Gnus and Other Creatures

Last night I was getting the ducklings' jammies on them. (Actually D1 can now do this almost entirely without assistance, an event whose import of joy on both sides you could only understand if you knew my skills at child-dressing. When I first visited my family after D1's birth, with six months of mommyhood under my belt, my siblings all came down and lined up on the couch while I was changing the baby, not because they wanted to see me or the baby, but because they wanted to be there for the show. They were not disappointed.)

For some reason something reminded me of a snatch of song from an old British comedy duo and I started singing:

"I'm a g-nu, I'm a g-nu,
You really ought to k-now w-ho's w-ho."

Unfortunately that was all I could remember. And according to DOB, I was butchering the melody even on that part. But the ducklings were delighted and insisted on hearing it over and over.

Now, singing the same two lines of the song repeatedly, and getting even those wrong, gets frustrating after awhile. So when everyone was installed in their jammies, I went to Google and hunted up the lyrics. That was all well and good, but my attempt to sing them required me to make up half of the tune, and believe me, I'm no composer. D2 was satisfied, but I was not.

Then I went back to the Google results and great was our joy to realize we could watch the entire thing on YouTube. The ducklings were satisfied, except of course they wanted to watch it a great many more times than was reasonable, what with it being bedtime and all. How did we survive before Google and YouTube?

The gnu featured in a lengthy discussion D1 and I had today on mammals, or rather, Which Animals Drink Milk from their Mamas. Pretty much any topic we approach comes from the food angle. Earlier this morning we counted buttons into bowls and they became soup. On Tuesday we made an apple pie and saw the world. I should just make alphabet soup to round out the course offerings.

Random Thought

Not to slight anyone's denomination, but it struck us while driving past the Deerfield United Methodist Church that if you're a United Methodist, it must be pretty tough to come up with a church name that doesn't have lousy initials. Clearly more thought should have gone into naming the denomination.

Think of the possibilities:

Southern Cincinnati United Methodist
Greater Louisville United Methodist
Boston United Methodist

How Cool

I've been meandering my way to the Norman Conquest, even reading a novel (OK, a YA novel) on the Bayeux Tapestry, and behold, yesterday was the 941st anniversary of the Battle of Hastings.

This is too much fun. I can't wait until the kids are old enough to do all this with me. Of course, the things that interest them already amaze me--we got a globe at the thrift store on Saturday, and it has further fed their obsession with all things geographic. They love finding where they live, and then hunting up random spots and asking who lives there. (In Chad? Umm . . . maybe lions and giraffes?) D2 was initially upset with the idea that he lived on a giant ball, but he seems to have gotten used to it.

A Few Things

Fall did come, at last; in fact, the high temperature dropped over thirty degrees in two days. We went straight from mosquito bites to chapped lips. But I am by no means complaining.

Their Majesties came by briefly on Wednesday, perhaps bringing the cooler weather with them from Washington. They were en route to see my youngest brother graduate from boot camp. (He used to be called Rocketboy online, but since he's going into helicopter maintenance and flight, perhaps he needs a new name. Copterboy?)

Wednesday morning I naturally still had considerable house cleaning and cooking to do, but I awoke that morning with an idea for the church Christmas pageant--something that has perplexed me for weeks--and not just an idea, but the entire pageant, every scene, nearly every word, raging through my mind. Naturally that had to take priority over a few gray splotches on the kitchen floor, although in due time nearly everything was done.

(I finished the pageant today, and it's at the stage where, as Pooh said, a thing that was very thingish in your mind turns out to be not so much when it's out where people can look at it. But I shall have DOB look at it and see if it is still thingish enough for him to produce.)

With the cooler weather on Thursday I had to make good on my resolutions to spend more time outside, so I grabbed whatever was in the fridge (one stale hunk of bread, four cheese sticks, and a partial bag of baby carrots) and we went to the park all morning. We got home quite tired, and after brief stories I put them down for their naps and headed downstairs to switch the laundry.

Something smelled funny. DOB's sister (who I think will have the name Cicero on here--pronounce it with the traditional soft C and you will see why it's a natural nickname for the only girl among six boys) was in the attic studying, and I called her down to get her opinion, since I still feel very inexperienced in matters of poisonous vapors getting pumped into the house. She also thought it smelled suspiciously like gas. So we called DOB and he, never one to pooh-pooh dangers, ordered us all out of the house. Immediately.

I woke up D1 and got up D2, and tried to explain to their mystified faces why we were putting on jackets and heading back outside instead of taking naps. I did have them grab their blankets, with vague ideas of setting up camp outside if necessary. That proved to not be necessary, as I saw the neighbor and she kindly let us stay in her living room. D1 was very sleepy but pleased with the idea of a progressive nap, while D2 was wide awake and terrified at the strange house. No sooner had we gotten them settled than D2 fell sound asleep, while D1 wiggled on the couch for the entire time.

I left Cicero with the kids and waited for the gas man. He went in and said he didn't smell anything. However, the machine finally revealed a tiny leak around the water heater, which he resolved by tightening a screw. He still remained skeptical that whatever I had smelled could have possibly had anything to do with that, but I say I just have a more sensitive nose. (And our first landlord said he couldn't smell any smoke in our apartment. Mm-hmm.)

So that was an exciting yesterday. Today I smashed my toe on the closet door frame. I'm not even sure why I was in the closet; it's not a walk-in. And not a walk-out, apparently. The toe is purple and swollen and we spent our outside time in the back yard, which the mosquitoes have happily abandoned.

But, the air is cool. The ducklings are looking very adorable in their slightly-too-big and not-yet-stained winter wardrobes. And life is good.

How to Politely Drive Your Mother Crazy

At the lunch table:

D2: How was your day, D1?
D1: No, thank you.
D2: How was your day, D1?
D1: No, thank you.
(Repeat without stopping until lunch is over.)

Misery Loves Company

Things that are Miserable:

1. 90-degree weather in October.
2. Teething toddlers.
3. Reorganizing the personal finance files.

Since I can't do anything about 1 and 2, I might as well throw 3 in and get a lot of misery over with at once. Supposedly it's going to rain and cool off tomorrow. And since I can see two-year molars coming through, perhaps D2 will be done with teething altogether soon, putting an end to the ever-flowing river he's had since five months old, and he won't have to spend next winter dressed like this:

The Fairer Sex Heads Afield

In my quest for things medieval this year, I decided to pursue the stories of Charlemagne's knights, who don't get out as much as King Arthur's anymore. To my surprise, although Charlemagne is a more historical character than Arthur, his knights are just as legendary, and their adventures are, if anything, more fantastic. All that battling the Saracen gives them a more international flair, and their adventures include trips to or visitors from India, Cathay, and the moon (where everyone's lost wits are kept in tidy little vials).

My guide on this quest has been Thomas Bullfinch, who wrote up a lengthy volume with all the mythology he thought it might be useful to anyone to know. Although he's not the most enthralling storyteller in the world, he does passably well, and it's handy to have everything in one volume which (Bullfinch being a good Victorian) can safely be left within the children's reach. I will definitely be watching for my own copy at Half-Price Books.

One surprising thing about Charlemagne's knights is that some of them are girls. The most prominent is a doughty maiden named Bradamante, who falls in love with a Saracen knight named Rogero. She spends a lot of time rescuing him from various enchantments of his foster-father, who is trying to keep him in idle seclusion from the dangers of battle. Rogero's a good fighter, but not much against enchanters.

In due time it is revealed that Rogero was in fact the child of Christian parents who were slain by the prince he is now serving, and he eventually sees his way clear, despite knightly codes, to abandon his past creed and commander and convert to Christianity, join Charlemagne's forces, and, not incidentally, marry Bradamante.

Trouble is, while Bradamante has been riding knight-errant around the countryside, her parents have been more-or-less betrothing her to the son of the Byzantine Emperor. They don't think a landless knight is an adequate substitute. Upon hearing this news, Bradamante proves she really is a girl and goes to her room and cries. Rogero rides off to challenge Prince Leo himself, but when Leo saves his life, Rogero winds up vowing to serve him. Prince Leo, who, though he means well, is a poor fighter, finds in his anonymous new friend the perfect champion to secretly substitute for him when Bradamante vows she won't marry a man who can't beat her in a fair fight. And Rogero is too much the loyal knight to refuse the request.

It's an exciting and complicated tale, and all ends happily, which is a rare ending for Charlemagne's knights. Another girl, named Fleurdelis, is always following the knight Florismart around, but since she's no fighter she always has to beg some other knight (once Bradamante) to rescue him from the trouble he gets in. When he dies, she thinks regretfully that if only she had been there, she might have screamed at the right moment. There's a moral in there somewhere.

