Being Controversial

I'm feeling even more controversial than I thought, so instead of starting with courtship, I'll start with critiquing this statement:

“A man should be the spiritual leader in the home.”

This is one of those phrases, like “Spare the rod and spoil the child,” or “God helps those who help themselves” that many people think is in the Bible, but actually isn’t.

It seems like people are taking this from the end of Ephesians 5. Only there’s no command there for men to be spiritual leaders. There’s a command for men to love their wives—but the example given is quite practical: “as their own bodies.” Nothing profoundly spiritual about making sure your wife is fed and clothed. 

There's the example given of Christ's love and care for the church, but unless you actually believe that husbands somehow are able to save and sanctify their wives (and I'm afraid that's heresy), it's clear that this is given in the way of inspirational example, not practical scope of activity. Paul quickly ties it back down to earth with the analogy to the body again. The passage as a whole reads like this: See how Christ cares for the church spiritually, as part of his spiritual body? That's how you should care for your wife physically, as if she were your own physical body.

There’s also a description of the husband as being the “head” of the wife, but, first of all, a description is not a command. It’s the way things are, not the way they should be. Second, there’s nothing about being a “spiritual” head. Obviously a man is not physically the head of his wife, but there’s a vast logical gulf between being the “head in a metaphorical sense” and being the “leader in spiritual matters.”

And that’s before we even get to the question of what “head” means, which is a theological and linguistic question above my pay-grade, so I’ll just point to the problem with the common “leader/decision maker” interpretation that is obvious from a general familiarity with the Bible and other ancient books: in ancient times, the heart, not the head, was spoken of as the seat of decision making, faith, and spiritual power.

Well, but so what? Is it bad for men to take the lead in spiritual things? Shouldn’t we encourage them all we can?

The trouble is, once you say “the man should be the spiritual leader,” you’re implying that there is something fundamentally wrong in a house where the wife is (or thinks she is) currently more interested in spiritual things than the husband. This often has more to do with perception than reality—since many women are more verbal, more duty-driven, more sociable, or simply have more flexible schedules than many men, they will often act more in ways that fit the public perception of “spiritual” than their husbands will.

So then what? Does she try to curtail her own spiritual growth so that she can let her husband be the leader? Does she suffer in silence? Does she try to maneuver him into spiritual leadership? Whatever happens, you’ve created a lot of discontent and tension in a situation where, quite often, the husband was doing just fine at loving his wife as his own body, but now is judged inadequate because he doesn’t like to get up early for family devotions, or whatever it is that currently counts as “spiritual leadership.”

Over time, people grow and change. At times one spouse may have greater spiritual interest, at times the other. This is not a problem. We should all be following Jesus. We should all be considering how we can encourage each other to good works. We should all be seeking to be a servant, which is God’s standard of spiritual leadership.

And by the way, I have never met a man who did something more eagerly because he got a good guilt trip over it.

(Another passage this idea could come from is I Corinthians 14:34-35, and while that’s another can of worms—here’s a good discussion—it doesn’t contain a command to men either.)

Odds and Ends

• The Duchess has decided that milk gives her headaches. So far avoiding it seems to be working. She is perfectly happy with goat cheese on her beans and almond milk on her granola, so it has not been too difficult except for eliminating half my breakfasts and all white-sauce based suppers. We're hoping it's a temporary sensitivity that will go away after a short period of avoidance.
• I had a guest post over at Girlfriend's Guide to Homeschooling, on the topic of courtship. I may write a series on this topic over here, because I'm feeling in the mood for some controversy. Then I may find some more controversial things to write about. This will probably make the blog very boring for people who read to hear about cute things the kids do, so I will have to get them to agree to do extra cute things to supplement.
• The squirrels ate all of the lettuce I set out in regular beds. They left most of what was in the flower bed. I'm suddenly not at all interested in gardening any more. Plus, it's raining.

Foamenting Discontent

You know how there come those days when you've had a busy, fun couple of weeks with people visiting and trips to the zoo and the trains and staying up late talking and watching movies together and it's all settling down and you vow, "Tonight's the night we go to bed early! Tonight's the night we get back on schedule!"

You know how that's the night a child always needs to go to Urgent Care?

It was Dot's turn. She's never been. Just before bedtime, she somehow managed to snort a piece of craft foam, much to her surprise. Her own efforts to dislodge it only bloodied her nose and made her more distraught. I arrived home in the middle of this (I had been at Bible study) and was, I confess, a little skeptical. We couldn't see it. Her nose had stopped bleeding. How did we know it was still there?

However, when it comes to handling emergencies, DOB is the specialist. This is because I refuse to believe emergencies are actually occurring, especially late at night. "Sure, it looks like that limb is severed, but we can probably put it back on with Super Glue. Or maybe it will look better in the morning." I'm better at routines. Whereas DOB gets all fired up at the prospect of a New Problem To Solve. And also believes that medical help is sometimes necessary.

So we called Their Majesties, who abandoned their supper to come sit with the other kids, and drove to Urgent Care. The other kids have gone to the ER, where it is slower because you are behind people with actual emergencies like heart attacks, whereas at Urgent Care snorted craft foam is more exciting than sprained wrists and earaches.

I was apprehensive about how Dot would take this.  She tends, as I have mentioned before, to be extremely difficult and unreasonable under stress and she had been cranky and tired before the incident occurred and completely bonkers afterwards, wailing "I can't DO anything!" until Deux managed to soothe her by reading enough Mother Goose poems. How would she take having her nose poked at?


Apparently she figured out that there was now something she could do. Because she lay still, serene as the Lady of Shalott, even though it took dozens of tries before the doctor could finally extract the foam. The doctor afterwards told her, "You are perfect, you know that?" She nodded smugly.

Today she was cranky and unreasonable again.

The Grammar Commando Visits

Actually I shouldn't really be the Grammar Commando, because I'm really not that picky about grammar as long as you say what you mean to say. (I'm all in favor of splitting infinitives and dangling prepositions like fish bait.) It's the unintentionally humorous misspellings that get me.

Like this one: "I will email you privetly."

THIS is privet:

I guess a "privet" email would be like the little hedge postbox in Little Women.

An email sent to an individual rather than a list would be a private email.

Guest Post at Faith Permeating Life

I have a guest post on "What Marriage Means to Me" over at Faith Permeating Life today. Thanks for the opportunity, Jessica!

And I'm going to post a real post over here soon, I promise. DOB's parents are visiting and things have been busy.

Anniversaries

Easter, despite being a movable holiday, has become an important anniversary for us, and one whose significance has grown over the years.

It was the day, nine years ago, that we got engaged. It was the night before Easter, three years ago, when we began a line of questioning and seeking that would take us far afield and bring us home again. It was Easter last year that we invited our children to join us as part of Christ's body.

This year on Easter, we officially joined the church we have been attending for the past year and a half. It probably looked like a pretty obvious step for many--one lady commented she had thought we had been members all along. We show up for all the services, we read and sing and teach. But for us it was a big step to join, to state that we had found a place and a people we were confident enough to commit.

Growing up in the more conservative sort of evangelicalism, I always thought the mainline churches were just "country clubs" where people didn't really believe all that any more, but just went to church out of habit. I'm sure there are many that are like that. But we've found a place where the Good News is still proclaimed faithfully, and where we can hear it and live it in a generous way that has room for struggles and differences.

One phrase that was new to me on coming into the Lutheran tradition is "remembering your baptism." The Lutheran view of baptism is that of God acting through the water, setting his seal on us. Instead of being challenged to try harder, to recommit our lives, to promise God more, we remember that God already did it all, we recognize that God has guided us this far, we look for how God is working now, we know that it's still all God.

So today I'm remembering with gratitude the way God has spoken to me, through the places I have been, through the churches I have attended, through my baptism when I was eight, through my parents' teaching, through God's people and His world and people who don't see God as I do but have yet grown my faith anyway. 'Tis grace has brought us safe thus far, and grace shall lead us home.

