And nothing to show for it

Lately I have been focusing on one particular WIP, but I cannot post any pictures of it because the expectant mommy/intended recipient reads this blog. She knows about it already, so it's okay for me to say that, but she doesn't know what it looks like, and I don't plan on letting her know until it's finished. So, I am sorry to say, I cannot share pictures. I will try to remember to take pictures along the way, though, so that I can post them later. It's sometimes hard to remember to do that when I'm working on something in snippets of time that I steal here and there. When my focus is "how much can I get done before Elise wakes up?", taking pictures does not usually cross my mind. And now I do my sewing in the basement, where the natural light is very, very poor, so taking pictures requires the added effort of taking the materials upstairs. I know, I know, that makes me sound really lazy.

Very little sewing has been done here recently. We're all under the weather, and for me that means that I spend Elise's naptime recuperating from the morning, and the hours after Elise goes to bed are spent recuperating from the rest of the day. I wish I had a crochet project underway right now, as that would be a nice thing to do while resting. All of the ripple blankets and granny square afghans that have been showing up on various blogs have tempted me, but I am determined to get my list of WIP projects completed - or at least significantly diminished - before taking on something so large.

Last weekend I found this book at an antique store. I had this book when I was a very young child. I received it for my first birthday, I think...or maybe as a gift when I was born. I had two nursery rhyme books, and I'm not sure which was gifted on which occasion. Regardless, I was thrilled when I found this one. I wasn't looking for it. So much for waiting to collect children's books, eh?

Quote and 100th Post

"Resentment is like drinking poison and then waiting for the other person to die." - Unknown (I looked for a reference online and found several, and I am not going to guess which one is correct.)

My pastor quoted this in his sermon this morning. I thought it was a very good simile. He has been doing a series of sermons called "The Bible Guide to Relationships", based on 1 Corinthians 13. I haven't heard all of the sermons in the series so far, but the ones I have heard have been just about the most practical and applicable sermons I have ever heard. I really appreciate that.

On another note, this is the 100th post to this blog. The one year anniversary of this blog's beginning occurred last week. It would have been cool if the two events - one year and 100th post - had coincided, but they did not, and I felt that forcing them to do so would be too - well, forced. I have enjoyed blogging over this past year and see no reason why I should stop in the near future. I have especially enjoyed reading the blogs of my friends, as well as the blogs of some people that I do not know but who share either my recreational interests or my faith. In rare but wonderful cases, they share both. In fact, my husband will tell you, checking and reading these blogs has become a part of my daily routine. In some ways I feel that it allows me a bit of interaction with other adults, something that is sometimes (but not always) missing from my weekday life with a toddler. So thank you, all who read and comment on my musings, and all who allow me to read and comment on yours.

Favorite Artists

I really love children's books. Really. I love the simple stories, the unabashed sentimentality, and especially the beautiful illustrations. I realized recently that illustrators of children's books are among my favorite artists. I don't know much about current artists; I don't know who is "big" right now and who isn't; and I wouldn't have a clue which pieces were significant at an art auction or gallery. But I love the work of some illustrators. I guess this is because I am reading a lot of children's books these days, and they are pretty much all heavily illustrated. (I'm reading to a toddler.) In other words, that is the art that I am seeing the most of. And it is beautiful. Richard Scarry, Jan Brett, Eloise Wilkin (I think she is my favorite), Garth Williams...they are tremendous artists.

I recently learned that my pastor's wife collects children's books. I thought this was a great idea. (My husband will groan when he reads this.) What a fantastic thing to collect! Of course, for the next many years I'll be able to gather children's books for my own children, so I don't really need to "collect" them at this time. I am so delighted by the many sweet and beautiful books that are out there. Of course, as with all genres of books, there are a lot of trashy books out there as well. They're pretty easy to spot, though. Like this. And you have to be careful about what you buy, because a lot of children's books authors - especially celebrity authors - donate a portion (or all) of the sales proceeds to charities, which is great, but you want to be careful about what you're supporting with your purchase. Madonna's The English Roses proceeds, for example, benefit this.

These are two books that I have particularly enjoyed and admired lately:

You Are My I Love You by Maryann Cusimano
How Do I Love You? by P.K. Hallinan

And here are a couple of Elise's favorites:

Crazy Caterpillars by Sue Whiting
God Bless by Stephanie Longfoot

Proof That I Love My Daughter

I just gave her my last Thin Mint Girl Scout cookie.
Ah, the sacrifices mothers make for their children!

Now What?

Last night I wanted to sew, but all of my current projects seemed too daunting for the late hour. I spent some time just looking through my fabric bins, thinking what a nice such-and-such this or that fabric would make. Eventually I came to a small stack of blue and yellow squares. I bought them about a year ago, pre-cut. I don't remember if I had a particular project in mind for them, or if I just got them because I loved the blue and yellow combination. (I have always loved blue & yellow.) Naturally, I decided to sew them together. (Isn't that what you're supposed to do when you want to sew but are too tired to be creative? Sew random bits of fabric together?) Now I have this 8"x12" rectangle, and I think it's quite pretty, but I don't know what to do with it. I thought maybe placemats would be nice (I have red & green placemats in a patchwork pattern, and I really like them), but I couldn't make a matching set as I only had two of each fabric square. I could make a similar second placemat, but not an exact replica. Then I thought maybe a throw pillow. Then again, it could be a single placemat, and I could just use it in the center of the table, almost like a doily, or to line a tray with. Hmm.

Any ideas?

Book List

I don't know who originally came up with this list, but I am curious about how many of them I have actually read, so here goes:

In the list of books below, bold the ones you’ve read, italicize the ones you want to read, cross out the ones you won’t touch with a ten-foot pole, put a cross (+) in front of the ones on your book shelf , and asterisk (*) the ones you’ve never heard of.

1. +The Da Vinci Code (Dan Brown)
2. +Pride and Prejudice (Jane Austen)
3. To Kill A Mockingbird (Harper Lee)
4. Gone With The Wind (Margaret Mitchell)
5. +The Lord of the Rings: Return of the King (Tolkien)
6. +The Lord of the Rings: Fellowship of the Ring (Tolkien)
7. +The Lord of the Rings: Two Towers (Tolkien)
8. Anne of Green Gables (L. M. Montgomery)
9. *Outlander (Diana Gabaldon)
10. *A Fine Balance (Rohinton Mistry)
11. Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire (Rowling)
12. Angels and Demons (Dan Brown)
13. Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (Rowling)
14. A Prayer for Owen Meany (John Irving)
15. Memoirs of a Geisha (Arthur Golden)
16. Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone (Rowling)
17. *Fall on Your Knees (Ann-Marie MacDonald)
18. *The Stand (Stephen King)
19. Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban(Rowling)
20. Jane Eyre (Charlotte Bronte)
21. +The Hobbit (Tolkien)
22. The Catcher in the Rye (J. D. Salinger)
23. +Little Women (Louisa May Alcott)
24. The Lovely Bones (Alice Sebold)
25. Life of Pi (Yann Martel)
26. The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy (Douglas Adams)
27. Wuthering Heights (Emily Bronte)
28. +The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe (C. S. Lewis)
29. East of Eden (John Steinbeck)
30. Tuesdays with Morrie (Mitch Albom)
31. Dune (Frank Herbert)
32. The Notebook (Nicholas Sparks)
33. *Atlas Shrugged (Ayn Rand)
34. 1984 (Orwell)
35. *The Mists of Avalon (Marion Zimmer Bradley)
36. *The Pillars of the Earth (Ken Follett)
37. *The Power of One (Bryce Courtenay)
38.*I Know This Much is True (Wally Lamb)
39. The Red Tent (Anita Diamant)
40. *The Alchemist (Paulo Coelho)
41. *The Clan of the Cave Bear (Jean M. Auel)
42. *The Kite Runner (Khaled Hosseini)
43. Confessions of a Shopaholic (Sophie Kinsella)
44. The Five People You Meet In Heaven (Mitch Albom)
45. +Bible
46. Anna Karenina (Tolstoy)
47. The Count of Monte Cristo (Alexandre Dumas)
48. Angela’s Ashes (Frank McCourt)
49. The Grapes of Wrath (John Steinbeck)
50. *She’s Come Undone (Wally Lamb)
51. The Poisonwood Bible (Barbara Kingsolver)
52. A Tale of Two Cities (Dickens)
53. *Ender’s Game (Orson Scott Card)
54. +Great Expectations (Dickens)
55. +The Great Gatsby (Fitzgerald)
56. *The Stone Angel (Margaret Laurence)
57. Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (Rowling)
58. The Thorn Birds (Colleen McCullough)
59. The Handmaid’s Tale (Margaret Atwood)
60. *The Time Traveller’s Wife (Audrew Niffenegger)
61. Crime and Punishment (Fyodor Dostoyevsky)
62. *The Fountainhead (Ayn Rand)
63. War and Peace (Tolstoy)
64. Interview with the Vampire (Anne Rice)
65. *Fifth Business (Robertson Davis)
66. *One Hundred Years Of Solitude (Gabriel Garcia Marquez)
67. The Sisterhood of the Travelling Pants (Ann Brashares)
68. Catch-22 (Joseph Heller)
69. Les Miserables (Hugo)
70. The Little Prince (Antoine de Saint-Exupery)
71. Bridget Jones’ Diary (Fielding)
72. Love in the Time of Cholera (Marquez)
73. *Shogun (James Clavell)
74. The English Patient (Michael Ondaatje)
75. +The Secret Garden (Frances Hodgson Burnett)
76. *The Summer Tree (Guy Gavriel Kay)
77. A Tree Grows in Brooklyn (Betty Smith)
78. *The World According To Garp (John Irving)
79. *The Diviners (Margaret Laurence)
80. +Charlotte’s Web (E.B. White)
81. *Not Wanted On the Voyage (Timothy Findley)
82. Of Mice And Men (Steinbeck)
83. *Rebecca (Daphne DuMaurier)
84. *Wizard’s First Rule (Terry Goodkind)
85. +Emma (Jane Austen)
86. Watership Down (Richard Adams)
87. Brave New World (Aldous Huxley)
88. *The Stone Diaries (Carol Shields)
89. *Blindness (Jose Saramago)
90. *Kane and Abel (Jeffrey Archer)
91. *In The Skin Of A Lion (Ondaatje)
92. +Lord of the Flies (Golding)
93. The Good Earth (Pearl S. Buck)
94. The Secret Life of Bees (Sue Monk Kidd)
95. The Bourne Identity (Robert Ludlum)
96. *The Outsiders (S. E. Hinton)
97. White Oleander (Janet Fitch)
98. *A Woman of Substance (Barbara Taylor Bradford)
99. *The Celestine Prophecy (James Redfield)
100. Ulysses (James Joyce)