The curious thing is that of the few girls who are knights (Rogero's sister is another), nobody seems to make a big deal about it. Clearly it's not common, but neither is it treated as shocking or improper by anyone. Of course, none of the bad guys are too thrilled when they find out they've been beaten by a girl.

Yet again

Anne Shirley once reassured Marilla that although she made many mistakes, she never made the same one twice, and therefore would have to come to the end eventually.

I lack that consolation. I make the same mistakes over and over. At least some of them. I never have confused the salt and sugar in sweet bread again, but then you have to have an awfully large container of salt on hand to do that. And I did finally, after many years of stinky yellow biscuits, stop confusing the baking soda and powder. Or rather I just gave up on having both in my kitchen.

If there is a saturation point on mistakes, I still haven't reached it on leaving the salt out of bread entirely. It is disheartening to come to the end of a hard day's work and realize you have wasted your labors and the last of the honey on a half-dozen loaves of tasteless bread.

The bread is not entirely ruined. Having made this mistake many times before, I also have many alternative uses where salt can be sneaked in through other ingredients: french toast, creamed tuna, bread pudding, breakfast strata, breadcrumbs. But that was not the goal. No little grain of wheat aspires to grow up to be a breadcrumb.

A Year's Difference

Almost a year ago I tried babysitting three other small children, plus the ducklings, for a few hours. At the end of the day I was reduced to a mass of quivering jelly, and actually had to order pizza for dinner. (That is not something we do at the Duchy, unless we just moved. I was very much moved.)

This week, I've had two of those small children over twice for three hours at a stretch. It was lovely. I read, did housework, gardened, and had fun playing with them. We'll have to do it more often.

Some of the differences are mere flukes. Our thermostat is still stuck on August, so we played outside for a couple of hours in the morning and ate lunch on the back patio: move the table and let the squirrels clean up the mess. And, of course, four children is a power of ten less than five children.

Still, it was amazing how much of a difference the increased age of the kids made. Everyone who was still being potty-trained last year was done this year. (And fortunately nobody else has given up diapers yet.) Everybody could move under their own power. Everybody could communicate enough to alert me to any serious problems. Everyone's movements and grasp of rules were predictable enough to allow me to dash inside for a Kleenex.

The girls (3 and 4) could keep themselves busy for hours with little intervention, writing with chalk or cooking or playing some incomprehensible thing that involved scarves on the heads and climbing over the couch. The boys (2) could keep themselves busy tagging along or just riding bikes back and forth.

I like this growing-up thing. So far.

God of the Teeny, Tiny Holes

I'm reading a fascinating book called Rare Earth on how the precise combinations of everything necessary to sustain complex life appear to be exceedingly rare in the universe. I was rather amused, though, to come across the following line:

"If some god-like being could be given the opportunity to plan a sequence of events with the express goal of duplicating our 'Garden of Eden,' that power would face a formidable task. With the best intentions, but limited by natural laws and materials, it is unlikely that Earth could ever be truly replicated."

Now I realize this statement is just trying to express the uniqueness of earth, not attack God. But while intelligent design theories are frequently (and inaccurately) being ridiculed for creating a "God of the gaps" who does the stuff too hard for us to figure out, it amuses me that these authors seems to think that the design of the universe is too complex even for God to handle.

If you are going to bring God into the question at all, you ought to at least hypothetically let Him have the attributes He's commonly claimed to have. An omnipotent, omniscient, omnipresent being is the 200-lb gorilla of the universe: He can do anything He wants.

D2 at Two

The Day is not until tomorrow, but as far as he's concerned, he's already Two. And being Two is good. It's a number, and he likes numbers, though he generally starts counting at three. Freeforfisix.

The thing everybody says about him is, "Wow, he really can talk, can't he?" Why yes, he can. Looking back at posts from a year ago, I realized he's talking even better than D1 was at this age, and she was no laggard. No doubt it's from always having someone to talk to.

For all that talking, though, he's also quite a loner. I don't panic when I realize he's been quiet for fifteen minutes, because nine times out of ten it just means he's busy reading a book or building with Duplos or lining up his cars. Sometimes I say it's a pity he wasn't younger in the family, because it's so easy to keep him busy, but then perhaps he would have gotten lost in the shuffle.

Like all parents do and like I vowed we wouldn't, we draw and redraw the outlines of the ducklings' personalities. D1 tends to get categorized as the one like DOB: the Grand Marshall, analyzing events, keeping track of contingencies, ordering everyone else around. D2 is, admittedly, more like me. He can recite any piece of information that has passed by him, but he'll wander around the house in despair because he can't find the toy he's holding in his hand. He's smart and analytical and spacey and a little too charming for his own good.

He likes to sing songs and read about Mike Mulligan and Christopher Robin and drive Matchbox cars. He was kind of a tough baby, but he's an easy toddler. (The key is, now he can put most of the food in by himself.) I don't think there will be anything terrible about having him be two.

The birthday plan is to visit the fire engine museum and make him a cake shaped like a train. And hold him a little bit extra, because he won't be small and cuddly much longer.

Miscellaneous

I'm very sore today, because yesterday's Grand Project was digging up and mulching the back flowerbed so we can plant vegetables there next year. What really needs done is the front flower bed, but I'm not sure how to do it, since I do want to save a few of the plants there. I'm not very good at selective work; I'm more of a slash-and-burn gardener.

While digging, I found a full-grown turnip. I have no idea how that got there. We do not eat turnips, and I don't remember planting any. Perhaps a stray turnip seed in the lettuce packet?

*********************
Somewhat connected, the following breakfast table conversation:

QOC: I'm very glad we're going to the chiropractor this morning, because it means I won't start any big projects today.

DOB: You could just exercise some willpower.

QOC: I cannot. I am helpless against the lure of big, overwhelming projects.

**************
On the way to the chiropractor, DOB was pulling up to a stoplight with a green light and noticed a car idling still at the green light. He gave a bit of a toot on his horn, nothing rude, just a "Go, dogs, go, the light is green now!"

This highly perturbed the youthful inhabitants of the car, the one in the back turning around so we could see how vigorously he was cussing at us. They did move forward, however, so DOB just grinned broadly.

Our paths continued to coincide, down the on-ramp onto the freeway, and then we realized that the inhabitants had moved on from cussing and were trying more direct methods to avenge themselves. As near as we could tell, they had ripped open a pillow and were holding it out the window, trying to get the fill to blow in our direction. Wind currents were not in their favor, and in the meantime they were so absorbed in their vengeance that the driver apparently failed to notice she was about to run down a semi until the last minute.

Alas, I fear we remain unrepentant. We laughed for several miles.

********************
Today the ducklings and I were singing "Amazing Grace" and we got to the part that is supposed to go, ". . . that saved a wretch like me."

Only D2 was singing it " . . . that saved a wretch like Mama."

I don't know whether to be pleased about his ability to transfer pronoun meanings, or distressed at his lack of personal responsibility, or just worried about what he thinks of me.

Five Friends Every Young Mother Needs

Actually it's more like five categories: fill to as many friends as you have capacity for.

A Friend without Children: To talk to about things besides kids. To tell stories to without being immediately one-upped.

A Friend with Kids the Same Genders and Approximate Ages: To have playdates and commiserate with.

A Friend with Kids the Same Gender, but Two Sizes Bigger: To provide hand-me-downs. Preferably this friend should have generous grandparents and good taste. This is actually a category that almost certainly needs more than one friend, especially if you have boys.

A Friend with Preteens or Teenagers: To hire for yard work and babysitting, and to remind you that it's really not that long before your children will be wiping their own noses.

A Friend with Grown Children: For advice, and to reassure you that your children may still grow up into sane, emotionally-stable adults even though you lock them in their rooms for two hours while you take a nap.

Sometimes it's better not to ask

I was trying to admire D1's coloring page in the Approved, Nonjudgmental Manner.

"Oh, what a lovely cat! I like how you colored the front green and the back black. And the colors underneath him--it looks like he's sitting on a nice warm rug."

I noticed a look of disapproval on her face.

"Oh . . . what is that he's sitting on?"

"A potty."

In Which I Do Windows

It came upon me that today was the day to wash windows.

I have not washed windows since the autumn D1 was a baby. We moved twice in there, though, so I've been able to take advantage of windows freshly washed by other people. The downside to not having moving boxes to pack and unpack is that I must now wash my own windows.

The sirens were not singing in my head--I don't care how often other people wash their windows--windows are not important in the Grand Scheme of Things. But when you cannot open the windows without immediately thereafter washing your hands, the time has come even in my book.

