After the fire came a gentle whisper...

We Interrupt This Blog

2011-02-01T21:19:00.001-05:00

For a bout of stomach flu and a couple birthdays...but hope to get part 5 up tomorrow! And some birthday pics later in the week!

Confessions of a (Mostly) Reformed Yeller Part 4 of 7

2011-01-28T08:15:00.007-05:00

Part 4: We need to relinquish our unrealistic expectations, both of ourselves and others.

I have to tell you, that to this day, my expectations not being met is one of the surest ways for me leave Compassionland and enter into the Kindgom of Damnthem! Nothing can get my ire up as quickly as walking into the house after running errands to a complete disaster, after asking those left behind to straighten up while I was gone. Nothing can make my teeth clench so quickly, as offering detailed instructions about what needs to be done and then having it only half done or done improperly. If you were a fly on the wall in my house for any length of time, you'd be sure to hear me say "Gah! Expectations are the killer!"

Leaving things for other people to do, or allowing them the freedom to make choices requires a voluntary surrender of power. We actively have to release control of a situation, if we are going ask others to do things. As you will recall, habitual yelling at its root stems from a lack of a sense of control and a feeling of disempowerment. Granting freedom to others is a monumental challenge for Yellers. We do NOT want to be disappointed.

For the first four of our children, the first seven years of motherhood for me, I relinquished almost no parenting control of the babycare to my husband. At the time I really believed that I was just better at it and more hormonally and biologically adapted to caring for our small children and babies. While on the one hand that is true, it is also true that what was really going on was me not wanting to feel powerless when the baby was fussing or someone was having a meltdown. I would perpetually swoop in to "save" my husband and the baby. Voila! Control restored.

What I didn't realise was that I was undermining myself as well as my husband to actually be the most effective parents we could be. Only with our fifth child did I surrender my absolute rule and allow my husband to find his own way, with his own techniques and skills to comfort and nurture the baby. I decided that as long as the baby wasn't crying alone, but in someone's loving arms where they were nurtured and safe that I would not offer to help unless I was asked. I had no idea what a revolution that would cause in terms of the entirety of my approach to parenthood.

In my first post I wrote that I believe most Yellers to be people who take their responsibility as parents very seriously. They feel very deeply the desire to raise their children "right". Wherever they fall on the parenting spectrum, I think Yellers tend to be people who want to do all of the things prescribed by that particular style or styles of parenting to a T. I think categorically they have high, often inflexible, expectations of themselves and of their children.

One inadvertent side effect of these high expectations is an ever present need to actively control situations and our children. Another is that people and events seem to persistently fall short of our expectations. Yellers tend to have pretty firm ideas about what their children "ought" to be doing, and how their life "ought" to be. You might hear them say things like "My children ought to just listen to me." Or "My baby ought to be able to fall asleep on their own by now." Or my own seemingly perpetual mantra,"My children ought to be able to pick up after themselves."

One of they keys, I firmly believe, to overcoming habitual yelling is to build on the compassion and self compassion we've learned and practiced, and begin developing realistic expectations. When we view others and ourselves as works in progress who are all learning and growing, we can move to a place where we can alter what we once would have viewed as "failure", with the perception of it as "part of the learning process."

I think one of the very greatest uses of time and internet you can employ as a parent is seeking out and firmly understanding what age, or better yet, developmentally appropriate behaviour is reasonable to expect from our children. For example, six week old babies generally do not have the basic neural ability to sleep through the night. While we might be exhausted and wish they'd sleep, most babies that age simply do not have the capacity for that behaviour. It would be setting up falsely high expectations to try to set out on a program at that age and developmental phase to try to achieve that end. Another example might be a toddler grasping, reaching and pulling out things on tables and shelves. At that stage of development they are hard wired to exercise their new skills and to explore their environment. If we leave things in reach which we do not want broken or touched, we are setting up unrealistically high expectations which are doomed to failure.

On the whole as a culture, I think we have very unrealistic expectations in regards to the behaviour and ability of children. We want our babies to sleep longer than they're really able to, toddlers to be able to control impulses better than they're really able to, pre-school aged children to begin academic undertakings they're not really ready for, kindergarten aged kids to be able to sit still for much of the day, school aged kids to relinquish playing long before they're ready, tweeners to manage the massive hormonal shifts without big emotions rising to the surface, teenagers to balance vast amounts of responsibility, and so on.

Besides allowing my husband to learn to parent our young children his own way, there were two other major breakthroughs for me which helped me begin to cull my expectations to more reasonable dimensions. Both experiences were born from having a very colicky third baby. She would literally cry for three hours every.single.night. For months. At the time, my husband was working mostly nights and was away for bedtime. I somehow had to manage bedtime for the older two kids and deal with the cry-o-matic infant. After having tried everything I could to make that little girl stop crying I got to the point where I realised that it is NOT my job as a parent to make sure my children never cry, but rather just to be with them as they cry, offering a place of safety and unconditional love. I am just an emotional midwife, so to speak, who is there as someone to help them facilitate working through, as well as bearing witness to their big emotions. This understanding has extended now far beyond babyhood for me, into the entire emotional lives of my children. It is not my job to make sure they are never hurt, never cry, never experience disappointment, never struggle; but it is my job to be with them as they process through all of these things. I don't need to control what they feel and how they feel it, I just need to control how I respond to it. The second massive shift during that colic time was an understanding that I was just going to have to surrender my expectations of what I thought bedtime ought to entail. I gave up the nightly bath for the kids. Accepted that most nights I would not be able to read them a story. Acquiesced that every night would not have lullabies and long, gradual transitions to dreamland.

Surrendering those expectations of what I thought I needed to do to be a good mother, helped me deal with the situation as it truly was and get creative about working things out. Surrendering those expectations immediately decreased the stress level and my sense of being in a situation completely out of my control. If I could realistically look at what I was capable of, I could find ways which would still meet the basic need of creating a gentle transition to sleep for my children. So I would just put socks on dirty little feet for bed if a bath wasn't in the cards before colic time set in, sing one little lullabye, and learned that books and stories on tape were a wonderful thing! There was suddenly very little left to yell about.

The most crucial component of what I was doing, was changing my expectations about what I was supposed to do. It was hard, because it felt like capitulation and failure. Being raised in a household where perfection was expected, relinquishing my own perfectionism about myself, my children, my parenting and out life was massively conflicting for me. I didn't understand then that it was healthy resilience. Over the next few babies and the next few years I came to understand that my expectations for what I could successfully manage needed to be always flexible, adjusting them for the situation at hand. I am sick and tired? Okay, this week we're gonna watch a lot of TV. I am really pregnant or have a new baby? Okay, the house is gonna be kind of a disaster for awhile. I have lots of meetings this week? Okay, we're gonna have quick, but not so healthy food for a few days.

There was a shift in my thinking from always parenting for twenty years from now (If I let this behaviour stand, she's going to be an irresponsible, ungrateful adult!), to just doing the imperfect best I could in the present. My firm belief and hope is that my children will walk into adulthood taking the entirety of their experience, and that each and every moment of their childhood taken individually will matter very little. I am sure there will be a handful of individual moments which stand out, but the overall general impression of their upbringing I think will be far more important in terms of the adults they become. So if we need to have popcorn and ice cream and fruit snacks for lunch because I haven't made it to the grocery store yet, that in no way means that my children are going to enter into adulthood obese and with a messed up relationship with food.

We have their entire childhoods to teach and impart values and wisdom. Just because my two year old can't sit on his bottom for meals, doesn't mean he is going to be jumping up and down when he is out on his first date a decade and a half from now. Just because my three year old will not consistently use the potty does not mean she'll be wearing diapers in college. Just because my baby doesn't sleep very well, doesn't mean that I'll never get sleep ever again. We have to take the longer view, and release that immediacy of needing to control our environment and behaviour if we are going to move away from habitual yelling.

Two last thoughts about expectations. First, I want to be clear that I think children generally live up to the expectations we have for them. I still believe that I'd rather set my beliefs about them too high, rather than too low. However, I think that emphasizes the need to ensure that our expectations are developmentally and situationally appropriate. I also think that it means that I have to remain ever flexible in my expectations, being open to setting them higher or lower as the present demands.

Finally I want to address our expectations in regards to the transition from Yeller into a reformed Yeller. I sincerely hope that you will walk away from reading all of this and that things will be immediately and permanently better for in terms of yelling at your children. However, I believe most change is more of an ever-expanding spiral, rather than a linear path. There will be times and days where will do just awesome. But there will also be times and days where we completely fail. If we can keep trying to practice self-compassion and forgiveness and asking forgiveness throughout this process, those bad days will space further and further apart, and our yelling outbursts become more and more infrequent. Give yourself time to enact change in your life. Set realisitc expectations! Your entire lifetime up to this point has yielded to this behaviour, it's probably going to take you some time to consistently replace yelling with other ways of communicating.

Confessions of a (Mostly) Reformed Yeller Part 3 of 7

2011-01-26T08:22:00.011-05:00

We need to learn and practice self-compassion and compassion for others, forgiveness and the readiness to seek forgiveness.

So now we've dredged up all of this ache and hurt and pain and shame from our past. We've come to the realisation that if we're yelling habitually, we're trying to control situations and other people for our own ends of feeling empowered. Quite frankly, things can look pretty darn grim. And hopeless. And like it's all beyond saving. And the best we could do is sit curled up in the corner just rocking ourselves and moaning.

Where do we go from here with all of this mess sitting on the plate before us? How do we move through all of it to actually make it usable and serviceable to us? How do we go from the big gloppy, formless mess we're stirring in the pot to that crossover moment when it all suddenly turns into play doh which we can mold and shape into wonderful and fantastic creations?

I think the key is learning and putting into practice forgiveness and compassion, both for ourselves and others. Employing the ongoing practice of compassion, forgiveness and seeking forgiveness is how we take these immensities and begin to act in a way which is free from our past. Compassion and forgiveness for ourselves and others is the key with unlatches the padlock on the chains which bind us. We still need to unsnake and wrangle out of those chains, which will take time, immense effort and skill; but we cannot even begin that attempt without first opening that lock.

I don't know about you, but when I really looked back, putting words to and calling to mind all that had happened to me, I felt angry. Really angry. Rage angry. Fury. When I admitted I had a problem, and realised why I was yelling, I felt angry at myself, and pretty much like I just completely sucked as a human being. It tore me apart; for awhile things were actually worse than they had been because I was just cloaked in pain, without knowing how to move forward.

One night about six or seven years ago, sitting with a bunch of college aged young men and women at a prayer group, two very fundamental things happened which began to change all of this for me. The first was the idea which came to me while sitting in meditation that my brokenness was my greatest gift to share with the world. It would take many more years to understand that this was a giant step in self compassion, which has been admittedly the very hardest part of this third step for me. Secondly, a young woman said something which just radicalised how I was viewing my own up bringing and my past.

What she said was essentially this: "I know my parents did the best the knew to do at the time, out of the very best motivations. It just happens that what they had to give wasn't what I needed." Boom! Crash! The lightning bolt hit me. Yes! From that moment I had a workable context in which to view my past. I could forgive the wrongs and hurts I had held onto, without diminishing those wounds in any way. Forgiveness didn't mean that I had to forget or downplay all that I had endured, and that was vitally important to me. Once I began to view things through this lens, I could also extend a knowing camaraderie to those doing the best they know to do at the time, even when their efforts are imperfect. Because , holy cow, did that ever sound like exactly what I was doing in my own life! Thus, the infancy of compassion also came into being in my life.

The word compassion , when looked at its root parts, literally means "suffering with". If there was one thing I understood, it was suffering. At this point in my mid-twenties I felt like suffering was key component and defining factor of my life. I began extending this understanding to reach a place where I deeply understood that we ALL suffer, that we ALL fall short of who we want to be so often in our lives. Conceding that we ALL have past hurts and wounds and broken places pulled me out of feeling isolated in my pain, which made my own hurts which seemed infinitely vast and unapproachable, almost magically and immediately more manageable. Feeling alone in our pain, I believe, is one of the key factors which keeps us from healing. Acknowledging that all of humanity is in this together with the very same struggles has been and continues to be completely and totally empowering for me. My suffering can now build and forge connection, rather than foster disconnection and destruction.

I began to view my parents and other people in my life very differently. Things no longer seemed so personal to me. It wasn't that people had wounded me with malice and foresight and design, but rather as a side effect of their own ongoing struggles with their own sufferings.

Once this began to really set in and resonate, it came to me that because this struggle is universal, it is imperative that when we wrong or even inadvertently hurt others that we must humbly and sincerely seek their forgiveness. To me this is nothing more than simply living out that axiom which is found in so many religions and cultures: Do unto others as you would have them do unto you. Seeking others' forgiveness is the bridge between our personal chasms of hurt; it's the precise mechanism by which our wounds can become the building blocks of connection. When we ask for forgiveness or apologize to anyone, we are essentially saying to them, "I recognise and honor the suffering within you which I have caused. I understand how much that hurts. Let's try this again, but this time working together, rather than as adversaries." In my own life, from the moment I realised this, I began to always ask my children's forgiveness when I yelled at them, or was grumpy, or detached or did anything which caused them hurt.

Even in those cases where I was doing the right thing, I became dedicated to acknowledging that hurt which they experienced, finding that common bridge between us. "I know it is so hard and frustrating to not get that cool toy you want right now. It's hard for me when I see things I want and have to wait to get them, and I'm a grown up. I know you feel sad and mad about this decision I am making. When we get home, we'll draw a picture of it and put it on your birthday list." I have tried really hard to NOT apologize for parenting (i.e. not saying things like "I'm sorry that it's bed time." or "I'm sorry we have to go."), but rather to save my apologies for when I had truly done wrong. "Wow! I really flew off the handle there. I was feeling really frustrated and upset that the dishes weren't getting done the way I wanted them done. I yelled at you. That was unjust and I bet really hurt your feelings and made you feel scared. Will you please forgive me? Can we start over?" I actively tried to learn to acknowledge the kids' big feelings about the parenting choices I was making. I was putting compassion into practice. We have had days, both past and present where we have had many, many do overs. I firmly believe that my personal commitment to seeking their forgiveness and forgiving them has kept us very closely connected over the years, even though there have been times where I was just an absolute mess.

When we remember that yelling essentially comes from a feeling and sense of having no control, we can see the immense potential power of forgiveness, compassion, and seeking forgiveness. We can choose how to view our past and present. Feeling as though we have choices, any choices, moves us a long way down the road to empowerment.

This brings me to the cultivation of self-compassion, which I have conveniently left for last, because it has been by far the most difficult, long and arduous part of this process for me. I really only feel like I have made measurable strides in this area over the past two or three years. It's an area where I am still really actively growing and developing an understanding of how this manifests in my life.

Unfortunately, self-compassion in our culture is very often pegged as selfishness. We receive the cultural message that '"good" moms are completely focused and centered on their children and husbands. Complicating things, we also receive the cultural message that in addition to being completely other-focused we are also supposed to be fit, skinny, interesting but not outrageous, alluring but not slutty, readily employable-though also completely content to stay at home--and all of this not for ourselves, but for our men and our children. Doing anything for self is completely verboten.

Reflecting now upon this, I see the connection between these ideals and why so many women eat or shop emotionally or become addicted to things like exercise or religion in ways which are destructive rather than constructive in their lives. It's just like the lying or refusal to do homework I mentioned in my previous post. These disordered behaviours come as an attempt to exert power in an environment where we feel powerless. They are merely misguided attempts to right a very fundamental wrong.

I lived for many years as what I thought was the dutiful wife and mother. Everything I did was at he service of others. As a "good" wife and mother I forgot myself completely, except when I would act out in some sort of negative way. Nearly five years ago now, my marriage pretty much completely fell apart. My husband wasn't really sure he wanted to stay married to me. And I have to tell you now in retrospect, that it was one of the very best things which EVER happened to me. I recognised that I was miserable; I was so divorced from who I really was that honestly,I wouldn't really wanted to have been married to me either. Having nothing to lose, I just decided that I was going to figure out who me was,start just being me, and make sure that I mattered in the scope of our family.

I found the courage to insist that I had needs and wants. I was not only a member of our family, but just as important as every other member of our family. Being an adult my needs might not be as immediate as those of the children, but they were not somehow less important. Because I was dedicated to trying to be a good mom, meeting my needs developed as something complimentary to meeting the needs of my children , rather than in conflict. I began to dress how I wanted, rather than how I thought moms should dress. I began to wear my hair crazy, because that's how I liked it. I began to make sure I ate healthfully and exercised regularly. I began to devour fiction again rather than endless parenting books. I began to write again. Eventually, I would make friends with people who I would make sure I spent time with in a regular way, because I am a complete extrovert and am really fed through interacting with others. I began listening to music I loved, even if it was loud and obnoxious and not at all mom-ly.

These external changes, really paved the way for the interior conversion of viewing myself through a compassionate lens. When I yelled at my kids, I learned to not only ask their forgiveness, but to honestly forgive myself. When I failed or made bad choices, I learned to look at that objectively but with understanding rather than self-degradation.

Over time that self-compassion in the immediate, began to extend to myself throughout my past as well. I could now look back and say "Wow! I really caused that person a lot of hurt. I didn't know at the time how much damage I was causing. I really regret doing that, but if I had known then what I do now, I would have acted differently", but simply as a statement of fact rather than as berating myself.

Which now brings me to the present on my journey of self compassion. This is where the concept of my brokenness being my gift to others is coming to fruition. I can look at my hurts and wounds and subsequent behaviours and offer them up to others to be able to say "Oh yes! I recognise that in my own life! I am not alone. Maybe I can enact some change, too." I can see value in my failures and struggles, rather than just how badly I have messed up. Also in the present I am working on putting self compassion into practice when things get rough. When the kids are refusing to clean up, or everyone is wild for bedtime, or the house is in complete chaos I am learning to step away rather than immediately reacting, breathing deep and reminding myself "You are safe. You are worthy of love. You have a voice. You have power in this situation. You have the ability to make choices to build connection rather than destroy it. You are safe."

Confessions of a (Mostly) Reformed Yeller Part 2 of 7

2011-01-25T07:47:00.007-05:00

Part 2: We need to understand where we've come from, and what the behaviour is truly about.

We Need To Understand Where We've Come From
This step, I think, can be very misunderstood. I believe there is a time in everyone's parenting life when we have to really look closely at how we were parented. We reject some of the practices and ideals with which we were raised; we accept and choose to implement some of the practices and ideals with which we were raised. Reading this makes it sound so objective and straightforward, but this step is often fraught with much heartache and grieving and release.

The point of looking backwards is not to cast and assign blame, neither is it to get mired in the past. At least one person I know is very reluctant to examine the past, feeling like it is a waste of time, that the present is all that matters. But I firmly believe, with all of my being that if we do not understand our past we can never be truly free from it and actually move to living in the present. If we leave wounds and scars festering and unhealed, we drag them into everything we do in the present. If we don't go back to make sense of our past, and understand how it has affected us, we can never move forward. We will always be bound by it and remain unable to enact lasting changes in our lives.

For me, this part of this step took a long, long time. After we moved to Georgia, we were so broke I often didn't have gas money to do anything more than go to the grocery store each week. For the first time in my life, I was forced to stay put. I had no friends. I spent a lot of time alone. It was so, so, so hard for me. In retrospect it was also very critical for me to have that forced isolation and lack of distraction. In this desert experience I began to really reflect on my past, beginning to understand how I had ended up where I was.

To say this was easy would be a complete and utter lie. It crushed me. It was additionally difficult to begin to understand some of the parts of my upbringing which I saw were very hurtful, while at the same time watching myself repeat some of those same patterns. That dissonance of a growing awareness of how much it has wounded me, but in turn creating the same kind of environment for my children really broke me.

During this time I realised that I always felt like I had to hustle for love. I believed that if I did, said, and performed all the right ways then people might love me. But in cruel irony, if I did start to feel loved by them I would shut it down, fearful that I would eventually no longer perform as I was supposed to and they'd realise how unlovable I was. Rather than risk the hurt of rejection, I would just flee.

I also realised how much my childhood involved walking on eggshells. There was a lack of clearly defined boundaries in all areas of our life. Something which might be okay one day, would meet with punishment the next day. Everything was dependent upon the emotional state of the adults. During this time of reflection, I came to understand how living like this was a constant source of stress and fear. I also realised that this is exactly what is was like for my children living in my home.

Over the next several years I would learn a lot. I really struggled to research and understand dysfunctional relationships. I read and read and researched and read. I needed to dissect it all so that I could make sense of it and understand just how it all was related to the behaviour I was having here in the present.

We Need To Understand What The Behaviour Is Truly About

This part of this second step is the whole purpose for delving into our past in the first place. I also think that it is a very, very scary part of the process, because we have to tap into feelings which are dark and deep. It is not just enough to stop after looking back at how we grew up and the major events which shaped who we are, if we want to enact change and rid our lives of a behaviour we don't want. We have to understand the why of the behaviour, so that we can begin to address the root cause. All behaviours, even negative ones, serve a purpose in our lives. In this case, if we can figure out what purpose yelling serves, what it does for us-then we can begin to make different choices to meet the same ends.

I think often people fail to enact lasting change in their lives because they skip this step. They simply try to change the symptoms. While that can work and be effective for the short term, in times of high stress or difficulty they end up falling back into old behaviour patterns. This is most definitely true for me over many years in regards to being a Yeller. I honestly believe that this step was one of the crucial ones I was skipping over, which kept me mired in the place where I knew without a doubt what kind of mom I did NOT want to be, but unable to consistently be the kind of mom I DID want to be.

I remember specifically a real breakthrough moment for me. I was sitting on the floor in the kitchen ranting and raving about the house being a disaster and reorganizing the tupperware which had been strewn about, and cleaning six other things at the same time in a frenzy. And this lightbulb went on in my head: "You feel like things are out of control, you feel powerless and so you are being the Whirling Screaming Dervish of Clean to impose control and a feeling of power."

And with that came a flood of new understanding. Not having a sense of control or power was one of the predominant characteristics of my life. As a child, there was the eggshell environment, as well as having things like chores re-done by someone else because they weren't done well enough, not just my bedroom needing to be clean, but even the drawers inside my desk, there was no sense of privacy. We moved when I was 11 and that was a huge blow, whhich left me feeling completely powerless over my life.

My reaction to those things was to seek ways to impose a feeling and sense of power and control. I would lie about where I was going or where I'd been-not because what I was doing (at that point) was in any way 'bad', but just simply to impose a sense of reclaiming power over my life. I would just refuse to do homework, again just to impose a sense of control.

When I was 14, just a few weeks shy of 15, I went to a party. There, while I was intoxicated, I was raped by two men. Though it would take me almost ten years to say and understand, "I was raped the first time I had sex", this rape was like the death knell for any hope of me developing any sort of deep sense of feeling safe and in a position of control. Even the very essence of my personhood wasn't safe from someone else exerting their will and dominance over. Once again, my behaviour pattern emerged as one which was negative, but served the positive (though misplaced)purpose of imposing a feeling of power, control and safety. For the next 4 years or so I was very promiscuous. I didn't understand this then, but it was an attempt to be the one in control of sex, to be in a position of power in regards to my body--sort of an attempt to rewrite the wrong which had been done. That rape really set into motion some very destructive behaviour patterns which simultaneously helped me feel some sort of control or power, as well as would reinforce the fundamental idea that I was worthless and unlovable. I needed all relationships to serve those two fundamental aspects. If I began to feel loved, I bailed. If I began to have to relinquish some position of power, I bailed.

