These are, of course, things in MY life for 2013. So don't expect, say, movies or songs that were actually released in 2013, because I don't move at that pace.
Five good things:
1. Kids being bigger. Bigger kids are always good.
2. Getting to actually go to court. I think I like being a lawyer.
3. Still being alive and all together.
4. Staying on track and organized with school. I'm not sure who I'm channeling with teaching school, but it's certainly not me.
5. Role playing games. They're fun, we can do them together, and they don't involve major exertion.
Five bad things:.
1. & 2. Grandparents dying
3. DOB's health problems
4. House not magically becoming wheelchair accessible when we needed it to be.
5. Feeling exhausted, overwhelmed, and sad because of items #1-#4.
Five books or authors that stood out:
1. Anthony Trollope!!!
2. Wild Coast, by John Gimlette. A vivid travel memoir/history about an area I knew next to nothing about.
3. The Island of the Day Before, by Umberto Eco, where I finally found a reference I had been looking for for a decade. Also, the title of the book makes me happy.
4. The Lost World of Genesis One, by John Walton
5. The Count of Monte Cristo, which I had put off reading for far too long.
Five movies or TV shows I will probably watch again someday:
1. Barchester Chronicles
2. The Dresden Files
3. Inception
4. John Adams miniseries
5. Gunless
Five songs that stuck in my head:
1. "Go No More A-Roving," Leonard Cohen (and Lord Byron)
2. "Caravanserai," Loreena McKennit
3. "Hounds of Winter," Sting
4. The Three Ravens, old folk song
5. "Every December Sky," Mae Robertson
Five thoughtful posts:
Dorothy Sayers on Why Life is Not Like a Detective Story
"Old-Fashioned" Courtship?
A Different Thought on Giving
Beauty and Brains
On Ends, Means, and Obedience
Five funny posts:
Waiting for the Apocalypse (the humor in this is much darker, in retrospect)
Toy Stories
The Grammar Commando Takes the Stage
Twin Time
In Which I Stay Out of Trouble (except nobody laughed at that one. I think I shocked everyone.)
Tuesday, December 31, 2013
Sunday, December 22, 2013
Let the children come
So we got invited to help out at the "Celebrate Jesus" walk-through down the street last weekend. DOB was in trial preparation mode (which at that point on Saturday night mostly meant not talking to anyone), so it seemed like a good time to get out of the house.
We were overprepared. Remembering the previous weekend, when we froze our toes and fingers off just walking through another church's event at twenty degrees, I put everyone in two layers of everything under their coats and hats and mittens and then our (very roomy) Bible-time costumes over that. (Something you can learn from Christmas walk-throughs throughout the north is that people in Bible times all ate extremely well.) However, last weekend it was 45 degrees. We were in a nice little shelter and running to Jesus every two minutes. Pretty soon there were hats and mittens cast aside vanishing into the hay. It's a small miracle that we made it home with all of them.
Duchess of course wanted to say all the lines from the start, and Deux soon warmed up to it. After a while the twins joined in, along with a little boy whose father was playing Jesus a few scenes over. Pretty soon the chaos made the disciple's line, "Woman, quiet your children!" entirely justified. Deux also, for some reason, decided the best way to run to Jesus was to trip and then dive headfirst through the hay. He did it every time.
The idea was to have two families alternating every thirty minutes or so. However, the other family never showed. So our first shift was over an hour long, and by the end everyone was beginning to wear thin. Duchess and Deux had absorbed enough of "the show must go on" from theater classes to keep the action going no matter how long we waited for relief, but they relieved their feelings by storing up hay while Jesus gave his brief lecture, and then pummeling each other the instant the scene ended.
They finally scared up a replacement family and we went inside for soup and cookies and to shed our surplus layers. It was, of course, just then that Their Majesties showed up and walked through looking for us in vain. They met us and we went through the whole thing again and did a special demonstration for them. Then we were back on duty. Dot and Dash spent a lot of the last shift curled up in the hay, but there was still plenty of tumult for the disciple to object to. By the end we were hitting that point of exhaustion that works like hypothermia--the tireder the kids are, the wilder they act and the more they insist they are not tired at all and will never ever need to quit.
They asked us if we wanted to come back for a repeat performance on Sunday, but I thought one day was quite enough. Besides, on Sunday night, DOB was at the point of trial preparation that involves getting everyone to bed early.
We were overprepared. Remembering the previous weekend, when we froze our toes and fingers off just walking through another church's event at twenty degrees, I put everyone in two layers of everything under their coats and hats and mittens and then our (very roomy) Bible-time costumes over that. (Something you can learn from Christmas walk-throughs throughout the north is that people in Bible times all ate extremely well.) However, last weekend it was 45 degrees. We were in a nice little shelter and running to Jesus every two minutes. Pretty soon there were hats and mittens cast aside vanishing into the hay. It's a small miracle that we made it home with all of them.
Duchess of course wanted to say all the lines from the start, and Deux soon warmed up to it. After a while the twins joined in, along with a little boy whose father was playing Jesus a few scenes over. Pretty soon the chaos made the disciple's line, "Woman, quiet your children!" entirely justified. Deux also, for some reason, decided the best way to run to Jesus was to trip and then dive headfirst through the hay. He did it every time.
The idea was to have two families alternating every thirty minutes or so. However, the other family never showed. So our first shift was over an hour long, and by the end everyone was beginning to wear thin. Duchess and Deux had absorbed enough of "the show must go on" from theater classes to keep the action going no matter how long we waited for relief, but they relieved their feelings by storing up hay while Jesus gave his brief lecture, and then pummeling each other the instant the scene ended.
They finally scared up a replacement family and we went inside for soup and cookies and to shed our surplus layers. It was, of course, just then that Their Majesties showed up and walked through looking for us in vain. They met us and we went through the whole thing again and did a special demonstration for them. Then we were back on duty. Dot and Dash spent a lot of the last shift curled up in the hay, but there was still plenty of tumult for the disciple to object to. By the end we were hitting that point of exhaustion that works like hypothermia--the tireder the kids are, the wilder they act and the more they insist they are not tired at all and will never ever need to quit.
They asked us if we wanted to come back for a repeat performance on Sunday, but I thought one day was quite enough. Besides, on Sunday night, DOB was at the point of trial preparation that involves getting everyone to bed early.
Saturday, December 14, 2013
Cabin Fever
I've been building a playlist of winter-themed songs to vary the diet of Christmas music. There are quite a few wintry songs on the theme of "I've got my love to keep me warm." There are, if anything, more on the theme of, "I'm cold now that my love has left me." But there don't seem to be any on the theme--which I would most identify with--of, "My love and I made a lot of babies and I think they're going to tear the furniture apart before spring."
It really hasn't even yet been a bad winter for being stuck inside. No one has been noticeably sick so far (we'll see how long THAT lasts)--we even managed to forestall a sinus infection for DOB by the hasty application of all the remedies we learned last winter. We had a week and a half of deep cold, in which we went down to the walk-through Life of Jesus at the neighborhood church and skated on the Sea of Galilee. Now it's back to 40s and drizzly which, although uninspiring, is really not that bad for getting outside. It was a matter of great disappointment that we didn't manage some snow at the intersection of those two weather patterns.
But darkness still comes way too soon and the children who used to be cute little toddlers bouncing on the couch are now posing a serious danger to the springs. I guess I should have put a stop to it sooner.
While we were wandering through the walk-through we got invited to come take a turn being Jesus Blessing the Little Children. Duchess naturally jumped at the opportunity, and everyone else naturally followed Duchess. I figured anything that would get us outside after dark was a worthy endeavor.
It really hasn't even yet been a bad winter for being stuck inside. No one has been noticeably sick so far (we'll see how long THAT lasts)--we even managed to forestall a sinus infection for DOB by the hasty application of all the remedies we learned last winter. We had a week and a half of deep cold, in which we went down to the walk-through Life of Jesus at the neighborhood church and skated on the Sea of Galilee. Now it's back to 40s and drizzly which, although uninspiring, is really not that bad for getting outside. It was a matter of great disappointment that we didn't manage some snow at the intersection of those two weather patterns.
But darkness still comes way too soon and the children who used to be cute little toddlers bouncing on the couch are now posing a serious danger to the springs. I guess I should have put a stop to it sooner.
While we were wandering through the walk-through we got invited to come take a turn being Jesus Blessing the Little Children. Duchess naturally jumped at the opportunity, and everyone else naturally followed Duchess. I figured anything that would get us outside after dark was a worthy endeavor.
Tuesday, December 10, 2013
Sermons and shootouts
This week DOB and I watched Gunless, a very funny western parody about a gunslinger, the Montana Kid, who stumbles into a remote Canadian hamlet and tries to get in a gunfight with an enormous but peaceful blacksmith in a town where the only pistol has been broken for years.
At one point he gets asked why . . . why can't he just let it go? Why, after a brief misunderstanding, does he need to make the blacksmith the twelfth man he's killed?
He answers: "Cuz if I let it go now, then I shoulda let it go when them 3 guys in Missouri called me a cheat. Now you tell me. Did they die for nothin'? And if I let them guys in Missouri go, then I shoulda let it go when that man was whoopin' that dog. Now does that sound right to you? Beatin' on a helpless dog? If I was able to let that man go for beatin' on that mutt, then sure as hell no reason I couldn'ta just walked away when I was called out in Wyoming, or Santa Fe, and twice in Arizona. If I was so damned smart to walk away when I was called out, then I should have the wherewithal not to use my gun in self-defense, twice. And if I shoulda been able to avoid that, then there's no arguable reason why I couldn'ta just gone to the sheriff, insteada killin' the man that whipped my pa."
The Montana Kid has inadvertently stumbled into an Advent sermon. He's begun to realize that he needs to change, that he wants a different life. But he can't have change without repentance: without admitting that his former choices were wrong. Sometimes, that's a lot of wrong to face.
The need for repentance is not an arbitrary call. John the Baptist doesn't call for repentance because we need to grovel a lot before Jesus will deign to come; he calls for repentance because it's the logical precondition for change. Because until we can face up to what has been wrong, we won't be able to accept things being made right. The change has to come from outside us . . . but we have to be made ready for the change.
At one point he gets asked why . . . why can't he just let it go? Why, after a brief misunderstanding, does he need to make the blacksmith the twelfth man he's killed?