My enthusiasm for the task doubled when DOB introduced me to this modern innovation of tilt-in windows. Ignorant, yes, but I grew up in an old farmhouse with old windows, and when we wanted to wash windows on the upper stories (which was almost never), His Majesty had to hang halfway out of them over a twenty-foot drop. How he could stand it, I'll never know, except that he fell on his head when he was a baby and has repeated it regularly since. Equally exciting was when I tried to clean my own skylight in the attic, clinging to the side of a steeply-pitched roof, hoping the window frame wouldn't break off in pieces under my grasp.

I'm not sure how the windows at the former Duchy residence were designed to work, but how they actually worked was to fall out of their frames entirely at the least provocation. That was easier than ladders, but still very inconvenient.

The windows were not too dirty when we moved in, but they've served for more than a year as the Family Resort Destination for flies. I'm sure if I could shrink down small enough, I'd find some of those black smears were little brochures saying, "Visit the Scenic Duchy Windows this summer!" The summer crowd has backed off, though, and it was cool enough to have the windows open in the morning, so today was the day.

Since D1 wanted to help this time, I gave her her own personal spray bottle (which contains a non-toxic but potent-smelling blend of vinegar, lavender oil, and water) and tried to point her towards things that wouldn't suffer permanent water damage. Finally I directed her out to the front steps, which would have worked great except that D2 joined her--with a non kid-safe spray bottle because his hands aren't big enough to spray yet--and they both figured out how to get the lids off and poured the contents of D1's all over D2's shorts.

Even with tilt-in windows, it turns out cleaning windows is a pretty arduous undertaking, and the windows shouldn't be tilted too far, and when they are it can be kind of tricky to fix. There's only one I couldn't get to go back right, and since it will shut OK, it just won't stay open, I'll try not to be too concerned.

After a few windows I realized doing all the windows in the house was not going to happen today, so I conducted triage. The dining room windows are mostly obscured by sheer curtains, anyway, and the bathroom window is always hidden by the shower curtain. Those can wait. Indefinitely. Meanwhile, I can look out of some clear windows at the bright September sky.

Except there's a straggler fly on them. Be gone! We're closed for the season!

With or without a moral

Yesterday I should have felt pretty smug about all the wonderful outdoor playtime the ducklings had been having, after a weekend of picnics and reunions. It certainly compared well with my mental personification of the Modern Mothers whose children spend endless hours watching television or running from one class to another. It even compared well to our own July and August of hiding out in the basement.

Alas, yesterday was also the day I read a whole blog carnival inspired by Charlotte Mason's teaching on young children, and suddenly found myself face to face with a new mental personification of Nature Mothers who rearranged their whole lives to give their small children four to six hours outside in exotic settings (not mere playgrounds and backyards!) every fine day. I have tried, I really have, but somehow I can't figure out how to make that happen and still get supper on the table. And it's a long walk to any exotic settings from here.

There we all were, sitting inside on a beautiful sunny afternoon. We had gone to the park in the morning, but that was not even two hours. D2 was sitting on a pile of things on the loveseat, singing his way through The Wheels on the Bus. D1 was sitting on a pile of things on the piano bench, playing and singing a song of her own composition. I was sitting at the computer, contemplating my inadequacy. Supper was at a place where I could turn it off for awhile.

"Let's go outside," I said.

They were not overeager, but neither were they distressed. They do like to go outside. We coated ourself with the plate mail necessary to visit our yard without getting mosquito bites.

I stepped outside and realized I had made a mistake. It was past my temperature limit. All life drained out of me. I sat down on the front steps--the hottest place around, but also the only seat--and told them they would have to amuse themselves.

The proper activity for late afternoon excursions is riding bikes. D2 rode his little four-wheeler blissfully, swooping down the driveway and then planting both feet down for brakes just as he reached the sidewalk so that he wouldn't shoot out into the road. D1 wanted to ride her bike, but the trouble is she can't ride her bike, at least not pushing the pedals properly, and if I refused to help her life would be an unbearable wasteland of misery, which it continued to be for some time.

Then they both got distracted from bikes and tried to pull the wagon. This required more cooperation than they were capable of at the time. Soon they were howling for the benefit of all the neighbors.

It was time to finish supper anyway, so I took them back inside. Their former occupations attracted them not at all. Their howls continued for various reasons at increasing decibels until they were smothered in spaghetti sauce.

So pick a moral:
1. Do not pursue activities based on guilt and comparisons.
2. Do not go outside when it's too hot for you to stand it.
3. The last hour before dinner is bound to be miserable no matter what you do.

Today we went to the park in the morning when it was cool and had a lovely time. This afternoon they are happily piling things inside.

Miscellaneous

I'm sure you will not be quite as relieved as we were to hear that the library of origin *did* take the book back. The librarian thought it still looked quite a bit better than many books they still had. Now maybe I will have the nerve to ask them to check their shelves for the missing book.

Since returning it took us most of the way across town, we made an outing of it and had lunch at a nearby farm that is part of the park system. The farm itself is free, but you have to pay for things like pony rides and the indoor play barn. So of course the lines for the pony rides and play barn are long, but hardly anybody is looking at the animals. Another benefit of being cheap.

D1 reminds me a lot of Frances the badger, though she's shown no interest in the books yet. A recent conversation:

DOB: Are you a princess?
D1: No. I don't want to be a princess.
DOB: Why not?
D1: I want to be the king!

And a Song Against Cannibalism, heard from the back seat:

Mama is a girl
But she doesn't like to be eaten
So please don't eat her.
And now I'm almost to the end of the song.
It's not nice to eat people.

D2 has developed a fascination with delivering a maniacal laugh at random points. We wonder what he's plotting.

Mea Culpa

I am having relationship troubles with the library. What was once a source of unmitigated joy has become a source of guilt, resentment and dread. I think we need to go in for counseling.

The central issue is a book that got a little wet at the edge on its way to being returned, due to a leaking water jug in the car. Unfortunately I didn't notice it until it was on the return stack, when I exclaimed in astonishment, "Oh dear, it got wet!" A librarian in the vicinity must have taken note of it, because she tracked me down later and explained the book was irreparably damaged and I would have to pay for it--$22--but it was good of me to be so honest about it. We didn't have cash on us that night, so she checked it back out to us. And DOB pointed out that if I had thought not to say anything, we could have taken it back home and seen how well we could dry it out before we talked to them. But I don't have quite the radar for Not Getting In Trouble that he has.

It seemed worthwhile to take it back and see how it dried out anyway. So we carefully dried it, pages fanned, and then I carefully ironed each page with a dry iron. The end result was pretty good--it looked about as good as any book from the library that's been read a half-dozen times.
If you carefully examined the back pages, you could see a little wrinkling, but that was all.

Unfortunately, the same librarian was in the next week. And she was certain--even before she looked at the book--that it would not do. No, the whole book would have to be thrown out, and we would have to pay for it. Understand, there's no mold or stuck pages or blurred words involved. The back pages are very slightly wrinkled. That's all. If this is the standard for replacing books, it must have been implemented very recently, because I have often checked out books with crumpled pages, scribbles, and even ripped-out parts. Or they just penalize honest people.

Maybe not so honest~I'm going to iron those pages one more time and we're going to take it to the branch it originally came from and hope for a more merciful, or less picky, librarian. A fine for damaging the book would be one thing, but we didn't destroy it!

Meanwhile, there's a book the library shows me as having checked out that I am all but absolutely certain that I returned. I keep renewing it, hoping it will turn up on their shelf or mine. I keep checking places to see if the ducklings pulled it out of the return bag and lost it somewhere, but I'm about out of places to look. It's not a small book that can easily slide into obscure places. I know there's something you can do to claim you returned the book, but I'm not very optimistic about a positive outcome after the other experience.

And on top of all this, I just realized I forgot to renew books on Monday, which is the day I always renew everything for the upcoming week. So there's five days of fines on a dozen books that are absolutely, unquestionably, irrevocably, completely my fault.

Now I dread even going to the library and I hardly dare reserve any new books. That one librarian is going to start haunting my dreams soon.

Some Further Rambling

That link from yesterday about people's beliefs about soul mates gave me a few more thoughts. (Don't worry, I'll be done soon!) The beliefs in the core idea of soul mates--that it is the most important factor in marriage, that there is only one who truly fits the bill, and that this person will appear when the time is right--are so widespread, that it is obvious many Christians must believe them, too. Not only does my experience verify this, but it seems to me often the Christians who are the most adamant at rejecting any whiff of worldliness in their mate-finding habits are most likely to endorse a Christianized version of this idea.

"God will bring the right person in His time." and "Wait for God's best."
Now, we could get into some detailed debates on the revealed and sovereign will of God here, but although we are given many general statements that God will be guiding the steps of those who follow Him, I have yet to find the verse that says God has a One Right Person picked out for us--much less the undoubtedly implied belief if we just wait for this "right person" we will have a better marriage than any alternative.