Sitting on the floor in the kitchen that day, it all suddenly made so,so much sense why I was yelling and what that yelling was truly about. The first three babies we had were all very high need, but all in different ways. None of them slept well. I had no control over something as fundamental as my sleeping or bathing habits. I was living in a place I didn't want to be, in a house I didn't want to be in, with a man who didn't really like me, with no money and really no way to change any of these externals. So yelling at my kids was like so many other destructive behaviours before; it served the purpose of trying to impose a sense of control, power and safety.

I truly believe now, that all habitual yelling comes precisely from these same motivations. The particulars of why an individual feels powerless, out of control and unsafe vary widely; however, I think that it all stems from these same three basic principles.

Once I understood where my yelling was coming from, I was finally in a position to actually do something about it in a permanent way, because I could now address the root causes, instead of just the incidental triggers.

Confessions of a (Mostly) Reformed Yeller Part 1 of 7

2011-01-24T08:06:00.011-05:00

Introduction

Over the past several weeks, I have been involved in four separate discussion about yelling at your kids. It's something I can deeply relate to, as during the first 8 years of my parenting life yelling was my greatest struggle. I plead with heaven to miraculously remove this defect from me. I went to counseling to help me. I read all the right books. I wept bitter tears about how much I was failing as a mom because of this embedded defect. Interestingly, relief only came as a side effect of things getting to a really, really low point in my marriage. Now that I have some distance from it all, I understand it all much better. I will share some of my story and what I believe to be the road to joining me in the Reformed Yeller club. I will break each of these steps down in separate posts, and finish with a conclusion which will include why I think some yelling actually gets a bum rap.

Initially, let me offer what I believe to be a portrait of a Yeller. First and foremost, I believe that most people who yell at their kids are very committed to being good parents. They feel deeply the responsibility they have to raise their kids up "right". Secondly, their own childhoods probably contained some sort of dysfunction, from mild to massive. In addition, I think Yellers are people for whom feeling powerless is very scary. In a way which is very real to them, the feeling of things being out of control makes them feel unsafe. Yelling is a way to regain a sense of power, re-establish a feeling of control, and restore a sense of safety.

As with all undesirable behaviour we would like to change, we need to do six things:

1.) We need to be honest, identify the behaviour, and admit we would like to change it.
2.) We need to understand where we've come from, and what the behaviour is truly about.
3. We need to learn and practice self-compassion and compassion for others, forgiveness and the readiness to seek forgiveness.
4.) We need to relinquish our unrealistic expectations, both of ourselves and others.
5.)We need to learn new skills and tools, both to stop the unwanted behaviour as well as to constructively fill in the void left by eliminating the behaviour we no longer want.
6.) We need to cultivate the practice of awareness, mindfulness, and being immersed in the present, so that we can effectively apply the skills and tools we've learned and acquired.

Part 1: We need to be honest, identify the behaviour, and admit we would like to change it.

As they say, the first step is admitting you have a problem. However getting to that point, often means that things have gotten pretty bad. That is after all, sort of the definition of "a problem". It sounds so easy when you read it, but I have found in my life that it is often very difficult to look at yourself squarely and say "Self. This sucks. This behaviour isn't serving you or others. In fact, it's causing you to be the exact opposite of the person you want to be. Let's rally here and change this!"

When Tim (our oldest) was just shy of age 4, and Lucy was around nine months old was my first real stark awakening in regards to my yelling. I mean, I knew I yelled, but I don't think I really understood the scope of it. My husband had been working overnight for much of the time Lucy was a baby. He also delivered newspapers in the afternoons and weekend mornings. Essentially, I saw him for about one or two sleepy and grumpy hours every day. Tim never slept more than two hours in a row for two years. Lucy slept even worse, being up every 45 minutes until around 18 months--but also really hating the sling. I was tired. I was worn out. And I didn't know back then how to ask for help. And I also didn't know that massive post-partum depression consumed me after every child.

The summer when Tim was about to turn 4 and Lucy was a baby, my husband left Annapolis and went down to Georgia to work in anticipation of us moving to where he grew up. I stayed in Maryland so that Tim could celebrate his birthday in September with his friends there, and so my husband could prepare the way for us. It was so, so, so stressful. The house we were moving to was a disaster, my husband was taking a HUGE paycut, I was giving up all of the really close friends I made, we were moving out into the sticks. It was just immense. I felt utterly consumed and entirely powerless in my life. And my children bore the brunt of that.

Two of my very best friends at the time, came over one day that summer. They staged an intervention. They said , "Shannon. You are struggling. And your yelling is just no good. We're here to help." I am so eternally grateful that they had the courage to do that, and loved me enough not to just let me go on down the path I was headed down unchecked.

That was the first time that I admitted that I had a yelling problem and that I would like to change. It would be many years until I was able to enact long term effective change, and I had to make that admission many times. I had no idea about how to get from who I was to who I wanted to be. Over the next several posts I will share that journey with you.

Poetry Fridays

2011-01-21T13:30:00.001-05:00

It's Poetry Friday. Let's go into our weekend prepared "to live deep and suck out all the marrow of life". Every Friday post a poem- yours or someone else's.

Transfiguration

This mountain is her temple, to which she
ascends through briar-tangled valleys of shadow,
where she waits greedily to suckle from
the sun as it rises, filling her belly with fire.

Satiated, the tips of her hair glow,
emblazoning her with a halo infused with
ancient power, raw and elemental.
Handmaid of the cosmos, her soul is magnified.

Shaman wizard woman who holds the light
of a thousand generations before and after.
Outstretched Orans hands radiate the prayer
of touching birth and life and lovers and death.

Crowned heraldess of the stars, she calls forth
the serpents and dragons to stand upon their backs.
They carry her down to the world of men,
returning , disguised again behind wrinkled eyes.

1.21.11

Shhhhhhh...

2011-01-20T16:34:00.003-05:00

........be very, very quiet. And definitely don't call. Undisturbed stillness, quiet and the telephone are the quintessential kid magnets. Nothing beckons kids faster into a space than silence and a freshly vacuumed floor. Nothing assures children to arrive at your side faster than picking up the telephone.

It's not that I don't like my children, mind you. I really, really do. We mostly have a great time together. We're loud and messy and laugh a lot and fight with passion. We listen to lots of music and dance and create lots and lots of stuff. We all are pretty up front with what we want, and pretty vocal about when our needs aren't being met. They're awesome people who I like being around. But it's loud and messy and obnoxious and emotional. And there are just.so.many. of them.

So in the late afternoon when there are girls at gym practice, and the baby is sleeping, and the other two are playing together or watching a movie--this is my time. It's the pause, the inhale before the craziness of pick up times all conveniently one hour apart (just enough time to come home, take my coat off, and go out again), of dinner time (I swear to you if there was just one food that they all liked I think I would serve it every day), and of bedtime (which, being a slacker is no big deal to me--but my husband insists that our children actually go to sleep. Tyrant!).

I used to feel so selfish taking these moments. I used to be unable to sit and enjoy a cup of tea and a few pages of a book. I used to be unable to just be still- body, mind and soul when I knew there were chores undone, and laundry to be folded, and dinner to be started, and, and, and... But not any more. Those things will always be there for me to do. Taking these few minutes to only do what I want to do, to practice and submerge myself in awareness and the present and mindfulness is one of the greatest tools I have to take these things with me into the evenings to cultivate joy and rumpus.

So don't let them hear you come in....the kettle is on, there's some cheese and crackers on the table. Sit down. Breathe. Be. And then get ready for all hell to break loose in about 10 minutes.

And yes that is still my Christmas tree up which will be up for a couple more weeks, and we won't discuss what's on the floor around the corner.

Dilemma

2011-01-19T17:13:00.007-05:00

I know what you're thinking. You're thinking , "AAAWWwwwwwwwwww!" Because evolution has hard wired us to have hearts that turn to mush when we see sleeping children. No matter how wretched their behaviour has been, we can't help but think how beautiful they are when they're softly breathing their little breaths of sleep.

If you're a certain type of person you might also be thinking, "Oh dear GAWD! What a seriously unsafe sleep space!"--but then you probably don't have six kids, and probably haven't learned to accept sleep wherever, however it happens. Like I have.

Until now. I mean, I have undergone more sleep deprivation in the past thirteen years than if I had spent it in Guantanamo Bay or hell, even North Korea as a political prisoner. I have literally learned how to deal with years on end of not sleeping more than an hour or two in a row. One of the ways you deal with that is to accept sleep in whatever strange position or environment in which it might possibly happen. That might mean with a child draped across three laps while watching The Godfather. It might mean curled up and tucked away safely in their own bed. Or it might mean what it often means for us, baby is in a pile of pillows and blankets with random furniture moved closer to give me the illusion that it's safer. With the radio blaring. His oldest brother is convinced there are certain Beatles' songs which actually put the baby to sleep. My husband thinks I condition them to sleep to loud, punk rock music in the car when they are little.

But here I sit. Sincerely contemplating waking this little boy up. Seriously. Because the entire house is filling with the aroma of his poop, which he stealthily let fly as he fell asleep. It was one of those poops where it sneaks out all quiet and spy like, but then turns out to smell like a weapon of mass destruction. I am so conflicted with the thought of him sleeping with a poopy diaper. I know he'll be sore if I leave it. Gah. I am immobilised with conflict.

I can barely keep from gagging...but I mean LOOK at him.

Look how sweetly he is sleeping. And look how quiet and peaceful the rest of my house is. And look how my Dickens' novel is calling to me and reminding me that what I really want is some tea. And did I mention the quiet and the peace and the tea? Sigh.....let me go get the wipes...but first I think I'll put the kettle on.

What Have You Read 2010? What Do You Hope To Read 2011?

2010-12-31T14:37:00.002-05:00

We did this at the end of the year last year, and so I suppose it shall become the very first regular feature of my very irregular blog.

The Challenge: What have you read this past year? What was your favorite? What was your least favorite? What book would you most recommend to others to read? Also list one or two reading goals for next year. What do you hope to read? Do you hope to read more? Do you hope to read more of a particular type of material?

Even if you haven't read any books- what blogs, news sources, message boards, or magazines have you read?

Either leave your list in the comments or on your own blog with a link in the comments!!

What I Have Read 2010

My Detachment Tracy Kidder
Dog Soldiers Robert Stone
A Soldier's Heart Elizabet Samet
Generation Kill Evan Wright
Lolita Nabokov
The Quiet American Graham Greene
Girl With The ( fucking) Dragon Tattoo Steig Larson
Count Of Monte Cristo Alexandre Dumas
Mountains Beyond Mountains Tracy Kidder
The Brief and Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao Junot Dias
Gifts Of Imperfection Brene Brown
One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest Ken Kesey
Paco's Story Larry Heinemann

Favorite: Read some very life changing and really great books this year it's hard to narrow it down. Least Favorite: Duh...Girl With The Dragon Tattoo . What Everyone Should Read: Cuckoo's Nest, Gifts of Imperfection, Generation Kill.

I did complete the War Through the Generations Challenge! Woot! (But only since they counted movies ...lol!) Next year is the American Civil War, and there is not much from there which calls to me to read right now, so I might skip it.

Goals for 2011
Really to just try to read steadily. I got waaay bogged down in several books this year, and that always spells disaster. I even quit in the middle of a couple books, and that is very unlike me. I'd like to read some Dicken's this year--it's been a couple years since I've read him and I miss him. Would like to read Henry Miller, too--I feel like he is a big gap in my American reading.

Family Jornal Project

2010-11-21T08:25:00.005-05:00

We started our Family Journaling Project this past week. My husband and I, and our three oldest kiddos (ages 13, 10 and 7 3/4) started journaling together on nights when my husband is home from work. The kids have really seemed to love it. My husband seems to be passing a constipated bowel movement during the whole thing.

So far this is how it's worked. I have scoured the internet for some sort of writing prompt. When we settle in together, I share the prompt. Everyone writes or draws their response. Then I ask if anyone wants to share what they've written or drawn, but remind them that sharing is completely optional. No one has to share anything.

Any ideas for future prompts are very, very welcome! Any input or ideas of any kind is also very welcome. I am totally making this up as I go along, so appreciate all input and guidance.

The first night we went over the Journal Rules: You are allowed to write or draw anything you want in your journal. Anything. You never have to share anything you don't want to from your journal, but you may share anything you'd like. Journals are PRIVATE. No one has permission UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES to read or look in another person's journal, without their express permission. By express permission I mean: that they are right there with you in the same room while you are reading and they said that it was okay that same hour. Someone sharing something with you once does NOT give you permission to look in their journal whenever you want.

So far these have been our prompts:

What is your superpower?

What is your kryptonite?

Draw or describe your supersuit, super lair, or super mobile.

(all of those were taken from here )

Describe a time when you were courageous.

What is your biggest fear?

Draw the depths of your heart.

Tonight these will be our prompts:

Write about the worst day of your life. What made it so bad? What, if anything, did you learn from that day?

Write about the best day, or a great day of your life. What made it so good? What, if anything, did you learn from that day?

Write and acrostic poem using your name, using only positive adjectives or attributes to describe yourself.

Teaching Introspection & The Importance of Simply Being Together

2010-11-17T09:50:00.004-05:00

The other day, I had an idea. I developed an interview, and asked each of my children a handful of questions about our family life. The oldest ones, in turn, are working on an interview for my husband and I. I had a two-fold purpose for this project.

First, I wanted to gain a sense of how the kids view our family, so that I could focus my parenting efforts playing to our strengths and emphasizing our assets. At the same time, starkly looking at our failings as a family, understanding how they affect all of us, and trying to figure out the root causes of those challenges which seem to plague us.

I think I am probably not alone as a parent getting stuck in focusing on the things going badly. We struggle with the same few things it seems over and over again. Picking up toys and projects and belongings left out is a monumental struggle every.single.day. Everyone seems to be vying for the attention of a parent or a sibling or a spouse almost non-stop, which can manifest itself in a plethora of negativity- ranging from hyper-competitiveness to down right cruelty. My perception (though it turns out to be a flawed one) was that we lacked a cohesive group identity, which is essential in fostering team work. I thought interviewing the kids about their perceptions of our family might give me some clues about what steps I might take to end this repetitive struggle with the same handful of issues. I was really unprepared for what I found out, but at the same time very pleased with what I found out. It will require some more self-searching and honesty on my part about the why of some of my own behaviour patterns, but what excited me was that moving forward is something that is definitely doable.

The second purpose was to encourage introspection amongst the children. Giving them a starting place and some practice thinking about their lives and communicating what they uncover. I also wanted them to have the experience of sharing their thoughts and hearts out loud with me in an environment of safety non-judgment. I began each interview telling them that there are no right or wrong answers, no better or worse answers. I just wanted the most honest answers they could give. I would not be angry or hurt by anything they had to say.

Here are the interview questions:

1.) What do you like best about being in our family?

2.) What would you change about our family if you could?

3.)What do you think you will struggle with the most as a grown up? What do you think Mommy struggles with most? Daddy?

4.) Imagine yourself as a 25 year old and someone asks you, "What was it like growing upin your family?" What is your answer to them?

5.) What do you hope our family life is like when you are all grown ups?

6.) Which one of your siblings do you feel you have the closest relationship to? Why? Which one do you wish you were closer to? Why?

7.) What do you feel is our greatest strength as a family?

8.) What do you feel is our greatest weakness?

9.) Any other thoughts or comments about growing up in our family that you think are important?

The underlying theme in all of the information I gathered was that more than anything our greatest asset as a family is just simply being together. Our greatest detriment is when we are not working together, or when any one of us is not open to togetherness. Having fun together and playing together is really important, but interestingly not something we do very well at overall. Honestly, what I found out is that the simple act of being physically together so much goes a long way, and the best way to improve what is lacking is by spending more time together having fun-both with our parent child relationships, as well as sibling to sibling relationships.

This is great news to me, and gives words to the feelings and sense of things I have been forming for several years. I have been telling people who ask why we homeschool for quite awhile now that it comes down to really just being a close knit family, with an emphasis an learning how to create and live in healthy relationships. We are all a part of one another's lives in a very intimate way. I know what my kids are doing. They know what I am doing. I know all of their friends and all of their friends' parents. They know all of my friends. I know the other adults in their lives. They watch me struggling and fighting to be the best person I can be. They witness my many, many mistakes and watch me apologize, try to make amends, and then try to gain the skills to do things differently in the future, even if that change is a long time coming. I know the things with which they are really struggling, so even if I can't help them I can be a witness to their struggle and cheer them on when they have a victory.

However, I think this information is also going to really require some more fine honed work on my part. I think I really need to understand where my disengagement comes from. I need to really seek out what the underlying shame there is, which makes me feel at times unworthy of connection with the kiddos. I need to work really diligently on balance in my life, so that I can be fully present more of the time. I need to try harder to incorporate the realities of a 1 year old into the fabric of the day of the rest of the children, instead of just sort of expecting them to wait another six months to have their mommy "back".

This has all also yielded to another project which I will share as it develops. We are going to start journaling together as a family. I will borrow a lot of other people's questions from the internet as well as create my own and encourage the kids to create questions. My husband has agreed to join us. I think it might be a great experience. I have never been much of a journal keeper, so I look forward to what will come.

For Veteran's Day- A Poem by Brain Turner

2010-11-11T13:33:00.006-05:00

Sadiq

It is a condition of wisdom in the archer to be patient
because when the arrow leaves the bow, it returns no more.
Sa’di

It should make you shake and sweat,

nightmare you, strand you in a desert
of irrevocable desolation, the consequences
seared into the vein, no matter what adrenaline
feeds the muscle its courage, no matter
what god shines down on you, no matter
what crackling pain and anger
you carry in your fists, my friend,
it should break your heart to kill.

Brian Turner's debut collection, Here, Bullet, won the 2005 Beatrice Hawley Award from Alice James Books. He earned an MFA from the University of Oregon before serving for seven years in the US Army. He was an infantry team leader for a year in Iraq with the 3rd Stryker Brigade Combat Team, 2nd Infantry Division, and prior to that was deployed to Bosnia-Herzegovina with the 10th Mountain Division. His poetry has been published in Poetry Daily, The Georgia Review, American War Poems: An Anthology, and in the Voices in Wartime Anthology published in conjunction with the feature-length documentary film of the same name. He currently lives in California.

http://webdelsol.com/LITARTS/Alice_James_Books/Turner/Brian_Turner_chapbook.html

Struggling to Make Sense of Love

2010-11-10T12:34:00.004-05:00

I read something a few weeks ago that really, really challenged me. There was a list (oh, how my quantitative soul LOVES a list!) of dysfunctional behaviours and thoughts. Most of my life since becoming a mother has involved admitting how flawed I am in how I relate with myself and others and trying to gain skills and tools to heal and learn new patterns. These sorts of lists have served me well over time, since I came to adulthood pretty much completely unaware of what healthy relationships with others and myself actually look like. A huge part of moving toward wholeness for me has involved understanding what wholeness is not. I have gotten my ass kicked pretty routinely by truths I have encountered, but this time I feel like I was given a body blow. It reached a very deep place , where I believe the last vestiges of shrugging off personal responsibility lie. I am still processing through it all.

What did it say? This list? Well, essentially that a feeling of “If X, Y, or Z would just love me as he/she ought, things would be better,” is inherently dysfunctional.

Except this is exactly how I have felt for most of my married life. And even as I write this to release it and move on, I am crying. I really, really just want to be scooped up and loved and have my love accepted in return. (And here I will remind you once again--if you don’t think any of this is appropriate to hash out in a public sphere, no one is forcing you to read this. Click that little x in the right hand corner of your screen.)

In the beginning, this feeling was a position to hide behind, offering protection when I didn’t feel like enacting change in myself. It was a fortress where I could relinquish blame for the way things were. The suck was obviously NOT my fault. You, whoever you were, just weren’t loving me “right”.

I grew up always feeling like the black sheep, always feeling misunderstood. At one point as a teenager we went to family counseling to help me with “my” problems, where the counselor tried to implicate our entire family and well, let’s just say that we never went back to that quack who couldn’t see that my struggles and rebellion weren’t just my own damn fault. And so there is a very real sense in which the core of me really needed the people in my life to just love me as they ought. And when the didn’t, my response was quite simply. “Fuck them!”

But I carried this wounded part with me into adulthood. I carry it still, though it has morphed and manifested itself in other ways which I keep confronting and try to work through. I have long since accepted the messiness of raising children, and know that my parents did and gave the best they knew to do out of the best of intentions. While that acceptance has brought peace and forgiveness, I think I haven’t totally and honestly just looked that wounded little girl in the face, given her a hug and said “Good bye!”.

As I thought about this whole dynamic when confronted by this list, I think my difficulty lies in the fact that no longer is the feeling of believing “ if I was just loved as I ought to be “something which I hide behind. It is no longer a deflection of blame. I think it has transformed into an assertion that dammit , I am WORTH loving. And I am a phenomenal person to be loved by in return. But it is also a truth that being loved by me is not for the faint of heart. I have an immense capacity for loving people as they are, where they are at, but it is equally true that I want that love to change those who encounter it and experience it. Not by any pre-set criteria that I have, but that my love, my presence is fuel for them to seek out and find that change which they need to enact in order to be the best them they can be. Once again through big tears, I can definitely say that in our 14 years together my spouse has remained essentially unchanged in response to this heart, this love, this soul. And I am struggling to make sense of that, to make peace with it, to look it in it's brutal eyes , breathe it in and accept it. Without blame. For me or for him.

Which brings me back to make sense of the whole idea of “if I was just loved as I ought to be”. I think now, in the present it would better be expressed “if I was just allowed to love as I desire to love”, my life would be better. I want a healthy, mutually interdependent love where love feeds on itself and manifests into greatness. And I don’t believe that to just be the love of fairy tales and chick flicks. I know love is messy and scary and sometimes looks like and smells like shit. I do want to experience love as it “ought” to be, but this is no longer born out of dysfunction but from a place of certainty that not only am I enough, but that I really kind of rule. And so does the rest of humanity. We have a capacity for greatness if we can just get over being so afraid.

Writing this all out, I see a sort of triumph here. I see myself moving past lists and other outside determinants for what health and wholeness is. I find a woman who is able to wrestle through and determine what truth is. I find someone who is willing to accept that all that she’s come to conclude here, might in fact be wrong, and willing to amend it all if there is more or greater insight through her experience or interactions with others. I see a parting embrace to that wounded young girl who felt so let down by her world, and a wide warm welcome for the strong and amazing woman who has grown up in her place. I am here and I know that I must love myself with radical acceptance, and the humility to understand that before any external change can take place, I must first have the courage to be willing to change myself.

