Phoenix Berries

Year of the Mom in Review

2009-12-31T09:54:00.001-05:00

Back in January, I participated in Motherhood Uncensored's Year of the Mom meme. Here's how I did on my goals.

1. It took some practice, but I actually sit at the table for at least one meal a day now. Usually Pip sits with me, and often we all three sit together for dinner. What really put me on the way toward meeting this goal was the terrible nausea I've had since Pete came onboard. I was starting to be a regular table-sitter before, but for the last three months I have had to sit still to eat, or else. Thank you, Pete.

2. I have learned to accept myself and others loads more in the past year. I think loving my baby (now, babies what with Pete on the way) has made me a better person and shown me new ways to love myself. Recently I was sitting in the tub, and I looked at my toes and thought, "They are happy toes. I am glad for my toes."

3 & 4. No longer do I fret much about the causes espoused by my fellow parents. Obviously, I still have problems with true causeheads (see my attitude about celebrity anti-vaccine people and also, though I don't rant about it much, my disdain for the regimented sleep causeheads). But I respect the sentiments of my fellow parents even if I don't choose their actions. Like my friend Ann who spaced out vaccinations because she just didn't want to overburden her kids' immune systems. She loves her kids so much, how could I read judgment in any way into what she says or does? And my friends from church who have trained their kids to go to sleep on their own. That works for them, so, live and let live. We are going a whole nother route with sleep because it makes us happy. I have actually learned to laugh about some stuff that might have made me feel all judged last year. Like feeding. And by laughing about our struggles instead of thinking we're about to face thunderbolts from the great pediatrician in the sky, we have been able to connect with other parents whose bird-like low-weight toddler eaters also get to eat really anything caloric. Oh, your kid scarfs food so fast you have to cut it into tiny bits? And you only give lower calorie snacks? Cool. My kid can eat food in any shape or size that entices him to swallow it. He eats chocolate ice cream twice a day. About two teaspoons. Awesome.
[Did you ever watch PCU? You should, if you want to know the image I get when I say, "causeheads."] Also, I do laugh on the rare occasions that people offer me absolute advice. Usually because I'm happy that the other parent has found something that makes their family happy, not out of mockery. (I'm pretty sure my tagline of "let them eat crayons" doesn't work for everyone, after all, but a little wax through the boy's digestive tract now and then is a small price for him having unlimited access to a means of creative expression.)

5. Sharon and I teamed up and collected enough samples of the outrageously expensive face cream that I was able to use it for free for almost a year. By which time I no longer wanted to buy outrageously expensive face cream, though it really does make my skin look nice. I'm just going to have to let the pregnancy glow and a much cheaper moisturizer do the job for the coming months.

6. I don't really care that much if people are incompetent speakers, because I remembered about how I can get up and leave. So mostly I just don't hang out if someone is being dumb. It's not like I got brownie points from my long-suffering before. I'm way happier just saying NO to incompetence.

7. I just sing my arias as part of Pip's lullaby routine. Not always perfect pitch, but it's certainly a lot of fun. And I get to test my memorization on arias I haven't sung in awhile.

8. Nope. I never mailed last year's Christmas cards. And I lost the ones I bought for this year. Probably I'll figure out a half-assed way of wishing you Season's Greetings later this week. Or maybe not.

9. Done. Laughing has been our lifeblood these many months.

10. I don't really have any gorgeous shoes right now. Don't know when or if that will happen. But I have a pair of very comfy and supportive Keen cross trainers. Soon I may start wearing them to church with my dresses.

Fourth fifth sixth

2009-12-30T21:27:00.009-05:00

This post was delayed a bit since I forgot to photograph the gift for day five, but at long last, the 4th, 5th, and 6th days of Christmas in review.

Pip opened his puppy in the late afternoon of the fourth day. He untied the ribbon and pulled off the paper himself.

Puppy was a big hit and immediately received kisses.

Then Pip celebrated puppy by playing his flute. What? You think it's a saw toy, eh? Well, it's also a flute, according to Pip. The saw was his first pretend flute. Then he added a little microwavable plastic pot, and this morning began to make flute noises while tooting on his toy wrench. He is a very creative boy, and if you get around him in a musical mood, you will likely be recruited for his band (two flutes and a drum, with Little People Nativity set soundtrack background for the dancing).

The pied piper of puppies.

Day five started out with me sleeping in (Thanks, Andrew!) while the fellas played and did the dishes. As you see, Pip helped load the dishwasher. Tiger and turtle needed a scrub.

Then Pip played in his play kitchen (Moomin Light and Color Sweet Tooth will recognize the apron) and stirred popcorn around.In the afternoon, we went to the area learning store for an expedition. Andrew had never been there, and needless to say, he was impressed with their selection. We left with a couple of bags of educational supplies, placemats, and Pip's fifth day present, the above owl. Pip loves clocks. He spent last week's bedtimes sorting out the differences between the silver-rimmed nursery clock, his silver-rimmed ceiling light fixture, and the fire alarm/smoke detector over his door. If he explains to you, he will tell you that "clock, light (or light fixture), alarm" are all "circles" (sometimes circs) and that clock goes "round and round. tick tock." Sometimes he will mention the hands on the clock and may say whether they are slow or fast. So, when the store clerk heard us mention Pip likes clocks and brought this out, it was a foregone conclusion that Pip would be receiving the owl clock toy as a gift. You can move the hands around and around, and pushing the feet advances in five minute intervals and opens eyes to reveal the numerical time.

Yesterday (the sixth day of Christmas), we managed to have Pip open his gift in the morning. He paused from scrubbing his pear, as you can see. Poppa pointed out how the gift was wrapped Fancy-Nancy fancy style.

Pip and Poppa examined Pip's new puzzle. The first piece that caught Pip's eye was "V." He pointed to it and said, "Violin. Bow." He also really likes the quail, which he will tell you is a blue bird.

I'll try to be more prompt posting after today's gift and celebrating. It has been so great having Andrew home from work this week. Pip has loved playing with his Poppa, I've enjoyed having my husband around and getting to see the fellas play, and I think Andrew may have even gotten a little rest. He's let me sleep in so much that this super-tired part of pregnancy has been much easier than I could have hoped. I seem to have caught some weird little bug that has given me laryngitis this week, but all this rest is helping me mend on the quick.

Pip has taken to saying, "I know" a lot recently. I just overheard a conversation between him and his Poppa on the baby monitor. Poppa would describe something or give information, and Pip would say, "I know." I think he might be a teenager, except that he's cute when he says it instead of sarcastic.

Three french squirrels?

2009-12-27T22:03:00.006-05:00

Today was a mixed bag. On one hand, I cracked up laughing till I was snorting at the altar rail in church AND I had a peaceful long nap this afternoon. On the other, I accidentally ran over a squirrel on the way home from church.