Sad. I have only read 15 of the 100 books on this list. I didn't recognize 34% of the titles. And there are two that I wouldn't touch - Interview With The Vampire and The Stand - but I couldn't figure out how to cross them out.

P.S. Thanks for the strike tip, Bob. Since posting this list, I have watched (sort of) the movie The DaVinci Code, and I no longer want to read the book. It was a bit like National Treasure, only the humor, humanity, and honor were replaced by oppression, depravity, and heresy. Dan Brown's mind must be in the clutches of something very ugly.

Einstein

I just read an interesting statement made by Albert Einstein. He wrote an essay entitled "Some Notes on my American Impressions". For the most part, his impressions were very flattering to Americans. He held our country in high regard in most areas, commenting on things such as the efficiency of our industries, the convenience of our buildings, and the limited (!) involvement of the State in private matters. (This was written, of course, many decades ago.) But one statement in particular caught my attention. He does not use a particularly negative tone, and I do not know whether he considered this characteristic to be positive or negative. Here it is:

"Great importance attaches to the material comforts of life, and peace, freedom from care, security are all sacrificed to them. The American lives for ambition, the future, more than the European. Life for him is always becoming, never being."

Always becoming, never being. No wonder medications for high blood pressure are so commonplace. Something to ponder.

American Soldier

Last December, I told you about my brother, Nathan. (fifth paragraph down) Just recently, I learned that he will indeed be deployed to Iraq, although we're not entirely sure when that will happen. Sometime between September and January, it sounds like. I am so proud of him for serving our country in this way, although naturally I am also concerned for his safety, and would appreciate your prayers in that regard.

Nathan's lovely wife, Laura, posted this photo tribute, and has graciously allowed me to share it with you. Turn your speakers on! (P.S. It takes a few seconds to get going.)

American Soldier

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Some Updates

I've just added a few features to this blog. You'll find links to the blogs of some friends of mine, as well as a list of books that I have read this year. I almost didn't include that list, because Bob's list just puts me to shame. But then I thought that may be a silly reason to not post my own.

Hopefully there will be more in the days to come. I hope to get some pictures posted soon.

Logic

After a late dinner and a sad goodbye (I think I've mentioned previously that my parents and younger brother have just moved to North Carolina), my sisters, brother-in-law, and two nephews climbed into their car to go home. Everyone was quiet after the sobering evening. Everyone except for three year old Jacob, who probably did not quite grasp the gloomy spirit of his relatives. He sat in his carseat saying, "Pah" over and over again. (Imagine "pop" without the last "p".) "Pah...pah....pah...pah..." Finally his father asked him to be quiet. Jacob's response:

"But, Da-ad! I'm saying 'pah'!"

How do you argue with that?

"Ma, they don't qualify as leftovers if they're still warm!"

Taking into account several factors - nutrition, taste, money, time - Andy and I have been making a concerted effort to prepare good, homemade meals. And this is great. We enjoy cooking together. We enjoy sitting down to eat dinner at the table together. We enjoy controlling the flavors that go into the food we eat. But there is one downfall: leftovers.

Now, in all fairness, this isn't really a downfall. It's actually a benefit. It's nice to have some good leftovers in the fridge. If there are no leftovers, I usually don't eat lunch. Silly, I know, but it's true. I just don't take time out of my day to make a sandwich, unless I feel really hungry or weak. (Note: it's not a good habit to wait until you are weak before you eat.) So for this reason, leftovers are a very good thing. But currently we have the following leftovers in our refrigerator:

• chicken tortilla soup
• pasta/bell pepper/sausage/basil dish
• rice & broccoli in puff pastry
• fettuccine alfredo
• salad
• lime Jell-O
• cranberry/raspberry Jell-O
• chocolate pudding
• birthday cake
• a fish stick

This presents a challenge. I really do hate to see food go to waste. Elise and I are doing our best here, but I'm afraid we're no match for all this food. Maybe we should have leftovers for dinner tonight...

What I've Been Doing

Andy found these great copies of Little Women and Little Men at a used bookstore the other day. He actually brought every copy the store had for me to inspect, and these are the two I chose. The copy of Little Women is just lovely - really well bound, with attractive pages and type. Actually, Little Men is much the same way, but it is an older copy - 1947, I think - so it is a bit more fragile and has a nice vintage quality to it. I like them. (Little Women is my all-time favorite book. I think this is my fourth copy of it.)


Last fall, I made my first (and, so far, only) crocheted blanket, with the intention of using it as a lap blanket in the living room. When I began the blanket, we had a red-striped slipcover on our sofa. By the time I finished the blanket, we had switched to a blue plaid sofa. Oh, well. Anyway, Andy immediately adopted the red blanket as his own, which greatly pleased me. It's nice to see something you have made being used and appreciated. However, I was still without a reading/watching TV/hanging out in the living room blanket of my own, and I wanted one that coordinated a bit better with the blue sofa. So I made this one, mostly from fabric that I already had, supplemented by a few fat quarters. I backed it with a large brown flannel print, which makes it extra soft and warm, and then I used the same flannel for the binding, just to make things easier.



On Tuesday, I made marshmallows for the first time. I'm really pleased with how they turned out. I haven't made much in the way of candy, so I was a little nervous about this, but everything worked out fine. Next time I'll work on making them pretty. This time I was just aiming for general marshmallowiness.



So there you have it - some of the fun things in my life from the past few days (well, last few weeks in the case of the blanket).

18 months and counting...

Last Saturday was Elise's 18-month birthday. Eighteen months. She's not a baby anymore. I guess technically babies are considered to be people who are twelve months of age and younger, but there are some baby traits that hang on after that point. But now...not so much. Elise is learning to run, talk, feed herself (with utensils!), navigate stairs, and climb. She's learning how to use good manners and how to be patient (although those lessons are significantly more difficult, it seems, than the lessons of physical skills). She is beginning to recognize numbers and letters - only as objects, not concepts, of course, but still... She acknowledges the difference between an accident and wrongdoing. She remembers things. For example, she has this little Baby Einstein DVD that we sometimes let her watch, and there is a part where objects ("food from the farm") slide onto the screen from various directions. She points to the empty space where the next object will go, before the object appears, and sometimes will say the name of it before it appears. She is showing signs of being ready for potty-training. Yep...my little girl is growing up.

Having an eighteen month old is very tiring. I read this excerpt from On Becoming Toddler Wise by Gary Ezzo, M.A. and Robert Bucknam, M.D. "There is no question that a toddler's mom is a tired mom, and for good reason. The emotional and physical energy needed to supervise an energy-packed tot can take down the most physically fit mom....Never so beautiful does this child look to his weary mom as he does when he closes his eyes in sleep." Just reading that was a little bit encouraging to me. It made me think that I'm not the only mother who is worn out by caring for a toddler. (My thoughts are with Beth now, caring for both a toddler and a newborn!) But at the same time, having a toddler is so much fun. I've never been around anyone who finds such joy in discovery as a toddler. Everything is interesting to her. I love watching Elise grow and learn. I love hearing her say a word for the first time. I love watching her dance. She is a bundle of energy, it's true. She is curiosity on legs. She keeps me busy. But she is so precious. Tiring as this job can be, I wouldn't trade it for anything. (Right now, Elise is sitting in her booster seat, having just finished a snack, and she is going through all the animal noises she knows. I have no idea what prompted this recital, but it's awfully cute.)

