I wonder as I wander

I apologize for not giving due notice that I would be bowing out of the Christmas Blog-a-day Challenge for a week (which, it seems, was for me a blog-an-every-other-day Challenge) while we spent some time in Port on the Neches with my parents, where the bayous are aplenty and the internet is dial-up. At least at my parents' house. They do have a computer--one that could easily make it into a computer antiquities museum--that they probably start up about once a quarter when my mom checks her email which is full of cutesy and annoying forwards from her friends who actually know how to forward things. My favorite thing about staying with my parents is that my mom is always telling me, demanding even, to go take naps while she entertains the children. They also have this awesome sunroom full of fun toys where Harper can play as loudly as she needs to and Hudson can nap in an entirely different part of the house. It seems palatial compared to our cozy little set-up. You might think that Hudson would sleep great while we are there. Unfortunately he realizes that he is Somewhere Different and this is Terribly Vexing to him for around 3 days. Once he settles in it's about time to go home. It then takes him a day or so to get settled back in at home. I didn't mean to create this fastidious little man. If we end up with a houseful of kids, I'm sure I'll look back and give a wise, self-deprecating chuckle when I think about how I tried to get a toddler to play sotto voce while I unloaded the dishwasher with nary a clink of fork against spoon.
What if I pick a poet a month and read a poem a day for an entire year? I think I'll start with Yeats. January is a gloomy Irish kind of month.
I knew Mrs. B would want to see "Sweeney Todd" because she was to the theatre born. There are lots of good musicals that center around a rather ominous premise ("The Sound of Music"--Nazis, ""Fiddler on the Roof"--pogroms, "Les Miserables--French Revolution..) BUT it's to provide conflict and maybe there's a ballad in a minor key and a mean looking fellow in a uniform. From what I've read about "Sweeney" there is on-stage and now, on-screen, throat slitting. And even if the violence is really stylized I still say eww. It's probably terribly bourgeois of me but it seems a musical should be more about singing and dancing and less about throat slitting and revenge. This is a whole issue that has seeped into the arts in the last 50 years or so. For something to be Important it has to be shocking.
I have lots of new pictures but can't download them until we find the white cord thingy that I haven't seen since the move.

with the angelic hosts proclaim

This is this time last year. She was afraid of the hand mixer and only Daddy and Elmo could be of any solace. Yesterday at the park Harper made a new friend named Alex and she and Alex played catch and each of them had a successful throw which the other then successfully caught. I think that might be fairly impressive for a 2 1/2 and 3 year old. After the game of catch wound down, Alex was feeling chatty. "My Mommy is at the doctor," he confided. Oh? "Yes, and the doctor is Ripping OFF her TOENAIL." Wow, Alex, that's a lot of information for a Mommy to give a 3 year old. Okay, I didn't actually say that but I kind of wanted to. Especially when Alex continued on with increasingly disturbing details about the Procedure. I've had some rich and instructive discussions with a couple of different friends lately about the how-to and whether-to of innocence guarding with an increasingly curious child. When I was student teaching long ago, my supervising teacher had included a short book called Hiroshima in one of the units I was supposed to teach. It's a first person account of the day the atomic bomb was dropped. We had read some parts aloud in class and this kid raised his hand and asked, with a stricken expression, "Could this happen again?" I hated to tell him the truth, but he was a freshman in high school. Even if he was little for his age. I want Harper to feel safe about her toenails.
She put on a little performance for Chris and Stacie today. A rousing version of "Hark the Herald Angels." She takes a deep breath and really belts out with the angelic host proclaiming. It is Loud.
Is there anyone on the planet that will pay to see "Sweeney Todd"? It sounds appalling. Is it supposed to be ironic?

