Thanksgiving

We had a lovely Thanksgiving holiday. Some of our dearest friends joined us for the day - Bob and Beth and their beautiful daughter, and our dear friend Denny. We ate and drank and were merry. Elise didn't quite get into the holiday spirit. She was cranky for most of the afternoon. Had we not been among such close friends, I would have been most embarrassed by her behavior. I think some of it was due to teething pains, some of it to the stimulation of having guests, and some of it to downright orneriness, as my dad would say. (Although the southern Illinoisan drawl makes it sound like "awnry" rather than "ornery".)

On Friday morning we beat all odds (odds being in favor of me sleeping in) and left the house just after 7:00 for day-after-Thanksgiving-shopping. This is something I had never done before. We went to three stores. The first two were absolute mad houses. One of them had a check-out line that actually lined the entire interior perimeter of the store, both upstairs and down. We did not buy anything at that store, and we did not stick around long enough to watch the line begin to spiral, which I am quite certain it probably ended up doing. The third store was Fred Meyer, and it was completely manageable; perhaps a little busier than usual, but rather an oasis in the middle of the rest of the retail madness. I was glad we went. Beth had tipped me off to Fred Meyer's 1/2 sale on socks, so I stocked up.

On Friday evening we made the trek down to Portland to spend the rest of the weekend with my family. It was a pleasant time, aside from sleeping. Elise does not sleep well anywhere but her crib, and hasn't for about 6 months. She traveled well as an infant, and we were able to travel a bit and stay in variety of places. Our last easy trip was in May, when we drove to southern California and back. She did pretty well on that trip, but since then has just not slept well anywhere but at home. Oh, well. So anyway, we had a nice time with my family. Everyone who lives in the area gathered at my parents' house on Saturday. This does not happen often. There are quite a few of us, so for everyone to be available on the same day takes a bit of planning. There were...let's see...seventeen of us there. My parents, myself and five younger siblings, my husband and three of my sisters' husbands, my daughter, a niece, and three nephews. There were many who were not there. My older siblings are scattered across the country. We have never all been in the same place at the same time. That would make for quite the family reunion. Those who were not there on Saturday include a sister and three brothers, a brother-in-law and three sisters-in-law, four nephews and one step-nephew, and three nieces. Mayhem.

When we arrived home on Sunday night, we were greeted by a house covered in snow. Now, three days later, the snow is still here. This is somewhat unusual for northwestern Washington. It is very pretty. Andy went to work today for the first time this week. The roads were just too treacherous on previous days. Of course today he is sick, but went in just the same, having missed nearly half the work week already. This leads me to another thought. Earlier in the season, just as the weather was turning cold, I resolved to fight sickness with a gusto this winter. I planned to keep our house as disinfected as possible, focusing on the bathrooms and kitchen. Well, that was really only a matter of weeks ago, and Andy and Elise are both now enduring their second bouts of illness. I'm not even counting minor colds, as those seem nearly impossible to control with a toddler. I'm talking about down and out, medicated, doctor's visits type illnesses. Well, okay, so neither Elise nor Andy have seen a doctor yet with this one, but still...they are sick. And it's still only November. What's going on?!?!

I had intended this post to be about Thanksgiving, and about things for which I am thankful. I guess I got a bit off track.

Details, Details

Last Thursday I spent an hour and a half at the fabric store, trying to find everything I needed for the various Christmas projects I had decided to do. I got everything I needed, which is unusual for me. My usual approach to sewing is to do what I can with what I have, and once I cannot carry on without more supplies, then I go to the store. This time I made a detailed list of everything that would be needed - fabric, buttons, batting, elastic, thread, fusible fleece - and bought it all at once. I was so excited that I started working right away. Now, four days later, here is what I have accomplished so far:



You can't tell from the picture, but the stocking is quilted. I wanted to make it from pre-quilted fabric, but couldn't find any with a Christmas theme. I used free-motion quilting on it. It was the first time I had done free-motion quilting, and it was so much fun! The stocking is for Elise.

Now all that remains are the details. That's where I always slow down. The tree skirt will have a backing sewn to it, as well as some ribbon ties. The stocking will have a white flannel cuff with a red pom-pom trim, and the cuff will have "Elise" embroidered on it.

I may actually finish the Christmas projects in time for Christmas this year! I do have some other items that I'm working on, but they are intended to be gifts, so I won't post them until after the holidays.

Family

We had the best evening yesterday! It started with a rough day. Elise had a hard time napping. She went down for a nap at her usual time, around 11:30am, and slept for a whopping 25 minutes. Then she woke up all congested and mucus-y, which always upsets her. Every time she wakes up like that, she is very, very upset. So I rocked her back to sleep, but she woke up again. All in all she slept for 45 minutes, with two fairly significant waking periods breaking up the already insufficient nap. A bad start to the afternoon. She was okay for most of the afternoon - a little sensitive, as she usually is when she's tired, but not as challenging as I expected her to be, considering the poor nap. Then just before 4:00, she started to show her classic tired symptoms - crankiness, clinginess, poor coordination. Without much hope of success, I decided to try for a second nap. Elise dropped her second nap a month or so ago, and since then has only reverted to it when she was sick. But lo and behold - it worked! She slept until 5:30! Andy and I quickly recognized our opportunity. Normally Elise goes to bed at 7:00, but we knew there was no way that would happen with having allowed her such a late nap. So we gave her her dinner and piled into the car.

I had planned to be out that evening anyway, albeit alone, as I had to check on the nursery at church. A friend had graciously agreed to work in the nursery last night, which was so nice for me. It was the third week in a row, and fourth out of five, that I was short one person in the nursery, and I had filled in myself on all the other weeks. It was really nice to have a break and not have to fill in again. I don't really mind doing it, but it was still a nice break. But anyway, so I had to just stop in and make sure someone had unlocked the nursery for them and they had everything they needed, etc. That was our first stop, and after that, we were free! We attempted to do some Christmas shopping, but didn't find what we were looking for. Then we decided to try going out for dinner. By that time, it was 8:00, one hour past Elise's normal bedtime. She was in a good mood - had had a fabulous time playing with a ball and walking up and down the aisles at Target - but we were afraid that dinner would really be pushing it. We decided to try anyway. She was so good. We were amazed. She was playful; she stayed in her highchair the entire time, without fussing; she waved at every single person she saw until they either were out of sight or had waved back. It was so great. On our way home, Andy and I agreed that it was the most pleasant evening out we've had in quite some time.

We're not planning on making a late afternoon nap and 9:00 bedtime the norm for Elise, but it certainly did make for a fine night. I realize, as I read back over this, that this account does not make our evening sound wonderful. So we ran errands and had dinner. We didn't even find what we were looking for at the store. Big deal, right? Well...yeah. It was a big deal. And you know what we enjoyed the most? It was at dinner, while we were waiting for our food. We pushed everything to the far end of the table and played with a small toy fire truck that we had brought in for Elise. I would push it to Andy, he would push it to Elise, she would push it to me. Elise made "vroom, VROOM!" sound effects and was just tickled pink, laughing and waving her hands and getting so excited. It was a good time. If our waiter had been a genie and had given me the chance to go anywhere and do anything I wanted right then, I would have asked to stay where I was. It was just a perfect moment.

House & Home

Ah, home. I love home. I love being home. I love taking care of our home...if not always the actual process of doing so, at least the satisfaction of it. Lately I have read a lot of blogs that talk about home, living well, simple pleasures, etc. I like all of these ideas, but there is something missing, and it has taken me a while to figure out what it is. The concepts are good. Enjoy life's simple pleasures...slow down...don't get caught up in the rat race...make your home a haven. Several blogs and sites talk about the idea of "hygge", a Danish word to which there is no direct English equivalent, referring to a sense of quality and comfort and warmth in domestic life. Again...a good idea, but not a complete one.

Some of the things I have recently read have talked about the idea of "personalizing" your home as opposed to "decorating" it. This is an idea that I like, and that I have subscribed to for some time. I do not wish for my home to be "decorated", as if it belonged in a showroom (those of you who know me and have been to my house know that the idea of my home being a showroom model is laughable). I want my home to be comfortable, to be welcoming, I want to not be concerned if something is spilled on the carpet or a watermark is left on the coffee table or mud is tracked in from outside. I mean, I want to take care of things, of course - it would be wasteful and irresponsible not to - but I want people to feel at ease in my home. Nearly all of the objects that are out as "decorations" are there because they have special meaning to us. They are gifts from loved ones, or photographs, or mementos from special occasions. So for the most part, I have enjoyed the writings about this kind of homemaking, where the objective is "hominess", not decoration. But still, something was not quite right.

I had to really think about what it was in these articles and blogs that left me feeling uneasy. They all professed to appreciate handmade items, well made and classic furniture and clothing, and a careful, studied approach to consumerism. The authors all dislike big chain stores and cheap, mass-produced goods that serve no lasting purpose. Most of them try to focus their time and energy on family and friends, and they work hard to give their homes as hospitable an air as possible. What is wrong with these things? Why do I still get the feeling that their efforts are empty?

God. They are missing God. Whether the people are or not is not for me to judge, but their writings are. The focus of all of these ideas is still on "me". What will make me happy? How can I be most comfortable? I think that so often in this country, we think of materialism only as stereotypical American consumerism, which many of us profess to disdain and avoid (although, truth be told, very few actually succeed in avoiding it). We think of materialism as always wanting the newest cars, electronics, gadgets, the most fashionable clothing. I think that a lot of us think that if we prefer secondhand stores to department stores, then we are not materialistic. If we like the appearance of a rough, handmade table more than that of a sleek Ethan Allen table, then we are not materialistic. If we would prefer to renovate an old, abandoned farmhouse in the country rather than build a cookie cutter, manicured house in a suburban development, then we are not materialistic. Once again, we have fallen into the trap of believing that we can apply our own definitions to sin. Countercultural does not always mean morally better.

