NEW POST: "I Forgot"

If there were two words I would eliminate from the human language, they would undoubtedly be, "I forgot."

I suppose eliminating the words themselves wouldn't be good enough. I'd have to see that the entire concept of "I forgot," be eliminated.

"I forgot," is the bane of every mother's existence, the dreaded words a blow to every married woman's ego. It's the very thing that causes educators, librarians, baseball coaches, employers and friends to go completely and totally mad.

Yesterday was the epitome of forgetfulness in my household. A theme ran through my home like a river of molten lava, like a swarm of grasshoppers descending upon a field of ripening wheat.

"Did you do your chores?"

"I forgot...."

"Did you take out the trash?"

"I forgot...."

"Are you coming to the class tomorrow?"

"Oh! I forgot!"

"Where are the library books?"

"Uh...I can't remember."

"Did anyone call while I was gone?"

"I'm...not sure..."

This day of forgetfulness precedes, of course, tomorrow, a day for which I am attempting to prepare for the first of hopefully many community education classes geared towards home learners. We're working towards that very first class, a beginners' art class to be taught by amazing artist Fred Del Guidice. This class will be the culmination of years of prayer and I'm fairly certain that Satan intends to defeat it by tossing seeds of forgetfulness into some of my family members' brains. Unfortunately, those who have weeded out those ugly seedlings have to bear the weight of the work for those who haven't. And, believe me, it doesn't make us very happy.

I had just about gone out of my mind today handing out reminders to make beds, get dressed, do chores, etc. when the time rolled around to prepare to leave for Creative Writing Class, a course that Bard and I have been taking from a local writing for about four weeks now and which both of us thoroughly enjoy.

"Get ready, kids," I announced. I'd worked out a schedule with Bo two weeks before. He would take the younger kids to their science class at the library, drop Bard and I at our Creative Writing class, wait for Monet and Sweetheart at the library, then waste time at McD's until Bard and I were finished. I'd gone over the plan repeatedly. Last Tuesday, I'd reminded him several times.

"Home by six, right?"

"Right."

At 6:15 last Tuesday evening, I knew it wasn't going to happen.

This week, I reminded him again, though I thought the previous week's nasty taste was still lingering in his mouth enough that he'd not DARE forget. After a day full of "I forgot," I felt it was best to just call one more time. Just a reminder. The phone rang. No answer. Voicemail. Half an hour later, I tried again. Voicemail. Finally, at 5;15, I heard Bo's voice on the other end. I knew he'd had to have left by now to arrive home in time, since it's a one hour and fifteen minute commute. Yet I heard no road noise in the background.

"Ummm...whatcha doin'?" I asked hopefully.

"Working up an estimate," he replied.

"Where are you?" Hope was still clinging on by a fragile thread.

"Uh....where else would I be if I were working up an estimate?"

That was just the answer I did NOT want to hear. He was in the office. An hour and a half away.

"I was supposed to be home by six? Uh...I guess I forgot."

I'm surprised the telephone survived such an impact.

After the initial wailing and gnashing of teeth, I forced myself into problem-solving mode, quickly herded the kids into The Beast that is our Dodge van and headed down the road. Deposited kids and Grandpa at the library, dispatched husband to library to pick up kids, headed to creative writing class with Bard.

As drove down the main street towards our meeting spot, an artists' co-op and gallery I turned to my daughter and voiced my frustration.

"I swear," I told Bard, "if one more person says 'I forgot' today, I'm going to start chopping off fingers."

We parked The Beast and headed towards the gallery. As we approached, I noticed our Creative Writing instructor sitting on the steps in front of the shop.

She'd forgotten her keys to the shop.

A Thought for Terri Schiavo

Tonight my husband reminded me that a local woman was recently arrested because she was neglecting her parakeets. The conditions under which the parakeets were living were considered cruel and inhumane. Yet there currently roars a legal battle over the life of a human being--a human being that is currently starving to death at the hand of her government.

To Terri and her family, I offer these words:

"So do not be afraid of them. There is nothing concealed that will not be disclosed, or hidden that will not be made known. What I tell you in the dark, speak in the daylight; what is whispered in your ear, proclaim from the roofs. Do not be afraid of those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul. Rather, be afraid of the One who can destroy both soul and body in hell. Are not two sparrows sold for a penny? Yet not one of them will fall to the ground apart from the will of your Father. And even the very hairs of your head are all numbered. So don't be afraid; you are worth more than many sparrows."

My prayers are with you tonight.

It's That Ol' Black Magic

As part of my goal to do 101 specific things within 1,001 days, I investigated the possibility of my 13-year-old son, Houdin, performing magic tricks at one of the local care centers. For Houdin, magic tricks, illusions, sleight of hand, prestodigitation--these are things that give him a bit of an ego boost. They make his mind work. They get him the attention he loves so much. Because Houdin has very little fear of standing in front of a group of people he doesn't even know and asking them for money, or experimenting with a new trick, I felt that the challenge of performing for residents of a care center or nursing home would be a good thing for him. I asked him about it. He was up for it. I made the calls.

Within a week, we were preparing for Houdin's first performance at the care center. He'd been biking to the local bakery several times a week busking for bucks while showing tourists his tricks. Some days, he'd come home with over $20.00. He was no stranger to performance. This would just be a different setting.

I'll tell you this, in case you haven't been reading my blog for long. Houdin is a pseudonym taken from the name of a famous magician, Robert Houdin, the man from whom Houdini based his stage name. Houdin and I butt heads. He's stubborn. I'm stubborn. He wants to sit around all day and be a boy, burping and making fun of his siblings and farting. I want him to work hard at being a man. He doesn't know the value of a dollar. I want him to learn it. It's a bit of a battle. No. Let me rephrase that. It's a constant battle.

So you're probably wondering why I would get this child--this child who would very quickly be diagnosed with an attention deficit disorder and medicated if he were in public school--involved in a project that took preparation and forethought. If you're not wondering that, I can assure you that I am.

We have appointments every two weeks on Thursdays to put on a half-hour to forty-five minute show for the residents of the care center. About a week before each event, I tell Houdin to start preparing for his upcoming show. About four days before each event, I ask him if he's prepared yet. "No," he says. No promise to prepare. Mini-lecture from me. Exasperated okays from him.

About two days before the event, I ask him if he's prepared yet. "No," he says, defensively. A bit of a bigger lecture from me. More greatly exasperated okays from him.

But no action.

The day of the event, I remind him that he will be leaving at a specific time to go to the care center, and I remind him to get his things together, to put together a routine, to make sure he has clean clothes and to be sure that all of his tricks work.

Fifteen minutes before the event...do I even have to write it? It's so painfully obvious what we go through.

Once we're in the car, I have to send him back into the house to change his pants or to wear the shoes that actually have toes in them or to get his magic tricks. The whole way to the care center, we're frustrated with each other and I'm nervous about his performance.

Today was no exception.

We were in even more of a rush today because of piano practice, so I made sure to remind Houdin what day it was (he often asks what day it is and doesn't seem to care from one day to the next) and what our schedule would be like. Today, in a rush, we left for the care center, but not until I had sent Houdin back into the house twice--once for a change of pants and once for a change of shoes. He has nice new dress shoes. He just seemed to think that the ones the dog had chewed to pieces were a better choice. Or maybe--and this is more likely--he just didn't think.

I did NOT want to go. I knew Houdin was unprepared. I figured he didn't have most of his tricks, and I was sure he was going to do several tricks that these residents had seen before.

We arrived at the care center to find many of the residents already assembled in the dining hall where Houdin gives his show. As he began to pull his tricks from his black and silver magic bag, it was clear that I'd been right. Several of the tricks were broken. A couple were missing pieces.

He was totally and completely unprepared.

I don't know...maybe the Lord is trying to show me something. Maybe He's trying to teach me patience or teach me that I can't be in control all the time or something. But I'm not getting it. All I'm getting is that I very much wanted to have a son that could learn, could be a gentleman, could rival any boyscout in the whole being prepared category. Instead, I have a son who can't remember how to spell his middle name. I'm totally serious.

I really hesitate in writing about this. It's a source of constant struggle for me, this relationship with this son of mine. I keep waiting for the light to go on in his head, for the whole thing to click, for the motivation to kick in, but it just...it just doesn't. And it drives me mad.

So, here we are, standing in the dining room of the care center, these dozens of expectant faces staring back at us, and Houdin's asking me which trick he should do. There really aren't that many from which to choose. He has a deck of cards, but only one table at a time can see those. He has his cups and balls trick, but one of the cups, less than three weeks old, is already broken. And he forgot the balls. He could do his trick where he blows bubbles and then catches one in mid-air and passes it around the room--a solid ball. But he doesn't have any bubbles in the bottle. He could do the color cube, but he broke the cube. He could do the stiff rope trick, but he broke the rope. In the end, he has only about five tricks he can do. Five little tricks. Dozens of expectant faces. Thirty to forty-five minutes.

I watch him struggle through a few tricks, drop a few bombs, and I see a few blank faces. I can't stand it. I can't stand seeing my son fail, and I can't stand seeing the residents' confusion when a trick goes wrong.

I, being the magical mom, pull a few things out of my hat. We'll do "black magic," I decide, where I send Houdin out of the room and we, the people in the room, choose an object. When he returns, he uses his brilliant mind-reading ability to detect the object. I ask him about several objects in the room. "Is it this one?" I ask. No. "This one?" No. "This one?" Yep. The crowd oohs and aahs. They're impressed. We do it again. This time, with no words. The residents are awed. We're working together. We're making happen. It's working because we were prepared. I wish I could get this into my son's head. Just be prepared, Houdin. Then there will be no blank stares, no embarrassment. no disappointment. I tried to explain this to Houdin over lunch. He just rolled his eyes.

When my husband Bo came home, I told him the tired old story.

"It's simple," Bo said. "Don't take him anymore."

"Bo, I can't DO that."

"You can. See this?" He pointed to the dates on the white board calendar where I have the care center appointments written in dry-erase marker. With one finger, he erased the words "care center."

"Don't take him anymore," he said. "Don't talk to him about it. Don't remind him about it. Don't say a word. After a while, he'll say, 'Why don't we go to the care center anymore?' Tell him that if he wants to do it, he'll have to prepare, make the call and make the arrangements to get there. Tell him you'll drive him, but he has to make the plan."

"It won't happen," I told him. In my mind, I could see it all falling away. I could see Houdin spending his summer sitting around watching the Marx Brothers or playing with army soldiers.

But even more, I could see the residents. I see Bob, who has very little control over his arms and legs, and I see him reach out his hand to pick a card and smile when Houdin shows him that card at the end of the trick. I see Kyle, the young basketball player who was the cream of the crop, rendered quadrapalegic after a horrible car accident that caught the community's attention and propelled them into prayer. I can still see the look on Kyle's smiling face today while we played Black Magic, hear his broken, struggling words as he called my son's name and said, "You...you...did...a...seriously...good...job. I...I...I...like...this...game. I...like...this...game."

I can't let Kyle down. I can't let those residents--gathered in the dining room with ice cream dripping off of their chins, their childlike, expectant faces staring, waiting--I just can't let them down. They love to see Houdin walk through the door. Even with his broken tricks and missing pieces and slurred speech and ripped jeans and forgotten routine. They love him.

Maybe that's all that matters. Maybe that's all it takes. I don't know. Maybe he really doesn't need to be as prepared as I'd like. Maybe I should just let it go, let that willingness to show up and perform be enough. It seems to be enough for Houdin. It seems to be enough for Kyle.

Maybe it should be enough for me, too.

What do you think?

"Where have you BEEN?"

life has been so full, that i haven't taken the time to blog. of course, i kick myself for this, because when life is full, that's when the most interesting and blog-worthy things are happening!
~Carrie from A Day in the Life of...

"Where you been? I mean, you didn't come back with a tan or anything..." ~Paraphrase of David Wilcox's Spin.