I have never squished an animal with my car before that I recall. When I saw the limp little bundle of bad-timing squirrel in my rearview mirror, I said, "Oh, no! I did. I killed that squirrel." Andrew and I crossed ourselves immediately and I prayed aloud for the squirrel's soul: Lord, grant that squirrel eternal rest, and may light perpetual shine upon him. Then I was all, "Do you think maybe he was just stunned? I didn't even feel a bump." Andrew: "No, he's dead." Me: "Is it okay to pray for squirrels' souls? I don't see why not. But I'm really sorry I hit him. I didn't mean to" (and I wasn't speeding). Andrew: "There was nothing you could have done." So true. And here is where I am a little perverse. Not one minute had passed since I sent a living creature haplessly to the great beyond to play a tiny golden harp or what all squirrels do in heaven, and I found myself thinking - and [successfully] repressing the urge to announce- "Squirrels do not protect our children." It's a pun from our college days, having to do with our friend Rebecca, John Holt, studying too late at night, and the fact that said friend had a stuffed squirrel we came to name John C. Holt which then became a cult legend in his own right in our small circle of weirddom. But the point is, I think I laughed at a squirrel's funeral, kind of. On the inside.

Back to the good part of the morning. I shit you not, I was kneeling next to Andrew and Pip at the altar rail during Eucharist, and I was praying that with these elements today I would especially be strengthened in the gift of charity to better love especially those who offend me, and I look over, and Pip has swiped Andrew's Jesus bread. So the priest gives Pip an extra little piece, but he won't give Andrew back his bread. She gave Andrew a different piece of Jesus bread, but by the time she got to me, I was literally shaking and snorting out loud with laughter over the look on Pip's face. He was all turfing communion, but reverently, of course. I often think of the presence of Christ in the Eucharist in the old way, as the "medicine of immortality." Today I totally got dosed with a double blessing: heavenly virtue, and laughter, the "best medicine."

This evening we let Pip open another of his gifts. He is getting really good at opening presents. I started the tear in the paper at the top, and he removed all the paper himself. He loved his gift of wooden animal magnets. He named almost all of them - panda bear, turtle, giraffe, the usual domestic types, and of course lion and tiger, his faves. (We spent a fair amount of time the past few days talking on the phone with lion and tiger [alt. tigey], as Pip picks up a phone or anything resembling an iPod and says, "Hello? Hello? Lion. Roar. Tiger. Roar." Sometimes mouse also gives us a squeak.) He put each magnet on the fridge, then began to take them all down and return them to the box. Until he got to giraffe again, at which point it was important for giraffe to give us all kisses. The rest of the day was spent largely in Pip cooking with our pots and pans as well as his play ones, reading books (especially Fancy Nancy's Splendiferous Christmas), eating together, going to the bookstore, and a good long bath wherein our little calf practiced floating his body up with his hands on the bottom as he said, "Weeeee!" That is how a small person/cow jumps over the moon.

The first and second days of Christmas

2009-12-26T18:55:00.013-05:00

Okay, I'm starting with Christmas Eve, because this was just too cute. Pip ate spaghetti with his Poppa for lunch that day. I think it was his first experience eating long noodles with a big boy fork.

Christmas morning
Keeping with our goal of celebrating all twelve days of Christmas, we gave Pip just one present yesterday morning. It was his big "main" gift of a play kitchen. We don't do commercial Santa in our house, so Pip knows that Poppa built the kitchen for him. We took like 200 photos of his first playtime with his knew kitchen, but he's a toddler, so most of them were blurry. Suffice it to say, Pip loves his kitchen.
Poppa hid some favorite stuffed animals in the refrigerator for Pip to find. Here he meows at KittyCat. His first expression besides smiling was to notice the sink. "Faucet. Water on. Wash. Faucet."
Pip enjoyed exploring the stove. Soon he noticed that Elmo was sitting by the fire. "Elmo. No. Hot." He moved Elmo away from the stove.

"Spoon!"

The boy loves to cook with us, and all day today he has "cooked" in his kitchen. He likes to remove the sink and play with the knobs and pans.

Second Day of Christmas

Today Pip opened a gift from his grandparents. He liked it not only because he likes to play with fruit, but because he was actually allowed to play with the wooden knife that came with the set. He's always after our dinner knives, to no avail, though we let him use a dull spreader to scoop his taters on his fork sometimes.
Here Pip removes the wrapping paper himself. So different from last year, when he mostly ate the paper or looked at us inquisitively when presented with a gift.
Pip named his favorite fruits right away. "Kiwi! Strawberry!" I had to figure out how to remove the fruits from the package post haste. Oh, and I'm wearing my new scarf (also belly dancing veil) that Andrew bought me for Christmas. It's from the same artist as the mini-silks and my other pretty scarf. I purchased a play sized silk in the same colors for Pip. Before the evening was out, he came up to me and said, "Off!" He likes it when I float the canopy silks over his head so he can walk under them and pull them over his face. I told him, "My baby is in the sunset!" "Where's Pip? Oh! He's in the sunset!" This scarf really looks like the reds in one of those whole-sky sunsets you see in late summer. It goes along with the rainbow canopy and helps me be consistent when I sing the playsilk song I made up for him. (The sky is on my baby/My baby's in the sky/Where could he be?/Did he learn to fly?)
He practiced cutting the fruit a lot this evening, mostly with his right hand, but sometimes with his left. I spotted him "cooking" his kiwi halves while I was preparing dinner in the big kitchen.
Breaking pattern, we had to give Pip one of his presents early, making two gifts today instead of one. He outgrew his little boots and most of his soft-soled shoes this week, so we took him to REI this afternoon after I did some online research. We wound up finding these nice Keen shoes on sale (for about half what they charge on the website I linked there). He was reluctant to try them on, but after a couple of minutes, he refused to take them off. Our boy is growing up. Wearing hard-soled big boy shoes now.

Pip's shoes are decorated with little bears, which suits our little bear.

Happy Second Day of Christmas! (I hope no one has taken to sending you birds, even though that would bode well for day five.)

The icon is called "the beginning."

2009-12-25T20:41:00.001-05:00

When I was a child we lived for awhile in front of a field that bordered the beginning of things. Until I was a teenager and someone thought it important to tell me otherwise, I believed all streams, rivulets, and tributaries ran into rivers or bayous that ran to channels that ran to the sea. Days I spent walking upstream till I found the narrowing place in creeks, the stream bed, the brook, the hollow, the place that perhaps a spring sometimes livened. Once I found the start of it all. At least it might have been Eden. I could not be sure, since it was hidden and the way barred, but this may have been a back entrance.