It's All About Timing

Last night was the Maundy Thursday service, which involves foot washing and solemn music and prayers.

Well, there was a lighter, if slightly awkward moment, during the children's sermon when the pastor, trying to illustrate the drama of Jesus' washing the disciples' feet, asked, "If the President were here, would you let him wash your feet?"

Whereupon one young boy piped up, "No, I wouldn't, 'cause I don't like the President, cause he lied this one time and . . . " (Our church is, I suspect, politically diverse but definitely not one where politics comes up in conversation much.)

But everyone expects lighter moments during the children's sermon and especially from this kid, who had also volunteered, when the pastor asked for examples of unimportant jobs, "Pastor!"

So the service had moved on to quiet, solemn prayers and music and it was to end with DOB singing a song, which I was supposed to accompany, and then, just at the last verse of the last song before it, Dot uttered those five little words which no mother of preschoolers delays to respond to for anything.

Still, perhaps there was time. So I swooped her up silently, figuring to steal rapidly out the back and return before the current round of music and prayers were done.

Only I neglected to calculate on the life-sized cross propped in the back of the sanctuary. As I swooped Dot out of the room, I clonked her forehead full-on against the cross-piece. Fortunately she was so startled and intrigued by the suddenly falling cross that she didn't actually scream, but then I had an urgently-needing-to-depart preschooler and a large crashing wooden object on my hands and the music running out.

I propped it up long enough to last until some attentive folks came to properly right in and then I dashed onward and got all my laughs out while Dot was in the bathroom and walked serenely back in just in the nick of time.

Thoughts on Cleaning Off My Desk

AAAAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRRRGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!

So that's why I couldn't find any pencils.

I hope the IRS never audits me.

No bag in the shredder and I bought the wrong kind of bags at the grocery store. I am thwarted by myself at every turn.

Found the timer. If I could find the camera cord too, it might be worth all the suffering.

I hate Sunday School teachers. And everyone else who gives children anything but nutritious food that is consumed immediately, with no wrappers. I guess that makes the Costco aisle ladies my only friends.

The sun is shining! The children are playing outside! I can see my desk!

I never did find the camera cord.

More Things I Don't Say on Homeschool Message Boards

RC: Use curriculum XYZ! We love it!!

SQOC: Boy, one or two exclamation points wouldn't have done it but that third one clinches it: even without any reasoning or explanation, I am convinced that this is the right choice for my family. I'll run right out and buy it.

Original Poster: My 6yo son does [randomly-chosen behavior].
RC: My son does that, too! It must be a boy thing!
SQOC: Yes, because two small boys are a representative sample of the one billion of them on the planet sufficient to deduce a gender stereotype.

RC: I have always done [insert family habit] and my children have never [insert undesirable behavior in question], so I'm pretty sure that's what did it.
SQOC: Have you ever studied logic? I have, and that's why my children have never committed an ax murder. You should definitely try it.

RC: Whenever we come across something about millions of years in a book, I ask my children, "How old is the earth really?" and they shout out "6000 years!"
SQOC: Right, a knee-jerk recitation of dogma is the best way to begin a lifetime of critical thinking.

Green Things Growing

For the week that began two weeks ago, it snowed every day. Every day. Granted, it only stuck sporadically, but still. St. Patrick's Day! It should not snow on St. Patrick's Day!

The coming of the first day of spring did not look too promising, but spring managed to come anyway. The last few days have been sunny and on occasion even warm. And after a very long hiatus, I have a garden of my own again. Admittedly, right now it consists of a flower bed with a few gaps and some bags of soil. (I'm trying the new method of planting straight in the bag of soil--we'll see how it works.) But we have transplanted the first round of lettuces. I've been raising them from seed on the front porch in little milk jug mini-greenhouses, which seem to have done just fine in spite of the cold. And we planted a row of peas that I am hoping will grow all the way up the porch railing.

Also, His Majesty thinned the raspberries again, and this time I put them right in the ground, in three beautiful rows, so hopefully they will all live. Last year he thinned the raspberries while we were still negotiating on the house, and by the time we had closed on the house and made it habitable and moved in and turned to look out back, most of them had given up on life after two months in a plastic bucket.

And our daffodils are about to bloom, though they seem to be behind everywhere else. We must live in a bit of a cold spot. All the better for growing lettuces.

I haven't seen a rabbit yet this year. Here's hoping.

More Ideals and Reality

(I hate it when I discover I've already used a post title.)

This week has been a long, slow slog of recovery. The kids are doing much better, but the house and I take longer. Especially since recovering kids make for a messy house.

Yesterday Duchess and Deux had spent much of the day cutting apart magazines in the living room. I probably shouldn't allow this in the living room, but there isn't really anywhere else except the kitchen table, which is usually otherwise in use. By late afternoon, the living room was ankle-deep in paper and I was beginning to feel frantic.

One of those cardinal rules of parenting is supposed to be that Children Clean Up Their Own Messes. And usually they do. But this mess was so big, and so deep, and so tall, and I was already so cranky, and they were already so wired, that I knew if I went in and made them clean it up, I would start yelling and we would all be at each other's throats.

So I offered them a choice: Clean it all up, or go outside and play. After a bit of deliberation (quite a bit on Dot's part, who hates being cold), they all opted to go outside and play. They went outside and burned energy. I stayed inside and cleaned in quiet. When they came in, somewhat calmer than they had been, I felt able to tolerate their presence enough to let them help me make pizza.

It wasn't ideal. But it was good.

The Walking Dead

We have recently been experiencing that special form of family bonding known as the stomach flu. (Which, of course, is incorrect, as it has nothing to do with influenza.) For once, everyone got it at once, except for Deux, who had an initial bout the previous weekend, and me, who either had a very minor case early on or who still has it hanging over my head. Everyone came down with it in the middle of the night, though, which I thought was an unnecessary touch.

Lucky us we had the Ma and Pa Kettle collection in from the library. These movies are theoretically set a short distance from here and we have been to the general area. However, the actual sets look suspiciously like California rather than the Olympic Peninsula. (Hint: There'd be a lot more and bigger trees. And it would be raining.) They're pretty corny, but a good choice for the circumstances.

I caught the bad cold Dot already had, just to round things out with lack of sleep. Adding that to nonstop laundry and dishwashing, and matters got so desperate for a couple days that I broke down and bought Plants vs. Zombies. This kept everyone occupied (not always quiet) watching me while they recuperated without straining my throat. Any resemblance to how I looked or felt after the experience is purely coincidental.

Today I'm using it to bribe our way through the mountain of accumulated chores. Deux is designing his own live-action Lego version, but he and Duchess keep getting into arguments over the rules. DOB is back to facing the backlog of work, without his paralegal, who got married on Saturday.

I need to go fold the laundry so we can fight some more zombies.

Something Fishy

This week DOB's Rotary club released a load of hatchlings into a local creek, so we went to watch. The directions we had said "Behind the auto parts store" so we spent some time wandering amongst the machinery and asking befuddled auto parts workers before we realized we were supposed to proceed a couple of blocks up and down a dead end.

Envisioning the release as the opening of a mighty gate and rushing of many waters, we thought we would be too late. But it was a far more labor-intensive process. First the fish had to be loaded into coolers, and trucked up to the creek. Then they were dipped into the creek, a few at a time.

In addition to the ducklings, we had their 20 month old small cousin (SC) along. She is of an altogether different temperament than the ducklings at that age: highly mobile, ready for anything and overjoyed at the prospect of swimming with the fishes and rolling in the mud. Amazingly, she never fell in over her knees.

It turns out salmon hatchlings are really dumb. Even though we made every effort to release them in actual water, a large portion of them immediately made their best effort to swim into the mud. It took quite a while after the initial release to convince as many hatchlings as possible to leave the mud and go where they could actually breathe. And many of them returned to the mud as fast as you threw them in. This diminishes my confidence in the benefits of fish oil for the brain--it doesn't seem to be doing the fish much good.

