Entropy

It's the Second Law of Thermodynamics. The world tends towards disorder. It's because it takes more energy to keep things ordered. The natural world is lazy, as are we. This is an interesting theological reality as well. No weeds in the pre-Fall garden. So. This is our post-Fall coffee table. Just two days ago, J. had it completely cleared. He is the tidy one in the family. Harper and I tend to clutter. My favorite things are the sandals Mr. Corncob is wearing as a hat, and the wild ride Spiderman is enjoying on Lewis the Dog. Spiderman joined the family on Saturday, which around here is referred to as Daddy's Day. Harper's favorite things about Spiderman: that he can do the splits, and that his web-spewing hand is making the sign for 'I love you.' So instead of fighting crime, Spiderman runs around our apartment saying "I love you!" in a high-pitched voice and jumping into the splits. Spider-femme.

lord of the gourds, part two

Here we are supporting Harper's pumpkin passion. This picture was taken by Andrew, an 8th grader who will be going to Alaska in December with his church choir if they can just sell enough pumpkins. Here is a picture of Harper when she realizes that she will not be allowed to single-handedly finance the trip by purchasing and bringing home the entire pumpkin patch:

She did get to bring home the one she's holding and another big one for the patio. She was a happy girl.
We are loving this weather. Twice daily trips to the park this week. I know that autumn is the metaphorical season of decay and all, but it is glorious in its entropy. Things fall apart and it can be a joy to behold.

the sparkly scooter of Somebody Else

We're walking into the park yesterday and Harper sees a scooter with sparkly princesses on it parked just outside the gate and she says, "I want to ride that." No, we're not going to ride the scooter, I tell her, it's somebody else's. She accepts that fairly well, scampers into the park, and goes about the business of sliding. A few minutes later I see a concerned look on her face as she's coming down the slide. As soon as she gets to the bottom she scurries around underneath the slide in hot pursuit of something. Hudson and I follow her to see what it so urgent. It is the little girl to whom the scooter belongs and she has retrieved it and would be riding it if it were not for Harper, who has planted herself in front of the scooter and is saying, "Please get off the scooter, please. It's Somebody Else's. You can't ride it, it's for Somebody Else. Please get off please." (I was, it should be noted, rather pleased with all of the 'pleases') So it turns out that Harper has been thinking for awhile now that Somebody Else is an actual person who has loads of cool toys that she isn't allowed to touch. Somebody Else also tends to leave his sippy cups around, and often, pieces of his snack on park benches. All of it denied to Harper. Somebody Else is not required to share.
Something else (or could it be the mysterious Something Else?) funny happened yesterday. While I was changing her diaper before her nap, Harper was holding her puppy Jeff (who used to be named Wadsworth. It's a long story) and she lifted up her shirt and pretended to breastfeed him. "Jeff wanted some milk," she said casually. Usually Jeff gets a bottle. And sometimes pasta. She has two dolls, Baby Gus and Joshua, whom she condescends to mother about once a week. She has never felt compelled to breastfeed either of them. Or give them pasta. I put a diaper on Joshua last week after noticing he'd been naked for about 3 months.

Let them eat cake, and whine

That's Hudson enjoying some carrots. He would prefer that you not notice the pink bib inscribed "Princess." He does have boy bibs, there just wasn't one handy. So, I've been thinking about food. And here's something I've noticed:

1. There are certain foods that have lots of calories but seem as though they shouldn't, because you can eat rather copious amounts and not feel very full.
Examples: ice cream, queso, milkshakes, M&Ms, chips

2. Then there are foods that have lots of calories that actually seem as though they have lots of calories.
Examples: Milk Duds, cheesecake, lasagna, cupcakes, pizza

3. And foods that, tasty though they may be, never let you forget that they are good for you.
Examples: broccoli, spinach, apples, Ezekiel bread

So, if the logic follows, it seems like there ought to be food that's really good for you AND tastes as though it has lots of calories. I can't think of anything. There are healthy foods like avocados and nuts that have lots of calories. But I can't think of a single low calorie food that tastes high calorie. Hm.
My favorite candy this time of year: the limited edition vanilla Tootsie Rolls. Try them.
My least favorite genre of book: the tell-all autobiographies grown-up children write about their famous parents. Francis Schaeffer's son Frank has a new one. J.D. Salinger's daughter. A.A. Milne's son (how could you, Christopher Robin?!). The main intent seems to be to tell the world that, though lots of people think their parent was AMAZING, they had Actual Flaws. How shocking.

mites, both dust and widows'

Here are some numbers I pondered over the weekend:

*TEN: number of years it takes for a mattress to DOUBLE its weight in dust mites and other debris (including insects, food particles and "other unpleasant matter")

*$172: price of the pair of jeans I tried on Saturday and really wanted to buy with some birthday money my parents gave me. They were great jeans, but I just couldn't do it because...

