Go, Tell It On the Mountain!

Well, the December Blog Challenge, Revised, has begun. The goal is to blog every day for the next two weeks and use Christmas carol titles for each post.

We seemed to have settled on a name over the weekend:

She will be called Helena Jane and we will pronounce it HuhLAYnuh and probably call her Lanie. We will not be dismayed if it gets pronounced HELL-in-uh (I think that's how my friends in England might say it) or Huh-LEE-nuh, which is apparently how it gets pronounced in Nederland, Texas, according to my mother. So, there. She is getting an H after all.

Harper got an actual Big Girl Bed at Ikea this weekend. She is thrilled. We got some really cute (and cheap) bedding as well. Sheets, duvet cover AND duvet all for around $40. Take that Pottery Barn Kids. Ikea has figured very prominently in our design scheme since we moved to Houston 4 years ago and have lived on one salary. Though I'm pretty sure we'd still shop there even if we could buy expensive things. The thought of heavy, expensive furniture has always stressed me out. It seems restrictive somehow. As though if you decided to up and move to Argentina or Alberta or Albania it would just be so cumbersome and back-breaking to transplant. I knew this girl Caroline at A&M and when she packed up her dorm room to go home at the end of each semester, if there was stuff she couldn't fit into her tiny car, she would give it away, reasoning that if it wouldn't fit, she probably didn't need it. That's just good. I wonder what she'd say if she could see our minivan packed for just a few days at my parents' house.

Ten for Tuesday

I stole this from Robin. There are probably rules of which I'm not aware, but my version is just going to be a list of ten things that pass as an actual post.

1. It's beautiful weather here in Houston today--clear and coldish and autumnal.
2. I'm supposed to be going to the doctor every two weeks now and I find this very vexing.
3. Because each appointment takes around 2 hours, some of which is travel time and parking time, and some of which is spent waiting to be asked the same pleasant questions they asked at the last appointment. To which my answer is always no. I am, however, exceedingly thankful for uncomplicated pregnancies. I just think I should be allowed, in spite of my Advanced Maternal Age, to go to the doctor only when there is an actual need. When one is in active labor, for example.
4. I read a novel titled Home while at my parents' for Thanksgiving. If you ever think about writing your very own novel, Marilynne Robinson will either inspire you to be better at it, or, as is probably the case with me, her writing will convince you that if it's already being done this well, why sully it up with your own paltry effort.
5. On that note of self-pity, I have just received in the post a series of lectures from The Teaching Company titled, "Building Great Sentences: Exploring the Writer's Craft." A fellow named Brooks Landon, who teaches (with Marilynne Robinson, incidentally) at the the University of Iowa's famed writing workshop is going to lecture me on things like The Riddle of Prose Rhythm and Prefab Patterns for Suspense. I'm extremely excited to start.
6. This afternoon, the Daddy accompanied us to the park, to our delight, and on the way home Harper exclaimed, "Daddy, I found an idea!" which I thought was a pretty cute take on the more conventional having of ideas. Perhaps she's already watched Prefab Patterns for Suspense. The idea she found had to do with officially changing her name to Lightning Harper Anne.
7. The baby still has no name, though not from lack of input. Some people seem to feel we started the alliteration business and we should persevere lest #3 feel left out. Because clearly having names that start with H has bonded Harper to Hudson in a way she never would have experienced otherwise.
8. Your child can listen to Tchaikovsky for weeks and weeks and still tell you, that actually, her favorite song in the world is "I Was Made To Love You" by Toby Mac, Christian rapper. No offense to Mr. Mac, whose song she has heard maybe twice on the radio, and is indeed snazzy, but it's like that post I wrote last year about how you can take your kid to the Louvre and whatever, but they'd still rather look at the inflatable Frosty the Snowman snowglobe in the yard down the street.
9. I watched "The Diving Bell and the Butterfly" last week. For a movie about a guy who has a stroke at 42 and is utterly paralyzed and able to communicate by flickering his one unaffected eyelid, it is oddly uplifting. I think it's just good to get a vivid reminder to be daily and deeply thankful for bodies that are whole and work as they should.
10. On Monday I shall again embark on Jamie's December Blog Challenge, Abridged.