Nobody fell all the way in and nobody ate a fish, so we will have to go back and do it again.

Things That Happened

* The kids got sick. D3 spent ALL DAY screaming one day, even though she only had a mild fever and no other symptoms. Being half-asleep or half-sick transforms her into this Prima Donna Zombie that cannot be reasoned with, disciplined, cajoled or consoled. Whatever she asks for, she'll scream if she gets it. And she'll scream if she doesn't. It was a long day. I finally put her to bed, sent the other kids to play in the basement, and spent several minutes ripping boxes into shreds until I'd relieved some of the tension.

* DOB surprised me with a trip out of town overnight. Fortunately the kids were recovered enough not to excessively terrorize Their Majesties. It was the first time since our honeymoon that we've been anywhere alone with no work or political activities to attend, and it lasted nearly as long as our honeymoon. It was fabulous. We should probably go on a real honeymoon sometime.

* We came back and the kids were better, except for D4 who kept complaining of stomach pain. Naturally it all got glossed over until he kept waking up in the middle of the night screaming, so we took him to the ER (Wondergirl kindly came and slept on the couch for us) in the middle of the night. Fortunately it was nothing serious, so we took him home and fed him prunes. We're still trying to catch up on sleep.

* His Majesty came and turned the kids' beds back into bunk beds. There's a lot more room in their bedroom now, and the thrill of climbing on new furniture arrangements has kept them very occupied for the past couple of days.

* Inspired by the furniture rearrangement and uninspired by the lack of sleep, I canceled school for the rest of the week and went on a cleaning rampage, with less emotional trauma than is usually present. (The housecleaning advice people never mention what to do about children who are convinced you hate them if you rearrange their special arrangements of random items everywhere.) It went better than it has in the past. Now I need to get up and finish.

The Food With a Thousand Faces

Some people who decide to go vegetarian vow they will eat nothing with a face.

We've decided to add more fish to our diet. That means we're buying a lot more food with its face still attached.

Conveniently, the discount grocery store we frequent has just massively expanded its fish section. This grocery store apparently caters to a large immigrant population, both Hispanic and Asian. (We practice our Spanish by eavesdropping in the produce section.) So a lot of the selections are . . . not what you'd find at Safeway. You can get salmon heads for only 99 cents a pound. I haven't tried that yet.

However, if it costs less than $3 a pound, was caught in the wild, and has enough meat on it that I can throw away the eyeballs, I'm willing to give it a try. I am learning to gut fish--it's not so hard, you just start pulling things out until they stop coming--but I still don't know how to debone. So far we've had mackerel and something called butter fish, plus salmon (minus the heads), of course. Really, everything tastes pretty much the same once you put enough tartar sauce on it.

DOB has mixed feelings about this--on the one hand, eating more fish was his idea. On the other hand, he prefers food in the range from thick stew to thin casserole. Things that can be eaten one-handed, with a spoon, while reading. Having to participate in the dismemberment of his meal does not enhance his dining experience.

The Forest Glades We Wander

A few weeks ago the pastor asked the children during the children's sermon: "Have you guys ever been fishing?"

The ducklings shook their heads no as the other children told of their favorite catches.

"Camping?"

Again, no from the ducklings.

"Duchy children--you don't fish--you don't camp--what do you do?"

"We survive!" I interrupted.

Also, what we do is hike. And the way we hike the fact that we do survive is an accomplishment. Usually we go out in doubtful weather to a park with no maps and poorly-marked trails and hope we'll find our way back. So far we always have. So far no one has suffered a major injury on the trail. Sometimes we've had a fair amount of screaming before we return, but usually if DOB is along he has everyone engrossed in a tale of adventure that leads us onwards.

One of the local parks has a large area of the woods apparently devoted to pellet-gun wars, and some strapping fellows with a lot of time on their hands have engaged in the constructive activity of building acres and acres of fortresses and barricades out of fallen logs. This is naturally a favorite spot, although DOB has, for all but the first thirty seconds, regretted pointing out to the ducklings that they could collect the discarded plastic pellets.

On Thursday I took them to the really scary park--the one with bear warnings and trails that don't match the map--and, although we never quite knew where we were, we did not get lost and nobody screamed and nobody fell in a puddle. And we found some really cool bridges.

How Oral Math Can Go Wrong

QOC (reading from the math page): There are six teaspoons in a set. How many are in two sets?

Deux: 120.

QOC: I mean in the real world, not in your world (in his world, all amounts are automatically ten times greater).

Deux: I did answer in the real world. Oh--did you mean sixteen?

QOC: No, not sixteen. Six. Six teaspoons.

Deux: Right, two sets of sixty spoons is 120.

QOC: Oh. Teaspoons. As in these (holding up teaspoon). Six of these in a set. How many in two sets?

Deux. Oh. Twelve.

Why I Don't Insist on First-Time Obedience

That moment, two and a half years ago, was neither the beginning or the end of the change in my philosophical approach to parenting, but it stands at the apex of the change.

We were still at our old house, where there was a large and lovely park just a block away, but across a busy road. Crossing this road twice was the moment of terror in my daily life. The ducklings were still all under five. Nonetheless, the twins were still in the stroller and the older two stuck close to me, and we generally crossed without incident.

Then came the day when I looked down the road, saw a car coming and then a large clear space after it, and my brain thought, "OK, we can go after this car."

But my brain and my mouth weren't in close gear that day. What came out of my mouth was, "OK, go." And the Duchess went.

The car swerved just in time. Somehow I kept myself mentally together enough to get us along the road and halfway down the block to home. And then I stopped everybody and knelt down with Duchess and Deux and said, "Listen. I know you are generally supposed to obey Mama and Papa and we try to only tell you to do what would be good. But sometimes we mess up. Sometimes we don't know everything. You have to use your own brain, too. And if what we say seems dangerous or doesn't make sense, please, please, stop and ask questions first."

Truth be told, I had never been very good at demanding instant, unquestioning compliance from the children. It's a very linear activity (Do X, Get Y) and my mind is not very linear. But I certainly started out parenting thinking that was what I ought to be doing. When the Duchess and Deux were very small, if they refused an order, we stuck it out, continuing to discipline for however long it would take until they complied.

Only, as we implemented it, it made less and less sense. One of the children simply didn't understand what we were doing--saw no connection between the punishment and the offense. The other, though usually cooperative, seemed to relish punishment as a chance to demonstrate great strength of character under adversity.

Over time, I've come to ask--where did this first time, unquestioning obedience as the ideal of "Biblical parenthood" come from? Did you know the Bible never tells parents to compel their children to obey? It tells the children to obey, yes. But that's a command to the children, not the parents. The command to parents is first of all not to provoke them, and secondly to nurture and admonish them. Nothing about compelling compliance. Or the first time.

I don't want my children obeying me as if I were God. Because I'm not God. I make mistakes. I forget promises I made. I don't know everything. And I am not going to be with them all the days of their life. What I hope for them as they grow up is that they will be self-controlled, make wise decisions, and talk to God for themselves. Obedience to parents at best is a very limited and temporary stage on the way to that.

Now, this is not the same as letting the children walk all over us. They still need guidance and limits. But I give those guidelines not as their divinely-appointed superior, but as a fellow traveler with a bit more experience.

What I work towards is an atmosphere of mutual respect, where they do what's right because it is right, not because I said so, and where they comply with matters of health and safety because they've learned why, and where they comply with regulations for the smooth running of the household because we've worked together to find a way that works for all of us. Yes, there are exceptions where there isn't a time or place to explain, or where they're not ready to understand fully yet. But the 95% or more that is based on working together makes that part more palatable.