It's exciting to think of what the next six or twelve months may hold. I'm in no hurry for that time to pass, but I am looking forward to seeing Elise grow and learn even more. Last night, as I twisted in my car seat for the 100th time (so it seemed) to reach Elise's fallen book and give it back to her, I commented to Andy that it will be so nice when Elise is able to do that on her own. I then immediately chided myself for the comment as I realized that I was wishing away a most precious time. I know that someday soon I will be helping Elise pack for college, or will be watching her walk down the aisle towards a man who will be the object of her highest affection. And today will just be a fond memory, and I will be wishing that I had it back. So I won't wish it away while I have it.

Is That Weird?

Last night, as my husband was trying to fall asleep, I had to ask him a pressing question. I said, "Honey, I have a question. You know how when you're upside-down your eyes see everything around you as upside-down? I don't. When I'm upside-down, everything still looks right-side-up to me. Is that weird?" He replied by rolling over to face me and asking, "What do you do after I leave for work in the morning?"

But it's true. As a kid, when you hang upside-down from the monkey bars, the world around you appears to be upside-down, right? Not for me. For whatever reason, my brain makes the adjustment and I don't perceive my surroundings as upside-down. They look entirely normal - right-side-up - to me. Now of course that's not true of my perception of individual objects. If you came into my house and turned my coffee table upside down, I would notice. But that's only because it would be upside down in relation to the things around it. When everything is upside down (or when I am upside down, thus making everything else upside down in relation to me), I don't notice it.

Is that weird?

Adornment

On Saturday, I was reading a book about Titus 2, which led me to read Titus 2 itself. Titus 2 is a chapter of instructions on what virtues should be taught to and practiced by certain groups of people, namely men, women, and slaves. I was struck by the reason given for teaching and practicing these virtues. The reason is for the honor and promotion of the gospel. As the KJV phrases it, "that they may adorn the doctrine of God our Savior in all things" (Titus 2:10). To adorn the doctrine of God. To make the gospel beautiful. By our actions, we can make the gospel attractive to others. I suppose by that same measure, our actions can make the gospel ugly to others. What a sobering thought.

I love the idea of adorning the gospel. It gives such meaning and purpose to otherwise mundane tasks. It is easy to think that many tasks associated with mothering and homemaking are mundane. It is easy to feel overwhelmed, as I have lately, by the multiple responsibilities that each seem small and insignificant on their own, but somehow add up to a monumental load. But to think that the purpose of these things is to adorn the gospel - to make the gospel attractive to those around me - how wonderful! And this applies to everything, of course, not just to homemaking and mothering. This applies to every job on earth. Office jobs, farming, field techs, golf caddying, preaching, operating, delivering mail, reporting the news - Christians in every area of work, all over the world, have the responsibility and privilege of making the gospel attractive to the world.

I didn't watch the Super Bowl yesterday, but I did watch the awards ceremony afterward. I was struck by a comment made by Colts' head coach Tony Dungy. He was talking about how pleased he was to be the first African American coach to win a Super Bowl (and I think maybe one of the first two to make it to the Super Bowl - the other being yesterday's opponent, Bears' head coach Lovie Smith. But please don't quote me on that fact. I could be wrong.) Such a comment was expected from Dungy, as much media attention has been lavished on this story. But what came next was not as expected. He said (and I paraphrase tremendously- I cannot find the text of his speech) that as pleased as he was to be the first African American head coach to win a Super Bowl, he was even more pleased to be a Christian coach winning the Super Bowl, as that proved that "it can be done the Lord's way". This story tells a bit more about Dungy's open and active faith. Adorning the gospel.

Yesterday in church, our pastor made the sad announcement that a man from our congregation had been killed in an ATV accident on Saturday. His wife, teenage daughter, parents, and mother-in-law were there at the church service, sitting in the row just behind Andy and me. Their pain and grief were evident as they wept; but their faith was even more evident as they lifted their hands and voices to heaven and worshiped with the rest of us. Adorning the gospel. The man who was killed was baptized just two weeks ago, along with his daughter. This recent statement of faith was reassuring to all of us. Our pastor spoke of the gifts of salvation and freedom from death that are available to all of us, and five people decided to accept those gifts and took the first step toward doing so. The young man whose life ended so abruptly and so tragicly was adorning the gospel.

If there are days - and there are - when I can think of no other compelling reason to be kind, to be patient, to hold my tongue, then I pray that this reason will remain ever present and forefront in my mind.

Hodgepodge

Today has been a little bit stressful, and for no good reason. Just one of those days when the little things - and I mean little - add up. Elise wouldn't take a nap; the printer wouldn't work; the broiler pan drippings were so baked on that I got an aerobic workout just by scrubbing it, and it's still not clean. Stuff like that. But then I left to run some errands, and the little things began to add up to a pleasant, peaceful sum. Elise happily read her books in the car and didn't fuss once; I passed Andy on my way out, so I knew he would be home to greet me when I returned; I made a pitcher of iced tea (yes, I know it's February. I really, really like iced tea.); the weather was beautiful today; and when I got home, there was an issue of Martha Stewart Living waiting for me. So it is turning out to be a good day after all.

Speaking of Martha Stewart Living, I had decided sometime during the holidays that I wouldn't buy any more magazines. My only exception was maybe a quilting magazine, if it had patterns that I would actually use. And the quilting magazine that I like only comes out quarterly. I am a sucker for magazines, truly a marketer's dream. So I just decided I wouldn't buy any more. About a week later, I received gift subscriptions to three magazines. :) It was such a treat - here I had decided not to spend money on them anymore, and all of a sudden three of them show up in my mailbox every month. Pretty cool, huh? Now I just have to be careful that the glossy pictures don't seduce me into spending money on things I don't need. I once heard that the more television you watch and the more magazines you read, the more money you spend. The TV thing seemed intuitive, but I was surprised by the magazine correlation. It's the same advertising principle as television, I know, but I was still surprised.

Speaking of spending money, if you are in the mood for doing so (how's that for resolve?), you should check out this site. It's Goodwill - online. Apparently the Goodwill stores take things that they consider to be especially desirable, valuable, or collectible, and they sell those things in an online auction. The beauty of it is that the employees who are posting the items are not necessarily experts in antiques or collectibles, so you can frequently find things for well under their retail value. The only things I have purchased are a few Charlie Brown books, but it's fun to browse. I personally like looking for teacups and quilts. Yeah, I know.

For all you moms in the Seattle area, I was recently introduced to a great place. The Child's Play Cafe in downtown Bellevue. Fantastic. A little pricey to frequent, but really a great place for a break every now and then. I went yesterday with some friends and their children. There is a charge per hour per child. They have a large, supervised play area for children over 18 months (although they're not entirely strict on that - Elise went, and she is not quite 18 months), and several smaller, unsupervised play areas for all ages. They have a decent menu for adults - mostly light lunch fare such as salads, sandwiches, and quiche - as well as a great kids menu. You can purchase individual snacks for your child - Goldfish, string cheese, etc. - or a toddlers platter or big kids platter. Both include finger foods. They also have a full espresso bar. You place your order at the counter, and they bring the food to you. They keep a running tab for you and you just pay for everything when you leave. There is a complimentary Cheerios dispenser - nice touch! The restroom is fully stocked with all sizes of diapers, wet wipes, Desitin, bandages, etc. I was a little nervous about leaving Elise in the play area at first, because she wouldn't be able to see us where we were sitting, but she walked right in and never even looked back at me. She had a blast. The young woman in charge of the play area caught my eye almost every time I looked that way and let me know that everything was okay (she must be accustomed to nervous parents), and she flagged me down when Elise needed a diaper change. Anyway, the whole gist of the place is that moms (or dads, although there weren't any there yesterday) can relax, have a latte, read a book while their kids play in a safe environment. It is a great idea, I think.

So, there's my post for today. Nothing in particular. I'm going to go drink some iced tea now.

How to make yourself feel like the worst parent EVER

On the day Elise was born, that wonderful, blessed day, she was given a small stuffed lamb. I loved it immediately. I'm not sure if that is because it is actually adorable - I think it is - or because in my euphoric, new mother, drugged state of mind, I loved everything. Regardless, the lamb - "Lambie" (original, eh?) - won me over immediately.

Elise loves stuffed animals. She has about twenty of them. A few days ago she opened a package to find a new stuffed puppy inside, and she actually squealed in delight. But Lambie is special. Lambie goes everywhere with Elise. The other animals are played with and hugged and are sometimes privileged enough to share a car ride or a nap with Elise. But Lambie is always there. Which is why we took him with us when we went to Portland this weekend. Which is where he still is. That's right. See, Lambie is such a constant companion to Elise that he did not get packed into the car this morning along with everything else, because Elise was holding him while the car was being packed. Somehow, though, while the goodbyes were being said, Elise dropped Lambie, and we drove back to Seattle without him. We knew that this wasn't good, but we didn't think it was quite this bad.

