The Brothers H

Clearly...

2012-01-23T18:16:00.001-05:00

Playing my first game of Stratego with one of the boys...

Me: How does the game end?
Him: What?
Me: How can you tell when someone has won?
Him: (cheerful assurance) They say, "Look, I won!"

And another obvious answer...

Brother 1 to Brother 2: (Dressed in a clone trooper mask, Power Ranger gloves, elbow pads, knee pads, laser tag vest on chest, plastic shield strapped to back, bungee cord around waist to hold small weapons, bathrobe sash tied across chest to hold larger weapons) (with confidence) I look cool, right?

Brother 2: (emphatically) Yeah!

The Graveyard Book...

2012-01-20T12:12:00.000-05:00

The Graveyard Book is the story of Nobody (Bod) Owens. (How can you not love a book whose hero is named Nobody Owens?) As a toddler, Bod narrowly escapes the grisly deaths his parents and sister suffer. He toddles his way into a graveyard where he is granted the Freedom of the Graveyard and adopted by ghosts.

The book reads almost like a collection of short stories with the thread of Bod's unusual journey to manhood and growing need to understand his past and obtain justice, or arguably vengeance, woven throughout. Bod's other-worldly guardian wrestles with how to balance Bod's love of learning and desire to experience the world, specifically school, with the need to keep him safe. (Hmmm, thought provoking for the homeschool community.) I love this exchange between Bod and a bully at school:

"You're weird," she said. "You don't have any friends."
"I didn't come here for friends," said Bod truthfully. "I came here to learn."
Mo's nose twitched. "Do you know how weird that is?" She asked. "Nobody comes to school to learn. I mean, you come because you have to."

The beauty of this book is in the details. I love the epitaphs...

I was a stranger and you took me in.

Who Did No Harm to No Man all the Dais of Her Life. Reader, Can You Say Lykewise?

And the minor characters like

Nehemiah Trot

Poet

1741-1774

SWANS SING BEFORE THEY DIE

who exacted revenge on his literary critics by having himself buried with his unpublished poetry, forcing them to dig up his body once his genius was, inevitably, recognized.

Bod: And after you died, they dug you up, and they printed the poems?
Trot: Not yet, no. But there is still plenty of time. Posterity is vast.

Brilliant.

This is a perfect book for a rainy weekend. Enjoy!

JESUS > religion

2012-01-15T23:54:00.001-05:00

You may have seen this video. It's been all over Facebook. I love it. I saved it to a Pinterest board for when the boys are older. I'm surprised by the number and variety of Facebook friends who posted it. I'm intrigued because I think almost every believer I know would say this guy is right on. More Jesus. Less religion. But if we overwhelmingly agree, why does the American church suck at this so spectacularly? Why do I suck at this so spectacularly? I've had snatches of JESUS > religion in my life, by I inevitably gravitate toward rules and performance. The answers I've come up with so far are religion is familiar and Jesus is hard - simple but hard.

Religion is "spiritual capitalism."* It's getting good church grades and being better than enough other people. We're soaked in it from birth. I'm an American, I've been performing for gold stars since I could grab one with my chubby little hand and stick it to my shirt, and my spiritual life has so often been just another place to dance. Am I doing enough - praying enough, reading the Bible enough, teaching my kids enough, serving enough... Religion is comfortable. It just takes faith and makes it like everything else in my life where I'm trying to be good enough.

But if religion is my comfortable armchair, and Jesus is rock scrambling on a beautiful day, once I've experienced the beauty and exhilaration of the hike, why do I find myself back in the armchair over and over and over and over again?

I was reading about Solomon recently and was struck by how well he started and how poorly he finished. He wanted the things of God. What happened? I don't think he stopped wanting to be faithful, he just wanted some other stuff, too. Saying yes to things that probably seemed neutral to him at the time, actually meant saying no to God.

Choosing Jesus is hard - simple but hard. Seriously, there's TV in there with the armchair. I can do internet shopping and eat all my favorite food.** It seems like, in theory, I should be able to take all that stuff with me on the hike because, really, if I'm excited about the hike and willing to go, who cares if I bring my favorite snacks. But it turns out that saying yes to all that "innocuous" stuff is actually saying no to the cool hike, so the comfortable, if slightly stinky, chair is really my only option.

So, it's not so much that I want religion and not Jesus. It's that I want Jesus plus a lot of other stuff, too. And that's not what following Jesus IS. So I inevitably end back at religion without Jesus, ad nauseum.

Romans 7:17 - 25, The Message

^17-20But I need something more! For if I know the law but still can't keep it, and if the power of sin within me keeps sabotaging my best intentions, I obviously need help! I realize that I don't have what it takes. I can will it, but I can't do it. I decide to do good, but I don't really do it; I decide not to do bad, but then I do it anyway. My decisions, such as they are, don't result in actions. Something has gone wrong deep within me and gets the better of me every time.
^21-23It happens so regularly that it's predictable. The moment I decide to do good, sin is there to trip me up. I truly delight in God's commands, but it's pretty obvious that not all of me joins in that delight. Parts of me covertly rebel, and just when I least expect it, they take charge.
²⁴I've tried everything and nothing helps. I'm at the end of my rope. Is there no one who can do anything for me? Isn't that the real question?
²⁵The answer, thank God, is that Jesus Christ can and does. He acted to set things right in this life of contradictions where I want to serve God with all my heart and mind, but am pulled by the influence of sin to do something totally different.

*The term, "spiritual capitalism," is stolen from a wonderful daily meditation that a friend sent me and I have since lost.
** I wish these were more metaphorical.

Getting metal...

2012-01-09T16:36:00.001-05:00

Warning: This is one of those intimidating housekeeping posts I was warning you about.

The writing curriculum we use (Writing With Ease) involves listening to literary passages, answering questions about the content and coming up with a summary of what you've just heard. Jacob has a problem with daydreaming while I'm reading the passage and then having no idea what I'm talking about when I ask the questions.

Recently, our passage began:

Today is Monday, today is Monday.
Monday, wash day.
All you happy people, we sing the same to you!

Today is Tuesday, today is Tuesday.
Tuesday, iron.
Monday, wash day.
All you happy people, we sing the same to you! ...

After reading the passage, ...

Me: What happens on Tuesday?

Jacob: They get metal.

Me: (internal monologue) Grrrr. He wasn't listening AGAIN. Ugh. I don't feel like reading that whole stupid poem again. Wait a minute. Metal. Iron... He has no idea what ironing is. He's never seen me do that. Ba, ha, ha, ha.

To commemorate this hilarious conversation (half of it in my head, I know), I took a skirt - one that I love but have been unable to wear for two years because it's horribly wrinkled - and ironed it and wore it to church that week.

A letter to 20 year old me...

2012-01-06T00:15:00.000-05:00

This post is dedicated to the man who "loved me less yesterday than he does today."*

Chris surprised me with tickets to see Robert Earl Keen at the House of Blues on our 15th anniversary. It's the Little Things** that made it a perfect night.

House of Blues has crazy quilt stage curtains.
The opening act was really good. I'm looking forward to hearing more from Kacey Musgraves.
Robert Earl Keen was playing in Houston on my anniversary. There is no one I'd rather see in concert.

In the glow of my perfect anniversary, with Gringo Honeymoon playing in the background, I was thinking about that pair of toddlers (Seriously, how has this worked? We were babies.) that jumped in the deep end together on December 28, 1996. Thinking about everything I didn't know makes me smile/laugh/cry/cringe.

Here are some notes to 20 year-old me...

Your cooking repertoire will need to expand beyond Rice-A-Roni and chocolate chip cookie dough. It will, but not before your first Thanksgiving meal is a disaster.
You will fight over some spectacularly stupid stuff. Your first big married fight will be over who gets which dresser drawer.
You will have some pretty wimpy medical moments together, including your first joint trip to the ER to... wait for it... remove a tick. Clearly, you will not be birthing your children at home.
At least 80% of the time when he's mad, it doesn't have anything to do with you. If you're in the car, you can up that to 95%.
When he hurts himself, just walk away. You'll feel cold-hearted, but in his version of the universe, that's the kind thing to do.
Don't start an emotionally charged conversation after 9:00 p.m. You are not night people.
Don't pout if he doesn't hold your hand in church. Seriously, that's sad on so many levels.
When you're in a fight, try to see things from his point of view. Don't just listen to gather ammo.
Never underestimate the extent to which you can misunderstand one another.
Let him take care of you.
Sometimes he's not trying to be mean, he just has no idea what you want.
You are difficult to live with. I know that deep down you don't believe that, but you are. Everyone is.
A few years from now he's going to figure out that, sometimes, proving he's right is not worth it and hugging you is the wiser course. Everyone will be happier.***
When you can manage it, this marriage works best when you're looking out for his best interests, and he's looking out for yours. The difficulty is in figuring out who goes first.
Years 3-6 are going to rip out both your hearts and chop them into little pieces. Neither of you will be the same. But those years will be redeemed. Good will come of them.
He's going to be good for you.

He'll talk you out of

"Fixing" the haircut you hate by yourself
Getting a second dog (the first one will push you over the edge by kid #2)
Giving away the children

He'll talk you into

Backpacking Europe together
Giving up Diet Coke
Calling friends when you're lonely

Then

Now

* Chris feels that the fact that this statement is logically equivalent to "I love you more today than I did yesterday" is somehow relevant.
** One of my favorite REK songs is It's the Little Things (about you that piss me off).

*** This point might possibly be included in an unbloggable note to 21-year-old Chris.

The rest of the 12 days of Christmas, rapid fire...

2011-12-28T15:08:00.000-05:00

Day 8: Nutcracker. Jacob, Bryan and I went to see the Nutcracker (David was sick). We had such a great time. They were extremely suspicious when they saw the ballerina on the cover of the program. There's some good boy action early on, though. They loved the fight between the Nutcracker and the Rat King. They were wary when the Nutcracker danced with the Sugar Plum Fairy - possible conspiracy to kiss on the lips. They each sat on my lap for half the show. How much longer is that going to last? During one of the slower scenes, Bryan wanted to see if we could Eskimo kiss and watch the show at the same time. Jacob loved the Russian dancing. One of my favorite scenes took place during intermission, though. Some girls were playing on the steps leading up to the stage. Over the intercom, the director berated their parents for allowing such wild behavior. It was glorious. Here was wild and inappropriate behavior (at least in someone's version of the universe) in public, and none of my people were involved.

Day 9: Christmas cookies for ourselves and the neighbors. I made way too many Christmas cookies last year, so I also made up a box for everyone in the household h. Sadly, this was more to ensure that Chris and the boys got enough than for me to get enough. It's now a tradition. Each of us gets a box to work through at our own pace.

Day 10: Christmas lights competition. This was supposed to be gingerbread house day. Note to 2012 me, do not plan on gingerbread houses after Christmas cookies. Seriously, just the thought of making the icing made me want to hurl. Thank goodness I remembered a friend's facebook post from a few years ago. Her family drove around to look at lights and gave an award to their favorite house. So we got a gift card from McDonald's and had so much fun deciding on a winner.

Day 11: Buffalo Grille and the park (with Nana, Papa and Gran - yea!). I had something much more ambitious planned. There was no way it was happening. This was so much more fun.

Day 12: Emergency workers. The church we're visiting suggested this activity. Each of the boys made a Christmas card and packed a bag of Christmas cookies to deliver to someone who had to work on Christmas Eve. We dropped them off after the Christmas Eve service. Jacob and Rand delivered theirs to the security guard and receptionist at the hospital. David took his to the police station. Bryan took his to the fire station. The firemen may have won our Christmas Eve cookie business for the next several years. They showed the boys around the station and let them climb on the trucks.

Overall, I really enjoyed doing this with Chris and the boys. I think we'll try it again next year.

Peace of the Lord with you.

12 days of christmas, day 7: the h2o ride...