On the way to the beginning I found a turtle shell bleached white with age but not sun. It was a shady place, damp from unseen water. There were hatched reptile eggs nearby, and I felt rather than knew that baby turtles must have left them there near the bones of ancient kin. A little ways on, and I could go no farther. Black mud told me a spring must be under the bracken. I found a row of freshwater clam shells as big as my hand, bigger. They smelled like water and proved my hypothesis about the ocean. These clams must have been far cousins to the ones that lived downstream. I took a shell back to my parents, who suggested that there might be pearls, but the clams were gone when I wandered back. The place had changed, the sun shone round, and I doubted that I had come again to the beginning.

Today of all days, I am grateful to have this field to dig again for pearls of Eden. Behind the wildflowers and the shady green, up the water's path I feel it. I think I hear a hint of it. Warm voices of midwives washing a baby. Splashing of birth water and the world's first water cleaning a freshly sprung child. Laughter. The little one's mother. Or a brook? Or is it the ocean lapping? The snapping of fresh shells, shell on shell as the small green crawlers bear pearls into the waiting woods?

Some people believe that the world sits on the backs of turtles, and they may not be far wrong. I saw one once at the beginning of water. A child took it in hand till it ripened into a mystery.

Guide to Gifts You're Not Getting This Year

2009-12-22T10:49:00.000-05:00

Seriously, none of you will receive any of this stuff from me, or probably from anyone. But it's still pretty cool, imho. These are just links because if I'm too lazy to buy the present for you or for myself, do you think I'm going to bother pasting in photos? No. (That's "no," in Spanish.)

1. Car Talk shopping bags. It did not occur to anyone that you would like these. Too bad for you. Maybe next year.

2. Punky Brewster: The Complete Series. I think today's teens should have to watch this so they understand why their rainbow shoelaces are cool.

3. Swim with a Dolphin. Dolphins are so cool. Except when abused for college identity purposes. Once when I was editor of a school literary journal, a young woman requested that we use the name her Shaman gave her, "Rainbow Dolphin," instead of her real name. I believe we settled for "Anonymous." My point is, if we take the kids down to Orlando someday so that their godparents can get them hyped up on sugar and rollercoasters and I can fall in love with Pluto some more, I want to slip away and hang out with dolphins. Also, you are not getting this for Christmas.

4. Optimus Maximus Keyboard. Each key is a tiny OLED display. Why you would want one, who knows? But it would definitely be geekier than anything you are likely to see under the tree this year.

5. Guess What? Chicken Butt tee. This shirt is a classic, and if you could be trusted NOT to wear it to children's choir rehearsals, maybe it would be for you this Christmas. Sadly, that is not the case.

6. Beatrix Potter half-day tour. Don't get all excited. You're not going.

7. Great Psychologists Finger Puppets. So you can talk your problems out. With yourself. Now you know why nobody bought these for you.

8. Bagpipe lessons. I think you know why no one wanted to gift you with these. Not exactly an inside instrument, however thrilling in the open air.

9. Goldfish Maternity Gown. If I was the sort to wear this, I so would. But I am soooo not getting this for Christmas.

10. Embracing Encaustic. This is a book about how to paint with beeswax. I'm pretty sure the short answer is that it's really difficult. That's probably why none of us got it for you for this year. Maybe next year.

Tree trimmings

2009-12-21T18:53:00.013-05:00

On Saturday, we went to Pip's godparents' place to hang out, eat dinner, and decorate their tree. Sunday evening found us picking up and decorating our own tree. Today Pip played at some friends' house while I went to the store. They were trimming their tree, too, so Pip helped. All in all, Pip's decorating skills have been in-demand a lot this week before Christmas.

Here we are at Godpoppa Rob's and Aunt Miranda's house, picking out non-breakable ornaments for Pip to put on their tree. He loves his godparents so much. When we say we're going to church, he says, "Wob! Wob! Mee-anda!" Which is toddler for their names, in case you couldn't tell.

Here Pip helps his godpoppa put an ornament on the tree. Somehow most of the ornaments Pip put on the tree wound up on the same branch.

Here Pip chooses another ornament with Meenana (another variation on his godmother's name).

Pip rests with his godmomma while a weird Swedish stacking game takes over the coffee table.

These pictures demonstrate what happens when you get too cocky about stacking wobbly Swedish wood bits into towers. I'm all like, "Hey, this is balanced on an egg."

And then it all falls down, like something out of a Dr. Suess book. Suess knew the follies of mocking gravity.

Rob was doing great.

But before he could even place that last piece, alas, the Swedish wood gods intervened.

How the mighty fall! But still, Rob won, because his tower was tallest before it was smited by Sweden or its gods.

Our Own Particular Idiom: Decorating our Place

A USB-powered seasonal display.

We needed a very small tree so it would fit on our bar. (Pip's big Christmas surprise is going to live under the bar). We got one of those nice rosemary trees so we can eat it after the holidays. Winter is a good time for stews. Here you see Pip putting bows on the tree with his Poppa. Technically, he is pointing at a bow. I didn't grab the camera in time to catch him setting the bows in place, so I asked him to point to the bow.

We decided to forego awkward hanging ornaments on our tiny tree. I got out Pip's stash of puffy pom-poms and let him stick as many as he wanted into the branches. He's patting one in in the above photo.

The result was quite fetching and bright.

Our Advent candles all lit for Advent 4.

a bit of weather

2009-12-21T18:43:00.004-05:00

Snow!

Chasing Poppa.

Walking in the flurries.

What a good boy am I

2009-12-21T18:32:00.004-05:00

Pip recently discovered his ability to pinch. By pinching me. I told him he was not to pinch Mamma. Then he pinched himself. So I explained that we touch because we love, but pinching hurts, so is not loving. He should touch himself and others with love, gently. Then he tried pinching a bigger area. I changed tactics. "Pinching is not for people. We don't pinch people. We pinch pie crusts." At which point, the boy, who was supposed to be going night-night when the pinch discovery ensued, began to request, "Pie crusts!" over and over again. Finally I settled him down by promising to let him pinch pie crusts the next day. When we got out the pie crusts the next day, he discovered that touching them made his hands messy. He poked at one of them, then said, "Mess," and abandoned the project. Instead he made the filling for the pies.
The pie crusts turned out to have been freezer burned (they were some old Whole Foods ones I happened to have on hand), so the pies were inedible. But the pie making was a success. Pip had a ball stirring the filling and scooping it into the pies, and he no longer pinches.

Pete's Feet

2009-12-17T19:13:00.004-05:00

Today we got to see young Pete. The day started with our first visit to the midwives at the birthing center. I am 12 weeks along, so we should have been able to hear the heartbeat today. Leastways, we were able to hear Pip's heartbeat by 11 weeks. So we have built up anticipation for these past few months about getting to hear Pete today. But you know what they say about not comparing pregnancies (or children)? Yep. Even with some painful Doppler poking about on my belly, we could not hear a peep out of Pete. This? Freaked me out. The midwives, being awesome and following their credo of listening to women, did not bat an eye, but scheduled me an ultrasound for this afternoon so I could be calm.

