Journey Chronicles

Beverly Beach Slideshow

2011-10-19T14:36:00.000-07:00

Here is a slideshow of the rest of the pictures from our camping trip.

Juggling at Beverly Beach

2011-10-19T14:18:00.000-07:00

For our family vacation this year, we rented a yurt at Beverly Beach, 7 miles north of Newport. A yurt is basically a glorified tent—beds, a floor, electricity, light, heat... No bathroom or kitchen, but it's pretty posh for camping! Since I didn't grow up camping, I thought it would be a pretty good start for us and it was perfect. I would love to do it again some year!

Usually the weather is just gorgeous at the coast this time of year, but this week there was a huge storm about 200 miles out at sea that caused some weird bursts of rain. So between four kids, the weather, the mud, the campfire, a nursing baby, and potty training, this trip was quite the juggling act!

Yay! The wood is actually burning!

We left home after church on Sunday bringing my sister, Lindsey, with us. In Newport, we dropped her off to stay with my brother, Zack, and his wife, Hannah, where they are living with Hannah's grandparents. By the time we rolled into the campground, it was dark so we decided to unload everything in the morning. Sometime in the middle of the night we woke up to hear rain pattering on the roof. Oops! Instead of darkness we had to battle rain.

We got dressed and ate breakfast in the shelter of the yurt, but later in the morning the rain had stopped enough that we could go explore the (muddy) campground. We found a nature trail and followed it along Spencer Creek, admiring the way the sandy ground had fallen away from many of the trees exposing intricate networks of roots. The path led past the playground at which the kids were eager to play despite the wetness of it all. By the time we left there, Stephen had needed to nurse, Esther had wet her pants, Lucy had slid down a wet slide, and Joshua had watered the bushes.

Back at the yurt those who needed it were changed. Some of us took naps while Eli read to Joshua. Then for dinner we went back to Zack and Hannah's to celebrate Zack's birthday with hamburgers, angel food cake, and Skip-Bo.

The next morning was beautiful! We decided to eat outside and heat up our sausage over a fire. I got everyone dressed, made hot chocolate, and set out the breakfast things while Eli worked on the fire. Eventually he got it lit. I wasn't sure if the food tasted even better after all that effort or if it was a bit anticlimactic. Either way, both our tummies and our taste buds were amply satisfied.

After cleaning up and nursing the baby, we walked down to the beach to take advantage of the sunshine. The kids were thrilled, as they usually are, when we walked under the bridge and down onto the beach. The tide was high, unusually high because of the storm. Joshua found a sandy spot to one side and quickly began digging. The girls explored the edge of the rocky stream. Eli and I put down our armloads of stuff and I posed with Stephen for a picture of his first time on the beach.

But as I smiled, and before the shot could be taken, I saw a huge wave rush up the stream and knock both girls off their feet! "Oh my goodness!" I gasped, pointing. Eli and I were both there in a second. He grabbed Lucy and I grabbed Esther. Both—though wet, cold and scared—were safe, and Eli hadn't dropped the camera and I hadn't dropped the baby. We stripped the girls down to their swimsuits and wrapped them in towels to warm up but they were pretty shaken. So was I!

I think it was my scariest parent moment yet. You hear all the time how dangerous the ocean is and how easy it is to get pulled out to sea by those sneaker waves. That thing that you don't want to happen was happening! They really couldn't have been pulled out to sea. They were too far upstream (which is why I wasn't right there holding their hands!!) and there were too many rocks in the way. But in that moment, it seemed like they could be!

Esther thought she wanted to play...

...but soon she preferred to be wrapped up and eat potato chips.

The experience gave us a good opportunity to talk about safety on the beach and about fear. We instituted a new rule: no one goes near the water until we watch it for several minutes to determine wave patterns.

While the girls sought safety in Daddy's arms, Joshua enjoyed the rest of our time on the beach.

1st time on the beach! (Take 2)

He wasn't very impressed.

Joshua and I were exploring the logs under the bridge when the wind began to blow and clouds gathered. When we got back, Eli was gathering things together as the first drops of rain fell. "Do we have to leave? It'll pass!" said optimistic I. Eli took Esther on his shoulders and put everything that would fit into the moses basket on top of Stephen. He headed back with them while I grabbed wet clothes, stray boots, and sandy shovels and buckets. But by then it was really raining. I lifted Lucy up onto the path and tried to get Joshua to help carry the toys. Both were too cold and confused by all the rain to be much help. I lifted Lucy onto the path and told her to start heading back, but when I caught up to her with Joshua and the rest, she was huddled down on the path under the bridge with her towel over her head! Finally I figured a way to drape the towels over my shoulder and carry Lucy and a bucket with the wet clothes so I could hurry to the cover of the bathroom pavilion. Joshua trailed behind with the rest of the toys. Of course by the time we made it back to the yurt this little rain flurry was over.

Much better!

We changed, settled the little ones down for naps, and got out snacks and books. The wind shook the wet trees sending large drops spattering onto our roof.

After a soothing quiet time, we lit a fire for dinner. This was the most successful, enjoyable time of the trip. We sat around roasting hot dogs and eating apples and carrots. At one point the wind picked up and the weather turned threatening again and Eli ran inside with the little ones while I hurried to get a few roasted marshmallows in. But the threats were empty and we were able to stay out all evening.

As it got dark, Eli put the kids to bed and I took the baby for a walk because he was fussy, but it wasn't quite time for bed. The beach looked much different at low tide and by the light of the moon. Finally I nursed Stephen one more time and put him to bed and Eli and I watched the last embers of the campfire die.

The next morning was the beginning of our last day. I wasn't sure if we'd get to see the beach again, so I went for a walk alone before the kids got up. It was gorgeous as the sun rose over the mountains!

It was so sunny (I even saw a tiny bit of a rainbow!), that I thought for sure that we would be able to play some more on the beach (maybe without getting soaked in the first three minutes) before leaving. But as we got breakfast out (no campfire this time) it got cloudy and windy again. We decided to load everything up.

But by the time that was done, the sun was out again. In the end, we checked out of the campground and drove down to Agate Beach, with the intention of just walking rather than getting all sandy.

He's still deciding what his opinion on beaches is.

Well, you can't take children under 6 to the beach without getting at least a bit sandy. There was plenty of digging and sliding and a bit of splashing mixed in with the walking and running. And one of those children was potty training, so she ended up loosing her pants before we got back to the van.

We ended our trip in the historic district of Newport at a little family restaurant overlooking Nye Beach. The fish and chips and the bacon burger were excellent and view was lovely, though we didn't get to see the whale that was rumored to also be lunching in the area. The sky was a clear blue all the way to the distant horizon and it was just tragic to be leaving!

Washington Park in Portland

2011-09-16T18:13:00.001-07:00

After a busy weekend, the question, "What do you want to do tomorrow with your day off?" usually gets the answer, "Nothing, I hope!" But when Monday morning dawns and the whole day is invitingly empty, the question, "What should we do today?" gets us thinking of what fun outing we should go on next. Yeah, we're loving not being homeowners for the present! This video compiles pictures from this week's adventure, up on the bluff overlooking downtown Portland.

A Little Slice of Summer

2011-09-14T17:12:00.000-07:00

Yes, it is Wednesday. Yes, this is wordless. With such cuteness, what more needs to be said?

A Bean in the Nose and Taco Coughing

2011-09-14T16:03:00.000-07:00

Esther has a cold so when she came to me needing her nose blown I didn't think twice. I did think it was a little strange when she tried to look through the tissue to see what came out. "Where'd it go?" she was asking, but I didn't pay enough attention to understand her baby talk. A minute later she sneezed but didn't seem to need to blow her nose again. Then she came to me with a bean in her hand. "Dere is!" she exclaimed. "Oh, yes, I see the bean," I said. But when I noticed the snot on it everything suddenly made sense! I'm not sure when she stuck it in, but I sure am glad it came out without any problems!

In other news, Lucy demonstrated "taco coughing" by curling her tongue and coughing through it.

Fortune Cookies - Short film

2011-09-14T12:06:00.001-07:00

To the Glory of God

2011-09-03T10:26:00.000-07:00

Smiles

2011-08-25T07:52:00.000-07:00

Remember my post about choosing happiness? This right here is part of what makes that possible! His whole face lights up and I drink it all in. Since he smiles like that so often, my happiness cup is quite full, despite the challenges this little guy brought with him.

The support of friends and family also helps keep the happiness cup more full than empty. Mom loves having us live here because it makes it very easy for her to be here when I need her. I love it too. And then there's the helpful husband who takes out the garbage and puts the kids to bed (even if his methods take longer and are noisier than mine). On Monday friends poured on the happiness when Joseph and Hannah came over bringing dinner and games. We all relished the pizza and ice cream and the kids enjoyed Chitty Chitty Bang Bang while we played Forbidden Island and Oregon.

But the real reason I can choose happiness is because God is there. As Nancy Wilson said in a recent Femina post:

"God has promised to never leave us or forsake us; He has promised no temptation will ever be so bad that we can’t escape. But He never promised not to give us more than we could handle. In fact, He gives us more than we can handle all the time. If He didn’t, then we would not need to lean on Him for grace and strength."

Aunt Connie has said something similar before, which she mentions in this helpful blog post. "I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me," is not some trite little platitude. It is a truth that makes it possible to choose happiness.

One Month

2011-08-24T21:49:00.000-07:00

My handsome littlest man is one month old today! It's been a wonderful month full of a lot of sitting, nursing and reading and trying to fit in everything else around that. Definitely a day to day, hour by hour time of life.

I've loved having so much time to read, though! I finished a Leaders in Action biography of William Wilberforce (out of print) and Raising Real Men. Now I'm halfway through 7 Habits of Highly Effective People. I have also managed to read several chapters of The Hobbit to Joshua.

Joshua at four weeks.

Here's a picture of Joshua at the same age Stephen is now. I think there's some family resemblance!

Living the Dream

2011-08-17T12:02:00.000-07:00

I have four kids. This is what I always wanted to do and I'm loving it. In my rose-tinted version of this dream I didn't notice the crumbs on the floor or the challenge of getting enough food and sleep. It's definitely a challenging dream to live out, but I'm determined to make it work...and to be happy about it too!

[Excuse me a minute while I nurse the baby and tell the kids to stop playing with the cooking utensils.]

That's not to say there's no frustration or tears. [Why are there utensils all over the floor and I did not say you could get out 15 blankets to make a tent in the kitchen!] Right now, for example, I have (another) breast infection. At least my cracked nipples are healing, finally. No, I'm certainly not happy all the time, but times like these pass. [Sorry, kids, for yelling at you when you still didn't clean up your toys. Forgive me?] I prefer to focus on remembering those first milk-drunk smiles (even if they are at three in the morning). I may be laying on the couch pretty much in misery, but what I will remember is the two-year-old's concern ("C-ying, Mommy?") and the three-year-old's sympathetic hug.

My #1 priority is to coordinate naps and quiet time so I can sleep!

Folding laundry is pretty far down on the priority list,
but the other day I did get it done!
Stephen helped.

Three weeks old!

With my other babies I loved have the newborn excuse for laying around and letting housework and other responsibilities slide. But this whole past year I have really enjoyed the order and peace of clean counters and sparkling sinks. I was having fun doing "schoolish-type activities" with the kids. Eli and I had been going for walks together in the morning before the kids woke up (thanks to live-in babysitters!). I really want to get back to all these wonderful little day to day routines!

But between nursing for about six hours a day and trying for eight hours of sleep, oh yeah, and getting food for the other hungry people here besides myself, it's an accomplishment to get everyone dressed, keep them clean and make sure they have clothes to wear. And every time I think I'm feeling good and up to tackling something like school or writing the birth story, I go down with a breast infection...or the kids wake up too early and we learn about good attitudes instead of numbers and colors.

So in the midst of the feedings and the diapers and the naps and the meals and the messes, I'm determining to be happy, because I'd rather be happy than miserable. Every time he smiles in his sleep I tell myself that I love my life. When I catch him staring at me from the crook of my arm, I rejoice. When attitudes explode in the play area, I remind myself that educating their minds can wait, but training their souls will not. It's a great story I'm living, Praise the Lord for choosing me to be in it!

The baby is done nursing now (multi-tasking is the mother's secret for getting anything done) and I hear pans clattering in the kitchen. Somehow I don't think the kids are cooking lunch.

Cuteness

2011-08-05T11:48:00.000-07:00

Day 4

Almost 1 week

On his way to two weeks old and such an Evans!

Stephen's First Outing

2011-08-05T08:58:00.000-07:00

I love the "first time in the car seat" picture. The baby always looks so tiny, but before I know it he will be filling out that seat.

Our four kids are all ready to go and we have a van they can all fit in! Off to church we go.

Welcome to the covenant, little Stephen Latimer Lionheart! You are now surrounded by a community of people who will pray for you, support you and disciple you.

Now We Are Six

2011-07-26T12:28:00.000-07:00

Do we have our hands full yet?

The boys!

Enjoying Our Baby-moon

2011-07-25T18:33:00.000-07:00

He's Here at Last!

2011-07-24T10:24:00.000-07:00

Announcing the birth of:

Stephen Latimer Lionheart Evans!

(click to read the letter about his name)

Born healthy at 1:51AM on Sunday, July 24th, 2011 after 15 hours of labor culminating in 90 minutes of intense pushing.

He weighed 8lbs 6 oz and was 20 inches long.

He's got a bunch of hair just like his siblings did.

42 Weeks

2011-07-22T13:34:00.000-07:00

Well, I never thought it would happen, but here I am, 42 weeks and still pregnant. I had a doctor's appointment this morning, but I took Eli and my mom with me so we could all make Dr. Ed do something!

We started with an ultrasound. Guess what? The baby is healthy and comfy, still has good blood flow from the placenta and still has plenty of amniotic fluid. I have made him a very pleasant home in there!

Then we found out that I'm still not totally effaced, thought the cervix is nice and soft and I am dilated about 2 or 3 cm. The baby's head is engaged, but he's still a bit high.

"So," said Dr. Ed, "everything looks good. There's no rush." When he said something about Monday, I shed a tear or two.

Since the baby is healthy and happy, we had the option to continue taking herbs, keep resting, and just wait for things to gently kick in on their own. This would allow for a relaxed, "easy" labor, similar to Esther's. If we try to jump start things, labor will most likely be more difficult.

As we talked over the options I began to realize that I don't care how hard labor is! The baby is ready for his new life, he's ready to go through delivery...the only reason to wait is to have a gentle labor. And I'm done waiting for a gentle labor. Let's get this show on the road!

So, I'm off in a few minutes to see an acupuncturist. My sister-in-law, Hannah (one of the Hannah's who was at Esther's delivery, who then married my brother) went to an acupuncturist and went into labor about six hours later. I think it was about six hours after that that she was holding her baby. We'll see how it goes for me. If that doesn't do anything tonight, then Dr. Ed will come tomorrow morning and induce with prostaglandin gel. My mom was induced with that once and she was holding her baby about nine hours later.

Thank you for your interest in my long wait. How quickly all this will be a dim memory! If you think of me, you can pray that these methods take and that labor, if difficult, is at least smooth and uncomplicated. And you can pray that my next post is a baby announcement! We are so blessed to be surrounded by the love and prayers of so many friends and family members!

In Which We Celebrate a Birthday

2011-07-21T08:31:00.000-07:00

No, not the new baby's birthday. Two years ago I was waiting (and waiting and waiting) for another little baby to make her appearance. At last, on the 24th, Esther was born into my arms and now I barely remember that long wait.

On Sunday she will be two years old, but I figured, while we were sitting around, we might as well do the celebration now. So yesterday morning I mixed up cupcakes.

It's tradition: the birthday person gets to lick the bowl!

I called Eli and told him to bring home two presents for our two-year-old girl. It's handy owning the best place around to get gifts.

While the cupcakes were cooling I dressed up the birthday girl and took her outside to take her portraits.

After dinner, my family joined us outside for dessert and gifts. She was so cute as she opened the presents and stopped to admire each one.

She thinks it's pretty great that everyone is singing "Happy Birthday" to her!

It was nice to spend the day thinking of someone else other than myself and the all-too-comfy buster inside me. Also, our new cell phone charger arrived so we have a phone again and I finished Strong Poison.

And now I'm 41 weeks 6 days, officially later than I've ever been. I was hoping this baby would not be a record-breaker in this respect. Oh well, two years with Esther has pretty much flown by. I suppose that the next couple days will pass as well.

No woman has ever been pregnant forever, right? Right???

2011-07-19T11:06:00.000-07:00

No woman has ever been pregnant forever, right? Right??? 'Cause I've reached the phase where I'm pretty sure I'll be the first. I'm just too darn comfortable—there needs to be more pain!

Anyway, we had yet another Monday (day off for Eli) to fill up without a new baby. We have a zoo pass that we haven't used much yet so when we woke up yesterday I suggested that as the activity for the day. This time we brought my youngest brother along as our free guest. As we drove off prepared to spend the whole day away, we were both hoping our plans would get interrupted.

We've been to the zoo three times now in a relatively short amount of time and I would think it would begin to feel as though there's nothing new to see. But each experience has been quite different.

The giraffe was finally outside!

We got to see two presentations: one at the big arena displayed a porcupine, a boa constrictor, three tropical birds of a variety I've forgotten, and two vibrant parrots live on the stage and the other showed us the type of training they do with the lions to keep their minds active. This second demonstration actually answered a question I've long had about animals at the zoo. To me they always look so bored and I've wondered why they don't put sheep or bunnies or something into their cages to let them hunt down their own lunch. It would give them something to do and I think it would be fascinating to watch! Well, that doesn't seem to be acceptable zoo practice, but they too are concerned about keeping these animals active, even though they get everything they need handed to them on a silver platter. It was amazing to be that close and to see the power and energy in every muscle as that female lion paced back and forth responding to commands.

We like the lorikeets!

Then we went home, ate dinner, cleaned up, put the kids to bed, watched The Business of Being Born (streaming on Netflix), went to bed ourselves and slept altogether too soundly.

I Saw the Baby Today

2011-07-15T11:38:00.000-07:00

Too bad it was only via ultrasound. Too bad he's so big all I could see was a round thing that the doctor said was his head, a round thing he said was his fat little belly, and a long white thing that was the bone in his leg. Ultrasounds make me think of 1 Corinthians 13:12:

For now we see in a mirror, dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part, but then I shall know just as I also am known.

Now I can only see my son dimly, but soon it will be face to face. Now I can only guess at what he will be like, but soon I will be getting to know him as I watch him grow.

But it will probably not be as soon as I would like. According to the expert, the cord and the placenta are doing great, there's still plenty of fluid, and the baby appears to be growing just fine. I am only 50% effaced and not really dilated at all. He said I am fine for another week. Not exactly what you want to hear when you are seven days past your due date.