[Please understand, when I use the word "materialistic", I am referring to a love of material things, an obsession with possessions, a lifestyle of greed and discontent. I do not mean the philosophy of materialism, in which all things that cannot be explained by physical matter are irrelevant.]

Earlier this year, I read a book called The Most Important Place On Earth by Robert Wolgemuth. It talked about the essence of a Christian home. He discusses things like respect for the power of words; plenty of laughter (but no sarcasm); celebration. Basically the book is about allowing your home to be used as a shining light of God's love in your neighborhood. I have read other books by Christian authors that proclaim to be about the same thing, but they take a very different approach. I read a book that actually suggested that one way to show hospitality to your neighbors is to install a winding brick path from the driveway to your front door. That's a fine idea, but there is nothing fundamentally hospitable about it. Letting your neighbors walk up a brick path before they enter your home does not inherently mean that you will welcome them. Consistently reflecting God's love to them through respect, kindness, and compassion is much more likely to give them the assurance that they will always be welcome in your home. I truly believe that we should stop trying so hard to make people feel that they are important to us, and instead start actually making them important - actually making people a priority. If they really are important to us, it will show. Efforts to convince others that we value them when we really don't will fall flat.

Well, this is a rather jumbled collection of my thoughts on homemaking and hospitality. I guess that's why I'm a blogger and not a professional writer.

Child Development

Over the last week, Elise has taken great strides in the "following instructions" discipline. Andy and I are amazed. She is generally an obedient child, understanding "no no", "take a drink", "say bye-bye", etc. But lately she has started to do other things, things that we have not deliberately taught her to do. This mostly involves going to the appropriate place for a given activity. When we say, "it's time to change your diaper", she will go to the corner where we keep her diapers and will sit on the floor and wait for us. (She tried to actually lie down in the usual diaper changing spot, but her attempt consisted of sitting and then simply flinging herself backward. This is a technique that we discourage.) When I say, "it's naptime", she will gather her pacifier and her lamb and will walk to her room. We keep the door to her room closed, so she'll just stand there and wait for us, sometimes hitting the door as if to say, "Open up!". The same with mealtime - she'll go and wait for us at her high chair. If we say "we're going to go bye-bye in the car", she will go and stand at the baby gate. It seems that something just clicked in her mind. This happened so suddenly. There was no gradual learning or practice. She just started doing it. Last night, Andy was home alone with Elise. Without prompting, Elise went and sat in her diaper changing corner and waited. Andy followed her cue and changed her diaper. Once that was done, Elise stood up and walked to her room. Apparently it was bedtime. It's so great! And it's so cute! We love watching her grow and learn and discover new things and develop an understanding of herself and the world around her. And we know that there is nothing unusually astounding about this. We know that this is a normal phase of development that all healthy children reach. We do not flatter ourselves by thinking that Elise is extraordinarily gifted or brilliant, and are in fact quite satisfied that she is healthy and happy and is developing as she should. But just because something is normal does not mean it is not amazing or beautiful. I think that being enchanted by the ordinary is a sure way of experiencing joy. I hope I will always be enchanted by children.

Every Little Bit

Today is one of those days when I have to remind myself that every little bit helps. Every spoon that makes it into the dishwasher, every can that makes it into the recycling bin, every article of clothing that makes it into the hamper...each little thing contributes to the overall order and neatness of my home. Sometimes I feel overwhelmed by housekeeping. I'll never be done with it, of course. I understand that. But on some days I feel that I cannot even accomplish what I strive to accomplish each and every day - general order, cleanliness, and a sense of home and family. (Really, shouldn't every home and family have a sense of home and family?) On those days, when even these most elementary virtues seem unattainable, I have to deliberately think about what I am doing and remind myself that by picking up that book or by closing that cupboard door I am working towards my goal.

Things I Never Did Until I Had A Child

1) washed a sinkful of Legos
2) cried at commercials for childrens' relief agencies
3) said, "we don't eat penguins"
4) grieved for inmates on death row because they are somebody's child
5) said, "we don't put English muffins in our hair"
6) washed mashed graham crackers from a window
7) figured out how to stroke a sleeping baby's hair without allowing the hair to fall back into the baby's face, thus waking them up
8) cared whether stores had elevators/public restrooms/changing tables/wide aisles/automatic doors
9) got angry at teenaged (or older) drivers trying to be cool
10) made up and sang a song about "diaper changing time" - in public
11) left a trail of Cheerios and socks in the mall
12) said "no" when asked to take on more than I could reasonably handle

Mudslingers

Last night I voted. I had hoped to read or sew or both, but alas, I put off voting until the last minute, so my evening was spent reading about propositions and initiatives and candidates. All of the local issues were fine. They took the longest to read about and they were the most difficult to decide on, as there are pros and cons to both sides of the arguments. But they were fine. It was the Senate race that bugged me. There are two really big oppositions in this year's election in Washington - the Senate race and the House Representative race for Congressional District 8. I am not in this district, so it didn't really affect the way I voted at all, but theirs was certainly the most publicized of the Congressional races, so all of northwestern Washington was subjected to their advertisements. These two pairs of candidates engaged in a tremendous amount of mudslinging. It was appalling. I know of no other profession in which people can get hired by telling their prospective employer just how horrible the other candidates are. Stop it, people! I don't want to hear about how bad your opponent is. Tell me how good you are. What are you going to do for the people you serve? Dave Reichert, one of the Congressional candidates, was probably the cleanest. He talked more of his own record, his own qualifications, and less of his opponent's - well, her lack of record and qualifications. He did not abstain completely from throwing some mud in her direction, but he threw a lot less than she did. The Senate candidates sucked. Not just in the mudslinging arena, but overall. I felt as though I had to choose the lesser of two evils. Their campaigns were run almost exclusively on the premise that their opponent is bad, not on the premise that they are good. Come ON!

A while back I saw a bumper sticker that read, "When Clinton lied, nobody died." Disregarding the absolute irrelevancy of this statement, I started thinking about how sad it was. Is that what politics in our country have become? "Our candidate isn't as corrupt as your candidate"? Is that the best we can do?

Sometimes I feel overwhelmed and deeply saddened by the corrupt state of our country, by the extreme pain and apparent hopelessness in the world. Then I feel overwhelmed and deeply saddened by how little I can do about it. I try to "make it [my] ambition to lead a quiet life, to mind [my] own business, and to work with [my] hands" (1 Thes. 4:11), but that does not negate the corruption and suffering that is all around me. I guess this is just a reminder that our hope is not to be found in this world.

Weekend

We've had another lovely weekend. It started on Friday evening when some friends called us to say that they would provide dessert if we would provide the house in which to eat it. We agreed. Soon we were enjoying the company of friends, a crackling fire, hot coffee and perfect pumpkin bread. It was such a great evening. Sometimes with these particular friends, the conversation content goes far beyond my understanding. They are both engineers, one Master's trained and the other working on his Ph.D. Get them together with my M.S.E.E. husband and suddenly you feel as though you are watching a foreign film with no subtitles. Fortunately, our friend Judy can only talk about transistors and circuit boards for so long, so she quickly removed herself from the technobabble and joined the English-speaking world, wherein Denny and I were getting by with our humble B.A.s.

On Saturday Andy had a meeting for the better part of the day, Denny was moving into her new apartment, and Elise treated me by taking a 2 1/2 hour nap. I used the time to put together a quilt top, cut out a pattern for another project, and work on the hat that I was crocheting for Elise. It was an enjoyable way to spend an afternoon alone. Later in the day, Denny treated us doubly by first staying with Elise while Andy and I went browsing at Cost Plus World Market and then by buying dinner from Pagliacci's. Mmm...Pagliacci's. Anyhow, if you have not visited Cost Plus, it really is a great place to find some unique items. Perfect for Christmas gifts, particularly stocking stuffers. It is, however, a difficult store in which to attend to small children - thus Denny's generous gift of babysitting.

Sunday was a full but pleasant day. We allowed ourselves a luxuriously slow morning and attended the late service at church. The pastor tackled that oh-so-sensitive passage of Scripture, Colossians 3:18, 19 - wives, submit to your husbands, husbands, love your wives. The "husbands, love your wives" part is easy for most people to swallow. It is in keeping with the social standards of our day, even if many people only pay it lip service. The first part, though, the directive to wives, is much more difficult for modern folk to wrap their minds and, more importantly, their hearts around. The pastor did a fine job of teaching that particular passage, I thought, although he really didn't spend all that much time specifically on it. He talked at some length about the importance of obedience, on how we must stop trying to accept the salvation that Christ offers without also accepting His lordship - a concept foreign to most people today, especially those of us in the U.S. of A. He asked a good question. Do I believe that God's Word is fundamentally beautiful, logical, and good? Or do I believe that when it comes to me, the directives found in Scripture are optional? To believe that some things are optional, or are to be executed only at my discretion, is to believe that I know better than God what is best - for me, for the Church, for the world. Yikes. I'd like to stay as far away from that heresy as possible, please. The pastor also talked about the tragedy that hit the Church last week - the moral failure of one of the most prominent pastors in our country. I personally had not heard of him until the news story broke, and I have to admit that when I heard the news, I assumed the man to be an obvious phony, a rich conartist who scammed widows out of their Social Security funds, a man whose moral downfall could have been easily predicted. As it turns out, this is not the case. Ted Haggard was widely respected in the evangelical Christian community. He pastored a megachurch in Colorado Springs, and, while I am not a big fan of megachurches myself, his congregation took major strides in world missions under his leadership, so much so that apparently many other churches in the country looked to his church as an example after which to model their own missions programs. The man's behavior is inexcusable, there is no question of that. But my heart breaks for him, for his wife and five children, for his congregation, for his colleagues. Please pray for all those affected by this, and please remember to support your own pastors as best you know how. Ministry is hard. Ministers are under constant pressure to be perfect, to set a moral example, and I believe we can be certain that they are under constant attack by the Enemy. Pray for your leaders, and help them however you can. They put a lot on the line in their desire to see you in heaven.