We had to wait for a little over an hour this afternoon since we were basically being worked in by the kind folk over at the hospital, but as soon as the ultrasound was underway, the technician zoomed in on the heartbeat. Relief! I so needed to hear and see it. Turns out that while Pip was front and center on my forward-tilted womb, making heartbeats all convenient to detect, young Pete here is tucked away on the bottom of my currently backward tilted uterus, making her nearly impossible to hear. Good to know to avoid future freak-outs. But as you can see, Pete is perfectly healthy, and we are very happy she is with us. Only six more months or so, and we can see her small and lovely perfect face.

Above: Pete, who was quite snug and did not wish to turn around while we were taking a peek this afternoon. Yes, we are calling our daughter Pete for a nickname. You have six months to get used to it.

The heartbeat!

Probably girl parts, but we won't know for sure till our February ultrasound. I've thought she is a girl all along, though.

Her tiny feet, slightly shorter than 1cm long!

The eyes have it

2009-12-16T21:46:00.004-05:00

Today we played with googly eyes. Pip stuck them to my forehead. We counted to seven. It was a silly sort of afternoon.

wherein I rant about vaccines and the causeheads trying to disuade people from them

2009-12-15T21:53:00.007-05:00

Here I am in a quiet house, but I'm too tired to do much. I have wrapped three Christmas presents very prettily this evening. But all the foment of thought and energy seems to have seeped out of my system after a long day. Andrew is at a Vestry meeting and will likely be pretty late home.

Pip and I got H1N1 vaccinations today - at long last! No side effects whatsoever. It was probably the least painful shot I've had. Our county health department has shots available for any county resident who calls for an appointment, which is awesome, because they kept running out until very recently. When I got there this morning for my shot (Pip's was at his pediatricians later in the a.m.), I saw that a kind of large group of us had a 9 o'clock appointment. A cattle call was issued for those receiving the vaccine. We all trooped down the stairs to a second waiting area, where we were either directed toward the room where the shots were administered or asked to fill out forms. The nurses were friendly, quick, skilled, and the shot was free. It was pretty awesome. But I really felt the "herd" part of "herd immunity" when we were shepherded down the halls. I thought, wow. There are people who are not going to come and get their shot, but we beasties here will help to stop the spread of this disease.

Really, I was just super relieved to finally have my vaccine. There is nothing whatsoever cool about healthy pregnant women drowning in their own bodily fluids just because some asshole new strain of flu likes to target people with buns in the oven.

There have been studies done about the way people think about vaccinations. Apparently some people think along these lines: If I/my child got a disease when I/he could have been immunized, I would never forgive myself. Other people are freaked out by the possibilities of side effects and think like this: If I/my child had a negative reaction because I agreed to vaccinate, I would never forgive myself. I think whoever did that study means for us to be understanding toward the people in the latter group, because they just approach risk and responsibility differently. But I don't buy that line of crap. Because, honestly, there are some parts of the universe where you should listen to math.

Math cannot show you everything you may want to know, but it does a good job of showing correlations. That's why I am not in any way worried that any of Pip's vaccinations will affect his mental development. (He is not allergic to eggs, by the way, which is one of the only good reasons to avoid vaccines). There is a 0% correlation between vaccines and autism. (I mean that there is no correlation between rise in autism and rise in vaccines, not that autistic persons are entirely unvaccinated. Also, I'm not a statistician, so I may have stated this a little weird.) No correlation, no causation. After hearing some causeheads talk, I read that little Dr. Sears book about vaccines, but then I also read some articles by physicians and scientists who are actually in the field of immunology. And I thought to myself, hmm. So you are going to try to scare me with aluminum, Dr. Sears? Are you shitting me? Because I took like 8900000000879879879873.652 grams (approximately) of aluminum salts during pregnancy, when I had to live partially on Tums with all that heartburn. But the kid might wither before the amount of aluminum in a tiny ass syringe? Really? Plus, I asked our awesome pediatrician what she thought. She said, "I have never observed any children in all my years of practice who developed autism or any mental disorders from vaccines." See what I did there? I did math, saw that there was no evidence that vaccines jack with kids' brains, then I read opposing viewpoints, weighed the evidence with reason and the credibility of the sources, then sought out anecdotal evidence from a professional whom I trust. All roads led to: vaccines are a freaking godsend so your kid doesn't have to die from some horrible medieval disease.

Having said all that, I must say that I still love my causehead friends who don't vaccinate or who delay vaccination and all that. I just don't look at the world the same way as them. Maybe because I know first-hand a little more about the horrible things that happen to people, or maybe because I really believe God wants us to be healthy and that immunizations from terrible disease work toward health. I don't have a problem with giving my baby a hepatitis vaccine or an HPV vaccine. Lots of people scoff and say, "Why would you give a vaccine to a BABY for a sexually transmitted disease?" And I'm all, 1. You have no idea what kind of sick bastards there are in the world, and God forbid my kids should be attacked, but I want them to be safe from disease if they were, 2. If they go on a trip abroad to certain countries, they would have to get these vaccines anyway, 3. If we could vaccinate against AIDS, you bet your ass that you would line babies up to get the shot. 4. Stop being self-righteous like you are protecting babies from the man, when you are just spreading more of the vibes of the "vaccines aren't really necessary" misinformation.

What I think the real divide in thinking may be is not how we foresee our own feelings if a bad thing were to happen, but whether or not we pay close attention to logic. Even the book I read by Dr. Sears and the causeheady anti-vaccine websites (usually) have the math available. The problem is that the anti-vaccine camp does not interpret the statistics in context. It's illogical to cite the numbers of cases of disease within an (almost universally) immunized population as evidence for claims that a non-immunized population would have a similarly low occurrence of the same disease. Basically, that's the logic flaw I have seen repeatedly from many vaccine detractors. They just don't think they are at risk for measles or brain fevers and so on, because they don't realize that the numbers in the fine print are based on studies of immunized people. Recently there have been outbreaks of measles and mumps among several small anti-vaccine communities. I really hate that for the children affected. I wish the causehead celebrities who spout crap about vaccine injury would repent, because all they are doing is encouraging people to expose their children to life-threatening illnesses. Even if their bullshit line held scientific weight (which it decidedly does NOT) and vaccines were like little autism seed pellets, I can't believe any parent would prefer to watch their non-"vaccine-injured" child die of brain fever and respiratory failure instead of having to struggle with communication and development issues in their living child. This illogical mess has got to stop. It's harmful to kids and insulting to those who live and love with autism. And also, in case you missed the above: there is no link between vaccines and autism.*

Anyway, not that you asked, but I am a fan of vaccines. Can you tell?