And if you have read this far, let me just leave you with this: Be open to the love in your life. Allowing other people to love you is not only a gift to yourself, but a gift to them. If you have a spouse or significant other in your life who is willing to be vulnerable before you, thank them for honoring you with that gift. And if you have work you need to do within yourself, know, without a doubt that I am here with you, to at least walk next to you so you are not alone as you do it.

Halloween

2010-11-01T10:03:00.002-04:00

Joyful Life

2010-10-29T11:09:00.003-04:00

I made this as a present for my kiddos. I am hoping to make a slide show of the incredible pictures I have from Michael's birth (Thank you Jennifer!), and wanted some practice with the movie making software. It's imperfect, but has lots of great pictures. I couldn't figure out how to permanently delete the camera name which keeps appearing briefly at the bottom of the page.

To Michael On His First Birthday

2010-10-27T23:50:00.003-04:00

To Michael On His First Birthday

There is that you in a far off dreamtime
Where you were so new and wrinkled
Smelling not yet of this world.
So many faces surround you with
Wonder and awe, marveling in
Humility before you.

We built a fortress
And the wise women gathered
Who fed us and came to you
Each kissing you leaving a mark
On your soul with her gifts.

You discovered the allure of the night
Resisting sleep so that all secrets
Could be yours to hold
Because life and death merge
In the shadow lands.
All wisdom is held there.

Those days are whispers,
Sounds almost heard but dampened
By the fog rolling in after midnight
As backyard dogs howl guttural and wild,
Lonely for the pack.

You became a great teacher, who
Trusting in depths within my soul ,
Compelled me to return again to the abyss
But the wise women were there
Reminding me to learn from you
And to not be afraid.

Now closer to the mouth of the cavern,
Daylight dances haphazardly on the walls.
We linger in the darkness so we
Are not blinded as we emerge
And lose our way.

Your little hand rests in mine,
Our hearts and breathing fused.
My great spirit guide,
I know you will not leave me
For we are one now and
Our shared strength is unconquerable.

The Suckitude Which Has Been My Blog

2010-10-17T18:35:00.007-04:00

I really, truly, honestly thought I'd rock blogging after Michael was born, even if I simply defaulted to shameless kid pictures and poetry of other people. But this last six months has challenged me so, so much.

After showing signs of starting to sleep pretty well for a baby, something hit Michael with a vengeance at 5 months old and the kid became the worst sleeper I have ever encountered. I mean there's tired....and then there's up every 45 minutes all night long and sleeping no more than 20 minutes during the day tired. Couple that with one of the most intense periods yet of emotional withdrawal from my husband and you have one hell of a pretty crappy half a year. (And yeah, yeah, yeah---I know I'm not supposed to talk about him in public places like that. But if you don't like it, then you better just quit reading my blog now. Because, quite frankly I don't care any more. I am an imperfect woman, living an imperfect life....deal with it or move on)

It's truly hard to imagine how much that little sleep can stretch you as a human being, especially when you spend vast stretches of days at a time giving and giving touch to people, and almost never speaking to another adult. I have had a hard time maintaining even the most fundamental basics of my life, let alone something which requires much thought or creativity-like blogging or reading or scribbling a few lines of poetry. All things considered, I feel like I've held my own. We've all been fed moderately well, I have gotten everyone everywhere they've needed to be--only once forgetting to pick someone up (I know, I know--but you try to keep track of 7 people besides yourself and their ever changing schedules. Trust me it's a good ratio) , the kids have been learning stuff which even looks like real actual school work, I even spend time hanging out with each of the kiddos from time to time, I've been managing to exercise regularly, I've maintained friendships. But oh holy crap, do I feel empty and completely tapped out as a human being!

However, underneath this stretching, pulling, and crumbling I feel like there is some new creation starting to spring up. Like vegetation pushing up through volcanic waste. I don't know quite for sure who this she even is. Perhaps she's a weed. Perhaps she's the beginning of a giant cedar tree. But she is growing little roots and starting to break through the soil. I think she is going to turn out to be one hell of a woman. But as with all seedlings, right now needs lots of sunlight, shelter from heavy storms, a bit of nurturing and loving and just enough luck to make it tall enough to stand past the snowline.

So if you're reading this, can I ask you if you see me to just offer me a hug and say "I love you, Shannon." Unless you don't love me, then just a hug will do, even if you're not a hugger--will you just give me one anyway? I need it more than you can possibly imagine, especially if this newest Shannon, who I really think is going to be the best version yet is going to flourish.

Hope to blog more regularly now, but no promises whatsoever as to the content. Probably, like me, a little bit of everything.

Poetry Fridays

2010-05-07T17:24:00.004-04:00

Alrighty---to break my bloglence here (we have been plagued by illness after illness and then moved into a period of great Michael fussiness which we seem to be slowly moving through)--let's go with a Poetry Friday.

It's Poetry Friday. Let's go into our weekend prepared "to live deep and suck out all the marrow of life". Every Friday post a poem- yours or someone else's.

Here's a little one I wrote today...which isn't really the poem swirling around in my brain, but maybe a sort of warm up exercise for what is coming....hopefully.

Reading Year

Dickens for the winter,
wrapped in thickness and safety and warmth.

Spring for things never read,
full of discovery and newness and expansion.

Hemingway for the first hot days,
clear and quick and a drink in hand.

Summer for Tennessee Williams and Southern writers,
ambling and languid and brutal.

Scholarly works and realism fill Fall,
cold and inside and impersonal.

What Have We Done

2010-03-08T11:43:00.001-05:00

Someone asked for advice about parenting as they added a new baby to their family and how larger, non-punitive families function. We're pretty dysfunctional, always kind of swirling along like Taz but this was my advice:

My advice is kinda worthless because it's kind of non-advice.

Keep listening to yourself and trust your instincts.
Forgive. A lot. Yourself and others.
Begin again and again and again---as many times as it takes--and it's going to take a lifetime.
Focus on endurance rather than patience.
Laugh. A lot. At yourself and others. Seriously as moms we say and do and witness some of the most hysterical things if we can just learn to not take it all so seriously.
Let go of expectations--they're just pride and are ruinous. Rather have an idea of the goal, but remain detached from results and allow the journey to take whatever course it will take.
Be in the present--lingering in the past or the future will always make the present a mess and diminish your joy as well as your effectiveness.
Don't forget that you are a person with needs, too. Include yourself in the plan for meeting everyone's needs. You don't honor yourself, your children, or God by neglecting your own personhood.
Enlist help. Ask for help. Beg for help. Not asking for help is just pride and is ruinous.

And going from 2-3 means you now have more kids than hands and that is a huge leap. Give yourself time to develop the skills you need to deal with that reality. Every new kid means a new shift in balancing everyone's needs and the immediacy with which we can meet needs---and that always involves grieving through to the resolution stage. And it's hard to grieve with a gaggle of children always needing you.

Poetry Friday....with a twist.

2010-02-18T21:51:00.007-05:00

Poetry Fridays where we say:

It's Poetry Friday. Let's go into our weekend prepared "to live deep and suck out all the marrow of life". Every Friday post a poem- yours or someone else's.

This Friday I'll post a poem I just wrote. I haven't written a poem in an awfully long time--but part of my Lent is to try to write something everyday and this is what I ended up with.

The blackness of the
fingered
trees
Their tortured grasp of
gnarled
hands
That reach moonward through
blue-black
night
Creak whispers into
changing
wind
As stillness groans just
out of
reach.

2.18.2010

My Lenten Beginning

2010-02-17T23:47:00.000-05:00

2/17/2010
There are things which I know I believe.

All people after the age of reason have hurts and wounds, vices and flaws with which they struggle.
All people have love as a basic need. All people are inherently lovable.
We have a responsibility to love.
Faith essentially comes down to relationship. Because of that our whole lives revolve around learning how to give love and be loved in healthy interdependence-learning how to enter into and cultivate healthy relationships.
Suffering, while not to be sought and always to seek to be alleviated, teaches us compassion and if done well brings us wisdom through humility.
We are all connected. Those who live now, those who came before, those who will come.
Regrets come from what we leave undone or have done poorly in far greater measure than what we have done.
Beginning and beginning again is desperately important. Reinventing ourselves and allowing ourselves to be renewed in ongoing response to our world, our circumstances, and our failures is what allows us to grow.
There is no merit in self-deception. Without being open to seeing ourselves as we truly are, we can never become what we hope to be.
The road to sanctity is one which is long and arduous. It is the work of a lifetime.
Love never ends. The love we share ripples out into the world endlessly.

So that I don't Abandon My Blog--Birthday Pictures!

2010-02-06T08:39:00.002-05:00

It's been crazy around here. We seem to have so much going on and Michael has decided recently that he wants to be held pretty much all of the time. I can type one handed--rather proficiently, I might add, but I still find it difficult to blog one handed. It's hard to focus, as well as to navigate added pictures and such.

Last Sunday Jane turned 7!!! We went to the mall to shop and get her ears pierced, the next day she and her daddy went out on a date.

On Wednesday Andrew turned 3! We went to Burger King for milkshakes and to play on the play place. Then he went to the John Deere Store and to Sears with daddy.

One of Andrew's coolest presents was made for him by my dad. It's a box which contains different screws and screw drivers and wrenches. On the other side of the box are the wholes for screwing in the different screws. Andrew LOVES it!

Poetry Fridays

2010-01-23T10:21:00.004-05:00

It's Poetry Friday. Let's go into our weekend prepared "to live deep and suck out all the marrow of life". Every Friday post a poem- yours or someone else's.

(Okay I know technically it's Saturday, but they say it takes 28 times to make something habitual--so sometime in the summer this ought to be an actual regular feature on actual Fridays.)

Let's visit a couple poems of Frank O'Hara's.

A True Account of Talking to the Sun at Fire Island

by Frank O'Hara

The Sun woke me this morning loud

and clear, saying “Hey! I've been

trying to wake you up for fifteen

minutes. Don’t be so rude, you are

only the second poet I’ve ever chosen

to speak to personally

so why

aren’t you more attentive? If I could

burn you through the window I would

to wake you up. I can't hang around

here all day.”

“Sorry, Sun, I stayed

up late last night talking to Hal.”

“When I woke up Mayakovsky he was

a lot more prompt” the Sun said

petulantly. “Most people are up

already waiting to see if I’m going

to put in an appearance.”

I tried

to apologize “I missed you yesterday.”

“That’s better” he said. “I didn’t

know you’d come out.” “You may be

wondering why I’ve come so close?”

“Yes” I said beginning to feel hot

wondering if maybe he wasn’t burning me

anyway.

“Frankly I wanted to tell you

I like your poetry. I see a lot

on my rounds and you’re okay. You may

not be the greatest thing on earth, but

you’re different. Now, I’ve heard some

say you’re crazy, they being excessively

calm themselves to my mind, and other

crazy poets think that you’re a boring

reactionary. Not me.

Just keep on

like I do and pay no attention. You’ll

find that people always will complain

about the atmosphere, either too hot

or too cold too bright or too dark, days

too short or too long.

If you don’t appear

at all one day they think you’re lazy

or dead. Just keep right on, I like it.

And don’t worry about your lineage

poetic or natural. The Sun shines on

the jungle, you know, on the tundra

the sea, the ghetto. Wherever you were

I knew it and saw you moving. I was waiting

for you to get to work.

And now that you

are making your own days, so to speak,

even if no one reads you but me

you won’t be depressed. Not

everyone can look up, even at me. It

hurts their eyes.”

“Oh Sun, I’m so grateful to you!”

“Thanks and remember I’m watching. It’s

easier for me to speak to you out

here. I don’t have to slide down

between buildings to get your ear.

I know you love Manhattan, but

you ought to look up more often.

And

always embrace things, people earth

sky stars, as I do, freely and with

the appropriate sense of space. That

is your inclination, known in the heavens

and you should follow it to hell, if

necessary, which I doubt.

Maybe we’ll

speak again in Africa, of which I too

am specially fond. Go back to sleep now

Frank, and I may leave a tiny poem

in that brain of yours as my farewell.”

“Sun, don’t go!” I was awake

at last. “No, go I must, they’re calling

me.”

“Who are they?”

Rising he said “Some

day you’ll know. They’re calling to you

too.” Darkly he rose, and then I slept.

The Day Lady Died

by Frank O'Hara

It is 12:20 in New York a Friday

three days after Bastille day, yes

it is 1959 and I go get a shoeshine

because I will get off the 4:19 in Easthampton

at 7:15 and then go straight to dinner

and I don’t know the people who will feed me

I walk up the muggy street beginning to sun

and have a hamburger and a malted and buy

an ugly NEW WORLD WRITING to see what the poets

in Ghana are doing these days

I go on to the bank

and Miss Stillwagon (first name Linda I once heard)

doesn’t even look up my balance for once in her life

and in the GOLDEN GRIFFIN I get a little Verlaine

for Patsy with drawings by Bonnard although I do

think of Hesiod, trans. Richmond Lattimore or

Brendan Behan’s new play or Le Balcon or Les Nègres

of Genet, but I don’t, I stick with Verlaine

after practically going to sleep with quandariness

and for Mike I just stroll into the PARK LANE

Liquor Store and ask for a bottle of Strega and

then I go back where I came from to 6th Avenue

and the tobacconist in the Ziegfeld Theatre and

casually ask for a carton of Gauloises and a carton

of Picayunes, and a NEW YORK POST with her face on it

and I am sweating a lot by now and thinking of

leaning on the john door in the 5 SPOT

while she whispered a song along the keyboard

to Mal Waldron and everyone and I stopped breathing

A Bright, Bright Sunshiney Day

2010-01-21T09:47:00.002-05:00

Yesterday was just a beautiful, fantastic, warm day. It was one of those times where I was just so glad that we homeschool so that we can take advantage when there is a freak 70 degree day in the middle of January after there's been bitter cold and tons of rain for weeks upon weeks. Especially as today it is raining buckets once again!
Yesterday afternoon, I made dinner (we eat our main meal around 3:00), and set it up downstairs for the kids to serve themselves.
.
I set the mussels outside with a bag for the shells. I never would have thought that kids would like mussels, but there must be an allure to a food with its own shell.

We hauled the baby swing outside for Michael, and all sat around in the warm gorgeousness.

One other, most excellent advantage of homeschooling is that your school work can move with you, so that if you are still working while there is a sort of party-picnic going on, you don't need to be left out!

Simple Woman's Daybook

2010-01-18T06:49:00.003-05:00

FOR TODAY January 18, 2010

Outside my window... it is still dark, but holds the promise and smell of being Springlike today.

I am thinking... how much I love the room I am sitting in, and how pleased I am every morning when I walk downstairs and see my beloved room awaiting me.

I am thankful for... my Cleaning Club peeps and our new blog adventure together.

From the learning rooms... oldest two have been loving their Teaching Textbooks.

From the kitchen... right now--coffee!!!

I am wearing... my jammies, fuzzy socks and old man sweater.

I am creating... a scarf out of bamboo yarn and a meal plan for the week.

I am going... kind of stir crazy not being able to go out anywhere at night.

I am reading... Dog Soldiers by Robert Stone

I am hoping... to get to read today. It's been days since I've read, and that always spells trouble and yuck in the rest of my life.

I am hearing... nothing. Seriously- it's 7:04 am and all I hear is the clicking of the keyboard as I type. I *love* mornings.

Around the house... I gotta bust some laundry moves and hang the world map I've been trying to hang for three days.

One of my favorite things... my fleece sheets, which I was sure were going to be waaaaay too hot, but are so soft and cozy and just right if I give up my extra blanket.

A few plans for the rest of the week: I got nothing. Momming, wifing....I guess I am trying to start to commit to exercising everyday. Holy string of infinitives, Batman!

Here is picture thought I am sharing...

Join in the Simple Woman's Daybook here:
http://thesimplewomansdaybook.blogspot.com/

Poetry Fridays

2010-01-15T07:21:00.003-05:00

Okay, in a hope to get my act together and blog regularly this year, I am going to try to provide some structure. In this vein, I am creating Poetry Fridays!

It's Poetry Friday. Let's go into our weekend prepared "to live deep and suck out all the marrow of life". Every Friday post a poem- yours or someone else's.

Today we'll have some ditties written by one of my favorite poets Charles Reznikoff. These are all from the collection Jerusalem The Golden.

56
Meeting often, we find that we cannot meet enough,
and words are counterfeit, silence only golden,
and streets at night are beautiful.
I find the valentines are true, the hearts and arrows-
sighs and misty eyes; and the old poems-
I find them true.

58
You think yourself a woman,
because you have children and lovers;
but in a street
with only Orion and the Pleiades to see us,
you begin to sing, you begin to skip.

64
If you ask me about the plans that I made last night
of steel and granite-
I think the sun must have melted them,
or this gentle wind blown them away.

70
Out of the in exhaustible sea
the waves curve under the weight of their foam,
and the water rushes up to us;,
the wind blowing out of the night,
out of the endless darkness,
blowing star after atar upon the sky
out of the inexhaustible night;
wave after wave
rising out of the sea.

As Promised- Christmas Games!

2010-01-09T07:55:00.001-05:00

We are serious lovers of board games and card games. My challenge is always trying to find games which will be entertaining and engaging for a broad age range. I mean, there's only so much Candyland a grownup can take!! On the other hand, it's not very much fun to play a game with a non-reader or an early reader when the entire game hinges upon reading. So every year I scour the world wide web in search of new games.

I think my favorite of this year's haul has got to be Snorta. You can tell just by the name that it's going to be funny. Each player picks an animal , makes a correlating sound, then hides the animal in a little barn in front of them. Players then play cards on the table; when two cards in a row match the players race to be the first one to make their opponent's animal sound. The concept is so simple--but it is ridiculous and fascinating how such a small piece of information can have trouble processing and coming forth from your brain.

We also belatedly jumped on the Apples to Apples bandwagon this year, but I must admit to being rather disappointed. It seems like a player can just randomly pick a winner to each round. I bought a children's edition and a small edition of the grown up version to cover a multitude of age ranges, but still something about this game leaves me flat. Maybe this was really just a game meant to be played beer (or two or three) in hand.

Target and Five Crowns are both first cousins to regular card games. They are both pretty long games, which has been nice during this much colder than average winter. Neither is difficult to learn how to play-but both are for established readers.

Rat-a-tat-Cat and Slamwich are also closely related to regular card games (Golf and Slapjack respectively), but do not require reading or more complex math skills. That said, my older kids have also really enjoyed playing these games.

Enchanted Forest is a board game which can be played by our 5 year old on up. It requires no reading, but does require the ability to remember and understand some more complex rules and instructions. Players travel through a forest collecting fairy tale treasures, such as Cinderella's glass slipper or Puss In Boots' boots, to take to the king. Treasures are hidden, requiring players to remember their locations. This game is really just a nicely repackaged variation of Memory, but is still fun. It also takes awhile to play, although it would work to just set a timer. Whoever had the most treasure cards when time is up is the winner.

The most interesting find this year is Sleeping Queens. This game was developed by a six year old girl. It requires no reading and is playable from ages 4-4.5 and up I'd say, if older players will help the younger players or if all are willing to give up the equation aspect of the game. Once players can do basic addition then they can play without any variations or help necessary.

Lest We Forget That This Is Not Simply a Book Blog--Happy New Year!!

2010-01-02T22:54:00.004-05:00

Here are some pictures from our New Year's Eve. We stayed at home and had snacks, watched movies and played games. Until about 10:00pm my parents hung out with us, before leaving to go back home to Virginia the next day. Unfortunately Andrew and Bernadette went to bed before the camera came out, so there are no pictures of those two crazies. This pictures were all taken by my daughter, Lucy.

Me and Michael

Tim looking rather leprechauny.

Lucy 9 going on 19

Tell me Miss Jane doesn't belong in New York City!

Me & Michael the day after...lol!

Wishing All Of You Happy New Year!!!!

My Detachment

2010-01-02T09:22:00.007-05:00

Let me begin by saying that Tracy Kidder is hands-down one of my very favorite living writers. He has refined the tradition of Truman Capote's nonfiction novel, creating books which are truly remarkable in their storytelling. Kidder combines an engaging and engrossing narrative style with an uncanny ability to reveal the stories behind the story. My Detachment is no exception.

Unique among Vietnam War memoirs, My Detachment features no grunts humping long distances, no coming to terms with one's mortality in the midst of a firefight, no teetering on the brink while battling a drug habit in the midst of war. Rather the story centers around Kidder's year in Vietnam as a rear echelon lieutenant who ended up in Army Intelligence after graduating from Harvard. Fearful of being drafted into the infantry after matriculating and hoping to avoid the war, Kidder joins ROTC while still in school, yet lands in Vietnam as part of radio operations pinpointing the locations of North Vietnamese and Viet Cong radios.

The main similarity of My Detachment to other books about Vietnam is Kidder's struggle to balance the juxtaposition of events real and imagined. Because of his non-combat position, however, this struggle is in many ways more poignant for it's transparency than in other depictions. The entire memoir is interlaced with passages from Mr. Kidder's unpublished novel written upon returning home entitled Ivory Fields, which features a sort of alter ego, bad ass infantry lieutenant Larry Dempsey who dies standing up for what he believes is right even though he knows that defense will cost him dearly. My Detachment is also set among the back drop of a love affair with the archetypal girl-next-door-back-at-home named Mary Ann, but in this case the relationship is lackluster and decidedly one sided on the part of young Mr. Kidder. We read along as Kidder writes awkward letters back home of lied about bravado and hinted at tragedy which doesn't exist.

This exposed blatant untruth, in my opinion, makes this a great memoir of Vietnam, since the creation of the proverbial war story is in itself, according to Tim O'Brien a sort of untruth, or half truth, or at least a manipulation of the truth. We rarely get glimpses into the emotions which serve as primary mover for the crafting of war stories, yet young Mr. Kidder's piteousness leaves the reader feeling awkward and uncomfortable as we experience the feelings of inadequacy, of wanting to make sense of things we don't understand, of hiding our cowardice, of packaging our experiences in a way to make them more palatable to those in the world.

Serving as a balance to these poignancies, are the Catch-22esque retellings of the operations of the military hierarchy: stories of classified letters being blown away by helicopter, the subsequent results and new "triple wrap" protocols stemming from losing that letter, the colonel who shouts his own name while yelling at troops on the ground from the chopper above, the ridiculousness of Mr. Kidder's Radio Research job itself, which amounts to basically getting outdated information and passing it on to his higher ups.

Filling out My Detachment is an absorbing set of characters. The most compelling of whom is Pancho, both a thorn in the side of Kidder ,as well as someone who he admires on some level. It is Pancho's approval Kidder seems most to seek. It is the loss of Pancho's approval Kidder seems to feel most keenly when Kidder has his own moment of truth. Unlike his fictional Lt. Larry Dempsey, Mr. Kidder does not meet his trial with courage and character; rather, he crumbles and is left wondering if his men heard him crying over the stress of inspection preparation. Pancho goes onto work for the CIA and turns up to see Kidder years after the war. Summing up Kidder writes, "He had wanted to have an interesting life, I wanted to be interesting”

This book was reviewed- over two days while nursing, having toddlers climb on me, and competing for computer time with a couple tweeners- as Book 1 of

What Have You Read-2009? What Do You Hope To Read- 2010?