2011-12-19T23:52:00.000-05:00

For Day 7 we did a H2O ride. I had planned on giving something to Living Water International. I love their work. While perusing their website for a good promotional video to show the boys,* I came across the H2O ride. A group of cyclists rode 8840 miles - 1 mile for every 100,000 people without access to clean and safe drinking water. So I decided to do a Brothers H H2O ride. I set an age appropriate "lap" in our neighborhood for each boy. Their parents and grandparents each sponsored them at $0.25 per lap. I set some prizes for reaching three different goals. For meeting various goals, they got a drink, then chips, then a candy bar from the gas station. Rand and I worked the Sag Station at the end of our driveway.

It was great. I'm really glad we did it. This is one of my favorite things we've done. BUT, it so did not go down the way I imagined.

One my goals in doing these 12 days of Christmas is to figure out how to make helping those in need a part of our daily lives in the household h. I feel like a preschooler in this area, and I'm learning that it's never going to look like this picture I've been carrying around in my mind for the last several years. Sometimes, when I announce joyfully the amazing, selfless act I have planned for our family for the day, my little participants will be remarkably unenthused, and I will hear, "That doesn't sound like fun at all." And sometimes, I will force everyone to soldier on through some activity and later find out that the kid who seemed unbelievably whiny and irritating and self-absorbed actually had the flu. Sigh.

In the morning, when they found the card on the mantle announcing the H2O ride, everyone was excited. David made a chart so we could check off completed laps. Then we had a rain delay. After the rain delay, he started complaining that his head hurt and asked if he could do it later. I was annoyed (seriously, he wasn't grasping the awesomeness of my idea) and told him this was the time we were doing the ride and he could choose to participate or not. Several miles and an hour and a half or so later, David started shivering and said he didn't want the gas station snacks (undeniable sign of extreme illness). By the time I checked his temperature he was at 102 and miserable. Bless his heart. I think he rode about 5 or 6 miles feeling like that.

So, the H2O ride was another practical lesson in the reality that focusing the household h outward is not going to look like a Hallmark commercial starring me but that there will be some good and real stuff there, even some holy moments. David, who would normally have been all over that bike ride and trying to both raise money and ride more laps than anyone else,** was having a hard time doing his share. He had to ask Jacob to do some of his laps for him. Jacob will probably still be feeling like a rock star three months from now. He took a lot of David's laps for him. On the morning we worked at The Houston Food Bank, someone really did say, "That doesn't sound like fun at all." So, I spent some time explaining why we were doing all this stuff. I told them what Christmas used to be like at our house - a lot of fun, but stressful and mainly about buying stuff. I try to say that kind of stuff to them when I can, and I think they hear me about 5% of the time. This was one of those times when they heard. It was one of those holy moments.

So, when I started this Christmas adventure, I think I planned on about 90% holy moments, and in reality, it's nothing near that. But I think that's just how this goes. Partly, there's a learning curve in figuring out how to live more missionally. Partly, it's just part of living in a fallen world. You get snapshots of glory.

* Here are a few: Advent Conspiracy Video and Living Water Video

** He asked to do extra housework to add to his Compassion International bank but asked to be paid in nickels so his would weigh a lot more than his brothers' banks.

Call my cell-ery*...

2011-12-17T11:41:00.000-05:00

This morning I found out that all my normal color polish congealed in the move. So this, the only survivor, is what I'm wearing on my toes to Chris' work party tonight, implying that

This is the first time I've painted my toenails in six months.
At some point I decided that sparkly green was a reasonable color for an adult woman.**
Going to the drug store to buy a normal color is not an option because I am, in fact, too lazy to care that much.

In more encouraging news, though tempted, I passed on the adult women's tutus for sale at lululemon.***

*That's the OPI name of this color. In another life I'd like to be their polish namer.
**Actually, I think my sister-in-law, Amy, was with me when I bought it and didn't intervene, so she bears some responsibility here. By the way, some of you can pull off this color, but the math majors of the world tend to not be in that group.
***Amy wasn't with me last night, so maybe she's the real problem.

Changing the sheets, a week long process...

2011-12-14T23:24:00.000-05:00

I have a few housekeeping posts in mind for the next few weeks. If you're easily intimidated, you should really skip my blog for a few weeks. I don't want to dishearten anyone.

One of my least favorite chores is changing sheets on top bunks. I hate it. It's awkward. It annoys me that it takes twice as long as the other beds. A few days ago, one of our top bunkers came downstairs to announce he'd had an accident. When I went up to assess the damage (at a more reasonable hour), I found that the wet spot was pretty small. My first thought:

Seriously, do I really have to change the sheets? That's a pretty small spot.

So, as any adept and responsible mother would do, I posted a question on facebook to check the official facebook consensus and found that it really pays to have slacker facebook friends, or at least friends who encourage you down the road of slackerhood (that's a word, right?).* There are a lot of reasons not to change slightly peed on sheets. Apparently, if the offense is not dead center on the bed, you're clear. If you've washed the sheets recently, it's really best not to stress them by overwashing. You can turn on the ceiling fan and just let it dry up. And my favorite - it depends on whose bed was defiled. That's a great point. If it's my bed, this discussion is unnecessary.

So, thanks to the influence of my slacker internet friends, 36 hours later the bed is still in the process of being changed. Here's the process so far.

Morning of offense: Sheets stripped and washed but forgot (possibly on purpose) to make bed.

Night after offense: Put culprit to sleep in sleeping bag

2nd morning after offense: Culprit wakes at 6:00 because his blanket is not cozy. Translation - he can't figure out how to get back into his sleeping bag

2nd night after offense: Mother has forgotten to put clean sheets on again but does remember the 6:00 a.m. sleeping bag debacle of the previous night and puts culprit to bed on bare mattress with a blanket on top. Mother prays he doesn't have an accident as scrubbing a mattress sucks worse than changing a top bunk.

I may hold out until my mom gets here for Christmas. In my experience, grandmothers tend to care more than mothers about whether their little people sleep on sheets.

* Concerning slacking off on chores, it does not pay to have an excessively tidy father as your Facebook friend.
** I do understand that it took me five times as long to write this post as it would have to change the sheets.

12 days of Christmas day 6...

2011-12-13T14:30:00.000-05:00

Angry bird ornaments

And felt gnomes

Honestly, the brothers were not feeling these crafts so much. I think they prefer playing Angry Birds and making weapons. So, for next year, I'll have to come up with something a little fiercer.

12 days of Christmas, day 5...

2011-12-09T22:00:00.001-05:00

Jacob and Bryan washed windows to earn money for Compassion International.

Chris, David and I packed boxes of food at the Houston Food Bank.

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12 days of Christmas, day 4...

2011-12-08T07:50:00.001-05:00

Christmas party at the Children's museum

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12 days of Christmas day 3...

2011-12-05T07:45:00.000-05:00

Ornament reveal

Each of the boys got a new Christmas ornament. David got a golden snitch because he listened to the Harry Potter books this year. Jacob got a cowboy boot because he loves his boots. Bryan got a Lego Star Wars ship because he's obsessed with both. Rand got a little red car because he loves driving around in his little car. I got the ornaments from Etsy.

12 days of Christmas day 2...

2011-12-05T07:41:00.000-05:00

Paper snowflakes and hot chocolate

JOY TO THE WORLD...

2011-12-03T01:33:00.000-05:00

I came across this Hawk Nelson version of Joy to the World. The preview sounded a little rowdy, so I bought it, thinking it would appeal to my motley crew. I played it for the first time while we were decorating the tree and it ... exceeded my expectations. It's sung a capella. About halfway through the song, a man yelling in the background becomes progressively louder until he literally screams the last verse, solo. We all had a good laugh the first time we listened, but after hearing it, say 10-15 times a day since, I began to wonder why I find the song endearing. Seriously, how do you scream "Joy to the world, the Lord is come. Let earth receive her KING!!!" without being obnoxious and offensive Okay, it really is obnoxious, but, oddly, is not offensive. Then I realized why the song makes me smile. It's the musical embodiment of the love of a boy too young to try to be sophisticated but too old to kiss his mother without being manipulated. You know that age when a boy is just as goofy as he was at five but not quite as cute. When he's too big to jump on your back without injuring you but is even more compelled to do it.* Physically grating. Unseemly and inappropriate. Too much. But unfiltered and unbridled. Without pretense. Like King David dancing in his underwear. I love this song.

* Seriously, I think our money would be better spent if we passed on team sports and just hired someone to come over once a week and beat on the boys.

** Sometime around the 40th playing, the song further entrenched itself as the household h Christmas song of choice, when we deciphered someone yelling "Expecto patronum" in the background.

Christmas in household h...

2011-12-02T11:13:00.004-05:00

Sometime after we had David, I realized that our Christmas was a celebration of consumerism, with a little Jesus on the side. Seriously, it was the time of year I was least likely to be sensitive to the things of God. The Lent season was about recovering spiritually from Christmas. The issue is far from completely resolved, but we've made some changes each year and have come a long way, baby.

Here are a few

1. Complete Christmas gift purchases by Thanksgiving (mostly).

2. Finish family movie and photo calendar by Thanksgiving (Christmas gifts to the grandparents h from now to the end of time).

3. Make a gift plan for the kids. When I don't do this, I buy way too much. Right now ours is:
Stocking with small gift from Santa (or alternatively, inconvenient to wrap gift since Santa doesn't wrap gifts at household h)
1 fiction, 1 non fiction book
Large toy
Small toy
Gift of presence (last year Chris took David and Jacob skiing and I took the little guys on separate dates)
4. Celebrate advent at home. We have a great weekly family devotional for the advent season. We light the appropriate candles and sing the week's carol before meals.

5. Decorate only the parts of your house you feel like decorating. Do not guilt yourself (or anyone you may have married) into decorating anything.

This year we're celebrating the 12 days of Christmas as well. My good friend (who I miss terribly) Diane gave me this idea. I've picked 12 random days before Christmas. On these days, we'll do something fun together or do something for someone else. The boys know to look on the mantle each morning and see if there's a card announcing the day's activity. I'm going to try to blog these.

Day 1 was Tuesday. My parents gave each of the boys some money to pick out animals from Heifer. The animals go to help provide food and money for needy families.

All that, and I've still had my first Christmas freak out. We couldn't find a good place to get a Christmas tree Sunday night. I almost started hyperventilating. The Christmas plan included decorating the tree MONDAY. Any later date was entirely unacceptable. Work in progress.

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Thanksgiving day 5...

2011-11-26T12:06:00.001-05:00

We're at my in-laws now.
Chris and the little guys.

Maggie reading to Maggie

Marshmallow guns

Hide and seek

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Thanksgiving day 4...

2011-11-25T10:21:00.001-05:00

Hanging out on the patio

Aunt Judy playing with Rand

Bryan taught Lauren how to play Angry Birds

John taught Josie how to ride a bike

A disappointing Aggie game

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Thanksgiving day 3...

2011-11-24T08:32:00.001-05:00

The guys talking

Uncle David and Bryan

Gran's sleepover

Josie helping the boys build

Chris with our ring bearer who is definitely not five anymore :(

The cowboys, part 1

The cowboys, part 2

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Thanksgiving day 2...

2011-11-23T10:21:00.001-05:00

Family bike ride

John hooked the trail-a-bike, trailer and wagon to his bike.

Mom cooking

Karen studying with the little guys

J.T. devouring The Hunger Games

Dinner

Superstar

Rough housing

Rand going to work

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Thanksgiving day 1

2011-11-21T23:39:00.001-05:00

Bryan to Papa as he left for work: You look like a robber.

Papa playing chopsticks with David.

Jacob playing in the garage that Nana and Papa converted to a playroom. This room may save the lives of several of the grandchildren.

Nana snuggling Rand after his nap.

We're in love.

Gran scandalized Bryan by eating a mushroom. I don't like mushrooms, so I never cook them. In the original Babar book, the king of the elephants dies after eating poisonous mushrooms. So, my boys are a little shocked and concerned when people eat them.