When I put Elise to bed tonight, she immediately sat up and looked on either side of herself. Then she went down the entire line of animals that live in her crib, picked up each and every one of them, and looked beneath them. She scooted down to the end of the crib and picked up the folded blankets, looking under them. She looked under the little pillow. I knew that she was looking for Lambie, but I didn't say anything. She then crawled back to the head of the crib and peered down through the crack between the mattress and the frame. I let her look for a minute, and then I said, "Okay, Elise, it's time to lay down". She scooted back to the middle of the crib, looked up at me, and said, "Mammy?" (which is how she says "Lambie"). My heart melted. I didn't know what to do. She was not upset, just curious and looking for her friend. She repeated, "Mammy? Mammy?" I said, "Oh, honey, Lambie's not here right now." Her response? "Mammy, peez. Peez. Peez." She has just recently learned that she will not get what she wants without saying "Please" ("peez"). (We're still working on understanding that saying "please" does not automatically entitle her to the requested object.)

Elise's sweet little spirit shone through when she stopped looking for Lambie and calmly laid down. I sang our usual bedtime song, tucked her in, and left, and she went to sleep as usual. I was glad that she did not have any trouble falling asleep without Lambie - I don't want her to be that dependent on a stuffed animal. I know that a few nights without Lambie will not hurt Elise in the slightest. But it sure made me feel terrible! When I relayed the story to Andy, he immediately went online and found a store that sells Lambie. I had to talk him out of buying one and having it shipped overnight. My sister will be here on Friday and will bring Lambie with her. I think we can make it until then.

I hope so, anyway.

Oh Happy Day!

A couple of weeks ago I told you about our friends who are trying to adopt a baby boy. Well, we have just received word that the paternity test results came back yesterday - negative! The man who was believed to be the biological father is not. Hallelujah! Now the only thing that stands between our friends and the finalized adoption of their son is another thirty days, to give the actual father a chance to come forward. They have to post an advertisement in the newspaper in a due diligence effort to contact him. They don't know his last name, and he is in the military, so he could be anywhere. Do people really read the "you might be a daddy" personal ads in the newspaper? I didn't even know there were such things.

Thanks to all who were praying about this.

Jack! STRONG coffee!

So says Tea Leoni to Nicolas Cage in The Family Man when they are awakened by their children all too early on Christmas morning. So I feel today.

Andy is still sick, although he appears to be on the mend. His fever has gone down considerably. Neither Elise nor I have shown signs of having caught it yet, thankfully.

I was just thinking. Why is it so hard to get through really long books? I just glanced at the bookshelf next to me and saw both The Brothers Karamazov and The Brothers K - which I know sound like the same book, but they are not. Both books are well over 600 pages, the first one over 700. Long books by most standards. I usually read a book of average length - about 350 pages is what I would consider average, at least for the books that I typically read - in about two weeks. I'm not a particularly slow reader, but I'm not fast, either, and I don't read for very long each day, or even read at all every day. So it takes me a while to get through a book. But if I read a 350 page book in two weeks, wouldn't it stand to reason that I should be able to read The Brothers Karamazov in a month? One would think. Hmm.

I'm reading easy books right now. The Little House series, as mentioned earlier, and now a series by Beverly Lewis. I think the series is called Daughters of Abram, but I could be wrong about that. It is about the women in an Amish family. The book itself is rather fluffy. The friend who lent it to me described it as "a trashy novel without the sex", which was a rather apt description. Seems that is what most Christian fiction is these days. It's sad, really, because there is room for depth. Apparently Christian publishing houses have the same low standards that most secular ones have. However, the book does describe the Amish lifestyle in some detail, which I enjoy. I have always had a great respect for and interest in the Amish culture. What a fascinating group of people! And it is interesting to read these books parallel with the Little House books. The books are set nearly 100 years apart, yet many of the domestic details described are almost identical - farming, keeping house, canning and preserving, sewing. Reading books that describe such things always makes me want to - oh, I don't know - churn butter. It usually also makes me ashamed of my housekeeping skills. Caroline Ingalls would be appalled at the mess in my living room this morning. And then reading about the Amish girls filling their hope chests made me want to embroider pillowcases. I'm much more likely to do that than to churn butter.

As appealing as such traditional domesticity and farm life is to me, I do not fool myself into wishing I had been born into an earlier era. First of all, if I had, I would be dead now. (Let's not get into the relativity of time.) Second of all, I really do love my dishwasher, washer and dryer, refrigerator, car, and local grocery store. I like that I can grow vegetables (theoretically, people!) and make jam and sew quilts because those things are enjoyable, not because my family's survival and livelihood depends on them. But reading about that way of life does inspire me to live simply and to pay attention to the way I live. It makes me want to be conservative in my consumption of goods and careful about the way I spend my time. And it makes me realize that every generation in Christian history, with few exceptions, considers previous generations to have lived by a higher standard of morality and a simpler means of sustenance than the current generation. We all think our parents and grandparents lived in simpler times. Our children and grandchildren will think the same of us. And it may be true, to an extent, but we have to remember that there is nothing new under the sun. If we feel that our lives are too complicated, or we are too reliant on modern conveniences, or morality is now relative, we cannot blame those things on the time in which we live. The Christian standard has never been any easier to live by than it is today. There may have been times when good behavior was encouraged and rewarded by society more than it is today, but holiness has always been countercultural and has always been contrary to human nature. I do not believe that God makes allowances for us based on the times in which we live. "Oh, well, so long as everybody else was doing it..." Yeah. I don't think so.

Tired

It has been a day. Poor Andy woke up with a fever and bad headache. Now, he gets his fair share of coughs and colds and general feelings of blah, but this is big for him. He crawled back into bed and requested - actually requested - a doctor's appointment. This was not as easy as it sounds. His regular physician no longer accepts our health insurance, and we have not yet established care with a new physician. So I pulled up our preferred provider list, breathed a prayer that my search would not lead us directly to a quack, and picked up the phone. The first office I called - well, okay, the first office I called got me "Jim, MRI". Yeah. But the second office I called could get us in within an hour and they were less than three miles away. Perfect. I gave Elise her breakfast, threw in a load of laundry, loaded the dishwasher, and ran out the door. Hmm. The gas gauge needle was below the red "Empty" line. I should have realized this since the warning beep beeped at us on the way to church yesterday. (That's another story.) But the doctor was less than three miles away, so we risked it. And made it. Whew!

Everyone in the doctor's office was very friendly and helpful. All three of them. Andy was seen promptly, and Elise played happily with the toys in the waiting room. The doctor himself walked Andy back out to the waiting room, where he then talked pleasantly to me and Elise for a few minutes. He explained to me what he had already explained to Andy - the illness is probably viral, he recommends symptomatic treatment - and then gave Elise a sticker and let her explore the whole clinic. I was impressed.

We got home (with a brief stop at a gas station first) and began the prescribed symptomatic treatment. Sleep. Andy went immediately to bed and stayed there until late in the afternoon. I have never known him to sleep so much. He called me in only to ask for more blankets, Tylenol, and a humidifier. Even now, at 10:00 at night, he is still asleep in the recliner, blankets piled on top of him, a cool cloth (well, it used to be cool - I haven't checked it in a while) on his forehead. Poor guy. I feel so badly for him. And I have to admit, I'm a little afraid of Elise or I catching it. It's hard to take care of a sick child, and it's hard to take care of a healthy child when you yourself are sick. But we'll make it.

Anyway, I'm tired. And I feel that I accomplished very little today. But when someone in your household is sick, you kind of go into maintenance mode, you know? I did put together an apron that I cut out over a month ago, but I don't have the energy to take and post a picture of it right now. Here are some pictures of Baby S's quilt:



We had her baby shower here on Saturday, and it was a lot of fun. I finished the quilt just in time - about 45 minutes before the shower began, actually. I had promised myself that I would not let it get down to the wire like that, but I did. Oh, and the quilt is not tapered as it appears in the photo. That's just the photo and the way I am holding the quilt. The center of the quilt was made before S was born, before we knew that she was a she. Once she was born, I decided to make the rest of quilt - the border and binding - decidedly feminine.

Okay, off to bed with me. In twelve hours I will be sitting in a dentist's chair. Ugh. Is it bad to wish the week were over when it is still only Monday?

Iloyo

No, I haven't learned or created a new language.

Elise's vocabulary is rapidly expanding. Her new favorite word - or perhaps just my favorite of her new words - is "dishes". We have a couple shelves of china in our dining room, and over the last several months I have identified the china as "dishes" whenever Elise points to them and asks what they are. ("A-dat?" has been her most frequently spoken phrase for months.) A few days ago, as I was working at the dining room table, Elise walked up to me, pointed at the china, and said, "shishes". She had to say it a few times before I caught on. Since then it has been refined to "dithshes".

The phrase that had us confused the longest was "Iloyo". She kept saying it, over and over, and we couldn't figure it out. Then one day she said it in response to what we said. Have you figured it out? Iloyo. I Lo Yo. I love you. Isn't that sweet? She is saying, "I love you"!