*If you really want to go looking for answers, here are several completely non-validated, non-scientific speculations on the causes for autism I made up for you to obsess over instead: drinking soy milk during pregnancy and nursing causes autism by interfering with hormone absorption in the developing fetus; synthetic transfats in the mother's diet causes the brain to develop abnormally in utero; dieting during pregnancy causes the baby's brain to develop abnormally since brains are mostly made of fat; skim milk during pregnancy is a bad idea unless you are pretty fat already, because that baby's brain needs fat to develop properly; radon or something like that?; oxidized foods (eggs, milk) from stuff like baking mixes interfere with the developing fetus' protein synthesizing; epidurals and pitocin can interfere with some children's mental processes. Okay, I'm done. See how easy it is to be alarmist when you don't have to rely on any scientific evidence whatsoever?

Going to Christmas Tea

2009-12-14T19:30:00.005-05:00

A certain small boy was happy to go to Christmas Tea this afternoon. He wore his crown and smiled for the camera.

"Tea!"

felt flower but not finger painting

2009-12-10T17:04:00.003-05:00

So, I decided to give up my weekly roses for Advent so that I would appreciate their return at Christmas even more. But I lurve flowers. And guess which aphids have not died off so far this fall and insist on eating the remaining roses in the yard? Yeah. Those little bastards over here at my place, taking advantage of my organic pest "control" (or maybe feeding?) methods, since the cold has made the ladybugs sleep. Right. Back to the point. I decided that today was not an ideal day to make salt dough ornaments since I woke up green to the gills again and would prefer to be really flexible on ornament day. So I decided to take some of the felt I bought recently and let Pip paint flowers. Only he got bored after one, so we will have one exquisite flower for the remainder of Advent.

At first the paint was kind of cool. Pip requested a couple of additional colors and played with mixing for a few minutes.

Here he is in action. But not long after he painted his second petal, he decided it was much cooler to squeeze the paint from the tubes than to paint. He got a little on his fingers, but before I could get a handprint, he expressed grossed-outedness and lifted his bitty hands to be washed, telling me, "Mess. Mess." In this regard, he takes after his Poppa. I love finger painting and dirt or what have you on my hands. I like mushing butter into flour and baking stuff that's messy. But Andrew likes his hands clean. He says it's because he has to type all day and doesn't want a messy keyboard. But I think it's genetic, because the child did not learn this paint = "mess" connection from me. He has his Poppa's hands.
When the flower is dry, I am going to make a stem with pipe cleaner (now called bendable chenille sticks or some such silliness for PC purposes) and put the flower in a vase on the mantel.

You Can Swish for Fish

2009-12-08T21:42:00.003-05:00

Pip loves Dr. Suess. The child can get a little hopped up on the doctor. He started with the gateway stuff: The Foot Book, Hop on Pop, but soon he was a hard-core Suesser. Green Eggs and Ham, Marvin K Mooney, Will You Please Go Now?, Great Day for UP, Fox in Socks, On Beyond Zebra, One Fish Two Fish, Oh, the Places You'll Go, The First of Octember. Back in September he would just mildly warn you away from cacti, "No, no, no," he would say, while waving his hands (No, Pat, No! Don't sit on that!). October began the Fox in Socks run, wherein we began banging on everything (and had to learn not to bang people) and chanting "Boom, boom" for "Bim and Ben lead bands with brooms. Ben's band bangs and Bim's band booms." Then in November we picked up the birding habit. In One Fish, Two Fish, there's a page where hearing is restored when a bird comes out of a creature's ear. Now Andrew and I are subject to occasional ear pokes, followed by a flapping hand and the phrase "Tweet, tweet, tweet," to indicate that our child has graciously removed a bird from an ear. Sometimes these bird removals are also wet willies.

I tell you all this, because today our boy took his Suessing to the next level. He climbed up on his play table, tumped his snacks off his plate, picked up the plate and a playsilk, and started saying, "Dish! Swish! Dish!" while waving the silk over the plate. I almost grew a bra size, my chest swelled so with maternal pride and joy.

Here is our tot swishing for fish with his Ish Wish Dish.

You can buy some of those beautiful hand-dyed mini playsilks at The Farmhouse Boutique on etsy. I don't get paid to say anything on this blog, but like fifteen people have admired the scarf/playsilk canopy I bought there, and you will also like the minisilks if you see them in person because they are gorgeous, with variegated rich colors. We gave Pip the set of rainbow itty-bitty silks for the Feast of St. Nicholas.

And, for the "It Skips A Generation" file:
Pip "cleaning" his plate with the silk. He loves to play clean. He asks for extra wipeys so he can scrub stuff: the changing table, his mirrors, the floor, the sink, the table, his toys. My mom, likewise, is fond of cleaning. Me? Not so much. I just don't think about it until the floor feels sharp from crumbs, and then I'm all, huh. I will sweep. I wash stuff, but neatening up doesn't make it on the "top three things I need to do today" list very often. In other words, we're sanitary but also messy, usually, even though we have grand aspirations of future neatness. (And, to be fair, the house is much cleaner when I can bend over without losing my biscuits. I hope the morning sickness clears up when I get to the second trimester in a couple of weeks.) So there you have it. Dr. Suess has a fever and the only prescription is more cowbell. Wait. No. I mean, Dr. Suess (may he rest in peace- and yes, I cried in 9th grade when he died) is at least partially responsible for my son's amazing attention span. And great sense of humor. And I love his rhythmic rhymes.

St. Nick

2009-12-06T19:59:00.009-05:00

Pip enjoyed the Nicholasfest our church put on for the children Friday night (a couple of days early). Here he is getting his candy cane from a surprise visitor: St. Nicholas!

Pip also enjoyed getting the chocolate gold coins from his shoes, as soon as we could catch him and get him still long enough for him to notice them. His favorite part of the feast was free reign to toddle-run around the church, I think.
We celebrated St. Nick again last night with pancakes. Did you know you can make patterns on the table if you dip your very small fingers in the syrup? It's true. Pip helped his Poppa flip the pancakes.

Pip also received a set of mini playsilks to celebrate the day. We danced to Louis Armstrong's "Cool Yule" while waving them around last night. We are not celebrating Coca-Cola marketing Santa in our house, so this was Pip's big St. Nick weekend. Don't worry, though. He will not be present-deprived. We have acquired twelve gifts for him for the 12 days of Christmas. Hopefully by holding off on Christmas till after Advent, then celebrating the snot out of it, we'll be able to set a pattern of anticipation and joy that Pip will treasure in years to come. Another plus: no lying to our child. Which is great, because we are bad at lying.

Above: This is us trying to fib about the Tooth Fairy and Easter Bunny to my little sister when she was in college. We so did not convince her.