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Boys and dads...

2011-11-19T08:02:00.000-05:00

Because I am still at that high demand stage of motherhood where solitude is a rare delicacy, I love watching the boys grow more and more attached to their dad. I'm sure that some day it'll cause me more angst.

I made cupcakes for Bryan's class for his birthday. There was only one left. He insisted on saving it for his dad (not, incidentally, his parent who woke up at 5:00 a.m. to make the cupcakes).

Jacob gets concerned about fathers in books and movies. We read a book about three brothers on a quest to find a cure for their grievously ill father. They meet all kinds of horrible obstacles on the way. At one point, I asked the boys what they thought would happen next. David and Bryan came up with some gruesome possibilities, but the worst thing Jacob could think of was that their dad might DIE (spoken in a grave and earnest voice). We watched The Lion King the other day, and Jacob cried when Mufasa died.

Chris has been spending time with the boys individually. He told Jacob he would take him to the batting cages.

Jacob: (running inside, wildly excited) Mommy, Daddy's going to take me to the batting cages (Jacob uses a lot of italics when he speaks).

Me: That's awesome buddy.

Jacob: What are batting cages?

Someday, too soon, I'm sure they're going to distance themselves from me in ways that are much more substantial, and I'll be crushed, but now, I see these boys, who were babies yesterday, idolizing this man who was a nineteen-year-old capturing my heart just the day before that, and it makes me smile.

Mercy...

2011-11-04T23:45:00.000-04:00

I took the boys to Miller Outdoor Theater to see a production of various nursery tales with audience participation. (The brothers h were the ones yelling, "GRENADES! GRENADES!" when the wolf asked for suggestions on how to blow down the pig's house.) I was organized (lunches and water bottles packed). I was early. I pulled into my parking spot 30 minutes before the show feeling smug. Then,

David: (worried) Mommy, I forgot my shoes.

Further evidence that God likes David: the first thought that came to my mind after I heaved a melodramatic sigh but before I spoke was this sentence from a book I'm reading on raising boys:*

What boys need most at this age is mercy.

This is a dangerous place to be as a parent - when your child does something...childish - personally annoying but not bad in terms of their character or intentions and understandable given their age. I worry sometimes that based on my reactions to them, my kids get the idea that this kind of childish behavior (pretend fighting in line at the grocery store, dropping a full bowl of soup on the floor, out of control splashing in the bathtub...) is a bigger deal than the character issues that are not as LOUD AND IN MY FACE DEMANDING A RESPONSE!

At about the same time I remembered that I forgot my shoes for a softball game when I was nine and that since the tender age of three and a half, when we brought Bryan home from the hospital, David has been dressing himself, putting on his shoes and coat, and buckling himself in the car, and this was the first time I remembered him forgetting something essential.

So Janet saved the day and picked up a pair of shoes for David on her way to meet us at the show, and I managed about 95% mercy, 5% irritation. While we waited for Janet, he apologized profusely and offered to pay me back for the shoes every few minutes in a way that made me glad I remembered mercy until...

David: (swatting) These mosquitoes are really annoying.

Me: I know. I meant to bring bug spray, and I forgot.

David: (shocked and annoyed) I can't believe you forgot the bug spray. I wish you didn't forget it.

Me: Seriously??? Do you want to continue this conversation?

* Wild Things, the Art of Nurturing Boys by Stephen James and David Thomas

Halloween, the rest of the story...

2011-11-01T10:35:00.000-04:00

My costume procrastination turned out to be a mistake. The costume bin is in the attic. The attic is locked. I have a vague memory of setting the key somewhere and thinking, "I should put this up. I'm not going to remember where I set this." I didn't. I was right. I have no idea where the key is. So, this ended with me frantically searching the dress up bin for something that would fit Rand. I finally settled on Bryan's Superman pajamas.

Halloween was a little conflicting for Rand. While a huge fan of candy, he was not so excited about having to approach strange grownups. At the first house he spent some time sucking his thumb halfway up the sidewalk. Finally he decided the candy was worth the risk but didn't want to leave the candy bowl once he got there. He got his Halloween groove eventually, though. He dragged his blankie to a few of the houses.

Household h has an extra boy this week. Our friend, Nicholas, is staying with us this week while his parents are picking up his new baby sister in Africa. I'm trying a new rule this year. Today is a candy free-for-all. They can have as much candy as they want today (with some required fruit and cheese thrown in here and there). Then after bed time tonight, I'm trashing everything. Nicholas has taken it as a personal challenge. He is determined to eat ALL of his candy today. I asked that he please try to make it to a toilet if he throws up.

I wish I could say that this rule is inspired by my dental health concerns. Really it's based on the reality that I'll steal an absurd amount of their good candy. I just can't live in the same house with chocolate. I'm not that person who can set out a candy dish and take one piece a day.

Definitely the fourth kid...

2011-10-31T17:41:00.000-04:00

It's 4:40 on Halloween. We're leaving for a party in about half an hour. I still have no idea what my toddler will be. I guess it's time to pull out the costume bin. He's definitely the fourth kid.

FDBC*

2011-10-30T17:18:00.000-04:00

In our continuing and unending search for a church, I've finally realized that we do care about denomination more than I thought. When we started this search, I said I didn't care so much about denomination. It's still not a deal breaker for me and we've visited several denominations. It's been interesting and we've been to some great churches. I still haven't been to a church and had the sense that this is our church home like I have in the past. Who knows, maybe that won't happen this time. We might just need to choose something. In all the visiting, though, I've realized that I'm more Baptist than I thought. I'm not saying that Baptists are right and everyone else is wrong. Actually I'd prefer to be in a church that doesn't do some of the traditional Baptist stuff. I can just tell that those are my people - where I came from. Dallas Willard, in The Great Omission, I think, said that he was on a plane once, and because he grew up Baptist, he could just tell he was on a plane full of Baptists. They had a certain look.

We visited a great church of a different denomination this morning, and it didn't seem like the one. In talking it over with Chris on the way home, I realized that I'm a disgruntled Baptist. I think I'm looking for a church that's basically Baptist but rolls its eyes at some of the traditional Baptist stuff - the church culture stuff, not the essentials. So how do I google that?

*First Disgruntled Baptist Church

Remember...

2011-10-19T23:06:00.000-04:00

I had a homeschool freak-out last week. The kids weren't even that out of control. But the house was a mess, Rand was cranky, I was overly committed to the day's list of schoolwork, I saw another sentence written in unreasonably messy handwriting and suddenly all of my reasons to homeschool seemed ... entirely insufficient. I texted Chris that I was done with homeschooling. He called, spoke softly to me and suggested I call my homeschool sage, Mary. Mary, who was hours away from leaving for Rwanda to pick up her newly adopted daughter but still let me be completely self-involved for an hour, also spoke softly, helped me remember why I'm doing this and made a few small but crucial suggestions. This week has been so much better. So, when my freak-out (inevitably) hits again, I'd like to remind myself that we've had some really good days lately...

David spent a lot of time on The Dangerous Book for Boys today.

David made this 3D paper model of a boat today during our History reading.

The boys built forts while we read our books. We started Treasure Island and Alice's Adventures in Wonderland today and read one of my favorite picture books, Don Quixote and the Windmills.

In case I someday get overly nostalgic, I'd also like to remind myself that this...

is representative of what the entire house looks like every afternoon.

Four year old essentials...

2011-10-17T20:41:00.001-04:00

We were talking to the boys about the Bible recently. We told them to imagine there was a boy living on a desert island who had never heard of America, never seen a TV or a computer,... They each had a blank book and we asked them to write in it all the most important things about life in America. David and Jacob weren't feeling this activity so much, but Bryan worked tirelessly until he had written:

STAR WARS IS AWESOME
COOKIES ARE YUMMY

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Lego day of jubilee...

2011-10-06T17:49:00.000-04:00

Legos play a substantial role in the household h. They function as currency, symbols of power and skill and are the subject of much of our drama. A few weeks ago, the whole Lego balance was completely destabilized by the grandparents h. Until recently our Lego economy had one superpower - David. He controlled all the best Lego sets but was mostly benevolent with the developing nations - Jacob and Bryan. Then Mimi and Granddaddy and Nana and Papa gave Bryan several new Lego sets. It was like somebody gave Cuba nuclear weapons. The power went to his head. He would occasionally let David and Jacob play with his new sets but would demand everything back at random. It was chaos for a few days until he got bored with torturing his brothers and the new Lego world order became stabilized once again.

The Lego drawers have been kind of sad for a few weeks, so we declared today Lego Day of Jubilee. Everyone had to disassemble all of their Lego creations (except a few favorites and the ones that came as sets). We sorted everything, and they're starting over.

Before...

The sorting...

After...

Going nil...

2011-10-05T17:35:00.001-04:00

Bryan dressed himself this morning.

When I turned everything around, I found his Batman underwear facing the wrong way, too.

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Wimpy and self-involved...

2011-09-30T17:11:00.000-04:00

There's really nothing like a sibling relationship to reveal how petty and self involved you are. My brother has had a rough battle with thyroid cancer, so I had to get checked out, and when the doctor found a nodule on my thyroid, I had to make an appointment for a biopsy. That appointment has been on the horizon for a few months, but, somehow, miraculously, I avoided thinking about it until the nurse called me back for the procedure. Then the nurse announced that

1. There would be no pain medication - not even topical anesthetic - because the pain from the skin puncture was negligible compared to the pain of jabbing a needle into my thyroid.
2. The doctor would need to stab me in the neck (maybe she didn't use those exact words) at least three, possibly five separate times.

Suddenly I realized that

1. This was actually a nightmare scenario for a number of reasons.
2. Having a sibling with cancer is really annoying.*

When I get blood drawn, I come close to hyperventilating. I can't look at any of the equipment. During my last pregnancy, the nurse drawing my blood noticed my distress and asked sympathetically, "Oh, this is your first pregnancy?" I had to admit sheepishly that it was my sixth. (Pause here for a moment and imagine those last few days of my pregnancy with Bryan when I knew he was breech and I'd have to have a C-section. I requested an ultrasound in the operating room just to make sure he hadn't flipped over at the last second. I asked for a sedative. Doctor: We don't like newborns to be sedated when they're first learning to breathe.) Couple this irrational fear of needles with the fact that I think necks are gross. There are veins and collar bones sticking out and...ick. After this whole ordeal I even got a little nauseous pulling the bandaid off my neck.

So, these realities came together for me as I was lying on the table. I wasn't sympathizing with my poor brother, who has had a couple of hairy surgeries and a very difficult recovery. I was thinking, "I'm 35. He's 33, and he still annoys me." It actually didn't hurt at all, but the grossness of the situation undid me. I sat up afterward and started to black out. The room started to darken. The doctor sounded like she was at the other end of a tunnel. They had to give me juice and crackers - to recover from the psychological damage of a medical procedure that hurt less than a blood draw. Ridiculous!

* John is doing much better.

** The official results aren't in, but the doctor is 99.9% sure that my nodule is not cancer.

Biking weekend...

2011-09-26T10:53:00.001-04:00

It's been a biking weekend. The grown ups did the Big Dam Bridge ride Saturday.

I was looking for organized rides in Houston and found the Tour de Donut, which may be the awesomest bike ride ever. Its a competitive ride. You ride 28 miles, and you get to subtract 5 minutes for every donut consumed on the ride. The winner last year had a finishing time of about 5 minutes. His actual time was about 2 hours. He ate about 20 donuts and thus beat the losers who finished in an hour and a half but ate no donuts. Here are Chris and I discussing strategy.

Mom, Dad and I took the brothers on a family ride yesterday. David rode his bike. Rand rode in the trailer. Jacob and Bryan took turns between the trailer and the trail-a-bike. I discovered that riding over the Big Dam Bridge pulling 100 pounds of kid is an entirely different experience from riding it on your own.

Here are some pictures from the trip.

