Getting Away

Is been ages since I've been away from my kids for more than a few hours. Eleven years, actually, when Jonathan's best friend got married and Joseph was just starting to try out walking. With Jonathan's new job (6 months, as of last weekend, so he's permanent now) he also gets to go on business trips. This year's Congress for New Urbanism annual meeting is in Savannah Georgia and he asked if I wanted to come along.

I remember my mom tagging along on some of my dad's trips. I think the first may have been the last minute meetup in Amsterdam. She came to my school and pulled me out of class to explain that she was going to Europe that afternoon to meet Dad and Nate was going to be in charge of us for the next week. She loved the whole thing so much she went on several more over the years. I even went with them twice. Those trips cemented my love of old things and unplanned adventure.

So here I am, in Savannah. We're staying in the old downtown and its gorgeous. The buildings are all the same shape but with a wealth of variety in details and complexity. Our bed and breakfast is actually a collection of row houses (not necessarily contiguous, either) rather than an individual property, in a solid middle-class area and there's mansions just two blocks away. Many are still residences and many have been converted to other uses. I like that the service areas on the ground floors are often converted to shops while the homes above are largely intact. There are mid-block squares with thick tree canopies covered in Spanish moss and ferns that the large north-south streets have to divert around. Churches dot the architectural landscape. There are fascinating things to look at every twenty feet, from the gates on alleys to the wares in a hatter's window. I've seen three book sellers, two fabric shops, and a yarn shop. And no, we dont have a car.

The whole reason they choose this city, this neighborhood--and it is a neighborhood--is that this is what cities used to be and what they're driving cities to be again. And so, with that, we wanted to experience the city as a resident. So we live in a row house, shop and eat at local shops, Jonathan goes to work at one of the big hotels, attending meetings and lectures and presentations, and I have a part-time job. (Passes to the conference are $400-600, but if you work as a volunteer your pass is just $85.) It's a beautiful life. Even if it's just for a week.

Patronage

I like slow living.  I knead my bread by hand instead of in a mixer and refuse to own a bread machine even though I like the idea of waking up to fresh bread. I knit my own socks, knowing full well that I can buy some at Target. I can even spin my own yarn starting with wool fresh off the sheep, if it comes down to it. I prefer paper for books that I buy, though electronic works well for library books, mostly because they're available at midnight and it's impossible for them to be past due. I hate audio books. It's impossible to get the pacing right and the tone is always so neutral and bland that it kills whatever mood there might have been. I like to walk when I can, instead of driving, and am actively lobbying for a bicycle so that I can go even further without having to deal with my car.

That said, I do have a smart phone (Jonathan doesn't and when he had occasion to prove such to his co-workers his office-mate leaned over and said, "I thought you were Mormon, not Amish.") and I even have a couple podcasts I listen to, mostly Two Guys On Your Head. I like the psychology discussions and it's really quite educational. I went looking for some new ones, recently, to maybe branch out, or something. There were knitting ones and trivia ones and cooking ones and history ones. I picked up a few but just haven't gotten into them. I'd have to carve out time for that and I don't feel like making the effort, most days. One really got to me, though. It's called LDS Perspectives and I listened to three or four episodes the first day. The second episode, they were talking to Brad Wilcox about his His Grace is Sufficient talk at BYU. It's amazing.

In discussing the delicate interplay between Grace and Works (see 2Nephi 25:23, James 2:20), he brings up Steven Robinson's Parable of the Bicycle, where we will never have enough but that's OK because the difference will be made up. This is so hard, though, because too many say that we've messed up too many times or we're obviously not doing our best, so what's the point? So he introduces his Parable of the Piano Lesson, in that Grace is where our mother has already paid for the lessons--for the teacher, the books and the piano--but it is up to us to practice.  My mind leapt one step further. Christ's Grace is a Patronage.

Long ago, in professions with guilds, it was common for a person with means to sponsor a youth who showed promise to an apprenticeship within a guild. Tuition was paid, often housing and meals were provided, and a career set forth. The apprentice had to study under the guidance of master craftsmen, usually for years, to become competent, then skilled, then a master himself. It was often a life's work.

To put this in more modern terms, our life is a university. We applied in the pre-mortal world, were accepted, and enrolled at birth.  We're not here on scholarship, though. Nor are we working our way through with a part- or full-time job. Christ has paid our tuition, in full, for whatever our course load, line of study, or number of degrees may be, including books, supplies, library time, a new laptop, access to the gym, room and board, and anything else you could need. Because it's already paid, we don't have to worry about minor infractions costing us our scholarship. We don't have to worry about losing hours at work because we were studying or sick and not having enough money to cover books and food. He even offers tutoring. Because Christ's Grace is like Elder Robbin's physics professor. As long as you keep coming back, keep trying, keep studying, keep retaking the test, you'll get there eventually.