He answers: "Cuz if I let it go now, then I shoulda let it go when them 3 guys in Missouri called me a cheat. Now you tell me. Did they die for nothin'? And if I let them guys in Missouri go, then I shoulda let it go when that man was whoopin' that dog. Now does that sound right to you? Beatin' on a helpless dog? If I was able to let that man go for beatin' on that mutt, then sure as hell no reason I couldn'ta just walked away when I was called out in Wyoming, or Santa Fe, and twice in Arizona. If I was so damned smart to walk away when I was called out, then I should have the wherewithal not to use my gun in self-defense, twice. And if I shoulda been able to avoid that, then there's no arguable reason why I couldn'ta just gone to the sheriff, insteada killin' the man that whipped my pa."
The Montana Kid has inadvertently stumbled into an Advent sermon. He's begun to realize that he needs to change, that he wants a different life. But he can't have change without repentance: without admitting that his former choices were wrong. Sometimes, that's a lot of wrong to face.
The need for repentance is not an arbitrary call. John the Baptist doesn't call for repentance because we need to grovel a lot before Jesus will deign to come; he calls for repentance because it's the logical precondition for change. Because until we can face up to what has been wrong, we won't be able to accept things being made right. The change has to come from outside us . . . but we have to be made ready for the change.
Thursday, December 05, 2013
The trouble with parenting advice
Suppose you were growing tomatoes, something I try to do and fail spectacularly nearly every year. This alone would suggest to you that you should not ask me how to grow tomatoes. However, you could probably find someone in your neighborhood who had a bumper crop in tomatoes and ask them how to do it. And you would probably get pretty good advice, although your results would vary because your soil would have a little different composition and the sunlight would strike your yard a little differently.
But tomatoes are an annual crop and the desired result is pretty easy to define: plenty of tasty tomatoes. Kids are . . well, not a crop at all, and different people hope for different results and it takes a whole lot longer than a year to raise them. Results vary.
And people have very fuzzy memories. When it comes to our own lives, we're always rewriting our own histories, casting things in a different light as new events come. By the time a child has been alive long enough to show some kind of evidence of how their parenting was, the parent has already forgotten what they actually did. Much of what we do we don't even know we are doing. I might think my children's love of reading is attributable to my stellar educational program, when it might in fact be attributable to their desire to be out of sight when chore time comes.
I am amazed at how quickly forgetfulness happens. A couple of weeks ago I took my three year old niece for a walk along with the twins. I had already forgotten how short three year old legs are. Five year olds look small, but they can keep up with a leisurely adult stroll. Three year olds just can't. You have to slow down to wedding march slow. And I'd forgotten. I've forgotten what it's like to be awakened all night long, to watch for a chance to dash to the bathroom, to have dinner prep interrupted thirty times (we're down to ten), to have nothing in the house happen without my direct involvement, to know that my child could be in a life-threatening or house-destroying situation within twenty seconds of turning my attention elsewhere. I remember that these things happened, but I have no idea how I actually coped with them, or what I might have done to deal with naps and pickiness while all those were occurring.
So, even though I am currently the parent of four school-aged children, anything I might say about parenting infants or toddlers should be taken with great suspicion. On the other hand, anyone who's currently in the trenches doesn't really have any idea how their actions are going to pan out over the long haul. (Wow, how many cliches can I pack into one sentence?) Then there are the parents who have multiple stages, but any older child from one of those families can tell you just how fuzzy their recollection of what they did with the older children is.
Not to discourage asking for help when you need it. But most of it boils down to: Do the best you can and wait for them to outgrow it.
But tomatoes are an annual crop and the desired result is pretty easy to define: plenty of tasty tomatoes. Kids are . . well, not a crop at all, and different people hope for different results and it takes a whole lot longer than a year to raise them. Results vary.
And people have very fuzzy memories. When it comes to our own lives, we're always rewriting our own histories, casting things in a different light as new events come. By the time a child has been alive long enough to show some kind of evidence of how their parenting was, the parent has already forgotten what they actually did. Much of what we do we don't even know we are doing. I might think my children's love of reading is attributable to my stellar educational program, when it might in fact be attributable to their desire to be out of sight when chore time comes.
I am amazed at how quickly forgetfulness happens. A couple of weeks ago I took my three year old niece for a walk along with the twins. I had already forgotten how short three year old legs are. Five year olds look small, but they can keep up with a leisurely adult stroll. Three year olds just can't. You have to slow down to wedding march slow. And I'd forgotten. I've forgotten what it's like to be awakened all night long, to watch for a chance to dash to the bathroom, to have dinner prep interrupted thirty times (we're down to ten), to have nothing in the house happen without my direct involvement, to know that my child could be in a life-threatening or house-destroying situation within twenty seconds of turning my attention elsewhere. I remember that these things happened, but I have no idea how I actually coped with them, or what I might have done to deal with naps and pickiness while all those were occurring.
So, even though I am currently the parent of four school-aged children, anything I might say about parenting infants or toddlers should be taken with great suspicion. On the other hand, anyone who's currently in the trenches doesn't really have any idea how their actions are going to pan out over the long haul. (Wow, how many cliches can I pack into one sentence?) Then there are the parents who have multiple stages, but any older child from one of those families can tell you just how fuzzy their recollection of what they did with the older children is.
Not to discourage asking for help when you need it. But most of it boils down to: Do the best you can and wait for them to outgrow it.
Tuesday, November 26, 2013
The Right Side
A long time ago, when I was at that stage which is more or less legally an adult but mostly as a matter of technicality, I worked at a quite marvelous place with some people who were really, truly, most definitely adults. From time to time they would shake their heads and say things like, "You are *so* young," and at others they would mention the joys of being on the *right* side of five-and-thirty, and then they would launch into such pearls of wisdom as can only be attained with advancing age.
Well, now I am on the right side of five and thirty, though they would probably now announce that fifty is the age at which true wisdom is known. Nonetheless, I think I've attained a measure of maturity, such that people never marvel at my youth anymore. I can find gray hairs and wrinkles, if I look closely, so I don't look closely.
I was going to write a blog post up with thirty-five things I have learned in life, but I couldn't come up with that many. Make of it what you will. Mostly, I think I have learned what I don't know. And that is a list that would not stop at thirty-five items.
Well, now I am on the right side of five and thirty, though they would probably now announce that fifty is the age at which true wisdom is known. Nonetheless, I think I've attained a measure of maturity, such that people never marvel at my youth anymore. I can find gray hairs and wrinkles, if I look closely, so I don't look closely.
I was going to write a blog post up with thirty-five things I have learned in life, but I couldn't come up with that many. Make of it what you will. Mostly, I think I have learned what I don't know. And that is a list that would not stop at thirty-five items.
Sunday, November 24, 2013
Simplicity Itself
A couple of weeks ago, I was so tired that I ordered pizza.
That probably doesn't sound blogworthy, but you would have to understand how bad things have to be before I order pizza. I feel about ordering pizza as a pacifist president feels about pushing the red button. It's just not on my list of Things I Might Do. There's the agony of knowing how much it costs compared to pretty much anything that could be made at home; there's the dubious nutritional value; and then there's the fact that the kind of pizzas you can get delivered to your door just don't taste all that good. (On very special occasions we have been known to get the Papa Murphy's take and bake, which do taste good, at least. Only with a coupon, though.) Also, formerly, there was the challenge of composing my thoughts on the phone, which, if I am tired enough to be ordering pizza, I am definitely too tired to be doing.
Anyway, the pizza places have taken away that last objection by online ordering, and even when I am too tired to speak, I can usually still point and click. So I ordered it, and luckily DOB woke up in time to answer the door, because even walking that far was out of the question at that point.
But I have since been devoting myself to the project of Not Needing to Order Pizza. Wondergirl and His Majesty kindly saw to it that the chest freezer finally got moved from my grandparents' garage to the shed, and I am stocking it with cooked hamburger and grated cheese, and yes, hot dogs. Even hot dogs are cheaper and healthier than pizza, and the Duchess can cook them, although the freezer is not yet full enough for me to trust any child to go fetch things from it without falling in.
Shortly thereafter I was reading an online discussion on simplifying life, something I always fantasize about. And then the toaster broke. On the one hand, life might be visually simpler with one less thing on the counter. On the other hand, I kept burning the toast under the broiler and the kids couldn't make toast unsupervised any more and bread and butter was out of the question because the house is too cold for pliable butter.
So, I had DOB get me a new toaster. And I snagged one of the pancake griddles from Grandpa's house, which, although it will be difficult to store, makes a family-sized meal of french toast in ten minutes. And that's what I call simple.
That probably doesn't sound blogworthy, but you would have to understand how bad things have to be before I order pizza. I feel about ordering pizza as a pacifist president feels about pushing the red button. It's just not on my list of Things I Might Do. There's the agony of knowing how much it costs compared to pretty much anything that could be made at home; there's the dubious nutritional value; and then there's the fact that the kind of pizzas you can get delivered to your door just don't taste all that good. (On very special occasions we have been known to get the Papa Murphy's take and bake, which do taste good, at least. Only with a coupon, though.) Also, formerly, there was the challenge of composing my thoughts on the phone, which, if I am tired enough to be ordering pizza, I am definitely too tired to be doing.
Anyway, the pizza places have taken away that last objection by online ordering, and even when I am too tired to speak, I can usually still point and click. So I ordered it, and luckily DOB woke up in time to answer the door, because even walking that far was out of the question at that point.
But I have since been devoting myself to the project of Not Needing to Order Pizza. Wondergirl and His Majesty kindly saw to it that the chest freezer finally got moved from my grandparents' garage to the shed, and I am stocking it with cooked hamburger and grated cheese, and yes, hot dogs. Even hot dogs are cheaper and healthier than pizza, and the Duchess can cook them, although the freezer is not yet full enough for me to trust any child to go fetch things from it without falling in.
Shortly thereafter I was reading an online discussion on simplifying life, something I always fantasize about. And then the toaster broke. On the one hand, life might be visually simpler with one less thing on the counter. On the other hand, I kept burning the toast under the broiler and the kids couldn't make toast unsupervised any more and bread and butter was out of the question because the house is too cold for pliable butter.
So, I had DOB get me a new toaster. And I snagged one of the pancake griddles from Grandpa's house, which, although it will be difficult to store, makes a family-sized meal of french toast in ten minutes. And that's what I call simple.