2009-12-31T09:34:00.003-05:00

We did this at the end of the year last year, and so I suppose it shall become the very first regular feature of my very irregular blog.

The Challenge: What have you read this past year? What was your favorite? What was your least favorite? What book would you most recommend to others to read? Also list one or two reading goals for next year. What do you hope to read? Do you hope to read more? Do you hope to read more of a particular type of material?

Even if you haven't read any books- what blogs, news sources, message boards, or magazines have you read?

Either leave your list in the comments or on your own blog with a link in the comments!!

What I've Read 2009:
One Day In The Life of Ivan Denisovich - Alexander Solzhenitsyn
Mr. Ives' Christmas- Oscar Hijuelos
Bridge of San Luis Rey- Thorton Wilder
Things They Carried- Tim O'Brien
Last Night I Dreamed of Peace-
Mister Pip-Lloyd Jones
Bachelor Brother's Bed and Breakfast-Bill Richardson
Robber Bridegroom-Eudora Welty
Between, Georgia- Joshilyn Jackson
Going After Cacciato- Tim O'Brien
Roxanna Slade- Reynolds Price
Steve and Me- Terri Irwin
Fathers and Sons- Ivan Turgenev
The Good Earth- Pearl S Buck
My Mortal Enemy- Willa Cather
The Open Boat and Other Stories- Stephen Crane
Camino Real- Tennessee Williams
The Autobiography of Santa Claus- Jeff Guinn

Favorite: Roxanna Slade Least Favorite: Going After Cacciato. What Everyone Should Read: Mr Ives' Christmas.

Goals For 2010
Mostly I just want to complete the War Through The Generations reading challenge. I want to be realistic in what I am able to do while not sleeping and having a wee baby in the house. Though I think in the next few weeks here, the time has absolutely come for me to read Nabakov. It astounds me often, the big gaps in my reading! Time to ammend at least this one.

2010 War Through The Generations Reading Challenge

2009-12-30T08:46:00.010-05:00

This year's reading challenge? Vietnam War literature!! And unless something more significant (ack!!) than getting pregnant, moving, dealing with flooding problems, and having a new baby happens--I feel very confident that I can read at least six books which have the Vietnam War as a primary or secondary theme. I even already have a list!

Why am I so excited by this particular challenge? I have often joked that if I went to go get a doctorate, that I could-at any given time- write my thesis about Vietnam War literature, since I have read that particular genre so extensively. In my review of The Things They Carried, I speak of feeling a connection with this literature and with the war, since I was a young girl.

I wasn't sure about why that connection exists, but speaking with a good friend of a good friend at a party last week, I think I might have nailed down why this particular literature and era calls to my inner being as it does.(And yes...I know..life of the party!! That's me! Baby in tow and talking about books. *giggles* Thank heavens for my Pee Wee Herman laugh!). As we were speaking about what we were reading, my current read being My Detachment by Tracy Kidder, he asked why I was drawn to Vietnam War literature. He felt that WWII literature was more compelling, because of the singularly horrific organization of evil which was present in the Axis regimes. As I understood it, he felt that such evil being allowed to manifest and exist in such a way was such a puzzle that all humanity could think of it for all of time and still not come to a firm understanding or resolution as to why it happened.

For me, however, while I do not disagree with any of the points he made, Vietnam War literature tugs at my soul and my consciousness in a far more personal way than the abstractions and altruisms of much WWII literature. Thinking about this, my working conclusion is that there is something about how muddled and how completely un-understandable the Vietnam War is in all its facets with which I deeply relate. I think that I connect with the idea of having been sold a bill of goods. Having been born in the 1970's , raised in the 1980's and come into my adulthood in the 1990's, my entire life centered around an illusion of peace and security. The suburban over-achiement myth has left so many of my peers and contemporaries as broken, wounded, essentially empty people. We collectively pretended for decades that there was no grey, when in fact nearly all of life is a muddled, overlapping mess of black and white. We began with firm ammendment of the will, yet ended with a deep, far-reaching purposelessness.

Vietnam War literature primarily focuses on just this dichotomy, the process of going through that confusion and loss of a sense of purpose, it's after effects both short- and long-term, and sometimes the resolution of taking these things and while never making sense of them, using them as a foundation from which to build a new life replete with purpose.. Mostly this is true, because the War itself and the people who lived during the War careened through these phases if not personally, collectively.

It will be interesting to come back to this post and the end of 2010 after reading more and re-examine my thesis. In the meantime, I hope you will consider joining the War Through The Generations Challenge this year! Check back throughout the year for my book reviews!

(PS-Please be patient and gentle with spelling and grammar errors--I have a feeling that most posts will be written just like this one--with a baby in arms, a toddler climbing on my back and shoulders ad interruptions from no less than 3 other people. :) )

Michael at Christmastime

2009-12-29T09:10:00.005-05:00

I cannot believe that Michael is 2 months old! The time has flown by and the first few weeks of his life are a blur. He is still working out the whole digestion-thing, but has made up for that grumpiness by starting to smile quite a bit. I expect another two months will find us with some semblance of a routine and rhythm to our days and nights. While I am trying to be in the present, I do look forward to a little more normalcy.

Christmas so far has been rather busy, so while fun it is also a little exhausting. We got lots of new games for Christmas, which I think deserve their own blog post in the next day or two.

In the meantime have fun perusing my new favorite blog:
My Monkeys And Me

Michael's Second Week

2009-11-13T09:48:00.005-05:00

I have had this saved for a month, hoping to add in some text. Obviously I think that's not going to happen--so I'll just put up the pictures! They're in reverse order--so the one at the bottom is from Thursday, the one above is from Friday, then Saturday, Sunday, Monday, & the one at the top is from Tuesday--nearly 2 weeks old.

These are Michael, the first week in November--and some of the people who have loved him from before he was born. Miss Tina is holding him on his first outing--to Jane and Bernadette's gym meet Friday, November 6.

The Rest of Michael's First Week

2009-11-06T11:37:00.002-05:00

Sunday November 1st, Michael 4 days old

Snuggles with Jane

Our friend Ashley and her son Austin came for a visit Sunday afternoon and brought lots of easy fixin' kid-friendly food.

Monday, November 2- Michael 5 days old

The dads wanted in on the action. The Jasons came with their families to get their newborn baby snuggle on. And dinner found us eating some delicious Hubbard chicken soup.

Tuesday, November 3-Michael 6 days old

With proud (and silly) big brother, Andrew

Tuesday evening, Rachel and Jennifer came over bearing sushi and cans of Coca-cola (an essential part of every Cleaning Club). Pat had stopped at Transmetropolitan earlier when he was out and got us some dessert. It was great to just sit and chat and laugh and take silly pictures involving wax lips-which you can see here. I was really going a little stir crazy and their visit really lifted my spirits!!

Wednesday, November 4- Michael ONE WEEK OLD!!!!

To celebrate his one week birthday, Jennifer came over to do a newborn photo shoot. I will edit in a link or some pics.

Wednesday evening, Lucy got to introduce Michael to her best friend when she, her sisters and Dana, their momma brought us very yummy pizza and salad!! (Sorry we were sleeping on Thursday and missed you!)

Halloween

2009-11-05T20:15:00.014-05:00

The kids all had a great Halloween. My husband took them over to Jennifer's house for their annual Halloween bash. You can see more pics of all her awesome decorating and everyone's costumes at her blog. When I was taking pictures before they left Andrew insisted that he was NOT Captain Jack Sparrow, just Andy, and took off his costume. Once he got to the party and saw everyone else dressed up, he gave up his Andy personae for the rest of the night.

Andrew, errr Captain Jack Sparrow, was apparently quite the hit of the party. You can see more of that on Sarah's blog. My little Bernadette loved her costume so very much. She has been enthralled with The Wizard of Oz for well over a year now.
Tim and Jane, in particular were very excited to wear their costumes. Now that Halloween is passed, they both still can be seen from time to time in their costumes. Lucy, I think, liked being Alice from Alice In Wonderland, but most enjoyed hanging out with her friends.

Halloween was also 3 days old for Michael.

Michael's First Week

2009-11-05T15:13:00.006-05:00

I will edit this over time as I get more organised and will eventually post a birth story.

Nearly my last day being pregnant. This was taken on Monday afternoon, Michael was born on Wednesday morning.

Michael just a few minutes old. Wednesday, October 28th.

Michael - One day old, Thursday Oct. 29, I think this was the day Sarah and her kids met Michael and Rachel brought her kids to meet Michael. Still trying to hunt down some pictures of that!

I think on 2 days old, Friday October 30th. Jennifer brought her kids to meet Michael. Kids came in costume so I could see!

Saving Dinnertime

2009-06-24T11:00:00.003-04:00

Before on here, I think I mentioned that my husband brought home a big table from work. We had a round table at which it was nearly impossible for us all to fit. We also only had four chairs, which meant every meal we'd have to pull chairs from all over the house to accomodate the seven of us.

For my birthday a couple weeks ago, my parents gave me the immense gift of 8 new dining chairs from IKEA. The only drawback was that they all had to be assembled. My husband put together a few late at night after the kids were in bed, but the day before my birthday Rachel and Jennifer of Cleaning Club Posse fame assembled the rest of the chairs while I cleaned my counters.

Now every, single time I sit at the table I am surrounded by love. My husband found us a table, my parents bought us the chairs, and my husband and dear beloved friends put together the chairs. I have hated, loathed, resented mealtime and all it's chaotic crappiness--but now when I sit down I fell like I have a little secret, and it makes it all a little better. As well as us all just fitting at the table, and not having chairs which either spin or are too low.

Thank you all for saving dinnertime in our house!!

Alrighty---I Think I'm Back

2009-06-12T08:32:00.007-04:00

After a long early pregnancy hiatus, I think I am feeling back up to blogging regularly.

Baby news: I am 20 weeks, which means halfway! Woot! The baby is a boy, who will be named Michael Francis. Everything looks good baby-wise. Still not totally sure where I'm having this baby, but the plans are beginning to come into greater focus. I have been feeling pretty good--but much achier than my pregnancy with Andrew. I am hoping to hunt down a chiropractor covered by our insurance over the next week and see if that doesn't help.

Here's baby at about 13 weeks:

And here's my baby bump at 20 weeks (and my VERY dirty mirror!!):

I don't know...

2009-03-24T10:50:00.002-04:00

I don't know what the deal is...I don't know if all of my blood is just drawn down to circulate around baby to help him grow, or if all creative cells of my body rush into my uterus to create a new human being, or if my mind just goes foggy so that I cannot really think about the realities of having another baby. But-I cannot seem to read or write or even be able to take much in the way of pictures.

Yesterday I broke down and quit reading From Here to Eternity, though it is very good, and threw myself into the book Mister Pip. I expect to finish later today, and I'll hopefully review it tomorrow. So much of my life seems to revolve around my reading habits at any given time, or perhaps it is my reading habits which are indicative of the rest of my life. IN any case, when I am not reading, or stagnate in my reading it is a good sign that the inner workings of my life are also in stagnation. So I am going to try to pick a few shorter, easier (for me) to read books and see if I can't jump start both my life and my blog!

How Do we Do It?

2009-03-12T16:34:00.004-04:00

People often ask me how we do it, how we manage to get by. This week is a good example of how I cook (thank you Jennifer and Rachel for helping me not slack for dinner on Monday!).

Monday we had the aforementioned black beans and rice, with a side of spinach.
Tuesday we had tacos with a side of refried black beans made from Monday's left overs.
Wednesday we had spinach and cheese omelets for breakfast with the leftover spinach from Monday and left over cheese from Tuesday. For dinner we had whole grain noodles with the leftover taco meat for those who wanted meat sauce, and cut up veggies on the side.
Tonight we're having baked chicken drumsticks, with a side of rice (left over from Monday) and some broccoli.
Tomorrow will be baked honey garlic lime tilapia with the extra lime I have from Monday and some salad with the left over, uncooked spinach and some field greens. For those who eat them we'll have baked potatoes. And most likely a broccoli and cheddar fritatta for breakfast.
Saturday I'll make some soup with the left over chicken and cut up veggies from Wednesday (at least the carrots and celery), with stock made from discarded vegetable trimmings.

And that is very reflective of how we eat most weeks. Lunches are usually peanut butter or cheese, crackers or sandwiches and fruit, though when it's on sale lunch meat will sometimes appear. For lunches we will also have soup from Saturdays, or leftovers from during the week. Snacks for us are mostly fruit, nuts, and popcorn. I buy one bag each of potato chips, pretzels, and tortilla chips every other week when I grocery shop and when they're gone they're gone.

I still don't have a good plan for breakfast, but hope to remedy that as I start feeling a little better in the morning.

I forgot to add: the cost...for 6 days of dinner and 2 breakfasts- for us 7: about $40 with organic veggies and brown rice, cage free organic eggs and hormone/antibiotic free ground beef.

Cleaning Club

2009-03-09T14:20:00.004-04:00

Today was my day to host Cleaning Club. Cleaning Club began as an offer to help wash dishes one play day. It has grown into three women and their collective 11 children (to be 12 late this year) rotating weekly through each other's houses undertaking projects too big, or too overwhelming for one mom to tackle alone. The kids mostly play and help watch the toddlers. The projects, which alone would likely take all day- if not days to accomplish, generally take about an hour to an hour and a half. Then we share the food which we all have, and eat lunch together.

It is such an enormous blessing and gift to me to have these women in my life. When I go to their houses, I get to go home with the satisfying feeling that I have truly helped another woman make her life and the life of her family just a tiny bit better. It feels great to clean other people's stuff, nothing like the drain I feel trying to clean and organize my own space. They also have such a unique set of gifts and talents, which I feel so blessed to get to experience and from which I might benefit and be inspired.

Unfortunately, I forgot to take a "Before" picture to show what an inaccessible trash heap, dumping ground our art cabinet had become but here is the end result:

Here's a picture of the inside of each of those green bins:

As we were eating lunch, I had the idea that maybe my friends could help me to get prepared for dinner, as well, since I have been having so much trouble getting my act together enough to actually cook for my family in these early weeks of pregnancy. They chopped peppers and onions and cilantro, while I put on a pot of rice. All I need to do at dinner time is saute the chopped veggies, add the cans of tomatoes and beans, add a little wine and fresh lime juice...and then serve over the rice. If I am feeling motivated enough, I'll make some chipotle cornbread.

Sick Day

2009-03-08T14:06:00.004-04:00

Blech..I am having a sick day. For the first time this pregnancy I just feel absolutely lousy. I have so much work I both need and want to do, and all I've managed so far is to feed myself at regular intervals. I am not even so sure that it is completely pregnancy related, as I feel like it might be an onslaught of allergies in the warm weather coming on the heels of all of the rain and snow that's been around for the past week and a half.

A couple of the kids and I curled up and watched the most recent version of Cheaper By the Dozen. No- that is not a goal toward which we aspire, but the movie is a good reminder that amidst the chaos, there is an awful lot of joy and deep connections with one another...plus it's a good reminder that no matter how bad of a day I am ever having..it could always be harder, always be more chaotic, always be more overwhelming.

What are some of your default feel-good movies? What movies do you reach for to watch when you're having a sick day? What movies help you remember that what you've got in life is oh-so-very-good?

First Things and Living With Eyes Wide Open

2009-03-07T08:04:00.004-05:00

It is so hard to remember that for little ones, so much of what we do is something which they are doing for the first time. We went to the zoo yesterday with our friends Michele, Hadley, and Noah. It was just such a wonderful day, filled with perfect weather, very active, alert animals, and really well-behaved, very helpful, non-complaining children. As I was pouring through the photos which I took, I realised that everything we did yesterday was a brand new experience for Andrew. And you can tell- you can see it in his face:
The wonder and awe and sheer joy is totally transparent and totally apparent in his little face. I was left pondering my own face, reflecting that this wonder and awe is something which very rarely crosses my brow. Yet, we are called to be like little children, and I can't help but think that part of that mysterious call is to live with eyes wide open, to not allow ourselves to become dull and jaded.

I think for me, that taking pictures serves this purpose somewhat. Looking for things to photograph has been encouraging me to look- to really look- at things around me. It has been spurring me to search for beauty in the buildings I pass everyday, the debris which collects in our yard, the same spaces I live in day in and day out. However, I would like so much for that exuberance to spill over into all of my life.

Today, I am going to try to look at the world through the eyes of a toddler, living each moment with the fullness of my being, immersed in the sheer joy of living and seeing. I am sure I won't be able to do it ALL day...the details of taking care of everyone intruding, but I am going to make an attempt, even while being asked simultaneously for five different breakfasts.

The Last 5 Books

2009-03-05T08:27:00.005-05:00

What are your last five books to show up in your house, from the library, from a friend, from the store, or wherever? How did they get to you and why?

1. The Original Scroll of On The Road...which my husband gave me for Valentine's Day prefacing it with "Just to remind you that I really like being married to a crazy person."

2. Norman Mailer's The Naked and The Dead- for the War Through the Generations Challenge (which is killing me, I've been so, so bogged down in From Here To Eternity--I need to seriously head down, power through it and move on with my reading life)

3. The Mambo Kings Play Songs of Love by Oscar Hijuelos- from my husband, because it was on the bargain table and I had just finished and loved, loved Mr. Ives' Christmas.

4. The Duty of Delight, The Diaries of Dorothy Day...from my husband, who somehow knew I really wanted to read through this despite me never having told him.

5. Mister Pip by Lloyd Jones..which I bought after reading a synopsis on a site where you can get free books to review on you blog. This book sounded so fun, but was only available for free to Canadian reviewers...so I bought it.

I am so tired

2009-03-04T15:25:00.002-05:00

I think God made some horrible mistakes when it comes to pregnancy and birth, beginning with how wiped out and tired first trimester pregnant women feel. I am sure there is some purpose to it- maybe to slow down, to learn to re-evaluate priorities and shift into the "what's really important mode" of conservation of energy. However, it seems like it stands in direct conflict to the needs of taking better care of oneself, things like eating real meals comprised of real, non-microwaveable food, like exercising or at least moving from one or two different spots in the house, like undertaking the exhausting task of showering and getting dressed each day.

I remember when I was pregnant with Andrew, who is now two, and I moved from my first trimester on into my second. It was as though Pauline scales fell off my eyes and I saw just how absolutely gross and disgusting our house looked. Normally I cannot stand anything on the kitchen counter for more than a day, and at week thirteen I awoke to piles upon piles of mysterious things to go through.

Overall I've been feeling pretty darn good so far...so much so that I dread my sonogram a bit, thinking perhaps there is something wrong. But these past few days in the wake of our blizzard, we haven't been outside very much (I am actually, only today, about to leave my house for the first time since Saturday), the kids have all had sniffles, Andrew's nose has turned into a snot-faucet keeping him awake at night, my husband has barely been home and when he has he's had lots of work to do around here, the kids are all full of pent up energy...but until today have been unable to go outside to play. When we didn't have water, I didn't have any way to clean off the mud and muck which our yard has turned into since the snow has begun to melt.

I am in some serious need of some TLC, pampering, child-free time...that is if I could stay awake for it.

Thank You to Everyone...

2009-02-28T10:48:00.003-05:00

Thank you to everyone for your encouragement and support about my pregnancy. It all still seems a little unreal, but is slowly sinking in.

It has been fun to have a couple kids old enough to look at electron microscope pictures of the earliest stages of pregnancy. They are all being so helpful around the house and concerned with mommy's well being. They were a little nervous about me going roller skating the other night- "Are you sure you ought to skate Mom? After all you are pregnant..." I tried to reassure them that at this point there is no danger to the baby by me doing anything else I would normally do. I thought it was very sweet, though, that they were worried. Yesterday as I was gardening in the rain, Tim, my oldest, repeatedly called out the door to ask if there was anything he might do to help me, as it looked like I was working so hard. It's been endearing to watch them excitedly tell their friends, teachers, and coaches about the baby.

My oldest three kids are most concerned with being present for the birth of their brother or sister. My prayer is that we will be able to make that happen for them. We are in the process of trying to decide the question of where to have the baby. In the interim, I will go for a sonogram either next Friday or the next to ensure that there is only one baby (please God!) and that baby is inside my uterus, and to make sure there's a heartbeat. Because my wonderful OB has given up delivering babies in order to spend more time with his family, right now we are strongly leaning towards a homebirth, but are just unsure about how we will pay for it. If we don't have baby at home, we will most likely use the nurse midwives affiliated with the hospital.

Lucy, the 8 year old, was born at home. It was so peaceful and intimate. We had a great and knowledgeable midwife. However with the next one, Jane, we had to transfer to the hospital because of some placental issues. The next two were also born at the hospital, but I had an OB who was so respectful to my desires not to be touched and was willing to just watch and wait. While my births in the hospital were great, the post-partum time in the hospital has been just awful- the constant coming and going of staff, the fight to keep my baby with me at all times, the discomfort of the bed and lack of room for anyone to stay there with me. It was not a good start to things. And this pregnancy I am all about doing everything I can to ensure a good start to things.

I am trying to put in writing to pass along to my friends a PPD Action Plan, things like setting up meals, cleaning help, warning signs, and ways to help. If any of you reading have any experience with post-partum depression, any input would be greatly appreciated. What things would have been most helpful to you? What time frame did you seem to need the most help? In retrospect what kind of help would you have asked for in advance? I am determined to try to deal with my PPD without medication, as after Andrew I feel like the medication really just compounded my struggles. So any input helping me develop a concrete, in writing, plan would be so greatly appreciated!!

Namasté

2009-02-26T09:03:00.004-05:00

It is so easy for us to get caught up in the mundane details of our lives, all the things we have to do, all of the places we need to be. It is so easy to allow ourselves to be spread so very thin, even with necessary or worthy activities.

I find myself often busy with things, rather than focused on people. The aim of all of our activities is to feed the personhood of ourselves and those around us, to enrich and deepen our lives. But how often do we undertake laundry, or bathroom cleaning, or paid employment, or our hobbies at the cost of those around us, rather than at the service of ourselves and those around us?

I find it far too easy to forget the sacredness of each and every person, and so often seek to make their actions and emotions convenient and serviceable to me. It is far too easy to forget that each person with whom I interact is a human being endowed with innate dignity and a mosaic of his or her own hurts, disappointments, joys, loves and experiences. It is especially easy to forget all of this with my children and my husband, those who I see so often and who are so often inconvenient to me.

My challenge today is to live in namaste, taking a moment before all of my interactions with others-most especially my children- to collect myself, to bow before them figuratively, and recognise my sacredness and their own sacredness. My challenge today is to assess each action I undertake to ensure that it is properly ordered to serve us as a family , a collection of sacred beings; rather than us living at the cost of our work and business. It might not be a way that I am able to live all the time, but I feel like I can start with baby steps and short increments of being more aware of those whose lives have been passed along to me to care for. Want to join me?

All the Tiny Opportunities For Love That Each Day Brings.

2009-02-25T20:33:00.004-05:00

"Although we long to perform grand and magnificent acts of love,
may we still take all the tiny opportunities for love that each day brings."
-from the Prayers and Intercessions of Lauds for Ash Wednesday

I think this defines the challenge of not only my Lent, but also of my life right now. I am someone who has always been drawn to bigness, to grandiosity. It's rather easy for me to love in big ways, to make great sacrifices, to be the underdog up against seemingly unstoppable obstacles. I've always been a scrapper with a propensity for sheer determination.