So, anybody want to guess again on the date and time?? We only have a couple guesses for next week and in all likelihood it will be sometime then. I appreciate all your optimism, but seriously, I have never had a baby before six days late and this one will not be any different.

Dr. Ed said that hormones are the only thing that will cause dilation and that rest and relaxation are the only thing that will let them flow. Since everything's fine, there's no reason to induce so I'm planning on laying around and thinking as happy of thoughts as possible.

I bought myself a peach Jamba Juice smoothie on my way home.

I listened to the 10th Anniversary Les Miserables soundtrack at full blast as I drove down the freeway. ("Red, I feel my soul on fire! Black, my world if she's not there...)

When I got home I promptly arranged this:

So what if it's barely 70 degrees. The sun is shining and there's nothing like water to keep kids happy and when kids are happy, Mommy's happy.

"Thanks, Mom!"

So, bring on your new guesses, tell me if you have any labor-starting techniques I haven't already tried, and let me know of any fun parties happening. I'm going to see if I can get a tan on my legs and finish Strong Poison before this baby comes.

A Picnic

2011-07-13T15:22:00.000-07:00

We're still waiting. I'm in the zone now and can't think of much else besides keeping the house clean and listening to my body. So I search for distractions—ones that don't involve messes inside. Yesterday we walked nearly two miles to the bank and then got popsicles at Safeway. I pushed Esther and Lucy in the stroller and Joshua rode his little Lightning McQueen bike the whole way. This morning we finished the mystery book we were reading about ancient Egypt (the boy caught the tomb robber!) and then I packed a snack lunch and a picnic blanket and headed out the door.

I have written before about the Mount Talbert Nature Park nearby. It's a favorite walk of ours and we've been three or four times before. It's small enough that the kids can run ahead while I follow at a two-year-old's pace with Esther and it's not so busy that I worry when I can no longer see or hear them.

At the clearing, under the shade of mighty oak trees, in a patch that appeared to be poison-oak free, I laid out the blanket and we ate outside. The sky was patchy with clouds, but when the sun broke through it warmed up all the grass and flowers around us till we could smell them growing.

"Sandwich outdoors isn't a sandwich anymore. Tastes different than indoors, notice? Got more spice. Tastes like mint and pinesap. Does wonders for the appetite."

"Know just what you mean, Dad!"

—Dandelion Wine

This is why I like to call it the Golden Wood.

I keep trying to decide if I feel ready for the baby—ready to face labor, ready to do night time feedings, ready to raise another child. Esther's sleeping right now, a little girl in the middle of a big bed, rhythmically breathing, thumb half in, half out of her mouth. Joshua and Lucy are having the kind of quiet time where the "quiet" goes in quotes, but I like hearing their conversation faintly from the other side of the house. What will this new little one add to the mix?

I am excited for the next chapter and of course I can't wait for that little-body-on-my-shoulder feeling. But in the meantime I'm really enjoying Life As It Is Right Now.

Tradition

2011-07-13T07:45:00.000-07:00

This time we brought three kids with us!

When I was three days overdue with Joshua Eli and I hiked to the top of Multomah Falls (in January!). With Lucy we just walked all over Oregon City, but when I was going late and later with Esther we escaped again to the Columbia River Gorge and hiked the Horsetail Falls trail. Since Eli had the day off on Monday and since I'm once more overdue, we drove out there again and now it's tradition.

After lunch we drove off in search of restrooms and ended up at Crown Point. Eli and I have both been several times, but the Vista House up there has always been closed. Surprisingly it was open this time so we got to see the beautiful marble interior.

When Eli was done reading plaques we returned to our hike of choice for this visit: Latourell Falls. According to Best Hikes with Kids: Oregon, the trail is about 2.5 miles and it took us up the creek to see the Upper Latourell Falls as well.

Three days past my due date.

Joshua and Lucy both walked the whole way like troopers and Esther walked most of the first half. At that point it was past nap time so Eli carried her in the Moby wrap until we got back down to the lower Latourell Falls. By then we were all quite warm and my feet hurt. The water splashing cheerfully on its journey to the river looked so cool and refreshing that I called a halt.

Ah, much better!

It was the perfect end to a lovely hike!

Last time she was the one in there!

Soon there will be four little monkeys!

Due Date

2011-07-08T08:25:00.000-07:00

Today is my official due date. The floors are vacuumed and mopped so now he needs to come before they get too dirty again. The clock is ticking, little man! Yesterday my brother and his wife came over with their new baby and you should have seen how tender our kids were towards him. They are going to love having a baby of our own!

So, it's always fun to have a pool of guesses for when the baby will be born and how big he will be. We are inviting predictions and Eli will award a $10 gift certificate to Exodus Books to both the closest time and the closest weight. So bring on the guesses—one for date/time and one for weight, but please only guess once for each. You can't guess a new date if your estimated day comes and goes with no new baby!

To help you out, here's a little birth history for you:

I have been 6 days, 7 days, and then 12 long days "overdue".
My babies have been born at 11AM, 5PM, and 3PM.
Joshua was 8 pounds 6 ounces.
Lucy was 7 pounds 7 ounces.
Esther was 7 pounds 12 ounces.

Have fun! I can't wait to see who wins! ;-)

In Which I Am Busy With All The Things That Make For A Lovely Life

2011-07-02T10:37:00.000-07:00

I think I'm going to have to start doing the busy mom's version of blogging: a sentence here, a bullet-pointed list there, but mostly just cute pictures. So here it is, the busy mom version of what we've been up to:

I'm 39 weeks pregnant now and I'm ready to have this baby out of my ribs and into my arms!
I found some adorable Carter's brand, newborn-sized layette items yesterday at Fred Meyers: jungle themed! Eli did not show sufficient appreciation for their cuteness when I showed him. Thankfully Grandma was upstairs and she knows just how to oo and aw over baby clothes!
I'm teaching Kindergarten and loving it!
On the first day of summer I started re-reading my #1 favorite book, Dandelion Wine. I was afraid it wouldn't be as special this year, but I've already bawled my eyes out more than once. If you haven't read it yet, do. Now. It's a perfect summer read.
We bought a van! We no longer have three car seats crammed into the back seat of a 5-passenger car! And when the baby arrives we will be able to take the whole family to church to get him baptized! I feel strange and grown-up-ish driving around a minivan (Toyota Sienna, by the way).
We all went to our church's Family Camp. For the whole week. Eli too! The beach, campfires, sweet things to snack on, lots of friends who also have babies to put down for naps... It was the best Family Camp since the year I was 14 and we spent the entire time playing epic games of freeze tag.
We finished writing the letter about our son's name and Eli got it scribed into his journal. This is a ritual we have done every time and it's very important to us. We can't wait to share it with you all!
Eli and I manned the Exodus booth at the OCEANetwork curriculum fair. I got to meet lots of wonderful customers and I got to sell Spell to Write and Read.
We started our new summer schedule in which Eli goes to work at 8:00AM. The kids have taken to it really well.
In general life has been very busy in the loveliest ways!

I've been reading some excellent books and we've watched a few interesting movies, all of which I would have loved to write about (see above list for excuses.) Last night, though, we watched Frequency and I wanted to mention it quickly. It's a creative time travel film in which people don't travel through time, information does through a process involving HAM radios and an aurora borealis. As with any story having to do with time and/or multiple dimensions, it's a bit far-fetched and fantastic at times. However, the real heart of the story is the relationship of a father and his son. There is fire-fighting, police investigations, a serial killer, baseball, and tender scenes of family love. I thought it was well-done and I would recommend it quite highly.

And now I'm off to mix up a pie crust for some 4th-of-July apple pies, do the dishes, moderate a squabble or two, and take the kids to a birthday party. Still to be done before the baby comes:

Cook and bake for the freezer
Keep the house clean
Take our parents out to dinner to read them the name letter
Have Dr. Ed over for the home visit to make sure he can get here. It would not be good for him to get lost if labor was going very quickly!
Organize the computer desk
Go on a date to an Italian restaurant in Sellwood and then to browse at Powell's Books

My Mom

2011-05-07T23:44:00.000-07:00

You know, when you're little Mom is like God, maybe even better. She heals owies with a kiss, she has all the answers, she comes when you throw up in the night (though she'll tell you that next time you'd better do it in the toilet, not on the floor), and she makes food almost magically appear at all the right times. Then you grow up and you learn that there are some hurts Mom can't heal, that there are other answers out there different than Mom's, and she asks you help get food on the table. You learn more about God too, and suddenly Mom's not quite so perfect.

Now I'm a mommy myself. I have little ones who expect perfection from me. I kiss their owies, I clean up their messes, and I'm not allowed to give "I don't know" for an answer. When they're hungry, they expect to see some food show up. And now I see my own mommy in a whole new light. She doesn't clean up after me anymore, but I highly value her help after I have a baby. She can't make my owies go away, but she sure knows just how to make me feel better! I don't expect her to have all the answers, but she's still the first person I ask. Instead of perfection, I see a woman—a lot like me—who is endeavoring to serve God and her family with each day of her life.

Mom is usually somewhere near the kitchen. She's been cooking and baking and canning as long as she's been able but she is always on a quest for something better. Whether it's a new pan, different potholders, a cookbook, a method, an ingredient, whatever she has most recently discovered is the best yet.

She loves to spread a table with good food (in white dishes) and then surround it with people she loves.

My mom is a woman of action who speaks her mind. When she puts her mind to it, she can accomplish anything from cleaning the windows to buying a house. When she was pregnant with me, she canned a pantry full of peaches (hand-picked by her). She has served rehearsal dinners to 75 people or more and cooked food for my best friend's wedding reception. Her doors are always open and she can always manage to fit one more at the table. If she has an opinion you can bet she'll tell you (even if she keeps it to herself, you'll still be able to read it plain as plain on her face). But she only tells you what she's thinking out of compassion for you. Her capacity to love is as great as her ability to get things done.

Twenty-five years later and her smile is still just as bright. Mom's hospitality, her drive, her enthusiasm, and her love inspire me to live fully, care more and give more freely. Thanks for everything, Mom.

A Praying Mother—Mothers in Literature

2011-05-07T11:48:00.000-07:00

It may seem strange to include a mother from the Bible in this series on mothers in literature. We place so much emphasis on studying the Bible and learning God's will for out lives from it that we sometimes forget that, really, the Bible is literature too. Of course the Bible is full of mothers, each one with a special story. I'm going to talk about one mother who doesn't have a very good reputation: the mother of James and John. What I have to say comes from a very powerful baby shower talk that my pastor's wife gave recently.

In Matthew 20, Jesus is on his way to Jerusalem for the last time and along the way he is preparing his disciples for the tribulation that will soon come. "Then the mother of Zebedee's sons came to him, kneeling down and asking something from him. And he said to her, 'What do you wish?' She said to him, 'Grant that these two sons of mine may sit, one on your right hand and the other on the left, in your kingdom.'" At this point people usually criticize this woman for being selfish and forward. But my pastor's wife pointed out that nowhere in this passage does Jesus condemn her. In fact, her prayer is really the same one that all Christian mothers make. She wants her sons to be close to Jesus.

It's what Jesus says next that should weigh heavily on every mother's heart. He turns to her two sons and says, "You do not know what you ask. Are you able to drink the cup that I am about to drink, and be baptized with the baptism that I am baptized with?" Being close to Jesus does not mean sitting on thrones in shiny white robes, at least, not on this earth. James and John appear to understand that when they reply, "We are able."

The other disciples had the same reaction that we usually do when they heard the request of James and John, but it is them that Jesus chided. He gathered everyone around him and explained how thrones and glory work in his Kingdom. In the world, rulers and those in authority lord it over those under them, seeking power and recognition. But those who desire greatness in Christ's kingdom must follow the example of Christ himself who did not come to this world to be served, but to serve, "and to give his life a ransom for many."

When we mothers pray—as the wife of Zebedee did—for our children to be close to Jesus, we should know that we are not requesting an easy life for them. Are we ready to watch as they drink the cup that Christ drank and are baptized with the baptism that Christ was baptized with? We must pray holding fast to God's promise in Romans 8:28:

"And we know that all things work together for good to those who love God, to those who are the called according to His purpose."

God's idea of "good" does not always mean a life of "comfort" and "safety," two things that mothers greatly like to see their children enjoy. But when our children are called to His purpose, it will all work out for a good that is eternally glorious.

Belly Pictures

2011-05-04T23:06:00.000-07:00

On Sunday we went to a house dedication party at my best friend's new home. The sun was shining so a bunch of us went for a walk around some of their lovely property. Another friend had forgotten her camera so I let her use mine. So that means I got to be on the other side of the camera and I have some belly pictures to share.

I think I'll be 30 weeks on Friday. 10 to 12 weeks left and so much to do! Yeah, this is definitely a fourth pregnancy.

To do:

Buy a van of some sort
Inventory recipes, organize grocery list, plan freezer cooking
Read Dandelion Wine
Go to Family Camp (June 13-17)
Help Eli run a booth for Exodus at the OCEANetwork Curriculum Fair (June 24-25)
Write the name letter
Continue taking care of the kids I already have!

The Power of Mama's Smile—Mothers in Literature

2011-05-04T08:08:00.000-07:00

The setting is Lower East Side New York prior to World War I. The characters are five endearing girls, members of a Jewish family with little money but lots of love and imagination. In the All-of-a-Kind Family series we read of their enjoyment of each other, many different Jewish holidays and customs, and life in general. These charming books bring a different time and place vividly to life. Unfortunately only the first book is in print but all five are well worth hunting down at the library or used book stores.

While the girls are definitely the focus of the books, their stories would not be complete without their hard-working, jovial papa, the playful little brother who joined them at last, and their patient, wise and understanding mama. Whether she is diligently keeping the home running smoothly, baking mouthwatering traditional Jewish food, or making chores fun, Mama is a beautiful example of the Proverbs 31 woman to each of her five daughters.

But even Mama gets busy and pre-occupied sometimes. One day, while the girls were all still at school, she was busily putting the house in order, baking bread and cake, and cooking a special dinner in preparation for the Sabbath. Little Charlie was constantly underfoot, tugging at her skirt imploring her to play with him. What mother hasn't been there? She'd given him a box of empty spools to play with, but as he got bored of them they were kicked farther and farther across the kitchen. The more Mama stumbled over them, the crosser she became. "Charlie, pick up the spools and put them back into the box!" she commanded.

When Mama was too focused on her tasks to answer his questions and after she scolded him for getting into the rising bread dough with his grubby hands, Charlie had had enough. He didn't know why Mama's face was so scowly, her voice so angry. So, much to Mama's relief, he decided to visit Mr. Basch who kept the store downstairs. Solemnly Charlie shook hands with the cheerful man. "My Mama don't smile on me," he said. Mr. Basch offered a cracker. Refreshed, Charlie decided to see how things fared upstairs.

Mama was sampling soup at the hot stove. All Charlie heard her say was "keep away!" Back down the steps he went. "My Mama don't smile on me," he said again. Quietly the two of them shared some chocolate snaps. Then Mr. Basch suggested, "I tell you what, Charlie. You go upstairs and tell Mama you'll be a good boy and see what happens."

Once again Charlie climbed the stairs. Mama's work was going very well. She was even humming a little tune. Hands on hips, she turned around and studied the small boy. All her babies had been adorable, she thought, but this one, he was such a little love of a man. My goodness, such a serious expression on his sweet face. She smiled.

Charlie rushed back to Mr. Basch and exclaimed, "My Mama smiles on me!" Then he rushed back up again to see if the transformation was real.

Mama found all this coming and going highly amusing. When Charlie planted himself in front of her and gazed questioningly upward, she gave him a great big smile. Once more he had to go tell the shopkeeper, who also felt lighthearted as he watched the joy that now filled the little boy.

When Charlie came back to Mama, she nearly doubled over with laughter. He felt so good as he buried his head in her skirts. Finally he laughed too. He laughed and laughed!

I love how this story shows a busy mama from her little boy's point of view. It's so easy as a mother to get caught up in the demands of the day. When there are tasks to get done and schedules to follow and dinner to get on the table, the children just seem to be in the way. But they don't know about the to do list and the deadlines. All they see is Mama not smiling. As pressing as they may be, chores will come and go but our children are eternal. May we never forget the power of a smile.

A Woman of Liveliness and Humor—Mothers in Literature

2011-04-30T11:23:00.000-07:00

Everyone knows the movie The Sound of Music, or is at least familiar with some of the songs. But if you haven't read the book that recounts the true story of the Trapp Family, then you are really missing out! Warmly written and not without humor, Maria Augusta Trapp tells The Story of the Trapp Family Singers, and it's quite a story. It may be just another delightful "family story" but it's amazing and inspiring to read of how God cared for them and guided them and used them throughout their eventful lives.

The book starts at the same point the movie does: when Maria leaves the convent to teach the children of Baron von Trapp. But as it continues it is funnier, more charming, and of course truer than the movie. Best of all, it continues beyond the escape from the Nazis. The Trapp family goes on to America and we get to read of their adaptation to a new culture, of their war efforts, of the perfect home they buy (complete with a family of skunks living under the kitchen floor), and of the old army camp they transform into a music camp. They are true entrepreneurs, using any talent, resources, and opportunities they have to create businesses or ministries or both. We know of the Trapp Family Singers and some have heard of the Trapp Family Music Camp, but this enterprising family also headed up the Trapp Family Maple Syrup, the Trapp Family Austria Relief Effort, and many other varied ventures.

What's special about the book, though, is their wholehearted faith in God. Maria writes in the Chapter Before the First, "...it astonished, amazed, almost overwhelmed me to see how much love—genuine, real love—was stored up in one short lifetime: first God's love for us His children, the leading, guiding, protecting love of a Father; and as every real love calls forth love in return, it couldn't be any different here." This may be a book full of anecdotes both touching and amusing, but at its heart it is the story of God's love for a family worked out in their lives.

While the real Maria is not quite the flibbety-gibbet described in the famous song, "How Do You Solve a Problem Like Maria," she definitely has some spirit. One of my favorite chapters in the book demonstrates this.

Shortly after her marriage into the Trapp family, Maria had an operation to remove 19 kidney stones along with a bunch of gravel and sand. Not having much talent for being sick or keeping still, she found it extremely difficult to lie motionless during her recovery. For her amusement, her husband brought her a small turtle. Now, the nurse who was caring for Maria was a patient woman with only one fault: in her childlike innocence she believed every word Maria said, however silly her stories might be. An urge was stirred in mischievous Maria to find out to what depths her trustfulness would go.

Sister Agrosia had never seen a turtle before so she asked what it was. Suddenly all of Maria's evil instincts were at work. "A turtle," said Maria, thinking she would finally reach the limits of the good sister's credulity, "is an animal which feeds on the toes of newborn babies." She was wrong.

"Oh, oh!" said the sister in horror. "But we'll have to be very careful and keep the door shut." Maria's room was in the middle of the maternity ward.