Friday, November 15, 2013
On Ends, Means and Obedience
A certain article by John Piper on obedience popped up in my Facebook feed a lot last week (or two . . . I have never caught up with the pace of internet discussions.) Apparently it struck a chord.
It struck a few chords with me, too: dissonant ones. For starters, anytime someone starts turning parenting choices into a matter of life or death, they have lost my ear. It's like the vaccination debate. Vaccinate and your child will die of horrible complications! Don't vaccinate and your child will die of preventable diseases!
The truth is, death is highly unlikely in either scenario, so let's set that aside and look at reasonable risks. Similarly, disobedience might, in some circumstances, lead to death, but so might unquestioning obedience. ("Theirs not to question why, theirs but to do and die.") In any case, cooperating with people pointing big guns at you or with people about to take you six miles into the air are both more matters of self-preservation than obedience. Forget obedience, I hope I can raise my children not to be stupid.
But the real problem I have with the article is its open twisting of Scripture. No, the Bible does not say, "Parents, make your children obey you." It never, ever does. And John Piper of all people should know better than to put things into the Bible that aren't there. It doesn't matter that it doesn't make sense to him that God would tell children to obey and not tell parents to make them obey: God is perfectly capable of saying exactly what He means. God also never says, "Wives, make your husbands love you," or "Masters, see that your slaves obey cheerfully, as unto the Lord."
Now, if I don't believe that God tells me to force my children to obey, does that mean I sit back idly and let them do whatever occurs to them, however wrong or dangerous? Of course not. If it was my small boy playing with an electronic device on the plane, and they didn't turn it off, it would be spending the rest of the flight in my purse. (And then, if it WAS one of my small boys, we would have a long and vivid discussion of the possible consequences of interference with radio transmissions, and all the people within earshot would be traumatized for life.)
So if the end result is the same, why do I bother to differ? Because I think it makes a difference where you start from. Piper's article, and many articles and books on the same thing, makes it sound like the beginning and end of parenting is authority--that our purpose as parents is to exercise our authority so that our children will learn to submit to authority because authority is the Way Things Ought To Be.
But authority is a means, not the end. The end and beginning and summation of all things is love. God is love. God is not "authority." (He is the King, but note that a king is a person. Someone we can love.) The whole point of the change from the Old to the New is that obedience out of coercion was no good at all. We need a new heart, and then we obey out of our new heart, because we love Christ and pick up his mannerisms. Authority as a parent is not an end goal, but something given to us to serve our children in teaching them to be an independent adult and modeling for them how to be a follower of Christ.
Even if the issue is exactly the same, it makes a big difference whether the reason for making a child obey is, "They are the child, I am the parent, and I must make them obey," or "It's my job to help them grow in this area." It's important to remember that parents are sinners, too. And too much harping on our own authority is a dangerous temptation. It's very easy to slide over . . . I have done it many times myself . . . into "You should not DARE to challenge me," or "How can I make you hurt enough to stop this?" And neither of those attitudes are Christlike at all.
In a practical example, suppose a child is told to pick up their toys and doesn't want to. Looking at this through the lens of authority, this can only be interpreted one way: Disobedience. Challenge to authority. Child must be coerced into obedience so that authority is not disrupted. There might be various ways the coercion is applied, but there must be no doubt about the coercive force. Any approach that might distract from authority (making a game of it, using an incentive) is suspect if not outright forbidden.
However, if I'm looking at it simply with the goal of helping my child grow up, I realize that the child probably isn't thinking about my authority one way or another---they just don't want to pick up their toys, something I identify with very much. (By the way, I have been amazed as a parent how seldom, if ever, my children actually challenge my authority if I don't bother to assert it for its own sake. It's been a complete non-issue.) My job is not to bend them to my will, particularly, but to help them learn to overcome that natural reluctance because it's an essential life skill to do stuff you don't want to do and to take care of your own things. Now games and incentives, or just doing it alongside them, are back on the table, because those are all great strategies for learning to do stuff you don't want to do. Even if you do a consequence that might look like punishment (like removing toys that aren't cared for), it can be done, not as the authority setting yourself in opposition to the child, but as a sympathetic guide helping them streamline their life.
After all, obedience to earthly authority is not the sum total of righteousness. Quite the opposite. One of the other things I want to teach my children is that there is a time to disobey. That someday they may need to stand with William Tell and John Adams and Christ's own apostles and say, "This is an unlawful use of authority and I will not obey."
It struck a few chords with me, too: dissonant ones. For starters, anytime someone starts turning parenting choices into a matter of life or death, they have lost my ear. It's like the vaccination debate. Vaccinate and your child will die of horrible complications! Don't vaccinate and your child will die of preventable diseases!
The truth is, death is highly unlikely in either scenario, so let's set that aside and look at reasonable risks. Similarly, disobedience might, in some circumstances, lead to death, but so might unquestioning obedience. ("Theirs not to question why, theirs but to do and die.") In any case, cooperating with people pointing big guns at you or with people about to take you six miles into the air are both more matters of self-preservation than obedience. Forget obedience, I hope I can raise my children not to be stupid.
But the real problem I have with the article is its open twisting of Scripture. No, the Bible does not say, "Parents, make your children obey you." It never, ever does. And John Piper of all people should know better than to put things into the Bible that aren't there. It doesn't matter that it doesn't make sense to him that God would tell children to obey and not tell parents to make them obey: God is perfectly capable of saying exactly what He means. God also never says, "Wives, make your husbands love you," or "Masters, see that your slaves obey cheerfully, as unto the Lord."
Now, if I don't believe that God tells me to force my children to obey, does that mean I sit back idly and let them do whatever occurs to them, however wrong or dangerous? Of course not. If it was my small boy playing with an electronic device on the plane, and they didn't turn it off, it would be spending the rest of the flight in my purse. (And then, if it WAS one of my small boys, we would have a long and vivid discussion of the possible consequences of interference with radio transmissions, and all the people within earshot would be traumatized for life.)
So if the end result is the same, why do I bother to differ? Because I think it makes a difference where you start from. Piper's article, and many articles and books on the same thing, makes it sound like the beginning and end of parenting is authority--that our purpose as parents is to exercise our authority so that our children will learn to submit to authority because authority is the Way Things Ought To Be.
But authority is a means, not the end. The end and beginning and summation of all things is love. God is love. God is not "authority." (He is the King, but note that a king is a person. Someone we can love.) The whole point of the change from the Old to the New is that obedience out of coercion was no good at all. We need a new heart, and then we obey out of our new heart, because we love Christ and pick up his mannerisms. Authority as a parent is not an end goal, but something given to us to serve our children in teaching them to be an independent adult and modeling for them how to be a follower of Christ.
Even if the issue is exactly the same, it makes a big difference whether the reason for making a child obey is, "They are the child, I am the parent, and I must make them obey," or "It's my job to help them grow in this area." It's important to remember that parents are sinners, too. And too much harping on our own authority is a dangerous temptation. It's very easy to slide over . . . I have done it many times myself . . . into "You should not DARE to challenge me," or "How can I make you hurt enough to stop this?" And neither of those attitudes are Christlike at all.
In a practical example, suppose a child is told to pick up their toys and doesn't want to. Looking at this through the lens of authority, this can only be interpreted one way: Disobedience. Challenge to authority. Child must be coerced into obedience so that authority is not disrupted. There might be various ways the coercion is applied, but there must be no doubt about the coercive force. Any approach that might distract from authority (making a game of it, using an incentive) is suspect if not outright forbidden.
However, if I'm looking at it simply with the goal of helping my child grow up, I realize that the child probably isn't thinking about my authority one way or another---they just don't want to pick up their toys, something I identify with very much. (By the way, I have been amazed as a parent how seldom, if ever, my children actually challenge my authority if I don't bother to assert it for its own sake. It's been a complete non-issue.) My job is not to bend them to my will, particularly, but to help them learn to overcome that natural reluctance because it's an essential life skill to do stuff you don't want to do and to take care of your own things. Now games and incentives, or just doing it alongside them, are back on the table, because those are all great strategies for learning to do stuff you don't want to do. Even if you do a consequence that might look like punishment (like removing toys that aren't cared for), it can be done, not as the authority setting yourself in opposition to the child, but as a sympathetic guide helping them streamline their life.
After all, obedience to earthly authority is not the sum total of righteousness. Quite the opposite. One of the other things I want to teach my children is that there is a time to disobey. That someday they may need to stand with William Tell and John Adams and Christ's own apostles and say, "This is an unlawful use of authority and I will not obey."
Saturday, November 09, 2013
A post!
I am in a fair way to beat out 2011 for Year with Fewest Blog Posts. But I'll try to make it a close contest. I can at least manage a picture.
Costumes: Fireman, Cowgirl, Pirate, and Pioneer Girl. We even managed to go trick-or-treating this year, causing the kids to dub it the best Halloween ever, since the last time we managed that the twins were babies.
And then they picked out our favorite kinds of candies and gave out of their bounty. There's nothing like a free peanut butter cup to make you feel like you're doing something right.
Earlier in the week, I portrayed Katy Luther at church for Reformation Sunday. With some coaching from Her Majesty, I managed to convince everybody that I actually knew how to speak German, even though it was my first attempt ever. (Mostly I followed the classic advice, "If you don't know how to say a word, say it loud!")
And then they picked out our favorite kinds of candies and gave out of their bounty. There's nothing like a free peanut butter cup to make you feel like you're doing something right.
Earlier in the week, I portrayed Katy Luther at church for Reformation Sunday. With some coaching from Her Majesty, I managed to convince everybody that I actually knew how to speak German, even though it was my first attempt ever. (Mostly I followed the classic advice, "If you don't know how to say a word, say it loud!")
Sunday, October 06, 2013
Training Wheels
I took them off all the bikes this week. They had already been twisted round out of the way for a long time, so it was time. It was a bittersweet moment. Teaching your kids to ride bikes is supposed to be one of those iconic parenting moments: running alongside and then letting go as they fly off under their own power.
I tried it with Duchess, several years ago, holding the handlebars and struggling to balance her. She made little progress and I got tired very quickly. I gave it up and never got back to it. They figured it out on their own, instead. Deux did it with a small bike last summer--starting with just walking and balancing and then gradually adding pedals. This year he moved up to a properly-sized bike and Duchess followed suit. Now the twins are practicing on the small bikes, walking, coasting, and slowly adding pedals. (No fancy pedal-removing bikes here--they just work around the pedals.) I am proud of them for being self-reliant and a little annoyed at myself for not being more involved.
