEGE
Carmon posts a very interestingopinion piece on women's roles, responding to two opposing articles about young women and college. |
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| Posted by Sora at 9 : 15 pm | Leave a note {3} | ||
| April 15 2003 | ||
| PESACH
Tomorrow night, I'm putting on a messianic seder for about 50 people from the church in Valois and from Interlaken Christian School. The last "big" seder I organized was 4 or 5 years ago, as a new Christian, for 15 or so members of my home group and my housemates (this was in my REC days in Victoria.) It was also, incidentally, the first seder that I organized and orchestrated after more than 20 years of maybe helping with the dishes or setting the table while my mother or grandmother did everything else. The last few years, Passover has been small: our family and a few (3-4) guests. I have been cooking all afternoon and have a lot still to do tomorrow. Our refridgerator is packed with 6 crustless quiches and an incredible quantity of cheesecake (4 POUNDS of cream cheese, 12 cups of sour cream, 12 eggs...) and the table is piled high with coconut macaroons. I can't imagine why none of the matriarchs of my childhood thought of making (crustless) cheesecake for Passover. Passover dessert when I was young was humdrum (how much can you really do with no flour, no baking powder, etc...) and it just wouldn't seem like Passover to me without the ubiquitous coconut macaroon (since, like matzoh, charoset, and horseradish, I only ate them once a year.) At that first independent seder 5 years ago, my friend and then-room-mate Rachel Cooper (of course, she was Rachel Channer then) opened new vistas of possibility by making a decadent chocolate torte made with ground nuts and egg whites and cocoa powder (and lots of cream filling, mmmm.) She even put icing Hebrew letters on it. That cake has been a Passover standby for me ever since. It would be difficult and expensive, however, to make in sufficient quantity for 50 people... hence the cheesecake (thank you Rose Levy Beranbaum.) . |
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| Posted by Sora at 9 : 04 pm | Leave a note {7} | ||
| April 11 2003 | ||
| A DEFENSE OF SKIRTS
I posted a brief, mischevious and somewhat tongue-in-cheek comment on this thread on Rick's blog. Now, I don't really intend to bring up any of the myriad arguments against women wearing pants; there are many reasons I stopped doing so shortly after my conversion but I don't feel the need to beat other Christians over the head with them. I won't think any the less of you if you don't feel called to give up your blue jeans, honest. But I do feel compelled to give the lie to the following objection: "It's hard to be modest in some circumstances if you're in a skirt (like hiking in the woods for example)." (One also frequently hears blanket declarations that trousers are absolutely essential in order for women to ride bicycles, or to stay warm in freezing winter weather.) This objection seems to me to assume a very narrow definition of "skirt", one that is fairly snug-fitting, no longer than calf-length and possibly above-the-knee, and involves hose and dress shoes. When Matt met me, he admitted that it had never occurred to him before that there were women who didn't wear pants. (The idea grew on him pretty quickly. I have never heard any complaints.) He expressed some skepticism about the practicality of this lifestyle choice when we went hiking through the woods at Thetis Lake near Victoria, B.C., a week or so into his visit. I recall blithely answering, while scrambling with mountain-goat-like agility up a steep rocky slope, that I had no intention of letting my skirts keep me out of the woods, or the woods keep me out of my skirts. When I lived in Victoria, my main means of transportation were walking and cycling (with Talia and Aedan in a Chariot bike trailer.) I rode my bicyle several times a week and went camping and hiking several times a year for several years of wearing skirts- and dresses-only. I maintain that for modesty and freedom of movement in these and other active pursuits (skiing? skating? gardening? climbing in and out of a 12-passenger van?*) a well chosen skirt has considerable advantages. For active outdoor lifestyle, the everyday skirt must be suitable in length, cut, and fabric. Length -- "tea-length" (lower-calf) to ankle length; long enough to offer ample coverage when climbing or peddling but not so long you'll trip over it. Cut -- must be generous enough to offer full freedom of movement. None of these tight clingy slitted numbers. I find A-line or bias-cut skirts more becoming than a straight-cut gathered skirt unless the fabric is very light and drapey. I've used as much as 4 yards of fabric in a bias-cut skirt (husband's comment:"I like the way it swishes.") Fabric -- something washable and sturdy that won't catch on every twig and bramble; denim and courderoy are both good choices. As for the cold winters argument, as soon as you're rid of the knee-length skirt with hose and dress shoes assumption, the problem disappears. I don't think I've ever been as cold as I was in Ottawa winters of my childhood when my jeans would freeze. My everyday skirts are long enough that I can pull wool socks up over thermal long underwear beneath them and no one's the wiser. If it is bitter cold, I can do as women in northern climes did for years before the advent of central heating and add a flannel petticoat or two. (Flannel, by the way, is great for winter skirts; polar fleece is another good choice, especially for winter sports.) I look forward to a long summer of hiking, camping, and canoing, suitably outfitted in modest, feminine, and practical skirts. ________________ * (well, perhaps not hang-gliding or gymnastic tumbling, but I don't think I've missed out too badly by forgoing either of these) |
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| Posted by Sora at 8 : 13 pm | Leave a note {18} | ||
| April 10 2003 | ||
| HOUSEHOLD HINTS
Our apartment came with an in-sink garbage disposal. The thing has been more trouble than it is worth. The first few months we were here (summer of 2000) it backed up the whole sink three times and we had to call the maintenance man to snake out the drain. After the third call, I stopped using it but the residue from dirty dishes still made it necessary to turn the thing on occassionally, and it managed to stop up the drain twice more in the next two years. Now, over the last few weeks, the disposal has developed an unpleasant, garlicky odor. Solution: I put two whole lemons and an entire tray of ice cubes down the disposal and followed it with a sinkful of water. Talia and Aedan thought this was a waste of good lemons, but I am delighted to have a fresh-smelling kitchen sink again. |
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| Posted by Sora at 10 : 41 am | Leave a note {3} | ||
| CATECHESIS
With Talia now well past Heidelberg Q. 100 it is impractical to review all the questions she knows every day, or even every other day. I have found it necessary this past year to resort to a written schedule for catechizing the children in order to make sure that all their catechism questions are reviewed frequently enough that they don't fly out of their heads. The schedule is revised every time they learn another 10 - 20 questions. Right now, Aedan, who has just memorized HC 34, reviews questions 1-10 on Monday and Thursday, 11-20 on Tuesday and Friday, and 21-30 on Wednesday and Saturday, with his most recent acquisitions (31 - 34) reviewed daily. Talia covers 20 questions daily from Monday to Friday in addition to reviewing her most recent questions and is quizzed on questions over HC 100 on Saturday. Anyway, today she was doing questions 61-80. When asked, "How many sacraments has Christ instituted in the new covenant?" she likes to answer in jest, "Seven! Holy baptism, the holy supper, um...." Here, she gets stuck, because while she knows that the Roman Catholic church has seven sacraments rather than two, she doesn't actually know what the other five are. "Talia," I said, "if you're going to answer your catechism questions like a Roman Catholic you should at least find out what those other sacraments are." She protested vehemently. "I'm NOT answering like a Roman Catholic! Look at my last question for today -- it is very strongly against the papal mass! And listen to how I do it, too:" (with very dramatic intonation) "The papal mass is nothing but a denial of the one sacrifice of Jesus Christ on the cross, and an accursed idolatry!!!" Meanwhile, Zek'l has found Talia's rosepatterned dolls' teaset and is happily setting the kitchen table with it. He strolls back out to the living room sipping imaginary tea and offers some to his siblings. |
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| Posted by Sora at 10 : 19 am | Leave a note {5} | ||
| April 07 2003 | ||
| TRANSLATING ZEK'LESE
Sometimes you can just tell what Zek'l is thinking. Like tonight, as the door swung shut behind his older brother and sister as they went off with Daddy to take in a free organ concert at Cornell. He went running up to the door on his stubby little toddler legs, roaring at the top of his little lungs in incomprehensible monosyllables, but you just knew that if he could talk he would be saying, "HEY! Hey, guys! You forgot ME! GUYS? You weren't going to go without ME, were you?" |
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| Posted by Sora at 8 : 13 pm | Leave a note {0} | ||
| OBSERVATIONS FROM TALIA
"Zebras give birth to a foal about every three years. I bet the mother zebras get really impatient when they have to wait three years before they have another baby." |
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| Posted by Sora at 6 : 21 pm | Leave a note {2} | ||
| April 03 2003 | ||
| WHAT I'VE BEEN DOING
Ok, I know I haven't posted anything in ages. What have I been doing while I haven't been blogging?
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| Posted by Sora at 8 : 00 am | Leave a note {3} | ||
A QUOTE FROM ONE WHO KNOWS
8+ children means that at least half of them know how to clean up the kitchen, clean a bathroom and make a meal. It means that you can holler: "Get in the van, we have to leave!" and in 5 minutes they are all in the van, *buckled up*, and you grab your purse and hop in. It means you can get up at 8:30 in the morning if you want to, take a shower, head to the kitchen, and all the children have already eaten, and they saved (From today's MOMYS digest.) |
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| Posted by Sora at 7 : 30 am | Leave a note {1} | ||
| March 25 2003 | ||
BEFORE SUPPER
The sleepy seaside town of Plasticine-Pompeii, basking peacefully in the Mediterranean sunshine, little knows what is about to befall it. 
Horrors! Two giant children have aparently angered the gods who lurk beneath Cardboard-Vesuvius! The river of lava delights them, but they appear indifferent to the fate of the little town. |
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| Posted by Sora at 5 : 35 pm | Leave a note {2} | ||
| March 20 2003 | ||
| SPEAKING OF THE FLU
It doesn't sound like Matt had a very pleasant trip. After making good time Tuesday he woke up sick in the middle of the night, just as Talia did. Unlike Talia, however, he had to get up and teach his three audition classes the next morning. Poor guy. After teaching he went back to the headmaster's house, where he was staying, and crashed. (Aside -- Aedan, hearing me say this on the phone, asked in a worried tone, "Did I just hear you say that Daddy crashed?!" I had to explain that I didn't mean the car.) Matt had been planning to meet with the Rector of the REC that evening (Wednesday) but didn't because he was sick. This morning, after his interview with the board, he tried to go to the REC church, got lost, and ended up driving halfway to Lexington. (I came in from taking out the garbage to find Talia on the phone: "Mommy, it's Daddy. He got lost and drove to Kentucky.") This delayed his departure from the Cincinnati area so that instead of getting home before the kids' bedtime tonight, he'll be lucky if he's in before midnight. On the up side, the interview and classes went well, he says. But I guess I should let him report on his trip himself. |
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| Posted by Sora at 6 : 45 pm | Leave a note {1} | ||
| March 19 2003 | ||
| 'TIS A CLEAR, SUNNY MORNING...
...Thankfully. Another grey and gloomy day would have been downright depressing. Yesterday afternoon Aedan fell asleep over his math book and slept for two hours (eventually awakened by Talia telling him that "The Millers are here and you missed supper!") -- an unusual occurence, but he showed no other signs of illness aside from a swollen lymph node that's been around a week or so already. It was Talia who threw up twice this morning: at 4:00 and again at 6:00 a.m., all over her bed. Hello, my old friend laundry. She kindly declined to wake me, changing her pajamas and moving to the living room couch instead, but Zek'l was up by 6:30 anyway. Well, with Matt away at least I went to bed at an unprecedentedly early hour last night. Better cancel the afternoon playdate. I do hope no one who was over here yesterday gets Talia's bug too. |
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| Posted by Sora at 8 : 34 am | Leave a note {2} | ||
| March 18 2003 | ||
| HOLDING DOWN THE FORT
So Matt left early this morning to drive to Cincinnati. He made it in about 10 hours (you can listen to a lot of sermons in 10 hours). Tomorrow he'll audition-teach two Latin and one Humanities class for Mars Hill Academy. In the evening he'll check out the local REC's Lenten Soup Night and prayer service and visit with the Rector. Thursday morning, he has an interview with the school's board of directors, and then he'll drive home, hopefully making it in by bedtime. We had some friends over to visit this morning, and have playdates planned for tomorrow and Thursday afternoons. Deb brought over some lovely quiches and her family to keep us company on this our first daddy-less evening. It's going to be an unprecedented amout of social activity for us this week. That should help keep things moving around here. I'm just glad that work-related travel for Matt has only been necessary a handful of times in our marriage. It is much harder to have the family routine temporarily disrupted by daddy's absense than it was to be a single mother for several years. |
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| Posted by Sora at 8 : 05 pm | Leave a note {0} | ||
| March 15 2003 | ||
WHO IS TO BE EXCLUDED FROM THE FEAST?
WCF Shorter Catechism Q. 97. What is required to the worthy receiving of the Lord’s supper? There seems to me to be a telling distinction here between fencing the table based on knowledge -- making communicant status an intellectual attainment -- and fencing the table based upon behaviour -- giving communicant status the objective ground of covenant keeping. |
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| Posted by Sora at 10 : 27 am | Leave a note {11} | ||
| March 13 2003 | ||
| TALIA ON ALLIGATORS
I seem to have bloggers block lately. Luckily, Talia furnishes plenty of fascinating material that I can post in lieue of original writings of my own. She has no choice. Every day she is required to either write a brief composition on a topic of her choice, or revise and edit yesterday's composition. On Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday Aedan read me an I-Can-Read Science book about alligators. Talia was supposed to be engaged in other constructive pursuits -- violin practice, math, etc. -- while this reading was taking place, but she was clearly paying some attention, as evidenced: 
(Though I received her permission to post this, Talia was concerned that casual blog readers might think that she actually believes anything that she wrote above. I would not think such a disclaimer necessary had I not personally witnessed numerous incidents of Onion articles passed along by email as factual. So take note, gentle readers: this composition was intended as an exercise in humor, not natural history.) |
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| Posted by Sora at 1 : 59 pm | Leave a note {7} | ||
| March 07 2003 | ||
| OH, YEAH!
Steve Schlissel tells it like it is. |
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| Posted by Sora at 8 : 41 pm | Leave a note {11} | ||
| March 03 2003 | ||
| WORD CRACKERS
When Talia was three or four, she looked forward to eating what she called "word crackers" when we'd go to a Chinese restaurant. We thought that the name "word crackers" was a great one and that someone ought to come up with "Word crackers" with bible verses and market them. Lo and behold, it's been done. They're not using our nifty name, though. |
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| Posted by Sora at 11 : 47 am | Leave a note {1} | ||
| WHY?
What would possess an otherwise normal child, after brushing his teeth, to deliberately drop the toothpaste behind the couch? Why, when the procedure for bedmaking 101 has been taught so many times that a child can recite it better than some of his catechism questions, would he still attempt to pull the blanket up over a lumpy, scrunched up sheet at the bottom of the bed and try to pass it off as "done"? Why does every oldest daughter I've ever met think that she's the mommy? And why does Ezekiel throw his balls into places he can't reach them (the crib, the laundry room) and then yell until someone fetches them back for him? |
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| Posted by Sora at 10 : 00 am | Leave a note {4} | ||
| March 02 2003 | ||
IS THIS NOT THE CUTEST SNAIL YOU'VE EVER SEEN?
As Deb reported, the little girls made felt creatures on Friday. They did a bit of knitting before lunch, too (even some of the big brothers!) 
Talia has mastered purl stitch and is practicing by making a blanket for her dollhouse, having finished a sweater for Fizzy. (So named because when Nana said the bear was "fuzzy" Aedan, then 2, piped up in a deadpan, "No, Nana, root beer is fuzzy. The bear is fizzy.") 
