THERE'S the slide!! 

Aliens Hate Carrots!

Yesterday morning around 5am Kara showed up in our room having had a nightmare and needing the safety of Mama and Daddy. Yesterday afternoon Kara shared with me what had frightened her. In a nightmare she had Sunday night she and Thom were coming home from somewhere when a white eagle appeared with a letter telling her an alien would be living outside her bedroom window for a year. Evidently the dream ended with her running down the hall in our house trying to get away from the people-eating alien monster. This was very upsetting for Kara. Despite my best efforts to assure her that we know of no other life forms in the universe and particularly no people-eating monsters, she was still quite upset. While I was cooking something for dinner she was curled up on the couch hiding under her favorite lovey blanket not even watching the video I had put on for her and Caleb.

As I was peeling a carrot and wondering if she wanted a piece, I was struck by a moment of Mommy Genius. I walked into the living room with a small piece of carrot and said to Kara "Honey, I have a secret weapon for you. Imaginary aliens hate carrots! Would you like this?" She grabbed it right out of my hand and starting eating it, asking "What else do they hate, Mama?" "Well," I went on "they hate all healthy foods. Meat. Vegetables. Anything good for you. They can sense that it's in your body and they stay away!"

Either she bought it or she enjoyed the make-believe -- either way she scarfed down a banana, a carrot and an apple within the hour! On they way to her ballet lesson she asked what the aliens thought about ballet and tap. To which I replied "They hate it! Don't want anything to do with it. Too loud!"

Over the course of the evening we learned that aliens hate ballet, tap, healthy food and children who do their homework. They are especially repelled by imagination-oriented pretend play such as playing with Legos or Barbies, but they are attracted to the playing of video games, the watching of too much television and the eating of Halloween candy! So, one must be very careful to ward off imaginary aliens by eating lots of good healthy food, doing lots of homework and playing with actual toys.

At one point she asked what kills them? I said eating healthy food. To this she replied "Mama, We're going to have dead aliens all around." I answered - Nope. They disappear when they die!

Tonight I'm going to tell her what happens to aliens when children READ! I think it might involve shrieking, running away and never, EVER coming back!

Our Purple Princess... 

And Our Little Green Dragon! 

The High Price of Gas

We all know what it was like going to school and dealing with social pressures. Not drugs and alcohol, just all the mundane irritations of staying "cool" and keeping friends. I'm starting to think it's harder even to be the parent than to be the child.

Sure, childhood has lots of wonderful things about it. You make "best friends." You have wild adventures on the playground. You get some great grades, like a 100 on a spelling test. You read your first book. Childhood is packed full of those kinds of memories. But childhood also has its fair share of trama ~ usually in the form of being teased for something, often times out of your control. For me, the memory is actually still so full of embarrassment, I don't even want to share it today. And I'm certainly not going to share Thom's for the same reason.

Well, Kara had one of those days this week. While walking silently down the hall with the rest of her class, Kara did not remember the social rule - "we don't pass gas at school". Her sad little words to me were "It was so loud, Mama." Evidently, everyone heard it and no one could stop talking about it. Later in the day Kara even overheard two of her friends, girls, talking about it. A day later, two of the boys are still talking about it.

Last night we talked about this and reminded her that EVERYONE passes gas, but we all try not to do it in front of others (well, MOST of us try not to do it in front of others, anyway ;-). At one point in the conversation, I posed the question, "what do you think most kids do when this happens?" The answer I was thinking of was "lie about it." No, Kara says "Never go back to that school ever again and find a different school?!" She said this with such hope and conviction, I couldn't help but feel badly for her. We talked some more and ultimately concluded that the kids would eventually stop talking about this and she should just move on. Tell them it wasn't a big deal and keep right on playing and being herself. So far so good, she hasn't been nicknamed "Farty Girl" and the kids are still playing with her.

The sad truth is... the idea of buying a house in a different school zone had actually crossed my mind!! Anything to keep her from feeling that awful feeling of being stuck with kids who don't like you for no decent reason. That was 4th through 7th grade for me. My big mistake -- moving to a small town where the clicks were already set in stone. And, this because my parents moved to the GOOD school district. As for Kara's issue, come on --Kids pass gas. People pass gas. We hide it while we're dating and then announce it once we're married. Why does it have to be so tramatic?

So, here I go just wanting her to be happy and have good days at school with positive experiences and relatively little embarrassment. Unfortunately, I can't safeguard her against life, no matter how much I'd love to.

~Current Events~

OK, so it's been a while since the Happy Baby post went up -- time for an update.

Let's see... THOM -- At this very moment Thom is enjoying attending a theological conference at Villanova University near Philadelphia. I think this is his third conference at Villanova. For any of you who might recall the story of Kara and I visiting the Philadelphia Zoo in the snow December of 2003 -- that was the weekend of one of the conferences Thom attended. Previous to that he attended one on St. Augustine in the Fall of '01 I believe it was. He was particularly excited about this conference as his dad was meeting him there for a sort of Father/Son weekend getaway. I'm sure they were out clubbing until the wee hours of the night -- those party animals! (Obviously -- I'm kidding!) Meanwhile, Thom has been fully accepted into the leadership training program at Thomas Nelson. He was recommended by his supervisor, but initially only accepted as an alternate. We suspect this was because of his length of service thus far at Thomas Nelson. At any rate, he was able to attend the kick-off event and the first meeting and after the first meeting he was accepted fully into the program on the merit of his involvement. I was very proud of him! We continue to hope for more job advancement at Thomas Nelson as the company is going through a restructuring that will hopefully open up more opportunities in the coming year. In other news, Thom has been doing an excellent job leading our church's adult Sunday School class through a book on the virtues. Everyone seems to be enjoying the book Thom chose and his teaching.