It's been a few days of glorious sunshine after a week of downpours--the world all over green and fresh after the dry summer. It's supposed to rain again tomorrow, but bikes are the perfect thing for chancy weather--a quick dry with an old diaper and they are ready to go.
I found this note on my reading from December of 2009:
I tried it with Duchess, several years ago, holding the handlebars and struggling to balance her. She made little progress and I got tired very quickly. I gave it up and never got back to it. They figured it out on their own, instead. Deux did it with a small bike last summer--starting with just walking and balancing and then gradually adding pedals. This year he moved up to a properly-sized bike and Duchess followed suit. Now the twins are practicing on the small bikes, walking, coasting, and slowly adding pedals. (No fancy pedal-removing bikes here--they just work around the pedals.) I am proud of them for being self-reliant and a little annoyed at myself for not being more involved.
It's been a few days of glorious sunshine after a week of downpours--the world all over green and fresh after the dry summer. It's supposed to rain again tomorrow, but bikes are the perfect thing for chancy weather--a quick dry with an old diaper and they are ready to go.
I found this note on my reading from December of 2009:
She is not eleven yet, but she is nine and I think it is time. For months I have been dropping hints and encouragement to broaden her reading horizons from series books, to little avail. And then I found her already deep into Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry. I warned her it was sad, but she insisted on carrying on. If she's ready to listen to a suggestion, I think she might enjoy something a little lighter.If not . . . there are plenty of other good books on the shelf for her to find on her own.The Little White Horse, by Elizabeth Goudge. A book that made me wish that the Duchess was eleven, so I could give it to her right away. And then made me glad she was not, because like all fairy tales these days, it reminded me of how very quickly little girls grow up. A fairy tale by someone who knows how a fairy tale is supposed to go and gladly complies.
Thursday, October 03, 2013
Beauty and Brains
I was recently part of an online discussion about raising daughters to have healthy body images. One surprising thing that came out was multiple women mentioning that they had been told consistently as children that they were beautiful, and yet they still grew up with a negative body image. On the other hand, my parents talked very little, if at all, about how I looked, and I grew up with a healthy body image.
It's been established in several recent studies that telling children they are "smart" is actually counter-productive--it causes them to be more fearful, less willing to struggle with problems, and therefore causes them to learn less. It communicates that smartness is an innate factor that they cannot change, and therefore the important thing becomes to look smart at all costs, mostly by avoiding anything difficult. Children praised for hard work, on the other hand, feel that learning is something within their control, and are more likely to tackle more challenging work and learn more.
I wonder if telling children they are beautiful (or handsome, but this seems to be a lesser issue for boys so we'll gloss over it for now) has a similar effect. After all, listen to the subtexts of that statement:
If I think instead about the message I *do* want to send, it would be more like this:
It's been established in several recent studies that telling children they are "smart" is actually counter-productive--it causes them to be more fearful, less willing to struggle with problems, and therefore causes them to learn less. It communicates that smartness is an innate factor that they cannot change, and therefore the important thing becomes to look smart at all costs, mostly by avoiding anything difficult. Children praised for hard work, on the other hand, feel that learning is something within their control, and are more likely to tackle more challenging work and learn more.
I wonder if telling children they are beautiful (or handsome, but this seems to be a lesser issue for boys so we'll gloss over it for now) has a similar effect. After all, listen to the subtexts of that statement:
- Your body is valuable because of how you look to other people.
- That appearance is something innate, out of your control.
- Oh, and incidentally, for now, to me, you meet up to that elusive standard.
If I think instead about the message I *do* want to send, it would be more like this:
- Your body is valuable because it is there for *you* to do things with. (Therefore drawing attention to and noting when they seem to be at peace with themselves--when they are learning to use their bodies well--when they have found activities they enjoy--when they work hard and grow in skills.)
- Love is the most important part of beauty. You will always be beautiful to the people who love you. And while love cannot be guaranteed, it can be nurtured. (Therefore learning to give and receive love, without regard to appearance.)
- You can and should take good care of yourself and your body. (Therefore encouraging and praising good hygiene, good health, good--individual--taste in clothing, etc. )
Sunday, September 15, 2013
Safely Rest
And now Grandpa is gone, too. And I have too many things to say to find words for them. He was one of the best men I ever knew: kind, patient, generous, with a quiet happiness that filled up everyone around him. For all that, he loved to argue--he taught me that you can disagree without being disagreeable, that you can ask questions without losing faith.
In my childhood, I see him pottering about with the bee hives, driving his big blue truck which always smelled of cigarette smoke and honey. He ran the extractor in the basement of one of our old outbuildings, giving us chunks of beeswax to chew on in the long dry grass of a summer afternoon. There were two tiny seats behind the main ones in the truck and Toolboy and I would ride with him up to his house to be put to work. He was a person who taught without appearing to teach, as if it naturally flowed out of him. When I got to law school, I found that he had already paved the way with a lifetime of the Socratic method.
All through his life, he loved the things that grew. His greenhouses overflowed, and he was always researching how to do more. It was only last year that he figured out that tomatoes and strawberries should be in separate greenhouses, and built accordingly. He never stopped learning, or trying new things. In the last year, he was thinking of taking up model airplane flying and airsoft guns.
Despite being nearly deaf to voices, he was a careful and patient listener. (On TV he mostly limited himself to westerns, where it didn't matter so much whether you caught the dialogue or not.) Nor, no matter how great his own burdens, did he ever stop caring about others. If he had any fault, it was taking too much on himself and not wanting to burden others.
Mostly his last years were taken up with caring for his wife and daughter, which he did tirelessly and with great joy. With them gone, his strength failed him and he waited, quietly but happily, for his turn to come.
It is perhaps inevitable that those who have lived the longest and the best are the least free with their advice. But I will pass on the one piece I can remember from the past four years: "Be sure to play with your kids."
Oh, well, there was the other one, the one he always said, "Be very careful."
I'll try.
In my childhood, I see him pottering about with the bee hives, driving his big blue truck which always smelled of cigarette smoke and honey. He ran the extractor in the basement of one of our old outbuildings, giving us chunks of beeswax to chew on in the long dry grass of a summer afternoon. There were two tiny seats behind the main ones in the truck and Toolboy and I would ride with him up to his house to be put to work. He was a person who taught without appearing to teach, as if it naturally flowed out of him. When I got to law school, I found that he had already paved the way with a lifetime of the Socratic method.
All through his life, he loved the things that grew. His greenhouses overflowed, and he was always researching how to do more. It was only last year that he figured out that tomatoes and strawberries should be in separate greenhouses, and built accordingly. He never stopped learning, or trying new things. In the last year, he was thinking of taking up model airplane flying and airsoft guns.
Despite being nearly deaf to voices, he was a careful and patient listener. (On TV he mostly limited himself to westerns, where it didn't matter so much whether you caught the dialogue or not.) Nor, no matter how great his own burdens, did he ever stop caring about others. If he had any fault, it was taking too much on himself and not wanting to burden others.
Mostly his last years were taken up with caring for his wife and daughter, which he did tirelessly and with great joy. With them gone, his strength failed him and he waited, quietly but happily, for his turn to come.
It is perhaps inevitable that those who have lived the longest and the best are the least free with their advice. But I will pass on the one piece I can remember from the past four years: "Be sure to play with your kids."
Oh, well, there was the other one, the one he always said, "Be very careful."
I'll try.
Sunday, September 08, 2013
A Different Thought on Giving
Money conversations are always awkward ones, and religious money conversations are doubly so. Even people who would never dream of supporting a prosperity gospel at other times seem unable to avoid it when they start talking about giving, and phrases like, "You can never out-give God" pop up. (Actually, you can. We've done it.) Those of us whose experience with money has not reinforced these cheery phrases tend to just clam up or walk out. So dialogue doesn't happen.
Sometimes people try to broaden it by talking about giving of "time, talents or treasures," but besides being obnoxiously alliterative, there are times in life when one not only doesn't have cold hard cash, one doesn't have time, either, and one's talents have shriveled up from sheer exhaustion. Discussions about giving can just be another paper-cuts-and-lemon-juice reminder of how little you have to give and therefore how unspiritual and disobedient you will have to continue to be (and, perhaps, how badly you must have sinned to be in that position, whether you can figure out an offense or not).
First of all, the emphasis on the New Testament is on giving out of abundance, which I submit right off the top should mean that no one should feel that they ought to be giving if they genuinely don't think they can afford it. People are supposed to give as God has prospered them (I Cor. 16:2), not 'till it hurts.
But I think we may be missing an even more critical point about giving, which is "Why?" God doesn't need our money. He's got the cattle on a thousand hills and the whole world in his hands and all that. Nope. Not for God.
Some people talk about it being for us, so we can remember that everything belongs to God, and that may be part of it. Some people think it's so that God can give us more stuff, and they're just wrong.
But in the New Testament, when it talks about giving, it talks about a different reason: for unity and fairness within the body:
If giving is really about sharing within the body, then something is true--where there is a giver, there must also be a receiver. Which means that people who don't have time, talents, or treasures to give, still have something to give--their need. Sometimes, that is the hardest thing to give.
And yet, sometimes that is what God has blessed us with--a need, a gap, a hole, that others can have the opportunity to fill, so that there can be unity, so that the whole body can grow up together into Christ. If everyone had surplus and no one had a lack, then there would be nothing to draw us together as a body. It is the flow of things within the body that binds it together.
Of course, there are other needs besides pecuniary ones and other gifts to give, some that don't make it onto anyone's asset lists at all and yet are the stuff life is made out of: friendship, example, comfort, a smile. Maybe stewardship as part of the body requires looking at both parts: Where do you have an abundance that you can share? Where do you have a lack that others can supply? Because I'm willing to bet we all have something in both columns.
Sometimes people try to broaden it by talking about giving of "time, talents or treasures," but besides being obnoxiously alliterative, there are times in life when one not only doesn't have cold hard cash, one doesn't have time, either, and one's talents have shriveled up from sheer exhaustion. Discussions about giving can just be another paper-cuts-and-lemon-juice reminder of how little you have to give and therefore how unspiritual and disobedient you will have to continue to be (and, perhaps, how badly you must have sinned to be in that position, whether you can figure out an offense or not).