Well, that was a big detour from my "pleasant day". So after church we helped Denny move the last of her things into her new place, dropped in to say hi to some friends who have a new baby (Andy really had to twist my arm on that one, let me tell you), and came home for our last evening with Denny. Sad. She has been here for four weeks, and we have truly loved having her in our home. Last night we all watched Pride and Prejudice together, Denny and I laughing at the same parts, Andy looking at us as though we could hear something that he could not, and then Denny left. I am really happy for her that she found such a great place to live - a nice apartment in a house in Seattle, close to everything. But I'll miss having her around here.

And now it's Monday, and I have spent a good deal of time blogging, and I really should do something about the dishes in the sink and the Kix on the floor.

Embracing the elements

Here it is, Monday morning, the first Monday of November (yikes! that means I'd better finish voting today). November is usually a dreary month in my mind. Here in the Northwest, it is typically soggy and raining and dismal, punctuated by periods of nose-biting cold. Even now, as I look out my kitchen window, I see that this is true. The sky is monochromatically gray. It is drizzling (oh, how I miss the sudden, severe downpours of the Midwest - none of this constant drizzle that is heavy enough to chill you to the bone, but so light that you feel utterly ridiculous in carrying an umbrella or in running to your car). Most of the beautiful fall foliage is gone, at least from the trees that I can see from where I sit. My outside table is covered in a shallow pool of water and in soggy pine needles. My tomato plant is black and drooping and looks like something that would wash in with the tide, and yet - and here is the real paradox of the Northwest - it is covered in tomatoes, some red and some so green that there is no hope of their ripening before Jack Frost comes to claim them. No, it is not pretty outside right now. And yet, somehow, this November doesn't seem dismal and dreary to me. I was dreading it - I always dread winter here - but there seems to have been no reason to do so. Perhaps I have finally been acclimated to the weather of the Pacific Northwest. Perhaps being home during the day, and not in a windowless office as in years past, has reduced any seasonal blues. Perhaps my husband and I have become more accustomed with age and with a child to the quieter pleasures that staying home affords us, thus eliminating "cabin fever". Whatever the reason, I am thankful. And really, isn't that what November is about?

Pretty Things

I'm always reading blogs wherein people write about and post pictures of objects that they have found at thrift stores or yard sales. I'm not really a big thrift or yard sale shopper - that is, I don't spend every weekend browsing for a good deal - but I did make it to a few yard sales over the summer, and have visited several thrift stores over the last couple of months. I decided to post my own favorite finds. These are all handmade tablecloths. (Not handmade by me. I was just lucky enough to find them.) I told Andy last night that I am on a bit of a textile craze right now, and I might add that the craze revolves around flowers. I'm really liking floral fabrics right now, especially rather delicate looking ones. Anyway, the two tablecloths on the left are about as girly as it gets. They are made from a rather heavy fabric - I'm not sure what it is - and are lined with a nice, soft cotton. They fit my little kitchen table perfectly. The other two are, unfortunately, just a tad too small for my table. That disappointed me, because I think they are so pretty. But that's okay - I'll just turn them into something else. I'm not sure what yet. It will be hard for me to cut them, but I'll manage.
This beautiful set of books was found at a yard sale close to our house. They are wonderful. They're too advanced for our 14-month old, of course, but they are on her shelf, waiting for her little mind to be ready for their seemingly myriad contents. I truly have a weakness for childrens' books. The lustrous art (some of the best art I have seen, in my opinion, has been in childrens' books), the imaginative adventures, the beautiful innocence. I love them.
The joy of buying used things is that they are inexpensive, and that you can find things that are no longer available to buy new. The danger is that it is easy to feel that you are not spending much money, so you keep picking up more items. Even at a dollar or so a piece, items add up quickly. I try to be discriminating in my choices.

Threadbare

Something wonderful happened today. I ran out of thread. I actually used up an entire spool of thread. This has never happened to me before. I have run out of fabric, yarn, and embroidery floss, but never have I used up an entire spool of thread. My sewing projects are small and typically require only simple stitches, and a spool of thread has a lot of thread on it. It was a great moment. It was much like when you write on the last page of a journal. It's very satisfying. Hours and hours, perhaps months or (in the case of a journal, not so much thread) years, of your life are represented in that journal, and you have used it to its fullest potential. I believe that I used my thread well. It was stitched into quilts and curtains and blankets and burp cloths and table linens, and those things are scattered around the homes of people I love, including the people who live in my own house. Thinking about that has made me want to use all of the things God has given me to their fullest potential. Gifts - objects, talents, nature - should be used well.

I'm going to buy a new spool of the thread (as I ran out in the middle of a project). I'm very excited to see what comes of it.

Patience is a virtue

My daughter is sick. She has never before been quite as sick as she is now. She's had her share of colds and sniffles and mild stomach problems, but this one takes the cake. It's so sad. She has been sick since Sunday afternoon and really doesn't show much sign of improvement at this point. And she's 14 months old, so I can't exactly reason with her and explain why I can't give her very much food at a time. I do explain why, but I don't think she understands. Every time I give her any food - little strips of toast, chicken soup, crackers - she devours it. I know she is hungry, and that breaks my heart. Large quantities of food - well, really, any amount of food - results in very obvious sickness, so we've got to keep it small at this point. Poor thing. She has watched more television this week than in her entire 14 previous months. We don't let her watch TV except when she is sick. I have refamiliarized myself with the PBS kids' programming and the cast of Veggie Tales. This week has made me very pleased that we haven't relied on TV for Elise's entertainment. It really is passive entertainment (quite appropriate for illness, I think), and it is so annoying. I'm not used to having the television on during the day. I suppose I am used to a pretty quiet house. The constant noise and the catchy theme songs give me a headache.

It is not particularly easy to care for a sick toddler. It is not particularly difficult, either. It just requires patience, something that has always been in short supply for me. There have been a couple of days this week when Elise could only sleep when she was being held. Since rest is important for healing, Elise and I spent those days primarily in the rocking chair. There has been much laundering of blankets and stuffed animals and pajamas, and little laundering of anything else. The highlight of my days has been when my husband gets home in the afternoon. He takes Elise and she usually naps in his arms for a while, and I get to clean! Normally this would not excite me, but I cannot tell you how wonderful it has been this week to clean the kitchen and make the bed. That's pretty much all I've done, aside from the sickness related cleaning, but somehow doing those two things in the afternoon makes me feel productive and normal.

There have been a couple of other wonderful graces this week. My husband has been the primary one. He gets up with Elise in the early morning, allowing me to get a little extra rest. I have two part-time jobs, one at my church and one with a store owned by Chris and Janene. Both jobs can be done mostly from home, but require going to the actual physical locations every now and again. On Wednesday evening, I needed to go to both places. Andy went for me. Isn't he wonderful? The other sanity savers this week have been our friend Denny, who is staying with us until her new apartment is ready for her, my library books, and Elise's early bedtime. Elise loves Denny, and Denny, being the oldest of five, is superb with children. When Denny gets home from work, Elise will curl up in her lap just as readily as she will curl up in mine, a fact which has provided me several moments of respite. On Tuesday, after Elise was in bed, Denny asked if I wanted to go to the library with her. Did I ever! (On the day after Denny arrived in Washington, she did two things: she got a Washington drivers license and a King County library card. The next day, she asked us to show her where the nearest Barnes & Noble and Borders bookstores were. That girl has good priorities.) I spent a beautiful hour browsing through the books, and then another 15 minutes browsing through the ice cream at Safeway. I came home with a stack of books that are easy to thumb through while holding a sleeping child, one book that would work wonderfully as a doorstop, and a pint of Sticky Toffee Pudding ice cream. And finally, the last thing that has made this week better is Elise's bedtime. Amazingly, she has not awakened during the night while she has been sick. In fact, we had to wake her up once at 2:30 because she had been sick and had gone back to sleep without making a peep. So every night at 6:30, I change her diaper and her clothes, we say goodnight to Daddy and Denny, get a drink of water, pray, I put her to bed, and then I sigh in sweet relief. The next few hours are spent in adult conversation, sewing, cleaning, reading, watching movies...anything but changing diapers, wiping little noses, and documenting Elise's bodily fluid activity.

The doorstop book, in case you are wondering, is Paul Johnson's Art: A New History. Wow. I picked it up at the library because Bob has reviewed and recommended Johnson's books. Bob is a rather prolific reader, and I enjoy reading his book reviews. His comments on Johnson's books have made me want to read them. I was surprised to find 28 matches to my search for this particular Paul Johnson (there are several authors by that name). Apparently this guy has been writing for quite some time. Anyway, the art history book was the only one of the books that Bob has reviewed that my library had available on Tuesday evening, so I got it. Good golly. When I took the book off the shelf, all of the other books fell to the right. It is huge. This will probably end up being one that I check out many times before I finish it.