OK... how's KARA... well, it depends on who you ask... Ask her teacher and she is a model student doing very well in her subjects and never causing any trouble in the classroom. Ask us, and we'll tell you we love her dearly, but she's having some serious trouble around here with regard to respect. She wakes up grumpy and downshifts to crabby with occasional bursts of nasty and delightful highlights of sweetness. With Thom out of town we have tried a different morning routine, which I think has helped. Today is Wacky Clothes Day at school, so we mixed and matched and she actually enjoyed this without getting frustrated or being nasty. We did two braids in her hair and put funny little clips all over the top of her head. She has two different socks and two different shoes and two shirts that don't match. Try as she might to look wacky, she still came off looking pretty cute! In fact, had it not been wacky day, she kind of looked like a trend-setting teenager. Trouble is most of her wardrobe is colors that match, so we really didn't get too far from normal. I'm looking forward to hearing how the other kids dressed. All in all, we're making it through this difficult time with her and trying to remember love and grace and forgiveness apply to all of us - especially Mama and Daddy at times, but most often toward her. Thom will appreciate me saying it seems to be a conflict of law versus grace if ever there was one.

On to CALEB... he is just too cute these days! He's talking a bit more and LOVES to play. He says "Ma'E" for Mommy. Which is kind of funny because Kara calls me Mama, something I encouraged in her, yet with him it seems Mommy seems more fitting and I don't know why. Isn't that strange?? I think with Kara, I thought of Mama as a loving endearment and a closeness and being a mother was so new for me that I somehow projected that into encouraging her to say Mama. With him, it's sort of sappy, but Mommy seems so traditional and normal and expected and it just somehow sounds right when I say "Give this to Mommy" or "Come over here to Mommy" or "Say "Hi Mommy." I don't know... we'll see how this plays out. Truth be told, Kara calls me both Mommy and Mama, so maybe we'll never even notice. As for toys, Caleb has discovered pretend play. He likes to pretend with Kara's kitchen set and pretend to give me a cup of something to drink. He also loves musical toys like his xylophone and drumming toys. He is definitely the kind of kid who is happy making noise with a pot and wooden spoon from the kitchen. I have been snapping pictures of him with his different musical toys for the sake of a scrapbook page and this would be one without precedent -- I don't have a matching set of pictures like that from Kara at this age. Oh, the other big deal is "in" -- he loves to put something into something else. A few days ago he and Kara ran around the house chasing a soccer ball for about 30 minutes. They were having the best time!! They have a great relationship and that is the best thing about having two kids.

As for me...I've gotten into a routine with my writing and I've gotten my first paycheck as a freelance writer! I am presently writing for EBSCO, where Thom and I used to work, doing some writing on an encyclopedic high school product. Last month I was doing articles on world capitals and this month I'm working on hot topics for their points of view product. The research and writing is very enjoyable and it is great to be working during the day and relaxing in the evenings. I'm liking that much better than doing evening Pampered Chef shows. I think with two kids I'm getting up earlier and tired earlier. Either that or I'm just getting old!

The best news of this month was that our close friends SWR and QE came down for a visit mid-month. We rearranged furniture and moved the kids together into Kara's room and SWR, QE and little SI all slept in Caleb's room. (Thanks Auntie Kara for loaning us the awesome Air Mattress!!) Anyway, we had a GREAT time with them! We went into Nashville for the Oktoberfest in Germantown. We ate at a fabulous Indian restaurant for a fun lunch of politic-talking with my brother. We oohed and aahhed over the little ones and stayed up WAY TOO LATE playing penny poker, watching movies, and reading. SWR enjoyed watching the History Channel, eating my cooking and reading the Sports Illustrated mags I've been saving for him (the former tenant of our apartment never bothered to get their mag forwarded so we get them!) QE enjoyed sorting through a mountain of baby clothes for SI with me and the welcomed rest from the world of boxes they've been living in since mid-August as they are in the process of moving from Massachusetts to Connecticut. We enjoyed getting to spend time together with them! Hopefully we'll be able to travel up to Connecticut sometime after the New Year to visit them and see their new home!

Well, that should catch everyone up on current events here at our house. The only real current event we're dealing with here is the election next week. Every member of my family has a different view or take on who to or not to vote for in this Senatorial election. Unfortunately, no matter what happens we'll get a politician and we'll likely be disappointed within a year! On that happy note, have a great day and make it a great weekend!

Happy Baby

Caleb found some words! His favorite is "Happy Baby" spoken again and again from his car seat as we drive around town or in the seat on the carriage at the grocery store. "Happy Baby" Happyhappyhappyhappybebe Happy Bebe Bebe Bebe HaP-E-baybee HappyBaby. happehappebebe.

He also does a sign for "More" by point one finger onto his other hand. It's not the correct sign for "more" -- but it does the trick. He does his sign and then points and sometimes even says "mapeez" which is Caleb for "More Please" or just generally used to mean "I want."

When he brings you a book he usually says "Ree peez" which is Caleb for "Read Please." He used to say "Buuuu" for "Book" but decided that "Ree peez" is more important.

When he's hungry he announces it by saying "nummy nummy nummy nummy nummy" until someone notices he's actually talking!

This week he has tried to say "car" ("ca" -- maybe he is from Boston!), Tree ("tee")and Sky ("up")... we're still working on these.

Once in a blue moon he says mama and daddy -- we're still working on that, too.

Oh yeah, he also sometimes says "gimme" for give to me. He knows what "No" means and responds most of the time to "Caleb, no." He also knows what dance means and loves to wiggle in his high chair doing "the Caleb dance."

We're happy with our happy baby talk!

Things change pretty fast...

Over the last year or two I've come to realize that things can change pretty fast, in a moment really. Now most of you probably have learned this already, either from experience or the experiences of others, but for me this has been a new thought, and in many ways, a welcome one.