Actually about the only case I can think of in the Bible where God flat-out told someone to marry a particular person (once there was an open field, of course) it turned out quite badly (see Hosea). And although we can see God directing many marriages in the Bible, He usually works through the perfectly humdrum means used by people who have decided they need or want to find a spouse. (Isaac, Jacob, Ruth.)

In other words, it's not so much that this statement is wrong on its face, it's that it usually seems to be applied in a way that trusts God to work like the mystical fate that leads us to our appointed Mr. Wonderful. Which God never promises to do. He's busy working on our immortal happiness and his immortal glory, which may or may not involve a deep and lasting connection with another mortal.

"It's better to be single than to be married to the wrong one."
Now, if by this it's meant that it's better to be single than to be married to someone who is abusive, unfaithful, or chronically irresponsible, then of course it is true. And if it's meant as consolation for a relationship that didn't work out, it's unarguable.

But if it, as seems more likely, means "it's better to be single than to be married to anyone less than your soul mate," I'm not so sure. Both the Bible and statistics suggest that the bulk of marriage's advantages come simply from having a reliable warm body at your side, to sleep and work with. Unless you're called to singleness, it's probably better to be married to someone reasonably nice than to hold out hope for perfection; who knows--you might wake up some day and realize you married your soul mate after all.

Aaahhhh

After a few days of tumultuous but still hot and muggy weather, we finally awoke to a cool, gray morning. The ducklings begged for their jackets (which still fit, hooray!) before we left for the park. They were, of course, wearing shorts and sandals--it wasn't that cold.

A few rain storms haven't entirely cleaned the air, but I do feel as if I could breathe again. And the forecast doesn't show any temperatures above 81.

I can live with this.

A Cynic Gets Married

Although I was not included in the sample when this survey was taken, I was a never-married single between 20 and 29 at the time. Had I been asked, I would have been in a miniscule minority (6%) that did not endorse the statement: "When you marry, you want your spouse to be your soul mate, first and foremost."

What exactly they meant by "soul mate" is unclear, since it apparently has nothing to do with the person's religious beliefs (only 42% thought those matter) and sexual activity is by no means reserved for such persons. Apparently it's just one of those things you know when you see it, an emotional connection divorced from the spirit or body.

Meanwhile, my young, cynical self was keeping an eye out for someone with similar religious beliefs and lifestyle preferences, someone capable of intelligent conversation and laughing at a good joke. Someone who could be a good friend and a good father. That narrowed the field down amply; insisting on a deep, mystical connection just seemed like it lowered the odds too far. Alas, I did not share the unshakable faith of over 80% that there must be One Right Person out there and that I would find him when I was ready.

What I did find was DOB, a good friend with a similar background, who was willing to marry me. So we proceeded forward, with little concern over whether we were truly "soul mates" or not. As it turned out, when you spend a lot of time around a good friend who gets your jokes and shares your deepest beliefs, who also happens to be a reasonably attractive member of the opposite sex, feeling a deep connection often just happens anyway.

And it takes time to find out things. Many areas of deep connection we didn't even realize until we'd been married a while. Other things we thought we had in common have been dropped on one or both sides. Some areas we'll never fully connect on: I'm never going to love baseball that much, and he's never going to be that thrilled about Shakespeare. But we'll still watch ball games and Shakespeare together. We read different books, but we talk about them together.

A feeling of deep, mystical connection can happen. But it's an awfully flimsy thing. A few sleepless nights, a misunderstanding in a stressful situation, or just the difficulties of profound conversation in a house with children can leave a couple feeling, well, not so soul-matey. But we'll still be living in the same house, paying the same bills, raising the same children, and sitting in the same pew (until the next potty run or tantrum, at least)--sooner or later, we'll make time to connect again. Being soul mates is wonderful, but being able to count on each other is so much better.

Someday We'll Have Flowers

And then how will we make these sumptuous weed banquets? (Note for the squeamish and vegans: It's all from plants.)

Mindless Eating

This is an intriguing book whether you have the slightest interest in losing weight or not. It's about the psychology of eating, how much stale popcorn people will eat, how to make bottomless bowls of soup, and what people taste when you dye lemon Jello red.

DOB wished he could have learned more about the tricks to get people to eat more without thinking about it, since he has the metabolism of a humming bird and hates eating. Majority interests being what they are, though, the book does focus more on how to eat less, not more. (Though some people are interested in tricking people into eating more: not fast food joints--who only care what you buy, not what you eat--but the military.)

I am finally interested in slowing down my eating a bit (which is hard when you eat with someone who eats a lot--see chapter 5). While pregnant and/or nursing, I had to force myself to eat a lot more than I wanted to, or I'd be passing out before I got the next meal made. Now I need to unlearn some of the habits I learned to trick myself into eating more. Especially reading while I eat. But it's so hard not to.

We've decided playing card games while we eat is a good compromise for both of us, though. It gives DOB an excuse to linger at the table and eat a little more, but it gives me something to do with my hands so I don't eat more just from watching him. So even though it seems quite barbaric and is hard on the cards, we carry on.

Speaking of weight, we were both astonished to find this Stupid Internet Quiz on How Much Do You Weigh? was in fact dead-on right for both of us. Especially since it never asks about your height. But we're not posting the results.

Broken

The first two rules of having happy toddlers are:

1. Don't change anything.
2. If you do change anything, talk about it for days or weeks in advance with great enthusiasm.

I'm not very good at following these rules, but I do know them and I try. Nonetheless, we decided rather on the spur of the moment to move D2 out of his crib this past weekend. It was getting to be a hassle to lift him in and out, he sleeps soundly enough that we weren't worried about nighttime wandering, and we just thought it might be time.

So, trying to follow Rule #2, we asked him if he would like to have his mattress on the floor like D1's. Indeed he would. They have a great time jumping and playing on D1's mattress, which is why we've never bothered to set up actual beds for them.

We pulled the mattress out shortly before naptime on Sunday, and they played happily on both mattresses for awhile. Then it was naptime. He asked to go back into his crib. Apparently he had not realized that moving the mattress out meant no more place to sleep in the crib. So DOB dealt with this oversight by gently setting him down on the springs left in the bottom of the crib. Sure enough, he decided that sleeping in the crib was no longer a good idea.

He slept well that naptime and bedtime, so when DOB's family showed up for Labor Day, we asked the boys to take apart the crib and put it in the attic without a second thought. In the busyness of the day, I didn't notice an immediate reaction. A few hours later, though, I was discussing the change with someone else in his hearing, and he suddenly said, "They bwoke my cwib!" and began to cry. I tried to reassure him that it was only taken apart, like his Duplos, and could be put back together again.

He settled down then, but at lunch he started to cry again over his broken crib. Fortunately by that time the boys had taken the crib upstairs, so at least the carcase wasn't lying around to distress him. I took him in on his new bed and told him a long story about a little boy named D2 who started out as a little tiny baby and slept in a crib and then he got bigger and bigger until he was too big to sleep in the crib anymore so they took the crib apart like Duplos and put it up in the attic until some new little tiny baby might need it.

So far we've heard no more about the broken crib, although he did take an awfully long time to fall asleep yesterday. Now we must deal with the new realization of the ease with which he can get more toys in bed with him. Just because you can take your bike to bed with you doesn't mean you should.

Rephrase That

QOC: It's time for D1 and D2 to come unload the dishwasher!
D1: I don't want to.
QOC: That's not what we say. Let's try again. It's time for D1 and D2 to come unload the dishwasher!
D1: D2, you need to go unload the dishwasher.

* * * * * * *

D1 (running out of her room with the perennially broken piece of unidentifiable doll furniture):
Mama, we have a protein! Can you fix it?

Next Question

The proverb about doctors' and shoemakers' wives do not apply to the spouses of life insurance agents. This, no doubt, is due to premium credit. Anyway, I've been through the interview process more than once, and the past couple of weeks had to do it again.

If you never have experienced this (have you not? Call DOB today!), in addition to figuring out all the financial questions and how much money your grieving family will need to still put dinner on the table (a lot to replace me), they also must figure out if you are strong and healthy, since if you're about to keel over they'll have to charge you more.

The medical part is called a paramed, and is done by a nice lady or gentleman who comes to your house at a time when it's convenient to you to have not eaten for twelve hours, and they take your blood and weigh you and squeeze your arm and all that stuff. That does not bother me. I have been through two pregnancies, and I can be bled with the best of them.

