I've been changing diapers, daily, for the last eleven years and some. Our youngest is finally getting interested in potty training, and we're getting excited about dropping diapers from our expenses and our chores.
One of the things that drew me to having children and lots of them was the idea of a tiny little body rustling in the crib. I liked the idea of the little diapered behind sticking up in the air, and I must admit, I've enjoyed the reality.
I am not the best at potty training. I suspect it's because I've never been particularly annoyed by diapers. I don't suppose you could say I enjoy changing them. In fact, you can definitely say I don't, but I did love the closeness of being the only person who was still glad to be around the stinky little being. They were always so glad when things were made right again in that department. I will miss that.
Here's to my babies. Growing into personhood one little step at a time.
Thursday, June 28, 2007
Thursday, June 14, 2007
Given Rhythm
"Come," He whispered
and my heart ran away
ran away
ran away
To live to love an other day
another day
another day
And now it is the other day
And all His love I give away
give away
give away
and my heart ran away
ran away
ran away
To live to love an other day
another day
another day
And now it is the other day
And all His love I give away
give away
give away
Wednesday, June 06, 2007
Making Peace
I'm beginning to realize that before I can move on with my life I need to make peace with my failures, lapses, gaps, and those of other people in my life. I don't have to wring contrition out of any of us, or, in most cases, get or make an official apology, but I do have to let it rest. I'm finding the biggest challenge may be the church as an institution. A friendly person once suggested that instead of seeking personal help I ought to "call the church." That's a reasonable suggestion if the church wasn't the very institution that had screwed me over. At that moment what I really needed was personal help from faithful people not institutional help.
I suppose that friendly voice meant that I could get the personal help I needed by working through the bureaucracy of church referrals, but I'd been through that system. Frankly, you always end up screwed. People check off check lists and "make connections" and then you sit in a room with someone you don't know who doesn't know you and you try to express the deepest intimacies of your life. It never works.
It's particularly difficult if you've grown up with the backstage view. You know that all these people are playing political games of one sort or another and with varying degrees of success. You've lost all innocence that someone actually cares. The only authority the church seems capable of generating at the moment is the authority of the abusive father. So I've gone off looking for something else.
I think I've found my personal something else, but I don't like how absurdly grumpy I am with the past. I don't like shuddering at every tiny misstep the church we are currently visiting makes. It's not like they are trying to be evil. They are trying to do something very good. They just don't seem to be succeeding, in my view. I'm not ready to give up on working out some kind of truce with them just yet, so I'll keep going and I'll probably keep shuddering. I wish there was a program I could call that would walk me through the steps so I could walk free.
I bet there is. I bet it doesn't work.
I suppose that friendly voice meant that I could get the personal help I needed by working through the bureaucracy of church referrals, but I'd been through that system. Frankly, you always end up screwed. People check off check lists and "make connections" and then you sit in a room with someone you don't know who doesn't know you and you try to express the deepest intimacies of your life. It never works.
It's particularly difficult if you've grown up with the backstage view. You know that all these people are playing political games of one sort or another and with varying degrees of success. You've lost all innocence that someone actually cares. The only authority the church seems capable of generating at the moment is the authority of the abusive father. So I've gone off looking for something else.
I think I've found my personal something else, but I don't like how absurdly grumpy I am with the past. I don't like shuddering at every tiny misstep the church we are currently visiting makes. It's not like they are trying to be evil. They are trying to do something very good. They just don't seem to be succeeding, in my view. I'm not ready to give up on working out some kind of truce with them just yet, so I'll keep going and I'll probably keep shuddering. I wish there was a program I could call that would walk me through the steps so I could walk free.
I bet there is. I bet it doesn't work.
Monday, June 04, 2007
Dead Trees and other Paraphenalia
Yesterday was a grand day. West Michigan Tree Services (They are terrific and I highly recommend them!) had come out a few days ago and turned all of our dead trees into mulch, a huge pile of which they left us to use as we saw fit. We dived in as a family team, and got about half of it properly spread around our property. We have ideas about what to do with the rest of it, but we were just bored with wood chips after awhile.