Maria continued, looking straight into her eyes, "That won't help any, Sister, because a turtle can make itself flat like a sheet of paper, crawl under a door and blow itself up outside again."

Sadly, Maria was not a bit ashamed of herself at the moment, nor was she next morning when she heard from eyewitnesses that Sister Agrosia had been sitting on a chair outside her door with stick in hand while the little turtle slept peacefully on her chest. Over the next days she tried to break the spell, but at last she realized that she had met boundless gullibility.

I hope I can face my life with the same liveliness and humor that Maria had, though such wit must be balanced with a good measure of wisdom as well.

A Mrs. Tabitha Twitchit Kind of Day—Mothers in Literature

2011-04-29T12:16:00.000-07:00

Mrs. Tabitha Twitchit has three little kittens named Mittens, Moppet, and Tom Kitten who tumble about the doorstep and play in the dust. She is an anxious parent who loses her kittens continually and when they are lost, they are always in mischief!

Sometimes she shuts them up in a cupboard so she can get some baking done. But since the cupboard is not locked, those troublesome little kittens come out and play with the dough that is rising by the fire.

Sometimes she turns them out in the garden so she can get ready for company. "Now keep your frocks clean, children!" she says.

Any mother of little children could have told her how that would turn out.

"What a thing it is to have such an unruly family!" says Mrs. Tabitha Twitchit.

There are days when I feel a lot like Mrs. Tabitha Twitchit. Sometimes it seems that every time I turn my back my impish little children get into some kind of mischief! On those days I'm tempted to turn them outside or shut them up in cupboards. Once I did buckle them into the stroller. We get through periods like that one predicament at a time and I take comfort in knowing that I'm not the only mother who has Tabitha Twitchit days!

A Woman of Faith and Love and Service—Mothers in Literature

2011-04-28T13:16:00.000-07:00

In Papa's Wife, Thyra Ferre Bjorn tells a touching story inspired by her own family, her own father, and especially her own mother. Papa was an upright, old-fashioned, principled pastor of a small church in northern Sweden, handsome and eloquent, but resolutely a bachelor. His dream was to have a large bank account. Mama was the maid who cleaned his house and secretly dreamed of marrying him. Eventually, Mama got her way (as she always did). Their life together was happy and rich with the kinds of treasures that really matter, though Papa had days when he could not quite forgive this spirited, determined woman for coming into his peaceful life and making him ten instead of one.

The book is the story of a family. It tells of the amusing antics and humorous scrapes of children and the things they must learn about life as they grow up. It tells of their immigration from the mountains of Sweden to small-town America and contains humorous anecdotes about their attempts to learn a new language and new customs. At it's heart, though, it is the story of a woman: a wife and a mother who pours her love, her prayers, and herself into her husband and her children.

Every page of this book either warms my heart or makes me laugh or brings tears to my eyes, but the part that I remember most is a chapter that describes each child through his or her shoes. Every Saturday night, after spending all day baking and cleaning in preparation for the Lord's Day, Mama sends her children to bed and then polishes all their shoes. She prays over each child and dreams about the future that each busy pair of feet will travel. From Nim's shoes, strong and sturdy and never in a hurry to Vickey's, long, narrow and queen-like all the way down to the baby's, which won't stay so small for very long, she shines and rubs as her heart swells with happiness and love.

Now seven pairs of shiny shoes stood in a row on the kitchen floor. Mama knelt reverently, folded her hands and bowed her head. Aloud she prayed a little prayer that she had made up once while shining the shoes—a special prayer for a special night.

"God bless the step each foot will take
Of each dear child a staunch soul make
Help them to grow to do thy will
And with Thy love my children fill.
Amen."

Maria Franzon inspires me to live to the fullest for my family—to create a beautiful, bountiful, peaceful home for them and to hope and dream for them. May my trust in God be as strong as hers and may I pray as faithfully over my family as she did over hers.

In the Eyes of My Children—Mothers in Literature

2011-04-27T11:42:00.000-07:00

Where's Our Mama, by Diane Goode
This sweet picture book describes a mother through the eyes of her children. The story starts with a gust of wind which blows the hat right off of mama's head in the middle of a busy Paris train station. Instructing her little boy and girl to stay put, she takes the baby and runs after it.

"When mama still did not return, we began to cry. A genarme nearby heard us. 'We have lost our mother,' we sobbed.
'What is her name? he asked.
'Mama.'
'What does your mama look like?'
'Our mama is the most beautiful woman in the world!'
'Dry your eyes, children, and we will find her.'"

The search that follows takes them all over the city as the children give one vague description after another and the gendarme tries his best to find the right woman. First he finds a beautiful woman, but she needs a whole troop of valets to carry her things. "Our mama is very strong. Mama can carry her own parcels." Then he finds a woman delivering a large bundle of newspapers. But mama doesn't read the newspaper—she reads millions of books. The librarian is too silent. The opera singer is too fat. ("Mama is very slim. But Mama cooks the best food in the world.") Mama wears prettier hats than the chef. Mama is very brave, but also very smart. People listen when mama speaks. Suddenly the children remember that Mama told them to wait at the station. They hurry back and find her at last: the best mama in the whole world!

I love the admiring people looking on.

I love this story because the mama isn't perfect. Her clothes are not the most stylish and she's not really all that slim. Her hair is a bit wispy, her hat is quite rumpled, and she's rather scatterbrained. But in the eyes of her children, not another woman in the city of Paris measures up to her. I hope I can be that kind of mother to my children!

Probably best known for illustrating When I Was Young in the Mountains, Diane Goode has illustrated dozens of books for children. She has an unmistakable style that is charming and whimsical. Each one of her characters is full of personality with pointy chins, funny noses, and smiling eyes. Unfortunately, Where's Our Mama? is out of print. I just happened upon our lovely hardcover in a used bookstore and immediately put it in the to-take-home stack. If you can find it anywhere, you should definitely snap it up!

Mothers in Literature

2011-04-27T10:10:00.000-07:00

In honor of Mother's Day I am going to do a series on the mothers in literature that inspire me or that I relate to. This is also the theme for the next Exodus newsletter, so if you aren't a subscriber yet, you should be!

Here are the books I will be referencing. Be sure to check the Exodus Facebook page for some giveaways in the month of May!

Where's Our Mama? by Diane Goode
Papa's Wife, by Thyra Ferre Bjorn
The Tale of Tom Kitten, by Beatrix Potter
Story of the Trapp Family Singers, by Maria Augusta Trapp
All-of-a-Kind Family, by Sydney Taylor
The Bible, by God

Helpers

2011-04-22T21:47:00.000-07:00

They often don't want to help when I need them and they usually want to be involved when it would be easier to just do it myself, but either way they're pretty cute!

Lucy and Joshua in the spring of 2009

I'm not very good at taking the time to teach the kids. I don't like them underfoot and I'd really rather do things myself. I know that I should invest in the future, but it just takes them so long to learn! Plus Joshua (my dear little absent-minded professor) is especially slow. Funny story: I gave him a cloth diaper to put in the diaper pail. Later I went to the bathroom and, happening to glance down, I saw it sitting in the garbage! Yeah, I will definitely be talking to his future wife someday...

What happened to my baby?

Now he can unbuckle himself (sometimes he remembers to unbuckle the girls too!), set the table, mostly get dressed and undressed, and in many other ways make himself useful. Though he will usually stop in the middle of his task to tell a story or tell me what movie he's watching in his head.

Today Joshua was industriously unloading the dishwasher (lovin' that thing!) while I cleared the table and wiped down counters. But I kept having to stop to tell him where things went. Suddenly I had the brilliant idea to label the drawers and cupboards! The kids thought that was cool and went around opening each one to see what it contained. And I enjoyed saying, with clarity and directness, "That Tupperware lid goes in cupboard #6. Those spoons go in drawer H." Plus then the kids will get extra number and letter practice, right? I think Eli will appreciate no longer having to translate, "Put that thing over there." And the labels will come in handy for any additional helpers I get after the baby's born.

On Zoos and the End Times

2011-04-15T16:29:00.000-07:00

At the zoo watching the lions lay around.

When I was young I never really liked going to the zoo. My feet always hurt after all the walking around, the animals that were actually visible never did anything interesting, and the snow cones always looked so yummy but Mom never got us any. Plus every sign loaded with evolutionary propaganda bothered Mom. When she rolled her eyes, we did too.

What? Is that animal actually doing something???

On Monday we took the kids to the zoo for the second time. It was a fun enough outing. My feet still hurt, but the sea lions performed water ballet, the orangutan climbed and swung, and the penguins were their usual frisky selves. The evolutionary posters have mostly been replaced with environmental ones but the kids can't read so we didn't let them bother us. We did eat elephant ears—sugary, deep-fried and delicious!

May I be as friendly as the penguins...

When I visit the zoo, all the animals just seem bored to me. I know that zoos are much better nowadays than they used to be, but the critters still don't have anything to do. Sure they're safe, but survival is pretty much all they live for. In their cages there is no food to catch, no predators to run from, nothing to do but wait for another meal and another check up from the vet. They either sit around staring vacantly, wander back and forth aimlessly, or sleep. Maybe animals don't get bored. Maybe they sit when tiredness in their limbs tells them to and then pace when the weariness disappears.

What should I do today?
Oh yeah, nothing.

I'm not really into pets or animals. I have enough poop to deal with already, thankyouverymuch. But I do think that humans have responsibility towards the animal kingdom—not to restore it to it's natural state, but to take Kingdom domion over it. The people who put animals in zoos are trying merely to keep them alive and they would like it if we humans would get out of the way on the earth so animals could be free. Free from pollution, free from hunters, away from people. This comes from their belief that humans are a recent (unfortunate) addition to the global ecosystem.

These guys really look like they're enjoying a good life.

When God created the world, He placed man in a garden and gave him dominion over the animals. There was no killing then, no fear. (I always wonder what kind of teeth lions had.) Then came the fall and the first animal was sacrificed to cover man's nakedness. After the flood the fear and dread of man was put into every beast of the earth, bird of the air, and fish of the sea and all of them were given to us for food. But in the end, when all things are made right again, the lion will lie down with the lamb and they will let even a little child lead them. For then the earth will be full of the knowledge of the Lord.

People, meet monkey.
Monkey, meet people.

In God's perfectly designed the world man is at the pinacle. No, we shouldn't use our power and our technology to wipe out forests or contaminate oceans. We shouldn't run over manatees with our motor boats. But neither should we abandon our cars and our skyscrapers, take off our shoes and live in caves eating only nuts and berries. At the end of the world we won't just have dogs and cats as pets—we'll have wolves and lions in the backyard playing with our babies. Cities won't spew forth smog—they will be teeming with life and growth. Animals won't wander in the wilderness, afraid of man and afraid of each other. The whole earth will be a garden and birds and fish and beasts and humans will dwell in peace and harmony.

The lorikeets were quite friendly!

That's the vision I want to see plastered on posters and plaques all over the zoo!

"Did you drink my sugar water?"

Joshua gazes at the elephants.

This cat was pacing like he knew the vet was gonna give him a shot of something.

Esther watching the hippos.
Nothing happened.

And one more because she's just so cute!

A mongoose! It's like Rikki Tikki Tavi!
According to Rudyard Kipling, the mongoose is very curious.
This one (of the dwarf variety) looked like he wanted to crawl on our shoulders and sniff our ears.

Beans—the Easy Way

2011-04-13T11:46:00.000-07:00

"Beans, beans, the magical fruit..." I won't finish that little ditty for you, but you know the reputation beans have and I bet you could use your imagination to come up with what rhymes with "fruit." Or you could Google it; there a whole Wikipedia article on it.

I never used to cook with beans. I bought a few pounds when I first stocked my pantry because they were so cheap and we were also just setting up our budget. I think I finally used up those beans. Most of them anyway... I had many excuses for not cooking with beans then: I always forgot to soak them the night before, I didn't have a good recipe, I never knew what the water-to-bean ratio should be, they turned out mushy and bland, Eli didn't really enjoy eating them...

Well, now I finally have a good method and since we have added three children to the family and no more money to the budget, I am finally cooking with beans and enjoying it! So here's my easy-peasy method as well as three reasons why you too might want to add a few beans into your meal rotation.

Beans are cheap! For pennys (okay, quarters, pennys can't get you anything anymore) you can buy pounds of dried beans which will turn into pots of warm, hearty soup.
Beans and rice (or any grain) make a complete protein. So your even though your husband will probably still go looking in the frige, in the stove, under the tablecloth for the meat that must be part of the meal somewhere! you can tell him that the beans and cornbread on his plate really will fill him up.
Beans are a soluble fiber that will bind to the fatty acids in our digestive system so that they will be eliminated instead of recycled. The liver produces bile to digest fats and the more fats we eat, the more bile we will produce. Bile is also used to process out expended hormones (which are fat soluble) from our bloodstream. But as all this fatty bile goes through the digestive tract, some of it will be reabsorbed only to have to be re-processed out. It creates a vicious cycle where junk goes from bloodstream to liver to intestines to liver to intestines... Enter beans! Soluble fiber can not be reabsorbed so when it sticks to the debris-carrying fats everything will be cleaned out—kind of like my house after I finished "Project Simplify." Read this article for more information about how beans can cure morning sickness!

Bonus #4: If you regularly eat beans your body will begin to produce the right digestive enzymes and they will no longer cause that annoying side effect.

Convinced? If so, I will now show how you can take those dry beans rattling around in a jar on your pantry shelf to savory, steaming pot in time for dinner.

In the morning, as you are doing the breakfast dishes and thinking about what to make for dinner (life is pretty much one meal after another, right?) remember that neglected jar of beans. When you are done washing the oatmeal pot, put it back on the stove and measure in some beans. I've been using black beans because I love Mexican food and I serve them with taco stuff. For our size family we use about one cup per meal, but I usually make three cups at a time. They heat up just fine and freeze really well too, so you might as well make extra. Cover them with two or three times as much water—as they soak for the next few hours they will expand so leave plenty of room. (You could skip the soaking step, but traditionally it's supposed to make them healthier than the quick soak method.) Put the lid on and let them sit. Now go make lunch.

After nap time, when there's still a few hours till dinner, dump off the water, rinse the beans, and add some water back. This time they won't be expanding so only cover them enough that they will all be submerged, even as they simmer and some evaporates off. If you put in too little water, they won't cook evenly, but if you put in too much they will be too thin and, well, watery. Put the (lidded) pot on a burner and crank up the heat.

While they are coming to a boil, create the flavor of this pot of beans. Heat some oil in a skillet and saute a chopped onion. Once that's good and browned I add garlic, pepper and chili powder. Add whatever spices you like (depending on your taste and the type of bean) but remember that whatever you use will taste fuller if you saute it until fragrant (about 30 seconds).

When the skillet is one big mess of tastiness, dump some of the simmering bean liquid into it. This will release a cloud of steam and will make sure every yummy browned bit will come off the bottom of the skillet and end up in your beans. Turn off the heat, stir it around for a minute to let the liquid reduce and then dump it back into the pot.

Now turn down the heat under the beans (you may have already had to do this) and let the beans meet and get acquainted with the flavor you just introduced them to. As the pot simmers for the next hour or so with the lid on the beans will finish softening and they will become one with the flavor. Stir occasionally.

You may want to change the consistency towards the end of the cooking time by adding water if it looks too dry or by removing the lid and letting some of it boil away if it looks too thin. Don't forget to add salt to taste. Salt can inhibit softening, so I like to wait till the end.

Serve with rice, cornbread, tortillas, tortilla chips or whatever your heart desires. Include some taco meat in the menu if it will make your husband happy.

In Which Some City Kids Visit A Farm

2011-04-12T10:30:00.000-07:00

On Friday I took the kids and my sister-in-law, Gilma, out to our friends' farm. We were supposed to see some lambs, but it turns out that the Cones' shipment of chicks had just arrived so we got to see those as well!

Just in time for Easter!

Yellow, fluffy, and soft, they looked as edible as marshmallow peeps! But I think these ones will taste better if they have a few months to grow and then I'll wait till they're butchered, de-feathered, and roasted or fried or barbecued.

Holding some pre-hatched ones.

Later (after some corralling—of sheep, not kids) we were able to see this two-week-old lamb. There was a smaller, softer one, but he was so tiny he just jumped through the fence to get away from the eager arms of his visitors.

Yes, he really was that snuggly!

The lamb would only bear with us for so long, but this sheep—bottle-fed when he was a lamb years ago—stayed around as long as there was any hope of getting anything out of that white bucket.

Spring!

Thank you, Sara, for a lovely day and thank you, God, for smiling down on us with sunshine! Now I should go wash sheep poop off our shoes.

Reading Materials

2011-04-08T10:24:00.000-07:00

"I'm done!!!" is an exclamation that often comes bellowing out of the bathroom around our house. "I'm done!!!" they bellow, over and over until I respond with TP in hand. It's amazing how loudly they can call!

But sometimes I anticipate the child, occupied on the throne, and come to the bathroom before I get the summons. One day I quietly opened the door on Lucy and found her sitting there, her short legs dangling, with World Magazine draped across her lap. I wish I had been able to get a picture, but the memory of it will forever make me laugh!

Movie Review: Tangled

2011-04-07T10:34:00.000-07:00

A movie with a fun story and great heart, Tangled is absolutely worth seeing. Amusing lines, funny animal characters, a Broadway-like score, it's the fairy tale world brought to a modern audience. An amazing amount of character and beauty is packed into those animated people! And the scene in the boat with the lights captures the essence of dreams coming true.

HOWEVER, I (personally) would only give it three stars out of five. *ducks behind some kind of protective covering!* I have three issues.

Issue #1: I actually didn't like the self-doubt, "I'm a horrible person but this is so fun" scene after she decides to leave the tower. A fairy tale is supposed to be about having an adventure and finding your dream. Modern characters always have to "discover themselves." I think this navel-gazing takes away from the flair of the genre.

Issue #2: It was too trendy—I prefer more of a classic fairy tale feel. "Frying pans...who knew, right?" It worked for the movie, but it's just not my style.

Issue #3: It was a little above and beyond in denying the laws of physics. Okay, I know you are supposed to suspend disbelief when you watch animated movies, but the way these people were jumping and leaping around, outrunning walls of water, and beating each other over the head with cast iron skillets, they would have all been either dead or having severe concussions by the end of this film!

So there you have it. Watch this movie, love it if you want, but now you have my two cents.

Ten Ways to Destroy the Imagination of Your Child: Concluding Thoughts

2011-04-05T23:45:00.000-07:00

As soon as I saw the title I knew I wanted to get my hands on this book. As a mother of three young children, it is a subject of particular interest, and it did not disappoint.