She had become quite a capable little knitter by the end of the teddy bear sweater, casting on and off herself for the last pieces, and doing all the sewing up and tucking in of loose ends herself to finish the project. Later on Friday, when the Keepers had left, some serious silliness transpired.  |
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| Posted by Sora at 7 : 04 pm | Leave a note {3} | ||
| SABBATH JOY
First Baptist church of Interlaken asked pastor not to preach today, so he had no sermon prepared for the little church in Valois either. He asked Matt to fill in and Matt recycled a sermon on Noah. The fact that Pastor did not have to rush off to get to Interlaken by 11:00 after the 9:00 a.m. Valois service became a cause for celebration. His daughter Linnea was visiting from Ohio with her husband and four children, swelling the tiny congregation. Matt and I had brought some food along with us, planning to lunch and visit with the Gertzens after church. Brenda Gertzen mixed up a huge batch of fresh-ground whole wheat waffles and between us we spread out a feast for 11 adults and 10 children. Then the children played upstairs while the adults sang and prayed together. It was a little glimpse of what this church ought to be like every week. Lord, may it be so. On our way home we realized that it was free Sunday at the newly remodeled Ithaca Sciencenter so we stopped and let the kids have a ball for a few hours. All in all the day had gone just swimmingly until... |
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| Posted by Sora at 5 : 21 pm | Leave a note {0} | ||
| THE PROVERBIAL SPILLED MILK
Since we got our van, we've puzzled over the fact that the rear windshield wiper only seems to work intermitantly. Today Matt discovered the reason. "Hey, honey, did you realize that you can open just the rear window instead of the whole liftgate?" I had not realized. By turning the key to the left, you can make the wiper jump off the rear window and the window can then be opened to give access to the back of the van. We had been driving around for weeks on end with the wipers in "open the window" position, oblivious to the fact that, as Matt put it, "It's not a problem, it's a feature!" Flushed with the exitement of this new discovery, someone decided to put the cooler into the back of the van through the top when we picked up our farm-fresh milk. It rested precariously on top of the portable crib, above the mesh that stretches across the bottom back of the van to keep things from falling out if they've shifted position during the drive. Needless to say, on our arrival home, when someone else, trying to be helpful, not imagining for a moment that anyone would fail to place a large, heavily laden cooler squarely on the floor of the vehicle, opened the liftgate -- the fall of that cooler was great. Two gallons of rich, creamy, raw organic Jersey milk all over the muddy parking lot. |
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| Posted by Sora at 5 : 09 pm | Leave a note {0} | ||
| February 28 2003 | ||
| SIDEBAR UPDATES
I'm deleting the "books I'm reading aloud to Talia and Aedan" section on my sidebar. It is too much of a hassle to log in to upsaid and change it every couple of days. I wouldn't mind going weeks on end with books listed on the sidebar that we finished reading long ago. Talia, however, nags me every time she sees me with my blog page open. "Mommy, we're not reading ANY of those books now." I'm folding under her relentless pressure to present our reading list accurately and keep it up to date. |
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| Posted by Sora at 8 : 17 am | Leave a note {1} | ||
| CALVIN'S COMMENTARIES
Rick's intended bought him a set of Calvin commentaries for his birthday. When we were courting, Matt couldn't pass up a wonderful deal on Calvin's commentaries. They arrived on his doorstep the week the kids and I flew out east to meet his family. During that week, (after accepting the proposal with which he managed to surprise me despite the fact that we'd already booked a church in Victoria for two months later) I made him sit down and plan a budget for the fall. On my return to Victoria, he emailed me and said, "After looking at that budget again, I've decided to return the commentaries. I have access to Cornell's library. I can get any book I want and keep it for 6 months, free. I just can't justify keeping them right now." A few days later, I got another email. "I can't do it. I can't send them back. I sold a bunch of classics books to my room-mate to cover the cost of the commentaries so I don't feel guilty about it." The commentaries now look suitably impressive on our bookshelves and he says he hasn't missed the classics books at all. |
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| Posted by Sora at 8 : 13 am | Leave a note {2} | ||
| February 27 2003 | ||
| DAUGHTERS
This morning Talia had already taken her clothes into the bathroom to get dressed when she saw what I was wearing. She took the skirt and top she'd chosen back to her dresser and appeared in the kitchen a few minutes later, dressed in an entirely different outfit: "Look mommy. We match. Except that your shirt has that pattern on it, and mine doesn't." "Why so we do! I'm even wearing white socks to match your white tights. We match except that my shirt has this pattern, and your shirt is a turtleneck." "And you're a lot taller than me." "And a lot fatter." "And your hair is much shorter and you're wearing a headcovering and I'm not." "But apart from that people might think we were twins." "MOMMY!" (She seemed to think this last statement quite amusing and ridiculous.) My sons are great, but they do not identify with me. Zek'l has made it clear on numerous occasions that if I did not have breasts he couldn't be bothered to give me the time of day. Not so Talia. The matching clothing is of course just one readily observable outworking of her desire to be like Mommy. And I think it's great fun. When, after Zek'l was born, I began wearing skirts every day instead of jumpers (easier to nurse in), SHE wanted to wear skirts instead of jumpers. (I had to sew several because it is near-impossible to find skirts for 7 year olds in what we consider appropriate lengths.) Yesterday, the mailman brought our new swimsuits from Wholesome Wear (taking advantage of their off-season 20% discount). They match, of course.  |
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| Posted by Sora at 9 : 51 am | Leave a note {10} | ||
| February 24 2003 | ||
| OVERHEARD ABOVE THE CLICK OF LEGOS
"NO, Zek'l! Zek'l, YOU are breaking the tenth commandment. You... shall... not... covet!" (I wonder if this has anything to do with the poor child wandering around the house quietly saying, "No. Nyoooo. No," in his cute little toddler voice.) |
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| Posted by Sora at 9 : 04 am | Leave a note {2} | ||
| February 21 2003 | ||
| HEY, MOM, HAVE YOU HEARD THIS ONE BEFORE?
This is a rose legend found in a gardening column by one Sandy Carter, who says she found it in "a neat little book called How We Got Our Flowers by a Mr. Anderson." Aparently the rose was used as an emblem of secrecy dating from 479 B.C. when the Greeks defeated Xerxes, king of Persia. The Greeks planned their strategy in greatest secrecy under a bower of roses near the Temple of Minerva. As a result the Rose became one of the chief motifs in the carvings above confessionals and apartments where influential people met to transact matters of importance, as a reminder that the confidences received there should not be repeated elsewhere, but were in fact sub rosa. Don't tell anyone I told you. |
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| Posted by Sora at 9 : 04 pm | Leave a note {3} | ||
| TEACHING READING
This is probably going to be a long one, since I have strong opinions about teaching children to read. (Small sarcastic voice inserts, "Really, Sora, what don't you have strong opinions about?") I've recently updated my thoughts about preparing toddlers and preschoolers to be voracious booklovers, and early reading instruction for young children, on our family web page; I won't repeat myself. This will primarily be review of and reflections on the newly released fifth edition of Romalda Spalding's book The Writing Road to Reading. My copy arrived today from buy.com (much less expensive than Amazon.) I am very thankful to Leslie Dayman for introducing me to the Spalding method when Talia was four years old. (Leslie and her husband Bruce also threw theological writings at me as fast as I could devour them when I was a new convert; and Bruce suggested Schlissel's matchmaking service and provided oversight for our courtship. Many seeds that they planted are now bearing fruit in the Colvin household.) Leslie pointed me in the right direction, and I became a zealous convert, losing no opportunity thereafter to share the good word with other homeschooling mothers (especially those whose children were struggling with learning to read). To my disappointment, few took interest; of at least a dozen homeschool moms I've introduced the Spalding method to, I know of only two who responded gladly with an eager, "This is what I've been looking for all these years!" To the rest, perhaps, it seemed like too much trouble. The WRTR seems to have a bad rep in the homeschooling community in this regard. It requires a significant investment in teacher time to learn how to teach using the Spalding method. So much so that over the years, several "companion programs" and quite a few "Spalding imitators" have been published, all intended to make this process easier. These vary considerably in their quality and useability. In the previous (4th) edition, Mrs. Spalding recommended a teacher training course of at least 40 hours to prepare school teachers to use her method in the classroom. For those who were unable to attend such a course, she suggested spending at least that much time studying the book. Busy homeschooling moms like to be able to just pick something up and use it without prior study and preparation. Too, the Spalding method has an elegant efficiency -- almost a sparseness -- that lacks appeal for those accustomed to bells and whistles. I would guess it took me at least 40 hours of working with the Spalding method to become thoroughly familiar and comfortable with it -- but that time was spent teaching, not just studying, over the course of several months, thanks to Jay Patterson's Reading Works, an invaluable resource that I recommend without qualification. I began reading on homeschooling generally, including reading pedagogy, before Talia was born. By the time that she was four years old and very eager to be reading, I was already extremely frustrated with the methods and programs that I had seen. Even the supposedly phonics-based programs I looked over were disappointing. They were disorganized and inconsistent. They frequently incorporated methods or assumptions borrowed from the "whole language" or "look-say" methods. They gave the impression that the English language did not make sense. They taught multiple, arbitrary, consonant blends as if they were discrete phonemes. They neglected to teach less commonly encountered digraphs. They taught only one of the sounds made by vowels or diphthongs that may say one of two, or three, or more possibly sounds. They taught spelling "rules" that were as full of holes as a colander. They taught phonetically regular words that didn't fit their limited conception of "phonics" as "sight words." There is no excuse for publishing such nonsense and calling it "phonics". Not when The Writing Road to Reading has been in print since 1957. There were no frills in the fourth edition of the WRTR, but after years of searching for a logical method of teaching reading, I could not help but get excited about a multisensory system of explicit, sequential, and cumulative phonics instruction based on linguistically correct phonemes representing minimal speech units. As I progressed with Talia through the spelling rules and the spelling list I was astounded to discover that not only phonics, but orthography as well, made sense. Being a highly visual learner who read extensively, I never had difficulty with spelling as a child. Words just looked right (or not). But no one had ever suggested to me that there were discernable rules and patterns behind correct spelling. Indeed, the impression I had was that many spellings were entirely arbitrary and irrational. The Writing Road to Reading -- with Patterson's Reading Works, which helped put the pieces together for me -- was a revelation. Taught with this method, Talia has never questioned whether to use ie or ei in her writing or spelling. Or had to lean on the tired, "i before e, except after c, or when sounding like a as in neighbor or weigh" (unless, of course, you happen to be a foreign sovereign or a counterfeiter.) Why didn't someone give me the answers to the questions about language that I didn't think to ask when I was seven? Okay, I promised to review the new edition of the book. Revised extensively by Mary North, the fifth edition has jumped to 470 pages (from 288 previously). All the material has been reorganized in an attempt to make the method more accessible to the teacher. Additions that I am delighted to see:
All of Mrs. Spalding's original material, which was written in a very laconic style (everything you needed was there, but it was never repeated more than once!), has been supplemented with instructions and sample dialogues to help the new teacher. This new material is of much less interest to me because I am already conversant with the program. The added material on grammar and composition instruction will be useful, however. It is hard for me to judge whether the revision actually makes the material more accesible to the novice teacher. I have been using Spalding almost daily for several years, so I'm too close to it. I have also come to know my fourth edition WRTR very well and so some of the rearrangement of the material is disconcerting. The fact that this 5th edition seeks to explicitly spell out things that were only infered in earlier editions, and which Spalding method teachers tended to pick up from workshops or companion programs, will likely make it easier to use the book alone and without supplement, making this a very economical program ($13.82 PPD from buy.com plus paper, pencils, and notebooks covers all your language arts instruction for an unlimited number of children for K-6.) Companion programs, including Reading Works, refer -- frequently -- to particular page numbers of the 4th edition of the WRTR. The total revision and rearrangement of the new edition makes all of these page references obsolete (though the material refered to should still be present.) However, the step-by-step sequential organization of Reading Works, combined with the ease of finding your place in the spelling list with the improved organization of the new edition of the WRTR, mean that while it will be somewhat less convenient, Reading Works can still be used with the new edition. I would not recommend that homeschoolers use the new edition alone, for several reasons. First, the WRTR has always been geared to the classroom situation. This seems to me to be even more evident in the new edition, with its many pages of new material to help the classroom teacher implement the method. Jay Patterson is a classroom teacher, but he is also a homeschooling father and his guide is very homeschool friendly. I frankly prefer the style of the scripts and "sample dialogues" for teaching instruction that Patterson offers to the ones in the new WRTR. This may be just a personal preference, but I do not feel like I could take the new WRTR's scripts and phrases into my one-on-one teaching of my kids the way I did with Patterson's -- and the kids love his jokes and mnemonic devices. I will quote each sample dialogue for analysis of the first word in the spelling list, the word "me", for comparison: The WRTR: Second, I believe that Patterson has made subtle but important improvements in both writing instruction and the teaching of the multiple-letter phonograms, over the original Spalding method, and these improvements are not reflected in the new edition of the WRTR. Patterson's use of dotted-line penmanship paper, as well as his extremely explicit instruction for orienting a child to the page and for letter formation, are in my opinion extremely beneficial for the young child just learning to form letters. I have also had many occasions to be very thankful for Patterson's mnemonically catchy names for many of the multiple letter phonograms, especially those incorporating spelling rules into the phonogram name or helping to differentiate a phonogram from another that makes the same sound. Lastly, the teaching tips on Patterson's "Legal Definitions" and "Multiples" flashcards are invaluable (and often delightfully humorous as well). I would use these two sets of flashcards before beginning the Ayres list, in preference to the relevant material in either edition of WRTR. Third, I would not want to be without the additions that Patterson has made to the spelling notebook pages, which are not incorporated in the new edition of the WRTR. For example, Patterson's "page three side two" includes 9 /ei/ words that are not listen in the "exceptions" column in the WRTR. I want my kids to know how to spell surfeit, weir, seismograph, and kaleidoscope. In the revision of the WRTR, the phonogram /gh/ (as in ghost, not a silent /gh/ -- silent /gh/ is always taught as part of a phonogram, such as /igh/, /eigh/, or /ough/ in the WRTR) has been moved from the list of the basic 70 phonograms and added to the new page of "rare phonograms". It has been replaced in the basic list with /gu/ (as in guitar, guess, guest, anguish, etc.). This was probably a good move. Reading Works places both /gh/ and /gu/ in the rare phonogram category but adds /tch/ -- which the new WRTR lists on the "rare phonograms" page -- to the basic list of 70. Will they find more latches, matches, kitchens, and butchers in their reading than they will guitars, guesses, guests, and anguish? A hard call. I'd say that either /tch/ or /gu/ trump the original list's /gh/, but my kids are going to encounter all three in their reading before we get to point in the spelling list at which the "rare phonograms" are introduced. I guess even this stellar method hasn't attained perfection yet. |
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| Posted by Sora at 1 : 03 am | Leave a note {5} | ||
| February 20 2003 | ||
| A REPRIEVE
The last two days have been bright, sunny, and above freezing. The heaps of snow in our yard are delightfully "packy" and the kids have been creating impressive structures with them. Today we all went for a walk before supper in the woods behind our apartments, with Zek'l riding delightedly in the baby backpack on Matt's back and making "giddy-up" motions. There were mosquitos in the woods! We're scratching our heads wondering where they came from. It's been warm the last few days, but not that warm. Anyway, the pleasant weather is a nice change. We need to enjoy in while we can; it will get bitter cold and grey and miserable again before spring comes. And then we'll have two weeks of mud before the summer heat and humidity hit. |
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| Posted by Sora at 6 : 56 pm | Leave a note {0} | ||
| DOES THIS MEAN I HAVE TO BE A "SOCCER MOM"?
Zek'l has been fascinated with balls for quite some time. We have half a dozen rubber balls ranging from tennis-ball size to bigger-than-he-is in a bin in Talia and Aedan's room, and he likes to go in there and bring one or more out to play with. He throws them (or better, gets someone else to throw them) and chases them around the apartment. But since yesterday he's learned how to kick the balls. He's dribbling them all over the living room. I've never seen anything like it. The boy is only 13 months old. His older siblings weren't even walking yet at his age, much less kicking balls around. |
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| Posted by Sora at 6 : 52 pm | Leave a note {5} | ||
| February 18 2003 | ||
| WHAT A HELPER!