as they shouted out with glee

I've been remiss. It's HARD to blog every day. Familiarity breeds contempt and all that. I have not yet sent Christmas cards. In fact I have not yet purchased Christmas cards. Thanks to my friend Jo, I do now have a Christmas cd to enjoy. It sounds like a group of British kids having choir practice. There's a piano and it seems like the kids might be in charge of the percussion. It's perfect. Too bad it has to be returned to the library in a week. Harper has started asking somewhat rhetorical questions. She'll say, "Are we going to the park, or no?"--the intonation itself is enough to make you giggle. She'll say it as we're getting ready to walk out the door to go to the park. She isn't seeking an answer. She's just enjoying the asking. She has also been ravenous the last few days. "Is there kiwi, or no?" "Did you bring a little box of raisins, or no?" Hudson has decided his favorite place to poo is the highchair. While he is eating. It reminds me of that "Seinfeld" episode when Kramer was doing food preparation in the shower. Speaking of the inane but rib cracking HI-larious, we have just discovered "The Office." Oh, boy. We get to start at the very beginning.

the government will be upon His shoulders

My husband has gently informed me that a dipthong is two vowels that make a single sound. So 'th' doesn't count. I mostly just like using the word dipthong, even if it makes me a malapropist. Malaprop-er? 'Fricative' is another fun word I remember learning in a linguistics class. I don't remember what it means either--I think the letter 'f' is a fricative. If so, Hudson is fond of fricatives and not dipthongs. You should start at the top of this post and read it aloud. Because it will make you smile in spite of yourself. Hudson cried from 2:30 until around 4 last night. He'd get quiet for a couple of minutes and I'd drift back to sleep and then he'd start up again. All that to say I titled this post with the intention of writing some incisive political commentary, but I am just too tired. How long has it been since we've had a president who could speak another language well enough to not need a translator when he visits a country where the language is spoken? I don't mean 4 years of high school Spanish or French--really fluent. There's this part in The Once and Future King where Merlin turns young Arthur into all of these different animals in order to teach him wisdom and perspective. I don't think the philosopher-king types are lining up to be president of this country. Who can blame them? The process is tainted. Iowa is like high school on the day we filled out our scantrons for class favorites. I don't begrudge the fact that some retiree got to have coffee with Mitt Romney this morning or that a single mom at a shelter got a hug from Hilary, I just think it's a little out of balance. If I wanted to actually meet one of the candidates I pretty much need to hang out with people who have concert halls named after them. And those people don't tend to play at the park.

Messiah

My header up there got squished somehow. I'll get J. to fix it. He's had a beastly cold the past 3 days. He stayed home with Hudson this morning and Harper and I decided to go to a church down the street because I'd driven by and seen "Handel's 'Messiah' this Sunday, 10:45" on their sign. On the way there I sang a little of the Hallelujah chorus and asked if she'd like to hear a choir sing it. "Do you mean the Stinky Poo-Poo song, Mommy?" she asked. If you are new to the blog you'll not know that I made up a little ditty while trying to encourage her to use the potty and I borrowed some melodic elements from Mr. Handel. So I fessed up to the artistic license I had taken and explained that the song was really about Jesus. So, here's how it went when we got there.
1. We had never been to this church before and no one talked to us. I even had on my "I'm glad to be here" face AND was carrying a cute toddler. And yet.
2. We sang a couple of carols before things got started. Which made me glad. We only sang the first and last verses though. Which puzzled me. We only sing Christmas carols a few weeks out of the year. And STILL we can't make time to sing all of the verses? (Boy I am determined to be in a dither about Christmas music this year.)
3. The "Messiah" got started and, considering the choir and orchestra appeared to be members of the church and not professionals, it sounded pretty good, right up until..
4. Things ground to a screeching halt so that, wait for it, the pastor of the church could Preach a Sermon right in the middle of the "Messiah" because, apparently, he had something to say that Handel and the librettist (a Mr. Jennens) didn't manage to cover.
5. He seemed to have a lot on his mind. We left.
6. No "Hallelujah!" for us today.
We did sing it in the car on the way home. Not the same. I couldn't stand up because I was driving.