You've heard it before. Someone you love hasn't seen you for a while. Suddenly, there you are, standing face to face with each other in the grocery store near the Noxema and Sea Breeze. You exchange gasps and one of you shouts, "Oh my gosh! What are you doing here? Where have you BEEN?"

And you think about it. Hmm. Where HAVE I been? So much has been going on. But you know, you say, I just can't put my finger on any one thing right now!

So here we are, you and I, standing in the Health and Beauty aisle of the local Piggly Wiggly and you're asking me, "Where have you BEEN?"

And I'm thinking about it.

The truth is, I've been all over the place, physically AND mentally. I mean, is it just me or do essays come in floods and droughts? Like now, I've got about a gazillion topics flooding my brain and can't possibly take the time to sit down and write them all. Plus, people only read the top entry in a blog anyway. Don't lie to me to make me feel better. I know it's true. I have stats, ya know.

So I kinda try to keep it down to one blog entry a day. Kinda. On some days, I'm thinkin' that writing's a bit like manna. I should take it while it's there and don't even THINK about storing it up.

But other days, like today, I'm thinking I should take more of the boy scout tack and be prepared. Write down all those essays and thoughts that are rattling around in my head. Save 'em for a rainy day. Or a writing drought. 'Cause sure's shootin' there will come a day when I sit in front of this transistorized tormentor and the computer in my head will flash nothin' but a great big cursor. Then, if I were a good boy scout, I'd have a ready-made essay, all set to cut-n-paste into the "compose" field and we'd all be happy.

Somehow, though, I feel like that's cheating. So I just don't do it.

Meanwhile, your feet are probably getting tired, and you're getting a bit weary of standing in the Health and Beauty aisle, so I start to rattle out loud instead of just in my head.

"Well, hmmm. Where have I been? Okay. Lessee. When did I see you last? Ah! That's right! The last time we talked, I was telling you how I met with The Happy Housewife who tried to teach my how to sew, but my sewing machine wouldn't work! I kinda lost my tail wind after that, I suppose. We haven't talked much since then. Or have we talked at all? No? Wow. I can't believe how time flies.

"Okay. Huh. Lessee. Oh! I know! We went on a field trip! Did I tell you about the field trip? It's been so long, I can barely remember. I'll have to show you the pictures. We went to the NASA Glenn Research Center in...what's that? Oh, I told you about that? Sorry.

"OH YEAH! Now I remember! Here's where I've been!"

And then I list all the stuff I've been doing. Like:

"I went to this homeschool support group meeting with Blue (Pensive Wanderer) where they were having an arts and science fair. I was mortified to see that at least a half-dozen of the displays had major misspellings and misuses of apostrophes, like in 'Question's and Answer's.' Maybe I'm just hypersensitive after reading the first half of Eats, Shoots and Leaves." And then I think about that for a minute.

"Nah," I say. "I really was just mortified by that."

And then I go on. You smile politely.

"I've been working on a course on baking for Bard. It's based on a book by Lora Brody called Basic Baking. I'm just kinda cutting the book into readable chunks and giving her a notebook full of questions based on the reading material. It's really a great book. The copy I'm currently using is from the library, but I just found one on eBay for $4.00. It really does go through the basics of baking and then takes the reader through a series of baking categories, like bar cookies, quick breads and coffeecakes, cookies, cakes, pies, etc., explaining what can go wrong and how to correct the problems.

"I've also been working on applying the things I've learned in Home Comforts by Cheryl Mendelson. I can't believe how much I didn't know before I started reading this book! In addition to creating a series of weekly duties for each child in our family, I've been applying some of the principles and methods presented in Mendelson's book. It has made a big difference, though I still feel as though I spend a good portion of my day cleaning." You offer some sympathetic wisdom, and I agree.

And even though you're a good friend, by this time, you're kind of glancing longingly at the toothpaste, wishing you could just go on with your shopping and get out of the Piggly Wiggly. But, hey, you asked. Right?

"I've been doing a lot of driving, too. The Amish don't drive motor vehicles, but they don't mind paying someone else to do it for them. Did you know that? So, I've set myself for hire to earn money for my daughter's trip. Did I tell you that she's going to China in June? I didn't? Well, she is. She's going with her choir, and we have to raise about another $1,200 before she can go. She's cleaning and babysitting and I'm driving neighbors to the store, the doctor, church, where ever. It's pretty fun. I get to know my neighbors, help them out a bit, plus I get to earn money for Bard's trip. Yeah, I think so, too.

"Houdin, he's my thirteen year old...what's that? Yeah, he's thirteen already. He'll be fourteen in June. Yeah, growin' like a weed. Anyway, he and I have been butting heads like you can't believe. Today he dragged his feet doing his chores and just couldn't get his attitude straightened out, so he missed out on going on a field trip. Where'd we go? Oh. Um...it was called MAPS. Stands for Military Aviations Preservation Society. Or something like that. I think.

"Anyway, it was interesting. It fell in line with the stuff we've been learning about Neil Armstrong and other aviation-type stuff. But because of Houdin's bad attitude, he missed out. I wish I could get on the same level with that boy. Please pray for me, will you? Thanks. "

And because you're a good friend, I know you will.

"Hey, I should be letting you go. I didn't mean to keep you this long. Aw, man. I'm sorry...aw, man! Your ice cream's melting all over the floor! Here, lemme get you a new one. No? Okay. Sorry. "

And I'd still be thinking of things I'd like to tell you, because we're friends and I know you're interested, though maybe not right now. And even though my mind has started to recall all kinds of things I want to tell you, I wouldn't say any more about me. I'd just think it. I'd think about my creative writing classes and the kids' piano lessons and how I really want to make it to the music store I heard about to see if I can learn to play banjo or mandolin, and I want to tell you about the art classes I have coming up and how perturbed I am that someone cancelled out on me at the last minute and how thrilled I am that someone else just signed up. But I don't tell you about all that.

And I don't tell you about the argument I had with my husband for coming home too late to get to tonight's library program or how I think I've gained ten pounds but don't know why. I don't tell you about how I taught myself to make mitered corners on my bedsheets or how I've started airing my bedroom out every morning because Cheryl Mendelson says it kills dust mites and freshens a stale room. If I told you all that, it would be too much information.

So instead we exchange promises to get together soon, and we say it's been too long, and we musn't let it go this long again. I tell you that I have this idea for a mother-daughter book club and another idea for a homeschooler's baking class based on the lessons I'm working up for my daughter. And maybe you'd like to come? You'd probably nod politely, because that's the kind of person you are. That's why we're such good friends, even though I'm one poor correspondent. You're just so patient with me. That's why I like you.

And then I remember what a heel I truly am. "I'm so sorry," I say. "I spent so much time talking about me that I forgot to ask you how you've been doing. Maybe the next time," I say.

And there is a next time. And I look at you and gasp and say, "Oh my gosh! Where have you been?"

And you tell me...

SparkNotes: Today's Most Popular Study Guides

I mentioned SparkNotes: Today's Most Popular Study Guides in a recent post. Looks like an interesting site.

Lucky Star

If I could write a book about business models, I would definitely include a chapter about Joey.

Joey is the owner of THE best Chinese-American restaurant in o-HI-o. I'm not kidding. The food is fresh, they cook it while you watch, and it tastes awesome. Plus, the place is clean. Those things alone (or together) are enough for me to declare it a marvelous restaurant.

But there's something about this restaurant, aside from the food and cleanliness, that makes it the best Chinese-American restaurant in o-HI-o. Possibly even in all of the U.S.

There's Joey.

We started going to Lucky Star when we lived in Akron and my husband worked near the newly-opened eatery. He came home from work one night and said, "You've gotta try this place. It's awesome." I like chinese food, sure. But it tends to be rather...questionable. I have this thing about eating bamboo shoots and water chestnuts that smack of formaldehyde. Plus, at the time, I was on a health kick that required that all grains be brown and nothing contain MSG (which is still a requirement), so I called Lucky Star and asked if I could get my meal with brown rice.

"Shuaw," came the voice on the other end. "You wan' brow' rice? I make brow' rice."

"Okay..," I continued, "what about MSG? Do you put MSG...?" Before I could finish, a voice shouted back.

"NO MSG! NEVER MSG!"

Alrighty then.

I placed my order--broccoli chicken with brown rice, moo goo gai pan for Bo and two orders of fried wontons. It was ready when we arrived. And it was, indeed, delicious. I even checked the ingredients on the soy sauce packets. No MSG.

Lucky Star thus became a regular habit in our lives. I'd call Bo at work and tell him that I was going to place an order, ask him to pick it up. Chinese food replaced our pizza nights, our sub nights, and our fried chicken nights. We talked to Joey on the occasions that his ever-growing business allowed. He talked about coming to America from China to start a restaurant while behind him worked dozens of his friends and relatives who had come along with him, apparently inspired by his enthusiasm and his work ethic. We asked him if he's glad he did it. "Yeah," he said. "Business. Is good."

About the third time we ordered, I called Lucky Start and started my schpiel. "Broccoli chicken..."

"Brow' rice, righ'?" came the voice on the other end.

"Uh...right. And I would like to order two..."

"Two ordeh fry wonto', righ'?"

"Yeah! How did you know that?"

"Ready fifteen minute. Okay? Okay."

And, sure enough, it was ready and waiting when we arrived, even though we were five minutes early. Made to order. After all, the sign outside says "Chinese Fast Food."

As things usually go with us, our chinese food fit became a little worn, so we eased back into pizza and subs on Friday nights and our trips to Lucky Star became a bit less frequent, a bit more balanced. That wasn't to say we'd fallen out of love with Lucky Star. We just ordered a bit more sporadically. Still, every time I'd walk into the restaurant to pick up my food, Joey would be there, smiling and waving, holding my order in his hand even when ten other customers were walking in behind me. The amazing thing is that it wasn't just me. He had all of the other customers' orders lined up waiting for them, too. And he didn't have to ask which order was which. He just knew.

Our Chinese food hiatus lengthened into weeks and then into a couple of months. Bo would eat there for lunch occasionally, and Joey always knew who he was just by the sound of Bo's voice on the phone. Joey'd answer the phone saying, "Lucky Stah. Moo Goo Gai Pa'? Ten minute." Bo would have enough time to say, "Yeah," or "Make it General Tso's today," and the conversation would be over. The food was in the making before the phone hit the cradle.

After our little Sweetheart was born at home, I immediately craved Lucky Star food. Sitting in the comfy nook of my bedroom, snuggled with my newborn babe in my own bed in my own home, I picked up my own phone and ordered my own first postpartum meal.

Trying to think about all of the other people in the house, like the midwife and the kids and my dad, I stumbled along with my thoughts. "Um...lemme see. Well, I know I want two orders of fried wontons..." Before I could finish, I heard Joey yell my name with a tone of recognition and surprise.

"Yes!" I said, astonished. "That's right!" I placed the rest of the order and told him that it was my very first meal after the birth of our newest baby girl. He gave us extra fortune cookies that night. He's a shrewd businessman, Joey is. He's got a great memory, but he's still a shrewd businessman.

Then we moved away. And we lost Lucky Star.

There's a Chinese place here in our town. We've tried it. It's no comparison. And besides, there's no Joey.

Sometimes we tell people about Joey. Sometimes we refer people back in Akron to Lucky Star and tell them how good the food is. But it's kinda like a movie that hit you just right--you're not sure if it'll be as well-loved by others as it is by you. Sometimes I think, "Well, maybe Joey's not really as awesome as I remember him. Maybe I'm exaggerating."

But it only takes a couple of trips through the grumpy cashier's lane at the local grocery or an unpleasant run-in with a disgruntled McTeen to realize that not everyone is a Joey.