Talia was cleaning up the kitchen after lunch, and while she was so occupied Zek'l took it upon himself to put away her pile of clean, folded laundry. Unfortunately, he put it away in the chest where we keep kitchen towels, placemats, and tableclothes. |
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| Posted by Sora at 1 : 41 pm | Leave a note {2} | ||
| February 17 2003 | ||
| WINTER
Enough already. I don't generally mind winter. I can't remember another winter that has really gotten to me, and I've lived mostly in cold and snowy places (Toronto, Ottawa, Montreal, Ithaca...) But I am very ready for this winter to be over. I hope that by next winter we'll be living somewhere with a fireplace. And a garden. February snowstorms ought to be spent in front of a fireplace, looking through seed catalogues. |
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| Posted by Sora at 5 : 21 pm | Leave a note {8} | ||
| KINGDOM SONGS
There was an initial flurry of orders when I first released the CD, but things have slowed down since then. Since I do not have the time or inclination to do heavy marketing to the Christian homeschooling community, I am now trying to find wholesale buyers. Because we went over budget on the production costs -- mostly because of inexperience, this was my first time producing a CD or publishing a book -- I am not making much profit on wholesale sales. But if I can move the stock quickly I'll be able to make back our costs, pay Matt's dad back the production loan, and maybe do another CD (which is much more interesting to me than marketing the one I've already done.) I've had one big wholesale order and one "trial" one so far, amounting to about $600 worth of stock. The "trial" order is going to a convention in Dallas this weekend and if it sells well there, they will order more. So I am praying the CD sells well for them -- they have the potential to be a big customer! I am also sending out review copies to several other potential wholesale customers today. |
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| Posted by Sora at 11 : 34 am | Leave a note {4} | ||
| February 14 2003 | ||
| WHAT A DAY!
It is only the middle of the morning, but so far this has been one of those delightfully flawless days that crop up now and then to make me wonder why every day can't be so good. For one thing, it is Valentine's day. which makes a fine excuse to love your family in a unique and "holiday" manner, above and beyond the everyday humdrum usual love. Last year, I made a treasure hunt for the kids and Matt in which they had to work together to decode the clues on all three of their valentines in order to find the stash of Hershey's hugs and kisses. This set a precedent that I had to live up to (for the kids, anyway. :-). So, today, the kids woke up to find hand-made dried-flower and tissue-paper cards on their pillows, next to a little foil-wrapped chocolate heart. Inside the cards was the following bit of doggerel:
Hidden around the house were heart-shaped notes taped to chocolate bears for each of the kids: in Talia's violin case, in Aedan's lego bin (I don't think he's found that one yet), in their math books, in Talia's bible, in the dishwasher waiting for Aedan to empty and the dryer waiting for Talia to load, and so on. This had the unexpected effect of motivating Talia to read her bible and practice her violin even before breakfast. "I found another bear, mommy!' Consequently, she had finished all of her chores and her schoolwork except history and science by 10:30 and went out to play in the snow. (Aedan still has spelling and math to do when they come in.) There are days (those days that we seem to spend desperately trying to catch up to!) when we've barely started school by 10:30. And two loads of laundry had been done, bread put into the oven (I'm going to cut out sandwiches with heart-shaped cookie cutters for lunch), and initial preparations made for a veritable feast for supper. (Mushroom strudel and salad with a heart-shaped meringue, filled with strawberry sauce and cream, for dessert.) In the afternoon, the kids and I are going to a tea party at Deb's. Last night, while Frodo and Sam wearily dragged themselves across Mordor, Talia made beautiful valentines to give her friends this afternoon. We won't have to push some schoolwork off the schedule to make room for the tea party, as so often happens when we have afternoon social activities. We'll leave Matt dissertating in a clean and tidy house with supper all ready to pop in the oven as soon as we get home. Oh, and Aaedan read the first chapter of 1 John aloud to me today. He'll read it again, with great pride, when Daddy gets home: he can read God's word himself now and has earned his very own Bible. |
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| Posted by Sora at 11 : 09 am | Leave a note {4} | ||
| February 13 2003 | ||
HIS LATEST ACCOMPLISHMENT
Ezekiel has figured out how to put a pencil into the electric pencil sharpener (which is on top of a low shelf where the older kids can easily reach it, as they use it about 20 times a day.) He is thrilled to be able to make it "go." He laughs out loud and bounces up and down. In the last two days, he has sharpened more than one pencil down to uselessness. When the kids are doing their schoolwork, he hovers around, waiting for someone to put down a pencil so that he can snatch it up (unlike the sharpener, the pencils are kept out of his reach -- or supposed to be.) He particularly likes red pencils, which I use for correcting the kids' work and which they use for marking spelling words. If Talia or Aedan fails to guard a red pencil, Zek'l grabs it gleefully and makes off across the room (and then they have to chase him down and retrieve it, to his great distress.) This makes schoolwork considerably more interesting. |
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| Posted by Sora at 3 : 45 pm | Leave a note {2} | ||
| February 11 2003 | ||
| BLOG READING HAS BEEN SPARSE THE PAST WEEK
But now that everyone is trickling home from Moscow, things are picking up a bit. I must admit to being a bit puzzled though, as to why they billed it as a "history conference." In all the reports so far, I've seen barely a word about history. Oh well. As Matt just said, "You can use a matchmaker, or you can go to conferences." (And I add, "If you can't dance, you'd probably better use a matchmaker.) |
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| Posted by Sora at 12 : 54 pm | Leave a note {2} | ||
| February 07 2003 | ||
| THERE'S SOMETHING VERY PERVERSE
about a browser pop-up ad advertising a program that will eliminate pop-up ads. |
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| Posted by Sora at 7 : 11 pm | Leave a note {2} | ||
| GREATER LOVE HATH NO MAN THAN THIS
...that he let his one year old feed him. |
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| Posted by Sora at 6 : 59 pm | Leave a note {0} | ||
| MORE OF SAME
I appreciated all of what Matt called "sympathy comments". It's nice to know I have readers, even if none of my posts generate enough controversy to get 20 comments. The kids are still sick. Talia was disappointed when I cancelled her social activities for the afternoon, and tried valiantly to convince me that she was really well enough to go out, but a few minutes later she decided that maybe I was right after all. "I just feel like lying on the couch," she said. "Maybe I'll do some embroidery or knitting... lying down." She is now curled up asleep. Aedan is well enough to do a bit of schoolwork, but I doubt Tal will be doing much of anything but listening to me read aloud. Either one or both of them has been too sick to do school every day this week. Their usual productivity is really brought home to me when they're out of commission. I don't think I'd emptied either the drier or the dishwasher once during the last six months... until this week. Gregory, I have some thoughts about curriculum and child rearing at our family web page. Caveat -- our sample school schedule on that page is 18 months old and has been revised three times in the interim. Likewise, the notes on curriculum badly need updating, Maybe I'll work a bit on that today while the kids lie around like deflated balloons. |
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| Posted by Sora at 11 : 03 am | Leave a note {3} | ||
| February 06 2003 | ||
| THE WHIRLWIND TAMED
This may sound rather perverse, but I kind of enjoy it when Ezekiel is sick. Normally he is such a bundle of energy. He has an agenda. He is too busy to give me the time of day unless he wants to nurse, and then he is not only nursing but simultaneously pushing against me with his feet, writhing into strange gymnastic positions, or bopping my nose. Sitting still on a lap is tantamount to torture. If he is being held, the person holding him must be upright and moving. If he needs a nap, he makes himself obnoxious and, when put into his crib, protests vehemently, standing up holding the side and wailing until he collapses from sheer exhaustion. Yesterday, he emptied several shelves of their contents and made his way into the bathroom twice when his brother left the door open (his favorite place for mischeif making, being the home of the forbidden toilet and the even more forbidden diaper pail.) He got into several protracted battles of wills with me, refusing to understand, for instance, that I would allow him to have a drink in the kitchen but not to carry it into the carpeted living room. He managed to get into an off-limits-to-toddlers kitchen cupboard, empty the recylcing container, and get his hand stuck between the still partially attached (and sharp!) lid of a tin can and the inside of the can (amazingly, without cutting himself.) And minutes before supper he pulled half a gallon of milk off the kitchen table and spilled it all on the floor. But today Zek'l has whatever bug has been doing the rounds here. He's running a fever and is completely deflated. He spent much of the morning cuddling on my lap -- without trying to poke a finger into my mouth or nose, without pulling my shirt up, without struggling to get down and play. He actually fell asleep on my lap for what I think must be the first time since he was about three months old. And when I put him in his crib, he woke up, blinked a few times, and then went back to sleep without protest. It's a nice change to have him subdued and snuggly. |
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| Posted by Sora at 2 : 34 pm | Leave a note {1} | ||
| February 05 2003 | ||
| TAKE MY DICTATION
Matt looked up from his painful German reading to tell me a funny anecdote about his Latin class. "Hey, that's worth blogging. Blog it for me, will you?" (I was sitting at the computer at the time.) "Take my dictation." "Well, if I'm doing the typing, can I at least put it on my blog?" "Why would you want do that? It has nothing to do with you, it's about my Latin class." "Because, honey, I am insanely jealous of all the blog comments you get. That's why." Matt shook his head at me. "You have no one to blame but yourself. If you blogged about theology, people would comment. Who wants to comment on cute kid pictures?" |
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| Posted by Sora at 3 : 12 pm | Leave a note {7} | ||
| February 03 2003 | ||
| NOT MUCH TO SAY
My apologies to my loyal readers who have been checking my blog this past week. It has been busy, and somewhat stressful (see Matt's blog) and I haven't had much time or inclination to post anything. I can always fill up some space with cute kid pictures, however, such as this one: 
and it is only fair to give the older kids some space on the blog too. 
Zek'l is quite comical when he sees pictures of himself on the computer screen. He points and gesticulates and makes loud, excited, and incomprehensible comments. |
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| Posted by Sora at 7 : 52 pm | Leave a note {2} | ||
| January 26 2003 | ||
| THE GATEKEEPER
I have been granted exciting new powers for the coming week. Matt feels the need to get some serious dissertating done, and internet theology takes up way too much of his time. So until next Sunday, he will get on the computer only 1. to type on his final dissertation chapter 2. if I tell him that a particular email demands his attention sooner than next Sunday 3. if I tell him that a particular blog entry is not to be missed (actually, I'll probably just link the not-to-be-missed entried from other blogs on my own and he can catch up at the end of the week.) It will be interesting to see if this works... |
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| Posted by Sora at 7 : 53 pm | Leave a note {4} | ||
| SOME QUOTES
Matt on the number of comments I made on this post: "You're just attracted to those lifestyle-legalism topics like a moth to a candle, aren't you?" Talia, preparing to write her name, address and phone number on the tag on the case of her new1/4-size rental violin: "I'm putting my significance on it." Aedan, on the phone with his grandmother, who was complaining that I hadn't sent any pictures of the older two kids in a long time, "Yes, you won't recognize me next time you see me. You see, I've grown 50 heads since then." Ezekiel, on fishing a closed-eyed baby doll out of a bin in the big kids room: "Ba. Nap." Matt, on hearing from pastor during the potluck after church that this will be the first time in thirteen years that church members don't gather at pastor's house to watch the Super Bowl: "Oh. When is the Super Bowl, anyway?" Talia, during family vocal music lessons: "Breath with your diagram, Aedan!" Zek'l, crawling around under the kitchen table: "Bum." |
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| Posted by Sora at 7 : 46 pm | Leave a note {1} | ||
| January 22 2003 | ||
| 30 YEARS
Doug Phillips, Phil Lancaster, and R.C. Sproul Jr. onour national sin. Also Frederica Mathewes-Green with a slightly different take on the issue (from Gideon Strauss.) |
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| Posted by Sora at 9 : 10 pm | Leave a note {0} | ||
| GOOD SIGNS THAT THERE'S A TODDLER IN THE HOUSE
Rubber ducks swimming in the toilet and half a roll of t.p. strewn across the floor. |
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| Posted by Sora at 11 : 53 am | Leave a note {2} | ||
| January 21 2003 | ||
| MORE ON PAEDOCOMMUNION
No one has given their opinion on the original question I asked yet, but my post on paedocommunion yesterday has led to a more lengthy discussion of paedocommunion generally on Nikkiana's blog. |
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| Posted by Sora at 1 : 30 pm | Leave a note {0} | ||
| ZEK'L's BIRTHDAY
was on Saturday. I didn't blog about it then because Upsaid was having glitches. It had been a busy week, and was the day before Matt's big scary debate with the Baptist, so we didn't have a big to-do, but he did get the requisite cake: 
This is the most amusing of about 8 pictures of him from the time we set the cake in front of him (Aedan blew out the candle) until he was pretty much covered in chocolate (we did take the whole cake away and replace it with just one piece, so that others could enjoy it as well. He was heartbroken when we took the pan away -- "What? You changed your mind? I thought it was mine!") This cake is the best busy-day cake I know. It is a variation on "wacky cake" or "6-minute cake" (we add frozen cherries to the batter,and they add a LOT) and takes almost no effort at all. Cleaning up the baby afterwards took more time than making and cleaning up from the cake. And Talia can make it as well as I can in only twice the time. ______________________ Zek'l's Birthday Cake: Preheat oven to 375. In an ungreased 9-inch round cake pan, mix 1 1/2 cups flour 1/3 cup unsweetened cocoa powder 1 tsp baking soda 1 cup sugar In a large (2- or 4-cup) measuring cup, mix 1/2 cup vegetable oil 1 cup cold water 2 tsps vanilla Pour the liquid ingredients into the pan. Mix with a fork until batter is smooth. Then add 2 Tbs vinegar 1/2 a 1 lb package of dark sweet frozen cherries Mix until vinegar is evenly distributed and pop immediately into oven. (Wash your fork and measuring cup.) Bake about half an hour, until a toothpick inserted in the middle of the cake comes out clean. Allow to cool in the pan. When the cake is cool, ice with slightly sweetened whipped cream (1 cup heavy cream, 1 Tbs sugar, 1 tsp vanilla). Present to baby and take pictures. _________________________ We also made Zek'l a book of pictures of himself, telling about his first year of life, his likes and dislikes, and the people in his family. Actually, I still need to cover the pages with clear contact paper and bind it so that it can join his collection of board books without fear of damage. But it is already clear that this will be one of his favorite books for some time to come. 