Beatrix, not Harry

Yesterday at the park Harper was sitting in this little jeep structure with two girls who were probably around 8. They were in the front driving and Harper was in the back sorting the collection of treasures she had acquired since we had arrived--an empty snack bag filled with mulch, a rock, and a piece of string. Hudson and I were just above her walking back and forth across a little bridge and I could hear Harper talking but couldn't really tell what she was saying. The two girls got up, and as they galloped over to the swings I heard one of them say, "Did you hear what that little girl just said? She said..(she lowered her voice and whispered to the other one, much to my dismay)" to which the other girl responded, "She's barely bigger than a baby--and she said THAT!!" Well, you can imagine my curiosity. I decided to go directly to the source, and asked Harper to come over. She gathered up her things. "Hi there, little one. Um hey, Mommy was just wondering what you said to the big girls just now." Blank stare. "The big girls who were driving the jeep? Did you say something to them?" She can see that it's clearly important to me that she remember, and she is trying. "Were you telling them a story, maybe?" Aha. Now we're getting somewhere. "I said, 'Stop, thief!'" she said. This is her friend Izzy's favorite line to shout when she and Harper are playing chase. It's what Mr. McGregor says to Peter Rabbit when he catches him eating the radishes and French beans in the garden. And I'm guessing that with Harper's speech issues, and the fact that it was completely out of context, it probably had sounded somewhat profane. I deliberated following the girls and trying to clear things up, but decided that would probably cement the incident into their brains. Just goes to show the importance of shared context. If she had said it to Izzy, there would have been, instead of scandal, an imaginary throwing down of lettuces, and an energetic scamper around the cucumber frames.

If you're ever wondering how to get two hungry kids to stop whining while they are waiting for dinner to be ready, Pregnant Mommy Doing Ballet works wonders around here. We've been enjoying The Nutcracker Suite. Hudson thinks I'm the most elegant Sugarplum Fairy he has ever seen. Harper is looking forward to going to an actual performance in a few weeks and I have yet to convince her that she is only going to be in the audience and will not be up on stage in a starring role.

Who ARE you people??

A few mornings ago I had just asked Harper to clean up the impressive array of toys and activities she'd managed to strew throughout the entire apartment. Instead of heeding my request she walked over to the front door, paused, turned around and said, "I'm just coming back from a walk. I don't know you." And then, rather imperiously, "You need to clean up your house!" I joined her in her little charade and speculated that she must be the little girl, whom I'd never seen before, of course, whom I had hired to come and clean up my house. "No," she replied vaguely, "I am not that little girl." Then the familial amnesia continued today when she composed a charming ditty on her keyboard that went a little something like this:

"Hudson is not my brudder. I do not know him. I do not love him.."
The melody was rather bouncy and light so that Hudson, who was sitting next to her on the couch at the time, was actually chortling with glee, probably thinking it was a love song. Harper and I spent several minutes post-prayer, pre-sleep tonight discussing how she might make tomorrow's lyrics a little more edifying. We'll see how that goes. Speaking of unedifying lyrics, when I'm too lazy to put in a cd while we're driving we will listen to the Christian radio station. It's not all cringe-inducing (and some of it is good) but I heard a song sometime last week that actually had "steeple-people" as a recurring rhyme theme. I am incredulous that someone went through an actual song writing Process and that's all they could come up with. Let's be better than that, shall we? If this is your favorite song, or if, as I'm sure is the case, the songwriter himself is a reader of this enormously popular blog, I kind of apologize. I've been reading New Yorker articles to branch out, and boy howdy, are they a smug and bitter bunch up there in the big city. I actually winced while reading a satire piece a few days ago. I felt bludgeoned.

How about a picture instead? The new help finally decided she wasn't above a little swiffering:

I'm Darrell. And this is my other brother Darrell.

Does anyone remember that? It was on the Bob Newhart show a very long time ago. While all of you cool kids were watching "Dukes of Hazzard" I was apparently soaking in the gentle humor and quirky inhabitants of a Vermont bed and breakfast. Anyway, Harper has decided that the new baby should be named Harper Anne. I explained to her that we really like this name. That, in fact, we like it so very much that we gave it to her when she was born. At first she didn't really see why she and the baby couldn't share the name, then she conceded that it might get a tad confusing. Her solution? She will give 'Harper Anne' to the baby and she herself will take on a new name. And that name will be LIGHTNING. Lightning has also decided that she is going to be a mother. My mom had picked her up and commented that she felt heavier than last time. "It's because I have a puppy in my tummy," she replied casually. "And in a little while he is going to POP right out." She also shared her happy news with a complete stranger a few minutes later as we petted his little dog, whom, I think it's safe to assume, did not pop out of the tummy of a 3 year old named Lightning.