First of all, the emphasis on the New Testament is on giving out of abundance, which I submit right off the top should mean that no one should feel that they ought to be giving if they genuinely don't think they can afford it. People are supposed to give as God has prospered them (I Cor. 16:2), not 'till it hurts.
But I think we may be missing an even more critical point about giving, which is "Why?" God doesn't need our money. He's got the cattle on a thousand hills and the whole world in his hands and all that. Nope. Not for God.
Some people talk about it being for us, so we can remember that everything belongs to God, and that may be part of it. Some people think it's so that God can give us more stuff, and they're just wrong.
But in the New Testament, when it talks about giving, it talks about a different reason: for unity and fairness within the body:
For I do not mean that others should be eased and you burdened, but that as a matter of fairness your abundance at the present time should supply their need, so that their abundance may supply your need, that there may be fairness. 2 Cor. 8:13-14.
And yet, sometimes that is what God has blessed us with--a need, a gap, a hole, that others can have the opportunity to fill, so that there can be unity, so that the whole body can grow up together into Christ. If everyone had surplus and no one had a lack, then there would be nothing to draw us together as a body. It is the flow of things within the body that binds it together.
Of course, there are other needs besides pecuniary ones and other gifts to give, some that don't make it onto anyone's asset lists at all and yet are the stuff life is made out of: friendship, example, comfort, a smile. Maybe stewardship as part of the body requires looking at both parts: Where do you have an abundance that you can share? Where do you have a lack that others can supply? Because I'm willing to bet we all have something in both columns.
Monday, September 02, 2013
In Which I Stay Out of Trouble
We went to the beach this weekend, mostly, I think, to see if we could. To reassure ourselves that we would not be stuck at home for the rest of our lives, and to remind ourselves how nice home is. We got there and back all in one piece, so I suppose we succeeded. We built a sand castle, or at least a Sand Lump. We got the kite up in the air, briefly. We visited the nature center. I even took the camera with batteries, although it may be next year before I download the pictures.
One area we really lucked out was in a hotel with a full breakfast--not a wimpy offering of bagels and orange juice, but the full deal with eggs and bacon and everything, constantly replenished for two and a half hours. This made the children happy, as they got to eat cold cereal in unnatural colors. And it made me happy, except for the effort wasted on packing breakfast food.
For Labor Day weekend the hotel was booked solid and this morning the breakfast room was packed. The petite lady who seemed to be running the hotel all but single-handedly had kindly placed us in a room right next to the short staircase down into the breakfast room, so that DOB could walk down the stairs when he didn't want to use the wheelchair and elevator. However, when we got into the breakfast room that day and there was nowhere to sit, he went back upstairs to await developments while the children wandered around rootless with yogurt cups.
Finally I spotted a tiny table with three seats that seemed to be clearing. I stood beside it for a moment to see if it really was or someone had just gotten up with refills. A woman with an accent that I will not try to classify better than non-English-speaking European asked me, "Are you leaving this one?"
"I'm just seeing if it's available," I said. She wandered off.
A moment later, I saw that a large table was coming clear. I walked over to it. The same woman--the funny thing was, she looked rather like me, not doppelganger similar but enough that if a police description had gone out we both would have been picked up--was suddenly there again.
"I'm taking this table," she said, "You wanted that other one."
"Not really," I said, "This one would work better for us." (At the moment the children and yogurt cups had wandered off.)
"There are five of us right here," she said, "My husband is here." (He appeared to be trying to settle her down, unsuccessfully.)
"I have four small children and my husband can't walk," I said. She was completely unimpressed even by the disability card. I was more than a little annoyed. And then suddenly the mental picture of two middle-aged women duking it out in a restaurant breakfast room over a table overtook my anger with amusement.
Later I wished I could have thought of something very gracious, or very cutting, to say. But both failed me. I just said, "Fine, take it." And went back to the three-seat table.
Whereupon the children and yogurt cups reappeared and complained about the shortage of chairs. But within a few minutes the next small table over opened up and we squished them together and DOB rejoined us and we had a decent breakfast after all, though we didn't get in line too close behind the other family.
One area we really lucked out was in a hotel with a full breakfast--not a wimpy offering of bagels and orange juice, but the full deal with eggs and bacon and everything, constantly replenished for two and a half hours. This made the children happy, as they got to eat cold cereal in unnatural colors. And it made me happy, except for the effort wasted on packing breakfast food.
For Labor Day weekend the hotel was booked solid and this morning the breakfast room was packed. The petite lady who seemed to be running the hotel all but single-handedly had kindly placed us in a room right next to the short staircase down into the breakfast room, so that DOB could walk down the stairs when he didn't want to use the wheelchair and elevator. However, when we got into the breakfast room that day and there was nowhere to sit, he went back upstairs to await developments while the children wandered around rootless with yogurt cups.
Finally I spotted a tiny table with three seats that seemed to be clearing. I stood beside it for a moment to see if it really was or someone had just gotten up with refills. A woman with an accent that I will not try to classify better than non-English-speaking European asked me, "Are you leaving this one?"
"I'm just seeing if it's available," I said. She wandered off.
A moment later, I saw that a large table was coming clear. I walked over to it. The same woman--the funny thing was, she looked rather like me, not doppelganger similar but enough that if a police description had gone out we both would have been picked up--was suddenly there again.
"I'm taking this table," she said, "You wanted that other one."
"Not really," I said, "This one would work better for us." (At the moment the children and yogurt cups had wandered off.)
"There are five of us right here," she said, "My husband is here." (He appeared to be trying to settle her down, unsuccessfully.)
"I have four small children and my husband can't walk," I said. She was completely unimpressed even by the disability card. I was more than a little annoyed. And then suddenly the mental picture of two middle-aged women duking it out in a restaurant breakfast room over a table overtook my anger with amusement.
Later I wished I could have thought of something very gracious, or very cutting, to say. But both failed me. I just said, "Fine, take it." And went back to the three-seat table.
Whereupon the children and yogurt cups reappeared and complained about the shortage of chairs. But within a few minutes the next small table over opened up and we squished them together and DOB rejoined us and we had a decent breakfast after all, though we didn't get in line too close behind the other family.
Thursday, August 29, 2013
Book Thingie.
That's what meme means, right? Thingie? Easier to pronounce, too. I got this one from Carrie at Reading to Know.
1. Favorite childhood book? Probably it was The Phantom Tollbooth. However, the Alice books were right up there. And Lewis, and MacDonald, and Tolkien, and . . . wait, was that a singular word?
2. What are you reading right now? The blogger post composition page.
Oh, you mean books I'm in the middle of? That's a much harder question. To narrow it down, I'll only include books I have actually picked up in the past month and reasonably expect to persevere to the end of, but that end may be months or even years away. This does not count anything I'm reading aloud to the kids.
Shadow of the Silk Road, by Colin Thubron
The Science of Discworld, Terry Pratchett with Ian Stewart and Jack Cohen
The Travels of Ibn Battuta, Translated by Rev. Samuel Lee
Home to Harmony, Phillip Gulley (this is for the church's book club, otherwise I probably wouldn't be planning on finishing it. I preferred the book with the aliens that the old ladies hated.)
Godel, Escher, Bach, an Eternal Golden Braid, by Douglas R. Hofstadter (this is one that will be years, because it takes me a week or so to digest a few pages. Fortunately Bookworm loaned me her copy after I exhausted the library renewals.)
Age of Chivalry, by Thomas Bullfinch
I'm at a temporary hiatus midway through the Barsetshire novels by Anthony Trollope, because my family has a strange obsession with me acknowledging their existence.
3. What books do you have on request at the library? None, because the library is closed for six weeks. I don't think I'm going to live through this.
4. Bad book habit? Leaving books lying around all over the floor and the furniture and everywhere else.
5. Do you have an e-reader? I have a Nook, which is now a few years old and I am terribly afraid it is going to die on me, but so far it has all been false alarms.
6. Do you prefer to read one book at a time or several at once? Asked and answered.
7. Have your reading habits changed since starting a blog? I don't blog about books, so not in any way connected to the blog. I'm sure they have changed because I had zero children when I started the blog and now I have four.
8. Least favorite book you read this year (so far)? Since I don't keep track of my books, I've undoubtedly forgotten my least favorite. Or didn't finish it. (If I include read-alouds to the kids, then it would be Tanglewood Tales.)
9. Favorite book you’ve read this year? Doctor Thorne, by Anthony Trollope.
10. How often do you read out of your comfort zone?
11. What is your reading comfort zone? I object to the form of this question. If the question means, "What types of books are most likely to interest you?" and "How often do you read other types of books?" then the answers would be, respectively, "Classic novels, mysteries (cozy, not hard-boiled), science fiction, fantasy, linguistics, neurology, chemistry, travel, really old and weird" and "all the time"
12. Can you read on the bus? No. But this is OK, because I do not ride on the bus. I can't read in the truck, which is more of a problem.
13. Favorite place to read? I am still on a quest for that perfect spot.
14. What is your policy on book lending? I like matching people to books, but I haven't done much of it.
15. Do you ever dog-ear books? Never.
16. Do you ever write in the margins of your books? No.
17. Not even with text books? Only if they are clearly wrong.
18. What is your favorite language to read in? Well, it's a lot of fun to read out loud in Spanish because it drives the kids crazy. However, if it's above the level of Huevos Verdes con Jamon, it had better be English.
19. What makes you love a book? Good writing. Interesting ideas.
20. What will inspire you to recommend a book? I don't make generic book recommendations. I'm more of a book Yente. I have to see a match between the person and the book.
21. Favorite Biography? Probably Witness by Whittaker Chambers.
22. Have you ever read a self help book? It must have happened sometime.
23. Favorite cookbook? My head.
24. Most inspirational book you’ve read this year (fiction or non-fiction)? Probably The Little Duke, which was actually a historical read-aloud to the kids, but I was inspired by the challenge of applying Christian ideals of non-violence and forgiveness in balance with the demands of justice and a violent world.
25. Favorite reading snack? I don't eat while reading.
26. Name a case in which hype ruined your reading experience. I don't read hyped books.
27. How often do you agree with critics on a book? I don't read critics.
28. How do you feel about giving bad/negative reviews? I don't give reviews.
29. Most intimidating book you’ve ever read? Well, if I ever finish it, it will be Godel, Escher, Bach. If not, Moby Dick will stay in the top spot.