In the week before his birthday, Zek'l finally decided that crawling was less efficient than walking. He took his first steps about two months ago but would only walk to someone or between two piece of furniture, finding crawling easier over long distances. Now he never crawls anywhere anymore. I think that hanging out with Bailey while we were in Louisiana motivated him to walk more too. |
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| Posted by Sora at 9 : 09 am | Leave a note {5} | ||
| January 20 2003 | ||
| QUESTION FOR PAEDOCOMMUNIONISTS
Well, really for paedocommunionists who actually currently have babies or toddlers, and who currently attend churches where your young'uns are allowed to come to the table. (Wait a minute, that rules out almost everyone, doesn't it. Ok, never mind, anyone can put their two cents in.) What would you do if you moved to an area where there were no paedocommunionist churches and had to take a very young child who was accustomed to recieving the supper to a church where he or she were barred from the table? (Eating and drinking is the one part of the worship a not-yet-talking child can really participate in -- and they know that -- and they WANT to!) When I was living in Victoria, the choice was between a PCA church plant (of the Mission to North America cookie-cutter variety) and a "spirit-filled" (but paedocommunionist) Reformed Episcopal church where the pastors wife preached about her charismatic visions. Since then, our kids have been fortunate not to have been in any churches where they were barred from the table (the Ithaca PCA had a very low bar for credo-communion, and we left it before Zek'l was born; the other churches we regularly attend -- Niagara RPC (FORC) in Buffalo; Reformation Lutheran in Bowie, MD; and even (go figure) First Baptist in Interlaken -- all welcome them to the table.) Thinking about our church possibilities for next year (not that we know where we'll be next year) is really worrisome. I read Jon's account of Ethan's first communion and thought about Zek'l reaching eagerly for the bread and grape juice (they are Baptists, after all) last night (he sure thinks it's for him!). I would have a very, very hard time coming to the Table in a fellowship where my children (any or all of them) were excluded. Pastor Selin was over to our house for dinner a few months ago and Matt mentioned to him that Schlissel gives kids in his church candy after the service ("to make the Sabbath a celebration for them in terms they can understand.") Of course, Matt added, he doesn't give them the Supper. I asked Talia and Aedan which they'd rather have, candy and no communion or communion and no candy. No prompting, no hesitation at all, they both said, "Communion and no candy." Last night, after Matt's debate with Dr. Mason, I was trying to explain the credobaptist position to Talia and Aedan. Talia asked me, "Well, what if you said all those things [professed faith] when you were three years old?" "They might think a three year old wasn't old enough to really understand what they were saying," I said. "What if you were five?" Aedan asked. (Dr. Mason had told me shortly before that my five-year-old's "parroting" Heidelberg One would not be enough to earn him a dunking.) "They might believe a five year old, but then they might think a five year old was too young too." "What if you were eleven?" asked Aedan. "Yeah, they'd probably believe an eleven-year old." "What if you were seven?" asked Talia. The fact is, kids brought up like ours are are going to start professing as soon as they can talk. What Biblical standard will our credo-baptist (and credo-communionist) brethren use to decide when to start believing them? |
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| Posted by Sora at 2 : 59 pm | Leave a note {4} | ||
| January 16 2003 | ||
| LINGUISTS (LIKE TALIA)
will appreciate this neat animation showing the development of the alphabet. (Linked from Language Hat, via Gideon Strauss.) |
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| Posted by Sora at 7 : 02 pm | Leave a note {1} | ||
| January 15 2003 | ||
| JOHN BARACH IS BACK
And has blogged about the AAPC. In describing the conference and his talk, he is noticeably silent about his own longwindedness. I guess it didn't seem longwinded after the previous Sunday's marathon? Or maybe the length of his blog post renders such comment unneccessary. Not that I'm complaining -- any post on his blog, and especially a long one, is read eagerly around here -- and we appreciated all he said ("If I could just have a few more minutes...") at the conference. The theology-mongers among us may be disappointed that John has more to say about those he met in his travels, than he does about what was said at the AAPC. For my part, my main regret about the conference was that we did not have more time to spend sitting in Duane and Sarah's living room, talking theology and singing psalms. Why else would anyone want to go to a conference? |
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| Posted by Sora at 9 : 25 pm | Leave a note {0} | ||
| A LONG OVERDUE SIDEBAR UPDATE
Every time Talia saw my blog up on the computer screen she would say, "Mommy, we finished those books MONTHS ago!" So I finally got around to making the sidebar more accurate. Added a bunch of new links, that were also mostly long overdue. No point in pretending I only read four or five blogs. Might as well just admit it, that blogosphera has got me in its' clutches (though my list i'nt nearly as long as Valerie's... yet.) |
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| Posted by Sora at 9 : 03 pm | Leave a note {2} | ||
| January 14 2003 | ||
| NICE TRY, BUD
Scene: The kitchen, after breakfast. Mommy is standing next to the sink. Mommy (calling offstage): Aedan! Aedan comes running into the room. Aedan: Yes, Mommy? Mommy: Are you the dishes helper this week? Aedan: Yes, I am. Mommy: What does the dishes helper need to do after a meal? Aedan: Clear the table. And wipe it. Mommy: Get to it, please. Aedan (thoughtfully): But it's really too big a job, for someone who's sick. I might collapse on the floor and break a plate. |
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| Posted by Sora at 9 : 16 am | Leave a note {7} | ||
| January 13 2003 | ||
| MORE ON COURTSHIP
Dordting, eh? Would that be hitting your significant other over the head with a hardbound copy of the Three Forms of Unity until they become a Calvinist and decide courtship is better than dating? The name seems to imply a combination of the best features of courtship and dating. Matt and I may be wild-eyed extremists, but we don't really think dating has any good features. (No offense intended to those of you who met your spouse that way and have pleasant dating memories.) So dourting doesn't really have much appeal, though it sounds cool. Mike had some questions about my previous courtship blog, which I will do my best to answer: 1. How do two young people follow this model if the parents are completely clueless in regard to courtship? They just muddle along as best they can. The fact that they are trying to follow the courtship model on their own (without the parents being the driving force behind it) indicates a desire to honor God and neighbor as they seek a spouse, so whatever they come up with will probably be better than the-world's-model dating. In our case, my parents are not only not courtship-savvy, they are not Christians. I asked an older couple from my church who knew me well and who I respected to oversee things and act as my "convenant heads." They probably didn't do things the same way Matt and I will with our daughter(s) -- a little more active chaperoning would not have been amiss -- but it was much better than having no oversight at all. Matt bounced everything off his parents, including the initial decision to use a matchmaker, telling his father that, "As far as I can see, dating has been 100% unsuccessful so far." They were very supportive. They would never have pressed courtship on him, but, like most parents, were quite willing to dispense advise when asked. 2. What happens in modern times when a small section of the church (or the population) has heard of courtship, or even practices it. This doesn't really strike me as a problem, at least as regards availability of potential mates. Not only is the admittedly small pool of "courtship practicers" available, but members of the larger pool of "daters" can potentially be converted on a case-by-case basis. :-) Except that (to use Talia as an example) a young man won't be getting to know our daughter by dating her in order to determine whether she's the one for him. He'll have get to know the whole family in a much less emotionally charged context in order for him to determine whether he's serious enough about pursuing her to get formal permission, and for her daddy to decide whether he's prepared to grant it. Anyone who is so virulently anti-courtship as to be unwilling to do this probably wouldn't make a good husband for her. Anyway, the last thing we want is Talia mentally running down a checklist when she meets a guy, and worrying about whether or not he's heard of courtship. It's not her problem. If a young man makes a serious overture, she's to refer him politely to her father. If he makes a non-serious overture, he's to be politely rebuffed. Our sons will probably be on the lookout for possible wives in a more active manner than our daughter, but they must do this looking with the utmost respect for the fact that (to quote Doug Wilson) the young women they meet are not singles but daughters. Whether or not she's heard of courtship, a young woman's attitude toward her father's authority should be of great interest to our hypothetical wife-seeking son, as it is a fair indicator of how she'll relate to her husband. 3. (Asking as a future father) How do you keep your daughter from falling for a guy when young people can meet up so easily (e.g. the store, library, etc...), even outside of church? I don't imagine y'all have had to deal with this with Talia, but how will you guys go about it? Practically, making it a part of your life and not simply vague "guidelines". Well, there isn't really anything you can do to keep your daughter from falling for a guy. Even locking her in a tower in the middle of nowhere is liable to backfire. But speaking as one who was fairly recently on the other side of this (single, and greatly desirous of marriage), there is a lot that a daughter can do to guard her heart until her father has given a particular man permission to try to win it. As parents, we hope to inspire Talia (and any other daughters the Lord gives us) to want to do this, and also teach her, practically, how to do it. We won't forbid her to speak to young men, but we will try to institute guidelines for decorum. There is much legitimate interaction that can be had with Christian brethren that does not involve flirtation, fantasizing about spousal possibilities, or questionable conduct. This is not too different from the "rules" of decorum Matt and I have for relating to those of the opposite sex to whom we're not married -- not because of any doubt about each other's fidelity, but because having such rules in place is a protective measure to prevent the opportunity for doubts to arise. (Isn't it interesting how much more obvious the standard seems to be, for married people than for not-yet-married people? This seems to me to point to a serious deficiency in how we view pre-marital conduct.) Certainly, we haven't had to deal with her "meeting up with" other young people yet -- she's seven and a half. But we are actively planting important ideas in her mind -- the precious exclusivity of the marriage relationship, the importance of ordering all our dealings with others according to God's Word, the fact that God has placed her under a father's authority for her protection and blessing and desires her to trust and respect that authority, and so on. We make it clear that these are not ideas we've come up with on our own, but point her continually to God's Word as inerrant and sufficient (and indeed, we've seen ample evidence of her thinking in Biblical categories.) (BTW, The Princess and the Kiss is an charming picture book that does an excellent job of helping to plant some of these ideas at a very young age.) We also have the story of our own family to draw upon, and a very nice antithetical picture it makes too: the results of doing things the world's way clearly illustrated in my relationship (before conversion) with Talia and Aedan's biological father... and God was so very blatant about having His hand on our courtship. As she gets older, we'll have to build on that foundation, and add to it. She will have to understand that a young man who starts flirting with her at the store, the library (or even a Christian convention) is circumventing her father's authority (and that if she flirts back, she is flouting it.) She will probably have to rehearse and practice how to deal with unsolicited male attention and how to use Daddy (whether or not he's actually present) or brothers (if they are around and he isn't) to deflect it. But most important, she will have to want her first love, untainted by previous memories, involvements, or flirtations, to go to the man she marries, and she will have to conduct herself accordingly. |
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| Posted by Sora at 8 : 37 pm | Leave a note {4} | ||
| January 12 2003 | ||
| IN THE 48 HOURS WE'VE OWNED OUR VAN
...we've already put 700 miles on it. Maryland to Ithaca yesterday, and then today we made the trip to Niagara RPC in Buffalo for church. We almost turned back half-an-hour into the trip because of snow blowing across Route 34, but once we got to I-90 everything was clear and the trip was uneventful. Eating nachos in the kitchen an hour ago, I said to Matt, "I am so tired." "It was a tiring day," he admitted. "It was worth it though. We got the Lord's Supper." The drive was indeed worth it, and I am glad we went. But it does not seem right to have to drive 3 hours each way to get to a reformed and paedocommunionist church. |
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| Posted by Sora at 8 : 24 pm | Leave a note {0} | ||
| PRECARIOUS AND PRECIOUS
We got home yesterday, and I read Deb Miller's blog for the first time this year. I was shaken. While we've been away south, the lives of our friends at home in Tompkins County have been defined by ice and snow and sudden death. Though I did not know either of the two families, these accidents are too close. I know their friends. I drive past their churches. Only a few weeks ago our car skidded off the snowy road and we all walked away unhurt. It is heartbreaking to think of the grieving families and sobering to realize how little we know the number of our days. |
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| Posted by Sora at 8 : 16 pm | Leave a note {1} | ||
| January 07 2003 | ||
| FULL AND EXHAUSTING DAYS
I'm exhausted. Staying up talking theology until after 1:00 a.m. last night and then getting up before 7:00 may have a little something to do with that. But it's been a very full day. Actually, make that a very full week. I've just put Zek'l and Bailey to bed and am relaxing while Matt, Duane, and Sarah listen to Pipa and Wilkins face off at Auburn Avenue PCA. (Sarah stayed with the kids this afternoon so I could hear Schlissel and RC Jr. This morning we both stayed home getting ready for the blogger's luncheon while our husbands went to the conference.) Last Monday -- the day before we drove to Maryland -- I woke up at 4:00 a.m. feeling sick and wretched and was useless for almost 24 hours (Matt dragged me out of bed to lie on the couch and tell him what to pack.) In the wee morning hours on Wednesday (and for the rest of the day as well) Aedan was miserably sick, and Thursday, it was Matt's turn (Talia aparently escaped.) It was not a good start to our trip. Friday Matt, Zek'l, and I flew to New Orleans. Matt was still feeling shaky though he could eat again and he was annoyed at having lost a day of preparation for the paper he was to give at the APA and for job interviews. Friday morning before we left he went to the barber for a beard trim (he says he asked them to take off half an inch) and returned unrecognizably shorn (they didn't even LEAVE half an inch.) I was not amused. The flight was uneventful, got in on time shortly after 6:30. We had problems with the rental car -- after struggling for half an hour to install the car seat and loading all our bags, the lights were broken and we had to switch cars -- and arrived at our hotel, starving, with a very tired baby, at about 10:00 p.m. Matt did not sleep at all -- thinking too much about the interviews and his talk. I'm afraid I had more fun in New Orleans than he did. Zek'l and I spent Saturday afternoon exploring New Orleans while Matt was at the APA. We rode the free passenger ferry across the Mississippi and watched pelicans placidly floating along in the brownest water I've ever seen. (I was also impressed by the size and amount of shipping on the river that afternoon -- more so later when I learned from a historical marker that a ship actually lost power and crashed into the Riverwalk shopping center several years ago.) We walked around Algiers and the Vieux Carre. We (accidentally) found ourselves on Bourbon St. (at about 2:00 in the afternoon) and found it loud and unpleasant. We were tempted to bring alligator heads and Mardi Gras masks home as souvenirs for Talia and Aedan but our better judgement prevailed. After Matt's interview with Northwestern University, we went out to dinner with Simon Burris, who was a Cornell grad a few years ahead of Matt and is now teaching at Luther College. It was fun to see Simon again and to see pictures of his adorable baby, Owen. We also took Simon with us to Redeemer PCA on Sunday morning. After the service, Betsy Ballard came up and introduced herself to me by saying, "I read your blog." As I hadn't seen hers before, that was somewhat disarming! Monday Matt had his Calvin interview and we drove up to Monroe. The Garners have been delightful hosts, I've met many internet acquaintances for the first time, and the parts of the conference that I've been to have been intellectually stimulating. But it has been a very exhausting week. I know I have blog comments to reply to but I'm not going to get to them until I'm back in Ithaca. And I can only imagine how much email I will have to wade through when we get home. |
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| Posted by Sora at 9 : 15 pm | Leave a note {3} | ||
| December 29 2002 | ||
| NOTES TO SELF ON COURTSHIP
If you as a parent are not certain whether a particular man is both worthy and suitable to be your daughter’s husband, she should not be giving her heart to him. It seems to me backwards and wrongheaded to allow a daughter to fall in love, and then decide whether or not to allow the young man to “court” her. He has already courted and won her, without your (formal) approval and consent. There remains only for you to act out a meaningless formality, or else to cause big trouble and broken hearts. I am thankful that before I had any contact with Matt, he was “scoped out” by people whom I trusted, who knew me, who knew what I wanted and needed in a husband, who had decades of experience and marriage behind them. I was given to understand that, as far as they could tell, he would be a good man for me to marry. It was understood, of course, that unforseeable conflicts might arise later, but he was “pre-approved” to the best of everyone’s knowledge at the time. I believe that if this “pre-approval” process is done carefully and responsibly, a courtship should rarely need to be halted later. Being madly in love clouds your judgement. It is to be hoped that, had my advisors become doubtful of Matt’s suitability after we had met and fallen in love, I would have listened to them and followed their advice. But it is not the usual way of young people in love to see the possible faults and problems that may become rifts and scars later. To follow such advice at that time would have been, at the least, painful and miserable – the very situation that courtship seeks to avoid. If you as a parent believe your daughter is not ready to be married, or will not become ready in the very near future, she should not be giving her heart to anyone. I am of the opinion that extended courtships and engagements (by which I mean, longer than the young couple wants) should generally be avoided. If the parents find themselves trying to slow down the courtship after it is underway, it probably indicates that they haven’t done their background work properly. If the parent then decides to withdraw approval (after pulling on the reins and saying “Whoah!” for a while), the consequence is that the couple has had more time to form a deep emotional attachment. If a lengthy wait before marriage is unavoidable, it should be characterized either by non-courtship (the young people do not act as if they are courting and are not given the opportunity to think of themselves as a couple until the possibility of marriage is much more imminent) or by formal appoval and commitment (ie. engagement – perhaps even a legal, civil marriage to be followed later by a church ceremony, consummation, and setting up of the new household.) This latter arrangement should only be entered into with great care, with the full agreement of the young people involved, and when a more immediate wedding is genuinely impossible. The emotional strain and temptations involved in being emotionally “married” to someone without being physically married should not be underestimated. Note to self: do not forget after decades of marriage what it was like not to be married yet. If you as a parent do not have your daughter’s complete trust and whole-hearted enthusiasm for courtship, it will not work. There is only so much the parents can do. They are limited, essentially, to laying down wise rules and guidelines for pre-marital behavior. Young people who are committed to chaste and godly pursuit of marriage will welcome and respect such guidelines if they are not overbearing and heavy-handed. Note to self: remember how easy it was to bend rules that were vague and only self-imposed! In general, a young man who has not yet been given permission to court your daughter should not be allowed to do anything with her that you (the mama) would not do with another woman’s husband. A young couple who are courting should clearly understand what is reserved for marriage and should be held accountable to an authority outside themselves. But a daughter who is following these guidelines reluctantly, who is dreaming about folding a man’s laundry and bearing his children while you’re still wondering what you think of him or trying to pretend she’s still a little girl, will not be protected by her parents’ embrace of courtship theories. As a parent, you can guide her behaviour, but you cannot guard her heart. You can only give her the tools to do so herself. To reap the benefits of covenantal protection and authority, a daughter (or wife) must actively submit to it. |
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| Posted by Sora at 11 : 15 pm | Leave a note {6} | ||
| December 19 2002 | ||
| I CAN'T DECIDE WHAT I THINK ABOUT THIS MOVIE
My parents got me the extended edition Fellowship of the Ring DVD set for my birthday, and it arrived two days ago. The packaging is very slick. Because Ezekiel sleeps in the office at night, we've moved the computer into our bedroom in order to snuggle down in the king sized bed and watch the movie on the computer... or maybe just half of it; we do have to get up when the kids do tomorrow. I, of course, approve of the new and extended scenes, and I would have been even more approving had there been a few more of them. I'm still ambivalent about a fair bit of the casting and portrayal of the characters. I guess you just can't read Tolkien every year or two for twenty years without forming strong opinions about what the characters should look and act like. (Matt does not share my strong opinions, btw. Of course, he's fairly new to Tolkien. We've been reading the Silmarillion after the kids are in bed -- at least, we were before my birthday present arrived -- and I'm hoping this will help wake him up to the movie's glaring insufficiencies.) Even though every minor plot change makes me cringe and Elrond and Galadriel (and Arwen and Aragorn) do not act their age, the movie really is better than I had any right to expect. I have never seen a movie adapted from a beloved book before that did not butcher the book unforgiveably. This one might be forgiveable. Maybe. Ask me in 2003. The parts that are true to the book are done very, very well. I just don't understand why they had to change ANY of it. The next step, of course, is to go see the Two Towers when we're down in Maryland, home of free babysitting. I expect to enjoy it, though I may embarrass my husband by yelling, "Boo! Go back to Rivendell where you belong!" when Arwen appears on the screen. |
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| Posted by Sora at 10 : 55 pm | Leave a note {6} | ||
| December 17 2002 | ||
| TALIA ON CARTHAGE
Another of Talia's history narrations. When we get to the fall of Rome, we'll take all of her Ancient History narrations and make a nice hand-bound book out of them.