But the flip side is that small things often get overlooked and neglected. I can be very demanding of the people around me, believing that they, too, ought to be willing to go to the mat for everything; they ought to live big, too. Quite honestly, I also tend to not do a very good job in the moments in between the bigger things. I am prone to laziness and procrastination. I am really rather selfish on a more micro level; though I would do nearly anything for someone I knew who was in need, I often don't feel like stopping my knitting, or reading, or computing to meet a non-urgent request of my children.

With news of another pregnancy, the sudden death of a father and husband of a family with small children, the reconnection with an old friend who has inspired me with her dedication to her children and honesty about her struggles; the past two weeks has actually found me trying to identify and do better with my tiny opportunities presented in which to love more deeply. However, before this morning I didn't really have words to define my focus; it was just sort of a vague jumble of ideas and actions.

I have been trying, I am trying, I shall be trying to live fully in the tininess, making the most of the pauses in between the tempests and mountains. The amazing and transformative aspect for me has been that surrendering some of my selfish focus has not yielded to resentment, but rather to greater satisfaction with my life as a wife and mother. Trying to love the hell out of those tiny moments, has brought greater peace and joy to all of us. And so in true Shannon fashion I will hang on with tenacity to keep trying, to not give up, to live greatly and magnificently in the tiniest of moments.

The Reason for My Recent Silence

2009-02-24T14:06:00.005-05:00

Yes...there is another little one of our brood. I am still rather in shock, since this was not anywhere in our plans. But the children are all very excited, and our friends have already surrounded us with love and support. I have already begun to think and pray about how to deal with my PPD, which has worsened with each subsequent baby, and the main reason we were really thinking that we were "done".

I had an epiphany this morning about the word "encouragement"--when I realised it truly means "giving courage". My friends and other women who I admire so much, being excited and hopeful and telling us how lucky this child is to be born into our family (really?)....it is giving me courage to surrender into joy and hope.

Since this was not part of our plan at all...I am trying to hold onto the reality that this little being shouldn't have ever come into existence and so he or she is a very, very precious gift. Though things have always looked a little impossible when I've found out I was pregnant.... again, God has truly and always provided. Things have always turned out okay. And so I will not waste one minute worrying about how we will manage, or how we'll all fit in our 2 bedroom house, or how to geometrically arrange the carseats so they'll all fit. It will turn out okay.

So far we're off to a great, if not slightly queasy start. My husband has been just so awesome about it and making right so many things between us which we've messed up with other pregnancies. I am so grateful for yet another chance to heal wounds, which I didn't even know I still carried.

Help- The Worst Hats in Movie History

2009-02-16T08:24:00.009-05:00

Let me begin by confessing that I am a great lover of hats. Hats make me very happy; they let me look pulled together on days when showering has been elusive; they add color; they let me do crazy things to my hair, but still have a way to go to a meeting without being ostracized.

But what is up with so many of the hats women are wearing in old films! There are some truly, truly awful hats. Last night watching the 1940 movie Half a Sinner, in which our heroine was wearing this little hat all draped and wrapped in veiling. The veil went down to at least the middle of her back. I couldn't help wondering the whole time how wardrobe came to the decision that enshrouding veil-hat was the very best option. Granted it is a B-movie, but you wouldn't think that they'd be entirely blind.

Something seems to go horribly wrong with hats sometime during the late 1930's and 1940's. I mean just look at these things! Very few are flattering, or even really seem glamourous; they are mostly just monstrous. They are pointy, or very tall, or covered in feathers, or draped in weiling. It is such a curious thing to me that in movies with such strong female leads such as His Girl Friday or The Big Sleep or pretty much any movie in which Jean Arthur appears, inevitably there is an atrocious hat.

Poking around online looking for photos to support my claim, I found it nearly impossible to find stills with any of these hats. I couldn't even find a list of "The Worst Hats in American Film". So help me out--what are some of your least favorite hats from the movies??

Breakfast- The Evil Meal

2009-02-12T09:11:00.004-05:00

My word, I hate breakfast. Perhaps if it didn't need to be taken care of quite so early in the morning, I wouldn't continue to find breakfast such a challenge. Perhaps if we had disposable income to spend on healthy breakfast convenience foods I wouldn't dread the question, "What's for breakfast?" as I do. Perhaps if I didn't loathe sit-down-together family mealtimes as occasions of intense stress, we'd start our day off better.

My first question is, what do people eat for breakfast? There are all kinds of sugar laden cereals, toaster pastries, and yogurts out there, but that all seems far more like dessert than a meal to me. There are eggs, but those are supposed to kill you if you eat them too frequently. There are pancakes and waffles, but other than mornings where we have nowhere to be that just seems like an inordinate amount of work. My most usual breakfast consists of coffee and cottage cheese. One because I must, the other because it is easy and has lots of protein. However that is not something which I can feed my children. One because I am not insane, the other because they just won't eat it.

My second question is, where do people eat breakfast? Our dining table is too small for us. In order for us to eat there, we must squeeze in and pull chairs from all over the house. It is the first step in a long line of many unpleasantries about eating all together. I tend to view family meal time the way I view family rosary- there is a reason that praying the rosary as a family has an indulgence attached to it...it's because it is penance through and through. It is "He's touching me!" and "Sit down, love.....Sit DOWN!" and "Stop whipping her with your rosary." Family mealtime, I figure, is touted as being crucial and important for family togetherness, because those who suffer together are bonded with cement like closeness in shared experience of the darkest of times.

My third question is, if breakfast is the most important meal of the day then why isn't there a better selection of breakfast foods? I know that I feel awful if I don't eat in the morning. All of the 'experts' assure us that a good breakfast in paramount in attentiveness and proper physiology throughout the day. And yet, if this is true, then why are most breakfast choices so incredibly bad for us and centered around carbohydrates?

I am thinking of starting a breakfast revolution in our household, despite the rally call of my pamphleteer children : "That's not breakfast food!" At least a few nights a week I think I will throw something in the crockpot to be ready for morning. It seems to me that we eat kind of backwards. Shouldn't our heartiest , most protein-based meal be first thing in the morning? And our lightest meal be in the evening? Or even, monastery style, have or largest meal at mid-day? I will ponder these things today, cottage cheese in hand. There's got to be a better way.

Valentine's Day....really???

2009-02-11T11:18:00.005-05:00

Sorting through the rubble of my email inbox, I realised that we have been inundated by Valentine's Day party offerings. Not counting the party my six year old had at her co-op this week, the running total is at five. Five!! For Valentine's Day?? Really? This far surpasses the Christmas parties or even Halloween celebrations. When did Valentine's Day turn into such a big deal?

As a child I remember Valentine's Day being barely a blip on my kid radar, but of course that was before nearly all children's valentines came with candy attached to them. From my mom we got boxes of little heart candies, nearly half of which were the inedible pink and white ones. I don't even think they made the small heart shaped boxes of chocolates that are everywhere now. Now however, at least judging from the festivities offered, Valentine's Day seems to be the center of the kid year.

I just don't really see the point in being forced to add to the debris of other people's homes. Does anyone do anything with the innumerable cards their children have received? Or do they just add to the guilt we always seem to have about throwing our kids things away, despite the fact that the impersonal message of Barbie or Spiderman means nothing to our children.

What flabbergasts me, is that these offerings are amongst the homeschooling crowd. More often than not, homeschoolers in general tend towards discouraging consumption and commercialization. But in this instance it seems huge numbers of people are suddenly okay with wasting paper and buying things unneeded. Is it just lingering residual guilt about the things our kids don't do because they aren't in school?? Or is this something that people really feel adds to the lives of our children? The one party in which we will participate- where the kids will be making Valentines- I am hoping that the idea of bringing donations for Project Safe takes root, and that some of the focus can be not on what we get, but on what we might give.

Does anyone else feel inundated with Valentine's Day Offerings or pressures??

(An interesting spellcheck aside--Superman is in my spellchecker, but not Spiderman....hmmmm)

My Country Morning

2009-02-10T11:24:00.001-05:00

Photobucket Album

I keep trying....but I seriously dislike Jane Austen

2009-02-10T08:31:00.006-05:00

I know it's almost sacrilege, but I just can't stand her. Well not her, but her writings. Every couple of years I try yet another of her novels, or re-read one which has been pretty much completely forgotten. In the intervening years I try to watch the movie adaptations which are so beloved by nearly anyone with xx chromosomes. I keep trying.....but I each time the result is sour disgust rising up into my throat.

This week I checked out the 1985 BBC production of Pride and Prejudice, and watched part of Sense and Sensibility Sunday night on Masterpiece (no longer called Masterpiece Theater much to my chagrin- is nothing sacrosanct!?) . Every fifteen minutes or so of watching , I would realise that my face was tense and taut having once again twisted itself into a snarl.

From the outset, isn't it clear that every girl is going to end up with their relegated man?? And yet the reader or viewer must endure the intervening hours suffering all of the characters speaking their trite and uninteresting words. The reader or viewer must endure truly painful characters like Mrs. Bennet, and their boring pointless lives. The reader or viewer must wait, and wait, and wait for something, anything, to happen. I find after an hour or so of interloping, I just don't care if Eliza marries Mr. Darcy or if they just fell off the cliffs of Dover!!

The characters' lives are just an offense to humanity, so full of ennui and nothing of any value to anyone whatsoever. Even our Austen heroines, lack any truly heroic qualities other than saying "No!" to marriage so forcefully that they end up marrying anyway. Apparently no doesn't always mean no, at least not where Ms. Austen's protagonists are concerned.

I truly wonder if the appeal of Ms. Austen's novels isn't built around a mythology of sorts. The mythology of pretty dresses, and parties, and trying to land a man. In short, though of another time, it seems to be the mythology of the American college experience for young women, which our youth-obsessed culture continues to try to convince us is the best time of our lives. The argument has been made that Ms. Austen is a feminist writer, which just seems completely ludicrous to me. For if that is true, women do not seem to think very highly of their liberation.

People have tried to explain their love of Ms. Austen to me before, hence my continuing to read thinking there must be something I am missing. However I just cannot seem to see what they see. Technically I think she is among the best of the best of English language novelists, how unfortunate for humankind that Ms. Austen chose to use her talent to write about such completely unengaging characters and circumstances.

My heart breaks...

2009-02-07T15:03:00.004-05:00

...when I really ponder and am honest about the huge amount of hurts I've inflicted throughout my life. It is true that most of it was done without prescience. It is also true that nearly all of it has been from arms swinging while I was fending off my own hurts. However, the wake of destruction is wide and choppy, and has destroyed even some of the shoreline.

It is such a strange thing, because it's almost like there was another Shannon. I share her experiences and her memories. I share the good qualities plucked from her, and even still some of the shortcomings and defects. I don't know when she left this earth, or if she is just hermiting in a cave somewhere, but I am not her. At least I don't feel like her. Maybe a far removed relation of her, but not her.

And yet, there is this whole path of destruction out there...which I think only now I am beginning to look at, boots on the ground, and realise the vastness of the swath of devastation. And I can only stand immobilized forcing myself to not look away, to not think of it as something detached from me. And it hurts. It hurts deep down to the core of my being, and yet I know that I can only and must just breathe down into that pain and not pull away. Breathe down into the pain of self-realisation, hoping with my entire being that this agony, too, is yielding to new life. Yielding to new life both for me, and for the casualties I left behind.

Wake Up Calls, and Sleepwalking

2009-02-05T07:07:00.003-05:00

There are those moments in life, often through great tragedy, that offer themselves as wake up calls. There are those events both remote to our lives and intimately enmeshed in our lives which shock us out of the routine humdrum which we, often without knowing it, have settled into. And I wonder can we ever be sustained for more than a little while doing anything other than sleepwalking through our days.

I get so overwhelmed by the amount of picking up that must go on on any given day. I grow weary of the "Repeat" button which seems to have been mashed down and gotten stuck. I often feel like real life is just on the other side of some unseen obstacle, which if I could just make out through the haze I could surmount and conquer. I often am overtaken by abject soul weariness, along with bodily exhaustion. Writing, I am flooded with tears, grieving for the life I waste so much of the time. Crying out, because I can't seem to make out the crossable ford to navigate to where I want to be.

How do we go about being fully alive? How do stave off lives of "quiet desperation"? How do we respond to the beckoning " ‘Awake, O sleeper, and arise from the dead..."? Is it idealistic folly to believe that this can be done not just for glimpses of time when we are reminded of life's sacredness, but rather for most of our lives?

New Camera...

2009-01-29T14:27:00.004-05:00

A few of my first photos! I haven't really taken any non-children photos since high school, but boy am I having fun. I can't wait until I really know how to use my camera! And I can't wait until I know how to post photos properly-these are all cut off on the sides! (You can click on them, though, to see the whole thing LOL!)

Here's the clouds from this morning:

Here's Spring coming!:

A mossy step:

Random yard debris--in black and white it looks like art instead of trash:

More trash as art:

And yet more trash:

Twisted Branches:

Fence post, barbed wire and wild grape vines

Sky, branches and flowers

Sky and branches (it reminds me of Eastern art a little)

Steps:

Chestnut and a swing:

Rocks and a bird house:

Some unraided, dog chewed rope:

More moss:

Tin roof....rusted!

The Room of Doom and Gloom

2009-01-27T16:13:00.003-05:00

Can I just tell you how very, very much I hate my children's room. The four oldest all share a room (there are only two bedrooms in our house), and I loathe that room with all of my being. I spent an entire day this weekend cleaning it out.....again. It was scary and gross. Two full bags of trash went out of there. Three full baskets of laundry blossomed and added themselves to the laundry mountain. It's like there's some unseen wind in our home which blows all debris into that room, where it then hides under beds and in corners.

It'd be so great to have done all that work and now have a great space for our family to enjoy, but because it's so great now- the kids are spending time in there and without ever constant vigilance (to be read:grumping at them) the stuff just begins to accumulate all over again. Right now in there waiting for me is a tea party, several baskets of play food, dress up clothes all over the floor, dress up shoes lined up against the wall, three bags-with who knows what inside them, and a box. There are some clothes under the youngest two girls' bed.

It looks like it's been weeks since I've vacuumed, despite it being two days. The four year old got into the 8 year old's bed, and took down the things from her bulletin board, took down her chalkboard, seems to have removed her knitting needles and stashed them somewhere. Took a piece of pottery Lucy (the 8 year old) made, stashed the lid for it somehwere. GRRRRrrrrrr....Looks like someone really needs help with boundaries, but I know in her mind it all just looks so neat and pretty and interesting. I also know that I cannot just camp in their room every time she's playing in there.

Bernadette (the 4 year old) loves playing tea party. So does Andrew (the 2 year old). But their ideas are vastly divergent of what makes tea party fun. Andrew will sit and take sips of his "tea" for only so long, before his boy toddlerhood explodes and he feels the need to throw all the cups and saucers. Obviously there arises the need to keep the door closed, so Bernadette can play her favourite thing unmauled...but I also need a surveillance system installed so I can track where everybody's stuff has been stashed. Or a security guard, or GPS tracking. It seems like I just can't keep up with the clutter, no matter how much de-cluttering I do, no matter how much I surrender any expectation for what I think a house "ought" to look like. UUrrrghhh...I hate that room.

Somebody remind me that there is more to being a mom than tasks which need to be done over and over and over and over again. Somebody remind me that there is a point where this part of parenthood will get far less sucky. And for the love of all that is holy--somebody please buy our property or give us a couple hundred thousand dollars so we can have the room we need to make this a little easier!!!!

Interview Me-Fantastiv Five Meme

2009-01-25T09:41:00.003-05:00

Colleen over at Martin Family Moments posted this meme. I don't know why it's taken me so long to fill out, though. I am nothing, if not a procrastinator!

Here's how it works:
1. Leave me a comment saying, "Interview me."
2. I will respond by e-mailing you 5 questions.
3. You update your blog with the answers to the questions.
4. You include this explanation and an offer to interview others.
5. When you receive the comment from another, you will send them 5 questions.

Here are my questions sent by Colleen:
1) Where and when did you meet your husband?
Well-certainly not a story to model ones life after, but it is likely the only way that I would have ended up marrying the man who perfects me more than any other person- we met in 1996 when were both working at the bookstore in Annapolis,MD. I was actually married (outside the Church) at the time, but teetering on the brink of divorce, and he was in a long distance relationship with someone. When I was being interviewed to transfer to that store, he said when I had walked in he just sort of dismissed me , as one of "those people"- meaningsomeonewho if she read, read crappy nooks without much conviction. However as the receiving manager at the time he overheard my interview, and how I talked about the books I had most recently read--and his interest was peaked. We ate lunch together often and hung out as a large group with other employees after work on Sunday night, and he says that he fell in love with me the night I talked about Fitzgerald. LOL! Book nerds through and through. I finally left my first husband, and was really bummed through the Christmas season, and ended up getting pregnant with our oldest son. We actually both tried to break up with each other just after New Year's, but then I found out that I was pregnant. I had already given up two babies for adoption, and just was heartbroken at the thought of giving another baby away. But my (now) husband said that we could go ahead and give it a try to keep the baby and be a family. When our son was two, we finally got married-in the Church, which was now very important to me. It took us nearly a decade, and a lot of hurt, pain and betrayal to get our relationship in wokring order--for many reasons, not the least of which was really bad PPD on my part and lots of healing from past hurts and wounds including PTSD. It is certainly not the relationship story I would wish for any of my kids, but I think that any other story for us, would not have resulted in the overall goodness that is now our marriage.
2) What's your favorite meal (appetizer, entree, dessert and drink)?
Depends on the day! LOL! We joke that food is my love language. I think one thing I could eat nearly everyday and never get sick of is tacos. I also have a serious weakness for Zaxby's fried house salads-with one ranch and one cblue cheese dressing. Oh --and I love soup. I could live on soup- hot soups, cold soups, nut soups, cream soups, veggie soups and meat soups.
3) What's one thing nobody (or almost nobody) knows about you?
Nothing that I can think of, I tend to tell everything--whether people want to know or not. Except for what I don't tell. And lol! I'm not telling. Such a Gemini...
4) If money wasn't an issue, what job would you like to have?
I honestly don't know. It would be cool to write for money. I think I'd be a great high school teacher (and have taught at some co-ops and things). If I didn't have children, I think that I would like being a foreign correspondent in areas of conflict.
5) Of all your beautiful children, which birth experience was your favorite and which was your least favorite?
I think probably my favorite would be my homebirth with our oldest daughter, Lucy. It was so peaceful and awesome. Nobody touched me the entire time I was in labor. It was just the midwife and my daughter's Godmother and my husband there. My post partum time with her kinda stunk- and she was like my worse sleeper in a long stretch of bad sleepers--but her birth was pretty awesome. One of my other favorites was my youngest daughter, BErnadette- but for a vastly different readon. Her Godmother was there, a young woman just about to finish college and get married--and she got to see my in hospital natural, prayful birth--and then went on when she had her own baby to have her own natural , prayerful birth and successful breastfeeding relationship...and I like to think that I played a part in that. Another was my middle daughter, who came with all kinds of trouble--but was a chance to revisit ALL of my previous birth trauma, but to meet it in an empowered way.

My least favorite, by far, was the second baby I gave up for adoption. It was a nightmarish experience, literally like the awful bith scenarios they always choose for TV show plotlines. I was bleeding, they wouldn't let my mom come and be with me. No one would actually talk to me as I tried to get information, they kept me in a blood soaked bed for like 8 hours. They were a few seconds away from putting me under for a c-section, when I told them that I had to push (which they didn't believe, until I forced them to look down and see, they gave me a ginormous episiotomy which never healed right. It was just awful, awful, awful. But it did make me realize that giving birth without medication, was defintiely a doable thing.

Happy 250th Birthday, Robert Burns!

2009-01-24T12:42:00.004-05:00

Did you know that tomorrow is the 250th birthday of Scottish poet Robert Burns? I didn't either, but it turns out that tonight there is a concert in celebration of that nativity by a Robert Burns' cover band, Bob Hay & The Jolly Beggars. Most of their songs are songs transcribed by or poems written by Robert Burns.

I think my husband and I are going to try to ditch the kids and go have fun literary geek style!

(Here's a sampling of the music of Bob Hay & The Jolly Beggars (on their website linked above, there is a nearly complete selection of music), try to just ignore the random dancers, lol! The song, is a tribute to Jean, who Burns knocked up with twins when he was 27 , but whose father refused to let the lowly farmer Burns marry. In order to gain some money to emigrate to Jamaica, Burns wrote a volume of poetry, which turned out to be wildly popular. In the wake of the popularity of that volume, Poems, Chiefly in the Scottish Dialect, Burns traveled and met much of the literary talent in Scotland, including James Johnson who was compiling a collection of Scottish folk songs. Burns would eventually write and contribute hundreds of songs, both his own creations and traditional melodies.

Apparently the Oath Has been Re-done!

2009-01-21T20:53:00.002-05:00

Sorry Republicans, it really is official now. Here's the story.

So is Obama President or Not?

2009-01-21T08:30:00.005-05:00

With the debacle of the Swearing-In Ceremony--Obama hasn't said the words put forth by the Constitution. Even after the bumbling Roberts corrected himself when Obama paused at the incorrect words, Obama still said the words incorrectly. Here's a query for the Constitutional law scholar, now president and the Roberts, another Harvard Law Review Editor--is he or isn't he officially president? Can he now lawfully execute his office or not? What say you? (edited to add- My 8 year old just asked "Is that the first time it's ever been messed up? Anyone know?)

(Just an interesting tidbit- "Obama" trips the spell check)
.
Here's what the Constitution reads:

"I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will faithfully execute the office of President of the United States, and will to the best of my ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States."

Here is the transcript of the swearing in:

ROBERTS: Are you prepared to take the oath, Senator?
OBAMA: I am.
ROBERTS: I, Barack Hussein Obama...
OBAMA: I, Barack...
ROBERTS: ... do solemnly swear...
OBAMA: I, Barack Hussein Obama, do solemnly swear...
ROBERTS: ... that I will execute the office of president to the United States faithfully...
OBAMA: ... that I will execute...(he pauses)
ROBERTS: ... faithfully the office of president of the United States...
OBAMA: ... the office of president of the United States faithfully...
ROBERTS: ... and will to the best of my ability...
OBAMA: ... and will to the best of my ability...
ROBERTS: ... preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States.
OBAMA: ... preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States.
ROBERTS: So help you God?
OBAMA: So help me God.
ROBERTS: Congratulations, Mr. President.

Simple Woman's Daybook

2009-01-19T14:34:00.003-05:00

FOR TODAY January 19, 2009

Outside my window... it is grey and cloudy and chilly. But not quite chilly enough to snow. grrrrr

I am thinking... that I want to take a nap, and that I wish I could find a paperback of the book I have checked out of the library, because the hard back is turning out to be non-bed reading friendly
I am thankful for... my husband being on vacation this week, AND that I am not fertile the entire time he'll be off. Last year eaach and every time he was on vacation, I was fertile. Okay, maybe TMI--but I am thankful for that!
From the learning rooms... lots of talk about the inauguration and about how the government works- it's structure, etc.
From the kitchen... tonight steaks from Angel Food Ministries, with snap peas and sweet potatoes. Hopefully to bake some kind of goody this week.