This post has taken several hours to write, punctuated by changing a diaper, rocking a baby to sleep (twice), and having a phone conversation with my dad. Elise is awake now, so I'd best be finding something for her to eat.

Crochet

Hurray! At long last, I have finished my first crochet project. I had hoped to complete the entire thing during the month of September, but in actuality it was finished on October 22nd. Ah, well. Three weeks late isn't too bad, I guess. It is very simple, and it was so much fun to do. I like having something to work on in the evenings while I'm talking with my husband or watching TV.

Now it's on to Christmas projects!

Tablerunner

Isn't this cool? I found this 1/2 yd. of fabric in one of my fabric boxes this weekend while I was looking for something else. I bought it several years ago and just never did anything with it. It just happened to be the perfect length and width for a tablerunner. All it took was a quick hem, and I had a nice autumn tablerunner. It made me happy. It's the little things.

It's a Wonderful Life

Yesterday was such a great day. Church in the morning was incredibly uplifting. Now, I don't go to church just because it's "uplifting", and I'm not one to think that every insight I hear is going to change my life forever. But when I do hear a profound truth that I know will impact my life, and when I am uplifted after a church service - well, that just makes for a really good day. I don't mean for that to sound as trivial as it does.

After church we stopped at Country Village for a while, ate some kettle corn (addictive stuff), watched the ducks, and bought a beautiful bouquet of flowers. Later that evening we went grocery shopping, and Elise was so well-behaved in the grocery store. It made for a most pleasant trip. We took one of those shopping carts with the child's car attached to it, and she got to ride around Safeway in her own little car. The horn, fortunately, was broken, but that didn't stop her from "beeping" it throughout the store. When we got home from the grocery store, we put Elise to bed and sat down to eat our own dinner. It was just potato soup and Italian bread, courtesy of Safeway (it is typical of us to go grocery shopping on Sunday evening before we eat dinner, and to pick up something ready-made or easy to make for dinner that evening), and we had some Arbor Mist Blackberry Merlot with it, and it was so good. Ahh. Lovely day.

Recently I have started to feel rather tired of simply maintaining a minimum level of functionality in our home. With a toddler living under our roof, it oftentimes takes nearly all of my time and energy just to keep a basic level of sustenance around here. I keep just enough dishes clean. I keep just enough laundry clean. I keep the house just clean enough to be sanitary. And on most days I feel that that is all I can do. Well, I'm tired of it. I don't think it is impossible to do more. I think it's all about how I choose to spend my time. I think that is true of nearly every endeavor in life. I, along with pretty much everyone else, oftentimes say, "I don't have time for that". And while that is true to an extent, I really believe that we all have been given 24 hours in a day, and we all have been given 7 days in a week, and what we choose to do with that time is more or less up to us. I guess it's a matter of priority. My life is full. So is yours. Everyone's life is full. From daybreak to daybreak, we are busy doing something. Sleeping, eating, working, breathing, resting, playing. We are always doing something. Some priorities are relative, I think. For example, staying in bed for 18 hours a day may be a waste of time for most people, but for a person recovering from surgery, it may be the most important and essential thing they can do with their time. Well, anyway, that was a bit of a tangent. I guess I just mean to say that I am ready to make caring for my home a higher priority than it has been in the recent past. It may not always be of such high priority. There may be times when a member of my family is sick, or when outside commitments require a bit more time and effort than usual, or, frankly, when something more important comes along. One of the joys - and, ironically, struggles - of being a stay-at-home-mom is that I have flexible time. I do not have free time, as so many people insist on believing, but I do have flexible time. This is a joy because it means that I can organize my activities in a way that is best for me and my family. It is a struggle because it means that I have to exercise time management in a way that I did not when I worked under the supervision of someone else. It's something I'm still trying to figure out. But today, right now, I want to pay attention to my home and to make it not just livable, but comfortable, cozy, warm. Why am I bothering to blog about this decision that is important to no one besides myself? I don't know. Maybe I think that the act of writing it down will make it that much more important to me, and it will actually happen. Maybe blogging is my way of putting off actually starting to act on my resolve. Just in case that is true, I will sign on for now. Adieu.

Fresh Eyes

Last week I found that I had made a mistake in the blanket that I am crocheting. I knew I had made a mistake because my stitches were not lining up as they should. I looked and looked and looked and could not find the mistake anywhere. Finally I put the project down and did not pick it up again until last night. Within two minutes of picking it up, I had found - and corrected - the mistake. I mentioned this to my husband, telling him how frustrated I had been last week to not be able to continue because of the missing error, and he commented that sometimes it just takes a fresh pair of eyes to see something like that. He is right, of course. That principle is the reason why we have proofreaders and electrical inspectors and doctors who give second opinions. It is why people will say, when presented with an option or a problem, "Let me sleep on it".

Finding and correcting the mistake so quickly last night made me want to go back and try again some projects and tasks that I have counted as failures. Rust stains. Dull books. Growing plants. And those sad, sad blueberry muffins.

The Fall Line-Up

I am awfully excited.

I wanted to post a picture of the piles of fabric and stacks of patterns that will hopefully take up a fair amount of my free time this fall as well, but then I realized that the final destination for many of those items is under some Christmas tree or another, so I'd better not post them for all to see.

The books, if you can't see them clearly in the photo, are: That Distant Land by Wendell Berry; John Adams by David McCullough; Remembering by Wendell Berry; The Brothers K by David James Duncan; Emma by Jane Austen; The Beekeeper's Apprentice by Laurie R. King; and The Da Vinci Code by Dan Brown. I am reading The Beekeeper's Apprentice right now and am really enjoying it. I don't often - ok, ever - read mysteries. This is the first time in a long time that I have felt my heart rate quicken and my shoulders tense from reading a book. Of course most good books have surprises and unexpected twists and turns, but not page after page after page. I rather like it. It is a pleasant detour from my usual choice of rather mellow literature. I do understand, however, why sleep experts make mysteries an exception in their advice to read for a while before going to bed. The imagery did not keep me awake, as it does after watching a suspenseful movie (depending on the imagery, a tense movie can terrorize me for months), but I was far too invigorated to fall asleep quickly. I felt as though I had just returned from a long run - tired, but alert. The first Berry book mentioned above is a book of short stories, so I think I'll start reading one of those before bed and will leave the suspenseful reading for earlier hours.

Why I Hate Having To Choose A Party

Washington's primary elections were yesterday. I have a confession to make. I don't like voting. I always vote because I believe it is my responsibility to do so. Voting is a privilege that I do not take lightly. But I don't enjoy it. I mean, I wouldn't call voting a rip-roaring good time. It can be tedious, it can be frustrating, and it can take a fair amount of work if you are going to take it seriously and actually learn about the candidates and the issues that are on the ballot. But that wasn't really the intended point of this post.

What I meant to say is that Washington now requires voters to choose a political party (in the primaries) and to vote only for candidates who represent that party. If you deviate from this rule and vote for, say, a Republican Senate candidate and a Democratic House candidate, your entire partisan ballot will be disregarded. I think this is stupid. I usually vote for Republicans on moral grounds, but I want to have the option of voting for whomever I please. And the thing that really bugged me this time around was that there were several positions on the ballot for which no Republicans were running. If I wanted to vote for a Republican senator, which I did, then I had to forfeit the right to vote for several smaller offices. What kind of a democracy is that?

Well, anyway, I'm no political genius, but I think that mandatory partisan voting is stupid.

My New Best Friend

Last year I borrowed some Christmas clothes for my daughter from a friend whose daughter is one year older than mine. They were really nice little outfits, lots of red velvet and lace and such. Well, this friend just had another baby girl a couple of days ago, so I thought it was about time I returned her clothes to her. The clothes had been sitting in the laundry room for months, so I washed them. I followed all of the instructions. Most of the fabrics are red, but there is one particular dress, the fanciest of them all, that has a red velvet bodice, and then a white satin skirt with an embroidered chiffon overlay. It is really beautiful. Elise wore it to her Aunt Bethany's wedding last fall. I followed all of the instructions when washing this dress. I washed it separately - an entire wash load dedicated to this one little dress! - in cold water. Yeah. It still ran. I pulled it out of the washer and saw, to my great dismay, a light red streak right down the middle of the white skirt. Now, I am not a big laundry person. I launder "dry clean only" garments at home. I put sweaters and unmentionables in the dryer. So my first instinct was to run out and buy my friend a gift certificate to the store where she originally bought the dress. But then I decided to see if I could possibly fix my mistake. I looked up solutions in all of my housekeeping books. Nothing. Or at least, nothing I could use. One book listed three chemicals that I could buy from janitorial supply stores, but they all came with rather dire warnings. I tried to find helpful hints online. I found out how to prevent fabric from bleeding, and that was it. The Clorox website had nothing. It was depressing.

And then, all of a sudden, my eyes rested upon my new best friend. The Tide On the Go Stain Removal pen. I keep it on my kitchen counter and have used it on fresh food stains (which abound when you a) have a kid and b) are somewhat clumsy with food, as I am), but I certainly didn't think it was up to the task of reversing a fabric color bleed. Nevertheless, I had nothing to lose, so I gave it a shot. Worked like a charm. It was remarkable. A little bit of dabbing, a little bit of rubbing, and the skirt was as good as new. Had the people who developed the pen been standing in my kitchen, I would have kissed them.

It was a great moment.

What I've Been Doing

I have had a lovely few weeks here. We had the great pleasure of visiting with our dear friend and my former roommate over the past week. She was not so much a houseguest as a temporary family member. Houseguests don't wash your dishes or care for your child while you take a shower. Nor, I might add, do they comfortably cream you in card games.