Today I happened to find myself in Joey's presence again. He has opened up another place in a town neighboring his first shop and we met with friends for a lunch date. Joey came out of the shop and met Bo on the sidewalk, waving and shouting his name. Aformentioned friends accompanying us were surprised. "You know this guy?" Bo nodded, grinning. Sometimes you wanna go where somebody knows your name.

"Been too long!" Joey chastised us. "You move too fah!"

"You need to come down south," I joked.

Joey pointed to Sweetheart who was standing by my side. "This the baby?" He shaped his arms into a cradle, rocked back and forth and smiled at Sweetheart.

"Sure is," I told him.

He took our order, pointed us to a seat, and handed us two sets of chopsticks for Sweetheart and me. He checked on us regularly while we ate. As we were finishing up, Joey brought us each a fortune cookie and tossled Sweetheart's hair. I cracked open my cookie.

"Your enthusiasm inspires people," it said.

Business owners, you spend a lot of money trying to get into the heads of your consumers. Listen up. I'll clue you in, and I won't even charge you.

I believe that's the model of a truly successful business, enthusiasm that inspires people. I've been to some swanky places that served great food or boasted an awesome atmosphere or made killer lattes, but if there's no human connection, it's just feeding the flesh. People respond positively to to a positive attitude. Behavior breeds behavior.

"Your enthusiams inspires people."

I looked up to see this enthusiastic entrepreneur greet another incoming customer, call out his name, ask him if he'll be having Pepper Steak today, ask him why he's been gone so long. I see the young customer smile shyly. I looked back at the fortune in my hand.

I think I got Joey's cookie.

The Commonly Confused Words Test

Wow. I just took this test. Have you taken it yet? Bard, I expect you to take it and post your results. :-)

English Genius
You scored 100% Beginner, 100% Intermediate, 100% Advanced, and 77% Expert!

You did so extremely well, even I can't find a word to describe your excellence! You have the uncommon intelligence necessary to understand things that most people don't. You have an extensive vocabulary, and you're not afraid to use it properly! Way to go!

Getting There

Yawn.

Because I have very little energy, I'm just gonna say these few things, and then I'm off to bed:

Bard, Houdin and Monet started piano lessons yesterday. The lessons were great. The piano teacher was very down-to-earth, friendly and helped each child adapt to his/her individual level and interest. She told us that it was wonderful to "be able to teach such a musical family," and that the children knew enough about reading music that it was like "starting in third grade instead of kindergarten." That was very encouraging.

Getting out of the house to GET to the piano lessons was NOT so encouraging. For some reason, my sons seem to think, "Time to go" means, "Wait until you're in the car to remember that you have no underwear on, that you can't find the music you wanted to learn, and that you're wearing the shoes the dog devoured." This is even with three hour, two hour, one hour, half-hour, fifteen minute and five minute reminders.

Sigh.

They may never be able to leave the house without embarrassment, but at least they're musical.

Visitors

I am totally and completely pooped and exhausted, but I would be a very bad person and extremely remiss if I did not post that I had a special visitor to my home today.

I was thrilled to meet The Happy Housewife in real life today, and it's true, she's very happy. What a sweetheart she is. She was kind, generous and, indeed-- I'll say it again--happy.

S, I have to apologize for my appalling manners. I didn't put the dogs away (which resulted in a few muddy paws on S's skirt!), didn't offer you a drink when you arrived, forgot to offer you a piece of pie after lunch, forgot to take you to the dry goods store, and didn't take the IBC bottles to your car (but I am saving them for you). Atrocious!

I have to say that I have been in a fog all day, just kind of floating along. I wasn't a very good conversationalist and have been dragging my feet ever since you left. I don't like to place blame, but Aunt Flo decided to visit today, too. I think it's all her fault. Mostly. Plus, I stayed up WAY too late last night having a girly time with Bard, eating junk food and watching Runaway Bride (which Bo declared as thick sentimentalism with a side of eye candy).

So, I hope you'll forgive me, Happy Housewife. I was so looking forward to your visit, and I very much enjoyed having you here with us. Your little Peanut is a beauty, so pleasant and content.

I'll take my sewing machine in for a tune up, and then we can try again. If you can stand any more abuse. :-)

Signing off...

The Dud. ;-)

Favorite Childhood Movies

My daughter asked this question at her blog:

What were the most memorable movies of your childhood?

Mine were:

Escape to Witch Mountain
Little Princess with Shirley Temple
The Other Side of the Mountain
Star Wars, of course
Pete's Dragon
Somewhere in Time
Charlotte's Web

I was really into magical movies and love stories. I could especially relate to kids who were misfits. Hmmmm....

What are the most memorable movies from your childhood?

Creative Spurts

Do you ever feel like you go through waves of creativity? I don't know, maybe it's the approaching Spring, but I just feel so full of creative energy that I could just about burst.

Tomorrow, the three older children start piano lessons. Then Bard, the fifteen year old daughter, and I have our creative writing class, for which I still haven't completed (nor started) my assignment.

Yesterday, we attended a jam session where a bunch of talented people joined to play old-timey fiddle tunes and other good stuff. I felt so good being there, just tappin' my toes and singing harmonies. It filled me with such a happy energy. I don't know why my family doesn't see this and get me to these things all the time to help avoid those ugly crying jags.

The jam session was hosted by a homeschooling family where the father and his four sons all play instruments. I actually attended and photographed the birth of the youngest son about seven years ago. I wrote about catching up with the Stockdale family here. It was inspiring to see such a talented family enjoy each other's company and perform together with such energy. The youngest boy even played the bucket bass, which was an overturned five-gallon bucket with a piece of twine attached to a long stick.

Attending events like the jam session help me focus on what I most enjoy. Yes, sometimes I get jealous. I think, "Man, my husband's a musician. Why didn't he teach my kids to play instruments?" But then I realize that my love of music should be enough of a motivation to get my kids--and myself--involved in music whether my husband has the time to teach them or not.

Tomorrow, before the piano lessons, we're going to make a stop at a music store that gives lessons on dobro, guitar and mandolin and we'll see if any of the kids are interested in pursuing. Houdin owns a fiddle, but his fiddle teacher went away to college before he could get much under his belt. I hope to ask about local fiddle instructors, too. As for me, I'd really love to learn to play the dulcimer. A local historical village, Roscoe Village, has an event called Dulcimer Days in May. Hopefully I can glean some information while we're there. Learning to play the hammered dulcimer is on my 101 list.

And then there are the art lessons. I'm all at once looking forward to and worrying about them.

Well, it's off to finish reading Mandy. After that, we start a new book, which I will discuss tomorrow.

Here's to creativity!

From the Mind of a Man

I cried this morning.

I don't know why, really. I just felt very sad.

It's not that I didn't have reasons for my tears. It's just that none of them seem especially tear-worthy to me. Mostly, I think I was crying because I feel so out of place. I don't belong. I'm a stranger in a strange land--a sojourner.

And I guess I feel underappreciated, too.

But the point is that I cried.

It was one of those heartbreakingly quiet cries. Not the sobbing, stuff-a-pillow-in-your-mouth-so-nobody-hears-you kind of cries. Rather, it was the kind where sadness just wells up, rises in your throat, leaks out of your lower eyelids, overflows onto your cheeks and drips onto your lips.

I was crying like this, sitting in front of my computer, when Bo walked in.

"Do you want to be alone?"

I shook my head.

"Do you want to talk about it?"

I shook my head.

"Do you want to cry on my shoulder?"

Yes. That was it. That's what I needed. I nodded. And then I put my head on his shoulder and cried.

And then I felt better.

We talked for a little bit, not about any one thing in particular, but about feelings in general. And then the day went on. I did some straightening and tidying around the house, a bit of blogging, a bit of reading, a lot of nursing the baby. I did some laughing, some singing, some thinking and some discussing. But no more crying. I really did feel better.

On our way home from a quick shopping trip, Bo asked me, "So, are you feeling better now?"

"Yeah," I said. "Actually, I am."

And then I told him about a study I once read that found that we women actually shed progesterone in our tears. This helps to get our bodies in sync again, helps us to regain balance.

He thought about this for a moment and then said, "So if I lick the tears off your face, I'll grow breasts?"

Now I think I remember why I was crying...

The Lost Questions

Where is it? I know it's here somewhere. Doggone it. Ah! Yes! I found it!

Last month, I asked readers to recommend a movie, a book and a musician. I also said to ask me any three questions and I would answer them on my blog. Pensive Wanderer, I have not forgotten you. I think about your questions often. I just haven't really known how to, um...well...

Okay, darn it. I just didn't take the time to answer them.

But I'll answer them now.

Did you expect to end up where you are when you were younger?

Did I expect it? No. Did I hope for it? Yes. I think the only things I really, really wanted that are different than what I have now are that I hoped to travel more, have more money and be a writer by profession. Actually, I also hoped that my husband would have a career in music or that we would both have a career together that involved our whole family. But I guess you can't have it all. Or you can, but you wouldn't be able to afford it.

Have you ever or ever wanted to punch someone in the face and if so, why did you or didn't you do it?

Never punched anyone in the face. But I did kick an ex-boyfriend in the stomach. I found him curled up asleep next to a disgustingly cute girly on MY living room floor. Ick. Sent 'em both walkin'.

Other than that, no. I guess I've never really been the violent type.

That's not to say I haven't WANTED to. There have been several times that I've been so angry or frustrated with someone that I wanted to whap 'em one. But I never have. Does that get me extra jewels in my crown?

Now here's the real question. Have YOU???

The Big Boring Middle: An Interview Continued

In the big boring middle of the long book of life,
After the truth has been told
If you don't die in glory by the age of Christ,
Then your story is just getting old.

~Glory
by David Wilcox

And now, the continuing interview...

Last week, Dogwood Blue chose to interview me because she thought I was such an amazing and important figure in Mommy Blogging. I'm honored that she chose so well.

Okay, she's interviewing me because I asked her to. Still...

Anyway, she asked me five questions. I answered the first two, and I've been pondering number three all day. It's been easy to ponder.

Her question:

"What are one or some of the most difficult trials you have overcomethus far? "

I've overcome--or should I say, I've experienced--a lot of trials. I'm not sure how they rate on the global difficulty scale, because I've never been involved in a natural disaster, been a victim of a violent crime or lived in complete poverty. But I have had my car repossessed, my telephone shut off due to non-payment and racked up quite a few overdraft charges in my day. I grew up in an adoptive home with two very dysfunctional parents, endured regular ridicule and rage, battled both sides during my parents' divorce and lost my mother several times, the final time when I discovered that she had passed away months prior without my being informed.

I've overcome heartbreak many times and I've seen the deaths--or at least the postponement--of many dreams. I've overcome teenaged pregnancy, the mortality of loved ones, horrible neighbors, backstabbing friends, a nagging father (strike that...I'm still trying to learn how to deal with that one), inhabiting a small cabin with no electric or indoor toilet, living on next to nothing, a child diagnosed with a chronic disease, and the fear of dying from a terminal illness.

These, to me, were all difficult trials. But now I'm experiencing what I think is one of the biggest trials I've ever experienced.

The Big Boring Middle.

I'll be 36 next month. We're relatively stable financially. We and all of our children are healthy--even Sweetheart, who was diagnosed at the age of three with Pauciarticular Juvenile Rheumatoid Arthritis. We have a new home in the middle of the beautiful, rolling hills of Amish country. We have four dogs, a goat, three guinea pigs, a few fish, two parakeets, three finches, an indoor cat and half a dozen outdoor cats. We have good neighbors, a steady job, a strong marriage and food in the fridge. I really, really hesitate to say this...but it's almost boring.

For so many of my younger years, there was this force that drove me. It was called The Future. You might even call it Hope. I had very big hopes for the years to come, and those hopes motivated me, lit a fire under my tail. I wanted to be a successful, published writer. I wanted my husband to be the next Michael Card. I wanted to have children who were well-adjusted geniuses. I wanted a big house in the country, lots of kids, lots of animals, a steady job for my husband, a quiet neighborhood.