In this book, the imagination is more than just the creative part of the brain that comes up with arts and crafts or cute stories. It is a capacity to think and feel, to love, to stand for something, to strive for something. It is seeing life as more than profit and loss and a bottom line. To have an imagination is to be truly human, able to accomplish the truly great. It is to see that the ordinary all around us is really extraordinary and to be brave enough to face it. A person like that will rise above mediocrity and will not be swayed by every passing whim of the masses. He will live a life, not of buying and consuming, but of ultimate meaning.

Anthony Esolen addresses this subject from the opposite angle. Like C. S. Lewis in Screwtape Letters, he uses the voice of the “bad guys,” leaving his readers to infer what not to do. A brilliant method, really, because I wouldn’t want some guy from Rhode Island telling me how to inspire greatness in my children. What does he know about our circumstances and their personalities? Instead, he demonstrates trends in the modernity and materialism of our day that eat away at creative capacities while still managing to avoid sounding like a conspiracy theorist.

This book is not an organized, bullet pointed, well-defined dissertation. Think of it more as a ramble in the woods or a hike in the mountains. The author is very well-read and he includes many examples and illustrations from history and literature as well as stories from his own experiences. As a professor of medieval and renaissance literature, he favors Dante and others from that period and he often looks to the ancient Greeks as well. Personally I thought he used a few too many “good old days” anecdotes. Using a “show, don’t tell” approach, all these examples take up a good chunk of the book and it’s easy to lose his point in the midst of them. But once again, would we really want him to just tell us what to do?

Even if the book overall is a bit jumbled, it’s an important topic and well-worth wading through even if you prefer your information a bit more systematic. If you are like me and you enjoy hopping on a train of thought and seeing where it takes you, then I guarantee you’ll love this book.

She's Talkative

2011-04-05T10:04:00.000-07:00

The other day we were at the thrift store (you know, being thrifty). We browsed through shelves of odd mugs, pitchers and baskets of every imaginable shape and size, and strange wooden things the use of which I couldn't figure out. Lucy kept up a running commentary the entire time and had something to say about everything. "Oooo! That one's pretty! It's pink; I like pink. What's that thing for? Can I touch that?..." Mostly I just nodded, occasionally I mumbled something in return, but for the most part I was pretty focused on prices and the wish list I have running in my head.

Then as I reached for some dish or another, a lady smiled at Lucy's chatter and said to me, "She has such a sweet voice! I could listen to her all day long."

I smiled back but inside I thought, "I do listen to her all day long."

And suddenly I realized just what a blessing that is.

Ten Ways to Destroy the Imagination of Your Child: Method Ten

2011-04-03T21:15:00.000-07:00

Deny the Transcendent

“You rouse us to take joy in praising You, for You have made us for Yourself, and our heart is restless until it rests in You.” —St. Augustine

Here it is, the final method. In a way, Esolen saved the best, the most important for last. For if we believe that what we see is what we get then there’s not much point to stretching the mind and developing the imagination. In fact, it is those very things that are just beyond our reach—past the horizon, behind the sunset, over the rainbow (if you will)—that really make us want to create. C. S. Lewis is a master of this theme and addresses it (among other places) in his chapter on hope in Mere Christianity. There he says that if people would look into their hearts they would know that they want—and want acutely—something that cannot be had in this world. Animals don’t gaze at the sky and wonder what is beyond it. But mankind, formed of dust in God’s very image, was breathed into a life beyond dust with God’s very breath.

“The imagination opens out not principally to what it knows and finds familiar, but to what it does not know, what it finds strange, half hidden, robed with inaccessible light. The familiar too can be an object of wonder but not by its familiarity.”

A Ceiling of Materialism over Our Heads
The night sky, sprinkled with mysterious stars, opens wide above us, inviting us to wonder what lies beyond. A sunset, dousing the world with golden light, tugs at our souls and makes us stop to take pictures with whatever device is handy, even though we know it can’t be captured. The deep blue of a wide open summer sky seems almost close enough to touch, and at the same time is infinitely high.

Materialists would put a ceiling between us and that sky. They would have us tell our children, “This world of dirt and stuff is all there is and don’t ask us where it is going, or what it means, because it is going to destruction and it means nothing.” Just try to create, to imagine in a world like that. Try building a cathedral in honor of that. Try to paint, in rapture, the rise of the dollar on the world money market. Murals dedicated to “Collaborative Learning” or “Development of Social Skills” do not bring admirers from all over the world. The “joy of man’s desiring” is not some political hack, promising one thing today, doing something else tomorrow.

Art that has to do with the Lord God inspires an awe that makes all else feel puny. It takes a kind of bravery to face it and one who has enough courage and enough humility will suddenly see the emptiness in the world money market. He will see the mockery of politics. He will see the uselessness of stuff. He won’t buy and consume and buy some more. He will scorn passing fashions because he knows they are passing. When he hears the call to freedom in a patriotic anthem, it won’t be mere words to him—he will rally to it in obedience and virtue. It’s not that he will be hard to govern. He will govern himself and that will make despotism impossible.

And so those who would have a society that is compliant, predictable and easy to manipulate erect that ceiling and they put it as low as possible. When people try to rise above it, all they will get is a bump on the head. Soon they will learn better and settle for the mediocrity of being good and useful citizens. True, they will be less than human, but the fully human are wild and prone to fighting and loving, destroying and building anew. They will know the word “only.” Sunsets, beauty, love, man, God...it can all be explained away and the imagination shut down with the word “only.”

A Chasm in Our Souls
Take away God and the promise of the infinite and all that’s left in the heart of man is emptiness. But man will try to fill it. Without the heavens to behold, he will only have power or wealth or fame to scrabble after. He will go to shopping malls to buy, buy, buy. He will fill his house with stuff and his belly with food, but even all the “creature comforts and tricksy gadgetry and rubbings and itchings of appetite” cannot begin to fill up even the tiniest corner of the chasm that remains in the absence of God. According to Dante, what is the greatest heresy? To believe that there is nothing to believe, because “all is matter, and matter, finally, has no meaning.” In the end, all this getting, gets you nothing.

Open the Ceiling; Fill the Chasm
Let us not lead our children into such a hollow life. Let us tear down that ceiling and show them that the true wonder of the sky is the Infinite God beyond it. Let us not spoon-feed them religion in the form of foolish cartoons. It’s real stories, real truth that will open their world out into vistas of ultimate meaning. Even if we can’t give them all the answers, we can give them a universe of questions to explore for the rest of their lives. The imagination, raised to vibrant life by the voice of God, will make a man a man, not just a consumer or a “clotpoll to be counted off in some mass survey.” For if we have the love of God, what do we need from anything else?

“In both art and worship, the heart seeks out something beyond itself—a beauty or a power that is not its own....The play of the artist’s hand is one with the praise of the artist’s heart.”

Apple Pie Day 2011

2011-04-01T13:31:00.000-07:00

It's spring in Oregon! Cherry trees are blossoming everywhere and new grass is growing in emerald green. On Thursday we went down to the Oregon Capitol along with 500 or more other home schoolers.

At noon we all gathered on the steps of the Capitol building. A choir sang, a band played, and Will Estrada a lawyer with HSLDA (a homeschool graduate himself) gave an inspirational speech.

Everywhere we went in the building there were other people like us seeing how the Oregon government works and delivering apple pies to senators and representatives. We got to meet Senator Chuck Thompson (pictured above) and Representative Patrick Sheehan. We sat in the gallery while the senate opened and watched three bills get passed in less than thirty minutes.

We also took a tour of the building which included a long climb up to the tower where we got a closer look at the gleaming "Pioneer" statue on the top of the building as well as views of Salem as the sun finally came out. The blossoming cherry trees on the grounds looked especially lovely from up there.

Can you see Lucy getting a closer look at Oregon's seal? Whether it's red tape or a golden chain, she doesn't let anything get in her way.

If you are an Oregonian and you support education freedoms then I would encourage you to attend the next Apple Pie Day. We went down early for a 10:00 appointment to meet the Senator, but if you don't want to devote a whole day you could easily just come in time for the noon rally on the steps. Once you're down there, if you want to do more with your time, there are activities like the tour, a "Home Education Freedoms 101" class, and you could arrange to meet your legislator. It's a great way to raise political awareness, even if you just provide a few more bodies in the crowd on the steps. As Will Estrada said, "The worst enemy of education freedoms is apathy."

Project Simplify: Pantry and Fridge

2011-04-01T11:19:00.000-07:00

The Hot Spot #4 for Project Simplify was the pantry and the refrigerator. Visit Simple Mom for a plan of attack and lots of helpful links.

I just gave the pantry a much needed reorganization a few months ago, but (guess what?) it needed to be done again. My pantry is in an under-the-stairs closet so the usable space diminishes as the ceiling gets closer and closer to the floor. Also it is very narrow. I do have shelves on both sides of it, but I can't really get between them—I have to reach (thanking God for long arms). As a result I will often just toss stuff near the right location and it tends to quickly get messy. Every time I organize it, I switch out what goes in those hard to reach areas. I keep hoping to find something that I hardly ever need to go there. But I also tend to be fairly minimalistic: meaning that most of what I have, I need.

Pantry: before

Ingredients cupboard: before

Some spices were here, too.
Yes, that is an unopened package of new spice jars.

My hutch that I love
I like to display pretty grains and beans here in clear jars

Some stuff was even on the fridge.
Guess what? I usually would forget to use these.
Dry beans don't go bad, right?

So, I know I could do this a shelf at a time, but I tend to be an all-or-nothing kind of person. So while Joshua was up on his top bunk playing legos I gathered all our (non-refrigerated) food into the center of the kitchen. Lucy and Esther, um, helped.

I did have a couple things to toss, but mostly I just refilled jars (since I buy in bulk) moved things that need to be used up soon to handier locations where they will be in-sight and in-mind.

I got out those new spice jars and clearly labeled everything. Now all my spices are in the same type of container and they are all in the same place. I also cleaned that bottom shelf. I believe some honey had dripped into a sticky mess that had collected anything off of everything that had been set in it.

New stock of beans, rice, and oats. A few items were condensed to smaller containers put in the pantry and because of some re-situating in there, I was able to clear off the top of the fridge.

Pantry: after

I did take pictures of the fridge, but I didn't get to cleaning it that day. I tend to keep it clean (meat leaks onto a shelf often enough) and we don't keep enough in there that items get lost and forgotten. I threw away a couple of past dated things and called it good.

The freezer could use some straitening, but since I have a big freezer in the garage, everything in this one is being used pretty regularly. I can always find what I need.

I wish projects like this could stay done, but there is such a volume of food coming in and then being used up that I think it's the nature of kitchens to get disorganized. But then, sorting through it feels so good that I guess it's okay to have to do it now and then!

Ten Ways to Destroy the Imagination of Your Child: Method Nine

2011-03-30T19:53:00.001-07:00

Distract the Child with the Shallow and Unreal

“Modernity is a form of confinement: a way of life wherein we are free to ‘express’ ourselves, so long as the differences between one person and the next are not considered of any account. Everyone is different, and the differences make no difference; everyone walks in the gaudy wear of his own whims, and therefore everyone is a prisoner of the fads of the passing moment.”

Television
Television is probably the first destroyer of the imagination that people think of. It’s true that TV is full of “moronic sales pitches for toys and toothpaste and luxury cars, appealing to lust, vanity, greed, envy, pride and various other sins deadly and disheartening.” It’s true that staring at the screen is easy—it replaces the physical and mental exertion required by reading or riding a bike. But have you ever thought that “every hour spent in front of the television [is] an hour not spent doing something else?...For everybody has to have some time doing something pointless, like playing cards. But the television engages the imagination in a false and easy way, as playing cards does not.” It requires no effort and then, when effort is required, the lazy, glutted imagination will not be able to give it. “You’ll still be able to play cards, but you will find it hard to listen to Beethoven.” Roald Dahl’s “Song to Mike Teevee” comes to mind here.

Noise
The real problem with television is that it is full of noise. This kind of noise is more than just decibels; it is “a kind of mental and spiritual interference, like the blitz of tiny explosions in radio static.” And it’s not limited to the TV screen. Anonymous crowds, billboards, announcements, pretentious posters pushing political propaganda, useless information immediately available on handy portable devices, slogans about slogans.... Eyes will be “trained to jitter with the skips and blips of visual distraction,” ears will “jitter along with incoherent wailings,” and minds will not rest on the beauties of even an actual stretch of sea and sky, let alone an imaginary sea and sky.

People
A life lived in a community of other lives will be a rich one. Every other person has the potential to broaden the mind because each one has a different set of experiences. But it takes time to get to know them and humility, too, because one must listen instead of talk, receive instead of offer. Too often what we have instead of community is crowds: herds of people merely performing functions for each other. The cashier at the grocery store is not a person with character and a story, she is just a cog in the wheel of society. Even the family is being dismantled: parents are being replaced by professionals who do their job efficiently, not lovingly. Life is deadened by routine without order, affability without love, rebukes without anger.

Does anyone else think that Facebook (dare I bring it up?) lends to this problem? As Esolen says, “We use the word ‘friend’ to describe someone we hardly know because the real depths of friendship are inaccessible to us.” Facebook relationships tend to be both “shallow” and “unreal.” Do they distract from the kind of friendship that bares souls and gives all?

So what shall we then do about all this?

In many cases, nothing, says Esolen.

The imagination is a natural faculty in man. It can be drowned out in noisy clamor, it can be scheduled and managed into oblivion, it can be squashed as its heroes are flattened, it can be muffled up indoors, but don’t make the mistake of trying to foster it. It can be so powerful on its own that sometimes all it needs to thrive is a bit of peace and quiet, some time to think, and something noble to think about.

True creativity can be thought of as a kind of receptivity to something that comes to us from without. Tradition has the poet as hearer before he is crafter of verses. “The Muse comes to him.” Milton, the blind poet, appealed to his Heavenly Muse to dictate to him his unpremeditated verse; Einstein daydreamed in the hills of Tuscany wondering about light, listening to the light’s whisperings; Elijah witnessed all the “pyrotechnics nature has to offer”—the whirlwind, the earthquake, the fire from above—but the Lord was in the “still, small voice.”

“In the deep quiet of the heart we hear things. We hear that the world as we know it is passing away. We are passing away. Yet the world is beautiful and good is no illusion....We [can] crowd many years into a single instant, or we [can] recall an instant years later, as if it were present now in all its power and life.”

As mothers we want to protect our children from the distractions of a garish world. We see them as so much putty in our hands, ready to be molded into something great. But maybe they are more like seeds which (as Toad had to learn) need simply to be planted, watered and then left alone to grow. No amount of playing music, providing light in the dark of night, or shouting “Now seeds, START GROWING!” would help them along. If our children are given silence, then—though they may be living in this world—it will be as if they know of an extra dimension or two invisible to most. They will be free: free to wander, free to love. They will be human, creatures against whom the empire of the masses will not stand.

“If our current empire is to survive, we must resist the temptations of the One whom Elijah heard in the still, small voice. For unlike the serpent in the garden, He really would make us be as gods and set us free. We prefer our bonds instead.”

You can read my "Ode to Silence" inspired by this chapter.

Ode To Silence

2011-03-30T19:53:00.000-07:00

Inspired by Ten Ways To Destroy Your Child's Imagination, Method Nine

When I was young there were always younger siblings needing naps. I remember the quiet that would settle over the whole house when the baby went to sleep and for two hours out of every afternoon we would have a sacred Quiet Time. Mom would sleep too, no one would converse (if we did we would involuntarily whisper), we were either reading or pursuing some quiet activity.

It’s nap time now as I write this. Someone upstairs is practicing music, Mom (she no longer has a baby to put to sleep) has just returned from an errand, I can hear footsteps, cupboards creaking. But all these sounds are distant, part of someone else’s life. Here, in our little home, Lucy has drifted to sleep next to a pile of picture books. Esther is stirring, but she has been told that it’s not time to get up yet. I can hear Joshua’s legos tinkling in the box as he searches for the right piece and the keys of my keyboard make muted clicking noises. The calm, the quiet, is almost tangible, like a quilt that we are snuggled under as we rest from the labors of the morning and get ready for the labors of the evening.

Usually our church is bustling with people. A hundred “how-do-you-do’s” are exchanged as we all find our seats but then the cheerful cacophony is united in song and confession. Even during the sermon, as the pastor’s voice brings the word of God, there is a soft, quiet rustle as children color, parents hush, and Bible pages turn. But if you happen to go into the sanctuary when all the worshippers have gone off to their various daily lives, you will encounter another tangible silence. In that silence you can hear without hearing the echo of hundreds of hymns sung by thousands of voices throughout the ages. If you listen to that silence, pausing for a moment from whatever errand you might have been on, you will know that this passing life is not all there is.

New York City is a place of hustle and bustle if any place is. We saw Times Square, alight with one glitzy advertisement after another. We rode the subway with hundreds of people hurrying hither and thither. We were on the Empire State Building as the sun set and millions of lights began to blink on—lights in houses, street lights, traffic lights, and head lights on thousands and thousands of cars. In the midst of Manhattan, many people find sanctuary under the trees, in the meadows, and along the paths of Central Park. But my favorite place that we visited in the City was the Trinity Church. The old church is right in the financial district, mere blocks from the Stock Exchange. There were no signs instructing curious tourists like ourselves to be quiet, but when we walked in, the place itself made us involuntarily respectful, reverent. We didn’t rush from one informative plaque to an other, we didn’t point out curiosities to each other. No, we sat, gazed a little, and listened. A place like that takes you beyond yourself. The eternal touches the present and we know that a home is prepared for us Somewhere Else.

I Was A Fun Mom Today

2011-03-30T13:53:00.000-07:00

It was 11:30—an hour and a half till nap time, that oasis in a mother's day. I had already been for a walk, made breakfast, cleaned up from breakfast, dressed everyone, started two loads of laundry, read a story to the kids, worked on letters with Joshua and supervised Lucy's workbook activities. As we sat at the table drinking tea, I suddenly remembered that I'd been wanting to make cookies with the kids. As they sipped their hot beverage I gathered the ingredients for my favorite chocolate chip cookie recipe. Instead of just getting it done as quickly as possible (you know, the sooner to eat the cookies!) I let them help. Lucy dumped in sugar, Joshua tried his hand at mixing, and they both unwrapped the butter. Sure, I did most of the work, but they felt included, especially when the mixing was done and the "nibbles" of dough could begin going around.

Waiting patiently is so hard!

Too late!

Finally, we could enjoy the fruits of our labors. Yummy!

Picking out the chocolate chips, of course.
Isn't that how you eat them?

Yes, they really were that good!

Eli, if you read this at work, let me assure you that
there are plenty waiting for you when you get home.

An Early Spring Walk in the Woods

2011-03-29T11:46:00.000-07:00

Since Exodus is closed on Monday Eli gets to spend the day with us. This week we took the kids on a walk through the Mount Talbert Nature Park. It's a small butte just down the road from our home with very nicely maintained walking paths. Mostly it's used by joggers, but I love rambling through it with the kids. There's lots of birds, ferns, and moss, and in the summer the sunny meadow is full of blooming daisies. This time we even caught a glimpse of two deer just before they bounded away into the trees!