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| Posted by Sora at 1 : 33 pm | Leave a note {0} | ||
| December 16 2002 | ||
| ANTI-PAEDOCOMMUNIONIST DOGGEREL
This makes my blood boil! Someone go beat her up. Matt? Or maybe my new "gallant theological defender", Tim? |
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| Posted by Sora at 9 : 07 am | Leave a note {2} | ||
| December 15 2002 | ||
| EVIL NITPICKER OF CLASSICAL LANGUAGES
Emeth posted this great list of names of children in her church and was corrected for mis-referencing a Greek root as Latin. It could have been worse, though. At least Matt was not the one correcting her. It's just the kind of thing he'd do. I quote the following exchange between Matt and Rick on the Reformed Speculation and Insanity list: Rick:
Matt:
Rick:
Matt read this last reply, turned to me, and said, "I hate to tell you, Rick, but that wasn't a case ending you got wrong. It was the personal ending of the verb." "I'm not Rick, honey, and surely you're not going to be such an evil nitpicker as to tell him that?" "No, I'm not that evil." But I am. :-) |
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| Posted by Sora at 9 : 43 pm | Leave a note {5} | ||
| December 14 2002 | ||
CUTENESS
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| Posted by Sora at 11 : 28 am | Leave a note {4} | ||
| HOW MUCH DO YOU KNOW ABOUT THE KINGS OF ISRAEL?
Take this quiz and find out. Not happy with your score? Maybe you should buy Kingdom Songs. |
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| Posted by Sora at 9 : 26 am | Leave a note {1} | ||
| THERE ARE MORNINGS
when my highest ambition is to someday live in a home with a shower that has a temperature setting somewhere between "too hot" and "too cold." |
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| Posted by Sora at 8 : 09 am | Leave a note {1} | ||
| December 13 2002 | ||
| MY HUSBAND IS MORE POPULAR THAN I AM
I notice more and more people who link to his blog and not to mine. Not that I link to any of their blogs on my sidebar, but that's not the point. His blog gets more hits. Well, maybe it doesn't, I don't have a hit counter so there's no way to tell for sure, but that's not the point. He gets mentioned more often on people's "Which blogger do you...." quizzes. He gets more comments on his blog posts. There's only one thing to be done. We must switch to a couple blog. |
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| Posted by Sora at 3 : 41 pm | Leave a note {9} | ||
| December 12 2002 | ||
MOVEMENT?
Let's face it, whether your bag is Bahsenian Theonomy, Rushdoonistic Patriarchialism, Jordanian Ecclesiocentricism or the Renewal of Culture of the Dougs, or (like me) a mixture all of these things, all tend to have characteristics of a movement and therefore may be subject to a movement mentality. I suppose I've been influenced by a "mixture of all these things" -- taking more ideas from some of the abovementioned sources, and discarding all but a few occasional gems from others. But since, as far as I can tell, there is only one other person in the world who has kept and discarded the same pieces of these "bags" as I have, and since we don't kid ourselves that all our kids will adopt all of our ideological idiosyncracies when they reach adulthood, I can't possibly be part of a movement. |
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| Posted by Sora at 10 : 50 am | Leave a note {1} | ||
| December 10 2002 | ||
| ZEK'L IN THE MORNING
After family worship this morning I took muffins out of the oven and sat down to answer email (had some auctions end last night) and make a printable html order form for the web page (several people had had trouble downloading the pdf order form) while everyone else had breakfast. By the time I was finished, they were finished, so I grabbed a plate, a couple of muffins, some butter, and a butter knife, and sat down on the living room floor to help Aedan figure out fractions while I ate my breakfast. Ezekiel was intent on involving himself in either the math lesson or my breakfast (never mind that he'd already had his own, in his high chair.) I moved my breakfast things from my left side to my right and he climbed over me to try to get to them. Eventually he succeeded in claiming the butter knife. He stood in triumph a moment, holding it aloft. He then, very seriously, bent down and ceremonially touched it to the muffin on the plate, set the knife down, picked up the muffin, and took a bite out of it. We don't seem to have as many single-unit Cuisenaire rods as we used to. They may be lurking in corners, under couch cushions and bookshelves and so forth. I expect that's where they are. I haven't found any in Zek'l's diaper yet. But it's not because he hasn't been trying. Before I put him down for his nap, I had to change a three-alarm diaper. Talia was sent to wet another diaper washcloth for me, as I had only prepared for a two-alarm diaper. Returning from her errand, she grimaced and fled the room. "I am very glad, Mommy," she said, "that it will be many years before I have to do that!" |
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| Posted by Sora at 10 : 31 am | Leave a note {4} | ||
| BUSINESS AND WEB DESIGN
The first Kingdom Songs books and CDs should be ready to ship next Monday. We are going to hand-assemble (put adhesive vinyl sleeves into the books, put CDs into sleeves) as many as I think I can sell before January. We'll deliver the rest of the books to be assembled and shrink-wrapped by the replicating company in Buffalo when we pick up the first batch of CDs and sleeves from them the end of this week. Then go back and get the finished product some time after Christmas (but before we leave for Louisiana.) I spent yesterday getting the web page ready to take early orders. You can now listen to brief selections from two of the songs and see sample pages from the book. I like my background graphic for the page but the rest of it is pretty clunky. I was in a hurry to get it up yesterday, and I'm not happy with any of the software options we have for web pages right now. The programs we have are intended for people who want something as easy as a word processor, but they have no sophistication and don't do everything I want them to. Neither do I want to take the time to hand-code everything (besides, I haven't taken the time to really study html -- my method over several years of "designing" personal web pages has been to learn only how to do the specific thing I'm trying to at the moment, only if it doesn't take me more than about half an hour to figure out.) |
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| Posted by Sora at 9 : 02 am | Leave a note {3} | ||
| December 07 2002 | ||
| ALMOST REAL ENOUGH TO EAT
Go to this page, scroll down, and click on "Oranges Demo" on the left-hand side. Wow. |
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| Posted by Sora at 7 : 21 pm | Leave a note {5} | ||
| WHAT IF....?
Every now and then, when I am reading my husband's iron-sharpening blog exchanges with various fine Christian brothers who are opposed to his wild-eyed patriarchal views, I stop and quietly thank God that Steve Schlissel did not match me with an ecclesiocentrist. I can only imagine how many arguments I've avoided over the last few years by marrying the only man I've ever met who agrees with me about almost all matters theological. Then I remember that ecclesiocentrists don't tend to look kindly on arranged courtships, and so it was never really much of a danger. |
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| Posted by Sora at 6 : 20 pm | Leave a note {2} | ||
| COLLEGES
As those who read Matt's blog know, Calvin College liked his job application well enough to ask to interview him in New Orleans. When Matt conveyed this good news by email to his committee members and former committee member, the latter replied with congratulations and asked, "Calvin College? How did they know? Are you on some kind of Calvinist list?" Matt explained that Calvin College requires "a committment to the Reformed Christian tradition" and that he had made clear in his cover letter that he has such. He added,
His professor's emailed reply:
I found this exchange most amusing. Meanwhile, in researching the other universities that he has applied for, Matt has uncovered the fact that Willamette -- the school geographically closest to my parents in Victoria, B.C. -- currently has an all-female faculty in the classics department. This is rather astounding in classics, where the ratio of men to women is high enough to make the feminists scratch their heads, shake their fists, and start committees to figure out how to make Greek and Latin more attractive to young women. Matt takes it as a likely indicator that his conservative, philological approach -- to say nothing of his "private lifestyle choices" -- will make him unattractive at Willamette. |
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| Posted by Sora at 6 : 12 pm | Leave a note {1} | ||
| December 05 2002 | ||
| MEMORIES OF MONTREAL WINTERS
I had forgotten Talia's toddlerhood delight at her Pooh-bear boots until my mother reminded me in her comment on Zek'l's snowsuit. Talia was one and a half when she wore that snowsuit and those boots, and, amazingly enough, she wore the same snowsuit (but not the boots) again the following winter! She was (and is) petite. Zek'l, now 10 months old, is not. They fit him just fine, though he is not delighted and does not say, "boot! boot!" Talia wanted to wear the boots constantly, even indoors. Zek'l wants to play with them, and maybe eat them, but he doesn't really want to wear them, especially not with the snowsuit. I remember hauling Talia down three flights of stairs, struggling through the snow piled up by the plow around my car parked on the street, and getting the hatch back open. Talia would then sit in the back of the car and I'd give her something to munch on while I dug away enough snow to open the car doors, and, eventually, to get the car out into the street. One became skilled at moving the minimum amount of packed, filthy snow from just the right places necessary to get the car out and no more. I remember spinning my wheels in futility on a steep Montreal hill on a day of icy streets and freezing rain. Why do they put traffic lights at the top of steep hills? I wouldn't have gotten stuck if I hadn't had to stop! About 6 burly guys got me moving again. The city bus that was behind me wasn't so lucky. Ithaca has just as much snow as Montreal did, but it doesn't get as filthy and I no longer need to park in the street. The kids and Matt go sledding at Cornell Plantations and have a ball. Homemade wool mittens beat nylon store-bought ones hollow. I've only made one pair for each kid so far though, and they need multiple pairs for multiple excursions into the snow each day. Matt wants some too. I need to get milk so I can make hot chocolate for my sled-happy family this weekend. Next year, maybe Zek'l will enjoy the snow too. But I bet he won't still be wearing that blue snow suit. |
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| Posted by Sora at 11 : 34 pm | Leave a note {3} | ||
| Zek'l in his snowsuit
That might look like a smile, but he is actually wailing in protest at the evil snowsuit.  |
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| Posted by Sora at 10 : 34 pm | Leave a note {2} | ||
| December 04 2002 | ||
| CATCHING UP
Wow, I have really been neglecting the blog lately. Too much busyness in real life, I guess. We had a fine time in Maryland last week. The kids enjoyed visting their grandparents. We got to meet another blogger, Valerie of "Kyriosity," and had a delightful evening with her. The driving wasn't too painful; we only had to stop once each way to fuel up car and kids. Matt and I went to see the new Harry Potter movie while we were in Maryland. It wasn't that impressive. The casting, which was the best thing about the first movie, was old hat by the second. The plot of the second book is probably the weakest of the series and this, of course, came through in the movie. We probably should have waited and rented the DVD. I was reminded of why we don't go to movies very often. We came in a bit late and missed all but two of the coming attractions, but sitting through them was painful -- both because of what was on the screen, and because of the audible audience reactions from the full theatre. I was reminded of the Calvin and Hobbes cartoon in which Calvin, asked what he thinks of an old movie, says, "I don't know. Not having my emotions manipulated is such a new experience." Well, the packed theatre laughed and gasped and cheered and held their breathes exactly where they were supposed to, not only through the trailers but during the movie. Pathetic. Zek'l is now standing well on his own and has started toddling, at least, he will take 2-6 steps before flinging himself wildly at the person he is toddling towards. This is very exiting to him and he quickly degenerates into lunging heedlessly forward without bothering to move his feet. Grant (Matt's brother) got a cute video clip of Zek'l taking a few steps and then diving while we were in MD. I'll try to put it up on the blog when I get a copy if it's not too big (only a few seconds long, so it shouldn't be -- hey Grant, could you email it maybe?) Deb Miller's blog about making soap has dictated the next activity for the Keeper's club (me and Talia, Deb and daughter Isabelle, and Jeni Martens -- who inexplicably is not sufficiently lemming-like to have a blog yet -- and daughter Olivia). We get together every two weeks to satisfy our daughter's hunger for learning domestic and feminine arts at their mothers' knee (or our desire to teach them and take time to craft and visit ourselves!) The girls earn badges from Keepers of the Faith (standard disclaimer: I do not agree with this organization in every particular, namely their guidelines for choosing children's books. However, we have found their "club" materials very easy to adapt to our own purposes and have had a lot of fun using them over the last year.) Aedan has almost finished memorizing the Children's Catechism (well, our Revised Catechism with the covenant of works and anti-paedocommunion references removed.) He only has about 8 questions left and should have completely mastered all 145 questions in the next few weeks. (We review all the questions over the course of each week to avoid having old ones fly out of his head as new ones are memorized.) We need to come up with some suitable recognition of this achievement. He'll be graduating to the Heidelberg Catechism after Christmas. And before I sign off: here are my boys, taking dominion over the bathtub animals.  |
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| Posted by Sora at 12 : 00 pm | Leave a note {6} | ||
| November 28 2002 | ||
| THANKFUL
Just one short year ago, we were here in Maryland for Thanksgiving and I was 7 months along with Zek'l. Hard to imagine life without the little charmer. Just two years ago, we were here in Maryland for Thanksgiving and we had just weeks before buried our son Timothy, who was miscarried at 16 weeks along. He was to be the first of now three babes gone directly from my womb to the Lord. It was a painful, beautiful, refining, faith-building time. Just three years ago, Matt was here in Maryland and Talia and Aedan and I were in Victoria. Matt was jumping through hoops for Bruce Dayman, my "acting covenant head" for our arranged courtship. Permission for the first phone call was less than two weeks away. We have been so richly blessed these past three years. |
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| Posted by Sora at 2 : 36 pm | Leave a note {2} | ||
| November 27 2002 | ||
| A WEIGHT OFF MY SHOULDERS
We drove down to Maryland, to Matt's parents' house, yesterday afternoon after Matt's Latin class. The kids are all enjoying the change of pace and the grandparental attention. An hour before we left, I dropped off the disk with the Kingdom Songs book files at the printer's. The master CD went to the replicating company in Buffalo on Friday. It is a huge relief to have that finished before we went away for Thanksgiving. When we get home, I will need to update the Kingdom Songs webpage to take orders (it should all be ready in the next 2-3 weeks!) I also have numerous domestic projects that were put off while I hustled to finish the booklet, which I am eager to get to when I return home. But for now I can relax. Ahhhh.... |
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| Posted by Sora at 2 : 40 pm | Leave a note {2} | ||
| November 20 2002 | ||
| GOOD NEIGHBORS
I left the house this afternoon with time to get groceries before dropping Aedan at gymnastics, intending to do other errands while he was at his class. I caught myself about to lock the door with a baby in one hand, diaper bag in the other... no purse. Can't forget the purse! Don't want to be locked out of the house! I grabbed the purse, shooed the kids out toward the car, got all three buckled into carseats, opened the purse... No keys. No keys?!?!?!?! I went back to the house, hoping that I'd failed to properly lock and shut the door. Or that one of the windows might be slightly open, allowing me to climb in and find my keys. No, I was well and truly and properly locked out. Where could those keys be? When did I use them last? Oh, yes, last night, Matt missed his bus after a meeting and the kids bundled snowsuits on top of their pajamas and we went to pick him up. I must have left the keys in the pocket of my coat, the coat I did not put on today because it was to warm to need it. I got the kids out of the car and we strolled around the corner to Mary Ann Miller's house. Her girls were in the driveway playing ("Yay! It's Talia and Aedan!") I wouldn't be able to phone Matt at work because he'd be in the middle of teaching his Latin class right now but IF I could send him an email and IF he checked mail right after class and caught the first bus he'd be home with his keys before 3:00, I'd still be able to get Aedan to gymnastics in time. But no, Mary Ann not only let me use her computer to email my husband, she also loaned me her van, kept all three kids while I drove it home to put my carseats in it and came back, and let Talia stay and play for the afternoon instead of tagging along on errands. Thank God for good neighbors. |
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| Posted by Sora at 7 : 05 pm | Leave a note {1} | ||
| November 19 2002 | ||
| IT IS SNOWSUIT SEASON AGAIN IN ITHACA
It takes the kids 10 minutes to get on all their gear and go out to play. When they come in, drenched, everything needs to be dried and sometimes washed as well before they can go out again. I dug out the blue and green snowsuit my mom bought Talia the winter she was one-and-a-half; it fits Ezekiel very nicely, as do the little blue and green Pooh bear boots that both Talia, and Aedan in turn, wore with it. Ezekiel was not impressed. We took him outside anyway and the kids pulled him around the yard on a sled. He stopped crying while the sled was moving, but clearly the whole experience was not what he considered a good time. The mittens are a pain in the neck. The kids both have huge bulky "waterproof" mittens with fleece lining and nylon outer shell. They are not waterproof enough not to get drenched through when the kids play in the snow, but they are waterproof enough that the liners don't dry in the dryer unless the mittens are turned inside out -- a painstaking process. Turning them right-side-in again is equally bothersome, as is, for that matter, actually getting a kid's hand into one. This generally requires adult assistance, and once mittened, my formerly independent children can no longer put on their own boots or hats or open doors for themselves. I am starting to come to the conclusion that 100% wool mittens, changed as needed, would be preferable to these monstrosities. They would dry quickly and the kids could get them on and off easily and set them on the radiator to dry when they changed pairs. Being wool instead of synthetic, they would have some warming power even when damp. The only problem is that the knit mittens available at a reasonable price are all synthetic. Oh, and I'd only need about half a dozen pairs per child. Thanks to my friend Barbara French (who is also teaching Talia and her "Keepers Club" to knit) I am learning to knit mittens on 4 needles. It is fun, and a fine occupation for long car trips if Matt is driving. I should be able to make a dozen pairs just in time for all the snow to melt in April. |
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| Posted by Sora at 11 : 50 am | Leave a note {3} | ||
| MOMMY'S HELPER
This morning Talia woke up before I did, got the baby out of his crib in the office, took off his pajamas, put on his clothes, and played with him for about half an hour . I think she was about to take him in the ktichen and give him some Cheerios when she heard me stirring and brought him in to nurse (I had not heard a peep from him and had no idea he was awake yet). This is a lot funnier when you realize that Ezekiel is almost as big as Talia. |
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| Posted by Sora at 8 : 43 am | Leave a note {0} | ||
| CHATTING...