And now. Well, now I have those things. Okay. Not the successful published writer, Michael Card husband and well-adjusted geniuses (they're all geniuses--just not well-adjusted geniuses). Two cars in the garage and a jacuzzi in my bedroom. Life has never been so good.

But I feel very sad now.

While I'm still busy trying to make things "better," they really are about as good as they can get. There's very little left to work for. And I cry almost daily.

Isn't that crazy?

The biggest challenge of all of this is that I always pictured my dream home bustling with people, a kind of L'Abri filled with music, art and conversation. But now I find myself thrust into a community where everyone seems to be happily plugged into a place of worship or a homeschool group or a 4-H club.

I have listened to naysayers who have informed me that opening my home to others was self-centered and cheeky, perfectionistic and Martha-Stewart-like, and even a degradation to the quiet, old-fashioned neighborhood.

And besides, I live in the midst of the Amish who regularly participate in social activities create by and for their church members: volleyball games, tea parties, coffee klatches, weddings, funerals, cleaning dervishes, family gatherings, every-other-week in-home church meetings, and oodles and oodles of benefit dinners or auctions. They are social whirlwinds who have no need for additional gatherings. It's built into their culture.

While on this subject, I can quickly answer one of Dogwood Blue's other questions, that of a home church:

"How did God lead you to be a part of the particular church you attend?"

The answer?

I don't attend.

And now, for a muddy detour.

We were members of a church for many years, the same church my husband and his parents had been a part of for many years before we married, and it became toxic. The attitude towards children there did not fall in line with my philosophies and beliefs. There were very few families with young children in our church, and no homeschooling families--our homeschooling was quietly tolerated. My gifts of hospitality, creativity and teaching were belittled, Bo's gift of music was unappreciated and heavily criticized, and we soon found that we weren't the only ones who were feeling that their faith was being poisoned. The church experienced a large split and we went along with the crowd. Unfortunately, THAT group experienced a split, and we became disillusioned with fellowship altogether.

We tried houses of worship as often as we searched for a physical home, but there was never one where we felt that we could belong. My faith is very important to me, and so many of the churches we attended trivialized that faith, made it into a cause for social gathering, yet only social as far as it was convenient or comfortable for everyone involved. No depth.

The last church we visited was one that we attended for several months. We tried to be very actively involved, attending family functions, home groups, youth functions and Sunday services. But people there, too, seemed to stay inside their own protective shells. Nary a person ventured forth in talking to us, and even in my openness to get to know others, busy-ness seemed more the theme than depth. The final cut came when our home group broke for the summer. Come fall, we waited for a phone call from our home group leaders who were to let us know when and where the meetings would be held. No call. July led into August with still no call. Near the middle of July, we were at a town function where we sat behind a group of people that I recognized from our home group. I overheard them talking about the group, discussing the meeting of the week prior. The group had already begun to meet several weeks before and we were never notified. After months of attendance and outreach, we hadn't made a single real friend. We quit going to that church.

Several months later, I received a phone call from our home group leader.

"I was wondering if you have time to get together with my wife and I tomorrow night." He sounded upbeat and positive. Since my husband had known this man since college, I thought that maybe he had realized his error of omission and was calling to get us involved again.

"Let me check my schedule," I said. "Yeah, we have it open. What did you have in mind?"

"Well," he answered, "my wife and I have this great opportunity we'd like to share with you..."

Regardless of how many times I insisted that we were not interested in a multi-level marketing campaign, this man and his wife continued to call us about this every day. I finally had to ask them, politely but firmly, not to call again.

That same week, I received a letter in the mail from another of our home group members with whom I hadn't spoken in several months. It was a solicitation to buy makeup products from her. These letters have trickled in steadily. But not one of our former fellow church members has mentioned our disappearance from the church.

Since then, we've tried a couple of other churches, but they have all left a bad taste in my mouth. I crave a Christian home, but I just don't have the energy for that kind of rejection again. I long for that social interaction with other Christians, but I just can't handle the judgement, the control issues, the insincerity, and the controversy that comes with attending a church. It's an area of my life that I just wish would fall into place, but it never has.

Okay, we're back on the main road now. Whew. That was pretty bumpy, wasn't it?

And so I feel that I have no real social network, Christian or otherwise, with whom I can share my visions, goals and dreams. I am, I suppose, an outsider. Too Christian for some, too liberal for others, and not established anywhere.

That's why this upcoming art class means so much to me. It feels like the beginning of a goal being fulfilled. I've had several setbacks even in this venture and have felt a bit squelched by certain individuals who doubt that there's a need for such a class, but I will continue on. I will fight against this sadness and depression that threatens to defuse my dreams.

And I guess that brings me to Dogwood Blue's final question:

"What do you look forward to most in the future?"

Opening my home to those who really need it. Maybe even adopting. Filling my house with music and laughter. Seeing my children grow and change, fall in love, move away, and bring me more children that I can watch grow and change. Falling in love with my husband all over again. Discovering more about my gifts and talents. Learning more about how the Lord wants to use me, my life, my desires. Climbing out of this dark hole that's currently threatening to swallow all of my joy.

I've overcome a lot. I know there is hope for the future.

There is surely a future hope for you, and your hope will not be cut off.
~Proverbs 23:18 (New International Version)

That's where your future lies.
Then you won't be left with an armload of nothing.
Proverbs 23:18 (The Message)

In the big boring middle of the long book of life,
After you've passed thirty-two
If you don't die in glory at the age of Christ,
Then your story is still coming true.

~Glory
by David Wilcox

An Empty Calendar Day

When I look at my calendar, I can see that I'm pretty ruled by its contents. The scrawlings on that little patch of paper practically dictates my life.

Upcoming stuff I'm excited about:

~Kids start piano lessons on Tuesday. This is cool.
~We will be hosting an art class in our home with artist Fred Del Guidice on March 30th. This is very cool, but I'm not getting the response I'd hope to get. So far, I have eight students, and I was hoping for fifteen. I'm at once excited and concerned about this class. I so very much want it to work out.
~My creative writing class on Tuesday.
~A visit from Little Sis and my new niece and my mother-in-law.
~Spring: I can't wait to plant my kitchen garden.

Upcoming stuff I'm a bit worried about:

~Well, the art class. I hope I can get a few more people to join.
~Soccer. The boys both want to play. That's fifty bucks I don't have, plus the extra time in the schedule, plus I don't know if it will conflict with baseball, plus I was supposed to send the registration Thursday and I didn't. But they both want to play very badly, and Monet really needs the active play.
~Houdin's concert tomorrow.
~Spring: Will I be able to afford to plant my kitchen garden?
~Income Taxes.
~Real estate taxes.
~Bard's China Trip money.

Upcoming stuff I'm dreading:

~Cleaning Sweetheart's room. I started it last week, and it's still unfinished. I've gone through this room many times. I've left it cleaned and organized, but Sweetheart is a "fill-my-needs-and-go" kinda girl. If she wants to change clothes, she'll drop the dirty ones right off of her body right where she stands. If she wants food, she'll leave a wake of dirty dishes, milk jug without a cap, bread crumbs, sticky jelly and spoons caked with peanut butter. She even leaves the toilet unflushed. So finishing this room is something I don't want to do. It's a shame, because it was once my favorite room in the house...

~Cleaning the basement laundry room and fruit cellar. There will be a lot of decisions to make about what to get rid of and what to keep in these rooms. Ick.

~Cleaning the computer room.

Do you notice a pattern here?

**********************

Today, I'm in a funk. I've been cleaning and maintaining order pretty steadily for the past week. You know what's on my calendar today? Nothing. That hasn't happened in weeks. You know what that means?

A. The phone will ring in ten minutes and someone will need something, and I won't say no.
B. Some major tragedy will strike and my weekend will be eaten away.
C. I forgot to write something on the calendar.

But as it stands right now, this day on my calendar is empty. I'm ready for a party. Let's order subs, play games and watch movies all day. That's my plan.

I hope I'm not slipping back into procrastination mode. I prefer to think of it as a break. A nice, well-deserved break.

Right?

Oh, I have an idea! I'll write this break on my calendar! Then it will, like, a PLANNED break! And then I can fully appreciate it without feeling guilty! And then it won't be procrastination at all! And when someone calls to say, "Hey, are you busy today?" I can look on my calendar and say, "Hmm. Let me see. Yep. Sorry. I've got something on my calendar today."

I've gotta go. The phone's ringing.

"Hello? Ummm...just a sec. Let me check my calendar..."

Cut Your Own Snowflake

Wanna waste a few hours? (And who doesn't!) Check out the snowflake-making feature at Popular Front: SnowDays. You can just sit and let your mouse hover over the gorgeous hand-cut (okay, mouse-cut) snowflakes, or you can make your own. Each snowflake has a number. Here are a couple of mine:

922115: for Bo
922127: for The Baby
922138: for me. ;-)

If you make a snowflake, let me know!

Have fun!

Opiate

She yields to slumber.
There is no known sedative
Like a mother's breast.

Sien Nursing Baby
by Vincent Van Gogh

NASA Glenn Research Center, Cleveland

Since this blog is actually called Today's Lessons because I want to use it to record what my family is learning, I'm going to post about our field trip today. Funny thing, when I post about things like this, I feel like I'm letting you down, you person who comes to read my blog.

I've been thinking about making a new blog called, like, "Today's Records" or "Today's Activities," or something so I can post all the little stuff we do everyday that I want to record for our yearly portfolio, but I'm not sure I'd keep up with it.

Anyway, I say all that to say this: I'm sorry if my life bores you. It rarely bores me. ;-)

Our field trip today, organized, and I do mean organized, by the oh-so-organized Blue, was to the NASA Glenn Research Center. This was very timely for us, because we've been reading Neil Armstrong: Young Flier as part of our Five in a Row curriculum. When you read a Five in a Row book, you say that you're "rowing" the book, so if you see that term in my blog or in my sidebar, that's what it means. So, right now, we're "rowing" Neil Armstrong.

Here's the way mobie cool part. Because I've been working with the family on being organized (which has been no picnic, let me tell you. I'm getting five changeback messages for every positive comment I hear about the fairly organized state of our house), our laundry was all clean, the beds were made, the dishes were done, and the van was in decent shape to hold all of us and our junk. I got up early and woke the kids shortly after I got up. Usually I wait until the last possible minute, then I wake them up. My idea is to get some peace and quiet before we have to rush, rush, rush out the door. This is a stupid strategy. With the kids up when I got up today, I was able to adjust our schedule for the few kids who procrastinate and get sidetracked almost hopelessly. Plus, they actually got to EAT before we left (which still didn't keep them from moaning that they were hungry during the ride). I even had the time--and the clothes--to change The Baby when she had a full-scale diaper blow-out two minutes before I walked out the door.

And when I walked out the door (now, don't hate me for this), I didn't even have to look for my purse, my checkbook or my keys.

It's totally true. I would not lie to you about something so sacred. I'm so serious about this, I may even post a picture of my kitchen for you. Later. If you're good.

After a quick stop at Panera for a chicken salad sandwich for breakfast (For me. Not for them. They only got breakfast. And danishes. And part of my lunch. And pizza.), we were on our way. And we were, even with getting lost once and going in the wrong building once, totally and completely ON TIME. Don't you dare hate me. I so deserve being on time once in a while.

The NASA presentation was cool. The guy giving the presentation was wearing a little cross for a tie-tack, so I ventured to ask him his impression of how astronauts' faith is affected by their space travel. He mentioned James Irwin and Alan Shepard as two astronauts who were greatly affected by their time in space. Irwin, he said, went on to become a minister. The Apollo 8 team read from the book of Genesis on their Christmas Eve broadcast.

When we first walked into the center, there was a wall full of airplane models of airplanes that were manufactured in the U.S. from the 20s on. We looked for the Tin Goose, or the Ford Tri-Motor, which was the first airplane Armstrong had ridden in when he was just six years old. None of the employees seemed to know what it was, so we looked through the list and found it. There it was, in the 1930s category, just like we remembered. That was kinda cool.