I am wearing... my jammies, even though it's 2:30. It's a reminder that it's a vacation day.

I am creating... hopefull a sort of blanket-y , wrap thing. If I can get my stitches to stay on my needles. I resorted to using duct tape, and as with all things, duct tape has made it better.
I am going... to a university gymnastics meet with my oldest two daughters in a little while

I am reading... From Here To Eternity by James Jones

I am hoping... that we won't spend the whole week fighitng colds.

I am hearing... the oldest two fighting over their chess game. The youngest two destroying the living room as they "watch" Blue's Clues (do television shows get quotations or italicized?)

Around the house... our laundry is caught up. I am hoping to work on the closet project I've
undertaken this week

One of my favorite things... though I almost never do it- is sleeping in. My husband got up with the smalls today and let me linger in bed for another hour. Can't tell you the last time that happened!

A few plans for the rest of the week: same ol', smae ol'. School stuff, gymnastics, violin starts. I am hoping to play more with my kids this week.

Here is picture thought I am sharing...
Join in the Simple Woman's Dyabook here:
http://thesimplewomansdaybook.blogspot.com/

My Own Mothering Adventure

2009-01-18T16:04:00.004-05:00

Over at Reading to Know, Carrie wrote a post entitled The SAHM Adventure, which really got me thinking. What do I want my children to think about me when they're grown?

I know what I want for them. I want them to grow up to be people who love learning things--whatever it is whether it's art, or crafting, or encyclopedic knowledge of pirates, or quantum physics, or music, or topography, or reading or writing or fashion design. I want them to be passionate about something and carry with them curious minds. I want them to be compassionate and honest people. I want them to be people who balance honoring themselves with honoring others. I wan them to be selfless and humble, but not weak doormats. I want them to be competent at household things like banking, laundry, cooking, home repairs, etc. I want them to be comfortable around all kinds of people and in all kinds of situations. I want them to be comfortable with who they are, and yet always trying to be the best them they can be.

It's harder for me to pinpoint what it is I want their perceptions of me to be when they are adults. I think mostly I hope they'll forgive me. I know that I am very far from being a perfect mom. Sometimes even very far from being a good mom. I don't even always try my best. But I hope they can look back and see that mostly I was trying, trying to always be a better person, a better mom. I hope they will think that I was a good friend to others, and ready to help when others were in need. I hope they will think that I was not hypocritical to my faith or to my ideals. I hope they will look back at my motherhood of their childhood years and see that it is possible to work through some serious defects of character. I think most of all I hope they will look back and feel that they were unconditionally loved.

In a lot of ways it is very helpful to concretely spell out my hopes for them. Yet at the same time, it leaves me seriously convicted, because I see so many ways in which I think I am falling short of leaving them with those thoughts. I am going to revisit this post from time to time and assess how I am doing and try to make some short term goals, and see if I've met those goals. I think my first set of goals will be:

1. to spend some one on one playtime this week with my middle child who is seriously getting on my nerves right now
2. to spend some family playtime together this week. We'll aim small for now- how about 2 hours of just play with all of the wees ( though I am around all the time, it's unusual for me to just set aside all chores and things to just play)
3. maybe three nights this week to involve all of the oldest kids in preparing dinner. They all love to do it, but I get annoyed because our time is so pressed. But I am going to try to just start earlier- when possible.

Reading Plans

2009-01-18T09:09:00.003-05:00

I have been searching and perusing lists looking for WWII novels. In the process, I have found other books about other wars I really want to read. I thought I'd just put them here so I could keep track of them; paper lists inevitably immaterializing in our little house. Please feel free to add suggestions!!!

WORLD WAR I
Johnny Got His Gun - Dalton Trumbo
Parade's End- Ford Maddox Ford
Soldier's Pay- William Faulkner
Kangaroo- DH Lawrence
All Quiet on The Western Front- Erich Maria Remarque
A Farewell to Arms- Ernest Hemingway

VIETNAM
The Short Timers-Gustav Hasford
We Were Soldiers Once and Young- Moore and Halloway
The Quiet American-Graham Greene
The Sorrow of War- Bao Nihn
Going After Cacciato- Tim O'Brien

War Through the Generations: Reading Challenge

2009-01-16T10:35:00.005-05:00

War Through The Generations is sponsoring a reading challenge running from January 1, 2009 through December 31, 2009, for readers to read five books relating to World War II. This project seems like such a great means of ensuring continuing dialogue about our history, as well as an impetus to continue reading great literature which so often comes out of the strife , struggles and horrors of war.

This seems like a very timely blog-challenge for me. I just checked out From Here To Eternity from the library, and have The Naked and the Dead on my short list for reading this year. That leaves only three more books to complete this challenge. Too bad I so recently read Catch-22 and Slaughterhouse Five ! I think in addition to Jones and Mailer, I will try to read Thirty Seconds Over Tokyo (which I don't think I have read, but I am not entirely sure...), having previously read a book about Doolittle's Raiders which I really loved. I don't know about the last two. I think Atonement would be suitable, and it is also on my short list, so maybe that for my fourth. And possibly Gravity's Rainbow for my fifth, as I have long meant to read some Pynchon.

Any suggestions? Any Russian novels about WWII? Anyone want to join in?

The Overpopulation Myth

2009-01-15T07:54:00.006-05:00

This morning while reading, and based on a lecture I heard the other day, my thoughts drifted to the idea of overpopulation. It is an oft ready argument leveled against the Catholic belief that contraception is contradictory to the dignity of the human person. In conversations stemming from the recently published article detailing the regrets of of one of the creators of the Pill, overpopulation was nearly always raised as an objection during those conversations.

While not a Luddite, I am someone who does not view technology as necessarily salvific. I think we often do because we can without thinking through the implications of having done so. So rather than developing and applying technology with guarded foresight, we tend to enthusiastically yield to technology's short term improvements before we understand the long term detrimental effects of technology.

However, in the case of the perception of the eventual total destruction of the planet through overpopulation, it seems that discussions of technological advancement are curiously absent. Taking the example of China where fears of overpopulation have yielded to aggressive population control measures, very rarely in my experience, do these conversations include a discussion of population concentration or a discussion of the effect of disastrous effects of Communism on the available food supply. During the Great Leap Forward, as populations were relocated, nearly 30 million people in China perished in a famine brought about largely from poor government planning. Looking at a map of population concentrations, one can see that most of China is very sparsely populated. I understand that rugged terrain, harsh conditions, water availability and arable land all play a part in population distribution; however, human beings have demonstrated the ability to live in wide and varied conditions and topographies. As technology improves further, one can only assume that human beings will be further equipped to live and even thrive in places which were only before sparsely populated.

Advances continue in agricultural cultivation and production at an astounding rate. Though it is not yet sustainable on a scale large enough to be economically viable, hydroponics (growing things without soil) continues to advance in technology. Though we need to tread lightly , cautiously, and with much forethought, the area of cloning provides exciting possibilities when it comes to food production. And no discussion about food supply would be complete without discussing the lamentable food surplus. At this point, it is not a question of having enough food to feed the world, but rather one of getting the available food to those who most need it. It is my belief, that in a global economy such as ours, that famine and starvation is almost always the result of governmental corruption, greed, and malice.

Another important consideration most often left out of the discussion by population-as-the-cause-of-our-destruction proponents, is that as economic conditions improve the rate of population expansion in a country nearly always declines. If more children are likely to survive, if children are not directly contributing to the economic well-being of the family, if parents see some material comfort and wealth as a possibility they tend towards having fewer children. This in itself can wield to detrimental effects, which one need only look to many European countries and see first hand.

There is middle ground there. There is what John Paul II referred to as responsible parenthood. Child spacing can allow a woman's body to heal and recover from pregnancy and birth. Extended breastfeeding as the norm (WHO recommends that breastfeeding be continued at least until age two), can help limit a family's reproductive rate. Bl. Mother Teresa had immense success teaching the poorest of the poor in India to successfully use natural family planning, in concordance with the teaching of the Church. Which then brings the discussion to one of prudence, which is where I think things tend to go a little awry-even amidst Catholics.

Is our child-bearing rooted in prudent generosity? Just as we would be remiss to give away all of our family's grocery money, we also can be remiss in failing to prudently use the gift of our fertility. However, we would also be remiss if we failed to give to others in need, if our grocery money went beyond the reasonable necessities. Two less packages of soda, is $10 in the hands of someone who is in need. Prudence is the great governor of all other virtues, and it is interesting to me that it is so little talked about. Yes, we are open to life, but that openness includes more than merely being open to the creation of new babies. We are open to the fullness of life.

It seems that any conversation involving overpopulation would be only half a conversation if it lacks an honest discussion of prudence and generosity, both in regards to fertility and in reference to food distribution. It seems to me that any conversation involving overpopulation would be only half a conversation if it lacks an honest discussion of technology, population distribution, and the merits and detriments of particular governments and their trade policies.

The Things They Carried ~ Tim O'Brien

2009-01-14T12:01:00.005-05:00

I have been drawn to stories of the Vietnam War, ever since I was a girl just entering adolescence. When I was in 7th or 8th grade I won a writing contest sponsored by the Detroit Free Press with a story I wrote entitled "I Died and Lived To Tell About It", which if I remember correctly, revolved around a man who watched his entire platoon be killed, but somehow managed to survived. I know right around that time, I also wrote a chronological- based fiction work entitled "Watershed Tears" based on the main character living through the events of 1968. While the rest of the seventh and eighth grade girls were swooning over pop stars and actors, I was reading about the tunnels in Cu Chi and couldn't wait for the opening of Platoon. I remember thinking at the time if perhaps if re-incarnation was real, that I had died there- just one of those thoughts seeking out greater understanding of the connections I felt to that time and place and those people.

Eventually, my reading expanded and that fiction consumed more of my attention. There were all of the distractions of growing up, especially those I had created leaving home on and off starting when I was 15. My attentions turned towards boys, and music, and poetry; fading away from Southeast Asia.

The year before last, I read Dispatches by Michael Herr and If I Die In A Combat Zone by Tim O'Brien. Along with the World War II novel, Catch-22 by Joseph Heller, those books began to push and nudge awake this piece of me, which had been such an integral part of my growing up. I had planned since then to read Tim O'Brien's The Things They Carried, which I honestly thought I had read before, but seems to have come out when I was in high school which would make it unlikely that I had read it heretofore.

Words seem so inadequate to talk about The Things They Carried. Reading it is like a first love affair. Speaking about it out loud, seems to do disservice to it's sacredness. It is all consuming. It makes you greedy for more as you read. Even it's destruction, and some of the stories do destroy you, is alluring the way young passion makes us unable to turn away.

For me, the experience was especially full of emotion, for though I am firmly routed in my Catholic beliefs, the familiarity and sense of some other life overshadowing my own current life lingered just over my shoulder, just out of view. The whispers of ghosts, just beyond hearing. The connection which was so powerful when I was a girl, nearly knocked me over. The tears flowed freely.

The Things They Carried is beyond a book. It is a piece of all who ever ever fought war. All who ever lived with those who have returned from war. I cannot recommend it enough--even though it appears now on lots of required reading lists., which sometimes make people feel as though are boring or too difficult to read. If you are not unchanged after reading it, I would be beyond surprised.

For any who have read it- what are your thoughts? For those who have not, are there any times or places toward which you feel particularly drawn??

Putting Women and Their Babies Between a Rock and a Hard Place

2009-01-11T10:20:00.010-05:00

Health & Science
Study: Early Repeat C-Sections Puts Babies At Risk

Listen to the Story

All Things Considered, January 8, 2009 · A new study published in the New England Journal of Medicine reports that elective, repeat C-sections performed earlier than the recommended 39 weeks increases the risk of complications for newborns. Dr. Catherine Spong, co-author of the study, says babies born under these conditions see double the risk of "adverse outcomes" such as nenonatal death.

This whole thing just angers me. I mean sneering-at-my-computer sort of angry. We as American women have been led to believe that birthing babies with a doctor in the hospital is a scientific event, supported by scientific truths, elicited from scientific studies. We have been led to believe that all interventions have been proven to be good for the mother and good for the baby, or at least not bad. We have been led to believe that questioning routine hospital policies is something reserved for the crunchy, anti-establishment, patchouli moms.

The reality is that we still do not understand fully the mechanisms by which labor begins. We do not fully understand the intricate interplay of the mother and baby and placenta which signals labor to begin and to be sustained. We do not know the effects of replacing naturally produced hormones, with their synthetic counterparts. We do not know how the deprivation of certain hormones (like oxytocin and dopamine) effects mother and child, their relationship, their bonding, or their long term development. The reality is that in a medical culture governed by litigiousness, that the illusion of firm knowledge has replaced a humble admittance of risk, and unknowing.

The article and interview above tells us that for women who have had previous c-sections, that elective c-sections before 39 weeks puts babies at risk. The doctor interviewed seemed to really stress that these c-sections had no medical purpose. Well that's all fine and good--but it is growing extremely difficult to find a birth practitioner and hospital who will allow a woman to attempt a VBAC (vaginal birth after Cesarean). The fear-mongering culture has stressed how dangerous VBACs can be, except that the evidence is skewed through interventions, such as inductions, which put increased stress on the mother's uterus. What is a mother to do? She is told attempting a vaginal birth is a no-no, and told that a repeat c-section is also a no-no.

The top priority for the majority of the medical birth professionals is to manage a woman's labor, to try to eliminate the unknown. The main end is to create an illusion of control and safety. The blame for this is wide-spread--it's doctors and women and their families and insurance companies and hospitals-as-money -generating-businesses. Like The Emperor's New Clothes, we have been collectively pretending that we both have full understanding of the mechanisms and systems involved in birth, and that we can take away all the inherent risks of birth.

Please don't misunderstand. I feel very, very blessed to live in a time and a place where the technology exists to improve outcomes for mothers and babies who would otherwise die or be very adversely affected through birth. It is a true privilege and gift. However, in my opinion, we have erred on the side of over-using technology. We have come to view technology not as a help when things have gone awry, but rather as a superior mechanism than the natural processes of birth. Furthermore, we have come to that viewpoint, without understanding the intricacies of the consequences of technological and pharmaceutical interventions. Obstetrics has a history of of using technology first, until it is proven to be detrimental; rather than demonstrating safety and outweighed benefit/risk ratio first. If you question that, think of scopolamine, DES, and the complete lack of long-term studies of the effects of sonography in utero.

It is so frustrating when information such as this new study comes out, and flies in the face of routine procedures adopted by hospitals and doctors. It is true that the ACOG has set their guidelines to reflect the 39 week marker as the determining factor in timing for elective repeat c-sections. However it is also true that finding excuses, or creating reasons to ignore this guideline is commonplace. If I am not mistaken, there was also a recent article about the detrimental effects of induction before 39 weeks floating around recently, though I cannot now remember from which source I had read it.

When, when are we as women-as a nation-going to stop cowering in fear--accept that birth has inherent risks, and start demanding that our bodies are honored!!? The process of birth isn't something which goes wrong most of the time. Our bodies aren't defective or incompetent as a rule. We have got to find some way to collectively muster up the courage to refuse non-essential technology at our births. We have to find a way to collectively demand that ALL routine procedures and medications given during birth are demonstrated to be beneficial both short and long-term. We need to insist that our birth practitioners tell us that they don't know, when they in fact don't know-for example the long term effects of sonography exposure, or the long term effects on mother and baby of replacing oxytocin with pitocin, or the effects on mother and baby of anything more than a brief separation in the days and weeks early post-partum, or the risks for their baby if they have elective repeat c-sections.

Is America Beyond Hope? And What's Wrong With Us?

2009-01-08T08:26:00.004-05:00

The Anchoress writes:

I wonder if we are finally moving past the adolescent angst, and the numbness, and - per Ebert’s column, simply waking up to the fact that a bunch of loud, exploitative so-called “friends” crashed the house, called it a party, drank all the liquor, cracked Mom’s prize crystal egg and then decided to have a tug-of-war donnybrook on the front lawn before toilet papering the trees, puking and passing out. The press? Some “friends.” Congress? Some “statesmen.”

Hungover, we’re stumbling around, and realizing that if we do not start demanding adult behavior, adult leadership, less spin and a little honesty, not only from our leadership and our “elites” but from each other, we’re not going to be around to demand much of anything, of anyone.

Our friends on the left have put their faith and hope in President-elect Barack Obama. Those of us still on the fence about him hope that he is at least half as great as they say. That is more than the Bush-haters ever offered Bush, so perhaps it is a place to start.

And those of us with faith know that prayer is essential. Essential.

Your thoughts?

My Thoughts: I think it is more a matter of taking the adolescent wounds we bear post Kennedy assassination, Vietnam, and Watergate- and learning how to confront those wounds and heal. But as with many people who are wounded by their families in their adolescence, it takes time to confront those demons, especially when their families remain essentially unchanged. We've had Iran/Contra, and Monica Lewinsky, and the WMD debacle--it's all just more of the same. Some people never bring their dark places to the light, and because the behaviour just repeats and repeats again, they use apathy as an excuse for living defined always by their brokenness. Add to that the dysfunctionality of their extended family preying on their wounds, and capitalizing on their deepest fears --which is precisely what the press and political pundits do in order to sell their news--and you get a people who are locked into living perpetually their wounded adolescence. And so, as with all those who are products of a co-dependent, whacked-out upbringing--we need to get to the point of accepting that we cannot change other people. We can only change ourselves. We can only change our behaviour. We can learn to set boundaries and enforce them. We can seek personal healing and try to enact change in our own lives. We can refuse to live in the fear and terror created to keep us enslaved.

Will that happen in some large scale way? I doubt it. People grow comfortable with their demons, it becomes easier and easier over time to live with what we've always known (even though what we've known has sucked). Complacency doesn't require as much effort or personal sacrifice as does healing. The changes required to heal, almost always are conjoined with loss. That loss terrifies so many of us into just maintaining the status quo and passing on our dysfunction to the next generation.

What are your thoughts? End times? Perpetual adolescence? Beyond hope?

The Shannon Book Club- The Bridge of San Luis Rey

2009-01-07T16:30:00.006-05:00

The Shannon Book Club is so named, because I am pretty much the only one who ever reads this stuff. LOL!

This month the selection is The Bridge of San Luis Rey by Thorton Wilder. It's a very short (150 pages) novel. The basic plot is as follows:

On July 20, 1714, "the finest bridge in all Peru" collapses and five people die. Brother Juniper, a Franciscan missionary, happens to witness the tragedy, and as a result, he asks the central question of the novel: "Why did this happen to those five?" He sets out to explore the lives of the five victims, and to understand why they died. Ironically, his quest will lead to his own death.

The last book, Mr. Ives' Christmas, turned out to be in the top 20 best books I've ever read. I still need to write up a review for it. Let me know if you are up for reading and discussing The Bridge of San Luis Rey!!!

Edited to add my Review:
I think my reading was a little skewed because of the book which I read just before this one---which was just so, so intense. However, I will still try to give my thoughts.

The writing itself, is quite lovely. Not in an ornate way like Fitzgerald or James, and not in a total tightness and precision like Hemingway or even Steinbeck...but the language is unassuming and unobtrusive, nearly formal, but not enough so to make it difficult to read.

The book winds through the lives of the five people who were killed when the Bridge of San Luis Rey collapsed. We are reading with the aim of trying to piece together why these five were killed at that specific time. Though the look into each of their lives is brief, their lives all intertwine loosely with one another, and the reader gains a satisfying enough glimpse to feel as though the reader truly knows at least the three adults who died. We get fewer insights into the lives of the two children involved- so much less, in fact, that one doesn't quite know until the last pages of the book that the two children are the other two who comprise the five who died. That lack of information, in my opinion, is the one main shortcoming of the book.

In the case of the adults, each one of them was seen as dying to avoid either maligning a new start or conviction, or to avoid great harm, or to preserve their last good action. We are given a sense of the unseen lives on either side of the tragedy in question, lives which are made up of much vice and many shortcomings. However, before their death, fir each of the adults their is a small act of redemption. In the lives of the children, we are left to wonder if they were possibly preserved from a life of dissipation or of faltering into sins which hadn't yet overtaken them.

I found the framing of the story involving Brother Junipero's book rather awkward and somewhat artificial--almost like Wilder didn't quite know how to begin and end. However, we do gain some insight into the the disposition of Mr. Wilder, I believe, which is one of hope.

If you are looking for a very solid, worthwhile read, but do not have much time to commit to reading I heartily recommend this book. It is a firm reminder that the events of our lives and the lives of those around us are interconnected. It is a firm reminder that though we on the outside might never know, that there are unseen depths in the lives of those around us. It is a firm reminder that in the face of inexplicable tragedy to maintain hope that there is purpose.

from a discussion- "Why Are We Tempted If God is Omnipotnet?"

2009-01-06T06:37:00.004-05:00

"It is true that we will be tempted until the moment that we die. Life is just one big test. "

Life isn't a big test, I am sorry. I don't agree with that at all. We don't believe that all life is suffering. God isn't up there with his clipboard and checklist. Everything that happens to us is in God's permissive will- everything is for our providence--even temptations and sins. Those ongoing temptations and sins are a huge blessing, because they pinpoint areas of our brokenness and indicate where we need healing-as well as help break down our pride, which is an impediment to selfless love of one another and of God.

Life is just one big love affair--and our mission is to learn to give love and be loved (this is what Bl. Mother Teresa referred to as our universal vocation), which we cannot do fully when we operate out of our wounds and brokennesses. The sins and temptations which God allows us are gifts to us that we might heal and in time serve others more fully. We sin, so what...I personally think we put far too much emphasis on that--what does that sin matter. What really matters is that after falling- we cast our eyes to Jesus, ask Him to take our hand and help us back up, and we try to be open to what it is we are supposed to learn through that fall. Sometimes those lessons take a long time, sometimes the lessons are difficult to apply to our lives. The fall is so unimportant, the whole of eternity lies in the importance of what we do afterwards. __________________

Pushing Daisies

2009-01-05T07:20:00.005-05:00

I am completely out of touch with what's on television, except through overhearing snippets of other people's conversations. We don't have cable or satellite, and only get PBS if the wind is blowing just right. Most of our television show viewing is done through borrowing seasons of shows from other people's collections. Many of them are borrowed from my husband's boss, who is an avid fan of televisions shows, but who works far too many hours to get to watch them while they are current. For Christmas his boss gave us the first season of the show Pushing Daises. I wasn't all that excited to watch it, being underwhelmed by the last show we borrowed.

Having now watched the entire first season, (in two nights!) I have to say that I have absolutely no idea how Pushing Daisies has made it to prime time. The only guess I have is that the success of the narrator-driven Desperate Housewives is somehow responsible. I never watched more than about 30 minutes of Desperate Housewives, but for a time it really saturated our culture enough that I gained some familiarity with it. It was not my cup of tea; marital intrigue and infidelity being way up there on my list of least favorite topics with which to fill up my free time.