30. Most intimidating book you’re too nervous to begin? Well, I'm a little scared about what Framley Parsonage is going to do to my marriage, but I think I'll read it anyway.
31. Favorite poet? I used to be a tad obsessed with Christina Rosetti, but, even though he's not known as a poet, I think Chesterton's poems are my favorite now. Especially The Ballad of the White Horse.
32. Favorite fictional character? Hmmm . . . maybe Susan, Death's granddaughter, from the Discworld novels?
33. Favorite fictional villain? I'm trying really hard not to say Obadiah Slope from Barchester Towers, but so far I'm failing.
34. Books I’m most likely to bring on vacation? It's a tough call. My Nook is always a safe bet, there's bound to be something on there and it's not too heavy.
35. The longest I’ve gone without reading. I've made it at least twelve hours without reading, if I were asleep for most of the time. But I want you to know I can quit any time I want.
36. What distracts you easily when you’re reading? All the other books I want to be reading.
37. Favorite film adaptation of a novel.Barchester Chronicles. Hmm. I'm detecting a slight Trollope obsession at the moment.
38. Most disappointing film adaptation? Howl's Moving Castle. Gahh. So frustrating.
39. The most money I’ve spent in the bookstore at one time? I dunno, almost certainly less than 50 bucks. I don't spend money. I go to the library. If they don't have it, I try to convince them to buy it for me.
40. How often do you skim a book before reading it? Always.
41. Do you like to keep your books organized? It sounds very nice.
42. Do you prefer to keep books or give them away once you’ve read them? I hope I can find them before they are due.
43. Are there any books you’ve been avoiding? I've been kind of avoiding The Hunger Games but I will probably get around to them sometime. Most popular books don't even rise to the level of me avoiding them.
44. Name a book that made you angry. Hmmm . . . it's been too long.
45. A book you didn’t expect to like but did? I don't usually read books I don't expect to like. Of course, I expect to like a lot of things.
1. Favorite childhood book? Probably it was The Phantom Tollbooth. However, the Alice books were right up there. And Lewis, and MacDonald, and Tolkien, and . . . wait, was that a singular word?
2. What are you reading right now? The blogger post composition page.
Oh, you mean books I'm in the middle of? That's a much harder question. To narrow it down, I'll only include books I have actually picked up in the past month and reasonably expect to persevere to the end of, but that end may be months or even years away. This does not count anything I'm reading aloud to the kids.
Shadow of the Silk Road, by Colin Thubron
The Science of Discworld, Terry Pratchett with Ian Stewart and Jack Cohen
The Travels of Ibn Battuta, Translated by Rev. Samuel Lee
Home to Harmony, Phillip Gulley (this is for the church's book club, otherwise I probably wouldn't be planning on finishing it. I preferred the book with the aliens that the old ladies hated.)
Godel, Escher, Bach, an Eternal Golden Braid, by Douglas R. Hofstadter (this is one that will be years, because it takes me a week or so to digest a few pages. Fortunately Bookworm loaned me her copy after I exhausted the library renewals.)
Age of Chivalry, by Thomas Bullfinch
I'm at a temporary hiatus midway through the Barsetshire novels by Anthony Trollope, because my family has a strange obsession with me acknowledging their existence.
3. What books do you have on request at the library? None, because the library is closed for six weeks. I don't think I'm going to live through this.
4. Bad book habit? Leaving books lying around all over the floor and the furniture and everywhere else.
5. Do you have an e-reader? I have a Nook, which is now a few years old and I am terribly afraid it is going to die on me, but so far it has all been false alarms.
6. Do you prefer to read one book at a time or several at once? Asked and answered.
7. Have your reading habits changed since starting a blog? I don't blog about books, so not in any way connected to the blog. I'm sure they have changed because I had zero children when I started the blog and now I have four.
8. Least favorite book you read this year (so far)? Since I don't keep track of my books, I've undoubtedly forgotten my least favorite. Or didn't finish it. (If I include read-alouds to the kids, then it would be Tanglewood Tales.)
9. Favorite book you’ve read this year? Doctor Thorne, by Anthony Trollope.
10. How often do you read out of your comfort zone?
11. What is your reading comfort zone? I object to the form of this question. If the question means, "What types of books are most likely to interest you?" and "How often do you read other types of books?" then the answers would be, respectively, "Classic novels, mysteries (cozy, not hard-boiled), science fiction, fantasy, linguistics, neurology, chemistry, travel, really old and weird" and "all the time"
12. Can you read on the bus? No. But this is OK, because I do not ride on the bus. I can't read in the truck, which is more of a problem.
13. Favorite place to read? I am still on a quest for that perfect spot.
14. What is your policy on book lending? I like matching people to books, but I haven't done much of it.
15. Do you ever dog-ear books? Never.
16. Do you ever write in the margins of your books? No.
17. Not even with text books? Only if they are clearly wrong.
18. What is your favorite language to read in? Well, it's a lot of fun to read out loud in Spanish because it drives the kids crazy. However, if it's above the level of Huevos Verdes con Jamon, it had better be English.
19. What makes you love a book? Good writing. Interesting ideas.
20. What will inspire you to recommend a book? I don't make generic book recommendations. I'm more of a book Yente. I have to see a match between the person and the book.
21. Favorite Biography? Probably Witness by Whittaker Chambers.
22. Have you ever read a self help book? It must have happened sometime.
23. Favorite cookbook? My head.
24. Most inspirational book you’ve read this year (fiction or non-fiction)? Probably The Little Duke, which was actually a historical read-aloud to the kids, but I was inspired by the challenge of applying Christian ideals of non-violence and forgiveness in balance with the demands of justice and a violent world.
25. Favorite reading snack? I don't eat while reading.
26. Name a case in which hype ruined your reading experience. I don't read hyped books.
27. How often do you agree with critics on a book? I don't read critics.
28. How do you feel about giving bad/negative reviews? I don't give reviews.
29. Most intimidating book you’ve ever read? Well, if I ever finish it, it will be Godel, Escher, Bach. If not, Moby Dick will stay in the top spot.
30. Most intimidating book you’re too nervous to begin? Well, I'm a little scared about what Framley Parsonage is going to do to my marriage, but I think I'll read it anyway.
31. Favorite poet? I used to be a tad obsessed with Christina Rosetti, but, even though he's not known as a poet, I think Chesterton's poems are my favorite now. Especially The Ballad of the White Horse.
32. Favorite fictional character? Hmmm . . . maybe Susan, Death's granddaughter, from the Discworld novels?
33. Favorite fictional villain? I'm trying really hard not to say Obadiah Slope from Barchester Towers, but so far I'm failing.
34. Books I’m most likely to bring on vacation? It's a tough call. My Nook is always a safe bet, there's bound to be something on there and it's not too heavy.
35. The longest I’ve gone without reading. I've made it at least twelve hours without reading, if I were asleep for most of the time. But I want you to know I can quit any time I want.
36. What distracts you easily when you’re reading? All the other books I want to be reading.
37. Favorite film adaptation of a novel.Barchester Chronicles. Hmm. I'm detecting a slight Trollope obsession at the moment.
38. Most disappointing film adaptation? Howl's Moving Castle. Gahh. So frustrating.
39. The most money I’ve spent in the bookstore at one time? I dunno, almost certainly less than 50 bucks. I don't spend money. I go to the library. If they don't have it, I try to convince them to buy it for me.
40. How often do you skim a book before reading it? Always.
41. Do you like to keep your books organized? It sounds very nice.
42. Do you prefer to keep books or give them away once you’ve read them? I hope I can find them before they are due.
43. Are there any books you’ve been avoiding? I've been kind of avoiding The Hunger Games but I will probably get around to them sometime. Most popular books don't even rise to the level of me avoiding them.
44. Name a book that made you angry. Hmmm . . . it's been too long.
45. A book you didn’t expect to like but did? I don't usually read books I don't expect to like. Of course, I expect to like a lot of things.
Sunday, August 25, 2013
A Late Summer Ramble
Last year I was adamant about clinging to the last remains of summer. This year I feel eager to bid it goodbye.
Many homeschoolers are advocates of year-round schooling. There are many reasons why I do not personally wish to do it, but one of them is that I have no heat tolerance. If the temperature is above 76 I am cranky and do not wish to speak to, hear from, and especially not touch other people. This is not good for education. So, it's a great time of year for the kids to be doing that valuable unstructured playing outside and anything else that involves them not talking to me.
However, eventually, this adds up to too much crazy and it feels like time to have a plan again. So I wrote one out. Duchess is thrilled. She loves plans. Deux is horrified. There are never enough hours in the day for all the things he wants to do, and therefore any time planned for school is time when he cannot be playing Legos/reading Encyclopedia Brown/digging giant holes in the front yard. DOB pointed out that children in regular school spend six hours a day at it, but by that time Deux had lost interest in the conversation and was back playing Legos/reading Encyclopedia Brown/digging giant holes in the front yard.
I have not read nearly as many books aloud as I meant to over the summer. Actually, we haven't finished the first one. This is because I hate it. I am not sure what to do about this. They like it. It's highly recommended by our curriculum, which I normally agree with. It is not a bad book--the chapters are just too long for me to enjoy reading out loud and I am finding it a bit too verbose for the subject matter. Right now I'm going to let it slide and read Brer Rabbit to them instead. Probably it is not worth persevering to the end if it means I never read another book aloud to them because I am dreading this one so much.
In preparation for the first day of school, and the doubling of our school size, I dug out the camera and the cord and put fresh batteries in it and downloaded the pictures and realized that the last time I had used it was May. Of 2012. I should probably do better about this. If it weren't for Her Majesty, we'd have no record of our past year of existence at all.
DOB did get up to the specialist at the University, and he ran some tests and ordered more and said it probably won't kill or permanently incapacitate him, so try not to worry too much and I'll see you in October once the test results come back. It wasn't very helpful, but I guess it's better than something that *would* kill him.