Growing up I despised change. As a child change represented a disturbance in my happy little life. Often change brought loss. When I was five years old we lived down the street from my grandmother and my aunt. I saw them most every day. I went to ball games with my aunt and sat in my grandmother's kitchen while she cooked. It was perfect. My best friend, a little boy, lived next door to my grandmother. When I wasn't at her house or my own, I was at his. Star Wars toys crammed under his bed with matchbox cars and Tonka trucks in a room that never really let in any light, all the while, the feel of shag carpet all around us.

Then, one day, seemingly out of no-where, we were living five hours away in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. I don't remember leaving. I don't remember getting there. I just remember being in the one place and then being in the next place... without my grandma or my aunt or my friend. I went to Kindergarten and made some friends. A few years and a hamster later, I was watching The Brady Bunch in the basement of our house and my parents called me upstairs to tell me something (in the middle of the show!) I was going to have a baby brother or sister. Can I go back to watching Brady Bunch now?

I still wasn't learning or loving the whole "things change" thing.

My brother was born a couple of weeks after I turned nine. A boy! Who knew?! And then, all at once again, we were moving. It was September and I should have been in school, but we were moving to Illinois and we were sleeping in a hotel with my mom, my dad, my screaming baby brother and our dog. We got a new house. I went to school. I didn't make friends at first. We spent four years living there and in the end I had two close friends. I had a place to eat lunch everyday in the crowded lunchroom. It was perfect. On the last day of 7th grade, I called my mom from the pay phone in the hallway to ask if one of my friends could spend the night. My mom was in tears and said tonight wasn't a good night. We were moving. This time, to Virginia and a life of my Dad with a fulltime career in the military. That was sometime in June. My birthday, at the beginning of July was at the Officer's Club on base in Ft. Lee, Virginia. I was 13. I ate a LOT of crab legs that night, but didn't make any friends all summer. School started in the Fall and suddenly I was sitting with all of the cool kids at lunch. I went to school dances and generally "had a life." I was home sick from school one day in November and my mom came in to say "How do you feel about the Netherlands?" I was 13, in 8th grade and had a crush on a boy named Jaime in my Spanish class. I had NEVER thought one thought or had one feeling about the Netherlands... yet. But, we were moving there.

I lived in the Netherlands for 4 1/2 years, I went to college in Tennessee, met Thom, got married, moved to Massachusetts and got my first real job. I still hated change. Hated it! But lived with it. New supervisors. Change in office location. Roll with it. Got pregnant with Kara -- that was a good change -- but I still struggled with every little change along the way. In 2003 when we were making decisions about moving off campus and I was trying to become a Pampered Chef director and I was finishing up my seminary program and we were trying to figure out how to pay our bills -- I hated change to the point of near panic attacks on a fairly regular basis!

In the Spring of 2004, we invited Joanna to stay with us for a few days and that became a year. In the Fall of 2004, I found myself pregnant with Caleb. A light was shifting from dim to bright somewhere in my mind... change happens. Change happens when you're not looking and there's nothing you can do about it.

In the Spring of 2005, I was about six months pregnant with Caleb when this new thinking in my mind started casting light on a variety of subjects. I began to notice that change was happening in every aspect of our lives, literally EVERY aspect -- family, school for Kara, church, jobs, our marriage, Pampered Chef, money, every area I could identify was experiencing massive shifts and changes.

Now it is the Fall of 2006 and I'm still noticing how fast changes happen. A phone call. A letter in the mail. A decision one evening or one morning that seems to come out of no where and changes the course of our lives -- last year it was the evening we said let's begin a job hunt in Nashville this year it was one morning when I said how about we pay off the credit cards like this...! That fast: life changes. When Caleb was three days old I was in the shower and the phone rang. My grandmother had suffered a heart attack. My parents were visiting to see the new baby and, like that, they were at my grandmother's bedside clear across the country. (She's fine, today, praise God.) Last week my Dad had a routine procedure and wound up spending three nights in the hospital. It wasn't on the calendar, but change happens. Somewhere in the Spring of last year, when Thom and I went to the marriage conference and I was pregnant with Caleb and Joanna was moving on to other things and things were changing with Kara's school and our pastor was leaving our church, something in my heart shifted and I realized change happens, it happens fast, its unpredictable and sometimes it's even good.

On Tuesday I got an email from our friends in Massachusetts SWR and QE (and their newborn son SI -- speaking of change!). They were supposed to have moved from Massachusetts to Connecticut last Saturday, but as it turned out from circumstances beyond their control, their plans were changed. I talked on the phone with QE for a while and got all of the details. Then, on Wednesday night I'm sitting in the living room, chatting with my parents, who had stopped by unexpectedly, and the phone rang. It was QE again.. they have some time on their hands and would like to come and see us before they move to Connecticut! When the phone rang I didn't know who it was and then bam: change. Our month that didn't have much in it, suddenly has a great big something to look forward to right there in the middle of it.

You can't fight change. It's gonna happen whether you hate it or not. May as well like it. Sometimes it's a good thing!

"Those of you with or without children, you'll understand..."

So, yesterday started out kind of slow. I wasn't feeling well so Thom took the morning off to help out a bit. He had an afternoon meeting to get to, so we put Caleb down for a nap a little before 1pm, giving me a nice slow afternoon with him resting, I'd have a chance to rest, too. The afternoon went very well. I did a little work on the essays I'm writing. I heard back from my editor who was very pleased with the writing I had submitted yesterday morning, and it was Wednesday, so Kara was heading to my parents house after school. I even managed to get a little nap in the late afternoon. Caleb was taking a nice nap and I began to hear him stir around 4pm. I was talking with my brother on the phone at the time, I told him I needed to get off the phone to go ahead and get Caleb up, and specifically because I didn't want him sitting in his diaper for too long. I have compassion on the little guy and try to keep him from being uncomfortable when possible. I got off the phone with John and decided I could squeeze in a quick call to Thom regarding the comments from my editor before having to go get Caleb. Just a quick call. Just another minute or two. Not a big deal. Man, was I ever wrong!!