Bryan insists on wearing his jersey backwards so he can put toys in the pockets.

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Vacation...

2011-09-21T06:06:00.001-04:00

Someday I'll want my vacation to include something more than a decent hotel room and a stack of good books, but not now. I'm reveling in solitude and laziness.

* So far the Flannery O'Connor collection and Prep get an enthusiastic two thumbs up, and The Uncoupling gets an unenthusiastic ehhh - not bad.

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NYC day 1...

2011-09-18T10:46:00.001-04:00

Chris and I are headed to NYC alone.

Comatose Rand on the way to Mimi and Grandaddy.

The boys hiding their eyes during the kissing part of Star Wars episode 2.

Chris sitting in an empty terminal after his dad and I insisted on getting to the airport 30 minutes earlier than he thought necessary.

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Yellow journalism...

2011-09-16T08:27:00.000-04:00

David made a newspaper last week. Here are the stories...

"Explosions at 11:30"
Today at 11:30 there was a explosion at Fall Creek near the swimming pool. 31 people were killed at the attack. We think that Bryan Husband caused the crime. Later at Ashburn Virginia there was a fire. We think that Jacob Husband caused the crime.

"Serious Crime"
Today at Fall Creek Jacob stole a credit card. We think that Bryan Husband is helping him. At the bank Jacob and Bryan Husband robbed it and stole $6000.

"Attackers"
Jacob Husband
Bryan Husband

To everything, turn, turn, turn...

2011-09-07T12:34:00.001-04:00

Bad choice yesterday: Starting science after Rand had already started his meltdown, resulting in my meltdown. Anything we learned about electrons was probably not worth it.

Good choice yesterday: Playing with Rand instead of trimming the roses. We dropped handfuls of leaves and flowers and watched them float to the ground. I want to relish this season with him when gravity is fascinating and hilarious.

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Dostoevsky...

2011-09-03T15:13:00.000-04:00

Dostoevsky

against the wall, the firing squad ready.
then he got a reprieve.
suppose they had shot Dostoevsky?
before he wrote all that?
I suppose it wouldn't have
mattered
not directly.
there are billions of people who have
never read him and never
will.
but as a young man I know that he
got me through the factories,
past the whores,
lifted me high through the night
and put me down
in a better
place.
even while in the bar
drinking with the other
derelicts,
I was glad they gave Dostoevsky a
reprieve,
it gave me one,
allowed me to look directly at those
rancid faces
in my world,
death pointing its finger,
I held fast,
an immaculate drunk
sharing the stinking dark with
my
brothers.

Charles Bukowski

Historical note:
Fyodor Dostoevsky was sentenced to execution for his participation in a politically liberal group. He was blindfolded and led to his execution. As he was literally facing the firing squad, the Czar commuted his sentence to hard labor in Siberia.

Taking back my ticket...

2011-09-02T16:21:00.000-04:00

I'm reading The Brothers Karamazov and falling in love with it all over again. So brace yourselves, the next few posts may be Karamazovian. I came across this passage that is a beautifully stated argument against the existence of a benevolent and powerful God. Really it's not so much

Evil in the world -> There is no God

Evil in the world -> There is a kind of God I don't care to participate with

I think it's a beautiful argument for the seriousness of sin and why love must imply judgement, why the cross was necessary. But, I'm getting ahead of myself. Here Ivan Karamazov is explaining to his brother, Alyosha, a devout believer, why he cannot accept God. He refers to a peasant boy who was caught playing with a landowner's dog. The man had the boy torn to pieces by dogs in front of his mother.

Listen: if everyone must suffer, in order to buy eternal harmony with their suffering, pray tell me what have children got to do with it? ... I understand solidarity in sin among men; solidarity in retribution I also understand; but what solidarity in sin do little children have? And if it is really true that they, too, are in solidarity with their fathers in all the father's evildoings, that truth certainly is not of this world and is incomprehensible to me. Some joker will say, perhaps, that in any case the child will grow up and have time enough to sin, but there's this boy who didn't grow up but was torn apart by dogs at the age of eight... You see, Alyosha, it may well be that if I live until that moment, or rise again to see it, I myself will perhaps cry out with all the rest, looking at the mother embracing her child's tormentor: 'Just art thou, O Lord!' but I do not want to cry out with them. While there's still time, I hasten to defend myself against it, and therefore I absolutely renounce all higher harmony... I want to forgive, and I want to embrace, I do not want more suffering. And if the suffering of children goes to make up the sum of suffering needed to buy truth, then I assert beforehand that the whole of truth is not worth such a price. I do not want, finally, for the mother to embrace the tormentor who let his dogs tear her son to pieces! She dare not forgive him! Let her forgive him for herself if she wants to, let her forgive the tormentor her immeasurable maternal suffering; but she has no right to forgive the suffering of her child who was torn to pieces, she dare not forgive the tormentor, even if the child himself were to forgive him! And if that if so, if they dare not forgive, then where is the harmony? Is there a being in the whole world who could and would have the right to forgive? I don't want harmony, for love of mankind I don't want it. I want to remain with my unrequited suffering and my unquenched indignation, even if I am wrong. Besides, they have put too high a price on harmony; we can't afford to pay so much for admission. And therefore I hasten to return my ticket... It's not that I don't accept God, Alyosha, I just most respectfully return him the ticket.

That's how I felt after we lost Ellie. "God, your world sucks. I return my ticket. I don't care to participate." But the gospel - that a price was paid, paid by God, for any horrible thing that ever happened to me (also for any horrible thing I ever did or that happened to someone else, but those things don't cause me this kind of angst). God paying the price makes the difference. So, I've snatched back my ticket, though with a disgruntled attitude at times.

When I read this passage what struck me most is that it's a beautifully written argument for the justice of God. God cannot just forgive. He wouldn't be good. His goodness implies his justice. Horrible things happen, and they require a response, a payment. In Reason for God, Tim Keller quotes Miroslav Volf, a Croation who lived through the violence in the Balkans. He said:

If God were not angry at injustice and deception and did not make a final end to violence - that God would not be worthy of worship... It takes the quiet of a suburban home for the birth of the thesis than human non-violence [results from the belief in] God's refusal to judge. In a sun-scorched land, soaked in the blood of the innocent, it will invariably die... [with] other pleasant captivities of the liberal mind.

It feels nicer to believe in a God who forgives, regardless, but, deep in my soul, I don't think it's safe, and I don't think it's true.

My kind of alien...

2011-08-29T17:35:00.001-04:00

Jacob is really into Calvin and Hobbes lately. I turned around in the kitchen this morning and found...

Jacob: (computer voice) I am a X3-180 alien from Jupiter. Give me all the chocolate in your frigerator.

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Toddler rage...

2011-08-25T14:06:00.000-04:00

My sister-in-law told me a story about working in the toddler nursery at church. There were a lot of kids that morning and she and the other worker tried to figure out what to do to keep them entertained. They decided to bring out the little plastic toddler roller coaster. It was a disaster. The kid who was on it loved it - it was the greatest thing they'd ever experienced. But then they had to get off and let someone else have a turn. Standing in line and taking turns is mostly incomprehensible to toddlers (which is why I will not go to Disney World with my kids when they are between 1 and 3). At any given time they had one child who was thrilled and 14 who were screaming with rage.

We had a similar phenomenon here a few nights ago. David was giving the boys rides around the house on Rand's little push car. During Rand's turn, he loved it. He smiled. He laughed. He cooed and babbled. Then it was someone else's turn.

He screamed with unbridled rage. David had to peel him off.

He chased the car screeching and shaking his fist.

Then it was his turn again, and he plopped himself on the car and started giggling again.

Eventually they decided to move to two drivers because my six- and eight-year-olds have more compassion than their heartless mother who just grabs the camera.

Spit shield...

2011-08-22T14:56:00.000-04:00

Lately, when we put the boys to bed, Bryan asks for a kiss with a caveat...

Bryan: Will you give me a kiss - but not on the wips.
Me: Why not?
Bryan: (disgust) Cause dat's wike Anakin and Padme.

Armed with this knowledge, Chris and I have been teasing Bryan. We grab him and kiss him all over his face - like Anakin and Padme. He laughs that crooked-mouth laugh I love.

We were all in the living room the other day and I was threatening to kiss Bryan. Jacob was agreeing with him about the grossness of his situation. I looked at David and could see the conflict on his face: I could kiss my brothers - it would be gross, but it would torture them. What to do, what to do... Eventually he decided to kiss Jacob. Jacob started freaking out. I suggested he turn the situation around with something along the lines of, "Ha, ha, you kissed my sweaty face." As Jacob and Bryan were planning a kissing counterattack against David, David started frantically licking his hands and wiping them all over himself, yelling, "Shield! Shield!"

And, I picked up Rand, kissed him all over his face and wondered how many more years before he starts activating spit shields and complaining about Anakin/Padme kisses.

Confidence...

2011-08-21T18:31:00.000-04:00

Bryan: Mommy, after reading time, I'm going to teach you to count to infinity.

Me: OK, sounds great.

Bryan: But I need you to help me with one...ummm... 1, 2, 3,..., 14, 16, 17

Me: Wait, 14, 15, 16

Bryan: I need you to help me with 15.

420 seconds...

2011-08-11T16:31:00.000-04:00

I shaved about ten years off my life today. I was working with David and Jacob on their schoolwork. Bryan and Rand were playing upstairs. I hadn't heard from them in a while, but deciding whether to go check is a real dilemma. If they're playing constructively and well and then Rand sees me, it's all over. He'll be back downstairs trying to scribble in a spelling book, open the dry erase markers, tear up math pages,... So, I eventually went up to help Bryan in the bathroom and there was no toddler noise. I walked through all the rooms upstairs calling for him - no Rand. I ran downstairs and checked - no Rand. I told David and Jacob to run look outside and make sure he hadn't gotten out - no Rand. It took about a minute to confirm that he wasn't in any of the usual places. Now I'm really beginning to wonder if this is the new beginning of the rest of my life. Rand is not in any usual place and my house is without toddler noise, ergo, Rand is gone or unconscious somewhere in the house or backyard. I sent David out on his bike to look in the neighborhood. I sent Jacob next door to get my neighbor to go drive and look. Bryan decided on his own to make him a sippy cup of milk to try to lure him back home. I called 911. As soon as I started talking to adults, I freaked out. The 911 dispatcher tried to calm me down,

911: I really need you to calm down. This is our number one priority. We have units on the way. What is he wearing?

Me: (Holy shit, units. This is serious.) I can't remember. I think a gray shirt and red shorts, but that could be wrong. All I know for sure is that he's barefoot. (I was wrong - blue shirt, no pants. Epic fail as helpful eyewitness. The gray shirt/red shorts outfit is what I had planned to put on him but never got around to it.)

911: (Probably trying to ask me a question I know the answer to as she's already gotten his age) When is his birthday...

While they were transferring me to someone else, I found him. He was asleep on Jacob's top bunk with blankets on top of him. A policeman stopped by and talked me down. He said they already had seven cars on the way. I love that. An adult has to be missing for what - 48 hours or so. For a toddler, if you look for 60 seconds and can't find them, you can have seven policemen in route.

Chris and Rand are the only ones without emotional scars from this morning. Chris didn't get my first text message until he got the second saying I found him. It actually really worked out well for Rand. We doted on him for the rest of the morning. After we found him, David told me he was really scared while he was on his bike looking for Rand. He said he was worried Rand got lost because he's not a good enough big brother and hadn't protected him. (How's that for firstborn pressure?) He saw a red car drive by and was afraid it had hit Rand and had his blood all over it. Jacob was worried he got out where a car could bump into him. Bryan was scared that a robber stole him or someone killed him. After we found him, Bryan wanted to pretend we really lost him and he went to Virginia or China or Arctica (some cross between Antarctica and the Arctic, I think). We scrapped school for the rest of the day, ordered pizza (an absolute requirement in times of stress) and watched the Pink Panther.