While she was here, we took the opportunity to play tourist in our own area. We went island hopping in the San Juans, spending several hours each on Orcas and San Juan Island. It was so beautiful. We really do live in one of the most beautiful places on earth, I'm sure of it. One of the best parts of our day in the islands was that my parents-in-law (who happen to live in the town that houses the ferries that service the islands) babysat all day. No strollers!

So we had a grand time. To our great delight, our friend will likely be moving back to this area in the very near future. (So for those of you who know her and didn't get to see her, she'll be back shortly.) In the meantime, I have been assigned a few books to read and a few videos to watch, and I am looking forward to them all.

In other news, I am becoming rather frustrated by a lack of volunteers. I coordinate the volunteer nursery workers at my church. This is a job that I typically enjoy as it affords me the opportunity to get to know many wonderful people, including kind volunteers, parents of young children, and of course, my personal favorite, young children themselves. Lately, though, it has been like pulling teeth to get anyone to commit to working with the kids. I'm quite concerned about the upcoming Wednesday night program. It begins next Wednesday and there are no nursery workers! And I can't do it because I work with the older kids on Wednesday nights; otherwise I would just do it myself. Sigh. I have heard that George Muller, the great founder of many of world's Christian orphanages in the 19th century, never once asked anyone for money to fund his charities. In fact, I believe he never even made anyone aware of his monetary needs. He simply prayed, and the needs were met every single time. What faith! Sometimes I think I should do that. Not ask for volunteers, not make an announcement at church that we are short-staffed; just pray.

A few weeks ago, I received a message from my friend Janene that stated she had taught herself to knit. This was very inspiring to me. We have another friend who is quite an expert knitter (in my opinion), and she makes the loveliest scarves and socks and sweaters and hats, as you can see if you go to her site. Well, Janene and I have long admired her work, and Janene has crocheted for many years, so she took the plunge and picked up some knitting needles and just taught herself to knit. I admire people who are not afraid to learn. So I took my cue from Janene and went to the library in search of some good "how-to" crochet books. (I said I was inspired by the knitting; that doesn't mean I'm ready for it. I am inspired by people who climb Mt. Everest, therefore I might walk around Greenlake.) I found the most wonderful book that explains each crochet stitch step-by-step. Most of them show you two stitches and then say, "Now you can crochet anything with simple variations of these two stitches." That is technically true, but if you don't know how to make those variations, it doesn't do you a bit of good. So this book that I found explains all of the variations in great detail. And I am crocheting a small afghan! I am quite excited about it. The pattern calls for smaller stitches, softer yarn, and softer hues than I am using. It is supposed to be a baby blanket. I decided to use slightly larger stitches, not-so-soft yarn (it's less expensive, and I did not think it prudent to invest in high quality, expensive yarn for my first project), and a deep red yarn that matches the stripes in my sofa. It will just be a throw or lap blanket, not a baby blanket. I am really enjoying the project.

Now I want to read the biography of George Muller. I have it, and it is a small book, but I have never read it. So many books, so little time!

Secrets of a Dust-Free Home

Not mine, mind you. Mine is not a dust-free home. It probably should be, what with an asthmatic and a toddler living here. But it is not.

I was just dusting my living room and was thinking of ways to lessen the overall dustiness as well as the need for frequent dusting - which I guess are really the same thing. Anyway, two ideas came to mind. The first idea to reduce dust and, thus, dusting is to not have stuff. If you don't have stuff, you don't have to dust it. The second idea is to use the stuff you have. Books that are read, dishes that are used, CDs that are listened to, photo albums that are looked through, and toys that are played with do not need to be dusted very often, if ever. Of course that principle doesn't apply to everything. Picture frames that are looked at still need to be dusted. (Look at all these phrases that I'm ending with prepositions. Shame on me.)

Well, those were just the thoughts I had while dusting my living room. And this post is the excuse I gave myself for taking a break from dusting the living room. Back to dusting.

Snowballs and Sequences

It all started with making the bed.

I came home from a perfectly lovely day of sewing and visiting with dear friends. Elise went down immediately for a nap, leaving me free to tackle some domestic chores that were left undone this morning. I decided to make the bed. I try to make the bed every day. I just really enjoy getting into a clean, fresh, neat bed after a long day, so even when tonight is closer than last night, I still make an effort to make the bed. And that's what started it all.

While making the bed, I thought it would be nice to put a different blanket at the end of the bed than the one that is usually there. I chose a pretty patchwork quilt. When I went to put it on the bed, though, I noticed that it smelled a bit musty, so I decided to wash it. Down to the laundry room we went. Drat, there were already clothes in the washing machine that needed to be washed. I started the machine. Then I noticed that there was a pile of items waiting to be washed. These were things like blankets, a coat that Elise has outgrown, a couple of bright red articles that demand their own special washing machine time. In other words, things that didn't make it into the normal line-up of things that must be cleaned in order to carry on with civilized life. So I decided to just clean them and be done with it. As I was separating them into their respective loads, I saw that the floor of the laundry room was quite dusty. The ventilation in the room isn't great, and the lint from the dryer causes a light, dusty film to develop on most surfaces. So I decided to sweep the floor. Then I realized that it wouldn't do a lot of good to sweep the floor so long as the other surfaces were still dusty, so I decided to clean them. During this thought process, the washing machine finished its cycle and I transferred the clothes into the dryer - finally getting my blanket into the washer. I cleaned the lint filter on the dryer, and when I went to throw the lint into the garbage can, I noticed that the garbage can was getting quite full. So I decided to empty it. Up the stairs I went, meaning to empty the garbage can and get the broom and dustpan. Unfortunately, the kitchen garbage can (into which I meant to dump the laundry room garbage) was full. So I emptied it. Then I emptied the laundry room garbage can, and then I noticed that it was quite dirty. So I decided to clean it out. I took it to the kitchen sink and found the sink to be full of dishes. Now, I didn't see any point in moving the dishes to the counter just to be moved into the dishwasher later, so I decided to put them straight into the dishwasher. Only the dishwasher was full of clean dishes. Oh, well. I emptied the dishwasher and reloaded it with the dirty dishes. Well, once the dishes are cleared away, I might as well clean the rest of the kitchen - so I did. Once that was done, I finally began to work my way back down my chain of events. I cleaned out the garbage can (sidetracking momentarily to clean out the kitchen garbage can as well). I brought the broom and dustpan downstairs, washed the washer and dryer surfaces, washed the other surfaces in the room, and swept the floor. The quilt was transferred to the dryer.

So now I have a clean kitchen, two clean and disinfected garbage cans, a clean laundry room, a bunch of clean assorted articles of clothing and linens...and a clean patchwork quilt at the end of my bed. There are some benefits to being easily distracted.

Garbage

I really appreciate our garbage service men. There is something so satisfying about having garbage taken away. To know that every Friday morning, two big bins of stuff that I don't need are going to be emptied into the giant, smelly trucks, and then returned, empty, to me...it's wonderful. It somehow gives me a great sense of order and tidiness. I actually enjoy opening the cabinet under our kitchen sink and finding an empty trash can. I like knowing that that clean white plastic bag will, over the next couple of days, contain for us all of the unpleasant, unwanted, and unnecessary leftovers of our daily life, and that at the end of the week, the dutiful employees of Allied Waste will come to take our collection of filled plastic bags away from us forever. Thank you, Allied Waste.

Yeah, I know, I'm weird.

Flower's Garden

A few weeks ago, my parents-in-law were here for an afternoon. We were in our back yard playing with the baby, and I was embarrassed about the state of our yard. The grass was tidy and short, but the many areas in our yard that have been purposefully set aside as garden space or flower beds were full of weeds. We did not plant a garden this year, and only managed to plant a few flowers in the front yard. My parents-in-law, on the other hand, have a back yard that could be featured in Better Homes & Gardens, and a vegetable garden that could feed a small nation. So I was embarrassed.

Then my mother-in-law, in her humble, hospitable way, said the most wonderful thing. And she didn't even take credit for it. She said, "Well, my mom always said, you can't have flowers outside your home when you're raising flowers inside your home." Grandma Carpenter, a wise woman whom I did not have the honor of meeting, was referring of course to parenting. It seems she has passed her wisdom along to her daughter.

Milestones

It is so much fun watching Elise grow up. There are new delights every day. The other day she picked up a stuffed toy dog (Chiwak, for those of you who know us well) and said, "oof! oof!" She breaks out into this huge grin every time I start to sing "The Itsy Bitsy Spider", and now she tries to do the hand motions. This morning at the breakfast table, she was drinking out of her sippy cup and, miracle of miracles, she gently placed the cup back on the table when she was finished! Now, I realize that this seems insignificant. To me it is huge. When finished with her cup, Elise usually just lets go of it, allowing it to fall to the ground or, even better, upside-down on her lap in the highchair or carseat. We have been working on this for a while now. She'll drop her cup on the floor - usually carelessly, more from the will of gravity than the will of Elise, although sometimes most deliberately, and these times result in a more stern reprimand - and I will pick it up, place it properly on the table, and explain for the umpteenth time that we do not drop our cups on the floor. This morning, when she carefully placed the cup on the table, right side up, and then looked at me for approval, I melted. All of the sticky messes in her seats, her soggy clothes, the frequent surprise of stepping into a small puddle of milk on the floor - they were all worth the effort, because today she got it. Sigh. I love her.

Hot, Hot, Hot!