Iloyo, too, Elise.

M.C.D.

Today is cleaning day. As the mother of a toddler, really every day is cleaning day, but today is "Major Cleaning Day", as my mom would say. There is to be a shower here on Saturday - of the gifts and guests variety, not the water variety, although I'm sure that kind will occur as well. My hope is that between today's cleaning and Saturday's shower, the house will stay clean. I don't know if that's possible. Can I hope for 48 hours without having something sticky spilled onto the floor?

Quiet day

I'm enjoying a quiet Sunday morning at home. Elise and I stayed home from church today due to icy roads. I don't think the roads are really all that bad, but Andy had to be at church at 7:30 this morning - an hour and a half before the first service began - and has to stay until noon or so. Not wanting to be gone that long with Elise (that would mean waking her up earlier than usual and missing her nap), my options were to stay home or to drive myself and Elise separately. I chose to stay home rather than brave the icy roads myself. Now, you might poke fun at me for being so cautious. I am, after all, a born and bred midwesterner, and I initially learned how to drive in the winter, so one would think that I would be used to icy conditions. And I am. But in the Midwest, if you slide on black ice, you end up in a ditch or a snow bank or some other such irritating but harmless position. Here, you end up embedded in the side of a bus. I'd rather stay home.

So, yes, it is a quiet day. I'm sitting here drinking my coffee. Elise is exploring how many pillows she can stack on top of one another before they topple over. We played "Itsy Bitsy Spider" and peek-a-boo. Elise's version of peek-a-boo consists of her covering one eye, not her entire face. Not entirely effective, but cute.

Here are a few things that I have particularly enjoyed this week:

Elise, sharing her chocolate with me.
Flannel pajamas. So comfortable!
A quilt handmade by someone else, and left for me to find in a thrift store.
Leftover Christmas candies.
February's Country Home magazine. Thanks, Janene!
The Little House books. I loved them as a child. I received the series for Christmas when I was five, and have read them dozens of times. My original series is gone, being paperback and having lived through five girls. I recently bought the books again, and am very much enjoying reading them. I remember not caring so much for this one - Farmer Boy - when I was a little girl. It was about a boy. How boring. But now I am enjoying it.

Now I am off to kiss Elise's head better - she just crawled under the kitchen table and then stood up - and to clean the banana off the floor before it dries.

Heartache

Yesterday I told you about the baby who has been adopted by friends of ours. Today I received a phone call informing me that the baby shower for this baby has been canceled until further notice. The birth father has decided to fight for custody. I do not know the circumstances. I don't know whether the birth father has been absent until now, or whether he simply changed his mind about the adoption once he saw his son. I don't even know how to pray about it, other than to pray for God's will to be done. I want to pray for the adoption to go through, but I am sure there are people on the other side of the coin who are praying that it will not. Who is to say what is best for the baby? My heart aches for my friends. They have had their son home with them for over a week. He is their son.

During Elise's birth, there was a very brief time - under ten minutes - when we thought we might lose her. It was terrifying. I can only imagine what my friends are going through, sitting at home with their baby, with the constant and very real fear that they might lose him - not to death, but lose him just the same.

They are waiting for paternity test results. A negative result is their only known hope. Apparently a negative result is possible in this situation, but not probable. I wish I could help them. They are strong, and they have been through disappointment before, but...to lose a child. My stomach is in knots just thinking about it.

Baby Crafts

Here is a fabric frame that I made for a little guy who was born just last week. This is one very loved baby. His mom and dad prayed for a child for so long. They established themselves with an adoption agency and were told that it takes on average 14 months to adopt a child. Well, they were with that agency for just about that long when the agency closed its doors. Heartbreaking. They had to start from scratch. Fortunately, the next agency they tried was able to connect them with a birth mother very quickly. From what I understand, the birth mother loves this boy, too, enough to choose his parents herself, enough to let go of him so that he can have a life that she feels she cannot provide for him right now. Brave, brave girl.
This isn't a great picture. Sorry.
I like to give something handmade to each new baby I know. I wish I could make a quilt for each of them, but there are just too many! I have celebrated the birth of eleven friends' babies in the last nine months, and there are five babies (that I know of) due to be born within the next six months. So for the most part I stick with simpler gifts, usually something from mom's baby registry and something handmade. I got the idea for this frame from Better Homes & Gardens Creative Collection Quilts and More magazine, Fall 2006. It was a lot of fun to make, and very fast, and I used only materials I already had on hand, and the picture that was emailed out the day baby was born. The pattern calls for slipping a magnetic strip into the back of the frame, but since I used flannel (pattern uses muslin), I found that the typical craft magnets are not strong enough, so I attached a ribbon for hanging instead. The pattern also called for a layer of stiff interfacing, which I did not use, but I think I will next time. As you can tell from the picture, the frame is a little too soft and floppy looking.

Dead Sea Scrolls

I completely forgot to mention this earlier...

Last Friday Andy and I went to see the Dead Sea Scrolls exhibit at the Pacific Science Center. The journey to the Scrolls was a bit complicated. We tried to see them in December, but did not buy tickets in advance, and by the time we arrived at the Science Center, tickets for that day were sold out. So, with only a few days left in the exhibit, I called ahead to purchase tickets. The only ones still available were for 10:30PM! So we called our friend Denny, who graciously agreed to babysit so late at night. On the night of the exhibit, all went well. Denny arrived, Elise went to sleep (thus never knowing we were gone), and we drove to lower Queen Anne. We arrived early, as instructed, and at first we were able to stay warm inside the Science Center as we waited for our tour to begin. Then, at 10:00, all of the Center except the Dead Sea Scrolls exhibit closed, forcing us to wait outside. It was bitterly cold and the wind was amazing. (Not surprisingly, later that night we lost power due to the wind.) There were some people waiting with very young children, even infants, and I felt just terrible for them. At any rate, we finally made it into the exhibit, and it was worth the late hour, the cold, the expense, everything.

I was surprised by how small and how fragmented the scrolls were. There were ten scrolls on display, and most of them were broken into several pieces, with large sections missing. No wonder scholars are still working on them after 60 years. The lights in the exhibit hall were very dim, and the lights directly on the scrolls were turned off every few seconds. They take no chances with 2000 year old sacred writings. The script was just beautiful, and - oh, I can't even describe it. It was truly awesome. One scroll was from Exodus and included the Ten Commandments - the oldest known copy. Another, the most well preserved and beautiful scroll, included parts of the Psalms, some canonized and others not. This scroll was tremendous. It was quite large, probably about 20" long and 8" high. One of the more interesting things about it is that you can clearly make out where the name of God is written. In ancient Israel - and actually among Orthodox Jews still today, I believe - the name of God was never said aloud. It was considered too holy, too sacred for a human to utter. So oftentimes a scribe would write the name of God in a hand distinct from the rest of the writing, so that when it was read aloud, the reader would see the name coming, and would not mistakenly say it. I don't read Hebrew, of course - although I would just love to learn how - but it was really intriguing to look at that scroll and be able to tell which word was the name of God. I'm not sure which name it was, but still...it kindled a sense of reverence and awe.

The other thing that was interesting to me was how precisely the translation of the scrolls matches our modern translations of the Bible. The discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls is considered to be the most significant evidence of the validity and accuracy of the Bible. It really is exact, word for word. Pretty amazing.

The Scrolls have left Seattle now, and I'm not sure where they are headed next. I hope you got to see them while they were here, but even if you didn't, I encourage you to read up on them. They are fascinating.

Returning to sanity

Good thing I didn't make "Blog every day" a resolution for the new year!

We've been a little down and out at our house these past few days. Elise has had some health issues - that makes it sound like a big deal, like we're waiting on blood tests or something; really not the case - that have left us all rather frazzled. It was just a stomach problem, but she was in obvious discomfort and sometimes pretty bad pain, and a toddler who is uncomfortable or in pain is not a happy person. We had a very trying couple of days. Fortunately, Elise seems to feel much, much better today and is her usual happy self.

Our house is pretty much a disaster area, but there have been some sanity saving moments over the past few days, moments when I have been able to get some things done to keep myself from going absolutely crazy. It is amazing how accomplishing even small tasks can make one feel so good. For example, yesterday Andy took Elise to the store with him, and I cleaned our bedroom. I am ashamed to say that I have neglected cleaning the bedroom lately in favor of keeping the more public areas of our home presentable. I never wanted to do that. I believe that a home should first and foremost meet the needs of the people who live in it. By that measure, one would think that I would clean the bedrooms first. But, no. I hate realizing that my actions don't match my stated priorities, but at least once I realize it, I can fix it. Anyway, it felt so great yesterday to dust and vacuum and put away the clothes and make up the bed, and it felt even better to wake up this morning in a clean room. Now my goal for tomorrow morning is to wake up in a clean room and then to walk into a clean bathroom. Wish me luck.