When I meet new people who find out that we homeschool the boys, I very often hear:

What do you do with the younger kids while you're teaching the older ones?

Responding with

Well, sometimes I lose them and have to call 911.

probably won't do a lot for my laid back, experienced mother of four image.

Bullet point book reviews...

2011-08-09T23:23:00.000-04:00

I've read some good books lately and am probably not going to get around to writing real reviews, so here's a quick a list:

Velva Jean Learns to Drive - This is about a young girl in the Appalachian mountains in the 1930s. I don't agree with some of the book's overall message, but it was a good read.

Parrot and Olivier - This is a great book. It's not a light read. It's beautifully written. It's a fictionalized version of Alexis de Tocqueville's life. It bounces back and forth from the perspective of the Tocqueville character, Olivier, and his servant Parrot. I love the exploration of what is beautiful and right about America alongside what is crass and overdone. It's also a subtle study of class difference. It makes me want to read Democracy in America.

Skin Hunger - This is a freaky book - like a cross between The Hunger Games, The Road and Room. I wouldn't say I enjoyed it as much as I was intrigued - enough to order the sequel.

Reason for God - If I could ever compare a book to Mere Christianity, this would be it. I love Tim Keller's style. I love that he almost never overstates his case and that he has great respect for the person who doesn't believe.

Imperfect Birds - Traveling Mercies and Operating Instructions, also by Anne Lamott, are two of my favorite books, so I started this Anne Lamott novel with great hopes and wasn't disappointed. As it follows the story of a teenage girl with a drug problem, this is a great book for a mother of all boys. I can delude myself into thinking only girls cause their parents this kind of trauma. On the other hand, the girl's manipulation of her parents sounded uncomfortably familiar - just make the topic why I didn't clean my room when you clearly told me to instead of why I failed a urine drug test. Hmmmm...

Being four...

2011-08-08T22:35:00.000-04:00

We sat out on the patio tonight with the boys after dark...

(Kids laughing at a backyard neighbor's house)

Bryan: I'm going to go see who's making all that noise.

David: I hope Big Foot doesn't get you.

Bryan: (90% confidence, 10% fear) David, I know you're wrong. Big Foot lives in Nathan's barn (their cousin who lives a few hours a way and recently spent a few days with us).

David: No, remember, Nathan said he saw Big Foot leaving his house and heading here. He said Big Foot likes to eat kids who sleep in top bunks with a crib underneath. (Bryan is the only kid among all the cousins who has those sleeping arrangements).

(Chris and I finally stop snickering like junior high children and intervene.)

Me: Bryan, there's no Big Foot in the yard. You can go.

Bryan: No, I'll stay here.

Me: Do you want me to go with you?

Bryan: (unsure) Okay. (Grabs my hand. We walk two feet into the grass.) I'm all done.

Mobile and unreasonable...

2011-08-04T22:04:00.000-04:00

What do you do with a mobile and unreasonable toddler when your house in covered in wet paint and it's 120 degrees outside?
Baths. Lots of baths.

This is Rand saying, "Please, for the love of all things holy, let me out of this bathtub."

Empathy gone awry...

2011-08-03T18:14:00.000-04:00

Every strength has a dark side - even the ones that seem innocuous. Take empathy for instance. How can empathy bite back? Well, I recently read Velva Jean Learns to Drive, a wonderful book by the way. The heroine is a gifted singer and songwriter. Her husband is not a bad man, but belittles her and tries to keep her from singing. Reading this book, I started to wonder, was I born to sing and write songs? Is Chris stifling me? Then I remembered the one and only song I've ever written:

Summer is Right, Chris is Wrong

Summer is right, Chris is wrong
Wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong.

Sing these words repeatedly to any tune, as long as it's over a broad range and with some weird operatic action.

Also, I remembered that my main creative outlet right now is this blog, and he's the one who convinced me to start it.

Birthdays...

2011-08-01T22:33:00.000-04:00

When I left home for college at the tender age of 18, I had no idea that I would never again live with another person who cared as much about my birthday or pampered me so thoroughly when I was sick. It took several years, but eventually I accepted this and moved on.

Last week my friend Janet and I took our kids to the museum, and afterward she invited us over for lunch. Imagine my surprise when I found this...

Smile.

Coming untrue...

2011-07-26T11:31:00.000-04:00

(Sort of "What isn't the answer, part 2) Later in Reason for God, Keller says

The Biblical view of things is resurrection - not a future that is just a consolation for the life we never had but a restoration of the life you always wanted. This means that every horrible thing that ever happened will not only be undone and repaired but will in some way make the eventual glory and joy even greater.

Just after the climax of the trilogy The Lord of the Rings, Sam Gamgee discovers that his friend Gandalf was not dead (as he thought) but alive. He cries, "I thought you were dead! But then I thought I was dead myself! Is everything sad going to come untrue?" The answer of Christianity to that question is - yes. Everything sad is going to come untrue and it will somehow be greater for having once been broken and lost.

Having children after having struggled is a microcosm of that truth. I occasionally look in wonder at my living children in a way that would not be possible had I not been convinced for so long that this joy would never be mine. Sometimes, not often enough, when things get frantic around here, it makes me smile to think that Chris and I have, perhaps, more children than we can handle. During the dark times, in my wildest dreams, I never would have imagined it. God has been openhanded with me.

Lift up your eyes and look around;
   all your children gather and come to you.
As surely as I live,” declares the LORD,
   “you will wear them all as ornaments;
   you will put them on, like a bride.

¹⁹ “Though you were ruined and made desolate
and your land laid waste,
now you will be too small for your people,
and those who devoured you will be far away.

²⁰ The children born during your bereavement
   will yet say in your hearing,
‘This place is too small for us;
   give us more space to live in.’
²¹ Then you will say in your heart,
   ‘Who bore me these?
I was bereaved and barren;
   I was exiled and rejected.
   Who brought these up?
I was left all alone,
   but these—where have they come from?’”
Isaiah 49:18-21

This is from Gilead, one of my favorite books. This quote is in a letter from a dying father, who lost his first wife and newborn, to the young son he never expected to have.

I'd never have believed I'd see a wife of mine doting on a child of mine. It still amazes me every time I think of it. I'm writing this in part to tell you that if you ever wonder what you've done in your life, and everyone does wonder sooner or later, you have been God's grace to me, a miracle, something more than a miracle. You may not remember me very well at all, and it may seem to you to be no great thing to have been the good child of an old man in a shabby little town you will no doubt leave behind. If only I had the words to tell you.*

*This is my offical internet notice that I want someone to read this to my children at my funeral.

What the answer isn't...

2011-07-24T21:24:00.000-04:00

Eleven years ago, my firstborn son died an hour after he was born. Two years later we lost our next child, named Ellie, about five months into my pregnancy. Losing Caleb was a spiritual crisis for me. I had to face doubts I didn't know I had about the existence of God. With a lot of support I worked through that and I believe God answered me. That process was a blessing, but it was exhausting - spiritually and emotionally. Then we lost Ellie, and I felt like after I'd just clawed my way out of a deep pit, God walked up and kicked me in the face and knocked me right back in. Whether or not he existed, I did not care. I was done. A few months later I was running and thinking through giving up. I thought, "I've got to get it together. I can't give up. That would kill Chris, and it would kill my parents. They've done so much for me and have loved me so well through this." Then I had a thought that I believe came from God: "How much do Chris and your parents love you??? How much do I love you. I sent Jesus to die on a cross for you, and you've completely discounted that."

That was the beginning of a slow softening and shift for me. Jesus changes everything. I didn't understand why God would allow this to happen to me again, but I began to rest in the assurance that I'm loved - and by a God who didn't spare himself. Jesus makes the things okay that are not okay.

I started Reason for God by Tim Keller this week (fantastic so far) and it's brought that truth back. Here's a quote:

If we again ask the question: "Why does God allow evil and suffering to continue?" and we look at the cross of Jesus, we still do not know what the answer is. However, we now know what the answer isn't. It can't be that he doesn't love us.

Peace.

Haircut hole in my heart...

2011-07-21T22:03:00.000-04:00

I'm constantly and irrationally on the lookout for subtle issues that my kids might someday reveal in therapy as the symbol of their maternal wound. I keep Bryan's hair longer than David's or Jacob's because it's slightly curly, and I think curly hair on little boys is so cute. Last week, it was haircut day. I put Bryan on the bar stool and it suddenly struck me that this had Mommy wound potential - "She gave my brothers cool soldier haircuts, but I had to have long, floppy hair."

Me: Bryan, do you want a short haircut like David and Jacob, or do you want me to just cut yours a little?

Bryan: (with enthusiasm) I want a pirate haircut with the front part going over my eye like a eye patch.

Me: (No signs of a wound, so manipulate him into the haircut you want.) David and Jacob's haircut takes longer.

Bryan: I want the one that takes shorter.

Me: (Yes!)

Man parts and the museum of fine art...

2011-07-18T11:02:00.001-04:00

I took the boys to the art museum last week. My usual strategy is to take a camera and let them take turns taking pictures. That quickly fell apart when they noticed the nude sculptures. They couldn't stop giggling over the bare butts - time to move on to Creation Station, where volunteers set up art supplies and instructions. Well the day's project was sculpture. You can imagine where this is going. They weren't accurate enough on the rear ends for me to worry about it, but when the 6-8 year old crowd tries to sculpt man parts, the result is disturbing (think of those ancient sculptures with absurd anatomy). Praise the Lord, they soon lost interest doing Play Doh porn and moved on to zombie sculpture, which you never see among the ancient greats but is much less disturbing to the artists' mothers.

The museum had fabulous children's programs. After the adventures in sculpting, we moved on to storybook art. We got mats, a picture book and a card with questions about the piece. The boys laid down on their mats (David was almost too cool for it :( ) while I read them a story from the same country as the piece and asked them questions. Then we searched the exhibit for the item we'd (theoretically) like to take home. There was headhunter equipment and a large selection of weapons, so it was a tough decision for them.

Last was Art Detective. We searched for the week's featured artwork and did some drawing activities. Next an artist gave a very hands on explanation. This week's piece was a sculpture of a Central American ball player. The loser of the "game" was offered as a ritual sacrifice - hugely popular with my bloodthirsty crowd. After the museum, I bought them cokes, chips and candy. That's my highbrow way of encouraging the arts.

So, as it involves gore, bare butts and gas station food, the Museum of Fine Art is now a destination of choice for the brothers h. They're very cultured children.

Love is...

2011-07-15T23:44:00.000-04:00

There are lots of things about marriage that must be learned but can't be taught. One that comes to mind is - marriage is hard. A few weeks before my wedding I remember telling my uncle - "I believe you - it's just that I don't see how it's going to be hard. We're so in love." Fourteen years later, the how is truly clear.

Another one of those truths learned only by experience is families are different. Remember those first few months - from how to fold the towels to whether the bed should be made every day, there's a lot of family culture difference to work out. I think the minor things reveal themselves early on, but the bigger stuff can take years to work out - whether sarcasm is funny or just hurtful, exactly what one is saying by leaving clothes on the floor, ...

One of those big things for us is how you show love. My family is a hugging, "I love you" group. My in-laws are do-ers. My father-in-law has driven me back and forth across the eastern U.S., often through the night, because he doesn't want me to have to drive the kids alone. (If my grandmother were not so Baptist, she would have petitioned the pope for his sainthood for this.) He's built me a patio, put up crown molding, finished my basement, installed screen doors, built a bunk bed, ...

And now...

Love is building (beautiful, huge, will hold every book I could possibly want to own in my lifetime*) bookshelves for your bibliophile daughter-in-law.

* Probably
** The boys got to help here and there. They loved it. They think Grandaddy can build anything.

Tour de Papa...

2011-07-13T23:06:00.000-04:00

Last weekend, for the first time in almost 15 years, I got together with just my parents and my brothers. We surprised my dad for his 60th birthday. The trip included all the major elements necessary for a Shelley family vacation: radical lack of moderation, mayhem and a lot of love...