*$250: amount of money it takes for Operation Smile and other similar medical groups to repair a cleft palate in the Third World

*$95 million: amount of money Lakewood Church spent to turn the Compaq center into a church building

*$12 million: amount of money my church wants to raise in order to build a church building (it's been meeting in a local community college and, before that, an elementary school since it was started 10 years ago)

*$20 million: amount of money another local church wants to raise to expand/improve their current building

*508,001: number of children world-wide whose lives could be changed with a $250 surgery if just these three churches donated the cumulative proceeds from their building funds, and I donated my birthday money

I realize I'm being overly simplistic. I don't care. I just used the cleft palate example because there was an article about it in The Wall Street Journal last week. There are myriad other worthy causes. And I'm sorry about the repulsive mattress statistic. I just couldn't keep the fascinating nastiness of it to myself.

killing me softly at Kroger

So I ran into Kroger last night on my way home from Freebirds (I do not as a rule like Mexican food. I do enjoy the Freebirds) to grab a couple of things and what do you think I saw there? Well, it was Friday night, so, of course, it was open mike night in the deli/prepared foods section. There was a lady, she was around 60 I'd say, accompanying herself on an electric keyboard and singing light pop from the 70's and 80's. You know how high school marching bands try to play pop music only they can't do the syncopation because I guess their feet would get all tangled up or something? That's what this lady sounded like! As though if she ventured from the metronome someone would fling a freshly prepared, ready for the oven lasagna at her. I scanned my groceries to the dulcet tones of "Take it..to the limit". I was tempted to record the performance on my phone (only I don't know how) and send it to the Eagles. And since we're on the rather odd subject, why does the Randalls by me have a sitting area with a cozy fireplace? Are there people who actually want to stay for a while and relax at the grocery store?
Tonight I was helping Harper with her long-sleeved pink pj shirt and she said, "I'm like Jesus." Oh, I said, How are you like Jesus? "Because of my pink shirt," she patiently explained. "Does Jesus wear a pink shirt?" I queried. "No, Jesus wears a brown shirt." Ah, of course.

physics

Harper is pretty agile, as you can see from the arabesque. She has, however, suffered a couple of notable exceptions this week. On Tuesday while trying very hard to NOT take a nap, she fell out of her crib for the first time. I'm actually amazed that it took 28 months considering her seemingly insatiable curiosity. She did NOT enjoy the fall and hasn't tried again. Then yesterday at the park while she was standing on the jungle jim (I'm not sure what else to call this--you know, the thing with stairs and tunnels and slides) singing "Happy Birthday" to a little boy she'd just met, she somehow managed to get her bent knee wedged between two of the bars. It took a bit of painful manuvering to get her free. She then proceeded to fall out of a swing and get a face full of mulch. She kept asking, "What happened to Harper Anne?" on the way home.
On another note, I am already tired of the 2008 elections. And the ads haven't even started in Texas. It's frustrating that it costs so much money to become president. It's because we are complacent. The candidates spend millions of dollars buying ads because they know that's just about the only way to break through the inertia. At this point it's basically a popularity contest. I'm pretty convinced that it doesn't really matter who the president is. There are lots of people who will passionately disagree with me. But I've been paying attention for around 20 years (Bush-Clinton-Bush) and the changes seem superficial. I'll still vote, mind you, I just won't be excited about it.

Federal Reserve Chairman..from the block!

I am up way too late. Jennifer Lopez and Alan Greenspan are on Letterman. That's fun contrast, huh? Wonder what they chatted about backstage. "Gigli"? Interest rates?

networking a l'enfant

At the park this morning, there were some older kids apparently enjoying a Columbus Day holiday from school. As their nannies chatted at a picnic table, the kids congregated on the jungle jim. One of the boys, a first grader (he later announced), climbed on top of the tunnel slide and shouted, "Who here has been to Cirque du Soleil?" He waited for a response, got none, and proclaimed, "Well, I have--at Disneyworld." A few minutes later, he and a couple of the girls, who appeared to be a little older (8 maybe), were digging a hole (which they later filled with a rather impressive amount of mud) in front of the swings and I heard this exchange:
Girl 1: At Pooh Corner, you can dig two feet down into the sandbox and there's a concrete bottom.
Cirque du Soleil Boy: You went to Pooh Corner? When?
Girl 2: I went there too.
So then they figured out if they knew some of the same people. It was like a cocktail party with mud instead of cosmopolitans. Pooh Corner, by the way, is THE preschool you go to in Houston if you want to go to THE prep school that will get you into Yale or Dartmouth or Smith.
On a less socially satirical note, I would like to show you a picture of what Harper's hair does when it's 99% humidity:
Sorry it's sideways--I'm not sure how to turn it. Anyway, can you see the ringlets? I was going to show you a picture of MY hair in the 99% humidity but it's just too depressing. Forty-five minutes with the Chi and it's still a wiry, poufy mess. And, seriously, there are MANY other things I ought to be doing with those 45 minutes.

Peripatetic

It means walking while teaching. I love words, which makes me a logophile. I also do lots of walking while teaching. Harper is newly fascinated by crosswalk lights. We have to cross a busy intersection to get to our parks, and we spend most of the walk anticipating and then processing how TERRIBLY exciting it is to see The Orange Hand and The White Man With No Face On. That's right. She calls him The White Man With No Face On. So we get to the park and Harper starts rhapsodizing about that most joyful of moments when It's Safe To Walk When I See The White Man With No Face On! My parents were here Tuesday and my dad went to the park with us.

My dad: It sounds like she's saying (lowers his voice and whispers dramatically) "the WHITE man."
Me: Yes, that IS what she's saying.

I explained it but I think he still found it a little scandalous that she was going on and on about The White Man (With No Face On). It is rather scandalous to end a sentence with a preposition, after all.