Matt came home from work to find me in front of the computer, chatting with Valerie Jacobsen. After she signed off, Matt started reading our lengthy conversation, in which we had, among other things, discussed the upcoming Auburn Avenue conference, dispensationalism, eschatology, and poked fun at James Jordan and the Reverend Doctor Professor Francis Nigel Lee. Matt appeared to find the chat very amusing. Finally he said, "I didn't know you two talked about this kind of stuff. I thought you only talked about breastfeeding and selling books." |
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| Posted by Sora at 12 : 26 am | Leave a note {4} | ||
| November 16 2002 | ||
| TRAFFIC COURT
Deb Miller blogged about being humiliated in traffic court and asked about other people's experiences. Here's mine: About two and a half years ago, when I'd been in Ithaca about 3 weeks (I think I'd only gotten my B.C. driver's license changed to a NY license the week before), I got ticketed for running a red light. I was about 8 weeks pregnant. I did not know the area well yet at all. I was driving around and around downtown looking for a bank machine my husband had assured me, before I dropped him off at Cornell, was there somewhere. I was getting increasingly frustrated. One of the kids in the back seat announced a need to pee right now. I stopped looking for the bank machine and headed for Wegmans, where I knew there was a good bathroom and easy parking. As I came down 13 toward the right-hand turn at Meadow St, the light turned yellow. Distracted, I didn't see the no-right-turn-on-red sign. I wondered whether to brake and decided not to. The light turned red about a second and a half before I rolled into the intersection. A split second after I said to the kids. "Oh, I shouldn't have done that!" I saw the flashing lights behind me. I was instructed to pull into the hotel parking lot. I had never been ticketed before. I had never broken any traffic laws before to the best of my knowledge. My kids were in the backseat crossing their legs. I, too, burst into tears. The officer noticed that the car was past due for the annual state inspection. Two tickets. When he'd finished admonishing me, we went over to Wegmans. Amazingly, no pants were wet yet. Then I had to go home and tell my still-new husband what I'd done. I think I cried then too. I don't usually cry easily, so I attribute this to pregnancy hormones. The ticketing was more traumatic than the traffic court. We all went, and I took the plea-bargain and got a reduced fine. I think it was $80. We went home and made a new Quicken category: irresponsibility. I was gratified some days later to discover that Matt's library fines accounted for more "irresponsibility" money than my traffic violation. For many months afterwards, both Talia and Aedan pointed out every red light to me and warned me not to run it, even if I was already at a dead stop. |
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| Posted by Sora at 1 : 00 pm | Leave a note {3} | ||
| November 14 2002 | ||
| I GUESS I'M JUST NOT A THEOLOGIAN...
I tried that which theologian are you quiz, but I didn't finish it. I kept wanting to answer "none of the above." Oh well. I can't put to much stock in it anyway. Matt? Erasmus????? As if! Folks, I live with this man. He is not known for avoiding confrontation, even when he's not on the internet. (Matt did take the quiz again, answering some questions differently, and got it to reclassify him as Martin Luther. That seems a bit more likely...) |
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| Posted by Sora at 6 : 20 pm | Leave a note {5} | ||
| November 13 2002 | ||
| THREE YEARS AGO THIS WEEK
Steve Schlissel told Matt that he had a match in mind for him. Matt was going to NYC for a classics conference and went to Messiah's that Sunday (Nov. 14th) and was lunched afterwards by Steve (and family). Steve reportedly sang my praises, at any event, he must have said something good to make Matt such an eager suitor. I can't believe it was only three years ago. |
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| Posted by Sora at 9 : 52 pm | Leave a note {3} | ||
| November 11 2002 | ||
| MOTIVATION TO PRAYER
Valerie's latest blog post has some good thoughts about not allowing our emotions or physical condition to become an excuse for negligence in prayer: What exhaustion of ours could match His, who "being in anguish...prayed more earnestly"? I so often think sleep is the thing I need most, when anyone glancing at my life for half a second could clearly see that I need to get my head off the pillow and my knees on the floor. |
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| Posted by Sora at 1 : 56 pm | Leave a note {3} | ||
| REAL MILK
I'm exited! I discovered last week, through a link from the Real Milk website, that there is a farm in Lodi, about 5 miles away from where we go to church in Interlaken, that sells organic raw milk from pasture-fed Jersey cows. Under NY state law, farms can become certified to sell raw milk but it cannot be sold in farmer's markets or grocery stores; the customer has to come to the farm to buy it. It would not make any sense for me to drive 45+ minutes each way just for milk, but I made a 20-minute milk run after church yesterday that will be very easy to work into the weekly routine. Admittedly, Talia and I hardly drink any milk at all and Zek'l still only drinks breastmilk, but it is nice to give Aedan and Matt, who are both big milk drinkers, un-pasteurized, non-homogenized milk with no hormones or antibiotics in it. Aedan even gets to meet the cows it came from! And even my husband the health-food skeptic admits that it tastes better than grocery store milk. |
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| Posted by Sora at 1 : 36 pm | Leave a note {3} | ||
| November 07 2002 | ||
| I DON'T KNOW WHETHER YOU'RE A GOOD OR A BAD INFLUENCE
...she said, admitting that after many weeks of reading our blogs, she had started one of her own. Deb Miller is one neat lady. And the very first I-know-her-in-real-life blogger to add to my list! |
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| Posted by Sora at 6 : 51 pm | Leave a note {2} | ||
| November 05 2002 | ||
ZEK'L EXCERCISES HIS RIGHT TO... OH WAIT, HE DOESN'T HAVE ONE
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| Posted by Sora at 11 : 36 pm | Leave a note {1} | ||
| EVERYBODY ELSE IS DOING IT...
And its impossible to read those Googlisms on other people's blogs without wondering what would come up for you... so... Googlism for: sorasora is elke werkdag bereikbaar tussen 14u en 18u in de 's meiersstraat 5 te leuven I have no idea what this says so I'd better deny it. They're lying! sora is a variable You betcha. sora is suited for the marshy habitat that they occupy That's what I get for being named after a rail. Thanks, but I really don't care that much for marshy habitat. sora is usually paired with MATT, of course! And what do they mean, usually? sora is off on her own and discovers more about herself with a little help from a friend hmmm... sora is the group's mature voice of reason I like that! Now if only people would listen sora is sucked up into a portal and awakens in a deserted alley Wait! I don't remember anything about that! sora is a small I wish. sora is the "nice one" of the group which group? sora is folken's prisoner in the movie help! sora is hot tenchi I am? sora is to give you the optimum system to meet your facility needs If you say so. sora is one of the original digidestined and has the crest of love What's a digidestined? sora is the type of girl that you would call a tomboy Hey! I haven't worn trousers since 1998! sora is widespread in summer but fairly common only in the border region sora is daydreaming They caught me! sora is teleported to a new town First sucked through a portal, now teleported. What happened to walking? sora is traveling through disney's classic worlds in order to find his way home and set things right Hey, if there's something wrong at home that I need to fix, the last place I want to be is in one of "disney's classic worlds!" sora is a thursday from 7 am till 12 I am? sora is the southern ontario chapter of the american statistical association and the southern ontario regional association of the statistical society of canada No way. I hate statistics! sora is completely and utterly average I resent that! sora is mousy with a capital "m" Ouch! sora is a long A long what? sora is similar to taichi in that she is also athletic and adventurous Athletic? Yeah, right. sora is a common rail throughout its nesting area Tweet, tweet. sora is also part of the following groups sora is the oldest member of the group sora is very athletic and at the brink of being a tomboy Not if she can help it. sora is located in south sora is a tall sora is knowledgeable and experienced in all areas of home renovation and design and is concerned with creating healthy homes that can incorporate landscape Well, I designed a dollhouse this week. sora is one of the largest hill tribal communities in the north eastern hill ranges called eastern ghats of the state of andhra pradesh and orissa border in sora is kidnapped by one of etemon's henchmen Do you get the impression that my name is widely used in role-playing / fantasy circles? sora is more and more, and more sora is the treasurer and elder birch root of spira Does this make any sense? sora is playing games on izzys labtop she sences something Who is Izzy and why would I be wasting my time playing games on her laptop? sora is sora is my least favorite digidestined I've never even heard of a digidestined! sora is a feline magician that can't grasp the simplest spells Hey! sora is so poitlor with girls Poitlor? sora is the busiest boat that the coast guard uses Well, I feel like it some days. sora is so very useless MATT! Are you going to let them insult me like that? sora is the most common and widespread rail in north america Does that mean I can live in a house instead of marshy habitat? sora is remarkably visable at wakodahatchee where they feed in the open on the edges of cattail stands and in among the fireflag That red plaid headcovering really shows up among the cattail stands. sora is a black sora is maar op hun digivices zien ze dat ze in de buurt moet zijn They lie! sora is the watchful mother type of the group and feels the need to be the responsible one Well, SOMEONE has to do it! sora is typically assisted in his battles by up to two computer No, I only have one computer and I only get to use it when Matt doesn't need it. sora is a lake inhabited by holy ales sora is the main character in kingdom hearts who finds himself in disney world when his home is hit by a storm Get me OUT of Disney world, please. sora is dressed I should think so. sora is a member of the munda family of languages sora is an uncommon and locally distributed nesting species in the platte river valley and on the eastern plain Never been there. sora is pure tomboy sora is on the same soccer team as izzy and tai Maybe that's where I got Izzy's laptop. sora is older sora is enjoying the surroundings of destiny island with his friends riku and kairi a sudden and tumultuous storm rips through their homeland sora is a living symbol of love and she knows what is best for her So you'd better listen up, honey. sora is more hated than davis Who's Davis? And why am I more hated than him? sora is not considered a part of sentencing sora is enchanting blush sora is voiced by wonder kid haley joel osment sora is the same sex as bash but is much younger sora is not always the seme sora is for traditional male sora is surprised Very. sora is here for the moment sora is very busy and has more energy than ever Wouldn't that be nice. sora is not necessary that's what you think, Chester! sora is één van de initiatiefnemers van velo Liar! sora is an athletic You've got the wrong Sora, sorry. sora is a normal student at nekomi tech sora is on is own search for his friend sora is a strong flier; many cross the gulf of mexico or entire caribbean to spend the winter in south america Now THERE's an idea! sora is distinctive with its short sora is a new teacher sora is sucked into a strange fantasy world in which reality is far stranger than his dreams sora is a sweet innocent girl At least, she was when she was 3. sora is facing sora is equipped with the legendary "keyblade" sora is torn away from his home and friends by a rageful storm sora is a definate tomboy I am not athletic, and I am not a tomboy! Ask my 6th grade gym teacher! sora is an extremely solid performer |
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| Posted by Sora at 1 : 33 pm | Leave a note {2} | ||
| November 04 2002 | ||
| A NEW QUESTION FOR OUR QUIVER-FAQ
I probably won't get around to putting this one on our web page for a few days. I read your article with interest. My husband and I both desired a large family, but after two children, our third was born full term stillborn. After 12 more pregnancies ( 10 miscarriages, 2 late stillborns), we chose adoption as a method to enlarge our family.( We presently have 4 children, 2 biological, 2 foreign adoptions) We DO use birth control, because the rare blood clotting disorder that I have been diagnosed with is considered life threatening, and the doctors have advised against any future pregnancies. I am interested in how your beliefs fit with my situation. Please let me know what you think. Clearly, your decision to use birth control was not made lightly, or out of selfish desire to avoid children. Quite the opposite; it must have been difficult and heartwrenching to lose one baby after another, worried about the health effects of another pregnancy, wanting to live to mother the children God has given you. My faith has not been tested in this way. I have only had 3 pregnancy losses, not 13. I am young and in good health, no one has ever told my husband, "Another pregnancy could kill your wife." I do not want to give you a dogmatic answer: I am not in your position, and I do not condemn you for your decision. For me the question is theoretical. You are living it. All I can say is what I think I would do under the same circumstances. When we married, we hoped and prayed that we would have many children -- and often, and soon. Of course, we desired easy, uneventful, healthy pregnancies. (Who doesn't?) After our second miscarriage, we had to ask ourselves the question, "What if we never have a baby who lives to be born?" I was 23. "What if I have 2 or 3 miscarriages a year for the next 20 years? Does that change what we think about birth control?" The only answer we could come to was, no. I would continue to offer my womb to the Lord even if I would never be able to nurse another one of my precious babies. The idea was painful, almost beyond bearing, but I believed that if that was what God had in store for us he would give us the faith and the grace to walk such a difficult path. We believe that God plans for each child, numbers their days, and opens the womb to allow conception. Our babies' deaths were His perfect plan for their lives and ours -- not what I would have chosen in my finite human wisdom, but I trust that God knows better than I do. We believe also that children of believers who die in infancy or before birth are saved -- God's promise is "to you and your children." We will mourn and miss our babies for our lifetime, but they will praise the Lord for all eternity. God numbered our babies' days. He numbers ours as well. Yes, he uses means in accomplishing his will, but I will not die before the time He has determined. Doctors can give advice based on their scientific understanding of God's past providences, but their predictions are far from infallible. What would I do if I had a "life-threatening" condition and doctors advised against pregnancy? I would pray. I would do all I could to physically optimize my health. I would not do anything to try to prevent conception. I will not conceive "accidentally" as a result of a random collision of cells, but only if God actively opens my womb. The question is comparable, to my mind, to that of an already pregnant woman whose doctors advise abortion in order to be able to treat a life-threatening illness. Is this a misapplication of the doctrine of sovereignty that denies human responsibility and stewardship? I do not believe it is, because I do not believe the Bible affords us the "liberty" to "plan" our families in the same way that we have the liberty to plan our diets or our careers. Is someone who dies to save another's life a hero? How about someone who gives their life to save another's soul? If I become pregnant and both the baby and I die in Christ, we have life eternal. People risk their lives routinely for far less monumental reasons. |
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| Posted by Sora at 5 : 55 pm | Leave a note {1} | ||
| MAKING A BLOG COMMENT OR MAKING BREAKFAST?