Lack of moderation: We rode 60 miles to celebrate his 60th birthday. I'm glad I didn't know ahead of time about the two monster bridges.

Mayhem: (1) It's just not a Shelley vacation without a last minute change of plans. About two days before the trip we decided to meet a day early. (2) John very graciously brought a road bike for me. Aaron called me on their way to joke around and say they brought me a unicycle. Then, a few minutes later, they realized that was exactly what they'd done. They had left one wheel behind. There were no open bike shops around. John found a place further on down the road willing to take his credit card over the phone and leave the wheel outside in a trash bag.

This is right after we surprised him.

A lot of love: We surprised Dad on a bike trail Friday morning. He and Mom were riding toward us. John, Aaron and I rode 3 abreast and said hello. Dad said, "Good morning," and then told Mom what nice young people those were. John: "Wow, Dad really is getting old." When he realized it was us, he was overwhelmed. That may be the happiest I've seen my Dad.

The ride was amazing. We rode River Rd. along the Mississippi River passing beautiful churches, massive live oaks and plantations from another time. Because my brothers know no strangers, we met some characters. There was a Cajun man with his grandson who gave us water. He said he likes to be prepared. He travels with water, MREs and his pistol. I think the little boy would have gone home with John. John and Aaron came up on a homeless guy on a bike. He complained about the headwind and they drafted him for a few miles. Next we met a Cajun policeman who is a cyclist. He talked bikes with us for a while. A few miles down the road, there were a couple of cars behind us. We heard our Cajun officer on his megaphone: PLEASE PASS THE CYCLISTS SAFELY IN THE OTHER LANE.

It was HOT!

Mile 45 - 55 nearly ended me, but then I got my groove back and avoided shaming myself by not keeping up with my 55 and 60 year old parents on a bike ride.

In front of Oak Alley Plantation at the end of our ride.

That night we went to New Orleans for dinner where Dad could have done without the walk down Bourbon St., and John searched fruitlessly for a post bike ride ass transplant.

It was a perfect weekend. Here's hoping I'm young enough at 60 to do that ride again.

Eleven years...

2011-07-08T09:00:00.001-04:00

The Lord gives and the Lord takes away; may the name of the Lord be praised.

*You can see Caleb's grave from that swing.

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July 6...

2011-07-06T10:20:00.002-04:00

The big boys are upstairs ostensibly cleaning up Legos. It's making me appreciate the fact that Rand can't talk.

Diseased and unclean...

2011-07-06T08:22:00.000-04:00

We visited a church on Sunday. I hated it. I wrote out a blog post and told Chris about it. He said, "You're being harsh. You're going to regret posting that. Why don't you wait a few days." I thought he was wrong, but he has this annoying habit of being right when he says I'm being judgmental, so I waited. Yesterday morning I read this in a commentary on Leviticus about the process for priests judging whether a person with a skin inflammation is clean or unclean:

It is a work of great importance but of great difficulty to judge of our spiritual state: we have all cause to suspect ourselves (emphasis added), being conscious to ourselves of sores and spots, but whether clean or unclean is the question...The priest must not make the judgement rashly but must take his time.

Later that afternoon we drove by the church and one of the boys said, "There goes the dumbest church ever."*

Yikes.

Dear Unnamed Church,

I'm sorry for obsessing and ranting over your speck while the plank in my own eye remained fixed and free from commentary. Also thank you for the life memory. I will never forget sitting next to my serene Methodist mother-in-law when you requested we lift up our hands and shout. If my life ever flashes before my eyes, that will be one of the scenes.

*My criticisms were, unfortunately, not confined to the pen.

Moments with Bryan...

2011-06-30T17:49:00.000-04:00

Bryan: My burfday is two days before Hawoween.
Me: That's right. It's October 29, 2006. You're going to learn that as part of your school next year.
Bryan: That does NOT sound wike interesting schoolwork.

__________

Bryan: (runs up to me and holds dripping paper over my arm). Mommy, Mommy it's an emergency.
Me: (trying to take in the situation)
Bryan: The Rat-A-Tat-Cat instructions fell in the potty.
Me: (brain trying to tell mouth to yell "Get it away from me!")
Bryan: Also I peed on it.
Me: TAKE IT TO THE TRASH!!!

Things I should have said no to today...

2011-06-27T22:20:00.000-04:00

1. At the self checkout line at Kroger: "Can we help you scan everything?" I don't think it's necessary to describe what went down.

2. "I want you to make the Pokemon cake with the stripes." This is the downside to a sunny disposition. You never think it's going to be a big deal. An hour into those stripes, I was really wishing I'd said, "But green is your favorite color. Wouldn't you rather have a green background?"

What I actually said no to:

I hated to break his heart. He crawled up between them and they put a seatbelt on him. He had such hopes.

The Hunger Games...

2011-06-25T11:56:00.001-04:00

The Hunger Games had been sitting on my shelf for a few months - ever since I bought it after reading an intriguing review at Semicolon's Saturday Review. I picked it up last week, and thirty pages in thought (a) "I can't believe I left this sitting on the shelf for months. This is a great book." and (b) "I must go get the sequels today because finishing this book without having them on hand is unacceptable."

Before reading any further, I have to say that I really enjoyed reading the book without having any idea what it was about. As Jacob would say, "I'm a really good forgetter." I completely forgot the review and didn't read the back cover.* So if you trust me, stop here, read the book, then come back and read the review.

This post-apocalyptic book is set in Panem, built on the ruins of the former United States. The Capitol, which smacks of ancient Rome, is peopled by a self-obsessed, shamelessly decadent group that is almost entirely without empathy for the residents of the outlying Districts. As punishment for their historic rebellion against the Capitol, each District is forced to hold a reaping every year, a la Crete and Athens in the story of the Minotaur, in which one boy and one girl will be randomly selected to fight to the death in the Hunger Games. Twenty-four kids enter and one survives. The games are televised for the entertainment of the Capitol and as a reminder to the Districts of the consequences of rebellion.

The heroine is Katniss Everdeen, a fierce 15 year old girl who has been forced to provide food for her family since her father's death. She's good with a bow and arrow, not so much with social situations. When her younger sister's name is drawn in the reaping, Katniss immediately volunteers to take her place. Her time in the arena is spent moving between survival, rebellion against the Capitol and compassion for those who need her strength. I came away from the book wanting to be cool enough to be Katniss' friend** but knowing that I would have no chance once she found out I can't live without chocolate and get really grossed out cooking boneless, skinless chicken breast.

Here are some favorite quotes:

When Katniss volunteers to take her sister's place...

"I bet my buttons that was your sister. Don't want her to steal all the glory, do we? Come on, everybody! Let's give a big round of applause to our newest tribute!" trills Effie Trinket.

To the everlasting credit of the people of District 12, not one person claps...I stand there unmoving while they take part in the boldest form of dissent they can manage. Silence. Which says we do not agree. We do not condone. All of this is wrong.

Katniss' fellow District 12 tribute, Peeta, discussing entering the arena the next day...

"I don't know how to say it exactly. Only...I want to die as myself. Does that make any sense?" he asks. I shake my head. How could he die as anyone but himself? "I don't want them to change me in there. Turn me into some kind of monster that I'm not."

* Credit for this idea goes to my father-in-law who read The Firm without having any idea what is was about. He swears that book was so much better not knowing the storyline. Now, if the book is recommended by someone I trust, I try to get as little information about it ahead of time as possible.

** I'm completely ignoring the issue of a twenty year age difference here. But isn't that the sign of a good book? It made me a teenager. It almost made me feel disdain for people who are above eating rats and dogs and tree bark.

Not so great expectations...

2011-06-23T15:40:00.002-04:00

When you're going to have to do something unpleasant with a lot of little kids, it's really key to know ahead of time that it's going to suck.

Exhibit A: My plane trip with all four boys to Little Rock by myself. I thought it was going to be no big deal. It was horrific. See "The Rocky Horror Southwest Show" here.

Exhibit B: Today's experience at the DMV.

I knew that dealing with the DMV was going to suck, so I decided to go this morning while the three big boys were at VBS. Anytime you mentally calculate how long that should take, multiply by four. The boys had VBS from 9-12. In any reasonable version of the universe, three hours would be plenty of time to get a new license plate and drivers license. Unfortunately, it was not a reasonable experience. First, while there is a Texas Department of Motor Vehicles and with google you can find an address for DMV, there is no DMV building. You have to go to the courthouse for your license plate and to a separate building, the Department of Public Safety, for your driver's license, because you know, it would make no sense to offer both those services in the same building. I made it through the license plate exercise and got an hour into the driver's license experience when I realized I was not going to finish in time to pick up the boys. While holding a sleeping baby for an hour in a government office sucks,* it's even worse when you realize you're going to have to come back with a cranky baby and three more kids. Knowing ahead of time that it's going to be horrific is really helpful, though. You can warn the kids ahead of time that it's going to be dreadful. More importantly, you can bribe them preemptively in the privacy of the car which is (a) much more effective (offering a bribe after they've started whining is really going to bite you in the butt in the long run) and (b) way less embarrassing than doing it in public. So, we all survived the experience. Things didn't get ugly until we left the big waiting room, so about 10 strangers were witnesses instead of about 100.

Here are the big guys in that fragile state before things started to take a turn.

*Okay, I actually love holding Rand while he sleeps. He's my baby, and I probably only have a few more months of getting to do that.

Kitchen science...

2011-06-23T12:28:00.002-04:00

Magic with Milk

This was a great science experiment - ingredients people generally have, easy enough for kids to do on their own, cool result. Also try it with skim milk and water and compare the results.

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It's all about me...

2011-06-22T21:57:00.000-04:00

At the pool last week...

Bryan: (sounding like he's solved one of life's great mysteries) I know why you don't want me to splash people I don't know. It's because you know I don't want to have to talk to them.

A father's day of sorts...

2011-06-21T21:49:00.000-04:00

We started visiting churches this week. The church we visited was very nice, but it's not going to be a good fit for us. I came home depressed. Part of me was hoping we'd find the perfect church on our first visit. Chris was very sympathetic - assuring me that we'll find the right place, it just might take awhile...

Me: You're good for me.

Chris: I'm figuring you out. Now I know I'm not supposed to talk about bandwidth. (see previous post here)

Ba, ha, ha, ha...

Me: Thank you for letting me be completely self-involved on Father's Day. But I'm cooking for you and leaving you alone to take a nap, and that's what you really want, right?

Chris: But you're not leaving me alone. You're still here talking to me. (more laughs)

Me: So in 14 years of marriage, have you mastered the timing on those comments or have I chilled out?

Chris: You've definitely chilled out.

Tadpoles...

2011-06-13T22:41:00.001-04:00

The boys were looking at books in the car yesterday when we heard...

(exasperated) Would you stop talking to me. I'm trying to learn about tadpoles.

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Vanity Fair...

2011-06-10T23:20:00.001-04:00

I just finished Vanity Fair by William Thackeray. This book is like Ecclesiastes meets Mean Girls. It's a biting social commentary on British society around the Napoleonic Wars. Thackeray speaks to the whitewashed vanity and corruption of his time.

I've often puzzled over the social structure in high school and junior high. There's a weird heirarchy that wasn't present for me in college, in church youth groups or in any other social group, at least with nothing approaching the same intensity. Vanity Fair confirmed that Biblical truth that truly there is nothing new under the sun. The same phenomenon occurred in Britian in the 1800's.

Becky Sharp is a shameless, heartless social climber who you can't quite dislike. Born to poor and disreputable parents, an unpardonable sin, and orphaned at a young age, she makes a place for herself in the world, leaving many casualties along the way, many of whom thoroughly deserve their treatment. Early in the book, she comes out the victor against her headmistress at school. Becky is a sort of scholarship student and the headmistress tries to take advantage of her. Becky roundly defeats her, in part by speaking perfect French to this woman who pretends fluency in the language but is actually ignorant of it.