I've mention earlier that I'd like to do more walking than driving this summer. Part of my plan is to walk/ride bikes to the kids tennis and swimming lessons. Kurt and I agreed that an undertaking of that sort requires a dry run, so with the help of a kind neighbor we set out on our adventure.
Initially, it was just me and the kids as Kurt was suffering a bike malfunction. I was so glad we were trying this without any time pressure as kids were learning to stay closer to the grass instead of the white line and other important lessons. I was just beginning to be overwhelmed when who should arrive on his trusty rollerblades? You guessed it, our family's personal man of steel.
Things were still difficult as we discovered dangerous intersections and poorly designed sections of the bike trail. Number Four took a terrible tumble over the edge of a rise, but bravely battled on on her Dora the Explorer bike. The largest difficulty is Number Five and I trailing behind with the stroller. Our next dry run will be all about setting mandatory wait points for the older children on their bigger and faster bikes.
Trials and skinned knees included we all had a good time.
I've mention earlier that I'd like to do more walking than driving this summer. Part of my plan is to walk/ride bikes to the kids tennis and swimming lessons. Kurt and I agreed that an undertaking of that sort requires a dry run, so with the help of a kind neighbor we set out on our adventure.
Initially, it was just me and the kids as Kurt was suffering a bike malfunction. I was so glad we were trying this without any time pressure as kids were learning to stay closer to the grass instead of the white line and other important lessons. I was just beginning to be overwhelmed when who should arrive on his trusty rollerblades? You guessed it, our family's personal man of steel.
Things were still difficult as we discovered dangerous intersections and poorly designed sections of the bike trail. Number Four took a terrible tumble over the edge of a rise, but bravely battled on on her Dora the Explorer bike. The largest difficulty is Number Five and I trailing behind with the stroller. Our next dry run will be all about setting mandatory wait points for the older children on their bigger and faster bikes.
Trials and skinned knees included we all had a good time.
Tuesday, May 29, 2007
Spring Cleaning/Summer Goals
Memorial Day was spent scrubbing my kitchen and the downstairs bath. I've been working on them a little at a time, but Monday gave me a whole day to simply focus on Spring cleaning. It is surprising how much I enjoy cleaning these days. I had Kurt move all the appliances and thoroughly enjoyed scraping the dust off of our refrigerator coils. Kurt scrubbed the back deck and began the process of cleaning out the garage. We want the garage to provide more rainy day play space this year, which means we've got to get those last few boxes out of there.
While scrubbing I had time to start formulating summer goals, here's what I've got so far.
1. Ride my bike to the library. I'm not very good on my bike, but it's great exercise. I've always wanted to master the machine. Maybe this summer is the summer.
2. Do more walking and less driving. We live in a beautiful village with almost everything you need within a reasonable walking distance. With gas prices going through the roof and my new environmental consciousness, I'm going to take advantage of small town living.
3. Ditch television, with the only exception being a weekly family DVD and possible sick day entertainment. This will be hard with all the great stuff there is to Netflix--I've grown addicted to the documentaries.
4. Work in cultural enrichment activities from the free section of the Entertainment calendar in the newspaper. We found some great stuff last summer, weekly concerts of various styles of music, an archaeological dig, and kiting gatherings. Not to mention our local library's terrific offerings for kids.
5. Get back in the habit of reading. Ordinarily, I read all the time, but recently what with writing a novel, publicizing Heifer, and the new cleaning obsession, not much reading is going on. The books are piling up.
6. Eat more salads. We want to picnic most nights this summer, and I like salads when I picnic. Sure, KFC is the classic option, and I'm not under-rating it, but chicken salad is better for you. I'm going to become a salad recipe maven. I'll post the best ones.