Dance to this if you get a chance:

Happy Feast of St. Nicholas, y'all!

how did we miss out on this?

2009-12-05T21:30:00.002-05:00

There were some negative consequences of the Revolutionary War, of course, the chief of which is that nobody over here talks about hot water bottles. Oh. My. Blasphemy. Seriously? I slept with my new hot water bottle by my feet for the first time last night. Blissful. But because of a certain incident a couple few hundred years ago, I had to learn about how awesome hot water bottles are from reruns of Jeeves and Wooster and an article on insomnia. It said, and I quote, "Get a hot water bottle for yo freezin' cold toes." Not really. But still.

So anyway, there's that. And the Royal Mail. I think we have some work to do, America.

Holy Guests

2009-11-30T18:08:00.003-05:00

Photos are from last night's Advent candle lighting.

Sometimes my life accidentally takes on a theme. Last week, during one of those "Wow. If I move I will be sick" evenings of nausea, I couldn't even focus on reading. I turned to Netflix, which told me I might like a movie called Ushpizin. Yes, a movie in Hebrew with subtitles. So I sat and watched it, and besides not understanding all the jokes that I'm sure were there, I really liked the film. It was uplifting in a largely foreign way, but I also felt a lot in common with some of the couple's hopes. And I could relate to the conflicted feelings they had while trying to give hospitality to guests with a different set of norms.

Then this weekend rolled around, and I found myself as the guest. We visited our local Orthodox mission church (link is to the church's website). We've never been to an Orthodox service before, but I met the priest when I was in Divinity School. We felt like that little bit of familiarity plus having the liturgy in English would make our first experience easier. The service was familiar, but different. I found it so beautiful and restful that we will probably visit as often as we can, just for worship and rest. More on that later. After the Liturgy, we were invited to stay for coffee hour. I think we talked with at least a third of the congregation -like, really talked. People had accents ranging from Southern hick to I think it was Ukrainian and maybe Czech. It seemed as though most of the folks were converts, none of them because of bitterness with their old traditions, but because they felt called and saw something beautiful, holy, in the Orthodox liturgy. But I told you there was a theme and I'm rambling. From the first, we were treated with such kindness and consideration. At least four separate families and three single people invited us to stay for coffee (really a light lunch). A couple of different folks answered our questions when we were clueless and gave us booklets for following the liturgy. People stand in Orthodox services, but this parish had pews along the walls for those who needed rest. We talked to other parents who needed to walk their kids outside for awhile. At the coffee hour, we found that we were treated with honor, and pretty much everyone had some bit of theological wisdom that just slipped into the conversation. I told Andrew as soon as we got to the car after a mere 3.5 hours, "They treated us like angels. They welcomed us like we were the three angels."

We love our Episcopal church, mind you. But sometimes we are just so worn out from all the stuff we do and all the stuff everyone does there. I had started to feel as though at least 1/4 of my interactions at church were wearying rather than uplifting. Rather than being treated like an angel, I think a lot of times I am treated like an imposter. Like, people question why I am interested in doing volunteer work and so assume I have some sort of codependency I'm sloughing off at church or whatever. Not saying this is true, although I read body language pretty well and also remember conversations pretty well, like the one where someone wondered aloud why/how some people -hint- make so much time for the church. (Which, I know, right? What kind of head case volunteers at churches!?) So, in reality, these little snipes don't add up to much of a percentage of interactions at church, but they have been hitting their mark the past several months, and I needed a break. The problem isn't even whether people were really being hostile, but that I was taking crap personally. Thus the need for a break and some rest so I don't get all bitter and angry. When I was in seminary, there was one solid piece of advice that showed up in all the small groups and talks to those training for ministry: have a place to rest outside of your parish. For now, it seems as though I have found that at the parish we visited on Sunday.

The liturgy had the quality of a dream for me. I have read loads of stuff on the early church, which you might expect from someone with a couple of few degrees heavily loaded toward, oh, early church history. I love reading about theosis, which is the way the early church and the Orthodox churches talk about salvation. The key phrase for understanding theosis is "God became human so that humans might become divine." The belief does not sit comfortably with Calvinists or much with Western Christianity after I guess around the sixth century, which is where I think the divergence is more obvious. It's not very suited to most of what Protestants teach (maybe recovered some by Wesley). But it's what Andrew and I believe. That transformation into divine children of God is what happens in the Christian life. When we were at the Orthodox liturgy, we felt the difference right away. The people there were being transformed. Heaven was on earth. When I say the liturgy was dream-like, I mean it seemed outside of time somehow, like prophetic dreams that have a place and also float outside of time. Even though we were outsiders, just listeners, unable to participate in the communion, I still felt the pull outside myself. To stand outside oneself- ecstasy- and be transformed. The sermon was the only time everyone sat. Again I saw a mark of the Holy Spirit. I heard the priest describe the virtue of humility, and I rejoiced to realize that I am not humble. I was glad to know what I lacked, and the recognition of my lack of humility corresponded with a desire for humility that instantly gave me what I desired. That sort of hallmark of the gospel is rare, but it was there.

How much of the rest that I experienced was due to the hospitality of the parish? They mostly offered us knowledge. Is it that people treated us like angels because they believe heaven comes to earth in the Eucharist? Were we given rest because we walked into heaven yesterday? Everything was very simple. The people were simple. The food afterward was simple, in a simple building. There was no programming. But we were treated as honored guests.

I don't know what to make of it all. But the day puts me in mind of the coming season of Epiphany, when we will take chalk to our doorstep again, to inscribe on January 6, "20 + BCM + 10" as a sign that we welcome guests to our home. What will Advent have to be for us to make us treat others like kings, like angels?

a portrait of family joy

2009-11-27T18:54:00.003-05:00

Tonight in the checkout line at Whole Foods, Pip learned how to pick his nose. You know, as one does at Whole Foods. First he rubbed his nose, then came the moment of revelation: the finger fits in the nose slot. A look of jubilation crossed his features. New horizons opened before him. Then it was over, the nostril exploration abandoned for a time, doubtless to be taken up again tomorrow. Or another day. The possibilities, once you make the finger + nose connection, are boundless.

On the way home, we rediscovered one of the sexiest songs ever on an old unmarked mix tape we found in the car after having it cleaned out by the Jiffy Lube guy last week. (See video below). We got almost to the end of the song before our small adventurer began to shout.

Then it was time for a moving rendition of "Little Bunny Fu-Fu." Poppa was riding shotgun, so he did most of the song. I only added in the final moment, when Fu-Fu meets his fate of turning into a loon.