I don't, except in a true emergency, expect them to drop everything when I bark out an order. I wouldn't want them to treat me that way. Setting the table can wait until they've come to the end of the chapter. We can pick a mutually agreeable time to finish playing at the park. I want them to start thinking this way because someday I'm not going to be around telling them what to do and when to do it.

Yes, sometimes the discussions get a little long and convoluted. Sometimes I wonder if it wouldn't be easier if they all just meekly did what I said whenever I said it without asking why or making counter proposals. But our relationship is good and they are growing in maturity and self-control. I see exercises in initiative, good judgment, and self-discipline that are far more meaningful than obedience ever could be.

When there's a behavior issue, I try to stop and look for why first. I've found that their best characteristics are also their worst--defiance is the flip side of natural leadership; hysteria the flip side of a vivid imagination. The challenge is not punishing bad behavior, but helping them learn to direct their strengths in the right way. Usually what I need to do is not deal out consequences, but rebuild the relationship and then provide vision and guidance.

I do realize that some of this is because the children are a little older and more capable of reason and guidance. But at 6 and 7 even Deux and Duchess are still well within the "Because I Said So" range in most people's books. And even with smaller children, I would do it differently. I look back now to the time I spent nearly an hour making the fourteen-month-old Duchess sit down in a chair she wanted to stand up in. Now, I'd just pick her up and move her out of the chair. It's not giving in, but it's also not trying to make a battle out of it. Because I don't need to win; I need to keep her safe and help her grow in understanding.

Note: I am not a parenting expert. Nothing in the post should be construed to constitute parenting advice. This is merely a reflection on personal experiences and philosophy and is not intended to be prescriptive. Results may vary. Past performance is no guarantee of future results.

Snarky Things I Want to Say on Homeschool Forums

But never actually do.

Random Commenter: "Im wondring if I should get a spelling cirriculum."

Snarky QOC: Of course! They say it's never too late to learn. Oh . . . did you mean for your kids? (Note that I do not immediately assume the children would be better off in school. I've read worse from school teachers.)

RC: My four-year-old is getting really stressed out over school. He cries and says he doesn't want to do the worksheets. He still doesn't know all his letters even though we've been working on them since he was two. What can I do to help him love learning?"

SQOC: A three-year supply of tranquilizers. Not for him, for you. He actually loves learning and can't figure out why you're making him do squiggles on paper when he could be doing something truly educational like disassembling the dishwasher or turning the living room into a ninja fortress/train station.

RC: I don't think it's worthwhile for my daughter to spend time studying (higher math/ philosophy/ business skills) when we are raising her to be a "keeper at home."

SQOC: Yes, because we all know of God's promise in Hezekiah 3:14 "Thou shalt grant to the woman of virtue a husband of great wealth for all the days of her life," as well as that profound insight in Cappadocians 2:27, "Let thy women be of feeble mind, that they may be more easily duped."

RC: Character is more important than academics. What good will it be for our children to know algebra if they don't know Jesus?

SQOC: So, ten years from now when your child can't get a decent job because they don't have the requisite skills, are you going to keep telling him it's because of Jesus? *That* should keep him in the faith. And since when does slacking off on your work show good character?

RC: It just occurred to me today that instead of just reading the textbook about birds, we could go outside and watch some real birds. Do you think this would be OK? It might mess up our schedule.

SQOC: First you're going to need to fill out a "Request to Deviate from Arbitrary Program" form in triplicate and send it to the publisher, curriculum provider, and randomly-selected educational official. In three months when you get the results back, you can figure out how many weeks of school you'll need to make up in penance for daring to learn something real instead of getting it third-hand.

Winter Wonderland

We spent the long weekend in the mountains with some friends from DOB's law school days and their assorted increase (though none have increased quite so much as us).

A few days before, our Organizer-In-Chief (who did a fabulous job) sent out an email noting that snow was expected. Well, it was up among the foothills, so this was not surprising. The kids went into raptures and I went into the basement to find snow gear. Much to my surprise, I was able to assemble a complete outfit for each of the kids. This turned out to be a good thing.

Anyway, we had a lovely time in the very elegant setting, and the kids had a great time shrieking and chasing each other around the pillars and up and down the marble staircase. The first day the snow fell elegantly but to little accumulation, but Sunday was definitively snowy, with the fluffy, moist snow that makes ideal snow sculptures, which we proceeded to make and follow up with hot cocoa and everything else necessary for an idyllic snowy day.

That afternoon, conversation turned to the impending departure--we were at the end of a long partly gravel road, and it was downhill all the way to the interstate. Most of our friends are from farther south and were not confident about driving in the snow. DOB volunteered to demonstrate his midwestern snow-driving skills for the benefit of one of the other guys. They headed out. About forty-five minutes later the other guy showed up at the door. Going downhill had worked fine, and DOB had masterly avoided all sliding except as he chose. However, coming back uphill hadn't worked at all. DOB waited in the car for some evening visitors with four-wheel drive and chains.

After supper I decided to make a few more preparations for departure. There were quite a few eggs left, so I thought I would boil some to take for our lunch on the way home. I set them on to boil and went into the next room to chat. Some time--quite some time--later, DOB went into the kitchen to get water and called out, "Is this supposed to be exploding in here?" Sure enough, I had left the eggs merrily boiling until they had boiled dry, and the eggs were beginning to explode. We doused them with water, and then everyone had to come and admire the effect. Apparently most of them did not know you could make eggs explode. (As Atomic Robo would say, "Sooner or later, everything explodes.")

In the morning we parceled our bags out among the other departers, who sledded down to more level ground. We bundled the kids off and hiked down the hill (it had been a seven minute walk for me at a brisk clip earlier in the morning to fetch things) to the car in six inches of snow. DOB assigned them all roles as hobbits and styled himself as Gandalf, facing Mount Caradhras. I could never quite decide whether I should be Legolas or Boromir. Then it was a simple matter of repacking the car, ungearing the kids, and reloading everyone in the heavy snow, before we could proceed slowly, but without further incident, to the freeway.

In short, a good time was had by all, and we have maintained our reputations.

There was a little snow left here when we got home, but not much. Supposedly we're supposed to get a whole lot more tomorrow. We shall see. At least we have enough snow pants.

Assorted Happenings

* Last Wednesday we went for our weekly informal-homeschool-hiking-day with the only other family brave enough to head out in a complete downpour. Naturally it was the week we decided to go to the big, scary woods and we got quite lost. The twins were in hysterics and even Duchess was pretty upset because she had worn a very long skirt and it had fallen in a few puddles and she was soaked. However, we all got home and dry and this weekend Duchess and I finally made it to the thrift store and found her some pairs of jeans that fit. Tomorrow we can do it again! (It's not supposed to rain tomorrow, though.)

* On Friday we were hoping to have a Christmas play with the cousins, but it had to be cancelled because of sickness. Nothing daunted, the kids staged their own with impromptu costumes. This is the first year the twins have really gotten into acting, and they baaa'd very convincingly from under their white afghans. Duchess was the angel of the Lord in a pink afghan and sword, and Deux was Herod, wearing a pink tiara under protest because no other crown could be found on short notice.

* While we were at the thrift store I found a shirt I really, really loved. The only trouble was it had french cuffs and no cuff linky things to go with them. My grandma reminded me I could make my own out of buttons. So I dug through the old button bin and found two that were close but not the same (because that would be boring!). Then the kids commandeered all my plastic containers to sort out the rest of the buttons, and then made labels for each container, and I had nothing to put up leftovers with and there are buttons hidden in strange places all around the living room and bedroom.

* Then on Sunday I finally went to do some overdue shoe-shopping (chiropractor's orders) and wound up not only replacing my running-around-town-with-the-kids shoes, but also my cute-little-flats shoes and my cool-boot shoes. That's a third of my shoe wardrobe replaced in one fell swoop. However, it's very unusual for me to find shoes that I actually like, and two of the pairs were on clearance. And the shoes I replaced were mostly older than any of the children.