After a slide show, the kids were given free reign of the exhibits where they were to do a scavenger hunt for facts. What I seemed to find while doing the scavenger hunt is that the kids didn't really have a true hunger for the knowledge they were seeking--they just wanted to fill in the blanks. So they'd read a piece until they found the answer for which they were looking, and then they ran off to find the next answer. I don't think it was until all of the blanks were filled that they began truly learning stuff.

After the scavenger hunt, we went back into the theater for a movie about what the astronauts did that summer, which included taking supplies to the International Space Station. It was entertaining and informative, and the video even showed a demonstration of one of the astronauts using the toilet. Well, pretending to, anyway. The narrator for the film, one of the astronauts, said that "How do you go to the bathroom?" is one of the most frequently asked questions they get from kids. I'd imagine most adults wonder, too, but are just too chicken to ask.

After the film, we hung out in the hands-on exhibit area for a bit longer, then we headed to Malley's Chocolates to pick up some goodies for our Easter baskets. We knew we'd found the place when we saw the giant pink inflatable bunnies on top of the building.


Dinner at Steak and Shake and we were good-to-go. Patty melts and Steak and Shake fries may be the death of me.

It was quite a fun day. I hope to head out to the Armstrong Air and Space Museum after we've finished rowing Neil Armstrong: Young Flier.

Have I mentioned how much I love field trips? I'm hoping to score this t-shirt before my next adventure. :-)

Answer Me These Questions Three...er, Five

We're here today with writer and domestic goddess, Thicket Dweller, who is being interviewed by the autodidactic Dogwood Blue, a wife, mother and former homeschooled person who is currently living in Korea. DB has asked some very thought-provoking questions, and it has taken TD a few days to even get the courage up to tackle them.

But here they are...at least the beginnings of the answers to the questions Dogwood Blue and all the rest of you Gentle Readers are just dying to know. ;-)

(Oh, and if you want me to interview you, check out the bottom of this post for more details!)

Dogwood Blue asked the intriguing question, what is your view on the value (or lack of) pain in childbirth? (I know you have five, and that you are a natural birth person like myself.)

Well, I could write a BOOK about this one. But I won't. Hey, I heard that sigh of relief from you over on the West Coast. Let's settle down, shall we?

Lessee...I had my first two babies in the hospital. Too chicken to jump right into the whole home birthin' thing. But let me tell ya, with my first child, I knew EVERYTHING about natural childbirth, so I was gonna have the next best thing to a home birth. I'd read all about the Bradley Method, had taken Lamaze classes, and had even taken a course on natural childbirth from a lay midwife. I knew how to make my own "laborade" and had been trained on how to sneak healthful snacks into the delivery room. I was S-O-O ready.

Here's what I didn't count on: an intern with a vengeance for us "natural birth" people. She was cruel, impatient, unkind and downright nasty. You don't want an internal fetal monitor? Fine. Sign this paper that releases me from your or your baby's death. Oh, poor baby. Are we having a contraction? Heh heh.

I gave in. After about thirty hours of labor, I begged for an epidural. What else could I do? I had little to no moral support, my husband just wanted to see me get some sort of comfort, and every doctor on the floor was in a hurry to get me out of their only PRIMO birthing suite (read: a hospital room with a dresser and a lamp). Customers are waiting, Lady! Let's pop this puppy out!

I couldn't feel my legs. I couldn't turn over or stand. This might seem like a good thing, considering the condition I was in...until push came to--well, push. The whole design that God gave us with pain was meant to HELP us push that baby out. Take away the feelings, the pangs, the pushing urges, and it's like driving blind.

"Okay! Push when you feel like pushing!"

"Uh...when I...wha...?"

Lots of counterproductive work to get that baby out. I couldn not feel a THING down there. They could have cut off both of my legs at my butt and I wouldn't have known the difference. The epidural wore off just in time, though, for the Intern with a Vengeance to start stitching up her lovely cutwork.

Didn't help much, either, that the placenta wouldn't come. That heartless woman (and to this day, if I saw her, I'd scratch her eyes out) put her ENTIRE HAND inside of me and, I swear, she had razors attached to the ends of her fingers. She scraped out that placenta until I was bawling with pain.

"This is the natural birth you wanted, Honey," she sneered.

Second baby: Okee dokee. I've learned a few things now. I want THIS doctor, and I will NOT accept any substitutes. And NO female interns! Here is my birth plan. I will NOT deviate.

Ten days after my due date, the doc was all, "We gotta induce labor. This baby's gonna be huge." So in I went for more intervention. Prostaglandin gel, Oxytocin, and finally, Pitocin. Still, labor progressed slowly.

Even with that much intervention, everything sailed along fairly smoothly until the doc sauntered into the delivery room, and as my mother-in-law says, rocked back on his heels and said, "This is gonna be a big baby." Break out the episiotomy scissors. Pump in the demerol. Pray to God for strength.

The doc came in repeatedly and asked if I were ready to push. This time, with the moral support of my mother-in-law, I held on.

"She's not ready yet," she said. She could tell. She knew what birthing grunts sounded like, and I wasn't makin' 'em.

"Do you feel it yet?" She asked me.

"Feel what?" I asked.

"Didn't you have pushing urges with Bard?"

"Uh...what's that?"

"Like you feel like you really have to have a bowel movement. It's a grunting feeling..."

"Ow, ow, ow, ow. No. Didn't. Have. Those."

"You're not ready."

So I waited. Laid on my side and waited for my mother-in-law to tell the doctor when I was ready to have this baby.

And then, I felt it. That bearing down pain. But it wasn't a pain. It was an urge, a compulsion. I didn't just feel like I could push, I felt like I WANTED to push. Like I NEEDED to push.

That was productive pain, let me tell you. It was the kind of thing that made me feel like a woman. Towanda! It helped me to realize that my body was MADE for this.

But then...oh, what's THIS? Whaddya mean there's not enough room? Whaddya mean you have to make more room? What the...?

And then came the episiotomy. That was an unkind cut. Not the kind of pain I wanted at all. And, if you've ever had an episiotomy, you know that it's the kind of pain that lingers. Ouch.

And then came the arrogant, rocking-on-his-heels doctor, sewing up his lovely cutwork. "We'll do this up right," he snickered. "This is what I call The Husband Stitch. Heh heh."

And then came the jaundice. "Oh, that's normal with Pitocin and Demerol babies. They have a hard time getting that stuff out of their little livers. We'll just take him down to the bili lights and feed him some sugar water. You get your rest, Deary."

And so, with the courage and insights that I gained from those two experiences, I decided to have the next baby, Monet, at home with the assistance of my mother-in-law and a lay midwife. Aside from family tensions, this birth was so awesome. And even with those family tensions, it was so, so much better than either of my hospital births. It was a lot of work, to be sure. My body had to recover from those traumatic hospital experiences where some other chemical or mechanical substitute tried to do my body's job. And I was scared to DEATH of another episiotomy.

But there was none. There was no cutting, no scraping, no Husband Stitch, and no arrogant doctor rocking back on his heels and tsking at me.

There was stretching and moaning and bearing down and pushing. There was more stretching, and more stretching and MORE stretching. There was a nine-pound baby. But no tearing. Not even with the nasty scar tissue from the TWO previous slices!

There were no bili lights or sugar bottles or maternity nurses telling me that I'd nursed too long or that I'd roll over on my baby if I kept him in bed with me.

There was relief and rest and relaxation. There was cuddling and nursing and spooning with my husband and our beautiful son. There were homecooked meals, chinese food, visits from friends and family. And there was triumph.

Monet's birth brought me to life. In his journal, I wrote:

Your birth-day was an unleashing of joy and creativity in my life. I think
that perhaps you possess a great amount of creativity and, as you emerged,
you released a bit and allowed me to retain it.

I had no doubt in my mind that I would, from then on, allow my body the
complete and total saturation of pain that it took to bring forth a child into
this world.

My last three babies were born and home. And my next three, God willing, will be born at home, too.

A woman giving birth to a child has pain because her time has come; but
whenher baby is born she forgets the anguish because of her joy that a child
is born into the world. ~John 16:21

Did I say I wouldn't write a book? Sorry, West Coast.

Speaking of books...

(2) What are five or ten of your all time favorite books?

Oh, heavens. Okay. Lemme think.

When I was a child, I listened to A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L'Engle. I listened over and over and over at night. It was recorded on a big record which I renewed from the library as many times as they would allow. I love that book.

Peace Like a River by Leif Enger. Awesome book. Written by a fellow homeschooler.

Ladder of Years by Anne Tyler. Did you know she was homeschooled? It's true! I related to this book a bit too much. Love Anne Tyler's clean, conversational writing style.

The Family Cloister by David Robinson. A very inspiring book on entering into worship and prayer as a family.

No Wonder They Call Him the Savior by Max Lucado. I love his writing style, too. Very simple yet powerful.

How to Write Your Own Low-Cost/No-Cost Curriculum by Borg Hendrickson. Awesome book on setting your goals for your child's educational future. Very adaptable.

Oh, and another set of childhood favorites: The Black Stallion series. I devoured those things. Thinking back on any of my assigned reading during that time, I can only remember The Black Stallion, which was a book I chose from the library myself.

And finally, The Secret in Miranda's Closet. Does anyone remember this book? It was very magical to me as a pre-teen.

The next three:

(3) What are one or some of the most difficult trials you have overcome
thus far?
(4) What do you look forward to most in the future?
(5) How did God lead you to be a part of the particular church you attend?

...I'll have to save for later. They're gonna require some sweatin' of blood. Did you say this was supposed to be fun? ;-) Nah, really. It is.

*/^.\^/*\^/.\^/*\*/^.\^/*\^/.\^/*\*/^.\^/*\^/.\^/*\*/^.\^/*\^/.\^/*

Okay, so, do you want me to interview you? If so, just let me know and we'll follow the precedure below. Let's have fun!

Here are your instructions:

1. Leave me a comment saying “interview me.”
2. I will respond by asking you five questions.
3. You will update your blog/site with the answers to the questions.
4. You will include this explanation and an offer to interview someone else in the same post.
5. When others comment asking to be interviewed, you will ask them five questions. (Write your own questions or borrow some :o)

I'm looking forward to interviewing YOU!

Monsters R Us

If you have ever felt depressed, if you've ever been told that you had the "Baby Blues," if you have ever felt that you were looking into the endlessness of hell, if you've ever felt like you were selfish, hysterical, a monster, a bitch or that your family would be better off without you, you must read Amy's posts. But do beware. This is not light reading. Thank you again, Amy, for your courage to write.

Part One

Part Two

Part Three

Part Four

From Walking Circumspectly: Be Anxious for Nothing

Kristen at Walking Circumspectly had a word just for me today. I'm convinced of it. The struggles I face this morning are, in my mind, enormous and have no solution. Yet Kristen offers the Word of God that hits right where I live:

"Philippians 4:5-7 Let your gentle spirit be known to all men. The Lord is near. Be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. And the peace of God, which surpasses all comprehension, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus."

You can go read the rest of her post admonishing us to release the rebellion from our hearts and let anxiety fall away.

What a tall order.

A Dead Fish

Bard and I took our first creative writing course tonight by Debbonnaire Kovacs. This might actually push me to pursue an actual--gasp--career in writing.

That scares the crap out of me.

Why does it scare me? Well, I suppose it's because I'm really afraid. The whole "you can't fail if you don't try" kind of thing. Aside from that, what do I have to say that hasn't been said a million times before? And more cleverly, succinctly, authoritatively?

I guess Deb was afraid to pursue writing as an occupation, too. One of the things she said was that, as a writer, she really wanted to write about having a relationship with god, but she didn't feel that she was qualified to write about having a relationship with God because she felt she didn't have a relationship with God. Yep. That really struck home with me.