It is hot. Quite uncomfortably hot, even by my Midwestern standards. My parents, who live down south in Oregon, actually bought an air conditioner - something they never saw fit to do during my childhood in Illinois, where the diamond days of summer stretched from May through September. But I am not bitter.

We bought a kiddie pool and let Elise cool off in it for a while. She seemed to think it was great fun, and she looked so cute in her tiny little bathing suit. She is going to start swimming lessons tomorrow. Of course at such a young age, the purpose of swimming lessons is just to become accustomed to the water and to have fun. Swimming lessons for Elise meant that I had to go shopping for a swimming suit for myself. This is traditionally a most unpleasant outing for me. This time, however, my dear friend Janene gave me the good advice to try shopping at a sporting goods store rather than a department store. This turned out to be a great idea. (I realize that I have just started the last three sentences with the word "this". This is not very versatile of me.) The sporting goods store had only a handful of suits, and they were all meant to be worn for the purpose of swimming, not for parading oneself in front of anyone interested in looking. I was in and out of the store in under 30 minutes with as satisfactory of a suit as I believe I will ever find (swimming suits will never be my favorite article of clothing). Thanks for the advice, Janene!

Elise has struggled a bit with the heat. I worry about her. We do our best to keep her cool. I have Pedialyte popsicles in the freezer for tomorrow. Today she didn't drink as much as I would have liked her to. She didn't eat much, either, but I think that is to be expected in such heat. (TMI WARNING.) Her wet diapers have decreased, and she actually did not manage to keep her lunch down this afternoon. Once that unfortunate event happened, I put her in a cool bath and let her play for a long time. After that she took a nap in just a diaper with a fan aimed right at her crib. When she woke up, we left the house for a couple of hours and spent our time mostly in the air conditioned car or in air conditioned stores. By the time we got home, the temperature was at least tolerable and Elise was playful and energetic again. I hope for her sake that the weather cools down soon.

Oh, the humanity!

I was just thinking - isn't it great that we're people? I'm so grateful that I'm a person. I mean, think about it. People, humans, are at the highest level of existence in this world. (There are those people who really like cabbage or hamsters who might disagree with me. I am writing from a Christian perspective. As a Christian, I believe that humans have been given the position of highest earthly beings.) There are a lot of creatures in this world. I can't even think of a number big enough to come close to being able to measure all of the living things. I could have been created as a tree or a goldfish or a mushroom or a bacterium or a sponge. Of course, then I wouldn't have been "I", but still, God could have created me as any of His living creatures. Or even, I suppose, as a non-living creature. God didn't only create those things that experience life and death. He could have made me a rock, or water, or an element. Really, of the gazillions (to revert to the language of childhood) of things that God created, the chances of any given thing being a person are pretty slim. How lucky are we to have been made humans?!? Pretty darn lucky.

Curtains

What I should have been doing:






What I did instead:




This is a curtain for the baby's room. It's not done, but at least it's pieced so I can see what it will look like. I'm pleased with it.

Independence Day

Yesterday I saw a TV commercial for a car sale. A "4th of July" car sale. The ad flashed images of shiny new cars, parked neatly in their rows, beckoning for some patriotic American to come and take them home. "America the Beautiful" was the song chosen by the car company to accompany the ad. "America the Beautiful". I don't get much opportunity to sing the historic songs of patriotism these days, but I'm pretty sure that "America the Beautiful" doesn't include anything about the beauty of "rows of shiny cars".

I am disappointed by the way that we Americans observe our national, patriotic holidays. Memorial Day, Independence Day, Veteran's Day. Now, I recognize that Independence Day differs from the other two. Independence Day should be a day of celebration. It is the day that we celebrate the birth of our nation. We SHOULD celebrate! But not with car sales. Not with 0% financing until 2008. How do those things commemorate the sacrifices made by our founding fathers?

I am preaching to myself here. I haven't quite figured out exactly the best way to celebrate. I have an inkling that an appropriate Independence Day celebration would include family and friends enjoying one another's company, enjoying the freedom that was so hard-earned by those who came before us. It would include a time to reflect on what we are celebrating. It would include an act of gratitude toward those who are still making sacrifices to maintain our freedom. The other patriotic holidays - Memorial Day and Veteran's Day, specifically - should be observed similarly, I think, only perhaps not so lightheartedly. These days are, after all, set aside as times to remember and appreciate our servicemen and women, especially those who have given their lives for our country. They are not necessarily meant to be happy occasions. (Contrary to popular belief, we do not need to be happy all the time.) If I may make so bold a comparison, Memorial Day is to Independence Day as Good Friday is to Easter. A horrible day, a day of ultimate sacrifice. Without it, we would have nothing to celebrate. And, just as Easter is not about pastel eggs and candy, so Independence Day should not be about fireworks and barbecues. These things are ways that we can enjoy the day, but if they obstruct the true meaning, then they are worthless.

So now I'm thinking about how to celebrate. Here are some ideas:

• Learn all of the verses to The Star-Spangled Banner and read a biography of Francis Scott Key.
• Volunteer at a VA hospital.
• Spend an afternoon visiting with residents at a nursing home (lots of WWII veterans now live in communities like this).
• Support our active duty military personnel. www.americasupportsyou.mil.
• Read the Declaration of Independence.
• Spend time as a voter registration volunteer.
• Make sure YOU are registered to vote!
• Visit a veterans' memorial.
• Watch a movie that portrays the sacrifices made for the sake of freedom, such as The Patriot, Glory, Saving Private Ryan, or We Were Soldiers.

Have a happy Independence Day.

Perilous Ventures

Elise is ten months old now and is "cruising" - pulling herself to stand while holding onto furniture and walking alongside said furniture. It's very cute, but it has also made us realize how dangerous growing up really is. It is 11:21 in the morning right now. So far today, Elise has: 1) fallen off her favorite climbing toy (i.e., Mommy's filing box) onto her head, 2) fallen backwards from a standing position onto the linoleum floor, and taking a heavy piece of petrified wood with her (we use it as a bookend), 3) gotten her finger stuck in the wheel of a pull toy, and 4) bonked herself in the face with Daddy's keys, which make a splendid rattle. All before her first nap. I can't wait to see what the afternoon holds.

Now some of you might be thinking, "What negligent parents!" You either recognize the aforementioned events as normal perils associated with graduating from babyhood to toddlerhood, or you think these minor injuries are the result of parental negligence. If the former, you are correct and discerning. If the latter, well, phooey on you.

Addendum: While I was typing this, Elise crawled under swing and tried to stand up, which resulted in not only hitting her head on the bottom of the swing, but also in the swing swinging and coming back to hit her in the head a second time. Maybe being indoors today is a bad idea.

Elise

"Only a dummy would give this up for something as common as money." - Grandpa Joe, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory

Think of it what you will

Once I saw this guy on a bridge about to jump. I said, "Don't do it!" He said, "Nobody loves me." I said, "God loves you. Do you believe in God?" He said, "Yes." I said, "Are you a Christian or a Jew?" He said, "A Christian." I said, "Me, too! Protestant or Catholic?" He said, "Protestant." I said, "Me, too! What franchise?" He said, "Baptist." I said, "Me, too! Northern Baptist or Southern Baptist?" He said, "Northern Baptist." I said, "Me, too! Northern Conservative Baptist or Northern Liberal Baptist?" He said, "Northern Conservative Baptist." I said, "Me, too! Northern Conservative Baptist Great Lakes Region, or Northern Conservative Baptist Eastern Region?" He said, "Northern Conservative Baptist Great Lakes Region." I said, "Me, too!"
Northern Conservative Baptist Great Lakes Region Council of 1879, or Northern Conservative Baptist Great Lakes Region Council of 1912?" He said, "Northern Conservative Baptist Great Lakes Region Council of 1912." I said, "Die, heretic!" And I pushed him over.

- Emo Philips, I think.

Projects

We've been working on a lot of projects around my house. It feels so great to get them done. My husband has been working his tail off all weekend cleaning and organizing the basement. It looks fabulous. I have been working in the baby's room. I had all these grand plans of a beautiful, dreamy nursery before Elise was born. Then she was born, and what was still undone has remained undone. Until now. We finally got a dresser for her, and are finally hanging the various pictures and such on her walls. My sewing room has been rendered useful once again and I am busily working on sewing and craft projects, trying to be with it enough this year to actually finish some of the projects that I intend to use as gifts come Christmas. It has been a productive weekend. It's nice.

An Admirable Family

I mentioned before that we visited with my college roommate while on vacation last week. That fact really deserves greater acknowledgement. My friend lives on her own, but when we were there she stayed overnight at her parents' house, where we also stayed, because they have more room for overnight guests than she does. The family is admirable. I really enjoyed watching them and visiting with them.

I don't really know how to explain the appeal of their home. I would imagine that if you have ideas of a good home that are similiar to mine, you will get it, and if you don't, you'll probably think I am silly to blog about something so insignificant. They just have one of those homes that puts you instantly at ease. It wasn't just order and cleanliness, although those virtues were certainly present. It was a real sense of home and family, a genuine atmosphere of love, stability, and generosity. I'll try to give some examples of what I mean, although tangible things really cannot do justice.