I like to call it "the Golden Wood." With the sun streaming through and all the yellowy moss on the trees, it takes on a warm, golden hue that is almost magical.

The first time we came here we brought our new stroller with its snazzy all-terrain wheels. But it was no match for the roots and rocks that we encountered at certain parts of the path. This time we knew better, but we should have planned some sort of transportation for an unsteady and quite slow eighteen-month-old.

I think she enjoyed the trip from her comfy perch up on Daddy's shoulders.

This is Joshua's senior portrait pose.

Just kidding! He's still just a little boy!

My three kids, all smiling for the camera for once!

Ten Ways: Method Eight—A Female Perspective

2011-03-26T12:49:00.000-07:00

Method eight in Ten Ways to Destroy the Imagination of Your Child is full of examples from history and literature and Esolen also uses many anecdotes from his own childhood. He is definitely writing from the point of view of a man who was once a boy so the illustrations of girlhood and womanhood are (understandably) a bit thin. As a woman who was once a girl, I thought I’d throw in my two cents worth of childhood memories.

When I was almost seven my family joined a church that spent nearly all of every Sunday together. After the service we had a fellowship meal together and after that we would have a short communion service. We were meeting in the school building belonging to a Seventh Day Adventist church. There was a gym, a long hallway (with mysteriously closed off classrooms hiding behind each door), a large covered porch, a playground, and a big field hedged at the back by blackberry bushes which bore fruit for us to eat and make into "ink" in the summer. When the weather was even sort of descent (I don’t think our mothers invested in fancy church clothes) there would be children of all ages roaming that property. The big boys would do back flips off the swings to the amazement of all of us younger kids. Boys would find frogs or snakes or they’d collect pinecones to be used (you guessed it) as projectiles. My friends and I alternated mostly between princesses and pioneers. After I read the Misty books we played that we were wild horses a few times. We also gathered pinecones, but they were the provisions we took with us on our journey to the Oregon Territory.

Then we all discovered freeze tag and almost every Sunday for a year or more you could find a group of maybe ten to twenty kids (boys and girls) running around the playground and the field. If it was too close after the meal, at least one or two would be collapsed on the ground with an excruciating side ache. But even though we played together, there was still a divide between the boys and girls. My friends and I would come to the game together and leave together. We would congregate on “base” together. There was definitely a sense of mystery such as Esolen refers to. And yes, there were glances back and forth.

Still we grew. Civil War re-enacting became vogue. The boys made or acquired uniforms (mostly Confederate gray), they collected rifles and they marched off through the woods to shoot at each other and die as realistically as possible. Then they would sit around their campfires and drink water out of canteens or (preferably) maple syrup jugs that would look amusingly as though they contained something a good deal stiffer. We girls got to be nurses (pale and shaking) during the hospital scenes, which always included amputations. We sewed dresses out of colorful calico, we baked pies, we crocheted. In the evening we would dance. Then the distinctions between boys and girls (not yet men and women, but getting close) were preserved and even sharpened. We would sit on the side and wait to be asked. They would ask and they considered it an honor (or they said they did, anyway). They would lead us on and then lead us off again.

I don’t remember the division being weird or forced. No one told me not to play with the boys or to only get so close or to only talk for so long. It was natural and I think it did result in a greater respect for each other when we did get together.

Of course there has to be balance. We don’t want our children going all Victorian and prudish, especially as they get older. But they should understand and embrace the differences. Then as they mature they can begin to wonder and marvel at them.

Ten Ways to Destroy the Imagination of Your Child: Method Eight

2011-03-26T12:40:00.000-07:00

Level Distinctions Between Man and Woman

“We human beings wherever we go will always have one frontier right before us, one source of wonder, precisely for the fascinating strangeness of the land. Women will have men and men will have women.”

The imagination, unless it is stifled early, is restless. It longs for the faraway, the separate, the unknown. The previous chapter demonstrated how love ignites the imagination; this chapter suggests that the way to keep men and women from falling in love—beholding each other with wonder and reverence—is to flatten the children. From an early age they are to be given both a superficial familiarity and an impenetrable ignorance of what makes men and women so strangely, uniquely, marvelously different from each other.

Superficial Familiarity
An easy way to dispel the mystery of the sexes is to herd kids together whenever possible as if there’s no reason to keep them apart. Boys and girls routinely thrown together will not learn the wonder of love but rather the boredom of familiarity. They may still develop friendships in that situation, but the primary focus will be who is eyeing who and who is going to who’s party. But boys and girls are different. Even when they are at the same activity, they don’t go about it in the same way. Keeping them separate is healthy for their intellectual and emotional development and makes it possible for them to try their hand at this and that without the distraction of (and the fear of being embarrassed by or in front of) the opposite sex. A divide wisely and judiciously set up will feel natural and will be respected by both the boys and the girls. It will allow boys to be boys and girls to be girls and each will feel like that means something. There will still be glances back and forth, but they will be glances of wonder and esteem.

This chapter is full of examples from history and literature and Esolen also uses many anecdotes from his own childhood. He is definitely writing from the point of view of a man who was once a boy so the illustrations of girlhood and womanhood are (understandably) a bit thin. As a woman who was once a girl, I thought I’d throw in my two cents worth of childhood memories. (read more...)

Impenetrable Ignorance
Children are herded into anonymity at earlier and earlier ages and as they grow the homogeneity continues. Boys are not led into “manhood,” girls are not ushered into “womanhood,” and neither are led to believe that the two are at all different. Instead they merely “grow up” into “adulthood,” as do animals and weeds and with about the same significance. Modernity, putting on a veneer of intelligence, scoffs at traditional ideals by pinning any easy stupidity or immorality upon the men and women of the past who exemplified them. Never mind that these conventional men and women—possessed of virtues modernity would ignore—tamed a continent. No, the only ideals children are given to seek after are lots of money, a sharp wardrobe, and a glamorous career—things that “glut the soul rather than whet its longing for what is beyond our immediate range of sight.” Not very inspiring or elevating, but quite necessary to drive the economy. On the other hand, the concepts of manliness and womanliness give young people a recognizable ideal to strive for and grow into—and it’s not one of their own making. It’s something that has been done by all the boys and girls of ages past who became the men and women who made history. It’s beautiful and bracing, significant and noble.

When children are herded into big, controlled crowds they can neither enjoy the bliss of solitude nor form close friendships. Friendship exalts the imagination and when boys hang out with other boys and girls gather with other girls, they are free to develop the kind of companionship that is unencumbered by feelings of attraction or shyness. This “brotherhood” and “sisterhood” will allow the boys and the girls (who will eventually become men and women) to accomplish the great and the glorious. When you have a real friend you remember and treasure the past. You love the friend and suddenly the concerns of the masses fade into unimportance. “Pals we may have, in the flatlands of contemporary life. Political allies, sure. Coworkers aplenty. But not friends.”

“Wherever such friendships persist, there persists the possibility of imaginative leaps that threaten the comfort of the banal.”

Ten Ways to Destroy the Imagination of Your Child: Method Seven

2011-03-24T23:07:00.000-07:00

Reduce All Talk of Love to Narcissism and Sex

Containing many beautiful examples from literature and poetry, this chapter is a tribute to love—love that exalts, love that is mysterious, love that is selfless, love that “touches the ordinary so that suddenly we see that it is not ordinary after all.” Love takes the earthly beauty around us and gives it greater meaning and a heavenly splendor. It makes us hunger for the good, the true and the beautiful. This kind of love goes beyond physical desire; it does not reduce its object to animal attraction or to material accidents such as a pretty eye or a fair cheek. Not that it doesn’t appreciate the beauty, but it is on a quest for something greater than mere copulation. It desires to possess that beauty all the more and in its noblest form: companionship bound by a mutual rivalry of noble deeds and consideration of the good itself. This kind of love becomes merged with our longing to know the highest truth: to contemplate the beauty of the Creator.

“What exalts us is not the poetry, nor even the haunting melody to which it is sung, but the call of love that leads us, in imagination, into a world of desire and beauty and disappointment. It is a world as old as man; and can be put to death only by the abolition of man.”

The abolition of man is exactly what mass-entertainers and mass-educators are about. Instead of ennobling poetry about selfless love of another, we get self-infatuated drivel. Love now has to do with “whatever makes me happy” not with whatever makes me see beyond myself. “It is an emotional itch, that is all.” But it’s not really love they’re talking about at all—it’s lust. Lust not only ignores the heavenly things, but also reduces even earthly things to “dunghill thoughts” and cannot imagine anything other than the urge of animal desire. The glorious mysteries of manliness and womanliness are dispelled or papered over and ignored and when that happens, “we can no longer appreciate why men and women were ever fascinated with each other in the first place. We lose the poetry and music of love.”

Modern educators reduce “manliness” and “womanliness” to the capacity to engage in sexual intercourse. The qualities traditionally associated with good men and good women (service and support, respect and submission) are merely conventional: they can and should be otherwise. “The passage from girlhood to womanhood, from being a child to being capable of bearing a child, is reduced to twaddle and giggles.” Measurements and functions are all love is, without the least connection to the being of a woman. “Manhood” is not something into which a man could lead a boy. Delicate matters of human desire and attraction are shrugged away with a laugh. The whole subject of sex has to do with controlling the hardware and keeping it clean. Not much happens when a boy and a girl fall in love except that they eventually get around to wondering when they should “go further.” Modern educators set up a pasteboard world where virtue, duty and the momentous giving of oneself wholly to another have no part. They are not interested in the mysteries of love, only in mechanics and hygienics. “What is love? No concrete answer can be given, so why bother asking?”

People with a strong sense of being embodied creatures rather than bundles of appetite provided with the machinery of a body will blanche at genetic engineering, homosexuality, the raising of children by institutions... Such a person would not drag the distinctive qualities of manliness and womanliness over the ground of the other because he would give each the greatest respect possible. He would glimpse with awe the unfathomable mystery of each, whose bodies—when they unite—produce “that one-flesh union that allows us to link one generation to the next.” Retaining a sensitivity to the mysterious and holy, he would not be so easily assimilated into the world of the masses.

Project Simplify: Kids Clothes and Toys

2011-03-24T22:37:00.000-07:00

On Monday Eli and I rearranged pretty much the whole house. We moved the couch out of our room and into the kids' room where we will actually use it. To make room for that we moved the crib into a little alcove in our room. It looks adorable as a little nursery! Well, the office was in that spot so we had to find a new place for that...etc...etc... Because of the rearrangement I had to re-situate Esther's clothes. Just before I sat down to find out this week's hot spot on Simple Mom, I told Eli that organizing the kids' clothes would be on my to do list this week. How convenient to then find out that the official Hot Spot #3 is children's clothes and toys! I eagerly read Simple Mom's suggestions and tips on how to manage this troublesome area.

So Tuesday morning I dumped every stitch of their current clothes that I could find on the floor in my room.

Children's clothes are a challenge to stay on top of. Seasons change before I know it and the little munchkins just keep on growing! They crawl around on the floor and put holes in their jeans, they spill food, they play in the dirt... I already work hard to keep up with their changing wardrobe and their changing needs, so mostly I just refolded and put things back into place. But there were a few items to sort out and some to pass down.

Too big.

Too small.

Esther's too small.

To go OUT.

An example of the finished look.

The kids' clothes are in one half of an oversized closet in their room. The dresser and everything hides nicely when the door is closed. Clothes ready to be handed down stack on top of the dresser and their church clothes hang on a mini closet rod hung across the depth instead of the width of the closet. Yes, I realize that I have enough dresses to keep an army of little girls clothed for a month of Sundays. I have gone through them. Repeatedly. Really! They're just so cute! If only my daughters would stop growing...

Well, I was on a roll, so I put Esther down for her nap in my room and we tackled the toys next. It's amazing how many will accumulate after 3 baby showers, 4 Christmases, and 9 birthdays!

Who says organizing is drudgery?

I do sort toys regularly so there were only a few old or broken toys to get rid of. Mostly they just play with Duplos so I try not to have too many other little sets of building toys. I couldn't really get a picture of the after effect because everything just looked put away. The building toys are under the bunk bed, the toy dishes and larger sized cars are on shelves, and there's a small set of drawers in the closet with toy animals, army men, and matchbox cars. The stuffed animals go in a funky mesh sorter thing I found at IKEA for quite cheap. When Lucy settled down on the couch for her quiet time after we were done, she said, "Mom, our room looks so nice and clean!"

Really, there's a part of my that wants to toss it all and just let the kiddos play with the Five Best Toys of All Time.

Esther: Eighteen Months Old

2011-03-23T10:35:00.000-07:00

We had some lovely sunlight filtering through the window in my bedroom a while ago so I dressed up my little girl and we had a home photo shoot. At eighteen months, it's fun to watch the baby-ness fade as the toddler-ness blossoms. She still cuddles like a baby, though!

Esther's name means "Star" and she has a twinkling personality!

Ten Ways to Destroy the Imagination of Your Child: Method Six

2011-03-23T10:20:00.000-07:00

Cut All Heroes Down to Size

There are three ways to remove the inspiration of heroes from our children’s imaginations:

1. Belittle military heroism

“The virtues that really open the heart and the moral imagination are those that you must exercise with real effort, here and now--standing up in front of this bully, perhaps taking a blow for what is right, and dealing one or two in return. Even friendship can be forged out of enmity when opponents of genuine courage meet one another.”

Boys will be fascinated with violent action. A two-year-old will pick up any random stick and turn it into a gun, bang-banging away at anything in sight. He will build cannons out of Duplos and the pieces strewn on the floor become so many dead bodies. Killing bad guys is quickly a normal part of his vocabulary even if his innocent mother only remembers reading The Cat and the Hat and The Very Hungry Caterpillar to him. And this is only the beginning; his interest in war and fighting will only grow as he grows. The modern age would have us give our children as heroes not people who make peace but people who safely and comfortably talk about it a lot. Wars and those who fight them are bad. People die in war. Resources are destroyed. When history becomes nothing but “fashionable glances at wise people who did the politically correct thing and wicked people who did not,” then only the miseries that war brings are dwelt on. No one bothers to ask what would have happened if Britain had surrendured to Napoleon or Hitler. No one wonders what the world would be like if America, instead of fighting back, had come to terms with Japan after the bombing of Pearl Harbor. Once the innocent mother has removed all of her boy’s real heroes, the modern age gives her an easy and frivolous outlet for his fascination with violent action: noisy, imbecilic, lewd and bloody video games.

As a young mother myself I can see how easy this would be. It’s hard to know what to do when your little boy is running around killing things. It would be easier to teach him pacifism. “Killing is bad, little boy. Would you like to play storekeeper? Play with your blocks; maybe you could become a builder some day. If you must fight, fight fires or disease or global warming. If something in society bothers you, just pass laws against it.” And then when he still wants to shoot stuff up, you sit him in front of a screen where at least the killing isn’t real.

The life of a soldier is prone to many a vice and much drudgery, but it is a profession worthy of honor because in entering it the man implicitly agrees that his life is not his own. War calls forth acts of courage and generosity and charity, often at the cost of limb or life. “Death or the risk of death can suddenly lift us out of the petty concerns of the day.” A child raised on modernity’s ideas of heroism will say, “I am heroic already because I agree with William Wilberforce,” rather than, “If only someday I could do something a tenth as noble as what William Wilberforce did.”

2. Flippancy

“Not many people can cut a really good new joke, but anybody can be trained to speak as if the good things of this world were ridiculous.”

C. S. Lewis (in Screwtape Letters) says that flippancy is a thousand miles from joy and deadens instead of sharpening. It builds up armor against God. It’s easy to fall into flippancy because heroes often do what is foolish in the eyes of the world. They attempt the brave and noble--often seemingly pointless--despite difficulties, obstacles and dangers. Why admit that they are greater than we are, why risk our own safety or reputation to try to follow in their footsteps, why cheer, why flush with admiration when we can snigger and smirk and laugh at what we do not understand. Humility? Honesty? Chastity? Quaint. Out of fashion. Self-control? Temperance? Takes too much effort. People who value those things are unenlightened. Besides, none of it works anyway.

3. Equality

“Everyone is creative, everyone is original. Every one of the millions of lemmings is to believe himself a leader of tomorrow, leading tomorrow in perfectly predictable fashion right over the edge of the cliff.”

Even a brief glance into history will find excellence to be admired and learned from, but that superiority is often an affront to our self-esteem. Excellence implies that some are better than others. In our day of “No Child Left Behind” we do not want one to excel beyond another. Someone’s feelings might get hurt, for goodness sake! So instead of admiring the artistic, intellectual and moral heroes of the past and learning from them, we homogenize and level them. Scott Joplin may not be as good as Mozart, but he was just as famous in his own day. Shakespeare was popular “back in the old days” but people couldn’t read and write back then. Nowadays we all see dramas; they just happen to be on television. "I think," says the person who doesn't really know what he's talking about, "that such and such is just as good as anything Shakespeare ever wrote." And any of us could come up with our own fine piece of work. The genuine heroes of the past are tarnished and mirrors of self-adulation are set up all around. Everyone goes to college--not to learn about the great ones of the past and for the opportunity to maybe be a great one in the future--but to be a College Graduate, as if that makes one somebody.

So why--if we wish to stretch their imaginations--should we introduce our children to heroes?

If you think back to the heroes of history who stand out for their artistic or intellectual accomplishments, you will find that most (if not all) had heroes of their own. And they didn’t just respect and learn from them as one would a knowledgeable mentor. They were their authorities, their teachers and they bowed with reverence before them. J.S. Bach, Edmund Spencer, Machiavelli...they all had their heroes and it was this admiration for genius past that enabled them to change history. The souls of our children will be exalted by the greatness they esteem in others.

A hero extends the limits of what is human and introduces us to possibilities we had never considered. If he does so in the service of something good and noble, we love him so much the better for it. Love of a hero does not make sense sometimes--like love, like playfulness, like anything that “makes life more than a calculation of profit and loss.” To common eyes the hero often looks like a fool: the missionary who returns to preach to his captors, the small band of soldiers who won’t surrender even though they are vastly outnumbered, the explorer who journeys to lands unknown and inaccessible, the statesman who stands against the slave trade even though it is the foundation of his nation’s economy. But it is this folly of a man making a stand despite all odds that makes a hero like a pack of dynamite to a young mind, ready to blow away conformity and dullness.

Project Simplify: Paper Clutter

2011-03-18T05:02:00.000-07:00

Hot Spot #2 is paper clutter. Head on over to Simple Mom for some great tips on how to tackle and manage this on-going housekeeping issue.

I would describe the level of paper clutter I have to deal with as minimal to average. Our utilities are included in our rent agreement (including internet), we don't have any house payments and all the papers that come with that, we don't have a land line phone and we paid for our cell phone in one big chunk since we're on Eli's brother's plan. I haven't even started homeschooling in earnest. Maybe I'd better make that paper level minimal.