See, I have a strong desire to write inspirational stories. Now, by that, I don't mean writing lilting romance novels of young perfect girls and how they just don't know if God means for them to marry or not marry, then long about the middle of the book, they bow their heads and pray and then everything is alright and they marry the perfect man for them. Uh, no offense if you write lilting romance novels about such girls. Then again,why do people say that? If you're offended, you're offended? I guess I'm saying that I intended no offense.

What I intended to say is that I'm more into the gritty inspirational novels, things that look like a dim and dismal river on the surface, but spring forth with Hope eternal. Did you see Magnolia? That's my kind of depth.

But I have fears that paralyze me from writing beyond a few chapters of the ever-elusive novel or the daily journal. Fears like, what if my main character recognizes herself? What if my main character gets angry about what I've written. What if my main character is me?

What if I try to write about God's grace, and I don't really fully understand God's grace? Or forgiveness?

What if I invest my life into this really cool story, and no one gets it? What if no one understands it? What if I don't understand it?

Deb Kovacs talked about a story of her own that had originated as an interjection into her pastor's sermon. He'd asked her to repeat a theme she'd discussed earlier, expound on it into a five minute aside during his teaching. By the time she had finished speaking, everyone was affected, bleary-eyed and grasping for her garments, maybe hoping for a bit of healing or something. As she made her way shakily back to her seat, her friend leaned over and said to her, "You know you have to write that now, don't you?"

So she wrote it. She wrote it all out with confidence, word-for-word, just as she had spoken it during the service. And then she said it just laid there like a three-day-old dead fish. She said the connection just wasn't there. It didn't pack the punch like the spoken presentation had. But she sent it off anyway. She sent it off first thing Monday morning--mailed it to a Christian women's magazine.

And Tuesday afternoon, the editor of the magazine was on the phone, telling her that they loved it, that the only thing they wanted to change was the male character's name.

They've reprinted the story several times. It's one of the articles that's most commented upon by their readers. Now they've asked her permission to put it into a collection of their best stories.

A dead, stinking fish.

So many times, I've abandoned my writing because I don't think I'm making any connection. Sometimes I feel like I don't really know my character, or the subject about which I'm writing is a bit too foreign for me. Or, I don't know, it just stinks.

And sometimes, I just plug on with it, and I learn something new. Or I just toss it out there the way it is. And someone catches it. And then, the energy they give it from the value they get out of it drives me on. And then I feel energized.

There are a lot of people rattling around in my head. This class may just give me the feedback and energy to flesh them out, put them into a story. Even if it is a dead fish.

And maybe there's a sea lion out there somewhere just waiting to catch it.

Movie Meme

From Donna over at Quiet Life:

Quick! The first five movie quotes that come to mind!

Here are mine:

1. Inconceivable, from The Princess Bride.
2. Whatever I feel like! Gosh! from Napolean Dynamite.
3. I'm with you fellers, from O, Brother, Where Art Thou?
4. Are you not entertained? You can't handle the truth! You had me at "hello!" from Shark Tale.
5. You're upside down, from What's Up Doc, one of the funniest movies ever.

By the way, did you know that movie quotes themselves are a kind of meme? It's true.

Got Borax?

And School Glue?

And Water?

Make Flubber!

Keep your kids entertained for hours!

FLUBBER

Borate solution:
2/3 cup warm water
1 1/2 teaspoon powdered Borax
3 drops food coloring
Mix together in a 1 cup measuring cup using a
wooden spoon

Glue Solution:
3/4 cup warm water
1 cup white
school glue
Mix together in a mixing bowl using a wooden spoon

Pour the borate solution into the bowl with glue solution (This is the way
mobie cool part! Resist the temptation to do it yourself and let the kids do
it!).

Use your hands to gently lift and turn the mixture until only one
tablespoon of liquid is left. Flubber will be sticky for a moment or two.

After the excess liquid has dripped off, Flubber is ready. Store in a
plastic bag in the refrigerator.

When you are through, discard in a waste can. DO NOT try to wash it down
the sink. If it dries on carpet or clothing, cover it with a cloth soaked in
vinegar to de-gel it, then wash the area with detergent and water.

From this site, we learn why this counts as science:

What has happened? How does it feel? What happens if you stretch it? If you roll
it in to a ball? If you place it over another object?

Polymers are made by a chemical reaction, they are long chains of repeating units. When the two solutions are combined, polyvinyl acetate chains (from the white
glue) are linked together in a three-dimensional arrangement by Borate ions
(from the Borax) and other chemical bonds. This produces the sticky polymer
that we call Flubber.

Have fun!

Secrets of the Kitchen: Part Two

Debunking the "Boys Don't Cook" theory (and you need look no further than Jamie Oliver, the Naked Chef to see that cooking dudes are sexy), I now interview nine-year-old Monet, who is not presently naked, but is aspiring to be a chef. Well, uh...at least a cook.

Me: Why do you cook?

Monet: You get rewarded by getting food and testing it before anyone else does, and it's just really fun. You get to measure things. You get a lot of compliments, especially from your mom. When your grandma comes over, you get to cook with her, so you don't waste her time. And if you know how to measure, you can make other things, like Flubber, the thing that I'm holding.

Me: What's your favorite thing to make?

Monet: Um...pancakes.

Me: Why's that?

Monet: I get to make them all the time, so I get to eat them all the time, and I get used to making them.

Me: What else can you make?

Monet: Muffins, bread, pretzels, eggs, cookies, burritos, grilled cheese sandwiches, pizza quesadillas, pizza bagels. And I help with other things. But I can make pancakes all by myself.

Me: What would you like to learn to cook?

Monet: That is a hard question. Hmmm. I'm not really sure. Uh...I think I might want to make candies. Like cotton candy, and that kind of stuff.

There you have it. A real live male cook. Next up, Houdin, another cook of the male persuasion.

Secrets of the Kitchen: Part One

Michael from Blogin Idiot asked:

"How do you get your kids to cook?

My older son will do without eating before he has to do any sort of cooking."

So, I decided to interview my cookin' kids.

Interview #1:

I'm here with my fifteen-year-old daughter, Bard, to find out how I get her to cook.

Me: Hey, Bard...

Bard: What?

Me: Why do you cook?

Bard: Uh. Because you make me, sometimes. If you say, "Hey, Bard, why don't you make manicotti?" and I say, "No," you'd probably chop my head off. But that's not the only reason I like to cook.

Me: I've never once chopped your head off. Not even one time. That's a really gross exaggeration. What are the other reasons you cook?

Bard: Um, 'cause it's kinda fun afterwards when everyone's like, "Hey, Bard, this is really good."

Me: What's the first thing you remember cooking?

Bard: Eggs. I cooked eggs, but that's not really cooking.

Me: How old were you?

Bard: Oh, probably like five or six. I don't really remember a specific time. I just remember helping you in the kitchen.

Me: So if that wasn't really cooking, what was the first thing you really cooked?

Bard: Probably banana bread, but I don't remember how old I was. About eight.

Me: Yeah, about eight. I have pictures of you.

Bard: Oh, that's good. I'm glad I won't go through life completely undocumented.

Me: No, I mean pictures of you making banana bread when you were eight.

Bard: Oh. Yeah.

Me: What's the best thing you've ever made?

Bard: The best thing I've ever made? Probably that time I made dinner for you for your birthday. Lasagna and the cake that tasted like a ho-ho.

Me: Yeah, that was awesome. Vegetarian lasagna with a ton of fresh basil. How much basil did you use?

Bard: I don't know. A lot. We didn't have a garden, so I probably got a package. Like ten leaves.
Me: Do you appreciate knowing how to cook?

Bard: Yeah. I mean, it's not that hard. It's just kinda like...if you follow the recipe, you can't really mess it up. Unless you burn it. And baking, that's hard if you don't pay attention. So when people say, "That's really good," I feel like I didn't do anything.

Me: Well, I'm glad you know how to cook. I appreciate it, that's for sure.

So, there you have it. Cook with them from an early age, use fresh ingredients, give lots of compliments, and threaten to chop their heads off.

Updated Reading List

If you check my sidebar, you can see our updated reading list for current March reads and our February reading list. I still have some things to add and finish, but there it is.

Speaking of Manicotti

We've been focusing a lot on the domestic arts in our house. Saturday morning, we had a meeting about the importance of keeping a clean and tidy home. It was at once encouraging and discouraging...but more about that in a separate post.

One of the focal points of our current domestic training is providing healthy, tasty meals.

I love to cook. I love the process of buying groceries, stocking the pantry neatly with food, preparing the meal, setting the environment and serving the finished product. I despise the cleanup, but I plug away because the meal-making is so satisfying.

I love making family favorites as much as I love trying new recipes. I hope to pass this passion for providing sustenance to my family, especially to my children. But I also hope a bit of it rubs off on my husband Bo as well.

Along these lines, Monet has been providing the family with delicious pancakes every morning. Bard, a recent vegetarian, took some time to make a grocery list of healthy recipes from Honest Pretzels, a kids' cooking book by Mollie Katzen of Moosewood fame. You can find the recipe for the original "Honest Pretzels" here.

Anyway, fifteen year old Bard accompanied me to the grocery to gather our supplies for this week's meals. While perusing the pasta for Tasha Tudor's Homemade Macaroni and Cheese recipe (or "receipt" as Tudor writes), we saw a box of manicotti noodles which featured a yummy-looking manicotti recipe on the back.

Last night, Bard made the manicotti.

Can I just say "yum?"

It was heavenly. Delicious. Fantastic. She said it wasn't that hard. The hardest part was stuffing the manicotti noodles.

Whatever. The meal was delicious. And I say "meal," even though it was just the one main dish. There was nothing lacking. And because she made a double batch, there are plenty of leftovers for lunch.

Oh, yum.

The Barmy Blogger

The Barmy Blogger, who also happens to be my daughter, wrote a hilarious analogy about stuffing manicotti as opposed to stuffing babies. You can read it here. And the link works now. :-P

Born Too Late

My struggle with home care and passing on the same to my children has taken me on a search for home economics instruction manuals. Sounds boring, huh? Can I confess that this is an awakening for me? The words that I'm reading are giving me permission to realize that it is OKAY to enjoy keeping a home? In this culture where laughing about our inadequacies is the current trend, where being woefully incompetent at keeping house is the norm, I have felt out of control and frustrated. While I don't want to be labeled a "Martha Stewart" or a "Donna Reed," neither do I want to fall into the popular ranks of those who speak disdainfully of those "compulsive cleaners" and "neat freaks." Yeah, sure it's fun to announce to the world that my laundry has molded in the washing machine, but, in reality, it's not funny at all. It's inconvenient, unhealthy and doggone expensive.

So, I will stand up and admit it. I LIKE having a clean home. I LIKE clean corners and orderly pantries and organized bookshelves. I LIKE a clean sink, fresh sheets and a tidy laundry room.

There is a book that is helping to give me the courage to make these confessions. From our local library, I borrowed Home Comforts: The Art and Science of Keeping House by Cheryl Mendelson, a book that was recommended by several of my blog visitors. So far it has been, to me, more riveting than almost any novel I've read in the past ten years. Her words are insightful, encouraging and well-written.

One of the stories she relates in Chapter 1 is given the heading "Born Too Late:"

I was raised to be a rural wife and mother, but I was born to late to find many openings for farm wives. Until I was thirteen, I lived in the Appalachiansouthwest corner of Pennsylvania, for most of the time on a working farm where I received an old-fashioned domestic education quite unlike the experience of the
average girl in the 1950s. Early on, I learned baby care, housecleaning, laundering, gardening, cooking, embroidering, knitting, and sewing. I slopped the pigs, herded the cows, and helped out with the
milking. I was proud to be able to pin a cloth diaper around a baby when I was six, and cook breakfasts of eggs, bacon, toast and coffee for a large family and the hired help when I was nine.