And that is the beauty of patronage, of Grace. It lets us fail. It lets us fail over and over again. Christ gives us a safe place to test our skills, to learn and grow. As we look at our failures, and there are many, we can pull them apart, study them, see where we may have gone awry, and try again a different way. And maybe that second, thirtieth or four hundredth try isn't quite right, either, but we keep learning.

For it is by patronage we earn our degree, after all we have studied.

Coping With History

One of my brothers is a nerd... Ok, they're all nerds, but he flaunts it more. Anyway, he reads this webcomic called XKCD and sometimes it's beyond me. The writer used to work at NASA and plays with physics for fun. Most of the time, though, I get the joke  and its the sort of funny that gets you thinking. Wednesday's was especially timely.

It makes me wonder about what sort of celebrity gossip got swapped and dissected over fast food in the Roman Empire, or what forgotten tragedies shaped generations of Suomi. What did sibling rivalry look like in pre-colombian America? How did kimono get to be a Thing?

For me,  I'm sad for the stories that aren't here.  I could have told you about teenagers and middle school, or the end of our diapering era. There was choir concerts and trumpet shopping, the discovery of a local Christmas festival, our first big road trip and our budding flag magnet collection. I started going to an annual yarn convention and learned how to use a drop spindle. Elena grew at least six inches in the last year. Eli was added to the family. James was discharged from speech therapy but started occupational therapy, and is now getting discharged from that. Lucy has a vast array of invisible friends. Joseph has deep thoughts and a mind that is probably more broken than mine. Jonathan got a job with his dream employer. Pretty much all of us have ADD, apparently.

And I didn't write any of it here. So much history. So many stories. Write it. Write it in detail. And put your soul into it.

Hello?

It's been nearly five years. I meant to come back after just a few months. And then I had something huge and internal I was struggling with for at least a year. And then I felt like I couldn't come back unless I explained that, but I couldn't. At least, not then. And certainly not all of it. Some of you know. Fewer know all, because I usually leave out a key aspect because that takes even more explanation and that explanation is almost no one's business.

And time went by.

My heart healed as I came to terms with what I had, then broke again when my mom died. My children--five now--grew, and their problems did, too. My husband finally had a proper career, one he wanted, and that allowed us to move away from our hometown, but close enough to still visit frequently. We fell in love with our new home and were even able to finally buy a house, though the means to do so came at the cost of both my parents and the last of my grandparents. Some days, I wonder if it's worth it and say I would happily be an eternal renter if it just meant I could get answers to a few questions I have for my mom. And really, I'm not entirely sure home ownership is all it's cracked up to be. Sure, you can paint the walls and hang whatever you want on them, but you also have to deal with the roof after windstorms or the mouse in the garage. We deal with what we have, though. We got a cat. And a dog. And another cat. Then lost the dog. I'm glad we were able to give her a home in her old age but I now firmly believe that we're just not dog people. I lost another pregnancy, too. That was a triple blow--the loss itself, not having Mom to help me, and because, while it was a surprise, it was also our last. Like being handed a free cookie on the way out of the store and then a bird immediately sweeps down and snatches it out of your hand. You certainly aren't going to go back in and buy a new one, but it was still your cookie and you were planning on enjoying that.

And so we move on.

It's time for a new phase of life, now, and that brings a new set of thoughts. It's time to be back.

Urg, But Not Eep

I've been mulling over modesty, lately.  Elena's reached That Age (already?!?) so she and I got to have a few... Conversations (I know!!!) this last week.  Along with a changing body comes a change in how people perceive you, though, and while she's never had any problem showing modesty in dress, she has a long way to go for behavior, especially when it comes to how she moves in skirts.  How do I really explain modesty without getting into the one Conversation I haven't had with her and she doesn't (well, shouldn't) need to have for another couple years?

Modesty has been a pretty hot topic on Facebook lately.  There have been lots of links to articles and blog posts.  There was one that noted that the word "modest"  is only used twice in the bible, both times in an "of modest means" sort of way, advising the saints to not flaunt whatever prosperity they may rise to.  It reminded me of The Book of Mormon's mentions of fine-twined linens in the pride cycles.