Still there's paper around to deal with and since there's so little, we tend to let it pile up. Here are the problem areas:

My desk

Misc. papers sorter: suspiciously empty.

Basket for family worship papers: mostly full of old Sunday School projects.

Eli's desk: not my responsibility, right?

Bedside nightstands: just how many books are we reading right now?

So I collected everything in one place. I was not planning on doing any major re-filing or catching up on financial paperwork. I just wanted to get it put away.

The Pile

About 50% of that got recycled. 25% was just books that needed to be put back on their proper shelves. And that basket in the middle holds (dare I admit it?) Christmas letters and cards. (I have an excuse: most of them are from church friends and we get them all on the Sunday before Christmas. If we read them right away it would take a whole evening! We've been meaning to go through them...)

I moved the wicker paper sorter to the place where papers tend to pile up and replaced it with my cookbooks. Yes, that is a Bible next to them. Man cannot live by bread alone, right?

All those slots are labeled. There is a place for everything, now we just need to put everything in its place.

Maybe I'll actually sit down here and write or something now!

Several books went back up to my nightstand. Yes, I really do need them all up there.

This basket looks pretty much the same, but now the papers in it are useful. I put all the unread Christmas letters here. Maybe we could read one each evening and pray for the family?

Ah, much better!

In conclusion, there's not really anything I can do to improve the system. We just need to stay on top of it.

More Household Help

2011-03-15T16:37:00.000-07:00

"Vanity of vanities,” says the Preacher;
"Vanity of vanities, all is vanity."
What profit has a man from all his labor
In which he toils under the sun?
...
All things are full of labor;
Man cannot express it.
The eye is not satisfied with seeing,
Nor the ear filled with hearing.
That which has been is what will be,
That which is done is what will be done,
And there is nothing new under the sun.
...
I have seen all the works that are done under the sun; and indeed, all is vanity and grasping for the wind.

Sometimes the futility of my labors as a housewife just astound me. You know how it goes: by the time you fold a load of laundry, there's another pile that needs to be washed...you clean up the floor and then someone eats crackers for snack...you make the beds only to climb right back into them.... Every time you turn around something that you just finished needs to be done again!

Of course, if you've read Ecclesiastes, you know not only that this repetition is natural but also that you are not the first to be confounded by it all. One generation passes away, and another takes its place...the sun rises and sets...rivers run into the sea and the water returns to run its course again...and again...and again. The wind keeps on whirling about.

No, I don't go crazy while I'm doing housework, but I do tend to over-think it. That's why one of my birthday gifts from a friend is particularly special to me.

My friend Katelyn has been learning to knit. Whenever we get together she is stitching away--knit after purl, purl after knit--on wash cloths of various sizes, colors and patterns. It made me happy that she thought of me as she made this yellow cotton cloth and every time I use it I think of her. It reminds me that I'm not alone in this endless cycle of housework. It reminds me that there is more to life than doing dishes, but doing the dishes is good too.

Here is what I have seen: It is good and fitting for one to eat and drink, and to enjoy the good of all his labor in which he toils under the sun all the days of his life which God gives him; for it is his heritage. As for every man to whom God has given riches and wealth, and given him power to eat of it, to receive his heritage and rejoice in his labor—this is the gift of God. For he will not dwell unduly on the days of his life, because God keeps him busy with the joy of his heart. Ecclesiastes 5:18-20

Whatever your hand finds to do, do it with your might; for there is no work or device or knowledge or wisdom in the grave where you are going. -Ecclesiastes 9:10

Let us hear the conclusion of the whole matter:

Fear God and keep His commandments,
For this is man’s all.
For God will bring every work into judgment,
Including every secret thing,
Whether good or evil.
Ecclesiastes 12:13-14

Household Help

2011-03-12T16:00:00.000-08:00

Have you ever heard that only a couple generations ago almost everyone had some sort of paid household help: a servant, maid, cook, handyman, chauffeur or any combination of the above? You either had household help or you were household help. Does this make you feel sorry for us poor 21st century people who have to do all our housework ourselves? Why don't you walk with me down to the servants' quarters in my home and I'll introduce you to the servants I have working for me.

Here is Mrs. Washer and Mr. Dryer (they both bobbed their heads and gave you a cheerful smile). They're married and together they do all my laundry. I give the clothes to Mrs. Washer and they come out clean. She passes them to Mr. Dryer (I usually have to help with this, though soon my children will be their little helpers) and when he's done with them they're crisp and dry. In the kitchen we have Mr. Oven. Unfortunately he's not a French Anatole and our food is only as good as I make it, but his fire never goes out and he never takes a day off. His right-hand helper is little Master Microwave who keeps busy doing the little jobs. Miss Vacuum is our upstairs maid. She's a lazy creature whom I have to push around. We also have Miss Fridge and Miss Freezer (they're attached at the hip, but it's a functioning relationship) and their older brother, Big Freezer. They take care of most of my preserving so I don't have to slave away all summer putting up food to eat later.

All of these servants require management, but the servants of old did too. Mine never bicker, they don't get offended, and (as long as I pay my electricity bill) I don't have to feed them or pay them.

Okay, enough of the cheesy personification. All I really wanted to say was that we just "hired" a new "servant." Meet Miss Dishwasher!

When I first got married we lived in your average apartment which had your average quality dishwasher. But I was the oldest of six kids. It had been years since I didn't have a sibling old enough to take care of the dishes after meals. Suddenly I was in my own home and not only did I have to clean up the kitchen after meals, I had to make the meals themselves...and vacuum...and clean the bathrooms...and do the laundry...etc. Sure there was just me and Eli, but I still had to figure out how to balance all these responsibilities. Quite frequently the dishes were just piled into the sink until later and the dishwasher sat empty.

Then we moved to the old red house. No dishwasher there. My only helpers were ye old soap and water (and a helpful husband). Suddenly it wasn't so convenient to just leave the dishes for later because then they would pile up! Living there helped me build habits of cleaning up after myself and doing the dishes after (almost) every meal.

Now our family has grown beyond two plates, two cups, two forks, and a pot and pan or two. There are three little people using dishes, dropping crumbs, and needing faces and hands washed. Meal prep and meal clean up both take more time and I have now have many new responsibilities like teaching letters and numbers. My nice landlords, after deciding to keep renting this apartment even after we move out, put in the new machine this morning (thanks Mom and Dad!).

Dear new housewife Self,

Your responsibilities are really quite simple. Before you know it there will be more dishes and no dishwasher. Seriously, how long does it take to take care of that little stack?

Love,

A busier You

Project Simplify: Master Closet

2011-03-11T20:08:00.000-08:00

I'm joining up with Project Simplify on the blog Simple Mom. On Monday she announces a hot spot to de-clutter and organize and then on Friday everyone gets to share before and after photos. This week: the Master Closet. She has some really good tips so you should definitely check out her website!

On Thursday, Joshua was upstairs playing with Legos with Nathaniel and the girls were happily amusing themselves so I took the opportunity to work in my room.

First I took care of this. I hate it when by the time I'm done folding the clean laundry, it's time to wash another load!

Then I ironed that little pile draped on those drawers.
How long had they been sitting there?

Those boxes of candles wouldn't fit in the drawer designated to them. One drawer was full of lovely frames, empty since we got them for our wedding. I pulled them all out and evaluated. Use them or loose them, that's my motto. But I really like them! So I found places for them and soon I'll get some pictures printed to fill them. With that drawer empty, the candles fit easily.

That paper bag was the remnants of a sewing project from last year. But the container that my project materials are supposed to go in was overflowing. So I sorted through all that stuff and threw away scraps of fabric and yarn that really are too small to use. I did end up putting all my fabric into a separate bag, but the container of yarn, crochet hooks, knitting needles, and whatever else is much more neat and accesible.

By this time Esther was ready for her nap so I put her down on my bed and put Lucy in her bed for quiet time. Joshua was still playing Legos. As the girls took their naps I poked around my room and finished the project.

A few months ago I had already given this area a big re-organization so you could call this week's project a re-re-organization. However, since I usually just use my maternity clothes out of their storage container or stuff them in drawers on top of my regular clothes, I decided to use this opportunity to fully rotate out clothes that don't fit with clothes that do. So I piled those on the floor and did the great switch. In the process I sorted stuff out. This time I really let stuff go.

The rejects.

After

It's not really all that different, but just going everything a go-through results in drawers that close, clothes that fit on the rod, and the knowledge that I have a little less stuff that I don't need. I love that feeling!

This is the stuff that needed to be put away. Mom had an extra container I could use for the pile of costumes in the middle and Eli brought home an empty container from the Exodus attic for that pile of clothes that don't fit right now on the right. Both fit easily in the closet. I still need to get an over-the-door hook for our bathrobes.

This closet and a half a linen closet are the extent of our storage here. The too small baby clothes are all I have stored elsewhere (at Exodus). I love the simplicity that comes from only keeping what we need! Head on over to Simple Mom for some tips and tricks for getting and staying organized.

Ten Ways to Destroy the Imagination of Your Child: Method Five

2011-03-09T10:08:00.000-08:00

Cast Aspersions upon the Heroic and the Patriotic

“Learn to despise the place where you were born, its customs, its glories and its shame. Then stick your head in a comic book. That done, you will be triple-armored against the threat of a real though or the call of the transcendent.”

Ideology is a system of ideas and ideals formed upon the basis of economic or political theory and policy. Piety, on the other hand, is a belief that is accepted with ritual reverence. Patriotism reveres the things that ideology cannot touch: the small and the old, the vulnerable and the venerable. The place we are committed to, the people we honor don’t have to be grand and glorious to earn our love and loyalty. We are devoted simply because they are ours. But when children have been raised on the flashy, the simple pieties of hearth and home--a hot meal, the love of a good wife, the praise of God and songs sung for a country whether it deserves it or not--will be lost on them. A patriotism of piety can be heady alcohol for the young mind.

“Piety nurses the imagination because it places us in both greatness and smallness, in the stillness of a single moment and in the long sweep of the generations. Ideology digs many graves but tends not a single stone.”

Without a love of past people hanker after what is supposed to be new and thus desirable without asking where it has come from or where it will take them. “A man with a past may be free; but a man without a past, never.” That is why, in 1984, Big Brother shreds any artifacts that might be a link to the past. In contrast, the hobbits in The Lord of the Rings have a rich history of great deeds--glorious and disastrous--that stretches all the way back to the dawn of the world. It is this very history that gives them the capacity to take part in their own chapter of the saga of Middle Earth.

The past never changes but that only makes it boring to those who grow up on the constant stream of unceasing movement in video games and movies. The past is like a secret room in an old house filled with ancient armor, antiquated odd tools, and books recalling words and deeds of men and women who now lie in their graves. We come into the presence of those who once were as we are and are now as we will someday be. When children go into such a room they will bring those people--larger than life--into their own lives. In fact, because the past is simply there, never to change, its constancy reflects the eternity of God. “It presents to the young mind a vast field of fascination, of war and peace, loyalty and treason, invention and folly, bitter twists of fate and sweet poetic justice.” When that past is of one’s own people or country or church, then it makes claims upon our honor and allegiance and fires the imagination all the more.

To honor the past is not to whitewash it, romanticizing those we admire and flattening those we don’t. Such caricatures do little to inspire. Neither do we need to expose the past, magnifying the tarnish and taking everything noble and making it small--like ourselves. That leaves us with nothing but cynicism and moral and intellectual superiority. When we do not gloss over the faults of our heroes we get to know them as men and women and we can admire and respect them all the more. Bring the past to life, not just on the pages of history, but also in the expanding heart and mind of the young.

“The imagination seeks out the ideal and beholds its beauty. In doing so it penetrates farther to the truth than does the sloth of cynicism. Anyone may see a wart or a mole--faults about in every man and the grime of life tarnishes us all. When we apply its wisdom to our country, whatever that country may be, we can grow to love her enough to wish to correct her.”

Nowadays we have lost our love of past and place. Instead of patriotism we have multiculturalism which turns up its nose at our own local and national pastimes in favor of the fashionably foreign. This fascination with any other place but our own--kills patriotism. Pretending to love every place, you love none at all. Encouraging this will produce either the mildly interested tourist who collapses everything he sees into the two-dimensions of a brochure or the couch-potato who never ventures out because one place is as dull as the next.

Even some Christians (us included) tend to take an ideological outlook on our country because the economics and politics are not going in a direction we agree with. We, more than any other people, should be the ones to have a love that desires to reform, reshape, rebuild.

Ten Ways to Destroy the Imagination of Your Child: Method Four

2011-03-09T09:59:00.000-08:00

Replace the Fairy Tale with Political Cliches and Fads

“Fairy tales are for children and childlike people, not because they are little and inconsequential, but because they are as enormous as life itself.”

Fairy tales are full of characters that are recognizable for their types: the damsel in distress, the knight in shining armor, the evil step-mother... The world they inhabit is a moral world where good is good and evil is evil. The two are at war but we know that good will always triumph. The stories and the characters in them resonate with us because they are fundamentally true--not in a “true,” historical way, but rather in a real, typified way. They may be exaggerated or simplified, but they are like a child’s palette of colors--you know, the ones that come in the Crayola eight pack of crayons. To a child the sky is blue and trees are green. As he grows he will learn that the sky is sometimes gray and trees turn vibrant red, orange and yellow in the fall. But his understanding of the basics will be a firm foundation upon which to build a deep appreciation for the variety, richness and complexity of life.

“When you starve a child of the folk tale, you not only cramp his imagination for the time being. You help render vast realms of human art (not to mention life) incomprehensible.”

Characters that are real feats of the imagination are not wholly good or wholly bad--the elemental motives of human nature drive them to make the choices they do. But the good and the evil in them remain unchanged. If our imaginations are full of types from fairy tales, we will be able to understand these subtler, finer-drawn people. We will see jealousy and self-sacrifice in the same person, or foolishness and vitality, weakness and strength. The hero’s armor isn’t always quite so shiny and the villain’s motives not quite so black. But the heroism and villainy is there nonetheless, just like it was in the fairy tales. As these people come to life on the pages of the books we read, they “become parts of our moral universe... they are the lights to shine upon what we have seen and known to reveal what would otherwise have lain hidden from our understanding.” They are the telescope we use to see the stars by which we navigate through life. They are a magical device for seeing deep into the human heart. They will reveal truths about the lives that are being lived out around us.

In our enlightened day, though, we sneer at the archetypal figures in fairy tales and call them antiquated “stereotypes.” We flatten them into homogeneity and use them to push political agendas. We replace the types with cliches. Men become beasts, religious people are bigots, women are never weak, Indians are good because they are In Touch With Nature... Every subtlety is replaced with current platitudes.

Cliches are easy. Instead of making us think, they elicit “a cheap, automatic, superficial, and temporary response.” We aren’t changed, we don’t grow in our perception of humanity. We just laugh or mock or hate as the movie, book, or song suggests. Fundamental truths, on the other hand, require “a real response: they cause us to brood over the mysteries of this life....[They] require silence, and patience, and thought.”

Cliches are rooted in the here and now. In fact, people reading them ten years from now probably won’t even understand them. Powerful imaginative literature is not about ourselves. Like a ship, it transports us to lands unknown. It transcends time and the people we meet feel familiar to us just as they felt familiar to the people who read the stories in earlier generations. It’s not the setting or the message that fire the imagination. It’s what is fundamentally true: an innocent person outnumbered by evil people, men united in a death-defying purpose, the lowly exalted to glory and the arrogant reduced to nothing.

Of course it’s easy to think of modern movies and books full of political and cultural cliches and those of us who grew up on “good” literature are quick to scoff. But Christians also produce literature that pushes our own agenda and provokes an automatic and superficial response. We give our kids sugar-coated stories with morals that are easy to swallow and not hard to think about. We gloss over the faults of history’s heroes minimizing complex, multi-dimensional men and women to flat caricatures. The stories in the Bible too are often reduced merely being about people who go to heaven and people who go to hell. Perhaps even God, who moves in such wondrously mysterious ways, is reshaped into a nice, bland deity we can understand.

Ten Ways to Destroy the Imagination of Your Child: Method Three

2011-03-03T09:52:00.000-08:00

Keep Children Away From Machines and Machinists

“The young man sitting on a tractor for the first time will be both the child he is and the man he is going to be.”

“We forget as we sit comfortably in front of our computer screens how fascinating a large machine can be.”

This chapter will be the hardest, the least natural, for us to implement. Esolen talks about the imagination-growing effects of spending time around big machines, really seeing how things work. He writes of learning from people who really know their craft and love it. He mentions hunting, learning how to wait in the cold and mud for just the right moment to shoot the prey. And there’s more: shovels and hammers, engines and batteries, ropes and sailboats, trespassing, bonfires, battle plans, blueprints...

You can’t just take kids to museums which present science and nature as so much political propaganda and you can’t just sit them down in a class or in front of a demonstration. They need time and space and equipment to experiment whether it’s in the backyard (with rope, wood and a tree), in the garage (with wires, batteries and screws), in the garden (with shovel, seeds and dirt), in the sewing room (with fabric, needles and thread) or in the kitchen (with pans, ingredients and the stove). If kids can learn about The Way Things Work from people who truly understand and delight in their craft, their imaginations will grow all the more.

As parents we are tempted to look for the worth in our children’s undertakings. If they might someday make money off of one or two of their hobbies or, even better, if it might be the beginning of a career path, then we are willing to let them invest time in it and maybe we’ll even pay for some lessons or equipment. Otherwise all we see is the mess. So much of what looks like pointless tinkering to us encourages inquisitiveness, observation, and (of course) imagination.

If we do allow our children to dabble in hobbies, we like to keep them small-scale, you know, something easy to store and easy to clean up. But children can learn and experience much more if it is on a larger scale, especially if it has a practical purpose. They will become engineers when they try to rig a rope swing or farmers when you give them a corner of the yard to clear and tend.

Many of these pursuits are not safe. Fingers will be pounded and knees scraped, they will learn the feel of an electric shock, and they just might earn a scar or two from bumping a pan hot from the oven. But the mind will thrive, the body will toughen, and each experience will teach them something not to do next time. Don’t let safety concerns remove the wonder of discovery and the joy of creating. Let them learn how to be careful and responsible. Doug Wilson is not the only one to say that the body is for using up: we’ll get a new one in the next life.

Besides physical machines and equipment, our children’s imaginations can also grow by pouring over blueprints, plans, maps, etc: anything that puts an abstract concept down on paper. Just as Wallace went first to the drawing board before building the rocket that would take him and Gromit on their cheese holiday, so most invention begins with paper and pencil. When we supply our kids with examples they can imitate, they should be encouraged to go off and invent for themselves. Whether it’s a diagram of a new machine, the design of a treehouse, a battle plan to attack Russia, or the plot to the next Great American novel, they’ll be able to come up with anything.