* In other long-overdue-things news, we finally got the electrician in to put lights in the basement! It's like adding on a third of the house! Now I have no excuse for not organizing it. Except that it's organizing. And a basement.

* A few months ago, a judge commented to DOB that he looked like he came from the Midwest. He's been growing his hair out ever since. So for awhile he looked like he came from Berkeley instead, but he has found an added benefit of keeping the back of his neck warm. Yesterday he finally found a hairstyle that keeps his neck warm and looks really good. Really, really good. I think it's time he came back home now.

Notwithstanding

my aversion to New Year's Resolutions, here are some things I would like to make happen this year:

Organize and upgrade the basement to the point that the kids will play in it.

Tidy and then maintain the landscaping immediately around the house. Add something edible somewhere.

Do at least one art and/or science project with the kids each week, without slacking on the basics.

Create an outline and do background research on the historical fantasy novel I've been wanting to write for years.

Read two books written before 1 A.D. Three books written between 1 A.D. and 1600 A.D. Four books written between 1600 A.D. and 1900 A.D. (Bible doesn't count; books read to kids don't count.)

Find a consistent time and plan for devotions separate from preparing Bible lessons for the kids.

Do enough legal work to keep my business profitable and find a direction and make a long-term plan for it.

Go for a walk three times a week; do a strength workout at least once a week; stretching/alignment exercies every day.

Maintain a monthly calendar so I can actually see what's coming before it hits me.

Serve vegetables or fruits for afternoon snack three days a week.

Lacto-ferment something once a month.

2011 in Review

Borrowed from me two years ago. Some answers haven't changed. Some have.

1. What did you do in 2011 that you'd never done before?

Started a business. Played in a bell choir. Painted a house. Potty-trained twins.

2. Did you keep your new year's resolutions, and will you make more for next year?

I don't do New Year's resolutions.

3. Did anyone close to you give birth or get pregnant?

My brother and sister-in-law had their fifth. DOB's sister is expecting her first.

4. Did anyone close to you get married?

DOB's sister.

5. Did anyone close to you die?

My weird aunt. DOB's grandfather.

6. Travel?

Very little. Just our get-out-of-the-house-or-bust trip in November.

7. Did you move anywhere?

We moved into our own house in May.

8. What was the best month?

I think August was pretty nice: calm, somewhat settled in, not too hectic. November had its nice points, too.

9. What would you like to have in 2012 that you lacked in 2011?

Time to concentrate. On something.

10. What date(s) from 2011 will remain etched upon your memory, and why?

June 14 (day my aunt died).

11. What was your biggest achievement of the year?

Working and homeschooling and staying sane--in fact, feeling saner.

12. What was your biggest failure?

Losing a major contract.

13. Did you suffer illness or injury?

There was the stomach flu of eternal doom that afflicted us all for the first few months of the year. That was . . . nasty. DOB sprained an ankle.

14. What was the best thing you bought?

I was going to put "my Nook," and then I thought, what about the house? Well, that wasn't a personal expenditure.

15. Whose behavior merited celebration?

DOB, for persevering through starting a new career, building a business, and still having energy to interact with his family.

16. Whose behavior made you appalled and/or depressed?

Previous occupants of this house, who apparently smoked indoors and drank outdoors (and then smashed the bottles); grew things in the basement; and tossed dead pets with the rest of the garbage into the bushes.

On very rare occasions, the children did something stunning. Like knocking over the Christmas tree. On top of a pile of library books. Not quite appalling, though.

17. Where did most of your money go?

Most of the money I personally earned went to putting large payments on our credit cards. Which are nearing the bottom.

18. What did you get really, really, really excited about?

Starting "real" homeschooling. Practicing law.

19. What song will always remind you of 2011?

"I Want a Hippopotamus for Christmas"

20. Compared to this time last year, are you:
i. happier or sadder?
ii. richer or poorer?

i. Happier, for the most part. We are beginning to fulfill goals. I think I'm finding a bit better balance. Maybe. I can eat things besides chicken broth and yogurt.
ii. And, by the same token, a bit richer. Well, closer to zero.

21. What do you wish you'd done more of?

Organizing the basement. It's a scary, scary place down there.

22. What do you wish you'd done less of?

Taken people potty. And zipped coats. The closer children get to not being helpless, the more annoying their continuing helplessness is.

23. How will you be spending New Year's Eve/Day?

We have already spent them.

24. What was an unexpected surprise?

Everything. I am easily surprised.

25. Did you fall in love in 2011?

Only with new projects.

26. What was the best concert you've been to this year?

I didn't go to any concerts, but we did take the Duchess to The Sound of Music, which was fun.

27. What was your favorite TV program?

LOST. Yes, I'm always five years behind the times.

28. Do you dislike anyone now that you didn't dislike this time last year?

Jack in LOST. Arrogant, reckless, god complex. And still presented as a hero.

29. What was the best book you read?

Blackout and All Clear by Connie Willis. (They're really just one long book split into two, so I will count both.) Honorable mention to The Curse of Chalion by Lois McMaster Bujold. In non-fiction, The Talent Code by Daniel Coyle. I have not read enough old books this year.

30. What was your greatest musical discovery?

How easy it is to learn cool new folksongs using Youtube videos.

31. What did you want and get?

Children who were potty-trained. A home of our own. Work.

32. What did you want and not get?

Children who are completely self-sufficient. A home with enough rooms. Work.

33. What was your favorite film of this year?

Since my peanut gallery says Neverwhere was a miniseries, not a movie, I will say Serenity. It is one of the most recent, though, so it could have an unfair advantage because of my poor memory.

34. What did you do on your birthday, and how old were you?

I was 33, and I played cards.

35. What one thing would have made your year immeasurably more satisfying?

Nobody I knew dying.

36. How would you describe your personal fashion concept in 2011?

Adding classy quirkiness.

37. What kept you sane?

Reading and taking walks for as long as I could. (This is always the answer.)

38. What political issue stirred you the most?

When I thought about it, the Occupy X movement annoyed me. So I tried not to think about it.

39. Who did you miss?

My weird aunt. My mom.

40. Random Memories from 2011?

The flu that would not die. Having the children baptized. Scrubbing walls in between potty runs. Feeling like a real lawyer for the first time. Hiking with the ducklings. Actually organizing a term of school and following through.

Christmas Vigil

This makes our ninth Christmas, and our fifth disrupted by puking. However, it seems to have been of the fairly mild variety, as only one was seriously affected. It was still enough to make us think we should avoid infants and the elderly, which translated into all church and family gatherings. So we have stayed at home. (I wanted to say "quietly" at home, but that would be absurd.) We followed Santa's flight with NORAD.

DOB is one of those men who saves Christmas shopping until Christmas Eve. He is the rare variety who is able to do this and still find astounding deals on just the perfect gifts. Including for himself. (Like Deux, he feels much safer picking out his own presents.) This is a good thing, because once he's bought the thing, twenty-four hours is right at his limit for not spilling the beans.

Personally, I generally come up with one of three kinds of gifts: the kind where I think of the perfect thing in August and forget what it was; the kind where I think of the perfect thing at midnight on Christmas Eve; and the kind where I never think of anything at all. Occasionally I actually buy the perfect thing early and then lose it.


So we were up very late last night wrapping gifts. We had figured out the perfect plan for the morning, especially since we weren't rushing off to family gatherings and church: we had small gifts and trail mix in the kids' stockings, and they could play and snack until we were ready to get up. We told them, "When you get up in the morning, you can take your stockings into your room and play quietly until we get up." This was reinforced with a note from Santa on top the stockings.

Secure in the knowledge of this preparation, we tumbled into bed at midnight.

At three a.m., we heard rustling and giggling in the living room. By the time we had roused to the point of moving, the stockings were back in the room, the contents were unwrapped, and everyone was eagerly digging into the trail mix. We pointed out that it was not anything remotely resembling morning yet, and put them back to bed with a CD playing, hoping they would fall asleep.