Because housekeeping skills got respect in my world, I looked forward to keeping a house of my own one day. It was what I wanted.

The words that stand out to me in this passage are "proud," "respect," "looked forward" and "WANTED." This reinforces for me that the art of keeping a house is all about the attitude. And why would we have a good attitude about providing a clean, loving environment for our family, our friends, ourselves? Our culture offers very little respect for this aspiration. Focus is given to the visual, the aesthetic. If it looks good, it is good. Many of us define a clean house by what we visual from the decorating books and magazines over which we drool, lusting after their almost unattainable perfection as if it were pornography. We have been sold a bill of goods. A beautiful home requires one of two things, or possibly both: a lot of money for fancy furnishings and/or endless drudgery.

My dear friend Penny has been an inspiration to me since I met her almost five years ago. She does not just keep house. She creates environments. Stepping inside her home evokes a feeling of just that--home. There are no fancy furnishings in her farmhouse. In fact, the majority of her home is appointed with second-hand furniture that has been refinished by her husband and life-partner, Richard. There is simplicity, order, a welcoming air. It exudes from her kitchen, her barn, her gardens. For her, it has been a passion since she first began tending a home as a child. She has always loved creating environments, and she neither rebels against nor balks at her passions. She accepts them, cooperates with them. Indeed, she embraces them. I believe it is this attitude, not the degree of work or the amount of money she spends on the care and keeping of her home. For her, it is both an art and a science.

I recall a revelation I had years ago which I'm sure Penny would support. I planted a very showy vegetable garden, eager for the nostalgia of my own grandmother's massive garden. I had very little actual gardening experience, and most of what I knew I had learned from books or gleaned from my parents' gardening. I had an area tilled that was probably ten times the area I actually needed for a garden, and I planted ten times as many vegetable plants and seeds as I could actually use or even harvest. That spring, our weather provided weeks without rain, and then weeks with nothing but. My tiny seedlings that had struggled to grow during the period without rain were soon engulfed in weeds. I was embarrassed, mortified. I was not concerned for the health of each plant, but instead for the appearance of the garden. I spent oodles of energy hoeing and pulling weeds from the paths between the rows of corn, tomatoes, and beans, yet the seedlings continued to yellow, failing to thrive. On my hands and knees, I studied a tiny stalk of corn. It was literally being choked by the weeds surrounding its roots. While I has succeeded in making my garden attractive by clearing neat paths between the rows, the plants themselves were suffering.

That's when the revelation came to me: tend the plant, not the environment.

That lesson has continued to present itself to me as I work to care for my family. I can clear the floors, organize the toys, make the meals and fold the laundry, but if my focus is merely on the aesthetic, I'm not truly caring for my family. I'm only attempting to make a show of it.

Cheryl Mendelson talks about my kind of housekeeping in her book:

People who think badly of themselves take these feelings out on their
homes...just as they may put excess stress on personal appearance in an effort
to overcome self-doubt, so they may make their homes look forbiddingly perfect
in an attempt to impress themselves and others.

While my home is not forbiddingly perfect (far from it!) the attitude is the same. Tend to the environment. That strategy fails miserably. Not only do the seedlings in my care suffer, in spite of my vain attempts, the environment still suffers, too.

I don't believe that Cheryl, or Penny, or you or I were born too late. I believe that we live in a culture that is on the cusp of remember why keeping a home is an important role, a science, an art. I believe respect for that role is on the rise.

And so, I am on a journey to embrace my longings, to rediscover my passions and to encourage that respect.

Care to join me?

Sidebar?

Can you see the sidebar on my main page? I can't.

Hmmm.

Tasha Tudor's Pancakes Recipe

This makes a whole lotta pancakes, so if you don't have five kids, you can halve the recipe.

Tasha Tudor’s Pancakes or Waffles for the Whole Family

The KID FRIENDLY Version!

Ingredients:

3 cups of unbleached white flour
6 teaspoons of baking powder
1 teaspoon of salt
4 teaspoons of sugar
4 eggs
2 ½ cups of milk
6 tablespoons of butter
PLUS butter for the griddle and butter for the pancakes

BEFORE YOU BEGIN: Wash your hands, and make sure your cooking area and cooking utensils are clean.

1. Put the butter in a microwave safe bowl. Soften the butter in the microwave by cooking it for 40 seconds on 40% power.

2. Mix the flour, baking powder, salt, and sugar in a medium-sized mixing bowl.

3. Break the eggs into a small bowl. Make sure you don’t get any shells in the bowl!

4. Pour the eggs into another mixing bowl. Beat the eggs lightly with a fork or mixer.

5. Stir the milk and the softened butter into the beaten eggs.

6. Add the egg mixture to the bowl of dry ingredients and mix them together so that it is all blended well.

7. Heat your griddle and butter it.

8. Use a 1/4 cup measuring cup to pour the pancakes onto the greased griddle.

9. While the pancakes are cooking, soften some butter by putting it into the microwave in a microwave-safe bowl and cooking it for 40 seconds at 40% power.

10. Set the table, or ask someone who isn’t busy to set it for you.

11. Cook the pancakes until the tops are bubbly, then flip them over and cook them a few minutes more, until they are golden brown.

12. Make sure you clean up all of your cooking utensils and put away all of your ingredients. A good cook cleans up as he goes along. That way you are mostly done by the time you finish your meal!

13. Clean up the table and put everything away.

14. Pat yourself on the back. You made breakfast!

From the Tasha Tudor Cookbook, adapted for kids by Thicket Dweller

Pancakes!

Monet loves pancakes, and I have a fear of making breakfast. Yes, I'm serious. It's just that I like to start the day with everything clean and organized, and making breakfast throws a mess into the pot right off the bat!

A perfect breakfast, in my opinion, is a cup of Stonyfield Farms yogurt with some maple almond date granola and a bunch of very yummy fresh fruit on the side with a great big glass of ice water or Emergen-C. Low mess, healthy, and very tasty.

But my kids like SUBSTANCE. They want something that FILLS THEM UP. One of those things is pancakes.

Pancakes=lots of mixing, standing over a griddle and cleaning up a bunch of sticky syrup. Not on my list of priorities. BUT I do feel good when the kids have eaten pancakes, especially My Favorite Yogurt Pancakes or Tasha Tudor's Pancakes.

This morning, I typed up Tasha Tudor's pancake recipe for Monet, who not only loves pancakes but also loves to cook. I made all of the instructions very step by step and easy to follow, and I included things like, "Wash your hands first," and "clean up as you go," and "set the table while you're waiting."

I handed him the paper, and with a few minor issues, the pancakes are done, waiting on the table for me to partake.

Now this is what I meant by home economics.

I think I'm on the upswing.

The Friday Five

This comes from Donna over at Quiet Life.

Friday Five--Combo Platter

1. Did you have a pet when you were a child? What sort and name please?
2. What word/words do you spell incorrectly every day?
3. Do you have an ancestor with an interesting name? Do tell.
4. What is your favorite beauty product?
5. What is your favorite bird?

My answers:

1. I had several. We had dogs, a cat, a bird, a hamster and a hermit crab. Names were Fuzzy, Patches, Petie, Wilbur, Kitty, and Nubbins.

2. I often spell broccoli wrong. Or is it brocolli? Or broccolli? And vacuum. Or is it vaccum? or vaccuum?

3. I have an ancestor who changed his name, because he was a priest who left Spain and ran off with the young organist. Legend has it that he threw his collar from the train in Texas and changed his name to the first one he could think of.

4. My favorite beauty product is water. If I drink plenty of it, my skin feels so much better, my body feels so much better, and I have more energy. If I wash my face regularly, my complexion is much better. If I brush my teeth with it and some Tom's of Main tooth gel, I'm not completely repulsive. ;-)

5. My favorite bird...hmmm. I don't know that I have one, but cardinals and blue jays have special meaning to me because they have stories associated with them that remind me of my grandparents.

Now, go and post these questions and your answers on YOUR blog and then let me know where you are!

Much Needed Encouragement

Please, do yourself a favor and read this post by the Happy Housewife. With all of the issues I've been mulling over regarding homekeeping, her words were like honey, like a balm to my blistered soul. Thank you so much, HH, for your refreshing, encouraging thoughts on God's plan for my life.

My Biggest Problem

I picked Joe and Edna up at the end of their drive at 8:35 this morning. They were ready for me, waiting in the snow, though I was supposed to arrive at 8:45. If it were anyone else, I might be bothered. "I said I'd pick you up at 8:45!" I'd say, defensively. I'd make a fool of myself so that they wouldn't think me a fool.

But Joe and Edna don't wait at the end of the drive ten minutes early to make me feel badly. They're not there waiting to prove to me that they are better or more prepared than I am. They're waiting at the end of the lane, in the snow. on the ice, because they're kind and considerate. They don't want me to have to wait for them.

Edna is one of the sweetest souls on the face of this earth. Even as an elderly Amish woman, she has the face and the smile of a schoolgirl. When she likes what you say, she has this gleem in her eye that shows just how ornery she can be. But it's always ornery in a good way, never in a malicious way. Not that I've seen.

This morning, I'm driving Joe and Edna to an appointment where I'll drop them off and then I'll head for home again. They have another way home later today, after their appointment.

I'm a bit disappointed, because I like to listen to what they have to say. I enjoy Joe's stories about the community, about his family, about this Amish neighborhood into which I only recently moved. And I enjoy Edna's girl-like laughter and her womanly wisdom.

Today, Joe talks about how things used to be. The Amish don't farm so much anymore, he says. He tells me this because we're passing a young man standing on a cart pulled by two draft horses.

"He moved to his wife's daddy's house," he tells me. "That's the only way an Amishman can farm now, if he moves to the homestead."

"Is that because land prices are so high?" I ask.

"Well, yeah," Joe says, "and because they can make more working away. Or making furniture." I nod. There are many, many Amish furniture makers in the area, and they're selling as much furniture to the English, as they call us, as they can produce. It's not uncommon to purchase a piece of furniture and be placed on a waiting list. And that's with a furniture maker on just about every corner, and several in every small town.

We pass the sewing machine shop and Edna says she wishes she would have brought her machine. She hasn't had it tuned up since she bought it.

"When did you learn to sew?" I ask.

"Oh," she claps her hands together thoughtfully. "I guess I was about thirteen or fourteen. Why do you ask?" I wonder if she's suspicious of me, if she thinks I'm writing a book. I tell her I'm just curious, that I've been thinking about things lately, about how little I feel I was prepared for adulthood. I share with her some of the comments people have made about the Duggar family, what a shame people think it is that the young Duggar girls have to make meals for their siblings and parents.

"Oh!" she exclaims, now slapping her knees with her hands. "Why! Those chiltren are better prepared for life than most! It's GOOD for them to take care of others!"

"When you were young," I venture, "did you ever feel you were missing out because you had to care for the people in your family and your community."

She pauses to think about this. "No. No, I never did."

Here's the thing: I've never heard Edna complain about a thing. She doesn't complain about doing chores, about working in her garden, about making meals, about walking in the cold on the ice, about taking the horse and buggy to market, about caring for her grandchildren, about making lunch for her husband, or about giving to her neighbors when they're in need.

A friend of mine sent me an e-mail, and while I won't mention her name, I hope she won't mind if I quote from it (edited for clarity):

Care for family and home take so very much of us ourselves. You commented about the young Amish girl in your post. She willingly helps her sister and she is content. She isn’t saying, "Hey this isn’t fair! Why can’t my sister care for her own kids – she had them! All my friends get to go shopping at the mall. Why can’t I just enjoy being a kid?" Amish live with a focus on community not individual wants and needs. From infancy, they are ingrained with attitudes of self sacrifice and participation for the sake of family and community. Adults that say they were caught by surprise are often those from whom little was asked growing up. I don’t think they suffer from lack of home economics knowledge. My guess would be what they lacked was guidance in the attitude of desiring to meet the needs of others (particularly at the expense of ones self). Children need to be involved in maintaining the home because they are part of a family and all
share in the health of the home (and mother and father). Attitudes of complaint and selfishness should be the larger concern.