Yanni, the mother, had flowers all over the house. She grew them all herself, and they were scattered about in vases, mugs, bowls and other dishes. They were beautiful. She made rhubarb-strawberry cobbler from rhubarb and strawberries that she grew. Her 3/4 acre yard is like a botanical garden right in the middle of dry, barren northern California. She said that when the family moved from Alaska twenty years ago, they had such fond memories of Alaska that she worked for years to cultivate some of the plants that they remember from there. The hallway wall is covered in family photos. The refrigerator has pictures of the multiple children that the family sponsors through a relief organization. The little neighbor boy comes over and picks his fill of strawberries. At 8:00 in the morning, while we were eating our breakfast of eggs (from the chickens in the backyard) and zucchini bread (from zucchini grown in Yanni's garden) and coffee, another neighbor from up the road called Yanni to ask if she would like to go for a walk a little later in the morning. The big yellow dog looks ferocious and is really just a gentle giant. He is so fond of his human companions that if they are in the back yard and forget to leave a door open for him to leave the house and join them, he will push the screen out of the kitchen window and jump out. They don't lock their doors. When we mentioned that we should go out and lock our car before going to bed, my friend laughed and said she leaves her keys in the car. When we first arrived, my friend's dad greeted us warmly, saying how good it was to see us again...although he had only met us once before. He barbecued up some hamburgers and hotdogs for us, then sat at the table and talked with us while we ate. He's one of those great conversationalists, the kind that you can talk to for twenty minutes and you suddenly realize that he knows a whole lot more about you than you know about him. He's a contractor of some sort, I think, and his wife is a nurse. They have five children. When they first moved into their house twenty years ago, it was 1100 sf. They have spent two decades renovating and adding onto it, making it more livable for the seven of them. Yanni mentioned that she would like to add on again, to make the actual living area bigger. With five kids, they naturally focused on adding bedrooms in their previous renovations. But now, with children-in-law and grandchildren just around the corner, she would like to have a larger general living area so they can all be in the same room for holidays and family gatherings. But, she said, how could she add on yet again when there are starving people in the world?

Their home is wonderful. There is nothing cheap about it. There is nothing extravagant about it. The family is warm and generous and they are just about the least pretentious people I've ever met. There is a feeling of sensible frugality and simple luxury in that house. I left with great admiration for the whole family.

The Neighborhood of Make Believe

I read Mere Christianity a week or so ago. Great book. It got me thinking (as any great book should do). C.S. Lewis uses a lot of highly imaginative examples and analogies, things involving the relativity of time, theories of evolution unlike any I have heard before, and so on. This is not surprising. Lewis had an incredible imagination; add to that his ability to communicate his imaginings, and you've got a remarkably gifted man. Anyway, I had a hard time with some of his suggestions. Not the literal meanings, but the imaginings. I'm so darned practical and realistic that I sometimes struggle with things that aren't obviously practical and realistic. And this, I have found, is a great handicap. It really inhibits my understanding of God. I could discuss this at length, but I won't put you through that. The real point, or at least the most clear resolution in my own mind, is that I don't want my children to have this handicap. Yes, of course I want my kids to have a good handle on reality, I don't want them to live in La-La Land. But I want them to know that the world is a really big place, and the universe is even bigger, and God is even bigger, and that we may not have the best vantage point from which to view our own lives or the lives of those around us, and we most certainly don't know all there is to know about God. I want them to have minds that are sharp and discerning, and hearts that are full of wonder and awe. I want them to have good imaginations. I will do everything I can to encourage and strengthen their imaginations. This is one of my primary goals as a parent.

Harry E. Fosdick said, "I would rather live in a world where my life is surrounded by mystery than live in a world so small that my mind could comprehend it." If I had to judge Harry's life by this one statement, I would say he was a very wise man.

Vacation

We've just returned from a road trip to San Bernardino, CA. My family organized a multi-phase surprise party in honor of my grandmother's 75th birthday. My husband, my daughter and I drove from Seattle, stopping in Portland to pick up my sister. My brother, his wife and their two children drove from Colorado Springs. My parents and two youngest siblings drove from the Portland area. It was a great surprise, all of us showing up on different days and at different times. Grandma was quite overcome, as evidenced by the fact that she stood at the kitchen sink crying for quite a while after the last group of grandchildren showed up.

Quite a few of us met at Disneyland while we were there - a great benefit of having relatives in southern California. I don't like amusement park rides, so I walked around with the baby and enjoyed the sights. We did take her on the It's A Small World ride, and she absolutely loved it. She did her excited bouncing dance thing - Janene, just like she did at the restaurant when you were holding her. Our six-almost-seven-year-old niece bought a "My First Ears" pink Mickey Mouse ears hat for our daughter. It's really cute.

We got to spend some time with a dear friend of ours, one of my college roommates, on the way there and on the way home. It was so good to see her, to catch up. Spending time with her is refreshing.

We returned one week and two hours after we left, and totalled about 2500 miles. It was exhausting and fun. Our daughter did amazingly well. She only fussed when we drove too long past her meal time and when Aunt Bethany was not in the back seat with her. I am so glad to be home and am looking forward to getting back into the swing of things. Still, I had a good time and am very glad that we went.

Frustration

I am fighting a losing battle against housework. It seems that I am ill-equipped to fight it. No matter how much I do, it is still there. It is ALWAYS there. There is always laundry, always something that needs to be dusted or washed or put away or swept or scrubbed or vacuumed. I know that it will always be there. Housework isn't a one-time deal. It's not like you finish it and it's done. You never finish. It's cyclical. It is always, always there. But this weekend, for whatever reason, I feel like it is not only a never-ending task, but also one that is impossible to keep up with. I feel like I am rapidly losing ground, and it is depressing. I don't know if it's because the sunny weather has nudged me away from home more often than usual, or because my daughter is becoming more and more active, or simply because my efforts have somehow become ineffective. I'm not entirely sure what to do about it.

Big Yellow Taxi

I feel like I should feel like a traitor, only I really don't.

I like that song Big Yellow Taxi. I've always liked it, from the time I first heard it (although I have to admit that the first time I can remember hearing it was when Amy Grant recorded her rendition about twelve or fifteen years ago. I didn't know who Joni Mitchell was then). Do conservatives like that song? That's why I feel like I should feel like a traitor, but I don't. See, there's this one line in the song that smells of activism, the environmental variety that most conservatives eye with suspicion. "Hey, farmer, farmer, put away that DDT now. Give me spots on my apples, but leave me the birds and the bees, please." See? DDT, hurts wildlife, would rather eat splotchy fruit, etc. Sounds pretty Woodstock, right? Yeah. And somehow I have the feeling that a conservative girl like me would be looked down upon by the greater conservative community for liking a song that touts the benefits of splotchy fruit. But I like the song, and I don't feel like a traitor.

Contentment

I haven't felt that I've had much to blog about lately. I usually write about things that have been on my mind, things I have been pondering. I guess my mind has been empty for a couple of weeks. :) Well, that's not really true. It has just taken me longer to think through things and get to the point where I can write about them with any semblance of clarity.

I have six friends who are pregnant. That is not counting the several other women who are casual acquaintances who are pregnant. My pastor's wife has counted twelve 2006 babies at our church (some are already here, most are on the way). I'll get to know all of those babies by working in the nursery, but at this point I would only count two of the mothers as friends. Six pregnant friends. My husband was worried that this would make me want another baby right away, but I am quite content. I'm just marveling at the fact that so many of my friends are expecting! A few years ago, Andy and I went to wedding after wedding after wedding. Now all of those people are having kids. It's weird, watching the stages of life. I suppose Little League practice will be next.

Chris recently said, "These are the good old days." I think he's right. What a wonderful time of life!

I've been thinking a lot lately about being content. About the differences between contentment and complacency. About choosing temporal things that provide short-term happiness versus choosing asceticism, about moderation. Paul's statement that he had learned how to be content in all circumstances (Philippians 4:12) is inspiring to me. It's something I strive for. What a picture of a peaceful, reliant life. His purpose, his sense of fulfillment, was not contingent upon any thing. I want to learn to be content in all circumstances. For the last nine months, I have been so happy that I've wondered if I've learned to be content. But I think that is highly unlikely. Of course I'm content now. I am living a dream come true. I've been wondering if I would be content in the face of hardship. I don't face hardship right now. A few inconveniences, yes, but nothing that could be counted as hardship. I don't really think that anyone can say they have learned to be content in all things unless they have been tested. I haven't been tested in quite a while. I so desire to be content in all things that a part of me wants to be tested. But then I think about what that could mean and I shudder. I'm not going to spend a lot of time thinking about it. I know that life will not always be easy, and so I will enjoy and be thankful for this time of peace and plenty for as long as it lasts, and pray and prepare myself as best I can for any future times of trial.

I've been thinking about the different ways that contentment could be tested and have decided that I think the true test of contentment is in hardship. Paul was in prison when he wrote his inspiring and challenging words. Recently our closest friends have had wonderful things happen to them. Chris and Janene moved into a beautiful house in a quaint town. It's fantastic. Lots of room; vintage wallpaper, light fixtures, architectural details; old-fashioned flowers blooming all around. It's a great house. And then we just found out that Bob and Grahame are expecting their second child. I would describe the baby as I described Chris and Janene's house, but that would be hard. Let's see...a beautiful, perfectly-formed, intricate grape seed with a heartbeat. My husband was concerned about my potential reactions to these events (which, sadly, doesn't say much about my reactions to things in the past). He was afraid that seeing Chris and Janene's new house would make me want to move, and that hearing about Bob and Grahame's new baby would make me want to have another baby. It didn't, on both counts. Of course I don't want to live in this house forever, and I certainly want more children eventually, but I'm fine where I am right now. I will admit that I had a brief moment of bemoaning the fact that my house doesn't have a lot of inherent character to it, but then I realized that this is not true. It's just that its character is not so much Anne of Green Gables and is much more Jan Brady. But I digress. This experience of being completely happy for - no, completely happy with - my friends, and not at all envious, is a good one. Great, in fact. It's very freeing. And whether this sentiment reflects a little bit more understanding of contentment than I had two years ago, or simply a time of smooth sailing in life, I'm enjoying it. There will be ups and downs in life, and this is an "up" time. I won't worry about tomorrow. It's going to come, good or bad, and I'll deal with it then. Today is good.