It's the questionnaire that throws me. No, I haven't smoked or chewed tobacco in the past ten years and I don't plan to take up sky-diving. But at a time like that, little details like dates and names of doctors flee from my mind. I see a chiropractor every week. It's just for maintenance. I'm not going to die from anything. But I can never remember his full name. He's Doctor Matt! Matt! (Chiropractors are the social butterflies of medical professionals and always go by their first names and greet you like their long-lost cousins.)

And then there's trying to explain the details of medical personnel in a way that fits into the nice little boxes. My primary care physician would be Dr. X, but I haven't actually seen her in three years because I only go for babies and she stopped doing obstetrics and just does family practice now, so I went to her partner Dr. Y but I don't go there now because we moved but Dr. X moved her practice too so if I did need to go to a doctor for anything BUT babies, she's the one I'd go to even though I've never actually been to see her at her new office and does that answer your question? And no, I don't know the address. And I don't know WHAT tests were done the last time I saw a doctor, I had a newborn baby and a toddler with me, I could hardly remember my own name!

Once this agony is over with the nice lady, sometimes for quality control you have to call someone at Home Office so they can check all your answers, presumably to cross-check them. I tremble. I am sure my answers do not match at all, although I still haven't taken any illegal drugs or broken any laws on purpose. And although as soon as the first lady left I could remember the chiropractor's name, once again it escapes me as soon as someone picks up the phone. For me a phone is a instantaneous brain wiping device. Anything I might have known or remembered is gone at the word, "Hello."

So I muddle through the interview, confusing the poor soul on the other end even worse than I am confused. Of course I should write things down. If I did, I would lose the paper the instant I answered the phone. I gave up ordering things over the phone because the instant someone connected, my credit card would vanish until I hung up again. This is disconcerting.

At last the interviewer was satisfied, or exhausted, thanked me and hung up. I went downstairs to change the laundry. Unbidden, it floated into my head: Hakes! It's Doctor Hakes!

I'm glad the lady on the phone can't measure my blood pressure now.

Children's Museum

The Cincinnati Museum Center hosts a free Friday several times a year, when the standard exhibits are all free and open several hours later than usual. The price and time are both right for us. Unfortunately this is the only one we'll get to go to this year, but now that I know that you have to look on the press release page, not the calendar, to find out when they are, we should be able to take advantage of more of them next year.

We went last year and, although it was fun, it was overwhelming and the kids mostly played with things they could do just as well at home. This year they really got into some more complex areas. D1 put some new ideas from her recent doctor visit to use treating the animals at the vet clinic, and D2 and DOB built a giant arch (out of soft blocks) a dozen times over, recruiting a new group of bigger kids to help them each time.

Of course, they still have a perverse desire to play with things they have at home. D1 mostly played with the shopping carts and the toy food. It did inspire me to start saving her empty cans and boxes to use in her shopping cart in the basement. Maybe then she'll get over her unquenchable love of dumping all the smallest toys into the cart, mixing them together, and trailing them all over the basement.

Fall Housecleaning Survey

Which you're welcome to take even if you don't get inspired to clean house in the fall. Right now, it's anything to help me pretend cooler weather is coming even though it's supposed to hit 102 today.

Rate your house's current cleanliness on a scale of 1-10.
5. It can look decent with a little bit of work, but there's always a lot of stuff piled around the edges.

Rate how clean you would like the house to be on a scale of 1-10.
7. I don't expect a house with children to be toy and fingerprint-free, but I would like to know everything had a place and it was reasonably easy to get it there. I would also like the ducklings to be more frequent at picking up their own toys, but we are making good progress.

Homemaking means balancing a lot of different priorities. What are your top three?
Enjoyment~that we all enjoy living here together
Frugality~that we spend no more than is needed
Simplicity~that we spend our time and space and money on things we really care about

Biggest mental block to better organization?
Feeling guilty over getting rid of anything that was a gift or handmade. I don't feel *quite* as guilty if I can trade it in for money or re-gift it, as I figure at least I got some good out of it. But that 18" stained-glass fruit basket sun catcher is still waiting to be broken in the attic, since I can't figure out who on earth would want it. Or how to get it to them.

Biggest logistical block to better organization?
It's just hard to move things up and down stairs to wherever they go, because something with lungs usually wants to be carried instead. It's getting easier though. Progress is being made. Someday those little lungs will be attached to legs that can navigate stairs while carrying things and then watch how we go!

Biggest weakness in stuff-accumulating department?
Books, of course. Plus anything else with remotely educational/artistic value.

Deep cleaning job you most anticipate?
Washing windows. Maybe it's just the prospect of opening the windows again.

Deep cleaning job you most dread?
Files. The files. Office files. (There's a poem that starts that way. By Kipling, I think. Mocking Poe. Very funny.)

Cleaning Up, Clearing Out

The approach of (or despairing wish for, as the temperature shoots back up) fall brings out my urge to organize. It's probably the fear of being stuck in this house all winter and if I don't get rid of some of this mess I'll go crazy ahhhhhhh!

Yesterday it rained, so even though it was hot we were able to go up into the attic and whack out a good-sized area where it is now possible to walk without stepping on anything but carpet. I cleaned the last of DOB's clothes out of the buffet up there and put my tablecloths and place mats in their place. I transfered the random piles of stuff for the thrift store into plastic bags. The ducklings were very happy carrying stuff around and piling it up in their own mysterious configurations. Next time we go up there I'm going to tackle the outgrown and to-be-grown-into clothes and move them into a more accessible part of the attic.

Today it did not rain, so we descended to the basement instead and the ducklings splashed in the pool while I unpacked at least one box that hadn't been touched since we moved in and cleared off the Stuff Accumulating Table. (Supposed to be a folding table, but I hardly ever fold clothes in the basement. In fact, I don't really fold clothes, except my own.)

What I really need to get back to is working on the filing cabinet, but it's so much more fun to work on almost anything else. It's always good to have a really loathsome job that you really ought to do--it makes you so much more productive doing everything else.

Things to Do With Tomatoes

My drying tomato experiment resulted in about five successfully dried tomato chunks. The rest burnt in some spots while mildewing in others. I think I have the wrong kind of tomatoes; too juicy and not pulpy enough. Perhaps next year I will try growing some Romas.

In the meantime, Her Majesty informs me that you can just toss them in the freezer (inside a Ziploc) and they will be perfectly good to pull out and make salsa or soup from later. So that is what I am doing with the surplus this year.

Also, as DOB was beginning to look askance at yet another platter of sliced raw tomatoes, I tried making broiled tomatoes for supper last night. The recipe was a little too greasy--next time I will cut down on the butter and probably use olive oil instead. And the tomato halves were hard to eat, so I might go with my initial instinct and slice them. But there will definitely be a next time. Seriously yummy.

We picked a few more tomatoes today, in between trips down the street to watch the men working on the sewer line. The plants seem to be slowing down production, though, which is perhaps just as well. Or maybe the squirrels are getting more of them. I suspect the squirrels of evil designs on the pepper plants, too--I don't think I'm getting as many of those full grown as seemed to be budding. Maybe next year I'll plant hot peppers. That will teach them.

Because I Finally Unearthed the CD

These are some of the fabulous pictures taken by our friends from Blue Castle Photography while we were out in Washington. If you have any pictures to be taken in the Corvallis, Oregon area, I can heartily recommend them. Unfortunately that's hardly ever where we are.

You Say Weed, I Say Native Plant

I proudly exhibited my tomato plants to DOB the other day. He then looked over at the weeds towering over the patio. "The tomatoes look good," he said, "But it's like investing in tech stocks in the nineties. Everything goes up."

Being new to this garden, and not wanting to waste anything that might already be happily growing, I went easy on weed-pulling this spring. Some of those unidentified leaves might prove to be flowers. Some of them did. The others just got larger and weedier.

Next thing I knew, they were too big to be pulled by hand. I needed clippers. I forgot I owned clippers. Turns out there was a set ($2 pink yard sale tag still on the handle) in the basement. This morning I finally ventured forth to use them.

Too late, again. Clippers were not what was called for; I needed a hatchet. Little George Washington could be happily and productively occupied under our patio for quite some time. Unfortunately I haven't come across a hatchet at a yard sale. So I hacked, snapped, and mangled until I at least lowered a portion to within a foot of the ground. I caught an enormous yellow grasshopper and the ducklings watched him, fascinated. D1 tried to get him to jump on cue, but he did not catch on.

The tomatoes are doing very well. They have passed our ability to keep up with eating them; they have passed even the ability of the squirrels to keep up. I don't think I have quite enough plants to ever do a canner load at once, though, so perhaps I shall have to look into freezing them. Or drying them. (Can anything sun-dry in this humidity? I have an electric food dryer, but everyone always talks about sun-dried tomatoes--do they work any other way?)