Other projects done in snippets of time include pinning and beginning to quilt a quilt (I have no pictures to post at this point, but I'll try to remember to post some once the quilt is completed) and...well, gosh, I guess that's it. Boring, huh? I told you, it has been a frazzling couple of days. Right now Elise is asleep, and I think I will take this opportunity to take down the Christmas decorations. I'm ready to take them down. When Andy and I first discussed when to de-decorate, I was a little saddened by the prospect. But now I'm ready. Christmas is over (although there are still a few gifts under the tree) and I'm looking forward to the clean, roomy feel that the living room always has once the tree and decorations are gone. Just writing that makes me want to clean. I'm looking around the dining room at the piles of stuff, the clutter, and I just want it to be gone. So here I go, to make it disappear.

Someone else's point of view

I am touched by and can relate to this woman's thoughts on parenting and family life.

A New Year

Ah, the possibilities! I am so excited to see what this new year holds. 2006 was a great year. A quiet year, a year of great contentment. We watched Elise learn to eat solid food, sit up, crawl, stand, walk, talk (still a work in progress), and learn a million things about herself and the world around her. We enjoyed being settled in our life - our home, our role as parents, Andy's job, my new role as homemaker, our involvement in our church. There weren't a whole lot of "big" new things in 2006, but instead a lot of small, happy, quiet moments that made the year wonderful. And then the year ended on the best note - our dear friends Bob and Beth welcomed a new child into the world on New Year's Eve! Welcome, dear girl. You are in for quite an adventure!

New Year's resolutions are not a strict tradition for me. Some years I make them, some years I don't. This year I will. There are a few things that have been on my mind for the last little while, and after thinking about them for a few months or so, I've decided to make an intentional effort to implement these things into my life. Here they are, in no particular order:

• Pay closer attention to and show appreciation for acts of kindness and responsibility. I particularly desire to notice work that is done behind the scenes, people that typically receive little thanks for their hard work.
• Be prepared. This is really another way of saying "don't procrastinate". I want to be available when opportunities arise, opportunities to help, opportunities to learn, opportunities to enjoy. I don't think that I can necessarily prepare myself for the particular details of life, but I do think that diligence in work, love, virtue, and learning will go a long way in preparing most people for most things.
• Observe details. Elise reminded me of this earlier today when she turned a red pepper slice into a toy telephone. I would never have noticed the similarity in shapes. I want to notice details (this goes along with appreciating unnoticed work, see resolution #1). I believe details are important.

Well, those are some of the things I'd like to work on this year. There are some practical, more tangible goals, too, of course. There are a lot of books I'd like to read. There are quilts to be made. There are new sewing projects to try, namely little girls' clothing. There are improvements to be made to the church nursery. There are improvements to be made to our home. There's potty training Elise - yikes! There will be, Lord willing, preparations to be made for a new baby (don't get excited - our hope is for a new baby to join our family early in 2008). One of my long term goals is to get an RN license, and the breakdown of that goal includes completing hopefully two prerequisite classes this year. I don't think I've mentioned that decision to anyone but my husband before, although it's one that he and I have been discussing for quite some time. So there you have it.

Those are some of my goals for the new year. What are yours?

Alexander Graham Bell Pepper

My daughter usually eats a cold lunch - fresh fruit, vegetables, lunchmeat, cheese, that sort of thing. If her lunch is hot, it is reheated leftovers. I do not feel guilty about this because she does eat a hot breakfast and a hot dinner. Today, though, I decided to go for a hot lunch. I made some tri-colored rotini - pretty much her absolute favorite food - and I sauteed some baby carrots and julienned red bell peppers. It was a very attractive plate. Well, naturally, Elise ate all of the pasta right up. She nibbled on the carrots. But the red peppers? Well, Elise instantly noticed a similarity that I, in my nearly 27 years on this earth, had never noticed, and she put her observation to immediate use. Julienned bell peppers are shaped remarkably like telephones. I turned around and saw my daughter chomping away at her rotini, with a red pepper slice tucked securely between her shoulder and ear, just the way she holds her toy telephone.

This reminds me of a New Year's goal of mine, which will be mentioned in a later post.

Boxing Day

Christmas Day has come and gone yet again. I'm always afraid that I will feel let down after Christmas, but I never do. In fact, I usually feel invigorated. It's time to carry on with life as usual! And I like life as usual. I like the routine, the normalcy, the calm. I love Christmas, of course. It's my very favorite time of year. But once it is done, the priority of my tasks shifts back into what it is the rest of the year. Like laundry. Today laundry is a high priority for me. If I do not do laundry today, Elise will not have pajamas to wear tonight.

I'm also looking forward to getting back into non-Christmas fun things. During December - well, prior to the 26th, that is - my evenings were pleasant but filled with Christmas activities. I may have wanted to read the book that I started before Thanksgiving, or work on the quilt that is waiting patiently for its border, but I felt compelled to address Christmas cards and wrap gifts. During December, my sewing room was transformed into gift-making, -hiding, and -wrapping central. I am anxious to restore it to its proper order.

Now that I think of it, there are so many things that came to mind in December that I wanted to do, but that I delayed in favor of holiday tasks and activities. And now here is 2007, peeking around the corner, with all of its promises of time and all of its hidden events and joys and sorrows. A new year is such a refreshing prospect. To paraphrase a favorite professor - All right, gang, let's make it a great year!

Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas, everyone! The day has finally arrived. What a great holiday!

Elise was not at all impressed with opening presents this morning. There were a couple of gifts that we left unwrapped, just sitting under the tree, and those were a big hit. Oh, well. Now we know, in case we ever have a 16-month old at Christmas again. We were excited for her to open her presents, and she did like them all once they were opened.

Andy and I decided some time ago that we would not exchange gifts this year, save stocking stuffers. Stockings are my favorite part of Christmas morning anyway. Well...I gave Andy stocking stuffers, and he gave me really nice gifts that happened to fit in a stocking. I suspected that might happen.

This afternoon we went to the zoo. The weather was great and the zoo was not at all crowded, not surprisingly. Some of the animals took the day off, but all of my favorites - the savannah animals - were out in full view. We thought that going to the zoo on Christmas would be a nice tradition to start, but alas, the Woodland Park Zoo will closed on all future Christmases. We might just have to go to the Point Defiance Zoo, which is a significantly longer drive, but still not all that far. Of course we didn't take into account that Christmas weather in western Washington in predictably unpredictable. Hmm. Well, something to think about.

Our neighbor just stopped by to borrow some wrapping paper. :) Funny guy.

It has been a nice day. Quiet, relaxed, happy. Now Elise is napping and I'm about to sit down with a cup of tea and some shortbread.

I hope you are all having a wonderful day!

Happy Birthday, Sweetheart

Dear Andy,

Today is your birthday. You are a certain number of years old - the perfect number of years for your age, I think. I'd like to tell you, in case you ever wonder, a little bit about why I love you so much.

I love you because you are so kind - to me, to Elise, to our families, to our friends, to perfect strangers. When you see a need that you can fill, you fill it. I love that you do kind things for people who will never know that it was you who helped them.

I love you because you do what is right even when it is inconvenient. You lead by example. You practice what you preach. You get frustrated when you see people you care about making poor moral decisions or compromising their integrity.

I love you because you have a most amazing sense of humor. It encompasses everything from random quirkiness to subtle satire. Even after four years of marriage, I still can't always tell when you're joking - you can keep a straight face through anything. Then you flash that quick, sly smile to let me know that you are joking, and just as fast as it appeared, it vanishes, so the rest of the world still doesn't know.

I love you because you are a problem solver. You don't give up. This goes along with the way that you fill needs when you see them. Whether the problem is intellectual, physical, moral, etc., once you see that there is a problem, you work on it until it is solved.

I love you because miscommunication drives you nuts. Crossed wires, misplaced blame, misunderstandings, mistaken identities - you want to give everyone a bird's eye view of the situation, whether in real life or on the screen.

I love you because when a transformer blows in the middle of the night, you explain to me exactly what happened, why it happened, and how it will affect us - even though my brain can barely recognize the sounds coming from your mouth as words, much less comprehend what they mean when strung together.

I love you because you get up with Elise every single morning. Other mothers must despise me. You let me sleep until I am rested every day.

I love you because you provide for us. We have never gone without anything that we need. At the same time, you are constantly looking for new opportunities in your own education and career. I know that you will always put the well-being of our family first, and within that parameter, you will always challenge yourself.

I love you because you have kept your promise to cherish me.

I love you because you offered to share your ChexMix with me.

I love you because you are kind to my family.

I love you because you will talk to telemarketers for me.

I love you because you will check on strange noises in the night.

I love you because you will admire the work that I do, and you will offer suggestions, showing me that you are actually thinking about what I'm showing you, not just feigning interest.

I love you because you want to give me my Christmas presents now.

I love you because you made dozens of balloon flowers.

But take all of this away, and I will still love you. These things are symptoms, outward indications of the man that you truly are. You truly are made in God's image, in the very likeness of God. I am so grateful to have you. You are an amazing blessing to me.

I am so proud of you, and I love you very much.

Love always,
Holly

Let the baking begin!