I did call Thom and we just spoke for a moment or two. I got off the phone and happily, stupidly headed into Caleb's room. The door was barely open when the smell hit me. You can guess what smell! Remember how concerned I was about him SITTING in a messy diaper -- well, I would have been HAPPY to see him SITTING in it. But stepping on it, smearing it around the crib and eating it -- I was not so happy!! After recovering from the initial shock it was some very quick moves between scrubbing his hands and face with babywipes, stripping him naked, cleaning what I could of him and heading to the tub -- all the while saying over and over "WE DON'T EAT THE POOO!" "WE NEVER EAT THE POO!" "YUCKY POO" "Oh, Caleb, WE DON'T EAT THE POO." "blluchhh, POO" "WE DON'T EAT THE POO"

I scrubbed him within an inch of his life and I still couldn't get the smell off his hands. Eventually I cranked it up to grown-up soap and scrubbed his hands again. Then it was on to the teeth! Breath should never smell like that!!! On a happier note, he seemed to like having his teeth brushed -- good thing I had already picked up a tooth brush and baby toothpaste for the little guy!

So, for those of you who remember The Great Vaseline Disaster of 2001 --- and for those of you who need to do the math -- that was Kara! This far surpassed it, and will forever be remembered as the "We Don't Eat the Poo" Day!

If any one is curious -- no, I did not take pictures!

Shaw on the Great Thanksgiving

What follows is excerpted from Bread for the Bones, an upcoming book by author Luci Shaw. Her prose is adjectival, but coarse; she is speaking from the heart. It makes her experience of worship worshipful. I’ve had it tacked up in my cube for weeks now, and discover that it weekly becomes less and less hers and more and more mine. She takes me less and less to her church and more and more to my own community of Saint Francis. Shaw writes:

“The Episcopal way of worship—with its sacramental interpretation of life and its richness of sign and symbol—speaks to my imagination and awakens a fresh, inner reaction. At first it was just one unexpected epiphany after another, but now it has become second nature: the vocal responses; the easy movement from knees to pew to standing to altar; the Peace; the genuflection; and the crossing of oneself to signal the blessings of grace from Father, Son, and Spirit—to me, beauty.

The Episcopal church provides sign and symbol—even incense, which may Protestants might find excessively ecclesiastical, but which is to me such a beautiful visual image of faith. The pungent aroma instantly speaks to my spirit of “prayer rising to God.” I love the progression from the Liturgy of the Word, with its tying together of Scripture from the Old and New Testaments, the Psalms, and the Gospels, to the Liturgy of the Table, with the bread and wine pressing a tender consciousness of Christ’s enfleshment into my heart. These moments, in the intimacy of the body of Christ, are what hold me in faith and in beauty. They call me to mystery and Godhead.

The show-and-tell of the liturgical service is not just talking about something—about God or his attributes or about truth from Scripture—it is actually enacting the mystery. Along with priests and deacons and lay-ministers, the whole congregation is involved in the worship service through congregational responses made of prayer and Scripture. The whole is antiphonal; a dialogue is going on.

There is beauty in the forward movement within the traditional service, the communion service. It begins with the Liturgy of the Word, where we read Scripture, we hear it expounded, and we pray for forgiveness and cleansing as we are confronted with the truth of Scripture. Then we move into the Liturgy of the Table, where we worship God in receiving the sacrament of communion, the bread and the wine, the body and blood of Christ. This is the high point of my week. My sense of God’s presence there rises to a peak that is sometimes too strong and too poignant to describe.”

Caleb is doing great. He's happy and healthy and growing and beginning to think about actually communicating with us. Below are some pictures of his newly redecorated room! 

Since someone asked to see some of the redecorated I've been doing. Here are the updated pictures of Caleb's room with the new Storybook Border. I chose brightly colored picture books with "boyish" themes -- trucks, builders, trains, etc. and framed the cover art from the book. I salvaged the books by simply removing the front cover. The frames are cheap plastic $2 from Walmart repainted to match the furniture I painted last Spring. There is a pattern to the frame color, with every other picture on each wall in blue -- this was mostly because the blue paint was the easiest to work with, but it looks nice, too! 

Here is the crib in Caleb's room with the border of books above it. You can't really tell that there's floor space, but it's a pretty nice sized room for a little guy with plenty of space for us all to sit and play. 

This is the wall withe door and you can see the dresser and shelves I re-painted back in the Spring. To tie it all together, I used the same paints for the picture frames. 

This is the opposing wall and also served as part of the inspiration for the children's book theme. The posters here are from the National Storytelling Festival. Thom has had these posters since college. 

Each book on the wall tells a story and this one reminds us of Joanna as it was one of the hundreds of books she passed to us over the years. This one was also one of her personal favorites. 

This book was the inspiration for the decorating theme. At one point I even thought of taking the book apart and framing each page, but then I realized how many copies of the book I would need to do that! This book was given to us by a good friend at church in Massachusetts along with a number of other hand-me-down childrens books which her children had outgrown. Her kids were older now and had loved this one and wanted Kara to have it then. 

This book is right over Caleb's bed. Thom and I remember a whole year of reading this to Kara every night. This particular copy was given to me by QE when I told her how I was decorating the room. 

Here is our family masterpiece. Kara and Thom and I painted this one evening over Labor Day weekend. We wanted a painting for over our bed and decided we'd do a painting together. It's really quite interesting the longer you look at it.  

Today's Discipline

Is it just me, or are we the crazy parents? I can’t tell. The world seems full of parents doing a fairly decent job (or at least Kara’s schoolmates seem well adjusted), but few things in my experience come without maximum complexity. Whether it is her medication, her ADHD, her new environment, her crazy parents, genes, TV, or depravity, our Kara is just rude. She storms around the house like today’s little queen, ordering us about in a universe which bends obsequiously to her every whim. Egad! At first, we took it fairly flat-footed. We were like those tourists during the tsunami who wandered out wide-eyed to see where all the water had gone. But going on a month now, we are beginning to paddle.