Pushing Daisies, however, made me feel like it would be remiss of me to be using my free time to be doing anything else. The show is very heavily influenced by magic realism, with rather fantastic elements being presented as though they are fixed reality. The basic premise of the show is that the main character, the pie-making Ned, has the gift to touch dead things and bring them back to life. The caveat? If Ned touches that that thing again, it dies for good and if a creature he brought back to life lives for more than one minute, another randomly selected animal or person dies instead.

Where Pushing Daisies takes that premise yields to a show which is part fairy tale, part science fiction, part crime drama, part comic book. In print, that likely sounds like a nearly unwatchable result. But rather than being a confusing hodge-podge, the end result is a show which grabs the viewers' attention from the very beginning of the episode, a show which draws the viewer into active viewing, rather than complacency. The colors, lighting, characters, dialogue, plots and sub-plots draw a viewer in, and holds his or her interest, attention and curiosity throughout the hour. (Or in my case throughout the many hours).

Even for those who normally would balk at a non-traditional television show, I think Pushing Daisies would appeal, if they watched just a few episodes. It isn't confusing, dark or muddling as say Twin Peaks or Push, Nevada. Pushing Daisies is full of stories of love, which grow the heart of the viewer for suffering through the impediments which keep the characters from expressing the fullness of their love for one another. It is full of an innate goodness and hope. Yet at the same time, contains enough darkness that the shadows keep the show from being flat.

If you haven't watched or even heard of this show, you can go to ABC online in order to watch whole episodes, gather more information, or read plot summaries of episodes. I know I will be there to watch episodes from the current season, as I am sure that I cannot wait until Season Two comes out on DVD !

(For those wondering about age appropriateness- I would say tweeners on up, with parental involvement in watching. The word "ass" is used, but no other language which parents might find objectionable. There is some stylized violence, nothing graphic and most often the violence is farcical in nature. Olive wears some skimpy things, and there is a view of Chuck (female) in a towel. Personally, I wouldn't object to this show being on while my children were up- the older two (ages 8 and 11)would likely find it intersting and the younger ones would most likely ignore it, as the plot would be too complex for them to follow.)

Edited to add: GRRRrrrrr--as has happened with every. single. television show, except Frontline, which I have been devoted to in the past 8 years--apparently after the finished episodes of Pushing Daisies air- the show will be no longer. What's wrong with the stupid TV execs!!!!!

Quelf

2009-01-02T07:17:00.010-05:00

Do you want to have some serious fun? Do you want to laugh like you haven't laughed for years? Then the game, Quelf, is for you! Looking at the game board for the first time you'll likely think to yourself, "I only have to go from start to finish? That doesn't seem like it will be that hard, or even take very long." And, oh, how wrong you will be.

The first indication that this game is not quite like all other games comes when you pick up the sheet of directions read: "OBJECT OF THE GAME- To have fun! Duh! Why else would you play a board game?" You garner further hints of what's to come as you choose a game piece. You will choose one of the following: The Platypus, Mr. Lugnut, Super Ninja Monkey, The Dude, The Biscuit Farmer, Queen Spatula (my-well endowed favorite), Batbileg Chinzorig or "BC" as he likes to be called, or Mrs. Pickle Feather. If needed, you can steal pieces from other games to add more players. They might wonder about this strange land they've wandered into, but really after you've hung around Queen Frostine, Grandma Nut, and Plumpy the Troll is there really much left that will shock you?

The game begins as do most games, with players rolling the die to see who will go first. It seems mundane enough. However once the player with the highest roll takes his or her turn, it becomes clear that this is not your average board game. On her first turn, a friend of ours who had never played before, found herself making an "X" with her body until her next turn. She grew weary and tried to make a lower case "x".

The colors on the board correspond with different color cards, which have players doing different things. Here is an example from each category:

Green (Trivia): "How many fingers does a one-armed thumbless woman have? Extra Credit- How many fingers and toes combined do four one-legged weathermen and three blind, armless retired submarine captains have?" (No pressure, but my 11 year old got the extra credit question)

Yellow (Stuntz): "Show your opponents your belly button. Pretend your belly button has a mouth, and talk with it in a scary old voice. Make your belly button say, 'I've seen a lot of strange things in my day, but this just beats all.' "

Purple (Showbiz): " You might not be wearing a tutu, but we'd still like to see your ballet moves. Set the timer and gracefully dance like a ballerina until the timer runs out. If you can actually find and wear a tutu for your dance, advance 2 spaces."

Red (Scatterbrainz): Players pick between two choices and then go around the table until a player repeats an answer already given, or can't come up with an answer. Example: " 'U.S. Presidents' or 'Things typically found floating in the bathtub'. You choose the topic".

Blue (Roolz): Some rules apply to everyone playing, some just to individual players. Example of an individual rule: "While it is not your turn, whenever another player speaks to you, you must play 'peekaboo' with them." Example of a rule for everyone: "When it is not your turn, you must end each sentence you speak with 'izzle'. Good luckizzle."

The game is labelled as being for ages 12 and up, but we have played with younger children who just get assistance from mom or dad if needed. There are a few more "mature" questions and challenges, but nothing that is overtly inappropriate-nothing where I have thought to myself "Wow...I sure wish my kids didn't just hear that!" There are some Scatterbrainz categories which younger children might not know, like "Heavy Metal bands"--but players can always just pick a new card. My three oldest kids (ages 11, 8, and nearly 6) have loved playing it, I think mostly because they get to see the grown-ups in their life acting like loons. The Epiphany is coming up, Valentine's Day is just around the corner...and I heartily recommend that you add this game to your collection. You might be humiliated and ridiculed- but you will not have had so much fun in a long time!

For more information go here. To buy the game go here.

What Have You Read-2008? What Do You Hope To Read- 2009?

2008-12-30T07:39:00.003-05:00

I always find it satisfying to go back at the end of the year and recap what I've read over the previous year. It feels like an account of , at least in part, how I've spent my time.

The Challenge: What have you read this past year? What was your favorite? What was your least favorite? What book would you most recommend to others to read? Also list one or two reading goals for next year. What do you hope to read? Do you hope to read more? Do you hope to read more of a particular type of material?

Even if you haven't read any books- what blogs, news sources, message boards, or magazines have you read?

Either leave your list in the comments or on your own blog with a link in the comments!!

What I've Read 2008

Bridge of Sighs - Richard Russo
The Beautiful and The Damned- F. Scott Fitzgerald
E=MC2: A Biography of The World's Most Famous Equation- David Bodanis
Rebecca- Daphne DuMaurier
Wise Blood- Flannery O'Connor
Canticle for Liebowitz- Walter A. Miller
Pudd'nhead Wilson- Mark Twain
Gang Leader For a Day- Sudhir Vankatesh
There Are No Children Here- Alex Koltowitz
The Maltese Falcon- Dashiell Hammett
Papillon- Henri Charriere
The Heart of The Matter- Graham Greene
Love In The Time of Cholera- Gabriel Garcia Marquez
The End - Salvatore Scibona
Straight Man- Richard Russo
The Idiot- Fyodor Dostoyevsky
Whatever It Takes- Paul Tough
The British Museum is Falling Down- David Lodge
Sentimental Education- Gustav Falubert
Native Son- Richard Wright
A Question of Upbringing (A Dance To The Music of Time part. 1)- Anthony Powell

Currently reading:

One Day In The Life of Ivan Denisovich- Alexander Solzhenitsyn (lol! It was lost for a few weeks, and so I started a new book and haven't gone back to finish yet)
Our Mutual Friend- Charles Dickens
Mr. Ives' Christmas- Oscar Hijuelos

Favorite: Bridge of Sighs. Least Favorite: Wise Blood. What Everyone Should Read: There Are No Children Here.

Goals For 2009

A Remembrance of Things Past- Marcel Proust (I've waited until I was getting more sleep, so that I could really read this--so I am hoping this year sleep, and hence Proust, will come)
An American Tragedy- Theodore Dreiser

Feast of the Holy Innocents- on Suffering

2008-12-28T07:44:00.001-05:00

Everything-everything that happens to us is in God's permissive will-not His active will, but His permissive will, i.e. He allows it to happen. And as such, all of it has the potential to be used for good. I don't understand how anyone can read the New Testament and not see the fundamental nature of suffering as an inherent quality of Christian life. The entire Gospel hinges upon Jesus accepting immense suffering and complete helplessness--The whole Christmas story revolves around suffering-can you imagine having people thinking you were whoring around, and then riding on a donkey! (ack!) for miles upon miles while nine months pregnant, and then having no place to stay so you stay in a dung filled animal shelter to give birth?? And then fleeing to Egypt with a toddler...I mean just driving with a toddler is a pain. And God comes to us in helpless form-as a wee baby, rather than a mighty king. He comes to us as one who cries in hunger, and cold, and wet diapers. The Crucifixion- again abject suffering and helplessness. Redemption is ALL about poverty, all about helplessness, all about suffering. If we are to become Christ-like, doesn't that necessarily mean that we will suffer?

However, it is not meaningless suffering. Christ-like suffering is redemptive, it brings forth new life, it yields to hope and salvation. One of my favorite Scriptures:
“Suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope (Romans 5:3-4).” And "I am now rejoicing in my sufferings for your sake, and in my flesh I am completing what is lacking in Christ's afflictions for the sake of His body, that is, the church. (Col.1:24)". And:
"Dear friends, do not be surprised at the painful trial you are suffering, as though something strange were happening to you. But rejoice that you participate in the sufferings of Christ, so that you may be overjoyed when his glory is revealed. 1 Peter 4:12)"

Meh. Faith isn't a feeling, it isn't a series of feelings. Faith is an act of the will, which chooses to simply get up again and again-eyes trained on the hope which is unseen. We attach, in my opinion, too much value on how we feel about our faith. When we see that all of this, everything, even a struggle or loss of faith is all within God's permissive will, then we can just wait expectantly through it, trying to do our imperfect best in any given set of circumstances.

No I don't think faith is a test which some people fail and some people pass. I think our relationship with God-who is infinite mercy and at the same time infinite justice is far, far more dynamic than that model allows. Suffering refines our faith, it allows us to become ever more transformed into Christ in the world, it allows us to view our selves humbly and honestly as feeble creatures dependent upon one another and upon God (remember the Great Commands- to love God and love neighbor).

I think we spend far too much time and energy trying to avoid suffering and gain blessing (as if there is someway we could work to be entitled to more of God's love and blessings). Suffering is what forges our souls; it is what allows us to shrug off those things which keep us from God and one another. Just like when a woman is in labor, if rather than trying to pull up and out away from the pain-which keeps labor from progressing--we must breathe down into the pain, accepting that it does hurt and that it is supposed to hurt, and that the hurt is bringing forth new life. We simply just have to wait it out, and then at a time beyond our control or manipulation--our blessing will be ours to embrace.

Best Post of 2008

2008-12-27T07:32:00.006-05:00

Although I've only been blogging a short while, I thought the Simply The Best challenge at
Confident Writing would be a good way to review what I've written so far. Additionally I feel it will help me assess how well I am sticking to my purpose for blogging in the first place, which is to write on a regular basis in order to relearn the discipline of writing.

My one regret is that I haven't yet finished my short story; the not-having-water aspect of December kind of crushing my creativity.

Choosing one post is tough, as I find it challenging to remove my emotional attachment towards what I've written in order to view my writing objectively. Also I think it is difficult to choose a set of criteria from which to judge. Do I choose the post with the most comments? Do I choose the post which I feel stretched me the most to write? Do I choose the one which I think has the best flow? Do I choose snark or substance?

After some deliberation, I think I will choose: Missing: Mary, Mother of God. Last seen: Shoved Down In the Couch Covered In Popcorn Kernels . I think this is my best post, because it draws on my most well-developed strengths as a writer, as well as being picked up on the feed at Charlotte Was Both .

We have water! We've found Mary! And My Kids' Favorite Christmas Memories

2008-12-26T10:05:00.000-05:00

Late in the afternoon on the 23rd I was able to turn on the tap for the first time in a month! We are still working out some kinks- sediment in the pipes and water supply issues for tasks like laundry--but we have WATER!

We ended up boring another well, even though we'd have a more long term dependable water source if we had drilled. It would have only cost $250 dollars for the empty hole, had they not found a usable amount of water. Had that happened we would have drilled, but drilling would have cost around $10,000, and we'd have had to pay irrespective of whether or not they found water. They didn't get the amount of water that they life to have, but it is about 12 ft. of water, which is where we were at a few years ago before the drought. We are hoping that this will sustain us until we finally sell our house and land. We will continue to be very conservative in our water use, using rain water to flush most often and carrying on with our laundry-nazi policies.

A hearty thank you to everyone who has helped us over the past month. What could have been just an awful, awful time was instead transformed into a true testament to the goodness of people. Everyone's generosity has just moved me to tears, and strengthened my personal conviction to pay forward when we are blessed with abundance. It's a small thing for me to throw a casserole together, but that might be an enormous gift to someone else. It's a small thing to have someone else's kids over to our house for a couple hours so that their parents can spend sometime together. Even those with little often have hidden abundances in their lives from which they might give.

Mary also showed up in time for Christmas! After a rather trying Christmas Eve morning, I sent out some last ditch prayers to St. Anthony. Looking in a basket where I know I have looked previously- there she was! I guess she was waiting for water. I don't blame her. Lol!

At dinner on Christmas Eve, my children wanted to go around the table and have everyone share their favorite Christmas memory. My kids overwhelmingly voted for the time Mommy was very pregnant lying on the floor holding up our toppling Christmas tree, while our oldest (then 9 years old) called Dad at work to come home. Why I didn't let it just fall, I have no idea- perhaps because I was afraid that the toddler would have then been all in the tree, perhaps it was just pregnant brain. I honestly don't know. However, that memory is absolutely ingrained in my children's memory.

I am really kind of a small disaster magnet around Christmas. This year was no different. My mom and I went to the post office on Christmas Eve so that I could get a refund on shipping which didn't arrive by the pre-set deadline. I had no idea that you could even do that, but the gracious post office clerk told me to make sure that I kept my receipts and checked the delivery time, because if it was even a minute late it's fully refundable. Four minutes saved me a bunch of money.

While my mom and I were at the post office I suggested that we drive by a house that my husband and I have looked at as we dream of moving someday. It's a wonderful little log house with great porches and a barn on about 4 acres. It's only a couple miles from the post office, and I thought it would only add about ten minutes to our trip. If only...

When I was backing out to leave, I was looking in the rear view mirror, to make sure that I didn't miss the turn around when I heard a thump and we quit moving. I had run over railroad ties which lined the gravel driveway and somehow completely wedged the car. We could neither roll forward, nor backward! My mom had the idea to try to jack up the car, but the railroad tie was in the way. We hauled some of the railroad ties out from in front of the car to see if we could just pull the other tie forward and get unstuck, but that was impossible. So I dug out underneath the tie with a metal pole we had found and precariously jacked up the car. With the jack in place I backed up a little but (and ran over the jack-which luckily hurt neither the car nor the jack). That freed the back tire from putting pressure on the back of the rail road tie, but left a bolt on the undercarriage gouging into the wood up front. I jacked the car up again, and with my mom on her butt pushing the railroad tie from the back, I pulled it forward and two hours later, we were free!!! We had thought about calling AAA, but I wasn't even sure of where we were. I didn't know the address or how to give anyone directions about how to find us. The only real regret I have is that my kids weren't there to add this to the list of their favorite Christmas memories; as it surely would have made it into the top three!

I hope everyone has had a wonderful beginning to their Christmas celebrations!

From the vault:: O Christmas Tree, O Christmas Tree, Oh Crap!

2008-12-26T08:54:00.002-05:00

Written at Christmastime 2006 (small disaster magnet, 'm telling you!) I am so excited I found this,, I hadn't saved it, so I was psyched to find it where I had posted it online!

O Christmas Tree..O Christmas Tree...O crap!

Have you ever had one of those weeks? You know- one of those weeks where all kinds of random stuff just goes wrong?

Last week- our batrhoom faucet broke, a pipe under the house sprung a leak, the showerhead was dripping down back inside the wall, my tire kept going flat...and we were over drawn by about a dollar which ended up costing us about $100 for the 24 hour period our bank account was screwed up.

So I had the brilliant idea that this year we would just put up a fake tree. I knew there was one in a box up in the attic that my MIL had bought one year for probably a quarter (it doesn't really matter for her what it is- if it is super cheap she''l buy it- and probably 10 more just because it's a good deal). Usually my husband and kids go out into our woods and find a cedar tree and cut it down-- but I thought since everything had been so nuts- it really might be so much easier this year just to have the fake tree.

My husband got the box out of the attic. He opened it-- there were two pieces....which together stood about 3 feet high The kids were heroic in being good sports about the idea that this was to be our tree for the year. My husband put some lights and garland on it, and had the kids hang a few ornaments- and then moved it to their bedroom and put it on top of their dresser. They were thrilled.

But- we now kind of had to cut a tree. There was one not too far from the house that seemed like it would do. On Sunday morning my husband went out to cut it, only to discover that it was covered in fire ants. It's been like 70+ degrees here and those buggers have come out in full force to enjoy it. After he battled them, he wrestled the tree into the stand--none of which are made for Southern Christmas trees- the cedar trunks are so skinny they don't fit on the prongs properly. So the tree turned out to be rather tippy- but he thought he had it all under control.

Eventually- the lights and garland are hung- and today the kids hung the ornaments. I kept thinking the tree seemed kinda crooked- but didn't really want to say much about it- knowing that my husband already had about 10 man hours into dealing with this tree.

Fast forward to tonight: very pregnant mommy home alone with her four little kids...as the entire tree begins to topple!!! I dove under it to hold the stand down..and instructed my son (who is 9) to call his dad at work. He works retail and it is totally nuts there- my son got hung up on after waiting on hold twice! Finally he got my husband on the phone- who told my son he'd call him back! Meanwhile preggo is lying sprawled across the floor holding the tree up- every time I try to manuever the tree to stand better, it would lurch forward.

My brain was totally fried after I had just spent like two hours baking these stupid cookies- for which I had the brilliant idea that it would be much easier to use the cookie gun--which was totally non cooperative and caused me to spend so much extra time trying to get it to work. I finally gave up on it and just rolled and pressed the cookies by hand. I could NOT think of a viable solution to the tree tipping problem.

Finally my husband called back- and through my son my husband tried to tell me to do the 10 things I had already tried to no avail. So he ended up driving home-- and relieving his wife from her 30 minute sting as a Christmas tree stand. He got the tree kind of propped up-- and at least out of immediate danger...

But oh my gracious! If it wasn't so just cotton pickin' hilarious I think I would just be curled up fetal position and moaning....

If you have read this far--and you have a story-- would you please share one of your own Christmas fiascoes? I really need to commiserate!

Simple Woman's Daybook

2008-12-23T06:32:00.006-05:00

In the spirit of creating gratitude and greater awareness of living in the moment, I thought I'd participate in the Simple Woman's Daybook. (LOL! Which I am assuming means simple as in, focusing on what is really important, and not simple, as in being an ignorant fool--though at different times, I suppose, both apply to me)

FOR TODAY, Dec 23, 2008...

Outside my window... It is dark still, but the first light gray of dawn is filtering into the sky on the horizon. It was cold enough again to freeze our collected rain water

I am thinking... how chaotic and crazy it will be all day with the grandparents here. I wish my kids didn't go into hyper"pay attention to me " mode, while they were visiting

I am thankful for...coffee and for my husband having a job

From the learning rooms...not so much right now, but Clue ($5 at amazon, w/ free shipping) arrived yesterday and we'll probably play today. So that's, what? Deductive reasoning?

From the kitchen... Ugh! Hoping to bake some cookies. Yesterday's baking was sort of a disaster, as we baked at my MILs and her oven is just, so, not right and I couldn't find all of the utensils, etc. I needed. However today, I think we'll bake here and just take the dishes over there to wash.

I am wearing... my jammies! Woot!

I am creating...a long, wide scarf out of great bamboo yarn. It's soooo soft, and varigated enough that it hides a lot of my beginner's mistakes.

I am going...kind of crazy not getting any down time all day while my folks are here.

I am reading... Mr. Ives' Christmas by Oscar Hijuelos. So far, it's way up there on the list of the best modern fiction I've ever read.

I am hoping...that the well people will come today and finish the job so that we will have running water today or at least by tomorrow.

I am hearing... "Levi Stubb' Tears" by Billy Bragg

Around the house...really not many projects left. Fold some laundry and finish wrapping stuff

One of my favorite things...is the ipod my husband gave me for an anniversary/Christmas/birthday next year present. It's like my own little world I can escape into while I am doing chores.

A few plans for the rest of the week: baking, Christmas!, maybe going with the granparents and kids to see Bedtime Stories, maybe a trip to a special Christmas display.

Here is picture thought I am sharing...

A World Without Water

2008-12-22T07:45:00.004-05:00

We still do not have running water at our house. Today is the four week mark. We now have a new bored well, but as of this morning it neither has a pump nor is it connected to the water lines leading into the house.

Throughout this time I have reflected often how very, very blessed we are. We can go down the street to fill up jugs of water. We can buy disposable diapers, plates and cups, as well as having those used things hauled off to the dump and away from our home. We have available to us a plethora of waterless cleaning products- disposable disinfectant cloths, waterless hand sanitizer, disinfectant sprays. We have an ever present choice to vacate our home and either visit someone where we can shower and bathe, or even to go live with them for awhile. We have friends who have generously donated so much to help us out.

Throughout this month, my heart has grown heavier and heavier thinking about the many, many people throughout the world who live without running water as a permanent lifestyle. They cannot simply borrow water from a neighbor or run to the store to buy some cleaning products. Wondering about the true numbers of people without water, I came across these staggering statistics:

884 million people in the world do not have access to safe water. This is roughly one in eight of the world's population.

2.5 billion people in the world do not have access to adequate sanitation, this is almost two fifths of the world's population.

1.8 million children die every year as a result of diseases caused by unclean water and poor sanitation. This amounts to around 5000 deaths a day.

The simple act of washing hands with soap and water can reduce diarrhoeal diseases by over 40%.

This simply floored me. It makes me wonder, how can we with so much, who live in such abundance allow so many people to live without such a basic need. Not only do Americans live in abundance, but they squander their abundance. American households use on average 69.3 gallons of water each day, which is roughly twice the amount of water as their European counterparts. I urge you to think, to really be mindful of how you are using your water. My husband has been showering at his mom's house, and we've done laundry at other's houses,; however, our laundry has bee radically reduced from about one load a day to about 3 loads a week through insisting that we all wear our clothes until they are visibly dirty, and through using paper goods. (When water is restored, we will return to eliminating paper goods and disposable diapers-which yields to probably another load of laundry a week)) Removing those tasks leaves us using about 8-10 gallons per day.

Most of our water consumption, by far, is from flushing the toilet. Luckily we've had a bunch of rain and live in a place where it only gets below freezing for a few hours at night, if at all, so we've primarily been using collected rain water to flush when it's absolutely needed. Apparently Americans use 26. 7% of their potable water flushing the toilet.