We, and by we, I mostly mean "I," lazed about this morning. Andrew let me sleep till 9:30!!! I have not slept that late since before Pip was born. Then I took a nap with Pip in the late morning. Andrew did responsible things like read and study. I did responsible things like sleep and cuddle the toddler and try not to lose my breakfast. I managed a little online shopping, talked with my lil sis (the college student in theology, not the on-the-lam one who is a good person, too, just less legal right now). Then we ventured forth to the craft store to buy supplies for homemade ornaments and gifts.

I bought felt for making Pip some felt chocolate chip cookies. I am not a seamstress, but I can hand sew enough to put some felt circles together for our boy here. We also scored a mother lode of ribbons in the Michael's Black Friday sale. $2 ribbon spools were only 59¢, which is awesome if you love ribbons (okay, and I have a giant box or two of ribbon spools under my bed, so guess who loves ribbons). We also bought two tins for holding holiday baking. I didn't remember until I saw the tins in the store, but one of my cherished holiday memories is the sound and smell of a tin of homemade cookies and brownies being opened and passed around. We will have to have y'all over to dinner so we can pass the tins around. Or at least tea. At any rate, I decided we should add the cookie tins into our Advent traditions for Pip.

Here are my fellas yesterday playing outside at Sharon's. I will post a couple of more photos from T-giving soon.

Advent prep

2009-11-24T18:11:00.005-05:00

In preparation for Advent, we've been pulling all of Pip's Christmas-themed books and setting them aside. It's a little weird to prepare for a season of preparation, but there you go. I also bought a chocolate Advent calendar and picked up some of the icon coloring sheets from our church's Advent workshop. For myself, I am reading about icons as a spiritual discipline. I love reading scripture, but I'm so tired right now it almost seems disrespectful how little attention I have to give it. Short descriptions of icons I can take in.

What I'm really doing is starting to plan for the twelve day Feast of the Nativity. We plan to celebrate the 12 Days of Christmas this year. That's when we'll pull out the Christmas books, including a beautiful pop-up I bought for Pip, which will actually be one of his presents. My plan is to give Pip one gift each day and add to the Little People nativity scene at the appropriate times throughout Advent and Christmas. Andrew worried that giving Pip that many gifts would make him like Dudley Dursley, but I pointed out that Dudders had 39 gifts for one birthday, so it's really not the same. I'm hoping to wrap all the gifts in reusable ways, but honestly, I love paper. Most likely some of the stuff will be in beautiful papers. There are some places where going green is against my aesthetic principles. Like giving up cut flowers. To me, that's not green. It's depressing. and dumb. And giving up pretty wrapping paper. Why?

Anyway, a couple of his gifts are books, so they'll be early in the line-up.

Our only big Advent thing to do is the Advent wreath. We're trying to chill and take it easy.

But my question for you is, do you have any Christmas or Advent children's [picture] book faves? If so, please comment.

a great weekend at last

2009-11-24T14:37:00.005-05:00

Above: Pip imitates Poppa by carrying his snack bag like Poppa's laptop case.

As my recent post indicated, we were having a really stressful couple of months. A lot of that was due to being over-busy, but a lot more was that we missed our friends and each other. So we took some time to sort ourselves (an ongoing project) and found ways to get a break. Like this Sunday we're going to visit the church of an Orthodox priest I met in seminary, just to nourish our souls and not have to do anything but pray and rest. Our moods took a turn for the better last weekend after a supper club (but were dampened again by scornful church people the following Sunday), then actually improved dramatically this weekend when I got to visit with some folks I haven't seen in a long time.

On Friday, Pip and I met my Div School friend Michael (or I should say the Rev. Michael __, since he's a priest) for lunch. We wound up getting to spend a few hours with him since he went with us to get our car serviced and we gave him a lift to pick up his rental car. Pip took to Michael right away. He passed him a sippy cup, and Michael thanked him. He passed him his "monk-monk," Monkey, and Michael thanked him. He passed him a chip, and Michael thanked him and ate it. Thus the toddler hospitality ritual was completed, I guess. That, and later on Michael gave Pip some of his cookies. By the time we were waiting around at JiffyLube, Pip raised his arms and requested Michael to pick him up. Then he just cuddled him for about ten minutes. I thought it was cool that Pip saw the same genuine goodness and openness and genuineness of spirit we have always seen in our old friend, even though Andrew and I haven't seen him in five years.

Michael and I had a really great conversation about ways forward and pitfalls in the same-sex marriage/debates. If you read anything on the subject, you know how refreshing and unusual such a conversation was. I was able to run some of my ideas past him, and we talked about some of the boundaries that would help people find a theologically and pastorally responsible way forward. I think I'll save that conversation for a separate blog post, so that I can take time to explain some of my thoughts from it. But it was really well-timed for me, since our parish will likely have to embark on some conversations on the subject in the next couple of years.

Update: Please pray for my friend Michael's father. His family gathered this weekend for Thanksgiving, and his dad fell and broke his larynx, so that the swelling cut off oxygen for a few minutes. The family is gathered in a strange city to most of them.

On Saturday, I finally got to spend time with my best good friend Sharon again. For the first time in 117 days. We took a couple few hours for lunch, then spent another few hours wandering around the mall where we met. To say it was cathartic would be an understatement. We both had been dealing with a lot of mess. Then we were able to encourage each other, and for the first time in over three months, shop for clothes. Because neither of us enjoys shopping at certain stores without backup. And if I'm honest, I still have a little bit too much trailer-park in my fashion sense, and not in the charming way. More like the Nadine, big-haired middle aged woman with fuschia lipstick and wildly unsuitable blinding patterns way. Now you know my kryptonite. Paisley in any form. Sometimes I can get my sister to talk me down, long-distance, but in the autumn I need hands-on redirection. Somewhere inside my inner trailer park queen leaps for joy at the sight of sequins, fake gold, flocking, garish paisleys, and pretty much anything else that will just not look right and make my boobs look like novelty hubcaps.

We're looking forward to spending Thanksgiving with Sharon and her family, which is awesome. We have spent the past three or four T-givings with them. Even two years ago, when our plane arrived from Scotland on Thanksgiving evening, Sharon's family had sent along a take-away Thanksgiving dinner for us to eat when Sharon's husband David picked us up from the airport. We are mostly mooching this year, though I am for sure bringing biscuits and pie.

Speaking of biscuits, I got this pregnancy craving for buttermilk biscuits and sausage gravy on Sunday night. I spent several hours yesterday acquiring ingredients, then cooking, then eating a big bowl of biscuits and gravy. After which I was full and happy. And completely surprised by how easy it is to make buttermilk biscuits from scratch. How did Bisquick ever fool anyone into thinking that it's easier? With the exception of the fact that it takes two minutes to cut in the fat, these biscuits take maybe one minute longer than Bisquick ones. So three minutes difference. Crazy. Today I was all, yuck - all food, again. But I managed to eat string cheese and wheat crackers for a snack and for a late lunch made some mac&cheese with some of the chicken I baked yesterday. Anyway, yeah. I can make buttermilk biscuits now.