Discipline is not a welcome houseguest. All my happy little family fantasies are absent of crying and stomping, absent of frustrating irritation and the stubbornness not to give way before the most furious bellowings of pint-sized protest. My happy family fantasies are all about laughing with each other over a boardgame, taking a walk together on a sunny Saturday afternoon, or playing that fun dad-game called “swing the kid” in its multitudinous varieties. Discipline’s school-marmish attitude and hawkish demeanor nips such saccharine projections with a neck-pinch of absolute reality. Yes, Discipline is not a welcome houseguest, but she is a necessary one (besides, I’ve heard she’s pretty good at expelling saucy, royal attitudes.)

Given the ubiquity of the need, and the plethora of practices—if not wholesale traditions dividing along countries of origin, religious culture, or political affiliation—you’d think there’d be some decent material on domestic corrections. For that matter, why not a journal? American Baby and Parenting Magazine move over for Today's Discipline. In its glossy pages, attractive actors-now-parents tell us their disciplinary foibles in melodramatic four-hundred-word anecdotes. Psychologists write state-of-the-discipline pieces about homestyle-behaviorism and the cost/benefit of antidepressants. We run our eyes over backmatter ads for affordable finishing schools. And each cover of TD features a gorgeously coiffed little cherub in mid-pout with a satisfied model-mom nodding knowingly in the background. Unfortunately, no such rag exists, and tradition is what’s left to go on.

My parents had a limited, but effective disciplinary repertoire. I was confined to my room a number of times, and there were TV restrictions. My mother treated a messy room a la Stephen Hawking: pulling all the higgledy-piggledy into a central point, into a landfill-looking heap which swallowed the center of my room. It was dismemberment or worse if it wasn’t put away, and so, complaining, I’d get about it. Another of her favorite disciplinary games was nose-in-the-corner. And yet I became so creative in avoiding boredom that she had me stand in the tub (and, trust me, there’s nothing interesting about the rounded, white side of a shower insert). I can't say much about L.'s end of things, but I do know that on one occasion her dad set her down in front of the King James Bible and had her begin copying it from Genesis chapter 1.

And so, it is game on at our house! Toys have been confiscated. Bedtime has been moved up by half-hour chunks into the day. In short, we’ve dug in against this little queen of the night. We’re shooting for manners, politeness, courtesy, and even a few fruits of the Spirit before it’s all over in 2018. And, as I’m like to point out, we have as much time as it needs. “This isn’t being angry,” I calmly advised our fair-haired six-year-old last night as she grunted and whined through minute four of a five-term timeout, “it’s called parenting. You’d best get used to it.”

Good fences make good readers

“Here,” I said, grabbing the tallest book I could find from her overcrowded bookshelf. “Let’s use this to mark a boundary.” I put the book all the way to the left of the upper shelf. Kara and L. looked on. “Every time you read a book, it goes to the left of this tall, white one. Pretty soon, this marker-book will start moving until it makes it all the way to the other side!” My fingers flipped across the paperback spines, demonstrating how it would move.

That’s how it got started two nights ago. But who could imagine it would be so compelling a visual-aid. Last night the only thing that stopped her reading was that she could no longer hold her head up from drowsiness. And, before we turned off the light, she’d burned through two books. “You should have seen her face last night putting that second book on the shelf,” L. said to me this morning. “She was beaming!”

Day In and Day Out

In response to viewer demand, I'm actually going to post something new :-) Not much new actually going on, or so it seems when you're living it, but I'll see what I can come up with.

Let's see... we're nearing the close of the third week of 1st Grade for Kara. So far so good. To be honest, it's all actually gone quite well. Kara has a best little friend in her class, she still thinks her teacher is "Great, like ice cream", her reading is accelerating at a great pace and she scored a 100 on her second graded paper for the year. The teacher is focusing on penmanship and Kara doesn't love having her work corrected when she perceives herself to have written things just fine, but I remind her, daily, that the teacher is just making the marks on her paper to remind her of the right ways to write the letters. Kara is hoping that one day soon she won't have so much green or purple marker markings from the teacher on her penmanship papers. All in all, she's loving it and appears to be doing well. The only difficulties of the last month or so have been at home with us, not at school.

In terms of medication, we are continuing to try the Daytrana daily patch for Kara's ADHD. It releases the medication slowly and appears to give her the focus she needs. We were concerned it was causing some negative/aggressive behaviors and a bad attitude, so we took her off of it for three days (Friday-Sunday) -- we discovered it really wasn't the medicine. We're not sure if that is good news or bad news. If the meds were the problem - change the meds. If the problem is her temperament, that takes more work to fix. The saddest thing is I saw myself in her. (L. here, if my writing style alone didn't give it away!) I suddenly remembered why had fought with my mother most of my childhood. It was quite simple really. I was brat! I wanted my way. I wanted to assert my will and get what I wanted. I didn't want to be punished for my bad attitude either, so most of our fights revolved around my wanting my way and not whatever discipline was being dished out. Unfortunately, I figured out at a pretty early age that I could get out of most any punishment. I would fight and have my bad attitude, then I'd genuinely feel sorry and then the punishment would be lifted. It wasn't a game. I genuinely was angry and then genuinely felt sorry for my actions. The trouble was that I never learned to control my reaction on the onset of the problem. This is what I want from Kara -- a better initial response and therefore less fighting. So, in response to this, Thom and I are trying everything we know how, and a few things we're learning new, to try to deal with this now and not let it go on for 15 years.
(For anyone who needs an example of how bad it could get, ask me sometime about the "Kate & Allie" Family Fight of 1985.)

Meanwhile, Kara has begun ballet and that's going so-so. She has only had one lesson and was feeling sick over the weekend and Monday, so didn't go this week. Next week is Labor Day - so it'll be another week after that before she goes again. I think she'll like it more as time goes by.