Andy gave me such a lovely gift today. He took Elise with him to run (my) errands, leaving me alone in the house. He's really wonderful about doing that, and frequently takes Elise with him so I can have a bit of time to myself. This afternoon I used my free time to restore order to the living room and to bake. Bake! Hurray! There are snickerdoodles in the oven as we speak. Or write. Whatever.

I really love baking. It's relaxing, it produces quick, tangible results, and it's relatively easy - if you stick with things like snickerdoodles, anyway. I don't bake all that often, mostly because there are only three of us in our household, and it's hard (not to mention unhealthy) for three people to consume an entire pie, cake, batch of cookies, etc. That isn't really a great excuse for not baking cookies - many of them freeze well. But it is a good reason for not making the others all that often. At Christmastime, however, I can't help it. Baking is as much a part of the festivities as setting up the tree, singing carols, and giving gifts. My most vivid holiday memories involve baking. My mom made the same treats every year - fudge, Clifford tea cakes, Russian tea cookies, candy cane cookies. We loved twisting the candy cane cookie dough into uneven, misshapen little candy canes, oftentimes so uneven that one end would burn while the other remained doughy. We always had fun, and baking together was always a key part of our Christmas tradition.

So now I'm the mom (weird) and the traditions Andy and I establish today will be an important part of Elise's childhood memories. Kitchen memories are important, I think. Everyone should have good kitchen memories.

Oops. As I was writing about how I love to bake, and how relaxing it is, etc., smoke started pouring from my oven! Well, come on, I didn't say I was good at baking. Fortunately, the smoke did not involve the cookies. It involved something on the bottom of the oven. I don't know what the object originated as, but by the time I got to it, it was a 1" chunk of crumbly blackness. Big metal spoon to the rescue. Cookies, as you were.

Nine and a half minutes later, my snickerdoodles are cooling and making the whole house smell good. Friends who were here earlier, I'm sorry I didn't make the cookies while you were still here. You're welcome to come back for them.

Back to the recipe box I go!

First Day of High School

Last night a friend called to ask for assistance on behalf of her mother. Her mom teaches child development at a local high school, and today the class was supposed to observe and interact with toddlers. The only thing was that they had no toddlers. Makes observation tricky. So this morning Elise and I went to the high school. It was an interesting experience. First off, I don't think I've been to a high school during school hours since I was in high school, going on ten years ago. It doesn't look like much has changed.

Fortunately, another friend had also agreed to go, and she brought her 17-month old son. I don't think the kids necessarily cared, but it was nice for me to have someone I knew there to talk to. There were only five kids - little kids, that is - there, and probably about 20 teenagers. The teenagers all had little stations set up with a different activity at each, Montessori style, and the toddlers were free to play at whichever station they pleased. Elise and Colin both beelined to the blocks. After a while, they went back and forth between the blocks and the confetti. That's right, confetti. One group of teenagers had a large, shallow plastic tub full of confetti - actually circles made by paper hole punchers, which apparently a local printer had saved for them. The little kids had a great time with it, and it was fun to watch them, knowing that I wasn't going to have to clean it up.

Elise seemed to have a lot of fun. I tried not to direct or help her too much, as the point was for the students to observe toddler behavior. Every once in a while she would fall (the floor was hard, slippery linoleum, typical of schools, and once the confetti was spread around, it was really slippery) and would come over for a kiss, or she'd get a piece of confetti stuck to her hand and would come over to have it removed (she hates having things stuck on her hands), but other than that, she pretty well ignored me.

Watching the teenagers was entertaining. It was easy to pick out who had been around little kids before and who hadn't. One group was supervising finger painting, and the teacher had to remind them to wash the toddlers' hands afterwards. My friend and I were amused by that, because we wouldn't even think about doing something like that - it was just be an automatic reaction. You don't let a two year old get away with his hands covered in wet paint. Another student came in towards the end of the class and immediately laid on his stomach on the floor and started playing with the toys, so he was at the toddlers' level. When Elise tripped on a block and started wobbling, he stabilized her with his hands in front and back of her. This boy has been around little kids before.

We were just there for 45 minutes, but it gave Elise a chance to play with other children and explore some new toys and activities. The teacher commented that, for being an only child, Elise seemed remarkably comfortable in playing with other children, trying new activities, and interacting with strange adults (well, teenagers) without me having to be right at her side. That made me happy. I don't really worry about her social development, because I don't believe that very young children need constant social stimulation for healthy development. The trend of daycares, playgroups, and preschools is, after all, a fairly recent one. That said, I do sometimes feel very sorry that she is an only child at this point, because she so loves to play with other children, and - this will sound silly - I'm afraid she gets lonely. I know that she eventually won't remember a time when she didn't have younger siblings, and she won't harbor resentment over having to play alone for the first few years of life, but still...Maybe I feel this way because it is something I personally have no experience with, being the fifth of ten children. Playing alone? There were days when I would have done anything for the chance to play alone. Well, anyway, I try to play with Elise a lot myself. I try to take advantage of her naptime by completing my highest priority tasks during that time. That way, when she is awake, I can stop what I'm doing to play with her if she wants me to. At the same time, I want to teach her to be patient and not demanding, but there are times when I simply can't stop what I'm doing to play with her, and I think those times are frequent enough to teach the lessons of patience and, in a way, humility, so when I can put aside whatever I'm doing when she asks for my attention, I try to do that. (Hmm. That was quite the run-on sentence.) And that is a comfort to me. Elise may not get as much social interaction as her daycare peers, but she gets a heck of a lot more one-on-one attention and love than they do. (I do NOT mean that parents of daycare children love their children any less. I just mean I get the chance to exhibit my love for Elise more often, because I see her more often.)

So, that was Elise's first day of high school. It came a lot faster than I expected it would. It was a little bit disturbing to realize that when I was their age, the high school students I met today were Elise's age. Yep, I'm old.

Dinner and Gifts

Last night we attended the Christmas gathering of our small group. [Is "small group" Christianese? I think it probably is.] *REVISION* Andy and I meet weekly with a group of people from our church, all right about our age, to study the Bible and worship God together. Last night we all met for a Christmas celebration. (Better?) We did a progressive dinner, which I had never done. It was a lot of fun! We went to four different houses for appetizers, salad, dinner, and dessert, respectively. We brought Elise with us, and she really did quite well considering how late it was (we didn't get home until 10:00) and how much running around we did. She had her moments, but for the most part she seemed to just enjoy all of the attention that was lavished on her by our friends.

At the last house, we had dessert and coffee (which is, in my mind, pretty much always a good way to end an evening) and exchanged gifts. Each couple brought one "real" gift and one white elephant gift, and we drew numbers to determine who got to choose a gift first, typical white elephant style. If someone else had a gift that you particularly wanted, you could steal it from them rather than choosing from the pile of wrapped gifts. I chose number one, and we were playing by the rules that said number one got to go first AND last, so I chose a gift from the pile - an amazingly hideous pair of sweater socks - and then at the end, after everyone else had their gifts, I "stole" the prize gift - a soft, heavy fleece blanket - from someone else, leaving him with the women's sweater socks...which he had brought in the first place. Poor guy. Andy suggested that we already have too many blankets as it is, but I was not about to go home with the sweater socks. I love socks, but these were...wow.

Towards the end of the gift exchange, we noticed that there was one too many gifts. Everyone denied bringing an extra gift, so we were bewildered. At the end of the exchange, we decided that the poor guy who was stuck with the sweater socks should also get the mystery gift. As he was opening it and we were all trying to figure out where it came from, one woman suddenly yelled, "JOEL!" (her husband). Joel broke out into a huge grin and just looked back at her. She had figured it out. Joel had slipped the extra gift in. It was this book. We all had a good laugh, and I think Joel's poor wife was thoroughly embarrassed.

All in all, it was a very enjoyable evening. Really, I can say that about this entire month. This has been a very enjoyable Christmas season. The mix of family, friends, activities, and rest has been just right. I hope the same is true for you.

Music

It's so great that we can play music on our computers, isn't it? I have been sitting here working for the last hour and a half with Christmas music playing. It's great to have the playlist and volume control and everything right here at my fingertips. Now, I'm not so lazy that I would complain if I had to actually get up (gasp!) and go to the stereo for musical options, but I am happy nonetheless that I don't have to do that. It's a small thing, but I appreciate it.

Imagine

Imagine all the muffins...really were cupcakes.

Perspective

Last week made me really appreciate our life, mine and Andy's. We had many unexpected events happen, all things that required our time and attention. This made for a tiring week, and on Saturday night we breathed a deep sigh of relief, but it was still a good week. I found myself asking whether being available for all of these unexpected events was a good thing or a bad thing. I think good. The thought crossed my mind that perhaps it meant we had too inactive of a lifestyle. Something came up every day from Tuesday on - and we were able to accept all of them? Maybe that means our daily life is too open, too uneventful. But after a little pondering, reason wrestled that thought to the ground. I'm glad we were able to accept, were available to help where needed. To have that kind of flexibility has been our goal and hope. It is strange that once it came to fruition last week, I questioned its value. I guess that just shows that I have a whole lot of growing and maturing to do, as I obviously still see things through the eyes of this world.