Little Drummer Boy

And girl. This is about as close as the two of them get to playing together. People often ask how Harper likes her baby brother and I answer, "Well, she's pretty indifferent, actually." Even now that he is finally getting old enough to play, she hasn't altered her attitude much. Except, of course, to tell on him. She was partaking in some direct admonishment ("NO NO Hudson!) until I told her that I am the Mommy. Now she says, "Say 'not in your mouth' to Hudson, please Mommy." Hudson, of course, thinks Harper is MAGNIFICENT. He lights up at the mention of her name and does whatever he can to be near her. John Steinbeck wrote a delightful book called Travels With Charley that describes a cross country trip he took with his black standard poodle as his only companion. Charley has more personality than most humans you've met. When something meets with his approval, or he needs something, he makes a particular sound. I think Steinbeck spells it "Ftt." Anyway, Hudson makes the exact sound. When I get him up in the morning he gives me a bright smile and then "FFFttth" (he puts an 'h' on the end--poodles can't do dipthongs). I suspect he enjoys the way his new teeth feel on his lower lip. It is also a decidedly happy noise and when I tell him, after he has been changed and fed, that we'll now be going in to see Daddy and Harper he takes a breath and, "FFFFFFFFFFFFFtttttttttttth!" Some mornings Harper gives him a bright, "Hi buddy!" Other mornings, like this one, she'll say, "Please put Hudson down."

Go Christmas!

That's the actual title of an actual song on the cd my Mom, bless her, bought for us when I asked, and I quote, "For a Christmas cd with Christmas carols--you know, songs that talk about Jesus being born and stuff." She showed up, rather apologetically, with something called "The Coolest KidzBop Christmas Ever!"because I told her I liked it when they had the kids singing. Only I'm not so crazy about the kids singing "Grandma Got Run Over By a Reindeer," and "Jingle Bell Rock" so we took a little walk to Barnes and Noble today to see if we couldn't exchange it for a little "Joy to the World." A big fat nothing. Even the "Christian pop" compilation was a little too heavy on the "Mary, Did You Know?" and not heavy enough on the "Ave Maria." Ok, Ok. I don't begrudge musicians for not wanting to do the cover tunes, and there are certainly recently penned Christmas songs that I think are good ("Breath of Heaven" is pretty and Chris Rice did something sweet with "Welcome to our World") but would it be terrible if the Jars of Clay just sang "Hark! the Herald Angels Sing" without some kind of weird jazzy syncopation? Or, even better, if they rounded up a group of kids and had them sing it? I really don't mind if Harper wants to sing "Frosty the Snowman" when she passes the inflatables, I just want her to hear a really lovely version of "Angels We Have Heard On High" as well. I tried singing "Hark the Herald Angels Sing" to them while we played in Harper's room today and they both stopped what they were doing and stared at me with what seemed like sick fascination. It's a hard song. And I'm no Julie Andrews. Harper asked me to stop.

Joy to the World

I wish I had a really good Christmas cd. Any suggestions?
Well, we are moved. It took two entire days to walk our every possession across a ten foot hallway. I remember hearing Tommy Nelson say one time, to illustrate an exercise in futility, "you're swabbing the deck on a sinking ship." That's what this felt like. But we'll be saving almost $400 a month. For the same amount of space. My dear mother came to occupy the kids and my dear husband did the lion's share of the moving and then the cleaning of the vacated space. He also sustained two wounds and I one. All inflicted by our bed. An errant staple on the box springs gave me a fairly impressive gash on my right pinky. This happened pretty early on which meant that I spent the rest of the time trying not to use my right hand. It turns out we really need all of our fingers and both hands to move our every possession across a ten foot hallway. Even with everything we threw away and gave away there is still so much in between me and simplicity.

O Tannenbaum

I think I'm going to have to bow out of the Blog a Day Christmas Carol Challenge for a few days. We are moving into another apartment on Tuesday and will be sans internet for at least a couple of days. And there will likely be other pressing priorities. I don't like change. It makes me melancholy. Alas. It's being forced on us by our apartment complex. They've decided to update our already modern apartments by adding faux wood floors and stainless appliances. We're moving into the apartment across the hall. We have yet to begin packing. It's a good chance to simplify, give away and throw away.
Last night I told Harper that I found something she had done frustrating and she reached out, stroked my arm gently and said, "It's okay Mommy. YOU'RE okay Mommy," and planted a tender little kiss right on my wrist. It's hard to be stern when there's so much cute flying around.

to be jolly

There is just not much funnier than a toddler who puts her shoes on the wrong feet. It cracks me up every time. I almost let her wear her Mary Janes wrong when we went somewhere this week so that everyone else could laugh with me, but decided that might be a bad podiatric decision. Something else that made me giggle this week--one of the Take Your Picture With Santa Santas at the Galleria. There's one that looks just right. He has a long fluffy white beard, a jelly belly, and little Benjamin Frankin glasses. His understudy, however, who must work weekday mornings when I guess they figure the crowds will be easily impressed, has a beard that is really more like vacation stubble AND these enormous gold aviator-style glasses circa 1975. He looks unkempt. You could tell the parents in line really wanted to ask when the other Santa would be there.