Caleb -- he does this screeching thing that makes us want to poke our own eyes out (or at least wear ear plugs). Sometimes, he does it when he's tired or to let us know he needs his diaper changed or he's hungry and sometimes he just does it to join in the conversation. It's horrible!! Meanwhile, we feel a little sorry for the little guy. He's getting his molars and so he's a little miserable with all of the normal teething signs.

As for me, I am picking up my honing my writing skills and again doing some writing for EBSCO. So far I have written one article on doll collecting, but I am hoping to continue writing for them for their biographies project. Hopefully it will mean one or two 1500 articles each week and a bit more money in our pockets.

As for Thom, he is moving forward with the application process to do some leadership training through work. We are hoping that this will turn into a pay raise and promotion come review time in December/January.

In other news, Kara and I did a fun end-of-summer project together just before school started. We made a small scrapbook together with a page for each of the fun things we did during the summer. I was feeling that sense of how fast the summer had flown by and wanted to see for myself that we had done quite a few fun things. Swimming at grandma's, the Birmingham Zoo, the Family Reunion, the trip to Massachusetts - with pages for our whale watch, seeing SWR, QE, meeting SI and seeing all of Kara's friends. It's quite a cute little book. I'd like to make this a summer tradition and do this with her at the end of each summer. As she gets a little older, it should make that first "what did you do over summer vacation" report a little easier, too!

While we're on the subject of scrapbooking, I am very proud of myself for having finished Caleb's baby book last weekend. For each of the kids I have two baby books, a record book and a 12X12 Creative Memories album. The album covers just their first year and is mostly pictures, while the record book covers a little more and includes more writing. Both of Caleb's and Kara's are completely up to date!

Well, that's our little world... now I need to go and get Caleb down for a morning nap. Oh, yeah, Kara is also spending one afternoon a week at my parents, learning German! She's loving it! Well, I hope this kept everyone entertained for a bit. Enjoy your day and have a great Labor Day Weekend!

The shoulder of a mountain

Since you asked, the one and only comment from last week’s initial foray into Children’s Church, was pretty good. A parent told L., “E. said it was the best ever!” To be honest, my main goal was to have the best snack time yet, and, in that, we succeeded with gummi worms, animal crackers, pretzels, and 8 oz. bottled waters. (I set low goals. It keeps me happy.) I have two goals next week. They are to start working on the lesson earlier in the week and to read from the Bible during class. That seems pretty reasonable.

I also like to move around a little bit. For example, last week was the Parable of the Good Samaritan: a text impenetrably familiar. L. and I had the kids act it out. It was silly, but we moved around. We had some puppets, and I pulled a personal story out of thin air. One kid spilled some pretzels, and L. cleaned it up with some construction paper.

In other news, my wife is now a “freelance writer,” and I was nominated for some leadership training at work. Kara has become an emotional thirteen-year-old, and Caleb has decided to try temper tantrums as a form of everyday communication. (Shout out to that extra month, SWR.)

I was reading in Genesis the other day, and was reminded of just how strange the Bible really is. The scene is Joseph bringing his two sons before his dying father to receive a blessing. So here’s Joseph, as clipped and washed, well-dressed and refined as any man in the world, bows—no worships!—this grizzled, knotty sheep farmer from the sticks of Canaan. Joseph owns nearly all of Egypt, and yet Jacob deeds "the shoulder of a mountain" (note: no GPS, no maps) in Canaan to him as if it were the choicest real estate. There is a lot of real estate talk going on here. Finally, Jacob summons all his sons in and tells each one their future (Joseph mentions his own practice of divination earlier in the book.) I’m so glad I’m not preaching or teaching from this chapter on Sunday.

Week one brings game night

Week one of first grade seems to have been a success all around for our Kara. Whether in math, reading, music, art, or making her letters, we can see not only that she was ready for the material, but that she is engaged and learning. Kudos to Mrs. Right. It helps, too, that Kara has a friendly classmate in a girl with whom she attended kindergarten--there are actually four or five kids from her kindergarten who are in other classrooms. And her medication seems to have kept last year's behavioral problems at bay.

Still, L. and I are beginning to see that having a child with ADHD isn't just getting some medication so they can focus at school. No, ADHD means a lifestyle change that we need to make. When her medication wears off in the late-afternoon, Kara can be a real handful! And what would usually pass as bald disobedience: shouting, running, forgetting what you just told her and other actions, are sometimes just the ADHD talking. Take combing Kara's hair. What a chore! Every morning we go three rounds trying to get her to stand still and straight and not to move her head so we can fix her hair. Again and again, year after year, it is the same instructions. But Kara can't hold still. She looks all around, she leans, she even just walks off in mid-braid--exasperating! "Kara," I told her one morning, "why, after three years of hearing the same instructions day after day, can't you just do what we've asked?" Her what-seems chronic disobedience baffles me, until I see it outlined plainly in the literature:

• Inattention Has a hard time paying attention, daydreams, is easily distracted, is disorganized, loses a lot of things.


• Hyperactivity Seems to be in constant motion, has difficulty staying seated, squirms, talks too much.


• Impulsivity Acts and speaks without thinking, unable to wait.

Anyway, to celebrate a week's good work, we're having a family game night, with popcorn and ice cream. Kara wants to play Star Wars Monopoly, and so that's what we'll do, with some Red Sox Collector's Edition UNO as well.

L. also reminded me today that we agreed to teach the elementary class at church for the next month. Time to crack that material and begin putting together a half-hour lesson! I used to love doing nursery at North Shore, and how much more complicated can it be?

Great - like Ice Cream!