As we finished family worship this morning, Matt got up and headed for the kitchen, declaring, "Pancakes!" I think he's been spending a bit too much time reading Duane's blog. |
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| Posted by Sora at 3 : 56 pm | Leave a note {1} | ||
| November 02 2002 | ||
| A DANDY DAY
I think this was the first Saturday this fall that Matt has not spent the whole day dissertating (or trying to - he doesn't always manage it). But having gotten good feedback from his committee about the chapters he gave them last week, and preparing to spend next week on job applications, and -- not least -- having followed the schedule ALL WEEK, he felt free to spend the day in family leisure. In the morning, we drove to Hollenbeck's cider mill in Virgil (about 1/2 hour away) and got freshly squeezed cider and freshly made doughnuts ("the rings of batter kept dropping into the fat, and a little automatic gadget kept flipping them over, and another automatic gadget kept pushing them along, just as regular as a clock can tick...") and apples and (for Matt) a sausage and some mustard that he later proclaimed "just right!" (you're welcome to it, honey.) The day was beautiful, crisp and cold. It snowed lightly, fluffy flakes leaving a thin powdering on the fields. We considered browsing used bookstores as we drove home but decided against it. Instead, we headed for a lumberyard. I digress: Yesterday afternoon, while the kids were playing in the snow and Zek'l was napping, I was not feeling very energetic, so I lay on the couch and drew plans for the dollhouse Talia has been asking for for a very long time. The two of us had looked at dollhouse kits on the web together but the styles Talia liked were fairly pricey. Not only that, but they weren't exactly what she wanted (instead of the front wall swinging open for access to the rooms, they had no wall at all in the back). For Christmas last year, we gave Talia the Ruby Doll Kit from Doorposts. Since their wedding in early January, Ruby and Victor have been living in a very small, three room apartment made out of a Priority Mail box, and with a growing family of (now) five children they are badly in need of new lodgings. Talia had been advocating on their behalf for some time, and when, yesterday afternoon, I presented the completed plans to Matt, he suggested buying the necessary supplies without delay. End of digression. We bought a sheet of 1/4 inch birch plywood and a few other necessities (I was delighted to find a 15 inch cross-cut saw for the kids, something I had not been able to find back in August when the kids bought their carpentry tools. Warning -- this is a link to my old blog with the corrupt title that caused the mysterious browser crashes.) Talia chose a single linoleum tile for the dollhouse kitchen floor. Once home, we set up shop in the kitchen (we, like Ruby's family, are working hard at outgrowing our small apartment) and had a grand time planning and measuring and sawing and sanding and drilling. We cut out all the main house pieces and two windows before Talia, Aedan, and Matt lost interest and decided they'd done enough for the day. (I tend to be complusive and want to keep plugging away at a project once started until I see really satistfying results, so I would have been glad to keep at it, but they were probably right.) It has been such fun planning this dollhouse with Talia, and even more fun for all four of us building it. And it is the kind of project that promises unlimited potential for future pleasant afternoons and evenings planning and working together. |
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| Posted by Sora at 9 : 58 pm | Leave a note {1} | ||
| November 01 2002 | ||
| IT'S SNOWING!
Talia and Aedan are running outside to dance in the first snow of the season. |
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| Posted by Sora at 3 : 52 pm | Leave a note {1} | ||
| October 31 2002 | ||
| TRUE CONFESSIONS
One of my goals in this blog is to make sure that everyone who engages in theological jousting with my beloved husband has a chance to get a well-rounded picture of him as a multi-faceted, generally nice guy. Otherwise, I fear, he might appear to be just a faceless enemy at the other end of a nasty pointed argument, and his blog comments and email inbox would fill up with notes saying, "I completely disagree with you, Matt Colvin!" So to that end, some "true confessions" -- things he'd never blog himself -- (and I can get away with this, 'cause he's at work tonight): He admits that he "feels like more of a man" after spending the day in dress shoes and a shirt that I have to iron than if he'd worn sneakers, jeans, and his "si hoc legere scis nimium eruditionis habes" sweatshirt all day. He ordered me a birthday present from amazon.com through a hotmail account and had it delivered to campus in order to surprise me -- and then accidentally read aloud the price to me while entering receipts into Quicken. He needs to update the "books I'm reading" sidebar of his blog. He really is reading Churchill -- sometimes until far too late at night for his own good -- but I haven't seen him pick up Plutarch in over a month. And he told me last week that he was taking "Through Bizarre Eyes" back to the library. |
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| Posted by Sora at 9 : 14 pm | Leave a note {5} | ||
| October 30 2002 | ||
| MA-MA -- MA-MA -- MA-MA
Zek'l has just started saying "Mama." He says it repeatedly, in a small pathetic voice, while crawling piteously towards me. "Ma-ma -- ma-ma -- ma-ma..." I think he's trying to make me feel guilty for spending the morning at the recording studio and leaving him with his daddy. Daddy just doesn't have the goods. You can pull at his shirt all day, and still not expose the-source-of-all-happiness. Maybe if I follow Matt around saying "husband, husband," in a small, piteous voice, he will feel properly guilty for getting up, getting on the computer, and chatting with Duane and Rick and assorted other bloggers after I'd gone to sleep last night. No, that won't work. He's at work. I guess I'd better just go run his blog counter up instead. |
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| Posted by Sora at 12 : 41 pm | Leave a note {3} | ||
| October 28 2002 | ||
| DIVISION OF LABOUR
Matt's blog is for academic, controversial, or theological topics. Mine is rooted in real life. Humour on his blog is strange and obscure: chicken-footed publishers logos and fake Latin. I post funny things my kids say. He puts up pictures of lecherous mermen by Raphael. I put up pictures of the baby who climbed into the dishwasher. All this to say: on his return from work, Matt went looking for a jar of peanuts. Last seen: being rolled around by Aedan in order to evenly coat the nuts with the "dust" -- "So they'll be deliciouser!" Matt hunted all over the apartment. "My peanuts! Where did he put my peanuts?!" I hadn't seen them and could be of no help. A minute ago he came in to the office triumphant, jar in hand. "They were in Aedan's bed! He was sleeping with them." I started laughing. "So, are you going to blog that?" "No, no, put it on your blog. It's not topical to mine." |
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| Posted by Sora at 11 : 06 pm | Leave a note {5} | ||
| AN ORDINARY, UNEVENTFUL DAY IN MY LIFE...
5:30 a.m. Get up to change Zek'l, who has decided not to go back to sleep until his bum is dry. Thankfully, when this is accomplished, he decides to nurse quietly and let me get a bit more sleep instead of (as has lately been his habit) sitting up and drumming on me until I get up. 6:45 a.m. The alarm goes off. I nudge Matt (who can't hear it) so that he'll turn it off before it wakes Zek'l up. 7:10 a.m. Drag myself out of bed. Matt is cracking the whip on the kids to get up and get their morning jobs done. Get dressed, brush and braid my hair and Talia's, and dress the baby. 7:30 a.m. "No, Talia, you may not knit during family worship. Aedan, sit still. Show Zek'l how to sit." Zek'l does not care to imitate his brother. Matt preaches from Proverbs. The baby yells to be put down and given his own way. He is banished to the Evil Crib and returns for another attempt at lap-sitting three or four times. Discussion ensues about whether he actually understands what we want him to do or not. Eventually the baby does relax on my lap, whether from acquiesence or exhaustion is not clear. We pray. He is quiet. We finish. Talia pounces on him and smothers him with adoration. (Aedan often admonishes her, "Don't worship Zek'l, Talia!") 8:05 a,m. Talia is loading the washing machine. Aedan is emptying the dishwasher. Zek'l is dissecting a muffin in his high-chair. Matt is cooking eggs. I sing some Kozel psalms. "Everyone know what they're supposed to be doing after breakfast?" The schedule on the refridgerator is consulted. Daddy is admonished to "dissertate, dissertate, dissertate." 8:30 a.m. Talia is on the computer for typing practice and the drill usually refered to as "math fussing". I drill Aedan on phonics and ride herd on Zek'l, who is playing on the floor. 9:00 a.m. Both kids do math. I keep them on task and try to distract Zek'l from the Cuisenaire rods (but I want them, Mommy!) 9:30 a.m. I catechize Aedan and nurse the baby. Talia is pleased that she can’t do an addition speed drill until Matt photocopies some tests for her. 10:00 a.m. Zek'l is put in the Evil Crib and is after 5 minutes of half-hearted waahing goes to sleep. Under my direction, Talia switches the laundry and wipes the bathroom. Aedan empties the wastebaskets around the house and finishes unloading the dishwasher. Both tidy up various articles left around the living room by themselves or by Zek'l. I wash the breakfast dishes, sweep the floor, make the kids a snack and send them out to ride their bikes for half an hour, finish cleaning up the kitchen, fold the diapers Talia just took out of the drier, vaccum the living room, and call the kids in to get back to work. While they're putting their bikes away and washing muddy hands I sweep the porch, which is carpeted with oak leaves and mud from the yard. 11:00 a.m. Talia and I review rare phonograms and analyze spelling words. We're almost finished the last notebook page in The Writing Road to Reading, and we will finish the spelling list -- all the way to "financier, naphtha, rendezvous" -- this year. It is very exiting. Aedan copies the silly sentence I have made up to emphasize the phonograms "aw", "ew" and "ui". "Mommy, who is Shawn?" "Oh, just someone with an aw-two-letter-aw-that-we-may-use-at-the-end-of-English-words in his name." 11:30 a.m. Talia is permitted to knit while she listens to her Suzuki CD. Aedan starts a new chapter of Frog and Toad All Year . At some point in the first page, the baby wakes up and joins us. He is more interested in exploration than he is in nursing, taking only a polite nibble before wandering off to cruise the living room. "Talia, put the baby down and take your music stand into your own room to practice." Frog took a rack out of the garden shed... "Aedan, does that really say rack? What does the silent e do to the a/A/ah?" "Mommy, Zek'l wants to follow me!" I will rake all of Toad's leaves for him! How surprised he will be! "Mommy, another /er/ word! Put it on the list right now! Under /er/ the /er/ of nurse." "Mommy, Zek'l is making a really big mess over here! He's taking everything off this shelf!" 12:00 noon. Frog and Toad pass each other on the way to each other's houses to rake each other's leaves. Aedan is sent to finish his copywork. Talia is playing the chorus from Judas Maccabeus. I head for the kitchen to start lunch. "Talia, go back and play that again! Fix that note!" The baby is tugging on my skirt and is put in the high chair with cheerios and apple slices. "Honey, am I making lunch for you too?" Matt looks at the clock. 12:16 p.m. The bus he needs to catch to get to his 1:30 Latin class leaves in 10 minutes. "Can I take the car to work?" "No. I need to be at the nursing home in Groton at 3:30. You'd better take lunch with you. You want the rest of those muffins?" Matt hurries around gathering things. I put the kids' sandwiches in the oven to melt the cheese. "Talia! Go back and play that again and keep an even rhythm!" Matt heads for the door. "Don't forget to take Talia's math tests to photocopy for me!" 12:30 p.m. The kids are eating lunch. I put potatoes in the crockpot, plug it in, and neglect to change the switch from "OFF" to "HIGH". I cut up broccoli, put it in the steamer, and put it back in the fridge. I take tofu out of the fridge to cut up and marinate, notice that the best-before date was October 15th, and throw it in the garbage. Maybe those left-over refried beans instead... Talia finishes eating and I start catechizing her while Aedan clears and wipes the table. 1:00 p.m. The kids go out to play. I snatch a minute at the computer and check email. Talia comes running to the door with the mail: Ranger Rick and Your Big Backyard magazines and a money order for me. I leave feedback on ebay for three people, send payment reminders to two other people, and print out some mailing labels. Will I have time to go to the post office before the nursing home? Oh, better change that diaper... 1:30. p.m. Time to get those kids in and working again. We review the Rulers of Rome song and finish David Macauley's City. "Talia, put the magazine down and pay attention. How far had we gotten last time? To the Roman toilets, right?" The baby gets fussy and is returned to the Evil Crib for another nap. "Yes, Talia, you may knit while I read, but you need to sit where you can see the book." 2:30 p.m. Talia should do that long overdue narration on Alexander the Great -- but I need to pack these books to mail and the kids need to change their clothes before we leave. "Mommy, it doesn't matter if the baby wakes up because you're going to wake him up in a few minutes anyway, right?" I tape a label onto a box. "How many books are in that one, Mommy?" Ten. Heavy ones. My shipping charge of $2.50 + 50 cents for each book after the first one came out almost $1 short on that box. "Mommy, the baby's awake. Here, I got him out of the crib for you." I finish packing with a fussing Zek'l hanging on my skirt. Ok, now, he needs changing, Talia's hair needs brushing again, I need shoes, purse, "Aedan, you carry the diaper bag and that bag of cheerios for the baby. Talia, you take those two packages. No, not the big one, it's too heavy for you." 3:15 p.m. We are in the car driving to Groton. No time to stop at the post office, we'll have to hit it on the way home. The kids listen to The Voyage of the Dawn Treader on CD. I stop it to drill them on social expectations at the nursing home. We practice conversation starters. 3:30 p.m. We meet the Martens and Millers in the nursing home parking lot and troop in: 3 moms, nine kids. The kids serve out cake and punch at the nursing home's monthly birthday party. They need more drill on conversation. (Aedan says afterwards, "It is hard to have a conversation with someone when you can't understand what they say!"). Zek'l is amused and interested and likes the attention he gets. 4:30 p.m. Back in the car. The Freeville post office is right on the way home. We all troop in, packages in hand. Zek'l does not appreciate being returned to his car seat. 5:00 p.m. Home. Oh, bother, the crock pot wasn't turned on. Ok, put the potatoes in the microwave. Broccoli on the stove. Sit down to nurse the baby and read the new comments on Matt's blog. "Aedan, set the table. please. Talia, unload the dryer." Daddy's home. Much jesting and silliness over dinner. 5:45 p.m. "Wow, honey, the baby has really made a mess over here." "Why don't I read to the kids while you clean it up?" "YEAH!" I wash the baby's face and hands and Matt wipes the bananas and broccoli off the high chair and surrounding floor while I read a chapter of The Silver Chair. 6:30 p.m. Matt is getting ready to leave for work again. "At least I have lots of laundry to keep me company while you're gone, dear." There are five loads to fold, since I didn't do any on Sunday. Zek'l is put to bed. Matt is out the door. "Hey, come back! You only took half of your kisses!" "What? There were more?... Oh, this isn't fair! You're making new ones!" The kids giggle. "READ, Mommy!" 7:15 p.m. Two chapters of Silver Chair and one of Pigeon Post have been read. "Pajamas and teeth, kids. Then do a quick tidy of your bedroom and I'll read a bit more." Another chapter of each book while the kids pick up stray Legos, playing cards, laundry... 8:00 p.m. Kids have been blessed, and Alexander Scourby is reading II Thessalonians to them in the dark. I wash the rest of the supper dishes. "Mommy, I found another I Spy card to put away, and I'm just going to get a drink while I'm up, okay?" 8:30 p.m. All asleep. I should really fold that laundry, but I'll just sit down and check email first... Hmmm.... maybe I'll blog about my day... that would be a really good way of putting off the laundry... and Matt won't be home from work until at least 10:15... |
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| Posted by Sora at 10 : 16 pm | Leave a note {4} | ||
| October 24 2002 | ||
| IN THE INTERESTS OF FAIRNESS
I need to post a picture of Zek'l today too. Here he is, helping to unload the dishwasher. |
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| Posted by Sora at 5 : 33 pm | Leave a note {2} | ||
| NO TRAINING WHEELS
And that reminds me, both Talia and Aedan had their training wheels taken off this past week and are now riding two-wheelers. Ahh, they grow up so fast...