7. Recycle. We used to recycle at our last house, but we never got around to setting up the service here in Spring Lake. I'd like to get my sorting bins back in action.
8. Finally and irrevocably build the habit of daily cleanup into my children. We keep working away, and little by little the habit is coming along, but summer provides real opportunity to tighten the screws--I mean create incentives. If we have to miss swim class or their newly earned tennis lessons, the message just might get through that doing chores is non-negotiable. That's much harder to teach during the school year. If I make them go back and fix their rooms that means less time in school. Summer is my opportunity.
So, what are you doing this summer? I'd love to hear from you.
While scrubbing I had time to start formulating summer goals, here's what I've got so far.
1. Ride my bike to the library. I'm not very good on my bike, but it's great exercise. I've always wanted to master the machine. Maybe this summer is the summer.
2. Do more walking and less driving. We live in a beautiful village with almost everything you need within a reasonable walking distance. With gas prices going through the roof and my new environmental consciousness, I'm going to take advantage of small town living.
3. Ditch television, with the only exception being a weekly family DVD and possible sick day entertainment. This will be hard with all the great stuff there is to Netflix--I've grown addicted to the documentaries.
4. Work in cultural enrichment activities from the free section of the Entertainment calendar in the newspaper. We found some great stuff last summer, weekly concerts of various styles of music, an archaeological dig, and kiting gatherings. Not to mention our local library's terrific offerings for kids.
5. Get back in the habit of reading. Ordinarily, I read all the time, but recently what with writing a novel, publicizing Heifer, and the new cleaning obsession, not much reading is going on. The books are piling up.
6. Eat more salads. We want to picnic most nights this summer, and I like salads when I picnic. Sure, KFC is the classic option, and I'm not under-rating it, but chicken salad is better for you. I'm going to become a salad recipe maven. I'll post the best ones.
7. Recycle. We used to recycle at our last house, but we never got around to setting up the service here in Spring Lake. I'd like to get my sorting bins back in action.
8. Finally and irrevocably build the habit of daily cleanup into my children. We keep working away, and little by little the habit is coming along, but summer provides real opportunity to tighten the screws--I mean create incentives. If we have to miss swim class or their newly earned tennis lessons, the message just might get through that doing chores is non-negotiable. That's much harder to teach during the school year. If I make them go back and fix their rooms that means less time in school. Summer is my opportunity.
So, what are you doing this summer? I'd love to hear from you.
Wednesday, May 23, 2007
100 Pages
The rough draft of my novel has passed 100 pages. The need to have something to read at my writer's group has been a gentle but steady push to make progress. It's quite satisfying to open the black binder and see all those double-spaced pages filled with text.
Of course, the minute you achieve a milestone of this sort you become anxious about keeping up. The scene I just finished was powerful and moved along on its own, sometimes without my say so. Working on the next part has gone more slowly, and the match between scene and plot isn't as clear or as powerful. However, I had the same worries about the last bit, and it turned out quite nicely.
Creating the first telling of a story has, so far, turned out to be much easier than I expected it to be. Once I embraced the "shitty first draft" concept, the only thing that matters is actually telling the story. If I can tell this story at all, then I can worry about knocking it into a well-told story later.
Of course, the minute you achieve a milestone of this sort you become anxious about keeping up. The scene I just finished was powerful and moved along on its own, sometimes without my say so. Working on the next part has gone more slowly, and the match between scene and plot isn't as clear or as powerful. However, I had the same worries about the last bit, and it turned out quite nicely.
Creating the first telling of a story has, so far, turned out to be much easier than I expected it to be. Once I embraced the "shitty first draft" concept, the only thing that matters is actually telling the story. If I can tell this story at all, then I can worry about knocking it into a well-told story later.
Hurry, Dad, Come see the Kittens!
My sister-in-law sent me this picture. I don't know anything about it, but it was too cute to keep to myself. Thanks, Mary!
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