I'm excited by the success of this year's garden. It is very small still. In a few more years, I shall have more helpers and be more ambitious. I was chatting with an elderly lady who grew up in the neighborhood of DOB's office, reminiscing about the huge garden she and her parents grew in their back yard. So did my grandparents, though it was long before I was born. People used to grow food (and even raise animals) in the city and suburbs as a matter of course. Now we all drive twenty minutes to the organic produce section of the nearest megagrocery.

The search for a simpler or more authentic lifestyle seems to send most people to the country. It brought us to the city. We were tired of driving fifty minutes one way for work, twenty minutes another way to church, and knowing no one nearby because they were all driving different ways, too. Here, we can spend our time living instead of driving, and we can still grow tomatoes and watch bugs. And if everyone who cares about homegrown tomatoes leaves for the countryside, what will become of the city?

In this line, there's a wordless picture book I came across at the library, called Home, by Jeannie Baker. It depicts what time and love and work can do for a place, even in the city.

Three Years

Three, I'm sure, is positively infantile from the perspective of a mother of teenagers. But it's as far as we've gotten, and it's a very long way from the floppy newborn with which we began. And despite the undeniable challenges of this age, I like it.

D1 just discovered drawing this week. She covers page after page with little huts with doors, and sometimes adds a sturdy capital A for good measure.

She has learned how to set and clear the table--some mornings, she even starts setting it just to get breakfast moving along faster. (Other mornings, she fights with D2 for lap space. She has not yet reconciled herself to the fact that thirty-five pounds of squirming little girl is hard to hold.)

She can almost (almost!) dress herself. She asks "why?" a thousand times in a day, and sometimes she even wants to know. She remembers why mosquitoes bite, and what we were going to do today, and she can tell when the big hand gets to the seven.

She invents long and complicated games, incomprehensible to adults, but utterly absorbing for D2.

I'm sure I'll like four and five and six even better. But three is pretty good.

Off the Road

There's been a lot of fun links over at i have to say's Back to Homeschool week as people tell various things about their homeschooling journey. Today's topic is getting out and about, which reminds me that we do not.

Yes, the ducklings are small. But it seems like even people with very small children have them enrolled in music classes or gymnastics or second language programs. Or they have zoo and museum memberships. Or they schedule frequent play dates. Or all of the above.

The very thought makes me tired. Especially right now, when the only activity that sounds fun is lying on the basement floor, pouring ice water over my head. But even in more clement weather, loading up the diaper bag and strapping everyone into the car is usually a long way down on my list of Fun Things to Do.

It's probably a warped view from my childhood. My mother had narcolepsy, so she did not drive if she could help it. We had twenty-two acres to play on, and we had each other to play with, and if we were bored there was a very long list of chores to do. Taking a trip out was reserved for the dentist and the doctor once or twice a year.

We tried doing story time at the library. First we went to the active-song time for 18-36 month olds, to which all the Hip Young Mamas go. It was fun, and it did inspire D1 to try some novel things like jumping. (She was not physically adventuresome when she was smaller. Now she likes to climb eight feet up.) But there were usually more than thirty kids, plus parents, and it was crowded and overwhelming. The ducklings love playing with a couple of other small children; they do not like large crowds of small children. I don't blame them. Small children and large crowds don't mix well.

The other story time was smaller, quieter, attended mostly by grandmas, and involved actually reading books. The ducklings liked it, mostly because they were allowed to color with markers. I did not like getting the marker off of their clothes (which is why they use crayons and colored pencils at home--also better for finger strength). The book selection was usually not too impressive, either.

Anyway, the whole matter was settled several weeks ago when we sold our second car and decided to just do without for a while. Now I don't need to worry about whether I should be taking them out for more Stimulating Events, because I can't. We take an evening out as a family to a park or library once a week, and we go to church.

There is still the park to walk to, and if we can't watch the animals at the zoo, we can learn a lot about the habits of squirrels and rabbits. We may miss out on group classes, but maybe we'll have the chance to get to know the kids who live on our street. (It's hard, though, because they're not home much. But someone has to be available.)

We still don't know the names of all the weeds that grow in our backyard, or the kinds of birds that hide in the bushes. We can't go to a farmers' market, but we could grow more things ourselves. They are missing out on high-energy-tons-of-kids social opportunities, but they are getting lots of chances to learn to play well together.

I'm sure there's lots of good things we could be doing, and probably someday we will, but I think for now we'll do just fine as it is.

According to the Ducklings

Song heard in the night: "The wise man built his house upon the rock, all around the town."

D1, reading from her Gideon testament: "Go forth and tell God that I need to go potty."

The Once and Future King

This phrase has echoed in the back of my head for two decades, like a call from a bird flying too high to see. I don't know how long it was before I realized that it was the title of a book, nor am I quite sure why it took me so long to read the book once I discovered it. Perhaps I was afraid that the book could never live up to the title.

I cannot say I was disappointed, exactly, even though it was not exactly what I expected. (But who would want things to be exactly what was expected? How dull life would be.) There was much to appreciate, and some to dislike. The book (or really four books) is full of too many things--comedy, tragedy, obscure details of medieval life, psychoanalysis--full like an overstuffed chair, and like an overstuffed chair, hard to get out of once you get in.

As a straight retelling of the Arthurian legend, it is not so good. Most of the auxiliary plot lines are left out; Gawaine (always my favorite) gets short shrift and most of the gallant knightly adventures are alluded to only in passing. (I like Rosemary Sutcliff's retelling for finding out what was happening.) But then, it wasn't really meant to be that, and it is hardly fair to critique a book for not being what it doesn't want to be. It is more of a commentary on the Arthurian legend (though still in a story form) and what it tells us about human nature and governance. Certainly from that perspective it will color how I read the story in whatever form.

One thing that annoyed me throughout the books was that the entire story line was moved forward to the twelfth century. Now I know Arthur is always presented in late medieval trappings, but the story still belongs much earlier; it's like reading a retelling of the Bible set in seventeenth century Holland to go along with those paintings of Bible characters in the clothes of Dutch burghers. The multiplied layers of racial conflict this caused (Norman vs. Saxon vs. Celt vs. Pict) just got to be mind-boggling, although I suppose the real reason for the time change was because the ideals being critiqued were best illustrated by the Norman nobility.

The books focus on Arthur's (and behind that, Merlin's) efforts to fight the rule of force in the world. First Arthur tries the Round Table and chivalric ideals to put Might on the side of Right. Pretty soon the knights run out of bad guys to fight, however, and inner conflicts begin to surface. Then Arthur hopes that spiritual questing can take the place of battle, and the knights search for the Holy Grail; this too fails in establishing a just order on Earth, as the best knights all leave for Heaven. Finally Arthur tries to establish impartial justice in a civil code, but even this is turned to bad ends through Mordred's scheming.

What makes the Arthur legend such a complete tragedy is that the evil is completely bound up with the good. Doom comes not as some relentless fate you can neither duck nor explain, like Oedipus Rex's mysterious obligation to kill his father and marry his mother, nor is it the consequence of milder quirks of circumstance that you can wish away with an "if only." (If only the friar had delivered the letter in time! If only Cyrano had talked to Roxanne before Christian died!)

Given Arthur, Lancelot and Guinevere being who they were, bad things were bound to happen; turn them into other people, and the Round Table never could have happened at all. You could wish away Mordred, but to be effective that would require undoing the malice of Arthur's sisters, and to do that you would have to undo Arthur himself. The Arthurian legend is not so much about why good people do bad things, as to how bad people can accomplish anything good at all. And yet they can.

What finally spurred me to read the books this time was noticing their place in the reading list at Ambleside Online. Well, the first two books are on the list for the early teen years--The Sword in the Stone, which focuses on Merlin's tutelage of Arthur, and The Queen of Air and Darkness, which focuses on Arthur developing the ideal of the Round Table while also following the youth of Gawaine and his brothers and their mother's idle but malicious scheming. After that the series takes a more grown-up turn, and The Ill-Made Knight focuses primarily on Lancelot, Guinevere, and Elaine, and the motives and results, public and private, of adultery and seduction. It's not particularly graphic, but definitely not for children. At the same time, it shows the Arthurian court declining into a middle age of disillusionment and decadence.

The Candle in the Wind concludes the matter by showing the unraveling of the court. And it was on the last page that I was most frustrated. After reflecting on how each thing he has tried has failed--chivalry, religiosity, legality--and other ideas, like communism, seem just as insubstantial against the evil in human hearts, Arthur has one last bright idea that if only people could learn to disregard the imaginary borders of countries, perhaps through education, then war and strife could cease. He is going to die in battle tomorrow, and has no time to put it into practice. But still, he thinks it would work. I can't figure out what the author is trying to say here--is he really so blind as to think internationalism and education will succeed where everything else has failed? Or is it ironic, one last foolish notion of Arthur's in his old age?--in which case, what a horrible way to end!