Here you see the requisite buttermilk. Below, sausage that I admit I only made for the gravy. Which gravy was not as good as my mama's, though I called her for directions. I think I need a fattier sausage next time.
I made drop biscuits, but tried a suggestion in the Joy of Cooking to drop them into muffin tin liners. It worked okay, but I'll probably not do it again unless I am serving a crowd.
Sunday was the picture taking session for the Christmas Eve creche slideshow. Here are a couple of photos of Pip in the piglet costume he wore. I will post others on facebook soon.

I love that Pip is so comfortable at our church. He wandered all around, right through the crowds of older kids dressed as shepherds and angels and other animals. He even kept his hat on for the actual staged photos, but we won't have copies of those for awhile yet.

Pip's PSA

2009-11-24T14:32:00.003-05:00

A couple of weeks ago, Andrew took a day off work so we could spend time together after a whirlwind of meetings and late nights. We stopped to smell the roses.

what we've been up to here

2009-11-18T21:26:00.003-05:00

Redshift

The nausea is overwhelming me with this pregnancy. Combined with an aversion to most foods and being tuckered out, I just haven't had the energy to write down my thoughts much of late. I do have thoughts. It's just that they seem to flee rapidly before my attempts to follow them. In other words, I have redshift thoughts.

Blueshift

The thoughts that seem to come after me, on the other hand, tend to be so complex that they would take a huge essay to pick apart, or so emotional that they keep me awake. I keep thinking about my sister Kristin, who is on the lam for breaking probation, but who really shouldn't turn herself in because of her situation and the injustice of her case. She had poorly treated depression when she was 17 and wore some of my brother's Adderall patches to school one day to stay awake. Okay, if she was a NYTimes reporter, she would write a pithy article about how all the moms are stealing their kids' ADD meds to overachieve and everyone would talk about it at coffee and forget about it. But she was a poor kid. So she got sentence to 6 months in adult jail in one of the the worst human rights violating jail systems in the country (Harris Co. Jail), wherein she was beaten badly twice and had to have her ear sewn back on. For f-ing Adderall patches. Her lawyer apparently smelled strongly of cats and suggested she be put in jail as an opportunity to go to in-jail rehab. Which she did, but a spot didn't open for two months. While in rehab, my sister was several times forced to remove all of her clothes and stand naked with the other inmates in the unheated gymnasium in winter at 2am because the guards said someone was hiding drugs. None of them had legal recourse because none of them could afford lawyers. Did I mention that a judge thought this was proper punishment for bumming your little brother's Adderall patches in high school? The same judge in whose jurisdiction her probation violation case falls. Apparently, once out, my sister screwed up a little with a lot of help from people who should have protected her. My step-mother apparently bought some marijuana and smoked it in front of my sister, who joined in, then got called in the next day to her probation officer, where she would have failed the drug test. This was likely a set-up by my pretty evil step-mother, but to say so is speculation. So my sister, not wanting to return to jail for who knows how long, skipped her appointment, thus breaking probation. No, she wasn't smart about the situation, but she was 18. Then she got pregnant and was terrified of going back to that horrible jail while pregnant. Now she has a baby whom she adores and does not want to leave to possibly be punished to the full extent possible for skipping a probation appointment. Which probation she had because, again, damn Adderall patches. She can't get her GED or a job, and I don't even know where she lives with her boyfriend. I just know that she should never have been sent to jail in the first place, that she wants to lead a better life, that being away from her wicked stepmother will help her keep clean, and that she absolutely cannot afford a lawyer at all, even of the crappy variety, and she needs a good one. So these thoughts come to me at night. What can I do? I'm thinking of applying for pardons from the State of Texas or something. I don't know any good lawyers in that area, or even if there is legal recourse in my sister's situation. If she were a rich kid, she would have gotten a few hours community service to start with, and maybe a few more for breaking probation, but that's not what happened or what is likely for her if she steps forward now. It will be back to jail for six months to be beaten and abused and not get to see her baby or get a job or training or to touch anyone the entire time. There are no open visiting areas there. You talk through bullet-proof glass through "speakers" that don't work, so you shout while she presses her ear against the other grimy side. Uncool.

Honestly, that is the least complex and involved set of ideas that keep me up at night. I also wonder how I am going to cuddle Pip properly when Pete comes along. And then there are the logic tunnels of theology. I pretty much have to read fluffy fiction to get to sleep these days.

Speaking of which, I updated my reading list on the left. Only I left off the cheesey chic lit I keep breezing through, but thanks, Sharon, for lending me some.

I have been trying to pull together Christmas presents this year, but I don't really have energy to shop. We have the gifts we're giving Andrew's parents, and Pip and I are making something for my mom, but I still have to purchase and/or find and purchase stuff for our other relatives. Some people are easy because we can buy some Heifer chicks and bees. But my baby bro is like 6'4" and thin and needs teeshirts, which are hard to find.

In unrelated news, except that I just remembered, my grandma finally cashed the check I sent her for running into her car with my other grandmother's car back in September, so I guess it covered the damages. Whew.

Okay, I have rambled and vented, and now I will sign off so I can post photos of a wonderful little boy.

brains

2009-11-11T12:29:00.003-05:00

I don't know much about child development, so maybe I am unduly impressed here. But Pip just brought me his little Tupperware shape sorter. You know, this thing:

He still has trouble getting the shapes out once they're in. I tumped out the shapes for him and came back to the kitchen to make a bowl of cereal. Right after the cereal was made, he whined. I went to see if he needed help. He had already put the oval, the circle, and the cross shapes in, but the star wasn't cooperating even though he had found the right hole. I sat with him to encourage him and told him the star just had to be aligned just right, and he had found the right spot. He got the star in, and then he sorted the rest of the shapes with me there. He left the trapezoid, square, pentagon and hexagon for last. When I talked with him about the hexagon, I said, "This one has six sides. Let's see if there are similar shapes." He said, "six," and found the right slot and put in the shape. Then he picked up the pentagon, said, "Five," without prompting, and put the shape in the right slot. The trapezoid was the only one he tried on two or three slots before he got it. The points seemed like they would fit somewhere else, I guess.

So here I am, taken aback that Mr. I'm Sixteen Months Old can sort all ten of his shapes, many of them with no coaching whatsoever, and then only so he doesn't get impatient with himself.

Look, I remember jacking with those shape sorters when I was two or three. I think this kid has one up on me. Besides the fact that he names all his colors and has started counting 1-2-3-4-5 and trying to say his ABC's and apparently reading some words. Make that several up on me at his age. It's fun to watch him grow and learn. He's so lovable and sweet, my little brainy fellow.

The Prince will take his tea in the drawing room

2009-11-09T21:54:00.000-05:00