At four thirty, we were finally drifting back to sleep when we heard more whispers and giggles in the living room. I went out to find them under the lighted Christmas tree. I sent them back to bed with baleful warnings of what would happen if they moved again before at least seven o'clock. (Specifically, that we wouldn't open the gifts until AFTER breakfast.) That did the trick.

After all that wee-hours rambling, I was especially appreciative to discover DOB had found me a warm new robe. In red, not bland white nor icky pastels.

It's a Wrap

As I write this, the Duchess is wrapping presents. This is a very good development. She still wants me to cut out the paper, but she'll do the rest. It doesn't look quite as good as I would do it. Probably by next year she will have surpassed me and I am willing to put up with the training period.

We took the kids to the dollar store this afternoon to pick out presents for each other. This has been a tradition since the Duchess was four and picked out the ever-famous Purple Bear for Deux, who has loved it devotedly ever since. You can get some good stuff at the dollar store. Deux took a turn at it next year and this year the twins also made an attempt.

Dash is plainly in the stage where he projects his own desires on others. If it doesn't involve motorcycles or fire engines, why would anyone want it? Deux is more cagey--he realizes not everyone likes what he likes. Therefore, after consulting his pocketbook, he bought himself three things he really wanted as well as gifts for others. Dot simply wandered around happily, eagerly accepted the least suggestion I made, and called it good. Duchess picked out suitable gifts and wrapped them all herself. Except for the cutting. She did express concern that her gifts not break within a week this year, as they did last year.

I gave Dash the chance to wrap his presents, and there were several minutes of tears as he had apparently thought he was going to get to wrap gifts for himself and was devastated to see the same old things he had chosen.

Blackberry Season

Blackberries are a summer fruit, but taking out blackberries is a winter chore. There's not much else to do. It's easier to trace and disentangle the vines with less foliage about. And it's more pleasant to wear the padded armor suitable to the task.

It's also a job I love. It contains none of those fussy details, fine-motor skills, or decision-making requirements of other manual labor. Nor does it require tremendous brute strength. Just stubbornness and complete indifference to pain. It's vegetarian dragon slaying. Attack and destroy. And it involves sharp implements.

Even better, it's a job that the kids prefer to observe from a respectful distance. When I'm whipping about a forty-foot length of vine with inch-long spikes, I never find myself suddenly tackled at the knees. And since it involves clearing new play places among the underbrush, they are happy to occupy themselves.

And it even seems rather Christmassy. At least, the third verse of Joy to the World sounds appropriate.

Earlier this week I cleared out around the base of a Douglas fir still young enough to have the lower branches to serve as a good climbing tree. They've been playing Boxcar Children there all week. But then they picked up a stack of Magic Treehouse books at the library on Tuesday, and sat down and read them, assembly-line, all afternoon.

So today, Deux was on fire to build a treehouse. I posited that I would take the matter under advisement, but he protested. He didn't want to do it someday, he wanted to do it now. I pointed out that such complex activities required planning. He agreed: we should plan it today and build it tomorrow. I suggested that we didn't have the right materials, such as lumber or nails, or the right kinds of trees. (Douglas fir grow rather spindly branches at weak angles.)

He hunted up a single board that had been discarded in the bushes. I found some nails and a hammer. We put a shelf up in the tree. It's enough of a fort for now. I don't know if it's capable of magical transportation or not.

Waiting for Christmas

The ducklings are just at the age for full, unrelenting, uninhibited, luxuriant enjoyment of Christmas. They wallow in it. The tree must always be lighted, the music must all be Christmas, every moment is one of calculations of when and how Christmas will arrive or begging me to undertake this or that Christmas activity. Gifts are part of it, yes, but really only a minor part, and a very non-caluclating part. (They were giddy for days over the toothbrushes and wind-up-toys St. Nicholas left in their boots.) They revel in the whole of the season.

I was that child, too. It is part of the fun of being a parent to live through all that over again.

Somewhere on the road to growing up, like most of us, I lost the ability to exuberate like that. For many years Christmas passed tinged with a bit of regret that it never quite measured up to the Christmases of childhood.

Lately, I have come to realize that regret and disappointment had a place, too. And its place is in Advent. Advent is waiting. Not just the impatient, gleeful waiting of children rattling gifts to discover what is inside.

It is the frustrated waiting of the oppressed, who have returned to the Promised Land only to find that they still cannot live in freedom.

It is the fearful waiting of parents for the coming of a child after a stillbirth.

It is the waiting of the sick, the weary, the injured, waiting for justice, for healing, for rest.

It is waiting that knows that waiting is not just about time, but about loss and danger, about all the ways the world has broken its promises, over and over.

Hope is only hope if we do not yet have the thing we hope for. And Advent is the time to know that now is not yet the time. Our redemption is begun, but not complete.

And I have found in accepting the waiting, in not trying to rush myself into jollity, that I have made room for hope again, and so for joy.

All's Well that Ends Well

Next year, I won't schedule the kids' annual checkups for the first week of December.

I didn't do it this year. Initially, I scheduled them in October (I hate to schedule them while the weather might still be nice. Who wants to mess up a beautiful day with a well-child checkup?) But then the doctor was out of the office and we thought maybe we had chicken pox briefly, so they got rescheduled until now.

It's amazing how much of the week a simple checkup can eat up. (Well, OK, three simple checkups. Duchess is on the off-year.) My hat is off to mothers who must do regular doctor and therapy visits.

It's also amazing how differently different children react. The conversations went like this.

QOC: Deux, we're going to go to the doctor this week. He's just going to check you to see how you are growing. You don't need a shot or anything this time. There's a really fun car rug in the waiting room.

Deux: Nooooo! I don't want to. Do we have to go?

QOC: Dash, we're going to the doctor this week. You're going to get a shot, which means the doctor will poke you with a needle that will help keep you from getting sick. It will hurt.

Dash: Yay! I love getting shot!

However, we all survived. I actually really like taking the kids to the doctor, because I really like their doctor, who is very sensible and similar in philosophy and had four kids of his own (some time ago, I would guess). We swap book and movie recommendations. He always makes the boys laugh. (Dot pulled a princess and refused to be amused.)

Dot continues to insist that she never got her shot, that it has been indefinitely postponed. Perhaps she was disappointed that it did not, as she had hoped, turn her teeth pink.

Anyway, adding to that a dinner party, two playdates, the usual shopping, a couple of extra necessary trips out, and the beginning of Advent, and trying to keep on track to finish school in time for Christmas break, and it has been a very long week. At least this week we don't have to go to the doctor. I hope.

The Middle Ages

Much to everyone's surprise, my body has survived for nearly a third of a century on this planet (while, as far as anyone can tell, my brain continues to operate on an entirely different one).

This does not make me old yet, but not so young anymore, either. Most of the Epic Life Events are behind me and I hope to hold off on the others for quite awhile. From the tumultuous years of young adulthood, this stretch of life looks rather dull.

Hooray for dull!

Dull means less time spent trying to figure out how to survive and more time looking up that strange bird at the feeder. Less reading books about theories of feeding babies and more reading books about murder and dragons and the periodic table and the search for Troy. It means I finally have time to think again about what I really want to do when I grow up.

It's almost like being a kid again, except now I have a driver's license. I'm sure enough that I'm a grownup that I don't have to worry about acting like one. My joints don't creak yet and I don't need reading glasses.

Better enjoy it while I can.

Same, in pictures

The story behind these pictures is that on our way out the door, we couldn't find the camera. (I still can't find it.) But the camera had served us well for many years and the buttons had been jamming for awhile, so we decided to replace it with another basic model, which we picked up at the Evil Store of Evil on the way out.

So DOB happily took pictures through the trip, and although things looked bad at one point, we did not use up the charge on the one included pair of batteries (I forgot to buy any extras).