On the more usual interpretation, she knows--because we've said it many times--that we keep ourselves, especially the areas covered by our undies and said undies themselves, covered up because they're not other people's business.  I was looking for something more solid than that, good as it is.  I had an epiphany, a week ago, and was able to relate the topic to something analogous but not as fraught with subtext and blame-throwing.  It takes the form of a quick Socratic question session:

Is it impolite for your brother to read your personal thoughts that you put in your private journal?  Of course it is.  That being said, is it then impolite for you to hang poster-sized prints of the contents of that journal around the house?  Your answer to that will say much. 

Then I saw this.  It's a hypothetical conversation between a man and his son.  It made me want to formulate my own for my daughter.

~
Sweetheart, there are many kinds of men out there.  And they've all looked at you.  It's because you're becoming a woman.  It's in the nature of things.  ...

It's the way they look that matters, though.  There are some men that will look at you and only see a piece of meat.  You've done nothing to deserve that, and there's nothing you can do to prevent it.  Those men will always see every woman that way.  Ignore them, they're not worth your time.  Trying to beat them in that game is a losing proposition.  It's like wrestling a muddy pig--you get dirty and the pig has fun.

There are, however, good men who will look at you as a whole person, one with thoughts and dreams, skills and talents, and a sense of wonder and adventure that will leave him breathless.  They are the men who don't want to only see you for your legs or curves, as much as those things are attractive to them, who want to respect you and treat you right.  Those are the men that are worth encouraging, those are the ones you want to attract.  For their sakes, not the others', it is most polite and most fair to not make them work so hard at maintaining the self-discipline they've been working on.

Remember, your responsibility is to see yourself dressed before you leave your room, and not undo that work once you leave it.  The man's responsibility is to see you for who you are, not what your clothing may or may not hint at.  Both sides work together.  They share equal responsibility with equal reward. 

"...But What Does it Have to do With Flying an Airplane?”

I will not write the post that apologizes for not posting.  You've all read it on a hundred other blogs.  No I haven't blogged.  And I haven't read yours, either.  And that's OK.

With my mood swings getting more jagged, the last couple months, I've retreated more and more.  I made the horrific mistake of trying to read the Hunger Games series during one of these retreats.  Good books, but not for when your mental state is already tippy.  In an effort to keep myself stable, I've pulled back my friendships, too.  Real, tangible friends; on real, tangible outings; with real, "tangible" sunlight; on real, tangible pool water or playgrounds.  Even those aren't that often, but they give me solid ground, both literal and metaphorical, to stand on.  I suppose I've followed President Uchtdorf's advice about throttling back without really even thinking about it.

Strangely enough, my new footing is echoed in the ideas presented here, too.



As part of finding my center, I changed my social behavior.  To give me the foundation of warmth and friendship I need to build myself back up, I rely on live conversations with live people.  The need to edit, to present myself, to find the perfect whatever in the endless PR campaign of blogging and even Facebook, was just too much.  I dropped everything that took more than 30 seconds of planning.

So no, you're not likely to see an uptick in posting.  I am, however, much healthier for it.  And that's what matters.

Backfill

It's been a weird Winter, no weirder for the fact that it's May and it's finally starting to feel like Spring.  It started last October when I got shingles. 

As shingles go, it was an incredibly mild case, just a quarter-sized patch next to my right knee, but my skin felt like I had a particularly obnoxious sunburn for a week or two.  The one time James kicked my rash I curled up and cried for ~5 minutes.  Figuring that this is something that might actually need a doctor's attention I went and looked one up.  It's been a while, so I was a New Patient and I had to wait two weeks.  By then, everything had pretty much cleared up but they did a full check-up.  Including mental health.  By the end of the day I'd already seen a psychologist and had appointments with both a therapist and a psychiatrist. 

I'm usually just fine with being mildly bipolar, but with then-current events compounding things they wanted to let me talk to someone.  I went to therapy every week for months.  I met with the psychiatrist.  I got a prescription that I found out 2 days later I'm not supposed to take.   Well, I can, but Lucy can't, so I can't either.  I talked about what was going on in my life and we discussed somethings that might make things better.  And when my therapist left in March I just never went back.  It felt like all the talking did was either frustrate me because it was only talking and not actually doing anything, or make me feel sad and helpless, which is counter-productive.  It also made me fold up in on myself.  I didn't really talk to anyone else.  I certainly didn't blog.

So why now?  It's Spring.  New starts.  Also, my cat.  And that just cannot be properly covered on Facebook.

Simon, Cat

My kids love watching Simon's Cat.  I'm pretty sure half the humor, for them, is that Simon is the name of their cat.  I know that half the time they can't remember if the Simon in the movies is the cat or the person.