The Reason

I don't know what's going on this week, but I can't seem to accomplish anything. My house...my poor, poor house. I cannot keep it clean. Forget keep, I can't even get it clean. I can't quite figure out why. And the Christmas decorating? Yeah. The tree is done, but the other decorations are just sitting in various locations, wherever I happened to set them as I unpacked them from their boxes. The nativity is up, thanks to my husband, but it has a tea light lamp, a stained glass nativity, three candleholders, and a ceramic church - not to mention a pitcher of dried flowers, a wrench, and a piece of plastic - in front of it. Normally Christmas decorating comes naturally to me. That's not to say that it necessarily looks good, but it is something that I enjoy and that I do quickly. Not this year. I stare at a surface and then at a pile of decorations, and I cannot make the two work together. The Advent wreath that Janene made for me a few years ago is up, and it has a calming effect. It is such a good reminder that I am not awaiting the arrival of my family or the giving of gifts or even the unlikely event of me getting my act together. I am awaiting the arrival of my King. And when He arrives, I want to be ready. Being ready has nothing to do with the neatness of my house or the appealing arrangement of ornaments or the number of things crossed off my to-do list. It has everything to do with this:

16So they hurried off and found Mary and Joseph, and the baby, who was lying in the manger. 17When they had seen him, they spread the word concerning what had been told them about this child, 18and all who heard it were amazed at what the shepherds said to them. 19But Mary treasured up all these things and pondered them in her heart. 20The shepherds returned, glorifying and praising God for all the things they had heard and seen, which were just as they had been told.

That's what I really want to do this season. Spread the Word. Treasure and ponder "these things". Glorify and praise God for all He has revealed.

Somehow, after writing this, my house doesn't seem so messy, my to do list so long, or my decorations so important. Hmm.

Pray for the Kims

I just heard the sad, sad news that James Kim's body was found. I've been following this story closely and I'm just heartbroken over the news. Please pray for his family and friends, especially his wife and daughters who have already been through so much these last two weeks. Pray that his four year old daughter's memories of him will stay strong throughout her life, pray for the baby who will not remember her father, and pray for his wife Kati as she faces this tragedy and raising her two daughters alone. My heart goes out to her.

O Tannenbaum

Our tree is finally decorated! We put it up on Sunday afternoon but just decorated it last night. It was so much fun going through the ornaments. There were, as usual, several that I had forgotten about. We found that Elise received seven ornaments last year. Three of them were specifically "Baby's First Christmas" ornaments. This makes me happy, even if it is a bit excessive. We plan to get an ornament each year for each of our children so that when they start their own families, they will have a collection from which to build.

Elise is fascinated by the tree and keeps asking me what each ornament is. She seems to especially like the Nutcracker ballerina, although that could just be because the ornament is the most obvious ornament at her eye level. She keeps blowing on the tree. I'm not sure if she's trying to blow the lights out, or if she is being the wind. Whenever it is windy out, I show her how the wind moves the trees, so she might associate wind and trees now. Either way, it's cute.

Having the tree up makes me want to decorate the rest of the house. Well, the living room, anyway. We don't really have enough stuff to decorate the whole house, and I don't know that I want to acquire enough stuff for the whole house. That would mean that for eleven months out of the year, we would have to store all that stuff. But we do have a few things that will go in various rooms. I have a child's nativity set that I think I'll put in Elise's room. Unfortunately, it is missing Baby Jesus. I won't put it up unless I can find a Baby Jesus for it. It would just be dismal. I might make one. It would be obviously out of place, but that's ok. I thought of making one from a peanut, but didn't want anyone in my house to have an allergic reaction to Baby Jesus. Talk about a bad association.

Pictures will be posted sometime this week, hopefully.

007

This morning Elise is fascinated by the James Bond DVD jacket that she found in our living room. It's the kind with the cardboard flap that closes with Velcro. She has shunned her own books in favor of the James Bond "book". She just keeps pulling it open and "reading" it as she would any of her real books.

I feel like I should tape a little dress over the picture of Halle Berry's rather exposed body.

I am turning into my mother.

December

I didn't think I would feel any holiday-related pressure this season, but when I turned the calendar over to the December page, I did suddenly get the sense that I had too much to do and too little time in which to do it. Reason quickly took over and I realized that there really isn't all that much to do. We have only two gifts left to buy, and I have two left to make. That's certainly a better status than we've ever before had on December 2nd. There are cards to write, gifts to wrap, and packages to send, but those tasks really aren't all that monumental.

Tomorrow we are going to get our Christmas tree. I'm really looking forward to it. We're going to get it from a tree farm this year. We've always bought pre-cut trees in the past, but since Elise is old enough to enjoy outdoor activities, we decided to go and cut our own this year. Should be fun. I love decorating the tree. I don't have any of the ornaments from my childhood, unfortunately, but we have dozens of ornaments from Andy's childhood, and we have added quite a few of our own over the last five years. We inherited some special ornaments from Andy's grandmother. Even though I never met her, these ornaments hold special meaning. We have one ornament from our honeymoon, one from our first Christmas together, one from our trip to Austria, and one (actually several) from Elise's first Christmas. There are a few from former coworkers, a few from my kids at church. Our tree is full of memories and stories. It's fun.

Tonight we went to a Christmas party. It is an annual event that provides us with a good opportunity to catch up with some people whom we don't see very often. It was a bit awkward this year because we didn't know most of the people there, but it was still nice to visit with the few we did know. Among that particular group of friends, we are the only ones with a child, a fact that is becoming less and less common. It was interesting to watch and think about. Everyone seemed to enjoy Elise's presence (although next year I think we'll leave her with a babysitter for the evening), but it was obvious that...well, that our lives were very different. The closest parallel to us was the couple who had brought their dog with them. They bring it everywhere. Tonight they had forgotten to bring his food with them (something I have been guilty of with Elise), so our hostess made a big bowl of rice for him. They had to let him out of the car periodically so he could stretch his legs. They have labeled themselves the "quintessential yuppie dog owners", and...well, they may be right. But I mean that in the nicest way imaginable. They are dear friends and we always enjoy spending time with them.

Our holiday plans changed this afternoon. We had planned to spend the weekend of the 16th and 17th with my family in Portland. Today, however, my mom asked if my younger brother could stay with us next week while my parents are out of town. Since my parents will be driving up to pick him up next Saturday, Andy had the fabulous idea of just celebrating Christmas with them then, rather than making the drive down to Portland the very next weekend. As I think I mentioned in a recent post, Elise simply does not travel well right now, so we were looking forward to a sleepless weekend trip. This way works out so much better, at least for us. I hope it works well for my family, who have all graciously agreed to it. I think we'll have a good time with Joe, my brother, as well. I have really never spent much time with him without the rest of the family around. I moved out when he was five, and now he is fourteen. Anyway, my plans for the upcoming week have changed rather drastically, but I think it'll be a good week. I just need to make sure that we have enough clean towels and sheets, pillows, and food for a small army.

By the way, the reason my parents will be out of town is that my older brother, Nathan, is being commissioned as an officer in the U.S. Army, and they are flying out for the ceremony. He enlisted in the Air Force eleven years ago, when he was nineteen. He has received awards and commendations for excellence at every job to which he has been assigned. He has earned his bachelor's degree in his "spare" time. He married a wonderful, lovely woman, Laura, and the two of them have two beautiful children. Nathan adores his children and is a wonderful father. Becoming an officer has been a longtime dream of his, and unfortunately an opportunity to pursue that dream did not present itself in the Air Force, so he decided to transfer to the Army. He has been in OTS, away from his family, for several months, and next week he will be commissioned. Not surprisingly, he has received commendations for excellence and has been placed in a position of leadership in OTS. I am immensely proud of him. From what I understand, he will be stationed with a unit that frequently deploys to Iraq, which is more than a little unsettling to my family. But Nathan loves his country, and I think he would welcome the chance to serve in such a way.

Well, that was a detour from my holiday thoughts. We are looking forward to a few Christmas-related events in the coming weeks, but what I am most looking forward to - and actually enjoying already - is introducing Elise to Christmas. We have read the story of Baby Jesus several times, and she has learned that Santa Claus says, "Ho, ho, ho!" I have told her that every time we've seen a Santa Claus over the last several weeks, and a while back she started responding, "O, o" when I would ask, "What does Santa Claus say?" Well, last night I was rocking her late at night (see Andy's post) and the television was on. I wasn't paying attention, but she must have been, because she sat up suddenly and said, "O, ho, ho!" Sure enough, there was Santa Claus on the TV screen. It made my night! I am really looking forward to having the tree set up, as I think she will just love it. We have determined, however, that we won't be able to keep the wrapped gifts under the tree prior to Christmas this year. Too tempting for our own little Curious George. Oh, well.

Right now I am going to stop typing away on this tiny keyboard and instead am going to drink the tea that my husband made for me some time ago, wrap a blanket around my shoulders - it's freezing in here - and watch Miracle on 34th Street. Good night.