Becky is contrasted with Amelia Sedley who, compared to the rest of the motley cast of the book, is a paragon of virtue and honesty. She's a small minded and silly woman, though, and honestly, I preferred Becky.

My other two favorite characters were Rawdon Crawley and Major Dobbin. Rawdon is a reprobate and not at all bright, but he loves his wife and son. Dobbin is the real hero of the book. He stays consistently above the social nonsense and cruelty. His only real fault is his love for a silly woman. The book left me wishing Becky Sharp had a conscience, and I think she could have been a really good match for Dobbin.

I also loved Thackeray's social commentary on his world. Vice is perfectly acceptable as long as you hide it and don't call it what it is.

Overall, this is one of my new favorite books. Thanks for the recommendation, Semicolon.

Here are some favorite quotes:

Becky Sharp needs a way to get out of town because fighting with the French is getting too close. She masterfully manipulates a gullible and cowardly man. She pretends he has intentions of joining the army. He's actually terrified...

"You men can bear anything," replied Becky. "Parting or danger are nothing to you. Own now that you were going to join the army and leave us to our fate. I know you were - something tells me you were. I was so frightened, when the thought came into my head (for I do sometimes think of you when I am alone, Mr. Joseph), that I ran off immediately to beg and entreat you not to fly from us."

This speech might be interpreted as, "My dear sir, should an accident befall the army, and a retreat be necessary, you have a very comfortable carriage, in which I propose to take a seat."

Of cattiness...

Women only know how to wound so. There is a poison on the tips of their little shafts, which stings a thousand times more than a man's blunter weapon.

Of the surface level morality of his society...

...the most squeamish, if not the most moral of societies.

We must pass over a part of Mrs. Rebecca Crawley's biography with that lightness and delicacy which the world demands - the moral world, that has, perhaps, no particular objection to vice, but an insuperable repugnance to hearing vice called by its proper name.

And Thackeray's overall commentary on the vanity of wealth and success...

Be gentle with those who are less lucky, if not more deserving. Think, what right have you to be scornful, whose virtue is a deficiency of temptation, whose success may be a chance, whose rank may be an ancestor's accident, whose prosperity is very likely a satire.

Pain and suffering in the household h...

2011-06-06T22:48:00.000-04:00

At lunch on Sunday...

Bryan: (crying hysterically, heart broken) Jacob hurted my feewings.

Me: What did he say?

Bryan: (crying between words) He said raise your hand if you like cake, and I raised my hand, and then he said it was a poopy cake. (more outraged tears)

Phone conversation later on that day with my favorite pediatrician after more antics at the household h...

Me: Theoretically, if you were to vigorously squirt water up your nose, could it hurt your ear?

Dr. Janet: (amused) Yes. (something about your nose and ear being connected that I only vaguely understand) Did he bleed from his ear?

Me: No. He was really hurting right after the water gun incident. Then he was fine for a few hours. Then it started hurting him horribly again when I asked him to help clean up the gameroom.

Dr. Janet: (laugh) I think he's fine.

WARNING: If you fire these water guns straight up into the air, don't lean over to watch.

Still a lot...

2011-06-02T23:18:00.001-04:00

So I'm rediscovering what I already learned while packing the house in Virginia. Four kids is a lot of work. That doesn't stop just because you have a lot of extra work to do. One of the upshots of maternal neglect has been that they've done a lot of art work. David made a cash register out of empty boxes.

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For granted...

2011-05-28T14:29:00.001-04:00

Things you don't appreciate until they're gone...

- beds
- air conditioning
- bottle openers
- Bryan and Rand

That should give a pretty good picture of life for the household h at this point. We still don't have our stuff. The AC broke yesterday.

* Update: I wrote this a few days ago. We STILL don't have movers, but we do have Bryan, Rand, AC and bottle openers, so other than my relationship with the moving company, things have vastly improved.

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Camouflage crazy...

2011-05-21T14:10:00.001-04:00

Wow, I'm definitely back in Texas.

Child-sized gas mask...

Do people really wear these?

And my favorite, camo and implants.

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Lemons to lemonade...

2011-05-20T17:04:00.001-04:00

I left Grandaddy and the big boys at the park while I ran home to print, sign, scan and email the 1000th document for this closing. While I was gone
There was a downpour. This is what I found when I returned...

Davids method for cleaning off his brothers.

Things were decidedly more civilized when Mimi was with us yesterday.

If I don't post ever again, it's because the movers and lending company finally gave me a heart attack.

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Arboretum...

2011-05-19T18:52:00.001-04:00

I zhike my boots...

2011-05-18T22:18:00.001-04:00

I love these boots. I had my eye out for cute boots with no heel for several months before I found them. Normally when I want to fish for a compliment, Chris is my victim of choice. He was already working in Houston, so in desperation I tried to pry a compliment out of David...

Me: Do you like my boots?
David: (confused apathy) They're okay I guess.
Me: (sigh)

On the cruise, our room connected to the room where my three year old niece Layla stayed. As I was putting on my boots for dinner Layla ran in the room...

Layla: (enthusiasm) Aunt Summer, I zhike your boots.

----------------

In other news, Jacob lost his first tooth yesterday.

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We're back...

2011-05-16T09:35:00.002-04:00

Things I want to remember from the cruise...
- David, J.T. and Andrew exploring the ship together and drinking Cokes in the Viking Crown lounge.
- Hanging out on the balcony.
- Ian and I with the same hairdo.
- Aaron winning Bingo.
- David and Andrew dancing at the family disco because I wouldn't let David swim until they danced.
- Getting all 20 of us on a boat to Cococay at the same time.
- The little boys in jackets and ties and the little girls in fancy dresses on formal nights.
- Jacob so excited about his date with Chris.
- The boys making up a complex war game in the empty arcade.
- Bryan to Gran on their date: "I'm glad I'm not as old as you. You're a hundred years old."
- Playing checkers with the boys in the game room. I offered to switch sides of the board with David if he got frustrated. He immediately began sacrificing his men then asked to switch sides.
- Rand riding all over the ship in the backpack.
- Wonderful dinners and an absurd amount of food.

Things I'm okay forgetting...
- Rand's daily nasty overflowing diapers
- Finding out in St. Thomas that 2 piña coladas and 3 virgin daiquiris cost $50 after we ordered them.

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Cruising...

2011-05-08T17:14:00.001-04:00

The brothers h are on a cruise. We'll see you back in a week.

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Painful...

2011-05-07T21:01:00.001-04:00

So it turns out there's a real downside to going all in on friendships. As I was crying my way out of Northern Virginia last night I thought, "This is why some people keep their distance."

This is our goodbye dinner with friends.

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Seasonal and comfortable settlement...

2011-05-07T08:36:00.001-04:00

Over the past weeks, I've reflected on my time here in Northern Virginia. Chris and I came here battle-weary. We arrived at that little cottage in Houston newlywed and barely grown up. We learned a lot about how to be married in that house. I learned that God doesn't owe me my version of the perfect life - that even when it's not okay, it's okay because Jesus changes everything. But we left that little house with fresh wounds, and in one of life's great ironies, Northern Virginia - upwardly mobile, driven, success obsessed Northern Virginia - has been a place of rest. In his commentary on Noah's Ark resting on a mountain top, Matthew Henry says

"God has times and places of rest for his people after their tossing; and many times he provides for their seasonal and comfortable settlement, without their own contrivance, and quite beyond their own foresight."

Thank you God for this season of rest. Thank you for the women who helped make it so.

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Moving day...

2011-05-05T19:31:00.001-04:00

Today is moving day. The brothers' stress manifests itself differently. Jacob had a meltdown when there wasn't a soft place to lay down this morning. David's came when we packed up the Legos last night. Bryan flips out over things like a wet shirt (actually not unusual). And baby Rand spent about five hours on my back in the Ergo. When I put him down he would toddle after me and hug my back when I bent down. Baby speak for, "I'm stressed. Please hold me."

When the boys saw the empty house, David said, "This is NOT a good place to play hide-and-seek. But it's a GREAT place to play tag - you're it!"

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Crack attack, literally...

2011-05-04T12:03:00.001-04:00

You know when you find one of your kids doing something and you think, "Not laughing right now is really key." I just failed horribly at that. I found one of the brothers in the bathroom methodically taking each brother's toothbrush and using it to scrub his butt.

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MFEO

2011-05-02T12:23:00.002-04:00

To understand this post you need to know that the Internet service in our new home will have a data limit, above which you pay extra.

As we were leaving church yesterday, I was very emotional. Because we're MFEO (here), I thought Chris was with me in spirit. So when he started his sentence like this...

"What's bothering me is..."

I did not expect it to end with this...

"that data cap."

The laugh was timely. I love that man. We're so different. 99% of the time that's a very good thing.

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Where two or more are gathered...

2011-05-01T19:41:00.001-04:00

Today was my last day at church...

In the praise and worship band I see the man who taught me how to play the guitar, the man who helped me pick out a guitar, and a man whose kids have grown up in church with mine. The worship leader was a kind of goofy high school junior when we moved here. Now he leads worship, and he's amazing at it.

I see a woman and her beautiful seven year old daughter. She was pregnant with that child when I met her. I imparted all the wisdom of a first time mom of a four month old on my first visit to her house.

I see a man who had dinner at my house six years ago. He was heartbroken at the time. Through this church, God has brought such healing to him.

My pastor preaches a sermon that touches my heart and my mind. He nudges me weekly toward the narrow way.

In the hall I pass a man who loves the Lord with quiet relentlessness. I know this because for two years I taught his daughter in Sunday School. She told me what he taught her.

I see so many women who have brought me meals and cared for my children.

I see God's people taking communion. The elders serve first the congregants, then one another. I know many of their stories. I've seen in their lives how God can take what is broken and make it beautiful. It feels like the smallest taste of what heaven will be like.

I'm going to miss this church.

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Uncomplicated

2011-04-30T11:03:00.001-04:00

One of the brothers yesterday:

"The most important thing is God and Jesus. The second important thing is your penis."

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Rand would be much happier if he could go back in utero for the remainder of the packing process.

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Led...

2011-04-27T12:43:00.000-04:00

I listened to Tim Keller's series on marriage and was reminded of some teachings on marriage that have been life-giving for me. As a younger woman, I read the Biblical passages on respect in marriage and felt like I was being pressed down or made lesser - that something was being demanded of me. Then in a marriage ceremony, my pastor spoke of a woman respecting her husband as the loving thing to do - that it's the primary way most men experience love and that it should be offered, not demanded. It's the difference between having to pay a fee to join a church and a church depending on freely given offerings. Removing the demand changes everything.

That need for respect is one of the ways I see shades of the men my boys will be. I found this in my journal from last fall...

"I'll show you a shortcut, Mommy. Come this way. Follow me."

My 3 year old son steps from the trail into the trees and looks back uncertainly to see if I'll follow. I see the beginnings of a man made to lead - he needs to be followed. So I duck under branches and climb over rocks to follow him on this "shortcut". His shortcut is a circle in the woods, but the path is not the point. My son is learning how to be a man, and as he leads me, the air around him changes. I can see his steps grow more confident. We make it back to the trail and he's no longer a little boy walking in the woods. Now he carries himself with the confidence of an explorer, a master woodsman, a leader. And I pray for the women my sons will marry - that they will be gentle with these boys of mine who need to lead in the way they need oxygen.

Love is...

2011-04-25T22:03:00.000-04:00

This blog is becoming a casualty of our move. Hopefully I'll have more to say and more time to say it after we get settled. Bear with me. For now...

Love is...

...packing up empty Lego set boxes because "they're really special to me, Mommy."

...summoning some small amount of sympathy* for your husband who comes down with a stomach bug after working away from home for three weeks, on the weekend you're supposed to be packing the house together.