We got him on a camping trip only a week or two after we got married.  Someone had left a litter of kittens and he came up and introduced himself to us.  He was such a little puff of a kitten, too.  For the longest time, he said "Mac" instead of "Mau."

He used to stalk my feet in the early mornings.  Only mine.  Jonathan would throw him out of the room.  I'd throw him out of the house.  He wanted to be sneaking through the bushes, anyway.  There were whole flocks of birds that would flutter around our patio, teasing him.

He was never much of a hunter, though.  He caught a little garter snake, once, and it got away and slithered into the hall closet.  I stayed outside until Jonathan found it and relocated it.  Simon caught a toad, too.  He was so proud of himself, trotting up with the bumpy little thing in his mouth.  Until the toad did what all toads do when you catch them.  Simon's face suddenly got this distressed/disappointed look and he spat the toad out.  I don't think he ever really tried, after that.

As a bobtail, he got pretty stocky.  Any time someone visited they'd tell us we have a big cat.  I'm always amazed at how small their cats are.

 He was my kids' first friend and, for all but Joseph, their first word, too.  He let Elena chew his ears and use his head as leverage when she was learning to stand.

He let Joseph pull fur and chase him around the house.

He was fascinated by James' smells and just happy to hang out with the quiet one.

He took naps with Lucy and they would meow to each other.

This morning, the kids found him on our front lawn.  He'd been in a fight, or something.  It wasn't horrific, but it wasn't exactly pretty, either.  Jonathan got him washed and wrapped up.  Elena kept asking to see him, over and over, even though she knew he was gone.  My mom offered a place where we could bury him.  We tried to explain it to James as best we could and even let him say bye, but I really don't know how much he understood.  Joseph immediately asked if we could get a puppy.

This is going to be a really big adjustment for us.  The kids have always had him there.  The only time I've not had a pet was those two weeks between the wedding and the camping trip.  I feel a little lost, right now.  It gives me a bit of comfort, though, to imagine him chasing bugs and maybe wandering around Dad's place for a while.  Adieu, mon chat.  We'll see you later.

Revolution

Lucy figured out how to roll over, today.  She's now quite handy at flipping onto her tummy.  Not that she likes that, all that much.  The view from her tummy is not quite as interesting and much more exhausting.  After a minute or so she's angry with the world for putting her in such a position, as if she didn't do it to herself.  I have the feeling this will will be a recurring theme.

Inch by Inch

Lucy is 4 months old, today.  She went in for her check-up, this morning, and got weighed and measured.  She's 13 lbs 12 ozs and almost 25", putting her in the 50th percentile.  Apparently, she was in the 75th, last time, so she's been told to get going on that cereal to build herself back up.  Weird.  I mean, I knew she was adorably chubby, but 50th-75th percentile?  The other kids were all, consistently, 5th-10th percentile.  25th at the highest.  I don't know what genes she working with, but I guess they're working well for her.

I other Lucy news, while we were at the doctor, she made her first real attempt at rolling over.  She almost had it but an elbow was poking out.  She does scootch around in circles, though, changing which way she's facing. 

Toys are starting to be a viable distraction, too.  It never works for very long, but you can hand her a rattle toy and she'll chew on it for several minutes.  It's enough to give Mom hope for a future without a baby permanently adhered to my side.

Explanation

Because of the nature of my camera and the way it labels files I only upload pictures at the end of the month.  So, be prepared for a sudden surge of posts.

Clean and Pure

She's 8 years old!  How crazy is that?  It's seems like both yesterday and a thousand years ago that I welcomed my first tiny miracle to this world, and she's gotten so big, now.

We took pictures to celebrate such an important birthday.

Today was her baptism.  She looked so beautiful, all dressed in white with her Daddy by her side.

When we got home she opened one more set of presents--brand new scriptures and a case to keep them in.

Girls...

It's odd how life works out, sometimes.  I caught this picture of Elena and Lucy at Elena's baptism, today...

...because of this one from my niece's baptism, 8 years ago.

It's the same dress, one of only 3 or 4 dresses to survive the fire because they'd never gotten put away properly.

For the sake of comparison, here are better close-ups.

Ladybugs!

Elena started planning this party as soon as we got done with Joseph's pirate party, two years ago.  I haven't been ready for it, though.  I was pregnant and nauseous for both those birthdays.  This year I got things together.  We made flower hair clips, though I didn't get pictures.  We played Pin The Ladybug on the Picnic.

We ate aphids on a log and flower sandwiches on a picnic blanket.

Daddy made another one of his famous piñatas.

We found an actual ladybug in the grass.

And we ate yummy cupcakes.  I'm really happy with how they came out.