At any rate, the exact ending is not that important in a book whose ending is ordained from the first, nor does it destroy the value of the understanding throughout the book of the great difficulty present in trying to do right and establish justice in the world. And the series is certainly not pessimistic. The title of the last book sums it up--public justice is like a candle in the wind. Always it is in danger of being snuffed out--and yet, there it is. Worthy of protection. Beautiful in its very fragility.

Dog Days

August is not a month I enjoy. I've tried to acclimate, I really have. Last summer I kept nudging the thermostat up, trying to take it a degree or two warmer. I hit the wall at seventy-four. At seventy-four degrees, I can function. At seventy-five, I start to melt. I know you southerners are snorting in your sweet tea, but that's as far as I'm willing to go.

This makes spending time outside a little tricky this time of year. Usually we abandon the breakfast dishes and head straight outside. At ten o'clock my internal thermometer starts setting off alarms and we can come in and clean up then.

After a week of very hot, still, muggy weather, though, even the early morning air wasn't worth the bother of breathing today. Every exhaust fume from every morning commuter still lingered in the air. I went out and got the wading pool and we set it up in the basement, where it stayed below seventy-five all morning.

Only four more weeks to September.

Ruth and the Idolators

The book of Ruth, beginning, end, and middle, is wrapped up in Naomi's search for a man for security. She's like an Old Testament Yenta: "Even the worst husband--God forbid!--is better than no husband--God forbid!" She hopes her daughters-in-law will find security with new husbands; she takes it on herself to help Ruth hunt one down; and she finally relaxes in the last scene with a baby grandson in her arms who will take the place of the husband and sons she has lost.

Partly it may be Naomi's personal obsession; partly it may be a sign of a culture in which women had to depend on men for security. More than that, though, I think it is a sign of a culture in which people had to depend on other people. Surely an old and feeble man would have been just as desparate to have someone young and strong to bring home the mutton. Their world was a personal one; there was no Social Security or Society for the Aged and Infirm. If there wasn't a someone to go to, there was no somewhere to go.

By the same token, their idols were personal ones. They worshipped gods with bad habits and shrewish wives. Their gods might have been lacking in looks, hygiene, and basic morality, but they were never lacking in personality.

I think we tend to have the opposite problem, which obscures our favorite form of idolatry. Sermons do preach against idolizing money or pleasure, but I think what we most like to idolize is systems. Systems are where we turn for security. Systems are what care for us when we need help. Systems are what we ask to fix things when things go wrong. Even the One True God sometimes has a little too much personality to suit our tastes, and we prefer to fit Him into one of our systems.

This is where a lot of things in modern Christianity go bad. We start looking for the System that will solve our financial problems, find us the perfect spouse, raise our children, grow our church, win the lost, care for the poor, or what have you. We want to know what the right steps are to follow, and if we just follow those steps, we would prefer a money-back guarantee on the results.

Lots of time the original idea wasn't a bad one--every step of it can be shown from Scripture!--but it's the nature of our age to turn it into a System. And from there it's an easy step for us to expect it to provide us with peace, joy, love and holiness. We still say those things come from God, but really we would be quite astonished and a little offended to find God working outside our beloved System.

The ancient Israelites wanted gods with bodies; we want gods with checklists. Just as much for us as for them, God is something far greater than we can conceive.

James James Morrison Morrison

"Disobedience" is D1's favorite poem from When We Were Very Young, whether for its irresistible rhythm, its intrepid three-year-old hero, or its depiction of the evils awaiting parents who disobey their children. ("You must never go down to the end of the town without consulting me.") The last concerns me. We are still sorting out just who is in charge of this house--she is, temperamentally, undoubtedly more qualified, but I still have seniority and experience enough to trump her.

My mother reputedly once accused my eldest sister, when she was very small, of sitting up at night and plotting out new naughty things to do. I used to smirk at the naivete reflected in this tale--by the time the rest of us came along I'm sure she had realized that no premeditation was required. But now I understand how she felt. It was the cry of desparation of a chaotic mind trying desperately to create order, confronted with a very organized mind still, by age and position, allied on the side of chaos.

Give D1 enough skills to run things with minimal supervision and an increase in seniority and she will be an invaluable asset. In the meantime, we are having some interesting moments. Putting a little more structure in the day has helped.

Professionally, I decline and fall, though as a mother I am lapsing into poetry.* I'm reading books on the collapse of the Roman Empire and the Dark Ages, and it's all intriguing. We are also listening to some Gregorian chant, which D2 especially likes, and I found some picture books on early saints, some of which I've read to D1. I always feel sorry for D1 and D2 at being stuck being the oldest, and not getting the trickle-down of Interesting Things the older children are learning. D2 likes to "build castles" with his Duplos now, so I must be succeeding somewhat at my scheme to make it up to them without turning into some sort of Baby Genius fiend.

*There's an obscure literary allusion. Anyone know what it's from?

The Mom Clothes Catalogue

Rose's post of fashion tips reminds me of my long-standing fantasy of a catalog of clothes that would be suitable for mothers of small children.

Everything would be machine wash and dry on any setting and would not wrinkle just because it happened to sit in the laundry basket for three days. (Unless it was supposed to look wrinkled, in which case it would still be wrinkled the right way.)

All the fabric would be the sort that doesn't look noticeably different when wet or coated with snot. Some fabric is like that now. Unfortunately it's impossible to test this for yourself in a store, so you ordinarily just have to hope you luck out.

The necklines, although varied, would all be tested so that a twenty-five pound toddler could hang from them without revealing anything. Skirts and slacks would all be perfectly comfortable and appropriate even sitting cross-legged on the floor, and would not slide down when tugged on.

They would all be easy to nurse in, and would be able to adapt to at least a fifteen-pound weight gain or loss without fitting strangely.

MOST IMPORTANT POINT OF ALL: Nobody else would be able to tell they were "mom clothes."

End of the Road

Vacation is over, VBS is over. DOB returned last night from a five-day business trip, which we all survived. The insane part of the summer has drawn to a close, much to our relief. Now if we could just catch up on sleep. And thanks to other people, who take pictures, here are some:

Ducks & Bunnies

We've been doing quite a bit of yard saling lately. The adorable matching bunnies were DOB's idea, while I was looking for winter clothes. (We put initials on the tags to tell them apart; of course, they never bother to look before hauling off the nearest bunny.) Even Amy Dacyzyn (Tightwad Gazette) says it's good to make sure kids get something fun from a yard sale so they will always associate yard sales with good times.

We didn't get the skateboard that was D2's size. The next morning, he was standing up on his bike.

The Tomato Report

I am at war with squirrels. Not the Canadian variety. Just the local ones.

For the past week and a half, I have been eagerly watching the first of the ripening tomatoes. A few were nearly ready to pick. But when I thought I could restrain myself no longer and went out to pick them, all but one (the least ripe) had vanished.

I know who the culprit was, too, for earlier in the day I had startled one of the scamps in the backyard. He fled over the neighbor's tumbledown (but freshly painted) shed, tossing back a half-eaten carcass over his shoulder, whether as a taunt or merely an oversight I don't know. I still can't believe I left all the other tomatoes just sitting on the vine, but I still had not realized how dearly squirrels love tomatoes. (Where I grew up, tomatoes are generally an indoor plant.)

Unfortunately, I don't think I have the skills or materials to construct a squirrel-proof shelter for the tomatoes. Squirrels are wily things. So I shall have to resort to the other solution, picking the tomatoes as soon as they start to turn color and letting them ripen on the windowsill.

Alas for vine-ripened tomatoes. And alas for my kitchen windowsill, which is pitched down toward the sink, as if in a perverse desire to knock things off all by itself.

The Role of Women and the Glory of God

I've been intrigued by some discussions over at the True Womanhood blog lately, and various ideas have sprouted in my mind and, like my tomatoes, overgrown into rather different areas than intended, refusing to confine themselves to comments on any one post. This is why I have my own blog. What I have to say is meant in the spirit, not of a rebuke, but just a different angle to remember.

I very much value Christian women being free to think and speak and not arbitrarily confined to unscriptural gender roles. I do not appreciate rigid dress codes. I do not tell my daughter she can't like trucks or math or climbing trees. I have never been known to play dumb merely to salve the egos of less-intelligent men. And I do think there is a place for pointing out where such things are done or promoted wrongfully.