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| Posted by Sora at 5 : 31 pm | Leave a note {1} | ||
| MY GOODNESS, BUT YOU'RE A GOOD MOTHER!
This afternoon there were 3 mothers and 8 kids at our house. Of the kids, three were having a music practice in order to go to the studio next week and do some child-voice overdubs for the Kingdom Songs! album. One was having a violin lesson. Two were having a latin class. Three were tag-along siblings of the latin students. Three live here. Some of the children who were not occupied with various constructive pursuits were sent to play outside. I happened to walk past the living room window in time to see Aedan (my son, age 5 1/2) swing his bike out into the parking lot, make a wide loop, and return across the grass. I stepped outside. "Aedan, where are you allowed to ride your bike when there is no grown-up outside?" He mumbled something, with a sheepish face. "I can't hear you." "On the grass." "Anywhere else?" "On the path." "Are you allowed to ride your bike in the parking lot when there is no grown-up with you?" "No." "Put your bike away. You may not use it again today." At this point, one of the tag-along siblings (a girl, age 7) looked at me and said, "My goodness, but you're a good mother!" That was definitely the highlight of my day. |
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| Posted by Sora at 5 : 14 pm | Leave a note {1} | ||
| October 22 2002 | ||
| ASTONISHING THOUGHT FOR THE DAY
I'm a record company. |
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| Posted by Sora at 12 : 37 pm | Leave a note {0} | ||
| October 21 2002 | ||
| BLAME UPSAID
How can I return to blogging after having the site unavailable and a weeks' worth of past blogs lost? I feel like I've been robbed. It's one thing to have a thought and then lose track of it in the busyness of life. But to write it down -- to put it on the web for the world to see -- and then have it LOST by the server!!!! Matt says I should just get over it and move on, but I seethe with righteous indignation. My blogging train of thought has been interrrupted (never mind that the blog entries were, almost by definition, random thoughts, unrelated to each other.) Sigh.... |
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| Posted by Sora at 5 : 07 pm | Leave a note {2} | ||
| October 09 2002 | ||
| SANCTIFYING ORDINARY WORK
One doesn't expect to find inspirational words in a cookbook, but every few years I re-read the introduction to Laurel's Kitchen -- an essay entitled "The Work at Hand", about creating a "sense of place" and "sanctifying ordinary work by the state of mind you bring to it." (Edith Schaeffer's The Hidden Art of Homemaking also addresses this idea, from a more theologically correct perspective than Laurel's Kitchen.) It's what a friend of ours calls "wiping for the Kingdom." Three nights a week Matt works at Cornell's walk-in writing center tutoring service, and is gone from 6:45 to 10:15. Bathing kids, changing diapers and putting on pajamas, overseeing tooth-brushing, nursing baby, reading stories and putting everyone to bed takes about half the time he's gone. Then I have the house to myself. Thursday nights have been my time to list ebay auctions. I am going to try to use Wednesday night for cleaning my kitchen more thoroughly than the usual daily dish-washing, surface-wiping, and floor-sweeping. I did this tonight -- uncluttering the counter and the top of the microwave, getting all the gunk off the legs of the high-chair, wiping down cupboard doors and walls, moving the washing machine to clean behind it and between the washing machine and the stove, washing the floor on hands and knees. Housework done with no interruptions and no one else around is very satisfying. It is quiet. As the fingerprints on the door-frames and the sticky spots behind the high-chair disappear, the room becomes brighter and more pleasant. Scrubbing floors requires no real attention so I am free to pray, to sing, to let my thoughts wander (and wonder), to come up with half a dozen blog entries that are forgotten an hour later when I finally sit down at the computer. My chosen calling and career, helping my husband, keeping my home, and teaching my children, is something I seek to do well and graciously. I am often woefully unsucessful, and need to be reminded again and again that this is an area to battle my lazy, impatient, selfish, sinful nature. My work involves repetitive and mundane tasks, often unrecognized and taken for granted. It is easy to become resentful and fall into sin. But the many loads of laundry and sinks-full of dishes, the high chair wiped off several times a day (to say nothing of guiding, training, teaching, and loving my children) -- this is my most immediate sphere of ministry and service and it is honorable work. I am blessed to have a husband who believes this and expresses his appreciation often. I want my children to see housework this way as well, and for this to happen they must see me doing it joyfully rather than grudgingly. It is a good thing to have a clean and orderly work environment. It predisposes to diligence and peace-of-mind. (Matt, who claims he got lots done on his dissertation while I was away this past summer because I wasn't asking him to clean up his office every few days, might disagree with me.) I love coming into a clean kitchen in the morning. Tomorrow will be a good day. |
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| Posted by Sora at 11 : 12 pm | Leave a note {3} | ||
| October 08 2002 | ||
| TODAY'S BABY BLUES CARTOON
Fathers-to-be and future fathers-to-be of the world, take note. |
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| Posted by Sora at 3 : 57 pm | Leave a note {2} | ||
| RANDOM QUOTATIONS
On Sunday we drove to Buffalo for church with Niagara RPC, hitting the evening Heidelberg Catechism class at First Baptist in Interlaken on our way home. The 6+ hours in the car saw many potentially excellent blog entries concieved and, alas, all met untimely deaths (no computer in the car). Memorable, however, was the comment of the troll at the troll-booth getting off I-90: "Have a good day if at all possible." The car ahead of us, which did not appear to have any native English speakers in it, had attempted to zoom through without paying the troll or handing in their ticket. Poor troll. No wonder he was having a bad day, he had to work on Sunday. We were discussing the "problem" of singles in familiocentric churches when I quipped, "He sets the lonely in youth groups." (Psalm 68:6) Matt told me to blog it. I don't remember any of the other things we said would have made good blog entries, except that there were at least half a dozen of 'em over the course of the trip. Oh well. Last quote: just a few minutes ago, struggling to remove her apron after mixing up a cake and washing some dishes, Talia complained: "This is impossible Mommy! It's a Gordian knot!" (Gross exagerration, I fear, as I was able to help her remove the apron without resorting to kitchen knives, scissors, or swords.) |
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| Posted by Sora at 3 : 19 pm | Leave a note {4} | ||
| MINDLESS BLOG FILLER
A set of collected bloopers from church bulletins and newsletters: 1. Bertha Belch, a missionary from Africa, will be speaking tonight at Calvary Methodist. Come hear Bertha Belch all the way from Africa. 2. Announcement in a church bulletin for a national PRAYER & FASTING Conference: "The cost for attending the Fasting & Prayer Conference includes meals." 3. The sermon this morning: "Jesus Walks on the Water." The sermon tonight: "Searching for Jesus." 4. Our youth basketball team is back in action Wednesday at 8 PM in the recreation hall. Come out and watch us kill Christ the King. 5. "Ladies, don't forget the rummage sale. It's a chance to get rid of those things not worth keeping around the house. Don't forget your husbands. 6. The peacemaking meeting scheduled for today has been cancelled due to a conflict. 7. Remember in prayer the many who are sick of our community. Smile at someone who is hard to love. Say "Hell" to someone who doesn't care much about you. 8. Don't let worry kill you off - let the Church help. 9. Miss Charlene Mason sang, "I will not pass this way again," giving obvious pleasure to the congregation. 10. For those of you who have children and don't know it, we have a nursery downstairs. 11. Next Thursday there will be tryouts for the choir. They need all the help they can get. 12. Barbara remains in the hospital and needs blood donors for more transfusions. She is also having trouble sleeping and requests tapes of Pastor Jack's sermons. 13. The Rector will preach his farewell message after which the choir will sing: "Break Forth Into Joy." 14. Irving Benson and Jessie Carter were married on October 24th in the church. So ends a friendship that began in their school days. 15. A bean supper will be held on Tuesday evening in the church hall. Music will follow. 16. At the evening service tonight, the sermon topic will be "What Is Hell?" Come early and listen to our choir practice. 17. Eight new choir robes are currently needed due to the addition of several new members and to the deterioration of some older ones. 18. Scouts are saving aluminum cans, bottles and other items to be recycled. Proceeds will be used to cripple children. 19. Please place your donation in the envelope along with the deceased person you want remembered. 20. Attend and you will hear an excellent speaker and heave a healthy lunch. 21. The church will host an evening of fine dining, superb entertainment and gracious hostility. 22. Potluck supper Sunday at 5:00 PM - prayer and medication to follow. 23. The ladies of the Church have cast off clothing of every kind. They may be seen in the basement on Friday afternoon. 24. This evening at 7 PM there will be a hymn sing in the park across from the Church. Bring a blanket and come prepared to sin. 25. Ladies Bible Study will be held Thursday morning at 10 AM. All ladies are invited to lunch in the Fellowship Hall after the B.S. is done. 26. The pastor would appreciate it if the ladies of the congregation could lend him their electric girdles for the pancake breakfast next Sunday. 27. Low Self Esteem Support Group will meet Thursday at 7 PM. Please use the back door. 28. The eighth-graders will be presenting Shakespeare's Hamlet in the Church basement Friday at 7 PM. The congregation is invited to attend this tragedy. 29. Weight Watchers will meet at 7 PM at the First Presbyterian Church. Please use large double door at the side entrance. 30. The Associate Minister unveiled the church's new tithing campaign slogan last Sunday: "I Upped My Pledge - Up Yours." 31. Our next song is: "Angels We Have Heard Get High" |
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| Posted by Sora at 8 : 31 am | Leave a note {2} | ||
| October 03 2002 | ||
| BEST PART OF A BABY TO KISS?
Small toes? Soft cheeks? Giggly plump little belly? What's the number one best part of a baby to kiss? |
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| Posted by Sora at 1 : 06 pm | Leave a note {8} | ||
| September 29 2002 | ||
| UPS AND DOWNS
I had been suspecting another miscarriage for over a week. Now it's definite. The vision of a May baby seemed just right -- timing perfect, for just after Matt's graduation, but before we had to pack up and move, less than 18 months between the new baby and Zek'l -- he would be toddling around and starting to talk and the "new model" would arrive with that newborn smell to keep me from lamenting the loss of his babyhood. But though I'm sad and disappointed, but its not as devastating as the previous two miscarriages, both before Zek'l was born. It is hard to be sad with a sweet snuggly baby grinning at you. I hope God will give us another one very soon. |
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| Posted by Sora at 5 : 38 pm | Leave a note {7} | ||
| September 25 2002 | ||
| THIS HECTIC LIFE
I had my first recording session today. It went pretty well. I got 6 songs in, but will probably only keep 4 of them. It is about as nerve-wracking and intense to be in front of the microphones as I thought it would be. I lost track of time -- 45 minutes went by and it could have been 5 minutes or 3 hours, I really had no idea. Peter Hopper, the studio owner / engineer says, "A lot of virtue goes out of you in the studio." Very true. I was ready for a good nap at the end of the session, and I was there less than two hours. Of course, when I got home I had a kitchen to clean up, kids to nurse and change and teach and ride herd on, laundry to do. Wednesday afternoon is my errand day: we hit the bank, post office (to mail a package), a grocery store (the one with the cheap stuff), K-mart (to return a pair of shoes that didn't fit Talia), dropped Aedan at gymnastics, hit another grocery store (the one with decent produce), picked Aedan up, and headed home to cook supper, finish the laundry, and put the kids to bed without Matt because he works the evening shift at the tutoring center tonight. Right now, I feel like I'd be happy not to leave home again for about 2 weeks. I'll probably be ready to go to another booksale by Friday, though. |
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| Posted by Sora at 7 : 09 pm | Leave a note {1} | ||
| WILL WONDERS NEVER CEASE
The internet affords yet another proof that given enough time and ingenuity, absolutely anything -- including a life-sized working harpsichord -- can be built out of Lego. And that people have waaaaay too much time on their hands. |
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| Posted by Sora at 7 : 48 am | Leave a note {0} | ||
| September 24 2002 | ||
| COVENANT AND ELECTION
Linked from Mark Horne's blog: an article by Rich Lusk, "Covenant and Election FAQs". A sample: Doesn’t this approach over-emphasize human responsibility? No. Actually, it’s impossible to over-emphasize human responsibility because we are infinitely accountable to God. Only if we deny the Creator/creature relationship, and put human responsibility on a continuum with divine sovereignty, is it possible to think of one being emphasized at the expense of the other. It’s not a matter of either/or but both/and. Of course, God’s sovereignty is always the ground and presupposition of human responsibility. But we have maintained all along that salvation is a work of God’s sovereign grace. Go read it all. Good stuff. |
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| Posted by Sora at 10 : 54 pm | Leave a note {0} | ||
| September 22 2002 | ||
| MILITANT BREASTFEEDING CULT
In a comment on Matt's blog, Mark Horne expressed sadness that "the link to the "militant breastfeeding cult" is dead. He and others will, I'm sure, be relieved to know that the Militant Breastfeeding Cult is alive and well at www.militantbreastfeedingcult.com. The Militant Breastfeeding Cult website came about after Rebecca Prewett wrote a (somewhat tongue-in-cheek) review of a book by Peggy Robin, "Bottle-Feeding Without Guilt" -- a book that is, in my admittedly jaundiced opinion, one of the most innacurate, misleading, not to say spiteful, books that I have ever flipped through. It is one of the few books (along with Ezzo's "Babywise" and Hendrick's "My First 300 Babies") that I will buy at booksales or thrift stores in order to destroy it so that it will not fall into the hands of some unsuspecting young mother. But I digress... Anyway, the phrase "militant breastfeeding cult" originated in Robin's book. Go read the list of questions in Rebecca Prewett's review to see if you fit Peggy Robin's definition of a militant breastfeeding cultist. Several women who did this said, "Hey! That's me! I'm part of the militant breastfeeding cult and I didn't even know it. Well, if that's what she's gonna call me, I'll just wear it as a badge of honor!"  And yes, this blog post was written while NAKing (for those not in the know, the acronym stands for Nursing at Keyboard -- something mothers do. When children do it, it is SNAKing -- Sweetly Nursing at Keyboard. The use of such acronyms is another sure sign of cult membership.) |
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| Posted by Sora at 10 : 14 pm | Leave a note {4} | ||
| THE HOUSE OF BAD PUNS
I made soup and oatmeal-raisin scones for supper last night. That was the beginning. Over supper, Matt gave the kids an impromptu history lesson. "I know you guys haven't gotten to American history yet, but during the Civil War there was a Confederate general who had to defend a ford. He built a fort on the other side of the river, but they ran out of building materials. In those days they didn't have sandbags, but there was a bakery in the nearby town, so he started building with pastries.... (drum roll) ...and ever after he was known as Scone-wall Jackson." More this morning, as I suggested the left-overs would be good for the kids' breakfast. Shocked face: "Which of you, if your child asks you for some bread, will give him a scone?" Actually, after seeing how much area Zek'l can cover with pieces of a 1-inch square chunk of scone (or homemade bread, for that matter) Christ's feeding of the 5000 no longer seems quite as impressive. The text says there were 5000 men "besides women and children" so obviously, some of the children were babies and toddlers who were directly responsible for the 12 basket-fulls of left-over pieces. |
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| Posted by Sora at 9 : 19 am | Leave a note {0} | ||
| September 19 2002 | ||
| NEW BLOG
So, Matt's innovative idea to give me a pretentious Hebrew blog title turns out to be the mysterious force behind the problem we've been having with our browser crashing. Hence, new blog. (Matt, please post this to my old blog, at school where it won't corrupt our browser, with a link. Thank you.) My sincere apologies, loyal readers, if this has been causing problems for your browsers too. |
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| Posted by Sora at 8 : 48 am | Leave a note {0} | ||
| September 18 2002 | ||
WRESTLING MATCH
 Despite having the advantage in size and weight, Matt is no match for Zek'l's sheer cuteness. |
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| Posted by Sora at 11 : 26 pm | Leave a note {6} |
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