Peace on earth and mercy mild

I've already told you how much I love the military commemoration. Well, this morning Harper and Hudson and I were at the Children's Museum and I was doing the We're Strangers But We're Moms Chit-Chat Routine with a couple of nice ladies and we were on to Phase 2: How Old Is He/She? (Phase 1 of course being, "He/She is SUCH a cutie/has so much energy/looks JUST like you!") and Mom #2 said her boy would be turning 2 next week and Mom #1 said, "Gosh I don't even know what day it is today," and I piped in, "It's December 7--Pearl Harbor Day," and Mom #1 said, and not in a particularly nice way, "No, that's on December 4, or maybe the 5th. Anyway, it's NOT the 7th." I was a bit taken aback because, while I'm no history whiz, I do have a fair number of dates tucked away in my head. I was pretty sure I was right but she seemed VERY determined that I was NOT. She even whipped out her day planner to check the calendar. At this point Harper had moved on so I followed her, not wanting to gloat.
On a more humbling note, my dear Mrs. B has gently reminded me that the Carmina Burana probably doesn't rank as high art because of the coarse nature of parts of its libretto. Apparently, there is some mention of flatulence. Flatulence never sounded so good though, huh? Speaking of, Harper is learning to say excuse me when said emissions occur only she thinks it's all very amusing. She'll burp and announce, in a very loud voice, much louder than the Offending Noise, "EXCUSE ME I BURPED!" or "I TOOTED PARDON ME!" I wish I could say that in Latin and set it to a haunting dirge.

Angels we have heard

I've been thinking about high art and low art. Jamie had a little quiz thing on her blog a couple of months back that helped ascertain what sort of reader I am. I ranked pretty high on the 'snob' end of things, apparently because I like literature--and not just the required high school stuff. You got more points for Tender is the Night than for The Great Gatsby. I majored in English--they pretty much awarded me with a degree for having spent 4 years reading lots of books. I don't, however, enjoy snobbish thoughts. I do confess to a certain disdain for popular fiction (there are exceptions) because I just think it's frustrating when people don't take their vocation seriously. I think lots of writers stop short of the quality they could attain because they find lots of people who are satisfied, even thrilled, with what they currently write. And this frustration bleeds over into the other arts as well. People mistake popularity with quality. So Britney Spears latest album outsells Alison Krauss what, a hundredfold? And Alison Krauss outsells a recently released album of sacred music performed by a Houston choir that one reviewer proclaimed, "evocative of heavenly glory, whether accompanied or a capella" (and he's not a critic prone to effuse) probably a thousandfold. Here's what instigated my rant today though. On our way to the park we pass neighboring yards that are chock full of inflatable, holiday fun. There's an igloo that houses Santa and Frosty, who take turns popping out. There's a carousel with snow, penguins, polar bears and Santa all enjoying a ride. Harper thinks it is all JUST FANTASTIC. Her eyes get all sparkly, she commends Santa and Frosty for doing such a good job taking turns, she gets positively rhapsodic about the carousel. Toddlers are all about the low art, it seems. She much prefers singing "Where is My Hairbrush?" by Larry the Cucumber, than the "Carmina Burana." (I'm just kidding--she doesn't really sing in Latin) So here's the question: should I take a knife to the inflatable snow globe? Will doing so ensure that Harper will better appreciate Rembrandt? Seriously, I feel the quality of my posts is waning with the December challenge. I think I'll take on politics tomorrow. The New York Times is newly fascinated with the Huckabee campaign.