By getting their hands on as much that is real and tangible as possible, our children’s imaginations will flourish. As they experience a physical world, their mental capacity blossom and they will be better fit to take dominion.

The Boy Who Made Me a Mommy

2011-03-02T09:55:00.000-08:00

This picture was taken when Joshua was exactly one day old. We had survived our first night together and I remember sitting there the next morning looking at each other, marveling at the new life that was beginning--for both of us. He was mine and I was his.

In January that little baby turned five! Once he was inside me; now he's half my height. He's still mine and I'm still his.

Shutter Island: A Mother's Review

2011-02-26T12:42:00.000-08:00

Set in the 1950‘s, Shutter Island is a psychological thriller with all the creepy music, mysterious characters, and “dark, stormy nights” that make movies like that work. Then it has the big plot twist at the end. If you are planning on watching it you might not want to read my review because I’m not going to keep any secrets. If you are a woman with children, please do read my review. You shouldn’t watch this without knowing what you’re getting yourself into.

Andrew Laeddis is a US Marshal who fought in WWII. He dearly loved his wife but there was only one problem: she was manically depressed and suicidal. He refused to see that and tried to live with her in love until one day he came home from work to find that she had killed their three children. She had drowned them in the lake and he had to wade out and carry their limp, lifeless bodies to the shore. Then, as his wife talked about how much she loved him and how they could dry the kids off and take them on picnics, he shot her.

The movie opens with him arriving at Shutter Island, where there is a psychiatric prison for the criminally insane. He is on an assignment to investigate the disappearance of one of the patients: a woman who had drowned her three children. He also thinks that the wardens and doctors are using the patients to conduct weird experiments using barbaric Nazi methods to create a person without emotions or pain. His hope is to uncover this conspiracy and expose it to the world. By the end of the movie we learn that it’s all in his head. It’s all part of an alternate reality he created for himself to disassociate himself from what he went through and did. He’s actually been a prisoner/patient on Shutter Island for two years himself, living and reliving this imaginary story.

Using elaborate roll-playing techniques, the doctors are able to show Andrew the truth: that there are no conspiracies and his children are dead and he killed his wife. Over the two years of his imprisonment, he has gone through cycles of realizing the truth, only to regress into his fantasy again. They really believe that he can break out of this cycle, but since he has military training, he is a very dangerous crazy man and this is his last chance. Realization comes to Andrew--slowly and painfully--and for a moment he is sane. But in the morning he falls back into denial and the movie closes with him walking off to be lobotomized. “Is it better,” he wonders, “to live as a monster or to die as a good man?”

And that’s it. No hope of change for the better. No redemption.

I could handle all the horrific stuff in the prison/hospital with all the creepy insane people, the long hallways, the unreliable lighting, and all his weird hallucinations of Nazi death camps. But a momma drowning her children...my heart was ripped out. And then there was hope. He remembered. It was tragic, but he was going to get better, move on. Then--no, never mind. Reality was too much for him. He would rather have some nerves cut out of his brain and live in the stories in his head. My heart was left bleeding on the ground.

These were my thoughts right after watching it. But as I thought more about it, I realized that the movie couldn’t have ended any other way. After seeing the things he saw and doing the things he’d done, he couldn’t have forgiven himself. Without Christ he was a monster. The doctors did everything they could for him and it was almost enough. But they didn’t give him Christ.

Without the forgiveness of Christ’s blood we can’t get over sins or mistakes or sinful mistakes. We can’t just forget them, forgive ourselves and move on. We commit them and become monsters. The only way out is to rewrite the story to distance ourselves from the sin. In our minds we can be the victim instead of the villain. We might as well be drugged and have the dangerous tissues cut out of our brains.

I was fine watching this movie, “dark, stormy night” and all, until he came home to find his children drowned. Finding my own children drowned in a pool or in the bath is already one of my worst nightmares. I will literally wake up at night in a panic thinking of it. I didn’t need to see it lived out on screen. The thought of a mother holding her children’s heads under the water till they drown made me (makes me!) feel sick. I wish I could watch Shutter Island and think, “I could never do that,” distancing myself from it all.

My children are small and fragile. Comparatively, I am big and strong. I hold them in the palm of my hand. They have no one else to turn to and they can’t get away. That responsibility is scary. Mothers do cruel things to the children in their care every day and but for the grace of God, I could be one of them. Therein is the horror of this movie. Without the grace of God we are all criminally insane. I am criminally insane.

My response to Shutter Island is to thank God for His forgiveness, to thank Him for forgiving me every week and renewing covenant with me during worship. My response is to pray for His grace to saturate me every day so I can hold my children in the palm of my hand just as I am in the palm of His hand: lovingly, patiently, forgivingly. He has given me a new reality to live out, but it’s not fiction. It’s true. It’s real.

Ten Ways to Destroy the Imagination of Your Child: Method Two

2011-02-25T15:15:00.000-08:00

Never Leave Children to Themselves

“People who can organize themselves and accomplish something as devilishly complicated as a good ballgame are hard to herd around....They become men and women, not human resources. They can be free.”

Boys playing baseball in a field or an empty lot must use their imaginations to set up the game, pick teams, and arbitrate disputes. They argue, using evidence (which must be respected if the game is to succeed), appealing to others or pretending the play never happened. “Anyone who harbors hard feelings is labeled a Sore Loser and is looked down upon with contempt by his fellows; it is a deep character flaw. But anybody who can engineer a quick solution acceptable to all sides is labeled a Good Sport, and of him great and glorious things are expected.”

Boys simply will not develop their characters if everything is always kept perfectly safe for them. Boys ought to be able to bear a few falls, knocks, and bruises. When we adults over-manage the activities of children we take the joy of discovery out of it and by removing the risks, we remove any chance they had to grow and mature. We emphasize fairness and fun for all which does not build character or a sense of duty.

Now you may be thinking of gangs. Gangs are groups of kids organizing themselves into a society: a society that goes around getting into mischief or worse. Children should be supervised or they might join or form a gang, right? After all, Proverbs says, "He who walks with wise men will be wise, but the companion of fools will be destroyed." You don't get much more foolish than a pack of boys left to themselves. The solution to the gang (or pack of fools) is not to obliterate childhood or community by controlling it and overseeing it. It is to provide the genuine article--solid family and community living--for which the gang is a perversion or a counterfeit. “It’s not that these boys [who form gangs] spend too much time outside the home. It’s that they have no genuine home to spend time outside of.” Children left to themselves will reflect the morals they have been taught.

My children are still little and I can’t expect to send them off with a group of their toddler friends to organize a baseball game. But I do want to be teaching them the kind of morals here at home that will make them be Good Sports and not Sore Losers. Three and five year olds do need to be supervised, but with the goal of instilling honorable ethics and then turning them loose to figure out exactly how it works in the real world.

It's My Birthday!

2011-02-24T16:52:00.000-08:00

I woke up today to a powdered sugar world. Snow clung to every branch of every tree until each one looked like a sugary confection fit to eat. These flowers from a friend were on the table providing kind of a funny combination of seasonal beauty (thank you, God, for hot houses!). Then the clouds separated and for a while we had blue sky and sunshine. Now when I look out the window the snow is falling again in thick, fat flakes putting me in my very own snow globe.

This year I turned 24 on the 24th. We call that a golden birthday and I was always disappointed as a kid that I would have to wait so long for mine to come around. Besides, I reasoned, I'd be so grown up by then I probably wouldn't care. Well, the year finally came and I decided: You know what? I do care. So I told Eli he'd better make it special. He didn't tell me what he had in mind, even though I kept telling him that surprising me was a big responsibility. I mean, what if I thought the big surprise was kind of lame? He kept dropping hints that he was making plans so I decided to trust him, but I had no idea what was up his sleeve.

So I was totally astonished when I walked in the door after our ultrasound on Monday to find just about every single one of my friends standing in the hall and in the dining room and in the kitchen and living room all yelling, "Happy birthday!" I love my friends and I love big parties so it was the perfect way to celebrate my once in a lifetime golden birthday. And I had no idea it was coming! As my heart rate settled and snacks and cake were put before me I began to make connections, like when he said this, what he meant was this! And that's why we went there then. It was a lovely party with plenty of loving people around to talk to, no matter which room I walked in. And it ended the way the best parties must: hours later than it was supposed to.

Thank you, Eli, for thinking of it, planning it, and keeping it secret! Now I feel really bad that your surprise party got snowed out.

Tonight the kids are eating with Nanny and Poppy and Eli and I are going downtown to P. F. Changs. Next to a party with my friends, a dinner I don't have to cook is the best birthday celebration. Or any day celebration, for that matter!

P.S. I know that I used an over-abundance of italics. A birthday post about a surprise party warrants that.

At the Back of the North Wind

2011-02-23T20:20:00.000-08:00

I started At the Back of the North Wind when I was young but didn't get more than a few chapters into it. Since Lewis and Tolkien atribute so much of their inspiration to George MacDonald, I wanted to give it a second try.

This time around I was a bit more inspired, but it was still slow going getting through it. Then, as is the case with so many older books, I began to really enjoy it once I got past the first two thirds or so. In the end it was quite poignant and sweet.

The writing style (naturally) is rather clunky and old-fashioned. The plot and action is understated while descriptions seem to go on for pages. However, it manages to be whimsical and fantastic while at the same time real and moralistic without providing the answers for any of it. Does the North Wind really visit Diamond and carry him in her arms through the night? Where do dreams come from? Does suffering hardships make good times more lovely? Within the pages of this book, even if life is perplexing, it is beautiful, good and worth living. I liked that instead of moralizing in this story (as is so common in many Victorian novels), George MacDonald would subtly and sagaciously slip in values or little moral messages that were actually pretty profound.

I would not recommend this for young readers unless they have been raised to appreciate slow-paced and subtle literature. I will consider reading it aloud to my kids in a few years, but not until they've learned to sit through longer descriptive passages.

Ten Ways to Destroy the Imagination of Your Child: Method One

2011-02-22T17:42:00.000-08:00

Keep Your Children Inside As Much As Possible

Contemporary life happens within walls and most people will live most of their lives indoors. In preparation Esolen says,

“...we must replace the great world around us with an artificial world where not the imagination but the stray nervous tics of the brain may roam for a while and then rest.... Replace air with virtual space.”

Children who are left to their own devices outside “may develop into people who do not do as they are told--meaning that they will not buy what marketers want them to buy.”

Outside children will find:

The Sky
The sky is full of color, clouds, stars, birds, and planes taking people to or bringing them from Elsewhere. “[It] startles us out of our dreams of vanity, it silences our pride, it stills the lust to get and spend.” It’s just there, vast and infinite, challenging us to be.

Video games and TV fill our visual field with neon lights. Smog discolors our outlook on the sky whether it’s physical smog that clouds our physical view or mental lust that clouds our mind. “A child that has been blared at all his life will never be able to do the brave nothing of staring at the sky.” He will be too bored.

A World Untamed
Outside contains a world not yet managed into submission. Even the small and ordinary found just past our own doorsteps will show us the perplexities and unusualness of life if we take the time to notice. Nature is not all cute and nice. The hunter and and the hunted are waging a war and the result is often kind of gross.

The mysteries of the world can not be contained in parks (national or neighborhood) and zoos. And they are easily dulled by sentimentality and “nature lessons.”

A World in Which to Encounter Himself
To have any effect on nature, you must struggle. Mere words, clicks of a mouse, transferring of electronic data will do nothing against rocks, stumps, dirt, and weeds. Outside man encounters what is beyond man and attempts to come to terms with it or to master it by cunning, courage, and sweat. Nature can help develop a self to rely on, growing a person in strength and cleverness. The music of the hills, rocks, streams, and trees finds its way into the mind and being.

Since I don’t live in the country, I was interested in the little section about growing the imagination in the city. The city can not compare to the “illimitably complex, wild yet orderly” environment in the county. But cities are full of people--lives being lived side by side, so different yet often so similar. These can be watched and learned from and known just as streams, rocks, and birds can be in the country. Fear, degradation, sin, romance, vitality...these can be found in the alleys, streets, tunnels, bridges, and shops of a city.

There is less to excite the mind amid the manicured lawns and homogenous homes of the suburbs. If nature is untamed in the country and human nature is untamed in the city, both have been conquered here in the in-between land. The imagination needs a world of possibilities in which to explore, work, and struggle. Here it has already been done. The sidewalks are spacious and smooth; the yards are professionally landscaped; the people are safe behind curtained windows and closed garages. The opportunities are there for the finding because there is always work to be done in this fallen world, no matter where you are, and there are always people to meet, but it takes more creativity and perhaps more direction from adults.

And safety is a concern. Our kids can’t go roaming the streets and making friends with whomever they might bump into. I don’t want to raise kids who are too afraid of every passing car to venture outside but neither do I want them so naive that they trust every person they see. Maybe if I keep a childlike outlook on the world my kids and I can go off on adventures together to explore “man’s jumble of artifacts.”

It's a...

2011-02-22T11:57:00.000-08:00

BOY!!!

Yesterday I had my 20 week ultrasound. Eli's been wanting a boy so much that he didn't even want to talk about potential girl names. We have a name in mind that we are really excited about for a boy but nothing for a girl. The doctor went to examine the baby's pelvic area but the bottom was too far down and the feet were curled up under so we couldn't see anything. After looking at the head, the heart, and taking some measurements the baby had turned a bit, so Dr. Ed said, "It looks like this is a girl...no, maybe it's a boy..." Eli didn't need the added suspense! So we finished the other measurements and got the above adorable profile picture. By that time the baby had completly moved and we got a nice clear view. Even we could tell that it will be a son that we welcome in July!

My favorite moment of the ultrasound was when we could see a perfect profile: nose, mouth, little round head. And at the same time we could see his heart beating strong and steady.

For now we see in a mirror, dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part, but then I shall know just as I also am known. And now abide faith, hope, love, these three; but the greatest of these is love. 1 Corinthians 13:12-13

Ten Ways to Destroy the Imagination of Your Child: Introductory Chapter

2011-02-19T10:12:00.000-08:00

Introduction: Why Truth is Your Enemy and the Benefits of the Vague

“A fact may not be much by itself, but it points toward what is true, and even the humblest truth may in time lead a mind to contemplate the beautiful and the good.”

The imagination needs memory. In ancient Greek mythology, the nine Muses (the inspiration for everything creative and beautiful) came from the union of Zeus and Memory. Inspiration that comes merely from within--without drawing on history, art, and literature--is self-centered and peculiar.

Facts--whether they are historical, scientific, geographical, or what have you--may not be inspiring in and of themselves but if they are in the memory of a questioning mind, they can lead to all sorts of inspiration. The memory can call up two seemingly unconnected things and mold them into a whole new thought. Without the memory, the imagination has little to play with.

The memory needs facts learned in a structured, organized manner. Random and disorganized facts are robbed of their creative potential. Real art--whether it’s a painting, a poem, a story, or a mathematical equation--is subject to rules and structure.

A memory stifled by laziness and flattery will quickly fill up with everything that is silly, flat, and vapid.

Esolen quotes Aeneas, the saddest hero of ancient epic, in the Aeneid when he tells his son:

“Hard work and manhood learn from me, my boy;
Good fortune you can learn from someone else.”

A student of Latin fights his way through inflectional endings to translate that passage until “the moment of understanding, the vision of a truth that is precious precisely because it turns us away from easy and comfortable consolations, a truth made more splendid by poetry that burns itself in the memory, will have made the laborious study worthwhile.”

Ten Ways to Destroy the Imagination of Your Child

2011-02-17T23:28:00.000-08:00

Ten Ways to Destroy the Imagination of Your Child, by Anthony Esolen, is a new book about how destructive the modern culture is to the childlike mind--though in a genuine Screwtape manner, it is written as if that's a good thing. It's a bit schizophrenic as well because it is also a glowing tribute to all the creative and inspiring achievements that have come from imaginative people throughout the ages. You've probably heard the adage: "Show, don't tell." This book shows the power of a visionary mind through pages and pages of examples from history, literature, old textbooks, and more. But since all the logic is reverse, it leaves the reader on his own to figure out how to go about encouraging that--whether in his children or in himself. As a result, it's a book to chew on and it may take some time to digest. I have found it extremely thought-provoking and those thoughts have ended up becoming the subject of most of my conversations since I began reading it.

And now it's about to take over my blog! I've been taking notes so that I can actually convers about it instead of just saying, "Uh, yeah, um, it was really good. You should read it." I'm going to write those notes up chapter by chapter in a series of blog posts here. It's a bit tricky to translate the reverse logic, but for the most part I will try to say what actions I think we should positively take. When I quote though, it's coming straight from the book so don't be scared off by anything like, "Sit your children down in front of the TV for all of their free time."

Below is a list of links to the completed posts:

My Concluding Thoughts

Wordless Wednesday

2011-02-16T18:15:00.001-08:00

Lucy and her "tippy toes" from Poppy.

Splendor in the Grass

2011-02-12T10:30:00.000-08:00

"Life's been moving oh so fast
I think we should take it slow
Rest our heads upon the grass
And listen to it grow."

Hand-Me-Downs

2011-02-09T09:45:00.000-08:00

I bought this dress when Lucy was tiny and couldn't wait till she was big enough to fit it. All too quickly she out grew it and I had to put it away. Now it graces another adorable little girl!

Do you think they look like sisters?

In Which Exodus Books Pays for Our Vacation

2011-02-08T23:07:00.000-08:00

Exodus Books has grown every year. Eli always has projects he's orchestrating and goals he's working towards, but after thirteen years the whole thing is big enough that he can't just show up at the store and sit down to the first undertaking that comes to mind. And frankly, we aren't done growing. Eli and I are both dreamers and let me tell you, we dream big. So we called the First Annual Exodus Books Focus Meeting. If one is going to strategize for the future, think creatively about organizing the present, and dream big, the Pacific Coast is the place to go.

See how small those people are? With a sky like that you can't help but wonder, "Who am I?" With the psalmist you ask, "What is man that you are mindful of him?

The sky startles us out of our dreams of vanity, it silences our pride, it stills the lust to get and spend."
-Anthony Esolen, Ten Ways to Destroy the Imagination of Your Child

Our sanctuary of choice was the cozy Sylvia Beach Hotel, right on the beach in the middle of historic Newport, Oregon. "Truly a hotel for book lovers," it was a perfect location for our vision meeting. Each of the rooms are dedicated to a different author--from Jane Austen and Mark Twain to Agatha Christie and Ernest Hemingway. The library overlooks the sea and the cats that roam the halls are fat and friendly.

Eli and I enjoyed two nights at the coast along with our webmaster (my brother) and his wife and our office manager and his wife. On the day in between our other two full-time employees drove down for the epic all-day meeting.