...dealing lovingly with a wife who gives you a passive-aggressive guilt trip for getting sick.

*Even that pitiful amount of sympathy would have been impossible without violent and incontrovertible evidence of extreme illness.

**Actually, at this stage of life, I require that kind of evidence for any amount of sympathy for spousal illness that is inconvenient to me.

Verbage and hiking...

2011-04-14T16:35:00.001-04:00

I took David and Jacob hiking last weekend on the Billy Goat trail. We had a great time. It's a strenuous hike with a lot of rock scrambling. I knew they would love the first mile or so but was worried that they couldn't handle four miles of climbing up and sliding down rocks. They loved it. I had a hard time keeping up with them. Then we started walking back to the car. It was a leisurely mile walk on a flat path. It nearly ended them. The whining was beyond what I thought possible. I almost had to walk far ahead and pretend I didn't know them. In the future, I will save the "I just finished an awesome hike" candy bar until we actually reach the car.

____________________________________

I read Room by Emma Donahue. It was a good read but...really, really disturbing. She took me to the edge of what I could handle in suspense and horror. My favorite part was the way she portrayed the five year old narrator. She did a fantastic job of representing what is to think and speak at that age. The room is not heated, it gets "hotted". My second son is five. Until I read that book, I hadn't noticed how often he turns adjectives and nouns into verbs.

I read The Tale of Despereaux to the boys a few weeks ago. It's my favorite read aloud this year. It's a page turner and beautifully captures human nature in a way that's still appropriate for children. A bad guy is not a bad guy. He has a story. There is a reason he became that way. Anyway, in explaining how a young girl lost her hearing, the author writes:

The less Mig heard, the less she understood. The less she understood, the more things she did wrong; and the more things she did wrong, the more clouts to the ear she received, and the less she heard. This is what is known as a vicious circle.

Then my five year old, Jacob pronounced emphatically:

We do NOT want to get vicious circled.

That's right, buddy.

A boy day...

2011-04-07T21:23:00.000-04:00

Today has been one of those days that I'll cherish and remember as a boy day. We read about tanks for science. It was one of our more thrilling science lessons. Eight years ago, I would have been shocked to see how much enthusiasm I could generate over weaponry.

Today's history reading was on the Mayans. In case you were wondering, status symbols and beauty are relative. The Mayan kings would file their front teeth to pointed fangs. As babies, their mothers would use wooden rings to give them pointy heads and hang toys right at their noses to make them cross-eyed. We were all hugely entertained by that mental picture. David asked if it would hurt to file your teeth, so I'll need to keep an eye on that situation. We also learned about a Mayan ball game where the winner is rewarded with gold and treasure and the losers are beheaded. (And I thought Little League was nuts.)

After lunch we spent some time in the woods. They walked across an old fallen tree lying across a creek. It was a perfect height - just high enough so that they felt brave and wild for crossing it. At the end of the walk we spent some time playing in the creek. I don't know why I wasted oxygen saying, "You can play beside the creek, but don't get your shoes or pants wet." I've been at this boy gig long enough to know better. Of course everyone but Rand (I'm still faster than him) got soaked. It was always technically an accident. I think they were born understanding plausible deniability.

This afternoon David and Jacob watched Top Ten Tanks on the Military channel. David took notes. Afterward we went to the library and checked out every book on tanks. On our way in, they all ran up to me with a handful of dandelions. It's been a good day.

Are you my mother?

2011-04-05T21:18:00.000-04:00

We left Rand with my brother and sister-in-law while we were in Houston looking at houses. He has been my clingiest baby, so I was expecting him to be very excited to see me. It turns out that his affections are cheap - five days of food and snuggles from Angela, and he was over me. When he saw me, he clung to her. When I held him, he cried. When I stayed in the room and she left, he cried. When I tried to feed him, he refused and would only let Angela. When I rubbed his back, he grabbed my hand and pushed it away. Now I'm going to have spend the next week showing him pictures of her and then pinching him.*

*Big shout out to my fantabulous brothers and sisters-in-law for keeping the boys. That house hunting trip with the boys in tow would have ended me. We think we have a house but haven't heard for sure.
**Maybe Rand likes Angela more because she doesn't take pictures of him when he's crying???

Scenes from Houston...

2011-04-03T18:46:00.001-04:00

Househunting

Freebirds

Caleb's gravesite

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What goes around...

2011-04-01T09:52:00.001-04:00

My brothers are keeping the boys while we look at houses in Houston.* My baby brother has my baby. He sent this picture...

When we were little, I used to dress Aaron up like a girl and tell him his name was Mary. I think he has some passive aggressive anger about it.

*John, Aaron, Karen and Angela, you are rock stars!!!

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This and that...

2011-03-28T21:34:00.000-04:00

When we found out we were (unexpectedly) expecting baby H number four, the prospect of another set of toddler years gave me pause. I was excited about having another baby, another child, but another toddler - yikes. Just the thought made me tired. I forgot, though, how cute this stage is. Just a few months ago he was crawling and much more calmly submitting to the wills of the rest of his family. Now he throws his chicken when he sees cake on the table and tries to imitate everything from light saber fights to loading a suitcase. Here he is helping me pack.
_________________________

Jacob drew a picture of himself. Then he added hair to turn it into me. What is he trying to say here?
_________________________

We went to the Biltmore House in Asheville today.

Doma venditor* neurosis...

2011-03-24T15:01:00.004-04:00

I've been lax about posting this - partly because it's bittersweet and partly because a lot of me doesn't believe it yet. Sort of like your first pregnancy - most of your brain knows that it ends with a child, but it still seems...not possible. The household h is moving to Houston.

We sold the house this week. That process was more character confirming than character revealing. I rock at getting a house ready to sell. While it's grueling, it's also clearly defined. You work like a slave for a few weeks, then you're done. Having a house on the market turns me into a neurotic fire-breathing mess. Every day someone might come look at the house. You have to keep it painfully clean (with four little boys) just in case. The people who come might be on time and really interested, but they could also be thirty minutes early and not interested, or my personal favorite, two hours late and stay for five minutes. This process could go on for months, or it could end today. Ahhhhhh!!! Just writing it down makes me want to self medicate with pizza and chocolate.

It was a beautiful thing this morning when a realtor called to request a showing. Rand was napping. The boys' beds were unmade. The kitchen table was covered with breakfast dishes and books. There were military bases set up in the living room and basement...

10:00 phone rings

Realtor: Hi, this is ______ from _______ Realty. I'd like to show your house today at 10:30.

Me: We signed a contract last night, so it's no longer available.

It's telling that when we told the boys we sold the house, the first thing David said was, "Woo hoo. Now we don't have keep the house so clean." As he didn't participate much at all in the cleaning process, that let's you know who were the casualties of this house showing insanity.

*In which Summer probably slaughters the Latin language trying to come up with a creative title.

The realist, the contrarian and the sunbeam...

2011-03-21T15:13:00.000-04:00

One of the things I love about having four boys is watching the results of their very different personalities. In my B.L.B. (Before Little Boys) era, I had no idea how different little boys with the same genetic material could be. It's interesting to see how it all plays out. I made cheese enchiladas for dinner recently. They were hugely popular. Dinner conversation:

Sunbeam: Mommy, you're the bestest cook I ever had.

Realist: Well, probably there's a professional cook somewhere that's better than you.

Contrarian: I think Nana's the bestest cook.

The sunbeam had to go to NICU right after he was born because he didn't cry much and had fluid in his lungs. The contrarian flipped upside down at the last minute, and I had to have a C-section. The realist wants to be a boxer when he grows up because that way he can fight (passion of his life) and not get killed...

Still, I want to be careful that I don't cling to my perceptions of them. The realist spends most of his play time (and almost all of our grocery store time) pretending to fight imaginary bad guys. The contrarian pats me on the head every day and tells me I'm a good girl. And the only child in my house who is stubborn enough to spend an hour in time out because his stomach hurts too much to apologize is the sunbeam.

As for the baby, when I'm in a more philosophical mood, even his tantrums are cute. The outrage here is because I blocked the stairs. Yes, these are the same stairs I block every day. Really, the level of rage he can summon over things that happen to him daily - diaper changes, gated stairs, closed doors, clothing changes, naps - is amusing.

Drinking the kool aid...

2011-03-15T06:18:00.000-04:00

David and Jacob are taking a skateboarding class today. We got a new skateboard for the first class a few weeks ago. Checking out at Toys R Us...

Cashier (20ish year old man): This is a great skateboard, you're going to love it.
David: Thanks.
Me: He's taking a skateboarding class this week.
Cashier: (confused) A skateboarding class? I just rode around my neighborhood and messed around with it until I figured it out.
Me: This is northern Virginia. You take a class for everything.

Scenes...

2011-03-12T10:41:00.001-05:00

Poohsticks

Fun with dry erase markers

Rand is feeling much better as evidenced by this picture in which he is conscious, not in my arms and not crying.

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Still sick...

2011-03-10T21:15:00.001-05:00

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Omens...

2011-03-09T22:24:00.000-05:00

Early signs that the 5 minute nebulizer treatment will not go well...

Patient freaks out when the doctor listens to his chest (10 seconds).
Patient freaks out when the doctor takes his temperature under his arm (5 seconds).
Patient is a toddler.

Post nebulizer recovery.

I don't know which was sadder, the screaming and struggling or the eventual surrender and despair. He has RSV :(

Brilliant...

2011-03-08T17:47:00.002-05:00

We were waiting at the passport office with 4 boys, 0 books, 0 toys. (I remembered books and toys the day before when we made a pointless trip to find out you had to have an appointment.) I organized a couple of races - walking backwards, get to the wall in the fewest steps,... I was running out of unwild inside race ideas when...

Chris: The first one to get to the wall loses. You have to be moving forward all the time.

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Not seeing...

2011-03-04T16:11:00.000-05:00

Bryan's first pair of glasses are no more. They've had a good run. They probably belong in some sort of Eye Glasses Hall of Fame for outlasting his toddlerhood. He got them when he was 16 months old.

Bryan's eyesight is terrible. I can't function without glasses and his prescription is about three times as strong as mine. It's had some unexpected repurcussions...

When he was a baby, we thought he loved to give kisses. He would grab our faces and pull us close. We thought he was trying to kiss us - turns out he just wanted to know what we looked like.
A few days ago I found him crying in my bed early in the morning because he couldn't find his glasses. They were on the table right beside him.
He still leans his face close to books and other things he wants to see well. His face was too close to the advent candles when he blew them out, and he splashed hot wax all over his face.
The boys were playing at a neighbor's house and came home after dark. Bryan was upset when he got home and said he didn't want to stay at somebody else's house at night. I asked him why and he said he couldn't see when he was walking home.
Rand has already learned that to clear Bryan out of my lap, he just has to grab his glasses and throw them down. Original sin.

Toddlers and tiaras...

2011-03-01T14:15:00.000-05:00

I have a voyeuristic streak. Usually I stick to the classy face of reality TV - Intervention and Hoarders. Every now and then, I shamelessly indulge in what is really televised child abuse for entertainment. But, if you want to feel like a real success as a mother, Toddlers and Tiaras is great. I may have problems yelling at the boys, but I don't spray chemical tans on them while they cry about the stinging or dress them up in Madonna cone boobs (I know, I have boys, so that would take stage mother to new depths).

Check out this Tom Hanks spoof. The funniest (and most disturbing part) is that almost every detail in this is taken straight from an episode of T&T.

Role models and creative recreation...

2011-02-27T00:11:00.000-05:00

We took the boys to the Clinton Presidential Library in Little Rock. There was an exhibit with little models of past presidents and other historical figures. One display showed Abraham Lincoln sitting sedately in his theater chair. John Wilkes Booth was shown creeping up behind him with a gun and a dagger. Guess who Bryan wants to be when he grows up. Awesome.

As in so many other things, Bryan decided to do fishing his own way: bread for bait and whistle to charm the fish into coming to eat the bread.