where the snow lay dinted

It's from "Good King Wenceslas" who, I remembered reading on something in Prague, was never a king, but was decidedly good. I just looked it up. He was a duke. The carol is about the philanthropic duke's venture out into the cold snowy night to render succor to one less fortunate. His page doesn't think he can walk another step so the good duke tells him to walk in his big snowy footprints. So J. got home yesterday, plunged ONCE, and the toilet complied. I was convinced it was because of my arduous work beforehand. After some gentle questioning, J. ascertained that my whole Theory of Plunging was amiss. I had always thought the goal was to use the suction to pull something up so that it could then go down. Apparently, that is not the case.
A nurse came to our house yesterday to draw our blood and test our urine and weigh me (that's right--he had his own scale even) because we are getting life insurance from Jodey's best friend who sat in our living room and witnessed the blood draw, the weigh-in, and, poor boy, the hand off of the urine. A perfect end to a perfect day.
Today, on the other hand, IS glorious. Spent the morning at the zoo with good friends. Rode the carousel. Let's end with a picture since it's been awhile.
Hudson likes to keep his toes curled up sometimes.

in the bleak midwinter

I'm pretty sure there's a chapter in one of Martha Stewart's books: "Nothing Says Welcome Like a Toilet That Just Won't Flush." So far today:

*the toilet has overflowed AND defied all efforts to be plunged
*when I needed to put the soaking wet towel that had toilet water on it into the washer I could not because I first needed to put away the mountain of folded clothes stacked neatly on top of the washer which really don't have a place to be put away because there is a baby living in our closet
*which made us late to meet friends at the park which meant we needed to take the car. Which was on empty.
*phone battery: dead
*forgot to take Hudson's food to the park which meant he had to eat when we got home which meant that he got to sit in the highchair first which made Harper so sad that she started crying inconsolably
* Hudson had been asleep approximately 30 minutes when the UPS guy knocked loudly on the door. Three different times because he kept forgetting things
*He goes back to sleep for around 4 minutes at which point the yard guys with their leaf blowers on full power start wandering aimlessly up and down right outside our apartment. Where there are no leaves.
*He is noisy, presumably because the world is noisy.
*Harper wakes up having slept about a third of her usual nap
* We have company arriving any minute.
*My hair is enormous, my clothes don't match, my back hurts from all the plunging.
I feel so gracious.

Once in Royal David's City

This is my favorite carol and I'll tell you why. The first time I ever remember hearing it was when I was visiting my friend Yvonne the Liverpudlian in England and we went to a Christmas Eve service in this cavernous old church and there was a choir of men and boys and they sang it and it was dark and there were candles and it. was. sublime. I remember reading once that the old cathedrals were built to make us look upward and realize that God is Most High. What a wondrous and mystical thing to be reminded that God is Most High right when you're celebrating God being born most low.

There's a line in the third verse that I would've done well to sing to Harper today:
Christian children all must be
Mild, obedient, good as He.
We had to leave the park early today because she just could not keep it together. She cried when another boy was swinging by her friend Joseph, she cried when she dropped her car while she was riding the airplane, she cried when it was time to share her car. She's generally NOT histrionic in the least. Let's hope tomorrow is a day less cranky.

Away in a manger

Or, as we refer to it at our house, Baby Jesus in a Box.
In the bathtub last night, Harper's bath animals were playing and she decided Seahorse was hereafter to be referred to as 'Padua.'
"Did you say Padua?" I asked.
"Yes, Padua."
"Where did you get that name Harper?"
"Ikea."
"Ikea?"
"Yes m'am. Ikea has lots of names."

She has been to Ikea twice. It apparently made an impression.

Gentle Mary Laid Her Child

I have accepted Jamie's challenge to blog each day in December whilst using Christmas carols as titles. Won't this be fun! The connection will be oblique at times but together, we will find it. Last night Harper was playing with Hudson in the little play yard thing while I got her dinner ready. He was giggling so I asked, "What's so funny?" I'm giving Hudson a hug, she said. I looked over and it turns out what she really meant to say is, "I am lying on top of Hudson with my full body weight and he is laughing because apparently that's what babies do when they have sustained a liver laceration from blunt force trauma." I got her off lickety split and he was making this weird, pained sort of groan because before the hug happened, he'd apparently been sitting up on his knees which were now folded underneath him at a strange angle. It's a good thing babies are so bendy. Everyone was ok. Harper kept asking, "What I did?" So we had a big discussion about The Nature of Hugs.