The kids and I have been at my parents' house for a week and it was so relaxing right up until a stomach virus set its course through, in order: my dad, my mom, Hudson, and me. The virulent little bug had already wreaked its havoc on my brother and his entire family the week before. Lightning remains unscathed. Here's a duck that really looks more like a penguin that she drew on the patio while she was waiting patiently for everyone to stop throwing up:
I tried to convince her that it was really more of a penguin but she was adamant that it was a duck. Yes, she is wearing mismatched pj's. Yes, she wore them for the entire day. No, I do not know how to interpret the hieroglyphic just under the penguinduck's beak.

It's funny because I really thought I wasn't going to get the virus. Because I had been fine all week. Then around 4 hours before the husband was due to show up and take me to my 20 year high school reunion, I had that little funny feeling of imminent reverse peristalsis. Not one to let a little vomit stand in my way of a fantastic party, we still went. My sweet friend Shelley, who has been my sweet friend since we were around 4, sat next to me most of the night to keep me company, even though her husband Mitchell treated me as though I had active TB. He kept the husband well entertained at a safe distance. The husband kept himself entertained by telling everyone within earshot that he was 12 when we graduated. He also told at least one person that we had met when I had been his babysitter. Every time I stood up for more than a few seconds I'd feel the need to swoon, but it was still a really good time. Even if I do go down as the Typhoid Mary of the PN-G Class of 1988 Reunion, it was so worth it. Here we are. You'll notice I'm a little peaked around the eyes. You'll also notice that I'm a little more pregnant. Almost 7 months worth.

gender. politics.

Hudson has learned that the best time to play with Harper's things is when she is napping. Which, sadly, is only happening about twice a week now. I had hoped she'd keep her nap until she was four (I know, I'm greedy) but it looks like I might have to be satisfied with 3 1/2. She will play quietly in her bed for a couple of hours though, so I'm technically not complaining. Anyway, one day last week when she was actually napping, Hudson woke up first and decided that he really wanted to wear Harper's pink wedge flip-flops.
He found the wedge a little steep for walking and his toes refused to embrace the necessary position, as you can see in the photo. Even so, he kept at it for a good 20 minutes. The whole episode was interesting to me because just that morning I'd had a great conversation with my dear friend Mrs. B (who, incidentally, is always good for fabulous conversation amidst the mothering. Just this morning she brought up Noam Chomsky! at the playground!) about gender roles and how much of it is conditioned versus innate. I've done lots of thinking about how we think about femininity and masculinity, and how much of that is God-governed as opposed to societal. Not much, I'm afraid. As parents, you are solely responsible for shaping your children's aesthetic. You are the filter. It's not that difficult to decide which sentiments are the correct ones to inculcate. But there's the figuring out how your kids are truly different in their innate uniqueness and how to make that part of their process towards glorifying and enjoying God forever. The hard part comes with the actual practice, which must be carried out in the actual world. The world of Bratz dolls and Hannah Dakota and t-shirts like the one I saw at the mall last week that read : "I HATE school but I LOVE boys!" So, I'll let you know when I've got it all figured out. Sometime next week, I'm sure.

I've seen high school students debate better than our two presidential contenders. I'll watch again on Wednesday night but it will pain me and make it harder for me to vote and not easier. Time constraints are to our immense detriment when it comes to finding out the measure of a man. The candidates are so afraid of being misunderstood or misrepresented that they end up saying nothing at all that isn't riddled with cliches or tired accusations. We are, in our laziness, at the whim of the media for whom the sound bite is their corporate bread and butter. Stale bread and rancid butter.

Today at the pool we met a lady from Scotland and Harper told her she was pretty sure that several of the lizards we'd seen on our walk over had come from Scotland. Hudson, meanwhile, was carefully using his yellow shovel to scoop water into a bucket which he then poured into another bucket, which he then poured on himself. Then he would start over. He was dismayed to leave the job unfinished when it was time to go.

The finer things

Today on our way to the park, Harper saw a sporty little convertible Mercedes and she gasped and said, "Oh Mommy! Look at that fast car--is that a RACE car?" I told her that technically it was not but that it probably was quite speedy. "I WANT that convertible Mercedes, Mommy!" So I told her that when she got to be a big and could buy her own car she was more than welcome to chose whatever car she wished. She pondered that for a minute and said, "When I get to be big I WILL buy a Mercedes with a convertible." Then a pause. "And I will climb trees."