I was reading a discussion on the idea that the executive functions of the brain don't finish maturing until 25 and older people considering whether this meant young people should delay various decisions or responsibilities. I have a couple of random thoughts on this subject, completely unhampered by any actual research. One is that perhaps late maturing of the brain is more created by our culture than inherent--to a considerable extent brain functions are shaped by brain use, and so perhaps if you don't get to make grownup decisions, you don't learn how to make them. A second is that perhaps it's a good thing--growing up involves taking on a lot of really terrifyingly risky things all at once for the very first time, and it's better that it be done by people who haven't quite learned to think through all the potential consequences of their actions, because if they did, the human race would come to a dead stop right there.
Many homeschoolers are advocates of year-round schooling. There are many reasons why I do not personally wish to do it, but one of them is that I have no heat tolerance. If the temperature is above 76 I am cranky and do not wish to speak to, hear from, and especially not touch other people. This is not good for education. So, it's a great time of year for the kids to be doing that valuable unstructured playing outside and anything else that involves them not talking to me.
However, eventually, this adds up to too much crazy and it feels like time to have a plan again. So I wrote one out. Duchess is thrilled. She loves plans. Deux is horrified. There are never enough hours in the day for all the things he wants to do, and therefore any time planned for school is time when he cannot be playing Legos/reading Encyclopedia Brown/digging giant holes in the front yard. DOB pointed out that children in regular school spend six hours a day at it, but by that time Deux had lost interest in the conversation and was back playing Legos/reading Encyclopedia Brown/digging giant holes in the front yard.
I have not read nearly as many books aloud as I meant to over the summer. Actually, we haven't finished the first one. This is because I hate it. I am not sure what to do about this. They like it. It's highly recommended by our curriculum, which I normally agree with. It is not a bad book--the chapters are just too long for me to enjoy reading out loud and I am finding it a bit too verbose for the subject matter. Right now I'm going to let it slide and read Brer Rabbit to them instead. Probably it is not worth persevering to the end if it means I never read another book aloud to them because I am dreading this one so much.
In preparation for the first day of school, and the doubling of our school size, I dug out the camera and the cord and put fresh batteries in it and downloaded the pictures and realized that the last time I had used it was May. Of 2012. I should probably do better about this. If it weren't for Her Majesty, we'd have no record of our past year of existence at all.
DOB did get up to the specialist at the University, and he ran some tests and ordered more and said it probably won't kill or permanently incapacitate him, so try not to worry too much and I'll see you in October once the test results come back. It wasn't very helpful, but I guess it's better than something that *would* kill him.
I was reading a discussion on the idea that the executive functions of the brain don't finish maturing until 25 and older people considering whether this meant young people should delay various decisions or responsibilities. I have a couple of random thoughts on this subject, completely unhampered by any actual research. One is that perhaps late maturing of the brain is more created by our culture than inherent--to a considerable extent brain functions are shaped by brain use, and so perhaps if you don't get to make grownup decisions, you don't learn how to make them. A second is that perhaps it's a good thing--growing up involves taking on a lot of really terrifyingly risky things all at once for the very first time, and it's better that it be done by people who haven't quite learned to think through all the potential consequences of their actions, because if they did, the human race would come to a dead stop right there.
Sunday, August 18, 2013
"Old-Fashioned" Courtship?
I'm in the mood to write about courtship again, which means I'm likely to be long-winded.
Here's a pro-courtship article that's a pretty good summary of the major points and arguments marshaled in its favor. One of those is that courtship is just a return to the good old-fashioned methods followed before the advent of dating, without going all the way back to arranged marriages which are assumed to be the default.
Now, the entire history of the world is a pretty broad swath to be dealing with, and I'll not attempt to argue it one way or the other whether most marriages have been arranged over time. I'm not a sociologist.
Instead, I'll just narrow it down to something more familiar, and most likely to be used as a comparison: the customs of Anglo-American society in the 19th century. To be familiar with those, one does not need to scour dusty records, one just needs to be an avid reader of 19th century novels. After all, no one has a stronger interest in portraying the mores and customs of their time accurately than a writer telling a realistic story for the entertainment of their contemporaries. (Though the success of modern moviemakers in grasping the finer details is a more doubtful.)
So, according to the article, courtship involves a young man approaching a girl's father to begin the process, an express purpose of considering one another as spouses, protection of the girl from getting emotionally involved with a young man not serious about marriage, and counsel and guidance from the parents, especially the girl's father, who is the final authority.
But this bears very little resemblance to how relationships unfold in the stories that have actually come down to us. There is not the slightest indication of a young man approaching a father before pursuing a relationship with a girl. Rather, there were many social and community events at which young people were expected to mingle, dance, chat, and, well, flirt. It was not unheard of for couples to go off and spend some time by themselves, say, riding in a carriage, or to pair off and wander into the shrubbery. A young man might visit at a girl's house, but it might be unclear whether he was calling on the girl or just hanging about . There was a sort of filtering process that occurred here, in that persons considered utterly improper were socially ostracized (not that this prevented unsuitable matches entirely), but no requirement of formal consent before developing a relationship.
Flirtations that did not lead to marriage happened frequently, though there was a complex code about how far one might decently go without serious intentions, and much room for misunderstanding. There was an expectation that a serious relationship would lead to marriage pretty directly, though, so we do not usually have long years as a couple before deciding to marry--things went on or were over, unless the couple was too young or too poor to marry. After the match was settled between the young people, a decent fellow would get consent from the girl's father--though in most cases this seems to have been a formality. Parents and other relatives might work to promote matches they thought advantageous (almost always having to do with either money or social rank) but were not overtly involved. Engagements were taken very seriously, and breaking one was both difficult and disgraceful.
There's also the factor that these are the practices of people of some means. What glimpses we see of the lower classes suggests that they were even less formal. A girl who "went out to service" (most lower-class girls) had no one but herself to look after her honor, let alone her heart.
Anyway, while this had advantages and disadvantages and is obviously different from modern dating, it is also quite different from modern courtship. Above all, it carries not a whiff of "emotional purity," and while the father has a role, it is mostly as a figurehead, unless he wants to be thoroughly skewered as a domestic tyrant. All the best heroines have their own hearts and heads well in hand and can (and indeed must) learn to tell a rake from an honorable fellow, at least before things get too carried away.
Here's a pro-courtship article that's a pretty good summary of the major points and arguments marshaled in its favor. One of those is that courtship is just a return to the good old-fashioned methods followed before the advent of dating, without going all the way back to arranged marriages which are assumed to be the default.
Now, the entire history of the world is a pretty broad swath to be dealing with, and I'll not attempt to argue it one way or the other whether most marriages have been arranged over time. I'm not a sociologist.
Instead, I'll just narrow it down to something more familiar, and most likely to be used as a comparison: the customs of Anglo-American society in the 19th century. To be familiar with those, one does not need to scour dusty records, one just needs to be an avid reader of 19th century novels. After all, no one has a stronger interest in portraying the mores and customs of their time accurately than a writer telling a realistic story for the entertainment of their contemporaries. (Though the success of modern moviemakers in grasping the finer details is a more doubtful.)
So, according to the article, courtship involves a young man approaching a girl's father to begin the process, an express purpose of considering one another as spouses, protection of the girl from getting emotionally involved with a young man not serious about marriage, and counsel and guidance from the parents, especially the girl's father, who is the final authority.
 |
| Does Mr. Darcy need guidance from Mr. Bennett? For that matter, does Elizabeth? |
But this bears very little resemblance to how relationships unfold in the stories that have actually come down to us. There is not the slightest indication of a young man approaching a father before pursuing a relationship with a girl. Rather, there were many social and community events at which young people were expected to mingle, dance, chat, and, well, flirt. It was not unheard of for couples to go off and spend some time by themselves, say, riding in a carriage, or to pair off and wander into the shrubbery. A young man might visit at a girl's house, but it might be unclear whether he was calling on the girl or just hanging about . There was a sort of filtering process that occurred here, in that persons considered utterly improper were socially ostracized (not that this prevented unsuitable matches entirely), but no requirement of formal consent before developing a relationship.
Flirtations that did not lead to marriage happened frequently, though there was a complex code about how far one might decently go without serious intentions, and much room for misunderstanding. There was an expectation that a serious relationship would lead to marriage pretty directly, though, so we do not usually have long years as a couple before deciding to marry--things went on or were over, unless the couple was too young or too poor to marry. After the match was settled between the young people, a decent fellow would get consent from the girl's father--though in most cases this seems to have been a formality. Parents and other relatives might work to promote matches they thought advantageous (almost always having to do with either money or social rank) but were not overtly involved. Engagements were taken very seriously, and breaking one was both difficult and disgraceful.
There's also the factor that these are the practices of people of some means. What glimpses we see of the lower classes suggests that they were even less formal. A girl who "went out to service" (most lower-class girls) had no one but herself to look after her honor, let alone her heart.
Anyway, while this had advantages and disadvantages and is obviously different from modern dating, it is also quite different from modern courtship. Above all, it carries not a whiff of "emotional purity," and while the father has a role, it is mostly as a figurehead, unless he wants to be thoroughly skewered as a domestic tyrant. All the best heroines have their own hearts and heads well in hand and can (and indeed must) learn to tell a rake from an honorable fellow, at least before things get too carried away.
Friday, August 16, 2013
Dear Grandchildren,
I'm not saving stuff for you.
Maybe by the time you come along we will have progressed to the point where all toys are holographic projections and cleanup consists of hitting the off switch. (Wow. THAT is a fantasy.)
Or maybe we will have regressed to the point where all you have to play with is sticks and dirt. (Oh, wait, that's what your parents are playing with.)
Or maybe things will be pretty much the same, in which case, there will be yard sales.
Or maybe your parents will stay true to their preadolescent forswearing of reproduction. In which case, they won't be your parents.
Whatever it is, we can get along without me saving things.
I didn't actually get rid of the blocks yet. Those inch cubes are pretty handy for teaching volume, so I can justify them through at least third grade.
By the time you come along, the colors that looks so cute now will be ghastly. The toys that are educational will be passe. The river will move on.
I may as well let it sweep some of this stuff away with it. Let somebody else enjoy it before it expires completely.
Of course, nobody will let me get rid of the Duplos yet, even though they have long since officially graduated to Legos.
Or just let it go to the landfill. My time is not worth sorting out the cards from dollar store games of Old Maid, from cardboard puzzles that are warped and missing half their pieces. Some things even the poor don't want. And I need the space.
You want your grandmother to reach her old age with her sanity intact, don't you?
So . . . don't complain. When you come along, maybe we'll go to the park. Or the library, where they have librarians to make sure the pieces go back with the right puzzles. Or switch on the toybox holograph.