At the same time, it may well be that what is wrong for someone else to do, is not wrong for us to receive. That is a large part of what the love and humility of the Christian life is about. It may be bad for someone else to obsess over hemlines; it may be quite good for me to put on a longer skirt so we can both focus on Christ instead of wardrobes. It may be wrong for a church to prevent women from contributing to a discussion; it may be right for me to learn that God can work even when my mouth is shut. It may be wrong for a man to think a woman can't correct him; it may be good for me to learn a little humility, myself. If God could use the martyrdom of Christians to His glory, He can surely use some minor inconveniences.

Many discussions about women's roles focus on the danger that women might be thwarted in using their God-given gifts. That is a valid concern. But I don't think it is anywhere close to God's primary concern. God values all work done in His name and for His glory, but He commends by name the work that requires no gifts: giving a cup of cold water, feeding the hungry, visiting the sick. Looking for a place to use my God-given talents lives uncomfortably close, in my heart at least, to looking for ways to glorify myself.

Rigid gender roles may have repressed women in the past or even now; but not nearly so much, I would think, as life itself represses everyone. We will never know how many great poets died illiterate, or how many brilliant business managers spent their lives making mud bricks. If we find ourselves thwarted in our dreams and gifts, whether by life circumstances or false customs, we can hardly think ourselves unusual.

Nor, do I think, should we consider ourselves without hope. God has not made us for this world, but for another one. There--and only there--we can all serve Him fully, with our whole selves, with everything He has given us.

In the meantime, we lay all the things we have and want and are and can do before Him, ready to take up or lay down as He orders. He may be more interested in what we can learn by not using our gifts than in what we could accomplish by using them. Or He may ask us to do something we had so long given up we are afraid to touch it again. Either way, the slogan of the cross is not "Be all that you can be," but, "Come, follow Me."

Compendium

I have blogged little lately, less from a lack of things to blog about, as from too many. I cannot make up my mind which to blog about, and thus, like the old sailor, I do nothing but bask. (Which reminds me that I have been reading When We Were Very Young selectively to the ducklings, and they adore it. They demand "Cwis'pher Wobin poems" at every read-aloud time.)

So perhaps if I deal with some topics briefly, I will get my gumption up to tackle a few others at more length later on. Or forget them entirely.

Life Together: This book, by Dietrch Bonhoeffer, has long been on my List of Books it Would No Doubt Be Noble To Read, but a friend's intention to read it finally spurred me to actually read it. I was quite surprised; I had thought it would be a book about life in the church, but it is really much more about family (or religious community) life.

I tend to benefit most in family life from books that are not particularly about family life, or that are written to very different times and circumstances. If I read a modern mother of many young children say that of course you must do thus and so, and I don't, I tend to either feel guilty, or waste far too much mental energy arguing with her in my head. But if a seminarian from another place and time posits three chapters of Scripture read aloud before breakfast I can laugh at picturing him being dumped into our stinky-diaper and howling-tummy bedlam and then go on to think about how I can weave more Scripture into our everyday life, even at breakfast. (A prayer and a song from the Bible are working very nicely.)

Another intriguing idea from him (and there were many more) is that the test of true Christian community is whether you can confess your faults to each other. Now he cautions against confession as a religious work in itself, and I have seen the ugliness that happens when we are proud of the confessions we can come up with and scrape the recesses of our souls to have a testimony like everyone else's. But real community comes when we can honestly tell someone else the things we are truly, deeply, ashamed of. It only works and gives freedom and joy in fellowship when it's unpleasant. With all the craving for "authenticity" nowadays, one seldom sees this path mentioned, but I think he's quite right.

Vacation Bible School: We are VBS wimps, showing up only to do the opening and then departing (much to D1's disappointment), but that is really all we are good for this year. We are portraying farmers, who last night discovered a considerable treasure in the field we were planning on buying. Is it only me, or does that parable strike you as rather shady business dealings?

I needed a bucket of dirt to hide the treasure in, but it needed to be lighter than a bucket of dirt. I finally struck upon painting an old chex mix tub with leftover house paint, then filling it with styrofoam, including a styrofoam circle that would form a false bottom for the dirt. The ducklings gleefully helped me paint the bucket. I finally realized the secret to them not getting paint on their clothes is to take their clothes off--old T-shirts of DOB's provide ample coverage for decency's sake, and then the paint only bleeds through onto their skin, from which it will no doubt wear off eventually.

Tonight is the parable of the sower and the seeds. I am faking a withered plant from the stony ground. I feel slightly guilty about this. If only I had thought to plant a seed on stony ground a few weeks ago!

Ducklings: They seemed to grow up a lot while we were on vacation, even though we were there watching them. D2 talks (and talks, and talks) very well now. His new favorite sentence model is "I like . . . " (from a book about trains) and he is happy to inform us about all the things he likes. He is also happy to repeat absolutely anything anybody says. They are both obsessed with playing with dishes and cooking food. I sometimes worry that this indicates they are either underfed or insufficiently stimulated in their imagination, but mostly I hope it bodes well for help in the kitchen. We are working on doing more formal chores now, and D1 is getting fairly good at clearing the table.

This Letter is Too Hard

D1 and I were sitting over her new phonics page, I drawing pictures of things that start with "T" and she interjecting the following comments, after I had written the big T in the middle of the page.

"Can you draw me a little T?"

"Can you draw me a medium T?"

"Can you draw me a Goldilocks T?"

One Week, One Year

Today is one week since we arrived home, bleary-eyed, from vacation, and one year since we moved, shaky-legged, into this house. On my list of favorite things to do, not moving ranks very high.

A year ago tomorrow was one of the most unremittently miserable days of my life. Everything was misplaced in the wrong box, everybody was cranky, and DOB was passed out cold from consuming too many soy-containing snack foods during the move. We were, nonetheless, deeply grateful for the folks from a nearby church who had come over after their VBS program had ended to finish moving in all our furniture.

This year, we're gearing up to do the opening for VBS there ourselves. (It's just hard to say no to a church like that.) We still have a lot of boxes that need to find a better home, but I've just come up with a new scheme for reorganizing them and I might even have the energy to make it happen. For the first time ever, I've kept up on the housework every single day this week.

It's been nice to get a little taste of what normal feels like. For however long it lasts.

I Can Hold My Head Up Again

Because Birdy nominated me for a Thinking Blogger Award. Not that I've been posting enough to make anyone think, but still, one dreams.






Here are the rules:

1. If, and only if, you get tagged, write a post with links to 5 blogs that make you think,

2. Link to this post so that people can easily find the exact origin of the meme,

3. Optional: Proudly display the ‘Thinking Blogger Award’ with a link to the post that you wrote (here is an alternative silver version if gold doesn’t fit your blog).

This has been going around for awhile, and all of the high-traffic blogs that make me think also make other people think, and so they've already been nominated. That gives me the chance to post the names of five blogs featuring fellow mothers of small children who still come up with intelligent things to say. Occasionally. Or even often.

Keeping Up

Thoughts & Adventures

Love & Blunder

Not Alone

Focht Tales

What We Learned On Our Summer Vacation

D2: If you're very small and very cute and you can utter polysyllabic names of juicy summer fruits with an endearing smile, people will continue feeding you said fruits indefinitely.

However, Mama believes that man does not live by strawberries and watermelon alone. So eat your eggs, too.

Walruses are way cool.

D1: I have the best cousin in the world. (Oh, and her brothers are nice, too.)

Rock-climbing is a great hobby.

QOC: It's a good idea to know what your husband thinks was your first date just in case you're ever playing games at an engagement party. (This is where courtship makes it so difficult. Define "date" first. Or maybe this is just where being a lawyer makes things difficult.)

It is fun to visit the zoo with other people. We do not want a zoo pass of our own until more members of the family are self-propelling.

DOB: Find out how to remove the emergency brake on a loaned vehicle before the ferry starts loading.

It really is possible to relax for more than three hours straight. At least if you have a western to read.

I didn't know this was possible

The library tells me I have too many holds. I guess I will have to wait on The Well of Lost Plots. And the remaining three dozen books I wanted to reserve.

Jiggety Jog

We had no blizzards, or even the stomach flu. Some of us did get colds, but that could hardly have been avoided.

A road trip is enough to make me wonder if perhaps children should not be potty-trained before seven. A plane trip is enough to convince me.

I'm sure it saved us a lot of money to leave our air conditioning off. I'm sure it will cool down again sometime. Meanwhile I must come up with a dinner menu that requires no ingredients or cooking. And not eating out. We did that on the way back from the airport and have had our fill for another year.

If you pack fewer clothes, you will do more laundry. Toddlers playing on the beach and the farm and eating in less-constrained locations than usual will not be able to wear the same outfit multiple times. Neither will their parents.

We saw nearly everyone we planned on seeing. We had a fabulous time pretty much everywhere. We will be coherent again in a few weeks.