These were Kara's words to describe her first day of school! She qualified it by adding "but we didn't really have ice cream, it was just GREAT, like ice cream!" She loved it. One of the little girls from her Kindergarten class is in her class and they were very happy to see one another. Kara was able to tell me where she sits in the class -- "with a boy on this side of me Mama (right arm swinging) and nobody on this side (left arm swinging)." When asked is she is in the front row, she said "no, I'm in the middle" -- in this class that's the second row, with a U-shaped bunch of desks surrounding the two short rows in the middle. She did some penmanship work on the letter's "O" and "L" and she learned the rule that lower case letters go below the dotted line -- now if we can just convince her that some letters break that rule -- like the letter "l"! She did some coloring of words that were color words (color the bone that says "RED" red, etc.) and she was a little indignant about it to me saying "I already know this stuff!" That to me is a good sign in the long run. It shows me that deep inside her somewhere there is a learner who wants to be challenged with new information! Hallelujah - she is in our family after all!! Let's see what else, oh, yes, they went to the library and she checked out a Franklin book (Franklin is a cartoon character turtle). She explained to me that Monday is library day and we have to bring the book back next Monday because that's when it's due. She also informed me that today (Tuesday) is P.E. and they need to wear sneakers. She was evidently reminded that all the kids need a healthy snack for the afternoon, so after school when we stopped at Walmart we had to buy an apple for her healthy snack! She did great at lunch following all of the directions I had given her regarding how to handle her rather complicated lunch box and lunch and she did great.

So, all in all, it was GREAT! like ice cream...

I'll be picking her up within the hour, so we'll have to see how the ice cream is doing on Day 2!

First Day of First Grade

Tomorrow is Kara's first day of 1st Grade. Everything we know how to do to prepare is in place, now we just have to pray it all goes well. Her teacher seems great ~ very nice, very patient, very organized, very fun. She has a room full of books and words and games and colors and shapes with their matching words. Kara is grasping reading more and more every day and I can only imagine what she will be like when she begins to actual enjoy the process of reading! Until then, she requests that Mrs. Right -- ( not her real name but phonetically close enough :-) - please just give her more "adding and taking-away to work on - because that's what I like" she says. So, for now she loves math and still claims she would prefer going to a school for coloring than a school for reading. There's no explaining her that even at coloring school (art school) you still have to read!

Meanwhile, Kara has fresh clothes and a positive outlook. She has met her teacher and likes her and she's met two of her classmates -- a shy, wispy little girl named Samantha and a rather tall, blunt little boy named Jonathan. Of her class of approximately 20 -- there are six girls including Kara and Samantha. We're thinking this will work in her favor for two reasons. There are enough girls to form multiple clicks and Kara has always gotten along pretty well with boys her age.

So, our prayer is this: That Kara has a happy first day of school. That she is happy in her classroom. That she makes friends on the first day. That she obeys the five primary rules of the school. That she speaks up and does not act out or act shy. That she speaks loudly enough for the teacher to here her when called upon, but not so loudly to her neighbors that the teacher hears her any other time!

Having met Mrs. Right last week, we really feel this is a good match for Kara. Our prayer tonight is that tomorrow shows us we were right.

School starts at 8:45 and ends at 3:45pm.

I know what Kara will be doing most of the day -- as for me, I'm guessing I'll spend most of my time wondering how she's doing and eagerly waiting for pick-up time in the afternoon. For anyone who is curious, Kara will NOT be riding the school bus. We live close enough for me to do drop off and pick up and I've always appreciated those few minutes in the car together either way. Maybe in a couple of years we'll do the school bus, we'll see.

Well, time for bed for my not-so-little one.... I've always heard this day was hard for moms, I had no idea...

Children Actually Do Require Sleep

Well, we are back from our vacation and we thoroughly enjoyed our week in Massachusetts! We packed in every imaginable family memory as well as fun times with all of our friends. Somewhere in the midst of this, we thought our children could actually survive going to be bed 10 o'clock for nine nights. While we were right, they survived it, it was not without cost. We got home last night, put them both to bed by 9:30 and didn't hear from either of them until after 10am this morning. Caleb got up first, but Kara slept in until 11am -- a first for her! Meanwhile, I'm mostly unpacked now!

While in Massachusetts we spent two Sundays at North Shore, which was quite nice. We had a get-together at a local park for Kara and her friends from church and school, and we were pleasantly surprised that her Kindergarten teacher from Beacon also came out for the get-together. I had left a message with her, but hadn't heard back. This was particularly impressive to Thom, as he had not seen that kind of devotion in a former-teacher. Kara enjoyed digging in the sand with all of her friends. She also spent two whole days with her friend Katie -- who she has missed the most and she had two great days there -- aside from the moment when she poked herself in the eye with a stick and thought she was going to go blind and when she fell off the swing. I'm guessing she won't forget those days! For Kara and I our most exciting day of the trip was Tuesday, when we went out on a whale watch. It was the most amazing whale watch I'd ever been on. One of the whales was breaching out of the water over and over again and it was just amazing. The highlight of the trip was two whales breaching side-by-side, of course, I missed this in a classic moment of turning around at just the wrong time. Kara is now quite proud to tell others that she saw it and Mama missed it. Thom and Caleb had their outting on Thursday while I visiting with QE for a while. They took in an exhibit of paintings at the Peabody/Essex Museum.

In between visits with Kara's friends and admiring Sir Walter and QE's new baby Sir Isaac Newton we found time to venture out to our favorite beaches and introduce Caleb to the ocean.

All in all it was a wonderful and fun trip! Not so sure I can say it was relaxing, but it was definitely refreshing.

For Kara, school starts next Monday and we will spend this week preparing for that and enjoying the last days of summer.

Memory trumps the present

Previous experience dictates the government of children. That's largely what complicates the issue of Kara's future. It isn't that the prognosis was difficult of itself: Your bright child has impulse control problems, otherwise known as ADD. Some medicine will help her cope, and give her control. And, oh, she should matriculate into first grade this year. First grade! We had spent the summer convincing ourselves that a do-over for Kindergarten was better. We talked to other parents and to Kara's kindergarten teachers. We observed her in different settings. And all of it had led to--I'm sorry, did you say first grade? Yes. But what if she doesn't make friends? What if she excludes herself, the way she's done before? What if she gets too shy again? What if the teacher doesn't care for her? And here we are, in the thick of previous experience.