Then we got home. I unpacked everything. No camera cord. I panicked. I distinctly remembered coming across the camera packaging in the hotel room and asking myself, "Should I throw this away?" and thinking, "No, it has all the important camera stuff in it!" Unfortunately, after that, my memory was completely silent on the topic of camera packaging.

I tried our other camera cords (Duchess bought her own small camera, too), but none fit. In a panic, I searched online and discovered the cord cost $15 before shipping and tax and wasn't in stock anywhere. I finally emailed DOB in despair: Had he seen the camera stuff anywhere. Half an hour later, he replied tersely: "It's in the car."

In the car? But I had unloaded all the luggage! How did he know? Was he just saying it to make me feel better? Still, I did feel a little better.

That evening, he arrived home and tossed me the box, whose appearance I had completely forgotten. Oh yeah. That box. The one that was sitting on the dashboard and fell in my lap every time we accelerated.

So, anyway, here are pictures.

The Great Escape

Last Sunday morning DOB and I were lying in bed, feeling uninspired about getting up and about life in general. That classic motivational question, "What gets you out of bed every morning?" could by us only be answered, "Someone standing outside our door screaming, "I'm WET!"

As we lay there, thinking of all the things we didn't want to do but had to, and all the things we wanted to do, but couldn't, we finally thought--why not just do one of them? So we decided to spend the Veteran's Day weekend at the coast. Now, we knew the chances were in favor of terrible weather. However, terrible weather on a weekend getaway is not so bad. It gives you the chance to go out and say to yourself, "Wow, big waves. Brr, cold wind. I think I'll go back in and read a book."

So we found a $70 suite with a kitchen attached and packed up the kids and the food and went for it. After all, the worst that could happen was that we would have a horrible time, in which case the return to humdrum life would come as a welcome reprieve.

The town we had happened upon was just remote enough not to pull enough money for modernizing into condominiums, but not so little as to become run-down, so instead it had an old-fashioned, One-Morning-in-Maine sort of vacationy feel, and our motel was simple but cozy and beachy with cement block walls stenciled with shells and extra towels labeled "DOG" for use on small furry or non-furry creatures coming off the beach.

The weather was lousy--the only time the wind didn't blow so hard we couldn't see was the unnatural calm that came when we took the kite down to the beach--but we had The Princess Bride to watch and The Phantom Tollbooth to read and plenty of peanut butter chocolate chip cookies. (I'm terribly indecisive in cookie making; I tend to just throw it all in.) We found two free museums, one of which gave the kids the sand dollars and shells they didn't have the opportunity to collect. We only had one emergency load of laundry and one nosebleed, which, considering our odds, was pretty good.

We live so close to the Sound that it is easy to think we know all about salt water and forget what a great difference there is between our tame little beaches and tidy little whitecaps disrupted by the passing foot ferries and the roaring Pacific. It was worth the drive just to feel and hear the power of the ocean. Although after reflecting upon it and observing the ubiquitous Tsunami Evacuation Route signs, DOB has scratched "beach house" off the fantasy list and is replacing it with a cabin in the mountains.

On the way back DOB tried rerouting us with his Blackberry (much more exciting than GPS, though we did miss one road that apparently had taken up the wrong name) and we found our way up into the rain forest, which after the beach felt mild and dry, so we had a lovely hike and admired the massive trees that had fallen down when Laura and Mary were little girls. (As far as our kids are concerned, there are three basic eras to history: Bible Times, Robin Hood, and Little House).

The biggest hit of all, of course, was nowhere so far and exotic, but the town about an hour away with a climbing structure built like a castle. We will undoubtedly have to take more trips to it.

I learned a few things to make the next trip smoother: Don't pack the oranges on top of the cookies. Take warmer coats than you think you'll need. Don't serve fish the night before you leave and then forget to take out the garbage. (The house stank when we got back, but I remembered a tip I had read and put cinnamon sticks and cloves in a pan of water on the burner. This worked great, as the smell of whatever it was that had stuck to the burner the last time I cooked quickly overpowered the fish.)

Sure enough, it is nicer to be home now. We'll have to do it again.

Quiz Show

Usually I drill the older kids on math facts during lunch. (Actually they like this. In fact today Deux melted down because Duchess took "his" problem, therefore he rightly should get to do TWO more before it was her turn.)

So then the twins want to be included. Unfortunately their repertoire of mathematical understanding is somewhat limited, and they quickly tire of "How many fingers am I holding up?" (They're really strong up to five. They haven't quite grasped the concept that you can consider the fingers of both hands in one group, though, so we're stuck at five for now.) So then they want different questions.

"Ask me a car question!" Dash demands.

"Umm . . . what do you put in a car to make it go?"

"Wheels!" he says. I try Dot. "What do you put in a car to make it go?"

"An engine!" she says.

"Well, true," I concede. I turn to the big kids.

"PEOPLE!" they shout.

"Technically," I point out, "You could get the car to run without people in it. Although it would be a bad idea."

I come around to Dash again. "Ask me a tree question!"

"Umm . . . if you cut down a tree, does it fall down or does it fly up in the air?"

Ideals and Reality

Dot: So Laura and Mary had baked Hubbard squash for supper and it was SOOO delicious. I wish WE could have baked Hubbard squash for supper.

QOC: You didn't eat very much squash when I served it last night.

Dot: I didn't eat ANY squash. I don't like squash.

In Which Things Go From Bad to Worse

(I've been reading Pinocchio to the kids, and those old-fashioned chapter headings really get to you.)

I'm trying to remember when things seemed to begin going haywire, and it seems like sometime about the beginning of October things had been humming along almost nicely for what seemed like a week or so. Then I got a call letting me know that the main, steady work contract I had was being given to someone with more experience. That was distressing.

Then DOB's work, always very busy, began to get insanely busy as he was without any assistance, and then had to navigate getting his own assistant. He was working eleven and twelve hour days. Meanwhile I was grasping any one-time projects I could find, all of them with short timeframes and a lot more stressful than the one steady project.

Finally DOB got a new assistant hired and went through an initial week of training and catching up. He was all set for things to settle down, when he sprained his ankle. His good ankle, which meant that for the first week, he couldn't even drive.

Now, the good thing about that was that he really did start coming home for supper--and even eating breakfast at home--since he had to ride with an assistant who kept normal 9 to 5 hours. The other nice thing was that he discovered, with the assistant and with a deadline, he really could get most of his work done in that time. The bad thing was, he couldn't exercise or do much of anything else.

Meanwhile, the kids got sick. First the twins had a bad cold. So we stayed home from our few outings that week. They seemed a bit better by the weekend, and we went ahead with our plan for them to stay overnight with Their Majesties (which was fun for them and us), and then we took them swimming so that DOB could get some exercise. We made it to church on Sunday. We were doing almost OK.

However, on Tuesday morning, Deux complained of an itchy back, and I pulled his shirt up to see a scattering of suspicious red spots. We stayed home, in case they turned into chicken pox. They never did. But Dot also complained of itching that evening, only in her case it was a bout of hives, which kept her up till nearly midnight.

Deux got over his rash, but then the next day had an earache. The following day, a headache. Then a fever. So we stayed home some more.

Saturday DOB woke up feeling really cruddy, but he sometimes does, especially when he hasn't exercised regularly. So we tried to work him through it until midday, when we finally decided he was truly sick. Then we all got it. I just made it out to the store for grape juice and we subsisted on that and toast for a couple of days.

In the small hours of Sunday morning, as I was coming down with the stomach complaint, Deux woke up with a croupy cough. Now everybody has that.

Meanwhile my (brand new) computer power cord won't hold into the port anymore, and the only way to keep it in is to tape it, and the tape has to go right over the power button, so every time I try to readjust it I turn the computer off. We're still trying to figure out what to do about getting it repaired or replaced.