This begs the question of why we aren't developing and widely using grey water systems, at least to flush the toilet, certainly we could use the water drained from the shower, washing machine and dishwater to flush the toilet. Why in the midst of an historic drought don't we see rain barrels at each and every house? Think of the water saved just in our little community if everyone who owned a home or rented a house collected rain water to use for flushing their toilets! The conservation would be staggering, even if just done on a small scale.

Over the Christmas holiday, I ask you to be mindful each and every time you use water. Whisper a prayer for those billions of people who suffer without adequate water and sanitation each time you turn on the faucet, shower, flush, wash dishes or do laundry. And I challenge you as we enter the new year, to buy or make some rain barrels. Even if you don't want to use that water for flushing everyday, pick one day a week to turn off your toilet and flush with something other than drinkable water for that one day. Lastly, if you are on city or county water I urge you to to donate the monetary savings from your conservation efforts to charities whose aims are pointed towards creating greater access to potable water and improving hygiene. Just a brief list of possible places to donate:
Water Aid America
Charity: water (which uses 100% of donations towards their goals of building wells in underdeveloped countries, relying on private donations and sponsor ships for travel and overhead expenses--and has a set up to send a $20 Christmas e-card letting someone know you've made a donation on their behalf. The video in this post is from them)

Statistics in this post pulled from here and here.

O Antiphons- O Rex Gentium (Dec 22)

2008-12-22T07:20:00.001-05:00

O Rex Gentium: “O King of all the nations, the only joy of every human heart; O Keystone of the mighty arch of man, come and save the creature you fashioned from the dust.” Isaiah had prophesied, “For a child is born to us, a son is given us; upon his shoulder dominion rests. They name him Wonder-Counselor, God-Hero, Father-Forever, Prince of Peace.” (9:5), and “He shall judge between the nations, and impose terms on many peoples. They shall beat their swords into plowshares and their spears into pruning hooks; one nation shall not raise the sword against another, nor shall they train for war again.” (2:4) .

O Antiphons -O Oriens (Dec 21)

2008-12-22T07:18:00.001-05:00

O Oriens: “O Radiant Dawn, splendor of eternal light, sun of justice: come, shine on those who dwell in darkness and the shadow of death.” Isaiah had prophesied, “The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light; upon those who dwelt in the land of gloom a light has shown.” (9:1).

O Anthiphons-O Clavis David (Dec. 20)

2008-12-22T07:17:00.001-05:00

O Clavis David: “O Key of David, O royal Power of Israel controlling at your will the gate of Heaven: Come, break down the prison walls of death for those who dwell in darkness and the shadow of death; and lead your captive people into freedom.” Isaiah had prophesied, AI will place the Key of the House of David on His shoulder; when he opens, no one will shut, when he shuts, no one will open.” (22:22), and “His dominion is vast and forever peaceful, from David’s throne, and over His kingdom, which he confirms and sustains by judgment and justice, both now and forever.” (9:6).

7 Hours! And a head wound

2008-12-20T07:33:00.007-05:00

7 hours. In a row. That's how much uninterrupted sleep I got last night....I still can't quite believe it. While that doesn't seem all that monumental, I can probably count on two hands the number of times that's happened in the past twelve years. Between being pregnant or having a nursling without stop over the last decade, my brain (as a part of my body) has atrophied and all that remains of a once great ability to sleep is a vague shadow of remembrance. So even on the freak occurrence when all of the children sleep through the night, my body sputters and coughs itself awake, protecting me from the danger of getting more than four hours of continuous sleep, or from the threat of sleeping past six o'clock.

Our youngest, Andrew, will be two in February - information which I am sure extrapolates into a particular number of months, but knowing that detailed information is reserved to parents of far fewer children. I'm doing well just to know how many children I've got, and to have a general idea of where they are. You'd think in a 2 bedroom, 1 bathroom house I'd always know where everyone is, but oddly this is not so. Anyway, so this two year old, was a pretty good sleeper post-womb eviction. It might have been Zoloft laden breastmilk, or perhaps that he hadn't yet had enough exposure to The Others yet to watch and learn that sleep is something which a child avoids at all costs.

For awhile a couple years ago, some of the older children had decided to try out the phrase "What the!?" as a regular interjection. As if in prophecy of how influenced he'd be by The Others, Andrew was born and the expression which he most normally wore couldn't be mistaken for anything else but, "What the!?". He had a freakish ability to stare and watch without blinking; it was unnerving at times. We thought perhaps that he was wondering what he'd done to get here, or that he'd be one of those "easy", "laid back" children about whom we'd heard others speak.

Now here in the dark lands of Toddlerhood, the truth has been unearthed. Andrew wasn't judging The Others with detached disdain. He was studying. Studying hard. The kid is the paragon of childhood. He is truly a prodigy. To illustrate: the other night while the rest of us were curled up by Christmas tree light chanting along to choruses of "You'll shoot your eye out!", Andrew had slipped quietly away, down the hall to the dress-ups. Stealthily, he crept back exploding into the living room pirate hatted and sword brandished, letting out a hearty "Arrrhhhhh!", before running through both me and one of his sisters before he could be relieved of his weapon. Recall: he is not. even. two.

Andrew knows where everything is, which shoes, clothes and toys belong to whom, how to play tea party, how to climb to pretty much wherever he wants to go- using multiple chairs and make shift step stools if needed. To keep the climbing in perspective, The Others are prodigious climbers. They climb the walls, literally. They climb fences, they climb metal poles, they climb so high in trees that I simply must turn away because it makes me so nauseous to watch. So when I say that Andrew climbs, I mean he climbs. In his absolute determination to be included in everything The Others do, he is just absolute destruction in motion.

As I type he is playing tea party with his just-turned-four-year-old sister. It starts out that he carried the supplies to her piece by piece, came to me and shoved a plate in my face insisting that I "eat" (make chewing and yum noises). Somewhere in the middle of this, a flip is switched, his body remembered that he is an inhabitant of Toddlerhood, and he summarily threw everything behind him in a methodical fury. Nothing must be left to remain. This is his whole day. Everyday. A trail of carnage left in his wake.

This morning I was lamenting about how chaotic the house looks, as well as how I can't seem to get anything accomplished. As I looked at the piles of my stuff I just can't seem to get put away I thought, "What the!? Why can't I get this done when I just got seven hours of sleep. I ought to be invincible today. I really ought to be able to be more productive" And then I got whacked in the head by a tomahawk.

O Antiphons- O Radix Jesse

2008-12-19T21:41:00.000-05:00

O Radix Jesse: “O Flower of Jesse’s stem, you have been raised up as a sign for all peoples; kings stand silent in your presence; the nations bow down in worship before you. Come, let nothing keep you from coming to our aid.” Isaiah had prophesied, “But a shoot shall sprout from the stump of Jesse, and from his roots a bud shall blossom.” (11:1), and On that day, the root of Jesse, set up as a signal for the nations, the Gentiles shall seek out, for his dwelling shall be glorious.” (11:10). Remember also that Jesse was the father of King David, and Micah had prophesied that the Messiah would be of the house and lineage of David and be born in David’s city, Bethlehem (Micah 5:1).

O Antiphons- OAdonai

2008-12-18T07:16:00.002-05:00

O Adonai: “O sacred Lord of ancient Israel, who showed yourself to Moses in the burning bush, who gave him the holy law on Sinai mountain: come, stretch out your mighty hand to set us free.” Isaiah had prophesied, “But He shall judge the poor with justice, and decide aright for the land’s afflicted. He shall strike the ruthless with the rod of his mouth, and with the breath of his lips he shall slay the wicked. Justice shall be the band around his waist, and faithfulness a belt upon his hips.” (11:4-5); and “Indeed the Lord will be there with us, majestic; yes the Lord our judge, the Lord our lawgiver, the Lord our king, he it is who will save us.” (33:22).

O Antiphons, - O Sapientia

2008-12-17T07:05:00.005-05:00

Today begins the concerted final liturgical push to prepare ourselves for Christmas. For more than a millennium, these prayers have been part of the tradition of the Church. The term "O Antiphons" refers to the the antiphons (short verses) said before the Magnificat each day while praying Vespers the evenings immediately preceding Christmas . Each antiphon focuses on a different title of Jesus, stemming from Isaiah's prophecies concerning Him, and focusing on a different aspect or attribute of Jesus. For those who don't know, Vespers are the prayers said in the evening as part of the Liturgy of the Hours-which is the praying of the Psalms done by the religious and clergy, and optionally by lay persons, everyday. There are particular hours designated for praying each of the many different Psalms throughout the day, and the practice essentially translates to the Church praying always-someone, somewhere on the earth is praying the Hours at all times. To me it is particularly moving to contemplate that we are also not only always praying, but that we are all also praying the very same prayers. That sense of connectedness overpowers this little waif, who has always struggled in feeling isolated and alone. The rhythmic and perpetual praying of the Psalms is also very moving, as I can relate to the ebb and flow of the Psalms, which sometimes are overcome with joy and others cry out, wondering where, where is God. So this week, I will post each of the Antiphons and some personal reflections about them.

O Sapientia: “O Wisdom, O holy Word of God, you govern all creation with your strong yet tender care. Come and show your people the way to salvation.” Isaiah had prophesied, “The spirit of the Lord shall rest upon him: a spirit of wisdom and of understanding, a spirit of counsel and of strength, a spirit of knowledge and fear of the Lord, and his delight shall be the fear of the Lord.” (11:2-3), and “Wonderful is His counsel and great is His wisdom.” (28:29).

"Come and show your people the way to salvation." How is it that Jesus comes to us? He comes not as a storm, nor as a mighty warrior- rather in His infinite wisdom and power, He comes to us as a newborn baby. He comes to us tiny and helpless and completely reliant upon others for His well being. He comes to us in total poverty, surrounded by livestock and dung.

It is an awesome thing to contemplate, that showing us the way to salvation begins with such abject vulnerability. It is a lesson which I think we often lose throughout our lives. We both construct ways of protecting ourselves from being vulnerable, and at the same time transform the practice of faith into something where we essentially try to work hard enough on our own to get to heaven, so easily forgetting that we are One Body and that we are in this together. But here in this Baby, we see that Wisdom has it that we are to bare ourselves wide open before one another and that interdependence is a virtue , not something to be overcome.

The "fear of the Lord" in the context of a baby is so overwhelming to me that contemplating it makes my eyes fill up with tears. I remember well, the fear I had when our oldest son (now 11) was born. I had never loved, nor been loved so unconditionally. Before he was born I had given two babies up for adoption. In those early weeks and months of our son's life, I couldn't help but be fearful that he might go, that I might lose this love, that now having knowledge of the depth and breadth of this love, a new gaping wound and emptiness would erupt if this little baby, my son, was now to fade out of my life. I held this little boy in such wonder and awe, and our interdependence was the impetus for so much healing in my very broken soul. If he hadn't been so needy, or wanted to nurse so much, I probably would never have fully embraced motherhood, as I would have left him with his dad more and gone out with my friends. If he hadn't been grown inside of and birthed naturally by and nurtured through what, up to then, I viewed as my worthless body, I never would have had the courage to say for the first time that I had been raped as my first sexual experience at age fourteen. I never would have taken that first step in beginning to heal from that horror which up to that point, unbeknownest to me, had defined my life. Peering at my wee little son, simultaneously brought up to the surface of my consciousness the broken past and the promise of a different, unknown future; a future both filled with promise and possibility and at the same time a new and deeper vulnerability than I had ever yet experienced.

Let us today contemplate this "fear of the Lord" as not one of being punished, but rather one of a radical transformation of healing and love brought forth by healthful interdependence upon one another. Let us view it through picking up our little, wet, newborn-smelling baby, gazing at his smallness , feeling our hearts intertwine. For it is through this view where true Wisdom lies, the essence of our universal vocation, to give love and be loved with wild abandon, even though we are afraid of what we might lose.

Wanna Read It With Me?

2008-12-15T19:10:00.005-05:00

Mr. Ives' Christmas by Oscar Hijuelos. Available at your local Barnes and Noble, your local library, or if you must-used through Amazon for like a penny. Here's a blurb for it:

"The spirit of Charles Dickens seems to hover over the pages of Oscar Hijuelos' fourth novel. A Christmas Carol comes to mind frequently, for most of the transformations in Edward Ives' life occur during the holiday season. As a very young child of unknown parentage and uncertain ethnicity he is admitted to a Catholic orphanage. His years there permanently fuse in his imagination his love of the season with a belief in the redemptive power of faith. He is adopted by a sweet-tempered widower at Christmas. He meets his wife Anne at Christmas. And, in the tragic event at the heart of the novel, he loses his 17-year-old son to an act of random violence during the holiday. Much of the novel's action is taken up with Ives' long struggle to retain his faith in the face of loss, and to reaffirm it by reaching out to his son's imprisoned murderer.
As he demonstrated in his exuberant earlier novels (The Mambo Kings Play Songs of Love, The Fourteen Sisters of Emilio Montez O'Brien), Hijuelos shares with Dickens a deep conviction that often serves to preserve or redeem us. He's also fascinated with the way in which place shapes our lives, recording here an exact, gritty portrait of Mr. Ives' New York City neighborhood from the 1920s to the present.

Missing: Mary, Mother of God. Last Seen: Shoved Down In the Couch Covered In Popcorn Kernels

2008-12-14T08:35:00.014-05:00

Mary is missing. We hide the Mary and Joseph figurines from the nativity set each day for the kids to find, as the Holy Family "traverses" ever closer to the stable, where they'll finally reside on Christmas Eve. The whole experience culminates in a raucous rendition of "Happy Birthday, Jesus" when we get home from Christmas Mass and place Jesus in the stable, while at least one child tells us that actually Jesus was probably born in a cave. But Mary is gone. I have looked everywhere. The four of the five kids who are old enough to understand, in theory, directions have scoured the house for her. I think she saw our Christmas preparations and headed for the hills. My guess is that after being in toddler mouths and sticky hands an untold number of times, carried around in the bottom of bags full of pre-schooler "treasure" for hours at a go,and shoved in the microwave more often than a frozen burrito (no, not her donkey-though he ends up there with some regularity, too) , Mary thought to herself, "These people are nuts. There's no way I'm going to stick around there! I'm outta here."

The blogosphere is ripe with idyllic, peace-filled Christmas preparations. Wives, mothers, and homemakers baking and crafting and immersing themselves in nurturing activities with their children in pristine houses. Checkout Charming the Birds From the Trees, Like Merchant Ships, There's No Place Like Home for fine examples. And reading in open-mouthed awe I can only come to one conclusion: I must be doing it wrong.

I think the first place things go awry is the organisation-through-absolute-randomness approach we have in storage. All of the Advent and Christmas stuff is packed in the Scary Place I Don't Go, otherwise known as the attic. Year to year it's never packed away the same, and the labels on the outside of the boxes and totes have years of conflicting information. So just getting down the things to begin preparing is at least a day long event filled with all of the dramatic tension (but none of the promise of cold hard cash) of Deal or No Deal. Even now, after many trips up the Exorcist steps we still are missing things. Things I know we have. It eats at me. It wakes me nights after dreaming about frantically tearing open box after box after box. It's like a chase-dream, but it's the December 24th deadline which looms in pursuit.

Don't get me wrong. I like peace. I like joy. I like little Christmas knickknacks placed artistically around the home. I like the idea of little crafts and quiet prayers of preparation with my children. But the knickknacks in our home become projectiles, the crafts end with glue in someone's hair and someone writing on the walls, the prayers end up with threats from mommy to send everyone to bed forever.

Our Christmas decorating looks far more like those boxes and totes came down those rickety stairs turned their heads around while spouting obscenities and spewed out their contents around our house. Putting them up involved dehooking an ornament hanger from someone's finger, a snowball-esque ornament fight over the kitchen table, a duct tape incident about which we shall just not speak. There are death matches over which Christmas movie to watch next, which Christmas book we'll read tonight, over who gets to to put which ornament on the tree where. Christmas is historically a disaster prone time for us, trees toppling over and pies dropping and dripping all over in, out and around the oven.

And yet somehow, year after year, we keep at it. We keep attempting to find our miraculous Christmas peace and good-will inside our holiday mosh pit. We keep trying to make little crafts, and whisper little prayers. I wonder if someday it will be different. I wonder , as all those people assure me against my steadfast refusal to believe it, if I will miss these days once they are gone. For now I will just live one day at a time, each day striving for hope and waiting expectantly...waiting for evening when the children are in bed and hoping they won't get up , so I can crack open the next selection in the Winter Brew beer collection in peace and silence . And if you see Mary, can you let me know? I think I want to hole up with her until after Christmas.

I'm done asking

2008-12-10T16:20:00.003-05:00

What's up with us women? No matter how strong, how independent, how clear minded we normally are- we get into the confines of our child filled homes and turn into cowering first graders. We ask for permission to do everything.

Is it alright if I take a shower? Can you watch the insane-destructo-toddler-bot while I go to the bathroom? Is it alright if I run to the store to get us things for dinner? Is it alright if I make dinner now? Can I vacuum? We're going to have chicken for lunch, is that alright? And even once granted permission, we buzz around like Stepford Wives on speed like we're trying to break the world record for dish washing. And I wonder what's up with that?

Men aren't like that--they want to go to the store, they go to the store. They want to take a random nap- they just lie down or sit down somewhere and fall asleep. They want to take a dump-and it's adios for the next half an hour. Men talk in the declarative- "I am going to go work outside." Women talk in the interrogative, "Would it be alright if I go fold laundry?" Men don't even think twice about it. On the freak occasions where women boldly wander into statement territory, they are racked with guilt- "Am I being selfish?""Am I being neglectful in some way?" "Am I scarring my children irreparably?"

Is this hardwired programming within us women? Is there some unseen pheromone interaction which causes this? Is this something else to take to counseling which has been handed down to us from our mothers, to whom it was handed down by their mothers? Is it an evolutionary advantage of some kind?

Well, I've got to say, I've had it. I am sick of asking permission for every cotton picking detail of my life, even and possibly most especially, for things which are service to others, to those from whom I am requesting permission. No more, I say! I will shower when I want. I will make whatever I please for any meal. I will visit the potty whenever and for how ever long I want. If I am sleepy and there's another adult around, I am going to take a nap. When I need to go to the store I am going to go. I will clean whatever and wherever I feel like it. I will boldly venture into the land of the declarative.....is that okay??

From an email to a friend--Struggling

2008-12-08T11:00:00.004-05:00

I am so sorry about your struggles with rejection. It's always so very hard, particularly when you already struggle with some deep seated feelings of being inherently unlovable. And I know it seems like-and even is- your whole world right now--but if you just hang on and hang in there--things will get better, especially if you start the hard work of trying to heal yourself and to make a place within you to allow healing to happen. I wasted so much freakin' time thinking that if I just prayed more or harder or better then God would fix me--but really I just needed to learn how to allow the pain, accept the pain and really address the awful things which happened to me and really work on acquiring new tools and skills to repattern how I think and act and communicate. Working all that out allowed a place within me so that God's healing could take root. It's why I think the path is narrow--I think most people don't want to do all of the hard work necessary to further themselves along the path towards wholeness, which I think is holiness. God is all about relationship-the Trinity is relationship-the Great Commandments are all about relationship, and we cannot have healthy relationships with anyone if we are relating out of lack, relating out of our brokennesses and weaknesses. Our relationships will only be fulfilling if we relate out of wholeness. That isn't to say that we can't have any weaknesses or that they need to be hidden away and we pretend they aren't there--but rather that we have the courage to bring those broken parts into the light and work on trying to heal them.

I used to think that there were just people out there who were just lucky or blessed or whatever to just be alright--but the honest truth is I don't think anyone is alright. Everyone is a mess. Some people have worked really hard and are working really hard to seek out all they have been created to be (and you know those people when you meet them- they stand out as exceptional people, they are the people who inspire us to do more to reach further and deeper).

Many people have just learned relatively effective, non-destructive coping mechanisms for dealing with their brokennesses, and so they don't seem a mess- but live very superficial lives just going through the motions. I think this makes up most of the people we meet. They seem like things are fine, but they just keep their demons at bay and never become ALL that they have been created to be. These people immerse themselves in work or television or children or even religion and become competent, but they rarely allow themselves to be stretched and challenged.

Others are just walking wounded. They have given in to their hurts and wounds completely. They lead lives of hopelessness essentially. They find the familiar daily agony less scary than the unknown pain of trying to heal and become well. The hurts and wounds become a fortress to hide behind, offering their own form of protection. Often these people ache and cry out for love, but can never seem to get or hold onto that love--which then reinforces the desire to stay immersed in the safety of the pain which is known.

I don't know--somehow when I reflected upon all of that, it made me feel less isolated and alone in my sorrow and hurt. It was as though I didn't need to be born of royal blood or something to get to live a life not defined by pain and brokenness, but rather that it was a universal condition. And that knowledge gave me strength and courage to even begin to try.

I have been all of those people described above, I think. People have often told me that they've been helped by me just sharing my brokenness with them- so while I don't think I am a model of well-being by any means...I think I have helped facilitate others to get further along their own path to wholeness. I think that connectedness with others gives us courage--I don't exactly know how or why that is-but when we don't feel all alone in our struggles it makes them far easier to bear. I think in someways it's that sense of being willing to share the depths of who we are with others who are willing to share their depths. Almost everyone at some point has written something or painted or created something--and has only ever shared it with someone who has first shared their work of art. So maybe our brokenness is in some sense another one of our works of art--and much the same as art, if we do not share it, no one will ever be blessed by it.

So if you are having trouble finding the courage to struggle and let yourself look your pain and the causes of your pain squarely in the face, if you are having trouble doing it for yourself--do it for me. Because without you sharing the depths of your wounds, I cannot grow and be better. And I desperately need to grow and be better.

Have a great, great day--and try to find a moment of true and unique beauty, even it's just the rainbow in an oil slick.

Don't forget to leave your shoes out!

2008-12-06T00:07:00.003-05:00

Tomorrow is St. Nick's Day. LOL! Well technically I guess it's already St. Nick's Day....

Water Update

2008-12-05T15:27:00.004-05:00

Well we had water, a trickle of water, yesterday-but no water pressure. And today when my husband measured the well, it was a foot lower than it was yesterday. *sigh* So that means that we will now start the process of finding out or options as far as finding a new water source (no idea if they can drill from the existing site or if they have to go to a new site, or if drilling is our only option.) I'll probably start making some phone calls today--but I have no idea how that translates into a time frame for having running water again.The inclusive cost runs about $12 a foot, and in GA drilled wells range from around 500-700 feet, depending on where the rock is and where the water is. I have no idea what kind of financing is available, or if with things as they are if there is credit even available. Any chance you think we could get the government to bail us out??

Thank you for all of the prayers, the water, the diapers and paper products, offers for showers and other gifts towards helping us deal with this situation. For someone who has struggled all her life with feelings of being unlovable--I sure have felt deeply and truly loved this past week. I don't think I could have made it through this week and retained my sanity and sense of humour and hope if not for all of you. Thank you--from the depths of my being--and even that seems to so inadequately express what I want to say...

I will continue to update as I know more.