Things that make me happy.

My husband and I got each other the same anniversary card. That makes me happy.

Dirty Barns

"An empty stable stays clean, but no income comes from an empty stable." - Proverbs 14:4, NLT

The youth pastor at our church wrote a great end-of-the-year letter based on this verse. I cannot take credit for the insight; that would be religious plagiarism. Anyway, he wrote about how messy youth ministry can be - quite literally, as he spends time each week cleaning up after neighborhood teenagers who use the skateboarding ramps set up outside the youth barn. (Barn. I guess that makes the analogy even more realistic. Hehe.) He said that this is frustrating to him, and he would much prefer to not spend his time in this way, but then he recalled this verse and realized that in order to have a clean 'barn', he would have to get rid of his 'oxen' - the teenagers. No oxen = no harvest. He jokes that now he cleans up the 'manure' with a better attitude.

I read this letter just the other day, and then this morning ran across the verse in Proverbs. The book of Proverbs is so great - short little phrases that offer profound wisdom for everyday life. I think that this verse (like so many in Proverbs) can be applied to many situations in life. I applied it to my home. I find a lot of housework to be very satisfying, but that doesn't mean that I enjoy it all the time. I don't particularly like scraping dried mashed banana off the floor. There is at this very moment a crusted-over puddle of liquid laundry detergent on my laundry room floor, where the giant keg of Tide apparently dripped its contents for quite a while without being noticed. I know it's there. I know that if I don't clean it up, it will eventually discolor and maybe damage the linoleum. But I am putting it off because it just doesn't sound like a very pleasant chore. (It takes a lot of water to clean up a pile of soap.) What would it take to have a perfectly clean house? An empty house. An empty house is a clean house. One where no people come in and 'mess it up'. I think there is a name for a house like that. Museum.

I have come to enjoy hanging my husband's robe up every morning. It used to annoy me. I would find it in a crumpled heap on the floor, or thrown onto the bed, and I would sigh and shake my head. Now I like hanging it up. It reminds me every day that on that morning, my husband woke up. Blessing #1 - my husband is alive. He got out of bed. Blessing #2 - he is able-bodied. He spent time in his robe, meaning he spent time enjoying the comfort of our home. Blessing #3 - we have a home and the leisure to enjoy it. Then he discarded the robe and got dressed for work. Blessing #4 - he has a job and is able to provide for our family. Messy stable? Yep. But the harvest is so good.

I think this applies to life in general, too. What would it take to have a clean life? To not have to deal with anything messy? It would take an empty mind, and an empty heart. A person without principles, without integrity, can go through life unchallenged. All they have to do is whatever is easiest at that moment. They don't have to think for themselves, they don't have to ponder anything, they don't have to show compassion, and they don't have to practice kindness. It is easy to be shallow and selfish. But, oh, how empty. How fruitless. At the end of the day, I would rather be tired from physical and mental exertion, weary from concern for the oppressed, and overwhelmed by a concept that my mind has not yet been able to grasp; I would rather feel this way than to fall asleep unencumbered by thoughts of anything greater than myself. I'd rather have a messy barn than a clean one.

Fish

Context: Steere is talking about how, in intercessory prayer, we are oftentimes led to do something for the person for whom we are praying, in addition to praying for them. He adds that we are oftentimes led to make amends in our own lives before we can offer a prayer of petition.

"Prayer is incipient action...Here is the unformed side of life's relationships - the letters to be written, the friends to be visited, the journey to be undertaken, the suffering to be met by food, or nursing care, or fellowship. Here is the social wrong to be resisted, the piece of interpretive work to be undertaken, the command to 'rebuild my churches', the article to be written, the wrong to be forgiven, the grudge to be dropped, the relationship to be set right, the willingness to serve God in the interior court by clear, honest thinking, and the refusal to turn out shoddy work." - Douglas V. Steere

I admit that the above passage may appeal to me so much because of my love of listmaking.

Yesterday our pastor was talking about the glory of God. He said to remember that, no matter how great our present understanding of God's glory is, God is infinitely more glorious. He talked about the amazing detail of creation, how the expanse of the universe is so far beyond our understanding, how to adequately explain one strand of DNA would take 1000 volumes of encyclopedias, how miraculous and incomprehensible the formation of human life is. Then he talked about fish. He said that God only needed to make one kind of fish in order to have fish. Instead, He made fish of all different sizes, shapes, colors, habitats, some striped, some purple, some round, "some with spiky things sticking out". Why? Because, Gordy said, "God's into fish." I thought that was great! God's into fish. And astronomy. And gardening. And acorns. And frogs. (Yes, frogs!) And music. And rocks. And sand. And the color turquoise. And everything else that is true, honorable, right, pure, lovely, admirable, excellent, and praiseworthy. If whatever you're into fits this description (which is from the Bible), I think you can rest assured that God's into it, too. That's so cool...

Naysayers

The other night I went to a baby shower that was thrown for a woman who is expecting her first child in two weeks. As an icebreaker, the hostess asked for volunteers to tell stories of their own early days as mothers. Most were funny, a few were intended to be funny but were not – but almost all were negative. The stories were of frustrations, surprises, and fears. There were no stories that reflected the wonder you feel when you touch those perfect, tiny hands; the unsurpassable joy that fills your heart when your baby looks at you; the love that is stronger than you ever thought possible; the fact that now prayer comes as naturally as breath. This expectant mother was not given a single word of hope – except, I suppose, when one well-intentioned mother of two told her to remember that when she and her newborn have their very worst day, “it can only get better from there”…rather a passive form of encouragement, I think. The things that were said were true. Nobody could be accused of deceit. But the things that were said could only make this new mother apprehensive, could only make her worry more about the upcoming weeks. She was told by several people that she would be exhausted, that she had better get her sleep now because she’ll never get it again (a rather silly thing to tell a woman who is 38 weeks pregnant. Chances are that she is already not sleeping well.) Women joked and told tales about endless crying (of both the baby and the mother), medical emergencies, leaving their child at a restaurant, babies falling off counters and down stairs, etc., etc., etc. Everyone laughed or oohed or gasped as appropriate, including the expectant mother. But no one told a happy story.

I include myself in my criticism. I could have told a happy story and I did not. I did not tell any story. Someone – I – should have broken the chain of negativism that seems to wind its way tightly around expectant mothers. Why are we so quick to tell negative stories? So quick to assure new parents that they are about to go through terrible trials? It seems that women try to outdo one another with horror stories about labor. Do we think that we will be admired or respected for our suffering?

I know five women who are pregnant right now, four of them for the first time. I am concerned for them. My experience when I was pregnant last year was that most women were quick to tell me how difficult the first few months of mothering would be. I am prone to depressed moods, maybe even to depression, and each negative comment or story or piece of advice lessened my excited joy until I finally realized that I was actually dreading the birth of my child. That is not how you are supposed to feel! I was fortunate. This realization came to me before my daughter was born. Just recognizing that my dread was based on the unsolicited reports of others helped to put it into perspective for me. With a little bit of unqualified analysis of human nature, I concluded that probably the experiences of these women were not wholly negative, but that for some reason the bad things are the things they decided to share. At that point I was able to count on one hand the number of people who had given me positive encouragement, who had told me how lovely and irreplaceable those first few weeks with their own babies had been. They were not deceptively optimistic. They said that the adjustment to motherhood was not an easy one, but a worthwhile one despite the inevitable difficulties. The number of people who had given negative “encouragement”, on the other hand, was too high for me to keep track of. Strangers, even! Parents of patients at my job. A woman in line at Dairy Queen. A business acquaintance on a telephone call! So, with six or seven weeks of pregnancy to go, I deliberately decided to avoid the negative comments where I could, and to let the unavoidable ones affect me as little as possible. My husband, a friend, and my sister all helped in deflecting negativism. My excitement returned and I joyfully anticipated my child’s birth. And you know what? Those first few weeks with my baby…they were lovely and irreplaceable. They weren’t easy – but is any worthwhile endeavor easy?

Well, anyway, I am concerned for my friends. I am afraid that they may be experiencing the same sort of barrage that I experienced. I hope not. If they are, I hope they figured out earlier than I did that they don’t have to be affected by it. I regret not speaking up at the shower the other night, not telling a good story, not reassuring Kelly that she has a wonderful time ahead of her. If we must put a particular spin to our stories, why not make it a positive spin? I value honesty and don’t think we should lead others to believe that things will be easy when they won’t. Women need to know that labor will hurt, that they won’t always be able to figure out why their baby is crying, that they will be awakened at all hours of the night. But they also need to know that they have the strength to make it through delivery, that babies learn to trust their parents when they are held close through fits of unexplainable crying, and that some of the tenderest moments are experienced in the wee hours of the morning.

Maybe my experience was a blessing in disguise. Maybe parenting a newborn was even better than I expected it to be specifically because I had heard so many bad stories. Maybe women tell bad stories because they themselves found the early days of parenting to be much more difficult than they had expected, and they do not want other women to experience the same disappointment that they did. If this is the case, then I can only think that the negative stories are told with the best intentions, with kindness of heart, and with a desire to protect expectant mothers from idealistic visions that are sure to be shattered as soon as they bring their babies home. I just think that there must be a happy medium to be achieved. Let's not make parenting a newborn out to be all roses, but for heaven's sake, let's not make it out to be drudgery, either.