I may have to hang on to the elf hat. Your daddy was just too stinkin' cute in it. And it doesn't take up space. Much.
Maybe by the time you come along we will have progressed to the point where all toys are holographic projections and cleanup consists of hitting the off switch. (Wow. THAT is a fantasy.)
Or maybe we will have regressed to the point where all you have to play with is sticks and dirt. (Oh, wait, that's what your parents are playing with.)
Or maybe things will be pretty much the same, in which case, there will be yard sales.
Or maybe your parents will stay true to their preadolescent forswearing of reproduction. In which case, they won't be your parents.
Whatever it is, we can get along without me saving things.
I didn't actually get rid of the blocks yet. Those inch cubes are pretty handy for teaching volume, so I can justify them through at least third grade.
By the time you come along, the colors that looks so cute now will be ghastly. The toys that are educational will be passe. The river will move on.
I may as well let it sweep some of this stuff away with it. Let somebody else enjoy it before it expires completely.
Of course, nobody will let me get rid of the Duplos yet, even though they have long since officially graduated to Legos.
Or just let it go to the landfill. My time is not worth sorting out the cards from dollar store games of Old Maid, from cardboard puzzles that are warped and missing half their pieces. Some things even the poor don't want. And I need the space.
You want your grandmother to reach her old age with her sanity intact, don't you?
So . . . don't complain. When you come along, maybe we'll go to the park. Or the library, where they have librarians to make sure the pieces go back with the right puzzles. Or switch on the toybox holograph.
Thursday, August 08, 2013
It's That Time
It is August. Children eat popsicles and contemplate the start of school. Geese contemplate the trip south. Leaves contemplate turning yellow. I contemplate cleaning up this horrible mess before I go completely insane and take it all outside and light a match to it.
Which would be bad, because there's a burn ban on.
Back in the olden days, I think I would have been a tolerably good housekeeper. I like menial labor--it gives the mind lots of time to work while keeping the hands busy. Scrubbing, sweeping, dusting--all nice, soothing activities.
However, modern surfaces need little cleaning and modern cleaning supplies take little effort. The test of a good housekeeper nowadays is not her willingness to put in a little elbow grease, but her ability to remain calm and organized and decisive in the face of the unrelenting onslaught of STUFF.
At that, I am a miserable failure. I am not calm in the face of STUFF. STUFF terrifies me. STUFF steps on my toes and shoves me into the wall and tweaks my ear and makes me cry. I hate STUFF.
And I can't organize. Not anything I have to touch. I can organize ideas beautifully. Can take a directory of ten thousand random documents and turn them into coherent narrative for trial. Can take an incoherent jumble of thoughts and turn them into a clear and eloquent pleading. But as soon as my hands get called on to do anything but type, it's hopeless. I'm at a preschool level. I can't even sort laundry and match socks without getting hopelessly muddled. (Sadly, this is not an exaggeration for the sake of the blog--it's the unvarnished truth.)
If it were just me, I could keep up, most of the time, because I also avoid acquiring stuff. But I have children, and children are to STUFF as socks are to burrs in an August meadow. It follows them home. It coalesces around them. Nice, organized valuable belongings melt into STUFF just from their presence. I was, of course, supposed to teach them "A Place for Everything And Everything In Its Place" back when they were two, but I was kind of busy trying to keep them alive back then, plus I couldn't remember the Places, plus the Everything kept changing.
So here we are, and once again, the STUFF has taken over their room and spilled over into the living room. We spent all morning at it and they, with a promise of extra computer time, worked as well as could be expected, and we took out bag after bag of garbage and basket after basket of toys to go in the basement to be sorted later. Blood, sweat and tears all put in an appearance. We did all this a couple of months ago and it's worse than ever. It just . . . grows.
It is a problem that they have no space for their own things, except piled on top of their beds (which makes for uncomfortable sleeping and absolutely miserable emergency sheet changes). So in addition to the load to Goodwill and the library, we stopped and bought four identical underbed containers and labeled them. It might help for a little bit.
But I know the STUFF will be back.
Which would be bad, because there's a burn ban on.
Back in the olden days, I think I would have been a tolerably good housekeeper. I like menial labor--it gives the mind lots of time to work while keeping the hands busy. Scrubbing, sweeping, dusting--all nice, soothing activities.
However, modern surfaces need little cleaning and modern cleaning supplies take little effort. The test of a good housekeeper nowadays is not her willingness to put in a little elbow grease, but her ability to remain calm and organized and decisive in the face of the unrelenting onslaught of STUFF.
At that, I am a miserable failure. I am not calm in the face of STUFF. STUFF terrifies me. STUFF steps on my toes and shoves me into the wall and tweaks my ear and makes me cry. I hate STUFF.
And I can't organize. Not anything I have to touch. I can organize ideas beautifully. Can take a directory of ten thousand random documents and turn them into coherent narrative for trial. Can take an incoherent jumble of thoughts and turn them into a clear and eloquent pleading. But as soon as my hands get called on to do anything but type, it's hopeless. I'm at a preschool level. I can't even sort laundry and match socks without getting hopelessly muddled. (Sadly, this is not an exaggeration for the sake of the blog--it's the unvarnished truth.)
If it were just me, I could keep up, most of the time, because I also avoid acquiring stuff. But I have children, and children are to STUFF as socks are to burrs in an August meadow. It follows them home. It coalesces around them. Nice, organized valuable belongings melt into STUFF just from their presence. I was, of course, supposed to teach them "A Place for Everything And Everything In Its Place" back when they were two, but I was kind of busy trying to keep them alive back then, plus I couldn't remember the Places, plus the Everything kept changing.
So here we are, and once again, the STUFF has taken over their room and spilled over into the living room. We spent all morning at it and they, with a promise of extra computer time, worked as well as could be expected, and we took out bag after bag of garbage and basket after basket of toys to go in the basement to be sorted later. Blood, sweat and tears all put in an appearance. We did all this a couple of months ago and it's worse than ever. It just . . . grows.
It is a problem that they have no space for their own things, except piled on top of their beds (which makes for uncomfortable sleeping and absolutely miserable emergency sheet changes). So in addition to the load to Goodwill and the library, we stopped and bought four identical underbed containers and labeled them. It might help for a little bit.
But I know the STUFF will be back.
Friday, August 02, 2013
7 Quick Takes (Maybe)
1. The local neurologist is stumped as to what's wrong with DOB. We have successfully eliminated everything he's ever heard of. So next stop is the university clinic. Fortunately he got an appointment in just a few weeks. A long appointment, presumably with lots of tests. But we're hoping it won't ever involve a hospital stay with lengthy observation, because as tenth anniversary trips go, a hospital stay with 24-hour video surveillance would pretty much be the worst possible option.
He is allowed to drive when he feels safe doing so. He interprets that like an attorney obsessed with liability. So maybe twice a week. On the plus side, I can even *park* the truck now. I feel very accomplished.
2. Last weekend our church had VBS. This week was Their Majesties' VBS. So that's eight straight days of VBS. Today I have finally gotten caught up enough on errand running that I am just sitting at home with my feet up. The kids are well stocked with craft projects.
3. The other day I made pasta salad. (Actually it was the night after the neurologist said it wasn't the potassium issue, so carbs were irrelevant.) Dash sat there eating it with his eyes closed, putting each bite into his mouth and then identifying what was in it. This morning he was trying to walk with his arms and his legs both crossed. He's a walking experiment. Or not walking, as the case may be.
4. One of the things I did this week was file papers. I found papers from last March. I think maybe I should do filing more often. Thanks to repeated efforts by Wondergirl, I have a very simple filing system that only requires me to figure out what month the paper dates from. Even this is difficult for me. With a typical bill, there's a start date and an end date and a due date, and I can't for the life of me figure out which month it belongs in. I know I should just pick something and stick with it, but I can't remember what I picked. So I just hope for the best and figure if I have things sorted to the point where I only have to look in three or four folders, I'm doing pretty well.
5. We watched Inception last week. (Why yes, we watch everything several years late when it is available at the public library on DVD.) It was awesome and engrossing and fascinating. I didn't complain about implausibility like I usually do in action movies because it's all a dream. (DOB suggests I should apply this principle to all action movies and then maybe I could watch them.) And Leonardo DiCaprio is pretty good to watch, now that he looks like a grownup.
Then afterward I thought of a way he could have prevented his wife's death and avoided the problem that set up the whole movie. It sort of ruined it retroactively for me. I hate it when I do that.
6. See? Coming up with seven is just too hard.
He is allowed to drive when he feels safe doing so. He interprets that like an attorney obsessed with liability. So maybe twice a week. On the plus side, I can even *park* the truck now. I feel very accomplished.
2. Last weekend our church had VBS. This week was Their Majesties' VBS. So that's eight straight days of VBS. Today I have finally gotten caught up enough on errand running that I am just sitting at home with my feet up. The kids are well stocked with craft projects.
3. The other day I made pasta salad. (Actually it was the night after the neurologist said it wasn't the potassium issue, so carbs were irrelevant.) Dash sat there eating it with his eyes closed, putting each bite into his mouth and then identifying what was in it. This morning he was trying to walk with his arms and his legs both crossed. He's a walking experiment. Or not walking, as the case may be.
4. One of the things I did this week was file papers. I found papers from last March. I think maybe I should do filing more often. Thanks to repeated efforts by Wondergirl, I have a very simple filing system that only requires me to figure out what month the paper dates from. Even this is difficult for me. With a typical bill, there's a start date and an end date and a due date, and I can't for the life of me figure out which month it belongs in. I know I should just pick something and stick with it, but I can't remember what I picked. So I just hope for the best and figure if I have things sorted to the point where I only have to look in three or four folders, I'm doing pretty well.
5. We watched Inception last week. (Why yes, we watch everything several years late when it is available at the public library on DVD.) It was awesome and engrossing and fascinating. I didn't complain about implausibility like I usually do in action movies because it's all a dream. (DOB suggests I should apply this principle to all action movies and then maybe I could watch them.) And Leonardo DiCaprio is pretty good to watch, now that he looks like a grownup.
Then afterward I thought of a way he could have prevented his wife's death and avoided the problem that set up the whole movie. It sort of ruined it retroactively for me. I hate it when I do that.
6. See? Coming up with seven is just too hard.
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