And it's beautiful fall weather--and how rare is that around here--and instead of being out and seeing the leaves in all our favorite parks, we are stuck at home.

At least we can sit out on the deck and get some sunshine. And hey, I don't have any work to do.

But, of course, it COULD always be worse. But let's not think about that.

Seasons

This is the time of year when the ducklings start thinking I am mean.

"Go outside and play," I say.

"It's too cold," they whine.

"Put on your coat and boots," I say.

"It's too hard/I can't find them/they hurt my feet/Noooooo!" they whine.

In vain do I point out that the sun is actually shining briefly or at least that it's not pouring down rain. In vain do I warn that stormy days are coming and we will all be crawling the walls with cabin fever. Summer is fresh in their minds and winter is far away. And compared to summer, the weather is lousy.

Dash finally got his boots on and went out one day only to come back in and ask me to fill the wading pool.

"I wanna fish!" he said.

"You can't play in water, it's too cold," I said. "Just pretend and fish in the grass."

"Fish don't live in the grass. Fish live in the water."

"You can't play in water. It's too cold. Pretend you're hunting deer. Deer live in the grass."

"No, I want to fish."

"You can't play in water, it's too cold."

(drastic condensation of conversation to conserve bandwidth)

Finally he wailed, "Why is it so cold every day now?"

I guess it is too much to remember that fall follows summer and winter follows fall when you've only seen it happen three times. And therefore equally hard to remember that spring follows winter. Sometimes it's hard to remember when you've seen it thirty-three times.

But mostly I remember, and I go and put my boots and jacket on and walk in the drizzle, because I know winter is coming.

In Which I Make Things Unnecessarily Complicated

I was reading a short while ago a discussion in which a lady was quoting priorities from some How To Manage Everything Book and stated that one's priority list should look like this:

1. God
2. Husband
3. Children
4. House
5. Self
6. Outside (work, volunteer, etc.)
(I may have those last two backwards, I'm not sure.)

I've seen a lot of priority lists run pretty much that way. It makes no sense to me. For one thing, if I were to prioritize by people like that, I'd have to put Me at the head of the list. What good am I to my husband or children (or house) if I don't have enough rest, exercise, proper food, and quiet to be a reasonably sane and functional human? None whatever. (Believe me, I have tried.)

It still sounds dreadfully heathen not to put God at the head, but let's be honest: Does God need anything from me? The Maker of the Universe, the Triune Mystery, is he sitting around lonely if I neglect him? No, spiritual activity is for my benefit, not God's. And honestly, most of what God actually asks from us has to do with loving other people, so see everything else on the list.

I can only assume that the people who write priority lists probably don't really mean it about putting yourself last, or they've never been in a position where you needed to write yourself memoranda to take your shoes off and use the bathroom personally. They probably just mean getting a pedicure or something (ewww).

Everything on the list is subject to that economic law of diminishing returns. Some things for your husband may be more important than some things for your children, but if he can't wait for help finding the remote until the baby has eaten, then he's the one with the mixed up priorities.

Furthermore, everything on the list is mixed up. Do I wash the dishes for the sake of the House, for the sake of the Children and Husband who will need another meal soon, or for the sake of Me, who will start flinging them in the backyard if they sit there any longer? And then there is urgency--my children's math lesson probably shouldn't take precedence over someone starving at the door. But then there is frequency--if that happens every day, the math is going to be sorely neglected and I should find some other way to feed the hungry.

If I really, really had to make up a priority list, it would be something more like this:

1. Make sure everyone I'm responsible for has what they need to survive.
2. Tend to everything else in rotating order, or in whatever way seems to make most sense at the moment.

If I were a nicer person, I would put something like, "nurture emotional and spiritual relationships" in the middle. But I'm not.

How not to have a relaxing day

Thursday is usually a quiet day around here. Monday is recover from the weekend and get back into gear day. Tuesday is shopping and library (which has gotten completely out of hand since the kids got their own library card and now we have a collective 200 book limit). Wednesday is nature hike. By Thursday we are ready to just hang around the house.

So when the Duchess wanted to have her girl cousin stop in and play tea party and I was setting things up with her mother a few weeks ago, naturally I said that Thursday would be perfect.

And when a lady at church went on bedrest and I was signing up for meals, I said Thursday would work well for me to bring something over.

And when Wondergirl wanted to bring dessert over and invite Toolboy and his family along, I agreed that Thursday would be fine for me, too.

Then I realized that all these things were on the same Thursday. And also that it was going to be a dry, borderline sunny day, making it the only day I was likely to get the plants and bulbs in the flowerbed that I have been working on preparing for the past three weeks. (I started with a hacksaw.)

Well, I scratched "catch up on school" off the list and we did the minimum. I went out with the Duchess (who doesn't care much for gardening, but is really excited about tulips) and we planted the flowerbed. We finished and I started heating lunch just as their cousin showed up. Fortunately that kept the big kids busy for the rest of the afternoon, and the twins went down for their quietly-listening-to-CDs time. (Naps are rapidly becoming a distant memory, although Dash will still doze off and then wake up cranky.)

So I started in on a work project, which I had promised by the end of the week. (It didn't really need to be done by the end of the week, but I just lost my other contract and was feeling a need to overdeliver.) I finally hit the motherload of information on it and was getting it all put together when I noticed the scorching smell and realized I had burnt the beans for supper.(Fortunately not what I was taking out.) And yes, I work in the kitchen. Smoked beans are kind of my signature recipe.

Anyway, I rushed about, salvaging supper and doing only the bare essential pre-company cleaning. The ducklings said farewell to their cousin and I calculated that if we left everything ready for supper we had just enough time to run the meal over and get back and eat by the time Wondergirl showed up. So we headed out.

I noticed the van was making a new whumbedy whumbedy sound. Interesting, but the van is always making new strange sounds. I would have to mention it to Toolboy tonight and see what he thought. I could call DOB to come take the meal, but he had already emailed that he would be working to eight, and I didn't want to increase that.

So we whumbedy whubedied along, found the house, delivered the meal (whose recipient had just gotten home from all day at the doctor's and looked about ready for it), and headed back, WHUMBEDY WHUMBEDY RATTLE RATTLE SHAKE SHAKE.

"Hey kids," I said, "Remember how I told you the van was about to fall apart? I think this may be it."

"REALLY?" they said, "COOL!"

I decided to pull across the intersection to a better parking spot. When I did, someone pulled up behind me. He came to the window.

"Do you need help with that flat?" he said.

"Flat?" I thought. Rats. I don't know much about cars, but I do know that driving on the flat is a bad thing. And I was supposed to keep an eye on the right rear tire, because it had been running kind of low. And unlike strange engine noises, noticing flat tires is something even people who are not very good with cars are supposed to be able to do.

"No thanks," I said, "I'm calling someone." I called DOB, who said, "I'm on the phone, I'll call you back."

Then I realized that I was right across the street from our church, so I pulled into that parking lot and let the kids run around. And I looked at the tire, which had progressed to the shedding chunks stage. At least it was the left rear tire, so it wasn't the one I was supposed to keep an eye on.

Then I called Wondergirl, who had just passed us and was wondering, "Could that be them? Surely not, the car is too clean! And QOC must be at home, fixing supper!" So she came and gave the kids paper dolls to play with and berry baskets to pick blackberries and DOB called me back and said that his graphic designer friend, who he had been on the phone with, needed an excuse to get out of the house and would be there in a minute.

So he showed up, in a red truck, and Dash watched with fascination and announced, "When I am seven, and you have a flat tire, I will fix the flat tire, and I will have a red truck."

Whereupon Dot said, "And I will have a PINK truck with PINK tools and a PINK hat with a PINK ribbon and I will fix ALL the cars."

They put the spare on and we drove home and we had supper (and I was very thankful I had not followed through on my earlier idea of leaving it simmering while we ran out) and finished just in time for Toolboy and his family to show up for dessert. Which was very good.