Thank you to everyone who could make it out, we were so happy to have you here.

Beginnings of Birthday Fun

James turned 4!  After Joseph and Grant's birthdays he's got this down.  He knew all about what to do with presents and candles.  It's the first time I've seen him excited about something somewhat abstract.

Boys...

This from a visit to the New Braunfels children's museum.  I don't usually get pictures of the boys without them being blurry from too many wiggles or an akward zoom and crop from a self-portrait.

Lucita, Mi Gordita

I have a chubby monkey.  And I love it.

She got the nickname from the Riverside sisters who love to coo over her at every opportunity.  (The Spanish-speaking ward meets in our building.)  It's funny seeing them saying "Ai!  La Gorda!" to her.

That means she gets to hear three different languages on a regular basis, though.  (Jonathan's teaching himself French by reading Le Livre de Mormon.)   Hopefully this will make her well-rounded in more ways than the obvious one.

A Story of Perseverance

 As told through pictures...

(Disclaimer: These pictures are from mid-July, so, you know, they're like half a lifetime ago.)

Back on Schedule

It's school time! 

 The kids have been giddy with excitement and now it's finally here.

There were some bumpy parts, getting classes and teachers worked out.  Joseph was originally put in a Spanish class, but switched because he doesn't speak Spanish.  Then he got put back in the Spanish class and had to be switched again.  In the end, he's in a dual-language class, so he'll learn some Spanish after all.

Elena had a teacher, but got moved to make room for all the new kids, but that teacher wasn't G/T certified and Elena really needs a G/T teacher so she got switched back.  When we got to school, on Monday, we had to find out which of the three possible teachers she'd be with.  I'm glad we talked with all of them at Meet the Teacher, last week, so we already knew what to expect and she could walk right in and get settled.

 It's so nice to have my days on a schedule, again.  I know when I need to get up, when I can run errands, when to have dinner ready, and when we all need to be in bed.  Sometimes, things get hectic, but I know what's going on and I feel like I've got a handle on things.

And none of that would be possible without this:

 Right before school started (seriously--Saturday or Sunday night) Lucy decided that it would be OK if she settled down to sleep at 10 or 11pm, instead of the 1 or 2am that she'd been doing all summer.  With that, she also started sleeping through the night, most nights, then wakes up for a light breakfast and goes back to sleep.

 

 I have gotten mountains of laundry washed, folded and put away, the last two mornings.  I feel so productive for the first time in months.


Why laundry?  Well, 1: the kids were out of not-school clothes, and 2: since the house is relatively empty I decided to just stick James in underpants, apply lots of juice, hang out in the bathroom all day, and deal with whatever laundry results.  It's past time and it just needs to be done.  He kept asking for a diaper, the first day, but after his initial frustration of having Mom say No has resigned himself.  He does pretty well if he's naked, which is what did the trick for Joseph, so we'll see.

Mom Called it First

I think we have a lefty.

My mom called it three years ago, when she saw him holding his bottle.  Congratulations, Mom, you win a prize!

(I have no idea why Elena is so excited about this but she is.  Ridiculously, giddily excited.)

Bluebeard ...and Blackbeard

I'm not sure how we managed to avoid it for so long.  Sure Joseph had been there, but that's Joseph and it wasn't in the "right" place anyway.  I guess it was just time and we'd avoided it long enough.

Two split chins, on two children, with two sets of stitches, in one month.

James slipped while climbing the couch, at the end of July.

Elena bounced off a bigger kid and into a pole at the splashpad, last week.

Temptation ~or~ The Trouble With Monogomy

I'm getting pretty far with my sock project, but I'm getting bored, too.  I started them on the last day of February, so that's 4 1/2 months.  I actually had to rip them all the way back to the start, at one point, because they were just too tight.  Now, at a better size, I'm almost back to where I was but I want more.  I'm not very good at sticking to just one project, since I like to switch it up with my mood and the setting, and I've got all sorts of things calling my name.

I started looking at other sock patterns, a sure sign of trouble ahead.  Being all noble and stuff I decided they should be for Jonathan.  He picked a pattern from the selections I offered and a yarn from the bucket.  They're going to be awesome.  But I still want more.

I haven't worn real shoes in long time, so when I put on heels for church, on Sunday, my little toe was worn raw within an hour.  Sunday School brought cold bare feet and visions of anklets that look like ballet flats that I can keep in my purse just for occasions like this.  And I still want more.

A shawl?  A dress for Lucy?  Dr. Who stockings?  Something else entirely?  Or do I hold out and finish before moving on?