My friend hit the nail right on the head. Yes, my bigger problem is not the ability to clean my home, because I CAN clean it, and I can clean it better than anyone else who lives here. My bigger problem is, indeed, attitude.

And I'd venture to say that it's the predominant problem in our home.

My husband has a bad attitude.
My kids have bad attitudes.
My live-in father has a bad attitude.
And, yes, ::gasp!:: I have a bad attitude.

I'm forever saying, "I didn't make this mess. Why am I cleaning while they're watching a movie/reading a book/using the computer?" I hear the same complaints from my children.

Today I decided to do one of the things on my 101 list--ask for someone's advice and take it.

From sparrow:

"This, from Elizabeth Elliot helps me: "Just do the next thing." Just do the thing in front of you to do, and don't worry about the rest."

And from Mrs. Dunwoody's Excellent Instructions for Homekeeping via Miss Booshay:

"Mrs. Dunwoody's Notes for Planning a Superior Day

1. Make a plan for your day.
Start each day by making a general schedule, with particular emphasis on two or three major things you would like to accomplish.
2. Concentrate
Concentration is a key aspect of effective use of time.
(I would imagine this means work when the small children are asleep)
3. Learn to rest and catch your breath.
Never hard for me to do.
4. Don't procrastinate.
Start off the day by doing the most unpleasant chore first.
5. Sift and sort.
You must sort through the day and categorize.
6. Strive for excellence, not perfection.
Excellence is attainable, gratifying, and healthy.
Perfection is impossible, frustrating, and neurotic.
7. Never lose sight of the "big picture."
People (especially children) are always more important than things.

I decided to start with the biggest thing that was bothering me: my bedroom. Laundry, vacuuming, making the bed, cleaning the tub. These are all things that were bothering me and weighing heavy on my mind. So I jumped right into it, and as soon as I started, I felt better.

I still feel better.

I know that I have a bad attitude, and I know it's my biggest problem. I don't know how to fix it. I can only offer it, as I have many, many times, up to the Lord.

Dear God--please, please heal me of my selfish attitude. You know how much I long to serve others through hospitality, and this attitude in my household is completely killing that longing. I pray for your wisdom and your gifts.

Amen.

Extremely heteronormative?

I just read this article and am totally flumoxed. :-/ We are truly experiencing some Times of Noah-like behavior, aren't we?

A Show of Solidarity

The Happy Housewife posted pics of her "messy" house so that I wouldn't feel so bad. This was awesome. I often wish I could walk into people's houses on their worst days just to make myself feel better. Isn't that twisted?

I took this picture about a month ago:



I took the picture with the intention of creating a "before and after" meme. I thought it would be cool to have a "Before and After Thursday" where readers could pic a room in the morning, take a photo of it and post it to their blog, then clean it, take another photo and post the "after" photo to their blog. I thought it would be sort of inspiring to do this, an encouragement to clean, organize, create environments or however you want to put it.

A month later, here's what my kitchen looks like:



Ahem...

A Little Diversion

I found this diversion by way of Miss Booshay over at Quiet Life. If you haven't visited Miss Booshay's blog, do so. She often offers gentle encouragement, and I love how she always admonishes her readers to encourage one another.

The Diversion:

1. Grab the nearest book
2. Open the book to page 123
3. Find the fifth sentence
4. Post the text of the next 3 sentences on your blog, along with these instructions.
5. Don't you dare dig for that "cool" or "intellectual" book in your closet! I know you were thinking about it. Just grab what is closest!

And so, in keeping with the theme of today, I will grab the two books that are closest to me and have something to do with my day.

The First:

"No T.V."
"Grounded."

Do you think these kids changed their performance? Carefully think through
the relationship between the behavior and the consequence.

~From 401 Ways to Get Your Kids to Work at Home by Bonnie Runyan McCullough

The Second:

No, she had tried to imagine it thousands of times, drawing on her ideas of
all the villains she had ever read about in books: Captain Hook, crooked-nosed
and thin; Long John Silver, a false smile always on his lips; Injun Joe, who had
haunted so many of her bad dreams with his knife and greasy black hair...

But Capricorn looked quite different.

~From Inkheart by Cornelia Funke, the book I'm currently reading

Updated

The field trip post is updated...now with pictures! Take a look.

Bad Day

Spent most of yesterday cleaning with great intentions to do more. Today, the house is more of a mess than it was yesterday.
Can't catch up with the laundry. It would help if I actually folded it and put it away.
I feel tired, cranky.
The kids are in no mood to straighten up or do chores.
It's a bad mommy day.

These are the days I think of when I talk about being ill-prepared. This TOTALLY isn't the life I planned. It's not that I don't enjoy my kids...I do. It's just that I also enjoy a clean house. I can't help it. I've tried to compromise. I've tried to let it go. I've tried to teach them to do it. I've tried to do it all on my own. I'm still left feeling...depressed.

Why do I feel like money would solve everything? I could just hire housekeeper and we could world-travel on a whim.

But I will NEVER have that kind of money. Ever.

I'm doubting my life choices today. Prayer would be appreciated.

What We're Lacking

I stood in the educational materials aisle at the local bookstore with my head cocked sideways, trying to take in all of the titles, looking for one that would change my life.

I do this to myself. Often.

I can't help it! I see all of these incredible books that promise my children will have FUN learning the math they so hate to learn, or actually ENJOY learning to conjugate verbs and diagram sentences, and I get the fever. All of those bulletin board ideas and reproducable worksheets fill me with new hope. New passion. New direction.

But I wasn't looking for any of that.

Lately, I've been feeling as though I've overlooked a very important part of my children's education. For years, I've sought materials to help them with their math skills, to give them an appreciation of history, and to guide them towards writing well in order to communicate well. These are all important, but they really aren't the reasons I chose to allow my children to learn at home.

One reason I chose to homeschool was so that they could pursue the paths of education that are most interesting to them. I want them to be able to focus fully on where they feel God is directing them in their lives without having to wade through all of the twaddle they would encounter in a public school setting.

Another reason I want them learn at home is so that they can learn lessons that are truly valuable, things that will be necessary for them to know to carry them through their lives, things that will contribute to their happiness and well-being, things that don't always get fair air-time in a public education setting.

I found myself staring into the spines of books that made me want to grab them and take them home and change my life forever. I also scanned over others that just made my head ache with their temporality and evanescence.

I found books that covered how to pass proficiency tests, how to build self-esteem, and tons of advice on how to handle students with special needs. There were books on Art History, Geometry, Foreign Languages and Theater Groups. There were books that informed teachers what was wrong with the system, how to handle smoking in the bathroom, and why our children can't read. There were books on very broad subjects, like providing a classical curriculum, to very narrow subjects, like how to use Lord of the Flies as a teaching tool.

But I could not find what I wanted.

It became clear to me that there is really no priority given to teaching children the skills they need to operate a home. I could not find a single book on teaching home economics.

Somehow, I always believed that my children would just learn homekeeping skills by osmosis, but as they have grown, I have realized that this hasn't happened. It's my fault, really. I'm usually too busy or too stressed to let them make the bread or to teach them the proper way to do laundry. I've always focused more on language arts and fine arts than the art of keeping a home.

I was recently reading a blog (forgive me, I can't remember where or whose it was) that talked about how ill-prepared we are for motherhood, how the Christian mothering market, especially, puts such a sweet spin on mothering in order to try to sell it to as many women as possible that many women walk into motherhood completely unprepared. And then we get blindsided.

Sure, there are a lot of heartwarming aspects to parenting, but I have to say that I was definitely blindsided. While my mother could knit, crochet, sew, garden, cook, can, clean and launder, she never passed these skills along to me. My high school struggled with budgets, like every other high school, so the football program stayed while the Home Ec. program got canned.

So, growing up, the most I ever did was mix the meatloaf, feed that cat and take the clothes out of the drier.

Now, here I am with five kids, and I'm still trying to figure out how to keep a home.

Yeah, I guess I'm a little preoccupied with it. But, hey, I live in a community of Amish and Mennonite women who begin passing their skills along to their daughters from the time they leave school at the end of eighth grade.

One of my Amish neighbors gave birth to her fifth child. For the past month and a half since the child was born, I have been transporting one of Katie's neices to her house several times a week so that she can care for Katie's home and children. When I pick Leah up at the end of the day, I ask her how her day went. Her self-satisfaction is amazing to me. Without a sense of frustration, rebellion or embarrassment, Leah tells me about the laundry she washed, the meals she made, the rooms she cleaned and the dresses she sewed. "Do you like to sew?" I ask her. "Oh, yes," she says. "Sewing is my favorite."

Leah is not just content. She is happy.

Now, I'm not saying that my daughters will only grow to be keepers of a home. But, let's face it, they will most likely have to keep a home. After all, very few of us escape this lot in life, and while I believed growing up that I would marry a man who would share all of the homekeeping chores, it just didn't work out that way. I can spend every day of my life reflecting on my liberal schooling, telling myself that Marlo Thomas was right and that mommies and daddies should both share the chores, but it won't change where I am in my life. It will just make me bitter.

I am the keeper of my home.

So, while it may be beneficial for my children to learn quantam physics and algabraic equations, I would be a fool to believe that they will never need to learn how to get stains out of a dress shirt or make a healthy meal for their families.

I think the thing that pushed me over the edge to begin my search for a home economics curriculum was reading this post about the Duggar Family and all of the post's responses. I was floored by the superficiality and shallowness of the opinions expressed there. My eyes were opened wide to see the kind of people who believe it's "wrong" that a fifteen-year-old can make a MEAL for a family as opposed to throwing a mug of ramen noodles in the microwave for herself, or can SEW AN OUTFIT as opposed to spending the day at the mall with her daddy's credit card.

I believe that I was ill-prepared for adulthood, and I believe that I struggle with this every single day of my adult life. I want my children to have all of the tools necessary to be productive members of society. Yeah, my daughter may marry a rich guy who shares all of the homekeeping responsibilities between the days their maid comes. She may become a famous author, have tons of servants and never marry at all. She may be a marine biologist or an astrophysicist or a neurosurgeon. But she'll still need to know how to mash potatoes.

We can continue to live in denial, or we can prepare our children for life.

Here are some of the materials I've found that may be beneficial for teaching my children--an myself--some of the life skills that would make everyone's lives a lot easier:

Keepers of the Faith
Christian Light Education's Home Economics Course
Home Comforts : The Art and Science of Keeping House by Cheryl Mendelson
LifePac Home Economics

I haven't chosen any of these, and I'm still trying to think of ways to incorporate living skills into our daily lives. If you have suggestions, I'd love to hear them.

I do own 401 Ways to Get Your Kids to Work at Home by Bonnie Runyan McCullough, which gives a checklist of skills that children can strive towards and the ages at which they can feasibly have mastery. This is a book I've wanted to look into more closely for many years. Maybe it's time.

Child-Rearing Wisdom from Cattiva

Why do I even blog? Wait. Don't answer that.

Cattiva, over at Does This Mean I'm a Grown Up, has done it again. She has given some excellent, albeit hilarious, advice on raising children in her two part series on handling child-raising issues.

Part One
Part Two

Enjoy!

The Poll Results

Poll Results

What keeps you coming back to Today's Lessons?

I haven't come back. This is my first time here: 25%
The Witty, Insightful Essays: 11%
The Interesting Links to Other Blogs and Stories: 0%
The Gorgeous Photos: 0%
The Fascinating Blogroll: 0%
The Intriguing Homeschooling Tales: 8%
The Stream of Consciousness Posts: 0%
The Whining and Complaining: 8%
All of It. I can't get enough: 44%
None of It. I'm not coming back here. Ever: 3%

36 votes total