My elementary school was horrible. I'm not sure why, except that I picked my nose, wriggled in my seat, and daydreamed so extensively that those moments where you realize the teacher has been calling your name over and over for awhile-yeah, those happened a lot. There was a window in my classroom in third grade through which I could see the forest. Its limbs and branches, its green leaves and the green hillsides and blue mountains beyond it suggested horizons achingly more interesting than anything happening in my neck of the woods. I looked at it a great deal. It made me feel clean and alive. I watched squirrels racing around in its limbs. I watched the fall colors spread over its surface until the trees made a carpet for winter. I watched that gorgeously yellow-green spring slip up and out of its cold bark, and how the birds came back and settled in its branches. So much life and meaning was going on out there, it made everything in here as dry as a solid sheet of double digit arithmetic.

I genuinely tried to pay attention. All would be going well until my teacher, usually a sincere and simple woman who liked children (of a sort) and taught to the book, would say something like, "put on your thinking caps" and I'd spend a half-hour's reverie working out the design of a thinking cap. The problem with the thinking cap was weight, as best I could tell. Headphones, remember, were gigantic mushrooms in 1977, and when you added the necessary material required to detect, categorize, and stimulate the proper bits required for thinking, the whole contraption could weigh upwards of thirty pounds! How would we carry such burdens, being only seven or eight years of age? And would the teacher or other students have access to our thoughts? What if you wandered a little? What if people found out you had a crush on that girl over there? What about the game of galactic war you and a friend were conducting on smuggled bits of notebook paper discretely torn? Indeed, this business about a thinking cap was nothing but an Orwellian plot to achieve 1984! Forget all about it, then, in case you genuinely solve the engineering difficulties and actually think one up.

Other favorite problems: How to save up enough money to purchase toys? We had a large hill behind my house, and I was fascinated with the mental construction of a wooden corridor full of jumps and hoops for coin racing. (A coin, by the way, has the best chance of rolling and being directed in its roll by first being allowed to go the length of an extended finger pointed at the desired direction. I worked this out during elementary school.) I and friends puzzled over how toy companies were going to manufacture a proper Death Star, and suggested solutions to each other. I was convinced that magnetism would make an excellent levitation system for space toys, but couldn’t solve the problem of balance. A big enough magnet could push a round Death Star into the air, but then the minute you put your Episode IV Luke Skywalker action figure on it, the whole thing would shift out of the magnetic field and crash onto the floor. Another long-time engineering project was a clubhouse. None of the trees in my neighborhood were large enough to hold a proper clubhouse. My own backyard was flat and dusty. This was a problem. The solution was a free standing, two-storey wooden construction with an interior staircase. Balls, bikes, gloves and other yard-paraphernalia would be stored downstairs and toys upstairs. A padlock would keep neighborhood bullies (like one MC) out. (Believe it or not, I actually saw my design in the flesh over at a neighbor kids house, and another one in Massachusetts behind a house in Hamilton.)

Happy Birthday!! 

We all helped Caleb blow out his candle! 

What is this right here? 

OK, I'm fixin' to face-plant into the cake! 

Busy right now... 

Don't you take away my cake!! 

Our Sweet Girl in Her Big Room!

Our Little Man! This outfit on Caleb made us think of someone who reads this blog - Comment if you think it's you! 

mid-summer flats

I started this post in the hopes of proving that we are knee-deep in the mid-summer flats. As it is, I'm so flat I didn't even finish what I started. But here's in the meantime:

L. and I have become addicts of the Fox TV show House. The writing is excellent, and the acting high caliber--the cast is well-seasoned both on the stage and in film. Hugh Laurie plays Dr. Gregory House, who is to infectious diseases like Immanuel Kant is to epistemology. He's done quite a lot on the Brit side of things, but I, at least, was aware of him from his exceedingly hilarious portrayal of Mr. Palmer in Sense and Sensibility (1995). House has given us something to think about during these hot days of mid-summer, when it is too hot (and we're too broke) to go out, and the kids push it until 8:30 before finally nodding off (Last night, for example, Kara cries out, "I can't get to sleep! What can I do?" to which Lynn-nore replies, "Try not yelling 'I can't get to sleep!'.") Even Caleb has developed the habit of crying for no real reason for a good half-hour after he's put to bed! I can only believe they have caught wind of the truth that they represent "the latest generation"--a waning superiority complex only waxed against the late-night howls of their own future progeny.

L. and Kara are going out this evening to hunt for Caleb's birthday present. (Maybe I'll get some reading done.) Kara is such a giving personality. She loves to share and give gifts. She is always drawing things for people. I like that about her.

Thanks to Lynn-nore's iron constitution, Kara's reading is improving. I say thanks to Lynn-nore because, just last week, she instituted a "no read, no play" policy regarding dress ups. Thus, one book a day must be accomplished before all else. It is an excellent policy. Kara's reading should blossom. Even after a few days it is already showing improvement with confidence gained. A bit of Mommie genius. Yes, I think childbirth must begin the accretion of a serum known as "Mommie genius" somewhere in the brain which accumulates throughout life. Ah, do I see a pun: genus-genius? Does that work?

I was so thrilled on Saturday last to have picked up two copies of Horkheimer's works (Frankfurt School) for one dollar each! That and a book of essays about the hermeneutical turn for another five used up a scant fraction of accumulated birthday money, and will keep me bemused for months to come (if my reading progress continues at its current snail's pace.) "Hey, who wants to ditch reading again and go for a swim?"

Hi! Check out my cute new outfit from Grandmommie and Grandmother! 

... oops, gotta get back up again! 

On the Go! Catch that cutie boy! 

While reaching for the camera - Caleb got away. After a few moments of searching the apartment, Kara and I found him in the dark, dunking his new sandals from Grandmommie into Mama and Daddy's toilet!!! Yuck!!!!! Kara snapped this picture.