Yes, we had a lot to talk about, but don't worry. There were plenty of snacks provided by Costco (and the lovely wives' kitchens) and we ate a satisfying lunch at the Irish pub down the block. We did manage to make it through the entire agenda, even though the laughter was profuse and exuberant.

I bind unto myself today
The strong Name of the Trinity...
I bind unto myself today
The virtues of the star lit heaven,
The glorious sun’s life giving ray,
The whiteness of the moon at even,
The flashing of the lightning free,
The whirling wind’s tempestuous shocks,
The stable earth, the deep salt sea
Around the old eternal rocks.
-St. Patrick's Breastplate

I wonder if they have assigned seating or if it's just first come first serve?

Do you ever have dreams of flying? I never wish I could fly more than when I'm at the coast watching seagulls glide and soar over the surf. I know they are mangy, selfish scavengers with a tendency to poop on unsuspecting tourists, but when they spread their wings and leave the restrictions of the ground behind, they seem so free. The sky is the limit.

Nursing Shirt

2011-01-28T18:00:00.000-08:00

I don't usually post about giveaways unless I really, really want the featured item. This is one such item. It's so cold to nurse in the winter so I've wanted one of these for a long time and now Mama Chocolate is giving one away.

Breakfast Meat

2011-01-28T10:30:00.000-08:00

So this morning I put pork into our scrambled eggs (anything to make them more interesting!). It was left over pork chops from dinner and I cut it into strips. Joshua poked a piece onto his fork but to him it wasn't just meat adding flavor to an otherwise boring breakfast dish. No, it was the tongue of a wolf that had been trying to kill him and Lucy. So he killed it and ate it for breakfast. Apparently it was trying to kill them because I killed one of its babies. Each piece that he and Lucy ate came from a different part of this big bad wolf.

Oh, and just now he made me turn off my Grooveshark station (you know, the one with the Proclaimers) so he could listen to Saint Saens' third symphony in C minor.

I love my boy!

Snoring

2011-01-26T14:07:00.000-08:00

Esther is supposed to be sleeping right now. I've been giving her naps on my bed so the kids can do their "quiet time" on their beds and I can rest on the couch in my room. Today Esther went to sleep a bit early so she's awake already. She keeps looking over at me and I keep saying the same thing: "Go back to sleep, Esther." Then she rolls back over to rest some more. A minute ago I noticed she was breathing funny, kind of loudly and irregularly. I realized, she is fake snoring. So cute!

Esther's Learning

2011-01-20T15:22:00.000-08:00

Yesterday while Esther was playing with this sorter and stacker toy, I noticed that she was actually sorting the colors! If a red shape was on the blue peg when she went to put a blue shape away, she would stop and move the red shape first. And if she grabbed the green shape she would hover over all of them until she found the green peg. It's so fun to watch babies learn!

Making Plans and Accepting God's Way

2011-01-18T15:59:00.000-08:00

I have a list of things I would like to do every day. It has things on it like walk with the kids, read both some fiction and some non-fiction, do school and read aloud with the kids, practice my harp that's just sitting there (in the way) getting out of tune, read the Bible. I want to do them every day (-ish) but they're mostly non-essentials that tend to get pushed aside. Most don't take long, but all together the list adds up to four hours of activities. Where can I fit four more hours into my day? Between the dishes and the laundry, the meal planning and grocery shopping, the diapers and the phone calls, the spanking and the napping? I know, if we just quit eating, I'd have time... And this list doesn't even include the projects I'd like to work on such as pictures, knitting, or image work for Exodus.

This morning after sitting down to write these things into a list I began buzzing around the house in an attempt to, you know, get more done. First thing to do was clean up the kitchen. But then, not two minutes after writing up the list, I went to throw away the bag from the loaf of bread I'd made into French toast for breakfast and forgot all about the shards of broken pie plate I'd put in the garbage last night. Slice! Thanks to Lucy's injury last week my medicine container is now quite stocked on bandaids. I pause. I take a minute to staunch the blood and slap a bandaid on my pinkie. I thank God that yes, I can make lists, yes, I can try to get more done, but in the end, He's in control. Man makes the plan, God directs his way...

Motherhood involves a lot of to do lists, a lot of fitting life in between diapers and dishes. But then you have a moment in the midst of it all when you pick up the baby and rock out to "I'm Gonna Be" by the Proclaimers. The fact that you're both still in jammies makes it all the more special. Let me tell you, that's what motherhood's really all about.

Getting some fresh air today. A little rain never stopped us!

Making the Baby Laugh

2011-01-15T21:37:00.000-08:00

Lucy and I were washing the dishes when I began to realize that there were peals of laughter coming from the other room. We went to investigate and found that the amusement resulted from lack of space, abundance of stuffed animals, and some very exuberant bouncing. Of course Lucy was done with the dishes. She wanted in on the fun!

A Little Helper

2011-01-13T22:58:00.000-08:00

No, she's not really all that helpful, but when you're standing there with your hands in yet another pile of soapy dishes and she independently scoots a chair over so she can get her hands in it too, you just smile and make room at the sink.

Today I determined to attack the pile of mending/alterations that had been growing in my closet. After sewing on a couple buttons I found two blouses that just needed to be ironed. Well, they were sure waiting in the wrong pile! Then I pulled out a couple more projects and made the happy discovery that the bottom half of the bag was full of the leftovers of a project long finished. Fixing and altering still took all afternoon, but it was much more manageable than I first thought!

School and Band-Aids (with pictures!)

2011-01-11T22:17:00.000-08:00

Joshua will be five in two weeks. This whole year, with a measure of anxiety and a bit of dread, I kept feeling like I really needed to be teaching him things--you know, letters, numbers and all that. But then I would remember, "Oh yeah, he's only four." Periodically I would pull out alphabet flash cards and when he couldn't distinguish between just A, B or C I would put them away again and wait and watch a little longer. Now, I'm not one of those educating moms who sit and play shapes and colors games for hours with their six-month-old babies. I take the wait-till-they-want-to-learn approach and try to encourage imaginative (and independent) play. But something a friend was saying about high school made me rethink some things and realize that a little challenge would be good for all of us. Even if he isn't learning much about the letters and numbers, he could be learning about sitting still, focusing and following directions. Doing some kind of schooltime would develop good habits that all of us will benefit from when the real challenges come around.

So I took a little trip to Exodus and did some homeschool mom shopping. It was actually pretty fun, too! (Spending money usually is.) So now we have magnet letters and numbers all over the fridge, crayons and pencils, workbooks, and schooltime.

Joshua has learned numbers and counting much more quickly than letters. He still only knows a random scattering of letters but he will pipe up at surprising times (like the middle of church) with, "Three plus four equals seven!" I think he's picking up a few math facts from his uncle Nathaniel, but he has a remarkable memory for them.

Joshua also has a coloring book, but instead of coloring the pictures, he draws lines to tell stories. One day, after coloring a castle orange and red because it was on fire, he drew black lines so the bad guys could be on one side and he and the good guys could be on the other. Today he found an ambulance on another page and after coloring the sirens blue he made it drive through the pages to rescue the inhabitants of the burning castle.

The magnets on the fridge are mostly used to fashion pictures of cars, rockets and creepy monsters.

Lucy wants to be involved in everything Joshua does so she has her box of crayons, coloring book, and workbook. She is not far behind him in pencil skills and letter/number recognition. I bet the two of them will learn to read at the same time.

And then of course there's the baby. But since she just likes to eat the crayons, she gets relocated to the crib with some kind of interesting toy that will hopefully keep her busy enough not to notice what's going on at the table.

If you weren't too busy admiring Lucy's adorable smile you may have noticed the butterfly bandage on her forehead.

She walked right into the open car door on Monday and got the deepest gash that I've had to deal with as a mother. Believe it or not, that is the first band-aid that I've had to put on one of my children. In fact, I had to go out and buy some because I didn't have any in the house! Sure, the kids have fallen down, they've gotten bruised and scraped, but I don't use band-aids unless there is a flow of blood that must be stanched. In this case, the boo-boo needed to be held together. It really didn't bleed that much and since we had just begun cleaning the car, rags were handy. We trotted down to Rite-Aid and, following the directions on the box, I applied my first ever butterfly bandage. Hopefully it won't scar too much!

All of the above pictures were taken with my new camera! Friends were upgrading so I got to chip in towards the new model and keep the old one. Happiness!

A Compliment

2011-01-06T23:01:00.000-08:00

My sister-in-law, Hannah, just paid me a high compliment on the state of my kitchen. No, she didn't praise me for having such a clean microwave or wonder how the floor could be so crumb free with three toddlers eating over it twice a day. She said to me, "Your home looks so cozy and lived in!"

We did arts and crafts today. If you know me at all, you will understand what a statement this is. I'm not crafty and I'm kind of a perfectionist. But Lucy's enthusiasm made it all worth it. When I told her what we would be doing she kept dancing around the house exclaiming, "Oh my word!" And about halfway through the cutting and gluing and stickering, she sighed, "This is so fun!"

Instead of washing the breakfast dishes I did things like put Esther's too small clothes away and get out the next size; sort out about half of the pile of dresses she had to pass on to the new little girl cousin she will be getting in the spring; supervise the aforementioned craft time; work on the next Exodus newsletter; change diapers; take a nap...

My house may not be winning any awards for tidy kitchen of the year, but it is indeed being lived in. For a mom of three little ones, Hannah's compliment is high praise indeed.

Baby Shower Devotional

2011-01-01T22:29:00.000-08:00

My dear friends, Johanna and Katelyn, both recently gave birth to little girls. They asked me to give the devotional at their joint baby shower. Here's the link if you are interested in reading what I wrote:

Baby Shower Devotional for Johanna and Katelyn

Loving the Little Years

2010-11-29T21:51:00.000-08:00

As I write this I my three little monkeys are noisily attempting to go to sleep in the other room. The fourth little monkey may only be the size of a raspberry, but from a cozy position in my womb he or she is making his or her presence felt (headache, queasiness, fatigue...). I have 60 nails on 60 fingers and toes to keep trimmed, not counting my own! There are toys in the Tupperware cupboard and Tupperware in the toy box. And yes, I probably could recite Green Eggs and Ham. I know what motherhood in the trenches looks like.

Loving the Little Years is not a book to make you feel good about how long it's been since you cleaned your bathroom. This book won't tell you to hire a babysitter so you can have a day off with your girlfriends and keep in touch with the real you. This book doesn't say that the answer to all your stress is to spend two hours with the Lord at four in the morning. There are no suggested schedules, no spanking formulas, no pity parties. This book is real.

With wisdom and humor, and in 20 short, punchy chapters, Rachel Jankovic reminds us mothers that we are sinners too. Sometimes when the attitudes are bad and everyone is crying the first person who needs to repent is Mommy. As mothers we pour everything we've got into "training them up in the way they should go" but we have to remember that our own journey to sanctification isn't over. God is using these mischievous little imps to make us more like Him.

When all they seem to do is make messes and all that seems to come out of their mouths is mostly unintelligible gibberish, we can tend to see our children as little bothers. But throughout this book Rachel encourages us to remember that they are little people, eternal souls, personalities in the making. She urges us to study them, know them, learn their needs, hopes, strengths and weaknesses. And she reminds us to see the individuals in the half-sized mob. The Jankovic family is fabulous at coming up with creative imagery and catch-phrases for helping their kids see their sin and to remind them to do better. From selfish dragons to Cranksters to picky chickens, Rachel has shared many of these helpful ideas.

When I bought this book I immediately took it home, put the baby down for her nap, turned on Baby Signing Time for the toddlers and read it cover to cover. Literally, I laughed and cried. I will be reading it again soon, chapter by chapter, taking notes and absorbing ideas. In fact, I will probably read it every year.

Charlotte's Web

2010-11-27T11:28:00.000-08:00

Today I finished reading Charlotte's Web to the kids. I managed to do it without crying, though I was sniffing a bunch and had to stop to "cough" a few times. What a beautiful book!

I didn't grow up on a farm or in the country and I find farms to be pretty messy and stinky. But books like this make me wish I had some barns and animals and hay and manure and cherry trees and ponds in my life. I guess that's the beauty of reading. For a little while, I did have those things.

I used to think this was just a cute story about a pig who didn't want to be made into bacon, but it's much more than that. It's about the joy of living and what makes living joyous. Wilbur is not very clever, not very handsome, and not very talented. Charlotte is an ordinary gray spider who sucks blood and has an impressive vocabulary. What can a spider do to save a pig? And why would she even bother? In Charlotte's own words:

"You have been my friend. That in itself is a tremendous thing. I wove my webs for you because I liked you. After all, what's a life anyway? We're born, we live a little while, we die. A spider's life can't help being something of a mess with all this trapping and eating flies. By helping you, perhaps I was trying to lift up my life a trifle. Heaven knows anyone's life can stand a little of that."

Advent Log

2010-11-20T08:03:00.000-08:00

This elegant, handcrafted Advent log is available for sale at Exodus this year. Handcrafted from birch logs by Josiah, my sister-in-law, Leah, provided the 5 PartyLite votive candles in traditional colors with glass candle holders. Exodus is selling them for $30 and proceeds will support a special adoption this Christmas. Limited quantities available!!!

After the Christmas season is over this lovely candleholder would look pretty with any season's decor. Use it in the spring with blossom colored candles or in the fall with your favorite autumn scents. If you prefer to keep it special for Advent, its compact shape makes it easier to store than a bushy wreath.

Decorating

2010-11-18T13:48:00.000-08:00

Yes, Thanksgiving is still a week away. Yes, December is still a couple weeks out. No, I'm not one of those people who turns on Christmas music as soon as summer is over. However, it's been dark and chilly enough that I thought some cheery Christmas lights would be nice to have around.

So, today I put up our Christmas decorations. The days may be getting darker, but our home is only getting lighter and more cheerful as we begin to anticipate the celebration of the birth of the King of Light!

Soup

2010-11-17T12:16:00.000-08:00

I have made soup a few times since we've been married, but mostly they've turned out watery and bland. Last night I finally made a soup worth eating - nothing worthy of a five star restaurant or anything, but it was savory, creamy, and warming on a cold fall evening.

Here are four essential elements to a successful soup:

A savory meat broth. I was able to simmer two bone-in chicken breasts for an hour or more for this one.
Sautéed vegetables. Yes, the sink was piled with pans when I was done, but the flavor was worth every one.
Fresh herbs. I don't usually have any on hand, so my soups end up tasting like salt. This time I used fresh basil.
A roux base. The fried butter and flour is the most flavorful way to thicken soup and mixing the milk into it keeps it from separating.

Served with whole wheat artisan bread, that was a soup fit for a king! And my tummy is happy knowing that there's still half a pot left in the fridge.

MY Ergo Carrier

2010-11-17T11:59:00.000-08:00

Last night Eli called and asked, "You were interested in trying an ERGO Carrier, right?"

"Uh, yeah, sure," I replied, confused.

"Well somebody read on the website that you wanted one and they stopped by here to give you theirs."

I was so excited! I felt like I had just won a prize or something! And when he brought it home I couldn't believe it was mine. I just had an ERGO carrier dropped into my lap!

Of course I tried it on last night and I could already tell it was going to be both easy to use and quite comfortable. And Esther loved it too! Now I can't wait to take Esther shopping or hiking or just on a walk around the neighborhood.

I will still use my Moby Wrap for cuddling my infants, but after the baby is about six months I have a feeling I will quite frequently use the ERGO to carry him or her on my back.

Diaper Talk

2010-11-15T11:02:00.000-08:00

My brother is having a baby (!) so I was talking diapers with my sister-in-law. Like me, Hannah likes to keep things natural and cheap. But if natural isn't cheap then both of us tend to say, "Why bother?" I was convinced that cloth diapers are indeed cheaper than their pumped-full-of-chemicals, bad-for-the-environment alternatives. After our conversation I looked back through our records and let the numbers speak for themselves.

Joshua was born in 2006 and I began buying the Wal-mart brand of diapers. They worked pretty well for me, only leaking when the size was wrong or if the blow-out was particularly huge. Also, I didn't change his diaper very often because I was too cheap to throw away a half used diaper. If I was to go back I would probably be spending about 30% more because I'm now used to keeping the children's bottoms fresh.

2006 - For Joshua’s first year we spent $300 on disposable diapers. That’s really not that bad for the convenience of just throwing them away. And it’s a lot less than pro-cloth diaper people will tell you that disposable diapers cost.

2007 - The next year Joshua was a toddler so he wasn’t changed nearly as often, but we did have Lucy in diapers too for the last three months of the year. We spent about $250.

2008 - The year after that Joshua and Lucy were both in diapers for the first five months and then Joshua potty trained. Lucy continued to use disposables until August. We spent $220.

In August that year I made my first cloth diapers purchase which totaled $80.50. Esther is using those diapers now. Cotton prefolds and waterproof wraps are the most economical option and I find them easy to wash and dry.

Including that purchase, I have spent a total of $380 on cloth diapers (wraps and wipes too) and most of it is still going strong. I will be using all the diapers themselves for at least one more child and possibly another after that. The waterproof wraps that I buy are about $12 each and I use 4 for each of the three sizes.

I did buy some used wraps that I didn’t like and I ended up getting rid of them. I used other wraps when Lucy was too big for them so they stretched and wore out early and I had to replace them. I also spent a bit more on one wrap (wool to breath better since Lucy got such terrible diaper rashes). The wipes that I’ve gotten aren’t worth the extra money. If you want to do cloth wipes (disposable wipes are easy and cheap) just buy cheap flannel to cut into squares. The number above also includes the aloe that I bought to make wipes solution.

I have looked at our water bill before and after diapers and it did not go up significantly.

Realistically, if you wanted to do cloth diapers, here is what it could cost:
Infant diapers: $1.50 each x 36 = $48
Regular diapers: $2.00 each x 24 = $48
Wraps: $12.00 each x 12 = $144 (this is for three sizes so you don’t need to spend this all at once)
Total (good for about 3 kids): $240

Anyway, maybe this is more information than ant of you are interested in, but these are real numbers from our experience.

Breakfast

2010-11-15T10:23:00.000-08:00

I had changed a diaper, read the first three chapters of Acts, taken a shower and gotten dressed, all with just a few sips of water in my tummy. Esther was pacified by an apple which she happily munched, but Joshua and Lucy were both clambering for a "snack."

I opened the fridge.

I opened the pantry.

I sat down to think.

What should we eat for breakfast?

Pioneer Woman breakfast potatoes sounded yummy, but I didn't feel like cutting up raw, dirty potatoes. Omelets would be delish, but I didn't have anything interesting to go in them. Pancakes sounded too sweet. German pancakes (oven pancakes) would be good, but we didn't have milk.

All I could think about was Raisin Bran. If I could just eat a bowl of Raisin Bran then the world would be right and every problem would solve itself!

I did finally make a decision and now "egg-in-a-hole" is being digested by an unwilling stomach. "Acquire Rasin Bran and milk" is now on my to do list for today.